Mardi Gras Madness Read online

  Making it easier for Laura to dance in her long gown the band swung into an electrified two-step. Sweat trickled between her breasts and her skirts stuck to the back of her legs. Robert caught a trickle of perspiration on her neck with his tongue. She said, “I wish I could take off this dress.”

  “Oh, you can. But not until after the wedding. Didn’t your mama ever tell you that?”

  “I want to do it right now!” Laura insisted, reeling with white lightning.

  “I accept your proposal.” Robert held up his arm signaling the band. “A wedding march, please!”

  The band, also available for receptions as their advertising said, actually did know the wedding march. Robert led Laura grandly into the store to the electronically distorted chords of Handel. The word passed from table to table, “A wedding, a wedding.” It reached the front counter where Broussard put on a black coat hanging on a nail behind him and shoved an already knotted tie over his head and around the fat creases of his neck. Ceremoniously, he moved from behind the bar to behind the bars of the post office window. “Will the happy couple please step forward?” he intoned. The crowd gathering behind them pushed Laura and Robert to stand before the justice of the peace.

  “Just fill in your name when I get to the blanks,” Broussard instructed and began reading. When he got to the part about anybody knowing why these two should not be wed, he paused and scanned the mob for sober friends, but found none. Broussard shrugged. It made no never mind to him.

  The small blonde woman, whose very intoxicated husband seemed to be acting as best man, took Laura’s left hand and said, “If you are sure you want to go through with this, I’ll witness for you, honey.”

  Laura nodded. “I do, I do.”

  “No, no! You say that at the end,” Robert joked.

  When the moment came for a ring, she presented her left hand unsteadily to her groom. Surprisingly, he had a ring—even if the box did catch in his jacket lining twice before appearing. Broussard put back the box of cheap bands he kept under the counter next to the stamps for such occasions. The ring in the box matched the necklace the bride wore. Taking note of the expensive jewelry, Broussard grew uneasy. Few came so prepared to marry at the barn. His eyes shifted around the crowd, always wild on Mardi Gras night, as if he searched for plain clothes cops who might be lurking, trying to catch him with stolen goods or ready to shut off sales for his home brew.

  “Okay, you married. Sign here. One hundred dollars.” He charged twice his usual fee, and the guy in the tux paid willingly, drawing out an accordion folded hundred dollar bill and declaring blearily, “My lucky hundred, never go anywhere without it.”

  Old Broussard blessed them with a wave of his fat hands toward the door. “Now go on home. Happy honeymoon!” Father Ardoin would not like to hear it, but Broussard’s makeshift marriages lasted almost as long these days as the ones performed in the church.

  The best man tucked the shakily signed marriage certificate and a predated license to marry into Robert’s pocket. Two of Broussard’s bouncers helped the happy couple to their car. They returned to Chateau Camille by the shortest route the groom could remember. Laura dozed. Robert rolled down the windows and let in the breeze, then drove on speedily until the shell drive of Chateau Camille crunched beneath their wheels. The wedding party entourage streamed by as the couple’s car turned in the driveway, sounding their horns in celebration.

  The bride said not a word. Robert had the insane idea she’d overdosed on alcohol, and he had lost her again. He shook his new wife, asking if she was all right, and when Laura laughed, teasing him by pretending to be asleep, he put his cold hands on her warm breasts. She fought him off, still laughing, while he carried her across the threshold.

  “See, I did need the practice,” he said as he headed toward her room. Laura’s wide skirt caught on every outcropping in the hall and draped inconveniently over his hand when he reached for the doorknob of the bedroom. He cursed.

  “Quiet, quiet, shhhh,” cautioned Laura, still giggling.

  Robert bumped the door to the bedroom closed with his hip. Putting her down, he took the marriage certificate and license, propping them on the dresser where Angelle had burned her candles hoping for what had now come to pass. He turned to Laura, the laughter gone, that serious dark look in his eyes she always shied away from, avoiding the passion and the longing of his gaze. He did not appear drunk anymore or joking.

