Chapter Two

“…Peace be with you…Peace be with you…Thank you so much for coming out today…May God bless you…”


Life, for the nearly one thousand men, women and children of Rainelle Parish, Louisiana, was one of constant habit and ritual.


Mondays through Fridays, men worked, if they were lucky enough to have not been laid off in the Depression, else at on-site jobs, doing menial labor or out in their backyards, tending to crops and livestock to provide for themselves and their own.


Women, when they weren’t keeping house or cooking meals for their families, were in the kitchen in the back of Saint Ignatius Cathedral, passing out soup to the poorest of the poor. (With weekly meetings held every Wednesday evening in someone’s home.) Just about every woman over the age of eighteen had some form of membership in the Ladies’ Christian League.


Children were expected to go to school in the day and boys helped their fathers in the fields and girls, their mothers inside, after classes.


Saturdays were reserved for picnics, outings to the movie house, calling on friends, young lovers going courting and other church-sanctioned activities.


Sundays….Sundays were reserved for Mass.


With such a large, deeply and solely Catholic population, two Mass services were held each week to accommodate everyone.


(Even Wallis Pelant, as ungodly as she seemed, could be found in the back rows of the sanctuary with her father, current stepmother and flock of half-siblings.)


And for as far back as she could remember, Vylette had attended the second service, which usually started at eleven in the morning and concluded just after twelve noon.


They had always attended the latter services in order for the girls and Mrs. Meraux to get a jump start on Sunday dinner as it was usually the most elaborate meal cooked in the week.


It was sometime close to noon on another bright and balmy spring day, as Vylette, along with the rest of her family, were filing out of the church house, everyone being greeted by Father Lachey at the door.


Father Reginald Lachey had been as integral in Vylette’s life as her own parents. He had baptized all the girls as infants, and given them their first Holy Communion--Vinnie’s just last year--and had been the one to give Lorraine’s mother and Father their Last Rites as they succumbed to the Flu.


Plus, he’d been the priest to marry the Doctor and his wife.


Once a month, he joined the Merauxs for dinner, where he was always, viewed as a guest as esteemed and revered as Pope Pius XI himself, and was graciously presented with a box of his favorite cigars by Dr. Meraux.


No other guest was more welcome in the Meraux household than Father Lachey.


He was practically a member of the family, a friend of Dr. Meraux’s from the time he’d been a teenager, quite a few decades ago. And it was always a sheer and wonderful pleasure to be around him.


Nearing him, automatically, Vylette could feel her mouth turning up into a smile, as she could hear the deep, slightly hoarse voice--from years of inhaling the smoke of cigars--with a bit of a twang repeating the same phrases to parishioners.


“…Peace be with you…Peace be with you…Thank you so much for coming out today…May God bless you…”


Getting closer, Vylette was nearly overcome with a sense of pride, as she always felt when near so holy a vessel as Father Lachey. He wasn’t really so much a person to her, but a link directly to God himself, in the shape of a kindly, middle-aged gentleman.


Father Lachey, somewhere in his early fifties, his pecan-colored face lined deeply and marked with darker freckles along his sagging, jowls. His eyes, deep set and dark, showed his knowledge and passion for his life of Christ, appeared huge from behind the small, thick, and round lenses of his tortoise shell spectacles. At one time, his hair had been black and lustrous, but over time had gone a light grey and missing from the very top. The bald patch was notorious for shining and even a person standing in the very back of the church, could see it reflecting from the pulpit.


He was a jolly rotund man, his gut protruding forward, lending to the comical look of what a man would appear like if pregnant. His body, despite the very warm weather, was covered from throat to floor in a black, woolen robe that buttoned up the front, little white collar circling his fat neck. Golden and wooden rosary beads hung from his waist and a crucifix, suspended by a thin chain laid on his bosom.


The family moved out onto the long staircase that led up to the massive brick building, and Vylette could audibly hear her mother inhaling to speak.


Kathleen Meraux never let a Sunday pass with out personally speaking to the priest. As a head of the Christian League, she erroneously felt herself as in touch with God as he.


“Well, Father Lachey…” Mrs. Meraux’s voice boomed with clarity and dignity, as one would expect of one of the matrons of the Parish. “…that was certainly a rousing sermon you gave today!”


A smooth, pale brown hand, covered in a white kid glove, was extended and eagerly patting at the Father’s wrinkled one.


Kathleen Meraux was a stout woman, her thickset curves and largish bosom concealed beneath a black cotton dress, printed with tiny pink and white blooms with said curves contained in an ironclad girdle.


Her hair partially concealed by a black cloche, was also jet, save for a singular streak of stark white, tattling on her thirty-five years of age.


Just as long as her daughter’s, Mrs. Mearaux’s locks were finger waved in the front, up off her forehead, the rest gathered into a braided bun at the base of her neck.


Her face, unmarred by her age, was smooth as a girl’s, accented by dark, hazel-green eyes above a proud nose and pert, small mouth.


As she felt any and all make up was worn by “trash and show people”, she wore nothing more than lotion on her face to keep her skin supple.


“Why, thank you, Mrs. Meraux.” Father Lachey chuckled as others streamed past. “I’m so glad you enjoyed it. Its always a joy to see everyone here…”


His eyes found Vylette, Vinnie and Lorraine each smiling back but remaining quiet, then looked to Dr. Meraux as he stood behind his wife.


Smiling the two shook hands.


Dr. Almanzo Meraux, ten years his spouse’s senior, was an imposing figure.


Towering to nearly six and a half feet tall, he was broad shouldered and dense of body. Had he not looked so stern, his mouth in a constant tensely set straight line when not speaking, he would have been quite the handsome man.


His hair, black and a “good” grade, worn parted on the left and combed back, neatly, stood out against his reddish complexion.


Like Vinnie, his eyes were a stormy grey, accented by the thin, rectangular, silver frames of his eyeglasses.


Beneath a wide nose, his upper lip was obscured by a thick and heavy mustache he had been cultivating since the Great War.


(Author’s Note: The Great War is World War One. That‘s how it was referred to until America’s involvement in World War Two in the 1940s.)


Just as serious and severe as he looked, Dr. Meraux was dressed in an austere black suit with a highly starched white oxford and tie. He never wore anything but black to church, as he felt one needed to be as modest and unassuming as possible in church.


It had taken upwards of nearly seven years for the girls to be allowed to wear colored dresses to Mass instead of black. But the girls had won this small victory by some grace of God, and stood off to the side, Vylette in a lilac, floral adorned dress, Lorraine in a soft pink one, young Vinnie in a plaid frock.


“A very wonderful sermon today.” Dr. Meraux’s voice was a bit lighter than one would expect given his appearance.


Father Lachey grinned, his attention being called to Mrs. Meraux again, as she began booming about ideas to raise funds in order to keep the soup kitchen operating.


While Vylette and Vinnie stood at attention, the last of the congregation exiting, Lorraine started to lean against the white wooden railing on the steps, slumping in her, dropped-waist dress.


Through pretty and becoming on the older girls, the dropped waists and boxy silhouettes of their dresses had gone out of fashion with the Crash some two years earlier, but the dresses remained, as Vylette’s parents saw no need to purchase any extra dresses since they still fit and looked like new.


Her head lowered, Lorraine’s pretty face was hidden by the wide-brim of her gauzy pink hat, matching her dress.


“…we are in dire need of money for more chickens to make the noodle soup and eggs and green peas…the hungry need good, hearty, nourishing soups to stick to them and keep them full…” Mrs. Meraux was droning on.


Dr. Meraux, listening solemnly, glanced over and caught sight of his lazing niece.


Swiftly, her white, spotted bicep was clutched and she was up righted, with him whispering lowly, but loudly enough for her cousins to hear.


“Lorraine, you’re in the presence of a Holy Man! Where is your respect? Have you had leave of your senses, child? You’ve been raised better than that! You remain standing, or I’ll let your aunt fix it so you can’t sit down! Don’t let me catch you being disrespectful like this again! Do you understand me?”


Lorraine, could barely be heard, “Yes, Sir, Uncle Almanzo.”


There was a flame of hatred in her eyes as her uncle turned back to join the adults’ conversation.


Lorraine, like most all teenagers, hated to be faulted in public and her cheeks glowed with her scorn.


Vylette only offered her a sympathetic look from beneath the brim of her lilac hat.


It was all she could do; you didn’t speak until spoken to--even at seventeen and practically engaged.


Looking from her cousin, Vylette saw a new person had appeared a few steps down.


A skinny, pale, popeyed child, her long, golden brown hair gathered in two looped braids about her ears stood staring up at Mrs. Meraux expectantly.


She was Vinnie’s best friend and one of Ulrich’s sisters, Hildegard Povah.


She waved at Vinnie who waved back, but both children had learned not to interrupt adults when they were speaking.


Vinnie knew the leather strap all too well and Hildegard wasn’t fond of the birch rod Mrs. Povah implemented.


Eventually there was a break in the conversation and Mrs. Meraux questioned,


“Do you need something Hildegard?”


The child’s eyes, a watery, sky blue that seemed to glow, widened,


“Yes Ma’am, could Vinnie come over to my house and play awhile, please? My Mommy said it was alright with her, if it were alright with you.”


Mrs. Meraux huffed, as everything, even her own children took a backseat to her work for the Christian League, and she gave her youngest a swooping glance.


“Lavinia…” She started, putting on her airs before the priest--she called the child Vinnie in any other context,




“You mind your manners and be home by six for your supper. And don‘t you dare get your dress dirty!”
“Yes Ma’am! Thank you!” Like a flash, Vinnie and Hildegard were scampering away, as frightened kittens would run from a pit-bull.


And before she could start in on her second verse, Lorraine interrupted.


“Aunt Kathleen?”


Mrs. Meraux’s gaze was cutting. “Yes?”


Oh, how that foghorn hated to be interrupted.


Folding her hands in front of her, Lorraine begged too sweetly,


“May Vylette and I take a walk before supper, please?”


Annoyed, Mrs. Meraux merely nodded and without so much as a thank you, Lorraine had taken her cousin’s arm, the two making a getaway.


As the made it off the stairs and onto solid ground, and starting past the picket fence surrounding the church, Lorraine sighed triumphantly,


“Great Scott! I didn’t think I’d be able to get a word in edgewise, with the way Aunt Kathleen prattles on so! She never shuts up--”


“You know how Mama is…” Vylette looked at her cousin impishly through her own hat’s brim. “Incredibly passionate about the Ladies’ Christian League.”


“It’s going to be a bleak day when we get inducted into that cult.” Lorraine tossed her hair, arranged in a single, gleaming braid off her shoulder. “For the Good and Gracious Cause, Aunt Kathleen will run us ragged--”


“G-g-good afternoon, Lorraine, Vylette…m-m-mighty nice weather we’re having isn’t it?” Someone wondered, amidst a gaggle of stammers and a mangled Southern accent, as the cousins passed the far end of the fence marking the church’s property.


It was a voice the pair knew all too well and Lorraine just barely managed to stop herself from allowing a growl of despair to pass her pink mouth.


Hand in hand, the two turned to see, leaning against the fence, a young man.


Soaring over them, was an awkward fellow, who always looked like a baby giraffe trying to take its first steps on solid ground, skinny and lanky, his body covered in a dark brown suit with a matching, crooked bowtie at his long throat.


His head was lowered a bit, showing his short, golden brown hair, limp, straight and severely parted down the middle.


His eyes, a lackluster blue, beneath a short forehead were on the ground, his long hands twirling in front of him.


There he was, in all of his bashful glory, Ulrich Povah.


Ulrich, like Steven, came from one of the best and well-moneyed families in the Parish.


The Povahs had owned and run their namesake hardware/feed store in the community for upwards of seventy years.


Ulrich, had a lineage could be traced clear back to his great-great grandfather who had immigrated to the United States from Germany and married his Creole great-great grandmother shortly thereafter, spawning quite a large family numbering in the dozens and dotting all over the South.


Ulrich, though he and Steven had been joined at the hip, almost since birth, he and his best chum were night and day.


(Vylette never saw Steven at Mass; his family attended the earlier, five-in-the-morning Mass, and he spent the rest of the day, unless the two had a date, out at the pond sleeping and fishing.)


Steven was swarthy, a braggart, arrogant, and had been known to brawl at the slightest provocation--and could box like a prizefighter--while Ulrich was much more subdued, modest and typically tried to avoid hostile confrontations.


Ulrich, the only boy in a family of seven, with six younger sisters between the ages of three and thirteen, was more sensitive to the point of being a sissy and while he fished and hunted, and pursued all the manly sort of things with the other quality named boys, it was more to be social than anything.


There was no true passion behind him in these pursuits.


The only thing that seemed to bring life to Ulrich, was Lorraine Devereaux.


Head coming up, his eyes sparkled sapphire and widened, taking in Vylette’s cousin happily from head to toe and it was no secret his attraction to her as he wore it so plainly.


Lorraine was staring down her nose at him, full of utter contempt, and Vylette, running damage control answered him,


“Yes, it is a lovely day, Ulrich. Did you enjoy Father Lachey’s sermon?”


“Yes…” Ulrich inched closer. “It…it was very moving.”


Lorraine’s grip on her cousin’s hand tightened; she prepared to fly the coop.


And then Ulrich asked something that made her stop cold.


“Lorraine…do…do you like Jean Harlow, the actress?”


Lorraine’s mint-colored eyes widened and she smiled so beautifully, so brightly, at the poor boy, Ulrich’s knees trembled and he struggled to remain standing.


“Why yes, I like Jean. She’s my favorite.” Lorraine spoke so sweetly, sugar granules were almost visible and Vylette rolled her eyes. Lorraine engaged in talk about film stars the way her aunt engaged about the Christian League.


Once she began it was often a long interval of time before she stopped--if she stopped.


Ulrich, had a few false starts and a lot of sheepish giggling, before he got out,


“If…if it’s not too late tonight, and Dr. and Mrs. Meraux allow it, would you like to come out to the movie house with me? I hear they’re screening Hell’s--pardon me--Heck’s Angels. I hear it has a Technicolor sequence. You can see Jean Harlow in color…”




Jean Harlow in color.
Vylette peered at Lorraine through her hat again, certain her cousin, in spite of her definite low tolerance of Ulrich, would have gladly put it aside to see her idol in color and covet her blonde mane for an hour or so, while snacking on a bag of roasted peanuts.


Lorraine never could resist the allure of that Siren.


(Author’s Note: I’ve seen Hell’s Angels (1930) three times. It contains the only known color footage of Jean Harlow ever shot.)


So, Vylette almost cried out when Lorraine, playing with her braid replied mockingly polite,


“I would love to accompany you, Ulrich, it would be an honor…”


The boy began to puff up,


“…only…only I will have to decline. Sister Roberta is giving a spelling exam tomorrow morning, and I‘d like to study for it. I‘m so very sorry, Ulrich. You understand.”


Only a well taught belle could shovel such a load of shit and make it turn a person into a diabetic it was so saccharine.


“What?” Vylette’s mind screamed at her, but her mouth never moved.


Ulrich couldn’t conceal his disappointment. His face fell and entire body seemed to be sagged over under the weight of that letdown.


“Oh…well, that’s alright, Lorraine. I…I wanted to offer.” He whispered, tears in his very voice, and his hand went out to clutch Lorraine’s gloved one.


“Ulrich!” Lorraine gasped, snatching her hand away and slapping the top of his. “People can see you!”


Seeing his breach in etiquette, Ulrich reddened to the shade of a tomato and begged profusely,


“I’m sorry Lorraine! Forgive me for being so forward. You…you just look so nice today…you look so nice every day! Oh, I’m so stupid. I know better than to paw at a girl! I must learn to control myself, I have such an awful time with my impulses…Forgive me! I didn‘t mean to do it! I‘m sorry Lorraine!”


Ulrich, scandalized, eyes consuming his face, sputtered, before turning and running away, tail between his legs.


Vylette, feeling a raw and thorough pity in her heart for the boy, scolded her cousin,


“Lorraine, you shouldn’t chastise him so! How can you be so cruel? Can’t you see how much he likes you? He’s trying so hard. He complimented you. He even offered you a chance to see Jean Harlow’s picture--and I know you’re dying to see it.”


Placing a hand on her hip and starting away, Lorraine simpered,


“I know he complimented me. He always compliments me. He’s silly, not blind. He knows I’m pretty. Anyone with eyes can tell you I’m pretty, Vylette. And of course, I’m dying to see Hell’s Angels. I wish I could see every picture Jean ever does…just. Well…” She looked over her shoulder. “You know how I feel about Ulrich.”


