The sound of brakes and a powerful engine finally broke into her reverie as she saw a big black sports car had almost run her over. Marie gaped at the windshield, her hands on the hood of the car. Slowly, thoughts began to trickle in…
…the man from the gas station. He was so… beautiful. Gorgeous. And he was out of the car, in front of her now.
She stared up, way up, at the most intriguing eyes she’d ever seen. He’d pushed his sunglasses up over his head, and he looked down at her now with concern. She smiled, lost in his eyes for a moment.
“Are you alright?” a deeply accented voice asked. Not from around here then. “Miss?”
“Pardon?” Her eyebrows crooked over her eyes in question as she shifted on her feet and looked up at him.
“I nearly hit you, are you alright?” His lips, so full and sensual she wanted to touch them with her fingertips, just to feel their softness, caught her eyes, and again, she forgot to answer him.
“Miss?”
“What?” Suddenly, she snapped out of her daze, her cheeks flamed into twin red flags, and she dropped her head down to look at her feet. “Sorry, yes, I’m fine.”
She waved at her car and looked up at him, the left side of her face scrunched up with embarrassment. He smiled, nodded, and looked down at her with interest now that she wasn’t a zombie.
“Good. You scared me, I didn’t even see you there at the stand, until you turned around. My fault, entirely.”
“No, it was mine. I wasn’t paying any attention. Sorry, I’ll let you be on your way now.” She smiled and turned away, but something made her look back. He hadn’t moved a muscle, he just watched her as she walked away with something that could be? No, it couldn’t be interest. Men didn’t look at her like that.
He drove away as she got into her car, and she thought about how nice it had been to speak with him. Most people avoided any possibility of talking with her if they could. It was almost as if they thought she’d blight them if she spoke to them. She’d learned to do most transactions quietly, and was used to only having conversations with her mother’s doctor, nurse, and the pharmacist.
She’d sometimes have to speak to others, to take care of business matters for her mother, but not very often, and those people didn’t live here. It was nice to actually talk to someone. She drove away, headed back to the house, hidden almost in the swamp, that her mother bought all those years ago. It was much too large for them, with way too many bedrooms on two floors.
They didn’t need all that and there hadn’t been a soul upstairs in months now. Marie went up every now and then to check the ceilings and check for damage after a storm, but otherwise, there was no need to go up there. She kept up the two bedrooms they slept in, the living room, kitchen, bathroom, and the laundry room. That was enough.
Her mother was asleep when she arrived home, so Marie put the groceries away after the nurse left. She put on some pasta to cook on the stove, a little bit of spaghetti sauce she’d put in the freezer went into the microwave, and her radio came on.
With her feet propped on another chair, Marie allowed the sound of swamp pop music to take her away to a land where a man like the Lamborghini driver noticed her. He’d take her to dance the night away at the dance hall, or out to eat at some fancy restaurant tucked away in a secret part of New Orleans. He’d sweep her off her feet and take her away from this miserable life, with the flash of a pearly white grin and a blink of those warm brown eyes. Life would be good, something she’d never known before, and she wouldn’t have to hear her mother’s voice telling her she was unwanted, ever again.
“Marie!” Came the strangled sound of her mother’s voice, ruined by the cigarettes she used to smoke and the paralyzed muscles caused by her condition. “Marie, I’m wet!”
That, Marie thought with a sigh filled with regret. That’s what she wanted to escape, just for a few short hours, even if it meant she’d go to hell for the thought. That voice, that hateful, anger-strained voice. She turned off the stove and pulled a pair of gloves from the boxes she had strewn around the house. She’d never escape, her mother wouldn’t allow it.
3
A beam of sunlight danced across the pages of Marie’s book as the wind rustled gently through the leaves in the tree. It reminded her that she didn’t have all day to sit there at the café with her book. She finished her beignets and took the last sip of her café au lait before she put the book in her bag, gathered her things, and got up to leave.
A dress in the little boutique next door caught her eye and she wandered over. It was a party dress, as her mother would call it. Short, designed to be tight, in a vivid red that would suit her coloring perfectly. The kind of dress she’d never get to wear.
She looked at the other dresses in the shop window and couldn’t help but smile. There was a dress that glittered, one that was far too risqué in black leather, and another that would be suitable for an outdoor event with a feminine floral pattern in bold blues and reds. The kind of dresses that women with manicures and hairstyles that didn’t come from a pair of paper cutting scissors and the air would wear.
Marie glanced down at her hands and winced. They were red and raw from all the washing she did. Hygiene was key to keeping her mother healthy, and that meant she washed her hands, a lot. She used hand moisturizer on them, but nothing ever seemed to take away the angry red that appeared around her knuckles and the fingertips. Her nails were clean and white on the tips, but they were short, a necessity when taking care of a bedridden patient.
She could look at those dresses all she wanted to but she knew she’d never have a reason to wear one. There were no parties to attend and she couldn’t afford one of those dresses, even if she did have somewhere to wear it to. It was nice to look though. Especially since she still had the man from a few days ago on her mind.
These were the kinds of dresses a woman he’d date would wear. That one in leather, with a pair of black stiletto heels, would be just his style, for his woman to wear that is. He’d probably pick a blond or a redhead with pouty lips and bedroom eyes. A glance in the window told her that her brown eyes were alright, but there were dark circles under them. Her mother had kept her up most of the night with a screaming fit that wouldn’t end. She’d finally given her a sedative the doctor prescribed for these episodes, and she’d been able to get to bed. So what if the sun had just started to rise, she’d needed those two hours before she had to get up and greet the world again.
Marie’s fingers fluttered at the ends of her hair and noted how jagged the edges were before they dropped down. She had on another pair of faded out denim shorts, with a black t-shirt and her usual cheap black flip flops. A man like that wouldn’t notice her. Except… he had. Kind of. Okay, it was only because he’d almost run her over, but still, he’d noticed.
That smile came back, the one that she’d discovered on her face not long after the incident at the grocery store. She’d see it in flashes as she passed a mirror or the black darkness of a television screen that hadn’t been turned on. He’d given her a reason to smile, even if he didn’t know it.
The guy was probably long gone, though. The town was the kind of place tourists came to in the summer, or during the various hunting seasons. People that wanted to save a few dollars by stopping at a hotel just outside of New Orleans would come here, drive into the city, and then come back at night. The hunters always went out into the swamps, and might not be seen for days. She’d never seen a car like that around here, though. He wasn’t on a budget vacation, and he certainly wasn’t a hunter.