One article carried the headline “Is the Swamp Solicitor Fishin’ for Oil?” It was accompanied by a photo of Luc coming out of the Houma courthouse last year—following a triumphant win, she presumed from the wide grin on his handsome face. His hair was tousled, but he wore a suit with a loosened tie and opened top shirt button. Pure Cajun rogue lawyer.
The other article carried the headline “Chemist Discovers Love Potion; Terrebonne to Give Pfizer a Run for Its Money.” It was accompanied by Sylvie’s eleven-year-old college yearbook photo in which she resembled a dark-haired Martha Stewart… after swallowing a lemon. Pure Creole nerd wallflower.
Neither article was heavy on fact. Luc’s was mostly filled with rumors that had been floating around for months about Louisiana’s lower-triangle shrimp fishermen banding together to fight Cypress Oil. And there was lots of rehashing of Luc’s legendary bad-ass attitude; his maverick career, or non-career; teenage stints in reformatories; and his father’s rise to wealth from poor shrimp fisherman to major shareholder in Cypress Oil, thanks to the controversial sale of oil-rich lands that had been passed down in his family for generations. Tossed into the mix was a reminder of the problems affecting the entire bayou ecosystem.
Sylvie’s article was more brutal. Matt had managed to dredge up her education and work history, her failed marriage, her mother’s political record, her aunts’ business dealings, her cousin Valerie’s recent smash hit on Court TV, the unsavory appellation given to the women of her family, “Ice Breaux,” even the fact that Sylvie had been a client of a famous shyness therapist for years. The only news was that Sylvie had invented a love potion based on some chemical formula inserted into jelly beans and that it might have something to do with an old voodoo recipe passed down in her family. There was also some rehashing of the international hoopla when Viagra had first come on the market. Matt speculated—but luckily had no proof—that Lucien LeDeux, the bayou bad boy, had taken the love potion by mistake. That last had to have come from Blanche.
Unfortunately, it happened to be a slow news day.
Unfortunately, Matt’s love potion article was just quirky enough to be picked up by the wire services and the Internet, where it was catching the attention of the national media.
Unfortunately, Sylvie Fontaine was fast becoming the laughingstock of the world. The headlines said it all: “Love Potion Gone Awry.” “The Chemist and the Rogue.” “Forget Oysters, Try Jelly Beans.”
With a headache the size of Big Mamou, Sylvie finally picked up the phone and called Charles. He wasn’t at home, nor at the office. Just on a hunch, she tried her lab at Terrebonne Pharmaceuticals. He answered on the first ring.
“Where in God’s name have you been, Sylvie?”
“I overslept.”
“Overslept?” he sputtered. “Do you have any idea what you’ve done?”
I’m beginning to get a clue. “I never intended any of this to become public, Charles,” she started to say, but then realized there was a lot more that needed to be explained first. “Why don’t I come down there and fill you in on the whole picture?”
“No! There are some reporters outside.” He put his hand over the phone and spoke softly to someone else.
“Who’s there with you?” She didn’t like the idea of people being in her lab, possibly touching things that might upset her experiments.
“Frank Daley.”
She groaned. The chairman of the board? Oh, Lord!
“On second thought, maybe you should come down, after all,” Charles said. “Slip in the back door. I’ll have a security guard let you in.”
Within a half hour, Sylvie entered her lab.
“What could you have been thinking, Sylvie?” Charles asked without preamble. He was alone and riffling through her files, which recorded the daily rat activities. The formula files were still in her briefcase in the trunk of her car, where she’d left it after work on Friday. “Timing is everything in a venture of this magnitude. You know better than anyone that the research is far from complete on JBX.”
Sylvie didn’t at all like the lecturing tone in Charles’s voice, but she bit back an angry retort and explained as briefly as possible what had happened.