Page 22 of Broken Bayou
I cross my arms over my stomach and dig my fingers into my ribs.
Mrs. Boudreaux releases a howl and claws her way toward the tow truck. “My baby. I told you! I told you she was here!”
I watch Travis grab her, and she pounds at his chest. The crowd moves back except for Rita, whose cameraman stays with Mrs. Boudreaux. Mr. Boudreaux is nowhere to be seen.
The edge of a bumper starts to emerge from the water.
Breathe, I tell myself.
“Easy, Scooter,” Chief Wilson hollers at the tow truck driver, and the driver backs off the winch. With a sucking, gurgling sound, the back end of a car rises from the muck and is pulled onto dry ground. Water and algae drip from it. Several officers inch up to the car like it’s a ticking bomb. It was once a convertible, but its ragtop has long since disintegrated.
My knees buckle.
Chief Wilson runs two fingers through the thick grime on its exterior, winces, and turns to another deputy. “Donald, what color’s the teacher’s car?”
“White!” Mrs. Boudreaux screams. She crumbles from Travis’s grasp and falls to the ground.
Chief Wilson wipes his hand on his pant leg and kicks the ground. Travis’s gaze finds mine for a split second, but I keep my eyes on the red swath left behind by the chief’s fingers.
Chief Wilson yells to no one in particular, “This ain’t the teacher’s car!”
I suck in a breath that chokes me. He’s right. It ain’t the teacher’s car. It’s my mother’s.
May 2006
Teri Thompson hated leaving her boys when she traveled, especially when she traveled for fun, like this weekend. But her girlfriends told her Jazz Fest would be worth it. Jimmy Buffett, Paul Simon, Lionel Richie. Hard to say no to that. Besides, Dan promised he had it under control. She’d left him a three-page, single-spaced letter, just in case, about the boys’ homework schedules, sports practices, and eating habits, then realized an hour outside of Biloxi, she’d forgotten to put the pediatrician’s number on it. Her friends told her to relax, but Teri rarely relaxed.
Except for now, oddly enough, as she strolled Bourbon Street with a large hourglass-shaped plastic cup in her hand full of something that tasted like grain alcohol and Kool-Aid. The Big Easy is right. This felt easy.
Teri gawked at the flesh on display in the doorways as she strolled. She checked her watch. Two in the morning. She hadn’t been out past midnight since college.
She watched her girlfriends up ahead of her disappear through the throngs of people into a karaoke bar. Teri quickened her pace to catch up. Then she felt a tap on her shoulder.
When she turned, a man smiled at her. “You shouldn’t be alone in a crowd like this. It can be dangerous.”
“I’m not alone.” When Teri tried to move away from him, a camera flash lit up her face.
“What the hell?”
“Say cheese,” the man said.
The flash sparked again, followed by the sound of a Polaroid. “Get away from me!”
Something stung her neck, and Teri’s vision started to swim in front of her. Her head became heavy and lolled to the side. She felt a hand on her waist, guiding her in the opposite direction from her friends. She wanted to look back and yell for them, but her head refused to move, her mouth too dry to open. Instead, she allowed the stranger to walk her through the crowd until they disappeared. Her last thought was of Dan and if he’d gotten the boys to sleep on time.
Chapter Seven
The crowd disperses, and I follow Travis back over the levee. Show’s over. The tow truck dragging a huge rotting chunk of my past pulls onto the levee road, then heads for town.
Travis and I climb into his truck. My entire body is numb. He blasts the AC and glances over at me, his eyes wide and knowing. A nervous energy radiates off him. His eyes study me, a crease forming between his brows. I see the worry in his expression, worry for me. But he quickly reaches for my hand and squeezes it in a way that tells me he’s confident this will still be okay. I need that right now. My confidence got towed away with that car.
Both of us are silent as he pulls away from the levee. My throat constricts around the questions in my head: How much trouble am I in? How worried should I be? But I remain quiet, my mouth unable to form the words.
Sweat rolls between my shoulders and down my back. But I know the heat isn’t the real problem. The real problem started years ago, that last summer in Broken Bayou. When the hot, lazy days had lulled me into a state of laissez-faire, as the locals called it. That is, until the day Mama whipped into the driveway of Shadow Bluff, yelling “Girls!” at the top of her lungs. Mabry and I ran to the porch and found her draped across the hood of a bright-red convertible, waving her arms like aPrice Is Rightmodel and laughing her throaty laugh. “Look what I got!”
“What the hell is that?” I said.
“It’s a car, Willa.”
