Just Like Yesterday

by Brenda Barrett

  "And he left all of it to you?" Brigid said in awe. "He wasn't joking when he said he wanted to spite his family, was he?"

  "Having that much money is a huge burden!" Casey said. "A crazy huge burden for one person to carry, especially since you didn't earn it. Imagine the family fights that will ensue over this. They will try to discredit you and besmirch your name and do anything for some of that money."

  "And that is why when the lawyers just called and said that there is a new will, I felt a little relieved," Hazel said. "I don't know if Baron had a change of heart or what, but I am getting only a smidgen of his money."

  "Wow." Brigid leaned back in the settee. "It would have been fun to help you to put a dent in half a billion dollars but a smidgen of half a billion is still a lot."

  Hazel laughed. "I know, right?"

  "So what's the news that is more important than you being a stinking rich widow?" Casey asked impatiently.

  "Sebastian!" Hazel said, her eyes lighting up. "Turns out I don't have a fight on my hands with the Deckers. There was never any need to fight them in the first place because their son Curtis is willing to share him with me. Get this, he said that a boy needs his mother."

  "Aw, how sweet." Caitlin raised an eyebrow at her. "Are you sure that it isn't Curtis who wants the mother? I saw the way that guy looked at you. And you at him."

  "Ooh," Brigid crooned. "He is handsome, already loves your son, and knows that your son was the result of a teen pregnancy for a guy you don't know and..."

  "He lives around the corner," Hazel finished in a rush, "and yes he is yummy, isn't he?"

  Casey laughed, "He is."

  "And tomorrow we have lunch together," Hazel said excitedly. "Unfortunately, Sebastian is not here but he wants us to get to know each other better, you know, since we will be sharing him. I am going to get my son!"

  "Finally!" Caitlin chimed in. "I am happy about this development because I was worried about you taking the Deckers to court. What if you lose? You would have been devastated. Anyway, tell us everything about Curtis."

  Hazel grinned. "He is amazing. He took a child when he was just twenty-five and raised him as his own."

  "Wow!" Brigid chimed in. "Why though?"

  "His mother was sick, had cancer," Hazel said softly. "And he helped out."

  "Yes that is definitely amazing for a guy to do. Does he have any siblings?"

  "Yes, he does," Hazel said. "Remember when I had the investigator look into the Deckers? I found out that they have three children, three boys. The eldest, Oliver, is in the US army; the middle one, Brent, lives in Trinidad with his wife, and then there is Curtis. He is an architect. That I recently found out."

  "I hope he doesn't think that because you can't remember who Sebastian's father is that you are fair game," Caitlin warned, "because even though he is fine, you are going to be careful."

  "Yes. I will be," Hazel said, "you don't have to warn me. After my little stunt in the past I am nothing but cautious these days, especially about relationships."

  *****

  When her sisters left, Hazel went to the pantry and stood looking at the supplies. She was a mass of emotions. She was feeling over-stimulated. The only thing that could calm her nerves at the moment was cooking. Only during the process of chopping and stirring could she make sense of all that was happening in her life.

  Mrs. Petry walked into the kitchen just when she was trying to decide whether to do a sweet or a savory dish.

  "Mrs. Baron."

  Hazel swung around. "Yes, Mrs. Petry."

  Mrs. Petry looked concerned; she was wringing her hands in her apron. Mrs. Petry was tall, about six feet, and she was stout too. Hazel rarely saw her looking as uncertain as she seemed to be now.

  Mrs. Petry and her husband, Jasper the chauffeur, had been with Baron for years.

  Hazel remembered when she had just come to the house to be his companion how Mrs. Petry had been concerned that she would take advantage of the old man.

  Mrs. Petry was the first person that Hazel discussed Baron's proposal to her with. Mrs. Petry had thought it a bad idea but when Baron had grown increasingly agitated and had threatened to leave his money to the cat, she and Jasper had urged Hazel to marry him.

  "It won't be for long," Jasper had said fatalistically. "I would much prefer a human getting his money than a cat."

