Kicks for a Sinner S3 (22 page)

TWENTY-THREE

Cassie called in advance because Howdy said it was the right thing to do. She asked Nell if they could stop on their way to Oklahoma and say bye to Tommy. They wouldn’t hang around and overstay their welcome. Nell gave surprisingly cordial permission for their visit without consulting Joe. She asked how finals had gone and when summer classes started much like the old days when she’d been Cassie’s counselor at the hospital, all very friendly and interested.

“See, it’s just good manners, and those will take you a long way, Grandma said.” Howdy turned his red truck into the Lorena Ranch drive and the gates opened before them like the entrance to Heaven.

The sometimes angelic Billodeaux children formed a circle under one of the ancient live oaks that had seen the Attakapas Indians and the Union Army come and go into history. Dean, using a pointed stick, drew something in the oak duff. They pulled alongside the group and got out.

“Figuring out new plays?” Howdy asked.

Tommy immediately detached himself from the ring and ran to hug his second mother around the waist. Howdy let them have their reunion in peace and distracted the other kids by looking at the scratches in the ground. “So what’s this?”

“We’re figuring out the balance of power,” Dean said. “I heard about that on TV. See here are the boys, Tommy and me. Here are the girls, Jude and Annie. Dad is on his way to Laredo right now to pick up Xochi and Macho. Xochi goes here with my sisters. Tommy says Macho should be counted with the boys, but I say dogs don’t count in the balance of power.”

“I think they could,” Howdy remarked. “A good dog won’t ever let you down. I had one once.”

“Okay.” Reluctantly, Dean drew another stroke for the dog in the boy’s column. “See, Mama and Daddy found out we really are going to get three babies in the fall. One is for sure a boy. They could see his wiener. The other is a girl.” Dean marked the appropriate columns.

“The third one won’t turn around and show itself, so it’s a mystery child.” He made a question mark to one side. “That one could upset the balance of power. I mean the guys are already behind if we don’t count the dog since Dad is bringing another sister home. What if number three is a girl. Then us boys will be way outnumbered.”

Howdy nodded solemnly. “I see your dilemma. But, did you ever consider that your dad grew up with four older sisters and turned out fine?”

“Yep, but he said it was H–E–Double L and a good thing he was a
Dieudonne
, a gift from God to MawMaw, so he had all the saints looking after him or he never woulda survived.”

“I think your dad might be joking. I’d give anything to have brothers and sisters, even annoying ones.”

With her hand stroking Tommy’s red hair, Cassie stood behind Howdy. When he made such statements, she always felt this little twinge in her heart. Throughout her leukemia treatments as a child, she’d never been alone, not one second. Open her eyes from a hospital bed and there sat her careworn mother, her hard-working father, an older brother reading a comic book, or an older sister painting her nails. The brother would offer to share his reading material even though he knew she loved celebrity magazines best, and her sister would go from embellishing her own hands to doing Cassie’s toenails, all to cheer her up. If Howdy became ill or injured, he had no one to take care of him, except maybe the Sinners if they felt he could recover and play again.

“Tommy, Mr. Howdy and I are going to visit his ranch in Oklahoma for a few weeks. Then, I’ll be back in Baton Rouge at LSU again. I’ll take lots of pictures and bring you a nice present from there.” Three other sets of dark Billodeaux eyes stared at her hopefully. “I’ll bring all of you presents. We stopped to say bye and won’t stay long. I guess I should say hello to your mama now if your daddy isn’t home.”

“I’m right here,” Nell said, coming through the grove.

Cassie noted she’d already developed a waddle. “Hi, Nell, why don’t you look…”

“Huge. Go ahead and say it. Into my fourth month and it might as well be my sixth.”

Howdy leaned down and kissed her cheek. “You look beautiful, Miss Nell, glowing.”

“Just Nell, please.” She looked pointedly at Cassie. “I wouldn’t let this one get away if he thinks pregnant women are beautiful. Howard, you are a keeper.”

Tommy tugged at Nell’s maternity top, pulling the stretchy yellow knit tight across her belly. “Mama, can I go to Oklahoma with them? I’m outta school. I like to travel. I want to see Mr. Howdy’s ranch.”

Nell regarded the young couple. Her nostrils flared a little, and Cassie wondered if she could smell sex on them the way Nell had once told her Nadine could from a mile away. They’d been at it before beginning their trip.

