Plantation Shudders (2 page)

The next day, after clocking out from her shift at Doucet, Maggie drove home to help Crozat’s guests check in. She parked and walked to the main house, where she saw four middle-aged women who she assumed were the Cajun Cuties extricating themselves from a rented mini SUV parked in front of Crozat. Maggie ran over to help them. All four were clad in leggings and oversized T-shirts, an eighties look that Maggie thought too many women on the flip side of forty still clung to.

“Hi, I’m Maggie Crozat,” she said as she grabbed a heavy suitcase and guided a particularly plump sixtysomething out of the car. “Welcome to Crozat Plantation.”

“
Laissez les bons temps rouler
,” the woman declared in a New York accent as thick as a slice of Sicilian pizza. Her bright, sparkly makeup was as eighties as her outfit, and a quarter-inch of white roots betrayed her hair’s black dye job. “Let the good times roll! I’m Jan Robbins and I’m proud to be a Cajun Cutie. But I can see who the real Cajun cutie is here.”

Maggie smiled. “To be honest, I’m only half Cajun. My mom’s family is, but my dad’s side is Creole, descended from French settlers, not Acadians.”

“I love it,” Jan declared as she made a heavy landing from the SUV. “Hey, Cuties,” she called to her cohorts, “we lucked out getting moved here.” Marie and Bobby “Bud” Shexnayder, a local couple that the Crozats hired to help during busy weeks, appeared just in time to save Maggie from being swarmed by the enthusiastic group. Marie and Bud piled their suitcases into a wheelbarrow while Maggie led them to the plantation’s converted carriage house. As they walked, Jan surprised her with a spot-on recitation of Crozat’s history.

“Wow,” Maggie said, “You may know more about this place than I do.”

“I love this part of the world,” Jan said. “Every bayou, swamp, and historical site. That’s why I founded the Cuties. We’ve got about five hundred dues-paying members, all people who love Cajun Country as much as I do.”

“Here’s hoping that after your visit, you share a love of Crozat with all those members.”

Jan gave Maggie a thumbs-up. “
Laissez les bons temps rouler,
” she repeated.

The other guests trickled in as the afternoon wore on. Emily and Shane Butler, a couple not much older than Maggie, turned out to be celebrating their fifth anniversary. Emily was fine-boned and petite, and Shane sported stubble and consciously geeky eyeglasses. They both worked for start-up Internet companies and were the archetypal Brooklyn hipster couple. The family from Australia and frat boys from Georgia
showed up almost simultaneously. Carrie and Lachlan Ryker were trim and sporty, as were their three kids.

The frat boys were all blonde, over six feet, and virtually indistinguishable from each other. “We did some days in New Orleans and I still got the hangover to prove it,” one of them told Maggie as another reached into the back of the car and hauled out garbage bags subbing as suitcases for their belongings.

“I’m all about taking an airboat ride and seeing some gators,” the second frat boy said.

The third member of the group nodded enthusiastically. “Yeah,” he added. “I’m totes stoked.”

Kyle Bruner, the “single guy” from Texas, showed up a half hour later. Handsome and polite, he had salt-and-pepper hair, a tanned face, and was shy of the Georgia boys’ height by only an inch or two. But what struck Maggie most about Kyle was the overlay of sadness to him. It was as if he were going through the motions of life rather than actually living it.

“I’m looking forward to my visit,” he told Maggie as she walked him to his room. “I’ve always liked this part of the country.”

“Oh, so you’ve been to Cajun Country before?”

“Yes. I was married in the area.”

Maggie was about to ask Kyle where, but the look of pain that crossed his face stopped her. She wondered why his wife wasn’t with him and discreetly checked his left hand. It bore neither a wedding ring nor a tan line. Whatever had happened between the couple must have occurred some time ago, Maggie thought, but he’s still not over it.

By five o’clock, when everyone met on the veranda for wine and cheese, the only two guests who hadn’t checked in were a Hal and Beverly Clabber. As they all snacked and drank, Gran’ and Maggie entertained the visitors with local lore. Gopher parked himself directly in front of a box fan, where every so often he’d shake his head to keep from dozing off. Occasionally, a dollop of drool would fall from his mouth’s folds and be propelled across the veranda by the fan, narrowly missing a guest. Kyle scored points for helping Tug pass out cocktails. “I’m not very good at sitting around being waited on,” he confessed. Then he asked Gran’ if she needed a refill.

“Always,” Gran’ said as she handed him her glass.

“In the morning, I can show you around Crozat and its outbuildings,” Maggie told the guests.

