Page 18 of Broken Bayou
“Let’s eat. I’m starving,” Mama said, sliding into her seat at the table. She wore her tightest pair of jeans and a top that would have fit better on Mabry.
The Aunts scowled and simultaneously asked the Lord to bless our food and forgive us our sins. The last part directed at Mama.
“Guess who got a job today?” Mama said in a singsong voice as she slung mashed potatoes onto her plate.
I studied her. Mama getting a job during summer was not normal. She liked her months off. Said it gave her time to think, whatever that meant. Something was up.
“Why’d you get a job?” I said.
She smirked at me. “You’re welcome.”
“Where you gonna be working at?” Pearl said.
“Oh, just a temp job at a little office up the road. Guy who runs it is a real hotshot. Drives a Cadillac. Probably a bookie, but whatever; he’s paying me cash.” She winked at me. “He’s a pill, but I can handle his type.” She hoisted up her already-hoisted breasts. “He would not stop staring at the ladies the whole time he interviewed me. Perv.” She found my gaze and winked. “But the pervs are the easiest to control.”
My eyes stay fixed on the glass door. A door that once led to a dark narrow office. My seventeen-year-old self never stopping to thinkwhythat door was unlocked at two o’clock in the morning. Papers werescattered all over the floor, the phone off the hook and hanging over the side of the desk. A chair overturned. A safe in the corner, open and empty. But I found what I needed. I punched the eject button on the antiquated video recorder, snatched the black tape that shot out, then ran as fast as I could into the night.
Travis opens the car door, and I snap back to reality. He studies my face. “You okay?”
I blink several times. Away goes the memory. Professional Willa is back. “I’m good. But I think I better get back.” I leave off the last of my sentence:to a box of forgotten tapes.
“Sure, but we need to make a stop first. That’s why I got you these.” He smiles and presents a pair of bright orange rubber boots. “I guessed your size.”
I stare at his hands. “What are those?”
“Bayou boots.”
Oh no. Absolutely not. My next stop needs to be Shadow Bluff. “Travis, I don’t—”
The radio on Travis’s dash crackles. “Hey, Travis. You out there?” The woman’s voice on the other end contains the distinct gravel of a lifetime smoker. She sounds tired and bored.
He unhooks the radio from the dash. “I’m here, Margie. What’s up?”
“Is your phone off or something? Chief needs you. Now. Crowd’s getting out of control. It’s a circus down there. Check your gosh-darn phone.” The radio goes silent.
He looks at me and shrugs. “Sorry. You can wait in the car if you want.”
He shifts the truck into drive and pulls away from the antique store. Away from the woman sweeping. Away from the glass door. Toward a place that has me regretting I ever said yes to breakfast in the first place.
Chapter Six
Travis takes a hard turn, and I grab the side handle of the door as the truck bounces through the ruts on the dirt road.
“Sorry,” Travis says and slows down.
On my right is a long narrow hill I haven’t seen in decades. The levee. Echoes from the past fill my head. Of me showing up at Travis’s house in the middle of the night.I need your help.I exhale in an attempt to slow my heart rate, but it doesn’t work. I don’t like the momentum right now. I can feel it shifting. Like one of Mama’s moods. The memories. The tape. The bayou. Every turn in this town leads to something I want to forget.
Travis eases his truck off the road and pulls behind another large truck, which is parked behind a line of cars. I want to insist Travis take me back to Shadow Bluff, but he’s already slammed the car into park and opened his door.
“Travis?” I say as he starts to step out. “What is going on?”
He faces me, takes a breath. “Divers are going into the bayou.”
My pulse switches from too fast to completely stopped. “What?”
“Willa, it’s gonna be fine.”
At breakfast, I asked him what he remembers, and he said he remembers it all. Of course he does. “This doesn’t feel fine, Travis.”
