The Pepper In The Gumbo: A Cane River Romance Read online

  It was time to go home. The question was whether Natchitoches would welcome him with open arms, or treat him like the outcast he once was.

  Chapter Three

  Men have become the tools of their tools. ― Henry David Thoreau

  “Come on,” Charlie called. “Sitting down all day has made you soft.” She threw back a teasing grin but Alice just smiled. She felt her own sagging spirits lift around Charlie. The girl never lacked enthusiasm, that was certain. She came to work every Monday and Wednesday as soon as she got out of her last class at the high school. Employing Charlie, a kid who had read every science fiction and fantasy novel going back to Jules Verne, was like having her very own reference librarian in that narrow field.

  “I’ve always been soft. Nothing new about it.” Alice glanced toward the elm trees rising from the grass near the river bank. Across the river, the development was booming. She wished the town would slow down. No more building. No more ugly concrete., But the Cane River region would lose its young people if it stayed a hundred years in the past. She was just glad the historic district didn’t allow the kind of stores that sprouted up overnight. At least her little piece of Natchitoches would stay the same--sedate and sophisticated.

  As they reached the corner, Alice hoped to see a Coming Soon sign with the name of the museum or a fancy restaurant. Instead, she saw a banner that read ScreenStop tied to a new chain link fence perimeter. Heavy equipment rumbled off to the side, smoothing the area where parking would be. Most of the building was already completed and workmen swarmed the inside, carrying bales of wire and tools.

  “ScreenStop?” Alice searched her memory. “What is it? A movie theater?” DVD rentals were a thing of the past, and they already had two theaters in the mall across the river.

  “You’ve never heard of ScreenStop? They’re like, the best game store ever.” Charlie bounced on the toes of her red Converse sneakers, beside herself with glee.

  “Games.” That could be better than a theater. “It must have a lot of merchandise for a store that big. I’m betting they’ll have more than Monopoly.”

  Charlie stared at her, eyes wide. “Monopoly? Nobody plays that. These are real games. Battle of the Universe, Ninja Masters, Purple Penguin.”

  “I’ve never heard of any of those.” She turned back to the chain link fence across the street. The banner was black with red flames forming the title, and what looked like a bunch of angel wings in the background. She felt a wave of unease. Even at the end of the row, a concrete and glass structure would be an eyesore. Alice took a deep breath and tried to think positively. She liked board games as much as the next person. Maybe it would be a good neighbor to have after all. Board games and books. The perfect pairing.

  “Of course you haven’t. You don’t believe in this stuff. You don’t even have a cell phone.”

  Alice would have been offended except that Charlie’s tone was teasing. “I do have a cell phone. It’s just―”

  “Ancient. It doesn’t even have data.” She laughed outright.

  “Why would it?” She couldn’t help being a tiny bit defensive. “It’s a phone. You talk on it.” Except that she didn’t, not really. That made twice this morning that she’d been gently rebuked for not being plugged in. “Anyway, have you been in one of these places before?”

  “Sure. They’ve got a big one in New Orleans. Five stories of all glass and steel. Sixty-inch screens everywhere. Gaming systems. Walls and walls of games, plus areas to try them out.” Her blue eyes glazed over. “Cell phones, tablets, e-readers, TVs. Everything you could possibly want. I got this cool patch.” She pointed to her Converse high tops, where a matching logo shone back. Red flames on black, angel wings in the background.

  Alice felt her mouth form a little ‘o’ as her brain caught up with Charlie’s description. It sounded like nothing she would ever want and there wouldn’t be any overflow from the customer base. Video game players weren’t known for spending their time reading. People buying e-readers wouldn’t come into her bookstore and buy a paper book when they could just download one at a touch. They were night and day, sun and moon. She turned back toward the shop. “Don’t think I’m being a jealous cow because they’re some fancy store. I just don’t know who approved this. I’m on the historic district board and I never heard a thing about the plans. It’s really too bad they’re letting something like that into the area.”

  Charlie caught up to her in a few steps. She skipped along beside her, face glowing with excitement. “Too bad? It’s fantastic! I can’t wait to see it. I bet you ten bucks and a Frisbee that they have a huge opening day party with a boatload of prizes. The really big stores have celebrities come in and sign stuff. My friend Jake had his chest signed by Kim Kardashian’s cousin.”

  Alice disliked this new store more and more with each passing minute. “I don’t know who that is, but I hope it wasn’t permanent. Anyway, I’m sure it would fit in really well across the river to the South. Maybe down near the hospital. The building isn’t right. The whole,” she waved her hands, “clonkiness of the structure just doesn’t fit.” She wasn’t sure if clonkiness was a word but she could hardly express herself through her irritation.

  “But why?” Charlie seemed honestly confused. “This is just what we need on this side of the river.”

  Alice blew out a breath. “No, it’s not. What we need is more readers. We need more people willing to shut off the junk on TV and put away the phone and read a book. We need less technology and more paper. Nothing in that place is going to help keep my store running.” She couldn’t help the bitterness in her voice.

