Nineteen Seventy-Three, page 10
Cordelia grunted and folded her arms. He didn’t read her mind this time, but sensed acutely her regret in coming to see him, which grew like compound interest. He didn’t have much time.
“Augustus, my brother, he’s an illusionist. He can make you see or think whatever he wants. You might think you like chocolate, but, lady, you’ll be singing the praises of vanilla if it suits him.”
She rolled her tongue around in her mouth.
“Colleen and Evangeline? Healers, both of them. Small, big, doesn’t matter. They’ve saved the lives of all of us a few times over. They just put their hands on you and you’re like brand-new, just like that.”
“Right.”
“Maureen? Communes with the dead. She’s never alone, because she has my dad, my other sister, Maddy, who’s gone now, and, oh yeah, this teacher she used to fuck.”
“Charming.”
“Then there’s my baby sister, Lizzy, who can see the future. I guarantee you she’ll see yours as soon as you meet her. She’s homeschooled now, because she kept predicting the deaths of all her classmates’ family members. You can see how that might put a crimp in her popularity.”
Cordelia’s wax expression shifted slightly. “Just deaths? Is that all she predicts?”
Charles tried not to smile. He had her now. “No, those are just the ones that piss everyone off the most. But Lizzy can see all kinds of things, good and bad. Anything, really. Anything at all.”
“You’re right, you are special.” Cordelia ignored the waiter as he came to, finally, take their drink order. She stood up. “How fortunate for me.”
“Where are you going?”
“What a fascinating lie to tell. And why, I have to ask myself, for no one lies for the sport of it.”
“I’m not lying! I don’t even have the imagination for a lie like that!”
“My prediction? Your desire for happiness is beginning to eclipse your call to duty, and you’re hoping to weasel out of it, by way of me, but you would only make such a miscalculation because you don’t know me at all, which, ironically, was the guise by which you got me to show up to begin with. I don’t know whether I should congratulate you or vomit on your Italian leather shoes.”
“I don’t understand a word you just said.”
This smile was the first he believed. “Of course you don’t.”
“What I’m telling you is completely fucking true. I would have told you after we were married, because that’s when spouses are read-in to this shit, but I happen to think telling people after they’re already committed is too-little-too-fucking-late, and more than a little unfair. I wanted you to have a chance to know what you’re getting into.”
“I know what you wanted, Charles. If you’re going to be a deserter to your own cause, you’ll have to take those cowardly steps on your own.”
Cordelia’s kitten heels clicked hard against the checkered floor as she left him sitting alone, the eyes of everyone around their table drawn to what they could only perceive to be him being stood up. Him. Charles Deschanel. Heir to New Orleans.
Which was exactly what she wanted them all to think.
The heinous bitch.
* * *
Maureen tripped over her bed at the shock of the unannounced visitor.
“Jesus, Charles!” she cried. She righted herself and crawled back up over the comforter. She looked to her right and hissed, “You hush.”
“Who are you talking to?”
“This dickhead Jean, who raped his sister. He’s our ancestor, and he hates it when I take the Lord’s name in vain.”
“Sounds like an aces guy.” Charles knitted his brows. “Are you busy?”
“Didn’t seem like you cared about that when you barged right in without even a knock. What if I was having sex?”
“Under this roof? Doubtful.”
Maureen glared. “You did.”
“I’m an adult, and this is my house.”
“In age maybe,” Maureen muttered. She hitched her miniskirt, which had crawled up in her fall from the bed, down over her thighs. It wasn’t the most practical outfit for just hanging around, but she was expecting Connor’s brother, Thomas, today, and she had to keep him guessing just enough.
“Who else is in the room?”
“What? You and me.”
Charles planted his hands on his hips. “You know what I mean, don’t be dippy.”
“Oh.” She sometimes forgot she’d shared this secret with him, and sometimes regretted that fact. But she wasn’t worried about him telling anyone, either, and she wished he were easier to talk to, so she could unburden herself. “Right now? Um, well, Jean is over there giving me the glare of the blasphemer, as I think of it, and Maddy was here a minute ago, and I think…” She looked around. “No, she went somewhere else. I don’t know where they go when they’re not here, don’t ask me.” Mercifully, the baby was quiet today. It wasn’t much, but she’d take a day of silence. “Daddy, too.”
“Dad? He’s here?” Charles looked around as though he could see August if he strained just right.
Maureen nodded.
“Good.” Charles pulled out the chair from her desk and straddled it backward. “I need you to ask him something for me.”
“You… what?”
“I need your help, Maureen. I need Dad’s advice, and there’s no other way for me to get it.”
“I don’t know…”
“If I can help my son, I want to,” August said. He stood so near to Charles, hand hovering over his shoulder, that Maureen was panicked at the thought that Charles might look up and actually see him.
“Please. It’s my life we’re talking about, not something stupid.”
Maureen still smarted from the reaming her mother had given her over her helping Elizabeth. Things had been going well before that, not great, but well, and now she was again persona non grata among the Deschanels. The black sheep. The failure.
