Rebel Without a Cake Page 23

  “All of it,” Simone said. “She had a dream the other night and woke up convinced she’s been going in the wrong direction. It’s still going to be a twentieth anniversary celebration, but now she wants a more rustic theme. She wants to concentrate on the fashions that people tend to ignore from our time period. Less The Great Gatsby and more The Grapes of Wrath.”

  Our server arrived with our first course, but I was so stunned by Simone’s news, I barely even noticed. “She wants to design the whole event around the styles from the Great Depression?” Could those clothes even be considered fashion? Maybe people with too much money would find it entertaining to see how the other half had lived. Having come from the other half, I struggled not to find it insulting. “And the board of directors is going to let her do that?”

  “According to Mama, the idea originated with one of the board members. They had a conversation. Mama went home and had a dream, and—voilà!—change is afoot.”

  Simone was certainly taking it well, which made me nervous. Were she and Evangeline working together? Was I being set up? Or was I just being paranoid? “Have you had time to decide how you’re going to decorate?” I asked.

  “Not entirely, but I’ll figure something out. And I have all the faith in the world that you’ll do something amazing with the food. I just wanted you to have a heads-up before your meeting with Mama next week.” She picked up her knife and fork and held them poised over her maison, a crab salad dressed with mayonnaise, olive oil, vinegar, capers, and scallions, seasoned with just the right amount of salt and pepper, and served on fresh butter lettuce leaves with a tomato garnish. “Honestly, the change is a bit annoying, but in the history of the society, we’ve never done anything remotely like this. I think that together we can make this an event that will be remembered for years to come.”

  Her expression seemed free of guile, so I laughed and picked up my own silverware. Based on looks and aroma alone, the maison rated a ten. After my first taste, I upped my rating by several points. “I hate to break it to you, but this year’s event might be remembered even if we fail.”

  “The two of us working together? How could that possibly happen?” She sobered slightly and held my gaze. “Really, Rita, I have a good feeling about this. I know it will mean big changes for the menu and for the cake, but I really think we could blow everybody away.”

  Her enthusiasm was infectious. The idea was beginning to grow on me, and for the first time since Miss Frankie had volunteered Zydeco to work with the Vintage Clothing Society, ideas began to race through my head. “What would you think about an untraditional menu for the banquet?” I asked. “I’m talking about the kind of food you don’t usually see at high-society events.”

  Simone’s smile bloomed. “Such as?”

  “Down-home food. Beef roasted in garlic. Chunks of sweet potato crusted in parmesan. Corn casserole. Turkey-cranberry Monte Cristo sandwiches. Banana pudding that would make you swoon—and I mean that literally.”

  Simone’s smile grew even broader. “I love it.”

  “And Evangeline? Do you think she’ll approve?”

  “We’ll make sure she does,” Simone said firmly. “We’ll call in reinforcements if we have to. In fact, if you have time after we’re finished here, we can talk to a friend of Mama’s. If we can get her on board with our idea, we’ll have it made.”

  I had a hard time imagining that anyone could influence Evangeline’s decisions, but I had to trust that Simone knew what she was talking about. “I have time,” I said. “And I think I can pull together a menu by Monday.”

  We chatted as we ate, each of us tossing ideas about food and decorations into the mix so by the time we’d finished our meal and paid the bill (with some minor argument from me about paying my fair share), we were both almost giddy with excitement. I followed Simone out of the restaurant into the bright autumn sunlight and dug Miss Frankie’s keys out of my purse. “You paid for lunch, so let me drive. Where are we going?”

  She waved away the offer and started walking toward the corner. “It’s just on the next block over. We don’t need to drive.”

  I trotted after her, eager to meet whoever it was who possessed the ability to influence Evangeline Delahunt. I pictured someone wealthy, with impeccable breeding and the right social standing. I didn’t expect Simone to lead me into a narrow building on Dauphine Street with peeling white paint and bright blue shutters . . . which I recognized with shock as Mambo Odessa’s shop.

