“Nothin’ dumber than a man who won’t accept a helping hand,” Clarence pronounced, eating up his grilled cheese and setting aside the soup, which Raoul had scorched… slightly.
“If y’all must know, I tried to call Charmaine yesterday, and she hung up on me,” he admitted.
“Well, I would have hung up on you, too.” Linc gave him a look that pretty much put him in the category of dimwitted losers. “What’s it been? Two weeks, and this is the first you’ve called?”
“It’s been two weeks and four days. Not that I’m keeping count. And I did call two days before that, but she wasn’t in. I left a message on her answering machine asking her to call me back. Which she didn’t.”
“Surprise, surprise,” Linc muttered.
“Bowlegged, boy. I keep tellin’ ya, thass the trick,” Clarence said.
“How the hell am I going to do that when she won’t let me near her with a ten-foot pole?”
“You got a ten-foot pole?” Linc asked.
“Very funny!”
“I don’t get it,” Jimmy chimed in.
“Good!” they all said.
Just then, the phone rang. Maybe it’s Charmaine. Please, God. When Raoul picked it up, he discovered it was Luc. Thanks a lot, God.
You’re welcome.
“Huh?”
“Are you talkin’ to us or the guy on the phone?” Clarence wanted to know.
“Just God.”
“I think he’s goin’ off the deep end,” Linc remarked to Clarence.
For sure.
“Hey, buddy, how’s it going?” Luc asked on the phone.
“Just super.”
“That bad, huh?” Luc was laughing. “I got the information you wanted on filing a civil suit against the police department and Blue Heron Oil. I’ll be ready to file by Monday.”
“Okay.” He hesitated, then asked, “How is she?”
“Bleepin’ effervescent on the outside, and miserable inside.”
Raoul had no idea what an effervescent outside would be like on Charmaine, but he was kind of glad she was sharing his misery inside. Pitiful, pitiful, pitiful.
“She bought herself a red Corvette, red high heels and a mini-dress that will make your tongue hang out,” Luc told him, way too gleefully.
“Is that supposed to make me feel good?”
“No, that’s just leading up to the bad news.”
I don’t know if I can take any more bad news. Oh, please, God, don’t let her have gotten married again.
Oh, ye of little faith, God or St. Jude or his plain ol’ conscience said in his head.
“Spill it,” he said finally to Luc, even as he braced himself for the worst.
And it was.
“Charmaine signed the divorce papers today.” There was a long silence before Luc added, “You better get your butt in town.”
“Why?” If she signed the papers, her mind is made up. Too late! Too friggin’ late!
“Tante Lulu has called a family meeting. Tomorrow evening. Seven o’clock. Her house.”
“Why?” I sound like a toddler with that incessant “why” question, or a dumb dolt.
“To help you get Charmaine back.”
“I keep telling everyone I don’t need any help—”
But Luc had already hung up on him. Was it a family trait?
Charmaine is going to divorce me.
What am I going to do ?
A voice in his head suggested, Try prayer.
There’s no place like home, except…
Charmaine sat on the front porch of her cottage on Bayou Black, waiting for her date to arrive. Jake Theriot, a longtime friend since high school, who also happened to be her stockbroker.
She loved this bayou setting. In fact, it was what had sold her on the house when she’d bought it three years ago.
The cottage itself was nothing special… a one-story home in the old Cajun style. The split plank, horizontally arranged logs with their white chinking were quaint, especially with the red shingled hip roof, matching red shutters, and the long loggia or porch that ran across the back, facing the water.
But it was the setting that had made her sigh the first time she saw the place. A short stretch of lawn, which required constant cutting in this humid climate, led down to a narrow bayou stream. Every species of wildlife seemed to inhabit her small piece of paradise, including the occasional alligator, which ambled up to the house for some shade. Right now a blue heron couple, male and female, were building a nest in a dead oak tree half-submerged in the water slightly downstream. As they worked diligently, supposedly for an upcoming increase in their family, the birds twined their necks around each other. A heron version of foreplay, she supposed. Or maybe just love, she liked to think.