“Not this time, Tommy. Xochi is coming home this afternoon, and you don’t want to miss her welcome party, do you? You and your dad and Mr. Polk will be the only ones she knows. Maybe next time.”

Cassie caught that she hoped there would be a next time. Nell’s mood had softened with her pregnancy or maybe with the success of getting her together with Howdy. She suddenly realized that since arrival she hadn’t once searched for a sight of Joe coming from the barn or doing some kind of ranch work with his shirt off and his chest bare. In the past knowing Joe was gone, she would have hinted for an invitation to stay until he returned. Now, she found she’d rather be on her way to Howdy’s ranch for two weeks alone with a man she’d disregarded until recently.

Maybe because she hadn’t pressed, Nell made an offer. “Would you like to stay to greet Xochi? The two of you could remain overnight, whatever kind of sleeping arrangements you want, and go to Oklahoma tomorrow.”

Howdy blushed and stared at the toes of his boots. “Thank you kindly, Nell. Maybe we can stay for the party, but I’d like to get as far as Houston tonight.”

Cassie’s delighted laugh drew the eyes of all the children. “You’ve embarrassed him, Nell.”

“Well, I’m not your mother or even MawMaw Nadine telling you what you can’t do. Grownups do grownup things, and I think you two might have reached a new maturity since going to Mexico. Come on and help us finish getting ready for the party. Corazon made a Tres Leches cake and her special extra-cheesy enchiladas, plenty of chips, fresh salsa and dips, too. We got a great deal at the Party Place on leftover Cinco de Mayo decorations, streamers, big crepe paper flowers, a piñata, to make her feel at home. We could use a man to hang the streamers since Corazon and I are forbidden to get up on a ladder.”

“Knox won’t do it for you?” Howdy asked, a little reluctant to stay.

“He’s hiding out to escape being pressed into service, though he says he’s walking the perimeter and grooming the ponies before the onslaught of our summer guests in a few days.”

“So Camp Love Letter is still going strong?” Cassie said referring to the cluster of cabins Joe had built to accommodate the families of seriously ill children and give them a vacation on his ranch.

“Bigger and better than ever. We have a handicap ramp going down into the pool now. Every cabin is booked all summer.”

“Camp Love Letter?” Howdy asked.

“Joe’s charity. It’s a play on his name. In his carousing days he always told the ladies Billodeaux meant love letter in French. I suppose it is a corruption of the term. As long as he’s not using that line on other women anymore, I’m happy.” Like a Madonna giving them her blessing, Nell gazed benignly upon them with her hands clasped over her belly. “Stay for the party.”

“Thank you, we will,” Cassie said simply.

They swarmed to the house where Corazon trundled around the kitchen putting the finishing touches on the feast. “Here, you cut up some vegetables for the dips. The
senora
says always we must have something green. I say we already got guacamole.” She handed Cassie a paring knife and pointed to a bunch of celery and a pile of green peppers lying on the cutting board.

Nell hustled Howdy into Joe’s vast den that had become more and more of a family room since the birth of the children. She pointed to the ladder in the center of the room and a festive piñata in the form of a burro ready to hang from the ceiling fan.

“Tie it to the fan post, but let it drop fairly low so the children can reach it,” she directed.

Once he had completed that task, Howdy moved the ladder to the corners of the room and fastened the streamers of red, green, and white to drape merrily across the cathedral ceiling. The girls scurried below him placing bouquets of gaudy red and yellow crepe paper flowers into any container they could find including several of Joe’s trophies. The boys seemed to feel they were above decorating and started in on the bean dip and tortilla chips until Nell sent them outside again with an “If you can’t help, go watch for your dad and Xochi.”

Mission accomplished, Howdy folded the ladder. “I’ll take this out to the barn and make sure the boys don’t get into any trouble in the meantime.” He hefted it with ease, but very nearly knocked the vegetable-filled tray from Cassie’s hands as she entered the room.

She placed the platter filled with green pepper strips and celery sticks flanked by mounds of grape tomatoes on either side of a bowl of Nell’s yogurt dip on a vast, slate-topped coffee table where salsa and chips already resided. She pointed to a piece of furniture that didn’t match the rest of the light oak and leather décor. The plain blanket chest, reddish-brown and patinated with age, scratched in many places, squatted before the fireplace.

