by Milly Taiden
“Oh, plenty. Trust me.”
“A few high school boys does not an expert make.”
“How about some high school boys, some college boys, and a few businessmen for good measure?” Giselle’s eyes gleamed as she tormented her older sister.
“Why is it so important for you to preserve your reputation as a complete and total slut?”
As they bickered, Lucie smiled and leaned forward so she was close to Adrienne. “It will be okay, Adrienne,” she said, so softly only the two of them heard it.
Summer school. A writing course Adrienne regretted signing up for. A boy her age stood before her, his hand covering the doorframe to the classroom. He had asked her something, and was blocking her entrance until he had his answer.
“I’m sorry, I can’t,” Adrienne said, but didn’t meet his eyes. She was uncomfortable with this conversation, and with this boy. Jason.
“Are you seeing someone?” His smile was almost overwhelming. Adrienne thought it must be very useful to him.
“No, not exactly.” Why had she not simply told him she was unavailable? She didn’t have to reveal her secret about Oz, but she could have stopped his questioning with a few words. Jason had been relentless for weeks.
“Then it’s a date. I will pick you up tomorrow night at eight.” He gave her no chance to answer, disappearing inside the classroom.
Later that night, on the phone, she told Oz, “My father wants to have a family dinner tomorrow night…”
“Are you saying I shouldn’t bother coming out?” Oz sounded sad.
“I wouldn’t be able to see you.” Adrienne's stomach churned. It bothered her that she hadn't marched back into the classroom and told Jason to leave her alone. She felt that old guilt at stealing Oz’s life away from him, and a part of her was justifying this date by telling herself she was doing him a favor. Oh, tangled web!
She heard Oz chuckle lightly on the other end. His laugh warmed her whole soul. “Well, I suppose I could actually do something constructive for a change.”
She laughed with him, but her heart wasn’t in it.
Dinner. Antoine’s. Before her father ruined their weekends in the Quarter. Oz was talking about one of his professors at Tulane. Adrienne watched him, and, ah, he was so handsome! She always thought him handsome. His black hair was so dark it sometimes seemed blue or purple in the right light. And his eyes; Irish green, like his heritage. Whoever said eyes were windows to the soul had no idea how true that was, not the way Adrienne did when she looked at him. And those dimples... the slight cleft in his chin… his voice… soft, and inviting…
“Are you even listening to me?” he asked, his tone teasing.
“No,” she confessed. “I was watching you.”
He winked. “Not that I can blame you.”
“Ah, and just like that, you are Antony again!” Her eyes grew wide and they both laughed.
Oz's eyes glazed over, and she thought she had lost him for a second. He bit his lower lip thoughtfully, and looked so very young suddenly.
“What would I ever do if I lost you, Adrienne?”
Oz’s house. His bed. Adrienne felt both insignificant and powerful in his arms. His body was so strong; in his arms, she became someone else entirely. Someone sexy, sophisticated, and experienced in the world. It was always like this, but better each time. He moved inside of her, and she looked up, seeing his eyes on her as always. He never closed them when they made love.
She tilted her head back to receive his kisses on her neck, and soon the anticipation was too much to bear. When would he realize this was forever, this feeling? When would he admit to himself they started something that nothing–not time, nor fights, nor age, nor lies–could ever end? She arched her back to receive him, and they climaxed together until there was nothing left but each other.
She was in the living room of Oz’s house. No, not Oz’s.
Catherine and Colin sat in their living room and watched her with careful anticipation, as if she could lose control of herself at any moment.
“You know this is not good for either of you,” Colin was saying. In his eyes, Adrienne saw pity for her; she hated him for a brief moment, despite his goodness and warm intentions for his son.
“I don’t know anything of the sort!” Adrienne found herself yelling, feeling like the child she really was, in spite of her desire to prove differently. “I don’t know why you can’t leave us alone!” She wished Oz was there. Together they could defend their love for hours, but she could not find the words now.
Catherine gave her a placating smile, but her face creased in worry. “Adrienne, sweetheart, we all go through our first taste of love at sixteen. I remember mine… oh, he was so handsome, and he said the most wonderful things to me.” She looked at Colin, but he was staring off at something across the room, lost in his thoughts. “It can be very confusing, and it’s normal to think the feelings you are having are the best it ever gets.” Where was Oz? Did he know about this? Had he planned it? Where was he?
Adrienne finally put voice to her question.
Catherine and Colin exchanged glances, and Colin nodded. “We decided it was best that he not be part of this discussion,” Colin said. “Oz is not fully in charge of his emotions at the present.”
Adrienne was stunned at this betrayal. “You say that because we love each other and you don’t approve,” she said coldly. “You say that because, for whatever reason, one I can’t presume to know, you despise me and think that I am out to ruin your son.” She stood, sobbing. “But I am not! I l-l-love him!”
She was in full-blown hyperventilation as she ran out of the living room, through the dining room, and to the front door. Catherine was close behind her. As Adrienne struggled with the front door, Catherine grabbed her from behind, an embrace not of restraint but tenderness.
“We don’t hate you,” Catherine whispered softly in Adrienne’s ear as the latter thrashed around. Adrienne slowly began to relax, and crumbled into Catherine’s gentle hold. “We don’t hate you, darling. There, there.”
As the last of the sobs choked up from Adrienne, Catherine turned her and kissed her forehead. “We love Oz very much. He is our only son. Please remember that whatever you are feeling, your actions always have consequences, even when your intentions are pure. I’ll say no more.”
