“Don’t have to. Anytime a guy starts talkin’ to himself, a woman must be involved.”
“That’s ’cause Rusty hasn’t been takin’ my advice,” Clarence said, apparently overhearing enough to get the gist of the conversation. “Bowlegged, boy. Bowlegged.”
Raoul rolled his eyes at Linc, who just grinned at him.
“Whattya mean? Bowlegged?” Jimmy wanted to know.
The three adult males smiled but remained silent. But Mr. Plastic said in his head, I know, I know.
In his own head, Raoul sent this silent message. Why don’t you go find someone else to plague? Some hopeless cause somewhere else, like Iraq.
You’re as hopeless as they come, St. Jude informed him drolly.
I’m losin’ my frickin’ mind.
A mind is a beautiful thing, but it ain’t everything, boy.
A short time later, they settled on the back porch, and Raoul tried his best not to look at Charmaine, who batted her black eyelashes at him with the innocence of a born-to-tempt siren. While his mind was engaged thus in testosterone overload, Tante Lulu sucker punched him with the question: “How’s about we invite yer mother fer the Thanksgiving feast?”
Raoul didn’t know what aspect of that seemingly casual suggestion scared him most. The prospect of being in the same room with his nonmaternal mother. The prospect of his mother coming back to the ranch she hated after all these years. Or the prospect of a “feast” of any kind being held here. He opted for the safest answer, “Uh, I don’t think she’d be interested. She’s a vegan.”
“Thass okay, boy. Some of my best friends are Lutheran.”
Raoul’s jaw dropped open. The other three males on the porch snorted with mirth. And Charmaine, ever kind to her adopted aunt, explained, “A vegan is a vegetarian.”
“Why dintcha say so, you lunkhead?” Tante Lulu said to him. “Bless her heart, Josette allus was like buckshot in a huntin’ rifle. Scattered, yer mother was. Goin’ off on one cause or ‘nother, without direction.”
Leaving me behind.
“I reckon some wimmen jist doan have the mommy gene. Remember the time when you wuz ’bout seven she forgot you at a rest stop when she went on one of her research trips?”
He nodded. Oh, yeah, I remember. Seven years old and left behind. Talk about!
“So, you gonna invite her?”
“No.”
“Mebbe I’ll give her a call.”
“No.”
“What do vegans eat anyhows?” she asked Charmaine, totally ignoring his protests.
“Bark and seeds and grass, I think,” Charmaine answered, giving him a saucy wink.
“Let’s get one thing straight,” Raoul said, in as firm a voice as he could manage, “I do not want or need a Thanksgiving feast here. I have nothing to be thankful for this year.”
“Me neither,” Charmaine piped in.
Tante Lulu gasped with shock. “Can you believe these two?” She glanced over at St. Jude, as if seeking his opinion. Jude still stared straight ahead. “Bless their hearts, dumb as dirt, both of ’em.”
Yep, you-know-who concurred.
Singin’ the blues …
Linc surprised them all.
Oh, Rusty and Clarence and Jimmy had probably heard him sing and play the occasional melody before, but not like this. Tonight he was not Linc the Black Cowboy. He was Linc the quintessential artist, a musical performer, in his real element.
He carried with him an ancient-looking case, presumably holding a trumpet, the instrument that had been the specialty of one of his Civil War era ancestors, but his instrument of choice was the guitar. He adjusted the strap of a vintage Gibson acoustic and tested the strings. With head tilted to hear the tiniest nuances of sound, he became a different person. As if he were in his own world, he smiled softly, a musician focused on his craft.
Charmaine sat on a glider with Tante Lulu, a wool throw draped over both their shoulders against the chill. Jimmy sat in one rocker and Clarence in the other. Rusty half sat on the porch rail.
“My great grandfather many times removed was Abel ‘A. B.’ Lincoln, a New Orleans musician,” Linc related as he began to strum on the guitar. “I was named after him.”
“How many years ago was that?” Jimmy asked.