The Pepper In The Gumbo: A Cane River Romance (27 page)

            “Long
story. We may have to find another place.”

            There
was a silence. “Alice kicked us out?”

            “No!”
Paul nearly trampled a reporter trying to get his microphone near enough to
Paul’s cell to hear the other side of the conversation. “I’ll explain later.”

            “On
my way.” Andy disconnected. Paul stuffed his phone into his shirt and kept
walking. He’d loop around the boardwalk until he saw Andy. Pulling out his phone,
he put in his earbuds and cranked up the volume on the music. Flipping up the
hood of his sweatshirt, he could almost pretend he wasn’t being chased by
paparazzi. It didn’t do anything to soothe the vicious ache in his heart. He’d
been wrong to come here and Alice had tried to tell him. Now he understood.

                                                                        ****

            Alice
stumbled back to her desk as the reporters chased Paul down the sidewalk. She
had done this to him. She had returned lawsuits for kisses, curses for
blessings.

            When
he looked through the glass door, his face had borne such a look of regret. His
dark hair was disheveled and he had circles under his eyes. He wore a simple
black hoodie and jeans. When he’d first arrived she’d thought he was arrogant
and showy, but the man on the other side of the door wasn’t much different than
she was. He wanted to work, have friends, live in peace. Paul Olivier didn’t
deserve that kind of treatment just for trying to open a store.

            Alice
wanted to protect the historic district and thought his store would hurt the
people of Cane River, but she’d only seen good things come from it. The only
person who’d been hurt was Paul. She’d been wrong. If she hadn’t been sure
before, she was now. Her hands shook as she dialed the rotary phone, willing
her heart to stop racing. Randy answered on the first ring.

            “I’ve
got to cancel the injunction,” she blurted.

            “But
our petition was approved,” Randy said slowly. “It’s natural to have second
thoughts. Especially if you’ve had some negative reactions from friends and
neighbors. But if you’re serious about this lawsuit, you can’t let them affect
you.”

            “No,
I was wrong. I need you to― to take it back.”

            “I
can unsuit the petition, if that’s what you really want. But I can’t do it
until Monday.”

            Alice
let out a breath. “Okay. I can wait until then.”

            “As
long as you’re sure. You can’t file again. I mean, I guess we could, but you
probably wouldn’t get the petition granted twice.”

            “I’m
sure. I thought I was doing the right thing. But I was wrong.”

            “I’ll
file it Monday. And if you change your mind before then, let me know.” Randy
sounded as if he fully expected her to call him tomorrow and tell him she’d
changed her mind― again.

            “Thank
you, Randy. Thank you so much.” Alice hung up. She’d spent a lot of money,
wasted a lot of energy, and irritated a lot of people for nothing. Well, not
nothing. She wouldn’t have been able to see the situation as clearly before.
She had to reach the end before she realized she’d been going in the wrong
direction the whole time.

            Alice
stood up, her muscles easing. She hadn’t realized how cramped she’d been,
curled up against the worry and the pain. Mr. Rochester wandered by and she
almost reached out to grab him up. She wanted to hug someone, right then, and
tell them all about it but there was no one to tell.

            Well,
there was just one person and they weren’t even really speaking to each other.
Alice chewed her nail for a moment and then sat back down, clicking open her
email.

           
Dear
BWK,

     
I know we sort of said goodbye, but I don’t have anyone else to tell this to
and I’m going to burst with it. You know EBB’s verse:

           
God answers sharp and sudden on some prayers,

            And thrusts the
thing we have prayed

            For in our face,

            A gauntlet with
a gift in it. –

That happened to me. I
prayed that I was doing the right thing, but only in the way that people do
when they won’t take no for an answer.

            Can the Holy
Spirit face-palm? If so-  doing it right now in my direction. I don’t think
I’ll get a second chance with the people I hurt, but I’m fixing what I ruined
as best I can. And I finally feel ‘out of the swing of the sea’.

            Your Alice

            She sat there,
staring at her email, waiting for a response. Nothing came. After a few
minutes, Alice stood up and paced the store. Darcy peered down at her from the
top of a range, tracking her path with unblinking green eyes.

            “What do you
think Darcy? Should I try to talk to Paul?” She nibbled her nails for a moment.
“No, you’re right. When Elizabeth refused that first proposal, he didn’t go
running back, did he?” She paced some more. “But he did send that letter
explaining himself.”   