  Baron had left them a tidy sum in his will. It was more than enough for them to retire with and enjoy their lives. It wasn't hard for Hazel to figure out what was coming next.

  "Jasper and I were waiting for you to come home," Mrs. Petry said. "We couldn't just leave you in the lurch."

  Hazel nodded. "You are leaving."

  "Yes." Mrs. Petry couldn't hide the excitement in her voice. "We have always known that Mr. Baron would leave us some money. He said it so many times." She looked down at the floor uneasily. "Forgive us for leaving."

  "No," Hazel shook her head. "No forgiveness necessary, I expected it. You and Jasper deserve it. You were loyal and kind to Baron."

  Mrs. Petry came over to Hazel and hugged her. "We were planning on leaving as soon as you got back. We have a cruise lined up."

  Hazel nodded in the ample bosom of Mrs. Petry.

  "I can make a recommendation for housekeeping," Mrs. Petry said after she released Hazel. "Bernice, my friend from church, is looking for a job. She was working for another family for years but they left Jamaica. I think she would be a good fit for you."

  Hazel nodded.

  Mrs. Petry pulled out a card with Bernice's number. When she and Jasper left, after more effusive goodbyes, Hazel sat at the kitchen counter, feeling drained.

  She was feeling totally and truly alone in the big five-bedroom townhouse.

  Her phone vibrated and she snatched it up readily. She needed a distraction from this feeling of sudden despondency that had gripped her. It was Kenzy.

  "Are you back yet?" the text read.

  Hazel sighed. Yes, Kenzy would be a welcome distraction. She texted that she was back and invited her over.

  Chapter Three

  Kenzy Blair had always been the life of the party. Hazel smiled when she remembered how their unlikely pairing had come to be.

  She had always stayed to herself in prep school. Her grades had never been as good as her sisters. She had not been as academically inclined as they were. She had always been most contented to hang out in the Magnolia House kitchen with the cook, Fern. Sometimes Fern had even allowed her to cook a dish or two and those were some of her happiest Magnolia House memories.

  She had been quite happy to coast along with B's and C's in prep school. When she needed help she knew to go to her sisters, the specialists.

  Casey was very good at Maths, Brigid found all things scientific fascinating and Caitlin was a pro at English. They were the top performers in the respective classes that Patricia had insisted that they take.

  Hazel had always occupied a happy mediocre medium, only lighting up when she was doing something food related. Everything else was boring. Because of this she had gotten a low grade on her entrance exams to enter high school and had been placed at a school in the inner-city, a place where gunshots could be heard in the middle of the day.

  While her sisters had celebrated going to a prestigious high school where the very air smelled like success, she had feared that she would die in a hail of bullets on the first day of school.

  Patricia had feared the same thing and had tried to put the considerable weight of her surname behind getting her into the same school as Casey, Brigid and Caitlin, but not even the might of a Benedict could have gotten her in that year.

  Patricia's solution was to send her to an ultra-private high school, which she had personally paid for.

  Hazel had been placed with a privileged set of children whose parents were extremely wealthy. They didn't need to depend on entrance exams to enter the school; their surnames were enough.

  The classes were small, the curriculum somewhat unconve
ntional. Students chose what they wanted to do. It had been perfect for Hazel. While she had to slog through the core subjects, she spent most of her days in a kind of euphoria in the kitchen learning cooking techniques and making dishes that she had only heard of in her chef magazines.

  That was where she met Kenzy, the youngest child of a retired diplomat and his heiress wife.

  Kenzy had been super cheerful, outgoing and friendly. She had come to the kitchen one day mumbling about the necessity of learning to cook and had seen Hazel looking over a menu book and had come over to her and declared, "You are pretty."

  "Uh, thanks," Hazel had said shyly. She had heard of Kenzy. The whole school knew about her. She couldn't be avoided. She was a genuine people person who was on first name basis with the principal!

  "Why are we not friends?" Kenzy had demanded.

  Hazel had shrugged. "I have no idea."

