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“Did you know it's illegal to feed your garbage to a hog unless you cook it first?” Gertie said.
“You made that up,” I replied.
“Oh geez-Louise, here she goes,” Ida Belle said, rolling her eyes.
“What are you reading, Gertie?” I asked.
“It's a book called Stupid State Laws,” she replied. “It lists all the old laws that nobody bothered to take off the books. I'm reading the Louisiana section. It's very enlightening.”
“She bought that book two days ago. I can't get her to put it down,” Ida Belle said. “She’s about to drive me crazy.”
“Some of this is fascinating,” Gertie replied. “In West Virginia, it's illegal to whistle while underwater. Who in hell thought of that in the first place?”
“No one cares,” Ida Belle said emphatically.
I drew a deep breath and released it slowly. If this banter would be typical for the day, I wanted someone to shoot me now. It was my first road trip with Ida Belle and Gertie since I arrived in Sinful just a few weeks ago. Less than an hour into the drive, I was regretting it already. I loved them both dearly, and I'd do anything for them, but today they were testing my patience. I'm not sure what I expected, stuck in the confines of a dilapidated Cadillac for several hours with two little old ladies.
I sighed and looked out the window. The drive itself was beautiful. We had taken the scenic route around Lake Maurepas. The brilliant blue sky hung over the lake, with a spattering of soft puffy clouds adding contrast. Beautiful Bald Cypress trees grew freely in clumps along the bank and in the water near the edges of the lake. The water nearest to us looked calm, rippling only in the wake created by a small boat carrying two fishermen. A paddling of baby wood ducks followed their mama a safe distance from the boat. The low hum of the tires rolling over the road and the serenity of the lake would have put me to sleep, were I not in the driver's seat. Then again, with my two passengers, serenity was a badly chosen word.
Right on cue, Gertie read from her book. “It's illegal to have sex with a cow, but it says nothing about sex with a horse,” she noted. “That must be just fine in Oklahoma.”
“Please spare us,” Ida Belle said.
I agreed to drive them into New Orleans in Gertie's barely street-legal rust-bucket of a Cadillac. My two friends drove to New Orleans every month to add time onto their pay-as-you-go cell phones. No, they didn't do it online. They drove to the Verizon store in New Orleans to add time in person. Don't ask me why. I met these two wonderful women when I first arrived in Sinful, and they are wonderful, all immediate evidence to the contrary. We bonded almost immediately, and we had more in common than I first thought. They were retired counter intelligence agents. Against specific instructions not to do so, I told them my real name and occupation, Fortune Redding, CIA agent government assassin.
Why am I in Sinful? On my last assignment I pissed off some very dangerous Middle Eastern arms dealers in the worst kind of way. My boss sent me here a few short weeks ago. My orders were to lie low and blend in. I tried to do just that, I really did. Fate had a different plan, however. I met Ida Belle and Gertie on my first day in the tiny town. An old dog had dug up what turned out to be a human bone right in front of me. The discovery placed me in the middle of a murder investigation, not exactly what my boss would call keeping it on the down-low. Local law enforcement viewed me as a person of interest in the crime almost immediately even though the bone was old and I had just arrived in town. Ida Belle, Gertie and I ended up solving the case.
They bribed me into driving them to New Orleans by offering to buy me lunch at Casa Borrega, my all-time favorite Mexican restaurant. I'd only been in New Orleans one other time in my life, and that was during my first year as a CIA operative. I discovered this delightful place in the Central City area of New Orleans while working a stakeout. It had a fantastic little food bar where I had tacos stuffed with tequila marinated lamb and chorizo. They were heavenly.
When Ida Belle and Gertie asked me to drive them to New Orleans, I thought about my orders and declined. Director Morrow would lay an egg if he thought I was considering a trip like this. The people who wanted me dead were still out there somewhere. Morrow chose Sinful because a group of Middle Eastern arms dealers snooping around the small town would blend in as well as Amy Schumer in a convent. Traveling with two seventy-something year old women in a barely serviceable Cadillac was good cover, so I felt reasonably safe.
“Gertie, when are you going to get rid of this car?” I asked. “The entire right side of this rust bucket is six inches lower than the left side. That can't be a good thing. I slide into the passenger seat every time I make a left turn.”
“It'll get you where you're going,” she said.
“Only if you count pushing,” I replied.
“Fortune, how much longer before we're there?” Ida Belle asked.
“Ten minutes less than the last time you asked me,” I replied. “Really, ladies, you two are worse than ten-year-old children on vacation.”
“Did you know it's against the law to chase fish in a city park?” Gertie said.
“Now, I know you made that up,” Ida Belle said.
“It’s a law, I swear,” she replied. She pointed to a spot on the page and looked at me as though I cared enough to confirm it.
“I will take that book from you and hit you with it,” Ida Belle threatened.
“I guess it's ok to chase the fish in a state park,” Gertie replied. “It says nothing about a state park.”
“Ok, enough stupid state law talk for a while,” I said. “I see a magazine in your hand, Ida Belle.” I was ready to hear anything else. “What do you have there?”
