LAGNIAPPE
~TEN~
Cajun Dictionary:
Patrack—beat up truck, a rust bucket
Petit bébétté—whiney cry baby
Alohrs pas—of course not
Caisse—the back of a truck
Canaille—sly, sneaky
Every time Mac and Itsy started to talking, Dink interrupted like a petit bébétté. Thankfully, ride wasn't too long; Dink had moored his houseboat at a popular nearby marina in order to better load their equipment. His parents would be by to pick up his truck sometime later.
Mac climbed down from the cab and made her way to the back. Itsy tried to follow, but Dink pulled her out the door behind him. He buried his nose in her hair, unsatisfied with the level of closeness they'd had during their drive. His fists clenched on her hips as he breathed her in.
"I can't believe you're really here."
She squirmed in his arms, her mind battling with her body and losing. Her head—Bella—screamed that she had a job to do, while her body melted into this man. His size, his scent, his firmness, it all pressed down on her to shape her into her true form. Itsy. Bella was silenced as Dink pressed her against the open door; the patrack groaned under the pressure.
They stood there wrapped around one another. Itsy laid her head on Dink's chest, entranced by his sound and steady heartbeat. Dink rested his cheek on the top of his woman's head and closed his eyes, content in the moment to just hold his love close once again.
Rhythmic lapping of waves against the pier posts provided the couple's song. They swayed ever so gently to the distant bellows of ships and seabirds' feisty replies. Dink's chest rumbled with contented hums. How he thought he could go months without feeling like this was beyond his understanding.
A car horn, followed by whooping catcalls burst their bubble. The couple started, looking upon their tormentors with confusion.
Familiar laughter broke out in raucous peals and drew closer. "I reckon y'all done figured it out," CeeBo teased as he pulled his only child into a hug hello before kissing Itsy on her cheek.
Mac had wrestled her large, wheeled case down from the truck and perched herself upon it near the pier while waiting impatiently for Bella and Edward to remember they had jobs to do, materials to teach and learn. She was sure dry humping was not on the syllabus.
When her uncle arrived, she sprung to her feet and ran a hand over her clothing, quickly schooling her face to one of cool indifference.
She moved to the caisse where Jasper was already at work unloading their equipment. Mac made sure to add a little extra swish to her walk as she approached. "How do, Jasper?" she called sweetly. The young man took his time looking Mac up and down. She was a tiny little thing compared to him, but a powerhouse. He loved it.
Jasper had been infatuated with Mary Alice Cullen Brandon since he first laid eyes on the girl at twelve years old. As for Mac, well, she was smitten from the get-go. But at fourteen and practically a woman, she couldn't very well make her feelings known. Pigtail tugs and foot chases were standard expressions of affection between the two.
Jasper reached out to welcome Mac in an embrace. "How you been, hon?" He squeezed her tighter, enjoying the rare opportunity to touch her.
They broke apart when CeeBo's shrill whistling startled them. "Mayhaps I shoulda had Essie ride along so I wouldn't feel like a fifth wheel."
Mac shook her head at her uncle and practically skipped into his arms; she was the daughter he never had. Her happy shrieks filled the man with so much joy.
They joined the others to finish unloading the truck. "Uncle Carlisle, why didn't you tell me about these two?" Mac jerked her head in Edward and Bella's direction. Her uncle snorted back a laugh.
"Because it would have spoiled the fun." Itsy smacked Jasper in the stomach when he answered Mac's question. "What? Blame Em. He knew all along!"
Itsy's temper flared. I'mma skin 'im. She rolled her eyes and grabbed a crate, stomping angrily down the pier and up the gangplank with Dink moving quickly behind her.
"Itsy...Itsy wait."
Her movements only faltered when she reached the deck. Fingers gripped the crate tight—too tight—the rigid plastic dug painfully into her flesh. It was all she could do to keep herself from lashing out.
This was bullshit. Everybody knew what was best for Itsy, 'cept Itsy. She was a joke. She had no say.
It was Phoenix all over again.
God, she had been so eager to be free from her mother, her grandmother, and their friends. None of them understood what Itsy truly desired, what she truly needed. Those shallow women's unrelenting efforts to drive the swamp out of her...to scrub, primp, and polish the proverbial mud from between her toes; the constant push to change the very essence of who she was had very nearly broken her. If Nana Marie hadn't made Charlie get a DNA test and have Itsy's birth certificate corrected, she'd be walking around as Isabella Higgenbottom. She shuddered at the idea. Her name was all she had of her father, and badge she wore proudly.
Itsy had often heard them all whispering about her: the product of Renee's fling. They treated Renee's time with Charlie as if she had been traveling abroad and Isabella a trinket, a silent souvenir doll baby to dress up and pose. Never had they acknowledged that Renee lived as Charlie's wife for ten years before stealing away at the behest of her mother with claims that her estranged father was near death.
The Swans had a good life…a contented existence for a decade and then came the barrenness of the desert. The dry heat tempered only by the coolness of the Higgenbottoms. Itsy was tampered down through diction and etiquette lessons. Ball gowns and pageants. She wore her mask well. She did everything that was expected. Her scant contact with Nana Marie and her father were filled with reminders of minding her mama, and promises of a swift reunion.
