Ciji Ware (45 page)

And in a very real way it was, Corlis thought, a relief, at least, to publicly and privately justify her presence.

“I see…” Dumas said, although Corlis knew he still wasn’t completely convinced.

“Perhaps you’d let me come interview you one day soon as to
your
thoughts on this issue of balancing the need of new construction in New Orleans with preserving historic buildings that can be adapted and reused for modern-day purposes?”

“Call my office next week,” Edgar Dumas said, his eyes suddenly alight at the notion of airtime devoted to broadcasting his point of view. “We’ll see what we can do.”

King nodded curtly to the councilman and ushered Corlis to a seat next to Sherilee Dumas, one of Emelie’s middle-aged daughters.

“How did you know that Edgar Dumas voted for the Good Times Shopping Plaza?” King asked under his breath as he handed her into the pew. “That happened two years before you moved here.”

“I’m a reporter, remember?” she whispered back. “I did some checking recently on the breakdown of the city council votes on that fight.”

“I guess that shouldn’t really surprise me,” King said, his low voice laced with admiration. “Edgar was rumored to be on the take from Grover Jeffries for quite a while.”

“I heard that, too.”

“Well, you sure stopped that blowhard right in his tracks.”

But Corlis wasn’t as sanguine about her interchange with Edgar Dumas.

No matter how you sliced it, it was sheer bad luck to run into one of Grover Jeffries’s principal functionaries in city government while Kingsbury Duvallon was her obvious escort. Furthermore, she didn’t need Aunt Marge to remind her that sleeping at King’s cabin and being served coffee in bed
could
cloud her journalistic judgment!

King and Corlis settled back against the wooden pew and gazed toward the altar where the open casket stood at the front of the church. Corlis glimpsed the gray crown and brown brow of a woman’s head resting on a plump ivory satin pillow. An enormous wreath of red roses, emblazoned by a wide white ribbon on which “Beloved Mother” was written in flowing black script, hung from a three-legged stand nearby. Unbidden, Corlis’s thoughts flew back to Henri Girard’s casket and the black-bordered card that proclaimed his death in 1837.

Death is death, whatever the century, she thought.

Just then Sherilee Dumas handed Corlis a tissue from the small packet of Kleenex she held clutched in her hand. “Here,” she whispered with a watery smile. “You King’s new girlfriend?”

“No… no!” Corlis whispered emphatically. “Just a friend.”

“Mama sure did have a soft spot in her heart for that boy.” She smiled, nodding in the direction of Corlis’s companion.

Organ music swelled and filled the church, marking the beginning of the funeral service for Emelie Dumas, which was like nothing Corlis’s Scots-Presbyterian upbringing could have possibly prepared her for. The organist kicked off the first hymn with a rollicking beat, prompting the choir, along with the congregation, to burst into ecstatic singing and clapping. When the minister launched into his eulogy, the mourners celebrated Emelie Dumas’s memory with hearty “Amen’s!” Some people even leaped to their feet and shouted, “Say it, brother!” to punctuate the perspiring reverend’s enthusiastic praise.

Next a heavy-set, middle-aged soloist mournfully sang, “Precious Lord” in a rich, heart-tugging contralto that brought tears to Corlis’s eyes. She glanced in King’s direction at the precise moment he turned to gaze at her, his own eyes moist.

Afterward Tyrone and James Dumas stepped forward to Emelie’s casket and gently closed the top. In response, sobs rose in an accelerating crescendo from members of the congregation, including Sherilee, who cried brokenly into her wad of Kleenex. King and his fellow pallbearers rose from their seats and carried the coffin down the aisle and out the door. Corlis felt her throat tighten at the sight as King passed by her pew, shouldering Emelie’s casket. Then she noticed that Edgar Dumas was not among the chosen six pallbearers.

