Little Gale Gumbo (27 page)

“I'm not judging you,” he said. “I just want to know what happened.”

“Well, maybe I don't want to talk about it, okay?” she said. “It has nothing to do with you.”

“Nothing to do with me?” Jack looked at her, incredulous. “Jesus Christ, Dahlia. You're my girlfriend. It has everything to do with me.”

“Says who?” she demanded, turning on him. “You don't own me, Jack. You don't get to own things that belong to me just because you think you do.”

“What does this have to do with owning anything? I care about you.”

“Well, maybe you shouldn't care so much.”

Dahlia rose from the bench, suddenly dizzy. She thought of what Josie had said earlier in the night, the suggestion that she'd grown soft and weak with love, and a fierce panic gripped her.

When she moved to leave, Jack reached for her hand, stopping her. “So I should care about you like Billy Forester?” he said. “Only care about going all the way in the janitor's closet? Care about you like that jerk?”

She stared at his sleeve. “You make it too hard.”

“Because I give a shit?”

“I never asked you to.”

He stared at her. “That's the idea, Dolly. Jesus, that's the point.”

She swallowed, feeling the burn of tears in her throat. “Maybe for you.”

Jack considered Dahlia a long moment before he let go of her hand and stood up. “The hell with this,” he said. “Do what you want. I'm going in.”

He turned and walked toward the door. Dahlia watched him go, feeling at once a sharp stab of fear, irrational yet bottomless.

She called out in a voice she didn't recognize as her own, “Jack!”

He stopped and turned to her, his eyes full, his expression worn, strained.

She walked to meet him.

“Now what?” he said.

Dahlia reached out and hugged him fiercely. “Now you hold me,” she whispered against his cold neck. “Just hold me.”

Ben knew Charles had returned. He had only to see Camille's face when she appeared in the foyer later that evening, the drawn expression he'd blissfully forgotten in full view on her usually radiant face. That same night, he turned restlessly under his blankets, trying to fight off the jealousy that surged within him, knowing that Charles was sharing Camille's bed.

The next morning, he left for the café by himself, making coffee and thawing gumbo, stacking pralines and stirring grits in the soft quiet before dawn. When Camille hadn't arrived by noon, Ben put in a call to the house but no one answered. Finally, at four, when the daily coffee-break crowd had finally begun to trickle back out onto the sidewalk and Ben could safely flip the Closed sign over and lock the door, he heard a knock. A heavy dread crawled along his skin as he crossed to the front and let Charles inside.

“Hey, there, Haskell.” Charles stepped in, looking around. “Bet you thought you'd never see me again.” Ben closed the door, surveying the man's gait, surprised at how steady his steps were as he walked toward the counter. “Not a bad-lookin' place y'all got here.” Charles lifted up the glass cover and tugged out a praline, taking a large bite. “Pretty good,” he said, leaving the rest of the disk on the counter and wiping off crumbs on his thigh. “My momma's were better, though.”

“Camille never made it in today,” Ben said. “No one answers at the house. Any idea where she is?”

Charles ambled over to a table, slid in, and stretched out. “She's takin' care of some business for me at the town hall. Gettin' me forms for my fishin' license.”

Ben frowned warily, in no mood for details. “Fix you something to eat, Charles?”

“Oh, no, I ain't stayin'. I just wanted to have a word with ya. Make sure we all on the same page.”

“All right.” Ben took a seat on the other side of the table. “What's on your mind?”

“It's like this.” Charles laced his hands across his stomach. “I don't know what kind of shit you been pullin' this last year since I been gone—and I don't want to know—but I'm here to stay now, and I don't care to see much of you near my wife.”

Ben sat back calmly, crossed his arms. “That's going to be difficult, Charles, seeing that Camille and I work together.”

“Not for much longer, you don't. I told her straight out: I make the money now. I want her cuttin' loose from this here contract y'all got goin'.”

Contract. Ben might have laughed out loud at the suggestion if he didn't worry that Charles would have reached across the table and strangled him. The truth was, legally speaking, Ben was the sole owner of the café, and though others might have recommended some kind of official document to clarify their respective roles as business partners, Ben had declined such an article for his union with Camille. As he saw it, there was no question they were in it together.

“Lobstering is hard work, Charles. You may find you need a bit longer than a few weeks to start seeing some return on your investment.”

Charles's cool eyes narrowed. “Says you.”

Ben shrugged. “Says the lobstermen I know. Smart men who've been doing this for a long, long time.”

Charles considered this amendment, working at a piece of pecan in his molar; then he slapped his palm down on the table, signaling his departure. Ben rose with him, followed him to the door.

At the threshold, Charles paused, turned.

“I know what you think of me, but I'm done with all that,” he said. “The other women, the booze. Camille's gonna see that, and we're gonna be a family again. I'm gonna start lookin' for a new place for us to live, too. Somethin' bigger. You might wanna start lookin' for a new tenant soon as possible.”

Ben closed the door behind Charles, a sinking ache filling him, the longing and despair swift and so staggering that he fell into the first chair he came to.

 

After supper, Ben managed to find Camille alone in the backyard, taking clothes off the line. He glanced around for signs of Charles, and seeing none he moved beside her, slipping behind a flapping sheet. She wore one of his old wool cardigans over her violet caftan, the shimmering fabric billowing out like waves in the wake of a boat. He wanted to reach out and take her hand as it danced down a row of clothespins, wanted to bury his nose in the nape of her neck. But he did neither.

