Chapter Forty-Two

The weekend after Valentine’s Day, Julia found herself hiking through a cane field again with Remy. This time, they parked boldly on the road and trudged along with no cover from the tall stalks, all of them harvested for the last time. The deep furrows that once drained the crop rows lay flattened and now sprouted only the wooden stakes outlining the ground for the Black Diamonds development rather than the production of stubble cane. Heavy rain the night before left large puddles behind in the landscape. At least the lane, compacted by years of heavy, high-wheeled tractors, harvesters, and carts sat high and dry.

Remy, unusually quiet on their trek to the mounds, muttered about getting some fill for the low places, but the toads and frogs croaked merrily calling for mates to come out and play.

Julia started a conversation. “Jane has completed her environmental assessment and says as long as you have an adequate and self-contained sewer plant for the development all should be well. In fact, this side of the lake might become healthier without the sprays and pesticides from cane farming running off into the water.”

“Yes, I read the report. Glad to hear it.”

“Great that the Cypress Lake Casino and the Chitimacha Nation are funding the small museum out here. They want it done right. Mostly, the university found lots of potsherds around the base of the mounds. They think all that broken pottery washed down from the top where sacrifices may have been made to the sun god. Nothing inside the mounds, but the radar showed how they were layered up with basketfuls of earth over a period of time. The positioning might have something to do with the solstice too. The gamekeeper out here—he’s the formidable Mrs. Landry’s husband—says if you stand on the east bank and face the mounds on the right day in winter, the rays of the rising sun will hit the gap between them. The cleavage, the kids call it. Interesting, huh?”

“Yeah, I read that report too.” Remy walked on lighting the way with his flashlight as dark closed in on them, early this time of year.

He’d been like this since her return from New Orleans, terse and distracted. This evening, Remy, the ever-cool, seemed nervous, off-balance somehow. Julia thought they’d been doing so well together. Christmas Eve came off all right in the end. She’d met his mother and dad, his sister and brother-in-law, plus the two charming, mischievous blond grandchildren. The kids took some of the edge off the formality of the affair by getting early into the presents piled beneath an interior designer’s dream of a Christmas tree, flocked and covered every square inch by huge ornaments in silver and gold. The boy spilled his milk on the pristine linen tablecloth set with a holly-sprigged pattern designed especially for the season and the girl refused to eat the braised Brussels sprouts prepared by a personal chef in the kitchen whose assistant brought dinner out course by course. The minor chaos made her feel more at home like a Rossi Christmas with children underfoot and the occasional dish getting broken as she and her mother always celebrated with Sal and Sammy’s big families, taking turns at each of the houses.

She’d expected Melody Broussard to be upset by the disruptions. So beautiful and reserved, she looked the type. Instead, she said of the children in their booster seats, “How are they going to learn good manners unless they observe them? If they see us eating the sprouts, eventually they will try them.” Their grandmother personally mopped up the spilled milk and brought more from the kitchen. She placed half a Brussel sprout on each of their plates and ignored whether they ate them or not. When the little girl did, but made a face, Melody placed a green mint by her plate to take away the taste. Her brother followed that lead, claimed he liked his, and received two mints for not making a face. A clever family, this branch of the Broussards.

Accompanied by coffee, hot chocolate, and heavily iced ginger cookies for dessert, they opened presents by the tree and beside a gas log glowing in the fireplace. Julia could see as she looked around the room where Remy got his taste for clean, modern designs and reflections in the water as the house sat by the lake and possessed its own large deck and dock visible from floor to ceiling living room windows.

She’d molded pairs of highly detailed plaster of Paris angels for the two women and gilded them herself. For the kids, figurines of sea creatures easy to color with the water-based paints she provided, a hit with the little girl, not so much for the boy, Julia admitted. The men, always a problem to buy for, got excellent bottles of Italian wines and that included Remy. His assortment contained Mondoro Asti Spumante, a sparkling wine that paired well with chocolate, just in case they had something big to celebrate.

Their gifts were the kind she might have expected in this family: silk scarves, expensive perfumes, and tasteful jewelry for all the women including her. Jules had little use for the first two and couldn’t imagine where she’d display the classic diamond tennis bracelet from Remy on her wrist other than at the Rossi Christmas party the next day to awe her female cousins. She knew she’d see disappointment in her mother’s face that it hadn’t been an engagement ring. Maybe she felt a little of that letdown herself when New Year’s Eve passed and then Valentine’s Day, celebrated with red roses and a nice dinner out, but no commitment from Remy.

What saved the evening for her was one last rectangular box that had some weight to it. “This is especially for Julia,” Melody said coyly as she handed over the package wrapped in gold and ornamented with a white dove of peace nestled in the bow. Carefully setting the bow aside, Jules stripped the paper and withdrew a carton of Café du Monde’s beignet mix.

“In case Remy’s grandmother visits, you might want to have something to stuff in her mouth,” Melody explained. All the adults filled the room with chuckles, but the children wanted to make donuts right away. Julia left their household the next morning feeling like an accepted member of the family. Perhaps not.

As she trudged through the former cane field lugging another picnic basket Remy had packed, it occurred to her that men truly believed breaking up in a very public place prevented a woman from making a scene. Remy told her once about the college girlfriend who’d punched him in the balls at an expensive restaurant over her disappointment about not getting a ring. Well, Julia Rossi could do better than that. They might be in the middle of nowhere where none would hear her scream or rant or see her drop kick Remy off the lake side of the mound after she took the truck keys and left him for the gators or the gamekeeper to find.

