nothing else, Valerie was hoping the cistern would finally be filled so she could take a shower instead of bathing in the stream.
Sitting cross-legged on the floor before Rene’s bookcase, she was trying to find something to read, but all she saw were nonfiction books, almost all of them dealing with the bayou, everything from simple swamp biology to Mike Tidwell’s Bayou Farewell: The Rich Life and Tragic Death of Louisiana’s Cajun Coast. Behind her, a humming Tante Lulu was cooking up another zillion-calorie Cajun feast for dinner, happily content to wait till someone in the freakin’ world came looking for them.
Rene also appeared happy with so little, which amazed Valerie.
He was outside on the porch, where a Baton Rouge country-western station blared on the satellite radio. A Toby Keith marathon was apparently going on, and he sang along with each good-ol’-boy song:
“How Do You Like Me Now?” “I Love This Bar.” “Who’s Your Daddy?” Rene had a really nice voice, she had to admit. She could see why the Swamp Rats, the musical group he played with on occasion, were so popular throughout Southern Louisiana. As he sanded the stair railing, he occasionally danced, too. Hands upraised. Fingers snapping. Hips rolling to the beat. Needless to say, he was a good dancer.
She wondered idly what else he did well.
No, I don’t. Definitely not.
With a grunt of disgust, she picked up a notebook she’d found under the bottom shelf of the bookcase, rose to her feet, and went outside. Instead of being embarrassed at being caught singing and dancing by himself, Rene smiled at her and started to stretch out his arms and waggle his fingers in a beckoning fashion for her to join him in a dance. But then, his eyes latched onto her attire, and he stopped dead in his tracks.
“Mercy!” he exclaimed.
She was wearing a red-and-white striped tube top of Tante Lulu’s that was about two sizes too small with flame-red spandex shorts that were straining at the seams. Why the old lady would need or want such garments was beyond Valerie. “Hey, I’m here without any extra clothes, and you don’t have any more clean shorts or shirts, and it’s hotter than hell,” she said defensively.
“Honey, you’ve been spouting legal charges ever since you got here, but I’m telling you now, it’s a true-blue crime for you to go within a mile of any red-blooded male dressed like that And right now, my blood is pumping crimson red. Whoo-eee!” He was looking at her as if she were naked. The lout!
She could feel her face heat up, but she wasn’t about to tuck tail and run like an overly sensitive teenager. “Don’t get any ideas,” she warned.
“Hah! Ideas are popping up in my brain like erotic popcorn.” He grinned at his analogy, then waggled his eyebrows at her.
“I’ve got more clothes on than you do,” she countered. And that was the truth. Rene wore only a pair of cut-off jeans.
“Sweetheart, the only way we would be on equal footing in that department would be if I shucked my shorts.” He put both hands to the waistband of his cut-offs and unsnapped the button.
She shrieked, “No!” He was probably just teasing, as usual, but she wasn’t taking any chances.
He continued to grin and give her a head-to-toe scrutiny, over and over. Thankfully, he re-snapped himself.
“Listen, Mister Lech, I want to talk to you about something.” She waved the notebook in front of her and asked, “What is this?”
“My doctoral thesis.”
“What do you mean, doctoral thesis? Don’t tell me you hold a PhD.”
“Not yet. Probably never. I haven’t worked on it in two years.”
That made sense. The notebook was full of pencilled remarks in all the margins, indicative of a work-in-progress. “It reads like a futuristic novel,” she remarked. “Even the title, ‘Southern Louisiana 2075: Land of the Lost.’“
He shrugged. “That’s what it is, a prediction of what’s going to happen over the next seventy
Sitting cross-legged on the floor before Rene’s bookcase, she was trying to find something to read, but all she saw were nonfiction books, almost all of them dealing with the bayou, everything from simple swamp biology to Mike Tidwell’s Bayou Farewell: The Rich Life and Tragic Death of Louisiana’s Cajun Coast. Behind her, a humming Tante Lulu was cooking up another zillion-calorie Cajun feast for dinner, happily content to wait till someone in the freakin’ world came looking for them.
Rene also appeared happy with so little, which amazed Valerie.
He was outside on the porch, where a Baton Rouge country-western station blared on the satellite radio. A Toby Keith marathon was apparently going on, and he sang along with each good-ol’-boy song:
“How Do You Like Me Now?” “I Love This Bar.” “Who’s Your Daddy?” Rene had a really nice voice, she had to admit. She could see why the Swamp Rats, the musical group he played with on occasion, were so popular throughout Southern Louisiana. As he sanded the stair railing, he occasionally danced, too. Hands upraised. Fingers snapping. Hips rolling to the beat. Needless to say, he was a good dancer.
She wondered idly what else he did well.
No, I don’t. Definitely not.
With a grunt of disgust, she picked up a notebook she’d found under the bottom shelf of the bookcase, rose to her feet, and went outside. Instead of being embarrassed at being caught singing and dancing by himself, Rene smiled at her and started to stretch out his arms and waggle his fingers in a beckoning fashion for her to join him in a dance. But then, his eyes latched onto her attire, and he stopped dead in his tracks.
“Mercy!” he exclaimed.
She was wearing a red-and-white striped tube top of Tante Lulu’s that was about two sizes too small with flame-red spandex shorts that were straining at the seams. Why the old lady would need or want such garments was beyond Valerie. “Hey, I’m here without any extra clothes, and you don’t have any more clean shorts or shirts, and it’s hotter than hell,” she said defensively.
“Honey, you’ve been spouting legal charges ever since you got here, but I’m telling you now, it’s a true-blue crime for you to go within a mile of any red-blooded male dressed like that And right now, my blood is pumping crimson red. Whoo-eee!” He was looking at her as if she were naked. The lout!
She could feel her face heat up, but she wasn’t about to tuck tail and run like an overly sensitive teenager. “Don’t get any ideas,” she warned.
“Hah! Ideas are popping up in my brain like erotic popcorn.” He grinned at his analogy, then waggled his eyebrows at her.
“I’ve got more clothes on than you do,” she countered. And that was the truth. Rene wore only a pair of cut-off jeans.
“Sweetheart, the only way we would be on equal footing in that department would be if I shucked my shorts.” He put both hands to the waistband of his cut-offs and unsnapped the button.
She shrieked, “No!” He was probably just teasing, as usual, but she wasn’t taking any chances.
He continued to grin and give her a head-to-toe scrutiny, over and over. Thankfully, he re-snapped himself.
“Listen, Mister Lech, I want to talk to you about something.” She waved the notebook in front of her and asked, “What is this?”
“My doctoral thesis.”
“What do you mean, doctoral thesis? Don’t tell me you hold a PhD.”
“Not yet. Probably never. I haven’t worked on it in two years.”
That made sense. The notebook was full of pencilled remarks in all the margins, indicative of a work-in-progress. “It reads like a futuristic novel,” she remarked. “Even the title, ‘Southern Louisiana 2075: Land of the Lost.’“
He shrugged. “That’s what it is, a prediction of what’s going to happen over the next seventy
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