“Yes…it’s how I feel about Steven.” Vylette replied knowingly, and the two linked arms, ambling down the dirt road.


Both were quiet a moment, contemplating the inevitable paths they were to take, only a short while from then.


“It’s not that Ulrich isn’t a decent catch…” Lorraine spoke suddenly her delicate face hardened with reality and pulled away.


“What, with the hardware store and all. And he has those blue eyes…it’s just, the boy doesn’t interest me at all. He’s like a puppy dog…and I hate puppy dogs.”


She stopped long enough for Vylette to fall into step with her, the two walking a weaving and winding path, leading back to the main strip in town.


“There’s not much to Ulrich, Vylette. He talks to me, and compliments me but it’s nothing I’d write home about. He bores me to tears. And I know he tries. You don’t have to tell me that. He tries hard. I just don’t feel for him the way he’d probably like…you saw how he cut up just a minute ago, because I slapped at him for trying to grab my hand.”


Lorraine sucked on her teeth.


“Some man he is. The kind of man I like would grab my hand and hold it and touch it until it turned red, give me a deaf ear if I said no and most likely slap my hand back if I slapped his.”


“Lorraine, you know none of the boys here act like that. You and your stories…” Vylette chuckled, the idea of any of the boys they knew trying that as silly as…as a flying car.


“Yes, me and my stories.” Lorraine was defensive, chin jerking. “But, all of those stories didn’t fall right out thin air into the laps of those writers; someone had to inspire them!”


The two were quiet and reflective a moment--did boys and men like that really exist outside of the bubble in which they lived?--with Lorraine inquiring,


“Is Steven interesting to you?”


Vylette shook her head, her ponytail bouncing down her back.


“No…lately all he’s been talking about is that new Ford he’s supposed to be getting for graduation. I mean, that’s nice, that Mr. Wilkes is getting him the car, not many have cars to start with or the money to buy them…but I don’t like to hear of it each time we meet. But that’s just how Steven is. When he gets something new, he likes to show off.”


Both girls giggled and stated in unison,


“Pride is a sin!”


While Lorraine’s face was reddened in the cheeks, and beaming with all her teeth, Vylette’s expression was shrinking and her mouth tipped at the corners.


“Darling?” She stopped and stared off down the wooded lane looking nowhere in particular, “Do you know something?”


“What?”


A cool mist began to spring from Vylette’s hands, inside her gloves.


“Do you know, ever since I met that Jackson fellow yesterday, I haven’t stopped thinking of him.”


“Why Vylette…” Lorraine was clearly stunned but fell silent as Vylette added,


“I…I was barely able to listen to Father Lachey--God forgive me--but I kept thinking of him. He pulled me out the way of that truck. Just jumped and…and save me, Lorraine. He…he was so very kind to me…”


She trailed off, heart beginning to flutter more rapidly as she recalled how he had patted at her hand during their brief encounter.


Usually a man didn’t touch a girl in so benign a way unless they were engaged, it was believed and staunchly taught if a man were permitted to touch a girl and they weren’t absolutely serious, it would inspire him to take liberties and the girl could wind up with more trouble than just a ruined reputation.


No man had ever touched Vylette. Steven made attempts; he withdrew with spanked and bruised hands all the time. And Vylette was generally so cool with him to begin with, he usually would up apologizing in some form--though not as feverently and fanatically as Ulrich had to Lorraine.


Michael Jackson had seemed so concerned for her well-being, so worried for her. Patting and coddling her. Throwing caution to the wind to yank her out of harm’s way.


Those warm dark eyes so sincere and serene as they peered into hers.


His touch and look had thrilled her so…she was becoming lightheaded and giddy at the remembrance.


Lorraine, seeing the peaceful joy in her cousin‘s attractive, pink-tinged face, patted her back,


“I got a dime from Uncle Almanzo. Why don’t we go to Mumfree’s for some Coca-Colas? And we can talk about him some more.”


Nodding, the two continued. After a few paces, Vylette couldn’t help herself.


“Lorraine…you saw Mr. Jackson…you don’t believe he is a bootlegger, do you? Even if he does drive that Cadillac?”
Though he had introduced himself by his full name, and had a youthful, boyish look, Vylette felt it was more respectful and dignified to refer to Michael as Mr. Jackson. Refined men demanded to be labeled and called appropriately.


“I don’t know.” Her cousin admitted slowly. “He definitely has money, and lots of it. He rides around in something like a Barrymore would have, and looking at him, he’s probably lived a life and a half. A man like him has to. Bootleggers do make a lot of money…”


“I hope he isn’t a bootlegger.” Vylette repeated solemnly. Bootlegging was and illegal and dangerous practice in a Prohibition ruled America--especially for Vylette, as her parents had headed the Temperance Association in the years preceding the nationwide ban on liquor.


Anyone caught distilling or distributing any form of spirits faces hefty fines, jail time, or worse.


And if word got around that Vylette had been conversing with a “bad” man…she’d be beaten until blood ran from her with that strap!


A descendant of Gerald De La Croix with a common law-breaker!




“He didn’t seem like a bootlegger.”
With a soft chuckle, Lorraine challenged,


“And just what other bootleggers do you know?”


They laughed at the ridiculousness of the statement.


Everyone they knew were homegrown, church-going folks.


“But we’ve read all those detective stories about all those illicit people in those magazines Papa likes to read…evil, running from the law, gangsters, and well, Mr. Jackson seemed almost too good to be in that sort of racket.”


He had to be.


Throwing an arm around Vylette, Lorraine hugged her close and offered,


“Maybe he had a rich uncle that bought the farm and left him a fortune.”


Slim shoulders went up and down as they started for the little diner that sat at the end of the lane and across from her father’s medical practice.


“We’ll probably never know now Lorraine…” She pouted, crossing her arms, wanting to drown herself in a soda. “He’s probably gone off to New Orleans or elsewhere by now.”


Never seeing Michael Jackson again. Vylette’s heart felt a tiny stab of grief at that awful notion.


How someone so bright, so new, so refreshingly marvelous could make such a cameo appearance in her life.


And now…now he was gone.


She’d never see him again.


She halted cold in her tracks when Lorraine, mystified cooed.


“Maybe not, Vy, maybe not.”


Gloved hand rising, Lorraine pointed and all the breath whooshed from Vylette’s lungs.


A few yards away, parked in front of Pelant’s Grocery, was the majestic black and red Caddy, standing out among all of the raw Louisiana soil and neutral painted buildings, like a misplaced ball gown on a rack of Levis.


Vylette’s hands intertwined and mashed to her bosom heaving with shaky breaths, pupils dilating as she gazed on that piece of luxury in velvet and iron.


“He’s here…he’s somewhere still here…”


Lorraine’s eyes scanned around and except for little Winston sitting out front of his father’s store, reading a Saturday Evening Post, the road was vacant.


Eyes narrowing to a feline slant, Lorraine’s words were sharp and catty,


“Yes but where…if he’s in the grocer, I’ll bet that cow Wallis is flinging herself at him. You know how she is when any available man is around. Even when the man isn’t available! No couth or scruples at all--”




Tap! Tap! Tap!
Perplexed, they looked all around themselves a few moments, before the source of the noise was located.




Tap! Tap! Tap!
“My God…” The two gasped, every strand of hair on their heads rising up on end.


Through the large window of the diner, with the Mumfree’s name painted on it in blue and white, a young man was waving.


“It’s him…it’s him--oh Lorraine!” Vylette crushed the girl’s hand with such excited force she had to jerk it away before she lost the very use of it.


The two stood, inhaling far less air than they needed, as he rose and was exiting the diner, straightaway, making a beeline for them.


Michael Jackson, moving with careless ease, was again dressed like the stars the graced the pages of Lorraine’s film periodicals.


His long, willowy form was clad in a sleek single-breasted suit, constructed of a light brown, worsted wool, interwoven with pale blue threads forming a scant windowpane checkered design.


The same pale blue was reciprocated in his starched shirt and offset by a brown tie with a small, blue floral print and matching pocket square, folded to show four peaks.


His shoes, made of fine, camel brown leather, shone dully as he approached Vylette and Lorraine.


New clothing. All new clothing. No hand-me-downs, no recycled, out of style garments from years past. Had he ever worn out of style garments? Did he even know what the words hand-me-down meant?


His eyes showing the same light and kindness, as when he had been patting at her the previous afternoon, were on Vylette and she met his gaze a moment, before dropping it, her heart unable to bear such ferocious beating.


“Mr. Jackson…” She was as fluttery and nervous as poor Ulrich had been earlier around Lorraine.


“How do you do?” Michael greeted them and the girls repeated the phrase, seeing stars.


They had never been in the presence of someone like this man. The thrill. The very thrill.


“Miss Meraux…” His big hand found her arm and was patting at the white skin, taking on a crimson hue all over. It was a tremendous no-no, but Vylette, savoring the sensation made no moves to halt him.


How could make herself slap at him?


Even if she could have mustered the strength, she wouldn’t have stopped him. His hand was so soft and warm on her flesh.


How could a man have such soft hands; even shiftless rabble-rousers like Steven had roughened, calloused hands.


Michael’s felt like flesh clouds.


Didn’t he feel the goose pimples he was forcing to sprout from Vylette’s dermis?


“…you can’t know how pleasantly surprised I was to look up and see you going by after our rather informal meeting yesterday.”


He was so well-spoken, so intelligent, so…everything.


Vylette’s eyes roved his face, taking in his looks, her ears cherishing his light voice, absorbing every syllable.


He was so beautiful, so handsome, so attractive.


Was he real? Did he truly live and breathe?


A cherubic smile curled his features and he teased,


“Have you been staying out the way of speeding milk trucks?”


A terse laugh popped from Vylette’s mouth and with it all the tenseness she felt seemed to leave her, permitting her a bit of ease and relaxation, allowing her to say,


“Yes, I’ve kept out of the road.”


Michael’s eyes glittered, as Vylette looked upwards at him, her eyes showed entirely purple, complimented by her lilac church dress and hat.


A set of green eyes narrowed as the third party was all but forgotten.


“Ahem!”


Remembering her manners, Vylette, wrenched from the spell Michael was casting, rattled off an introduction,


“Please, allow me to present my cousin, Lorraine Devereaux. Lorraine, Michael Jackson.”


“I’m happy to know you Miss Devereaux.” Michael was holding her hand and shaking it.


“Enchanted, Mr. Jackson.” Lorraine, who’d been dying to use the ritzy phrase ala Harlow, smiled willfully, tilting her clefted chin up, looking into his striking face.


Lorraine’s eyes ran up and down that man like a searchlight.


Eyes drifting back to Vylette, Michael suggested,


“It’s so warm today, may I be so bold as to invite you ladies to join me for a cold drink?”


The cousins fairly reeled.


Never before, had they been referred to as ladies.


Girls, little girls by some, dame when Steven thought he was out of earshot, but not ladies!


Did…did he really consider them on par with ladies?


Impressed and wildly flattered, the country girls were consenting.




“Why, yes!”


“Thank you, Mr. Jackson!”
Michael stepped behind the girls, just as a male would, accompanying more than one female, allowing them to walk on ahead of him, and the newly minted trio made their way back to Mumfree’s.


Mumfree’s wasn’t anything all too fancy, a small, hole-in-wall sort of joint that specialized in typical diner fare, and during the week, saw a few dozen people, plunking down a nickel and dime there for a frosty soda or sandwich if they could spare it.


Run exclusively by the Mumfrees, a family, distantly related to the Wilkes, Mumfree’s comprised of a main counter, with a few swivel seats, near the back of a wood paneled room under a few bare bulbs, dotted with a few tables and chairs in the front, by the display window.


From somewhere in the far back, in the kitchen, hymns, via the radio were playing faintly.


On a Sunday afternoon, when most were making after-church calls on others or slaving away over a hot stove preparing supper, Mumfree’s was empty, save for the three and someone starting to bang around, out of sight, in the kitchen.


One table near the window, showed that Michael had been the only patron; an empty drink glass sat with a much-handled menu and a pristine brown fedora.


Automatically, two seats, one beside the chair Michael had been occupying, and the other next to that, were pulled out, Michael waiting until the two were seated, before sitting down himself.


Right beside Vylette.


“There, now we’re all settled.” His voice slipped into something of a falsetto, a cross between a whisper and something almost too high-pitched to be male, that gave Vylette a chill all over.


Starting to pick up the menu, he questioned,


“What would you like to drink?”


Somewhat tentative looks were exchanged, before Vylette, casting her view down on her gloved hands, replied,


“A…a couple of Coca-Colas, please--”


“Oh no!” Michael declared, a large hand coming up and he shook his head violently, all those glossy, willy-nilly curls atop it bouncing.


“I can’t get you Cokes! You both look too nice…too special to have just a plain old Coca-Cola!” A hand was wagged between them. “All dressed up like you are. You can drink a Coke any day. I insist you both have an ice cream soda--I had a rather delicious one prior to our running into each other.”


Both Lorraine and Vylette lit up.


An ice cream soda? They hadn’t had such a treat-- a treat that rang in at a dime apiece, twice the price of a Coca-Cola--since the Fourth of July celebration last year. It was almost the Fourth again!




(Author’s Note: I know a dime for a drink doesn’t seem like an awful lot, but during the Depression, most people were lucky if they saw a dollar extra in a year! Just imagine if you could only drink ten sodas for the whole year!)
It was then the idea dawned on Vylette: Michael Jackson was intending to pay for the both of them!


“Um…” Flustered, Vylette looked to her cousin for guidance on such an unprecedented manner.


She was unaccustomed to having things bought by a man--again, it was taught so often that men paying for girls would try to take liberties. So many things seemed to cue a man to take liberties…


Even when she went out with Steven, her mother or father gave her money to pay her way.


She was worried, but Lorraine was nodding so hard, her hat almost flew clean off her red head.


“If…if you truly insist, Mr. Jackson.” Vylette cautioned unsure of herself again.


The thin, arched brows above Michael’s twinkling eyes wiggled, and he spread the menu on the tabletop.


“I do…and please, call me Michael. We’re friends.”


Friends. They were friends!


Again stars paraded before Vylette’s eyes. Yes, she wanted to be his friend.


Only a fool would have opted for otherwise.


Eagerly the girls contemplated the various flavors a few moments, before Lorraine spoke up.


“I’d like the Pineapple soda, please.”


“And would you care for a Pineapple one too?”


Michael’s gaze was penetrating and Vylette was waffling.


Could he see straight to her soul?


“No…no, I’d like a Mint one.” She managed, desperate to look anywhere but at him.


Large hands clapping, Michael smiled,


“A Mint and a Pineapple, and I do believe I’ll get a refill on my Vanilla Crème. If you’ll excuse me.”


Michael, with each hand, patted at the shoulders of the girls, as he rose.


Vylette noticed he paused for a moment, his hand on her shoulder longer than her cousin‘s, before going over to the counter and ringing a small bell for service.


Vylette stared forward, out the window, and Lorraine twisted in her seat to watch him.


“Vylette…we are so lucky.” Lorraine’s voice dropped and she leaned closer to her cousin. “And though I hate you down to your core, because it seems…Michael…prefers you, perhaps he has a friend. A man like him can’t be too short on friends…fine, fine friends, just like him.”


Sighing victoriously, Lorraine folded her hands together on the tabletop.


“To think, an ice cream soda, and it’s not our birthdays or anything. And I bet he’d buy as many as we could drink too!”


At the counter, there was clacking and the sound of liquid gushing as one of the Mumfrees, prepared the cold drinks, Vylette didn’t notice who as she was only seeing Michael Jackson in her vision at the time, .


Her mind swirled over what Lorraine had said. Not the envious bit--Lorraine seemed to envy and wish ill-will on anyone who had a remotely stimulating beau, it was her spiteful way--but what she had said before it.


Turning from the window, to her cousin, her best friend, she asked, barely hearing herself.




“Do you think Michael likes me? Really?”
A man like him. A man like Michael Jackson.


“Are you daft, Vy? Yes!” Lorraine insisted sharply. “He almost bust a hole in the window for your attention and now…now he’s playing host…”


She played with her braid absently.


“Besides, he hasn’t stopped charming you since we sat down. Look at you any harder, those big, bug-eyes of his will fly right out his face…oh…oh my goodness gracious…”


Lorraine trailed off quite abruptly, and Vylette saw why.


