Wealth Pt. 04

"I swear to God, she is beyond blonde," BJ said as Harmony continued to follow them.

"And you do not need to tell your Aunt Harmony your Daddy said that, you hear?" Heather said and slapped BJ's arm. "Leave her alone; she's the sweetest girl."

"Oh, no doubt about that; Patrick really found himself a real winner there," BJ agreed.

In their own car, Theresa Weinstein pursed her lips as Bobby complained again about being woken up.

"Man, why I got to go, huh?" he demanded.

"You about to be an uncle; you don't want to be there?" Briah asked the whining twelve year old boy.

"So?" he said petulantly.

"God, I know we don't have the same daddy," Briah rolled her eyes.

In the hospital waiting room, Toni smiled as she saw Michael sitting on one of the couches.

"Hey," she said and he stood and hugged her.

"Dad's in there with her, said it could be hours," he said.

"Like what's wrong?" Toni asked, linking fingers with him.

"It's just that, I mean, God, even at nine months, she's still so skinny," Michael worried.

"Oh my God, you like love her, don't you?" Toni said.

"Well, yeah, I mean, she was your best friend forever and now she's our step-mom and..." Michael answered.

"Hey, God's large and in charge," BJ said, hugging his brother from behind. "Briah know what a big girl you are?"

"Briah knows he's a real man not afraid show his feelings," Briah snapped, giving BJ a hard slap to his butt. "Call my man a big girl again and I will whip out the chocolate on your ass, you hear?"

"Whip out the chocolate," Kelli hooted.

"Oops, you weren't supposed to hear that," Briah smiled. "How you doing Kelli?"

"Great; I got my report card and I got all Bs and I got an A in religion," Kelli excitedly told her.

"Way to go, girl," Briah said, squeezing the girl in a tight hug.

"Proud of you," Toni said, also hugging the girl.

"And I told her, give me two more As on that next report card and I'll give her five bucks," BJ said.

"Oh, I'll take a piece of that action," Michael threw in.

"Me too," Toni said.

"And Patrick and I will too," Harmony said.

"Oh, do not tell Star about any of that," Ed Weinstein begged.

Brooke smiled at Theresa Weinstein's pinched face.

"Oh come on, we're about to be the hottest Grandmaws in town; can't look happier than that?" Brook asked.

Theresa didn't answer, just stomped over to the coffee vending machine.

"God, Brooke, you look beautiful," Toni complimented.

"Oh, you and your size two jeans; whatever, girl!" Brooke laughed.

In his small cottage in Bender, Florida, Henry St. Martin couldn't sleep. With a sigh, he got up, fixed a cup of coffee and went outside on his screened in back porch. The sounds of the Florida night was soothing; that was one of the reasons Shirley had insisted he buy the little bungalow.

He bought it for her thirty two years ago and could count on one hand the times they'd actually stayed in the house. Most of the time, they had simply rented it out.

The coffee mug had a picture of a pelican on it, there was another with a crawfish and he couldn't remember what the other two had. Shirley had seen them at a garage sale in Baylor Lake, insisted that they'd be perfect for the Florida cottage, so he bought the goofy cups. The girl that was selling them for a dollar each did not have change for a twenty, so Henry smiled and told her to keep the change.

He'd found the cups on the shelf in the same box that girl had put them in, and other than sheets and his pillow and some clothes, had left everything else behind.

Henry woke with a jerk; the Florida dawn had broken and the morning birds were chirping merrily. His cell phone gave a soft buzz and he pulled it out of his robe pocket. He read the text message from Barry's cell phone.

'Shirley Janice Delacroix, born 5:58, 6 lbs 3 ozs, all 10 fingers and 10 toes, another red head to love.'

"Well, there you go, Shirley, you got your Janice," Henry said and burst into sobs.

In their home, Bob Robichaux and his wife, Judge Maria Robichaux were already awake, getting their two children ready for another day at St. Richard's.

"Well, how about that?" Bob laughed as he read the announcement.

"Mr. Barry had a baby? Isn't he like old?" Rebecca asked, her small face twisted in confusion.

"Uh, he's three years younger than I am, Missy," Bob said and gave the girl a light swat on her butt.

In his house, Jack rolled over when his cell phone chimed.

"What? What's wrong?" Melanie, his wife asked.

"Oh, nothing's wrong," Jack laughed and read the text message to his wife.

"Oh, isn't that wonderful?" Melanie asked.

In the darkened bedroom, Jack did not see that Melanie did not have her wide open smile on her beautiful face.

