She Walks in Beauty (29 page)

“Sounds like the loup-garou to me.” That was Magic, who, along with Connors, was on her way to get some lunch. “People out in the bayou hang a sieve on their back porch because the loup-garou will have to stop and count every one of those holes, and in that time, you can sling salt on them and that sets them on fire.”

“Hi!” smiled Rae Ann. “Why don’t y’all sit down for a minute?”

Lana didn’t even look up; she just kept brushing her hair.

Magic didn’t take it personally. She was getting used to Northerners’ strange ways, their mamas didn’t teach them any better. She went on with what she was saying. “In Louisiana they warn little kids: You better be good or the loup-garou’ll get you.”

“Like the bogeyman,” nodded Rae
Ann
.

“Yeah, except he’s worse than that. He’s half-wolf, half-monster. Actually, he’s a werewolf who haunts the bayous.”

Lana sniffed. Bayous. Loup-garou. Colored girl
would
use some fancy words nobody’d ever heard of.

“So do you become a loup-garou if one bites you?” Rae Ann was up on her werewolves.

“That’s one way. The other is sometimes people just make themselves into a loup-garou because they want to do evil.”

Lana turned from the mirror and gave Magic a look: Who was she talking about?

Magic caught that one and thought, Shoe fits, chile, you wear it.

Rae Ann wanted to know how you turned yourself into a werewolf.

“They rub themselves with voudou grease.” Magic laughed. “And they are
bad
looking. Hairy with big ears and sharp nails and bright red eyes. Like that.” Magic pointed at Connors’s scarlet cowboy boots.

Lana looked at Rae Ann. See? Those red high heels she was talking about?

“They are
hell
to get rid of. Bullets’ll go right through them,” said Magic. “And they have bats big as helicopters to carry them around. One of their favorite tricks is to drop down your chimney and stand by your bed and yell,
Gotcha!
Scare you to death, if nothing else. They’re thrifty devils, too. Sometimes they turn themselves into mules and work their own land.”

“So how
do
you get rid of them?” asked Connors.

“Well, there’s the sieve trick, with the salt. The other way is to get yourself a nice frog and throw it at ’em. They’ll run off howling.”

Lana snorted. “I never heard such a bunch of crap.”

“Well, you can say what you want to. But I’m telling you, you think your Jersey Devil’s something, you ought to listen up about the loup-garou. Those who don’t are sorry.”

Was Magic threatening her? Lana narrowed her eyes. You go threatening a DeLucca, you’ll eat your words.

“Listen. I’ll tell you a true story, about a loup-garou and a beauty queen.” Magic’s smile was something to behold.

Connors and Rae Ann made themselves comfortable. Lana picked up her mascara.

“Over in Cajun country west of New Orleans, which is where lots of loup-garoux live, there was, not so long ago, a beautiful girl named Danielle. She had milk-white skin, a heart-shaped mouth, big brown eyes, and black curls that fell halfway to the ground.”

“And she was pure as the driven snow,” said Connors.

“Yes, she was, as a matter of fact. Now hush.”

Go, Connors waved a hand. Go on.

“Well, Danielle was the most beautiful girl anyone had ever seen. And the sweetest. She grew up in Abbeville in Vermillion Parish, which is mostly swamp, right on the Gulf. Lots of it washed away in Hurricane Audrey about 30 years ago, but that’s another story.

“Anyway, when it came time to pick a Miss Vermillion, there was no question but what it was Danielle. All she had to do was smile, and the judges just handed the crown over.

“Now, one of the judges was the mayor of the town of Abbeville, and he was a tiny little Cajun man named Claude, middle-aged, sturdy, not much bigger than a minute. But, of course, in Abbeville, he was a big man. At least, an important man. And he was used to getting what he wanted.”

“Which was Danielle,” guessed Rae Ann.

“You bet. Right after her coronation, he slipped over to her parents’ house and asked for her hand, as soon as the beauty-queening was over. And her father, a simple man who earned what livelihood they had hunting and trapping, knew that Danielle couldn’t do any better. Not in Vermillion Parish. And there was no world outside of Vermillion Parish to him, of course.”

