Southern Hearts (12 page)

Chapter Ten

Kari, you up?” The rap of knuckles against my door made me sit bolt upright, throwing my covers across the room.

“Yeah.” My voice was horse and my words guarded.

“I’m taking Megan to the Zydeco Music Festival in Plaisance. You want to join us?” Tami asked, peering around the door.

“Sounds good,” I said with a half-asleep grin toward her.

“We’re heading down to breakfast, so don’t take too long.”

That, among other things, was something I hadn’t missed—waking early. I wasn’t sure if it was a Bossier tradition or a Southern one, but getting up before eight was a regular occurrence around the house, and even if you chose to stay burrowed below the sheets curled into a tight fetal position with the covers pulled up over your head, the running shower, the creak of the aging floors, and the smell of cornbread and frying bacon yelled louder than the ring of an unwanted alarm clock.

“Doesn’t anyone sleep in around here?” I asked into the air of the vacant room, flopping back onto the mattress, then rolling onto the floor, reaching to the bottom drawer of my dresser and snatching a pair of beige cargo shorts and a slate tank top.

“Orange juice or milk, sugar?” Marney asked as I scuffed my way into the kitchen.

“Coffee, lots of sugar!” I yawned. “I need the pep-up.”

“Where you girls off to this morning, sugar?”

“Some street fair or something,” I said, pouring my orange juice into a sipper, snapping on the lid, and heading outside.

“Why are we leaving so early again?” I asked, lowering my sunglasses to glare at Tami.

“Because we have to be back by four p.m. to meet with the band...remember?” Tami opened the passenger door for Megan and then for me.

“Ugh.”

“You sure are cranky in the morning, Aunt Kari.” Megan leaned her face against the headrest as she looked into the backseat and smiled. “And your hair is messed up too.”

“I’m just not much of a morning person, I guess.”

The odor of burnt kettle corn filled the air as we walked among the shops and tented food concessions in the sandy lot between Opel and Ville Platte streets. The crowds of people mingled artfully between the lines that formed in front of every booth, passing gleefully as they inspected the musicians who belted out songs on the many bandstands. We walked up and down to the beat of Zydeco, browsing the many craft tables and sampling the pounds of Southern fare notched between them. Megan had her face painted to look like a sad clown, Tami stopped and bought one of almost everything she passed, and I crammed my mouth with shellfish and Cajun sausage.

“I’m gonna get a beer. Do you want anything?” I asked, fishing a handful of change from my pocket.

“I think one is my limit. I still have to drive back.”

We walked to the end of the corner, just to the rear of the rows of tables that formed a primitive food court. Tami stood next to me in line as Megan hopped around beside her.

“Isn’t that AnnLou’s daughter, the one from the other day?” Tami said.

I turned, focusing my attention toward a table of young women who were tossing down bottles of Heineken and talking. They were clustered into the rough outline of a circle, their legs rubbing and touching from the thigh down to the calf. All the women at the table were sturdy, bursting of field-and-stream robustness, except the woman who clung to Lani. She appeared to be a bit more formal, sort of Eddie Bauer, but as I narrowed my stare I thought her look to be more American Outfitter.

Lani sat directly in my line of sight, her legs draped over a tall butch with salted tips of brunette hair that stuck out oddly from under the fabric of her visor. She had one arm snug to the back of the woman’s shoulder while the other joined it in front of the woman’s breasts. The woman’s head was angled sideways to Lani, in an uncomfortable-looking tilt, moving down and then up as Lani giggled.

Whoever the woman was, I took an instant dislike to her. It was a disgusting display, the way she was flopped with Lani sprawled all over her body; the way she squinted her beady little whorehouse eyes and the way she slobbered all over the cleft in her chin. It was raunchy, and my stomach gave a nauseated lurch.

I stood, helpless, like an unsuspecting theatergoer stuck in the middle seat of the middle row of the balcony for the most boring night of performances to ever hit a stage. The image of the two of them seethed inside of me, heightening my breathing as my chest cavity ached. My mouth was dry and parched by my halting breath.

Lani had never said anything about her sexual preferences, even as she freely discussed mine.

She had never mentioned she had a girlfriend, or that she was even interested in anyone—or anyone in her. My insides were boiling, I felt violated that I had told her things, that she had listened with a sympathetic ear, all the while keeping her own confessions unspoken inside of her. I thought that perhaps telling me had slipped her mind, but it upset me to think that she had consciously chosen not to speak of it.

“Lisa, wasn’t it?”

“It’s Lani.” I glared in their direction from behind the shield of my tinted sunglasses. “Yeah, looks like her,” I said coldly, turning back toward my spot in line.

“Who’s that she’s with?”

“I’m sure I have no idea.” I didn’t allow my tone to give away the irritation that was exploding within me.

“Wow, if she doesn’t stop hanging around with those women, people are going to think she’s a lesbian.”

