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.
And now in the fall, she saw him only in this small, Spartan apartment. Her summer help didn’t catch too much attention, as the enrollment was so much smaller in comparison to the other terms, but in fall, the aide role was coveted. She could no longer hold onto it without putting him under the microscope, not when she had no further classes of his.
It didn’t help that she’d come upon him standing over the shoulder of his new aide, a pretty blonde. She couldn’t hear what they were saying, but their smiles were equally bright, and even with her limited experience in flirting, she understood body language and felt like an intruder. Nor did it help that he snapped back in alarm when he saw Colleen enter the room.
Stop. Just stop. You’re a chronic over thinker. You steal your own joy!
Philip kissed her again. “I have to get to class.” Another kiss. “Mmm, but what I wouldn’t do to stay in bed with you all day.”
“I have class, too,” she said, but that was a lie, and she feared he’s see right through it. He might be open-minded about the metaphysical, but she couldn’t tell him about her family. She couldn’t tell him she had a tea date with her Aunt Ophelia and Evangeline, because she no longer trusted herself or her own ability to discern right from wrong.
“Tonight, then?” He was already dressing.
“I can’t tonight.”
“Is it your other boyfriend?”
Colleen looked shocked, and only when he laughed did she realize that, again, she’d missed the joke.
Tonight was the quarterly Collective Council meeting, yet another thing she couldn’t tell him, and with a sting of self-righteousness, realized she didn’t want to. If he could have his secrets, so could she.
Philip, dressed now, crawled over the sheets on all fours toward her. He fell back on his feet and reached for her face with both hands. “You are the most incredible woman I’ve ever known, Colleen.”
The creeping venom, that horrible green jealousy she loathed in others, slinked back where it had come from. She kissed him with her whole heart, and was once again his.
* * *
Colleen found Ophelia after several loops around the luscious gardens of The Gardens. She did a double take at the woman in scarlet hunched over among the vast sea of red lantanas.
“Tante!” Colleen said with a laugh. �
�You shouldn’t be out here laboring like this. You have gardeners to handle these tasks.”
Ophelia pulled off her red sun hat and regarded her niece with something bordering annoyance. “Are you suggesting I lie down and die, child?”
“Colleen doesn’t know any better than to stick her nose where it doesn’t belong,” sang Evangeline as she skipped up behind them, her boots announcing her long before her words.
“My dearest Evangeline, your hair continues to grow even as you do not.”
“Thank you, Tante,” Evangeline replied. She bounced her curls in one hand.
“But we’re here to talk about your sister’s most recent exploits, are we not?” Ophelia cast aside her hat like a Frisbee and mopped her brow with the back of her gardening glove.
“Exploits.” Colleen’s lip curled. “That makes me sound like I’m up to no good.”
“Well? Aren’t you?”
* * *
They settled in on the screened porch. The September heat made the outdoors untenable, but Ophelia had four fans going, and this felt much better than standing in the garden.
Aria, the young maid Ophelia had hired a few years back, brought out a pitcher of iced tea and some biscuits. Ophelia indulged herself first and let the young women serve themselves.
“You look good, Tante,” Colleen said.
“I was going to say you looked better than before the pneumonia, but wasn’t sure if that was taking it a step too far,” Evangeline added.
Ophelia squinted at the younger girl before erupting into gravelly laughter. “Evangeline, dear, never lose your candor. Never, please. Where Colleen will tell me what she thinks I most wish to hear, you’ve always told me the truth.”
“I don’t lie to you,” Colleen defended.
“Not lying is not a match for pure honesty.”
“As it is, I do feel better. One of my doctors, bless the poor man, for I fired him for this comment, but he remarked to me that often the elderly will experience a burst of energy before the end. Well, I feel most assured that this is not the end. Not today, anyway.”
Colleen wished that day would never come, but that was the foolish pining of a child.
“That doesn’t mean I don’t make the most of every precious second, though,” Ophelia said. She drew her glass, covered in dewy condensation, to her lips, both girls fixated on her shaky hand. When she caught them, she tsked them both. “So, let us get right to it. Our Colleen is enjoying time with her teacher in the Lord’s way. He’s twice her age and still married. Is that enough to catch me up?”
To hear it through such stark words made Colleen’s joy assemble in the pit of her stomach.
“Yes, Tante,” Evangeline said, when Colleen didn’t. “And it wouldn’t be typical Colleen if she wasn’t worrying herself sick over it.”
“No,” Ophelia agreed. “The heart of the matter, then. Your worries, are they more centered around whether what you are doing is right or wrong? Whether he loves you? Whether he is lying about his relationship with the woman still legally his wife, and always mother of his children?”
“I suppose it’s all of that,” Colleen said. “And also none of that. I’m so conflicted, but I know this conflict is not so black and white for me. I’ve passed up many opportunities to follow my heart, or my more baser instincts, over what I knew to be right. But what has me so confused is that when I’m with him, it feels right, in a way things never did with Rory. I know you both think I’m foolish for caring so much about things like this, but the fact that he is my intellectual equal is an incredible draw for me. I feel, for once, like I’m with someone who is most like me.”
Evangeline reached across the chairs and squeezed her hand.
