Chapter Sixteen

Suzanne’s story

George delivered Suzanne directly to Dr. Sonnier’s office the next morning. He parked by the white picket fence and watched her walk around to the back office. She strolled slowly and glanced back a few times. George waved and leaned against his seat as if he intended to be there all morning, so she gave up and followed the brick path around the house, past the iris beds showing their first green spears.

Taking a seat in one of the rattan chairs on the rear porch, she settled in to enjoy the mild February morning. The azaleas showed plump pink buds, and early daffodils pushed up around an old, round brick cistern humping out of the grass near the copper rain spout. A tabby cat slinked from under the porch and leapt to the wooden lid of the cistern to loll in an early patch of sun. The lid teetered, and one crumbling brick slipped. The cat lifted a rear leg and began seriously licking its genitals. Too much early spring in the air had gone uncelebrated last night. Before her thoughts could go any further in that direction, the office door opened.

“Our first patient of the day. The doctor will be down in a minute, dear. I’m Helene Sonnier. I don’t believe we’ve met.”

The gray-haired woman in old-fashioned nurse’s whites held out a small-boned hand puffed out of proportion by layers of fat. On her left hand, a gold wedding band lay embedded in the flesh of her third finger. That her small frame could support so much weight and her white uniform could contain it amazed Suzanne.

“Suzanne Hudson. Dr. Sonnier wanted me to stop by for a checkup after my bout with some bug the other week.”

“Of course. The girl from the Hill. I made a chart for you. Come in, and we’ll get started before the waiting room fills up.”

She led Suzanne through a portion of the house furnished with vinyl chairs and old magazines to the single examination room and kept up a pleasant professional chatter while she took the new patient’s blood pressure, temperature, height and weight. Obviously a very nice person, but still Suzanne could not imagine Helene as the wife of the distinguished Dr. Sonnier. Perhaps, she was a distant relative instead of his next of kin.

“Are you and Dr. Sonnier related?” she asked casually.

“We’ve been married for twenty-eight years so you might say we’re related, dear. We met during his medical school days. I was a student nurse and so short he could tuck me under his arm. He used to call me Tiny back then. Oh, we were quite the couple. My daddy owned a pharmacy in Lake Charles, and he was so pleased to have a doctor in the family he made Sonny’s intern days a pleasure. We had this lovely apartment in Baton Rouge, and our daughter, Ellen, was born in the city. I would have liked to stay there forever, but nothing would do for Sonny but to come home to set up practice. When I saw this big old house from before The War, I could understand why he loved this town so. I wanted to fill every bedroom with children, but Sonny has very definite views on large families.”

Mrs. Sonnier’s multiple chins quivered. “Are you taking any medication, dear?”

“Only birth control pills.” She took the package from her purse and let the nurse copy down the brand and dosage.

“Oh, the Pill. Well, Sonny will be glad to hear that. No woman should have more than two children according to Sonny. All of us should be on the Pill. Women in this town drag themselves down with childbearing, he says, and we must set an example for the community. Thanks to his restraint, we did. I didn’t fail him there.”

Poor, overstuffed woman, Suzanne could see how Mrs. Sonnier had failed her husband in other ways.

“He wanted me to work by his side, and I have for twenty-five years even when my feet were too tired take me to those dances he loved. But, I didn’t try to keep him home because of me. I’d fix his tie and send him off to have some relaxation. A doctor needs that. Bobby, Ellen, and I would all sleep in the big bed until he came home from the ball. Sonny has so much energy.”

The buzzer attached to the waiting room door shrilled twice in quick succession. Nurse Helene heaved to the feet that, once petite, now looked like bread dough rising out of her shoe tops. “Busy day,” she sighed and left to listen to the woes of the two new patients.

In the interval, Suzanne mulled over Helene Sonnier’s words and began to agree with Great-Aunt Esme about seeing a doctor in the city when Jefferson Sonnier appeared exuding his kindly bedside manner. She barely spoke to him as he checked her ears, eyes, nose, throat, and lungs.

“No harm done by that little dip in the bayou or anything else between now and then, Miss Hudson. I’m glad to see you are on the Pill. I usually take the time to counsel women of your age and attractiveness about birth control, but you have good sense and intelligence as well as physical attributes. I can understand why George hovers at your bedroom door. Just don’t let him in if you forget to refill your prescription. Condoms are a good idea, too. Who knows where it’s been, right?”

