by Tiana Laveen
Bijou crossed her ankles and looked down at her hands as she nervously twisted them into a ball.
“My sister and I…had an unhealthy competitive relationship, Mark. My mother worked a lot, and it would just be her and me and my father.” She rolled her eyes. “His whereabouts were seldom known. Anyway, the trouble began when she believed our parents, particularly our mother, favored me, over her. It wasn’t true but…” Bijou shrugged. “That’s what she thought and well, you can’t really argue with emotions. They are what they are.”
Mark nodded in agreement.
“So, even as adults, it continued. Sometimes she’d accuse me of making eyes at some of her boyfriends, which wasn’t true. One of her boyfriends hit on me, and she blamed me for it. She was the type of person that kept a lot of her emotions inside and unfortunately, when she’d explode, I often got the brunt of it. She and I have both been accused of being aloof. It’s not only that; we were just raised to not wear your heart on your sleeve and keep your personal business to yourself.”
Mark leaned forward, taking in the brief silence before speaking. “You know, when I first met you at the funeral, I thought you were kind of closed off, but you intrigued me. Once I spoke to you at the party, I liked what I saw. Is that what I had seen before? The aloofness, as you call it?”
“Well, it’s what I’ve been told,” she shrugged. “Not much really bothers me, quite honestly. I’ve always been that way. I just don’t sweat the small stuff but regardless, I was the friendlier out of the two of us I suppose, and all that did was garner me more attention, making her even angrier. Rhine seemed to believe, that I was doing something to her, always trying to get one-upmanship. She even came after a couple of my boyfriends as payback for these alleged indiscretions.” She shook her head and rolled her eyes.
“Wait a minute, I thought you said she was always accusing you of trying to take her boyfriends? Why would she try to do the same to you?”
“Mark, you have a lot to learn about women if you really don’t know the answer to that.” Bijou looked at him, shook her head and chuckled uneasily. “Why? To pay me back, of course. She honestly believed everything she accused me of. We depended on one another. Sometimes, all she had was me.”
“Bijou, that relationship sounded dysfunctional. Just because someone is your sister doesn’t mean you have to put up with that sort of thing. You have to learn to love people from a distance.” There was a brief pause. “Regardless, you need to…”
Bijou shrugged and huffed in annoyance. “You don’t understand.”
“Oh, yes, I do, more than you know. I have a brother, like I told you, and he and I used to be very close but my own peace of mind was more important to me. What was it about her, besides her being your sister, that caused you to not be able to distance yourself?”
“When times were good, they were remarkable, but when they were bad…” Bijou shook her head. “It was like a battlefield.”
“Wow.” He deliberated over the information. “So, it makes sense to me that this all piled up on you emotionally and added to your feelings of guilt.”
“Yes, and things didn’t end well between us. She’d recently gotten engaged. I was happy for her. She was so excited to get married; she’d waited for this for so long. She was supposed to get married in two months…and now, her dream of getting married is gone…” Her voice trailed off.
Mark remained quiet while he listened to Bijou bare her soul.
“We’d go three or four months, sometimes even half a year, happy as clams and then, bam!” Bijou briefly closed her eyes. “It was so draining. We fell out again a week or so before she died. We kind of made up after that, but then got into another stupid argument, like I told you.” Her eyes watered. “And now that I really think she was in that bathroom with me, her anger…” Bijou lowered her head and rubbed her forehead anxiously. “Mark, the anger was so real. It was like being two inches away from a lion! I cannot tell you how frightened I was!”
Bijou’s voice escalated while Mark held her tightly against him.
“I’ve never been afraid of my sister before, ever! What am I talking about? I don’t even know if that was her…I feel like I’m caught in a nightmare. I don’t even believe in ghosts! This whole thing is like an out of body experience. I want this to stop! Whatever this is!” She was hysterical now.
“It’s OK, it’s going to be OK.”