“Is there a loup-garou in this story?” Lana demanded.

“Lord, lord.” Magic shook her head. “You folks are always in such a hurry.”

What
folks?

Magic just rolled her eyes.

“Don’t pay Lana no nevermind.” Rae Ann patted Lana on the shoulder as if her friend couldn’t help herself. Though, truth was, she wasn’t so sure Lana really was her friend, even though she’d
seemed
that way.

“So, here’s Danielle, engaged to marry little Claude, whom she doesn’t love, barely even knows. And there’s nothing she can do about it.”

“Except win Miss Louisiana,” said Connors, one jump ahead of her.

“That’s right. Because then, of course, she’ll get to go to Atlantic City, and that’ll put it off at least another six months, maybe a year. And because she’s not a stupid girl and has a mirror, she knows she’s not going to have much trouble with the beauty part. Plus she’s got this wonderful Cajun accent and can tell a story like nobody’s business. But she doesn’t have any talent.”

“Then how’d she win her county?” Lana challenged her.

“Parish. She sang a Cajun song and did a two-step. But that wasn’t going to get her anywhere up in Monroe at the state judging.”

“So what’d she do? Sign herself up with Sally Griffin for some courses?” Connors asked, and they all laughed. Even Lana.

“No. She looked around her house and saw her grandmother’s fiddle up on a shelf, and she figured that was the way to go.”

“Did she play the fiddle at all?” asked Rae Ann.

“Not a lick. But she remembered her grand-mère playing. People said she could outplay the devil. Others said she’d sold her soul to the devil to play like that. Anyway, Danielle thought since she’d inherited her grand-mère’s looks, maybe she had some of her talent, too, she just hadn’t tapped it. So she took that fiddle down and went out in the yard and commenced to playing.”

“Like a dream,” guessed Connors.

“Like a screech owl. It was the worst sound anybody had ever heard. All the neighbors raced out and started throwing frogs, thinking it was a loup-garou for sure.”

“Finally,” said Lana.

“Not quite. Hold on. But, of course, it wasn’t. It was only Danielle. And, being a determined girl, she didn’t give up. She sat out in the yard on a stump and tried and tried while dogs howled and cats ran up trees. Alligators stayed submerged along with the water moccasins. Finally, her mama came out and told her she had to stop, the sound was going to stunt her garden. And just then, Claude drove up in his great big black car, he could hardly see over the steering wheel, and said he wanted to take his sweetheart for a ride.

“Well, Danielle couldn’t say no, after all, she was raised to be polite. So she gets in the car with this rich man she hardly knows, old enough to be her father almost, and they go driving off. And she thinks, Why not give it a shot? Maybe he’s not so bad.”

Lana was frowning that tiny frown, the one she allowed herself only a few minutes at a time so it wouldn’t stick between her eyebrows. But lookit. What was Magic saying? A short man with money, power, and influence old enough to be a beauty queen’s father. Magic thought she was being sly, but really, she was talking about her and Billy Carroll. She knew it. She just knew it. Magic was shooting straight at her. Well, colored girl better watch out for ricochets.

“Claude is asking Danielle a million questions about herself, but it’s like he’s interviewing her. The problem is, the man has no sense of humor. Uh-huh, uh-huh, he says. And no matter how much she throws herself into it, his expression never changes. It’s like she’s this little ball of energy and cute, and he just sucks it all out of her.”

“The Energy Vampire! The Enthusiasm Werewolf! I’ve been out with a million of them!” Connors practically shouted, having had her share of bad experiences with dating. “They’re like vacuum cleaners. Bottomless pits of passivity. You could set yourself on fire and sing ‘The Star-Spangled Banner,’ they’d say, Uh-huh.”

Magic nodded, then continued, “So, anyway, Danielle can see that she’s
got
to save herself. Life with this man would be Night of the Living Dead. They’re driving and driving, and then they stop at this little clearing, a picnic table beneath a tree dripping with Spanish moss, and it’s all very romantic and atmospheric as all get out. There’s no conversation going because
she’s
stopped talking, though he dribbles out a question now and then. She’s trying to figure out how she’s going to do something about her talent, get herself out of this fix, when it comes to her! She’ll do what they said her grand-mère did! She’ll sell her soul to the devil!