“It's a Louisiana weekly tour guide,” she said. “Now this is actually educational.”
It sounded far more interesting than learning the penalty for conducting a ritual using the urine of a billy goat.
“Read away,” I said. “We're about sixty miles from Thibodaux. Tell us about that.”
I heard her flipping through the pages. I basked in the moment of silence. “It's the parish seat of Lafourche Parish, Louisiana,” Ida Belle read. “French colonists settled in the community in the 18th century. They incorporated the town in 1830 under the name Thibodauxville, named after a local planter Henry Schuyler Thibodaux. He provided land for the village and served as acting governor of Louisiana in 1824.”
I nodded politely. Perhaps I was mistaken about this being more interesting than stupid state laws. Ida Belle read aloud for twenty solid minutes and I would swear she didn't draw a single breath the entire time. After hearing all about Thibodaux, I resolved that I would never go there... ever.
“Have you read the newspaper yet?” I asked as if I knew it contained something important.
“Oh yeah, I did,” she replied. “In fact, I meant to read you a classified ad from the personals.” She grabbed the newspaper from the floorboard.
“What are you doing reading the personal ads, Ida Belle?” I asked. I was curious, I'll admit. My good friend Walter, the elderly owner of the General Store in Sinful, had been in love with Ida Belle since before I was born. He was the sweetest man in town, and I could not understand why she hadn't latched on to him.
“I read them for fun,” she insisted. “Listen to this: 'Man, 55, seeking woman, 50-60. Woman must be fit and love the outdoors. Must own a boat. Send picture... of boat.'“
Ida Belle and Gertie cackled. Gertie was laughing so hard she turned red in the face. It was mildly amusing I’ll admit but not belly-laugh funny, so I sat there sighing and shaking my head while the two of them chortled. Ida Belle read two more classifieds that were less funny than the first though it did little to stop them from chuckling. The two women howled with laughter at the end of each one.
I made it into New Orleans without slitting my wrists, but don't ask me how. The weather outside was hot and muggy, much more so than I remembered from my first trip years ago. Gertie and Ida Belle both looked cool and dry, despite wearing long paisley dresses and hats. I was pitting-out under my arms even though I was wearing a light cotton sleeveless top and the sheerest bra in my meager collection. My white shorts were feeling a little tacky with sweat. I pulled my hair back into a ponytail under a white New Orleans Saints cap I'd purchased when we gassed up.
Gertie and Ida Belle reloaded their phones at the nearby Verizon Store and we stopped off at the Antiques de Provence in the French Quarter before lunch. I had never been there and wasn't excited about perusing through an antique store with two such methodically slow shoppers, but I must admit the store had a certain charm. Antiques de Provence had a reputation for displaying the finest in 17th and 18th century French antiques, hand-carved limestone fountains, garden accoutrements and olive jars.
Lunch at Casa Borrega made the whole trip worthwhile. I had the Pescado Frito, a battered and fried Gulf fish filet served with cucumber salad. Ida Belle and Gertie both had crispy tortillas spread with beans garnished with cabbage and crema Mexicana.
We split up for a while after lunch. Ida Belle and Gertie wanted to spend time back in the French Quarter at Anthropologie, a destination for women who found perusing through endless shelves displaying three thousand different candles to be interesting. The store had an unending selection of clothing, accessories, gifts and home décor. I visited the A.G. Wagner Studio & Gallery.
We intended hit the road toward Sinful by three-thirty, but didn't get on the road until four-fifteen, after my final pit stop at Café du Monde for coffee.
We were on the road for about an hour and a half when Ida Belle complained she was hungry.
“After that huge lunch, we can wait. We're only ninety minutes from home,” I said.
“I'm hungry too,” Gertie said. “Let's stop.”
I bit my lip and shook my head. “I'm not stopping. You two can wait a little longer.”
“Hmpf,” Ida Belle scoffed. She pulled out her travel guide. “Did you know Louisiana has the tallest state Capitol building in the United States?”
“No, I didn’t,” Gertie said, playing along. “Why don’t you read us all about it?”
”The building is 450-feet tall with thirty-four floors. There is a twelve-page description of its architecture.”
“Fascinating,” Gertie added. “Ida Belle, did you know it’s against the law to wrestle a bear?”
Ida Belle laughed. “If you’re dumb enough to wrestle a bear, the least of your worries is the state code. Go on, Gertie. Do you have any more?”
“There are at least fifty more,” she said.
“Oh, goody,” Ida Belle mocked for my benefit.
Ida Belle looked at me with a semi-wicked smile. “We both love to read aloud when we're hungry. Maybe if our bellies were full, we'd be a little quieter.”
“You two are pushing my buttons,” I responded. “Ok, I'll stop, but only if you promise you'll read silently for the rest of the trip home.”
They both smiled. They gave each other a high-five.
“Good decision. The Lick Skillet is about three minutes up the road,” Gertie said.
“Lick Skillet?” I repeated. “After the amazing lunch we had earlier, you now want to follow it up with a meal at a roadside diner called Lick Skillet? What am I going to do with you two?”