Bitter Root (19 page)

“Senator
Landry shakes hands with businessman J.B. Nerbass at annual gala.”

She looked at other articles. John Bertram Nerbass was a
self-made millionaire. He owned a multistate sports fishing tour company and a
helicopter ferry service that transported workers offshore to oil rigs in the
Gulf. It appeared he had amassed his wealth in the past ten years, starting
with a small bait shop in Dulac. His JB Dulac Transport now had helipads up and
down the Gulf Coast. His fishing charter companies set out from Morgan City,
Louisiana, as well as Galveston, Rockport, and South Padre Island in Texas, and
Gulfport, Mississippi. He had been fortunate to contract with BP prior to the
spill and was responsible for all transport to and from the spill sight. He
also had contracts with several other large multinationals.

Was that what caused the animosity with Mabel? The fact that this
man had started in Dulac and had become overwhelmingly successful? It had
seemed deeper than simple jealousy; she’d looked terrified. If Adi was his
daughter, surely he would’ve exhausted every lead searching for her.
That is, if he wanted her found.
Men
with money were so often dangerous, it was almost cliché. But was that the case
now?

She would have to tread cautiously. He was probably
unapproachable without an appointment. Her oil spill cover wouldn’t work with
him, but she figured selling the interview as a rags to riches feature piece
might. The one thing she couldn’t do was mention Adi in any way. After Mabel’s
reaction, she wouldn’t dare bring attention to her. She called the number
listed as his headquarters in Morgan City. The person who answered dutifully
took her information down. She was unable to speak with him, but was assured
that her query would be given to Mr. Nerbass directly.

Griffith didn’t hold out hope that he would get in touch anytime
soon. She paid for her meal and decided to head back to New Iberia. She would
mosey down to Morgan City in the morning and see if she could find out anything
else about Mr. Nerbass.

She was unlocking her car when her phone rang. She smiled at the
number displayed. Adi.

“Hi there, tall one.”

“Hey, yourself. What are you up to?”

“Just about to get in my car and drive back to the hotel. I’ve
been doing research today.”

“Cool. You want to come by here and spend half an hour with me?”

“Sure I would. It’ll be a couple of hours before I can get there,
though.”

“A couple of hours? Where are you?”

Griffith hesitated. She knew Adi would be upset if she knew where
she was, so being vague was better than an outright lie.

“I’m just out and about in the countryside.”

Adi was quiet, and Griffith worried she could tell she was
prevaricating.

“Okay. I’ll keep working until you get here.”

Griffith pulled into the parking lot of the Boiling Pot two
hours later. Adi was waiting on the porch.

“Hey,” Adi said.

“Hey, yourself. So what are we going to do for your thirty-minute
break?”

“Let’s go for a walk.”

“Okay.”

Adi held out her hand and Griffith took it. They walked to the
back edge of the parking lot where there was a trail beside a small waterway.

“Is this a creek?” Griffith said.

“No, this is a coulee.”

“A what?”

“A coulee. That’s what we call them anyway. I suppose you’d just
call it a ditch anywhere else. It’s for drainage.”

“Why do you call it a coulee?”

“Just Cajun for ditch.”

“Hmm. Okay. Are there any fish in the coulee?”

“Just crawfish,” Adi said.

“Well, it’s pretty anyway.”

“I think so. This is one of my favorite walks. Even though we’re
pretty much in the middle of town, it feels like we’re out in the country
because of all the trees.”

“Yeah, I get that.”

“I missed you today.”

“I missed you too.”

“I think we need to get to know more about each other. Let’s play
a game,” Adi said.

“Okay.”

“Let’s play the question game. I ask you a question, then you ask
me one. You have to answer or the other person gets to give you a task.”

“So, like truth or dare?”

“Yeah, but not as treacherous.” Adi shrugged, almost embarrassed
to suggest it. But she’d realized during the day she hardly knew anything about
Griff, and she wanted to know more.

“Okay. Ask.”

“Who was your first kiss?”

“Easy, Eleanor Grimes. I was twelve. My turn. If you only had one
day to live, what would you do?”

“Hmmm. I guess I’d spend it out on the bayou in the canoe.
Just being with nature. What’s the most embarrassing thing you ever did?”

