Christmas in Dogtown (3 page)

~5~

Three days after the dance, Chan called Resa and asked her to meet him at the river levee near Paulina. “You’ll know the spot,” he’d said cryptically before hanging up. “Dress casual.”

She only had to think about it about a few seconds before letting out a whoop. For the first time since she’d finished college, she’d be in St. James Parish to help get ready for the bonfires.

Tuesday had always been boudin noir day, and when Resa got to Madere’s, Uncle Aim was up to his elbows in grossness. Resa could make blood sausage, but she sure as heck wouldn’t eat it. Anything with pig hemoglobin as a defining ingredient wasn’t going in her mouth.

Emile looked up and smiled at his niece. “It’s slow today and I’m feeling better. You go on and help
Chandler
do the Dogtown bonfire.”

Resa gave him a hug from behind, looking around his shoulder and making a face at the big bowl of rice, fat, ground liver, and pig blood. “How’d you know?”

“It’s just five days until Christmas Eve. Gotta get the frame up in time for Papa Noel.” He dipped a fork in the bowl, tasted the boudin filling, and reached for more salt. “Although I think you might have planned it this way to get out of making the boudin noir.”

“I’m not that smart.” Resa kissed Uncle Aim on the cheek and headed to her car. The wind would be cold blowing off the river, so she pulled her old ULL hoodie out of the backseat and tied it around her waist.

The drive to the
Mississippi River
levee only took a few minutes, and Resa steered slowly along
River Road
, looking for Chan’s truck. She finally spotted it an eighth of a mile west of Paulina, sitting at the base of the levee with a long flat trailer hitched to the back. The trailer was empty, but its cargo had been spread across the grass—dozens of logs stacked and sorted by length.

She ascended the high earthen levee to the flattened top that was wide enough for a car to drive on. On the side she’d climbed up, grass covered the levee as it sloped down to the road. On the other side, the dropoff fell steeply into the wide brown expanse of the
Mississippi River
. On Christmas Eve, big cone-shaped bonfires that stretched for miles atop the levees would be lit to help Papa Noel, the Cajun version of Santa, find his way through the river parishes to leave presents for all the girls and boys.

Of course it had become a tourist attraction these days, with cars full of visitors lined up on
River Road
to see the fires.

The fun for Resa as a kid had always been building the teepee-shaped frame, working in the bright winter sunlight and fresh air. “You got the spot picked out?” she asked Chan, who squatted on the ground with a tape measure and a notebook, a pencil stuck behind his ear. Building the bonfire frame was quite an engineering job.

“Yeah, I’ve measured twice and marked the spot for the center pole. I’m going to dig. Think you can fit the metal shoe onto the top before I raise it?” The round metal shoe had notches in it that would hold the side poles in place.

They worked hard for the next four hours. A handful of Caillou and Madere cousins showed up, helping erect the eighteen-foot center pole and upending the three long side poles into place so their tops fi
t into the notches of the shoe.

By the time they’d used up the day’s haul of wood, Resa’s shoulders ached from dragging and lifting logs, and the cold, damp wind had chafed her cheeks and nose.

“What are you looking at?” Chan came to stand beside her on the levee after seeing the cousins off. Stirred by the wind, the muddy river flowed fast and choppy, and the rising bonfire frames stood in stark outline against the bril
liant blue of the December sky.

“There’s nothing really like it, is there?” She didn’t have to explain what she meant. He’d know—that familiar tug of home and comfort that could blindside you in a heartbeat. She hadn’t considered St. James Parish home in a long time, but the river called to her. In
New Orleans
, it was a means of commerce, a romantic backdrop from an upper-story window, the reason for a bridge full of traffic jams. Here, it sang and pulsed and curved t
hrough the land and the people.

“No, there isn’t.”

When she turned to look at Chan, Resa realized he’d been watching her instead of the river. The expression on his face was a complexity of yearning and sadness and amusement, all rolled together in a twitch of the lips
, the slow blink of green eyes.

“What does that look mean?”

His smile started with a quirk and spread slowly. “That I want to kiss you but I’m not sure how you’d react.”

Resa bit back her first response—
Why don’t you try it and find out?
That’s what she’d say to someone like Jules. Instead, she reached for his hand. Chan was so serious and, somehow, fragile. “I think I’d kiss you back.”

His face was red from the cold, damp wind, but his mouth was warm and firm against hers. Just a tentative compression of lips the first time, then another, warmer and deeper. Something hot and satisfying blossomed in Resa’s chest, sped her heart rate, drew her to this strong, serious man.

He pulled away but stood with his forehead on hers for a few long seconds before
stepping back. “We better go.”

Their hands still clasped, Chan walked Resa along the levee and down toward their vehicles. “You want to stop for a beer?”

Resa shook her head. “Guess I better g
et back and help Aim close up.”

Some corner had been turned between them, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to turn it or what it m
eant. She needed time to think.

By the time she got back to Madere’s, it was late and she’d convinced herself that the whole bonfire thing had just made
her sentimental and vulnerable.

~6~

For the next two days, Resa spent the mornings at Madere’s, letting Uncle Aim sleep in. He’d arrive with a take-out lunch from Caillou’s, and they’d eat together.