In the open doorway of Mumfree’s, that allowed touches of a warm breeze in, and the aroma of cooking food and stale chicory coffee out, a man had materialized.


Very much like Michael, who remained at the counter, quietly watching the ice cream sodas being constructed, this new fellow was the pinnacle of a dapper gentleman.


His body, a bit compact and standing a few inches shorter than Michael‘s, appearing to have the same sort of wiry-like build, was exceptionally dressed.


The man wore a light, heather-grey suit, double breasted and cinched closed over a stiff white shirt and a plaid tie that mixed various shades of grey, as was the square in his front pocket. While Michael’s square had been folded to four peaks, his square had only two. For a splash of color, a pink carnation was in his lapel.


He was quite attractive, his features a bit more manly, compared to Michael’s boyish, somewhat androgynous ones.


His hair, arranged in the same fancy curl dressing as Michaels was thick and black, framing his flat face like a halo. Beneath full brows, his eyes were dark as he stared across the diner at Michael.


Broad, plump lips, accented by a pencil-thin, painstakingly trimmed mustache, twisted in angst and Vylette realized he didn’t notice her and her cousin sitting there.


Lorraine had noticed him though. Lorraine noticed every good-looking man.


Somehow, the skirt of her dress had been hiked up, showing her freckled legs off from the mid-thigh in the cheap, artificial silk stockings she wore. The only pair of stockings she owned.


Vylette shook her head; if her mother could see her niece now.


Lorraine had found her prey…whomever he was.


Her green eyes were widened, consuming the man, from his head down to his grey, patent leather, lace-up, shoes.


Hat still in hand, he made beeline directly for Michael, storming past them.


Both girls turned in their seats, curiosity wearing them.


Who was this man? What was he to Michael?


“You know they don’t carry Gold Crown cigarettes in this hovel?”


He questioned in a soft voice a skosh deeper than Michael’s. “I just asked at the five-and-dime across the way. Man says he’ll have to order them! Takes a week to come in! I had to buy Camels! Me! Smoking goddamn Camels! I don’t even like Turkish tobacco! Gold Crowns are American. Why would I want something from a country named after…after…poultry? But it was the only name I knew. Had a bunch of off-brands I never heard of in there. Can’t smoke just anything. I’ll have a coughing fit…”


Michael, still facing the counter answered,


“Camels are American, too. They just add the Turkish tobacco in for flavor.”


The shorter man went to reply, when the three sodas were placed up on the counter.


He stared at the glasses of brightly colored liquid topped with a dollop whipped cream.




“Just what the hell kind of drinking do you call yourself doing, Mike? You crawl across the Sahara while I was gone?”
Michael took his own sweet time to hand the man one glass and retrieve the other two, before he spoke roughly through gritted teeth,


“We have mixed company, you darn fool, and you’re in here cursing like we’re out in a barnyard somewhere!”


“Company?” The man repeated and for the very first time, took sight of the girls.


The two smiled, Vylette sweetly, and Lorraine with a bit of the imagined sultry she possessed.


“Oh! I left my manners and common sense outside--pardon me!” The man chuckled, rushing over to the table, tossing his hat on top of Michael’s, hand extended. “


I didn’t see you there. Don’t know how I missed a couple of roses like you. You’ll have to excuse me. I’m new here and still trying to adjust. I’m Marlon Jackson.”


Ah…Marlon Jackson. So they were brothers.


The girls nodded at each other, both pleasantly happy.




“Marlon, this is Lorraine Devereaux…”
His hand eclipsed Lorraine’s and the two were all teeth and dancing eyeballs.




“…and her cousin, Vylette Meraux.”
Michael saying Vylette’s name was like listening to the chorus sing during Mass. It was a heavenly noise.


His hand was another flesh cloud, gently squeezing hers.


“Well it certainly is nice to have delicate company…” Marlon cackled, going and moving the chair on the opposite side of the table closer to Lorraine‘s.


Lorraine full of her own vanity was visibly puffing up, basking in the attention, the refined Marlon was bestowing upon her.


“Is this yours, Honey? Smells like pineapples!” He questioned, passing the drink under his wide nose and Lorraine nodded. He set the loud yellow beverage before her and positioned the glass straw in her general direction.


Michael slipped into his seat, the glass of green Mint soda given to Vylette and he took a drag of his own, clear Vanilla Crème.


Vylette savored that first sip. It had been so long since she had tasted a Mint ice cream soda.


It was just as she remembered it, relatively sweet with a punch of spearmint so strong it cleared the sinuses.


“This is delicious, thank you.” She looked up at Michael, his eyes blazing.


“So…are you ladies sisters?” Marlon was being familiar, touching after the auburn braid trailing over Lorraine’s shoulder, eyes dropping to her exposed legs every so often.


Though his eyes had seemed dark earlier, up close and shining with merriment, the two saw their true color was a strange and bright gold-tinged amber.


“We’re first cousins--” Lorraine gave Vylette a scathing glance as she reached and pulled her skirt to where it belonged.


Vylette had to help her maintain some level of decency. You didn’t just throw your legs at a man, no matter how nicely he was dressed.


“Ah, cousins…” Marlon nodded deeply. “I figured as much. You don’t look exactly alike, but favor in some ways.”


“We’re brothers.” Michael stated the obvious, taking a bit of whipped cream on his fingertip and eating it.


“Who’s the older?” Vylette wondered as Michael stole some of her cream.


He moved so quickly, she didn’t have a chance to swat him for his impertinence.


“Marlon’s a year older than me.” Michael’s gaze was so pure and wonderful, Vylette could barely drink.


“And what…what brings you gentlemen to Rainelle Parish?” She asked, years in the art of polite conversation benefiting her now more than it had in her lifetime.


Michael’s thin mouth parted, but he was drowned out by Marlon exclaiming,


“Say, what kind of gag is this, Mike? All you got Vylette and Lorraine was a drink? What about food? I know I’m feeling a bit on the empty side. They might be, too.”


Cheeks becoming burgundy, Michael spoke up.


“Would you ladies care for some lunch, it’s…”


Vylette was winding up to decline, he’d already spent so much and she didn’t want to take advantage of his generosity.


Michael reached down and came up with a pocket watch.


Vylette felt her eyes swelling in her head and not really wanting to, she was staring.


In his hand, was possibly the most stunning timepiece Vylette could recall seeing.


It gleamed, made of royal blue enamel, marked in the center by an scrolling script “M” made of bright gold and also rimmed around the edges in more curling gold inlay.


Her father was a doctor, and didn’t own a watch, himself.


“I broke my watch chain this morning…I’ll replace it later…” Michael mumbled to himself, and with a click, the top flipped open, revealing a mother-of-pearl dial and delicate gold hands.


Louder he added,


“It thirty-five past twelve. Perfect time for a bite…” He looked over at Marlon. “I looked at the menu, they only make breakfast and sandwiches here.”


With a statement like that, Vylette wondered to herself, just what kinds of meals these Jackson men were accustomed to eating.


Again the menu flopped open.


“You ladies get whatever you like…” Marlon was still playing with Lorraine’s hair. Vylette hoped word never reached her mother. Lorraine would have been whipped bloody. And Vylette would have also been whipped for letting Lorraine behave so loosely.


A man touching her hair, like he knew her.


Seeing the sandwiches listed, between ten and fifteen cents a pop, Vylette had to stop. Lorraine was too greedy to ever say no.


“I…I have to decline. You’ve already spent so much.” She started, and Lorraine’s head turned so quickly, her braid was wrenched from Marlon’s hand.


Eyes sparked with evil, but she held her tongue.


Onside of her, Marlon snorted.


“Thirty cents? That’s all the sodas cost. Mike and I spend that much on a pack of our Gold Crowns.”




“Huh?”
It was an incredible idea. The most expensive cigarettes they knew of were the Camels Marlon had complained about, and those were a dime a pack. Did these men really have what it took to spend three times as much, just to set paper and leaves on fire?


“Now, come on and eat…dinner is too far away.”


“He’s insisting, Vylette.” Lorraine agreed, as Marlon took hold of her hair again. “It’d be impolite to say no.”


Lorraine couldn’t have no if God himself appeared on a beam of light and demanded she do so--she’d have just gone to Hell.


“Yeah, we’d cry into our pillows all night over being snubbed.” Marlon cracked and both he and his brother cackled raucously.


Feeling outnumbered, she looked up at Michael.


He had his fist pressed to his cheek, gazing on her quietly.


Vylette was going to order a sandwich.


“May I have the Baked Ham and Cheese on White, please?”


Leaning closer to Vylette, Michael patted her arm.


“You can have the entire pig, oinks and all, if it were there to order.”


His hand was immediately slapped.


“Fresh.” Vylette was reacting purely from teaching. Inside she was typhoon of gladness. And her cheeks flamed and flared.


“I’m sorry.” Michael was sheepish, eyes a blend of open playfulness and remorse.


“Ooooooh, I love ham. I think I’ll have that too.” Lorraine cooed.


“Sure, Honey.” Marlon smiled. “That BLT is talking to me, how about you, Mike? Want some pork, too?”


“No…the Turkey Club.” Michael was eyeing Vylette some more.


“That has bacon on it fool!” Marlon snickered, getting up and going over to the counter, ringing a bell.


“Oh…” Michael hummed, no care to him.


“Excuse me.” Lorraine started to go after Marlon and Vylette put a death grip on her arm.


She was acting too fast and Vylette had to see an end to it right then. She was getting to be as bad as Wallis!


Lorraine reddened with anger, and her lips jutted out


“Ahem…earlier you asked what brought me and my brother to the Parish, Vylette…” He began lightly, eyes growing serious.


“Yes.”


“My brother come from New York City--”


Vylette had to control herself. New York City? They came from New York? Mouth gaped and she and Lorraine stared at each other before staring at him awed.


No wonder they were so fine and stylish and cultured. He came from the center of all the goings-on and heartthrob of the nation!


“--we lived there about five years. Then last winter, I came down with pneumonia. H-had a bad time with it. In the hospital for weeks…I-I-I nearly died.”


“Oh no!” Vylette took Michael’s hand in her own, looking up at him, heart aching.


“You poor man.” Lorraine chimed in, her greed being cut by true sadness.


He had been sick? Almost died? It couldn’t be true.


Not this robust, lively, joking man. No…


“The doctor suggested I move down South, where the climate was warmer and would be accommodating to my lungs. Marlon wanted to go to New Orleans, but I talked him into coming here…I felt the country air and open spaces were better for me. So, here we are.”


“How long do you plan to stay on here?” Vylette glanced up through the window, bracing for him to say a very small dash of time.


A fellow from New York used to the speeding pace of a metropolis would be bored right out his head in the Parish.


Gooseflesh took her when Michael replied,


“Indefinitely, if possible.”


Vylette turned to see he had dipped his head, eyes huge as he peered up through his curls at her.


“Food’s here!”


The trance-like gaze was broken by Marlon’s chirping voice, with him returning to the table, balancing four plates on his arms better an expert waiter.


Thick, toasted sandwiches, all with a mound of home fries, were placed on the table.


Shaking out his jacket, Marlon admitted as he hung it on the back of his chair,


“This looks like the kind of food I’m used to having up the country. But I’ve never had real Southern food before. The farthest south I’ve ever been before this, was Maryland and I got gorged on crab salad in Baltimore.”


Picking up half his BLT, packed with crisp bacon and cut on the diagonal, Marlon took a bite and chewed, large lips bouncing. Then he wondered.


“Just what sorts of things do people eat in these parts?”


“All kinds of good things…” Lorraine, struggling to open a bottle of ketchup remarked.


Marlon took it, and easily got the cap off for her.


“Thank you.” Lorraine nudged her cousin with her elbow.


“Oh!” Vylette tore her eyes from Michael again.




“Fried chicken--”


“Smothered chicken--”


“Beef stew--”


“Okra with tomatoes and onions--”


“Fried fish with hushpuppies--”


“Shrimp and crawfish, we like seafood here--”


“Potato salad, black-eyed peas--”
The girls rattled off several more dished to a the Jacksons, so caught up in different delicacies, they had quit eating just to listen.


“That all sounds good to me.” Marlon pulled a strip of bacon out his sandwich and popped it in his mouth. “I’ll have to try that sometime.”




“Well, I can cook all of that--”
Vylette dug her nails into Lorraine’s thigh through the fabric of her dress.


She was going to have sock Lorraine in the jaw to bring her speed down to a crawl. Telling a man she could cook…why she was practically offering to keep house for him. And they’d only been in Marlon’s company for less than a half-hour.


Obeying and seeing her error, Lorraine’s head dropped and she focused on her food.


There was a smugness on Marlon’s face, as he went to toy with her hair again and withdrew a hand popped so hard it showed a red mark on top.


“I…I like being here…in Rainelle Parish…” Michael spoke up shyly, forking potatoes into his mouth.


“We’ve only been here since Friday, you goon.” There was a loud slap, as Marlon’s hand was popped a second time, this time for trying to pinch Lorraine’s arm.


Seeing Marlon picking after Lorraine, Michael stated dryly,


“Quit molesting that woman before she breaks your hand.”


A frown crossed Marlon’s mug before he said with a coolness Vylette thought belonged only to Steven Wilkes.


“I apologize. I keep forgetting this isn’t New York. I’m sure the women here are much nicer--”


As a reflex Lorraine spit out.


“Not Wallis!” She instantly ran damage control tacking on, “Did I say that out loud, pardon me.”


Vylette snickered into her palm.


And both the Jackson snorted like hogs.


The table fell silent, everyone partaking of and enjoy their sandwiches.


It was interrupted a few minutes later with Lorraine inquiring where the Jacksons were planning to stay in the Parish.


It was an innocent question, but Vylette knew Lorraine was already planning for the future and how to “bump” into them.


Dabbing his lips with a paper napkin, Marlon said,


“At a hotel in New Orleans, at the moment. Until the paperwork on the house me and Mike are buying comes through. We still have so much to do really…”


“Yes.” Michael concurred. “Once we get the place, we still have to get the deed, ship our furniture and things in from up the country--”


“Get my car here.” Marlon put in, through a mouth full of bacon.


Green and lavender eyes focused on Marlon first, then out to the black Caddy on the curb.


“But…but isn’t that your car, there?” Lorraine asked, voice low with confusion.


Taking another bite, Marlon shook his head, hair glittering with it’s dressing.


“No. that there is Michael’s car.” He corrected her. “Mine is still up somewhere in Albany being painted. It’ll be here in the next few days.”


Gasps left the cousins and hands clasped under the table.


Both of the Jacksons drove their own cars, when most families were doing well to have ONE to split amongst themselves.


A loud sigh exited Marlon and he commented sweetly, eyes fluttered its long lashes at Lorraine.


“We’ve been here three days, and this is the first pleasant conversation we’ve had with someone other than ourselves.” Marlon said and was patting at Lorraine’s hand. “Thank you, kindly.”


Lorraine, glowing, replied with a titter. “I’ve lived her all my life and can say the very same…”


Lorraine permitted him to touch her hand again, gazing up into his face.


Vylette didn’t try to squelch her; she was sharing peaceable stare with Michael.


“Um…begging y’all’s pardon…are either of you Mr. Marlon Jackson?”


A new voice inquired, destroying the intimate moment.


From apparently nowhere, little Winston Pelant was at the table’s edge.


“I’m Marlon Jackson--what’s shaking, kid?” Marlon, annoyed, grunted.


If looks could have killed, Winston would have been skinned alive the way Lorraine was glaring at him.


“Sir, there’s a Mr. Buddy Sackett on the wire for you.”


Pelant’s Grocery was the only place in town, with the exception of a few homes, that had a telephone in it.


“Buddy Sackett? That’s the house broker!” Marlon exclaimed leaping up and retrieving his hat and jacket.


“Please excuse me Lorraine, Vylette, but I have to take this call. It was such a delight to meet you both. Thank you so much for your company. I hope we can do it again soon--”


“This is a small town--I’m sure we will.” Lorraine beamed and with a wink, Marlon was gone.


Lorraine watched after him as Marlon jogged across the street and into the grocery, a satisfied smile on her face.


Ulrich Povah--who?


Picking up her ham on white, Vylette noticed that Winston remained at the table.


“What is it?” She questioned and choked on her bite when the boy informed her,


“Vylette, your Mama came into the store earlier and said if we saw you, to tell you and Lorraine to come on home. Father Lachey is joining y’all for dinner and your Mama needs both of y’all’s help.”


Winston was a black blur, running off.