“Missed you today,” he said low.

She turned slightly, her eyes still fixed on the laundry. “I know.”

“You don't have to go through this,” he said. “If you don't want him here, the police can—”

“No.” Camille's eyes flashed quickly to his, then dropped. “It would only make it worse,” she whispered. “He isn't drinking anymore.”

“So he says.”

Camille shrugged. “So he says.”

Ben helped her take down the last sheet, folding it into halves until they came together like dance partners. A flood of wants and fears piled up at the bottom of his throat, clumped, and stuck. When she took the sheet and scooped up the basket, he remained silent, saying nothing as she climbed the lawn, leaving him in the flat shadows of dusk.

 

Two days later, Charles led Camille and the girls down to the town landing, beaming.

“There she is, y'all. The SS
Bergeron
. Ain't she a beauty?”

The women looked down the pier at the small silver skiff that bobbed lazily above the chop, the dory dwarfed even more by the large lobster boats that surrounded it.

“That's not a real boat,” Dahlia said. “It's what you use to
row out
to a real boat.”

Charles's proud smile waned. “Well, sure, it ain't one of those giant things,” he huffed, “but it'll get me out on the water good enough. After a while, I'll get me a bigger one. I figured I'd get my feet wet first on this one. Get my sea legs, as they say.”

“And everyone knows you name a boat after a woman,” Dahlia added.

“Bergeron is your momma's last name too, ain't it, smart-ass?”

Dahlia just stared at him, knowing damn well he hadn't named the boat for his wife, but she imagined their mother was more than relieved not to see her first name scrawled on the side of that pitiful-looking shell.

“It's nice-looking, Charles,” Camille said. “I'm happy for you.”

“Happy for
us
,” he corrected, swinging his arms out, laying one over Camille, another over Josie, and tugging them into his embrace. “I'm gonna catch so many lobsters, there ain't gonna be room for me in that thing. And Dahlia ain't gonna get a single one.”

 

But it wasn't nearly that simple. Too stubborn and smug to listen to the wisdom of the other lobstermen who watched him toil unnecessarily for almost a week, painting buoys and collecting used traps, Charles waved off their inquiries as to where he planned to hang his gaff to haul the traps in, or where he intended to store his catch. By the following Friday morning, Charles decided he was ready to drop his traps, arriving at the dock much later than the other fishermen, some of whom were already back with their bounty and who shook their heads at the sight of the red-haired man in linen pants and a fussy-looking slicker steering a dented boat crowded with lobster pots into the open water, especially with the wind picking up, and a storm headed their way.

Donald Burton, coming back in with his son Arnold on their family trawler and passing the overloaded dory, called out to warn Charles of the incoming clouds, but got only a dismissing wave for his trouble and a roar to mind his own business.

 

A crowd had already gathered at the wharf when Charles and his boat were hauled in just before dark. Charles regarded them all with hateful eyes, daring each and every person to speak their whispered comments aloud as he climbed down to the weathered boards of the dock, still soaked from his unintentional swim. Ben had offered him his coat for the ride, but Charles had refused, just as he had refused any conversation, including Gary Masterson's patient and generous assurances that it had been a rough day on the water and that the capsizing of Charles's boat had been an easy error under such conditions.

“Don't you say a word to Camille about this, Haskell,” Charles warned through chattering teeth as he climbed into the Jeep.

Ben assured him he wouldn't, but it didn't take long for the news of Charles's performance to reach her. Try as Charles did that next morning to convince Camille and the girls that he was a natural on the water, their eyes revealed their lack of faith, but it was Dahlia who gave her disgust a voice.

“Serves you right,” she said from the kitchen doorway. “Everybody told you you were doing it all wrong, but you wouldn't listen.”

Charles shot up from the table and charged across the room, grabbing Dahlia's upper arm and yanking her against him. “Don't you tell me my business, girl.”

Camille rushed behind him. “Charles, don't!”

Dahlia met her father's cold eyes, steadying herself for a blow, but it didn't come. Charles gave her arm one last sharp squeeze, then released her roughly and stormed back to his breakfast.

When he finally managed to haul his small stash of traps out of the water a few days later, he had caught only two lobsters, one of which pinched his fingers when he reached in, and the crustacean found itself hurled back into the waves, leaving only a single, scrawny lobster in his sloshing bucket.

Arriving home, Charles presented his embarrassing yield to a silent table. Camille gave the sisters a quick glance, encouraging their admiration, but only Josie could manage a small congratulation, and Charles already seemed attached to his misfortune.

“The jerks on the dock tell me it's too small to keep, but I don't give a shit,” he muttered. “It's still bigger than a crawfish.” Then he swaggered down to Shell's, ending his short stint of sobriety over a single-malt.

That night, when the house was finally still, Dahlia rose and dressed. It took her nearly a half hour to carry the heavy bucket down to the landing, where a small circle of fishermen stood smoking. If they saw her raise the lobster out of its salty bath and lower it down to the water, they didn't say so. But Dahlia would swear she heard those shiny green claws clap happily as the lobster went over the side, like the high five of a teammate landing the winning basket in a championship game.

 

A week later, Charles announced he'd had enough.

“This time I ain't takin' no for an answer,” he told Camille while she folded laundry at the table. “I gave it a real try, but I was right about these people. You don't belong here, and I hope you see that now.”