Page 33 of Broken Bayou
“Aerial applicator,” I correct, remembering what he told me all those years ago as he buckled me in. “You knew me in my wild days.” I tell myself it’s time to march into the kitchen and get a large glass of water. But I lean into the sofa instead and stare at him.
“My dad almost killed me that day.” Travis’s smile fades. Something in his voice changes. I hear a hitch in it, almost like I can hear his heart beating. He’s not joking.
“Travis,” I start.
“I bet you still are,” he says quickly, his voice returning to its normal banter.
I let the moment slide away. Now’s not the time. “Still are what?” I say.
“Wild.” He scans my outfit. “Despite that pressed dress and expensive shoes.”
“Maybe I am.” Brakes, Willa. Brakes.
“Maybe you’ll show me.”
And that does it. Electricity sizzles in my veins. I feel that familiar impulsive urge. The one that says one night won’t hurt anything. My hands react by reaching across the sofa and latching onto his shirt, pulling him toward me. Our lips meet. His hands find my hair, and we grope at each other like two people flailing for a lifeboat. Then Travis pulls away, his breathing shallow and fast. I tug my dress back into place.
“Wow,” he says.
“Travis, I—” My face flushes with heat. Idiot.
“It’s okay. That was just unexpected.”
“Yeah. Unexpected, all right. I . . . I don’t . . . Sorry.”
“No, don’t apologize. Look, we go way back. And I’m not going to lie. There’s a lot of stuff I still think about. But I can’t. I’m the one who’s sorry.”
I want to crawl into the corner and hide behind the curtains, like Mabry did every time Mama started yelling.
“I better go,” he adds.
“Of course,” I say in my professional I’m-the-one-in-charge voice. I cringe at its phoniness.
I walk him to the door, and he hugs me in an awkward embrace. He pulls back. “I’ll call you after I talk to the chief.”
As he drives away, I shut the door and bury my head in my hands. I release my hair from its tight ponytail and tug until my scalp starts to itch. What the hell is wrong with me? But I know the answer. Like eggs, our childhoods are fragile. If your keepers don’t handle you with care, they can cause hairline fissures to snake through your shell. And they’ll seem harmless, but they’re not. Each crack has the ability to crack you. I’d worked hard on acceptance. Acceptance of having an absent father, of a mother whose best mothering included three-day bendersand slaps across the face. Of a neurodiverse little sister who clung to me like I was a life preserver.
It’s no wonder I gravitate toward men who won’t be around long. Patterns can be hard to break, even for someone who gets paid to know better. I thought I could keep it all in its appropriate place in my mind. But tonight, I hear it scratching to get out.
It’s this town. This house. That fucking car.
I’m learning, in more ways than one, nothing stays buried here.
February 2017
When the Cessna Citation II touched down at the FBO in New Orleans, the idiots surrounding Claire Fonteneau let out a whoop.
“Your dad’s plane is awesome.”
“It’s actually my mom’s plane,” Claire said.
“Ooohhh. Senator wears the pants in the family.”
Her brother’s fraternity brothers high-fived and laughed as if this was somehow funny.
“You better not post anything tonight,” her brother said. “Mom’ll kill me if she knows I brought you.”
“Yes, dear brother.”