I didn’t like my sister’s critique, the way her voice trailed and then held itself boldly to the word
lesbian
at the end. I was one of “those women” too, after all. But I allowed the moment to pass without comment; it would only spark an argument and a discussion in front of Megan that was inappropriate to the setting.

I snatched my draft beer from the counter, grasping the tight plastic cup and then ranting as I spilled half of it down my front.

“Shit!” I screeched as I mopped it into my T-shirt and onto my skin, the lumps of recycled napkin disintegrating into lumps over the cotton as I rubbed.

Megan giggled as she put her small hand over the wet spot.

“It’s okay sweetie, I’ve got it,” I said softly, smiling back at her.

I didn’t say a word as we walked back to the car. Tami had attempted conversation, then quickly changed her mind. She clasped hands with Megan and swung them as the girl chattered excitedly about the many colorful balloons sailing high above the gloved hands of the many jesters, and of the jugglers and the mimes.

When we finally arrived home it was nearing three p.m. Soon the lawn around the house would be pandemonium, scads of brass and wooden instruments carried by a horde of musicians. My mother’s parties had always been viewed with anticipation by the local talent. Summer get-togethers were far from rare along the maze of bayou, but my mother was known for her inflated salaries and even more generous tips. She believed the music was the heart of the event and that one couldn’t be cheap when it came to hiring talent, and she was right. There was nothing that felt more surreal than the steel drums and banjos as they united for some good old Creole.

I stomped up the driveway to the house.

“What’s wrong with you? You’ve been a bear ever since we left the fair.”

“Nothing,” I said firmly.

Tami shrugged and went into the house.

I turned and walked toward the orchard that walled the acreage, beyond the wooded grove of the home’s southern boundary. The orchard had always been my escape, dark and overhung with outstretched limbs that formed a natural pergola. It was secluded, a place that I could always come to ponder my many thoughts and contemplate my many troubles. I had strolled the rows and rows of freshly cultivated dirt so many times in my life the count seemed infinite. I had indulged my crude fantasies as a child, reenacting the sword fights of Errol Flynn and other swashbucklers I had seen on TV, pivoted and twirled the minuet, and imagined my hair was flaming carrot red as I braided wire hangers into my pigtails until they resembled the blades of a helicopter and were as near to Pippi Longstocking’s as I could make them.

I had run here and hidden at the base of one of the many saplings, deep in the Aureola grass, the morning I had found my cousin Jetter. I had pulled my knees in tightly to my chest, bowing my head overtop in hopes of warding off the images as I cried into the sleeves of my sweater.

I had come here the afternoon my father died. I didn’t weep a single tear; instead I fell limp, my legs unable to hold my weight as I collapsed into a pile among the discarded leaves. No one knew of my place, so coming here still felt sneaky and safe.

I walked its length, up one aisle and then down the other, making my best attempt at untangling the knotted ropes that were my current state of thought.

My anger toward Lani smothered me until I was at a loss as to why I had been upset in the first place. It hadn’t been jealousy. I was glad she was enjoying herself; she would be leaving in less than a week and I was happy that she was out with her friends and not huddled among packing crates and brown boxes.

Friends? I rolled my eyes. I used the term loosely. At least one of the women was more then just a friend—that much was evident. She had been licking the lotion from her neck and sucking the skin violet! Who the hell was she? I wondered. Lani had never said she was seeing anyone, casually or otherwise. But if the sickening display I’d seen earlier had been any indication, there was someone in her life. Maybe they had had a purely sexual relationship, one with lots of passion but little of anything else.

My heart sped furiously inside my chest. I could see the woman’s naked body sprawled across Lani, sweaty as she rocked her pelvis over Lani’s pubic hair. It was a revolting image, and I was sure that their nights of unbridled sex had to have taken place in the belly of darkness, since I had been witness to how unattractive Lani’s bull-dyke lover had been.

Her pointy little peaks of highlighted hair, her tan alligator skin and roving eyes. If they were more than lovers, I was certain that the woman would be unfaithful and at some point hurt Lani. The thought of anyone hurting her made me sick to my stomach; she had had a hard life and deserved only the best now and in the future. How dare she take my hand and cradle it, I fumed. How dare she spend time with me, work herself close to me, in hopes of getting me to pour my every feeling to her.

Thoughts fought an unkind battle throughout my head and I had little control as they overtook me.

“I’m not jealous!” I shouted.

I was only thinking of Lani—that was the extent of it. She had become a friend, someone in whom I had confided things I had not told anyone, things that I had never discussed even with myself. She was naïve and sweet, more sugar-cane sweet than NutraSweet, to copy her words. She wasn’t fake, she was genuine, and that was one of the many things that had attracted me to her. She was sincere and she believed wholeheartedly in life and in people, things that I had become cynical toward.