She recalled the day when the silver had gone missing, ashamed to remember that when half-feverish and half-drugged she thought Dr. Sonnier might be her handsome dark rider. The good doctor was just another man who cheated on his wife when she’d gained a little weight having his babies. Okay, Helene Sonnier had gained a lot of weight. Still, the doctor’s wife had a sweet personality and showed complete, unsuspecting devotion to her husband. Suzanne felt like making good Doc Sonny squirm a little.

“If we married, I’m sure George would want lots of children. Such a pity his being an only child because his mother had a hysterectomy at such an early age. Was that because you botched his delivery?”

Dr. Sonny’s bedside manner evaporated like the morning mist. “Actually, Ginny had a tubal ligation, not a hysterectomy, but that operation would have been unacceptable to her husband. Getting a woman pregnant again and again is a way men like Jacques St. Julien prove their virility.”

Nearly snarling over past hatreds, Dr. Sonnier went on talking. “Ginny suffered terribly bearing her son. Jacques insisted on natural childbirth and a home delivery. I warned him that she wasn’t going to bear easily, too narrow in the pelvis, but he denied her the comforts a hospital and a good anesthesiologist could have brought her. He said his own mother had given birth in that same bed with no more trouble than a bitch delivers puppies and his wife could do it, too. Ginny screamed for hours and hours before I was able to deliver her safely. George’s vision problems might have been the result of that difficult birth. Ginny was one of my first obstetrical patients. When she asked to be sterilized, I carried it out.”

Wow, so much for patient privacy, though Suzanne wasn’t sure if dead patients counted. She had jerked open a door to the past and several large boxes of information fell out on top of her, but she still couldn’t resist another turn of the knob. “And Virginia was eternally grateful to you.”

By the tight look on his handsome, flushed face, she could tell she’d pushed too far and would be asked to leave an establishment for the second time in two days. Dr. Sonnier raised his voice and summoned the next patient.

“You may go, Miss Hudson. You seem perfectly healthy to me.” He dismissed her entirely.

Back in the waiting room, Helene Sonnier had blown up a plastic glove to make a balloon for an irritable baby fussing in her mama’s lap. She gave Suzanne a cheery good-bye, hope to meet you again. Poor woman. As Suzanne stepped out on the porch a new theory about the crime came rushing to her. She would go immediately to George’s office, brave his secretary, Lonnie Breaux, interrupt his work, and try out her new idea on him. Afterwards, maybe George would be up for an early lunch and a nooner. Feeling bubbly on this lovely spring day, she walked to his place of business.

Looking through the glass window of the office, she noticed Miss Breaux already had a pained expression on her face. Maybe she was perpetually sour, Suzanne thought as she passed into the reception area. As it turned out, Lonnie had cause to be irked. The high-pitched laughter of a woman spilled from George’s inner sanctum. He laughed, too, a low rumble underscoring the female voice. George chuckled that way with Suzanne, but they hadn’t had much opportunity or much reason to carry on like the twosome in the office.

“May I go in?” she asked Miss Breaux.

“Mr. St. Julien is with—a client at the moment. I’m sure he’ll see you shortly. Take a seat.”

“Oh, it can wait,” Suzanne said, willing George to come out of his office so she could see what went on in there. At that moment, the inner door did open, and George asked Miss Breaux to bring coffee for Mrs. Angers. His new glasses must have been foggy because he did not appear to see his other visitor at first. Suzanne saw his client very well, however.

Mrs. Angers sat perched on George’s desk, having shoved a calculator and several spreadsheets out of the way. She had red hair cropped fashionably at the sides and spiked into perky peaks on top of her head. The minimalist hairstyle brought more attention to her large, emerald green eyes and lashes thick with mascara. The woman wore a blouse of golden silk, boldly unbuttoned to show the top of a black lace bra and belted over black leggings displaying her long, long legs. Strappy high-heeled sandals encased her slim, pedicured feet with each toe painted a glowing coral. When the bimbo leaned forward to grab George’s arm, Suzanne could see the sparkle of a pear-shaped diamond dangling on a chain in her deep cleavage just above a small butterfly tattoo.

“Rich divorcee or successful stripper?” she wondered. And George served as this woman’s accountant?