“It was her,” she muttered under her breath. “I didn’t want to believe it was – it was just heaviness in the air. I didn’t know who or what it is, but after tonight, there is no doubt in my mind. I can’t even believe what I’m saying.” Bijou shrugged and wiped her eye, shaking her head as she continued to think. “She’s still angry…I…”
“What? What is it, Bijou? Tell me what happened when you saw her,” he pushed, seeing her trying to retreat from whatever memories flooded her at that heart-felt moment. He needed to hear it; he needed her to say it, to let it out, to release the demons that held her back for her own sake, and for them.
“Some days ago…something was breathing on me while I slept,” she admitted, looking away. “It only happened one time. I didn’t tell anyone, I was in disbelief, complete denial after it happened. Something hovered over me in my bed. I screamed! It was the shadow, like here. After a few minutes, which felt like an eternity, it just vanished. I tried to chalk it up as just a bad nightmare, but then, the thing in the bathroom was the same. I’d never had it happen before, but my bedroom, the following morning, smelled like her…like her perfume.” Bijou shook her head as tears fell from her eyes. “I didn’t want to believe it! I couldn’t afford to believe it! Deep down, she really was a good person, Mark.” She ran her hand through her hair. “She really was.” Her eyes pleaded with him, begging for understanding – for him to believe her.
“Look how she died,” Mark said softly as he helped brush her hair away from her ear and nestled close to her. “She died saving a child. That has to speak for something.”
“Yes, it does because, despite our tumultuous relationship, she was a good person.” She sniffed. “To other people, Rhine was gold…if she was given a chance. She was just…introverted. She went to college, got her teaching certificate and had a good career. So many of her students loved her; she was really happy at her job.”
“So things were good with her fiancé, too?”
“I don’t think she loved her fiancé. She said they didn’t have a lot of chemistry, but he was nice to her. I met him and he seemed decent enough. He travelled a lot for work though, so he wasn’t around often. I think she just wanted to get married, like many women – and I just wanted her to be happy. Our relationship was always so wishy-washy, but I could still tell she was feeling better about herself. Then…the storm hit and took my sister away!”
Mark squeezed and rocked her.
“We weren’t perfect, but she was my sister! She was mine and I hers…” Bijou pounded her index finger into her chest. “Mark, I don’t know what’s going on here, but I really think, for your own good, I need to leave you alone. At least it’s early on, and we can back out sooner rather than later. I’m sorry I’ve gotten you into this mess.”
“Stop it, don’t ever say that to me again.” He pulled back from her. “We haven’t had time to take this to the next level. I want time to do just that. I care about you, Bijou, and I believe you care about me, too.”
“I do, I care about you a lot, but that doesn’t matter.”
“That’s all that matters.”
“No, this isn’t fair to you. This is not a good time for me to be getting involved with a man if this is what it will bring.”
She stood and continued to dress, resolute. Mark’s angst turned into burning hot rage, yet he contained himself, remaining quiet and still, racking his brain to try and find a way to convince her she was wrong.
Bijou walked out of his bedroom. He stood from the bed and made his way down the hall to the staircase, calling out to her. But
her shoes clicked fast against the wood toward the steeple shaped vintage stain-glass door.
“So Rhine wins again, huh? Your bullying big sister gets to chase me off, even after death! Wow, Bijou…”
He white-knuckled the catwalk as he watched her become smaller and smaller. Her hand clutched the brass front door knob.
“I’m sorry, Mark,” she said before opening the door and closing it securely behind her.
* * *
Two weeks later…
“And there have been no further instances?” Mr. Kennedy asked as he pushed his bent, gold wire frame glasses up his nose. His disheveled salt and pepper hair spread in various directions as he deeply scratched his scalp.
“No, not since Bijou left my home.”
The local bookstore, Book By It’s Cover, was quiet, except the occasional drone of a flute from a nearby record player spinning as people mulled about with vintage LPs, new releases and stacks of magazines. Mr. Kennedy crumpled his newspaper as he looked down at it over his glasses, his thin, pale skin drawn downward.
“I don’t know what they call it down there in Miami, but here in ‘Orleans, we call it a succubus.”
