Their Cajun Lover

Rain poured down, like someone overturned a bucket in the heavens. Wind howled down the road, pushing their little car along like a paper boat in a pond.

“Putain! Cecily, the world is ending out there.” One hand braced on the dash, the other on the ceiling, Desiray hopped and bumped along in the passenger seat. “You sure we’re going the right way, girlfriend?”

“Mon Dieu, cher. Stop freaking out.” Cecily peered through the windshield, hoping the wipers on her dad’s old 1970 Mercury Cougar held out. “Yes, okay, yes. We’re going the right way.”

Heading home from the Bayou Country Superfest, the young women found themselves caught up in the worst tropical storm since Hurricane Elaina the year before.

Neither could take more time off work. It forced them to brave the weather for the four-hour drive home.

Worst decision they’d ever made. The car, not maintained well since her father’s death several years before, sputtered and shook as they crawled along the old dirt road. They’d gotten off the highway to find a diner and found themselves lost instead.

“Tabernak! We should’ve just left Maurice in the lurch and quit. Don’t owe that slimeball anything, do we?” Desiray white knuckled the dash. After being separated from her parents during Hurricane Katrina, she hated all storms. It was plain luck she wasn’t pitching a fit as they drove through the sheets of rain dumping out of the clouds.

Not to mention the wind buffeting the heavy car around. Blowing...