“Jesus Christ!” Both Vylette and Lorraine lamented, their perfect afternoon suddenly spoiled.


Michael Jackson was on his feet, pulling out the chairs for the girls.


“We’re sorry, Michael. We had a very wonderful time getting to know you and your brother.” Vylette was truly apologetic, and in physical pain at the prospect of having to leave.


“It was one of the best afternoons I’ve ever had.” Lorraine added as the two linked arms, Michael seeing them to the door.


“It was one of the best I’ve had too.” Michael whispered, meekly, staring down at his shoes. It tickled Vylette to see him so timid again.


“May…maybe you’d like to join us for lunch again tomorrow. We’ll be in town anyway, I come for the air and Marlon is getting the house it seems. Please join us for lunch again.”


Michael’s large hand was on Vylette’s back and it she died a little bit on the inside when she had to tell him,


“We can’t…we have to go to school tomorrow.”


Michael deflated a little, but wasn’t dragging the ground as Ulrich had over a broken movie date,


“Oh, you’re schoolteachers. I should have known--”


Both girls were a smattering of flattered and surprised giggles at the notion. Them? Teachers! The very idea!


“We’re not teachers!” Vylette snickered as her cousin nearly doubled over. “We’re pupils!”


“Pupils? My goodness!” Michael’s eyes bugged, he wore his shock like his suit. “How old are you both?”


“Seventeen.” The cousins cackled in unison.


If their youth bothered Michael Jackson, it didn’t read on his handsome face, as his mouth showed his perfect white teeth in a friendly grin.


“Well, thank you again. May I at least drive the two of you home?”




“You sure can--ouch!”
Lorraine’s foot was stamped and Vylette spoke over her.


“It’s such a lovely afternoon, we’d like to walk on home. It’s not so very far, but thank you for your kindness. Come along Lorraine.”


Tugging her cousin along, the two started away.


It wasn’t lost on Vylette that Michael hovered in the doorway watching after them until they turned from his sight.


And Lorraine was on the warpath.


“Vylette! Why on God’s green earth did you turn Michael down? I’d have given my arm to ride in the Caddy, and made Wallis Pelant die a slow death of envy! How could you tell that man NO?” She cried in dismay, clutching her cousin’s hand so hard, bones popped. “And I bet Marlon has one just as fine. And he’s having it painted. I bet it’s a Caddy too! I can only imagine what color he picked!”


“We didn’t go because…” Vylette held her head up high. “You know what happens to girls who go riding, un-chaperoned, with men in cars. That’s why Mabel Waters is rushing to the altar to marry Lucian Caisson as soon as we graduate, and why Wallis had that procedure…”


Lorraine’s lips puckered, but she understood the magnitude of the dangers of loose morals when being dazzled by a man in a car, especially ones as flashy as The Jacksons.


But there was more than enough time to get around to that sort of thing…if they wanted it.


There was time for everything.


And Vylette and Lorraine did want The Jacksons.


　

(Some of) The Key Players

Hi Everyone!

First of all, I would like to extend a warm and heartfelt thank you to everyone who has taken the time to come and read my story. I see it has many views and it’s so exciting to me that my hard work is being appreciated. So thank you very, very much!

Now what I wanted to address in this post, are the characters in the story. Before I write anything, even my short little eroticas, I put research into it, and what I devote most of my time to, is the development of my characters. I knew before I even started work on this story, I wanted a lot of the principal players to be based on real people as much as I can do it.

And this is what I came up with--most of the characters who will be introduced within the first two chapters of the story and some pictures to help you visualize them:



Vylette Meraux, 17:




Vylette facially is based on actress Myrna Loy. I think Vylette was the hardest character to actually “cast” because I went through about 30 different actresses trying to find the right look. I knew I wanted a girl who was very beautiful but in a very wholesome sort of way. Vylette is raised in a strict Catholic home in the boonies, so she is sort of unaware of just her full potential until a certain man comes along and helps her to see it.



Lorraine Meraux, 17:


Lorraine is Vylette’s first cousin. It was much simpler for me to cast Lorraine because the only face I ever saw for Lorraine was Jean Harlow. Lorraine is like Jean in many ways, very sexy, is very pretty and aware of it, but at the same time, since she was raised up strictly with Vylette, is still a bit on the naïve and sweet. Lorraine wants to be fast and with men, but until she meets up with a certain someone doesn’t truly know what its all about.



Michael Jackson and Marlon Jackson, 25 and 26:


It’s kind of self-explanatory who these men are. I don’t want to be a spoiler, but I can say that the Jacksons have come from New York on a joint business venture--as will be found out in a later chapter--and for Michael’s health. They’re new, they’re wealthy and they’re kind of refreshing for Vylette and Lorraine who ate stagnating in “The Parish”. They don’t intend to, but the gentlemen, no matter how they try to fit in, will continuously stick out and it will cause trouble.



Lavinia “Vinnie” Meraux, 10:


Vinnie is Vylette’s little sister and basically a tiny version of their mother. Is extremely religious, well-behaved and constantly nagging the older girls--Lorraine in particular--about their behavior and manners. Leery of the Jacksons…

I actually have no idea who the child I based Vinnie on is. I just found it on Google. All I know about the child is that the photo is actually from the Victorian era, and I liked how she looked and seemed sweet enough to be the face of Vinnie.



Steven Wilkes, 18.


I wanted Steven to physically be a large man. His big, muscular and I wanted him to be opposite in figure of what Michael Jackson is. Steven is somewhat Vylette’s beau and despite her waffling feelings for him, is intent on the idea they will be married one day. Hates the Jacksons with a blind passion. He is based looks-wise on actor George Brent.



Ulrich Povah, 18.


This is going to sound weird, but I wanted Ulrich to actually be sort of a caricature of what people think of Michael Jackson as. So many people thought Michael was overly soft or a wimp or couldn’t speak in a sentence without stammering, and I wanted Ulrich to be that way. (I know Michael isn’t that way, DUH!) He is the opposite of Steven who is so bawdy and loud, and really is so afraid of girls he can barely speak when around Lorraine. Is painfully boring and shy and more an aggravation to Lorraine than anything. Expects to marry her one day. Can’t stand the Jacksons. I went through several men when casting him. First was Leslie Howard, and I just didn’t like him blond. I personally like darker haired males, so a blond man didn’t make it for me. Then I chose Jimmy Stewart. And frankly, Jimmy was too good-looking. I needed a plainer boy. And I settled on actor Lionel Barrymore. (He’s Drew Barrymore’s great-uncle. And he is one of my very fave actors of all time!) He is not much to look at, but I saw Ulrich in him.


Hildegard Povah, 10.




Hildegard is Vinnie’s best friend. I am not sure as to how big her part will be, but she will be seen off and on throughout the story. Every little girl needs a best friend. Hildegard is based on actress Heather O’Rourke that most know as Carol Ann from the Poltergeist trilogy. Hildegard is not AS blonde as Heather, her hair is more of a golden brown, but I’m all for faces when I work. And that’s Hildegard. (I actually considered a young Drew Barrymore as she did resemble her uncle, but Drew was actually too plump, and I wanted Hildegard to be a much skinnier child. It’s the Depression, children were thinner!)



Dr. Almanzo Meraux, 45:


Almanzo is the father of Vylette and Vinnie and uncle to Lorraine. When I created Almanzo, I wanted him to be a very intelligent, astute and no frills sort of man. He’s a doctor and as he’s seen life and death, is conditioned as such to not be that soft. Only thinks of getting his three girls married off and taken care of. Is iffy about the older Jacksons around the younger girls. I do not know who this gentleman is but I thank God he got his picture taken.

Kathleen (De La Croix) Meraux, 35:








I needed someone who looked like she could be both stern and loving and when I was messing around Flickr, this woman’s photograph grabbed me by the throat. To me, she actually looked like she could have been Vylette’s mother. And facially, whomever this lady is--I don’t know--does look like she could be related to Myrna Loy. The facial shape is the same. And this lady strikes me at the Bible-thumping, church-going type just looking at her. She’s perfect! At least I thought she was.

Wallis Pelant, 19:




Wallis is the town tramp. There is no other way to say is. She’s the last of the frowned upon, dying breed of Flapper and is known for constantly flirting with men, any men, and running around when she isn’t running her daddy’s store. When I first thought up Wallis, Clara Bow came to mind. She was the IT girl of the 1920s and by the 1930s her reputation was in ruins with rumors of wild parties and orgies and things to the naughty side being associated with her. Also, while not a Jean Harlow type, I wanted Wallis to be something that could spark jealousy in Lorraine to extent.

And here they are, some of the key players in Rage in Hell. Chapter Two is nearly completely and will be up in the very near future. So keep on reading and again, THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!!!

Chapter One

 

Prologue:

Park de la Bellevue

New Orleans, Louisiana

July, 1932

The first weekend of the month, preceding Independence Day, found the coastal city of New Orleans as a thriving, proud, hotbed of activity.

Across the city, adorning the façade of nearly every building from the heart of the French Quarter, all the way to the docks rimmed by the mighty Mississippi River were festoons of red, white, and blue, and here and yonder, American flags hung and were wafting in the breeze.

Every so often, in the crowded streets and along the packed sidewalks, a man, woman, or child would pass, draped in the shades ubiquitous of these here United States, soon to celebrate it’s one hundred and fifty-sixth birthday, exceedingly young for a developed nation.

A few of the smallest children toted the star-spangled banners in tiny, fat fists, not truly knowing the significance of that scrap of cloth, only eager to enjoy the festivities surrounding it.

The barbecues, the balls, the fireworks displays, all celebrating the young country.

Indeed New Orleans was a young city and as such, did attract young people.

A popular meeting place among the belle vivants was Park de la Bellevue, a lovely wonder that really nothing more than a public rose garden, stretching on for the equivalent of three city blocks.

Filled with delicate marble and bronze statues depicting variants of the female form, boasting blooms in blinding shades of white, red, yellow and pink, and the air heavy with fragrance, the Park, as it was colloquially called, drew the youthful and beautiful to it, just as pollinating bees were drawn to the roses.

Among the throng of weekend idlers, all strolling, pausing to pluck a flower to place in their hair or the lapels of their sweethearts’ blazers were two ladies.

The two could not have been more different in appearance. Though both were of the same fine, porcelain complexion, the taller of the pair had hair a deep, rich, raven black, bobbed to just above the shoulders, waved delicately away from her face, a few spit curls accenting her hairline, all tucked beneath a navy blue, wide brimmed, gauzy hat.

Walking along, with no particular destination, the shorter of the two slipped her bare, white arm through that of the taller woman’s.

The shorter was just as fair, but her hair was a stark, bright white, obviously she was an artificial bleached blonde. While it was a look that so few could do justice, this woman was one of that definitive few.

Worn in looser, painstakingly set finger waves that fluffed about her shoulders from under the bright red hat that matched the blue one of her counterpart, the women were a pair of American beauties; the brunette in a fine, linen dress of blue and white polka dotes, with a frothy, puffed sleeved blouse, that tied at the throat with a large dotted bow, the blonde in a red rendition.

Hugged together, the two women were happy and carefree, smiles on both of their crimson painted mouths, as they joined the line that was about seven deep all clamoring for an ice cream cone, to bring relief from the heat of a balmy, humid summer’s afternoon.

As the duo stood, the brunette patted at the pale arm of the blonde with a hand protected from the harmful rays of the blistering sun by a white kid glove, accented with a small dotted bow, mimicking the one around her neck.

“Lorraine, Dear, don’t you think we ought to wait for the boys? We did promise to eat our ice cream with them…” She cautioned sweetly, in a husky, almost smoky and accented voice, bearing all the South in those few words.

As the line advanced, the blonde chuckled, in a higher pitched voice that mingled both a Southern and French accent queerly,

“Vylette, Marlon and Michael agreed to meet us at exactly one o’clock and it’s…” She shielded her eyes with her own gloved hand and squinted at the clock tower of a church in the distance,

“It’s a quarter past. And Honey, if I don’t receive some type of refreshment and soon, this delicate blossom will soon wilt. We can have one ice cream without them, AND one with them, whenever they do arrive.”

Grinning, Vylette patted at Lorraine’s arm again fondly,

“You are a most devious one, Cousin…” She trailed off and glanced at the clock. “…but I do wonder what is keeping them? It’s not like the boys to keep us waiting; they’re usually so punctual. You don’t reckon something’s happened, do you?”

“Oh, Vylette, you always have been such a worrywart. Perhaps they stopped for some petrol, or if Marlon had a few snifters of that bathtub gin before he got behind the wheel, drove his car into a ditch and they’re pushing it out…”

Nodding, but still very concerned, Vylette tried to push the more unpleasant thoughts of a loopy Marlon behind the wheel from her mind. Or at least to the very recesses of it.

It wasn’t foreign notion that Marlon had wrecked his vehicle.

He had driven into ditches and even coasted into tree before, when he had a pink elephant riding shotgun with him.

Finally arriving at the ice cream stand, the elderly gentleman server, in a pristine starched suit, wielding a scoop greeted them with a deep voice thick with French accents,

“Good Day, Mesdemoiselles. I have zee vanilla, strawberry, and berry azure, in honor of zee Fourth. Zee red, white, and blue--oh-ho-ho!” He snickered heartily and picked at the thick, curling handlebar mustache above his upper lip.

“Ooooooh, I’ve never had blueberry ice cream before!” Lorraine tittered merrily, clapping her hands together. “I’d like one scoop of blueberry, sil vous plait.”

“Mais oui!” Instantly a scoop appeared on a waffle cone. “Five cents please.”

As the coin was exchanged, Lorraine moved over to the side and gamely, yet politely, licked at the icy treat.

“Vylette, this is simply divine, so sweet! And there‘s mashed berries in it!” She gushed as her cousin produced a nickel out of her glove.

“You know I don’t care for blueberries, Lorraine, Dear.” She smiled at the server. “One scoop of strawberry, please.”

“Right away!” The man was eagerly scraping and scooping the pink ice cream into a cone.

“Really Lorraine, I don’t know that I’d want to eat anything that may stain my mouth purple…” Vylette started to tease turning back to her cousin, smiling as she reached for her cone.

It was a smile that quickly vanished as she took sight of Lorraine.

Lorraine, who just a moment before, had been the picture of exuberance, teeth flashing and sampling her treat, had taken on a new and startling expression.

So uncommonly pale had she gotten, it frightened Vylette.

Her spare hand clutched at her throat and above it, her light eyes were widened and glassy.

“Lorraine--Lorraine, Darling, what’s the matter?” She gripped her cousin’s shoulder, mashing her ruffled sleeve in her haste.

Lorraine’s lips moved, but no sound came from them.

Vylette peered at her, hunting her meaning and a chill lit her spine, as she recognized what Lorraine was saying without speaking.

Michael.

She was saying Michael’s name!

And Lorraine wasn’t looking at her, but past her, somewhere behind her.

And that’s when she heard it.

Strained and haunted gasps.

Something was wrong. Terribly, catastrophically wrong!

Vylette, her own breaths becoming labored, forced herself to turn.

The untouched strawberry cone tumbled from her hand and splattered on the sidewalk at her feet.

People, a few yards away were stepping off of the sidewalk, some flat-out running, all staring curiously and bug-eyed, as a man staggered down the center of it.

A tall, slim man, who would have been painfully attractive, had he not been so disheveled.

His curly black hair stood up all over his head, ruffled and unkempt. He wore no jacket, his pale blue shirt was partially untucked and wrinkled, his bowtie askew, one of his checkered suspenders, hung loose and off his shoulder. His grey trousers were streaked with dirt and a gash in the left leg exposed his fine, brown thigh.

At least, grey and blue were the colors that Vylette could identify through the blood.

The blood!

A trembling hand came to Vylette’s mouth, muffling a soft cry of dismay.

Blood--blood was all over him!

God, there was so much blood saturating the front of Michael’s body, staining and starting crust on his face, chest, and hands, it was though it had been scooped up in a bucket and thrown on him.

His thin body was simply drenched.

The blood, was it his blood?

Both Lorraine and Vylette stood frozen as Michael got to them.

The entire Park, bustling and loud a second before, was suddenly silent.

“Vylette, Lorraine…” Michael spoke hoarsely through quivering lips and gritted teeth. “We…we have to go…now. We have to go. We have to go to ….to the hospital…”

Bloody hands went to grab at each one’s wrists.

Vylette, limp inside, allowed him to touch her, but Lorraine, ghostly white, to the point she was becoming an asen shade of blue, pulled back.