She’d tried to find less risky ways of proving she could be useful. Two days ago, she’d driven into New Orleans to see Augustus, which was a bad decision—she was grounded from driving indefinitely, and waited for her mother to be out for the day with errands—that had potential to lead to good results. She stood in front of him in his big office, her big brother looking so important now, and not at all the soft, sweet boy she’d played with in their garden, and pleaded with him to give her a job. He’d sighed, looked around, and said summer was a slow time, and that she could come back and see him in fall and he’d find something. But fall might as well be a decade, for as miserable as she was, once again relegated to the role of Failure Maureen.
“I’m going to marry this miserable bitch, and I just need to know why. I need to know why this is my fucking future, Maureen. Dad knows why.”
“Maureen, please, let me talk to my son.”
“Daddy, this is between Huck and me.”
“He’s here? You’re really talking to him?” Charles looked at once like he might pass out or cry.
This might be it, her bid for usefulness, and there was nothing bad that could come of it. No missing sister. No forced abortion. Just Charles, looking to her, as the only one who could give him what he wanted.
He’d never asked her for anything before.
“Okay,” she said. “He can hear you, so just… I don’t know, say what you want, or ask what you want, and I’ll tell you what he says.”
“Good. Good.” Charles kicked the chair away and leaned against the desk. He gnawed on his knuckle, then rapped it against the wood. “Hi, Dad. I miss you. A whole lot.”
Maureen listened, and then said, “Dad said he misses you more than anything.”
Charles bit down on his knuckle again. “I don’t know if I can do this.”
“It’s okay,” Maureen said, but sounded about as soothing as wiping a foot across gravel. “What do you want to ask him?”
“I want to know what to do about this situation with Cordelia. I know Dad knows what I’m talking about.”
“I do know,” August said, and Maureen relayed everything he said as he went on. “I do know, Charles, and it’s the result of one of my deepest regrets in life. I never should have made a deal with that devil Franz! I should have walked away, when I could… I wasn’t even involved, but I stood by him, and every second I stayed made me more complicit. And then I was in a corner, with no choice but to make a promise. I’d do anything to turn back the clock and fix this, because you’ll only meet misery if you marry into that family. But if you do not, then the rest of this family will know a much greater misery.”
Charles’ face paled. He dropped his hand, and his mouth parted. “So there is a story. I knew it. I fucking knew it! I need to know. I deserve to know, if this is my burden now.”
“He won’t say,” Maureen said. She gave her father a hard look. “Huck is right, Daddy. Hell’s bells, if you put him in this situation, then you need to tell him why he has to live with it!”
“I can’t,” August said, hanging his head low. “My son’s memory of me is all the connection we have left. I won’t tarnish that.”
“That’s a bunch of bullshit,” Maureen said.
“What? What is he saying?”
“Nothing useful,” she said, eyes still burning holes in her father. “Nothing useful at all.”
“Dad!” Charles cried. “Why won’t you tell me? You did this to me, so why won’t you tell me?”
“Ask your mother, so I don’t have to see your eyes when you learn the truth,” August said and dissolved from the room.
Maureen repeated this, and then said, “I’m sorry. He’s gone.”
“Fuck!”
“Yeah, it’s total bullshit, Huck. I’m so sorry. Maybe there’s another way to get you out of this marriage.”
“Any fucking ideas?” His words died in the air between them, too deflated to cut through the sadness.
“No, but don’t forget, I’m the survivor of the family. If anyone can help you figure this out, it’s me.”
“Yeah? I’d owe you for life.”
Maureen smiled. “I just want what you want. To not be shackled by this damn family and their terrible choices for the rest of my life.”
FALL 1973
* * *
VACHERIE, LOUISIANA
NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA
Chapter 11
Tantra
Philip was an excellent cook, and he loved to surprise Colleen with something new after each of their marathon lovemaking sessions. Today, he woke her with a quail quiche, which he confessed to have prepared ahead of her arrival so all he had to do was pop it in the oven.
Colleen was a little embarrassed at how she always fell asleep after their bedroom play. She was half Philip’s age and should have twice his stamina, but his experience shone through every touch of his hand and flit of his tongue. Colleen had only ever been with one man, and Rory’s experiences and hers had been equally matched. They were kids, fumbling through the motions, guessing where their passion might lead instead of taking confident charge and guiding it through to completion. Philip knew precisely what he was doing. No move was accidental. No gesture wasted.
A week after their relationship had taken a sexual turn, a line they could never re-cross, Philip introduced her to something he called tantric sex. She was woefully unfamiliar with even the term, which was not a position she was used to or liked, but he was happy to demonstrate. He coached her through the breathing exercises meant to prolong satisfaction, and the sex that was not sex at all, not until the end when, after hours of this, she exploded with an orgasm she thought might kill her.
Colleen needed to research this practice, to understand it better so that she was not always the consummate student with Philip, but was afraid to approach a librarian with such a book request.