            Mrs. Gaskell
wandered out at the sound of Alice’s voice. She scanned the room, as if
wondering who else was there. Alice reached down and picked her up, not caring
if she got cat hair all over her silk shirt. “And when Margaret refused Mr.
Thornton, he didn’t run back to her the next day. He went on with his life.”
She scratched Mrs. Gaskell behind the ears. Jane Eyre crept in, sitting near
the desk in a small shaft of sunlight. “And you. When you found out about the
crazy wife in the attic, you didn’t stay. You were no caged bird.”

            Alice gently set
Mrs. Gaskell on the ground. “All of you are telling me to keep myself safely at
home and let Paul get on with his life. I get it.”

            She dropped into
her desk chair and stared glumly at her papers. This wasn’t where she wanted to
be. She raised her eyes to the screen and saw there was another message from
BWK.

           
Dear Alice,

            I remember I
kinda sorta said to ignore mopey Sara Teasdale but she wrote:

Spend
all you have for loveliness

Buy
it, and never count the cost;

For
one white singing hour of peace

Count
many a year of strife as lost.

            I wish you well
with making amends and I pray the people you’ve hurt will respond with grace.

            Your BWK

            Alice grinned at
the screen. All the greatest romantic novelists of the nineteenth century said
that she shouldn’t try to talk to Paul, but BWK disagreed. She read the note
again, cocking her head at the
kinda sorta.
Paul said that the first day
they’d met, when she’d accused him of murdering books. That day seemed years
ago, a lifetime away.

            Closing the
laptop, Alice stood up and crossed the room to the poetry section. If she was
going to try and make amends, she should come bearing gifts. And she knew just
the book to bring.

“Despite
our ever-connective technology, neither Skype nor Facebook- not even a
telephone call- can come close to the joy of being with loved ones in
person.”― Marlo Thomas

             “No sign of
reporters downstairs. They’re camped across the street but the guards are doing
a good job keeping them away from the door.” Andy dropped a package into Paul’s
lap. “You had something overnighted? I hope it’s pair of leggy models for the
opening. I still don’t have a date.”

            Paul glanced
over and then logged out of the raid he was running with a team. The dungeon
was boring him anyway.

            “Hey, no need
for that.” Andy frowned at his bad manners. A guy didn’t just drop a game and
leave your buddies in the lurch.

            “I’ll say it was
a bad connection,” Paul said and reached for the package. “It’s a book I needed
for the site. Alice sent it to the P.O. box.”

            “Why? Couldn’t
you just pick it up downstairs?”

            Paul shot him a
look.

            “Oh, right. She
doesn’t know your secret identity.” Andy unzipped his sweatshirt and tossed it
on a chair. “So, Meg Ryan just sent Tom Hanks a book but…”

            “No, Meg Ryan
just sent NY152 a book, which was then overnighted to Tom Hanks, who lives
above Meg Ryan and knows she’s Shopgirl, while she has no idea he’s NY152.”

            “I’m a little
disturbed you know that movie so well.”

            “It was actually
a remake of a 1937 play called
Parfumerie
by
Miklós László.”
Paul blew out a breath. “And it’s really not as fun as they made
it sound.”

            “But hey, at
least you can say you’ve got mail,” Andy said, chuckling.

            “You’re
hilarious,” Paul said. He peeled the package open and
The Duke’s Secret
dropped
into his hand. Alice had been right. The binding was broken, there were water
spots on the cover, but all the pages were there. It was the perfect candidate
for a Browning Wordsworth Keats upload. He might just make it through the day
if he had another project.

            “Are you leaving
the apartment today or should I call your mom to help stage an intervention?”

            “You want me to
set up shop down at the Starbucks and see if I get anything done?” Paul walked
to the table and picked up his X-ACTO knife.

             Andy followed
him. “Listen, I don’t care if you go into hibernation mode until the party. It
would probably add to your mystique. But we’ve got some big meetings coming up.
I need to make you sure you’re going to be at the top of your game. You seem…
like you’ve been gutted by an orc and left on a pike at the city gates.”

            Paul turned
around, knife in hand. “Am I really giving that impression?”

            Andy held up his
hands. “Watch where you wave that thing. I’m just looking out for you.”

