He yawned loudly.
He shuffled his feet.
He kept looking at his watch.
Did anyone take a hint?
Nope. Not one single person was budging. Not one single person said, “Well, I guess we better get going.” Not one single person said, “I didn’t realize how late it was. Gotta hit the road.” In fact, Tante Lulu came up and said, “Bide yer time, boy. There’s plenty of time fer hanky-panky.”
Oh, shit! Was I that obvious? “Was I that obvious?”
“Nah! I jist have a sense fer these things. And stop worryin’ so. Worryin’ never made the gumbo boil, and it ain’t gonna make the day go faster. Now prayin’, mass another matter entirely. Doan never hurt to pray.”
“Have you been reading my mind?”
She jiggled her eyebrows at him, then turned more serious. “Me, I have one regret today. That I dint get yer mother here.”
His brain practically exploded at that suggestion. He counted to three to prevent himself from yelling at the meddling broad. “You didn’t call my mother… please tell me that you didn’t call my mother.” What would be worse to Raoul than his mother showing up in his present mood would be his mother not showing up after having been invited.
“I dint, but I shoulda. Oh, doan get yer feathers all ruffled. I knows how angry you are right now, but she’s still yer mama, and you should make it up.”
“If and when I make it up with my mother, it should be my decision,” he asserted.
But the old bat was already floating off to interfere in someone else’s business. Raoul decided to “float off,” too. He had much to do before his personal party, like end-of-the-day ranch work, and he wasn’t sticking around for all the niceties of excusing himself.
Before he left, though, Tee-John and Jimmy came up beside him. They caught him in the act of getting one last ogle in at Charmaine in her sexy gypsy outfit. He was speculating idly what she wore under that take-no-prisoners corset blouse. Probably nothing. And how about below?
“We have some advice for you,” Jimmy said.
Uh-oh! “What kind of advice?”
“Chick advice,” Tee-John said.
Double that uh-oh. “Can I assume that you mean male-female-type advice? If so, forget about it. If I didn’t listen to old codger advice from Clarence, I’m not about to listen to two wet-behind-the-ears, snot-nosed kids whose only knowledge of women comes from Playboy and clueless movies.”
“I’m not snot-nosed,” Jimmy said.
“You’d be surprised what I know,” Tee-John said. “Anyhow, this is what Jimmy and I wanted to tell you to do… if you want to win Charmaine back.”
“Who says I want to win Charmaine back?” Do cows crap? Do bulls fornicate?
“Are you kiddin’? Ever heard of ‘hot tongueing?’ You look at Charmaine like she’s an ice-cream cone and—”
“I get the picture,” he interrupted. Man, I am one pathetic SOB, if teenagers can tell what I’m thinking.
“You gotta treat Charmaine like a crawfish,” Jimmy hinted, winking at him in the most ridiculous fashion.
“Yeah, a crawfish,” Tee-John added, with a wide, mischievous grin.
“And that’s your great advice? Crawfish? I have important business to take care of, and…” He let his words trail off as he noticed the two of them standing with hands on hips, chests thrust out, and smirks on their faces. They looked down at the vulgar sayings on their shirts, then at Charmaine, then at him, and smirked some more.
Good thing the two of them darted away then, laughing their fool heads off. If he’d been able to reach them, he would have thrown the dirty-minded duo in the horse trough.
Raoul left then, discreetly, telling Clarence and Linc that he didn’t need their help. When he returned two hours later, he discovered, to his horror, that the band was revving up for its third musical set… if you could call René on the accordion, Linc on the guitar, and Clarence on the harmonica a band. Charmaine had apparently been chiming in occasionally as the singer with a sexy-as-sin voice that could melt the brass off a doorknob, or turn some knobby body parts to brass.