  “You just haven’t tried it. You’d love it. I can play for hours and hours.” Charlie smiled, as if she hadn’t heard half of what Alice had just said. “I made it to the fortieth level one night after I played Blue Penguin for six hours straight.”

  Alice shot her a look. “Fortieth level. And what did you get for that?”

  “Well, nothing,” Charlie admitted. “But it was a big achievement.”

  Achievement. Alice trudged beside Charlie, half listening to her detail all the games she was going to buy and all the blissful hours she was going to spend sitting in front of a screen, decapitating zombies or whatever people did when they played video games. Alice wanted to shake some sense into her, but Alice wasn’t Charlie’s mother. She couldn’t believe this bright young girl was wasting her life on false achievements that meant nothing in real life.

  “I hope they start hiring soon. I bet I could get a job there since I’ve been playing those games since I was little. I got my first Xbox for my twelfth birthday and I almost wore it out.” Charlie had never looked so excited. “Would you write me a good recommendation, Miss Alice?”

  Alice missed a step and stumbled to a stop. Her stomach curled up on itself. Alice hadn’t really thought it through clearly, but now she realized she’d always thought of Charlie as someone she could rely on. Even though they were nothing alike, Alice felt Charlie was someone who believed in books as much as she did, someone who might be interested in helping manage the store someday. It was a blow to realize Charlie wasn’t anything like Alice. In fact, she was almost the opposite. But she had always been a good employee. “Sure. Of course I would.”

  Alice felt her heart pounding as they neared the classically designed, hundred-year-old building that housed By the Book. Every building for miles around was in the same style, with ornate stonework around the arched windows. That store was an ugly surprise, destined to ruin the atmosphere of the district. One more thing to worry about, one more thing on her plate. She’d worked so hard, putting in the hours and the effort, but things just weren’t going her way. Things hadn’t gone her way in a long time.

  Gripping the long brass handle of the front door, she let Charlie pass through first, still chattering. Alice turned back for one last look at the construction happening on the corner lot, and she made a decision. She was going to find out who approved it. The parish council sent out n
otices for everything else, even changing the street lamps. Nothing happened without a vote. Something was very wrong. This had been slipped by the people of Natchitoches and she wasn’t going to let it pass without a fight.

  She narrowed her eyes at the rumbling machinery. Mr. Perrault would have been appalled. This business threatened the health and welfare of the people she loved most but for more reasons than being an eyesore. It was contrary to everything about this place, the only town she’d ever loved and called home. Their Creole culture was being shoved to the side and buried as easily as the dirt on that lot.

  Alice touched the rings hanging on the chain under her shirt. She wasn’t about to roll over and let the owners of that abomination seduce the city’s children with hours of meaningless, flashing images. This was personal. This was war.

  ****

  “Mr. Olivier, your meeting starts in fifteen minutes.” The personal assistant cut into Paul’s thoughts. He hated the intercom system more than almost anything, but without it he never arrived anywhere on time.

  He pressed a button and responded, “Thank you, Mrs. Connor.”

  There was a second of silence as if she were thinking of adding an extra warning, but then the connection was cut. Paul smiled. Mrs. Connor thought ScreenStop would go down in a fiery ball of disorganization if she didn’t show up to work, and Paul was tempted to agree with her. The woman was inhumanly exact, annoyingly direct, and never failed to point out the flaws in any plan. In short, she was the best personal assistant Paul had ever had.

  He turned back to the screen and groaned. His “super-secret superhero project,” as Andy liked to call it, was growing out of control. Tens of thousands of visitors per day came to the place Browning Wordsworth Keats called his cyber home. The site was built to handle ten times that amount of traffic. They talked on the boards, argued over poets, and left long lists of books they needed in digital form but couldn’t find anywhere. He had appointed a few regular visitors as administrators and they kept the ranting to a minimum, making sure the site stayed friendly and upbeat, while not losing the point of why they all came― to discuss good books. Paul dedicated several servers just for handling the blog, so none of that was an issue. No, it was the email. The site listed a contact address, and at first he kept up correspondence with many delighted (and sometimes disgruntled) readers. But now, it was out of control. Sometimes he’d receive a hundred emails in a day. Opening an email and reading it through, even without a response, took time. If he sent even a few lines back, it took longer. He hated to go to an automated reply system, but he couldn’t see any other way around it. If he hired someone to sort his email, he would have to let them in on his secret. And there was no one he trusted enough besides Andy and Mrs. Connor.

  Paul ran a hand through his hair and opened one more email. He needed to figure out how to handle the wave of correspondence or he’d have to become unreachable. His daily life couldn’t support a five-hour website babysitting job.

  Dear Mr. B. W. Keats,

  I am an eighty-six year old retired librarian. My grandson gave me an e-reader last year but I never used it. I don’t even have a computer. I think the Internet is a terrible waste of time. This machine stayed in its box on a shelf until my friend Rhonda told me about your project. I was curious, so I went to the library and looked you up.