In her condominium, Anita heard her cell phone buzz. She pulled her hand from Merita's small breast and disentangled her legs from the blonde's legs.

"Congratulations!" Anita tapped out a response.

A thought hit her and she just had to send a second text.

"When you learn to text?" she asked.

Anita laughed when the response came that it was actually Michael that was sending out all the text messages.

"Come to bed," Merita demanded. "We have the fifteen minutes."

Merita was already rubbing her heavy pussy lips, smiling seductively. Anita smiled and crawled back into bed.

At The Wagon Wheel Day Care, Paula Bernard listened to Melanie's message and blinked. In the three and a half years she'd worked at The Wagon Wheel, Ms. Melanie had never missed a day of work.

Terrie Boudreaux, the dietician listened to the message and agreed with Paula.

"I been here since Day One and ain't never seen that woman not come on in," she said and smiled as Muriel Garcia bounded in.

Terrie started cooking the breakfast for the nine children whose parents paid for that service.

Two months ago, Tiffany Garcia, Muriel's mother, had haughtily informed Terrie that they were now vegan and handed Terrie a list of foods acceptable for Muriel.

"Well, might I suggest you feed her breakfast before you bring her on by, oh, and pack her them snacks and lunches too, 'cause as sure as God made little green apples, I ain't cooking none of this stuff," Terrie had smiled, handing the list back to the incensed woman.

Melanie had backed up her employee.

"Ms. Garcia, Ms. Boudreaux is a certified dietician. All the foods we serve are designed to help their little bodies develop and grow," Melanie had stated.

"So you will not..." Tiffany had huffed.

"Ms. Garcia, this is a Day Care, not a restaurant. Ms. Boudreaux is my employee, not your personal chef," Melanie had said firmly. "You want your child on a special diet, then you're the one that needs to provide that diet."

Tiffany had struggled with it for about a week before deciding that being vegan may be trendy but it was far too much work.

"Where's Miss Melanie?" Muriel asked as she looked around the building.

"I think she had a little tummy ache," Terrie smiled.

At the Weinstein home, Star and Luna Weinstein were thrilled to be aunts and promised their grandparents that they would be wonderful aunts.

"Oh! And I can teach her how to play Dominoes!" Star said as she ate her scrambled eggs.

"Uh, let's let Shirley learn how to walk and talk and all that before we teach her Dominoes, huh?" Seth smiled.

"Now, does your mommy put your hair in a pony-tail, or let you just run around with it like this?" Caitlin asked,

"If it needs washing we put it in a pony-tail," Star admitted.

"Pony-tail it is," Caitlin said, giving the girl's head a sniff.

Seth made both girls laugh and his wife smile when he gave Star's head a sniff and pretended to gag on the stench.

"Oh, wow, better put it in three or four pony-tails," he coughed.

"Hush you, might put yours in a pony-tail, stinky head," Caitlin said and kissed the top of his head.

At Superior Motors, Bob and Jack were not worried about dietary restrictions or hair styles as they tore through a box of Meche's glazed doughnuts.

"Damn it, I know these are horrible, but I just can't help it," Bob groaned.

"Yeah, but we burned up all them calories, putting up them goofy signs," Jack assured him.

Michael Delacroix smiled widely as he spotted the 'It's A Girl!' banner that was strung in front of the building. Across the street, Side By Side restaurant also had a banner proudly proclaiming the birth.

"Well, look who thinks he can just drag his ass in whenever he feels like it," Bob teased.

When Henry had announced his plans to retire, Michael had decided, Side By Side did not need two managers and gladly relinquished the reins to BJ. Henry's desk now had pictures of Briah, and BJ, Toni, and Patrick, as well as Barry and Caitlin's wedding. More than one customer had commented on his good looking family.

"Yeah, yeah, oh, hey, thanks for leaving me one measly ass doughnut," Michael smiled.

"So, tell us all about it, huh?" Jack prompted.

"Six pounds three ounces, huh?" Bob smiled. "Oo-wee, our Rebecca was a little heifer; eight pounds nine ounces."

"Genetics, I'll bet," Jack said, patting Bob's stomach.

"Butt hole," Bob laughed, giving Jack a punch to his shoulder.

"Wow, and y'all actually manage to sell a car every now and then?" Michael smiled.

"Amazing, right?" Jack said. "We're just as surprised as you are."

In the small house that they owned, Melanie sat at the kitchen table and wrote a note on her puppy dog tablet.

"My Darling Jack," she scrawled. "You have been the love of my life since the day you asked me to run off to Mexico with you..."

