A Billion Reasons Why (19 page)

She fingered the letters. Then Luc braced her elbows as she leaned into him, her back against his chest.

Katie beamed with pride. Maybe she’d been too hard on Luc. It wasn’t his fault she’d made a fool of herself. Maybe she’d convinced herself by then that she was as good at reading people as her mother. Whatever it may have been, she needed to let it go. Luc had moved on; it was time for her to do the same.

“Luc.” She turned her head so that her ear rested on his heart. His breathing sounded shallow. “I’m sorry. I blamed you because it was easier. I lost my way because I loved you and I wanted you to love me back.” She felt lighter with the admission.

“Sh, sh. I did love you back. Do love you back.”

She peered up under his strong jaw. From her angle, and in the store’s light, Luc was all shadows and mystery, but his heart felt familiar. Like home.

“Men are different from women,” she said. “It was my duty to stop—”

He kissed the crown of her head. “We need to go, Katie. Your mam’s worried, I’m sure.”

She twisted in his arms, and he surrounded her at the back of her waist. He made her feel so safe. How did he do that?

Chapter 14

I
N THE
C
OOL,
C
OOL,
C
OOL OF THE
E
VENING

It was said by all who knew Irene McKenna Slater that she had a sophisticated understanding of proper society and how decorum operated. Irene knew her place in the world. While Papa told Katie that she could reach for the sky and pluck any star to her liking, Mam had a more practical theory on the futility of chasing rainbows. “People belong where they belong,” Mam would say. “You can pluck an Irish Channel girl and put her somewhere else, but someone will remember her as the girl from the Irish Channel. There’s nothing to be ashamed of in being who you are. If God created a person to sell vegetables, he should sell the best vegetables there are and do whatever he can to satisfy his customers.”

Even as the Irish Channel’s neighborhood grew in prestige, due mostly to its higher elevation and proximity to Uptown, Mam clung to the roots of the old neighborhood and what it meant to be a part of her Celtic heritage. Though most of the neighborhood was African American by the time Katie grew up, Mam never saw a bit of difference in a person’s skin color. If they were in the Irish Channel, they were Irish to Mam.

So it just made no sense to Katie that Mam had moved to the Garden District. But seeing the gated Victorian, with its Celtic cross and statuary in the front garden, she supposed the Channel wasn’t far behind.

“Mam’s house looks a bit like a cemetery, wouldn’t you say?”

Luc chuckled. “It’s a nice house.” He pulled to the curb in his brother’s Prius. Apparently, Ryan and Olivia had been given matching cars for a wedding present.

Katie gasped. Her mother’s covered gallery porch teemed with people under the light, but through them all she could make out Dexter’s image.

“What? What’s wrong?”

“Dexter’s here.”

“How do you know? The gallery’s bursting at the seams with people.”

Katie didn’t answer.

Dexter stood against the front window, as though he thought he couldn’t be seen, but he actually made himself more obvious in his misty movements. His tall frame hardly lent itself to disappearing. Reaching for the car door handle, still with Luc at her side, she wondered how she’d explain their day together to Dex.

“What are they all doing here, anyway?”

“You know my mam. Every night’s a party.” She scrambled out of the car and ran up the steps. “Dexter!” she called over the hum of chatter. She ricocheted from guest to guest. Some she recognized; others were just random faces in all colors and sizes. So many chairs cluttered the shared townhouse gallery that the porch looked like a Mardi Gras float. The sky was just darkening, and she knew she’d created a stir being gone for so long.

“Where have you been?” Mam scolded. “We very nearly called the police! If it hadn’t been for Luc saying he knew where you’d gone . . .”

“I’m sorry,” she muttered. “The time got away from me. Have you met Dexter?”

“Yes, I’ve met him. I’m afraid he’s not used to all of the noise in our house. We’ll have to work him up to it.”

“Dex is an only child,” she said to her mother.

“So are you!” Mam answered.

“
Your
only child is a far different cry, Mam.” Katie laughed but grew serious at the sight of Dex standing pressed against the wooden window frame.