Griffith winced. “I got a story wrong. I defended someone who was
guilty, and she ripped my heart out and nearly destroyed my career. All because
I didn’t check my facts thoroughly enough.”

Adi stopped walking abruptly, suddenly understanding Griff’s
obsession a little bit more. “Wow, I’m so sorry. That had to be horrible.”

“It wasn’t a walk in the park, that’s for sure.”

“That’s awful. You want to tell me about it?”

Griffith sighed and closed her eyes. “Yeah, I would. Can we sit
somewhere?”

“Over there, by the oak tree, there’s a bench.”

Adi led Griffith to the bench that encircled the wide oak. They
sat side by side, leaning on the tree.

“It happened two years ago. I was doing an in-depth story on the
players in a big fraud scheme at an energy trading corporation. There were a
lot of innocent people who lost everything they had saved because of these
crooks. I was interviewing Tabitha Moore, the financial planning and analysis
manager, and she convinced me she had been completely duped by the chief
financial officer. Unfortunately, I let myself become infatuated with her and
missed the red flags that would’ve given me the truth. She was a liar.

“She wouldn’t tell me much about her past. I went to her hometown
and talked to people who knew her, or tried to, anyway. Every door was closed,
though. No one wanted to talk about her. I just blew it off as jealousy and
accepted what she was telling me. In the end, she was indicted, and she
would’ve gone to jail, but she fled the country. She had me completely fooled.”

“That’s horrible.” Adi’s stomach turned at the thought of Griff
being infatuated with anyone else.
Don’t
be stupid. She’s got history. So what?

“The worst part was that other journalists had no trouble seeing
her for who she was. They were able to get the background story because they
hadn’t written pieces defending her. I was scooped and betrayed. Not to mention
heartbroken. I’m still working on regaining my credibility.”

Adi processed what she said and asked, “What were you researching
today?”

“I drove down to Houma and looked at old records.”

“What records? What were you looking for?” Adi felt like she was
going to be sick. She knew the answer, but needed to hear it anyway.

“You. I was looking for you. I have to know your truth, Adi. I
don’t have a choice. I can’t print an unsubstantiated story again. That could
mean I don’t work anymore.”

“But I’m not her. It’s not at all the same. I haven’t stolen
anyone’s money. I’m no liar.”

“It’s about my journalistic integrity, Adi. Telling the whole
truth.”

“You can’t tell my whole truth, Griffith. You can’t. You said you
wouldn’t. People I care about could get hurt. Don’t you get it?” She wanted to
scream, to shake Griffith by the shoulders until she could see.

“How can I get it? You haven’t told me a thing. Only that I can’t
know. That’s not okay with me. I can’t ever let that be okay with me again.”

“You’re mixing up two very different situations. You had a liar,
a crook, who convinced you not to look into her past. I’m not a liar or a
crook, and I want to tell you my past. I just don’t want you to write about it.
You’re supposed to write about the restaurant, about me as a cook. What’s that
got to do with my past?”

“But where is my integrity in that? Huh, Adi? If I promise you I
won’t write about your past, and then your past turns and bites my ass where
does that leave me? I can promise that I’ll be careful, and if it doesn’t
matter, genuinely, to the story or to the magazine, I won’t say anything about
it, but I can’t promise not to check the facts. I just can’t. It’s what I do.
It might not matter a lot to the article, but it matters to me.”

“You’re not being fair. I told you I would tell you. I said I
would. But you can’t promise to keep my past secret, even if it means the
people I love will be hurt or worse? I can’t trust you. Just get away from me.”
Adi jumped up from the bench and turned away from her.
I knew better. Trust is for weak
people.

“What?”

“You heard me. Get away from me, Griffith. You have to leave me
alone. You lied to me, and I’m not about to put people I care about in danger
because of some article in a magazine. Find someone else’s life to blow to
hell.”

*

The empty feeling grew and threatened to overwhelm her as Adi
rushed back the way they had come. What had just happened? Griffith leaned
against the tree, its solid mass grounding her, helping to keep her from
drifting away. What could she do to repair the situation? She watched the
ground blur and realized she was crying, tears obscuring her field of vision.
Damn. Why did I get so obstinate?
I’ve already decided not to write about her childhood. Why couldn’t I just say
that? Because I’m a stubborn oaf.
It felt like her soul was being
stripped away as she watched Adi leave. She needed to get a grip.
Pull it together.
She
rubbed furiously at her eyes.
Damn
tears.
She went after Adi, but she was fast, and already out of
sight.

