French Quarter Kisses. Zuri Day
He positioned the towel over his lap and prepared to dig in.
Roz made a sound that stopped him. “Um, ladies first?”
“Ladies better hurry.”
“Ha!” Roz reached into the bucket and pulled out what was alternately called a crawfish, crawdad, crayfish or baby lobster, depending on who you asked. She felt Pierre’s eyes on her as, with a quick twist of the wrist, she separated the body from the crawfish head. With unabashed pleasure she placed the latter in her mouth and sucked out the juicy meatiness inside. After tossing the shell on the newspaper, she made quick work of slurping the remaining meat from the tail while reaching for her next one.
“Obviously not your first bucket,” Pierre quipped as he picked up one of the Louisiana delicacies and devoured it the same as Roz.
“Nope.”
“You from here?”
“Born and bred. Only recently developed a love for crawfish, though. My mom hates them and refused their presence in our home.”
“Where’d you grow up?”
“Eastover.”
“Ah, one of those.”
Roz frowned as she shamelessly licked juice from her fingers. “What do you mean by that?”
“Girls from your part of town had nothing to do with us boys in the Ninth Ward.”
“Is that where you grew up?”
“Spent a lot of time there” was Pierre’s vague answer.
“Well, I can’t speak for the girls you met back then, but I was not a part of the popular girl crowd.”
Pierre eyed her as he twisted the head from another crawfish. “I find that hard to believe.”
“Well, believe it. I was tall, skinny, with a head too big for the slender neck beneath it. I was too light in some places and too dark in others. In other words, I often didn’t fit in anywhere.”
Pierre’s eyes narrowed seductively. “Clearly all of that’s changed. You are...lovely.”
“When I look in the mirror I still see the socially awkward bookworm.”
“Everyone else sees someone beautiful, educated, successful. Someone with the world in the palm of her hand.”
“I guess you’d know.”
“Me?”
“Of course. Superstar chef with the world as your oyster, probably with a trail of broken hearts scattered down Interstate 10.”
“Not even close. What you see of my life now looks nothing like it did growing up.”
“In this area?”
“Sometimes.”
“Where else?”
“Didn’t matter where. The results were the same.”
“According to what I’ve read, being here mattered in 2005. You were here when Katrina hit.”
“Until the water pushed us out and I landed in Houston.”
“Tell me about that. It’s the angle for my story. New Orleanians who experienced Katrina to survive and thrive.”
Pierre nodded, slowly and thoughtfully. “What would you like to know?”
Roz wiped her hands on the towel and reached for her water. “Everything.”
So easy to talk to, Pierre thought, as he considered her question. He, too, wiped his hands and sat back in the hard plastic chair. When he did his eyes dropped to the recorder. Sure, she was beautiful, and dismantled one of his favorite crustaceans like a pro, but she was a reporter. Of course talking to her would be easy. Maybe too easy. She’d been taught how to coax information from individuals, make them feel comfortable. Catch them off guard. If this was what her schooling, training and experience had taught her, Pierre thought, she must have graduated at the top of her class. She was very good at her job.
So good that Pierre had almost forgotten some very important rules. He didn’t talk about his past, especially Katrina. Because to talk about Katrina, he’d have to talk about family. To talk about family, he’d have to talk about his mom, and Grand-Mère Juliette. Pull the scab off the wound left by his grandmother’s and mom’s disappearance during the storm. He still called it that, a disappearance, even though with all the time passed he was sure that they’d met the same fate as thousands of others whose lives had ended in a watery grave. The mom whose last words had been “Take care of your sister. I’ll see y’all soon. Promise.”
Only she hadn’t arrived in Houston. She’d broken her promise. Which was why to this day there wasn’t a woman he could trust.
Especially one who’d set a recorder between them. He shifted in his seat, saw Ma carrying a heavily laden tray out of the kitchen, and was thankful for her timing.
“Here, let me help you with that.”
“I’ve carried heavier burdens in my lifetime,” Ma insisted, though she readily allowed Pierre to take the tray of steamy goodness and place it on the table beside them, while Roz, knowing the drill, carefully bunched up the newspaper and placed it in the now empty red bucket.
“What all do we have here?” Pierre removed two small bowls from the tray, lifting one to his nostrils before setting it down. “Red beans and rice with, what’s that, andouille or boudin?”
“Neither. That’s Ma’s sausage. None else like it nowhere.”
He stepped back so Ma could set down piping-hot plates of jambalaya being transferred from the tray to the table.
“Ma, this all looks amazing,” Roz said.
“Smells even better than it looks,” Pierre added.
Ma replied in her traditional fashion. “Bone appetite.”
He’d barely sat down before picking up his fork to spear a chunk of sausage swimming in the bowl of beans and rice. He placed the nugget in his mouth and closed his eyes as he began to chew.
“The usual suspects,” he began, still chewing. “Thyme, paprika, bay leaf, sage...” Swallowing, he turned admiring eyes toward Ma. “But what’s that sweet undertone? Nutmeg? Ginger?”
“That’s for me to know and for you to never find out. Knowing that here is the only place you can get it will keep you coming back.”
“No doubt, I’ll be back.” Pierre tested the jambalaya. “Ma, this is divine. I need to spend some time in your kitchen.”
“I guess I could use a dishwasher from time to time.” She winked at Roz while Pierre laughed, and walked back into the kitchen, a smile clearly showing that his compliments were appreciated.
For the next few minutes, the deliciousness of Ma’s food dominated the conversation. But midway through the jambalaya, Roz repeated her earlier question to Pierre.
“You were telling me about your experience during Hurricane Katrina. What was that like?”
“You first. Where were you when it hit?”
“Out of state, Columbia, Missouri, preparing to enter my first year at Mizzou.” At Pierre’s raised brows she added, “University of Missouri.”
“Why didn’t you attend college here?”
“I wanted to. My mom wanted me to go to Southern, or Tulane. But my dad is a Midwesterner and felt that spending time outside my home state would broaden my cultural horizons. Plus, the University of Missouri has one of the best journalism programs in the country.