She couldn’t say why she was surprised, but both Leo and Ellie fit so well inside this bar. They were very laid back and there was nothing elaborate or even remotely pretentious about either of them. They’d both been wearing jeans and a t-shirt every time she’d seen them.
Sometimes Leo’s was a Boys of the Bayou t-shirt since, as he’d explained, he drove the bus that went to New Orleans to pick tourists up from their hotels and deliver them to the docks for swamp boat tours. But other times his t-shirts said things like, So when’s this old enough to know better supposed to kick in?
Ellie wore t-shirts with various sayings and logos from the fifty states and had explained that she was sent them from tourists who had come in and enjoyed their time in the bar. The one she wore today said, “Maryland! We’ve got crabs!”
The bar was very much like Leo and Ellie, in Caroline’s opinion. Laid back, with a come-as-you-are vibe that was so comfortable and friendly you immediately felt at ease and like you knew you’d be back. It was filled with a collection of mismatched chairs and tables, a scuffed wooden floor, and the décor was very…“we like this stuff and don’t really care what you think of it”. The walls were covered in photographs—of the family, the town, the bayou, visitors and tourists, events, and holidays—posters, sports team banners, and an odd collection of other paraphernalia that, if it had a theme, Caroline hadn’t a clue what it was.
“Yeah, we were thinking of something like this.” Ellie wiped her hands on the apron she had tied around her waist and pulled her phone from her back pocket. She quickly swiped her fingers over the screen and then turned it for Caroline to see.
Caroline’s eyes widened. “Seriously?”
The site was a bar and restaurant décor website and the photo Ellie had pulled up was for a sleek, modern pub done in blacks and grays with a lot of silver and glass accents. The floor was stone, the bar top looked like granite.
“Yeah. It would modernize the place, right? Now that the grandkids are older and a younger crowd is hanging out here, we thought maybe that was a direction we should consider,” Ellie said. “They’ve got friends coming in and we’re competing with the bars in New Orleans—they love to hang out at Trahan’s Tavern right down in the Quarter—and the place up in Bad is definitely fancier than we are.”
Oh. They were worried about competing for business? Well, she could understand that, she supposed. Caroline studied the photo again. “Well, I mean, you could do this, but I think you need to go with browns instead of grays, at least. The black and glass would still give it a modern look but…”
She couldn’t do this.
It hit her all of a sudden.
The bar in this photo was not Ellie’s. It looked too polished, too cold, too…not Ellie’s.
She suspected Leo and Ellie were just being nice. What else were they going to talk to her about after all? But this photo was real and Ellie had pulled it up easily. Damn.
She'd actually been hoping for some more stories about Zander and the rest of their grandkids growing up. She'd been enjoying those a lot the last few days. She had a feeling she would've enjoyed the stories anyway, but hearing Zander's cousins and brothers tell the stories was doubly entertaining.
She'd even gotten a few tales about Zeke and Zander switching places as identical twins. She would've been disappointed if they hadn't done that, but in even the few days she'd known them, they were absolutely the types to do those kinds of swaps.
Her favorite of them all was about the time Zander had been a starting receiver on the football team their senior year. Zeke had been second string, but only because of disciplinary problems like showing up late to practice and not learning the playbook in as much detail as their coach wanted.
They were in the second half of the homecoming game and the team distracted the coach long enough for Zeke and Zander to switch jerseys. When it was time for the big play at the end of the game, the ball had been thrown to Zeke instead of Zander and he'd scored the final big touchdown.
Of course they couldn't celebrate too much without calling attention to what they’d done, but just having Zeke and the rest of the team know who'd actually scored had meant a lot.
And Caroline had found herself not one bit surprised that Zander had put his brother ahead of his own moment of glory.
Caroline looked up at Ellie. "You're really interested in doing something new?"
"Well, this past winter, the boys sideswiped the building there on the side," Leo said, pointing to the main wall straight across from the bar.
"Sideswiped? You mean with a car?"
“Airboat.”
Caroline opened her mouth.
“It was more than a swipe,” Ellie said with a laugh. “They more or less crashed through that wall. That’s why that wall looks like it’s brand new. It is. And we’ve been needing to repaint it. Which got us thinking about remodeling in general. They’re damned lucky Zeke and Mitch do construction.”
“And turns out the rest can follow directions and use tools when their grandmother is their foreman,” Leo said with a chuckle.
“Bunch of idiots,” Ellie muttered, shaking her head.
"I'm sorry. Can we just go back for a second?” Caroline said. “The boys—I'm assuming some of your grandsons—crashed through the wall with an airboat?"
They were very close to the bayou. Walking distance. She could see the water that led out into the bayou if she went out the front door of Ellie’s. The docks for the Boys of the Bayou Swamp Boat Tours were just on the other side of the road. But they were certainly far enough from the water that accidentally hitting a building with an airboat seemed like a bigger story.
"Well, they had the airboats up on the streets."
Caroline blinked at him. "The airboats can go up on land?"
"It was after the big ice storm. They got the boats up on the ice and because airboats only have big fans on the back and no rudders or anything underneath, they can just slide along like big sleds." Leo grinned. "I mean, it looked like a hell of a good time."
"Something you have to know about Landry men," Ellie said, bringing her drink over to her, “is that the more guys, the fewer IQ points. So they put these humongous fast-moving ‘sleds’ up on the ice and forgot that airboats don't have brakes."
Caroline gasped. "Did anyone get hurt?"
"Of course. But they all lived through it. Which, to them, was proof that they should do it again because it would be even better next time. Story of my life."
Caroline laughed. "So they bash into the side of the building and you had to do repairs and now you want to possibly redecorate the whole place?"
“Thinkin’ about it,” Ellie said with a nod, looking at Leo, who also nodded.
Caroline looked around again. She wasn't really an interior designer and there was no way she was going to haphazardly throw crazy shit up inside this establishment like she usually did. She never really cared about her jobs. The people she “worked” for could afford even the stupidest, most elaborate things she could find. And there was no limit to how ridiculous they would go. But there was no way she was going to do her usual thing here. She liked Ellie and Leo.