A Trashy Affair (7 page)

“Jane?” Merlin asked.

“Sure. I don’t own you.” There, she’d made her point.

“I’m Wanda, and that’s good to know. Come on, tall, dark and handsome.”

That left Jane with average-sized, red-haired, and so-so looking Blaine who turned out to be a decent dancer because he didn’t try any fancy moves beyond his level of skill. He seemed a nice enough guy, too. They talked a little. He worked fourteen days on, fourteen days off in the oil patch. When he got a paycheck, Wanda had no objections to going out with him. He knew enough to give his date some space.

“Yes,” Jane said. “We all need space, but Wanda doesn’t appear to be giving much of that to Merlin.”

The honky-tonk woman had her arms locked around his shoulders and the rest of her body applied like wet paint to his body. As for Merlin, he rested his manly chin on the top of her head and just kept on dancing in his slick shoes. They stayed with their impromptu partners for the whole set.

When the band took a break, Wanda kept Merlin’s hand. “Why don’t we buy these nice folks a round of drinks, Blaine?”

“No, thanks,” Jane said simultaneously with Merlin.

“I think we’d better be getting home. If you want to leave, Jane?”

“Yes, but great meeting you.”

“You got a cell phone?” Wanda asked.

“Nope,” Merlin replied. Jane knew he did, but he’d left it in the truck.

“A pen?” Wanda inquired, not giving up.

Jane opened her small purse. “I have one.”

“Great!” Wanda used the borrowed pen to write her phone number on a paper napkin. “Maybe we can double date sometime. Personally, I think Blaine and Jane make the little ole cutest couple.” She didn’t elaborate on the kind of couple she and Merlin made, but Jane suspected “hot.” Wanda shoved the napkin into his hip pocket.

Without comment, Merlin picked up the tab from the table and nodded good-bye. He preceded Jane to the cashier. She outdid herself dodging crowded tables to get there first and slap her credit card down on the counter. Merlin handed it back to her and replaced it with one of his own.

“But I owe you for the yard work!”

“Nope. What you owed me was the pleasure of your company for the evening. That’s all I asked for, Jane.”

The pleasure of her company—why did that thrill her down to the peep toes of her sandals? Oh-oh, maybe he’d expect more pleasure when they got back to her house. She had him figured out and her pepper spray ready all the way back to Chapelle. He didn’t talk much, just turned on the radio, and kept his eyes on the road. She’d been watching his drinking in case she had to take his keys and drive the humongous truck, how she wasn’t sure. However, Merlin confined himself to that one whiskey before dinner and half a beer after. Mostly, they’d stuffed themselves with good food and danced. Tired and full, sure Merlin had total mastery of the road, Jane dozed. The pepper spray fell from her grip and rolled under the front seat.

She woke when the big engine went silent. Groggy, she reached for the door handle, but Merlin stood there ready to help her down. He did that by putting his hands around her waist again and lifting. She should protest these peremptory moves, but somehow her will wasn’t functioning at the moment. He walked her to the front door where a couple of moths made love to her glowing carriage lamp.

“I didn’t say how pretty you look tonight.” Drawing his fingers along her collarbone, he touched her necklace. “Great dress, but this I don’t get—broken chunks of glass?”

His hand stayed right there. Her pulse picked up speed. “Recycled wine bottles.”

“Oh. I know where you can find one made out of gum wrappers and pull tabs.”

“Are you making fun of me, Merlin?”

“Nope.” He lowered his head for the goodnight kiss, and he kissed the way he danced—with complete mastery. His hand slipped behind her head, holding her at just the right angle. He started out firm and commanding, then added a few fun flourishes of his tongue.

By the time he finished, Jane heard herself say, “Would you like to come in?” as if she’d pre-recorded the message.

“Not our third date yet. I don’t want to rush you.”

“Merlin, we haven’t had any dates.”

“We had dinner together the other night and again tonight.”

“If you count those, you might as well say sitting on your stoop the first night we met was a date.”

“I wouldn’t go that far.”

Pity. Shame on you, Jane. Get a grip. Mental chiding in full force, she answered, “Okay. Well, thanks for a nice evening. See you around.”

“Tomorrow. I’m bringing Granny over to see the flowerbeds, remember?”

No, she didn’t. That kiss had wiped out a memory circuit for sure. “Right. Tomorrow.”

