The Pepper In The Gumbo: A Cane River Romance (18 page)

            The next song
burst into the moment and the dancers on the stage began to whirl and step to
the beat. Paul didn’t move a muscle, as if he hadn’t heard a sound, his arm
strong against her waist. They were perfectly still, just the two of them, like
the eye of a hurricane in the middle of the festival. She never wanted to move
from that spot, tucked against his chest, held tight against the world. It had
been so, so long since she had felt like there was anyone to hold on to, anyone
who truly understood her.

            “Alice,” he
whispered. “I meant to tell you the truth before.” His voice was rough.

            Slowly his words
filtered through the swirl of emotion and Alice felt a shadow cross her heart. Loving
books wasn’t exactly a terrible secret. She said she understood, but maybe
there was more to this than she was catching. She moved back, trying to gather
her thoughts enough to form a question.

            “As soon as I
met you, I knew you were special,” he said. Then he lowered his head, pausing
once to see if she was going to object.

            A few minutes
ago she’d been pondering a question about his family, wondering where he’d
learned to speak so fluently and dance so well. Her thoughts were tangled up in
his words, trying to catch up with his meaning. He’d meant to tell her
something before now but those questions disappeared like mist in the sunshine.

            Paul was going
to kiss her, something she’d been wanting since she first saw him just days
ago. It didn’t matter where they were or who saw them. She didn’t care about
her reputation or her store. There was no other thought in her head except the
anticipation. Her eyes fell closed and she met him halfway, glorying in the pressure
of his mouth, the heat of his skin, that delirious scent of man and old books.
Her arms went up around his neck and she threaded her fingers through his hair.
He made a low noise in his throat and he pressed her closer.

            Alice had no
idea how long they stood there, wrapped up in themselves, oblivious to all her
friends and neighbors just feet away. It wasn’t the kind of kiss she was used
to from Eric. Or anyone. Suddenly, Paul lifted his head and she struggled to
catch her breath. She looked up, feeling her heart pounding in her chest. Her
eyes finally focused on his face and her body went cold. His eyes were filled
with shock and surprise.

            “Hi there,
Alice,” Andy said, his voice barely cutting through the noise of the music and
the boots hitting the stage. He stood behind her, hands in his pockets. Andy
shrugged a little, as if in apology.

            Alice stepped
back, her knees shaking. She put a hand to her mouth. Andy must have seen what
was happening and made his way through the dancers to rescue his friend.

            “I’m sorry to
interrupt, but I need Paul… over here… for a second.” Andy looked incredibly
uncomfortable. He pointed to the side of the stage where a dark-haired, middle-aged
woman was standing. She was wearing a flowered top, fashionable jeans, and a
leather tote purse. Her fists were planted on her hips and her expression was a
mix of amusement and disapproval. Mostly disapproval.

            “Oh, wow.” Paul’s
hand dropped from around Alice’s waist. “Would you like to come meet my mother?”

            A bolt of white
hot embarrassment went through Alice. She’d never been one of those girls that
kissed guys in public, in the dark, under the trees. Her face felt like it was
on fire. She pressed her hands to her cheeks for a moment, willing herself to
get control.

            “No! No, I
can’t. I was actually looking for someone else before you showed up.” She
cringed inwardly at the last sentence. The words were tumbling out of her
mouth.    

            Paul caught her
hand. “Please. We can talk. And I’d like you to meet my mom.” He glanced at Andy
and then back to Alice, as if his friend might be able to convince her to stay.

            She shook her
head, fighting to put on a bright smile. “This has been fun, but I’m not like
this. I don’t just―.” She motioned between them. “I need to go.” And she
turned on her heel, practically running from under the trees, past the stage,
and toward the boardwalk.

            Alice dodged
couples, trying her best to ignore the laughter and whispered comments that
followed her. Her heart was pounding but she kept walking until she reached the
safety of her front door. There she turned, looking back for one brief moment.
She had come to the festival with such high hopes. She was going to meet BWK, a
real friend who understood her like no one else seemed to understand her.

            Instead, she’d let
herself be distracted. More than distracted. She’d made out with the man she’d
vowed to fight, the man she’d been determined to avoid. Alice took out her key.
Her hands shook so badly she thought she would have to give up and go around to
the back door until she could calm down. Finally, she got the key in the lock
and tumbled inside, closing the door against the music and the noise of the
party outside.

            She walked
toward her desk without bothering to turn on the lights. Her eyes burned with
hot tears and she choked back several gasping sobs. For the second time in as
many days, she was crying over Paul Olivier. The first time he’d made her so
angry she trembled with rage. The second time, it felt as if he’d reached
inside and touched her heart with his bare hands.

