Chapter 24

Dan Granger's turn:

Nikki and I are lying in bed together waiting for our breathing to stabilize. The thought crosses my mind. "You know, baby, if I'd've known that sex with an engineer was this spectacular, I'd've started sooner."

"Beast!" she squealed. "But if you're interested, what about Kaitlyn?"

'Kaitlyn' was one student who lasted a week as an intern at the beginning of the summer. Our family-oriented business didn't seem to fit her plans to bop her way to the top. The little darlin' actually bent over in front of me to retrieve some imagined dropped object and she did it in view of Nikki. Her rather tight shirt rode up, exposing skin above hiphugger jeans.

I count it fortunate that Nikki didn't disembowel her on the spot.

"Tramp stamp," I said.

"Ho tag. That tat's had more readers than the New York Times," Nikki told me.

"Give 'er points for trying," I said. I got beat up pretty badly for that one. I like getting beaten.

After the abuse was over, Nikki was propped up on an elbow, toying with my chest hair. "I suppose we'd better get some sleep. We're driving the truck back to Louisiana."

"I guess. I'm very relaxed, you know."

"One more hug and then – sleep!" she commanded.

Yes, back to Louisiana with a box truck. Why? Drum set. Various musical instruments. We're heading to a Cajun music festival. My ancestors would be proud. Confused, but proud.

The confused part? I'm Cajun. So's Nikki. Our guitarist, Dan Richards, he's Cajun. Our first fiddler is a talented Jewish violinist of Middle European extraction. Our OTHER fiddler is straight out of the Ozarks. And along with my Nikki, our other vocalist is pure middle Alabama redneck. And our drummer is a blonde lesbian of indeterminate origin. That's the road crew of the Greater Alabama Classical Klezmer Cajun Bluegrass Band.

Can we win anything? I dunno. Last time I went to one of these things, some of those bands had been immersed in Cajun music since birth. They played the old standards and some new stuff equally well. Matter of fact, one of the other bands was a bunch of Dan 1.0's cousins. Dan 1.0 says they're a step up from a garage band.

We're at least that good. It's just that when the judges look at our roster, they see a Granger. One. Richards? Maybe that morphed from the Cajun 'Richard' which is pronounced 'REE-shard'. But come on? A Sevinsky? I'm hoping that the judges know words like 'eclectic' and 'multi-cultural'.

And what we lack in finesse we make up in enthusiasm. Or maybe 'finesse', too. Our fiddle breaks are apt to be duets with Bert making puppy eyes at Kara, and she can switch from quarter-notes to triplets and arpeggios in a heartbeat.

Plus, we're bringing a big chunk of audience. Despite the fact that they play no instruments, Tina and Alan and Terri are coming, as well as Susan and Jason, and Tim 'n' Kim and Jenn and Vicki.

Susan and Jason are flying in Alan and Tina's plane. Alan and Tina are in our Mooney. Bill and Donna are driving down. "I wanna see my daughter on stage in front of a crowd," Donna said.

Connected. We talked about the loss of an office day on a Friday and a Monday for the business. Phones, computers, we're all accessible if situations warrant. Most of the bunch will fly out on Sunday afternoon and be at work Monday. Nikki and I will be driving the truck back.

That is, if we live through the festival.

Music kicks off at nine in the morning. We get four numbers. We're on in early afternoon.

Okay, we can do this. We're at a hotel before four PM on Friday, waiting for Cindy and Dan 1.0 to show up. They're flying in, too, and renting a car and that gives us four seats to transport us to a restaurant when the others show up.

Nikki giggles. "You do realize that anything that even SOUNDS Cajun in this town is going to be packed tonight."

So we get a big layout at a Mexican restaurant. Works for me. If I want Cajun food, I can talk to a dozen cooks, including that brown-haired girl sitting on the bed.

We decided not to stay our house (too far to drive in the morning) or Cindy and Dan's (not enough room for the crew, and who're you gonna leave out.

We've had hotel reservations for months. That's Tina's idea. As soon as we had an inkling that we'd do this, she made reservations. We could always cancel reservations, but this festival is popular and finding rooms would be next to impossible if we'd waited.

The next day, it's a battle for breakfast, then off to the festival venue. At least the weather's good for this thing.

It's a festival. There's music. Lots of music. This is south Louisiana and the place is crawling with Cajuns and their music. There's going to be food around all day, too. We arrived. I had to find a place to park the truck, but then Nikki and I started wandering around.

Easy to find Cindy and Dan. The little nut was on her Dan's shoulders overlooking the crowd as they watched an early band. Easing through the crowd ourselves, we caught Vicki and Terri dancing with a bunch of similarly aged kids in front of the stage.

Cindy patted her Dan on the head. "Put me down."

When she hit the ground, she was grinning. "This is FUN! I've never been to anything like it."

We broke up into random groups and circulated around the festival site, sampling foods, crafts, and yes, music.

We don't leave for lunch, not with the offerings of the food booths around the festival. After lunch, we're all collected in front of the bandstand, waiting our turn.