“Miss Breaux, would you get us some coffee and pasties, I mean pastries, from the bakery, please. Take your time and get some for yourself, too,” George ordered generously. Then, he noticed Suzanne.

“Suzanne! Great! It’s been a day for surprises. Get a cup of coffee for Miss Hudson as well, Lonnie.”

Plucking her sweater off the back of her chair as if she were tearing the heart out of a sacrificial victim who had interrupted her office routine, the secretary left on her errand. As soon as the door closed, Suzanne stalked over to George so she would not have to shout at him.

“Surprise? Was I supposed to walk back to the Hill after seeing the doctor? George, I need to speak to you—alone.”

Too late, she noticed that Mrs. Angers had come up behind him. The four-inch heels on which she teetered allowed her to look down on Suzanne and cling to George’s arm for balance at the same time.

“Oh, Georgie, you devil, have you gotten this child into trouble? He was so wicked with college girls, don’t I just know.”

Suzanne expected George to blush and stammer, but he stood there content with being considered wicked. She felt hot, top to toe, for a variety of reasons as she watched the two interact.

George and the stripper looked fine together, about the same age, half a dozen years older than Suzanne—but that hardly gave them the right to call her a child. Mrs. Angers appeared to be very tall, at least in those high heels, and remarkably big-busted for a slim woman. Her red hair and very green eyes contrasted nicely with George’s darkness. If she had been capable of objectivity, Suzanne would have said Mrs. Angers was just what George needed to put some fun in his life. Unobjectively, she felt she and George were having enough fun together without adding a third party.

“She can’t be in trouble—yet,” George roguishly denied to his “client.”

Beginning to agree with Randy Royal about George’s having a cruel streak, Suzanne scowled, and seeing her reaction, he sobered up.

“Actually, Miss Hudson is working up at the Hill. She was ill the other week. I drove her to the doctor for a checkup.”

“And we have business to discuss,” Suzanne added.

“Well then, George. I must go in search of a room for the night if I’m staying over to have dinner with you. I only intended to visit for an hour or so while I passed through. I never did send my condolences when I heard your dear mother passed away. Ronald and I were having our own troubles at the time. I’m so self-centered, I’m afraid, but the divorce is behind me now. When I read about the robbery of all that silver from your lovely old mansion, I knew I wanted to stop by and cheer you up. Remember the old times when you’d come back to school from a weekend at home so low I practically had to crawl under you to give you a little pick-me-up. Remember?”

The divorcee ran one of her long, coral nails down George’s cheek. Suzanne wondered if Mrs. Angers intended to give him a little pick-me-up right there in a public place in front of witnesses. Sure seemed so. Lonnie Breaux struggled to the door with four Styrofoam cups of coffee sitting on top of a flimsy bakery box threatening to collapse in the middle. Suzanne opened the door for the secretary and relieved Miss Breaux of two of the cups. She offered one to George while Lonnie shoved another toward Mrs. Angers.

“No, thanks. I really must go find a room.”

“Look, Cherry,” George began.

“Cherie. I changed it. Having a lawyer for a husband was so convenient for a while. Ronald felt ‘Cherry Fontaine’ sounded like a stripper’s name.”

“Or white trash,” Miss Breaux added helpfully.

Suzanne nodded to show she agreed with both of them.

“Cherie Angers.” She gave the name a strong French accent. “Has much more class than Cherry Fontaine ever did.”

“Basse classe,” said Miss Breaux under her breath.

“Cherry or Cherie, we have room for you at Magnolia Hill tonight.”

He took both of his old girlfriend’s hands and smiled into her eyes. What a graceful gesture, one Suzanne had never seen George do, but perhaps, he channeled Jacques or the Devil’s Horseman, her horseman.

“I’ll call Birdie and make arrangements.”

“And I’ll be on my way. Until tonight, my dear Ghost.”

Suzanne thought she might puke if George kissed Cherie’s hand. Instead, he simply put an arm around his old girlfriend’s waist to steady her as she crossed the cracked concrete of the pavement to her car. Cherie drove a two-year-old, racing green Jaguar without a scratch, ding or dent, parked at the curb. Somehow Suzanne had overlooked the out-of-place vehicle in her hurry to share a new theory of the theft with George.

