A Trashy Affair (16 page)

Jane pushed the delete button. That message she had no desire to keep.

****

Friday came whether she wanted it to or not. After another tedious day of answering phones and trying to do her real job in snatches, Jane truly did not feel like tripping the light fantastic with May’s nephew. She considered canceling and rescheduling, but that would only postpone the agony for another week. Her glass of red wine helped numb her nerves for the ordeal. She shrugged out of her work clothes, bushed her teeth, and considered what to wear to Broussard’s Barn, best described as a venerable local dive of a dance hall. Jeans, the boots she’d bought in Montana, and a blue-checked cotton shirt, tucked in, belted, and buttoned up to her chin seemed about right. For whimsy, she added non-matching silver earrings, one a small accordion, the other a
frottoir
, a rub-board, both essential to the kind of music the Barn offered.

She supposed an undertaker would be punctual, though the dead were in no hurry, and Waldo was, right on the dot of six-thirty. With relief, Jane noted he did not drive the hearse, but instead a deluxe edition Cadillac. Somehow, that seemed even more wasteful than Merlin’s big-ass truck, which could at least haul stuff like giant trashcans and probably pull tractors out of the mud, too. Still, when Waldo helped her into its fine white leather interior, she appreciated not having his cold hand on her elbow for more than a few seconds. Merlin wrapped his big, warm mitts around her waist and lifted her in and out of his rig despite her protests that she could very well enter and exit on her own—though it would have been a rugged and revealing climb in a short dress.

Unfair to compare the two men since Waldo had a quarter century on Merlin in age. To give the funeral director credit, he maintained a slim body though Jane suspected he inherited that from his mail-toting father. He wore khakis paired with a pale blue dress shirt open enough at the throat to show the very top of a pristine, white undershirt. His long sleeves ended with French cuffs held together with what Jane at first glance took for gold nugget links, but on closer inspection turned out to be miniature skulls, very overdressed for an evening at Broussard’s Barn.

“Interesting cufflinks,” she said as Waldo got behind the wheel.

“A little undertaker humor. I find it is better to put the fact of my trade right out there rather than hide it.”

Jane nodded. She wished his black hair with the silver wings and slight widow’s peak did not remind her so very much of Grandpa in the vintage
Munster’s
television series. At least, he combed it straight back and did not part it in the middle in old-timey vampire style. Grandpa, no, he wasn’t that old, but he could have fathered her at a not very young age. Why May thought they’d make such a great couple eluded Jane.

Easy listening music surrounded her in sound as soon as the engine turned over with the strong purr of a sleeping lion, not a roar like Merlin’s truck. She hummed along to avoid making conversation. The sequence of tunes sounded familiar and very uplifting.

“Do you like the mix?” Waldo asked. “Put it together myself to play at the mortuary and made a copy for the Caddy.”

Oh right, the songs played in the background at the last viewing she’d attended for old Leroy “Lambo” Mouton’s funeral. Jane stopped humming. Somehow, singing along seemed disrespectful. “Very nice,” she mumbled.

They cruised through the town of Chapelle with perfect enough timing to miss every one of the five traffic lights: entering town to slow folks down, two on either side of the green where the Church of Ste. Jeanne d’Arc sat, one at the school, and the last upon leaving town in a vain a attempt to make people stay a while. Outside the city limits, they did have to stop at the light slung across the road at the huge Hartz Technology campus. It sort of balanced the new signal by Jane’s house, though Hartz needed it to allow its many employees to come and go while the Cane View light served more as a convenience for its residents and a way to remind passersby they could stop right there at the Fast ’N Fun for fried chicken and gas.

Waldo used the delay at the light to move one long, thin arm from the wheel and lay it across the seat where Jane sat a little hunched forward, eager to get to the Barn, escape the Caddy and mood music for mortuaries. She believed the last time a guy tried that move on her she’d been in high school. The cold hand inched toward her shoulder. The light changed. They moved out with Waldo’s hand dangling still closer.

“Watch out for that dog!” Jane screamed. The hand snapped back to the wheel, the Caddy swerving a little in the process.

“Where?”

“Oh, it ran into the cane field across the road.”