“I know what that is…” Mark looked away in disgust. “It didn’t go that far though, but it was bad enough.”
“Well, that’s what happened, regardless of the intentions. Bijou is gone, but the sister is still there, trying to seduce you. Why didn’t you tell Bijou what happened?”
“Because I didn’t want her more scared than she already was. It doesn’t matter now though. She ran off, thinking she was protecting me.” Mark slammed his hands on the small, unsteady table, causing his coffee to rock back and forth. “The air works fine now. No more bumps in the night, no more umbrellas flying around, but she still came last night; it was brief, but it was her.”
“She kissed you while you slept. She wants you, Mark.”
Mark rolled his eyes. “Look, is there some way I can help Bijou? I really, really like this woman but we have a…rather unusual problem here, wouldn’t you say?”
“Well,” Mr. Kennedy sighed and leisurely rolled his paper up in a tight wad. “That’s where my sister, Clarabelle comes in.” He rubbed his long, pointed nose and leaned his frail body into his chair. “You see, Mark, it is apparent to me that Rhine wants to keep you two apart. She may not know she’s dead; I have no idea and that isn’t my expertise. She has set her sights on you.” He looked at him intently, “Bijou thought it was just because of her, but it has evolved since then. She is not the type of woman to want this sort of attention, this drama.” He smiled crookedly. “It’s a small world…I had no idea you were dating my great niece, yet you and I play chess here, once a week. All this time, you never told me you were dating a new girl. You always tell me about your love life.” He chuckled.
“Well, I didn’t want to jinx it, I guess. Hey, why weren’t you at the funeral? I could have found out then.”
“Would it have mattered?”
“Probably not.”
“Well, then.” Mr. Kennedy laughed. “I didn’t go because I was ill. Unfortunately though, I haven’t been close to that side of my family for years. Last time I saw them girls, they couldn’t have been more than eighteen and nineteen…beautiful girls, too. They could’ve been big-time models.”
Mark laughed. “And all this time, I thought you were white.”
Mr. Kennedy chuckled. “Yeah, everyone that ain’t from here thinks I am ’til I tell them otherwise. I’m Creole, thru and thru. Bijou and Rhine’s mama was from Baton Rouge, pretty brown skin woman…she worked like a dog though, taking care of them girls.”
“Where was their father?”
“Out paintin’ the town red…my brother’s son, my nephew Reginald, had a gamblin’ problem, a drinkin’ problem and a womanizin’ problem. He kept a job though, I got to hand that to ’im, but them girls practically raised their ownselves. They were grown before they were grown, if you know what I mean. Like little adults…rarely smiled, so serious…and mean, especially Rhine. Must’ve got that from Reginald. He was known to curse someone out and whip out a knife for the tiniest slight.”
Mark frowned at the words. This morning he’d decided to confide in an old friend, Mr. Kennedy, who he’d met two years ago at this bookstore. The lonely old man had invited him to play a game of chess with him while Mark hustled past him, trying to find a quick cup of coffee and a map…the rest was history.
“When I first met Bijou, she was…rather detached. I figured it was just due to the death of her sister. People respond to loss differently. Anyway, this standoffishness, I’ve seen glimpses of it here and there…” He looked down at the table, sorrow filling his chest. “She had a rather hard life. I didn’t realize that…but what you’ve shared explains it.”
“Now, hold off there.” The old man shook his finger in Mark’s direction. “They were good girls, OK? But, Rhine was not a pleasant young lady to be around. I remember just standin’ there, and she’d shoot me a hateful look. She hated their father, really and anyone associated wit’ him. Bijou, on the other hand, was always courteous the few times I spent any real amount of time around them. She’d offer me drinks and talk, smile and laugh…and Rhine, she’d stare at us interactin’. I even asked their mother, ’Lizabeth, if somethin’ was wrong with Rhine. She didn’t answer either way but that woman knew her daughter wasn’t wrapped right nor tight. Everyone knew it.”