“That sounds great, doesn’t it, Boo Bear?” Shane Butler said to his wife Emily, who nodded eagerly.

“Fantastic, Boo Bear,” she said as she intertwined her fingers with his.

“Why, you two call each other the same nickname,” Gran’ said. “How adorable. Isn’t that adorable? Kyle, be a dear and freshen my drink. I seem to have drained it rather quickly.”

“Can we swim in the bayou?” asked Luke Ryker, the Australians’ middle child, whom Maggie pegged as about ten years old.

“I wouldn’t recommend it,” Maggie said. “You can’t be sure what’s in there.”

“Like gators,” one of the frat boys jumped in. Unable to keep their names straight, Maggie had secretly nicknamed the group Georgias One, Two, and Three.

“I want to swim with gators!” Luke’s younger brother Sam declared.

Their sister Alice, who looked to be around twelve, gave an annoyed sigh. “You are
so
embarrassing.” Take away the Aussie accent and Alice could have been any tween in any mall in America.

“We do have a pool,” Maggie said. “Dinner’s not until seven, you could go now.”

The boys raced off to change into swimsuits with their parents on their heels. Alice reluctantly dragged herself behind them.

“I wonder what happened to the Clabbers,” Maggie said as she scanned the long driveway that led to Crozat.

“Maybe they decided not to come,” Tug said as he handed his mother a martini. Gran’ sniffed it suspiciously.

“It better not be one of those awful ‘Cajun’ martinis. They’re the souvenir tea towel of cocktails.”

Before Tug could respond, everyone was startled by the sound of a car explosively backfiring. Attention shifted to a circa-1970s Volvo slowly turning into the long Crozat driveway. It inched its way up the driveway at a pace so sluggish that it became hypnotic. After what could have been a few minutes or an eternity, the car pulled up to the front of Crozat. An elderly woman was at the wheel, while a senior citizen who looked more cadaver than man sat in the passenger seat. He hand-cranked his window down with an ancient, wrinkled hand and glared at the group on the veranda. The man’s watery blue eyes seemed bleached by the sun. “So far I’m very unimpressed with the service,” he said, glaring at the Crozats and their guests.

The newlyweds, Hal and Beverly Clabber, had arrived.

“How about someone helping me with my walker?” Hal Clabber barked at Maggie, Tug, and Bud as they hurried to the couple. Tug pulled suitcases and Hal’s walker out of the car’s trunk while Maggie helped the old man out of the car and Bud tended to Beverly Clabber.

“Our apologies,” Tug said, trying to appease the old crank. “Welcome to Crozat. Can we get you a drink? Some snacks?”

“We’ll take wine—red—cheese, and whatever else you’re offering, in our room.”

“We’re on our honeymoon,” Beverly Clabber added with a wink.

“Well, isn’t that
marvelous
, just
marvelous,
” Gran’ declared. Maggie bit her finger to keep from laughing. She knew that the more uncomfortable Gran’ felt, the thicker her accent became, and the Clabbers were inspiring a drawl so pronounced that Gran’ sounded like a hokey Southern dowager from a 1930s B movie.

Hal pushed his walker toward the front steps and stared at them. “The Americans with Disabilities Act prohibits discrimination based on disabilities.”

“Translation: get the ramp, Dad,” Maggie muttered to her father, who seemed uncharacteristically befuddled.

“Yes, right, of course.”

Tug and Bud pulled a wooden ramp out of its discreet hiding place in nearby bushes and placed it over the stairs. Hal carefully pushed himself up it onto the veranda.

“Do you need help, ma’am?” Maggie asked Beverly Clabber.

“I’m fine,” Beverly replied. As opposed to her grouchy husband, Beverly hadn’t stopped smiling since the couple arrived.
To say she scampered up the steps would be an exaggeration, but she got to the top without a problem and waited for her husband, smile still plastered on her face. Maggie began to wonder if it was the result of nerve damage from a stroke.

“I’ll show you to your room,” Maggie said, relieved that Tug had serendipitously put them in the one bedroom located on the main floor.

“We requested the first floor,” Hal said.

“No you didn’t,” Maggie somehow managed not to say aloud as she led the Clabbers down the hall to the Rose Room. She opened the ornately carved walnut door and the Clabbers followed her in. With its deep pink walls, white cypress ceiling medallion, and museum-quality furnishings, the Rose Room was legendary among antebellum historians for its pristine Victorian beauty.
Good luck finding something to complain about here
, Maggie thought as the Clabbers took in their surroundings.