She supposed she might have gotten them both killed, all in an attempt to get Waldo’s hand back where it belonged, but since they had just pulled out, she doubted it. Her date made the turn onto the secondary road that would take them to Broussard’s Barn with his hands stuck tight to the wheel and his teeth gritted in his long, pale jaw.

They arrived without mishap and parked in the far corner of the large oyster shell lot because Waldo did not want his car scratched or dinged by the trucks, large and small, SUV’s, and rusty beaters parked closer to the building. Strings of clear bulbs illuminated the space and left the rear of the place in near darkness except for the lamps burning dimly in front of the doors of an old motel to the back where rooms rented by the hour. Fallow cane fields closed in on either side of the property and beyond them the venerable Broussard homestead still stood despite its hundred years and more.

They entered according to custom through the nineteenth century general store where canned peaches older than its current proprietor still held shelf space. The goods that really moved, snuff, cigarettes, and condoms, sat behind the cash register protected by Old Broussard and various weapons known to be kept under the counter but rarely seen. The arsenal supposedly consisted of a Louisville Slugger, a shotgun, and a pearl-handled revolver.

Old Broussard was an institution himself and nearly as large as a real one. His hind cheeks overflowed the cane seat of a bentwood chair. His vast stomach filled out bib overalls with a bulk like a laughing Buddha and strained a soiled white T-shirt beneath it. A standing joke said an Old Broussard died of a heart attack when his heir reached the required weight to replace him. Nevertheless, the family provided the current mayor of Chapelle and many others powerful in ways no one wanted to ridicule. Old Broussard, certified as a justice of the peace, performed marriages in the store. Oddly, many locals chose to tie the knot there, then step through the connecting corridor to the dance hall and celebrate their union. Quite the scandal when the local librarian eloped to the place with Bob LeBlanc one boozy Mardi Gras Eve. No chance Jane would ever wed here.

From blubbery lips sunk into several chins, Old Broussard greeted their arrival with a “
Bienvenue a Broussard’s
” and held out a sausage-fingered hand for the five dollar each cover charge, a relatively new fee. “Now you get one free drink wit’ dat. Y’all pass a good time,” he added as he handed Waldo a ten in change and two tickets for the drinks. The couple descended into the frenzy of the dance hall.

At this early hour, customers already filled the tables nearest the large dance floor. Some patrons had taken the four-tops and shoved them together to accommodate all of their friends. A group of wiry black men calling themselves The Salty Beans warmed up on the spacious bandstand that once hosted jazz bands out of New Orleans during Prohibition. While there was only one way into Broussard’s Barn, it possessed many ways out, great for accommodating the fire laws, but having their origins in its speakeasy days.

Finding a space near a side door, Jane and Waldo sat and considered their options for dinner. Judging by the offerings on the two-sided laminated menu, the music drew the crowds, not the food. Choice of fried catfish, shrimp, crawfish, or oysters served in a basket with fries and a cup of coleslaw or ensconced in a loaf of French bread po-boy style, same sides. Boiled crawfish available in season with corn and red potatoes. This wasn’t the season for mudbugs. A long list of half-pound burgers with various toppings filled the second column and the back merely listed all the beer and booze available from Broussard’s bar.

Okay, the giant ball of cholesterol or fried seafood, Jane considered. Most Cajun places did fried really, really well. She settled on the shrimp basket. Waldo dithered about the wine list consisting of a choice of house red or white, but he wanted a Broussard Burger, the Barn’s specialty. Jane’s selection called for white while his would go better with red.

“Order a glass of each for our free drinks. You really don’t want to see the bottle,” Jane advised.

“Oh, you’ve been here before, a nice young woman like yourself—alone?” His tone implied perhaps she was not as nice as his aunt claimed.

“No, I came with a bunch of women from the office for the music as you said.”

“Ah, I see.” Waldo held up his arm and began snapping his fingers. Jane half-expected frost to fly from the tips. “Waitress, where is our waitress?”

She came up behind the undertaker. “Yeah, wadda you want to drink?”

