I looked at him.
He reached into the back pocket of his pants and pulled out a wallet. Inside, I saw crisp banknotes. He pulled out a few, and when he turned them over, I saw they were all 100-dollar bills. “Here.”
I frowned. “What? Why?”
“So you can bail me out when they lock me up.”
I stared at him for a long moment. And laughed. “You’re ridiculous.”
“I’m serious. Take the money.”
I slid the bills into my purse, still smiling despite myself. “Has anyone ever told you that you're a touch melodramatic?”
“Mrs. Arceneaux. Every Sunday after service.” His smile was quick, almost boyish, before it settled back into something more controlled. He glanced at his watch. “Come on. Better make our entrance while there's still fish to be had.”
The drive out took fifteen minutes on roads that narrowed as we got further from town. The oaks closed in overhead and the Spanish moss shimmered amber in the last of the day's light. He drove with one hand on the steering wheel, one on my thigh, and didn't fill the silence, which I'd learned was simply how he was.
“Your hair,” he said. “The dress is…something, sure, but your hair…”
I glanced over.
His eyes were on the road. “You did something different.”
“It's just down.”
“It's not just down.”
I'd taken the time to actually style it for once — dark waves that sat against my shoulders, a few pieces pinned loosely back from my face with a clip I'd been saving for some occasion I hadn't named yet. Something about the way he'd saidit's notjust downmade me feel like the clip had been obvious. Like the occasion had been named after all, without my consent.
“I didn't realize you tracked my hair,” I said.
“I track everything about you.” Still on the road. Completely unbothered by the admission. “You know that.”
I suppose it would’ve been a lie to claim otherwise.
I looked out the window and said nothing, which was either wisdom or cowardice. I've stopped trying to tell the difference.
Woodsmoke was the first thing I smelt. Then something frying — the low green rot-sweetness of the bayou underneath it all. We came around a bend in the road and the gathering opened up in front of us: the church families, half the town, folding tables draped in checkered cloth, string lights run between the trees, and at the far end of the field where the ground started going soft and dark toward the water, a line of oil drums converted into smokers with men standing around them performing the serious civic function of arguing about fish.
That should’ve been a religion of its own.
Before Judah pulled over, he lowered his sleeves to hide his tattoos.
Appearances,I told myself.
The car stopped softly. I smoothed out my dress, checked my makeup, caught a smile from Judah, pretended I didn’t, and got out. The heat wrapped around me like a hand. And then came theactualhand. Judah didn’t even try to act coy. Hetouchedme. Publicly.
The first person who saw us was Sister Ruth, who had the instincts of a hawk and the social velocity of a freight train. She covered the ground between us in under a minute.
“There she is,” she said — to me, but her eyes went to Judah first, did something quick and satisfied, and came back. “Mercy, sweetheart, don't you lookbeautiful.”
“Thank you, Sister Ruth—”
“That dress.” She took both my hands in hers and held my arms out and looked at me the way a grandmother looked at their grandchildren. “Lord in heaven. Judah, doesn't she look beautiful?”
“Yes,” Judah said, beside me.
No hesitation. No qualifier. Sister Ruth's smile went three sizes.