Chapter Seven

The growl of Merlin’s truck announced Olive Tauzin’s arrival. Jane recalled her from the closing on the house as a sweet old lady with fluffy white hair drawn into a tight little knob on the top of her head and round, dark eyes that filled with tears as they signed the papers selling the family home. Thinking the loss made Mrs. Tauzin distraught, Jane promised to take good care of the property.

“No, no,
cher
. You don’t understand. I’m crying because you saved the place and won’t tear it down like the other bidder.”

Jane knew someone else had offered close to a hundred thousand for the corner property now near a stoplight. Her own bid of forty-five thousand seemed pitiful and unfair, but the house needed more than that amount in renovations according to a study she paid to have done before buying. She had to take out a second loan to get the job done. If the Tauzin home, built in 1875, had passed into those other hands, the convenience store and gas station would be sitting on this lot and not across the street on the other side of the light.

Regardless, Olive Tauzin seemed like the kind of old-timey woman who would make everything from scratch. Jane spent her Sunday morning baking a pecan pie using nuts gathered in the yard and stored in the freezer along with her mother’s own recipe for an extra-flaky crust. She scalloped the edges with a spoon and in the end her masterpiece resembled a giant sunflower. Gathering lemons from the tree Merlin had observed had a real nice crop, she made fresh-squeezed lemonade with real sugar and put on a pot of coffee, dark roast, the way Cajuns liked it. She had no dining room, but the kitchen was spacious with plenty of room for a table and four chairs. A bowl of extra lemons held in a brown glazed bowl and accented with sprigs of the sweet olive now blooming wildly since being liberated from the vines sat in the center of that table. Glasses, mugs, plates, spoons, dessert forks and a pie server waited for the arrival of company.

Jane expected a knock any second at the kitchen door but instead, her front bell rang. She hurried through the house to find Olive Tauzin sitting on the porch swing and Merlin carrying a walker with yellow tennis balls on its feet up the steps.

“Oh, you should have come in the back way. It’s shorter. So nice to see you again, Mrs. Tauzin.”

“We’re guests, not family. Call me Olive, or Miss Olive if you need to. I want to see the house. Merlin told me what a good job you did with it. How nice the floors turned out. Didn’t know all that wood was under there. I made sure the tennis balls are on tight so I didn’t ruin them.”

Olive raised herself up on the walker her grandson placed carefully before her. A tiny woman, her black eyes as bright and curious as one of the squirrels in the pecan tree, she moved across the porch at a fairly good pace. Her lace-collared, flowered dress hiked up in the back as she bent over and showed a bit of her slip. She entered Jane’s house, peeking into the small living room where Jane had laid down a tan and white cotton rug and furnished with two overstuffed chairs and a comfortably battered brown leather sofa. The television hid in an old cypress cabinet. Small local works of art enlivened the walls.

Olive thumped across the hall. “What do you call this room?”

A desk of dark cherry wood held her computer. A rug, faux oriental from Lowe’s, covered the floor. Crowded bookcases covered the walls everywhere except the two window spaces and the small, corner fireplace.

“My library. I guess that’s sort of pretentious.”

“Nope, you got enough books for it. See, I told you she has class, Granny,” Merlin said.

“Those fireplaces work now? We closed them up to keep out the draft,” the old lady said. All four of the original rooms had them built into corners sharing the two brick chimneys on either side of the house.

“Yes, they do. Not that we need them very much in south Louisiana.”

“Folks used to keep low fires burning to cut the humidity even in summer.”

“Interesting, I did not know that. Sometimes on a rainy night I make a fire and run the air conditioner at the same time. I know I’m wasting energy, but…”

“Enjoy life while you can and don’t worry so much,” Olive advised. “Old age comes quick enough.” She thumped off to the next room and, without a moment of hesitation, threw open the door to Jane’s bedroom.

“A brass bed, I knew it,” Merlin commented from behind the two women.

Jane’s eyes went immediately to her nightie and matching sea foam green robe hung over the footboard. Her silly, pink bunny slippers peeked out from under a bed skirt the color of spring foliage like shy, woodland creatures. In a hurry to start her preparations that morning, she hadn’t pulled up the floral-sprigged comforter or fluffed her pillows. Her jewelry and makeup covered the top of a light oak dresser helter-skelter. Slung over a chair upholstered in fabric that matched the comforter her dress from dancing at Mulate’s failed to cover the underwear on its seat.