Jane did the double-take. She knew Merlin’s mom worked here, but somehow didn’t expect to run into her. But, the voice wasn’t right, this one tough, not childish. She took a closer look as the waitress stepped around Waldo. Not Jenny David, but her younger clone with an identical hair style and blonde streaking, dressed in the same Broussard’s Barn serving attire but exposing the tops of bigger, plumper, younger breasts. The overdone makeup matched, but instead of coming across like a girl trying out her mother’s red lipstick and mascara, this babe looked hard despite the lack of Jenny’s facial lines. Her nametag read “Brittney,” the sister Merlin wished he never had.

Suddenly less imperious when confronted by their surly server, Waldo ordered the two glasses of wine and went ahead with their orders as if dearly wanting to minimize contact with the waitress. That seemed fine with her. “Gotcha,” she said before moving off toward the bar and kitchen.

“Allow me to apologize for the terrible service here, but Chapelle has so little to offer in the way of fine eateries. The next time we should go into Lafayette.”

“Hmmm,” Jane responded. No more promises to May, no next times, she swore to herself.

The music cranked up with the accordion and fiddles taking the lead and the rub-boards coming in behind, one played with the spoons and the other with inch long picks like stainless steel fingernails for a different sound. A fast-paced zydeco two-step, some people danced as couples and others appeared to simply jerk their bodies around to the rhythm.

“Shall we dance?”

“Ah, no. Let’s wait until after we eat, okay?” The longer she could draw out the meal, the less time spent in Waldo’s frigid grasp.

Their waitress plunked down the wineglasses and left without saying a word. Jane sipped her drink, a white jug wine with a sour edge. Gauging by Waldo’s expression, his beverage did not taste any better. Still he did the whole sniff and swill in the mouth routine so thoroughly to impress her, Jane had to hold in a laugh. As if Brittney would take it back for a better vintage.

“As I said, the music is the thing here.” Waldo clinked his glass against hers. “Here’s to a pleasant evening in good company.”

“Hmmm,” Jane said again with a slight acknowledging smile.

The food came quickly in green plastic baskets served with the same crude panache. Plonk! “Enjoy” and their waitress retreated. Jane imagined the grill and the deep fat fryers never stopped churning out big, greasy burgers, golden fries, and lightly battered seafood from the time the music started until the Barn shut down at two a.m. She gave the kitchen credit for using huge, fresh shrimp and a superb, flaky coating as well as fresh cut potatoes for the steaming fries. The coleslaw, very peppery, was not to her taste, but then, no one came here to eat vegetables.

Waldo divided his immense burger in half like a prissy spinster wearing white gloves and bit into it. A glob of grease and mayo looking very much like a bird dropping splurted onto his pale blue dress shirt. Only making the spot larger, he tried to wipe it away with a paper napkin.

“Embarrassing.”

“Don’t worry about it on my account. Maybe we should leave so you can go home and soak your shirt in cold water.”

“Oh, no! I’ve had worse things splattered on me,” he countered.

Jane did not want to think about what. She reconsidered dipping her fries into ketchup. No, fine just as they are. She ate slowly, holding each shrimp between her fingers and nibbling down to the tailfins as she watched the musicians put on a gyrating show. One glance at Waldo told her she should have cut the shrimp into pieces and eaten them with a fork. Not repelled at all, he watched her lips as they progressed along the length of the large crustacean. Dang, finger food turned him on! How could she turn him off again? She bathed the fries in ketchup until they appeared to swim in blood, let some of the sauce drip on her checked shirt, and hoped she wouldn’t have trouble getting out the stain.

Blotting her chest, she said, “I can be a very messy eater.”

His dark eyes sunk deep in his skull watched her hand dabbing at one breast as if she masturbated just for him. She tossed the napkin aside in a hurry. “Let’s dance!”

“I thought you wanted to finish eating first.”

“The food will keep. I want to move.” Yes, far from Waldo.

Without his mother and aunt watching, he cast away decorum and clutched her close to his bony chest as soon as they reached the edge of the dance floor. Jane pushed away.

“It’s a fast one. We should be dancing like this.” She spun off by herself about three feet away and began swaying her hips and snapping her fingers, tossed in a few twirls and sidesteps as Waldo observed standing almost still amid the dancers. He headed forward, his arms outstretched.

“No, I am sure the music calls for closely held partners.”

“Not!” she said and backed into the guy behind her.