  As for herself, she still felt giddy and lightheaded. When she did not drop her eyes from that black stare, he came to her, put his arms around her and slowly slid the zipper on the back of her dress down until the bodice could be pushed aside. He gathered her breasts in both hands, licking her nipples, massaging their mass until she felt the tingle under her skirts overcome the numbness caused by the alcohol consumed.

  He ran his tongue down to her waist, levered the zipper again and knelt in the pool of her silver skirts as the dress slid from her body. He clasped her buttocks and buried his face in the scrap of black lace panties he had bought for her at Miss Helen’s boutique. His hands slid the lace downward. His lips kissed the spot where she throbbed. His tongue laved her until her legs grew weak from the heat spreading through her body. He caught her and carried her, wearing only the garnet necklace and her wedding ring, to the big four-poster bed where his LeBlanc ancestors conceived their children.

  Laura cried out for Robert to fill the void of nine long months of widowhood. Her nails pressed into his back, and her legs wrapped around his waist. She drew him closer, guiding him inside a body starved for his presence with hands that found the zipper in the tuxedo pants and all the good things ready and waiting inside. When he stopped for a moment to rid himself of the impediments of formal wear, she continued to move beneath him, urging him on. On he went and on, until she cried out so loudly he had to cover her mouth with his and let her absorb his own shout of completion. They did not separate that evening, but slept still twined together until sometime in the night when Laura turned and fit herself into the curve of his body.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Dawn came with the incredibly raucous babble of a mockingbird staking out his territory as he perched on Laura’s windowsill. Slowly, the bride raised her eyelids. The early light pierced directly to the back of her skull rebounding inside her brain causing incredible pain. Laura shut her eyes and attempted to reclaim sleep, but now something else prodded her awake.

  Men, she thought hazily. Why do they always have the urge at six a.m.? Just like David to want it now.

  The prod moved down her buttocks and slipped between her legs where reluctantly she’d come wide awake. A hand slid beneath the barrier of her arm, captured a breast and fondled until it, too, grew alert.

  Laura opened one eye. Something was wrong—the hand tanned even in February, wrong—the scattering of black hair on the back of that hand, wrong—the calloused, blunt fingers—wrong! David had the fair hands of an artist. David, her husband! Laura rolled away from the man trying to enter her, away from the rough, dark hands. She slipped from the bed and stood dizzy and naked among the crumpled clothes and stray studs discarded the previous night. Robert LeBlanc, staring at her from the bed, willed her back under the covers with his bittersweet brown eyes, his bedroom eyes. She gathered up a swath of silvery cloth from the floor and held it in front of her. “We can’t do this.”

  “Even Tante Lil wouldn’t expect us to be doing anything else the morning after our wedding.” Robert grinned and ran his hands over the still warm spot next to him in Caroline Montleon’s big, canopied bed.

  “Wedding?” Laura’s head throbbed, blocking out all recent memories.

  “There’s the certificate.” Robert waved toward the dresser. He seemed very amused.

  “But there have to be licenses and a ceremony and a ring,” Laura babbled like the mockingbird who would not shut up.

  “Old Broussard kindly predated one just for us and one lucky hundred dollar bill. Truly quite a bargain. We’ve ha
d the ceremony and got the ring. Sorry you don’t remember it.” He glanced significantly at her left hand where the antique garnet ring gleamed. “I hope you haven’t forgotten all of last night though.”

  He rose, still erect, from the bed and rubbed against the thin sheet of material separating them. Laura backed away. She suddenly felt sticky and unclean between her legs. “Let me alone. We aren’t legally married.”

  “Then half of Chapelle isn’t legally married. Everyone the church won’t recognize goes to Old Broussard. Everyone in Chapelle accepts these marriages.” Robert no longer smiled.

  “Goddammit, Laura, I waited. You took one step forward and two steps back so many times I didn’t know which way you were going, so I had to make up your mind for you before you could do something stupid like marry that guy back home. Last night, you said you were willing.”

  “I was drunk out of my mind. And Benny Schweitzer is a jerk! I wouldn’t marry him in a million years! We never did—this.” She gestured feebly toward the bed.

