The Pepper In The Gumbo: A Cane River Romance (17 page)

            Alice glanced
up, catching a glimpse of her reflection. “Green-eyed girl,” she whispered. It
was a mystery why she even cared. She hardly knew the guy. It wasn’t like her
to crush on a man just because he was handsome. Of course, he was smart and
interesting and generous to his friends, too. But Charlie said Paul was a
partier, that she’d seen pictures of women hanging all over him. Really, it
made sense when she tried thinking logically about it. Famous people were
famous for a reason. They were good at making strangers feel connected to them
in a personal way.

            She straightened
her shoulders and flashed her brightest smile. She wasn’t famous and she didn’t
have any fans. She would do what she did best, which was to be real. What
people saw is what they got, no media spin required.

                                                ***

            Alice looked
around the crowd, examining every man under forty, looking for the jawline that
appeared under the fedora in the picture. It was hard to see by the dim
illumination of the stage lights. She could see the glimmer of the river in the
distance. The warm summer air was still except for a small breeze every so
often.

            Dancers crowded
the stage, milling around, looking for partners. There were women in jeans,
dresses, shorts, and a few fantastical costumes that really had nothing to do
with Creole culture but were certainly fun to see. The men stayed pretty close
to boots, jeans, and T-shirts, but there were a few in fancy suits, mostly
older folks who used any occasion to put on seersucker and a bowtie.

            “
Allons
danser!
” The lead singer of the zydeco band called out. The crowd answered
with a wave of hollering and stomping that made the stage shake under Alice’s
feet. She felt a huge smile spread over her face. She belonged with these
people.

            “
Manzell, danser
vous?
” She turned to find a teen holding out a hand. It was Julien Burel’s
little brother, Xavier. He had to be nearly ten years younger than her, and
clearly nervous. He spoke the Creole of her mamere, not the European French
that kids learn in school.

            “
Mais, oui,
”
she answered with a smile. As they moved to the center of the stage, she gave
one last glance around. Her gaze caught a familiar face and her heart jumped
into her throat.

            Paul stood at
the edge of the stage, Andy at his side. He was dressed in a light blue shirt
and jeans. His gaze was fixed on her and her heart seemed to stop in her chest
as their eyes met. He didn’t smile, but simply lifted a hand in greeting.

            Alice turned her
head back to the band, swallowing back a wave of sudden nerves. It didn’t
matter if Paul was there, watching. Sure he was handsome, but he was just like
any other tourist to the festival. People would stand and watch the dancers,
tap their toes to the music, then go back home without ever thinking about it again
until next year.

            The accordion
player took the spotlight and started with the song “I Done Got Over.” A five-person
band with just a few guitars, a drummer, and the singer, radiated energy. Her
teen friend was a surprisingly good dancer, and Alice tried to put Paul out of
her thoughts and focus on the complicated steps. Their hands were linked but
their feet were moving at high speeds and Alice started to laugh. The dance
brought everything back. Her family used to hold informal Saturday house dances
in the summer, and the neighbors would come at dusk and stay until dawn. The
women would bring biscuits and pots of gumbo to share. When it got late,
Alice’s mama would send her inside to lie down, but she would sneak out of bed
to sit by the window and watch the dancing. Now, as her feet moved to the
music, she felt the years slip away. Joy pulsed through her, unbidden, lifting
her heart.

            Before she knew
it, the dance came to a ringing finish and she stood still, out of breath, with
a huge smile on her face. “
Merci, misye
,” she said, and shook Xavier’s
hand.

            “
Merci,
manzell
,” he responded with a grin, and rejoined a group of teens near the
edge of the floor. A few of the boys clapped him on the back in congratulations,
and Alice wondered if she had been part of a good-natured dare.

            The singer adjusted
his cowboy hat and took a sip of water. “
Encore?
” he called out to the
crowd and the dancers around her yelled back an enthusiastic response. Alice
scanned the people around her, wondering if she should move off the stage to be
more visible. BWK might be here, but outside the group, and not able to find
her. Or maybe even approaching another woman with red cowboy boots. She
frowned, wishing she’d been more specific.

            “Evenin’
.
”
A man’s low voice to her right made her catch her breath. She turned, wondering
what BWK would look like without the fedora. Instead, it was the lead singer of
one of the night’s bands. For just a moment, she considered the possibility
that BWK was also fronting a local zydeco group, but then she pushed the
thought away. About as likely as him being the president, really.

            “Good evenin’,”
she returned. “You play with Creole Kings, right?”

