Charles still saw Maureen as a child, even after she’d traded bobby socks and matching pleats for cropped tops and minis. He supposed this shift reminded him more of a child playing dress-up than one growing up, but if Rory’s words were true, Maureen might be more like Charles, at fourteen, than he thought.
Rory could be bluffing, or lying. That was still a possibility. He’d certainly been eager to deflect Charles’ anger somewhere other than himself. But he could have done that in other ways, or chose a more likely sister to be in trouble, like Madeline, because when wasn’t that girl in trouble? Maureen’s name was what gave Charles pause and led him to think there might be truth in the rumors.
He decided the best person to ask about this was Augustus.
Charles and Augustus could not be two more different people. Augustus did not need to point this out for Charles to be acutely and persistently aware of it. His perfect grades, fastidious manners, conservative dress, and unfailing dedication to anything he put his mind to. All these things served as signs directing the neon “perfect son” sign right over Augustus’ head, while Charles clung to the important designation of being the heir, and the slightly better looking brother—Rory had just likened him to Steve McQueen, after all, when he could have as easily said Charles Bronson. Augustus could cure cancer and rid the world of hunger, but Charles was still the Deschanel heir, and that was that.
Or so he told himself.
When he found himself in need of aid, or advice, he invariably found himself in the confidences of his younger brother. Being around Augustus made him feel smarter himself, and perhaps more grounded, especially when he knew these things would never change his position in the household as the first. Smart, grounded friends made a man these things, too. This was why his friendship with Colin had flourished, while his friendships with the boys more like him had fizzled.
Augustus was studying in the dining room when Charles arrived, whirling through the house like a fresh spring storm. Augustus set down his pencil and pulled his glasses to the top of his head.
“I always know when it’s you.”
Charles smirked. “Yeah? Why?”
“I find myself searching my brain to make sure I know the most efficient hurricane evacuation routes out of the city.”
“Very funny. Can you see me laughing?”
“I can see you’re feeling something intense,” Augustus said, with just a hint of bemusement.
Charles dropped his arms on the oak table and leaned in. “Where’s Mom?”
“Making groceries. She took Lizzy about an hour ago.”
“And the other girls?”
“Out, except Colleen, who’s sleeping off what I imagine is a killer hangover.”
“Well,” Charles said, drawing the word out as he dropped into the seat, “I just returned from the Bourbon Orleans, where Rory Sullivan and Colleen shared a room for the night.”
Augustus’ brows shot up. “Well! That explains the look she gave me when she came in.”
“What time was that?”
“Just past three?”
Charles slapped his hands on the table. “Our sister came in at three in the morning and you didn’t ask her why?”
“It was prom night,” Augustus said with a shrug. “And she’s Colleen. I might have stopped Maddy, or Maureen.”
“Maureen,” Charles said. “Fucking Maureen. I don’t even know why I’m bothering to ask you, since you didn’t seem to notice or care that Colleen came in doing the walk of shame at three in the goddamn morning, but have you heard anything about what our dear Maureen has been up to?”
Augustus scrunched his face. “She’s failing a couple of her classes. Not long ago, she just ran away, right in the middle of dinner. But she’s at that age, I guess. Hormones, maybe?”
Charles’ head shook in a furor. “No, brother, we’re on the subject of late night sex calls, so why would I be talking about grades and dinner?”
His brother laughed. “What the devil does Maureen have to do with the subject of late night sex calls?”
“You tell me.”
“Charles, I’m really busy, so unless you have something specific, or—”
“She’s into something bad. I know it. Rory told me so.”
“Rory?” Augustus curled the corner of his mouth into a quick smile. “Before or after he had sex with our sister and you threatened his life?”
“I didn’t threaten his life.”
Augustus’ look conveyed his skepticism quite well.
“Even if I did, something feels fishy about this. Mom has been so busy trying to keep Madeline from joining the Peace Corps, and Lizzy can’t stop predicting the deaths of her friends’ daddies. Evangeline is too smart for her own good. I just don’t think it’s impossible that when we were busy with other things, Maureen decided to have her own little fun.”
“She’s fourteen,” Augustus said with the dry arrogance of someone who was boring as hell at the age of fourteen.
“And she’s more like me at fourteen than you at fourteen. Think about that for a moment.”
Augustus appeared to be giving the entire encounter some serious thought. He drew in several breaths, then released them in short intervals as he looked around the room, as if he expected some unseen ally to arrive and provide backup. “If she is up to something with a boy, it needs to stop. But if you confront her, throwing around accusations, we both know she won’t tell you anything.”
“So, you haven’t heard anything.”
“No! If I had, you don’t think I would’ve put a stop to it by now?”
“I don’t think you care about much, except studying. And Maddy.”
Augustus crossed his arms. “You should care about studying, too. As for Maddy, I’m trying to keep her from dropping out of school and ruining her life. Yes, I care about that. You should, too. She’s the one you need to be concerned about. Not Colleen having a little fun for a change, or Maureen throwing normal teenage tantrums.”
“Maddy is dramatic. And you eat it right up.” Charles mimed licking each of his fingers with great flourish.
