Dead on the Delta

Six



Less than an hour later, I ease through the battered red door of the tavern and take a deep, healing breath of central air. Yet another reason—aside from draft beer and food that doesn’t come from a box—that coming to Swallows is so much better than going home. My ancient window unit never cools down the kitchen; it barely makes it comfortable enough to sleep in my bed.

Some nights I still end up dragging my mattress onto the floor in front of the screen door where a hot summer breeze blows from the front porch to the back, proving shotgun houses are both cheap and practical. Sure, someone could theoretically shoot a bullet straight through my living room, bedroom, kitchen, and out into my backyard if all three doors were open, but what are the chances of that happening?

People in this town need me too much to shoot bullets through my house, even if I weren’t a decent neighbor and friend. Which I am. I love this town, these people.

Especially these people. Swallows is filled with several of my favorites. Shane and Nell, sixty-plus each and newly married, snuggle near the end of the gleaming bar nursing a pitcher of Blue Moon. Bryce, Alvin, and Patrick, old friends who make arguing look like more fun than most marriages, dominate a table for six in the dining room, while Fernando and Theresa huddle in the curve of the bar near the entrance, dark heads bent together, in the midst of some serious gossip. As usual.

Fernando turns as the door slams closed behind me, his amber eyes sparkling above his freshly shaped goatee. “Annabelle! You little slut, we were just talking about you.”

“Don’t call her a slut.” Theresa pinches Fernando’s well-muscled arm. He’s wearing one of his many skintight black tank tops, the ones that cling to each sculpted pec and washboard ab, showcasing the perfection of his body. The better to taunt we straight women with the majesty of the Latino god we’ll never have, I suppose.

He certainly isn’t hoping to hook up with someone at Swallows. Most of Theresa’s clientele is over the hill and all of them are straighter than the broom shoved up Jin-Sang’s ass. Fernando’s own bed-and-breakfast/antique shop/wine bar is the best (and only) place to meet and mingle with other men in Donaldsonville. It’s at the end of Railroad Street, and aptly named The First and Last Chance Wine Bar and Flophouse.

“It’s okay, she knows she’s a slut.” Fernando grins, dimple popping. “Right, honey?”

“That’s right, Fern.” I lean down, letting Fernando kiss my cheek just for the joy of seeing his nose wrinkle.

“Shut the front door! You smell like ass.”

“You would know.” I grin and plunk my purse down on the floor before sliding onto the stool next to Fernando’s.

“Oh, bitchy and slutty today. So, tell me, is it true you were shacking up in the middle of the day with both your doors wide open and—”

“Buffalo wings or cheeseburger?” Theresa interrupts, rattling her armful of bracelets at Fernando like he’s a cat to be scared away. Speaking of cats …

I turn to peer at where my bike and trailer are parked in front of the bar, feeling oddly pleased to see Gimpy still asleep in the back. I’m starting to get attached to the bastard, and would have brought him in if I didn’t know for a fact that Theresa would cut me if I toted something hairy into her place of business. She’s only five feet tall and small enough to wear her twelve-year-old daughter’s clothes, but she’s tough and not a fan of four-legged things.

She grew up in White Castle, the next town over, in a trailer full of six brothers and sisters and triple the number of cats. Rumor has it she drowned them all—the cats, not the brothers and sisters—the day her mother died of a fairy bite, just shoved the rheumy-eyed mongrels in a sack and pitched them into the Mississippi on her way into Donaldsonville.

I’m not sure the story is true, but I’ve seen Theresa draw a gun on a dog that lingered too long near her Dumpster. She didn’t kill it—just fired in its general direction—but still …

“Which one?” she pushes when I hesitate a second too long. “Or are you going to appease my motherly side and order some grilled chicken or something healthy?”

“You have a motherly side?” I ask, grabbing a handful of peanuts from the bowl in front of me.

“My kids think so, but the brats don’t know any better.” She doesn’t bother smiling. We both know she’s kidding. She’d give her life for Dina or Diego. “So, wings, I’m guessing?”

I nod. “With extra blue cheese and an Abita Amber.”

Theresa clicks her tongue and turns away, but not before reaching out to pat my arm. Just once, a swift pat-squeeze that’s over before it begins. Still, the gesture throws me. Theresa isn’t touchy-feely. She must have heard about the body … about what I had to do to the body.

