A Trashy Affair (17 page)

“Hey, watch it, babe,” the guy objected as she kicked his ankle with her boot heel. “Oh, hi, Jane.”

“Blaine, so good to see you again. You with Wanda? I’d like her to meet my date, Waldo Robin. Maybe we could switch partners again like we did at Mulates.”

“She’s around somewhere. We already hooked up with Dylan and Linzey here.” Shouting above the music, he nodded at his current partner who held her arms up high and shimmied down low. Her straw cowgirl hat sat on top of a brunette extravaganza of big hair. Amazing how she could get that close to the floor in jeans so tight and still rise again without landing on her ass.

“Hey, Linzey, we’re switching partners, okay?” Jane slithered between the dancing couple and tugged Blaine to one side leaving the brunette facing Waldo with his arms still extended. “Waldo, I want to dance with my old buddy, Blaine, for a while. You take Linzey for a spin.”

“But I came to dance with you.”

“The night is still young. Off you go.”

Determined not to give in on the style of dance, Waldo drew Linzey into his grasp and began a fast foxtrot around the floor. He held his new partner tight enough to get a feel of her enhanced breasts against his chest and knock her hat to the back of her head. Linzey, possibly stoned and in her own little world, went along with it.

“So where’s Merlin tonight?” Blaine asked.

“Waldo asked first, unfortunately.”

“Sorry to say he looks like a real stiff. Old and smells kinda funny, too.”

Jane watched Waldo with his upper torso held rigid, but his feet moving fast like a Celtic dancer. “Eau de Mortuary,” she answered.

Blaine laughed, thinking she jested. “Well, Wanda will be disappointed. She’s still a little ticked Merlin didn’t call her.”

“He’s been offshore and washed her number with his jeans.”

“I done that a few times. Always wanted to kick myself afterwards. I never did get yours.” Jane didn’t offer it now either.

The set ended and the leader stepped to the microphone. “Next one is a line dance for the ladies. Gentlemen take a seat and watch them show their stuff. Girls, I don’t want to see a single one of you sitting at a table. And here we go, one, two, three.”

Waldo took his seat and started in on his burger again, careful to enrobe its oozing bottom with a napkin first. Jane stayed on the dance floor even though she didn’t know the steps and made her turns and directional changes a half beat behind the others. When the music stopped, she drifted slowly back to their table. The fries had gone soggy in their puddle of catsup.

“I could certainly use something to drink.”

Waldo held up a hand and snapped his fingers. Brittney passed nearby with a tray full of draft beers and ignored him. “This will be easier if I simply go to the bar. Another white wine?”

“No, a rum and Diet Coke.”

He nodded somberly and weaved through the crush to the bar. Jane realized she missed Merlin teasing her about her choice of beverages. Well, she’d turned him down for another date, and he considered them even. Shortly, he’d be offshore again. Bye-bye, Merlin, no second chances for either of them.

Waldo returned with her drink and a beer for him. Jane drank it quickly and asked for another to make dancing the next set with her date more bearable as Dylan and Linzey, Blaine and Wanda kept their distance. Evidently, Waldo did not appeal to the honky-tonk gal the way Merlin had. She downed a third before they ventured out on the dance floor again. One thing you could say about the mixed drinks at Broussard’s Barn, their bartender did not skimp on the alcohol, and it helped. Lit up and numbed from the inside out, Waldo’s hands did not feel as cold to Jane, nor his rib cage as skeletal. Still, she wanted out of his arms.

They danced near an exit with a restroom sign and an arrow pointing outside. No lie, she needed the facilities and a break from being crushed to Waldo’s chest. Pushing away from her partner’s grip, she said, “Moment. Gotta pee.” She could tell by his down-turned mouth that he did not approve of the way she expressed herself and would have preferred her to say, “Excuse me, please. I need to use the Little Girl’s Room” with a simper.

Well, screw Waldo. No, don’t screw Waldo ever. Jane made for the door held open for her by one of the many burly Broussard boys who worked the place as bouncers. “Knock when you need back in,” he said, combing a greasy ducktail that went out when Elvis died.

She found herself in the parking lot by a small, cement block building, plain and primitive as a john found in the wilderness areas of national parks. Better than the wooden outhouses of yore, she figured, knowing that Broussard’s Barn once had separate sets for whites and the black performers and kitchen workers. The women’s side wasn’t totally filthy yet, just short on toilet paper and previously occupied by people who forgot to flush. Jane made sure she had plenty of paper going in, enough to coat the seat and wipe, too.

