A Trashy Affair (15 page)

“I do not require a report on your bodily functions.” Nadia stood, turned, and poured coffee from her private stock into a stainless steel travel mug. The block of cake with most of the icing licked off sat on the corner of her desk. Suitably, only the letters PP remained. She resumed her seat and swiped up the remaining frosting on a thick finger. Without taking her steely gaze from Jane’s face, she sucked the finger clean. “Either come in and shut the door, or get back to work.”

With a thought in her mind about cobras hypnotizing their prey, Jane bolted back to the reception desk where Angela greeted her with, “Thank God you’re back. I so gotta pee. Because of the B-A-B-Y,” as if no one in the office could spell. The pregnant woman dashed into the public restroom before returning to her job.

The first joy of the afternoon—a call from Waldo Robin.

“Jane Marshall’s office, please.”

“This is Jane.”

“Oh, good! I got your message from Aunt May that you wanted me to get in touch about getting together. No need to be shy. You could have called me the way modern women do when they want a man, I mean, a date.”

“I can’t take personal calls at work. Catch me at home.” Only postponing the inevitable, Jane disconnected.

The next time she answered a call, an irate voice shouted into her ear, “What for you took my crazy Tante Rachael to da psych ward? Everybody know she nuts but harmless. Who is gonna pay for dat ambulance? Better be the parish, you hear you me?”

Feigning ignorance, Jane took his name and number, said the parish president would get back to him, and prayed for the day to end. Eventually, it did.

****

Her new trash receptacle waited at the end of the driveway when Jane arrived home. Full of rapture, she left her car right there and went to hug the can’s solid, square sides. She inhaled its new plastic smell. Opening its kind of flimsy lid, she admired the pristine interior soon to be filled to the brim with her very own garbage. Now to see how this baby handled. Jane swung it around and began to push it toward the garage. The cheap wheels caught in the gravel. She applied more force and got the can rolling again. A few feet later, another jam occurred, this one more stubborn. She put her back into it and gave a mighty shove. One of the wheels popped off and rolled free onto her lawn.

“No! No!” Jane gathered the stray wheel and tried to stick it back on the axle, but the plastic hub had split. It held for a few inches, then went rogue again. Finally, she placed the wheel atop the can, turned the receptacle to drag position, and drew it backwards to the garage. The slim metal axle dug a line into the driveway as she went. Parking it next to the sturdier green can the Senegal trash collectors had used, Jane transferred the party trash bags to the new one. She’d figure out how to get it to the curb on Thursday.

Entering the house, she rushed to catch a ringing phone before giving it any thought. The measured, lugubrious voice of Waldo Robin said, “Hello there, Jane. Can we talk now?”

“I just walked in the door from work, and…”

“I only want to confirm our plans for a date. Friday night, dinner and dancing at Broussard’s Barn. I find the place more authentic than Mulates. Too many tourists go there these days, but Broussard’s is still an undiscovered treasure. Pick you up at six-thirty unless I get a call to retrieve a body. Will that work for you?”

She wanted to say, “Tell it to the Tourist Commission,” but kept her word to May. “That would be fine. See you, then.” She disconnected. Nothing in her promise said she must stay on the phone making chitchat and gushing over the details of their evening together.

Making a salad and boiling some noodles, Jane fixed a meal featuring leftover cocktail meatballs over pasta. She sort of regretted using the last of the cake to take a poke at Nadia, but plenty of other goodies beckoned. Reminding herself that she’d end up a size 42DD cup if she indulged in too many sweets, she confined dessert to a pecan tartlet and a single chocolate chip cookie accompanied by two cups of coffee. Ah, the caffeine rush she’d been missing all day.

Okay, she’d kept Angela’s pregnancy a secret. The girl would surely spill that any day and get one burden out of the way. The origin of the off-color note must remain buried for now, but she did hope Angela would fess up when she quit to become a stay-at-home mom. She’d set the date with Waldo for better or worse. Now to get up her courage and approach Merlin’s door for the giving of the second chance requested by Miss Olive.

Jane took down two of her signature lemon-decorated pottery plates and arranged one with an attractive display of sweets. The other she piled high with turkey sandwiches, little cabbage rolls, meatballs, and cold boudin sausage. Stretching plastic wrap over both, she backed out her kitchen door and moved across the lawn to deliver her load to Merlin. He did not sit in his accustomed place on the stoop. The sun had sunk below the horizon without much fanfare this evening. No need to watch it, she supposed.