            He nodded, his
dark eyes reflecting the lights of the stage. He was the type that Charlie
would admiringly describe as “tall, dark, and Creole.” The man sang in front of
hundreds of people and he looked perfectly at ease approaching a stranger.
Alice admired that kind of extroverted personality. “My name’s Alphonse DeCote,
but everybody calls me Al.” He held out his hands. “I was wonderin’ if you’d
like to dance.”

            She reached out.
“I’m Alice Augustine and that’s why I’m here.”

            The next song
started and Alice let herself get lost in the music, focusing on Al’s hands
holding hers and every now and then, his dark eyes. It was the one night of the
year where she could enjoy being with a lot of people and not worry what anyone
thought of her. The whole town was out dancing, whether they were locals or
tourists, from across the river in the industrial wasteland or ten feet from a
historic building.

            As the song
faded away, Al took her hand one more time. “I gotta go get ready, but I saw
you, and you were so pretty, I just needed to have one dance.”

            Alice couldn’t
help the smile on her face. She didn’t need anyone fawning over her, but it was
nice to hear. After dating Eric, she’d forgotten what it felt like it be
admired, instead of picked on.

            Al took a card
out of his back pocket and held it out it to her. “If you want, you can give me
a call. I’m not far away in Shreveport. I’d be happy to drive down for lunch,
or just to set a spell and talk.”

            She took the
card. “Thanks, Al.” She wasn’t sure she’d ever call but she liked his ways, confident
and polite. The farther she got away from her time with Eric, the more she realized
that what she thought was Eric’s self-confidence was actually arrogance.

            Al grinned and
left the stage, heading for the back of the bandstand. She watched him go,
admiring the length of his stride and the easy grace of his steps.

            There was the
sound of a throat being cleared behind her and Alice knew who she’d see before
she turned around. Paul stood there, dark eyes unsure, his hands at his sides
as if he didn’t know where to put them. She felt her mouth drop open in
surprise. After what had happened that morning, she hadn’t thought he would
seek her out again and certainly not in public. She wanted to remind him of
what a small town it was and how most of the locals were probably already
discussing their relationship, but part of her really didn’t want to talk about
it right then.

            “
Bonswe, misye
,”
she said with a smile.

            And to her
surprise, he answered back, “
Bonswe, manzell
.”

            She was going to
say that it was nice he’d learned a few phrases for the festival when he went
on, as fluent as Mr. Perrault had ever been. “It’s been a long time and I
wasn’t a good dancer to begin with, but …” He held out his hands. “Would you
like to dance?”

            Alice didn’t
move for a second as her brain processed his words. She looked up at the
handsome man with dark hair and the soft accent, feeling her idea of him shift
and tilt. Paul, who had left Natchitoches for New York City and never looked
back, was as much a child of Cane River as she was, right down to the Louisiana
Creole language that was dying out with every passing year. Alice reached out
and took his hands.

The technology that
threatens to kill off books as we know them - the 'physical book,' a new phrase
in our language - is also making the physical book capable of being more
beautiful than books have been since the middle ages.―Art Spiegelman

            “I waved to Bix
but he didn’t respond. Did I do something to offend him?” Paul asked. He
glanced over Alice’s head toward the chairs set up in the grass for spectators.

            Alice took a
moment to process the words. She’d never really noticed what a wonderful voice
Paul had. Sometimes she spoke Cajun French with tourists from other parts of
Louisiana, and sometimes French with tourists from Europe. But it had been a
long time since she’d spoken Creole with someone she didn’t know very well. It
felt strangely foreign and absurdly familiar all at the same time.

            “Oh, he has
terrible eye-sight. Both far and near. The only reason he spoke to you that day
was because he recognized the portfolio when he passed you on the bench. He
knows those books like his children. It’s so hard for him to live without
reading, but at least he can help in the store.” She knew she was talking too
much but he was still holding her hands and it was disconcerting. The band was
playing a few chords, waiting for the singer to decide on a song.

            “I see.” He
frowned. “He can’t use an e-reader? Or a double screen?”

            Alice shook her
head. Paul said the words
e-reader
and
screen
in English. For a
moment she wondered if their language had any words for current technology. She
certainly didn’t know. “He doesn’t have one. And I’m not sure what a double
screen is.”

            He opened his
mouth to explain but the first few bars of the next song interrupted him.
“We’re gonna take requests for our next song. What do all y’all wanna hear?”
the band leader called. The dancers responded with several suggestions and the
band chose the song of a middle aged lady near the front of the stage, wearing
a red-check Western shirt.

            Alice said, “Well,
if you really can’t dance, we’d better go over the basics, no?”

             “I’ll be your
eager student,” he said, and winked.