Days passed and Itsy's scenery did not change. She would conjure up visions of fishing with her father and Spud while watching the sunrise on the water during a cool, spring morning in order to soothe her anguished soul.
Weeks…months…years…each morning she woke to the smattering of green in the form of tall cacti and not palmettos and tall pines. The earth was brown and dusty…brittle, not so red it was almost purple, not thick and pliable like the land she called home. Even the air was different. She missed the water…the Gulf…the bayou that made the sky stretch on for eternity.
When Old Lady Higgenbottom died last year, Itsy quietly rejoiced. When Renee gave in to her wanderlust, more like regular old lust, and took off with a ball player, Itsy at last felt free. Grandmother's purse strings were ultimately cut. Mother took the money and disappeared. Itsy worked hard to finish school, although she was now responsible for her tuition. As a result, she had to slow her pace, work a full-time job, and decrease her course-load. Eventually, she earned her bachelor's degree in Environmental Science. No matter how much she wanted to, she couldn't just pack up and come back to Louisiana broke and without a plan. Itsy worked her ass off to prove her mettle and felt she was finally making her own way in the world—doing just as he father had always taught.
No longer under the thumb of her overbearing grandmother and her archaic thinking, or her mother's ploys to have her marry well, Itsy was master of her own destiny for the first time in her life when she enrolled in graduate school and chose a semester at sea.
Now, with CeeBo and Jasper laughing at her, knowing things about her life that they should not, Itsy questioned everything.
Dink looked upon Itsy with concerned eyes. He reached for her, but she pivoted away. He unlocked the door instead of pursuing her further. "These need to go down to the lab," he said solemnly and lead the way to the lower deck.
"Did you know too?" Itsy whispered once she was calm enough to release her load without fear that she would hit something…or someone.
"What? Alohrs pas!" He spun her around to face him, wrapping her in his arms. "I'm just as annoyed by them. This is our life. Not a game."
She didn't believe him and pushed away. "I was so stupid. Stupid to carry on with you." Her anger swelled again at the idea of Spud keeping secrets...Rosalie too. Jaybug. Dammit!
"How could you not know, Dink...shit...Edward! Whoever the hell you are…"
He stumbled back at the anguish in his love's voice, the pain breaking across her face was too much for him to witness.
"What do you want from me? You're my cousin's best friend...his brother. You didn't notice my pictures all over the house? You never heard my name mentioned?" With each furious question, she stalked closer. "Did you have fun playing with my heart? I loved you. You fucking made me love you!" Spent, she collapsed against his chest.
They crumbled to the floor in a tangle of limbs. Itsy's tears soaked through Dink's shirt as he gently rocked her in his arms, shushing her sobs. "I can't stand to see you like this. Please believe me. I didn't know. I only, saw your name just a few days ago. Still...I didn't connect anything. The…the University of Arizona transcripts, the letters of recommendation, the sidebars and phone calls telling me I wouldn't regret choosing you..." He sighed unsure of how else to prove himself. "My department head made the decision while I was in Japan after the typhoon. I have been living all over the world for the past ten years, Itsy. When I'm home, it ain't for long. This boat has been home and work full-time for nearly three years now. Mac'll tell you. Mama, she ain't satisfied, but this makes me happy. I love what I do. I lo—"
Heavy work boots thumped down the hall followed by the rhythmic clicking of delicate heels. "I don't know where Bella's gonna sleep, but go on and put her things in the bunk room. I wouldn't be surprised if those two hadn't slipped off to Edward's cabin. Gotta christen the boat, since he never got around to naming it." Mac's musical, but commanding voice echoed down the corridor, breaking through Dink's hushed confession. They were startled when CeeBo threw the door open, his arms heavy with equipment.
"Oh, pardon." The older man took in the scene of the two lovers wrapped around one another, and he quickly averted his eyes.
Dink struggled to climb to his feet, bringing Itsy with him. "Let me help you, Daddy." Itsy turned her back to the two men, busying herself with unpacking the contents of a box. Her emotions were too surface-level. Her beef wasn't with CeeBo, it was with that canaille, Spud.
Taking one of the parcels from his father, Dink looked CeeBo sternly in the eye. "What I do?" the older man mouthed. Dink just shook his head and narrowed his eyes.
"I'll talk to you about it later."
CeeBo let out a defeated sigh. Between his wife and his son, he wasn't allowed to have much fun anymore.
The boat was stocked and organized in no time with the five of them working together. Soon, the trio said their goodbyes to CeeBo and Jasper and idly waited for the tide.
Her crisis of confidence had ebbed, and Bella emerged calm and poised. She sat quietly on a deck chair watching pelicans lazily bob on the water's surface. Jughead had found her and invited himself onto her lap. Together, they heralded the evening in silence, enjoying the cool, soothing Gulf breeze.
Bella's tranquility was broken when Dink slid into the seat beside her. "Mac wants you in the kitchen," he said with a tremor of uncertainty in his once strong voice.