Jack Landry had come into the bank where Melanie Labbe worked and asked the beauty to run off to Mexico with him. She had counted up the deposit for Huvall's Texaco and smiled and told him they would not get very far.

"Then how about having Mexican with me tonight?" he asked.

She was surprised; most people, looking at the leg braces and the crutches, did not ask the pretty girl for dates.

They had married and did run off to Mexico, for a wonderful Honeymoon. Their joy was tripled when Melanie discovered that she was pregnant.

Then she miscarried. Her doctor was grim, but told the heartbroken couple that Melanie would never be able to bear a child to full term.

"Please find yourself a woman that can give you a son," Melanie wrote.

Their three dogs were a poor substitute for the son that Jack wanted. Their three dogs were a poor substitute for the daughter that Melanie wanted to finger paint with, and take to ballet classes.

"All my love, forever," Melanie signed the note, then stood and pulled herself up in the chair.

She locked her braces in place and twisted the black garbage bag around the ceiling fan.

She knew the fan was sturdy; her big brother David and Jack had attached the fan to a three inch eye bolt that Jack had secured to a joist in the attic.

The bag was cumbersome, slippery, but Melanie finally managed to knot it.

Then she used her crutches to shove the chair backward. Lollypop, their apricot colored poodle yapped, frightened by the chair as it skittered across the linoleum floor.

In her Kindergarten class, Star Weinstein stood in front of the class and announced that her big sister had a baby girl.

"Her name is Shirley and I'm her aunt," the girl happily said.

"Shirley? That's a stupid name," Anthony DeSalvo said.

(Anthony liked Star, a lot.)

"Shut up! It is not!" Star yelled at him. "Miss Shirley was Caitlin's best friend and then she died and now Caitlin's going to name all of her babies Shirley!"

In her fourth grade class, Kelli announced that her Grandpaw had a baby girl.

"Your grandmother had a baby?" TeddiAnn Baggett asked.

"No, no, she's married to my Grandpaw," Kelli said, then laughed.

"But I told my Daddy I was going to call her Grandmaw and he said he was going to leave me here and it was like one o'clock in the morning! He even pulled up in front of the building," Kelli laughed at the memory.

"Oh, that does sound just like Mr. Barry Jacob Delacroix Junior," Sister Rachel smiled. "He was such a character when he was in my seventh grade class. The worst, though, was your Uncle Michael; I almost quit teaching because of that boy!"

"He's marrying my Aunt Briah," Kelli informed the good sister. "He's all grown up now."

In her condominium, Stacy Falgout was not concerned with the birth of Shirley Janice Delacroix; she was too busy emptying her stomach into her commode.

"Oh my God, I better not be..." she said aloud and again felt more of her stomach rush up.

Dr. Mark Farbacher's office had an appointment in one hour's time and Stacy climbed into the bathtub.

"People could tell I was clean and sober when I started using my fair share of soap and toothpaste," Precious would often joke.

Stacy heard her neighbor's door slam shut and actually smiled. When she first met Anita Lopez, she had assumed, just because the girl was Latin, she was lazy and a user. She had no idea how much the nineteen year old girl was worth, but guessed it was well over a million dollars. She had a meeting with a client in the afternoon to show them five homes and two of the five homes were Lopez Properties. Yesterday, she had rented out one of the apartments at Lopez Square.

She laughed, Glen Peters, her ex-husband, and an architect, had submitted bids to design homes, as well as the building for Lopez Square. As usual, Glen had overvalued his worth and Anita simply went on the Internet, found some house plans, then went to Kessling Building on campus, the Graphics Arts building, and found Professor Whitehead to approve the preliminary sketches.

"Tell you what, Ms. Lopez, promise me you'll take at least one of my classes next semester," the old man had fawned over the Latin beauty and had actually blushed hotly when she playfully kissed him.

"But I wouldn't get any work done and you wouldn't either," she teased and counted out five one hundred dollar bills. To pay him for his time.

But she did in fact sign up for his 'Basic Design Principles' class for the Fall Semester.

Glen Peters had called Stacy.

"Why yes I do know Anita Michelle Lopez," Stacy had breezily admitted. "A very smart, very enterprising young lady. You know, when Schaub Building Materials wanted too much for their recycled materials, she is committed to being as green as possible, and by the way, she simply went directly to the manufacturer and arranged for delivery directly to the work sites."

"Think you could help me out here?" Glen had begged. "See, I submitted a couple of bids and..."

"Padded the hell out of them for, let me guess, 'office supplies' and 'incidentals' right? Most of which, we know, will disappear up your nose," Stacy had laughed.

