Landry 02 Pearl in the Mist (32 page)

"So what? He was nuts anyway."
"He wasn't. He was making progress. If he had a loving family around him again . . ."
"Oh, stop being Miss Goody Two-Shoes. What does that have to do with my returning to
Greenwood?"
"Daphne said if I got you to go back, she would return Uncle Jean to his room."
"I thought there was something behind your sweettalk. Well, you can forget it," she said, turning away to look at herself in her vanity mirror. "I'm not going back to Greenwood. Right now I'm enjoying John, and I don't intend to give him up just so my crazy uncle can have his own room in a nut house." She smiled. "Daphne's going to let me stay for sure then. She doesn't want me to upset the apple cart. Good. Thanks for telling me."
"Gisselle . ."
"I said I'm not going back. That's final," she hammered. "Now stop thinking about sad things and help me plan out our New Year's Eve party. I've invited nearly twenty friends. Claudine and Antoinette are coming over to help decorate the living room tomorrow. For refreshment, I thought we'd have those twelve-foot po'boy sandwiches. We'll work up a fruit punch and wait until Daphne and Bruce leave. Then we'll spike it with rum. What do you think?"
"I don't care," I said glumly.
"You better not be a lump of swamp mud around here tomorrow night. I'm warning you not to spoil the fun."
"That's the last thing in the world I would want to do, Gisselle, spoil your fun. Heaven forbid," I spit out, then left her room before I pulled out each and every strand of hair on her head.

16
A Brave Front
.
Despite my gloomy feelings, I tried not to walk

about with downcast eyes and let everyone know just how unhappy I was. Gisselle's friends were very excited about the New Year's Eve party, and I had never seen Daphne so friendly and outgoing toward them. She came into the living room in the afternoon and made suggestions for the decorating. Of course, all the girls were in awe of her. I could see from the way they gazed at her that they thought she was akin to a movie star: beautiful, rich, elegant, and full of style.

But Gisselle kept herself the center of attention, revealing the miraculous recovery of her limbs and promising to dance for the first time since the accident. She got Edgar to bring in a ladder and then had the girls string streamers from one side of the ceiling to the other. They blew up balloons and placed them in a net to be released at midnight. While they worked, they gossiped about the boys who would be attending the party, and Gisselle described the girls of Greenwood, bragging about the things she had taught them concerning sex and boys. From time to time, she shifted her eyes toward me to see if I would contradict her, but I was barely listening after a while.

I was looking forward to spending the evening with Beau. I took my time choosing my dress and settled on a strapless black velvet gown with a deep, sweetheart neckline. The dress fit snugly at the waist and then had a full skirt that ended about six inches above my ankles. I had planned to wear a string of pearls around my neck but decided at the last minute simply to wear Beau's chain and ring, excited by the way the gleaming jewelry heightened that part of my bosom and cleavage. When I closed my eyes, I could almost feel his fingers softly gliding down, over my collarbone toward my breasts.

I put on a pair of delicate gold and pearl hoop earrings and decided to wear the ring that Louis had given me. Gisselle and I had each been given half a dozen different perfumes. I chose one that suggested the fresh aroma of blossoming roses. I had decided to wear my hair down but pinned back at the sides. My bangs needed a bit of trimming and I smiled to myself, recalling how Grandmere Catherine used to do it for me and even sit talking to me for what seemed like hours and hours while she brushed my long ruby hair, telling me again and again how she used to do the same thing for my mother.

Gisselle surprised me by choosing a dress similar to mine in dark blue. She bedecked herself with far more jewelry, wearing two strings of pearls, long dangling pearl earrings, a gold bracelet on one wrist and Bruce's charm bracelet Christmas gift on the other, as well as half a dozen rings spaced over her two hands. She wore a gold anklet as well. She left her hair down as well, not even pinning the sides, and she had caked on makeup, eyeliner, and lipstick so thick, she could kiss for hours before reaching her skin.