“Are we done here?”
Charles pushed back the chair so far it rattled into the china cabinet. He stood, keeping his eyes on Augustus as he slowly backed out of the room.
“I’ll get the answers. And when I do, you’ll be eating your words, Spare.”
“Spare?”
“I’m the heir, you’re the spare.” Charles had heard this from some girl he dated for a night. She’d rambled on about a documentary she’d watched on the British royal family, and this idea that they always tried for at least two sons, in case the first one fell ill, or died. The heir, and the spare. He liked this. He’d use it as much as he could.
“Whatever you say, Huck,” Augustus said, less ruffled than Charles was hoping, and returned to his textbook.
* * *
Maureen lost herself to the frenetic rhythm of what Peter liked to call, “lovemaking, baby. Not sex. Not with us.” It was always fast, never slow, which confused Maureen, because in the movies she sometimes snuck from Charles’ room, the ones her mother would ground her forever for if she learned she’d watched, it was always the other way around. Lovemaking was slow, measured, with a tenderness that reminded her a little of the way a healthy family might interact. Sex was fast, rough, and impersonal, suggesting to Maureen it didn’t matter who was there, or why. A means to an end.
But Peter assured her these five-minute, feverish sessions in the back of his car, with his zipper undone but his pants intact, and her dress hiked up half around her neck, were how he showed his love. She wondered, if this was his love, how long did sex last? The length of a sneeze?
Maureen had her doubts, but did it really matter? If this was how he showed love, it was a step up, for sure. Her only experience with love before him was her mother’s shrill demands that Maureen fit her perfect mold, and whatever this was, whatever Peter thought of her, she walked away feeling better than she
did when she left home.
At thoughtful intervals, Maureen released her own contributions to the act, a series of grunts and moans, of begging for more, calling him daddy, which he insisted made the love even stronger. It was pretty weird, but she didn’t care. All that mattered to her was that Peter had promised to leave his wife and marry her, and she wouldn’t do anything that might cause him to change his mind. If that meant pretending to enjoy their lovemaking, or calling him strange nicknames, she would sign up a thousand times over.
For this was her only escape from the madness. The only place her own father wouldn’t follow, and for as much as she missed him, this place of limbo, where he was here, but not really, never in the way he once was, was somehow worse than standing at the Deschanel Tomb in the middle of a summer New Orleans storm and saying her final goodbyes.
When she married Peter, she worried her father might then start showing himself again. She had all sorts of theories as to why he didn’t follow her now. Perhaps he was horrified at the sight of his young daughter with an older man, or even that she had not saved herself for marriage. August Deschanel was, if nothing else, a very traditional man with traditional values. If he were still alive and found out, he’d probably show up on Mr. Evers’ doorstep with some harsh words. Might even challenge him to a duel, like they used to do, in the olden days.
But he wasn’t alive, and that was the problem. That was the very thing Maureen needed to flee from, as far as she could go, and Mr. Evers only lived across town, but that would have to be far enough.
Freedom wasn’t always exactly as you imagined it, but when it reached for you, you reached back and didn’t ask questions.
* * *
Maureen checked her reflection in the oval mirror just inside the front door of Oak Haven. She always felt the truth of her exploits could be read in every last pore on her face, but she also knew that was the way of the guilty. The flush in her cheeks could be from anything. There was a soft breeze outside, the kind they got just before summer descended with a vengeance. She’d re-braided her hair in the backseat, while Mr. Evers checked his own guilt in the rearview mirror, leaning his neck this way and that to make sure she hadn’t sucked too hard, or bitten him. She’d tried that once, and he, very seriously, told her not to do that again. When she asked why, he said he had a sensitive neck.
In these moments when Maureen stood in the foyer after a tryst with Mr. Evers, she felt as if she stood upon a precipice where her behavior remained a secret on one side and was revealed on the other. That the wrong step across the marble floor would decide things. One too many to the left, and Irish Colleen would fly from the kitchen, cheeks blazing, ready to drag Maureen by the ear and lock her in the shed. Even with blocking her thoughts, Maureen feared her siblings would find a way into her head, or that one of them, like Lizzy, might see a glimpse of the future with Maureen and Mr. Evers, and then fink to Mom and spoil the whole goddamn thing.
Each time, Maureen was frozen in place by this completely irrational, but entirely real, fear, and she knew the longer she stood, the more attention she drew to herself. When nothing happened, her fear faded to low-grade hostility, because if no one knew her secret, that also meant they didn’t care enough to wonder where she’d been.
This was what it was like to live a second life, and she wondered if anyone else in the house understood this. Charles, maybe? Certainly not wretched Colleen, or that cow Madeline and her pathetic lackey, Augustus.
No, she decided. She was the only one of the seven who dared to dream beyond the prison of these four walls. The only one with the imagination, and, let’s face it, the goddamn ingenuity to use what the Lord had given her to latch on to the man who would take her away from this place and into the world beyond, to a life all of her own.
Maureen stepped forward and held her breath. She squinted her eyes closed and waited. One. Two. Three. She released the breath and opened her eyes again. No screaming. No Irish Colleen demanding to know where she’d been.