            He went back to
slicing pages out of the book. “I’m good. You know me.”

            “Yeah, I do know
you.” Andy’s voice was quiet. He didn’t say any more, moving toward the couch
and picking up the controls.

            Paul worked quickly,
and soon
The Duke’s Secret
was stacked carefully, free of its binding and ready for the
scanner. He examined every page for spots and tears but it was in remarkably
good condition. And it only cost him a million dollars. He smiled at his own
joke. Buying off Norma Green was one of the most satisfying things he’d done
all year and he had no regrets.

            He stacked the
pages into the feeder and turned on the machine. The ScreenStop logo sticker
had gotten scratched somehow during delivery and he smoothed back one of the
angel’s wings. Alice’s letter to BWK still made him wonder. He wished he could
walk down the hallway and ask her.

            His cell phone
rang and he answered it, frowning at the local number.

            “Mr. Olivier?
This is Peter Chatham from city hall.”

            “Hi. How can I
help you?” Paul punched a few buttons on the scanner and adjusted the papers,
holding the phone between his ear and shoulder.

            “I wanted to let
you know that Alice Augustine dropped the lawsuit against your company this
morning. The injunction has been lifted and construction can resume on your
building.”

            Paul lifted his
head and the phone fell to the floor with a crash. It bounced under the table
and Paul stood motionless for a moment before he dropped to his knees and grabbed
it. “I’m sorry. Can you say that again?”

            “The injunction.
She asked her lawyer to unsuit it, or cancel the petition for a temporary
stay.” He was speaking slowly now, as if he didn’t think Paul was very bright.

            “Thank you for
telling me. Is there anything we need to do?”

            “No, not on this
end. If you had your lawyers preparing a defense then you can tell them they
can let it go.”

            Paul thanked him
again and disconnected. He stood there, watching the pages of
The Duke’s Secret
slide into
the scanner, disappear for a few minutes, then emerge out the other side.

            “What was that
about?” Andy called over, his gaze fixed on the screen as he fought his way
through an army of white orcs.

            “Alice dropped
her suit.” Paul’s voice sounded odd to his own ears.

            “What? It
sounded like you said―”

            Paul turned
around. “I did. She did. And we have a store to open.”

            Andy stared at
him for a moment. Then he logged out of the game and stood up. “Let’s get this
party started.”

            “You just razzed
me for dropping out of a game like that,” Paul said, laughing.   

            “Yeah, well, you
did it for a piece of mail. This is serious.” Andy grabbed a laptop and pulled
up the ScreenStop official page. “People are going to start getting real
confused if we keep changing the venue.”

            “I don’t think
we’re going to have a problem.” Paul sat next to him, watching the seraph logo
pop up on the screen and feeling an enormous sense of relief wash over him. The
opening was happening. Fans wouldn’t be disappointed. And for some reason, he
and Alice were no longer legal adversaries. Her letter to BWK was making more
and more sense.

            “Whoever said
Mondays sucked never had a Monday like this one,” Paul said.

            “Agreed. That girl could have done some damage. Forget
selling gossip to TMZ. I’m just glad she didn’t decide to drop your dox onto
one of those crazy fan boards.
Someone got ahold of Steve Job’s
info once. The next day, fifty pizzas and three tow trucks showed up at his
house.”

            Paul
shook his head. “She never would have done that.”

            “The
girl sued you. I don’t think a pizza prank would be below her.”
Andy typed a quick celebratory update and published it on
the blog. He refreshed the page and watched the page views start climbing. He reached
out and gave Paul a high five. “We’re in business again, my friend.”

                                                                        ***     

           
Alice stirred the gumbo
and inhaled the spicy scent. Monday meant washday gumbo. She smiled at the
thought, remembering how Mrs. Perrault would sing as she cooked. Alice had
always been in such a hurry when she was a teenager. If she’d tried to speed
things up, Mrs. Perrault would say,
“Slow down, honey! You
try to stir too many pots and you'll end up putting vinegar in the pudding and
vanilla extract in the turnip greens.”

            When
Alice told Bix what she had planned, he’d shooed her upstairs. “Nobody likes to
eat at bedtime,
s
ha
,”
he said. He’d refused to let her work that afternoon, declaring that she was
taking a sick day, or a cooking day. It was for a good cause. She figured that
if Paul didn’t want to open the door for, he just might if he knew there was
gumbo for dinner.

