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“He knows. No one in this barn is sober enough to figure it out,” Katrina said, amused. “Except for possibly Beverly Casson, which I think is pretty amazing.”
“Look at her dancing with that guy,” Maggie said. “It’s so nice that she found someone here, with good old Alfonso bringing Lola along like the disgusting piece of crap that he is.”
“He really is that,” Katrina said. “All’s well that ends well, I think. And you and Justin made quite the picture out there dancing tonight. The steam was coming off your bodies.”
“He is hot.”
“You and your naked dress!” Katrina cried, pointing. “I can’t believe you found that thing in the attic.”
“Speaking of, how’s your room above Café Delphine? I need to come by to see it tomorrow.”
“It’s a place to hang out when Alphé is fishing and I’m not working. But I’m going to find out tomorrow if my offer on that little Creole cottage was accepted, and if it was, you can help me move in after I arrange to have my things shipped here. I’m not even going back to Pensacola to pack it myself.”
Annie came back to them after receiving their prize, a gift certificate for breakfast at Café Delphine, smiling and excited. “So what did I miss?”
“I just told Maggie that I’ll find out tomorrow if my offer was accepted on the house.”
“It will be! I am so excited. You’ll be so close,” Annie said.
“I’ll be dropping in for coffee every day,” Katrina said, hugging her with one arm. She noticed Lola leaving from the corner of her eye. “I wonder where ne’er-do-well is going. Honestly, she’s got something up her sleeve. I can feel it.”
“Does Alphé know what it is?”
“I didn’t tell him what I was thinking,” she said. “They’re going through the custody thing, and he’s setting up child support, so I’m sure there are some battles yet to fight.”
***
Once the reality of what her future looked like without Alphé was explained to her, that because of her infidelity, Lola wasn’t eligible for alimony, and because she was living in Alphé’s house and he already paid for the utilities and other expenses and was going to share custody that she’d have very little support coming from him, Lola was going to do something drastic.
The papers had been drawn up and sent to the respective parties. Just waiting for their response came next. Calista received the first letter. An attorney representing Lola’s younger two children, Pricilla and Rumor Beaumont, asked for permission to collect DNA from one of Calista and Rodney’s children to match with Lola’s younger children, the accusation that they had been fathered by Rodney Beaumont.
Sitting on a kitchen chair with the letter in her hands, Calista finally understood where her premonition of disaster came from. Lola was saying she’d had an affair with Rodney. Pris was ten years old. Rumor five. And right before Rodney had been killed, Lola had lost a baby. Was that baby also Rodney’s?
Reaching for the phone, it was time to involve Mae Beaumont with the issue. She had to know; she’d alluded to it, hadn’t she? “The time isn’t right. I’ll let you know when I can. When the time is right, all will be revealed.”
So this must be it. Keying in the familiar number, she felt her position in the family sinking even lower than it was. At least before this, she was the mother of the favorite son’s children. Now, Lola would share the distinction if in fact it turned out to be true. While the phone rang, she shut her eyes and saw the faces of Lola Beaumont’s last two. Did they look more like Rodney? Or Alphé?
“Why aren’t you at the ball?” Mae asked without saying hello.
“Who was I going to go with?”
“The family,” Mae said, head in the clouds.
It had been a long while since her children had gathered together to attend any carnival festivities. At one time, the brothers and their families and Mae’s daughters, Estelle and Shawna, and their husbands and children would walk behind the floats and spend the evening in town, eating carnival food and listening to music, watching fireworks from the boat anchored out in Cypress Cove.
Estelle’s children were older, two boys away at college and a girl, married, living in Saint John’s Parish. Shawna had married a dentist, and they were in Baton Rouge. No one came home for carnival since the duo of tragedies, Rodney and the old man losing their lives on top of each other. At that time, Mae had put out her sign,Palms Readwith a neon sign of a red hand, and during carnival, she made the bulk of her income for the year.
“There’s no family left,” Calista said. “My sister just told me Lola is at the ball with that old man from the hardware store, and Alphé is there with a young woman from out of town.”
“Katrina,” Mae said. “I can’t stay on the phone long. Do you have news?”
“I do,” she said, tearfully repeating what the letter announced. “But you knew.”
“I suspected,” she said. “Not until after the fact. I wonder if Alphé will have the same letter waiting for him. You know why she’s doing it, correct? She’s trying to collect death benefits from Social Security, like what you get for your kids. Alphé won’t have to pay child support because he already supports them, and he’s going to share custody. He’s basically cutting her off. That few thousand a month will be her spending money. And once Alphé finds out the truth…”
“Alphé loves those kids,” Calista said. “He won’t care who fathered them, I’m willing to bet.”
“I’m sorry,” Mae said. “I know my son loved you. But Lola is a siren. He probably just couldn’t resist.”
