She had three appointments with the news media scheduled over the next few hours. But first, she had to face her mother, who wasn’t speaking to her after their shouting match the night before. It hadn’t been shouting per se; her mother had civilized shouting down to an art form. Also gathered below, ready to pounce, were her grandmother, Dixie Breaux, her aunts Madeline, Margo, and Inez Breaux, and the long-time family lawyer, Armand Cuvier. Her mother, it turned out, had drawn up a plan—a typed-up plan—of specific things Valerie was expected to do about her recent “kidnapping.” It had infuriated her mother that she wouldn’t even read the damn thing or fall in with her strategy for milking her recent adventure for all it was worth. She was talking money, jail time, political benefits, personal gain. In essence, according to her mother, Valerie had the wherewithal to bury the entire LeDeux clan and the bayou environmentalists along with them. Her mother had wanted to have the police and FBI present, but Valerie had put her foot down then. “No police. No FBI. If and when there are charges to be filed, I will contact authorities. No one else.”
If that wasn’t enough, she’d found several interesting messages on her answering machine.
Elton Davis, of the small penis, had called three times. Most of his messages were pretty much like the first. “Hey, babe! How ya doin’? You didn’t really think I fired you, did you? Ha, ha, ha! I’ve got a great idea for you. Call me.”
Hmmm. There must be something in it for dear old Elton. Either his tail was in the vice for firing her, or he had some sleazy idea that only she could do and thus make him look good.
Amos Goodman, head of Trial TV and boss of Elton Davis, had called, too. “You and I need to talk, Ms Breaux. Call me when you can. I’d like to have a meeting, face to face.”
Hmmm. She’d only met the head honcho on a few occasions the past three years, and then strictly in group settings, such as a company cocktail party. It must be important.
One of the cameramen she worked with a few years ago, Justin Dugas, had called, too. “Hey, Val, if the rumors are true that you’re considering a bayou documentary, count me in. I do freelance work now, and I would love to tackle that job. I’m from Chauvin, in case you didn’t know. My maw-maw and paw-paw were shrimp fishermen here before God was a baby. I’m part Houma Indian. Anyhow. Here’s my number.” Justin was a twenty-something young man who’d covered a notorious child slavery trial with her two years ago. He had black hair that hung down his back, an athlete’s body from years of running track, and a real talent for videography and photography. In fact he’d won a Pulitzer for some photos he’d taken in Afghanistan two years ago.
Hmmm. She was intrigued that Justin called her... and that he believed she’d consider such a non-profit, low-profile kind of project.
Missing from her phone queue were any calls at all from the LeDeuxs... in particular, Rene. She really had thought he would have called her to see how she’d fared. Or just to talk.
On the one hand, she wanted to discuss her out-of-character proposition and why he hadn’t taken it to its natural conclusion—and what he thought of her now.
On the other hand, she was mortified by her behavior. She’d never been the aggressor in sex before, but she’d practically jumped Rene’s bones without invitation. Maybe it was best just to drop it. Pretend it had never happened.
Furthermore, she thought his family would have tried to pressure her not to file charges.
Nothing. They were leaving it up to her.
She didn’t know whether to be impressed or pissed. Whatever. Right now, she had to go face the big guns— her family—and after that, the lesser guns—the news media. She walked over to a free-standing mirror in an antique oval frame and checked herself over one last time: a tailored black silk blouse, open at the neck, its collar folded neatly over the lapels of a crisp white linen suit, great-grandmother Gisette’s pearl drop earrings, black designer pumps, more than enough makeup to accommodate the cameras, and not a hair out of place to accommodate her mother. If nothing else, Valerie did professional woman to a tee.
She walked down the wide central staircase and through the double-wide corridor to the back veranda, not once glancing at her surroundings, not even the paintings of family members in ornate frames who watched her progress. This was the house that Architectural Digest had once declared “a masterpiece of Southern charm” and whose meticulous landscaping was deemed “an ode to antebellum Louisiana and its history” by Southern Living magazine just last year. That old cliché “a house is not a home” popped into her mind just then.
