Free My Juliet by John Ed Bradley Page B

anything.”
    It had been his mother’s idea, to meet Sonny’s girlfriend and have her over for dinner. After she’d finished cooking Mrs. LaMott went down the hall to her bedroom and changed into an outfit heretofore reserved for weddings and holy days of obligation. As for Mr. LaMott, he wore his lone sport coat, the tweed one with elbow patches, even though it was a muggy spring evening. Sonny can still remember the meal his mother prepared: smothered pork chops, white beans and rice, wop salad crowded with black olives and artichoke hearts, French bread lathered with garlic butter and toasted to a crispy brown in the broiler, and sliced Creole tomatoes still warm from the sun. Juliet contributed the dessert, a pineapple upside-down cake studded with maraschino cherries. “You made that?” Mr. LaMott asked.
    â€œYes sir. Well, me and Anna Huey did. She’s the lady who works for us.”
    â€œIt’s beautiful.”
    â€œIt’s made from scratch. I didn’t even use a mixer to mix the batter.”
    â€œYou mean you did all that by hand?”
    â€œYes sir.”
    â€œNow isn’t that something,” and he seemed truly amazed.
    Sonny was too nervous to say or eat much. How Juliet, a fancy girl from a fancy family, would take to his humble Bywater family had put his stomach in knots. He remembers little of what was said at the table, but afterward he and Juliet went for a drive in the Vieux Carré. They stopped for beer at the A&P on Royal Street and Sonny kept a bottle between his legs as he held the wheel with one hand and rested the other on her shoulder. “What did you think?” he said, anxious to know if he had passed muster.
    She looked at him with a dreamy expression and leaned over and softly kissed the side of his face. “Now I know why you’re so beautiful.”
    He was back home before 10:00 P . M ., and his mother, having cleaned the kitchen, had already gone to bed. Mr. LaMott, however, was sitting in his chair under a lamp reading a day-old copy of the
Times-Picayune
. He had his pajamas on. “What did you think?” Sonny said. He had become hungry again, and in the dark kitchen he pulled the refrigerator door open and stood bathed in cold yellow light.
    â€œWhat do I think about what?” his father asked casually.
    â€œYou know about what. About Juliet.”
    Mr. LaMott turned the page. “Oh, Juliet. Yes. Seems like a fine girl.”
    â€œDid Mom like her?”
    â€œYes, she did,” Mr. LaMott answered. “Your mother did like her. In particular she seemed to enjoy something Juliet said when the two of us were out of earshot.”
    â€œOh, yeah? What was that?”
    â€œWell,” and his father still seemed to be reading, “they were picking up in the kitchen before dessert, and your mother asked Juliet if she was ready for pineapple upside-down cake. Juliet—and even I was surprised to hear this—Juliet put her hand down around her midsection here and said, ‘If I eat another bite I think I’ll vomit.’ ”
    Sonny almost dropped his bottle of milk. “She said she’d vomit?”
    His father put the paper down and removed his glasses. Then suddenly, unable to maintain the guise any longer, he erupted with a bright roar of laughter. “Just pulling your leg, boy. Relax.”
    How had a girl who ate his mother’s smothered pork chops become an actor in dirty movies? It made even less sense then Mr. LaMott’s decline from the best and funniest guy Sonny knew to the halfwit sitting before him now. Sonny leans forward bringing his face up to search for something that hasn’t been in his father’s eyes for years. He’s looking for life.
    â€œDaddy, why didn’t you tell me Juliet would go bad like that?”
    Mr. LaMott, his cheeks growing red with blood, pushes past Sonny as he comes to his feet. Sonny anticipates a weighty declaration,