“That’s specific,” Sylvie shot back. Though she did love funnel cakes.
“Oh, it works with corn dogs, too,” Sera added. “Any of the carnival foods. You always decide to go on a diet right before festival season. It’s a masochistic tendency of yours.”
It was the only way she could stay in her clothes. Festival season was a misnomer. There was always a party going on in Papillon, and the party always included the most delicious food. It was hard to keep her figure when someone was always offering her shrimp and grits or bread pudding. Food was love in her town, and there was a lot of love to go around. “It’s a protective measure I take that usually lasts until I make it to the deep-fried Oreos booth. I curse whoever came up with that bit of heaven.”
“Somehow I don’t think it’s deep-fried snack food you’re abstaining from now,” Hallie said. “Are things not going well with Rene?”
Well was an odd word for what was happening between the two of them. She wasn’t sure how much she was helping with his family. And she wasn’t sure how the “getting to know you again” thing was going since they mostly talked about what had happened in their days and what they intended to do tomorrow.
Then they made out.
“Things are fine. We’ve got his aunt’s celebration coming up, and I’ve been meeting family members right and left.” Only yesterday one of his aunts had shown up at city hall. Aunt Marietta had walked right into Sylvie’s office wearing her Sunday best and demanded that Armie LaVigne be fired for writing her a ticket for speeding. She had to speed. She’d been late for church and she had the snacks. Did Armie LaVigne think he was more important than feeding the poor?
Sylvie hadn’t pointed out that she’d been feeding the church choir, and they weren’t particularly poor. That was when she’d gotten a lecture on her family duties, and why hadn’t anyone changed the name on the door? It still proclaimed that Sylvie Martine was mayor of Papillon. Was she one of those uppity new women who was too good for her husband’s name?
Rene’s family was big on names and labels and any other way to categorize a person.
“I have no idea how Rene survives a day,” she admitted with a shake of her head. “His family could fill a football stadium, and they’re always in his business. Now they’re in mine. I thought dealing with that one-eighth of a percent sales tax hike to pay for the new filtration system was hard. I’d take it over the Darois family any day.”
She lay back, looking up at the brilliant blue sky overhead. It was dotted with puffy white clouds, a perfect Southern Louisiana day that made her wonder if the butterflies were back yet. They showed up en masse twice a year during their long migrations. She loved those times of the year, when the world seemed filled with promise. It had been a long time since she’d taken a boat out on the bayou and watched the butterflies, felt them all around her, and remembered what a magical place this was. She was on the job all the time, and in the beginning that had been a good thing. Coming back to Papillon had been about more than taking the mayor’s job. It had been about coming home so her mother wasn’t alone. It had been about finally grieving her father.
Now she was starting to see a way to a future, and it felt right to stay here in Papillon. She’d seen the world and could see more of it, but she loved this place, loved her home.
Did Rene take time off to stare at the brilliant blue sky? Did he take a boat out on the bayou to watch the butterflies the way they had when they were kids?
Don’t move. They’re all over your hair, Sylvie. It makes you look like you have a crown. Princess Sylvie.
Her life would be easier if they didn’t have all this shared, sweet history between them. If he’d been nothing more than a wretchedly handsome, nice man she had a connection with, she likely would be sleeping with him. She wasn’t a woman who slept with anyone she found attractive, but he was her legal husband. And they were consenting adults who had sexual chemistry between them. If he’d merely been some guy she was attracted to and liked, she would be indulging in sex for the first time since she’d come home.
Sera’s face moved over her, blocking out the sky. “Do you think you made a mistake? Because you have two choices. You can divorce that gorgeous wealthy man who looks at you like you’re the sun in the sky, or we can kill all his relatives. All of them. Seriously, Remy knows people and he always says it’s been too long since he got to kill someone. He was a Navy SEAL, and sometimes that part of him needs to come out.”
Hallie’s face stared down at her, too. “My momma says Remy kills people every day with the cholesterol in his chicken-fried steak. She’s really just upset she can’t eat it anymore. Maybe we could get all of Rene’s relatives to eat it and have heart attacks.”
Her friends were complete goofballs. She sighed. “I don’t think we would ever convince Ashley Layton to eat something fried. We would have to get to her through vodka.”
“Is his family truly your main problem?” Sera asked.
Hallie’s gaze turned Sera’s way. “Her problem is she hasn’t jumped his bones yet. You know that’s what the problem is. Girl needs to get her some of that man. We talked about this.”
Sera gave her that look she used when someone said something foolish. “We also talked about easing her into the discussion.”
Hallie shrugged. “Sylvie is a very direct person. She doesn’t need to be eased into anything but Rene’s bed.”
Sylvie groaned. She should have known this would happen. She’d been ducking this conversation for a week. “This is what you two have been talking about behind my back?”
“Well, now we’re talking to your front,” Hallie offered with a smile. “Don’t be a hypocrite. You know how much we talked about Sera and Harry when they first got together and I wondered if he took his leg off when they had sex.”
Sera gasped. Sylvie winced. Harry had lost a leg during his time in the service, and Hallie had indeed been curious.
Hallie shook her head. “You would have asked the same of me if my Johnny had been one leg down.”
“Probably. Also, Sylvie and I talked a lot about how to handle you hormonally when you were pregnant because you were the terror of the town,” Sera replied with a prim look.
“I was glowy and perfect,” Hallie argued.
That made Sylvie laugh. She wasn’t sure how she’d made it through her years away without these two. Maybe it was time to talk to her best friends about the trouble she was having.
She hadn’t been around when Sera had been pregnant with Luc. Sylvie had been in college and she’d stayed for the summer semester that year because she’d heard Rene had come home from Chicago and she hadn’t wanted to see him.