Chapter Twenty-Six

What a hideous Thursday! While stopping for gas at Thibodeaux’s station, the old man looked at Laura slyly, winked and said, “Can I look under your hood, Mrs. LeBlanc, or is T-Bob taking care of all dat now?”

At the library, coffee break turned out to be a surprise bridal shower complete with a white frosted coconut cake, tiny net sacks filled with pastel candied almonds and numerous small gifts ranging from handmade potholders to a set of peach-colored towels monogrammed with the letter “L” presented by Ruby.

Of course, Pearl could have told Ruby and alerted the staff, but when questioned, her clerk replied coyly, “Oh, the whole town knows. We could all see it coming—Mrs. LeBlanc.”

Laura gladly left the festivities to take the phone call from Lola Domengeaux, though she suspected the reason for the summons wasn’t a happy one.

“Oh, cher, my husband passed dis morning. It’s been coming on a long time, so I was ready, holding his hand at da end. Can’t ask for more den dat. No more suffering for my Louie. Now, da wake is tomorrow night at Duchamp’s starting at six, wit’ a rosary at seven and funeral, Saturday, at ten in da church. I don’t mean to spoil your happiness. One marriage ends and another begins as le Bon Dieu wills it. I’m selling my house, I t’ink, and going to live wit’ my daughter up by Baton Rouge. But we see each other before I go, heh? I got lots of calls to make. You tell da library people. God bless you and Bob and T-Angelle and all dose little LeBlancs you gonna to have. Bye-bye, cher.”

Laura returned to the uncomfortable party with a piece of news guaranteed to deflect the attention from her marriage. It did. Her staff lingered over their cake and retraced the course of Louie Domengeaux’s health over the past ten years, reminisced about Miss Lola’s miracle baby and praised her pralines before returning to work. By the end of the day, a car pool had been arranged to the wake and a collection taken up for flowers and Masses. On her way out the door, Ruby hugged her boss and assured her that sometimes good news came with bad as she placed the neatly packed cartons of shower gifts in Laura’s arms.

****

Delighted by the small boxes of wedding gifts as if they proved Laura was really her mother now, Angelle dragged the cartons into the kitchen to show Pearl. The housekeeper soon evicted her, however. Though the entire mansion smelled of baking and roasting, Pearl served an unexpectedly light dinner. Only the atmosphere at the table remained heavy. Laura mistook it for Robert’s guilt over forcing their marriage and Tante Lil’s ambient anger.

Unable to capture Pearl’s attention again after dinner, Angelle settled for poring over the gifts in Laura’s room. Who gave this, and who gave that? Angelle admired the potholders and shook out and refolded the towels until Laura began to lose patience with the child.

Laura found herself experimenting unwillingly with parental powers. “It’s nearly eight. You should have your bath and get ready for bed, Angelle.”

“Oh, I can stay up late tonight,” remarked Angelle casually. Then, she clapped a hand over her mouth.

“Who said so?” Laura interrogated.

“Tante Lil and Pearl,” confessed the child.

“Angelle!” Tante Lil’s cracked voice outside the door summoned the girl. “Come help me in my room. At once!”

Reluctantly, the child went.

Laura, alone at last, took a hot bath, slipped into her comfortable flannel nightgown and sought escape in a murder mystery, no romances tonight. Fortunately, the plot was absorbing and frightening as a serial killer stalked a young woman, peering into her windows while the heroine slept in her bed. Something blundering in the shrubbery near the house unnerved her enough to make her take her book out to the parlor. Strangely, at eleven p.m., Tante Lil still sat reading in front of the closed pocket doors shutting off the other side of the room.

Beyond the divider, someone moved furniture, and Pearl chided Angelle for “getting into the food.” Before Laura could ask for an explanation, noise enveloped the Chateau. The air rattled with a little French ditty about a bullfrog who puffed up when he saw his lady love sung as loudly, raucously and salaciously as possible by a chorus of men accompanying it with a banging of spoons on pots and pans. The irreverent choir circled the house once and began a second chorus even louder than the first.