In the afternoon, she’d meet Chan on the levee. Uncle Aim would pay her for working full time because he knew she needed the money but was too proud to ask for a loan. But she’d have to give some of it back. It wasn’t in her to take what she hadn’t earned.

Today, they’d finished the frame. “You do the honors.” Cage handed Resa the short log that wou
ld complete the wooden pyramid.

She stuck the log in her backpack, borrowed from a school-age Madere cousin just for the occasion, and reached up to grab a log. Chan’s hands were warm on her waist as he helped her get st
arted. Then the climb was easy.

Some of the businesses that did bonfires brought in cranes to finish the tops of the frames, or created new designs for their bonfire each year, building them to resemble boats or gators. The Madere/Caillou bonfire had always been the traditional teepee shape, however
, and always assembled by hand.

Resa fit the last log into place and held onto the frame while she looked downriver from high above the levee. It wasn’t that far from here to
New Orleans
, less than forty miles, but it felt like a different world. Ten days ago, she’d felt as if coming to work at Madere’s, even for three weeks, was the lowest she could sink. Now, confusion tripped her at every turn, and she feared she had
already
stopped running long enough for the quicksand to envelop her ankles and start rising toward her knees.

“Everything okay up there?”

Resa looked down at Chan, who stared at her with hands stuffed in his pockets and a scarf wrapped around his neck. He must be cold-natured, because Resa thought the day was perfect. Clear and cool and bright.

“Coming down.” She backed down the bonfire frame carefully, checking the stuffing of branches and cardboard inside the “teepee.” All that remained to do before Christmas Eve was put up the Madere’s/Caillou’s sponsor sign and their bonfire number.

She hopped off and wiped tree bark and sap on her jeans. “Treat you to lunch?”

They stopped at a little drive-in spot in Paulina to avoid the Caillou’s rumor mill, and sat in Chan’s truc
k with their burgers and sodas.

“Don’t you get bored here?” Other than the one poodle incident, she hadn’t heard of Cha
n taking any other gator calls.

“It’s just slow right now. Gators don’t move around much during cold weather.” He picked the lettuce off his burger and dropped it in the paper sack. “Come March, it’ll pick up. Things were crazy in October when I first moved out, even though we’d just been through gator season and the numbers were thinned out.”

Resa shook her head. “You’re such a calm, easy-going guy. But you must have a hidden adrenaline junkie in you—the gator basket at Caillou’s is about as close as I want to get to one.”

Chan gave her a smile. “You think I’m calm and easy-going?”

Well, duh. “You don’t think so?”

He shrugged. “Never thought about it. I just like gators. They’ve been around these swamps since the world was made, you know? And we’re crowdin’ them out. All I do is help them get away from people and relocate them to someplace they’ll be safe.”

When he put it that way, the job didn’t seem like such an odd fit for him. More caretaker than wrangler. “Why’d you really come back to Dogtown?”

Chan took another bite of his burger, then wrapped the rest in a napkin and dropped it in the bag. “It was time, that’s all. I had to decide where I wanted to live my life and how I wanted to live it. Pushing papers around a desk in
Baton Rouge
wasn’t it.”

Resa looked out the truck window. From here, she could see the tops of the Christmas bonfire frames stretching down the river levee. She turned back at the stroke of Chan’s fingers on her neck.

“What do you want, Resa? You want your life in
New Orleans
back?”

“Sure.” Her answer was automatic, and she hated the flash of disappointment that crossed his face. Or had she imagined it? Now, he was smiling.

“Didn’t have to think much about that one, did you? You have a house there?”

She nodded. “A little Victorian shotgun, uptown—well, in the poor part of uptown. It’s exactly what I a
lways dreamed about living in.”

“I’m glad your dreams came true, then.” Chan leaned over and kissed her on the cheek. Why did it feel like a goodbye? And why did that suck?

She started to add that her dream house also was expensive, constantly in need of repairs, bordered a dangerous neighborhood, and, mostly, was empty. Would saying that wipe the sad look off his face and turn that brotherly kiss
into something more?

She finally realized what the quicksand had been that had wrapped itself around her in Dogtown. Companionship. Friendship. She hadn’t been lonely here. But she couldn’t promise Chandler Caillou more than she was willing to give
. Not that he’d asked for more.

He just looked so sad.

~7~

People lined up outside Madere’s early the next morning. Three days before Christmas, and folks from
New Orleans
,
Kenner
, Metairie, and
LaPlace
bought up the boudin as fast as Resa and Uncle Aim could get it in the display case. Special orders stacked up, and a couple of Madere cousins had com
e in to work the cash register.

“Today and tomorrow will be crazy, but you think you can spare me for about an hour after lunch?” Resa worked the grinder, squeezing out a spicy mix of boudin blanc into the casings and twisting them with a deft hand. “I want to go and see if Chan needs anything else for the bonfire day after tomo
rrow.”

Actually, she’d been stewing over the way they’d left things yesterday. She didn’t want them to spend her last week and a half here avoiding each other. No reason they couldn’t be friends.