When she got back to the restaurant, she hurried to the kitchen.
Adi was nowhere to be seen.

“What’s got you all messed up?” Bertie asked

“Adi. We had a fight. I think I really upset her.”

“Aw, don’t you fret over that one. She runs hot and cold. You
just got a taste of hot. She’ll cool down and come on back. She’s probably
running the coulee. Just sit here a bit and settle yourself. I’ll get you a
Coke.”

Bertie handed her an icy cold bottle of Dr Pepper. The cool
plastic felt good. She held it against her cheek and let herself calm down. Adi
would be okay. They would work through this. Bertie would help. She opened the
bottle and took a long swallow.

“What did y’all fight about?”

“Her past. I was stupid and pushed her.”

“What’d you mean you pushed her?”

“I wouldn’t promise not to write about her past, but that was
stupid, because I’ve already decided I wouldn’t. It was just my defensive
reaction to being told not to. Now she’s gone. I didn’t mean it, Bertie. I’d
never hurt her.”

“I believe you. But you sure have stuck your hand in a hornet’s
nest. She don’t hold that part of herself back because it’s all sunshine. No,
she has some serious trouble she’s lived through. You have to let her do the
telling. Make sure when she comes back that you’re clear about what you will
and won’t write about. And make sure you know what, and why, you’re doing it
yourself, girl. Get that right in your head before you talk to her again.”

“I will. You’re right, Bertie. She’ll be back. Would you mind
telling her I came back here to apologize?”

“Why don’t you just wait here and tell her yourself?”

“I think she’s probably going to want more time before she sees
me again. I’ll be at the hotel. If she wants to talk, she has my number.”

“Well, all right then.”

Griffith walked out to her car. She still felt hollow inside.
That would be with her until Adi filled it again. She would go back and soak in
a hot tub and watch a movie. Tomorrow she would go to Morgan City. She had a
job to do, and Adi had asked for her help. Okay, maybe she shouldn’t have
pushed, and maybe Adi was right to be afraid. But Griff had never let fear run
her life, and she wasn’t about to start now. If she was going to help Adi, and
keep her career on the right path, she had to do it her way and hope Adi would
understand.
Back on
track.

*

Adi ran. She ran until the sound of her own breathing and the
beating of her heart drowned out the fear chasing her. She moved into the
groove she hit when her running was optimal. There, nothing outside could touch
her. Nothing mattered but the beat of her heart and the sound of her shoes on
the trail. She ran with the skill of one who knew her surroundings, adjusting
easily to the ruts and bumps in her path.

She stayed in her safe zone as long as the wind was with her,
never wondering how far she’d gone, just letting her body tell her when to
stop. She listened when her legs said enough and slowed. Jogging, she thought
about the fight. Griffith was telling her about something that was very painful
and took a long time to heal. The fact she’d been checking up on Adi was born
of that stuff. Stuff from her past.
Guess
we’ve all got skeletons with baggage.

She wanted to trust Griffith. She was her best chance to finally
be free of J.B., and Adi cared about her. She believed Griffith cared about her
too. But her past didn’t have anything to do with her cooking or the Boiling
Pot. Just like her being a lesbian had nothing to do with cooking or the Pot.
Griffith had been surprised when Adi asked her if she was going to put that in
her story. If the truth about her and her past with J.B. turned out to be
something Griffith couldn’t help her with, she’d have to figure out something
else. She owed Griffith the truth, had planned to lay it all out for her on
Monday. Why couldn’t she just wait until then? Why’d she have to go poking
around now? Did that mean she couldn’t trust her, or that Adi needed to
understand why Griff couldn’t just accept things?
I need to ask her.
She wanted to be free,
but she needed to trust Griffith to do the right thing, and not put them in
danger. Maybe, if she understood that it had nothing to do with the Pot, things
would be okay. She tried to understand the credibility thing Griff had talked
about, but she just couldn’t see how her messed up childhood would matter to
some high-flying magazine. It wasn’t like anyone would ever associate the adult
Addison with the child Merley. Especially not folks just wanting to read about
food. But then, maybe it was the world Griff lived in, one Adi couldn’t well
understand.