Southern Hearts (17 page)

“Shit!” I said loudly, as I repeatedly slammed my fists into the water.

chapter fourteen

I listened to the crack of eggshells and then to the slurp that accompanied the yolk’s separation from the white as Marney prepared strips of meat for the Alligator Grand Chenier. I realized that although I had been worried about my mother and as much as I wanted to sit down and have a reminiscing talk, to ask her about Madeline and have her ask me about myself, I knew that wasn’t what she had wanted. She wanted our secret to remain within our minds and never brush over our lips in discussion.

Until very recently I would have been saddened by that, by our relationship. But something almost spiritual had been cast over me. It had started when I read the letter, but it was deeper than that. For the first time in my life, I knew that we were okay the way we were, that my mother loved and cared about me as much as I did her, and though our emotions toward one another had never passed into words, it had always been there. Marney had been right, I hadn’t seen what was right in front of me, and now I did. I was concerned about my mother’s condition—worried, really—but a peace that I wouldn’t put into words had enveloped me, and I knew that I could face head on whatever presented itself into my life from here on.

Marney prepared her syrup cakes and we talked about the details of the specific food issues for tomorrow. The party was finally a day away. It had taken the entire summer to prepare, and though Tami and I were drained, the resulting anticipation it had aroused in all of us made it all worth it. Marney had lovingly prepared an extensive menu that encompassed almost all the best in Southern cuisine, from black pot jambalaya to crawfish aubergine and everything in between.

I went outside to find Tami, and we scrubbed the layers of grease from the barbeque grill. She arranged the chairs around the tables that peppered almost every inch of ground under the gigantic blue-and-white tent that now covered much of the yard. We spent the afternoon stringing the lights along its perimeter, while Megan placed the plastic table clothes neatly over the bare tabletops. I followed behind her with the lanterns that Lani and I had made, centering them without measurement and then placing a candle inside each one.

“Auntie Kari,” Megan scolded as I jumped in front of her and put a light on an unclothed tabletop.

I couldn’t help but think of Lani as I admired the lanterns, noticing the extreme differences between mine and the ones she had created. Hers were neat, the glue sparse and the tissue evenly wrapped and tucked over the outer frame. Then there were mine, which looked as if a baby had gotten hold of the supplies. There were clumps of dried glue—not small dabbles but big, pebble-sized gobs—and the paper was crinkled and torn from where I had cut it too small and then tried to compensate for my mistake by pulling it in an attempt to make it fit. It looked like the wads of chewing gum and toilet paper that kids ball and throw toward the ceiling in school restrooms. They were childlike and hideous.

Lani would be at the party, and I looked forward to apologizing and wishing her well on her move and her new job. I had practiced the way I would stand, feet slightly apart, hands down to my side. I had prepared my speech, rehearsed my words and the tone that would accompany them. I wanted to be encouraging, but not overly so. I wanted my demeanor to be cordial, compelling her into forgiveness.

I knew she would be coming with her mother, AnnLou, and I had considered the idea that she could have someone else with her, but I was all right. I had coached myself and I knew I could handle it. I wouldn’t like it—it would tear my insides apart—but I would keep control of my emotion for Lani. I would not disappoint her again with my actions. She was entitled to happiness, and if this woman made her happy, I would have to fade into the background and allow her to live her life as she chose to.

Regee would be at the party also. She would be with her father Carl and no one else. It would go against the grain of etiquette for her to invite anyone, and I knew that even she wasn’t that tacky. We had not spoken since the night at the bar, and I had been fine with that. We had quenched our appetite for the time being. They were physical encounters, nothing more and nothing less. It was like spring break during college or the many summer romps basting in the sand of Fort Lauderdale or Myrtle Beach. They had been trysts, superficial and ephemeral.

I had lived a coed’s summer, forgetting my job and my life in Washington, living as if it had been those summer vacations of my youth. But unlike those years, this summer I had learned a lot about myself and about my family. I had put to rest the self-inflicted distance between my mother and me and opened my eyes to the similarities. I had had my first sexual experience with a female partner, and the primal aesthetics of it had been terrific. And if I was able to patch up my mistakes, I had made a good friend in Lani.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

The guests had began to pour across the lawn around two p.m. The Vagrant Varmints had set up their equipment and began playing as people filed into the tent. The buffet table was already partially filled with bowls that were yet to be uncovered as everyone scurried about the full bar in search of their first of many drinks.

I watched family, friends, and people I had never seen before mingle together, standing back and nodding with a patented accepting smirk permanently formed on my face. I listened as the metal tongue of the Jew’s harp plucked, the stainless scrapers pulled down over the aluminum coils of the scrub board, and the plectrum thrummed over the strings of the samisen.

“Everything looks wonderful, chèr. You and Tami did a nice job.” My mother’s voice was fervent and congratulatory.