She used Cane View’s glaring parking lot lights, the ones that blotted out the stars, to make her way across the street. The second she set foot inside the gates, Merlin’s outside lamp flicked on and his door opened as if he’d seen her coming and wanted to invite her inside his place. Jane felt gratified for a few seconds as she crossed the lot until a small woman stepped out. The petite lady turned to face Merlin who stood in the entrance.

Whoever she was had dark brown hair liberally streaked with blonde hanging halfway down her back in long, loose waves, very striking against a tight, stretchy black top that emphasized her delicate bones. A short, black skirt with a slit up the back clung to her shapely rump. The other woman wore dark hosiery with seams running up the back, the kind you’d hold up with a sexy garter belt, and high heels, also black, that did not nearly elevate her to Merlin’s height. She ran a dainty, almost child-like, hand over his big, stubbly chin and said something in a low, scratchy-soft voice. He put his hands on her tiny shoulders and lowered his head. She placed a kiss on his cheek.

Plates in hand and no place to hide, Jane froze in mid-parking lot. Then, Merlin spotted her of course. His hands remained on the woman’s shoulders, but he called out, “Jane, come on over here,” as if she had some other destination and wandered around parking lots with food in her hands every night—to feed stray cats, perhaps. That’s how she’d probably end up if she stayed in Chapelle, a pathetic cat lady, if she didn’t want to live over the mortuary with Waldo.

So now what? Come and meet the woman he’d spent the day with, probably in bed, not on the sofa, the lover his granny had no notion of as she tried to match Merlin and Jane? She would deliver the food, go home, and consider that promise null and void.

Stepping forward and managing a big smile, Jane held out the plates. “Leftovers from the party on Sunday. Since you will be home all week, they shouldn’t go bad. Too much for me to eat. Here you go. Just leave the plates on the porch when you’re finished.”

Why, oh why, had she used real plates instead of paper? Had she harbored some kind of subconscious wish he’d come to her kitchen door to return them and stay? Nothing for it now but to hand him her nice pottery dishes and make her escape.

Merlin turned the woman around to face Jane. Her aging face crinkled into a happy smile that deepened the lines beside her nose and emphasized the crow’s feet at the corners of a pair of rather lovely, but vacant brown eyes very heavily made up. From the bottom step of the townhouse, Jane caught a whiff of the menthol cigarette smoke that permeated her clothes and her gorgeous hair. My God, she had to be at least forty. Didn’t women that old know not to wear red lipstick, some of which marked Merlin’s cheek? He’d spent the day with this cougar, but didn’t want to stay the night with her?

Before he could open his mouth, the woman began to gush, “Is this your sweetie, Merry? Are you Jane? Mama said Merry had a sweetie.”

Jane looked over the woman’s head and said, “I thought you hated being called Merry.”

“No, he doesn’t. I called him Merry from the day he was born, my cute little Merry bug.”

The dense black of his stubble could not hide the red creeping up his neck to his cheeks. “Jane, this is my mother, Jenny David.”

“Oh! Nice to meet you, Mrs. David.”

“Jenny, everyone just calls me Jenny. See.” She pointed to a nametag pinned to the scooped-neck, stretchy black top. A pushup bra squeezed her small breasts into two arcs popping above its neckline. Anything else she said got lost in the roar of a motorcycle rounding the corner at the stoplight.

“Sorry, I can’t hear you, Jenny. I don’t know why they can’t put mufflers on those things.”

“Because that would ruin the fun,” Merlin shouted over the racket as the big hog turned in at the gates of Cane View.

“That’s Harley, my husband, come to take me to work. Over here, honey!” Jenny David waved frantically as if the rider might not see her. No chance of that.

He pulled up right in front and got off his bike. Loosening a leather jacket stowed on the back of the motorcycle and similar to the one he wore hanging open he held the garment for his wife. “Come on, Jen. We’re running late, and it’s getting chilly.”

A good ten years older than Jenny, Jane judged, the man with the wind-reddened face nesting between long, untrimmed sideburns that merged with a chest-covering gray beard got his passenger settled before saying, “I guess you’re Jane.”