"How do I look?" she asked after coming to my doorway.
"Very nice," I replied. I knew that if I criticized her she would only resent it and rant and rave about how jealous I was.
"'Nice'? What's that like, 'neat'?" she said, grimacing. She studied me a moment, making comparisons. "Why don't you put on more makeup? I can still see those freckles on your cheeks."
"They don't bother me," I said. "Or Beau," I added pointedly.
"They used to," she remarked, her eyes twinkling with mischief. When I didn't bite, she stopped smiling. "I'm going down."
"Be right there," I said. A short while later, I found her seated in her wheelchair in the center of the living room, gazing about with satisfaction.
"This is going to be the greatest party ever," she declared. "You'll never forget this New Year's Eve." She stared at me a moment. "Did you ever have a good New Year's Eve in the swamps?"
"Yes."
"Doing what, fishing?" she asked disdainfully.
"No. We would have a party in the town. All of Main Street would be closed down, and the merchants as well as other people would set out food. There were fireworks and continuous music making for a grand
fais dodo
."
"
Fais dodo
, I forgot. You danced in the streets?" she asked.
I nodded, remembering. "It was as if we had all become one family, celebrating," I said wistfully.
"Sounds . . . stupid," she said, but I could see she was trying to convince herself.
"You don't need to spend a lot of money and have expensive clothing to have a good time, Gisselle. A real good time starts here," I said, pointing to my heart.
"I would have pointed someplace else," she retorted, and laughed.
"What's so funny?" Daphne asked as she and Bruce entered the living room. They were dressed and ready to leave. Bruce did look handsome in his tuxedo, and I had to admit that Daphne was never more striking. She wore a long narrow gown in the deepest, richest burgundy color that had a beaded rhinestone bodice and a bolero jacket with a beaded collar. The bodice of the gown dipped in one graceful swoop over the tops of her breasts, revealing just enough cleavage to be enticing. She wore no necklace to take away from the jeweled clothing, but she had rhinestone earrings. Her hair was up in a French knot with bangs. "Cajun New Year's Eve," Gisselle quipped.
"Oh," she said, nodding as if to say she understood why that would be a topic for humor. "Well, we just stopped by to wish you two a happy new year. Remember, I don't want to see a lot of drinking and wildness. Respect the house. Enjoy yourselves, but be ladies," she added.
"Of course we will, Mother. You have a good time too," Gisselle said.
Daphne looked at me. "You both look very nice," she said.
"Thank you," I replied.
"Can I give my soon-to-be stepdaughters a New Year's Eve kiss now?" Bruce asked.
"Sure," Gisselle said. He leaned over and kissed her quickly on the cheek. She had closed her eyes, expecting a kiss on the lips. He approached me, smiling, and put his hands on my shoulders.
"You are as beautiful as always," he said softly, and then leaned in to kiss me. I turned just in time to direct him from my lips to my cheek. He stared at me for a moment and then laughed.
"Happy new year, girls," he cried, then joined Daphne to leave for their gala affair.
"Good riddance," Gisselle muttered. "Let's have a drink alone before the others arrive," she said and wheeled herself to our bar. "What do you want, rum and coke?" She started to get up to make them.
"I'll pour my own drinks, thank you," I said, recalling how Gisselle tried to get me drunk before.
"Good. Make mine too then," she said, sitting down again. I did so and handed it to her. "Well, dear Sister, here's to a happier year than the one we just had. May it be filled with fun, fun, fun."
"For everyone we love," I added. She shrugged.
"Sure, for everyone we love." We drank and, a moment later, heard the doorbell.
"Here we go," Gisselle cried, wheeling herself toward the doorway. She was keeping herself in the wheelchair just so she could make her standing and walking look that much more dramatic later.
All of Gisselle's guests arrived a little early. Word about the party's prospects had spread quickly. By the time Beau appeared, everyone was there, and most of them had had more than one drink. The music was blaring, and some of the food had already been eaten.
"You're even more beautiful than I imagined you would be," Beau told me when I greeted him at the door. We kissed and then entered the party. Everyone was talking loudly; some had already had more to drink than they could tolerate and were acting silly.
"Looks like one of Gisselle's typical parties," Beau cried over the noise. We danced, ate something, and had our drinks along with everyone else.