  Laura started laughing, even though it made her head ache, at the thought of Benny Schweitzer with his beach ball belly and toupee as an object of jealousy. When she couldn’t stop laughing, she realized she rode the fine edge of hysteria. Tears rolled down her cheeks, and she blotted them with a handful of silver silk. Robert didn’t get the joke. How could he? He snatched the marriage certificate from the dresser and left the bedroom, naked as he was, to retreat to his own room before her laughter woke the household.

  Laura fell back across the bed and muffled her laughter until the tears took over completely. After they dried, only the throbbing in her skull remained along with the knowledge that something that should have been right had gone all wrong again. Exhausted, she slept.

  ****

  Securely wrapped in her flannel nightgown and robe, Laura crept into the kitchen. Nearly noon according to a clock that ticked too loudly. No quiet digital timepieces for Chateau Camille, no sirree. She felt shaky and weak from a night of excess. Pearl, wearing her pink chenille bathrobe, sat at the breakfast table. Her hair lay in a grizzled, frizzy mess around her shoulders. She leaned over a glass full of tomato juice caged between her hands like the elixir of life. She toasted Laura.

  “Hair of the dog. Can I get you a Bloody Mary?”

  “Just coffee, very black.”

  “That’s the only kind I make.” Pearl poured a cup from an insulated carafe and shoved it across to Laura. Some sloshed on the tablecloth, but Pearl only eyed the stain wearily.

  “Miss Lilliane will be in bed all day. I took her a tray, but she only pecked at it.”

  “Where’s—Angelle?” Laura covered her hesitation with a sip of coffee.

  “At school. I swear I had to dress that child asleep and spoon feed her to get her on the bus at eight. Can’t figure out why anyone would put that holiday on a Tuesday. They must have lived different lives back then.”

  “Yeah, why not Friday Gras or Saturday Gras? I’ll have to look that up at the library. The library. It’s Wednesday!”

  “Just sit down, honey. I already phoned you in sick. ’Course, half your staff is sick this morning, but a few good Baptists showed up for work. Don’t matter. Won’t nobody be coming to the library today.” Pearl chuckled slowly as if it hurt her head to laugh.

  “I picked up your room while you slept. Looked in to see if you wanted a tray, too, you know. That tux has to go back to the rental place today, and they sure ain’t gonna be happy about the tears where he couldn’t get the studs out fast enough.” Pearl waited with her usual patience for a comment and got no answer as Laura tried to drown her face in the coffee mug.

  “Ain’t nothing wrong with what goes on between a man and a woman, especially when they been working up to it for over six months. You white folks sure are slow. So, when’s the wedding?”

  “It’s over.”

  “I’d say it just started.” Pearl chuckled again.

  “No, I mean the wedding. I think we were married last night at Broussard’s Barn.” Laura peered shyly over the rim of her cup to assess Pearl’s reaction.

  “Why some of the best marriages in Ste. Jeanne Parish had their start at Broussard’s Barn. My own sister, for one. Ruby coming from strict Catholics, and George Senegal from dyed in the wool Baptists, and him a shade too dark to suit our folks, they ran off to Broussard’s when old Tubbs Broussard had the place. Burned down under his care, but the family rebuilt. His son runs the Barn now. Don’t matter. All of them Broussards is interchangeable. Bands, booze and whores has always been their business. Anyhow, my sister has the best marriage I know of. I always did envy Ruby for knowing what she wanted.”

  “Most of us don’t.”

  “No, honey, most of us don’t,” Pearl agreed. “But I can tell you one man who does. He ate a mighty big breakfast today and went out to the barns. He seemed kind of cranky for a man who finally got what he itched for. He’ll be back in for lunch any time now.”

  “I think he’s really, really mad at me, Pearl. I got a little confused this morning and sort of laughed him out of my bedroom.”

  “Oh, Mr. Bob has a quick temper, but it flares up and then it’s gone. He ain’t one to rake over old coals to stir up the fire again. Give him half a chance. Give yourself one.”

  “I think I’ll go get dressed.” Laura retreated to her room and hid out there for the rest of the day.