“My stepfather, Harley David.” Merlin came down the stairs and took a helmet off the rear if the bike. Tenderly, he fastened the strap under his mother’s chin. “You promised to wear it.”

“Harley doesn’t.” She pouted like a first-grader.

“Well, baby, I got a very hard head.” Harley reset the flat, leather cap a la Marlon Brando he wore instead. He leaned toward Jane, or rather the plates she held. “I got me the munchies, you mind?”

Digging his fingers under the plastic wrap, Harley helped himself to some boudin. Jane recognized the sweet scent of pot clinging to the facial hair and the Grateful Dead T-shirt that spanned across his vast belly.

“Be my guest. I brought this for Merlin.”

Harley wagged a piece of sausage at his stepson. “If she can cook, she’s a keeper. Sorry, we got to run.” He shoved the remainder of the boudin into his mouth, remounted his bike, and took off with his silver ponytail flailing in the wind and his wife clinging to his back.

“Part of my family,” Merlin said flatly.

“Interesting.”

“You could say that ten times over. Looks good.” He nodded at the plates.

“Here you go, then.” She finally handed over the dishes. “You’re letting bugs in.” Jane pointed to his open door.

“Yeah, right.”

He gave the plates back to her and went to click the door shut. Obviously no invitation to come inside would be forthcoming. Merlin reclaimed the food.

“My mission is complete then. I vowed to foist leftovers upon you, and I have. Time for me to go.” Had all their ease and banter dissolved like the fog on Thanksgiving Eve?

His big jaw struggled to find a tidbit of conversation. “Um, I saw you got your new trash can finally.”

“Yes, it’s a piece of crap. One of the wheels already fell off.”

“I could come over and fix that for you.”

“I’ll manage. Maybe Super Glue will take care of it.”

“That won’t work. I don’t mind doing it.”

“No, you’ve done enough. I mean in cleaning my yard, mulching, planting. I still feel I owe you.”

“Nope, we’re square.” Finally, he managed to acknowledge the alligator in the bayou, metaphorically speaking. “Ah, Jane, about the other night. I did want to stay, but I don’t sleep very well. I toss a lot and get up in the night. I’m not a good bed partner.” To say the least.

“Sure, no problem.” She half turned to go.

He stopped her once more by saying, “I’d like to take you out again, maybe to a movie in Lafayette on Friday night.”

“Sorry, I have a date to go dancing at Broussard’s Barn that evening.”

His stubbled jaw dropped, and she enjoyed the sight. Waldo was good for something after all.

“I thought you weren’t going with anybody.”

“What can I say? Suddenly, I’m popular. See you around, Merlin.” She hastened away before he could ask the name of her escort and left him standing with two of her good plates in hand. If he truly wanted to see her again, he’d return them washed and in person. She’d given him a second chance along with the leftovers, but she did not have to make it easy for him.

Chapter Fourteen

Merlin Tauzin took a long time to eat those leftovers. Jane caught no sight of him the rest of the week. The weather turned gray and nasty with a chilly drizzle that refused to turn into a real rain. Neither of them spent any time watching the sun set. Jane heard his truck come and go, watched his lights turn on and go out, but the man himself might as well have been invisible.

She came home on Thursday to find her trash can not only fixed, but sporting a whole new set of wheels, chrome-spoked and rubber-rimmed, that slewed glittering through her gravel to the curb like a Coast Guard cutter pursuing drug runners. Her nice dishes, washed, sat on the kitchen steps. Coward—but he had left a note wedged between them.

“Thanks for feeding me. I fixed your trashcan. We are still even. Merlin.”

His writing, like his hands on her back, stood out strong and bold in black ink on a piece of paper torn from a notebook. She started to toss it, but ended up shoving the folded, single sheet into her desk drawer, keeping a final memento from Merlin the Magician. The message light blinking on her extension phone caught her eye. Maybe, he’d called, too, to see if she’d gotten home, found the plates and the repair.

No such luck. The recorded voice of Waldo Robin reminded her of their date on Friday and the pickup time, then launched into a recitation of his schedule. “I have a wake tonight and a rosary at eight a.m. before we take the deceased to the church at ten. Burial at noon. I should be free and clear by two, excluding any emergencies. I am so looking forward to having you in my arms again—on the dance floor of course.” He ended with a forced chuckle.