“Green lace,” Merlin said, his voice deepening with regret as if he’d thrown away a great opportunity.

“We don’t mention a lady’s unmentionables, even if she leaves them out where everyone can see, boy,” Miss Olive corrected.

“Sorry, I had no time to clean this morning. I baked a pecan pie. Would you like some pie? Let’s go to the kitchen.” Jane shut her bedroom door the second Olive Tauzin’s rear cleared the jamb.

“I want to see the other bedroom where Herve and me used to sleep.”

For a cripple, the old lady could move. She flung open that door and registered her disappointment. “Not much in here.”

Jane’s dusty treadmill sat in the middle of the room facing a small, portable TV on a stand. “I haven’t decorated in here yet, but when I can afford the furniture, I’ll make a guest bedroom. The bath turned out nice. Would you like to see the bath?”

At least, she had taken the time to scrub that and put out fresh towels for her visitors in case either of them needed to use the facilities. Right next door, it had been added to the rear of the house just like the kitchen, hence her fear of streaking across the hall to her bedroom when Merlin lurked by her refrigerator the other night.

Not lemons but palm trees dominated the décor on the wallpaper and the appliqué on the guest towels. She’d retained the old claw-footed tub and pedestal sink, both refurbished, but added a showerhead and a curtain patterned in fronds that could be tucked in when she wanted to wash her hair. Otherwise, she liked to luxuriate in the deep, refinished bath, preferably with bubbles or scented bath salts in the water. The commode, however, was new. No way to get years of stains out of the old toilet. One of the workmen hauled that away to make a planter at his house.

“Nice,” Merlin said, glancing from the oval framed mirror over the sink to the deep tub and back as if he fantasized about Jane covered in a froth of bubbles while he shaved his heavy, black beard.

Or maybe, she invented the fantasy. He’d be wearing only a towel, low slung on his hips. The mirror revealed his muscled chest covered in a mat of black hair, his swarthy face lathered in pure white shaving cream. He caught her watching and unleashed a lascivious smile that promised he’d soon be in that tub with her.

“Pie! Let’s get out of here and have pie.” With her heart beating way too fast, Jane led her guests to the kitchen.

Merlin got his grandmother settled while Jane poured the lemonade and cut thick slices of her pecan masterpiece. She awaited Olive’s verdict. The old lady considered the dessert as if she were judging in a 4H contest. She stuck a fork in one petal of the crust and watched it flake off and drift to the plate.

Eyeing the filling, Olive said, “You used the Betty Crocker recipe with the three eggs and the light corn syrup, no?”

“Why, yes.”

“I always used Steen’s molasses. It makes a rich, dark pie, but your crust is good. You used pecans from my old tree. Most people won’t bother to shell those little nuts, too small. They been spoiled by those huge, tasteless paper shell pecans. These are sweet, sweet.” Finally, the judging done, Olive took a bite, nodded, and declared, “Tasty.”

“Real sugar in the lemonade, too. I was afraid you’d use that artificial stuff.” Merlin drained his glass and dug into his pie. Between large bites, he said, “Say, I’d like to go upstairs to my old bedroom in the attic and see what you did with it.”

“The
garçonniere
,” his grandmother corrected as she accepted a mug of coffee.

“You can slap a fancy French name on it, but us boys still slept in an attic with two mattresses on the floor and one rattling old air conditioner to make it bearable in summer.”

Miss Olive sniffed. “In my day, no one had air conditioning, and we didn’t complain. Go on if you want. You know I can’t do those stairs no more.” She accepted another tee-tiny piece of pie before they left the kitchen.

Jane and Merlin went out on the front porch and climbed the outside stairs to the traditional
garçonniere
. She explained as they went that some of the old boards had been replaced, but the contractor had carefully matched them with aged cypress to replicate the weathered gray color. As they entered the area, Merlin ducked his head to keep from bashing himself on the slanting roof beams. He glanced around with amazement.

“I’ve grown some since I last slept here. The trick is to remember to stay in the center of the room. If the place had looked like this in my time, Doyle and me would have thought we were staying at the Hilton. Gaw, you put in a bathroom.”