  Because of Kenzy, Hazel had gone from the odd girl who was content to spend her spare time in the Home Economics department kitchen to the girl who was a part of the in crowd.

  Ironically, most of the group that she hung out with in high school had thought that she was a Benedict. Only Kenzy had known the truth of her situation—that when she left the over-privileged crowd in the evenings she went home to Magnolia House.

  She had always been content with Magnolia House. She had even felt immensely blessed to have found a place to live where people genuinely loved her, despite her history.

  At Magnolia House she had a sense of family and she was content, until she started going to the private high school.

  Until Kenzy.

  After that, every year her restlessness with her situation had grown and grown until one day, the day before her sixteenth birthday. Kenzy had offered to ask her parents if Hazel could come and stay with them. Her parents had said yes.

  Hazel didn't know what Kenzy told her parents about her but they had agreed that she could come and live with them.

  The timing had been perfect. It was the beginning of summer, Patricia had gone with her husband to Europe, Matron Nash had a death in her family and had taken leave, and the new matron who had come in her place had been too busy to give a special eye out for the Bungalow Seven inhabitants.

  Hazel's only obstacle had been her sisters, and they had tried to make her stay. Their pleading and begging had fallen on deaf ears. She had had it with Magnolia House. She had had it with her life; she just wanted to escape.

  She wanted to be somebody else. Maybe in a weird sort of way she had wanted to be Kenzy.

  Freedom beckoned.

  She remembered the evening that she packed her bag.

  "Don't pack too much," Kenzy had urged over the new cell phone. "We will go shopping together. We can finally dress in really nice designer clothes. Mommy discovered this great designer."

  And so Hazel, the least likely sister to leave the safe confines of Magnolia House, had left and she had promised that she would keep in touch with her sisters but they weren't having it. Caitlin had looked at her in disappointment, Brigid had called her some choice words and Casey had cried.

  Hazel had discovered that silent tears could almost do a person in but even Casey's tears could not have dissuaded her.

  Even though Hazel had felt a pinch of regret and a generous dollop of guilt about leaving them, the sweet and serene call of freedom and the chance to be a normal person and not an orphan living at an institution had beckoned and she had seized the opportunity with both hands.

  It was not right for her sisters to blame Kenzy for her discontent and what they saw as her defection that year. She had wanted to get away, to rebel from all the rules and the confines of what she had come to view as her prison.

  She and Kenzy had a good first month from what she could remember. She had her own room; Kenzy and her Mom had treated her as if she was a long-lost family member. Kenzy definitely had more freedom than she should have at sixteen because her parents were away quite a bit for the summer.

  When they were away they left her and Kenzy with Amelia, a radio disc jockey at a party station who had an in with all the best parties in town. Amelia had to go to these parties as part of her job and she had no problems carrying her sixteen-year-old cousin and Hazel.

  "When you go to any party you are eighteen years old. I don't want to get in trouble," Amelia would warn them. "You just finished first year in college. Got that?"

  Hazel had protested at first. She was not used to lying and she was not particularly fond of parties and nightclubs. It all seemed so mindless to her and she hated the way the cigarette smoke got trapped in her hair, and she didn't like the taste of alcohol.

  She was a poor candidate for having a good time as defined by Amelia and Kenzy, but she had gone along with it anyway.

  Why not? She was free from Magnolia House and all the rules. She didn't have to get out of bed until twelve noon and her most pressing thing to do was to prepare herself to go to a party or lounge at the Blairs’ massive swimming pool and socialize with Kenzy's rich friends.

  And then the summer changed. Amelia had walked into the house, her high heels clicking on the marble floors. Hazel had been in the middle of watching a movie, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.

  Kenzy had found it boring because she had watched it five times already and was half dozing through the program when Amelia had walked into the living room in a onesie tiger print jumpsuit that emphasized her curvaceous body. Amelia had much of everything. She made Hazel and Kenzy feel boyish in comparison to her. They had both developed quite a bit of hero worship for the sophisticated Amelia. In her absence they had even adopted her mannerisms.