The Breaux posse was seated around a large, round, white wrought-iron table, along with their attorney. They were all fortifying themselves with mint juleps, a specialty of Ada Rose Johnson, their long-time housekeeper.
Ada Rose, whose plump body was stuffed into a traditional maid’s uniform and orthopaedic shoes, winked at her from behind the gang and raised a mint julep from the tray she was carrying as a silent question to her. Valerie shook her head. No liquor today. She wanted her brain clear and alert.
She noticed her mother giving her a once-over to see if her attire was appropriate. Since she said nothing, Valerie assumed she was presentable.
After saying hello to all the other ladies present, whom she’d already greeted the night before when they dropped by the house, she leaned down and gave the lawyer a kiss on the cheek. His snow-white hair, goatee, and moustache were precisely cut and groomed, as always. His white Palm Beach suit epitomized the Southern gentleman of old.
“How are you doing, Armand?”
“Jus’ fine, darlin’. I heah ya’ll had a mite of trouble.”
“Just a mite,” she said, and sat down in the empty chair next to him.
“What are you plannin’ on doin’ ‘bout it?”
“Nothing,” she said.
A communal gasp sounded from her family members.
“For now,” she added.
Her mother narrowed her eyes at her. If they were alone, she probably would have slapped her face...
or tried to. She was too big to shove in a closet.
Her aunts exchanged meaningful glances as if they expected no less of her. Growing up, she had always been the perfect one, but in recent years her mother claimed that she’d been yankee-ized, a sin in the South. It came from too much living up North.
“Precisely what did happen, m’dear?” Armand asked her.
“Environmentalists want to do a documentary on Southern Louisiana and the bayou. For some reason, they thought I would be a good person to do it.”
“Which environmentalists?” her grandmother asked sharply. “Rene LeDeux?” Her grandmother had been a lobbyist for the oil companies for years till her retirement last year at the age of seventy-five. She still acted as a consultant for Cypress Oil. Dixie Breaux was not and never had been the poster girl for warm, cuddly grandma.
Valerie nodded. “Among others.”
“You oughta sue his pants off. The nerve of those LeDeuxs. Scum, all of them!” It was Inez Breaux speaking now. Inez was a U.S. congresswoman and the mother of Valerie’s cousin Sylvie, who’d embarrassed her mother mightily a few years back by marrying Lucien LeDeux. “That Rene had the nerve to come by my office last year and try to get me to vote against oil subsidies.
“Why you?” Aunt Madeline asked Valerie.
Precisely what I asked, though it sounds a bit offensive coming from you, Auntie. “I went to school with Rene. He knew that I was involved in television and assumed, incorrectly, that I would be the right person to do a documentary.”
Her aunts Madeline and Margo owned a mail-order tea company, which had been on the opposite side of the courtroom from Lucien LeDeux on one occasion. He’d made them look foolish, to say the least.
There was no love lost.
“Did he kidnap you?” Armand asked, point blank.
“Actually, Rene had nothing to do with my going to his place.” Oh, you owe me big-time for that one, Rene. “It was all the idea of his
friends Joe Bob and Maddie Doucet from the Shrimpers Association.”
Well, that was a good job of evading the question.
“Don’t play games with us, Valerie,” her mother said. “I am not buying this story of yours. You would not have left your luggage and handbag in a rental car at the airport. You would have called to let me know where you were going and for how long. And, by the way, when were you going to let me know you got fired?”
Valerie felt her face heat up with embarrassment Did her mother have to bring that up in front of everyone? Actually, by the nodding heads, she could only assume that they’d already discussed her “failure”
in the workplace prior to her arrival.
Before she had a chance to defend herself, Armand squeezed her hand and said, “You always have a place at my law firm.”
“Thank you,” she said sincerely, “but that won’t be necessary. Besides, I’m not sure I am fired.” She saw the aunts about to question her and raised a hand to halt them. “My job prospects are not the issue here.”