  The overpowering scent of potpourri almost knocked me over as we stepped inside, and I felt myself bracing for a room full of shrunken heads and human bones. To my surprise, the tiny shop seemed almost normal. A number of gris-gris bags filled with herbs, roots, and oils made up a display along one wall. Another section contained a tasteful variety of dolls dressed in bright colors and feathers, a selection of educational books and DVDs, jujus, and jewelry.

  Opposite those I saw a selection of bath oils, soaps, and candles. According to the signs posted here and there, everything inside was designed to enhance love, fortune, health, or good luck.

  Mambo Odessa wore a bright orange caftan decorated in shades of yellows, browns, and rusts. She wore her tiny round sunglasses even inside the dimly lit store, but they didn’t seem to impact her ability to see and recognize us. She embraced Simone warmly and beamed a friendly smile at me.

  “This,” Simone said to me with a flourish of her hand toward Mambo Odessa, “is one of my favorite people in the world. She’s the only person I know who can get my mother to do anything.”

  What were the odds?

  “Come in, come in.” Mambo Odessa ushered us toward a collection of comfortable chairs in the far corner, smiling at me as if she’d known I’d show up here on this exact day, at this precise moment, in the company of Simone O’Neil. And maybe she had. But if so, I’m not going to lie, the whole idea left me feeling skittish.

  I took a few shallow breaths and tried to talk myself down. Of course Mambo Odessa knew Simone and Evangeline. She was Ox’s aunt, after all. I already knew that Ox and Simone were friends. It just hadn’t occurred to me that Mambo Odessa and Evangeline Delahunt ran in the same circles. They seemed so . . . different.

  Then again, this was New Orleans, where a high-powered politician and a parish priest could sit down to dinner with a female impersonator and a jazz musician and nobody thought a thing about it. It was disconcerting and reassuring at the same time.

  Mambo Odessa sat beside me and touched my wrist. “You’re still wearing your Brazilian wish bracelet, I see.”

  Only because I kept forgetting to take it off, but I didn’t admit this to her. “Yes. I guess I am.”

  “And has it helped?”

  “Maybe. I’m not really sure.”

  Simone watched the exchange with a little scowl of curiosity. It seemed I wasn’t the only one who needed a few minutes to connect all the dots. “I should have realized the two of you would know each other,” Simone said when the pieces finally clicked for her. She shook her head and laughed at herself. “Okay, so here we are. Mambo Odessa is the board member who got Mama started down this whole Depression Era path.”

  Somehow, in spite of everything, that piece of information still had the power to surprise me. I gaped at Mambo Odessa. “You’re on the Vintage Clothing Society board of directors?”

  “Yes, child. I sure am.”

  “And it was your idea to change the theme for the Belle Lune Ball?” I don’t believe in coincidence, but in that moment I wanted to. I didn’t like thinking that Evangeline Delahunt, Mambo Odessa, and Miss Frankie were connected, or that Evangeline’s sudden change of heart had been set in motion to somehow benefit me. There was no doubt in my mind that this new theme would make life easier for me, but that suspicion killed some of the excitement I’d been feeling. I wanted to succeed on my own. If I failed, I wanted to fail on my own.

 
“Not my idea,” Mambo Odessa said. “I merely passed along an idea that was shared with me.”

  Yeah. Right. Okay then. I glanced at Simone, whose eyes were alight with anticipation. Maybe this wasn’t all a setup, I told myself. I wanted that to be true. I liked Simone and I thought she and I could be friends long after the Belle Lune Ball was over. And I actually liked Mambo Odessa, too.

  So I gave them both the benefit of the doubt. Because after all, that’s what friends do.

  Twenty-eight

  I stayed busy over the weekend putting together a menu for the Belle Lune Ball and sketching cakes I thought might appeal to Evangeline Delahunt. Both Simone and Mambo Odessa attended the meeting on Monday. I can’t say that Evangeline was friendly toward me, but she was civil and she actually approved both the menu I’d proposed and my idea to highlight several classic cake flavors, including banana layer cake with fresh banana buttercream icing; a country-style blueberry cake drizzled with crème Anglaise and dolloped with sweet whipped cream; spice cake loaded with nutmeg, cinnamon, cloves and ginger and topped with buttercream; an orange almond breadcrumb cake with orange custard icing; and of course, the ultimate vintage cake, devil’s food with chocolate custard.