“Michael…” She choked, tears appearing in her eyes. “It’s M-M-Marlon isn’t it….something’s happened to Marlon?”

Michael’s entire form quaked and his head lowered.

Salty droplets of tears fell from his face and his chest heaved.

“He wrecked his car again? He drove into a ditch or a tree, didn’t he? Right Michael, right?” Lorraine begged, throwing her ice cream away and clutching her hands to her bosom, hope in her face.

“He’s alright? He’s okay? He wrecked his car? Busted his nose? Broke out a tooth? Michael…? Michael? Tell me he‘s okay. He‘s okay, isn‘t he? ”

Lorraine stopped, flung her head back, went stiff and shrieked,

“TELL ME!”

Michael, pressing his hands to his head replied, more tears falling, voice breaking,

“I’m sorry Lorraine…I’m sorry…He’s…he’s been shot Lorraine! That goddamned son of a bitch shot my brother!”

“Shot? Shot! Oh no! Oh no, no, no!” Lorraine screamed and ran into Vylette’s open arms, the two of them sobbing and clutching each other as if the world was at its end.

In some ways, the world had ended.

“No! No Michael! He didn’t shoot Marlon! Not Marlon! NO! Marlon’s the kindest, sweetest man I know! He didn’t Michael! Oh Vylette!” She buried her face in Vylette’s shoulder and howled, the deep cry of heartbreak.

“Michael…” Vylette whimpered, seeing blurry through her tears as Lorraine whimpered a prayer in Latin, performing the sign of the cross on herself,

“Is…is he…”

She couldn’t make herself say the words. She couldn’t. She wouldn’t. It was too awful, too terrible.

Marlon was a friend--a dear, dear, friend.

She’d spent so much time with him. Laughed at his jokes, ridden in his car. Just that morning that had all eaten breakfast together!

He couldn’t be shot!

A wild, dark, glaze of hatred came to Michael’s eyes as he looked down upon her.

Rage like she had never seen in eyes that were usually so loving, tender and affectionate.

Pure rage surged though every last inch of him.

She didn’t recognize him.

“He was breathing when I left him at the hospital…but if he stops…”

His thin lips curled over his white teeth in a determined sneer.

“If he stops…So help me God, before this city goes dark, the bastard responsible will be in the morgue with him--and it‘ll be a CLOSED casket funeral!”

“I can’t live without him! Do you hear me? I can’t! I simply can’t!” Lorraine wailed suddenly and collapsed against Vylette.

“My God!”

“What’s happened?”

“The lady’s fainted!”

“Has she any smelling salts?”

Whispers went up and stares remained as Michael took hold of Lorraine, out cold in her grief and lifted her easily as he would a baby.

Her hat fell from her tow-head and silently, a young boy, no older than ten retrieved it, carried it for the traumatized trio.

Vylette, in something of a state of shock, moved numbly and stiffly alongside Michael, the crowd of onlookers parting like the Red Sea for Moses.

“Violette Blanche…” Michael was barely audible and Vylette stared up at him, misting up again.

“Yes?” She sniffled, shuffling along.

“Pray Darling…please. Marlon…” Michael choked and more hot tears dampened his sharp cheeks. “He needs it…”

Crossing herself automatically Vylette began to recite a Hail Mary, crying harder.

Michael, not connected to any organized religion, was quietly reciting with her.

Even the young boy with no association to them, prayed willfully.

As they left through the masonry arc of Park de la Bellevue destined for Michael’s coupe, parked on the curb, all Vylette could think was why?

Why had it come to this?

Why did Marlon, one of the easiest people to befriend and like have to be shot and possibly be somewhere between light and darkness at that very moment?

It didn’t make sense.

Christ--nothing made sense anymore!

Would it ever make sense again?








For as long as I can remember, I’ve always loved watching old black and white films. Anything from the silent and early sound eras, I’m always watching it. Even at home, my television stays on the classic film channel. And through watching the films with filled with dapper gentlemen and fancy ladies, I wondered, “Why not put Michael Jackson in that era?” It seemed like a logical thing as Michael always struck me as such a kind and gentle fellow, so much like the men I admired in the old movies. And so this story is inspired by the men of the early films--and just a touch of that “Smooth Criminal” and “Say, Say, Say” magic. Just a touch.

“Rage In Hell”

A Michael Jackson and Marlon Jackson

Fan Fiction Story By:

MJsLoveSlave

　

Fifteen Months Earlier

Meraux Residence

Rainelle Parish, Louisiana

It was so very hot.

That was the only way to truly describe the feeling that was seeming to emanate from every crack, corner and crevice of the room.

Hot.

Suffocatingly, devastatingly hot.

The window beside Vylette Meraux’s bed was wide open, yet there was no single gasp, no mere offering of anything that was even close to a breeze to move the threadbare curtains at all.

And through said window, that allowed the heat in to do nothing more than annoy her that morning, Vylette could see the sun, having just barely risen over the horizon, still an angry ball of ripe red, that would mature to a blazing yellow as the day progressed.

Vylette languished in her bed, without a stitch of cover or quilt on her, the assaulting heat with it’s strong, vice-like grip on her young body, squeezing every drop of perspiration from it as you would wring the water from a towel.

A person would think she’d have been used to it by now--this slow and low, bubbling heat that was the precursor of the sweltering summer to come.

And yet, after nearly eighteen years, and nearly eighteen of these creeping heat spells, Vylette could not get used to it by any means whatsoever.

There was just no getting used to it for her--she simply refused to.

Hardly possessing the strength to move, the weary girl tried to roll over onto her side.

Her thin, cotton nightgown was soaked clean through and clinging to her, like a warm and wet second skin.

Her long hair was hanging on just as fiercely, a tangled and sweaty mess, cloaking her to the waist.

And poor Vylette had been plagued with this sort of reception each morning since the middle of March.

The damnable heat always started in the middle of March and didn’t even think to wane until sometime near the end of September.

(If it were a rare, Indian Summer, the heat could stretch on well into November!)

It always was a chore to Vylette to scrub all that worrisome, odorous liquid from her body, in order to be presentable and reasonably well-smelling.

Turning her head, as her body was still weary and uncooperative, Vylette stared at the face of the small, gleaming brass-tone clock on the bedside table between her and the window. The hands presenting the time as five minutes past six.

She groaned deeply, not because of the time, she was quite used to being up before the sun itself decided to rise, but because of the small slip of paper that had been placed beside the clock.

And written on it, in a very elegant, and fine hand, was a note from her mother:

 

Clutching the note to her damp bosom, Vylette’s eyes fluttered a moment, before focusing up on the ceiling overhead.

‘…be on your best behavior…God sees all of your misdeeds…’

The words resonated in her mind. It was a word of warning she’d heard every day of her life as far back as she could remember. (And she knew just what would happen if word reached her mother of her acting out. Retribution usually involved a leather strap.)

Vylette had always had to be on her best behavior, and not just because of social stigmas of the times, a time slowly moving away from the prim Victorian era, where many customs were still practiced, but also because of just whom her parents and her people were.

Vylette’s father and mother, Almanzo and Kathleen Meraux, had long been pillars of society in Rainelle Parish before Vylette had ever been born.

Almanzo was one of the few Colored doctors for miles around and widely known through out the entire state of Louisiana as one of the best in his profession. People came from all over and as far away as Georgia and Mississippi to experience his expertise in the art of healing.

It was a title and profession that alluded to his intelligence and superiority over many others in the community and it guaranteed his esteem and respect.

The same went for Vylette’s mother, Kathleen.

While her father’s people were scattered mostly between Alabama, and Kentucky, with only the last two or three generations hailing from Louisiana, her mother’s people could be traced back, exclusively through Louisiana bloodlines for over one hundred and fifty years.

And her mother’s maiden name, De La Croix was one that was well-known to everyone around the parish as it had been one of her descendants who had settled the parish in the first place, in the early eighteen hundreds.

And as a child of the founding family of Rainelle Parish, Vylette knew inherently and had been taught that she was watched and looked at, at all times as an example of what a responsible young girl should be.

She attended classes at the Saint Ignatius Catholic School, where her grades had her in the running for being class valedictorian, was always in attendance for Mass on Sunday mornings, practically a member of the Ladies’ Christian League, which her mother presided over, of course, and would be officiated once she turned eighteen years old.

The Christian League was why Vylette had to go into town for groceries in the first place. Since the Stock Market Crash of 1929, that had been the catalyst for The Great Depression as it had come to be known, many people were left unemployed and many more without even a stale crust of bread to lay claim to.

Every afternoon, out of the back of the Saint Ignatius Cathedral, various members of the Christian League could be found doling out bowls of homemade hot soup, slices of fresh bread and cups of coffee to those in need of a warm meal.

For some, it was the only meal they received in a day.

Vylette knew in her heart, that her family had been one of the lucky ones, left relatively unharmed by the Crash.

Though the Merauxs weren’t exactly what could have been considered as ‘wealthy’, they were considerably better off some others who called the Parish home.

Vylette did eat three hot meals every day, had a few changes of clothing and her family did own the small cottage which had been bought as a wedding present by Vylette’s grandfather upon her mother’s marriage over twenty years ago, as well as her father’s medical office in town.

Sure, Vylette wished she had a spare nickel and dime here and there to afford a day at the local movie house or a chocolate bar from the store, as girls her age did enjoy such extras. But such extras were frivolities that Vylette tried to learn to do without. These were times of sacrifice and scrimping, and everyone, in order to survive had to learn to do without.

One thing Vylette was keenly aware of not being able to do without, was the grocery shopping.

Also, she felt positively gross lying there, in a relative puddle, with the stink of sweat about her.

Not really wanting to, Vylette heaved herself into a seated position, running her hands through her stringy tresses, clearing it from her moist and dripping face.

She lingered a moment, looking around her bedroom.

It was a simple, country bedroom, just the kind one would imagine for a girl her age.

With its plain, whitewashed walls, a few solid pieces of furniture, the bedside tables, the armoire across from the bed and a large chest of drawers, and framed portraits of The Last Supper and The Pope, with a wooden crucifix between them.

Looking off to her left, Vylette was not alone in the room.

Two more beds lay between her and the far wall. While the bed farthest away lay vacant, and neatly made up, covered by a floral blanket that matched the other two, a small lump was concealed in the bed immediately beside Vylette.

Vylette grinned a moment, knowing that the lump was her kid sister, Vinnie, still dozing peacefully.

Resting just above the child’s covered head, was a very worn, and much loved teddy bear, called Mr. Bear, the little girl’s dearest possession, passed down from Vylette herself.

Deciding it was best to let that child sleep until breakfast was prepared, Vylette managed to extract herself from her bed, nearly sliding and falling, her feet so slick, and started towards the closed door of the room, tiptoeing along in her bare feet on the polished floor.

At the door, she paused and glanced back at the empty bed on the end. It’s occupant was missing, but Vylette had a pretty good idea of where she was.

Locating the third member of her trio would have to wait, as the smell of an unwashed body was calling her attention and much more of a priority at the moment.

Out in the hall, painted a bland cream with no hint of pink to it, and dotted here and there with different religious icons--as all hand chosen by the deeply religious Mrs. Meraux, as if she were trying to construct a church herself within the walls of her home--to the bathroom, that sat a few feet away from the open door to the kitchen in the rear of the home.

The Merauxs were one of the very few families in the Parish with electricity and running water, with the exception of a few very wealthy families on the other side of town. But Mrs. Meraux had insisted upon an indoor bathroom, as she deemed it wasn’t safe for any of her three girls to go out, sometimes in the dead of the night, to relieve themselves.

“Anything could happen to a young girl in the middle of the night…” She had expressed to her husband when she first presented the idea to him. “Girls can simply disappear and never be seen or heard from again…”

And the bathroom had commenced being built that same week.

Of course, that had been before the Crash, when the calf was fatter, and times less lean.

The bathroom itself was rather modest, as was the rest of the house, as both heads of the family didn’t believe in frills and excess, only buying what was needed, not wanted.

It was dark with wood and bright with contrasting white porcelain fixtures.

A bare, unadorned bulb hung from the ceiling.

Vylette eagerly knelt alongside the clubfoot tub and began drawing a cool bath in which to refresh herself.

As the water caught, Vylette went over to the washbasin and readied herself to brush her teeth.

Plucking her pink brush from the cup on the basin, she rinsed it off and started to open the medicine cabinet behind the mirror to retrieve the toothpaste.

Vylette stopped and stared at herself, as she did most mornings when she found herself alone in the bathroom, one of the few times in her day when she could be to herself.

Vylette had taken after her father, a man who was easily over six feet tall, if he were an inch; and was taller than the average girl her age, standing at five-foot-seven inches.

Vylette’s heritage was a mishmash mingling of French and Colored, in varying amounts from both her parents--with a dash of Irish coming from a distant paternal many-greats grandfather--and to the untrained eye, a person not aware that Vylette was Colored, could have easily mistaken her for “pure” White.

Though both of Vylette’s parents were more of a café au lait complexion, Vylette and her sister Vinnie had come out with very fair, milky, alabaster complexions. Complexions Mrs. Meraux saw were taken care of very well, with them being bathed in buttermilk once a month to keep their skin clear and supple and any freckles banished with lemon-juice.

(It was said that the Meraux sisters had taken after their late maternal grandmother, Leona, who had indeed looked just like a White woman, as they did.)

In stark contrast to her white skin, Vylette’s hair was a rich, deep and when freshly washed, a shining, raven black, with a slight, natural wave to it. Vylette, who had always been told that a woman’s hair was her crowning glory, took pains to maintain her waist-length mane, even if it did choke her to death on those humid mornings.

Vylette possessed a delicate, heart shaped face, the whiteness of her skin interrupted by thick black brows, hanging over her eyes.

Eyes that no one else in the family seemed to have. They were wide and sparkly, showing the seriousness, warmness and kindness through them which Vylette was known for, and were a unique, queer color.

Her eyes weren’t quite blue, but not quite violet either, and could go either way, depending on what color Vylette was wearing in a given day, and were framed by sooty, naturally long black lashes.

Her mouth was a small pink ribbon at the base of her face, above a proud, strong, pointed chin.

Pushing her hair off her shoulders, Vylette continued to stare at herself, her shape visible beneath the wet and snug nightgown, that she had outgrown years ago.

Vylette had a healthy, almost enviable figure, even if she was a bit on the thin side. She wasn’t truly skinny, and even a weight gain of up to ten pounds would have suited her well.

For a girl of only seventeen, her body bore womanly curves, as it was common for the women in her family to “develop\” early--Vylette’s own figure had seemed to sprout as soon as she had turned twelve!

Her skin was soft and white with just a teeny hint of roseleaf pink in the cheeks, she had gently rounded shoulders that were connected by a swanlike and graceful throat, and hips that didn’t protrude out too far, a plump, dimpled belly, and plumper pink legs.

Her bosom was full and pert, her nipples making points in the fabric, standing up proudly as the ripening breasts of all girls so young generally did.

It was a beautiful young body attached to a beautiful young girl.

And yet, Vylette never considered herself beautiful, despite what she regularly saw reflected back her.

That was seen as vanity in her household, and vanity was a sin. Sins and sinners were not welcome nor tolerated in the Meraux residence.

Indeed Vylette didn’t lead a very glamorous life, that needed beauty anyway. Most days found her tending house or cooking or running some errand, or passing out bowls of soup at the church.

That was her simple, country girl’s life in nutshell.

Work, praying and church.

A few moments later, with the taste of minty Ipana toothpaste in her mouth, her teeth clean, Vylette peeled the soaked gown and panties from her body and slipped into the cool bath, happy to feel some sort of relief from the heat.

Picking up the red-orange bar of Lifebuoy soap, Vylette took to the dreaded chore of washing all her hair. She hated using plain soap on her hair, it dried her scalp so, but real shampoo was one of the extras cut from her life, when soap raised a lather just as well.

Tap! Tap! Tap!

A swear word lit in Vylette’s mind--but never came out her mouth. Well brought up young ladies never swore--as she raked her low clipped fingernails across her scalp, suds running down her back.

“Oh, for Heaven’s sake!” She grumbled. Couldn‘t she even bathe alone? “Come in!”

Before the sentence had cleared her mouth properly, the door opened and another young girl slipped inside, shutting it behind her and leaning against it.

Still scrunching and soaping her hair, Vylette blinked around the bubbles falling her eyes, and stinging them, and for the first time that morning, caught sight of the third member of their trio: Lorraine Devereaux.