“You’re right, Valerie,” her grandmother said. “Your work performance is not at issue here. Family is.
And, frankly, your attitude is not helping this family. Not at all.”
Valerie stiffened with affront.
“My business is being attacked by those environmental psychos,” her mother said. “People are afraid to buy real estate in my new development because of the unfounded concerns these people have raised. Plus, they don’t like having to drive through picket lines to get to their homes. It would be just like those psychos to try to get at me through my daughter. Imagine how I felt when the press said you might be working with them. A knife in the back, that’s what it was.”
Why does everything always come back to you, Mother?
“And those LeDeuxs,” Aunt Margo practically sputtered. “Someone ought to put the whole lot in jail.”
“There could be political ramifications if people get stirred up about pollution again,” Aunt Inez added.
“And a massive voter registration drive based on the so-called green agenda could very well spell disaster to my career.”
“Are you saying you’re in favor of pollution, Aunt Inez?” she asked with exaggerated shock.
“Of course not. Don’t be insulting. What I do favor is jobs over some measly tree-huggers’ latest complaint.”
“I don’t see why Rend can’t be more sensible, like his father. Now there’s a man who knows which side his bread is buttered on,” her grandmother said, then chuckled. “The oily side.”
“Grandma!” Valerie exclaimed, knowing full well even before her grandmother bristled that she hated being called that. She preferred to be called Dixie. “That Valcour LeDeux is an alcoholic son of a bitch.”
“Valerie Breaux!” her mother said in her sternest Joan Crawford voice.
“Well, it’s true. Everyone in Houma knows what he is, how he treated his kids when they were young, how he sold out his family lands to the oil company... how—”
“Might I remind you, young lady,” her grandmother interrupted, “that your family is aligned with the oil interests. Me, in particular.”
“My Cypress Oil stocks helped fund your very expensive college education,” her mother pointed out.
“I beg to differ. I had a trust fund left to me by great-grandmother Breaux that should have more than covered my education. Last time I checked, there were no oil stocks in my portfolio,” she argued, which was a pointless exercise. Her mother never listened to her.
Armand put his face in his hands, then threw his hands up in dismay in a very theatrical manner.
“Ladies, ladies, ladies! Why am I here? If we are not going to discuss a lawsuit against Bayou Unite and its separate parties, I may as well go to my club for lunch.”
“I am not filing a lawsuit, Armand,” Valerie said in as firm a tone as she could manage. “Maybe later, but not right now.”
“Why?” her two aunts asked at the same time.
“Because I need more facts.”
“About what?” Her grandmother appeared genuinely interested and puzzled.
“Everything. The project Bayou Unite has in mind. Why they targeted me. Whether I do in fact have a job at Trial TV. What my legal alternatives are. Everything.”
“You haven’t decided anything for sure then?” her grandmother asked, hopefully.
“No.”
Her mother narrowed her eyes at her again. “That old hag Louise Rivard implied that there’s something going on between you and Rene LeDeux. Please tell me that isn’t true.”
“Define ‘something going on.’“ Almost immediately, she realized her mistake. It never paid to give her mother any opening.
“I swear, Valerie, you are going to be the ruin of me.”
Once again, why is it always about you, Mother?
“She means,” Aunt Margo interpreted for her mother, “have you fallen in love with that trailer park stud?”
Valerie laughed and reminded herself to repeat that back to Rene when—if—she saw him again. “I can say without question that Rene LeDeux is not in love with me. And I am not in love with him.” In lust, maybe, but not love.
She felt a tight constriction in her chest, just thinking about Rene LeDeux being in love with her. Not that it would ever happen. But what if? And then the oddest thing happened. She could swear she heard a voice in her head say, You must give love to receive it. What did that mean? Her conscience, or some celestial being was telling her to love Rene?
Before she had a chance to bite her tongue, Valerie informed them all, “I need to get myself a St. Jude statue.”
Five jaws dropped in union.
And the voice in her head gave a joyous, Yeeeessss!
