“Don’t ask,” Charmaine muttered under her breath.
But of course no one listened.
“What’s cow-pen tea?” Clarence asked.
“And pizzle grease?” Jimmy wanted to know.
Tante Lulu beamed at their interest in her traiteur abilities. “Cow-pen tea is a medicinal tea thass been around fer more than a hundred years. Made from brewing up cow poop, it is. And pizzle grease is the bestest ointment, made of the fat culled from boilin’ up hog pizzles. ‘Course cow pizzles would prob’ly work just as good.”
Four male jaws dropped open.
“Is she serious?” Rusty whispered to Charmaine.
She nodded.
But Tante Lulu heard his remark and said, “Tsk-tsk! Ya shouldn’t be puttin’ down the old remedies. Sometimes they work best.”
They might work best, but Charmaine was pretty sure that no one sitting at the table would be willing to try them anytime soon.
After Rusty, Clarence, and Linc took Jimmy out to the barn to feed the horses and do a last-minute check on the herd, she and Tante Lulu did the dishes and cleaned up the kitchen, chatting the whole while. Then they took cups of coffee out to the back porch to catch up on the news.
“Seen any of the Dixie mob around here?” Tante Lulu asked.
“Nope. Knock on wood.”
“No sense doing that superstitious stuff. St. Jude is the answer. Always.” She glanced over to the statue, which had been moved to the corner of the porch. “What say we build us a grotto to St. Jude tomorrow, right there in middle of the yard? I brought some bedding plants, and we can transplant a few bushes. Good idea, huh?”
Not a good idea. Rusty will have a fit. “Uh, sure, great idea.”
“Luc said ta tell ya he would discuss yer situation in detail when he comes on Thursday. I think he has a plan fer repaying the whale.”
“The shark,” she corrected. “A loan shark.”
“Why are people always correctin’ me? I knew it was a shark. Geesh!”
“That’s good news anyway. That Luc has a plan.” Wish I had a plan. For my money woes. For my career. For my life.
“You sure yer shops are okay without you?”
Charmaine nodded. “For a short while, they will be. And my two managers can contact me through Luc if there’s a problem.”
“Mebbe Luc’s plan is to pay off sharkie from the shop profits.”
“I wish! No, Bobby Doucet made it clear that he wasn’t going to accept any long-term payment plan. And neither was I if that thousand dollar a day interest was piling on.” Between the two shops, she usually pulled in fifty thousand in net profits per year, even after her own generous salary, but that wasn’t enough.
“You gonna invite yer mother here fer Thanksgiving dinner?”
Charmaine laughed. “No, I am not. She wouldn’t want to come. I’m not even sure if she’s still in Baton Rouge. Last I heard, she and her boyfriend du jour were talking about opening a male strip club.” That was a year ago, and their meeting had ended in an argument when she’d declined to invest in any more of her mother’s born-to-fail, usually seedy ventures.
“Really? A male strip club?” Tante Lulu asked with way too much interest.
“Uh-huh. Chippendudes, or some such thing. Actually, there were supposed to be Chippendolls, too.” Gawd! Charmaine shivered at the mental picture. She’d seen the inside of way too many strip joints over the years. She’d seen the inside of way too many male and female G-strings, too.
“You should invite her,” Tante Lulu insisted.
Do you never give up, old lady? “You’ve already invited too many people. There wouldn’t be room for more.”
“They’s always room for more, honey. And you should call Fleur. She’s still yer mama, no matter what.”
“Some women give birth, but they don’t have the mother gene. She never wanted a child. She never wanted me. I was a doll for her to dress up as a clone of herself… a ten-year-old painted doll in hooker clothes. She thought it was a hoot. The kids at school thought…” Charmaine let her words trail off. What is wrong with me? I never talk about that. Old history. Why dredge it up now?