Lorraine, Vylette’s first cousin, as both their mothers had been sisters, was only nine days younger than she, but the two girls could not be more different had they tried.

While Vylette was sweet, a bit naïve, and always respectful, Lorraine was a volatile firecracker.

Lorraine was lusty, quick to argue and a bit boy-crazy, with waves of emotions inside that matched her outside perfectly.

Lorraine was porcelain skinned much like her cousin, but while Vylette was dark, Lorraine was as red as a girl could be.

Lorraine had taken after her own father, inheriting his deep, fiery auburn locks, which fell to her trim waist, without a single wave or curl to it, piercing, haunting pale green eyes under light brown brows and fringed with red lashes!

Like Vylette, Lorraine had a well-proportioned figure, much to her chagrin scattered with freckles along the arms and legs, which no matter how her aunt tried to bleach them away with milk and lemon juice, always remained.

The freckles were as stubborn as Lorraine Devereaux herself.

Lorraine had lived with the Merauxs, following the untimely deaths of both her parents during the worldwide Spanish Influenza epidemic of 1918, which left her an orphan, when she had only been five years old.

(Lorraine had also contracted the disease, managing to survive it, with months of recuperation, much prayer and tending to on the part of her doctor uncle.)

Though Vylette and Lorraine were cousins, they had been raised like and were closer than sisters. In younger years, they had been treated as something of twins, always with matching dresses and hair bows.

Indeed, they were best friends, one another’s confidant and one knew the other better than they knew themselves.

And judging by the way every pearly tooth in Lorraine’s head was showing past her rosy lips, Vylette took her time to sink under water and reemerge, rinsing her hair before inquiring,

“What?”

“Oh my Dear!” Lorraine gushed happily, rushing over to the side of the tub and sitting on it, hiking up the bottom of her plaid gown to nearly indecent heights, showing off a generous portion of her spattered legs. “I was just reading the most divine new article in Film Stars Monthly--all about Jean Harlow!”

Picking up a sponge and lathering it, washing after herself, Vylette smiled up at her cousin, giggling on the inside.

Not another article about Jean Harlow!

Vylette had never seen anyone so cuckoo about film stars as Lorraine.

Every month, Lorraine could be found scrounging and saving pennies to afford all of her favorite motion picture magazines--Film Stars Monthly, Photoplay, and Silver Screen Digest--to keep up with all of the exploits and gossip on her favorite actors and actresses.

Players that could literally be named into the dozens--Joan Crawford, Wallace Beery, Greta Garbo, Clara Bow, Ann Harding, Leslie Howard, Jeanette MacDonald, Paul Muni, John and Lionel Barrymore-- but Vylette knew Lorraine’s absolute favorite above all, placed on a marble pedestal in her mind, was Jean Harlow.

The young, platinum blonde bombshell, only a few years older than themselves, had just naturally been Lorraine’s favorite, as it seemed she symbolized everything Lorraine longed to be--vampish, sexy, full of life, without a care in the world.

In the midst of the Depression, the breed of the Flapper had all but died out, but had been replaced with the Siren that was Jean Harlow, and imitations of her.

A fast-living, bootleg-liquor-drinking, free-wheeling sort who scared any matron worth her rosary beads, was stressed to be avoided by “good” girls, but had somehow come fascinate and be idolized by Lorraine Devereaux.

Lorraine, when she wasn’t nose-deep in a film ‘zine or sporadically taking up a seat in a theatre to live vicariously for an hour through the buxom maven, she could be found reading trashy, tawdry romance novels bought for a nickel apiece--that her Aunt Kathleen had banned from the house as being immoral and ungodly--and cooing over a dream world of torrid affairs with flashy cars and mink coats at every turn.

Perhaps it was her way of escaping the challenging times, and the tight moralistic constraints of what was life in the Parish, but Lorraine always managed to stay in her escape a bit too long, and away from the ‘real’ world, whilst Vylette was more aware and in it.

Rubbing after her shoulders, Vylette chuckled,

“And what has the snow-haired Miss Harlow done this time, that’s giving you the vapors, Dear?”

Discovered another shade of blonde previously unknown to beauticians? Worn an even skimpier silk dress? Run off with another woman’s husband--again?

Lorraine’s light eyes sparkled with mischief. Did they ever not sparkle like that? Vylette couldn’t remember a time when her relative’s eyes had lacked that gleam of the adverse.

“There’s a seven-page write up about her wardrobe…you know she always wears the best fashions from Paris and London. Oh…silks, furs, diamonds and pearls…it’s all so beautiful! I swooned looking at it all. And it says she only likes to wear else black or white, because her hair is so blonde…”

Rising, Lorraine went over and was gazing at herself in the mirror.

While Vylette hardly ever revered what was reflected back at her, Lorraine was wondrously vain, a trait Mrs. Meraux had failed to preach, nag and beat out of her personality.

With a figure as rounded, soft and dimpled as her cousin’s Lorraine noticed, mentioned it often and looked up on it every chance she had.

She was forever pinching after her white cheeks, encouraging color to spring to them, examining her eyes, a washed out, grey-green framed by the red lashes she hated so, but had been forbidden the use of cosmetics as it was seen that only the worst of women painted their faces.

And as a blood relative to the De La Croix family who founded the Parish, it would have been an insult to them all to walk around looking as something other than what she was--a respectable girl. At least that was point Vylette’s mother had laid before her headstrong niece time and again.

“Vylette, Darling, what do you think it’s like…you know…to have such finery hanging in the closets waiting for you? Day dresses and evening gowns, and stoles and wraps? Waiting to be worn? Minks, and foxes and ocelots…all those gems?”

Lorraine twisted and turned before the mirror, surely envisioning the finest of the fine on her, and nothing else.

Lately, that was all Lorraine ever seemed to think about.

Rinsing her body, Vylette snickered, “Lorraine, Dear, I wouldn’t know. I only have five dresses, a few blouses and skirts--ALL cotton, mind you--and two pairs of shoes. I’m just the daughter of a country doctor. In times like these, I‘m happy I have that much. You should be too.”

Ignoring that bit of sensibility as she usually did, Lorraine was gathering up her hair and holding it out the way, revealing her neck and seashell-like ears.

“I hate how straight and lifeless my hair is. I’d kill to have a Marcel wave. I hear that’s what Jean has done to her hair…” Lorraine paused, her throaty voice dropping to her deepest registers, “I don’t understand why Aunt Kathleen won’t let me get a wave. She gets a wave every two weeks, herself! I can‘t do anything. I can‘t wear make up, I can‘t polish my nails, I can’t bob or wave my hair…Mon Dieu!”

There was that argument again. There was that argument always. Hardly a day passed without Lorraine lamenting and whining and wanting to do something to herself.

It was those magazines’ fault. All they did was advertise different cosmetics and fashions and trends. Everything Lorraine desired.

Often, Vylette wondered, just what her cousin would look like if she had been given free reign to do to herself as she liked.

Would she even be recognizable?

Now she had to say,

“Yes, that is true, but Mama is thirty-five. You’re only seventeen, Lorraine. You know Mama thinks it’ll make you look too ‘grown’. And you’re so lovely, just as you are, right this moment. Be a Darling and hand me a towel please…”

As Lorraine came up with a large towel from under the sink, she bemoaned, her pretty face puckering into a distressed pout,

“Confound it, we’re going to both make eighteen next month! You know Aunt Kathleen is laying in wait, like a spider on a web, ready to tie us to The Ladies’ Christian League and marry us off to Steven Wilkes and Ulrich Povah--”

Vylette waved her peachy hand at her cousin in disdain, her entire essence seeming to sag.

“Please don’t mention them to me, Lorraine, please…”

Vylette never did like to give much thought to the two young men her parents had been pushing them towards since they were children.

Yes, Steven and Ulrich came from two of the most upstanding Colored families in Rainelle Parish, besides her own and a union between the three clans would have been quite choice, linking money, name and prestige.

Vylette wasn’t quite sure how she felt on the matter.

At only seventeen, though she took care of many womanly duties around the house, she hadn’t experienced what many would think of in more modern days as a typical teenager experience. The only dances she had attended were nearly all church-run, and heavily chaperoned, sometimes by her own mother. She had never been on a ‘real’ date, kissed or even held hands with a boy--even Steven.

Vylette only knew that once her education was complete, most girls in the parish married and started their own families right away.

The purpose for most of these dances, ice cream socials and cotillions were for girls to catch husbands.

And sometime later, if she had a daughter, the cycle would repeat.

Wrapping the towel around her nude body, Vylette, unplugged the stopper and began ringing her hair out as the water seeped from the tub.

Tentatively, she tried to reason,

“Well…Steven and Ulrich are nice boys…”

“Nice boys?” Lorraine scoffed as her cousin stepped from the bath tub and grabbed a comb to untangle her hair. Taking a second comb, Lorraine spoke as she helped her cousin with her mane.

“Vylette, that’s all we have in Rainelle Parish--nice boys. All the boys we know are nice. Ulrich, Steven, Lucian, Micah, Darnell, Peter, Pierce, Johnny and Josiah…all of them are nice. Full of how-do-you-do’s, and yes ma’am and no ma’am. Good day Dr. Meraux. Mighty fine weather we’re having, aren’t we, Mrs. Meraux? Each boy is one and the same, just with a different name, all cast from the same mold and one might be darker or lighter than the other. All from good old Southern families, all from Louisiana, all the same…” Lorraine, groaned, pausing with the comb in her Vylette’s hair near her ear, looked up and over her head, her unused hand pressing into her own smallish hip.

“We all know each other, all go to the same school, got baptized together by Father Lachey, take Sacrament together…Josiah will go to seminary in the fall and one day he’ll be the one giving us Sacrament in Father Lachey’s place! Don’t you…” She bit her bottom lip and looked on her cousin with eyes of wonder and a touch of sadness.

“Don’t you ever think of what it would be like to meet somebody new for a change? Because even though Steven and Ulrich and all the other boys we know are pretty well-set, they’re well-set HERE. If we marry any of them, more than likely, we’ll stay right here in Rainelle Parish. We won’t even get as far New Orleans or Baton Rouge or Shreveport. We’ll stay right here.”

Lorraine tossed her hair defiantly in a red arc.

“That may work for some girls, it may even work for you Vylette, becoming a matron of the Parish one day, but not for me. I want to get out, go places. All the places I read about in my books and magazines can’t be imaginary. Some of them are real. Dance all night in clubs and drink champagne at New Year’s. Wear my pearls and diamonds and furs and ride in a big Cadillac or Chrysler. Do whatever I like to my hair--wave it, bob it, shave it bald, even bleach it blonde like Jean’s! Wear as much makeup as I like!”

“Lorraine!” Vylette gasped, thinking of just how the town would talk--and oh how it would--if Lorraine dared to be as bold and brazen as her idol.

And if she were talked about, it would shame the entire family for generations to come!

“This isn’t Hollywood, Honey. This is Rainelle Parish. You know girls just don’t do those sorts of things or act or dress that way--except Wallis, but she‘s one step from the gutter anyway. Hollywood is all make-believe, you know that. All the painting and costuming--”

“But my Dear!” Lorraine suddenly gripped her cousin’s white shoulder’s so hard it turned scarlet. “You and I can do better than any of those passel of wet blankets Aunt Kathleen and Uncle Almanzo are trying to send us to. We’re both smart and pretty, Vylette. There’s more out there, I’m certain. If only you and I could get away. Even to New Orleans--that’s only fifty miles from here! Fifty miles to another world! Get around new people, fresh people, people who didn’t know our grandparents! Somewhere I know there’s the kind of men who can show us real life, Cousin! Wining, dining, fine things!”

“Oh Lorraine…” Vylette ducked her head at such a thought, incredulous. “The only people like that, in times like these are bootleggers…and you know Mama and Papa were a part of the Temperance Association before Prohibition kicked in--”

She couldn’t imagine any man really having an interest in her. She only knew Steven was after her because his parents were encouraging a union just as much as her parents.

“Damn it, Vylette!” Lorraine swore, her white cheeks taking on a violent pink glow in consternation and caused her cousin’s eyes to bulge at the blatant swearing.

Good girls didn’t use harsh words.

“Lorraine--”

“What do you want, Vylette? Not what Aunt Kathleen or Uncle Almanzo or the Povahs or Wilkeses or the whole damned town wants. You’re almost eighteen! And you possibly could be married the rest of your life to Steven! Don’t you want to see some of the world, before you’re chained to the kitchen here with five or six screaming babies? Do you even like Steven, much less love him?”

Vylette gripped onto the side of the washbasin and lowered her head, with it starting to pound right at the temples.

“Lorraine…go…go start breakfast, Dear. Oatmeal and raisins. And make sure you get Vinnie up, please. And give her a big glass of milk to drink with her oatmeal…”

Lorraine stared at the back of her cousin’s lowered head for a long moment, before turning on her heel and leaving her alone.

Breathing heavily, quite suddenly, chest feeling like it was trying to cave in with each unbalanced breath, Vylette stared up at herself in the mirror.

Her face was pallid and bluish eyes consuming the greater part of it.

Was Lorraine right? Was Vylette being set up, by her well-intentioned parents, and destined for a life in which she never ventured out of the Parish?

Vylette had only been out courting with Steven a few times, always in broad daylight and always in public places or in the home with one of her parents nearby.

He had never gripped her hand or pecked her cheek or made any sort of untoward moves on her.

It was hardly anything that spoke of love or symbolized any sort of intimacy.

Not that Vylette had a true a picture of what love or intimacy really was.

Her own parents were so stiff and proper with each other around them on one hand, and the sort of things Lorraine let her read in her hidden sagas were comprised of acts so unspeakable, Vylette couldn’t imagine anyone, no matter her reputation, performing them.

But, somewhere between Bible-clad stone and cinematic loose morals, was there a middle ground?

Where a man wooed a woman, politely, and held her hand and whispered sweetness into her ears and tried to steal kisses when no one was looking.

That certainly was not Vylette Meraux and Steven Wilkes.

Steven never said anything too witty or endearing, and most anything else was forgettable.

Two people wasting an afternoon, at the utmost.

And yet, as Vylette stood there, staring in the mirror, if something didn’t change, something didn’t happen, and happen soon, by that time next year, it was an almost certain possibility that she would be Mrs. Steven Wilkes and have her gut sticking out, expecting her firstborn.

That was always how it was in the Parish. Girls married early and were pregnant as soon as they uttered “I do”. Why, three girls Vylette knew were already engaged--one being five months along with child and getting hitched to keep it legitimate, avoiding shame and forever wagging tongues--and to be married at the tender ages of seventeen and eighteen.

Vylette’s own mother had wed her father when she was just sixteen and Lorraine’s mother had been even younger--fifteen at the time of her marriage.

Perhaps there was a grain or two of truth to Lorraine’s ranting.

Maybe there was life to be found for girls who took the initiative to try to find it.

Vylette returning to combing her hair free of tangles, stood contemplating this fork in the road of her hardly-lived existence, without a single inkling that instead of her finding life, life was going to rush right up to her when she least expected it. But life is very much like that, isn’t it?

* * *

“…ow…”

“Oh, hold still, you ninny, I’m almost done!”

“…ow…ow…ow…ow…”

“You little liar, I am not hurting you--quit saying ‘ow’ and hold still!”

“Yes, you are--you’re brushing too hard, Vylette! Ow!”

Small, stiff-bristle brush in one hand, Vylette reached down and clamped onto the pointed shoulder of the child wriggling before her.

“Now be still, please. I can’t spend all day doing this!” She cautioned sternly, her hands returning to the deeply waved mass of thick black hair on her sister’s head that she was trying in vain to get a bow tied into.

As soon as the brush made contact with the strands near the little girl’s hairline, she whined,

“…ow…”

“Lavinia Rosalind!” Vylette cried, throwing the brush onto the foot of her bed and grabbing her sister by the arm, whirled her around to glare at her.

Lavinia, known to all since birth as Vinnie, was usually a model ten-year-old, whose temperament was just as mild and gentle as her older sister’s.

Mild and gentle, so long as no one came near her hair.

Vinnie was particularly tender-headed, and it appeared the lightest tug on any of her tresses put her into agony.

Every morning was a battle along the lines of the Great War whenever Vylette tried to tame her sister’s locks into something that would make her look more little girl and less jungle woman.

Vinnie was a beautiful child, with a heart-shaped face, just as white as her sister’s and cousin’s, only interrupted with beige-y freckles crossing the bridge of her rounded nose. (Her freckles went without notice or lemon-juice bleaching, as at her young age, she was not on the look out for a mate, yet.)