The interment, at a cemetery less than a mile away, took place near a bank of palmetto trees that grew within a few feet of the gravesite. Instinctively Corlis reached for King’s hand as Emelie’s coffin was slowly lowered into the ground. The pressure of his grasp increased as Tyrone, James, and several other members of Emelie’s immediate family began to shovel dirt on top of the casket. She glanced at King and saw that he was fighting a wave of emotion, so she held on to his hand even more tightly, willing him to seek strength from her. The last in a line of Emelie’s four children thrust the shovel toward the only white male standing among the group of mourners.

“Here, King,” Tyrone said in a low voice. “Mama’d want you to see her through this, too.”

In response to Tyrone’s heartfelt invitation, tears began to stream unashamedly down King’s cheeks. He seized the shovel and scattered earth along the wooden coffin.

I called her my black mother.

Corlis’s heart ached for King’s loss, and for the love given him so freely by a woman whom Corlis had never met… a woman King’s parents had not deigned to honor with their presence here today, despite Emelie’s long years of service to the Kingsbury-Duvallon household.

“May our sister Emelie rest in peace,” intoned the pastor, and Corlis joined with the others murmuring, “Amen.”

The mourners then dispersed to their various cars, forming a caravan that rolled down a long dirt road to James Dumas’s clapboard family home. The old house stood surrounded by rusting wrecks and a weed-strewn yard adjacent to a stand of wild reeds edging a finger of water that eventually flowed into Bayou Lacombe. Set out on long tables near the sagging front porch were steaming pots of red beans and rice, simmering gumbo, and piles of crawfish.

Apparently Councilman Edgar Dumas’s busy schedule precluded his sharing this bountiful feast. After King and Corlis had eaten their fill, King ducked his head and whispered in her ear.

“Ready to go, sugar?”

“Back to New Orleans?”

“Well,” he replied, nodding farewell to various members of Emelie’s family as he guided her toward his car, “we could certainly head right back… but, actually, I was thinking of something else.”

All
she
could think about was that Andy Zamora might cancel her probation and simply fire her if Edgar Dumas raised a protest that a WJAZ reporter, assigned to cover the controversial Grover Jeffries’s building proposal, had accompanied the project’s most visible opponent to the funeral of the Duvallon family cook. How could Corlis possibly convince Zamora—or herself, for that matter—that her relationship with King wasn’t personal?

“For one day, at least, let’s just forget our troubles, Ace, and go fishing.”

Every ounce of good sense told her to go straight back to town. Nevertheless, she found herself helpless to ignore the unguarded expression in King’s blue eyes silently petitioning her to stay with him while he took some private time to mourn Emelie’s death.

“Okay, since it’s Saturday,” she said softly. Then she added, half-seriously, “Just keep me away from the alligators… promise?”

“Piece of cake,” he said with a smile filled with sadness and gratitude.

***

Neither the soft purr of a small outboard motor attached to the narrow pirogue, nor the sight of moss-laden trees with roots rising from the bayou’s waters could serve as an effective distraction from the jumbled thoughts careering through Corlis’s brain.

I shouldn’t be here.

Don’t I have the right to a personal life?

What would Aunt Marge say?

I feel so sad for King.

Glimp and Zamora will kill me!

I love fishing with this man…

A look of tranquillity had settled on King’s features while he repeatedly cast his line into the pellucid waters of Bayou Lacombe. It had been a deliciously mild April day. With great relish, King had described the flora and fauna as they floated past odd-angled cypress trees rising like specters out of the river.

During the peaceful afternoon they’d spent meandering along tributaries that King had fished since his childhood—and in deference to his recent loss of his beloved Emelie—Corlis had refrained from bringing up the subject of Jeffries’s and Marchand’s ominous phone call to WJAZ on Friday, the last night that her three-part TV series had aired.

Let the man have a little relaxation and serenity.

As the sun began to slant through the ghostly trees, King nosed the boat into the quiet, weed-choked cove near the log cabin. Gingerly, Corlis rose from her perch in the boat’s bow and cautiously stepped onto the embankment. Together they pulled the pirogue ashore and emptied it of its fishing equipment and a few catfish they’d caught that afternoon. King stowed their fishing gear in a shed nearby while Corlis returned to the cabin to pack her few pieces of clothing into her duffel bag. Then she walked to the sink to rinse out the coffee cups they’d used that morning.