She sat there for some time enjoying her freedom from Waldo and the cool, stiff breeze coming in under the tin roof long after she concluded her business. The wooden stall had lots of interesting reading material: insults, comments, and phone numbers scratched into its thick, gray paint. “For a good time call…” “Dottie sucks Dick.” “Elvis lives in Erath.” A truck engine snarled as it passed the building, making its doors shake. She swore she recognized Merlin’s big-ass Ford, but put that down to wishful thinking.

A couple of girls way drunker than her staggered in and pounded on her door. “Get out, we both gotta puke.” She got out fast, washed her hands to the tune of dual barfing, and went outside still reluctant to knock for re-entry to the dance hall. Waldo stood a short distance away in a shadowed area with his back toward her away from the light over the restroom door. Shit, he’d followed her and waited to pounce again—but no. His chilly hands rested on the shoulders of their waitress who turned away from him and enjoyed a smoke break. The wind carried his words and the whiff of menthol cigarettes back to Jane.

“My date is as cold as a redfish on ice, baby. I think she might be of the same persuasion as Nadia Nixon since she certainly doesn’t like the feel of a man’s body against hers. After I take Jane home, I could come back at closing and get a room. It’s not like you haven’t done it before. I’m a generous man as you know, but I like to get my money’s worth.”

Before Jane could step forward and say their evening together had ended, she felt the body heat behind her and saw the long shadow cast by its owner, Merlin Tauzin in person and truly pissed. He moved right by her without a word and knocked those hands from his sister’s shoulders. Only the woman wasn’t Brittney.

Jenny Tauzin turned and spoke up in her soft, smoke-scratchy voice. “I’d like to help you, but I can’t no matter how good it feels. I’m a married woman and once you marry, you can’t go with other men, my mama says. Baby boy, you come to pick me up tonight? Where’s Harley?”

“Feeling under the weather, Mom. He called and asked me to come.”

Jenny gazed up at her son with a sweet smile. “I don’t get off until midnight. Is that okay?”

“Sure, Mom. I’ll sit in the bar area like Harley does and watch out for you. The crowd can get rough here on weekends.”

“That’s nice. See you inside.” Jenny stubbed out her cigarette. “Back to work.”

Jenny made her way to the restroom exit, knocked, and stepped back into the writhing turmoil of the Barn. Meanwhile, Waldo worked his way slowly backwards as if he intended to hide behind Jane while Merlin talked to his mother. He did not move quick enough. Merlin turned, took a few long strides forward, and jerked him closer by the collar of his dress shirt. Of similar height but greatly outmuscled, Waldo shrank down a few inches to avoid meeting the man’s blazing blue eyes.

“Never touch or talk to my mother again. You understand?”

“I thought she was Britt…no, one of Broussard’s working girls.”

“Yeah, like every man in the parish doesn’t know his girls hang by the bar and don’t wear waitress outfits. This is for my mom.” Merlin cocked a fist.

“Don’t hit me!” Waldo covered his long face as best he could with his hands, so Merlin drove his fist into the flat but flabby stomach of the undertaker. The hands flew to the side opening up room for an uppercut to the jaw. “And for my sister.”

Jane knew she should intervene as a civilized bystander, a Good Samaritan, but her delighted brain kept repeating, “Date with Waldo over. Check.” Must be the alcohol.

Waldo’s head snapped back and rebounded in time to meet a blow to the nose. “And for what you said about Jane.”

“Assault, assault,” Waldo managed to scream before his knees hit the oyster shells and his beer and burger dinner made its way from gut to ground.

The side door banged open, and the Broussard bouncer charged out wielding a baseball bat. “What’s going on here! Blackie Tauzin, that you?”

“Yeah, Slick. This jerk-wad hit on my mother, insulted my sister and Jane over there.”

“Police, you need to call the police. I want to press charges,” Waldo wailed, still kneeling over his self-made puddle.

“Now, Mr. Robin, you a regular here and know the cops don’t get ever get called to Broussard’s Barn. We handle shit in our own way. Don’t you be telling me neither, you don’t know the wait staff is off-limits. You pay for your pleasure here, yeah. Tell you what, let me help you up. We go over to the bar, get an ice pack for that nose, give you a whiskey for the pain on the house. Who knows, maybe one of our ladies will feel sorry enough for you to give a freebie if you still got the urge. What say?”

“I want to press charges.” Waldo’s words came out muffled by his rapidly swelling nose.

“You want to find yourself floating in a ditch tomorrow morning? That what you said?” Slick thumped his bat against a calloused hand for emphasis.