            Alice slumped
into her chair, clutched the rings to her chest and let herself cry. Van Winkle
lifted his head and made worried sounds but Alice couldn’t stop. A terrible
fear was growing inside. Maybe something was wrong with her. The stress of the inheritance
lawsuit and running the store was becoming too much. Grief and anxiety could
cause a mental breakdown, she knew that for a fact. And her behavior was
completely out of the norm.

            Sure, she was
shy, but it was more than that. When she went out on a date, she wanted to keep
a little distance. Eric had put in two weeks and three dates before he got a
kiss, and it had been just a second or two. She wasn’t cold, just cautious. It
was always better to be safe than sorry. A girl needed to trust a guy before
she could give up her heart. People weren’t always what they seemed and not
everyone had the best intentions. It was just better to take it slow. But
tonight she had thrown away everything she thought she believed about first
dates.

            Alice sucked in
a breath, half-laughing through her tears. Forget about first dates. This was a
random dance-floor hook-up. He’d said a few words in Louisiana Creole, swung
her through a song from her childhood, and she’d been all his. Who knows what
would have happened if Andy hadn’t shown up… with Paul’s
mother
.

            She groaned and
dropped her head into her hands. There was no way she could go back out there.
The night was ruined. She grabbed her cell phone off her desk and opened her
email. Maybe he was out there, waiting. BWK deserved to know that she wasn’t
coming.

           
Dear BWK,

                        I’m
so sorry. Something has come up. I won’t be able to meet you tonight. You’re
always welcome to come by my store on Monday.

            Your
friend,

                        Alice.

            She wrapped her
arms around herself. Maybe it was some sort of mid-life crisis, about twenty
years too early. Maybe she needed to take a vacation and give herself a break.
As soon as Monday came, she would start looking at weekend packages. Maybe a
nice bed and breakfast somewhere. She would leave the phone at home and spend
the whole time blissfully unaware of the world.

            Alice stood up
and headed for the back stairs. She would sneak into her place now before Paul
and Andy returned. It might be possible to avoid an awkward meeting tonight.
But the next time she saw him, she knew she wouldn’t be able to think of
anything except those moments under the twinkling lights.

Getting information off the internet is like taking a drink

from a fire hydrant.―Mitchell Kapor

            “What on earth
happened over there?” Andy whispered loudly.

            Paul took a
moment to step around a dancing little girl with pigtails. “I told her I was
Browning Wordsworth Keats.” He’d successfully merged his alter ego and his real
life, and she hadn’t been angry at all. It wasn’t anything that he’d been
expecting but he couldn’t say he was unhappy. Just the opposite. He felt like
he was walking on air, his heart still beating out of his chest. The end was a
little awkward, when she almost ran from the scene, but he was sure they could
sort it all out.

            “And that was
her response?” Andy asked, his eyes wide. He glanced towards Paul’s mom as they
closed the last couple of feet between them. “Now I’m sad that I don’t have a
super-secret identity, too.”

            “Who has a
super-secret identity?” Paul’s mother reached forward and gave her son and hug
with a big kiss on the cheek. “And where did that gal scamper off to? You
didn’t bring her over to meet me and I find that a bit hurtful.”

            “Mama, I’m
really sorry. She had to go.” Paul searched for a place to sit. “Let’s get some
meat pies and watch the dancing.”

            “Oh, I was
watchin’ already. I was right proud of you. All that practice sure paid off.”
She stopped, giving Paul a serious look. “Maybe paid off a little too good, now
that I think on it.”

            “Mrs. Olivier, I’ll
go get the food. Just point me in the right direction,” Andy said.

            Paul picked a
stand farther down the sidewalk and Andy headed down the packed walkway. Paul
didn’t blame him at all for trying to get out of this conversation. He’d get
out of it too, if he could.

            “I just met
her.” He stopped. That really wasn’t the way to get his mother to like Alice.
“Come on, let’s sit down and I’ll explain.”

            They walked for
a bit and found a free table. Paul could see Andy in line at the meat pie
stand, chatting with a girl in jeans and a cowboy hat. He smiled. Whatever Andy
may think about this trip, he couldn’t deny he was being entertained. Their
last business trip involved hours and hours at a hotel bar, watching most of
their colleagues slowly get drunk.

            “So, tell me
about this gal.” Mrs. Olivier peered toward the bookstore. “Why did she high-tail
it out of here like that?”

            Paul paused, trying
to think of how to explain Alice.

