Page 16 of The Big Easy & Other Lies
“Friends,” he said, his tone thoughtful. “Angelique and I are more like...cousins. Because wearecousins. Our moms are sisters.”
“Oh,” I said. I didn’t know what to think about that. Did it make it better that I knew he didn’t choose to be her friend on purpose? Or could it mean that he was genetically wired for the same sort of BS I got from her?
It didn’t matter. I’d be getting through this year the same way I had the last three, with Bran and Livvie on either side of me while I made the smallest ripple possible in the LaSalle social pool. I backed up again and smiled, a polite professional smile this time, and pointed toward the door. “I have to go. Miss Annie needs me. Good luck tomorrow.” Then I turned and left Rhett sitting on the piano bench with half a crostini clasped between his fingers and a bemused expression on his good-looking face.
Chapter 7
When Livvie dropped me off after the party, I knew I couldn’t open the door quietly, but I tried to do it quickly. The ten o’clock news would be ending. Maybe Delphine had already nodded off.
No dice. As soon as I flipped the dead bolt behind me, she hollered from the den.
“Get in here! I told you to come straight home after work, not run around with your trashy friends,” she said, when I complied.
“I did come straight home.”
She looked me over. My stained shirt convinced her, I guess. “Annie kept you out too late. I had to order pizza again.”
“It was a big party. The cleanup was massive. I’m sorry it’s so late.” I had scrubbed a million dishes, and my aching shoulders remembered each one of them. “I’m working Wednesday, too. It’s the Gardening Club tea, so I’ll be home by supper. Good night, Aunt Delphine.” I only made it two steps into my escape.
“Hold up,” she said. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“I’m going to shower and go to bed. Do you need something first?” Even if I got her a dozen different items, she’d call me down a few more times to fetch things for her before she dozed off. Pills, a beer, more socks.
“Yeah,” she said. “Go get me my pills.”
Without a word, I headed to her bathroom, my least favorite room in the house. The stink of mildew wafted out of it before I even reached the door, and once inside, my eyes flew to the ceiling bulge in the corner with the same morbid fascination that forced me to stare at traffic accidents when I passed them. The paint formed a huge blister nearly two feet wide over the old-fashioned porcelain bathtub. I could only guess that a slow leak from my bathroom above it swelled the bubble a bit more each day because Delphine, of course, refused to call anyone to check it out.
She never used the tub. The claw-footed monstrosity could have been cool and retro if she wanted to restore it; instead it hulked in the corner with dozens of moldering towels and empty Depends boxes piled in it and spilling out onto the floor. Sometimes Delphine didn’t like to interrupt her TV viewing to get up and use the bathroom.
I edged toward the medicine cabinet over the sink and snatched out the bottle she wanted, jumping back in case the bubble burst right then and I became collateral damage in the splash. The bubble freaked me out more than anything else in the house, even rat skitters. Sometimes if I stared at it too long, I thought I could see it pulsing.
I dumped out a couple pills and jetted from the bathroom, reaching Delphine before I caught my breath.
She eyeballed me and took the capsules I thrust at her, washing them down with a swig of beer. “Why are you panting? You got miles to go before you sleep, girl. Did you find the owl yet?”
I stared at her in disbelief. “I looked for it all weekend. I’ll look for it again tomorrow. But I’m exhausted. You want me to look for itnow?”
A hard light glinted in her eye and the parentheses framing her mouth deepened to crevices. I knew that belligerent expression too well, and my stomach knotted. When Delphine wanted something and couldn’t find it in the piles, she grew testy. If it took too long, she got almost kind of OCD, going through piles over and over again until she exhausted her energy and made me do it while she muttered about people coming in her house and touching her stuff. Looked like we had skipped straight to the making-me-do-it part, and I didn’t dare argue in case it set off one of her screaming fits.
“Yeah, I want itnow. I don’t pay you in cash like Miss Annie does, but you sure cost me a lot more. I keep food in your mouth and a roof over your head, and that means I have some claim on your time.”
I didn’t know a number high enough to quantify how many times I’d heard this lecture. I let it wash over me. Arguing would only prolong it, and either way, I knew I was looking for the print tonight. I nodded and walked out, too tired to be polite. If Delphine wanted to deliver another lecture on manners, she’d have to yell it to me.
I dragged myself to the sitting room. I’d spent most of Saturday digging through boxes that yielded nothing but useless crap. No owls. Possible owl pellet sightings, but definitely not rare art. On Sunday, Delphine had left for morning mass and then driven into New Orleans for some shopping in the French Quarter antique stores. I had used the time to slip back down the hall where the huge fabric mess crowded the doorway of the back bedroom. I had picked it all up and even found over three yards of teal and gray houndstooth that begged me to hide it under my bed, so I did. By the time Delphine had gotten home, I’d made it through over half the sitting room and had found nothing.
She had grunted at this but didn’t challenge me because she had wanted to catch the premiere of the new Lifetime movie. Too bad they weren’t airing more disease-of-the-week schlock tonight; it might have gotten me out of my wild owl chase.
I tugged another box toward me and tried not to scream. Even checking only boxes big enough to hold the framed print, this was taking forever. An hour later, Delphine’s snores poured out of the den, so I escaped up to my bathroom and the only functioning shower in the house, using the water to pound at the soreness in my muscles and wash away the smell of seafood from work.
When I stepped out on the landing, the heat and humidity smothered me as if I hadn’t left the shower. At least the hoarding was less pronounced up here. I wouldn’t wish arthritis on anyone, but it did keep Delphine from climbing up to stow her “collections” on the second story anymore. The mess from earlier years stayed behind the two locked bedroom doors that shared the floor with mine.
With a final cleansing breath, I walked to my dresser and fished out a tank top and knit shorts. The stifling humidity made it too hot to sleep in anything else. Tonight was one of those nights where I identified with poor Tear Girl more than I cared to. I picked the story up and turned to the page where my mother had first painted the evil Nimue. I studied it, the clever strokes of the paintbrush evoking Nimue’s grim satisfaction in Trista’s despair as the old crone whipped her to make her cry and fill the cleaning bucket with her own tears. Not for the first time, I pondered the witch’s startling resemblance to Delphine Landry.
Also not for the first time, I wondered how my mother could paint Delphine so clearly and still die and leave me with her.
Chapter8
Tuesday morning I slipped into my literature class and took a seat behind Bran. We had most of our classes together and almost none with Livvie. She took the honors track. Since academics weren’t a key factor for me in applying to design schools, I settled for making A’s in slightly easier classes this year. Bran took the regular classes because he needed a lighter work load to balance basketball practice. Honestly, though, there was no such thing as “easy” classes and LaSalle Prep.
