Ruby (Landry 1)

"Chores," Gisselle moaned.

"I was taught handicrafts and helped make the things we sold at the roadside to the tourists, as well as helping with the cooking and the cleaning," I explained.

"You can cook?" Gisselle asked, peering over her glasses at me again.

"Gisselle couldn't boil water without burning it," Beau teased.

"Well, who cares? I don't intend to cook for anyone. . ever," she said, pulling her eyeglasses off and flashing heat out of her eyes at him. He just smiled and turned back to me.

"I understand you're an artist, too," he said. "And you actually have paintings in a gallery here in the French Quarter."

"I was more surprised than anyone that a gallery owner wanted to sell them," I told him. His smile warmed, the gray-blue in his eyes becoming softer.

"So far my father is the only one who bought one, right?" Gisselle quipped.

"No. Someone else bought one first. That's how I got the money for my bus trip here," I said. Gisselle seemed disappointed, and when Beau gazed at her, she put her glasses on and dropped herself back on the lounge.

"Where is the picture your father bought?" Beau asked. "I'd love to see it."

"It's in his office."

"Still on the floor," Gisselle interjected. "He'll probably leave it there for months."

"I'd still like to see it," Beau said.

"So go see it," Gisselle said. "It's only a picture of a bird."

"Heron," I said. "In the marsh."

"I've been to the bayou a few times to fish. It can be quite beautiful there," Beau said.

"Swamps, ugh," Gisselle moaned.

"It's very pretty there, especially in the spring and the fall."

"Alligators and snakes and mosquitos, not to mention mud everywhere and on everything. Very beautiful," Gisselle said.

"Don't mind her. She doesn't even like going in my sailboat on Lake Pontchartrain because the water sprays up and gets her hair wet, and she won't go to the beach because she can't stand sand in her bathing suit and in her hair."

"So? Why should I put up with all that when I can swim here in a clean, filtered pool?" Gisselle proclaimed.

"Don't you just like going places and seeing new things?" I asked.

"Not unless she can strap her vanity table to her back," Beau said. Gisselle sat up so quickly it was as if she had a spring in her back.

"Oh, sure, Beau Andreas, suddenly you're a big naturalist, a fisherman, a sailor, a hiker. You hate doing most of those things almost as much as I do, but you're just putting on an act for my sister," she charged. Beau turned crimson.

"I do too like to fish and sail," he protested.

"When do you do it, twice a year at the most?" "Depends," he said.

"On what, your social calendar or your hair appointment," Gisselle said sharply. Throughout the exchange, my gaze went from one to the other. Gisselle's eyes blazed with so much anger, it was hard to believe she thought of him as her boyfriend.

"You know he has a woman cut his hair at his house," Gisselle continued. The crimson tint in Beau's cheeks rushed down into his neck. "She's his mother's beautician and she even gives him a manicure every two weeks."

"It's just that my mother likes the way she does her hair," Beau said. "I . ."

"Your hair is very nice," I said. "I don't think it's unusual for a woman to cut a man's hair. I used to cut my grandpere's hair once in a while. I mean, the man I called Grandpere."