Teardrop by Lauren Kate Read Free Book Online

clairvoyant or something?”
    “Eureka Boudreaux and her five-dollar words.” Coryglanced at Ander, as if to bond over Eureka’s strangeness. But when he looked more closely at the boy, Cory’s eyes narrowed, his alliance shifted. “You from outta town?” he asked Ander. “This kid hit you, Reka?”
    “It was an accident.” Eureka found herself defending Ander. It bothered her when locals thought it was Cajuns versus the World.
    “That’s not what ol’ Big Jean said. He’s the one said you needed a tow.”
    Eureka nodded, her question answered. Big Jean was a sweet old widower who lived in the cabin about a quarter mile off this road. He used to have a hellish wife named Rita, but she’d died about a decade ago and Big Jean didn’t get around too well on his own. When Hurricane Rita bulldozed the bayou, Big Jean’s house was hit hard. Eureka had heard his hoarse voice say, twenty times, “The only thing meaner than the first Rita was the second Rita. One stayed in my house, the other tore it down.”
    The town helped him rebuild his cabin, and even though it was miles from shore, he insisted on propping the whole thing up on twenty-foot stilts, muttering, “Lesson learned, lesson learned.”
    Diana used to bring Big Jean sugar-free pies. Eureka would go with her, play his old Dixieland jazz 78s on his floor console hi-fi. They’d always liked each other.
    The last time she’d seen him, his diabetes had been bad,and she knew he didn’t make it down those stairs often. He had a grown son who brought his groceries, but most of the time, Big Jean stayed perched on his porch, in his wheelchair, watching swamp birds through his binoculars. He must have seen the accident and called for the tow. She glanced up at his elevated cabin and saw his robed arm waving.
    “Thanks, Big Jean!” she shouted.
    Cory was out of his truck and hitching Magda up to his tow. He wore baggy, dark-wash Wranglers and an LSU basketball jersey. His arms were freckled and huge. She watched the way he connected the cables to her undercarriage. She resented his low whistle when he surveyed the damage to Magda’s rear.
    Cory did everything slowly except hook up his tows, and for once Eureka was grateful in his vicinity. She still held out hope she might make it to school in time for the meet. Twenty minutes left and she still hadn’t decided whether to run the race or quit.
    Wind rustled the sugarcane. It was nearly
fauchaison
, harvest time. She glanced at Ander, who was watching her with a focus that made her feel nude, and she wondered if he knew this country as well as she did, if he knew that in two weeks farmers would appear on tractors to sever cane stalks at their base, leaving them to grow for another three years into the mazes children ran through. She wondered whether Ander had run through these fields the way she and every bayou kidhad. Had he spent the same hours Eureka had spent listening to the arid rustle of their golden stalks, thinking there was no lovelier sound in the world than sugarcane due for its reaping? Or was Ander just passing through?
    Once her car was secured, Cory looked at Ander’s truck. “Need anything, kid?”
    “No, sir, thank you.” Ander didn’t have the Cajun accent, and his manners were too formal for the country. Eureka wondered if Cory had ever been called “sir” in his life.
    “Right, then.” Cory sounded offended, as if Ander in general was offensive. “Come on, Reka. You need a ride somewhere? Like to a beauty salon?” He cackled, pointing at her grown-out dye job.
    “Shut up, Cory.” “Beauty” sounded like “ugly” in his mouth.
    “I’m teasing.” He reached out to tug her hair, but Eureka flinched away. “That the way girls style it these days? Pretty … pretty
interesting
.” He hooted, then jerked his thumb toward the passenger-side door of his truck. “Okay, sister, haul it in the cab. Us coon-asses gotta stick together.”
    Cory’s language was disgusting. His