            Alice
took a taste of the rice and frowned. It needed a bit more pep. She grabbed the
Louisiana hot sauce and gave the gumbo a few more dashes. She wasn’t a very
convincing speaker, but a pot of hot gumbo and a book of good poetry might go a
long way toward making amends. Rochester wandered through the kitchen and gave
her a solemn look. He usually preferred to stay in the dim corners of the room
and watch, but he stopped near the stove. His one tattered ear and scarred
forehead looked startling in the harsh light.

            “Wish
me luck, Rochester.” Alice leaned down and fed him a bit of shrimp. She could
only hope Paul would as merciful as Jane Eyre, but nothing was for certain.

            She
changed into a deep green, sleeveless shirtdress with a white cardigan. Staring
at her reflection, she realized she looked like a 1950’s housewife. All she
needed was a kerchief and some horn-rimmed glasses. Alice sighed, stripped it
all off and started over. Her closet was packed with cute clothes, but for some
reason she couldn’t find anything to wear.

            Twenty
minutes later, she put the green dress back on and muttered to herself, “He’s
not going to notice your dress. You’re bringing gumbo.” She slipped on some
heels and, tucking the little book of poetry under her arm, and picking up the pot
of gumbo, she made her way to the door. It took a little bit of balancing but
she got the door shut behind her and started down the hallway. Her heart was
pounding out of her chest and she focused on breathing slowly.

            At
the door, she poked the doorbell and listened to the old-fashioned jangle
inside. She wondered if Paul and Andy thought it was ugly. They were probably
used to a video intercom or something. She wasn’t really sure how the New York
apartments were. Probably a lot nicer than this place.

            There
wasn’t any answer. Alice felt her throat go tight. What if they knew she was
here and just didn’t want to answer? Her stomach curled in on itself. She
reached out and hit the bell again, letting it ring a little longer. After a
few seconds, she put her ear to the door. She couldn’t hear anything from
inside. Their rental car was out front, but maybe they’d walked down to dinner
at one of the cafes.

            Alice
looked at her little blue pot of gumbo. She should have called, but she was
afraid she wouldn’t get the words out. Showing up in person with a big pot of
steaming dinner sounded like a good idea at the time. She sighed, leaned
forward, and rang the bell one more time. After a few seconds, she felt the
vibration of footsteps and straightened up.

            The
door swung open. “Did you forget your key or―” Paul said. He stopped
short when he saw her. He clutched a tiny towel around his waist. Soap bubbles
clung to his chest. “I thought you were Andy.” He blinked at the pot. His hair
was plastered to his head and water was dripping down his face. A small puddle formed
at his feet.

            Alice
didn’t know where to look. She held out the gumbo a little then realized he
couldn’t take it. “I made some gumbo for you. Because of the, you know,
reporters.” She stared up at the ceiling.

            He
didn’t say anything, just stood there silently. The only sound in the room was
water drops hitting the floor.

            “I’ll
just go.” Alice backed away.

            “Thank
you,” he said suddenly. “I wish I…” He shrugged, both hands still holding his
towel.

            “No,
I understand.” Alice turned and walked back down the hallway, hearing the door
of his apartment close with a thud. She made it back into her apartment and set
the pot on the counter. Miss Elizabeth wandered over, tail twitching.

            Reconciliation
fail. She flopped onto the couch and threw an arm over her face. A note would
have been fine. She must look like some kind of nut case. She groaned, grabbing
a pillow and tossing it across the room. After a few minutes of jaw clenching and
eye rolling, Alice sat up. Okay, that hadn’t gone well but it was a minor
setback. At least he hadn’t called security and had her thrown out of his
doorway.

            There
was a knock at her door and Alice froze. Looking around, she saw piles of books
and cushions strewn over the floor, Mrs. Gaskell napping on the coffee table, cat
toys, Jane Eyre lounging on the end of the couch, papers, and the dishes she’d left
on the table. There was no way she could clean it all and still make it to the
door before he turned around and left.

            Alice
opened the door and peeked out. “That was fast.”

            He
grinned. He hadn’t shaved and his hair was still wet but he had on a Tshirt and
jeans. No shoes. The shirt was black and the image of an old Atari system on
it. It read “Classically Trained.”