She deposited the cat in Dink's lap as she stood and silently made her way to the kitchen, patting his shoulder as she passed. His heart sank.
What the hell did that mean?
Relationships had been few and far between for him, something he mostly blamed on his chosen profession. Mac would say he hid behind his work. Sure, globetrotting was sexy, but not the way he did it. Living out of rickety, tin boats for most of the past ten years was far from glamorous. Add to that his propensity to be waist-deep in waters infested with shit that could drop a man twice his size in a heartbeat, yeah, Edward Cullen had not lived the glamorous life at all.
It was a wonder he managed to have female company other than Mac. His high school girlfriend had been the longest relationship he'd ever had, and that wasn't saying much. Sure, he had semi-drunken encounters with colleagues on the tour circuit or those he knew from fieldwork, but Itsy...Itsy was altogether more. She was his lagniappe, and he wanted to give her more in return.
"You needed me for something, Alice?"
Mac was busy dancing around the kitchen working all the burners as she cooked up something that smelled scrumptious. Bella's stomach growled loudly over the music.
"Yeah, come here and toss this salad so we can have supper once we're out on open water. The tide is coming in, and we're gonna to be shoving off soon, but I gotta get this pot on to simmer otherwise it won't be ready." She was a whirling dervish stirring and tasting, tossing a dash of spice here and there into the bubbling mixtures. "We gotta work out a schedule for chores. You and I will have to do most of the cooking since Edward's shit in the kitchen, but you probably already know that."
Bella shook her head. She did not want to talk about her relationship with Dink.
"Look, Alice..."
The other woman quirked an eyebrow at her, not liking the tenor of Bella's voice. She put the spoon down and took Bella's hands in her own. "What's going on, Bella? What's wrong? You can't be homesick already."
Bella closed her eyes to hide the telling orbs. "I...I'm here to work, to learn, okay?" She took a deep breath and met Mac's questioning gaze. "Let me just be Bella right now. I...I need to be Bella. You're Mary Alice...Alice, right? And Dink..." her throat constricted at what she was insinuating—leaving Itsy and Dink behind while they did their task.
"What about me?" He sidled up behind Bella and caged her in his arms against the countertop. His lips pressed against the back of her head, and he held them there, his breath warm and stirring up her essence.
"Oh God, am I going to be subjected to this torture for an entire semester?" Mac threw up her hands in exasperation, but in actuality, she was quite amused.
"I need to speak to you. Come up to the bridge with me." Dink didn't ask; instead he took Bella's hand and lead her away. Mac offered her a small smile and wave, letting Bella know it was okay.
Edward's office sat at the top of a wrought iron spiral stair and was made almost completely out of glass. A knee-high stretch of teak, framed in bronzed metal wrapped around the room. Once inside, the boat's many controls blinked and beeped, on the opposite side of the space held Edward's private office in all its ordered chaos.
"Would you like to learn how to drive her? You can be my first mate."
Bella tried not to laugh at his nervousness, but this man before her was a far cry from the confident man she'd met a month ago.
"I'm sorry about earlier. When you're ready...please tell me how to make it right, Itsy. I need you. I need to make things right with us."
Turning, she took his face in her hands. "There's nothing wrong with us—"
"Then why are you so distant?"
"It's everybody else, Edward!" In her swelling anger, she gripped his face tighter, almost to pain. He would take it if it made her feel better. "I thought...I thought coming home would put an end to folk running my life."
Dink worked his hands up over hers to pull them from his face. "No one is running your life. You want to be here. You earned this spot. Who gives a fuck if Emmett's nosy ass knew something before you did?"Bella rolled her eyes at him. "I'm serious. I like how we met. I love our story." He dipped his head to capture her lips just as they were forming a rebuttal.
I love you. He hoped his lips, his body said what his heart could not properly articulate.
Itsy clawed at Dink's shoulders, his back, his hair. So lost in his touch, she tugged at his shirt, pulling it up from his pants in a desperate move to feel more of him. She huffed and moaned, rubbing herself on the man as if she were marking her territory. Her hands left a familiar, fiery trail wherever they touched Dink's flesh.
An alarm chimed, breaking them from their haze. They stood, foreheads touching, panting and staring into the other's eyes.
"I thought I told you not to do that, but you did it again."
Playing coy, Itsy blushed, not entirely sure what Dink was going on about.
He gripped her chin, forcing her eyes up. "Stop trying to get rid of me. There's no goodbye for us, Bella, get that through your thick head." He released her and went to the controls, pressing buttons to cycle through a series of screens. He beckoned Itsy over with a jerk of his head. "This here is the ignition. Throttle. Rudders. Thrusters." He pointed to different buttons on the complicated display as if nothing had happened.
Placing her hand upon the joystick, he gently nudged it forward and they were off.
Sorry for the delay in updating, I was distracted by a couple of contest entries. Then I dump an angsty chapter on you. I truly am sorry about that. That's just the way it came out. I do what the story tells me.
Thank you kindly for continuing to read this story. I'm humbled that you all are enjoying my words.
Until next time…