She waited in his office while George completed an overly long good-bye, curbside, with Cherie. Jeez, he would see his old flame tonight. Catching up on bygone times could wait. She scalded her tongue taking an incautious gulp of coffee. Their conversation took so long she’d assumed her beverage would be cold by now.

George returned and spent a minute or two rearranging his desk before he felt like talking. When he did, he chose the topic of Cherie.

“She used to have long hair that hung down to here.” He vaguely sketched two large breasts. “She’s a real redhead.”

But she’s getting a little help from a bottle now, Suzanne thought.

“And she used to be rounder, you know.” George sculpted a well-stacked figure in the air. “But then, she’s been through a lot. Her husband saw to it she didn’t get a cent of alimony in an airtight pre-nuptial agreement. She got nothing but a few worthless gifts he gave her over the years.”

“I really feel sorry for her, left with only a nearly new Jaguar, expensive clothes, and a diamond worth enough to feed a family of three for a year.” Suzanne burnt herself again taking another gulp of coffee. “Look, I know who stole the silver.”

“Again?” George snorted.

She could see his mind remained in another time when he reigned as the Ghost, a sports hero with a red-haired girlfriend and no financial worries, disgusting when they had a crime to solve.

“Okay, you don’t want to listen. Then, drive me home. Tomorrow night, I’ll invite a few guests to dinner. Maybe they will want to hear what I have to say.”

“If you had decided to leave a little sooner, you could have ridden with Cherie,” George said, annoyed, but then, so was she.

“I didn’t want to ride with Cherry!” Suzanne shouted. “I want to ride with you.”

“Don’t be a child, Suzanne. I still have to work for a living, and you could have saved me some time.”

“You had enough time to listen to poor Mrs. Angers’ sob story,” she shrilled at him. “And you—you are acting like an over-thirty has-been trying to relive his youth.”

She stopped from saying “nanny-nanny-boo-boo” and sticking out her tongue. She really was behaving childishly over George, the real George. From his expression, Suzanne knew she’d wounded him. Sticks and stones and words can hurt you.

He did drive her back to the Hill at top speed and through the town’s single red light. Suzanne felt sick remembering their more leisurely ride in the back of Linc’s truck. She resolved to be more mature about Cherie Angers in the future, but the future came upon them before she knew it. Cherry Fontaine was unpacking in Suzanne’s bedroom.

While Birdie explained the situation to George in the hallway, she got her information directly from the source. Mrs. Angers turned a brilliant artificially-whitened smile on Suzanne and talked as she unpacked a red lace thong from her bag.

“That gothic room is so gloomy and frankly, I knew I wouldn’t get a wink of sleep in her room. You never met Mrs. St. Julien.” Cherie lowered her voice. “A real b-i-t-c-h. I didn’t think you’d mind sleeping in there for a few nights.”

Suzanne wanted to ask when one night had become a few. Mostly though, she wanted Cherie out of her room, the one closest to George by both hall and balcony. “Act like a grownup,” she told herself. Gritting her teeth into the kind of smile often seen on dead people’s faces, Suzanne packed a few things in a carryall and moved into Virginia Lee’s room.

The three of them shared an awkward dinner that night to say the least. Suzanne felt like the little daughter forced to sit through a meal while her daddy and a chum reminisced about the good old days. In this case however, the guest was a former lover who had added an extra layer of green eye shadow to her makeup and wore a clinging sheath of emerald, obviously her best color. Speaking of color, George had put in his absurdly deep blue contact lenses for the evening. They made his eyes sparkle as well as blink. Suzanne found she preferred his dowdy old glasses. He’d gotten new frames—exactly like the old ones, for heaven’s sake!

None of the stories they told about “back when” ever finished in her presence. Each episode seemed to end with a wink and a leer.

“And then we came across that old motel with the little cabins in the back. The man didn’t want to rent to Linc because of his being black, but you claimed he was your twin brother since you both had the same last name and age, so he let you have the key….” Wink. Leer. And George accused her of immaturity!

Birdie stayed late to serve the “something special” George asked of her. The menu consisted of smothered quail over wild rice with steamed asparagus. The asparagus was stringy, and the meat so scanty on the quail it was barely worth picking off those tiny bones, but her fellow diners did not seem to notice. Cherie drank the wine, fiddled with a quail leg, and laughed excessively. George consumed everything without seeming to taste the food.