“But the question is, How? How does she get in touch with him? Is he listed in the Abbeville Yellow Pages? She doesn’t have a clue.”

“And just then, he drove up in a Lamborghini.”

Magic stared at Connors. Go on, she said. You tell it.

She doesn’t know it, said Rae Ann, and I wish she’d hush.

Oh, all right, said Connors. But she could really use a beer.

I’m going to turn you into a Lone Star in about half a second, Magic warned. Then reached down into her huge purse, pulled out a six-pack, a
cold
six-pack, and said, Who’s drinking?

Now
that
was magic, even Lana would grant her that one. She took her brew and even said thank-you.

Magic asked, Now, can I go on?

Do it, girl, said Connors.

“The most handsome young man Danielle had ever seen rode up on a palomino. You laugh, Connors, your ass is grass.”

Connors didn’t even peep.

“And he leaned down to the picnic table and said, ‘Danielle, my sweetie patootie, I’m going to marry you and take you away from this miserable little toad.’

“Needless to say, Claude was pissed. What the handsome young man had forgotten, if he’d ever known it, was you shouldn’t insult a little man, because he’ll kill you.”

Lana sipped her beer, considering. There was that little man stuff again.

“And then the handsome young man, whose name is Jean-Paul, hands Danielle a fiddle. He says, Take this, my darling dear heart, and fiddle your way to freedom. She stands up to thank him, and he leans over to kiss her. Claude, super offended, jumps up and swats him one, which causes Jean-Paul to bump Danielle’s lip so he sort of takes a little nip out of her.”

Dunh-dunh-dunh-dunh.
Connors was making the
Jaws
sound.

Magic ignored her. “Now, Claude is not your total fool. He realizes that if Danielle can really play the fiddle, she has a good chance of winning Miss Louisiana and then going on to Atlantic City, and if she wins there, which she very well might with a magic fiddle, well, he’s looking at another year by his lonesome. Plus, what’s this guy on the horse
really
got in mind?

“‘Please, take me home, Claude,’ Danielle is saying, fluffing up her curls and wiping the blood off her mouth. Jean-Paul has ridden off into the swamp. She’s holding the fiddle very carefully, on the other side of her
away
from Claude, her mother not having raised any idiots.

“‘Fine,’ says Claude. ‘But promise you’ll come with me to the Courir de Mardi Gras tomorrow night.’

“‘Oh, sure,’ said Danielle. Anything to get home and see if her magic fiddle really worked.

“Now, the Courir de Mardi Gras, because I know you’re about to ask, is this tradition that Cajun people celebrate out in the country at Carnival time. Men set out on horseback and ride from house to house collecting all the ingredients for a gumbo big enough for the whole community—a chicken here, sausage there, okra, tomatoes, onions, hot peppers, and so on—and then they bring it all to the square in the center of the town where men cook it up. Then they have a big dance.

“So Danielle agrees to go to the Courir de Mardi Gras, and Claude takes her home.

“Once she’s there, she sits out on the stump and picks up the fiddle, expecting to hear the most wonderful sound, but nothing happens. She bows again. Nothing. The fiddle is absolutely mute, no matter if she plucks it or bows it—which is a kind of miracle in itself, though not the one she was hoping for.

“So now Danielle is really distraught. Here she thought she’d gone and sold her soul to the devil, and it turned out to be a dud. A fake. Just the handsomest young man she’d ever seen on horseback, but what good did that do her? She was still engaged to Claude, and she didn’t have a pageant talent worth spit.

“She moped around the house the whole next day, plucking the fiddle now and then, but still zip. Her mama kept asking her what was wrong. Nothing, Danielle answered. Nothing, nothing, nothing. Girl, you’ve got yourself such a negative attitude all of a sudden, you’ve not only put a hex on my garden, but the Courir de Mardi Gras didn’t even stop here. Probably thought my tomatoes was poison. And her mama was right. No one had come by.