Lulu's Recipe for Cajun Sass - Sandra Hill Page 0,1
Small John, before he’d grown into his six-foot frame of male handsomeness. She loved the boy to pieces. “What did I do now? I know I wasn’t speedin’.”
He leaned against the side of the car, let his sunglasses slip halfway down his nose, and peered down at her. “Can I see your license and registration, ma’am?”
“Pff! I’ll give you ma’am! You know darn well I don’t have ’em. Where’d you hide them this time anyhow?”
He shook his head as if she were clueless. “You were driving too slow. Buford Doucet called the station to say you had traffic backed up a mile on the bayou road.”
“That Buford has some nerve complainin’ about me. You oughta check out the old fart when he’s drivin’ that smelly farm truck of his. And he won’t let anyone pass him, either.”
“It’s a no-passing zone.”
She waved a hand dismissively. “Try smellin’ cow shit fer a half hour and see if you don’t try to go around.”
“Tante Lulu! Such language!” Tee-John exclaimed with a grin. Tante was the Cajun word for aunt, which was what everyone called her, even those who weren’t blood kin. “Where you off to anyhow?” He gave her appearance a sweeping glance, taking in her neon-blue net driving scarf anchoring down a Farrah Fawcett wig, her heavier-than-usual blonde-toned make-up, thanks to the free samples from Charmaine’s beauty salons, and a pale pink tank top with silver sequins spelling out “Sizzling Senior” over hot pink capri pants.
She thought he murmured “Lordy, Lordy!”
“I’m meetin’ Mary Lou at The Mudbug.” She glanced at the St. Jude watch on her wrist. “And I’m late.”
“Well, auntie, shove your little behind over. Looks like I’ll be drivin’ you into town.”
“Why? I kin drive myself,” she complained, but she didn’t really mind. Sometimes she didn’t see the road signs too good. Used to be she could read those old Burma Shave signs from far away. Now…well, they were too faded, even the reproduction ones some local know-it-alls had deemed relics of historical importance. Leastways, that was her excuse for squintin’ now and then.
“Maybe I just like your company,” he said. He adjusted the sunglasses back over his eyes as he opened the driver’s door, tossed the cushions into the back, and pushed the seat as far back as it would go.
“How you gonna get back to yer cop car?”
“I’ll walk over to Luc’s office and shoot the bull for an hour or two, till you’re done with lunch. Then, I’ll drive you home.”
Luc was Lucien LeDeux, his brother and Louise’s oldest “nephew.” Best known in these parts as the Shark Solicitor because of his talents in the courtroom. If you shot your wife’s lover, or were over limit on your possum trappin’, or were caught moonin’ the mayor, Luc was the lawyer you wanted.
“Doan you have to be workin’?”
“I’m off duty today.”
“Ain’t it against police rules to be chasin’ people with a siren when yer off duty?”
He gave her a look that pretty much asked when he had been one to follow the rules.
He had a point there.
Just then, while Tee-John was making an exaggerated show of turning her car around in the parking lot—it didn’t have power steering—old man Boudreaux came out of the store with a broom and proceeded to sweep the sidewalk, which was already clean. Another nosy posy! He waved at her, and she waved back.
“Holy crawfish! Don’t tell me, that’s another one of your beaux from days gone by. Leon Boudreaux is ninety if he’s a day, and he’s lookin’ at you like you’re the cream in his café au lait.”
She smacked him on the arm. “No, I never dated Leon, but I did almost marry his brother Justin before he went up north to do his doctoring.”
“Really? I saw his obit in the Times-Picayune last week. A big-time brain surgeon in Chicago, I think it said. Never married.”
When he glanced her way, she imagined that his eyebrows, behind the dark glasses, were raised in question.
She just shrugged.
“Almost married? Holy sac-au-lait! How many marriage proposals have you had, auntie?”
“Seventeen,” she answered, without hesitation. “Seventeen serious ones. I doan count all those phony baloney ones where the dumb clucks thought they could get the key to my bedroom with a wink and a pinch.”
Tee-John blinked at her. It was always a pleasure to Louise when she could shock her wild nephew.
But then he exclaimed, “Seventeen!”
“What? Why are you so surprised? I’ve lived a long life.”
“That’s for sure,” he muttered under his breath, then asked, “When