Tami Hoag - Cry Wolf

Those thoughts brought a host of others bubbling to the surface and set her stomach churning. She tried to turn her attention to the familiar scenes they were passing at the speed of sound-a block of small, ranch-style houses, each with a shrine to the Virgin Mary in the front yard. Shrine after shrine made from old clawfoot bathtubs that had been cut in half and planted in the ground. Flowers blooming riotously around the feet of white totems of the Holy Mother. A block of brick town houses that had been restored in recent years. Downtown, with its mix of old and tacky "modernized" storefronts.

She didn't turn to look at the courthouse as they passed it, concentrating instead on the congregation of gnarled, weathered old men who seemed to have been sitting in front of the hardware store for the past three decades, gossiping and watching diligently for strangers.

The scenes were familiar, but not comforting, not the way she wanted them to be. She felt somehow apart from all she was seeing, as if she were looking at it through a window, unable to touch, to feel the warmth of the people or the solace of long acquaintance with the place. Tears pressed at the backs of her eyes, and she shook her head a little, reflecting bitterly on the defense of her mental state she had made to Caroline and Savannah in the parlor. What a crock of shit. She was as fragile as old glass, as weak as a kitten.

"I'm really not very hungry," she murmured, digging her fingers into the beige leather upholstery of the car seat to keep her hands from shaking as the tension built inside her, the forces of strength and weakness shifting within, pushing against one another.

Not bothering with the blinker, Savannah wheeled into the parking lot beside Madame Collette's, one of half a dozen restaurants in town. She took up two parking spots, sliding the 'Vette in at an angle between a Mercedes sedan and a rusted-out Pinto. She cut the engine and palmed the keys, sending Laurel a look that combined apology and sympathy in equal amounts.

"I'm sorry I brought it up. The last thing I want is to upset you, Baby. I should have known better." She reached over and brushed at a lock of Laurel 's hair that had dried at a funny angle, pushing it back behind her ear in a gesture that was unmistakably motherly. "Come on, sweetie, we'll go have us a piece of Madame Collette's rhubarb pie. Just like old times."

Laurel tried to smile and looked up at the weathered gray building that stood on the corner of Jackson and Dumas. Madame Collette's faced the street and backed onto the bayou with a screened-in dining area that overlooked the water. The restaurant didn't look like much with its rusted tin roof and old blue screen door hanging on the front, but it had been in continuous operation long enough that only the true old-timers in Bayou Breaux remembered the original Collette Guilbeau-a tiny woman who had reportedly chewed tobacco, carried a six-gun, and dressed out alligators with a knife given to her by Teddy Roosevelt, who had once stopped for a bite while on a hunting expedition in the Atchafalaya.

Rhubarb pie at Madame Collette's. A tradition. Memories as bittersweet as the pie. Laurel thought she would have preferred sitting on the veranda at Belle Rivière in the seclusion of the courtyard, but she took a deep breath and unbuckled her seat belt.

Savannah led the way inside, promenading down the aisle along the row of red vinyl booths, hips swaying lazily and drawing the eyes of every male in the place. Laurel tagged after her, hands in the pockets of her baggy shorts, head down, oversize glasses slipping down her nose, seeking no attention, garnering curious looks just the same.

The scents of hot spices and frying fish permeated the air. Overhead fans hung down from the embossed tin ceiling, as they had for nearly eighty years. The same red-on-chrome stools Laurel remembered from her childhood squatted in front of the same long counter with its enormous old dinosaur of a cash register and glass case for displaying pies. The same old patrons sat at the same tables on the same bentwood chairs.

Ruby Jeffcoat was stationed behind the counter, as she always had been, checking the lunch hour receipts, wearing what looked to be the same black-and-white uniform she had always worn. She was still skinny and ornery-looking, hair net neatly smoothing her marcel hairdo, lips painted a shade of red that rivaled the checks in the tablecloths.

Marvella Whatley, looking a little plumper and older than Laurel remembered, was setting tables. There was a fine sprinkling of gray throughout the black frizz of her close-cropped hair. A bright grin lit her dark face as she glanced up from her task.

"Hey, Marvella," Savannah called, wiggling her fingers at the waitress.

"Hey, Savannah. Hey, Miz Laurel. Where y'at?"

"We've come for rhubarb pie," Savannah announced, smiling like a cat at the prospect of fresh cream. "Rhubarb pie and Co-Cola."

At the counter Ruby eyed Savannah 's short skirt and long bare legs, and sniffed indignantly, frowning so hard, her mouth bent into the shape of a horseshoe. Marvella just nodded. Nothing much ever bothered Marvella. "Dat's comin' right up, then, ladies. Right out the oven, dat pie. You gonna want some mo' for sho'. M'am Collette, she outdo herself, dat pie."

The table Savannah finally settled at was in the back, in the screened room, where abandoned plates and glasses indicated they had missed the lunch rush. Out on the bayou, an aluminum bass boat was motoring past with a pair of fishermen coming in from a morning in the swamp. In the reeds along the far bank a heron stood, watching them pass, still as a statue against a backdrop of orange Virginia creeper and coffee weed.

Laurel drew a deep breath that was redolent with the aromas of Madame Collette's cooking and the subtler wild scent of the bottle brown water beyond the screened room, and allowed herself to relax. The day was picture perfect-hot and sunny, the sky now a vibrant bowl of pure blue above the dense growth of trees on the far bank. Oak and willow and hackberry. Palmettos, fronds fanning like long-fingered hands. She had nowhere to go, nothing to do but pass the day looking at the bayou. There were people who would have paid dearly for that privilege.

"We-ell," Savannah purred as she surveyed the room through the lenses of her Ray-Bans, "if it isn't Bayou Breaux's favorite son, himself."

Laurel glanced across the room. At the far corner table sat the only other customer-a big, rugged-looking man, his blond hair disheveled in a manner that suggested finger-combing. He might have been fifty. He might have been older. It was difficult to tell. He had the look of an athlete about him-broad shoulders, large hands, a handsome vitality that defied age. He sat hunched over a spiral notebook, glaring down through a pair of old-fashioned round, gold-rimmed spectacles. His expression was fierce in concentration as he scribbled. A tall pitcher of iced tea sat to his left within easy reach, as if he planned on sitting there all day, filling and refilling his glass as he worked. Laurel didn't recognize him, and she turned back to Savannah with a look that said so.

"Conroy Cooper," Savannah said coolly.

The name she recognized instantly. Conroy Cooper, son of a prominent local family, Pulitzer Prize-winning author. He had grown up in Bayou Breaux, then moved to New York to write critically acclaimed stories about life in the South. Laurel had never seen him in person, nor had she ever read his books. She figured she knew all she needed to about growing up in the South. She had listened to him tell stories on public radio once or twice and remembered not the tales he had told, but his voice. Low and rich and smooth, the voice of old Southern culture. Slow and comforting, it had the power to lull and woo and reassure all at once.