He seemed agitated, but what right did he have to be angry? She hadn’t asked him to come, and he certainly couldn’t expect Mam to quiet things for him. At least not without warning.

She swallowed her guilt, remembering what it had felt like to be in Luc’s arms again. What did that say about her? She knew what it said. It said she was as dumb as a box of rocks and not worthy of a man like Dexter, that’s what it said.

“Hey, Dex, can I have a hug?”

He loosed himself from the wall and hugged her, then checked his watch. “I hadn’t planned to be here this late.”

“It’s only eight thirty,” she said.

“I brought work with me.”

Eileen came up and wrapped an arm around her. “Dexter, Katie has a habit of disappearing, don’t you know. Remember that time in high school when we snuck out for Mardi Gras? I thought your dad was going to kill us!”

“You snuck out in high school?” Dexter asked as if she’d committed murder one. Her beau was not a man to understand misbehavior, not for any reason—but in New Orleans during Mardi Gras, it was practically cultural.

Eileen went on, oblivious to Dexter’s shock. “When I saw the grill of his old Chevy truck coming around that corner, I knew we were toast. I couldn’t think up a story that fast. Not one you’d go along with, anyway.”

“We cleaned toilets at the store for two weeks after that,” Katie said to Dexter, hoping he saw justice as served.

He pulled her into the doorway and spoke into her ear. “I’m here to ask your mother’s hand, I mean, ask for
your
hand in marriage. I thought you’d want to start wearing your ring right away, and what kind of fiancé would I be if I didn’t come down and ask properly?”

“That was sweet,” she said truthfully.

“I wanted to meet your family first too.”

“What do you think?”

“They’re very . . . very
friendly
.”

Eileen, eavesdropping from the porch, laughed at his composure. “What’s the matter, Dex? It’s like you’ve got sand in your oysters. You’re in New Orleans, loosen up!”

He stared at his watch again. “I’m sorry, Katie. I wasn’t expecting all this ruckus. It threw me off my game. Then you drive up with Luc. Did you spend the entire day with him?” His jaw clenched. “When you weren’t here, I got worried I’d made an error in judgment. I called Pastor earlier.”

“You called Pastor?”

Dex paced the entryway. His expensive shoes clicked on Mam’s hardwood floors as guests separated like the Red Sea. Dex turned back around and took her by the arm into the foyer. “I just got nervous. I’d expected to surprise you, and instead you surprised me. And what are you wearing, anyway?”

“You got nervous? About what? That your girlfriend was missing? Or that your schedule, which you didn’t make me aware of, was rearranged?” She drew in a deep breath. If she was honest, it was her own guilt that forced her to snap at Dexter. He had every right to expect her to be at her mam’s, not with Luc off on one of her jaunts. And it was sweet of him to go out of his comfort zone and surprise her.

“Katie, you’re making a scene. I was worried about you.” He gazed around him, as if he noticed the crowd for the first time.

She looked outside onto the gallery. If she’d made any sort of scene, no one but Dexter seemed to notice. “I’m sorry, Dexter. It’s been a long day. Lot of emotion since yesterday. I need to tell you about something.”

“I wanted to surprise you, Katie,” he said warmly. “I’m doing my best to romance you. I’m clumsy at this sort of thing, but it doesn’t mean I love you any less.”

“Of course not. I know that, Dex.”

“Your mom’s having some kind of party. I think I should come back tomorrow when the house is quieter, so we can talk.”

She nodded. She felt her heart thump in her throat, upset that they hadn’t really solved anything. When Dexter didn’t get his way, he generally threw a quiet, irritated tantrum or began negotiations to convince her of his side. His voice was always so measured, his demeanor so stoic—she’d never noticed until now, when they had an audience. She was Irish. When her family threw a tantrum, you good and well knew it.

He stepped into the hallway and withdrew a single black suitcase. “I need to get some sleep. Irene,” he said to Mam, “may I borrow the phone to call a cab?”

“A cab? Where’re you going? Don’t we have the beer you like or something?”