This is kind of new for me. I mean, I've gotten good enough to pass myself off as a somewhat adept Cajun accordion player among our normal audience of friends and passersby and visitors back in Alabama, but this is Louisiana and it's a Cajun music festival and there are people here who are NAMES in the genre.

I say a little prayer that I don't embarrass myself and the group.

Cindy's Dan does the introductions. "You've seen family bands and that's perfectly normal. What you're looking at here is a company band. Cindy, the little redhead, and Nikki, the Cajun girl with the te fer, me on the guitar, I'm Dan, Cindy's husband. Our accordionist is Dan Granger (and he pronounced it "Groan-zhay", the original Cajun pronunciation), Nikki's husband, and one of our fiddlers, Bert Williams, we're all engineers with 3Sigma Engineering. Me, Dan, Nikki, our drummer, Laci Decker, we're from Louisiana. Cindy's an Alabama girl, Bert's from Arkansas and the other brown-haired cutie with a fiddle is Kara Sevinsky from Houston, Texas. And we're gonna start out with one everybody knows. Let's see what you get when The Greater Alabama Classical Klezmer Cajun Bluegrass Band takes a run at "La porte d'en arriere".

Since the song's about a Cajun good ol' boy who has to come in through the back door after several incidents, Cindy and her Dan do it as a duet. It's up to me to open the number with an accordion riff.

And we're off and running. I'm sitting on a chair. Some accordion players can do it standing, but I'm not one of 'em, and while I'm squeezing and wheezing my way through, Nikki's at my side with her triangle, giving that simple bit of iron a workout. After the first verse, we back off and let Kara and Bert do the fiddle break. It's Bert's first time on a stage, but he doesn't notice. He's too busy watching Kara.

Second number, an old Cajun classic, Jolie Blonde. "We have our own examples," Dan says. "One of 'ems playing drums."

Laci waved, blushed a little.

That song slows things down, a Cajun waltz. The opening line in English is "Pretty blonde, look at what you've done." Dan 1.0 does that as a duet, this time with my Nikki.

What you've done, indeed. There's a pretty blonde there, little baby bump showing now, sweeping around the dance floor in the arms of Jason.

Two more numbers, including Nikki and Cindy doing a duet, and one purely rollicking instrumental where Bert steps out of the way and lets Kara abuse me badly with her fiddle. She goes a bit off the reservation. I think I hear some Mozart in there.

And it's over.

Applause. Of course EVERY band gets applause here. Okay, I think OURS was louder, but then I'm a bit prejudiced.

We all pitched in to load out our gear. Watched with some amusement as a guy I recognized as the drummer from another band sort of slides over, strikes up a conversation with Laci, and then sort of walks away.

"You weren't mean, were you?" Nikki asked her.

"No, I was very pleasant. Just told him that I was meeting my wife in a few minutes. Confused the boy." Laci smiled. "He wasn't obnoxious. I'm kinda flattered, really."

Jenn gave Laci one of THOSE looks.

I actually felt wrung out from the playing.

"We did good," Nikki said. "And that last number. Kara, she's GOT it. And she does duets so well with Bert."

"Yeah," I said. "So when do they give up and get married?"

Nikki grinned. "She doesn't say when."

"And doesn't deny that it's going to happen either," I returned.

"Nope. I'm surprised they've lasted this long. Susan 'n' Jason didn't..."

Kara's turn:

Some people look for that momentous event that settles forever a life changing decision. Kimberly swears she was hit by a thunderbolt the first time that she met Tim. Susan says it was the first time his fingers touched her hand. Cindy says it wasn't a single event. Tina says the same as Cindy. "Just watched, learned, decided..."

So I have known Bert Williams for over a year now. Today is a Saturday in South Louisiana, I'm on stage with a Cajun band, Bert's there with me, and we're wearing out the fiddle break of a Cajun favorite and it dawns on me, Kara Lynn Sevinsky, that the Arkansas boy with the fiddle under his chin there, he is, to use an over-used descriptor, The One.

We've been exclusive for a long time, not because either of us is hopelessly ugly, but because both of us have 'issues', as they say. I hid behind my music. Bert didn't hide behind stuff, unless you want to count his intelligence. He's a little guy, even shorter than me, and he's not built to be combative, except for that tongue of his. He does insults well.

He also plays the fiddle well. He's a natural. He called himself a 'feral fiddler' the first time he worked up enough nerve to speak to me. I was playing live background music for the community's study sessions. Bert walked up after eying me for several sessions, said he played fiddle.

I thought that if it was an opening line, then he was bluffing. I called his bluff and handed him my violin. He cut loose with some old bluegrass favorites. He plays well. After that, coffee. And duets. I pushed him to use his playing talent, reading music, widening his repertoire, finding that life was just easier and more pleasant having HIM around.

Took us three weeks before we decided that it was time to kiss each other.

We're probably doing it all wrong. I'd never kissed ANYONE besides friends and family. Bert wasn't family, and this wasn't about friendship.

Bert's the same way. Class runt. Outsider. Too smart to be normal. I was probably the first girl who ever held his hand.