“Wynonna stole my shoes.” Mom shakes her head, and the ends of her side pony brush across her shoulder. “Tony will make her give them back. The key too.”
“Stop talking about him.” Stop flicking lighted matches in my direction. “Don’t even mention his name to me.”
Her red lips purse as she stares straight ahead at the locked door. She’s mad, but hopefully she’ll stop talking about Tony.
“Maybe we can find a screwdriver or something in the garage,” Lindsey suggests.
“Or a hacksaw,” I add.
Lindsey one-ups me. “Chain saw. This door would definitely require a chain saw.”
“He’s like a son.”
Boom—red flashes behind my eyes and I explode. “I hate that fucker!” I put a hand on top of my head to keep it from flying off into the shrub after my four-inch heel. Pain stabs my temples, and my inner trashy nature takes over like a demon possession. A torrent of filth gushes from my mouth, and I couldn’t stop it even if I tried.
Mom gasps and clutches the front of her jogging suit, but I don’t seem to care that I’m giving her heart failure. Words I’ve never used spew forth like a fount of profanity and my crescendo is so glorious, so spectacular, teenage boys from around the world must be writhing with envy. “Tony’s a rat bastard, son of a bitch, fuck-fucking-fucker, squirrel-dick shit taco!” I take a deep breath and slowly blow it out. The demon has been exorcised.
Mother’s lips are pursed even tighter. Lindsey’s eyes are wide.
Did I really say “squirrel-dick shit taco”?
One side of the back doors swings open and a man, looking every bit like he’s straight off the cover of Men’s Fitness magazine, drawls in a smooth, Southern voice, “How can I help you, ladies?”
6
Rattlesnake Patty and Lay’s potato chips.
MY HEART skips a beat and I can feel heat flush my sweaty face. Gross. Did he hear my tirade? Probably. This is payback for yelling trashy words in public. “The door was locked,” seems to be all I am capable of saying.
“It sticks.” He’s tall and broad, and his T-shirt is stark white against the shadows in the house behind him. His dark brows are knitted in a disapproving scowl, and his green eyes look down at me as if he doesn’t like what he sees. That’s okay. I’m not looking for a date. “You have to pull while you turn the knob.”
Gee, why didn’t I think of that?
His attention turns to my mother and he smiles. His teeth are as white as his T-shirt, defying the old Southern stereotype. “You must be Ms. Patricia,” he drawls.
“Yes.” Mother pushes past me and takes his arm. Some things never change. “And you are?”
“Simon Broussard.”
“Arcadian.”
“My father’s people are Broussards.”
Beside me, Lindsey whispers like she’s found religion, “Praise the Lord and the beauty of the earth.”
Has Mom’s health care worker suddenly found God here on this porch in Louisiana? I look at her out of the corners of my eyes. “What?”
“That’s a handsome man.” Lindsey’s smile is huge and makes her brown eyes light up. “Handsome man with big muscles.”
“Never let a handsome face cloud good judgment,” I say, before I realize I’ve inadvertently slipped into Lulu mode.
“Huh?”
She’s obviously never read my rules or listened to Lulu podcasts. Which she should, so she can avoid the traps of good-looking men.
“Did you see his eyes?”
Now she’s starting to sound like Mom.
Lindsey follows me into the house and shuts the door behind us. The boxes we sent ahead are stacked in the center of the room, and Mom’s latest Bob Ross painting sits on a table in the breakfast nook. The smell of old appliances and even older wood brings me back to the last time I stood in this kitchen. We’d come for my great-uncle Jed’s funeral, and the scowls on grown-up faces had made me uncomfortable. Even at ten, I’d known we were personae non gratae, but Mother had acted as if we were welcomed into the warm bosom of our family. Although to say we’d been welcome might be overstating things. It’s more like we were tolerated because Mom’s real daddy had died a war hero and was possibly related to Stonewall Jackson. And of course, her stepdad wasn’t also her second cousin by blood.
From the front of the house, I hear my mother’s giddy voice and Lindsey brushes past me. I toss my blazer on a box marked LINEN and take a deep breath filled with dust and family history. Mom wants to be buried in the backyard next to my grandmother. I don’t understand either woman’s attachment to this overgrown plot of land in southern Louisiana. It must be the Scarlett O’Hara gene that I didn’t inherit.
The central hall runs from the kitchen straight to the front of the house. The worn rugs covering the wooden floors do nothing to muffle my lopsided footsteps, so I kick off my shoes. If my memory serves, each room is a different color and is framed with white molding, cornices, and the occasional Grecian column. Most rooms have a fireplace with grand mantels. A few have pocket doors that disappear into the walls to create more open spaces for family gatherings.
Generations of Suttons stare down at me from white plaster walls as I pass. I know it was the style in previous eras to appear somber, but they look downright angry. Perhaps they’re not smiling because they’re missing teeth. I wouldn’t smile either if I had missing teeth.
Oral hygiene is important to me.
The man in the white T-shirt is setting our luggage inside; I already don’t recall his name. Mom is sitting on an overstuffed chair next to a mahogany sideboard and giving him her signature Patricia Jackson-Garvin-Hunter-Russo-Thompson-Doyle sassy smile. A portrait of a disapproving woman in a black dress and white bonnet stares down at Mom as she flirts outrageously.
“You’re a foxy man.”
Why am I embarrassed by her when she’s not and has never been? She used to flirt with my high school boyfriends so much that I quit bringing them around her.
“I love a big foxy man around the house.”
Does she think Mr. Foxy Man is going to jump at the chance to be her new boyfriend? An Earl replacement? She doesn’t know what day it is, but she knows how to corner a man. It’s instinctual. Like breathing, it’s hardwired into her primitive lizard brain.
“It’s time for your medication, Patricia.”
Mom looks at Lindsey as if she’s just been reminded that she’s seventy-four and not twenty-four. It’s a look of sadness, and I feel bad that my reaction to her flirting was a wince of horror. I blame it on my lizard brain.
Mom places a hand on the sideboard. Mr. Foxy Man and Lindsey move to help her to her feet, but she shoos her away. “Are you married?”
“No.”
“Serious girlfriend?”
“Not at the moment.”
“That’s good. I’ll come back in a minute so we can get better acquainted.” She puts a little sass in her walk, but the effect is not quite what it was when she lived in heels. She can’t get the same sway of her hips in orthopedic shoes. I wish she’d give it up before she breaks a hip.
“If you tell me where these bags go, I’ll put them in y’all’s rooms and be on my way.”