Her eyes, somewhat downward slanted at the corners, giving her a forlorn look, even when at her happiest, and contrasted by her short bristly lashes, were a deep, steely grey and despite their ‘cold’ color, showed all the warmness and affection bubbling just below the surface of the child.

Standing before her sister, her scant, spindly little body was covered at that moment, by a white, eyelet trimmed chemise and matching drawers, white socks on her feet and folded neatly at the ankles.

A few feet away, spread on the foot of her bed, was a dress of brown calico, trimmed in off-white at the collar and cuffs of the short, puffed sleeves.

Staring down at the sweet face, gazing back up at her so placidly, it was difficult for Vylette to remain angry with Vinnie for more than a few minutes at a time.

“Vinnie, be good, and let me finish your hair, so we can go ahead on to the store and get the eggs for Mama…” Vylette reasoned, her voice softer, trying appeal to the goodness in her sibling.

“Alright, Vylette, but do it quickly, please.” Vinnie relented, turning her back to her again, her naturally high-pitched voice reaching tinny heights. “I don’t like the brush, it’s so hard and hurts me!”

“I’m not trying to hurt you…” Vylette rolled her eyes, and made a quick business of sectioning off the top half of her sister’s hair into a ponytail, fastened by a brown ribbon, and left the rest fluffing down Vinnie’s back.

With her sister pulling the dress over head, Vylette, fully dressed in a simple, baby blue shift that turned her eyes from lavender to Ceylon, her hair swept back into a low ponytail by a white ribbon, with white socks and sensible black shoes on her feet, she left through the open door of the bedroom, to find the dime for the eggs her mother had left behind.

The cottage was quite small itself and she didn’t have far to go between her bedroom and the living room.

Draped carelessly across an armchair, with her bare legs in the air, the skirt of her dark green dress raised, was Lorraine.

In the absences of her aunt and uncle, she was openly reading a romance novel, its title emblazoned in gold on a blood red cover, Millicent’s Mistake.

Lorraine kept her books so well hidden, that even Vylette didn’t know where they were stored in such a small, intimate abode as theirs.

Passing by her ravenously reading cousin and going to the table, by the open front door that allowed a breeze in by way of a screen door that banished swamp mosquitoes, located the lone quarter and deposited it in her pocket.

“Is that a new story?” She wondered, reaching back and pulling the long end of her ponytail over her shoulder.

Lorraine’s green eyes never left the pages, flying back and forth, consuming the tale.

“No…I got this one last month, but I’m just now getting around to reading it. It’s been positively scandalous so far.”

In spite of herself, Vylette did enjoy hearing about the flaming plots of the novels, even if she did refrain from actually turning the pages herself.

“Do tell me about it.”

“Well, it’s all about this girl, Millicent Andrews. She works as a scullery maid for this count in the English countryside. He’s a Spanish count, but he’s on vacation in England. The count’s wife is this big fat, sickly creature…it really is amazing how some people get together…and he grows quite tired of her. And Millicent is this stunning girl, with waves of hair like wheat and cornflower eyes. Nothing like the piggish countess. So, of course the count becomes chummy with her and the very next thing you know…”

“Good morning, Vylette, Lorraine…” A deep, richly resonant voice spoke from behind the two, causing Lorraine’s mouth to fly shut on international extramarital affairs and Vylette’s to draw up like a prune.

Vylette’s spine stiffened at the all too familiar voice, forcing her to rapidly erase any and every trace of distaste from her face and had no other choice but to turn.

“Good morning…Steven.”

The screen door had been opened, the young man holding it, remained on the front porch, as it had been taught to all young men to wait to be invited inside of any given home, rather than barging in.

Steven Wilkes was a very tall, solidly built and broad shouldered boy of eighteen, but so massive was his girth, he appeared in his mid-twenties.

As with the Meraux and Devereaux girls, Steven could have easily passed for White. Though, through his love of being outdoors and spending much of his time doing so, Steven possessed a healthy, bronze hue to his complexion that was generally discouraged for any and every girl unless she had been born with such coloring, but was favorable in young men, as it showed they were virile and active instead of lazy. (Sloth was a sin.)

His hair, a dark chocolate brown, worn slicked back and glistening with pomade only enhanced his tan. Beneath thick, bushed brows, his eyes. a blazing blue-green were focused on Vylette. His eyes always seemed to be focused on her, whether a few feet laid between them, or the few miles between their two homes.

His bulky, muscle dense body was dressed in a pair of much-mended denim trousers and a rumpled, button-down shirt, with his large feet bare and dusted with Louisiana soil.

His outfit was casual, much too casual to be worn when calling upon the girl who may become his wife.

But even dressed like he was a Colored Huckleberry Finn, Steven was standing erect and carried himself in a more sophisticated fashion than his clothing would have led one to believe.

He was usually one of the better dressed boys in town.

Indeed, Steven was one of the fabled Wilkes and though the Depression had affected the money of his family, who owned and ran the five and dime where Lorraine sought her magazines and novels, and Dr. Meraux procured his pipe tobacco, he was still considered better off.

(And a very desirable catch to any girl of a mature age.)

The Wilkes’ had inhabited Rainelle Parish almost as long as the De La Croixs and Merauxs. Steven’s family was one that blended African, Afro-Cuban and English, resulting in Steven’s unique appearance.

Assured of his placement in life as one of the big wheels of the Parish, and his exotic lineage and good looks, Steven was a willful, sly and arrogant man, accustomed to being afforded and given just about anything he desired from doting and spoilsome parents.

Over a month before graduation and already he had begun boasting about receiving a brand-new Ford from his parents who wouldn‘t have dared to say “no“ to their only son.

“How are y’all doing this morning?” Steven’s pinky lips, under a mustache that was not too thin, but not too thick, revealed his even, bright white teeth, glowing in his face.

“We’re all quite well, thank you.” Vylette was speaking out of elementary good-breeding and politeness that had been instilled since birth. She had no true desire to have set eyes on him that day. “And how are they all over at your house?”

“Just fine, just fine, thank you.” Steven’s grin grew as he looked upon two of the most attractive girls in the Parish.

“I would invite you in, but unfortunately, both Mama and Papa are out at the moment. I’m sorry.” Vylette was thankful that custom dictated a chaperone be present if company became mixed.

She heard Lorraine stifling a giggle, but kept her face on the serene side.

“Oh, that’s alright.” Steven was easy, leaning against the open doorframe, his piercing eyes drifting from Vylette a moment, surely taking in Lorraine’s indecent legs, then staring boldly back at her. “I knew that. I saw your father opening his practice this morning, and your mother stopped by the house to join my mother to pass out soup at the church. I was just on my way down to Jamison’s Pond to go fishing with Ulrich--”

“Lord…” Lorraine was barely heard.

“--and I wanted to stop in and see about you, since it is on the way.” Steven’s eyes flashed as they ran up and down Vylette’s figure and she wanted to crumple up into a ball and seep through the floorboards out of sight.

Steven had a way of looking at her, that made it seem like he could see clean through her clothing and undergarments straight to her naked flesh.

A dirty, learned way that she didn’t like and that gave her a case of the hee-bee-jeebies.

It only crept into his eyes when they were alone, as they were then, with out either of her parents around.

The look left his eyes, as Vinnie emerged from around the corner, and aligned herself beside Lorraine in the armchair.

Vinnie bent instantly and was whispering at the still all-legs Lorraine, causing her push at the child.

“I can sit how I like, quit vexing me!”

So much for making Lorraine sit like a lady.

“…but there’s a gentleman in the room…”

Going over, Vylette clutched her sister’s hand.

“If you’ll excuse us, Steven, we have an errand to run for Mama, and it has to be attended to presently.” She stated kindly and tugging her sister so hard, her feet fairly left the polished hardwood floor, they were brushing by the towering Steven and out onto the concrete walk that led to the dirt road.

Lorraine, left behind and taking her own sweet time brought up the rear.

“Well that’s a shame. If I didn’t have to fish…” Steven, hands in his pockets was sauntering after her. “…I’d have been more than happy to escort you, your sister and cousin into town. But Mother Dear insists I bring a fresh trout or mullet home for dinner. My apologies.”

“I do thank you for your thoughtfulness, Steven, but we are capable of walking to and from town…” Vylette’s patience was wearing thin with him and she was beginning to struggle to remain a cool belle.

Steven’s lips curled with pleasure.

“I’ll see you tomorrow at Mass then?” He questioned, his eyes already reading in the affirmative.

Mouth tightening, Vylette bobbed her head.

“Wonderful. Y’all have a pleasant day.” Stepping off into the dirt road, Steven grinned, and started off on his way.

Silently, Vylette, Lorraine and Vinnie watched him go, each wearing a different expression.

Vylette’s was one of nausea, her white skin becoming slightly green in her distress, Lorraine’s of unaffected contempt, her snoot wrinkled, and Vinnie’s, with the naivety of a child was smiling sweetly at the man destined to become her brother-in-law.

“For all he’s worth…” Lorraine shook her head slowly as the boy was becoming a speck in the distance. “…Steven Wilkes is a frightful bore.”

“I think he’s awful nice.” Vinnie sighed, with it beyond her youthful grasp what it seemed Steven was truly about underneath all of his courtesy. “Going through all the trouble to come and call on Vylette.”

“Nice…that’s the problem…”

Turning away, Lorraine started in the opposite direction, towards Main Street.

Tugging at her elder sister’s hand, Vinnie’s voice bore her confusion as she inquired,

“Why is Steven’s being nice a problem? Aren’t we supposed to go with nice boys?”

Squeezing her sister’s hand and walking a few yards behind Lorraine, Vylette shushed her,

“Hush, Vinne, please. Let’s just go and get the eggs for Mama.”

* * *

Rainelle Parish was a small, cloistered town, numbering around a thousand or so residents, both Colored and White. It was a rural community, with the greater part of those on the lower rungs of society as nothing more than tenant farmers and sharecroppers, whom, if they were lucky, had one or two heads of cattle.

They were all a hard-working, hardy type of folks, the sort of people the town had been founder for and by over a hundred years ago.

In 1829, when everything was still wilderness and untamed forests, Gerald Fontaine De La Croix, Vylette’s four-times great-grandfather, himself a freedman of Color, felled the first tree on the home for him, his wife, Marie and their thirteen children. Gerald, who had only started out to provide a home for his family soon saw more and more people, both freedman and escaped slave, both White and Colored and a mix of the two, coming to him, foraging a settlement, named in honor of Gerald’s mother, Raina, that had slowly and steadily grown to where it was now.

Though, over a hundred years later, Rainelle Parish could still be considered nothing more than a rural town, as evidenced by what was passed off as the “Main Street”.

On either side of a long, much-treaded dirt road, rows of wooden buildings stood, dating back to before the Civil War, many with the original horse hitching posts still outside of them, as the luckier families who didn’t walk, still rode horses or mules to get around. In a population of a thousand, there were a dozen cars and trucks at most.

On one side of the street was a grocer, City Hall, the post office, Mumfree’s, the one and only diner in town, and at the very end, Dr. Meraux’s medical office. On the opposite side was a hardware store and lumberyard, and the five-and-dime mercantile with an adjoining feed store.

Off in the distance, about a mile or so, up on a hill, was the large, imposing structure of Saint Ignatius, that during the week housed a school run by a small group of nuns and held Mass on Sundays, led by Father Lachey.

Several other dirt paths cut through virgin wilderness leading back to old homesteads far off and out of sight.

The road, that Saturday morning, was pretty much empty, as most adults with jobs, else on the main street or tending their own crops at home were busy there, only the children of shopkeepers running back and forth.

The poorer, mostly bare footed, thin, popeyed creatures, moved on the fringes, some still too proud to want to be seen in their destitution, slowly making their way to the church on the hill for a bowl of soup.

Tall, disenfranchised men in ripped overalls with no shirts, women in dresses made from flour sacks, children limping along, moaning from hunger pangs in their bellies.

Vylette saw them, her heart ached for them and had fed some of them.

Why right then, she could see, just beyond the buildings, a man, perhaps in his forties, holding onto the hands of two little barefoot girls, one weeping, as they made their way out to the church.

Vylette could only look down at her own sister, so pink-cheeked, satisfied and well-fed and be thankful they had been spared.

Vinnie, seeing her sister’s face, smiled up and asked,

“When we get to the grocer, may I buy a chocolate bar? I’ve saved the five cents for it… see?”

Reaching into her pocket, she came up with a fist bearing five shining pennies.

A candy bar. Vylette’s eyes sought out the slow-moving trio and wondered if those girls, no older than maybe seven or eight, had ever tasted chocolate in their lives.

Patting at her sister’s head, Vylette replied,

“Of course…pick any you can afford.”

Vinnie’s smile enlarged, change tinkling in her palm.

“Gee…” Lorraine drew up beside her cousin and took her arm. “I wish I had another nickel, so I could buy a tube of lipstick…maybe in something close to what Jean wears!”

Before Vylette could produce a sound, little Vinnie, aware of whom was being referenced, spun around on her heel.

Staring up boldly at Lorraine, her steely eyes sparking with fire, she pointed out,

“Well brought up girls don’t go around bleaching all the color out of their hair and painting up their faces like…like Jezebels!”

Pissed, with fresh, hot color flooding her cheeks and neck, Lorraine gave Vinnie a push, nearly throwing her into the path of a man galloping by on a swaybacked mule.

“Aw, dry up!” She cried, face twisting with aggravation. “You sound more and more like your mother with each passing day! And what makes you such an expert on men? You’re ten-years-old! I know more than you and I know this: Men don’t want plain, homely-looking things for wives! Every woman could benefit from a bit of make up. Men want beautiful, elegant women to hang on their arms--”

Hands on nothing hips, Vinnie, regaining her balance, stamped back up onto the rickety wooden sidewalk.

Pointed chin protruding and quivering, she blasted back,

“How I look is exactly the way God intended me to look. I don’t need make up--and you don’t either! We’re all perfectly fine just the way we are! And now I’m going!”

With that, Vinnie turned and ran off through the open doors of the grocer.

Grimacing, Lorraine watched her go, adding,

“That’s some kind of nerve. A baby lecturing me and she’s never even kissed a boy!”

Vylette, patting that mottled arm looped through hers, continuing down the walk, stated matter-of-factly,

“Neither have you, no matter how many of those books you read. The last kiss you looked at was outlined in The Flapper’s Foolsome Folly!”

She knew her last statement had stung, the way Lorraine’s eyes had widened.

Instantly, Vylette regretted her last statement, as she knew Lorraine longed to be held and kissed and petted even more than she, and Vylette went to apologize.

“I’m sorry, Dear--”

“Look at that sleek set of wheels there!”

Lorraine’s voice was an awed whisper.

“Huh?”

Vylette stared at her cousin and then followed her gaze.

In spite of herself, Vylette’s small mouth dropped open, just a tad.

A few feet away, parked in front of the store, was a car.

It wasn’t one of the dusty, old, utilitarian jalopies that Vylette had grown accustomed to seeing over her lifetime.

No, the car couldn’t have stuck out any more had began speaking in Greek.

Sitting there, seemingly out of place with all the dreary surroundings, was a car of luxury.

A beautiful little roadster, gleaming black, shining with wax and accented down the hood with a red chevron and more red details along the doors and running board on the side.

The girls drew closer, taking in the sparkling chrome grille with a tiny winged woman in flights as the hood ornament, pristine whitewall tires with silver spokes, and spares on both sides of the vented hood.

The seat was blood red with what looked like real velvet.

Standing there, the hood bore the name of the best car brand being manufactured in America: Cadillac.

That car… it wasn’t for a person who tended fields, who threw feed at animals and hauled their paltry crops in trying to turn a dime.

It was the car of a person who had likely never heard the word “Depression” much less been affected by it.

Vylette had never seen a Cadillac other than in magazines and in films.

It had never dawned on her that a “normal” person could own one, only those with their names in lights.

She became aware of Lorraine’s nails digging into her arms.

“Vy, if you see the owner of that vehicle, and he doesn’t already have a best girl, introduce me to him! Anyone with a car like that HAS to be rich!”

“I’ve never seen that car before.” Vylette stated the obvious. “The owner must be from out of town.”

That was already odd to her. No one, unless they were a native, would ever STOP in the Parish, but merely pass through it to the larger cities.

That’s all the Parish was, a gateway to bigger and better things if one could get out to start with.

Saucily, Lorraine tossed her hair and replied,

“He could be from outer space for all I care…”

Vylette didn’t speak it, but she felt the exact same way.