            Alice felt heat
flash through her and she dropped her gaze. Paul was good at making women like
him, that was for sure. It was an undeniable fact. She jumped into rapid-fire
directions to cover her confusion. “Step to the left and back, that’s water and
seasoning. Then step backwards and then forward, your left leg and my left leg.
That’s the meat and the roux.”

            They practiced a
few times as the band warmed up and then she said, “Now we need the gumbo, so
put your right hand around my waist, and keep holding my left hand. Let’s try
it all together.” Alice focused only on the steps, not on the man in front of
her. She tried to block out how close he was. He smelled wonderful, and he
still carried the undeniable scent of old books.

            “My mama made me
practice these dances with her every Friday night. She was sure that it would
help me when I found the right girl.”

            “Because women
like dancing?”

            “No, because she
thought there was a girl for me out there, right then, being taught by her
mama. She didn’t want me to look bad in front of her future in-laws.”

            Alice couldn’t
help laughing. “Mothers are kind of all the same. They all want to do the
choosing.” She wanted to tell him how she loved to hear him speak Louisiana
Creole. He sounded like her family, like everything she’d lost when she was
young and then found again as a woman.

            “And what did
your mama think of Eric?” He gave the tiniest wink.

            “If she were
alive, I probably wouldn’t have dated him. I think she probably would have set
me straight before we got past the first date.” She tried to say it lightly.

            “I’m sorry.” He
looked pained. “And your papa?”

            “Gone in the
same accident. I was young.” She looked around, wishing the band would start.
This wasn’t the conversation she wanted to have tonight.

            “So that’s why
you have their rings.” He reached out, slipping a finger under the chain
against her neck, gently bringing forward until the rings dangled between them.
He held them both, looking closely. “Your mama had tiny hands.”

            Nobody knew that
except her family. In fact, nobody but Alice had touched those rings for years
and years. She couldn’t seem to tear her eyes from them now, held gently in
Paul’s fingers. She cleared her throat. “She really did. I have a pair of her
gloves. They’re just so little. I must take after my daddy’s side because mine
are huge.” She held up a hand for inspection.

            “You’re right.
Gigantic man hands.”

            “I mean, in
comparison,” Alice said. She turned her hand palm up and he dropped the rings
into it. “What about your parents?”

            “I was raised by
my mama. Just her. We lived in a little shack outside the city limits. It’s
probably been condemned and burned by now.” He smiled. “Here’s to surviving
childhood, eh?”

            She had to grin.
“Yes. I think we should both get a medal.” It felt so strange to talk about her
parents and not feel sad or awkward. Most of the time she felt like people
either asked too many questions or acted like they’d never existed.

            A few more
dancers arrived and there was a lot of quick practicing around the floor. The
band seemed to be arguing about the choice of a song. Alice knew the zydeco
festival was serious business and she loved how the musicians wanted to get it
just right.

            “Aren’t you sad
to let go of your culture?” she asked.

            “What? You mean
because I live in New York City?”

            She nodded. “I
think you just can’t raise Creole kids outside of the area. It’s hard enough
keeping the traditions alive with everybody plugged into cable and their iPods
and everything.” She felt her cheeks go pink. “Not that I have kids, but you
know…”

            Paul laughed.
“Just because I live in New York doesn’t mean I’ve rejected my roots.” His
expression turned serious. “I’ve been thinking about it a lot recently. I know
we can’t have everything, all at the same time. Choices have to be made. I do
understand that.”

            Alice didn’t
know what to say. She hadn’t meant to start such a serious conversation out
there on the dance floor but she and Paul didn’t seem to be able to keep the
topics light.

            The band finally
launched into a waltzy number and the singer stepped to the microphone, the
words coming too fast for her to understand. She remembered the song, “Zydeco
Gris Gris,” from when she was younger. Her mama had loved this song but she’d
never learned it. Paul took a moment, then matched her step for step. He sang
along as easily as if he still went to house dances every Saturday night.

            Alice swallowed
back her surprise a second time in just a few minutes. He really could dance,
no matter what he’d just claimed. He was better than she was, effortlessly
bringing her close and swinging her around, then bringing her close again. The
sound of his voice in her ear made a shiver go up her spine, and for a moment
she forgot they were on opposite sides of a fight. She wasn’t Alice the
bookstore owner and he wasn’t Paul the video game mogul. She was a woman and he
was a man, simply enjoying the late summer night, moving to a music that was
deep in their blood.

            For the first
time in a long while, Alice didn’t worry about what was going to happen
tomorrow, or the next day, or the day after that. She felt like everything was
right with the world. More than all right. It was perfect.

