2

Driving to New Orleans, Pace realized that the route he was following from Bay St. Clement was the same one his mother and her lifelong best friend, Beany, had taken on the last trip of Lula’s life. At the age of eighty she had gone on the road to visit Pace, which she had, and stayed with Beany at Marnie Kowalski’s house on Orleans Street. All had gone relatively well until a dilemma in Beany’s family caused the women to cut short their time with Pace. It was on their way to Beany’s daughter’s home in Plain Dealing, Louisiana, that Lula suffered a heart attack and died.

Lula and Beany had encountered a spot of trouble in South Carolina after a young man they had given a ride to was stabbed to death by a disturbed woman he met during a stopover. Both Lula and Beany had been unnerved by this incident but Pace did not think it had anything to do with his mother’s subsequent passing. Lula had experienced many worse situations in her lifetime and managed to weather them all. Her heart, strong and wild as it was, had finally just quit. Pace missed his parents but was satisfied that they had lived their lives as best they could and passed on to him their spirit of adventure, decency and generosity. As far as legacies go, Pace figured, that was about as good as one could get.

By the time Pace arrived at Marnie’s late Thursday afternoon, he was exhausted both mentally and physically. He had stopped on the way only to sleep, eat and get gas, keeping conversation with anyone, such as the motel clerk, waitress or station attendant to a minimum. As soon as he had parked his Pathfinder on Orleans Street, two houses down from Marnie’s, Pace fell asleep in the driver’s seat and did not wake up until Ms. Kowalski herself knocked on the front passenger side window.

“Pace Ripley! Here I am, darlin’, the one you can’t live without.”

Pace opened his eyes and saw his old friend standing on the sidewalk grinning at him through the glass. The sun had gone down and Marnie’s short blonde hair glowed in the gray-green light of the New Orleans evening. He got out of the car and embraced her.

“It’s true,” Pace said. “Other than the unlikely event of Sailor and Lula bein’ resurrected, there ain’t nobody on the planet other than you whose company I believe I could tolerate.”

Marnie laughed and said, “That either don’t speak so highly of the human race or of you, Mr. Ripley, sir. Which is it?”

“I’m tryin’ to decide.”

Pace picked up the few belongings he’d brought with him and followed Marnie into her house. Milk and Honey barked furiously at the sight of him, so Marnie put them out into the yard.

“What about Bigger, or Digger, or whatever his name is?”

“Digger’s on his fifth tour of duty in Afghanistan. I don’t expect him back for another six months. That’s if he makes it back, of course.”

“A lot can happen in six months, Marn.”

“Sure as shit,” she said.

Marnie removed two Abita Ambers from her refrigerator, opened them, and handed one to Pace. They clinked bottles.

Marnie took a swig, grinned and said, “And I’m hopin’ somethin’ will.”

Pace swallowed half the contents of his bottle and smiled back.

“Did the thought ever occur to you, fine progeny of Sailor Ripley and Lula Fortune, that everybody’s dodgin’ bullets one way or another whether they know it or not?”

“It’s a good thing for us then that most folks can’t shoot straight.”

Marnie sidled up to Pace, kissed him softly on the lips, and said, “Think you could give me a straight shot where I need it the most?”

“Right now?”

“Rat now, as my Grandmama Elsie Buell in Nacogdoches used to say, bless her heart. I do believe history is still made at night.”

As Pace followed Marnie up the stairs to her bedroom, he recalled his daddy telling him that once when he was in high school following a girl up a flight of stairs like this Sailor reached up, put a hand between her legs and the girl turned and said, “Oh, what a bad boy you are.”

Pace put his right hand between Marnie’s legs and without stopping she cooed, “I never could get enough of you bad boys.”

In her bedroom Marnie pulled down the shade over the window facing Orleans Street, then threw her arms around Pace’s neck.

“Tell me, darlin’,” Marnie said, “don’t it feel like home?”