Uncle Aim didn’t answer at first, and Resa regretted asking. “I’m sorry. I know I’ve taken too much time away and the whole reason I came here was to help you. Never mind—I’ll catch up with him later.”

“You’ve helped me plenty, niece.” Uncle Aim smiled at her, but unless Resa was imagining it, his expression looked…worried. “You go and find
Chandler
. I have a couple of the other kids coming in this afternoon to help. Might want to drop by his house.”

Resa didn’t exactly know where Chan lived. “Why? Phone’s easier—he might not be home.”

Uncle Aim shrugged and took her spot at the grinder. “Do as you will, girl.”

Talk about passive-aggressive. “Where does he live?”

“Up at the end of the old parish road, right before you hit the wildlife preserve.”

Great. He probably had alligators in his backyard.

Resa drove down
River Road
first, and used her cell phone to take a photo of the Madere/Caillou sign in front of the bonfire frame. No sign of Chan, though,
and he didn’t answer her call.

Something felt off-kilter. Resa couldn’t say exactly what—just a sense of strangeness from Chan yesterday and now from Uncle Aim. She thought about calling her mom but decided against it. What would she ask:
Feel something weird in the air these days?

As she drove north to hit the old parish road, it struck her that she was thinking a lot like a Dogtown resident all of a sudden, with strange feelings and a need for mystical enlightenment. That seriously needed to stop.

The road narrowed as it went northward, and even in the brightness of midday, heavy shade and shadows gave the road an eerie cast. Why the heck would Chan live up
here instead of closer to town?

She had her answer when the road ended, in the form of a confection of a small wooden house. Rustic Barbie might live here—it wasn’t quite a log cabin, but the scent of cypress and tupelo told her it was new construction. Window boxes full of herbs were attached to the sides of the hous
e where the sun would hit them.

Resa parked next to Chan’s truck, walked onto the narrow front porch, and raised her hand to knock on the solid wooden door. Instead, intrigued by the wraparound
decking
, she walked to the left corner of the house. The porch extended all the way along the depth of the building, which was bigger
than it looked from the front.

Did it
go all the way around? Resa walked along the rough planks and stopped abruptly at the point where the porch took another ninety-degree turn to span the back of the
Chez Chandler
.

Unlike the front porch, which was too narrow to even set chairs, the back porch extended far over the edge of the
Maurepas
Swamp
, and windows covered most of the rear of the house. Chan would feel as if he were the only person in the world even from inside.

Without thinking, Resa sat on a sturdy rocking chair near the edge of the
deck
, over the water, and pushed herself into a gentle rhythm as she looked out at towering cypress trees reaching for the heavens, their gray trunks scored and ancient. A snowy egret sat on a log protruding from the murky water, then took flight with a broad spread of wings. Something splashed in the distance, creating ripples.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?”

Resa started and looked up to see Chan standing behind her, his hands on the back of the rocker, stilling its movement. “It’s amazing. You know, all the way out here I wondered why you’d live in such a remote area. But I understand. I totally get it.”

“Do you? I’m not so sure.”

Resa stood and faced him, ready to rip him a new one for presuming to know how she felt. Her words died in her throat at the sight of him.

“You’re sick. Oh my God, what’s wrong?” Instinctively, she reached up and pressed the back of her hand to his cheek and forehead. “You’re burning up. Why didn’t you call me? You should be in bed.”

Resa realized her Inner Jeanne was coming out, but she couldn’t help it. She grabbed Chan’s wrist and pulled him inside. A blanket and pillow lay on an oversize sofa that stretched across an open living room, facing the wall of windows. All the time she’d been watching the swamp, Chan had been watching her.

“Lie down on the sofa again. You need something to drink? Do you have juice? Milk?”

“Juice is good.”

As soon as she was sure Chan had re-settled himself on the sofa, Resa looked around. The first floor was one big room, with a single door leading off into what she assumed was a bathroom. A staircase on both ends led to a loft, probably a bedroom. He could lie in bed and look out into the swamp.

“You had this built after you moved back? It smells new.” Resa walked to the corner kitchen area and found a glass. A carton of orange juice—and not much else—sat on the top shelf of the fridge.

“I built it.” Chan coughed, and took a sip of the juice she handed him. “Lived in Mike’s place in town until I got enough done to live in it. Still trying to decide how I want to divide up the first floor.”

Resa went back to the kitchen, doused a paper towel with cold water, and perched on the edge of the sofa next to him. “It’s beautiful. I’d leave it just like this. The open space is nice.” She gently wiped his face with the cool, wet towel. “Maderes and Caillous don’t get sick, you know. You’re breaking the rules.” Except Uncle Aim had been sick, too. Obviously, her theory had been wrong.

“That’s me, the rebel.” He drank the rest of the juice and handed her the glass. “Thanks.”

She twisted the glass around in her hands. “Why didn’t you call and tell me you were sick, Chan? I do care, you know.”

He gave her a long, steady look from fever-bright eyes, then closed them with a sigh. “’Cause I’m Dogtown, Resa.”

“Meaning…?” But he’d dropped off to sleep and didn’t answer. He didn’t need to. That one short sentence spoke volumes.