            “Honey, the look
on your face…” She started to laugh. He’d always loved the way his mama
laughed, full-throated with her head thrown back. She looked so much younger
than her years.

            “It’s
complicated, Mama,” he said. He hated that phrase,. but it didn’t seem as if a
better term was available.

            “Your cousin
Jimmy says that every time he gets a new girlfriend and he don’t want us to
harass her.” She glanced at the bookstore again. “Does she live there in that
fancy place?”

            “Above her shop.
It’s a rare book store.”

            “Oh, honey, I
bet you just love her for that!” His mama reached over and grabbed his hand.
“Is that how you met? Looking for old books? Did you tell her about your
collection? You’ve always been such a reader, just like your granddaddy.”

            “Sort of. We’re
renting the apartment next to hers and…” He stopped at the look on his mama’s
face. “I know what you’re going to say.”

            “Do you, now?”
She sighed. “You’re a big boy, Paul. I won’t be telling you how to live your
life. But I know how hard it is to live right when the world is living all
wrong.” She squeezed his hand. “Listen to me. All worried ‘cause you’ll be
living next door to that pretty girl when you’ve been on your own in New York
City for years.”

            Paul wanted to
remind her he wasn’t staying long, that Andy was his roommate, and that she was
looking miles down a path he didn’t even know if he was walking.

            “Who are her
people?”

            “Her family name
is Augustine. She said her parents died in an accident.” He watched realization
dawn on his mama’s face.

            “I remember it. That
was a bad one.” She looked down at the table, picking at a little hole in the
plastic top. “Drunk driving, they said. His family blamed the wife and her
family blamed him. Kids got caught in the middle. Shipped off to the grandma’s
house and the grandma wasn’t as sane as she shoulda been.”

            Paul shook his
head. He couldn’t imagine that kind of change. His childhood had been ugly, but
it hadn’t varied in its ugliness. “I’ve never met anyone like her, Mama.”

            She nodded,
waiting for him to go on.

            “We’re both real
shy. I mean, she can sure let you know when you’ve done wrong. The first day we
met, we got into it over some old books. She’s tough as nails and twice as
sharp.” He smiled at the memory. Paul could hear the way his speech was
shifting from New York to Louisiana. Being with his mama always did that.

            “Watch out for
that, son. The drama is exciting for a while but it wears a body down. And some
folks raised in it sometimes don’t ever know how to live in peace.”

             “I know. And it’s
not the arguing. I would love to never argue with her again. I just want to be
near her. She’s like the antidote to all those years of cocktail party chatter.
When she talks to me, I feel like she cuts to the heart of it all. Oh, and she
speaks Creole about as well as anybody I’ve ever met. It’s like we’re just the
same, deep down.”

            “Except for the
part where she hates your guts,” Andy said, dropping into a chair. He laid out
the little paper containers of meat pies and removed bottled Cokes from under
his arm.

            “She doesn’t
hate me. Not exactly,” Paul said hastily. “Just the company. And the new store.
And what we do for a living.”

            Mrs. Olivier had
been in the process of picking up a meat pie, but she paused, the pie halfway
to her mouth. “But she likes something about you well enough to be kissin’ you
under the trees in front of the whole town.”

            Paul grinned.
“Yup, apparently so.”

            His phone dinged
and he reached for it automatically. An email showed on the screen and he
tapped it, feeling his heart rate double at the sight of Alice’s name.
Won’t
be able to meet tonight.
He read the note twice, three times. Hadn’t she
understood when he quoted Elizabeth Barrett Browning? He thought she’d kissed
him because he was BWK.

            He leaned back,
running a hand over his face. Alice had kissed him as Paul, the man she
couldn’t stand. That news rocked him to his core. She must feel just as
strongly for him if she could forget everything else that was happening,
everything she’d vowed to fight. She didn’t seem to be the kind of woman who picked
a fight for nothing. Or took a kiss lightly, either.

            “Uh oh. That’s
not a good look.” Andy was chewing slowly, watching Paul.

            “No,
everything’s fine. Just… took a step backwards when I thought we were going
forwards.” Paul tossed the phone onto the table and picked up a Coke. “But I’m
not going to worry about it now. Tonight,” he said, raising the bottle,
“tonight we’re going to enjoy ourselves. Here’s to the new Natchitoches, Louisiana
branch of the biggest and best company in gaming.”

            His mama and
Andy raised their Cokes in unison. They clicked the glass bottles together and drank,
smiling.