“I haven’t seen that since your wedding, the second one.”

Nell nodded. “Rosemarie, the old
traiteur’s
granddaughter, brought it to the celebration. She said her grandmother wouldn’t live to see all our children born so Madame Leleux had worked ahead with her knitting and crocheting. You remember how Madame always had just the right baby blanket ready for a gift when she’d predicted a birth. Frankly, I always thought she had a hoard of them in her attic and simply picked out an appropriate one when the child came. When we opened it later, we found two fuzzy pink angora blankets for the girls right on top, but that didn’t make Madame prescient. Everyone knew we were expecting twin girls by that time. It’s the fact the chest contains eight more blankets that gives me the creeps.”

“How come? They’re only afghans in an old homemade box.”

“Madame told Joe we’d have twelve children, this way, that way, all ways, and being the superstitious coonass he is, he believes every word of it.”

Cassie looked at Nell’s swollen belly. “Well, I’d say you have a good start on that prediction.”

Nell shivered. “To think I once believed my bone marrow transplant made it impossible for me to have children, but Joe never gives up on anything he believes. First he implants twins, then triplets, and now brings home a Mexican orphan. What next? How can I cope? How can I complete with young women like you when I have a C-section scar on my belly after delivering these?”

Cassie steered her former counselor to the long leather sofa. “Sit. Don’t panic. Joe will see you have every kind of help you need with the kids. And if it makes you feel any better, he never encouraged me in any way. That was all me wanting what you had, I guess because I knew Joe and felt I’d be safe with him unlike Bijoux.”

Nell gave a tiny laugh. “Joe safe? Never. He’ll always be a challenge. You simply have no idea. But he does keep his word, always, and that’s why we are about to get a new daughter. He promised he’d go back to Laredo and get her.”

The boys roared into the room. “They’re here! Coming down the drive right now!”

The family flocked to the front entrance of the Billodeaux mansion. The children lined up before Nell and Cassie and below the immense and intricate brass chandelier that hung from the foyer ceiling and illuminated the sweeping staircase behind them at night. The entryway floor of deep burgundy tiles, so much more practical with children running in and out than carpet, gleamed beneath their feet. The grand double doors opened. Joe entered and set down a pet carrier. His hard glance came to rest on Cassie. “What’s she doing here?”

“I invited her and Howard to the party. They are on their way to Oklahoma—together.”

“Oooh in that case, great to see you, Cass. Tommy, remember this guy? He’s a little bigger than the last time you saw him.” He opened the latch and an ecstatic pup burst out, skittered across the tiles and collided with the mass of children who fell to their knees to give pats and accept sloppy dog kisses.

Nell looked on in dismay. “I thought you said he was a small dog.”

“He was last time I saw him. Man, I could hardly squeeze him into the carrier. I should have known when I noticed those big feet.”

“Where’s Xochi?”

“She’s right behind me.”

She still was—hiding from all the eyes suddenly turned her way. Joe stepped aside. “Gang, this is Xochi, your new sister, or she will be once all the paperwork is done.”

The girl took in the chandelier, the impressive staircase, and gleaming floor tiles reflecting her small form. “
Es un palacio
,” she murmured.

“No, it ain’t. It’s only a great big house, not a palace,” Tommy informed her.

“Don’t say ain’t,” his Mama Nell corrected automatically. “Welcome to your new home, Xochi.”

“You’re fat,” the new daughter said.

Joe snorted. “I warn you, she calls it as she sees it. But sugar petite, your new mom isn’t fat. She’s full of babies is all, so you’ll have three more brothers or sisters in a few months.”

Xochi frowned as if this weren’t such a great idea in her opinion. She regarded the tussle of children wrestling on the floor with Macho. “Do I get a room with a lock on the door?”

Nell moved forward and knelt before Bijou’s daughter. “You’ll have your own room, but in this family we don’t lock each other out.

“Sure we do,” said Dean who’d been knocked to the floor by Macho’s exuberance. “Whenever you and Dad want some privacy, you lock us out.”

Her pretty pink dress hiked up above her knees, Jude straddled the dog. She glared at the newcomer. “Hey, aren’t those my sneakers, the ones I’ve been looking for all over?”