Suzanne braced for more misery when the party adjourned to the red parlor for coffee and dessert. Birdie brought a tray holding china cups already poured because, of course, the silver service had been stolen. She also served chocolate cups filled with a mint liqueur on a clear glass plate. Suzanne managed to grab only one because the long-lost sweetheart gobbled them up. Clearly, she preferred booze and dessert to good, wholesome food.

Cherie had a friendly tussle with George over the last bit of chocolate. Naturally, he let her win. But then, Cherie told him to open his mouth and close his eyes. She popped the little delicacy between his lips, removed a drop of spilled liqueur from George’s chin with her fingertip, and sucked her finger clean. By that time, George’s eyes were open, wide open. He had this silly grin on his face that Suzanne wanted to wipe off with her cocktail napkin.

She sat across from the couple occupying the Belter settee and pleased herself by thinking how garish Mrs. Angers looked against the red velvet, how she contrasted poorly with the cool blonde dressed in white and pearls whose portrait dominated the parlor. As for self-evaluation, Suzanne felt the snug, black dress too fancy and sophisticated for the Roadhouse and Joe’s Lounge wasn’t quite enough this evening, even with her best pushup bra. She’d always been happy with her 36C’s, but somehow, they no longer seemed adequate. Cherie Angers’ breasts couldn’t be real. They simply could not. George would find them hard as rocks if he touched them, certainly. That part worried her, too.

At least, the parlor locale improved the tone of the conversation. Suzanne drank her coffee, very bitter this evening, and listened to Cherie Angers hold forth on antiques, knowledge acquired when as the rich lawyer’s wife, she furnished their place in the Garden District. Of course, Cherie still had some of the lovely things in her new apartment, but she no longer owned a grand old house like Magnolia Hill for her very own to love and care for. Oh, boohoo to you, Cherry.

What a pity the lovely silver service Cherie remembered so well from her first and last visit to the Hill had gone. But then, how very fortunate the mortgage had been cleared and George could get on with his life, settle down, marry. Suzanne found this conversation only a slight improvement over what had gone on at dinner after all.

She excused herself early, went to Virginia Lee’s room to work on her paper, and made little progress at the spindly-legged secretary. The twosome downstairs moved noisily from the parlor to George’s den. Birdie had long gone home. Glasses clinking, they helped themselves to stronger beverages than wine, liqueur, and coffee.

Suzanne went into her former room to retrieve some notes, but could not concentrate afterwards. The image of Cherie’s flimsy underwear tossed around the room, her provocative nightie, green and shiny and transparent, laid out on the bed, her heavy perfume stinking up the air, replayed in her mind like a bad song, hated but unforgettable. Sleep wouldn’t come either. Tossing in Virginia Lee’s bed, she heard Cherie and George come staggering up the stairs at midnight. Whispering and laughing filled the hall, but two separate doors closed.

She thought she could rest after that, but still awake at one a.m., she had to suffer through listening to more to-do, this time on the gallery. She tried not to think about George and his cape and the window she left unbolted hoping the Devil’s Horseman might visit in the night. Putting the pillow over her head, Suzanne tried to stifle the sound of the giggles and the mock struggle on the balcony. Pulling the quilt over the pillow, she cried on and off until dawn.

****

Birdie woke everyone with her rendition of “Oh, What a Beautiful Morning!” Yeah, right. Suzanne looked into the mirror and saw awful—puffy eyes, dark circles, and pale cheeks. George, coming from his own room, appeared even worse, hung over and suffering. That shouldn’t have pleased her, but it did. She wondered about Mrs. Angers condition, but being unemployed, the divorcée evidently planned to sleep in until noon. By the time George got home from work, Cherie would have pumped herself up to gorgeous again.

Suzanne worked on squeezing drops into her eyes to take out the redness and heard Birdie knocking politely to see if Miss Cherie wanted any breakfast. She hoped the divorcee gained five pounds from eating Birdie’s biscuits because she certainly had. She attempted to keep her left eye open for the descent of the fluid while Birdie “took a peek” to see if Mrs. Angers was all right because she didn’t answer. When Birdie screamed, the Visine squirted clear across her face. While still wiping her chin, Suzanne learned their guest had vanished. The window to her room stood wide open. Oops, her fault.