A Trashy Affair (8 page)

“Just a small one with a shower, sink, and commode. I thought my brother might like to stay up here if he visits with my parents. What did you and Doyle do for—facilities?”

“Oh, Granny never locked the front door so we could go downstairs if we really needed to take a crap. She gave us one of those chamber pots to use, too, but mostly we just peed off the side of the stairs. Killed her hydrangeas. Nice bed.”

Merlin sat on the single sleigh bed with a pull-out trundle in the bottom. He still had to lean forward a little to avoid the hand-hewn beams left showing between the slabs of the new insulated ceiling. As below, the floor had been redone and decorated in this case with oval rag rugs. A couple of cowhide chairs and a small flea market table sat near a tiny window. Two lanterns hung from the central beam, but came on with the snap of a switch rather than a strike of a match. On this fairly warm afternoon, the central air conditioning blew gently across the space big as the four original rooms below but narrowed by the slanting rafters.

Merlin lay down, put his feet up on the footboard of the bed, and his hands behind his head. “I can see me here and Doyle on that trundle just listening to the summer rain beat on the tin roof. You ever been up here when it rains?”

“No, but I do hope you are comfortable there.”

“Hey, my shoes are clean. The best, most soothing sound in the world. I used to dream about Louisiana rain when I was overseas.” His eyes closed.

Jane ventured closer from the middle of the room where standing presented no problem. “Merlin, we shouldn’t leave your granny alone downstairs.”

“Sure, help me up.”

She should have seen it coming but still offered her hand. He used his much superior strength to lever her on top of him.

“Did you wear those green panties for me last night?”

“Certainly not! They matched my dress, that’s all.” She braced her arms on his chest and pushed up slightly bumping her head on a beam.

“Sure, I know how important it is to match your dress and panties when no one is going to see it. Why hell, I pick my boxer briefs in the same color as my eyes.” A grin pushed at the corner of his mouth trying to expand.

“It matters to women!” she protested, absolutely sure no fabric could ever duplicate that stunning shade of blue, but she wasn’t going to ask him to show her.

He brought her face down to meet his. The kiss began with a flick of his tongue across her lips still a little sticky from the syrup in the pie. He coaxed his way inside her mouth, all the while raking her hair with his fingertips. She answered him stroke for stroke despite the rasp of his beard against her skin until they ran out of air. Surrendering, Jane collapsed against the hardness of his body.

“Tasty,” he said, mimicking his grandmother. “You know why they put the Cajun boys in the attic? So they could go out, carouse, and sow their wild oats without disturbing the rest of the family.”

“Out is the operative word. I doubt if those boys did any sowing right over their granny’s head—which we are doing at the moment.”

“No, we’re not. Listen.”

The unmistakable thump-step of the walker progressed across the boards of the porch right to the bottom of the steps. “What she got up there, Merlin, a bed?” Miss Olive shouted in her cracked old lady voice.

“Yep, a real fancy one, and a john, too. I’m going to use it, then be right down.”

But Jane got to the bathroom first to finger comb her hair and make sure her lipstick wasn’t all over her face. No lipstick problem. He’d licked it all off, damn him! But her lips glowed red from passionate contact and her chin bore a small pink patch from his stubble. She dabbed the beard burn with a cold, wet tissue. Not much help. Tucking the tails of her yellow silk shirt back into her black, tailored slacks and making sure all the buttons were closed, she turned the small space over to Merlin, ducking under his arms when he would have caged her inside with him. She rushed down the stairs to find Miss Olive rocking in the porch swing and took a seat beside her.

“Sorry we took so long. He was very interested in everything up there.”

“I bet he was. Not to worry. My grandson ain’t taken much interest in women since he come back from the war this last time. That’s not good for a young man. First time over there, he seemed okay, not now.”

Merlin’s heavy steps on the stairs alerted them. “Not talking about me, I hope.”

“No, I was telling Jane how pretty the flowers are, purple and gold, my favorite colors.” That pink, wrinkled face stayed perfectly innocent.

“Merlin, baby, go across to the Fast ’N Fun and get your granny some scratch-offs.” Miss Olive fumbled with a net bag on her walker and took out a change purse. “Get me twenty of different kinds. You know, the casino bus comes twice a month to Magnolia Villa to take us Indian gambling, but I don’t get out enough to get my scratch-offs,” she informed Jane.

Her grandson waved the folded twenty away. “I got it, Granny.” He loped off to do her bidding.