I inspected her as she passed. She looked different. Her youthful locks of caramel blond had turned into a middle-aged marshmallow platinum. I felt almost felt intrusive as I watched over her, much the way I had felt when I saw my grandmother Clare’s emaciated frame climb from the bathtub when I was ten.

My mother headed down the grass to the bandstand, where as the Bossier tradition dictated, she would make a short utterance to thank everyone for coming, raise her glass, and toast to
bon temps
and then conclude to the strum of a fiddle
laissez le bon temps roulez
—“let the good times roll.” The music would start, and aside from a few intermissions, would continue long after the sun had dropped over the bayou and the sky grayed into the sparkle of stars.

Her step was purposeful as she blended into the crowd. Most of the men were in trousers with collared shirts and oxfords or penny loafers. And the women, my mother among them, were dolled up with accessories, their sleeveless arms poking from pallid tabards, some, like Tami’s, ruffled with sprigs of design toward the hem line. My mother was the typical Southern mother, polished and refined, and for the first time I admired her commitment to the tradition.

It was time for me to make my entrance, greet everyone, wave where appropriate, inserting the nudge or smile where need be, and conclude with the usual gestures of acknowledgment. I didn’t share my mother and Tami’s flair for the exaggerated or their aptitude that in these situations neared genius fir the subtle BS, that knack for using the right words to redirect the distaste one might have toward the recipient.

My mother’s sister, my aunt Trudy, signaled for my attention as she frantically motioned from behind of a group of gabbing women who had all but blocked her in. While it was still early, before she had tossed back so many drinks and became so sloshed that my name became foreign, I knew I had better make my way toward her. I would have to give her a peck on the cheek and then lean toward her with the customary straight person hug—or rather that suggestion of a hug, where it wasn’t really a hug at all, with a yardstick gap between the bodies, the hands resting slightly to the shoulders and a slight lean in only long enough for your clothing to touch and then part.

I ran my hands over the crease of the pleats of my charcoal-colored pants, then moved them over my waist, making sure the buckle of my belt was positioned over my midsection and that my shirt was tidy, before heading down the incline toward the others to play host. I quickly scanned the lawn for Lani, looking over heads and peering between the breaks in bodies as they aimlessly milled about. Maybe she had changed her mind about coming; things hadn’t gone well between us, after all.

What remained were my words, the wrong and inappropriate ones, and my appalling performance two nights ago. I had made assumptions about a woman I didn’t even know, and I had caused Lani to walk away from me angry and hurting. She had taken our conversation at the bar wrong; she had listened to the words and drawn a conclusion that had been the wrong one. She had been insulted and made to feel as if I were berating her. I had gone into the confrontation with what I had thought were valid thoughts and come out of it thoughtless.

I took a plastic plate from the stack and moved toward the many salads on the buffet table. As I piled a mound of cole slaw onto my dish, Regee bumped her hip to mine, startling me. Her plate was loaded with potato salad and two ears of corn that perched on top, dripping butter.

“I didn’t get a last dance,” she said quickly, scooping up a ladle of gravy and pouring it over the top of her plate.

“I wasn’t feeling well.”

I had pulled away from her during a passion-filled embrace, I had left the table and the bar without a word, and she was upset that we hadn’t danced? I was beginning to see the woman whom I had mistakenly given myself to. My first experience. She had been unworthy of such a gift, I thought now as I looked at her.

“Well, how about a round of two-step?” She motioned toward the dance floor at the foot of the stage and to the twenty or so couples that were already tapping their boots and spinning into the jive across it.

“No, thanks,” I said flatly.

“Does this have something to do with that fat girl I saw you talking to at the bar?”

My eyes narrowed in anger as I looked at her.

“It’s okay. If that’s what you’re into, go for it! I’m just interested in having a little fun, I sure don’t want anything long term.” Her expression had gone from lively to a scowl.

My head started to boil with fury, and the hair raised on the back of my neck. “Well, I hope you didn’t think I was interested in anything more.” I laughed. “Not with you, anyway.”

“I’m starting to get wet with you talking like that.” She winked, then gripped the flesh of my ear quickly with her teeth before pulling away.

She was unbelievable. She had gone from insulting Lani to crass and rude and now she had twisted right into being turned on. This bitch was crazy, I thought to myself.

“No, thanks!” I said angrily.

“Oh, lighten up. I’m sure your jumbo-size playmate won’t mind if we have one last fuck for good measure.”

I set my plate down, then took hers from her hands and set it near mine. I grabbed her arm and pulled her to one side and out behind the tent.

“First of all, we have had our last ‘fuck,’ as you so eloquently, but, second, it wasn’t that great to begin with, so why would I want more than seconds? Out of respect for my mother, I’m gonna turn around and not boot your white-trash ass right out of here. And if you think you’re gonna talk about me or that you’re gonna do anything besides just forget that our meeting ever happened, then, sweetie, you are sadly mistaken. I’ll see that you never find another landscaping job in this state.” I trembled with rage. “So remember that when your little trashy lips start gabbing away.”