Jake is constitutionally incapable of being subtle. He’s a hard worker and that’s why I keep him on, but his life has largely been driven by his various appetites: sex, food, beer, the Saints, and the LSU Tigers (which he calls the “Bengals” after their nickname, the “Bayou Bengals”), and all of it pretty much in that order.
It’s always been hard, during our long side-by-side workdays, to talk to Jake about anything other than the above. He doesn’t even know the name of the vice president or either of our two United States senators, although both men are Shreveport natives. And his obsession with the Tigers and his hatred for their in-state rival, Tulane, got old after our first week together.
“Green Wave. You gotta be fucking kidding. Who’d name their team after water, for fuck’s sake?”
By eight thirty Jake and I had staked the retaining edge in place and had started to position the pavers. Jake was pulling the wet saw down from the bed of the truck when Mrs. Badeaux came out “to see how things were going.” The scarf was gone, both from her neck and her head. Its absence displayed a mane of luxurious soft blond hair and a smooth, luscious, lightly tanned neck that wanted badly to be kissed and caressed. Jake fumbled with the wet saw and nearly dropped it. His mouth was open in a slight gape — a look that didn’t flatter him and probably gave one the impression of a lascivious, crosseyed, mentally retarded man.
“Oh,” she said. “So that’s how you do it.”
“Yes, ma’am,” I replied.
“I was going to make me an egg sandwich. Would either of you boys like an egg sandwich?” As Mrs. Badeaux said this, the first two fingers of her right hand seemed to be diddling, absentmindedly, the nodule of her left nipple. “And coffee? Would you like coffee too?”
All that I could get out was “Yes.”
“Me too,” called Jake, half-slobbering, from the driveway.
After Mrs. Badeaux had gone inside, Jake ran over to me and said in an urgent whisper, “Why was she twiddling her titty like that?”
“You could see that all the way from the truck?” I whispered back. “With that Clarence-the-Crosseyed-Lion eyesight of yours?”
“It don’t take perfect eyesight to take notice when a pretty woman fingers her zoom, Cortner.”
I took a deep breath. “We need to get a hold of ourselves. I’m a married man and you’re — just what are you, Jake? Has the divorce gone through?”
“Not yet.”
“Then technically you’re still a married man too.”
“And technically, you’d be an idiot, Cortner, to think I gotta have that decree in my hand to make a move on any woman of my choosing.”
“You make a move on Mrs. Badeaux, Jake, and you’re fired. You’re more than fired. I’ll make sure that nobody in town ever hires you. I’m starting to get the feeling that Mrs. Badeaux is one of those lonely housewives who isn’t getting enough from her husband.”
“Well, hell, Cortner! With a Buddha-bellied, squirrel-faced mari like Badeaux, do you blame her?”
“You heard me, Jake. Now get your mind off Mrs. Badeaux. Tell me about that game against the Gators last Saturday.”
When Mrs. Badeaux brought out our egg sandwiches and cups of coffee, another item of apparel was missing from her blueberry ensemble. The sash was gone, and her shoes as well (I hardly ever notice a woman’s shoes; I’m always too busy taking in everything else). Mrs. Badeaux was totally barefoot, her toenails painted hot pink. Without the sash, she looked even more like a gypsy, the dress flowing every which way. She directed us to the gazebo and served us there.
As we were eating — or trying to eat — she stood nearby and talked about some of the ideas she had for landscaping the large backyard. “Henry loves it that I’m inclined that way, though I wish he’d care a little more about how this place looks. It’s been in his family for four generations, you know.” And then, apropos of nothing she’d just said, Mrs. Badeaux pressed two fingers against her lips with a coquette’s tease, and then trailed her fingers down her chin and farther south between her breasts, finally withdrawing them just above the land of unearthly delights.
Then she excused herself and went back inside, her floating stride across the green lawn sensuously mesmerizing. Jake and I sat for a moment in a state of suspended animation. I finally found my voice to say, “Something’s going on here. I’m not comfortable with it. I don’t even know if we should finish the job.”
“There’s no harm in looking, Cortner. She’s playing a game. I want to play. I won’t touch her. And we’ll both hightail it out of here, no problem, if she decides to make a move on either of us. I’m just saying—”
“I know what you’re saying. But I’m weak. And I know that you’re even weaker than I am.”
“It’s a game, Cortner. We won’t let her win. But for fuck’s sake, let’s play!”
We kept playing.
At about nine forty-five, Mrs. Badeaux returned to offer us lemonade on a tray. The blueberry gypsy lounging attire was gone. Now she was wearing a pleated skirt that came up high, like cheerleaders used to wear, and a halter top that looked like the kind of tit-sling that sluts wear. It was a very different look — slightly schoolgirl, mostly trailer-park trash. The purpose here, I suppose, was to share with us an exposed midriff that seemed both taut and touchably soft — nothing at all like my wife Theresa’s abdominal Michelin pudge, of which she was extremely self-conscious, because it didn’t used to be there, but appeared as we both passed the forty mark and my own paunch coincidentally became more pronounced.
“I know what’s going on,” said Jake after she’d gone back inside. He was so excited that he could hardly get the words out. “She’s doing a striptease.”
“Strippers don’t generally change clothes in the middle of their act.”
“Well, there wasn’t much under that blue dress. She wasn’t even wearing a bra, far as I could tell. You could see the outline of her hard kernels.”
“Look, Jake. We need to stop doing this color commentary after each of her appearances. It’s only making it worse and it’s hard for me to concentrate on getting this patio finished.”
“I’m hard too.”
“That’s not what I said, butthole.”
Jake laughed. He was having a blast. I was having fun too — too much fun — but I was also starting to feel a little anxious about the whole thing.
Jake’s theory was confirmed with Mrs. Badeaux’s next emergence. It was almost noon. She had brought us lunch. She served it to us wearing an all-white two-piece bathing suit. I couldn’t call it an itsy-bitsy teeny-weeny because, in truth, it was actually quite modest as bikinis go, but it gave us a much better look at her plump gazungas, and more gam than a gam-man deserved to see.
“I’m going to do some sunbathing over by the pool. You boys know where I am if you need anything.” She went back inside, and a few minutes later re-emerged wearing sunglasses and carrying her towel and a couple of magazines and a big glass of something pink and cold and condensating.
By this time Jake and I were ready to fill sand in between the pavers in the section of the patio we’d already laid down. After emptying the third bag over the bricks, I handed Jake a broom, but he wasn’t looking at me and the handle end of the broom went into his eye. He held his hand over the poked eye and pointed toward the pool, which was in clear view of the patio we were constructing. Jake could hardly form words. “The — the top is down. The top is down.” It took me several seconds to realize what he was saying had nothing to do with automotive convertibles and everything to do with the fact that Mrs. Badeaux had just taken off her bikini top. And she hadn’t done it in the way that most sunbathing women do it: tummy down, to allow the sun to bronze their strap-free dorsal regions. She had rolled over completely upon her back so that her fully exposed breasts could soak up a little of the early October radiance that had already reduced Jake and me to sweat-drenched t-shirts.