“No. I’ll take that ice and whiskey.”

“Good decision.” The bouncer extended the bat to help Waldo up rather than offer his thick, hairy arm.

“Come along, Jane,” her date ordered.

“I don’t think so, Waldo. I’ll call a cab. Don’t ask me out again. And I’m not a lesbian.”

“Frigid, then.”

“Not half as much as you.”

The door into the barn opened. Zydeco music and the shuffling sound of boots on the dance floor poured out along with a few gasps as Waldo entered followed by Slick.

“Nothing to see here, folks. The man fell down in the parking lot. Shit happens.” The bouncer stopped in the doorway and offered Merlin a bit of advice, too.

“Better come back at midnight. I’ll watch out for your mother, Blackie.”

“Thanks, Slick.”

That left Jane alone with Merlin on the dark side of the parking lot.

“Since I’m leaving, I could give you a lift. If you want to stay even with me, you can give me a ten for gas. I’m parked right behind the restrooms.”

Despite the near darkness, she could sense a grin tugged at the corners of his lips. “You know, a ten would fill half my car’s tank.”

“That so?”

“Yes, but I would like a ride, thank you.”

She followed him around the back of the cinderblock building and admitted to feeling that thrill when he lifted her into his truck. They rolled out of the lot and rode in silence until they reached the outskirts of Chapelle and got caught by every light. By the church, she noticed his hand with the knuckles turning purple resting easy and commanding on the wheel. Impulsively, she took it and laid a healing kiss on the bruises.

“Merlin, you should learn to use your words, not your fists.”

“I’m not so good with words.”

“A lucky thing tonight you knew the bouncer, or you’d be in jail right now for assaulting Waldo, upstanding local businessman that he is.”

Merlin snorted. “Yeah, right. Great guy, Waldo. I ran with Slick in high school, but even so, the result would have been the same. Broussard’s Barn is our own local Vegas. What happens there stays there.”

Merlin moved the truck through the black district of Chapelle, quiet by day but throbbing with life on a Friday night when the hole-in-the-wall clubs lit their neon beer signs and knots of folks moved along the sidewalk from one bar to another. No one bothered them, not even when they had to idle at the long light on the other end of town by the run-down strip mall. She felt safe with Merlin in a way hard to rationalize with her very women’s libby upbringing.

“Yeah, Slick and me on our bikes, no one messed with us,” he volunteered.

For a moment, Jane envisioned two adolescent boys, one lanky, one chunky, pedaling their bicycles along the country roads abloom with yellowtop and pussytoes until Merlin said, “He helped me steal the hearse.”

“And the stains in the rear?”

“Some of his grandfather’s girls volunteered to show us the ropes.”

“So not riding bicycles or deflowering virgins, then.”

“Motorcycles, muffin. The virgins came later. What, no rebuttal on the muffin?”

“Nope.” Because she felt like a muffin right now, warm and soft with a sweet, jelly filling.

“My granny was so eager to get me away from bad company she found the means to send me to college. I had good grades, but enough detention to keep me off the honor roll and out of the Beta Club. I do regret I got bored with higher education and didn’t finish. But no, I wanted action. Got more than I bargained for.”

They arrived at her house. Merlin pulled around to the back under the deep shadow of the pecan tree. Out of the shelter of the cab, the wind howled and whipped Jane’s hair into her face as he lifted her down.

“Change in the weather coming,” he said.

“Want to come in for a while?”

“Not tonight. I have to go back to the Barn for Mom and Brittney. Tomorrow, maybe.”

Jane lowered his face down to hers and gave him a kiss, deep and hard, enjoying the brush of his stubble and his hands going around her back drawing her in tight against him.

“Waldo doesn’t know what he’s talking about when it comes to you.”

“I’m glad you realize that. Tomorrow for sure?”

“Yep.”

Second chance offered and accepted. Check.

Chapter Fifteen

Clad in last night’s clothes and high rubber boots, Jane went out early to photograph the site of the leaking waste pit reported months ago by a squirrel hunter heading for a copse of water oaks. She hiked in to spare her car on the crude access road. With the dike around its edges broken in several places, dark puddles dotted the landscape. The wind, pushing a cold front into place, riffled the surface of the oily, black substance the pit still contained. Beyond the tree line half a mile away ran the bayou teeming with fish, turtles, and waterfowl. This place needed to be cleaned up, and soon. She’d collected soil and water samples earlier when she could still leave the office and had the results ready to plug into her report. Now, she recorded pictorial evidence for her document and headed home before the rain hit.