“I need my magazine.” Lorraine, letting go of her cousin, passed by the car, staring at it and proceeded across to the five and dime.

Vylette lingered a moment, wondering what kind of excitement that car had been party to, then proceeded on into the grocer.

The grocer wasn’t very much, just a little store with a few canned goods, produce brought in from the countryside and a candy counter bearing a dozen or so treats.

“Hey Vylette, did you get an eyeful of that Caddy outside?”

It took a moment for Vylette’s eyes to adjust and spot the girl standing behind the counter.

Wallis Pelant.

Wallis, the oldest of the six Pelant children, and a second cousin of Steven Wilkes, in general was the type of girl Vylette, under any other circumstance, would not even acknowledge.

It was widely known throughout the Parish that Wallis was the perfect example of what a girl was NOT supposed to be.

Wallis, nineteen, but had been held back in school twice because she never made an effort to do schoolwork, was as fast and as torrid as any tramp could hope to be.

Wallis lost her mother in the Flu epidemic, but unlike Lorraine who was taken in by her aunt, Wallis had been exposed to her father’s four marriages which produced all of her half-siblings. Two of her step-mothers had also died, one from a bout of yellow fever when Wallis was eight and another had been trampled by a horse when she was thirteen. Now on her third stepmother, Wallis had never really gotten the teaching and guidance she needed.

She had always flirted with men, ran around with boys from the lower-rung families,(there was even talk she’d had an illegal abortion resulting from a fling with a married man) and despite her good name, was considered by many as nothing more than common trash.

She did everything Vylette, Lorraine, Vinnie and all good girls had been forbidden: painted her face, bobbed her hair, wore revealing clothes, smoked, drank bootleg gin and chased males.

Why right then, leaning from behind the counter, Wallis had her arms out in a sleeveless dress that was supposed to be buttoned up to under her chin, but had been left undone, exposing cleavage.

It was really a shame, Wallis could have been a very beautiful girl.

She was petite, barely breaking five feet tall, with a rounded, plump body top heavy with a large bust.

Her face, oblong and chubby-cheeked had large, dark sleepy eyes, under penciled in brows, black, as was her hair, cut into a crimped bob that fell to the apples of her cheeks.

Cheeks which glowed an unnatural shade of red, in a face powdered several shades lighter than the rest of her caramel colored body, a beauty mark off to the right of her chin.

Grey shadow ran from her blackened lashes clear up to her drawn brows, and her lips, painted a deep brick shade were a cupid’s bow on her face.

Her dress, in lime green polka dots, was matched by the green scarf wrapping her head. Cheap, glass and metal bangles lined her bare arms.

She smelled loudly of inexpensive perfume.

Wallis was one of the dying out Flappers left behind from the twenties.

“Yes…” Vylette replied curtly, glancing at Vinnie who was still contemplating what candy to purchase for herself..

“It is a rather impressive car.”

“Child, if you think that car is something, you should have seen the man that got out of it! Woo, refined and bona fide!” Wallis’ dark eyes rolled with lust and while Vylette knew Lorraine had been making big talk of going after the rich man, Wallis was guaranteed to make after him like hornet. Wallis made after every man with a pulse. It was her way.

“I swear if Loretta didn’t have me tied to the counter, I’d have gone after him…and gotten acquainted.”

Wallis’ over-made face frowned at the thought of her current stepmother, and she cracked a crooked smile at Vylette.

“What can I do you for, Sweetie?”

“A dozen eggs, please.” Vylette stood straighter as Wallis looked over and saw Vinnie at the candy counter across the shop, shouting shrilly,

“Winston! Edward! Elizabeth! Rachel! Alfred! One of you shiftless N(bad word)s get out here! There’s a customer at the candy stand! Quit hiding or I‘ll take a piece of birch to you!”

Automatically from the back, Winston Pelant, the youngest of the clan, a small, ill-looking boy of eleven, came moseying out from the back of the store. His mother had been Wallis’ second stepmother and he looked like her in that he was a dark, mousy looking boy, with shifty eyes and a bald head.

“Lazy little worthless so-and-sos. I wish Loretta would raise them…ain’t my children…”

As he spoke with Vinnie, Wallis wondered,

“Do you want white or brown eggs?”

“White, please.”

Twelve eggs appeared in a carton and were placed in a paper sack.

The quarter was exchanged, with a nickel and ten pennies coming back in change.

“Vinnie, when you get your candy, please come across to the five-and-dime.” Vylette instructed, unintentionally feeling superior to Wallis.

“Sure, Sis.” Vinnie called back softly, and said loudly, “Plain chocolate, or with peanuts…?”

To the town tramp, Vylette gave a thank you and started out, bag hugged to her on one side.

Emerging from the store, she saw the Cadillac still was parked out front, before starting towards the five and dime.

Through the large, display window, Vylette could see Lorraine cooing over the rack with lipsticks on it, a magazine tucked beneath her arm.

Smiling to herself, knowing that if Lorraine could, she’d have taken ever tube of lip color with her, Vylette stepped from the sidewalk and started across the dirt road.

But really, what was it like to put on make up?

To sit before a mirror like that trash Wallis surely did each morning and apply it?

Her mind on the lifestyle she lacked, the change Vylette was trying to slip into her pocket instead missed and fell into the dirt around her feet.

“Goodness gracious!” Vylette moaned as the coins scattered and rolled every which way.

“Mama will have a conniption if I lose her money!”

Setting her bag on the ground, she crouched low and started to retrieve her mother’s coins.

“…five…six…seven…eight.” She counted to herself knowing if she didn’t bring all fifteen cents home, the difference would be made up by a leather strap across her back. Waste was a sin.

“Oh my God!”

There was a sharp cry, somewhere close behind Vylette and at once, she was clutched around her middle and yanked backwards so hard she all but flew.

As she went back, she was quite stunned to see a large milk truck go roaring by, crossing the exact spot she had been gathering her change, completely obliterating the bag containing her eggs.

The truck continued on down the street, never stopping and turned the corner.

The only thing left in the middle of the road was the mashed brown paper back, and a mess of white shells and scrambled yellow yolks.

She…she had almost been run over!

A pair of hands, warm and large pressed her shoulders from behind.

“Are you alright, Miss?”

A tender voice, so high and delicate, Vylette couldn’t determine it was male or female, questioned.

Vylette, with absolutely concern over the fact she’d nearly been flattened, only stared at the mess a few feet away and whimpered,

“My…my eggs.”

She could feel that leather strap on her hide right then.

Oh, how her mother would carry on about her not paying attention to her surroundings and wasting both the eggs and money. She wanted to cry.

“Miss, please…are you alright? Are you hurt in any way?”

Turning, Vylette looked up, and found herself utterly dumbstruck.

Standing onside of her, face full of concern and worry, was a young man.

He was quite tall and exceedingly slim, with a complexion like that of a cup cocoa, strong and brown and smooth.

Vylette’s breathe caught in her throat as she continued to gaze upon him, unwaveringly.

He was possibly the most handsome man she had ever had the blessing to set her eyes upon.

He had huge, wide brown eyes like a puppy dog, focused on her, under trim, arched black brows. He had a small, sculpted nose, tapered at the nostrils and slightly upturned at the tip. His cheeks were hollow and cheekbones sharp.

His mouth, thin and mildly pouted, showed the barest, merest trace of a mustache attempting to grow in.

His hair, a thick shock of glossy, ebony curls, combed back attractively a few tendrils falling into his eyes.

Those eyes on Vylette like a spotlight in the dark, never leaving her face.

He was extremely well-dressed, clad in a three-piece, highly starched navy blue suit, crisp white shirt and dotted bowtie with matching pocket square folded fancily, so that four peaks were seen.

Eyes sweeping down, Vylette noticed he wore blue and white, wing-tipped shoes, so polished she could see reflection in them.

New shoes, not with the soles worn out of them like most boys and men in those parts.

Had he come right off the pages of a magazine? He looked too perfect to be real.

“Are you hurt, Miss? I’m sorry if I’ve hurt you, you were right in the path of that truck. You’d have been killed. Please say something…”

Somehow, by the grace of God, Vylette managed to find her voice, still awe-struck.

“No…I’m quite fine. Thank you, Sir. I’m very grateful to you for your quick thinking and cat-like reflexes.”

Reaching out, Vylette touched his arm, marveling at the soft wool of his suit.

It was soft like eiderdown, not still at all like her father’s suits.

She noticed, that as she spoke, a strange light came into the man’s eyes, whisking away the worry that had been present.

“Indeed. I’m glad the only casualty seemed to be your eggs.”

He motioned to the leaking mess on the road, with a cheerful smile, his eyes polite and playful, his manner seeming so kind.

“Oh the eggs…” Vylette’s head ached at the temples. “Those were for Mama to bake with this afternoon!”

“Please…” A large brown hand eclipsed the white one gripping his arm and Michael squeezed it. “Don’t be upset. I’ll buy you another dozen, right this minute. Please, don’t get upset, Miss.”

A coy smile flashed harder.

“Eggs can always be replaced--young ladies, cannot.”

Vylette’s ears perked up at the statement. Not so much that this man was offering to buy the eggs, but that he had called her a ‘lady’ right to her face.

Never, in her seventeen years of life, could Vylette recall being referred to as a ‘lady’. Only ‘girl’ by everyone she knew.

Did…did this gentleman really think she was a…a lady?

“Why, thank you, Mr. ...” She hesitated as she didn’t know his name.

Still squeezing at her little hand, the man chuckled,

“I’m Michael--Michael Jackson. Pleased to meet you Miss…” His brows went up indicating he know her name.

“Vylette Meraux.” Vylette ducked her head, feeling her cheeks start to tingle as blood rushed to them.

“Glad to know you, Miss Vylette Meraux, and to help you…I’ll go retrieve those eggs, you will pardon me…”

Gingerly, he peeled her hand from his arm, nodded, and walked the few feet back into the store.

Vylette watched him go, her heart pounding so hard, so suddenly, she had to audibly gasp for air.

Who was this man? From whence had he come?

Moments later, Michael was there again, small paper sack in hand.

“Here you are Miss Meraux.” He greeted her handing her the bag.

Looking down in it, Vylette saw a dozen of the whitest eggs, with an addition. On top of the eggs was a Gigantic, the largest chocolate bar the Pelant grocery store stocked, weighing in at three ounces.

“Your eggs…” Michael chuckled, sounded more like he was singing than laughing. “…and a piece of chocolate. I feel chocolate soothes the nerves after a harrowing ordeal.”

Staring down into the bag, Vylette, cheeks aflame, whispered,

“Oh, you didn’t have to do that, Mr. Jackson.”

“I wanted to.” Michael stood a bit closer to her, invading her personal space, but not being offensive.

“I enjoy giving sweet things to sweet people.”

Vylette was speechless gazing up at him. The things he said!

“It’s been a pleasure making your acquaintance Miss Meraux. I hope to see you again and please…stay out of the path of milk trucks from now.”

That warm hand patted her arm causing goose flesh to spring up all over her.

Seeing more stars than what the Milky Way could contain, Vylette heard herself reply that she would.

Yes Sir, she would.

Michael Jackson turned and started away, Vylette breathless.

But this dashing man had one more surprise in store for Vylette.

“Oh!” The startled gasp left her as he went directly to the black Cadillac, opening the door and slipping inside.

Wallis appeared in the doorway of her father’s store, hand on her hip, trying to appear alluring.

And was promptly ignored as Michael continued to gaze at Vylette. And only at Vylette as he started the engine.

Backing up, and driving towards her, Michael tooted his horn and waved.

Grinning, Vylette waved back as he continued on his way.

“Vylette!”

Lorraine was rushing to her, a look of pure shock on her face.

“Who was that? Was that the guy that guy who owns that Caddy? You spoke to him?” She demanded, as they both stared after the car.

Chin going up with pride, Vylette replied,

“That’s Mr. Jackson…we’ve just been introduced.”

“Jesus Christ…I wonder if he’s single…” Lorraine whispered and for a moment, Vylette was quiet.

Eyeing her cousin.

Lorraine wanted everything…but she wasn’t going to let her cousin get her claws into Michael Jackson.

No…

Face plain and serious, Vylette informed Lorraine,

“Drop it, Darling, he’s mine.”

Lorraine whitened and her eyes swelled but she said nothing else, her mouth tightening into a pink line.

* * *

In the heat of that same night, Vylette Meraux found that she could not sleep a single wink.

Not so much from the heat smothering her as she flipped and flopped restlessly on her hay stuffed mattress, but from her mind and the thoughts it was producing.

All that afternoon and on into the night, Vylette had been distant and silent.

Her mind on one thing and one thing alone: Mr. Michael Jackson.

After being so stagnated around the likes of Steven Wilkes and his cookie-cutter kind, she had found it particularly thrilling and refreshing to meet Michael Jackson.

She couldn’t help but be curious about him.

Where had he come from? What had brought him to the Parish.

When they had spoken, she hadn’t noticed any sort of hint of a Southern or Creole accent to him.

Was he…had he come from the North? Detroit or Chicago or St. Louis maybe?

A zealous chill ran from head to toe as he thought of how he had said he hoped to see her again.

Did that mean he was going to be staying in the Parish, or was he just being gentlemanly.

It was all soon to come out, perhaps even the following day, as any sort of news traveled like a bullet from mouth to mouth, household to household. It was just the way of the Parish.

Especially no one had quite seen anyone like this Jackson fellow in those parts, Lorraine had pointed out in a jealous whisper as they had prepared dinner that night. (She was positively stewing that she hadn’t been around when Mr. Jackson had appeared.)

He was most certainly rich, riding around in a fancy car like that--a Cadillac at that, a car designed as a showpiece to only be beautiful and a status symbol to its lucky owner.

And that suit, it had to be custom made or at least store bought--when everyone they knew sewed their own. Lorraine claimed she had seen one just like it on Conrad Nagel in Photoplay.

Imagine, Vylette knew someone who dressed like a film star!

She couldn’t help but feel a bit of pride--though pride was a sin--that this gentleman had taken the time to help her, going so far as to replace her eggs with out a cry of complaint.

But did the ten cent dozen and fifteen cent candy bar even matter to someone like him?

Perhaps he bought and ate all the candy he desired.

Perhaps the whole world was one Gigantic bar of chocolate to him…

Turning over, Vylette saw, on the far side of the room, Lorraine was stretched out, flashlight in one hand, reading another of those novels, the only time she could do it in peace and away from the prying, disapproving eyes of her mother.

How Vylette didn’t want to be like her cousin.

She adored and loved Lorraine and would have ever stood in the path of a bullet for her, but she didn’t want to be like her. Lorraine who devoured those romances like a starved convict devoured scraps. Lorraine who, as much as she had been raised and taught otherwise, only showed interest in a man for what rested in his wallet. What he could afford for her. If he could buy her the silk stockings and lacy frocks and dancing shoes she craved. Nights out on the town in speakeasies filled with illegal cocktails and cigarettes.

All Lorraine saw in her books and magazines and movies were wealth, the good life and all the extras.

Lately it was all she seemed to care about.

Vylette desperately didn’t want to admit it, but she knew Lorraine, as ladylike and dainty and sweet natured as she appeared and put on, was really nothing more than a greedy little opportunist.

She didn’t want to label her a gold-digger, that label was for fast, cheap and common girls like Wallis Pelant. Not a Deveraux, not a relative of the esteemed, Merauxs, not a descendant of the De La Croixs.

Lorraine, who kept company with Ulrich Povah, not because she loved him or even truly liked him.

She kept with him only because he showed promise at becoming a doctor and had bragged about receiving a new Ford upon his graduation like Steven.

And Vylette knew if the two became serious and married, Lorraine would likely work that poor, simple-minded boy to death to get her avarice satisfied.

Though, whatever flame had been kindled by Ulrich Povah, had died the moment Lorraine caught sight of Michael Jackson and all the finery and extras associated with him.

As silly as it seemed especially in the wake of the Depression, when a girl was only as set as her beau, Vylette wondered if romance; real, thriving, endearing true romance and love existed or were they just myths.

Was life really just a rat race to get the most money?

She certainly felt nothing like the passages in the novels Lorraine shared, of women fainting and jilted lovers hanging themselves when thrown over.

Something so intense, a love so intense, you would both live and die for it.

Something she never ever felt with Steven Wilkes…

And if nurtured…would it blossom with anyone?

Perhaps the dashing Mr. Jackson?

If only she could see him again!