  "You are going to thank me," Amelia said when she had their attention. "I just got invited to the event of the summer, Adele Myers' engagement party!"

  "Get out!" Kenzy had screamed excitedly. "I can't believe it!"

  "Who is Adele Myers?" Hazel had asked belatedly as she watched Kenzy skip around the living room.

  "Forgive her," Kenzy turned to Amelia, "she is clueless as usual."

  She turned to Hazel. "Adele Myers is a super model. She was on Vogue and Seventeen… She is getting married to mega superstar Anton Cloud, the gangster rapper."

  "Oh." Hazel had turned back to the show.

  Amelia shook her head, stumped in the midst of Hazel's disinterest. "I have three invitations. Be ready to leave at nine tonight."

  "Yes!" Kenzy had jumped to hug her cousin. "You are the bestest cousin in the world."

  "Down brat." Amelia had shaken her off good-naturedly. "Remember that you guys are supposed to be over eighteen so don't be acting like wide-eyed teenybopper fans."

  Kenzy nodded excitedly. "Yes, we can do that. We can do mature and sophisticated. Have we ever let you down?"

  When Amelia left she dragged Hazel to her cavernous closet. "This is going to be big. Maybe we should borrow some of Mommy's clothes."

  She ran over to the master bedroom and rummaged through her mother's extensive wardrobe.

  "This is so you," Kenzy had squealed in excitement as she pulled down a green backless dress and put it close to Hazel. It featured a plunging neckline with crystal beads at the front. "You are going to be gorgeous. Now for me, I need to find something as hot."

  "Wait, Kenzy." Hazel had held up the swatch of cloth in uncertainty. She had never before worn anything this revealing. "I can't wear this."

  "Okay grandma." Kenzy took the dress from her. "I sorta knew you would say that. I'll wear it. You can wear this," she headed for a more demure red dress with a slit in the long sleeves. It was fairly short on her, though, and Hazel still felt uncomfortable.

  "We should straighten our hair."

  "No," Hazel said, looking in the mirror at her corkscrew curls. Matron Nash had a thing about them putting chemicals in their hair and had ordered them to leave it alone. Hazel and her sisters all had different types of hair and Matron had declared that she loved all of the textures. "Preserve it
in its natural state as long as you can," Matron would say.

  "Just a blowout and a flat iron so that your hair can look straight. It will look sleek and sophisticated. When it’s curly you look too young," Kenzy wheedled. "You are not at Magnolia House anymore, Hazy. Live a little."

  Hazel shrugged. "Okay, but this dress. It’s so..."

  "Just wear it!" Kenzy grinned in her face. "You know you'll look gorgeous. You know, if you were a bit taller you could give Adele Myers a run for her money. You have the look."

  That was her last memory up until November of that year.

  *****

  According to Kenzy she had gone to the party and had fun. She had stayed with Kenzy for the rest of the summer, until Patricia had returned from her European tour and had gone to the Blairs to get her. Kenzy said it had been an angry showdown between her parents and Patricia.

  Apparently in the months of July and August she and Kenzy had run wild, as Patricia had put it. Hazel couldn't remember a day of it. She had gone to a party and had fallen hard and hit her head sometime in August.

  Kenzy had been the one to describe the party, because she had no idea where or how that could have happened. Her whole summer and September to November was a blank. She found out that she was six months pregnant January the second, while she was doing her regular medical check up to go back to school. She hadn't even begun to show until the very first week in January and then her belly just popped out. She must have conceived in August.

  With whom, she had no clue, and Kenzy had no idea either.

  She must have had a secret relationship, and Hazel ran herself ragged wondering who it could be. Was it one of Kenzy's upper class friends? Or one of the bartenders at a party? Some of those guys had been pretty good looking. She used to giggle with Kenzy over one or two of them.

  Hazel sighed. She was tired of quizzing Kenzy about that summer. She got the same responses. "We went to parties, we went to Nocturnal nightclub and danced with celebrities, we even went to a yacht party. Trust me, no guys were involved; we were just having fun. I have no idea how you ended up pregnant!"