“No,” Dex said. “I’m tired. I wanted to head to the hotel.”

“Hotel?” Mam squealed. “Listen, I’ve slept twenty in a shotgun row house. No guest of mine is staying in a hotel.”

Dexter raised his suitcase. “I’ve got a load of work to do tonight. I want to have an important conversation with you in the morning.” He slapped his suitcase. “Want to be in top form.”

Mam grabbed at his suitcase, which Dexter wouldn’t relinquish. The two of them stood there, locked in a battle of wills.

“Dexter, you may as well let go,” Katie said. “My mother’s not going to let you go to a hotel.”

“I have a reservation,” Dex said.

And Mam let go of the suitcase, just like that. Katie had never seen a guest win that particular battle with her mam, and she knew what it meant. Mam
wanted
him to go. The air rushed from her lungs. At home, Dexter fit so perfectly into her life. How could a change of locale make them so vastly different?

Her mother reached for the phone. “I’ll call you a cab, Dexter.”

“Very good.” He glanced at his watch again. “Heavens, it’s hot here.” He tugged at his collar.

“Get that tie off, for one thing.” Katie started to unfasten it, but he brushed her hands away.

“What time will you be free tomorrow for me to express my wishes to your mother and stepfather?”

“I don’t know.” She shrugged. “Mam, what’s the schedule for tomorrow?”

“How would I know? It’s still today. We’ll figure out tomorrow when it happens. Rusty’s going out shrimping tonight. He should be back home by about ten in the morning.”

“Dexter wants a time.”

“So give him one,” Mam said. “We’ll work it out.”

“Why don’t you come at eleven, Dex? I’ll make brunch.”

“On a weekday?”

“Yes,” she answered firmly. “Dexter, I need to talk to you about something. Maybe we’re rushing things a bit—”

Dexter pecked her on the cheek. “We’ll talk tomorrow.” He jogged to the street as the cab pulled up. The trunk opened, Dexter tossed his bag inside, and soon only red taillights marked his having been there at all.

Katie blinked slowly and wondered how to explain his strange behavior. At the same time, she wondered if maybe his social skills were skewed by the Bay Area’s lack of connection skills. Perhaps she’d become immune, and he ceased to stand out there. What if she’d made a terrible mistake? Correction, what if she’d made
another
terrible mistake?

Mam grabbed her by the wrist, passed the settee in the living room, and walked up the stairs. She stared back with a look that said to follow her. Katie did.

When they reached the top of the stairs, Mam opened a door, led her into her grayish-green bedroom with the old cast-iron bed, and crossed her arms. Like a metronome, when Mam stopped walking, the silence clamored for attention.

“What was that?”

“I don’t know, Mam. I’ve never seen him like that.”

The questions came like bullets. “Why are you getting married to that man? Why are you home now? Why is Luc DeForges here in my house again? Why is your best friend on my gallery? What is going on? You come home for a visit and bring the entire state with you?”

Katie shrugged.

“I want an answer!”

“Sorry, I thought it was a rhetorical question. The house is full of people I’ve never met.”

“I invited them. It’s my house! Katie, that man is afraid of his own shadow. If someone breaks into your house, who’s going to beat him off with a stick? You?”

“Well, I could.”

“I know you could, but, Katie . . . I don’t understand it. All these years you waited. I thought you were waiting for Luc, but then you announce you’re marrying some stranger. I want to like him, sweetheart. But why now?”

“I’m getting married because it’s time and I want to have a family.”

“No, that’s why men get married. Women get married because they’re in love.”

“I love Dexter but in a good, safe way. A healthy way, not where I’ll lose my mind and make a complete fool of myself in front of everyone we know.”

“Katie, listen. I may be old, but I have not lost all my faculties. Tell me what you love about that man, besides the fact that he isn’t Luc DeForges. I will give him points for that much, but, Katie, tell me what I’m not seeing.”

“You don’t like him, then?” Katie wrung her hands. “What did he do?” She couldn’t imagine what had Mam so agitated.