At ten o'clock, as she had planned, Gisselle had the music turned down and announced her intention to dance for the first time since the accident. John stood by her as she pretended to struggle out of the chair. She fell into his arms, regained her composure, and took what she wanted everyone to think were her first dance steps. The party guests clapped and whistled as Gisselle and John moved over the dance floor. Not long afterward, Gisselle told one of the girls to turn the lights low and the real partying began. Everyone paired off.
"I don't care where you go in the house," Gisselle announced, "as long as it doesn't look like you've been there. The upstairs is off-limits, of course."
"Let's get away from all this," Beau said. When no one was looking, we slipped out. He paused, wondering where we should go. I pulled him forward and we scampered up the stairs and into my room.
"I don't want to spend my New Year's Eve with them anyway," I told Beau. "They're like strangers to me now."
"Me too," he said. We kissed and then both of us gazed at my bed. I sat down and Beau sat beside me.
"I can put on my radio," I said. I got up quickly and turned the dial, searching for a good station. I don't know why I was suddenly so nervous, but I was. My fingers trembled around the knob and I felt a tingling in my stomach. It was almost as if Beau and I were on our first date. I finally settled on a station that was broadcasting from the grand ballroom of one of the downtown hotels. We could hear the excitement of the people dancing as well as the music. The announcer came on to tell everyone how close we were to midnight.
"Why is New Year's Eve so special?" 1 asked.
Beau thought a moment.
"I suppose it gives people a chance to hope for better things." He laughed. "I used to have this toy, a magic slate. You wrote or drew on it and then, just by pulling up the plastic cover, everything you did disappeared and you could start new. Maybe everyone feels that on New Year's Eve: They can pull up the magic sheet and rewrite their lives."
"I wish I could. But I wish I could go back much further back than just one year."
He nodded, his eyes soft and sympathetic.
"Well-to-do young people like Gisselle and myself, like all those downstairs drinking too much, couldn't even begin to understand how hard your life has been, Ruby." He reached up and took my hand, his eyes still fixed on me. "You're like a wildflower. The rest of us have been cared for, nourished, given the best of everything, while you've had to struggle. But you know what, Ruby? The struggle has given you more strength and more beauty. Just like that wildflower, you've blossomed high and above the ordinary, the weeds. You're special. I always knew you were, right from the first moment I set eyes on you."
"Oh Beau, that's so sweet."
He pulled me toward him and I let myself fall against him, our lips meeting, his hands around my shoulders. Then, gently, gracefully, he turned himself and me so that we were side by side on my bed. He kissed my hair, my forehead, my eyes, the tip of my nose, before pressing his lips to mine again. When our tongues touched, I felt myself soften everywhere.
"You smell so good," he whispered. "I feel like I'm standing in the middle of a garden."
He dropped his hands below my shoulders and found the zipper on my dress. As he lowered it and the garment became loose around my bosom, I moaned and let my head fall back to the pillow. He brought his lips to my chin and then moved over my throat and down into the valley between my breasts.
"Beau, we're not being careful," I whispered, but I held him to me as if I wanted to disagree with myself and contradict everything I knew was right.
"I know," he said. "We will," he promised, but he started to slip my dress over my shoulders and down my arms. I let the bodice fall to my waist. Beau sat back and peeled off his sports jacket, loosened his tie, and unbuttoned his shirt while I stared up at him, his face now illuminated by the moonlight that came pouring through my window. He looked ghostlike, part of a dream, my wildest fantasy personified. I closed my eyes and didn't open them again until I felt him over me, his shirt stripped off. He toyed with my bra until he had it unfastened and then his lips were against my naked breasts, kissing each of them softly, until I pulled him away and put my lips to his.
His hands were under my dress, groping for my panties. I should have stopped him then, but instead I let him slip my panties off, and then I heard him moan and whisper my name as he brought his hard manliness to me.
"Beau," I cried weakly.
"It's good, Ruby. It's beautiful. It's meant to be. Otherwise we wouldn't love each other as much as we do."
I didn't resist. I let him enter me and touch me even more deeply than he had touched me before. I rose and fell, imagining myself in a pirogue near the ocean where the water would ripple with waves. Each time I was lifted, I felt myself become lighter. I thought I would eventually float off like a balloon.
