82 Desire

already know about the Skinners. I had a courtesy call from Jane Storey—you know, the reporter. Somehow she found out about you, baby; the story’s running tomorrow.”
    “Oh, shit.”
    “That’s what I said.”
    “I love you, Bebe.”
    “I missed you,” she said. “I really did miss you.”
    He wondered if she really could handle what was going to come down.
    Later, Dina woke up and squeezed his hand. “You alive?”
    “Uh-huh. You?”
    “I must be,” she said. “I’m hungry.”
    He did the burger trick with her, and found it worked a second time. After she’d eaten, she smiled and said, “Well, I can’t say it hasn’t been fun.”
    “You sound like you’re going somewhere.”
    “Not me. But you were, even before there were cops in your life. Now you really are.”
    His throat felt all tight and scratchy. Just to prolong the connection, he said something he didn’t mean. “I’ll write you from the Big House.”
    She touched his face on the pretext of brushing hair out of his eyes. “I don’t think so. I think this is the end of the line for Dean and Dina.”
    “I’m going to miss you.”
    “True. True. Who’ll go skinny-dipping with you?”
    And he had the strangest notion. Maybe Bebe would. Maybe she was different, too. Or maybe she would be after everything that was about to happen. But maybe not. He’d made it this far with a wife who didn’t skinny-dip; one who’d stand by him while he went to jail was a lot better than he deserved.
    ***
    “What do you think of this?” Talba had on fuchsia harem pants with a magenta leotard. She had draped a purple and gold sari over her head, and the thing was so long it dragged on the floor.
    Her mama said, “You think Miz Clara goin’ out in public with somebody dress like that, you got another think comin’. I didn’t send my only daughter to college so she can dress like Whoopi Goldberg.”
    Darryl Boucree, who happened to be waiting for both of them, asked, “What on earth’s wrong with Whoopi Goldberg?”
    “That does it,” Talba countered, and changed into a long black dress.
    “Even better,” said Darryl.
    “Needs somethin’, though.” Talba draped the sari again and waited for the expected tirade from Miz Clara.
    But her mother said, “Now that’s nice.”
    “Well, I can’t wear it if you like it.”
    She might have changed again, but Darryl hustled her butt out the door. “Come on, we got to get over there.”
    On the heels of Jane Storey’s much-solicited article about her, which had finally materialized, Talba was presenting the program at Le Petit Theatre’s Sunday Salon. This was a fund-raiser held once a month and attended mostly by those in the neighborhood, which was the French Quarter. It wasn’t a paying gig—in fact, she well knew she was doing them a favor—but, still, it was her biggest, best-publicized, and by far most mainstream reading ever.
    She’d gotten a couple of warm-up acts—an African dance troupe and a kid from NOCCA who played trumpet like Kermit Ruffins—but The Baroness was the main event, and she wondered if anyone would come.
    When she walked in, the place was packed. Skip the cop was there, with three guys and the same two kids from last time, one of whom had a shaved head, and the other of whom had a boyfriend who’d look better with one. Cindy Lou the shrink was there, and Talba’s client, Ray, and his wife. Aha—even Bebe and Russell Fortier. The famous and the infamous, all in one family.
    She started to get stage fright.
    And then she was reading. She read her perennial crowd-pleaser, “I Am Like a Cat,” aware of Miz Clara’s discomfort, and Darryl’s pride, and the shock she always evoked from the white people, and quite a few guilty expressions as well.
    When she had finished, she said, “Something happened to me since the last time I read that poem. My whole life changed, but I don’t quite know what it all means. So you know what I do when that happens? I write a poem about it. I did that this week and I’m about to read y’all my new poem. Listen now, y’all. I’m like more things than a cat.”
I am like an athlete.
    One of those brilliant child gymnasts, twelve-year-old prodigy swimmers,
    Gold medal already and no sign of breasts.
    Nothing else to do now.
    I lived my life for one thing only.
    Get that man was so mean to my mama.
    Kill him maybe. Maybe just torture him a couple of
    decades.
    Tell all his friends and all his family.
    Put it in the paper