Looking around the room, I spot the sympathetic glances from Shane and Nell and even Patrick—who I haven’t seen look anything but red and angry since the Saints were sold to some frigid state up north where they can’t even pronounce “who dat”—presses his lips together and nods. Ugh … it’s almost enough to make me get up and go home. If I hadn’t already ordered, and Fernando wasn’t acting as catty and gossip-hungry as ever, I might have seriously considered it.

“So you were Afternoon Delighting with police boy, weren’t you?”

“I was. And if Bernadette doesn’t want to hear, then she can close her door or turn up her soaps or something.” I make a mental note to steal my eighty-two-year-old neighbor’s newspaper on Sunday morning. Nothing makes her madder than someone taking her coupons. A petty gesture, perhaps, but I’m sick of her spreading the sordid tales of my love life all over town. Honestly, what does the woman expect? Our houses are less than three feet apart. Even if I closed the doors—which I won’t because it’s too hot to have sex in the summer without ventilation—she’d probably still be able to hear every sigh and moan.

Theresa returns with my beer in record time, proving she’s going soft and feeling my pain. I grab the chilled mug and take a long, cold swig, hoping I’ll be beyond feeling anyone’s pain before the sun sets on this miserable day.

“I don’t see how you drink real beer and don’t get fat.” Fernando shakes his head as he surveys my admittedly flat midsection. “Not to mention all that chicken skin and lard.”

“I’m a skinny fat person, what can I say?”

“So you’re covered in cellulite under those dykey clothes you wear?”

“Totally covered. It’s disgusting, but Cane loves to count my ass dimples, so … ” I shrug, keeping a straight face, doing my best to destroy Fernando’s fantasy life. He’s one of my best friends, but I know he has a crush on Cane and rather enjoys Bernadette’s blow-by-blow descriptions of his sexual prowess. “And my clothes aren’t dykey, they’re functional. Not all of us dust shiny things for a living.”

“I don’t just dust shiny things.” He takes a sip of his Chardonnay. “I also order wine and occasionally pour it myself when Tanner has a day off. And I have been known to wash sheets and make beds occasionally.”

“Very occasionally.”

“Very, very. Why bother when those Mexican girls are so great at getting their maid on for me?”

“Shut the hell up, Fernando.” Theresa plunks down my wings. Wow. Wings and a beer in less than ten minutes. At this rate she’s going to give McDonald’s, the only fast-food restaurant still trucking frozen patties down into the Delta, a run for their money.

“Those Mexican girls will rule this town in ten years,” Theresa says, pointing a tiny finger at Fern’s perfectly sloped nose. He’s had work done, but you wouldn’t be able to tell if you didn’t know him before and after. “My sisters are saving their money. They’re going to lease those two big houses next to the courthouse and open a spa and bed-and-breakfast in a few years and take all of your business.”

“Just what D’Ville needs. A spa,” Fernando says dryly. “I think they’d be better off opening a strip club. At least then Amity’s crowd would have some place to go when she closes at two.”

I kick Fern under the bar, and shoot him a “shut up” look.

Amity Cooper’s new bar—a renovated warehouse filled with big-screen TVs and a stereo system that makes the entire street throb from 9:00 p.m. to 2:00 a.m. every Thursday, Friday, and Saturday—is the bane of Theresa’s existence. Coop’s is three blocks away, but loud enough to disrupt business at Swallows. Theresa doesn’t get many families eating late dinner Thursday through Saturday anymore. People with young kids aren’t comfortable near the noise and the roaring SUVs and the general “gangsta” feel Amity has deliberately cultivated at her new place.

And it isn’t like Theresa or any of the other restaurant owners can complain. Amity clearly slipped a wad of cash in the mayor’s pocket to score the building. The church was after the warehouse for years to build a skating rink—Father Reginald offered a decent price and threatened the mayor with eternal damnation and was still refused—so there would be no help coming from that direction. The only other route for complaint was to appeal to the city council, who are in the mayor’s pocket, or the police force, and Amity’s brothers make up a third of that.

It’s kind of hard to believe Cane and Abe don’t realize their sister’s new enterprise is screwing the laid-back, homey vibe of Railroad Street, but I suppose they have bigger things to worry about than noise control. Like policing the iron fence, or processing bite victims needing to be deported, or writing tickets for people who keep throwing perishable trash in the town’s non-perishable dump and putting our town at risk for some kind of medieval, fleas-on-rats, plague situation.

Or trying to catch a murderer.