“I don’t think you’re foolish for wanting a partner who brings out the best of what is already great in you,” Ophelia said. “But it is foolish to believe there is only one man in the world capable of filling that void for you. Philip is only the first, Colleen. He doesn’t need to be the last, or even the best.”
“But what if he is?”
Ophelia’s wrinkles formed a tight smile. “You are a sly one, and I can never tell when you are seeking conversation or divination.”
Colleen looked away. She did this with her aunt, had always done this, where she rode the line, never daring to ask for her future, but not opposed to the idea of it accidentally slipping out from a misunderstanding of intention. “Today, I just want your advice.”
“I find that hard to give when I’ve already seen your future.”
“Oooh, let me guess, she marries Ryan O’Neal, after he reveals he’s really, in real life, the same dreamy Harvard Law student he played in Love Story.”
Ophelia and Colleen both looked at her as if she were an alien.
“He also has a professional curiosity about telepathy and other metaphysical disciplines,” Colleen said. “He’s not some hippie from the Haight, high on LSD. He’s a thrice-degreed science professor whose work has been peer-reviewed many times over.”
“People are curious about ghosts until they’re haunted by one,” Ophelia said.
“I’m only pointing out how hard it is for those who marry into this family to come to terms with what we are.”
“Now you want to marry him?”
“No, that isn’t what I meant!”
“You should think about what you do mean. I’ll give you the advice I’d give anyone in your situation, Colleen. You are no longer his student, and the ethics of that should not play into your decision here. The college might feel differently, but he is the one who needs to worry about that, not you. However… unhappy men cheat, but most never leave their wives.”
“It isn’t cheating if they’re separated,” Colleen said, ignoring the sound Evangeline made to her right. “They’re still married because it makes it easier to care for their sons. They take turns living in the house so the boys don’t feel abandoned.”
Ophelia tilted her head to the side. She looked directly into Colleen’s eyes. “Now that you’ve said it all aloud, does it feel more or less like bullshit?”
“You don’t know him,” Colleen said, and even that felt weak, and she thought herself weak, too, for saying it.
“Leena,” Evangeline started, in her I’m about to educate you, but it’s really just love voice. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe he’s got this arrangement with his wife for good reasons. But you wouldn’t have pulled out the big guns”—she winked at Ophelia—“if you didn’t have reason to doubt him. Now that you’ve gotten your sage wisdom of the ancients, which you’re hesitant to take, I see only one path forward for you.”
“Oh?”
“You have to do a little reconnaissance work. Figure out what is true that he’s told you and what might not be.”
“What are you talking about? Spying?”
Evangeline shrugged. “Desperate times, and all that.”
Ophelia’s sigh filled the room. “You’re leaving for Scotland in less than a year, Colleen. Whatever you might be feeling, use this as your guide to temper yourself. Is this a man who will be waiting for you in four years?”
Colleen recoiled at what seemed less about him and more about her. Her ego stung. And why wouldn’t he wait for her? Was she not worth waiting for?
“Don’t get your hackles up with me, young lady. If you came to hear me sing his praises as your Prince Charming, you’ve come to the wrong place, and you knew that before you walked in.” Ophelia reached for her cane and wobbled to a stand. “You want my advice? Here it is, Colleen. You already know the answer. Your gut has always known, and your gut doesn’t steer you wrong. I challenge you to find one example of where leading with your gut led you false.”
Evangeline nodded as though taking credit for the words.
“I have feelings for him. I think they’re real,” Colleen said helplessly.
“Bully for you,” said Ophelia and hobbled back into the house.
Twelve
Strange Bedfellows
&
nbsp; Charles resisted the engagement party with every last bit of authority he still possessed with his mother. She had her mind set on the tradition, despite how little regard she held the Deschanel traditions in. She was an anachronism of disgust and acquiescence, and it was as if August was guiding and encouraging her from the grave. Even Ophelia said, when she came over for a rare afternoon tea, For the love of Pete, are you really going to put the poor boy through this, Colleen?
Charles had no desire to make a bad situation worse, and, as Cordelia had said, their mutual hatred was the one thing they did have in common. He knew she was even less enthused about the party, so he’d called her ahead of time to see if she could work on her father.
“Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows,” she’d replied.
“Huh?”
“Shakespeare. You must have heard of him. Then again…”
You might say I’ve heard of him. “Yeah, sure."
“I’ll work on it,” she said with her signature world-weary sigh—one he was already so familiar with—and hung up the phone without another word, or goodbye.
Charles had no doubt of her commitment to seeing the party cancelled, but even her determined toxicity wasn’t enough to stop this train from leaving the station.
For a woman who harbored such disdain for her husband’s family and privilege, Irish Colleen had more contacts than a councilman’s rolodex. All the wealthy Garden District, Mandeville, Metairie, and Uptown families were well represented, including the many branches of the Deschanels’ own tree. The Sullivans were there, too, although they were a different brand of bourgeoisie, having earned their money the old-fashioned way. Many doors still remained closed to them, though on the arms of a Deschanel, they were welcomed anywhere. The Sullivans were possessed of a stubborn pride about who they were and their path to get there, and Charles knew they turned their noses up at the idea that the Deschanels were their access to many things. But it was the Sullivans who had been there for their family at their darkest hours. Not the Weatherlys, or the Conrads, or the Villeneuves. Charles would take a Sullivan over any of them, any day of the week.
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