  By dinnertime, she had sorted her thoughts and conceived a tentative plan. She would act casually as if nothing significant had happened. After all, Miss Lilliane and Angelle did not know about the pseudo-marriage for the moment. Acting calmly, she’d announce the time had come for her to stop intruding on the LeBlanc hospitality and find a place of her own. Then, she’d move out as soon as possible, away from the influence of Chateau Camille and the yearning eyes of Robert LeBlanc. A quiet annulment based on her inebriated state or the fake predated license—that was her ticket out.

  Of course, she would have to endure some embarrassment. In a town the size of Chapelle, the marriage at Broussard’s Barn had likely been discussed breakfast, lunch, and dinner at most of the tables in the parish. She could brush the event off as Mardi Gras madness and go about her duties quietly and efficiently until the gossip faded away. Perhaps, she would look for another job, far, far away. As soon as she entered the dining room, the bride knew her plan would fail.

  Miss Lilliane occupied Laura’s place across from Angelle. The child beamed. Her first words were, “May I call you Mama now?”

  Unable to answer, Laura smiled painfully at the girl who took that grimace as a yes and rushed to hug her new stepmother around the waist. Robert looked at his wife as if he expected more from her. When she appeared to be frozen in a tableau with Angelle clasped against her, he stood and held the chair at the head of the table for her. That gesture released Laura’s power of speech.

  “Oh, no! That’s Miss Lilliane’s place.”

  The old woman, who wore her dressing gown and slippers like a royal robe, declined grudgingly with a shake of her head, “You’re married to the head of the family now. The place opposite him is yours.”

  Laura could guess the aged librarian’s true thoughts. “First you take my job; now you take my place at the table.”

  Her own thoughts weren’t any kinder. She stared at Robert, who had taken his accustomed place, and willed him to understand—How could he? How could he tell the child! How could he use his precious daughter as a weapon against her?

  He avoided her eyes and pretended to have a great appetite for a chicken leg resting on his plate in a nest of rice and gravy. Laura had no intention of pretending. After a few bites, she pushed her chair back and announced that last night’s festivities had been too much for her while looking pointedly at the other end of the table where Robert hid in the act of eating. She was going back to bed.

  Angelle pleaded, “But Pearl and I have a surprise for you!”

  “It will keep!” snapped Tante Lil, the only other per
son in the room besides Laura willing to admit anything was wrong.

  Laura made her escape to remain sleepless in the night, her head filled with fruitless plans to retreat from Chateau Camille. Early in the evening, Angelle tapped on their adjoining door and asked “mama” to kiss her goodnight. Laura went to the child and tucked her in, though she’d heard Robert’s low voice a moment before as he carried out the same nighttime ritual. In the late hours, he tried her locked hall door very quietly and whispered “Laura” in that deep, strong voice of his. He left her undisturbed when she didn’t answer. All in all, she passed a torturous evening as unlike her wedding night as she could imagine.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  What a hideous Thursday! While stopping for gas at Thibodeaux’s station, the old man looked at Laura slyly, winked and said, “Can I look under your hood, Mrs. LeBlanc, or is T-Bob taking care of all dat now?”

  At the library, coffee break turned out to be a surprise bridal shower complete with a white frosted coconut cake, tiny net sacks filled with pastel candied almonds and numerous small gifts ranging from handmade potholders to a set of peach-colored towels monogrammed with the letter “L” presented by Ruby.

  Of course, Pearl could have told Ruby and alerted the staff, but when questioned, her clerk replied coyly, “Oh, the whole town knows. We could all see it coming—Mrs. LeBlanc.”

  Laura gladly left the festivities to take the phone call from Lola Domengeaux, though she suspected the reason for the summons wasn’t a happy one.

  “Oh, cher, my husband passed dis morning. It’s been coming on a long time, so I was ready, holding his hand at da end. Can’t ask for more den dat. No more suffering for my Louie. Now, da wake is tomorrow night at Duchamp’s starting at six, wit’ a rosary at seven and funeral, Saturday, at ten in da church. I don’t mean to spoil your happiness. One marriage ends and another begins as le Bon Dieu wills it. I’m selling my house, I t’ink, and going to live wit’ my daughter up by Baton Rouge. But we see each other before I go, heh? I got lots of calls to make. You tell da library people. God bless you and Bob and T-Angelle and all dose little LeBlancs you gonna to have. Bye-bye, cher.”