He groaned. “Tante Lulu, men don’t have hope chests. And I have enough handmade, embroidered linens to open a department store. Sheets, pillow cases, blankets, bedspreads, dish towels, napkins, doilies.” Tante Lulu meant well, but she was making him the laughingstock of the bayou with this hope chest nonsense. When he walked down the street, he often heard his friends hooting with laughter as they told hope chest jokes.
“How many Cajuns does it take to fill a hope chest?”
“Just one. Luc LeDeux.”
Needless to say, the jokes weren’t even funny.
No one made St. Jude jokes, though. Cajuns were a superstitious lot, and there was no fooling with the saints.
The problem was, he couldn’t hurt Tante Lulu’s feelings by refusing the gifts. In truth, he was beginning to think he gave meaning to the last days of Tante Lulu’s life: find the boy a wife.
“You can’t never have enough linens… especially when you first get married.” Tante Lulu must have been talking while his mind had wandered. She had already gotten the coffee perking, and the thick pungent smell of chicory filled his small kitchen. Now she was cracking eggs into a bowl… four of them. Lordy, Lordy! Four eggs!
But the overabundant breakfast she was preparing wasn’t his biggest concern. “Tante Lulu,” he cried, putting his face in his hands, “I am not getting married. How many times do I have to tell you?”
“You will someday,” she insisted. “I’m just making sure you’re ready when the thunderbolt hits.” To Tante Lulu, the thunderbolt was her version of falling head over heels in love. “By the way, have you ever made it with her?”
“Made it? Tante Lulu, I’m surprised at you!” Luc exclaimed with shock. He couldn’t believe his great-aunt was asking him if he’d made it with some woman. The bleach must have seeped into her brain. “Made it with whom?” he finally sputtered out.
“Sylvie Fontaine. Mon Dieu, she looks like Martha Stewart on a bad-hair day in that picture.”
“Picture? What picture?”
“Maybe you could get her over to Charmaine for a makeover.”
“A makeover? Where do you get these ideas? Sylvie Fontaine is fine just the way she is.”
“She is?” His aunt smiled, though Luc had no idea why.
Then, finally, she gave him some answers by holding up the front pages of several newspapers that she’d apparently brought with her. Newspapers that appeared to contain his name and Sylvie’s. It was probably both the Sunday and Monday morning newspapers, he judged, by their bulk. This must be Tante Lulu’s second reason for the unexpected visit. He blinked several times, but all he could make out in the headlines, from across the room, were the words “Swamp Solicitor,” “Oil,” and “Love Potion.”
“You didn’t tell me you were a celebrity,” she said. She was adding shrimp and heavy cream and herbs to the whipped eggs, while another frying pan was sizzling with thick Cajun sausages.
Luc hadn’t even known he had two frying pans. He had Domino’s Pizza on his speed dial, and practically his own parking space at The Ragin’ Cajun Red Hots stand.
“A regular F. Lee LeDeux, you becomin’, huh? And since when you go sniffin’ round Creole girls? Ain’t there ‘nough Cajun girls for you?”
With a groan, he pressed his forehead against the wall, especially as his aunt’s earlier question sank in. “Sylvie? You’re asking if I ever nailed… I mean, made it with Sylvie Fontaine?” He started to laugh, but stopped when even that slight movement caused tiny explosions of pain inside his head. “Never.”
“And guess what?” she said. He could hear the excitement in her voice. “You’re gonna be on TV at twelve-thirty… the midday news. Hurry up and turn on the set. Maybe you could call in or somethin’.”
I’m gonna kill Sylvie. I swear I am.
“I wonder where I might be able to buy some of those jelly beans,” Tante Lulu commented. “Do you have an in with Sylvie Fontaine?”
“An ‘in’?” he choked out. “Hardly.”
He gaped at Tante Lulu for a long moment, wondering why she thought she needed a love potion. But then he’d been surprised that Sylvie would want such a thing, too. Women! Go figure. He’d like to see the guy who’d rely on such a harebrained idea for a chick magnet. Nope, real men sucked in their guts, slapped on the ol’ aftershave and a tight pair of jeans. If they were really dumb, fancy boots and a cowboy hat, too. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t. Those were the breaks.