I don't know how many times Beau cried my name. I can't remember what I was saying, but this time our lovemaking was so intense, it brought tears to my eyes. For a few moments it was as though we had melted into each other. We were that hot. I embraced him so tightly, one would have thought I was afraid of being thrown out of my bed.
We reached our climaxes simultaneously, ravishing each other with kisses, moving our lips over one another's faces like two people starving for affection, for the touch of another human being, hungry for love. We smothered our cries against one another's neck and shoulders and wound ourselves down with deep gasps, our hearts pounding against one another's, both of us so surprised at our passion we could only laugh.
"Feel this," Beau said, placing my palm over his heart. "And you feel mine."
We lay beside each other, our heartbeats tapping against our hands, the rhythms traveling down our arms and back into our own hearts.
We lay side by side, silent for a long while. Then Beau sat up and leaned over me, gazing down at me.
"You're wonderful," he said. "I love you. I can't say it enough."
"Do you, Beau? And will you love me forever and ever?"
"I can't see why not or how I could stop," he said, and kissed me softly.
On the radio, the announcer, in a very excited voice, began a countdown. "Ten, nine, eight . . ."
Beau took my hand and we recited the rest of the numbers together.
"Five, four, three, two, one--HAPPY NEW YEAR!"
"Auld Lang Syne" began to play on the radio.
"Happy New Year, Ruby."
"Happy New Year, Beau."
We kissed again and held each other, and for a moment it did seem like nothing in this world was strong enough to tear us apart. I hadn't felt this happy and this contented for a long time. It was a good feeling. I had hungered for it more than I had realized.
We got dressed, fixed our hair, and straightened ourselves up so that we looked almost as prim and neat as we had at the beginning of the evening. Then we left to go downstairs to see what Gisselle and her friends were up to.
I wish we hadn't. It looked like two boys had rushed down the corridor to get to a bathroom and hadn't made it. They were vomiting and spitting over the same area, alternating their moaning with stupid laughter. The house reeked from the sickeningly sweet stench of wine and whiskey.
All of the party decorations had been pulled down in a mad frenzy at the midnight hour. Balloons had been popped and lay everywhere. The living room was a mess. What's more, it looked like--and we later found out this was so--there had been a food fight. Drinks had been spilled on the floor; there was cake and pieces of po'boy sandwiches on the furniture, mustard and mayonnaise smeared on the walls and over the tables; there was even some of it smeared on the windows.
Some of the party guests were sprawled on the floor, wrapped in each other's arms, laughing and giggling stupidly. Others, feeling their
overindulgence, sat with their eyes closed, their hands on their stomachs. Two boys were still at the bar, challenging each other with drinks. Naturally, the music had been turned up until it was nearly deafening.
"Where's Gisselle?" I screamed. Some gazed at me indifferently. Antoinette broke out of the arms of the boy who was sleeping on her shoulder and walked over to us.
"Your sister left the party about an hour ago with John."
"Left the party? Where did they go?"
Antoinette shrugged.
"Did she leave the house?"
"I don't think so," Antoinette said, and laughed. "She wasn't feeling any pain. Oh. Happy New Year, Beau," she said, leaning over to kiss him.
"Happy New Year," he replied, kissing her quickly on the cheek. She backed up, disappointed, and returned to her drunken partner.
"She didn't go up to her room," I told Beau. "We would have heard her for sure. Daphne is going to be furious when she comes in and sees this. We'd better find Gisselle and have her order these people to clean up and leave."
"Doesn't look too promising," Beau said, gazing around. "But let's see if we can find her."
We went through most of the downstairs area, found a couple entwined in Daphne's office and shooed them out, but we didn't locate Gisselle. I ran upstairs to check the other bedrooms and came down to report no one there. We went through the kitchen and even looked down by Edgar's and Nina's rooms.
"Maybe she went out to the cabana," Beau suggested. We checked but found no one there or around the pool. "Where could she be? She must have left the house," Beau reasoned.
"There's only one place we haven't checked, Beau."
"Where?"
I took his hand and led him back into the house. We stepped over a boy sprawled across the hallway floor asleep and went down to my studio. As we approached the door, I heard Gisselle's giggling. I looked at Beau and thrust the door open. For a moment, neither of us believed what we were seeing.