“So,” Mark cocked his head in confusion. “She was crazy?”
“I reckon. Not the kind of crazy that would cause her to go out and kill an innocent man I s’pose, but she had a lot of rage inside her, the kind that isn’t normal for a girl her age. She would flip like a switch, like she was one of those…what do you call em? Like Sybil.”
“Schizophrenic?”
“Yes, all those damn personalities but all of her personalities went from mean to meaner to meanest.” He snapped his fingers.
Mark laughed, but it was more a laugh of nervousness.
Wonderful. So not only is she trying to keep Bijou away from me and sexually harassing me now, she is also a lunatic…
“Hmm, well, if this entity is in fact her, I need some help.” He sighed and rubbed his hands roughly over his face. “Because I was just getting somewhere with Bijou.”
“So you willin’ to fight a wayward ghost for a girl you barely know?” the old man laughed loudly, holding his stomach. He scratched the side of his thin, long lips with his index finger and looked around the store before taking another sip of his coffee. “I did some shit like that once, not the ghost part, but fell head over heels over a pretty face. I woulda fought ten men to get ten minutes wit’ ’er.”
There was a brief pause.
“Yeah, I can dig it,” the old man continued. “Bijou got that kind of beauty you’d fight twenty bears for, right?”
Mark didn’t respond.
“She has that effect on men, from what I’ve heard. You are the latest fallen soldier.”
Mark felt himself becoming angry. Something in him believed he needed to defend her honor, but his curiosity pushed him forward to inquire versus react. “What do you mean, effect on men?”
“My brother’s grandbaby was a siren, Mark. She was untouchable. Men would try to take them out, both of ’em, but no-can-do. Reginald kept them under lock and key, the few times he was sober and around, but he instilled in them that old fashioned modesty, he and their mama. They weren’t whores.” The old man sneered.
The mood in the room changed as Mr. Kennedy’s eyes went from medium blue to dark. Blue veins showed under his thin skin as he moved his neck to the side and scratched it with brute force. He left chalky white lines along it, a few of the dry skin flakes falling down onto his brown and green wrinkled, plaid shirt.
“That whole damn family, Mark was known to be stuck in time. It was incredible. The women cooked, cleaned, brains, beauty! BAM!” He slapped his palm against the table. “The men, strong, stoic and serious. T
o this day, I have no idea how Reginald fit into this. He didn’t fit at all…he was like a charity case. I guess that is what love will do, make someone defer from their teachings, their home trainin’.”
Mark felt sickened. He began to wonder if Bijou was a virgin before they’d slept together. Nothing about her mannerisms, confessions, utterances, the way she moved or screamed, tipped his hat during the experience but now, as he reflected, there were small things, like the way she received him, her gritted teeth…in some ways, it was like her first time…
Then there was the way she got up out of the bed afterward…slowly, so slowly he’d noticed it, but still hadn’t made the connection. He rubbed his chin as he tried to decipher if it were true or not. If she was, he’d known for a fact that she liked him just as much as he liked her. She’d chosen him, out of all the men that wanted her. She. Chose. Him.
Mark half listened while Kennedy continued to speak, still trying to make sense of it all. He sighed, as if a light had come on in his head.
As he thought back, however, he realized that in her own way, she did tell him. He played the conversation back in his mind…
When was the last time you made love?…“Well,” she’d laughed. “Let’s just say it’s been a while. I think my wait was long enough. I was waiting for the right person.
She never gave a date and time and when he was inside her, her tightness told her truths, loud and clear, but never in a million years did he think it was so literal. It all made sense now. He swallowed as his mouth became drier and drier.
Mark drummed the table while he tried to settle down and hide his realization. A twenty-eight year old virgin? Are you kidding me? One that looks like THAT?
“So, your sister, she is…a spiritual woman you say?”
“Call a duck a duck, Mark. She’s a damn witch, made a blind man see, and that’s for real. This is family, she’ll do it. Give me your phone. Let’s call ’er right now and see what she can do…”