Jesus. There’s a murderer in our town. It has to be someone from inside. The average tourist wouldn’t know their way around the Beauchamp mansion so well. They wouldn’t know about the hidden path that cuts through the garden to the family quarters, to the place where Grace slept.

I drown my thoughts in another deep drink of Abita Amber.

“I’m just saying I think your sisters would be hot naked,” Fernando says, his playful tone indicating he’s trying to make nice in his own obnoxious way. Maybe that’s why I like Fern so much. He’s even more offensive than I am. “Not to me, personally, but most straight men think you Swallows girls have the hottest—”

Theresa curses in Spanish, calling Fern a filthy homo who can suck her mother’s eggs—or something like that, my mother made me take French—and sticks her pierced tongue out before going to refill Nell and Shane’s pitcher. Looks like they’re steering clear of the whiskey tonight. Hopefully that will mean a peaceful evening for Dom and a drunk-free drunk tank down at the station. The last thing any of the town law enforcement needs is more crap to deal with.

“But for real, Miss Lee.” Fern lowers his voice as he leans closer. “We need to have a tête-à-tête.”

“Okay. Can I eat while we head-to-head?”

“What?”

“Tête-à-tête. It means head-to-head.” I take a bite of spicy, blue-cheesy goodness and sigh. So good. Buffalo wings are all the proof I need that God loves us and wants us to be happy. Benjamin Franklin once said the same about beer. Because he was a wise, wise man … and buffalo wings hadn’t been invented yet.

“I’m not getting anywhere near your head.” Fernando curls his upper lip. “It looks like you have bugs living in that straw. A deep conditioning treatment should be in your immediate future.”

“Okay,” I say, skipping the usual smart-ass banter. Fern’s heart isn’t in it. I can tell. There’s something in his eyes, something … spooked that I didn’t notice before. “So what’s up your skirt?”

“You shouldn’t talk with your mouth full. It’s gross.”

“You shouldn’t look at my mouth if you don’t like seeing what I’m eating.”

“And hearing it. Could you smack louder?” He turns to twirl the stem of his wineglass. “I can’t believe you’re dating the hottest piece of ass in town. You must be as filthy in bed as you are out of it.”

“Really?” I throw my naked wing bone back to my plate. “Is this what you wanted to talk about? My disgusting eating and living habits?” There’s hurt in my tone. He’s getting to me. I usually have rhino skin when it comes to Fern—I know he doesn’t mean ninety percent of the crap that comes out of his mouth—but tonight I’m feeling fragile. A strange wetness lingers at the edge of my lashes when I turn to grab my beer.

The wing sauce must be spicier than usual.

I slam my empty beer down and swipe the back of my hand across my nose. Runny. “Could you hand me a napkin?”

“Of course. Yeah. Here, take the whole thing.” Fernando stammers, fumbling one of the tightly packed napkins from the metal dispenser between us. “Nards, girl. I’m sorry.” Fernando wraps his arm around me and hugs me to his side, not even flinching when a bit of hot wing sauce transfers itself from my fingers to his forearm.

“It’s okay. It’s just been a rough day.”

“I know. I heard. We all heard. We promised not to talk to you about it.”

“Good idea. Let’s stick to that plan.”

“Okay, then let’s talk about something else upsetting.”

“Do we have to?” I reach for another wing.

“Well, Theresa didn’t want me to tell you.” Fernando pauses, making sure that Theresa is still in the back rustling up food.

“So maybe you shouldn’t tell me.” I’m not really in the mood for more bad news.

“I think you need to know this particular bit of nasty.” He drops his voice further, playing up the drama. “Amity Cooper was in here about twenty minutes ago looking for the ‘redheaded slut.’”

“How do you know she was talking about me? Patrick’s a redhead and I hear he’s a real whore when he’s loaded.”

I know Amity doesn’t care for me. The hateful glares across the supper table on Sundays tipped me off even before she cornered me at the grocery and threatened me with the wrong end of a loaf of garlic bread. She’d actually poked me in the chest and warned me not to “f*ck with Cane.” I assumed she meant metaphorically, but maybe she was being literal and the rumor of my afternoon tryst with her brother has pushed her to the edge.

But whatever. She could tumble over that edge and lose her crappy weave on the way down for all I care. “Meh. Sticks and stones.”

“No, seriously,” Fernando says. “I think she’s out for white-girl blood. I’ve never seen her so pissed. She was out of her mind.”

Hunh. Odd. Amity isn’t usually the type to make a public scene. Even the garlic bread incident was conducted in a quiet, otherwise abandoned corner of the Piggly Wiggly in appropriately hushed tones. “Did she say why she was so angry?”