Later, he told her he was a secret Buddhist; that he attended mass every Sunday like a good Catholic, but struggled mightily with the shame Catholics were meant to feel over every little thing. With Buddhism, it’s quite simple. You get from the world what you send out into it, good or bad. Your goal is not to please a vengeful god, but to attain individual enlightenment, by seeking those things that go beyond the material.
Colleen didn’t say that Buddhism had become something of a trend these days, with followers springing up right and left, crawling from the woodwork as if they’d been there all along. He was not as unique as his words and eyes seemed to convey. And yet, his passion for it rang genuine.
A week after that, Philip brought something even more foreign to her into the relationship. She was afraid when he brought out the small mahogany box, filled with baggies of white powder. This was not her realm. She was fine being the stick-in-the-mud who did everything the boring way.
I’m not a druggie, Colleen. I save this only for lovemaking, to heighten the experience for both of us. Do you trust me?
If he’d been anyone else, Colleen would have snatched her clothes from the settee and run far away. Her will was ironclad, and she had never felt the pull to peer pressure as many of her peers had. She knew who she was.
But so did Philip, and his self-assured confidence in the way he both gently encouraged yet also remained hesitant until he knew she was okay to proceed. She’d never seen or heard of him doing drugs and had no reason to believe he was lying to her now. He hadn’t led her astray yet… he’d awakened her to so many new experiences, new heights of being.
Colleen had lain back, guided by his hands, which first pressed her softly into the pillow and then, running down her bare flesh, parted her legs. She had the urge to snap her legs closed, afraid of the exposure; the vulnerability. But his eyes implored her to trust him, and so she had.
Philip had dipped one finger in the baggie of coke and then nestled it between her legs, right atop those bundles of nerves she’d never known contained so much potential. It was one thing to study the physiology of an orgasm. Another entirely to be amidst the experiment.
He dabbled some powder on his thumb and lifted to his nose, inhaling and sniffling as he rubbed his thumb back and forth. He then offered the same to Colleen, and later what she remembered most was how little she’d hesitated in this moment. The burst of adrenaline filled her from head to toe, and for a single moment she understood Charles, finally.
Philip handed her a slice of quiche and nestled into the side of the bed. She pulled the sheet over her bare chest. It was one thing to be exposed in the heat of the moment, but with the passion died down to coals, she felt as she had when she’d awaken hungover after her first episode with alcohol.
“What are you thinking?” he asked.
“Nothing, I just woke up.”
“Compliments to the chef?” he teased, and it took her a minute, but then she too laughed.
“Actually, I was thinking that this apartment needs a woman’s touch.”
“You’ve been coming here for weeks and you just now make this observation?”
Colleen took a bite of the quiche, which was wonderful, as he was, as everything he touched was. “No, I think I always noticed, but now it stands out at me.” There was almost nothing in the apartment that made it feel lived-in. No art—though he’d said he had quite the collection, and she had really looked forward to the Judith painting—none of the touches that separate the sterility of a hotel room from the warmth of a home.
Philip set his plate aside. “I see. Well, the truth is, I don’t spend much time here, unless I’m with you.”
“Don’t you live here?”
“I sleep here, but I still live in my house on Napoleon.”
Colleen dropped her fork to the plate. “Isn’t that where your wife lives?”
Philip bristled, but it was so quick she almost missed it. Almost. “No, not exactly. The house is only blocks from the boys’ school, and we trade off who stays there with them during the week. They’ll be in high school next fall, and then we’ll sell the house and figure out the best way to co-parent.”
He’d never talked about his children with her, though she knew he had teenage twin boys. But she didn’t know anything else about them. Not even their names.
“But you’re never there together?”
“Sometimes we’re there together.”
Colleen didn’t know what her next question should be. She knew what she wanted it to be. But she couldn’t ask that, not when it seemed obvious to her that this entanglement of theirs wasn’t meant to come with bindings or rules.
Philip sat up taller. “You want to know if she knows about you. If she cares.”
Colleen didn’t say a word.
“Colleen, I haven’t slept with my wife in years. That we’re still on speaking terms is nothing short of a miracle. We figured out a system so we could care for our sons, but that’s it. She doesn’t know about you, and I’m not telling her, because I don’t want her to harass you.”
“Harass me? Do you really think she would?”
He shrugged. “It wouldn’t be the first time.” He lay down next to her and pulled her into him. “Look, I know why you have questions, but there’s nothing to get yourself worked up about here. That’s what I love about you… you understand the world in a way most can’t comprehend. If I tell you my broken marriage is complicated, you understand exactly what I mean.”
Colleen didn’t understand exactly what he meant, and this felt like another failure, so she only nodded.
“I don’t have a life outside of the school.” He kissed her, lingering. “Outside of you. My life consists of lectures, soccer practice, and then unwinding in your beautiful arms. There isn’t time for anything else. And you know about that, too, don’t you? You’ve set aside your passions to be the pillar holding up your family. We’re so much alike, you and I.”
How she wished that to be true. In Philip’s eyes, she finally saw the reflection of herself that she’d always imagined.