            Paul picked up
his meat pie, letting Andy take over the conversation for a moment. Andy asked his
mama about hiring someone to come cook for them. He smiled as his mama seemed
to take it as her personal responsibility to find a good local chef to make
them a few meals a day. She took that sort of thing very seriously.

            He let the smile
fade from his face as he thought of Alice’s note. He wasn’t going to give up.
Now, more than ever, he needed to tell her the truth. Their online connection
had been strong enough for him to seek her out in the real world. Their
connection in person had overshadowed all of that.

            Paul took a long
draught of Coke and stared at the dancers on the stage. At this point, he could
still walk away. He could find another place to rent, avoid any contact with
her, and let that kiss live in his memory as one perfect moment.

            He thought those
words to himself but knew it was a lie. He was going to walk this road to the
end, for good or bad. And he hoped with everything in him, it was going to be for
good.

                                                            ***

            Alice trotted up
the steps to the cathedral just as the bells started to toll. She was never
late. Ever. Except for today. She’d tried on ten dresses and none of them
looked right. Maybe Eric was right and she needed to take up running. She’d
finally picked a pretty pink top with a black skirt. She probably looked like a
waitress from one of the cafes. And her hair… there was no taming it. After
thirty minutes of fixing, she’d given up. By the time she’d stopped trying to
accomplish the impossible, she’d realized it was now or never. Well, now or
take the car. She hated to drive just a few blocks. It was wasteful and finding
a good parking spot was a bear.

            She had just not
been able to get herself in gear. It wasn’t just that she kept checking her
email, wondering why BWK had not written her back. She hoped he wasn’t angry.
But there wasn’t any reason for him to upset with her. They’d barely gotten to
know each other. Just a few notes. Nothing real. Except that it felt a lot more
real than her relationship with Eric.

            Maybe she’d had
trouble this morning because she’d slept so badly and then she dreaded trying
to get down the hallway without running into Paul or Andy. She sighed. There
was no way to come back from last night. The only option was complete
avoidance. Then again, she’d said that before and it hadn’t worked out.

            “Hey there,
sweetie. Find yourself a spot real quick-like.” Helen Delassixe gave her a kiss
on the cheek and tugged her toward the aisle. Alice felt the angst of the
morning slowly fade away at the touch of Helen’s papery skin, a little cloud of
baby powder accompanying the kiss. The elderly woman had been part of Alice’s
Sunday morning since she was a child, before the cathedral was named a Minor
Basilica, and before Alice had become a respected bookstore owner.

            The organ was
just reaching its usual roar when Alice slipped into a pew and reached for a
hymnal. She knew most of the songs by heart, but if the organist decided to go
for that fourth verse, she’d have to get out the songbook anyway. She sung
familiar words and felt the muscles in her shoulders start to relax. Sunday
morning was her favorite time of the week, bar none.

            Or it had been
until a movement caught her eye and glanced to her left in time to see Paul and
his mother coming up the side aisle. Alice felt her mouth drop open and her
hands went numb. He wore a nice suit and tie, looked freshly shaved but about
as tired as Alice felt. She wondered how long he’d stayed at the festival. She
slouched down, hoping they would pass by and head for the front pews. Surely
he’d want to be seen by the congregation, especially if he was trying to win
support for his store.

            Instead, his
mother turned her head and caught Alice’s eye. She smiled, then tugged Paul to
a stop. He was staring down at his feet and seemed to follow where she was
leading without looking up.

            His mother
wouldn’t… she couldn’t… but she did. Alice watched in growing horror as his
mother stopped at Alice’s pew, stepped to the side and motioned for Paul to go
first. He genuflected, then looked at Alice for the first time.

            She wished she
could have seen her own face, because she figured they wore the same
expression. Surprise, shock, dread. There was nothing like seeing your make out
partner from last night in church the next day.

            “Hey,” he
whispered as he side-stepped into the pew.

            “Hey,” she
whispered back, and scooted down several feet. She looked longingly at the far
end and wished she was bold enough to just keep going until she hit the next
aisle. Or even slip away and come back at a later service. But her manners wouldn’t
allow her to be so obvious.

            The organist
decided three verses was enough and let the last few chords fade away. Alice
mumbled the opening greeting and hoped her face was set in a smile. Of course,
he couldn’t see her expression since they were shoulder-to-shoulder. He smelled
wonderful, as usual, except he lacked the old book smell this time. She let her
eyes slide to the left, taking in his charcoal-gray suit and nice dress shoes.
She’d figured he spent all his time in T-shirts and jeans, but of course he
would be wearing a suit every now and then. Even when the whole world thought
you were the cat’s meow, you still had to dress up for church.