Those low-down Cajun blues
He was lonesome.
How pitiful was that?
Next he would be listening to old Hank Williams songs on the radio and crying in his beer. Not that he had any beer left. Or that he was actually crying.
Rene’ was a man who relished his privacy. He could spend weeks in the bayou wilds without seeing another human being and be happy. Too much time spent in the city and he was climbing the walls. He liked people, but he didn’t mind being alone.
Until now.
The worst part was, now that he was all alone, all he thought about was sex and Valerie Breaux. Two years had become like a blinkin’ neon sign in his mind. He wanted—no, needed to be the guy who broke her fast.
Why he’d come to all these conclusions now, and not while she was still here, he had no idea. Probably a cruel jest of St. Jude’s, who kept tsk-tsk-tsking in his head.
Valerie Breaux was screwing up his friggin’ life, big-time.
Something needed to be done.
He picked up his satellite phone, hit automatic dial, and said, “Remy, get your ass out here today. I need to raise some major hell in Houma.”
Don’t go home again: what Thomas Wolfe shoulda said.
Three days back home with her mother and Valerie was ready to strangle someone.
It had been a mistake to come back here to Houma, even before her “kidnapping,” she realized now. If she’d been hoping for a haven where she could rest and reflect on her life after the firing, forget about it.
There were some problems that did not go away with time... like her relationship with her mother.
Years ago, after law school, Valerie had spent some time in therapy trying to resolve her bitter feelings about her childhood. The result had been that the psychiatrist had recommended she just put the past behind her and move on. Easier said than done.
The news media was as bad as her family. They were chomping at the bit to run some kind of expose.
Thus far, she’d been able to fudge, giving them no definitive story on her brief foray into the bayou. Why she didn’t just tell all, she wasn’t sure. Fish or cut bait, one exasperated journalist had advised when she’d evaded yet another question of his. “Soon,” she
’d promised.
Today was Friday. Tomorrow afternoon she would be flying back to New York for a Monday morning meeting with Mr Goodman. That was another area where she couldn’t seem to make a decision. Returning to Trial TV in her old capacity as an analyst on their popular show Trial of the Week seemed untenable now. How could she work with a prick like Elton after what he’d done, no matter how he tried his revisionist history of claiming she’d misunderstood her firing? Yeah, right. “Don’t let the door slam after you, Valerie.” Hard to misunderstand that.
Another area of concern for her was Rene LeDeux. She couldn’t stop thinking about the rogue. While she’d been with him, he’d been nothing but an annoyance to her, except for that last night when aliens had taken over her brain. But now... Lordy, Lordy, he was on her mind constantly. She wanted to make love with him, really make love with him. She wanted it so bad that she dreamed about it. One hot, wild night of sex, that’s all she wanted. What a ridiculous fantasy! Good thing he wasn’t around for her to act on it.
So now she was strolling the streets of Houma, biding her time till she could leave tomorrow. Probably for good. Probably for the best.
Houma, the parish seat of Terrebonne Parish and the de facto capital of deep bayou country, was a rather small town with a population under fifty thousand, but very unique. It was thirty-five miles north of the seacoast and laced with bayous. In fact, it was called the “Venice of America.” There were antebellum mansions built with sugarcane money, next door to modern mansions built with oil money. A mixture of old and new.
She decided to go into a bookstore and browse, as much to look over the books as to escape the continuing heat wave that had hit Southern Louisiana this summer. It was always hot in the South, but this year was the hottest in history. If you didn’t wear a hat, even your scalp got sunburned.
To her surprise she found herself drawn to a section on Louisiana bayous. She picked up the Tidwell book on the dying wetlands and a trade paperback copy of Coast 2050: Toward a Sustainable Louisiana, the 1999 proposal for reclaiming the bayou ecosystem that Rene had mentioned. Added to her pile were Shantyboat on the Bayou, a couple of Kate Chopin novels, and several coffeetable picture books on the bayou. When she was standing at the checkout, she ran into Sylvie Breaux, who had an armload of children’s books.