Her secret was still safe.
* * *
She entered the dining room to a chaos that had nothing to do with her. Mama’s admonishments passed around the table as quickly and deftly as the dishes making the rounds. Each and every one of her siblings—even Charles who had, for once, decided to join them—wore a flushed, bewildered look, one Maureen knew all too well. Just more madness, and this was never more apparent than at dinner, the only time Irish Colleen had them all in one place and could run through her litany of complaints.
Soon I’ll have my own kitchen, and we’ll talk about the things that interest me.
“Father always told me to defend myself,” Evangeline pouted. When Maureen accepted the okra from her across the table, Evangeline’s glance up revealed a split lip and some purplish darkness around her left eye. Colleen fussed at her, healing her, because it was that simple in this house. What was broken could be mended, but it was never the same. “And he hit first.”
“Shit.” The word was out of Maureen’s mouth before she could think.
“Maureen!” came the set-your-clock-by-it reprimand from Irish Colleen.
Evangeline winked through her busted eye. Colleen chided her to be still, hissing that her magic required focus. “You should see the other guy.”
“This is not a joke, Evangeline. This is your life, and I am trying my very best to guide you toward a promising future, but antics like this will send you ten steps back for every step forward!”
Maureen, feeling charitable after some time with the man who would rescue her from this place, smiled at her sister. “You’re right, Evie. Daddy did say we should defend ourselves if someone hits first. Good for you.”
She enjoyed the burgeoning shock spreading across her older sister’s face. She could have knocked Evangeline over with a feather.
“Thanks, Maureen.”
“And you’re late for dinner again,” Irish Colleen said from the corner of her eye, leveling a hard, if brief, look in Maureen’s direction. For a fleeting moment, Maureen both worried her secret was in danger, but also felt a strange sort of warmth passing through her that her mother had bothered to notice she wasn’t where she should be, when she should be.
But then it was gone, and she moved on to Elizabeth and how they might need to place her in yet another school.
Maureen tuned this out, and everything after. She thought of Peter and his tan suspenders, and those weird leather patches he wore on the elbows of his tweed jackets, like he thought he was a professor and not teaching eighth graders Shakespeare. The stupid jokes he got from the bottom of some sweet treat he enjoyed, the one Maureen could never remember the name of and didn’t like the taste. Terrible jokes, really, like the one about how cannibals never ate clowns because they tasted funny. He liked to play with his uneven beard while he laughed, and he’d twirl it in his fingers like a cartoon villain, to the point it stayed that way when he was done, and he often went around the school with two inverse horns on his chin.
She smiled. While some girls daydreamed of handsome, muscled men in their Ferraris, Maureen’s dreams were realistic, and thus, achievable.
Across from her, Charles cleared his throat.
Maureen looked around the table. Everyone was occupied, everyone except she and her oldest brother. When her gaze finished on him, he had his tongue rolled to the side of his mouth and he tapped his fork against his temple. Appraising her.
Are you high? she mouthed at him, because this was on par with how weird he would get when he’d been into the cocaine before coming home.
In response, Charles set his fork across the plate and folded his hands on the table, looking far more mannered than she could ever remember seeing him. His gaze didn’t waver.
She wanted to ask what the hell was wrong with him, but when he didn’t look away, she realized she didn’t want to know. All around them, conversations flew in haphazard, diagonal directions, a lively table, as always, but not Charles. He seemed oblivious to everythin
g else in the room, except her.
“You must all take me for a mad hen, pecking away at all of you for the sport of it,” Irish Colleen was saying.
“There,” Colleen said. She patted Evangeline’s face, which was now devoid of any evidence of her indiscretion. Perfectly healed. The way of things, when you were a family of witches.
Maureen broke the strange locked intensity with Charles and, for once, was relieved to listen to her mother’s ramblings. In that moment, she wanted nothing more.
“We don’t think that, Mama,” Colleen said, as she returned to the moment at hand, lacking her usual enthusiasm for authority.
“Of course you don’t think that,” Madeline said with both eyes rolled hard to the ceiling.
“I love each of you,” Irish Colleen went on. Maureen was torn between sneaking glances at Charles, and the words of her mother, which had, in the moments Maureen had looked away, turned to tearful ones. “You are Deschanels. The world is yours and has been since the day of your birth.”
Irish Colleen turned a pointed look on her eldest son, but he was still fixed on Maureen. Maureen felt vaguely ill, like something terrible was about to happen, something she couldn’t stop. Like watching a plane crash.
“Witches. Warlocks.”
All children, even Charles, turned to their mother when she spoke the words. Irish Colleen knew what her children were, but had never addressed it head-on, instead treating their abilities like afflictions, or like a drunken uncle they had to hide in an attic when guests came over.
“That’s what you are, my little witches and warlocks. The world is yours, but the world is not ready for everything you have to offer. Your father left me with the tremendous burden of teaching all of you how to survive in this world being both of a very prominent, very visible family, and with a secret you can never share with anyone outside those closest to you.”
The Seven Boxed Set Page 8