"Fucking bitch," Glen had spat.

Lopez Square had also been designed by the Internet and tweaked by Professor Whitehead. The ground floor had two office suites, both of which were already rented, even though the building would not be ready for another three weeks. The second and third floors had four efficiency apartments and a common laundry room on the ground floor, behind the two office suites. Four of the apartments were also already rented, even though they were not yet completed.

Stacy dressed, drove herself to Dr. Farbacher's office and smiled tightly as she filled out the paperwork.

"I am almost forty six years old; this is the last thing in the world I need," she said to herself.

The nurse called her and she followed the older woman down the maze of halls to a room.

"Still sober?" the nurse asked in a low voice.

"Yes ma'am," Stacy smiled, then smiled wider. "In fact, I just realized! Today I have nine months!"

"Good for you, girl, good for you," the nurse encouraged.

That evening, Jack smiled as he pulled up into their driveway and saw his wife's car. Normally she did not get home until six thirty, sometimes seven o'clock, depending on when the last child was picked up by their parents.

"Hey Sweetheart," he called out. "Hey since you're home early, why don't we..."

One of her crutches lay on the floor, the other was still attached to her forearm by the plastic cuff.

"Melanie, no!" Jack screamed in horror.

Chapter 36

Chelsea Guidry watched as the cameraman counted down from three, her smile already on her face.

"Is it a pizza? Is it a taco? Whatever it is, the students here at the University of Louisiana at DeGarde are crazy about their pizzacos."

The camera panned to show the long line of students and faculty lined up in front of the trailer.

"It won't open for another fifteen minutes, but as you can see, no one wants to be late," Chelsea said.

The attractive brunette when down the line, interviewing the people.

"Aw cher, it's hot and it fills you up," a girl said with a heavy Cajun accent.

"This beautiful woman is Bailey Breaux," Jason Breaux smiled, pointing to a short, slightly pudgy woman with a mop of unruly hair and big brown eyes.

"And this is Jason Junior," Jason went on, pointing to her belly.

"Shut up, it's a girl! He knows it's a girl, he's just..." Bailey squealed.

"And whatever Momma wants, Momma gets and Momma wants two bean pizzacos and a peanut butter and a chocolate chip cookie," Jason smiled.

"You jam the two cookies together like a sandwich," Bailey explained.

Anita had not recognized the phone number on her cell phone, but had answered it anyway.

"Um, hi, um, this is Sarah Juarez," a woman had stammered. "And I um, I had one of them pizzacos today?"

Anita swore she would kill whomever had given out her phone number.

"And I uh, I saw you don't sell any kind of desserts and my roommate? She says my cookies are the best," Sarah had said.

"How you get that History Channel?" Honey called out from the living room.

"And I asked Dean Sims," Sarah revealed the source of leak.

"Your friend is useless," Merita playfully accused as she grabbed the remote control and found the History channel.

"There's four women here," Anita said, giving her address. "Bring enough samples."

Twenty minutes later, Sarah Juarez, a short Latin woman came in and did a horrible job of presenting the cookies. But Anita had to agree, the cookies were soft, chewy, gooey, and Maggie, who kept claiming she shouldn't, she was on a diet, kept going back for 'just one more.'

Sarah didn't even know how much to charge for the cookies.

"Merita, think you could put that pretty little head to use and help her figure it out?" Anita smiled. "I mean, you do have a Master's in Business, right?"

Chelsea continued down the line, asking questions.

"I uh, Dean Sims says it's owned by one of the students," Professor Huxton stammered, ill at ease outside of his Algebra classroom. "And all the employees are students too and uh, our students are the life of our university, so I believe in supporting our students."

"But do you like the pizzaco?" Chelsea asked.

"Huh? Oh, oh yeah, I mean, the salsa is the best! I mean, it's even better than Manny's," the unpopular teacher stammered.

(The moment the segment aired on Performance 12 News at noon, the telephone, email, and facebook page of Manny's Restaurant was flooded.)

"So, is it a pizza? Is it a taco?" Chelsea said, holding up one of the beef pizzacos for the camera. "We may never know, but it's a favorite here."

She took a bite and chewed.

"Son of a bitch! This IS good!" she mumbled around her mouthful.

The next day, Anita scurried into Professor Jurnigen's class and took her seat.

"I saw your little food truck on the news yesterday," he sneered.

"Yeah!" Anita said. "Someone said the salsa's even better than Manny's and now they want a showdown!"

"I uh, noticed that the owner didn't' want to be interviewed; any idea why not?" he asked, the disdain dripping from his lips.