“He’ll be gone a while. People certainly do like their fried chicken boxes and Sunday plate lunches. The line is out the door around this time. I just wish their trash didn’t end up in my ditch. Oh well, can I get you more coffee, Miss Olive?” Jane asked.

“No, thank you,
cher.
I’m wearing my good drawers, not my diaper.” She placed a wrinkled, veiny hand over Jane’s lying on the swing. “I want to talk to you about Merlin. On the outside, he’s this big, tough man, but inside he hurts. He won what they call the Distinguished Flying Cross in Afghanistan for saving six lives. He was coming back from an insertion of troops when he saw a squad pinned down with no way out. Why, he swooped right in and rescued six of those men, two of them riding on the struts of his helicopter. Got them to safety, called for help, but by the time another helicopter got there, the rest were killed. He can’t get over not saving them all. I wouldn’t know a word of this if the army hadn’t sent the papers and the medal to us. Merlin won’t talk about it, but his mama blabbed. Just made it worse that the town wanted to give him a parade, and he refused to attend.”

“He should be proud of saving the six.”

“That’s what everyone thinks, but not him. He has lots of other hurts he holds inside from before he went into the army. You know about his mama?”

“That she’s—simple-minded.” Jane used Merlin’s own term. Retarded sounded too harsh, special too precious.

“Yes, my Herve, being a small farmer, didn’t have much insurance. I waited too long to go to the hospital trying to save on money. Foolish. Anyhow, nothing wrong with her body. She’s
tres petite
like me, but pretty as a buttercup when she was young. I’ll bet you a winning scratch-off Merlin didn’t tell you my Jenny gave birth to him at just fourteen. A smart college guy, a young man who oughten to have known better, knocked her up. When Herve threatened to go to the police to report it, the boy’s rich daddy comes running. Please don’t ruin his son’s life. Oh, he’ll see Jenny and the child are supported until the kid reaches eighteen. A thousand dollars a month, he offered. Sounded good at the time. All our daughter had to do was say she didn’t know who fathered the baby. They had a slick city lawyer draw up papers with one of those non-disclosure clauses. All three of us signed.”

“No, he didn’t tell me any of this. Merlin doesn’t know who his real father is?”

“He certainly does. Smart boy, he figured it out by himself, but I can’t tell you. I doubt he will. We had to take Jenny out of school because she got a reputation for being loose after that, a girl who didn’t know who fathered her baby. She would of earned only a certificate of completion, anyhow. We kept her close where we could watch over her and the baby until she turned eighteen. Then, Herve asked old man Broussard to give her a job at his dance hall. They were friends from childhood, so Broussard promised to watch out for Jenny. I guess he did his best, but she come up pregnant again. Harley David ain’t much, can’t keep a job, hardly raised a sweat on the farm, but he stepped up. Every night she works, he’s at the bar watching out for her. All of them lived here, Jenny’s second and third babies, then her baby girl’s baby, too, before I had to sell the place.”

“Merlin wanted the house. He said he was saving his flight and dangerous duty pay to buy it from you.” Jane craned her neck to see if Miss Olive’s grandson returned with the tickets. Not yet. She had a good view of the Fast ’N Fun now that the bushes were trimmed, more’s the pity.

“Best he start over where there ain’t so many sad memories: his grandpa wasting of cancer, his little sister catching a baby just like her mother before her, having to sell off the pasture and woodlot to a developer, then the cane fields to pay the doctor bills, Doyle going into the army. Not a damned thing Merlin could do about any of it, but he took each blow hard. He thinks he ruined his mother’s life, should have stayed in college and made big money to pay our bills, and been here to prevent Brittney from going with that guy and Doyle from enlisting.”

Jane watched Merlin emerge from the convenience store trailing several streamers of scratch-off tickets. “He’s coming, Miss Olive.”

“Only have one more thing to say. I like you, Jane, but don’t you hurt my grandson. It’s bad enough he bought a townhouse from that snake oil salesman, Bernard Freeman, and sits over there brooding day after day.” Miss Olive pursed her lips as if she wanted to spit right on porch, but she held back. “My Merlin smiles when he talks about you. I haven’t seen that smile in too, too long, so you be careful of him, you hear?”

“I’ll try.”

With that ground-eating stride and a fearless tendency to jaywalk in the Sunday traffic, Merlin joined them in no time at all. “I got twenty for Granny and ten each for me and you.”