“It’s lovely,” Beverly acknowledged. Hal walkered himself into the en suite bathroom. When he came out, he didn’t look happy. He beckoned to Maggie, who gritted her teeth and followed him into the bathroom. Hal pointed to a roll of toilet paper on a vintage-style wrought iron holder.

“This is all wrong,” he said. “You unroll from the top, not the bottom. It’s much more efficient.”

“Thank you so much for pointing that out.” Maggie reversed the toilet paper, managing to hide the middle finger she was shooting Hal as she did it. “Marie’s on her way with your wine and appetizers. If you need anything else, my cell number’s on the information sheet. Please don’t hesitate to call.”

With that, Maggie backed out of the room, hoping against hope that Hal wouldn’t take her up on the offer. Beverly smiled her Joker smile. “You have to understand,” she said apologetically. “Hal has a leaky anus.”

Maggie couldn’t get to the kitchen fast enough. She pulled a bottle of white wine out of the refrigerator and poured herself a full glass. “Ohmygod, ohmygod, ohmygod, ohmygod.”

Ninette, who was stirring a large pot of jambalaya, watched with concern as Maggie took a big slug of wine. “Honey, are you okay? You never drink before dinner.”

“We never hosted the Clabbers before.” Maggie filled her mother in on the conversation, and Ninette burst out laughing.

“Oh, you poor thing, that is truly awful. I swear, there are days when I think we should just donate this place to the state, like my family did.”

“No, I think what you do—what we do here—is wonderful. It’s the first time that a guest ever brought up leaky anus in conversation. And hopefully the last, although I’ve learned not to assume anything when it comes to our guests.”

*

Maggie managed to avoid the Clabbers the rest of the afternoon. She took a long shower and stretched out the length of time she usually took to apply makeup. She dawdled as she poked through her closet, finally settling on sandals and a coral cotton sundress. Then, steeling herself for the long evening ahead, Maggie walked over to the main house.

She feared what dinner and a few drinks might bring, but the repositioned toilet paper seemed to have mellowed Hal.
His nastiness had disappeared, replaced by a patronizing superiority that she often found characteristic of retired college professors—a bit of braggadocio Hal had already dropped into the conversation several times.

Predinner martinis had made Gran’ particularly loquacious, and by the time the main course of chicken and andouille sausage jambalaya was served, she’d enthralled her listeners with tales of Crozat tragedies and triumphs. Duels, star-crossed romances, yellow fever epidemics—Gran’ covered it all. “Legend even has it that the notorious pirate Jean Lafitte buried a casket of treasure somewhere deep in the Crozat woods and then stole Felix Crozat’s finest steed to escape the army battalion that was tasked with hunting him down,” she said in her most theatrical voice.

“It’s like a movie,” said an awestruck Debbie Stern, who, at somewhere around fifty, was the youngest of the Cajun Cuties. “Tell us more.”

“Everywhere around us, families were driven to sell their property or abandon it. And then, just when we at Crozat seemed to be pulling ourselves out of the depths of despair,” Gran’ intoned, her voice dropping theatrically, “we found ourselves facing the deprivations of war.”

“You mean the Civil War?” Debbie gasped.

A spoon clattered into a bowl. Kyle coughed as he tried to swallow a laugh. Gran’ instantly sobered up. “My goodness, the doctors are right. The sun really does age a person. No, dear, I’m old but not quite that old. I was referring to World War Two.”

“Oh, of course,” Debbie said, embarrassed. “I don’t know what to say. I just got lost in your stories.”

“Well then, that’s quite a tribute to my storytelling,” Gran’ said, kindly letting Debbie off the hook.

“Tell us about the pirate and his treasure again,” Sam begged. The other diners joined him in encouraging Gran’s return to the buried treasure legend.

The rest of the meal was uneventful. Poor Gran’ was held conversational hostage by Hal Clabber as he boasted of the expertise in twentieth-century American theater history that had won him tenure at Conway College, a small school in Nebraska. Maggie imagined that there were a lot of Conway parents who owed Hal thanks for being so boring that he propelled students out of theater and into more lucrative fields.

Hal finally dozed off in his chair and was helped to his room by Bud and Marie. Beverly followed, smiling as always. As soon as the last guest was gone, Maggie and the rest of her family retreated to the kitchen to clean up. Tug and Ninette then retired to bed, and Maggie walked Gran’ back to the house the two shared. It was a shotgun house, the name inspired by a layout where a bullet shot from the front door would go straight out the back door. Dating back to the 1820s, it was the oldest building on the property and the original residence of the Crozats before they decided to celebrate their sugarcane wealth with a fancy showplace.