  Mr. Keats, I cannot tell you what a joy it was to see Mother Carey’s Chickens was available from your website. I called my son right away and he helped me set up my account. In seconds, the book was in my hands. This was my twin sister’s favorite book and she knew most of it by heart. After she passed away, her children cleaned out her house and sold all her books. When I realized it was missing, I felt like I had lost her all over again. When I got it on the screen and read those familiar words, I heard them in her voice even though I’d forgotten what she sounded like. I heard her voice and I cried.

  Bless you, Mr. Keats, whoever you are. You have given an old lady tremendous joy.

  Sincerely,

  Beulah Ditzner

  P.S. I’m going to send you another email with a list of books that you might consider adding. I know you must receive many recommendations and requests. I will understand if you choose other works. These are simply books that I remember enjoying in my childhood and would like to read again before I die.

  Paul sat back in his office chair. This was why he started the Browning Wordsworth Keats project. This was how he’d meant the books to be used. Of course he’d dreamed of people debating the classics that had drifted into obscurity. He wanted to see folks discovering books that should be on every shelf but had been lost amid the glossy hardback Stephen Kings and James Pattersons. But most of all, he’d hoped to reunite old friends who’d been separated by time and space, lost amid the ever-growing greed of big publishing chasing the next best seller. He’d hated seeing vapid reality TV stars, scandal-plagued politicians and child beauty pageant queens given million-dollar book deals while great literature went out of print. So, he’d decided to do something about it, using the tools and technology he knew best.

  Paul clicked the button to respond, rushing to type out a few lines. This sort of letter confirmed that he was doing the right thing. He wished he could use his own name but it was impossible. No matter how much he wanted to take credit for the project, it would always be attributed to Mr. B.W. Keats, not Paul Olivier. He covered his cyber tracks: connecting through proxy servers that changed IP addresses every few minutes, and using dummy accounts to send packets of information. He carefully chose only books that were no longer under copyright. Still, that wouldn’t stop the lawsuits if publishers thought there was easy money to be made. So far, they seemed to think it was a waste of time to try and track down his alter ego. And that’s the way he wanted it to stay.

  “Mr. Olivier, your meeting is in ten minutes and it’s down on the twenty-fifth floor, which leaves you approximately two minutes and thirty seconds before you need to get your jacket on and get in the elevator.” Mrs. Connors kept her voice carefully neutral.

  Paul glanced at the jacket on his chair. The woman was uncanny. “I’m done here, Mrs. Connors. Thank you.”

  She disconnected without responding and he sat for a moment, staring at the intercom. Maybe Mrs. Connors could take over the email sorting. She was professional, intelligent, and exact. But she also had enough to do as his assistant. Paul sighed and logged out, grabbing his suit coat. Folks liked to say money could buy everything, including happiness, but the only people who believed it were the ones who’d never had as much as he had. He knew the truth. Money bought a lot of shiny things, but when it came down to it, money couldn’t buy loyalty, trust, or love. Or someone to keep your secrets. There would always be someone who would offer more, and you’d never know when that betrayal would come.

  Punching the button to his private elevator, he stared into his own reflection. As a kid, he’d felt like he could only count on a few good friends and his family. Even though the world called him “tech genius” and “wunderkind,” his face was on magazine covers, and journalists begged for interviews, Paul knew that he was still that geeky kid from the lowlands of Louisiana.

  The doors slid open and he stepped inside. Andy said this project was his superhero identity, but he felt like he’d been living a double life for years. At least this one made him feel like he was doing some good.

  Chapter Four

  Technology… is a queer thing. It brings you great gifts with one hand,

  and stabs you in the back with the other.—Carrie Snow

  “A businessman from New York is needing a place to live while his company finishes some project here. He contacted me through the ad on the rentals site. Maybe you need some time to Hoover? I’d like to show him the apartment this afternoon, if that’ll work for you.” June LaTraye’s nasal voice made this a statement, not a question.

  “Of course. You have a key. And thank you for working on this so quickly.” Alice couldn’t help grinning. Natc
hitoches was a tourist town, not a place many wanted to come to live permanently. And if they did, they were usually looking to retire in a nice place on the river, not a walk-up apartment in the historic district. This was promising. Even a few months’ rent would really help the book store’s bottom line.

  “You want to meet them first? If they seem like they’re fixin’ to sign a lease d’rectly, I mean.”

  Alice paused. June was a good realtor, but she also had a keen eye and great intuition. Her teased, blond hair and bright pink lipstick hid an uncanny ability to weed out unreliable renters. “You know, I think it’s okay if you want to handle that part. I trust you. If they’re interested, I’ll run over and plug in the icebox.” Plus, it was a really big building. They only shared a few walls and those were brick. If even this man held a few parties, it wasn’t likely to disturb her peaceful evenings.

  “Okay, hon. I’ll ring you later and let you know how it went.”

  Alice hung up and whispered a prayer of thanks. She pulled the rings out of her shirt and kissed them, hoping her parents could see her happiness. Whenever she felt like things were falling apart, God sent her a sign that she hadn’t been forgotten. She felt like a smile was permanently etched to her face. She filled the kitties’ water dishes and poured herself one more mug of coffee, letting the promise of good news color her mood.