He broke blocks of tickets off the streamers, shuffled them like a blackjack dealer, and gave each a pile. Olive took three pennies from her change purse and handed them out. They scratched away in earnest until their knees and the porch floor glittered with silver flakes like an unexpected snow. One after another, Miss Olive threw the losing tickets to the ground until she finally came up with a two-dollar winner and then a ten. Merlin won nothing, but Jane revealed a doubler that earned her twenty. She handed her ticket to Olive Tauzin.

“Here, you bet I didn’t know something, and you were right. I don’t know nearly as much as I should.”

“Yeah, you can be a showoff smarty pants sometimes,” Merlin remarked, that grin straining to break out. “But you should never bet with Granny. She may seem delicate as a china teacup, but this woman is the steel spine of our family.”

“I believe that. It’s been interesting getting to know her.”

“Everyone says so. She’s surprising. You ready to go, Granny?”

“
Mais,
yeah, as soon as you drive me over to the store to collect my winnings. Thirty-two dollars. I think you bring the Tauzin family luck, Jane. But I need to be back at the Villa quick, quick for afternoon bingo. We’ll talk again,
cher
heart.”

With Jane moving ahead carrying the walker, Merlin transported his grandmother down the porch steps and set her between the handles. Olive batted him away when he tried to help her balance and offered to bring the truck onto the lawn to make it easier for her.

“Put ruts in this pretty yard?
Mais
, no. Go say goodbye to Jane and put some sugar in it. You got
merde
mouth since you come home from the army.”

Unlike Merlin, Jane did not suppress her glee. “
Merde
mouth, quite the phrase. I love it!”

“Well, it’s a shitty world most of the time. I work this week so I won’t be around.”

“On Thanksgiving Day, too?”

“Someone has to be on duty in case of emergencies. Lots of the guys have families. I don’t. Mostly, we sit around the hangar, play cards, and eat pizza. Usually, the boss lets us off early as long as we wear our beepers.”

“People eat pizza on Thanksgiving?”

“Only the lonely.”

“Won’t your mother be making a dinner for you?”

He shook his head. “She and Harley, Brittney and her little boy, Jayden, will eat with Granny at Magnolia Villa. They put on a pretty nice spread from eleven to two, fancier than anything my mom can do, but it’s over before I get back.”

Why did this tug at her heart? The invitation came pouring out from the same source. “Look, I’ll be alone, too. My parents moved back to Montana after they retired to take care of my grandmother who is just as feisty as yours, only she refuses to move out of her house. No assisted living for her. I don’t have enough time off to fly up there. I plan to help serve the homeless at noon, but I ordered an all-natural, free-range turkey for myself, and I’ll bake a pumpkin pie if you want to come over and eat with me in the evening.”

“Will you have sweet potatoes covered in tiny marshmallows, green beans made with cream soup, and cranberry sauce from the can sliced along the ring marks?”

“No. Mine will be better for you.”

“Okay. I’ll take a chance. Here’s my cell phone number in case you have a change of plans or get a better offer.”

Merlin handed her a rather handsome business card proclaiming his position as a pilot for Rice Aviation Services, Inc. in sky blue letters on a glossy white background with a small, golden helicopter in the corner. He’d penned his personal number on the back. He seemed so prepared Jane wondered if he’d slipped one of these to Wanda, the honky-tonk woman. But, he didn’t need to do that. He had Wanda’s number on a napkin. What difference should that make to her?

“I won’t change my mind. See you on Thursday evening around six.”

“Yep.”

Just yep. No thanks, no sounds great, just yep. What exactly was she to do with Merlin Tauzin? His granny called in her crackly voice, “Merlin, boost me up into this monster truck of yours.”

“Coming.”

And going out of Jane’s life for most of the following week.

Chapter Eight

A week without Merlin Tauzin. Did that make her life better or worse? Hard to say and little time to think about it. After work on Monday, Jane stuffed her little hybrid with all the hoarded recyclables it could hold and drove into Chapelle to place the things in the Robin’s bin. The city provided the Cadillac of recycling carts, high and sleek, black with the recycling symbol emblazoned in white on its sides and a hinged cover, nothing like the parish’s orange boxes with the black lids that blew off in every storm. Jane argued that more people would recycle if the parish boxes had wheels and did not have to be lugged pressed against the stomach to the street or shoved along the ground. Folks out in the parish had long drives. Wheels would have made a difference certainly. As usual, the council ignored her suggestion. They already knew they weren’t going to renew the recycling contract. Why bother to order better carts?