            Zydeco music
isn’t known for its short, easy tunes. Jazz musicians borrowed their idea of
long, complicated riffs on a repeating melody. Blues singers borrowed the
melancholy words and some of the beats. And the dances are meant to give as
much pleasure, for as long as possible, until the dancers are worn down and
tuckered out. Alice was glad it was only the third dance of the night because
Paul moved with an energy that was hard to match. This wasn’t the dancing of an
awkward teen boy. He was confident and smooth, as if he’d had years of practice
like she had, in backyard barbeques and summer festivals.

            When the last notes
finally faded away and the dancers all came to a stop, Paul didn’t let go of
her hand. He looked happier than she’d ever seen him, but there was something
like worry in his eyes.

            “Can I talk to
you for a minute?” he asked. He looked around. “Maybe over here,” he said,
pointing with one hand toward nearest edge of the temporary dance floor, away
from Andy.

            “Okay,” Alice
said. She was supposed to be watching for BWK, but it would probably only take
a moment. He led her to the little row of trees at the side of the stage and they
stepped off into the grass. It was much quieter now that they weren’t directly
in front of the speakers. The twinkle lights wrapped in the tree branches gave
everything a festive, cheerful feeling.

            “I wanted to
tell you something the day I came into your shop.” Paul looked down at their
hands linked together.

            Alice tried to
ignore the way her heart was beating in her ears. She watched his face, saying
nothing. He’d said a lot of things that day and she couldn’t imagine what else
he’d missed. It wasn’t a conversation she wanted to revisit.

            “I know it seems
as if we’re really different, but we’re not.”

            Her eyebrows
went up. To be fair, before tonight she would have said they were night and
day. Now she could see they had their Creole culture in common so maybe they
were more like daybreak and twilight.

            “You think I’m
some rich New York City businessman who’s come here to Natchitoches to show off
his big, flashy store.” His face was tight.

            “And you’re not?
Because seems a pretty fair description to me, although it left out being
arrogant and running roughshod over the entire city.” She knew following him to
this little private spot under the trees was a mistake. A few lines of
Louisiana Creole and one perfect dance couldn’t erase the facts. Alice shook
her head and started to pull away. “Paul, maybe I should go. Thank you for the
dance.”

            He held on to
her hand, gently bringing her back. “I don’t know how to explain, but we’re
alike, you and me.”

            She could have
tugged herself free and kept walking but she stopped, feeling the truth of his
words. She knew he was right, but wasn’t sure how. “Because we’re Creole?
Because you come from here?” She heard the disbelief in her own voice and hated
it. If she had to name something that made a person “like her,” being Creole
would certainly be one. But loving this place with an undying passion would be
another, and that is where they were different. Paul may have come from Natchitoches,
but he didn’t love it the way she did. She was willing to fight to preserve the
culture in her little town, all the way up to and including engaging in a legal
battle against the man who stood before her.

            “Books,” he
said, almost desperately. “We both love books.”

            Alice searched
his face. “So we’re similar because you like to read? Or because you bought
your friend a rare portfolio?” She sighed. “Paul, I do love books. And I like
to read. But the way I love books is hard to explain―”

            “They’re like
your friends.” He spoke quickly. “You re-read favorite passages and even though
you’ve read the words a hundred times before, it’s all new again. Walking by
and touching the covers is like reaching out and shaking hands. You wouldn’t
travel without your favorites. You read a great book and you get this weird
missionary zeal, where you have to tell everybody about it until they all agree
to read it, too. You want to keep your books safe, protect them from slipping
into oblivion. You wonder how you’ll ever share shelf space with another
person.” He took a deep breath. “You feel them beat underneath your pillow, in
the morning’s dark, an hour before the sun will let you read.”

            Alice stood
still, eyes fixed on his. Had he just quoted a line from Elizabeth Barrett
Browning’s poem “
Aurora Leigh
”? That stanza hung in a little gilt frame near her bed, right
above her towering pile of books. It was one of the last things she saw at
night, and one of the first things she saw in the morning.

            “Yes,” she
whispered. “It’s just like that.”

            “Now, do you
understand?” he asked. He stepped closer, his expression intent.

            She nodded. They
weren’t so different after all. Everything she had felt for him, from the first
moment he’d walked into her shop, made a little more sense.

            “Thank God,” he
said. In the next moment, he put an arm around her waist and pulled her in close.
Her right hand was tight against his chest and she could feel his heart pumping
under his shirt. She didn’t look up, just closed her eyes and breathed in,
letting the moment stretch between them. His arm tightened and he shifted,
bringing his lips to her ear.