Laura turned to Miss Lilliane for an explanation. The old woman, very pleased with herself, replied, “It’s a local custom, my dear, a cherivari. When two people, widowed or divorced, marry again, the old men like to make it official this way. It says your marriage is accepted and celebrated by them—though how you are going to explain why the bride is dressed so drably and sleeps apart from the groom, I don’t know. We’ll have to let them in soon.”

At that moment, Pearl drew back the partition to expose a table cluttered with trays of tiny meat pies, plates of cold sliced boudin sausage and mounds of crustless chicken salad sandwiches. Bottles of wine and beer poked out of a tin tub filled with ice sitting at one end of the dining room on an old, brown cotton rug. A small wedding cake with attendant of plates of cookies—sugar, chocolate chip, and Mexican wedding dredged in powdered sugar—sat in the center of the array of foods.

Angelle jumped up and down in time to the song now completing its third round and pointed at the cake. “Our surprise! We saved it for tonight.”

The groom appeared almost overdressed for his role as a new husband in pale blue pajamas, deep burgundy robe and leather slippers. Laura ran to her room. Robert pursued her. Standing by the locked door, he pleaded, “Please Laura. It’s an old custom. They wouldn’t do this if they didn’t like the both of us. Come and greet them if only for a moment.”

Laura rooted furiously in the bottom of the armoire, too hurried to answer. There it was, still in the box. She shook out the outrageously frilly peignoir and its matching gown. Discarding her flannels, she slipped on the shower gift intended for another wedding night and another groom and shoved her feet into the matching satin slippers. Passing through Angelle’s and Tante Lil’s vacant rooms, she paused in the bathroom, applied a touch of lipstick, blusher and eye makeup, combed her hair, and then, as an afterthought, mussed it again. Bedroom hair, that’s what she wanted.

As Robert opened the doors of the Chateau to the cherivari prepared to face the crowd of well-wishers alone and bear their jokes, Laura slipped into his bedroom, rumpling the bedding as she went. As the first tin pan bangers surged into the hallway, Laura stood dressed as a newlywed should be, in the doorway of the master’s bedroom. Showing neither lust nor longing, but gratitude, Robert’s eyes met hers over the throng.

“Sorry to interrupt anyt’ing,” quipped old Thibodeaux, eyeing the bed rumpled behind Laura, “But you gonna be married one long time, yeah. Let’s have us a little party to get t’ings started right.”

Jules Picard led the chorus in another round of the bullfrog song and told ribald stories in French that made the men guffaw and Laura blush, even though she had little idea what they said but could judge by the tone of his voice. Even old DeVille, the snoozer from the library, attended. He soon settled on the floor by Miss Lilliane’s wheelchair and dozed off with his head in her lap. She stroked his white hair tenderly as if DeVille were a favorite pet.

An elderly man so fat he used a pair of red suspenders to pull his pants almost to his armpits clasped Laura to his huge belly and hugged. “Tubbs Broussard, pleased to meet you. Don’t get by da library much, but always glad to celebrate a union made at my Barn. Best wishes to you and T-Bob.”

He took a swig from a dripping beer bottle after his toast and finally released Laura from his bear-like grip. He’d copped a feel in the process. A wizened geezer took Tubbs’ place, but offered a politically proficient handshake instead of a hug. She recognized this one.

“Leroy Mouton, your police jury representative. Seen you at the council meetings. Good work with the library. Not that Miss Lilliane wasn’t great at her job, too. Anything you want, you call me, you hear?” He attached a “Vote For Leroy ‘Lamb’ Mouton” button to her peignoir. “I hope I can count on your vote.”

Robert came to her rescue with an offering of red wine. She accepted the glass as he snugged her against his hip with one strong arm. He stayed by her side for the remainder of the party.

At one a.m., Robert and Pearl put the guests, full of beer, boudin and cake, outside. The groom felt obligated to drive the drunkest home. By the time he returned, Laura slept in her unlocked room. He noticed she’d been too exhausted to discard the provocative gown. Vulnerable in sleep and thin white nylon, she tempted him to get in beside her. But, she’d been generous to him this evening, hanging on his arm, laughing and blushing at the jokes, as if this were the most wonderful night of her life, saving him from embarrassment before the community. Vivien would never have done the same. Laura deserved to be left in peace. He kissed his bride lightly, whispered, “I love you,” and locked himself out of her room.