Her part of the restoration of the Bayou Queen neared completion as soon as Remy signed off on it. The exterior of the hotel, plastered and painted, shone white again. The lobby had its swirling float coat and the upper bedrooms their flat plaster walls and ceilings and cornice embellishments. She’d brought in an entire crew to finish the work and assigned her best masters to the coffered ceiling, gilding it in place and repointing each section. The marble finish made the walls glow. Her pilasters hid the A/C ducts rising behind them, and she’d applied the gold accents personally. This week, her parquet men worked on polishing the floor they’d meticulously restored and sealed against damage. Once the electrician hung the chandeliers, the ballroom would be ready to host dancing—and wedding receptions again. She’d thought maybe hers would be held there. Yet, not a hint from Remy about their status when he’d been all hot for marriage and a business merger when she first moved into the Black Box.

Hadn’t she and Remy worked so well together on this restoration as the time drew nigh to turn the grounds over to the landscaper and the interior to the decorator? Hadn’t she given him all of herself just as passionately? Now, he planned to dump her out here and take all the credit for the revival of the Bayou Queen.

They reached the bottom of the mound, its grassy covering dew-heavy and slippery from the rain. Remy offered her a hand. Julia batted it away. “I’m fine. I can climb a hill without your help.” Under her current head of steam, she could probably defeat Mount Everest.

At the apex, Remy laid out a waterproof tarp and topped it with a blanket while Julia restlessly prowled the mound. As he lit the citronella candles, both practical and lovely, to keep off the mosquitoes that hatched with the rain, she stared over the muddy field, the one she’d secured for him and gotten no thanks for her effort. Most likely why he wanted to humiliate her—nice work on the Queen, but we’re finished. Thanks for all the sex. I want to do Black Diamonds on my own.

“How about sitting down, Jules? Nothing to see out there yet, but the stars over the lake are shimmering with all the water in the air.”

“I’d rather stand.” She braced her legs and folded her arms under her breasts.

“All right then.” Remy dropped to his knees and took an object from the picnic basket she’d toted across the field. He popped open the small box. “Julia Rossi, would you do me the honor of being my bride, my partner in life and many projects to come?”

His hands shook a little, but nowhere near as much as her knees. Julia sank to the blanket, leaned across his open hands, and offered the kiss of a lifetime, one that sealed the deal and signed the biggest contract she’d ever undertake. “Yes! Certainly, yes!”

By the light of the flickering candles, he rewarded her answer with that deep-dimpled smile she’d been missing all week since the arrival of a package sent by special messenger from New Orleans, its contents not shared with her. “It’s nothing,” he’d said and turned away. Now he placed that object on her finger and shone the flashlight on the ring. “I forgot it would be too dark out here for you to see the details.”

“Oh, Remy! The egg and dart pattern with the diamond set in a rosette, its perfect, perfect for me.”

“I was afraid you wouldn’t accept it, not until you’d completed our contract, after what you said to Todd about not falling in love with your boss.”

“I think I was cautioning myself as well. What if you waited to break up with me until after we finished the Queen? All week I thought you were laying the groundwork to tell me our relationship wasn’t working out for you.”

“I took a big chance here—because you never said you loved me—and technically I am your boss.”

“You have all my love. I can’t believe you didn’t know that.”

“Even a man likes to be told.”

“Well into this project I stopped thinking of you as my boss, but rather as my partner.”

“For life.” Remy opened the bottle of Asti Spumante and let it foam into the flutes. He handed her the bubbling wine. “To us—but don’t break the glass. I’m running low on them.”

“Why would I do that? Sure, last time we came here, one got broken when we packed in haste, but…”

“I’ve been reading up on Italian customs. I think we should skip the glass smashing, but I am good with confetti and doves and an endless reception—at the Queen.”

“I think you might know more about those than I do, but there is one snag. My family will expect me to get married at St. Mary’s in New Orleans, a long way from here.”

“Get married in the morning, say ten. One-hour Catholic Mass, transfer everyone by bus and limo to Chapelle where most of my family will be waiting and already into the cocktails and antipasto. Dinner at two, dancing all night, start the honeymoon in one of the Art Deco suites.” Remy removed a gold box of Godiva chocolates from the hamper and offered her the selection. “Pairs well with chocolate.”

Julia selected a delicate white shell filled with chocolate ganache, popped it into her mouth, followed that with a sip of the wine. “It certainly does. You’ve given this wedding way more thought than I have.”

“Don’t girls plan their weddings at an early age?”

“Not me. I spent my time learning to plaster. What else did you have in mind?”

“Right now? Getting naked with you on this blanket. I’ll show you the wedding prospectus I’ve drawn up later. You can make any changes you want. It’s only a starting point. Speaking of starting points, last time, we only got halfway before NuNu lit the trash fire.”

“You’d just finished licking chocolate off my nipples.”

“I do recall.” Remy drew off her top, let her breasts spill free, broke open a cream, and recreated that scene.

Just before Julia gave herself over to the rhythm of love making with her ring as bright against the tanned skin of Remy’s back as the stars were in the night sky, she thought he had no idea how complicated weddings of any kind could be, more difficult than restoring a magnificent hotel, but so worth the effort.