  That afternoon I helped the staff bake and decorate sixteen dozen candy corn cupcakes while Ox and Dwight built a cupcake display shaped like a giant haunted house for the school party. Tensions were still running a bit high between Edie and the rest of the staff, but they were almost back to normal and discussing the costumes they planned to wear. Frankly, hearing them chatter about Halloween plans was the best thing I’d heard in days. I had to admit that Ox had done a great job while I was gone. I didn’t notice any cracks between Ox and Isabeau either, which made me happy. Maybe Mambo Odessa had been right about them. I hoped so. But I was still a bit nervous since it appeared that we’d all be thrown together over the next few months. The more Ox saw of his aunt and Isabeau together, the more likely he was to pick up on their secret meetings.

  It was none of my business, of course, unless their relationship imploded right in the middle of preparations for the Belle Lune Ball. Only time would tell whether I needed to worry about that. Right then I had other things to worry about, like how to get my car fixed and how long Miss Frankie and Bernice planned to stay in Baie Rebelle.

  And, of course, the issue of Christmas. My nonrefundable airline ticket had arrived in my e-mail, putting pressure on me to resolve the new question hanging over my head: Could I really leave Zydeco that close to the Vintage Clothing Society’s anniversary banquet? The answer, of course, was no—but admitting that broke my heart. I hated letting my family down, especially after disappointing Miss Frankie, but I couldn’t see any way around it.

  That afternoon, I went with Ox, Dwight, and Isabeau to deliver the cupcakes, which kept us busy for several hours as we set up the display and loaded it with almost two hundred orange and yellow cupcakes. Most of them made the journey undamaged, but we were kept busy fixing the ones that hadn’t.

  By the time I got home that evening, I was bone-tired and ready for bed. Too exhausted to cook, I’d picked up a pretzel burger and fries and I planned to eat them in bed so I could roll over and fall asleep after the last slurp of Diet Pepsi crossed my lips.

  Before I could even unwrap the burger, I got a call from Miss Frankie telling me that she and Bernice were ready to come home (good news) and that Ed was going to start charging me a daily storage fee for the Mercedes (not so good).

  I was up bright and early the next morning, hoping to take care of everything in Baie Rebelle and get back to New Orleans before lunchtime. If Ed couldn’t repair the Mercedes, I’d have no choice but to pay for towing even if the fee I’d been quoted made my stomach tie itself in knots.

  I’d be glad to have Miss Frankie and Bernice home where they belonged and was relieved that I wouldn’t have to keep racing off to Baie Rebelle every few days. I felt guilty for not getting Eskil out of the woods (so to speak), but I had to believe that Georgie and the sheriff would do their jobs and clear him. After all, my job was to make cake, not catch killers.

  I found Ed’s after driving around Baie Rebelle for at least an hour, and only after asking the clerks at T-Rex’s for help. I’d been looking for a business. Ed’s turned out to be a double-wide trailer where a guy named Ed lived.

  Ed was around thirty, a tall guy with a husky build and a full black beard. He acted as the town’s mechanic whenever someone encountered a problem they couldn’t fix on their own. I didn’t ask how often that happened. Nor did I ask if Ed had ever worked on a Mercedes before. I didn’t really expect him to fix it. I just counted it a victory that the car wasn’t out in the middle of nowhere turning into a nesting area for local wildlife.

  The guys had pushed the Mercedes around back where, apparently, Ed’s “shop” was. I’d assumed that Ed had already checked out the Mercedes and could give me an opinion, but despite his down-home digs and laid-back appearance, Ed didn’t lift a finger if he wasn’t getting paid.