“No, and none of us were about to ask.” Fernando shakes his head, real fear in his eyes. “Her claws were all the way out and jewel-tipped.”

“Weird.” It is weird. I wonder what I did?

“I was just glad you weren’t here. She could totally take you in a bitch fight.” Fernando steals a piece of my celery, carefully wiping off a lingering bit of sauce with a napkin. “You should talk to Cane about her, asap. She needs to realize she can’t mess you up just because she’s related to half the policemen in town.”

“She won’t ‘mess me up.’ Her mother would kill her for being that tacky.” I wave at Theresa as she exits the kitchen with a tray full of cheeseburgers and cheesier, gravier fries, giving her the universal sign for “bring more beer.” “She’s not nearly as tough as she likes people to think.”

“No, she’s not, but she’s crazy. She really is, Lee, you need to listen to me.” Fernando grabs my wrist, squeezing hard enough to make me wince before letting go. “Some guy got knifed last night at Coop’s,” he says, casting a nervous glance over his shoulder, as if the knife-wielder might be lurking in wait behind the poker machine. “They kept it quiet and off the police scanner, but there’s gang shit going down at that club. You can talk ‘town reclamation’ all you want, but this place is starting to get skankier than a—”

“Ease up.” I refuse to let him finish his no-doubt colorful simile. “I moved here right after the mutations, and I heard people talk about what it was like before. Donaldsonville was post-apocalyptic before a single terrorist set off a bomb in a chemical plant.”

Fern sighs, and does another spooked scan of the bar. “Maybe so, but—”

“We came together and made this town something better,” I say, genuinely irritated with him for the second time in one day. “It’s Mayberry around here compared to those last few years before the mutations. So give it a break.”

He stares at me for a beat before smiling and snatching me up in another hug. I stiffen at the unexpected display. “We love you too, slut.”

I shrug him off with an eye roll. “I just like it here. I like the people. Even Amity. We were cool before Cane.”

“Well, she’s certainly not cool with you now,” he says. “Stay away from her, Lee. I’m serious. She wants to rip your face off.”

“Maybe she’ll like me more in a few days.” Or weeks, or however long it takes for me to get up the ovaries to break up with her brother.

Fern gasps. “You’re not! Are you? Right now? You can’t, not when he’s so in love with you that it sickens people walking down the street to see you together.”

I squirm. “I don’t know. I don’t want to talk about it.” The bell above the door tinkles again, and I turn to look over my shoulder. I intend to make certain it isn’t Amity coming to gut me, then maybe do a quick check on Gimpy to ensure he’s still asleep. But when I see who’s stepped into Swallows I forget I have a woman out for my blood, or a cat, or a huge smear of wing sauce on my chin.

The smell of him hits first, a smell so achingly familiar I would know who it belonged to if I were blind. It’s sage and soap and a hint of clove cigarette, topped with the spice of that gross green shampoo he loves, the one we’d called Martian Spooge and squirted all over the shower making alien-orgasm sounds one of many nights we had a few too many. It’s mint gum and the hint of the garlic-laden something he ate for lunch. It’s cotton and sunscreen and cherry Chapstick, because he’s allergic to synthetics, sunburns easily, and prides himself on having girly-soft lips that he knows exactly what to do with.

It’s just … Hitch. It’s him. It really is.

Something horrible I’ve forgotten I know how to feel fists around my chest, crushing my ribs. I forget how to breathe, how to think, how to move my napkin to my open mouth to wipe the mess away. All I can do is stare, and watch his cool blue eyes register a slight surprise as he recognizes the girl at the bar and then … nothing.

Nothing. Seeing me doesn’t affect him. He doesn’t feel the weight of everything that was once between us pressing down on his face, smothering the life out of him. He doesn’t feel regret and loss and misery slamming into his gut, followed closely by a flash flood of memories of the way it feels to hold my hand, to run down the street giggling and gasping for breath after we let the neighbor’s annoying yapping dogs out of their kennel, to slip all the knots free on my bikini and coax me, naked, into the dark water of the pond behind his house.

He doesn’t remember that he loved me. That he should still love me.

Because he should. If it was ever real, it should still be real. Love doesn’t stop just because you start hating someone. I still love my mother so much it makes me hate her even more every time I think about her. Seeing, remembering—it should hurt Hitch like that. It should hurt him the way it hurts me.