She heard the outside door open, and soon the small cabin was filled with the muted strains of The Radiators pulsating from a CD player in the main room. The rock ’n’ roll group was a favorite band of New Orleanians, recorded live at the legendary Tipitina’s.

Without warning, she felt two warm arms envelop her. King’s broad chest pressed against her back. She shivered slightly as his lips brushed against her right ear.

“It’s Saturday. Let’s forget work and politics and all that other stuff. Stay here with me tonight,” he said in a low voice, and in those words, Corlis heard the heartbreak, longing, and loss that King had not been able to express while they floated in the misty bayou all afternoon. “Don’t go. I need to be with you, sweetheart.”

The words he whispered were simple, direct, honest, and totally disarmed every one of Corlis’s defenses—and
all
of her good intentions. Her hands remained frozen on the kitchen taps as water continued to flow into the sink.

“Oh, King,” she said helplessly as she stared at the faucet’s stream disappearing down the drain.

“What, baby?” he said, stooping once more to nuzzle his lips against her neck.

Corlis felt a rush of affection so intense that it was all she could do to keep from throwing her arms around King and kissing
him
senseless. However, though every cell in her body said “yes,” every professional fiber in her brain was on full red alert.

With her back still pressed against his chest she pleaded, “Wait a sec.” She looked over her shoulder but did not meet his gaze. “I—I need to ask you something.” The corners of their lips were only inches apart, and the caress of his warm breath was having its usual unsettling effect on her racing pulse. “Are we talking slumber party here, or what?”

“No party games, Ace,” King said, his voice suddenly raw with emotion. He reached around her waist to shut off the cascading water. He gently turned her around by the shoulders to face him. “From all the evidence… what’s been going on lately between the lady from California and the gentleman from New Orleans is the real deal for sure, baby.” As The Radiators’s beat throbbed seductively in the background, King nodded in the direction of the small bedroom. “From the moment I kissed you, I’ve fantasized about you… and fantasized about getting you under that quilt in there that my great-great-grandmama made.” He paused and flashed her a lopsided grin. “Naw… that’s a lie. I started fantasizing when I saw you in that wrinkled UCLA sweatshirt the day after my sister’s wedding, when I dropped by to tell you about the job at WJAZ.”

“I’m actually disappointed you didn’t want to jump on my bones when I had jet black spiky hair and was editing
Ms. UCLA
,”
she replied with a deadpan expression.

“You felt it,
too
,
that morning last December, didn’t you?”

She wondered if her heart had stopped beating, which might account for the light-headed feeling clogging her thought processes. “But what about the buildings?” she said earnestly. “You’re a news source, and I’m a repor—”

“Please don’t change the subject, sugar,” he interrupted, his eyes boring into hers. “I’m asking you to tell me how you felt that day I came by your house.”

Corlis lowered her eyes and replied good-naturedly, “Okay, okay! I do admit to feeling… drawn to you that day. But I merely ascribed it to a lack of sleep, or perhaps those great legs of yours and your ratty tennis shoes.”

“You can be sure, darling, that
you’re
the absolute winner in the Great Legs Sweepstakes—but you’re still avoiding my question.”

Without warning, he ducked his head and seized her in a kiss so electrifying, it hummed with energy powerful enough to trip circuit breakers. Corlis felt every ounce of willpower draining from her, as if an entire relay grid had shut down. The menace of Grover Jeffries’s and Lafayette Marchand’s threats—implied or otherwise—faded into the charged atmosphere that virtually crackled with excruciating sexual tension. Gone, too, was the memory of Andy Zamora’s probationary warning and lawyer Glimp’s disapproving grimaces. Even Margery McCullough’s professional code of journalist ethics that Corlis had learned at her great-aunt’s knee faded into oblivion.