  He told me to make myself comfortable and promised to be back in a little while. I guessed he was performing diagnostics so I found a metal chair in front of the trailer and made a mental note to keep something to read in my purse at all times. A book or magazine would have come in handy.

  Since I didn’t have anything to read and my cell phone had no service, I kept myself busy by pulling the lint off the breath mints I’d found in the glove box the day of the accident. I’d almost finished that task when a maroon pickup pulled into the driveway and Adele Pattiere got out.

  Sensing the opportunity for something more interesting than lint removal, I said hello. She returned my friendly greeting after a slight hesitation, and I took that as a sign that she might be up for some conversation. I was convinced that Kale was the young man she’d been talking to the night of Eskil’s dramatic “rescue” and I was curious about why she kept denying it.

  She didn’t owe me an explanation, but I left the comfort of the metal chair and walked toward her. She looked better than she had the last time I saw her. Her eyes weren’t red and puffy, but they still looked haunted.

  “Are you looking for Ed?” I asked.

  “Yeah. Is he around?”

  I jerked my head toward the trailer. “He’s in back looking at my car. I had an accident a few days ago.”

  “Oh, yeah? You’re okay, right?”

  Her concern was touching. At least it might have been if she’d looked at me. Since she didn’t, I had to assume she didn’t actually care. “I’m fine,” I said in case I’d read her wrong. “I met a friend of yours, I think. Kale Laroche found me out there and came to my rescue.”

  That got her to look at me but she didn’t say anything.

  “You know Kale, right?” I said. “I saw the two of you talking that night at Margaret Percifield’s house.”

  Adele nodded slowly. “Of course I know Kale. But like I told you before, you didn’t see us talking.”

  I’d be leaving town soon, so I called her on it. “Actually, I did. It doesn’t seem like it should be a big deal, but you keep denying it so I guess it is. And you’re the only person in town who seems to care that Silas is dead, including his son Kale. What gives?” I caught a flash of misery on her face and decided to take it down a notch. “Plus, I hate to see anyone grieving. I know what it feels like to lose someone.”

  Adele shushed me and looked around quickly. “You’re not from around here. You don’t know how people felt about Silas.”

  “I know that most everybody hated him,” I said. “But I don’t think you hated him at all. I think his death has been tough on you.”

  She blinked a couple of times and swallowed hard. “He was a friend. But you can’t tell anybody that. If it got out, nobody around here would work with me again. It’s rough enough trying to make a living as a woman in the swamp.”

  “Why wo
uldn’t they work with you?”

  “Because no one trusted Silas, and so they wouldn’t trust me. Around here trust is everything. You don’t survive without the help from other people. You have to know that they’re willing to do whatever needs to be done, and they have to know that about you.”

  “And people wouldn’t know that about you if they found out you and Silas were friends?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t run my own boat, and I need the work I get helping others with their tags. I had a rough go last year and Silas helped me out. But we kept it quiet. Silas was different. People didn’t trust him. If word gets out now, I might be able to regain trust, but it would take a long time.”

  “How close were the two of you?”

  Adele’s gaze skimmed across my face. “Close enough.” She toed the ground. “We had something, but I don’t even know what it was. It had only been a few months.”

  “It didn’t bother you that he was married?”

  “That was just a technicality. He didn’t consider himself married.”

  Oh. Well. In that case . . .

  “They would have been divorced if Nettie wasn’t such a gold digger.”

  I laughed. I couldn’t help myself. “What was she digging for? I thought Silas didn’t have anything.”

  “It wasn’t what he had that Nettie wanted. It was what he was going to get.”

  I stopped laughing. “What was he going to get? I was told that his father wrote him out of his will when Silas deserted his family and moved to the swamp.”

  “He did,” Adele said, “but his mother didn’t agree with what her husband did.” She leaned against the hood of her truck and crossed one foot over the other. “When Tommy Laroche changed his will, he gave everything to Suzette, his wife. Before that, he’d given Suzette the house and some money and divided the rest between Junior and Silas. I guess he believed that Suzette would honor his wishes and give everything to Junior when she died.”