“I can’t take anymore!” Adrienne screamed to Oz’s quiet bedroom. She threw the covers back, running to the bathroom. She still saw his face in Antoine’s; felt her deception; experienced his touch deep within her. It was too much, too fast. Oh God, this is not what I wanted!
Rifling through the cabinet, she found some over-the-counter sleeping pills and took two. Adrienne closed the door and slid down to the floor, knees to her chest, sobbing silently as she prayed to a God she hadn’t yet remembered if she believed in, waiting for the pills to help silence the searing memories.
Her sleep was not restful.
It did give her answers…
But, knowing what she knew now, did she really want them?
They were in the car: Adrienne, her sisters, her father, and of course, Cordelia.
She would never understand her father’s reasons for staying with the wretched woman. Cordelia was so caustic, always. Why had Cordelia even agreed to go on this vacation with the five people in the world she hated the most?
Adrienne didn’t care. She leaned her head against the window as she listened to her father and stepmother argue. Giselle and Nathalie were playing some card game in the very back, and Lucie was resting.
She wished Nicolas had chosen to join them. He would say something wise and funny all at once, that would sum up the situation at hand. She missed him suddenly. Not the way she missed Oz, but then, she often thought of her brother in association with Oz. Nicolas surprised them both so much when he became their silent conspirator. She might never know why, but oh, how she loved him for it.
She thought about how she and Oz had laughed and plotted their elopement, never
once thinking of what it really meant, or whether it was even the right thing to do. Adrienne was tormented by the secret she'd been keeping from him these past couple of weeks; one she had all but dangled in his face and then, at the last minute, decided not to tell him. What a childish thing to do for such an adult situation they were about to be faced with. She put her hand to her stomach and shut her eyes tight, blocking out her parents’ teeth-clenching argument.
Adrienne felt very empty all of a sudden. This was her life away from Oz, the part that didn’t include him. She imagined him back at home, maybe registering for classes or picking out dinner. She saw the stark contrast of what he needed and what she could offer him. Her hand went to her stomach again and she squeezed her eyes closed even tighter.
She saw now what she could never have seen while he was holding her or looking at her. She saw what he never would see, because he had blocked his sensibilities for her sake. Marriage! Marriage of what, irrational thoughts and fantasy? She somehow persuaded him to not think of the most obvious and crucial aspects of what they had; the complete and utter insensibility and insanity in imagining any real future existed! And this secret she kept from him was no longer an exciting taste of their future, but a very real and serious weight dragging her down.
Adrienne looked down at Lucie, stretched out in the seat bench beside her. Her hand reached out to touch the sister who was older in age only, and Lucie stirred softly. Behind her, Giselle grunted as she was jostled when the car hit a bump.
“Maybe you should put your seatbelts on,” Adrienne offered, sounding ruder than she intended.
“Maybe you should bite me,” Giselle retorted.
“She's right, we are going awful fast,” Nathalie said wisely.
“But then we can’t play cards!” Giselle whined.
Nathalie sighed, and conceded, “We’ll finish the game.”
The arguing between her parents continued, their agitation so great they forgot to keep their voices down. Adrienne could hear more than she cared to.
“What I do with my money is none of your concern!” her father exclaimed.
Cordelia was using the tone she employed when she wanted to sound like the reasonable one, but was losing control. Adrienne knew it well, because the worst things came out of Cordelia’s mouth when she was cornered.
“If you don’t care about this family’s reputation, then somebody has to.”
“Oh fuck your concern, Cordelia. We all know what this is about! What everything you run your mouth on is about!”
“Charles, please do share, as I cannot possibly go on another minute without knowing!”
He had the propriety to lower his voice this time, but Adrienne got the general idea. All their fights were about money, Nicolas, or the four girls whose role in the family Cordelia would love to see end.
Adrienne tried to tune them out, and found herself watching the traffic signs alight as their headlights hit them. The next one said, “Abbeville, 10.”
“Lovely, we get to go through Abbeville,” Cordelia said from up ahead. “We may as well stop and pay our respects.”
“Enough,” her father said. “Or we will stop.”
“She would love that. It’s been years since you last stopped in. But then, I’m sure Angelique couldn’t care less whether you come by or not, as long as you keep sending the checks!”
Adrienne met her father’s eyes in the rearview mirror; he dropped his voice, and Adrienne thought he sounded scared. “I swear to God, Cordelia…”
“I don’t believe it means much to swear on a God you don’t believe in, despite how often you might accept the sacrament,” she threw back.
“Keep your voice down!”
“You can’t silence me, Charles. Perhaps if there was any real love between us, you could. But there isn’t. And I don’t care what you think of me! In that way, maybe that ignorant twit Angelique and I do have something in common. As long as the money is there, peace will reign in the lands!”
Adrienne tuned out the rest of what they were saying. Their fights were part of what Adrienne and her sisters knew of as daily life in the Deschanel home. Adrienne had no interest in who Angelique was, because she automatically sided with her father in every argument, topic irrelevant.
She closed her eyes once again and tried to think of anything other than the child growing in her womb.
What happened next, happened fast. Adrienne remembered nothing from the time she drifted off to sleep, until the moment she awoke wet, bloodied, and unable to see anything through the darkness and smoke.
She sat in shallow water, filled with branches, leaves, and other murkiness. She tried to stand, but one of her legs gave out, broken. Looking to the left, she saw a car… the car they had been sitting in only moments earlier; Giselle and Nathalie still playing their card game, Lucie resting, her parents engaged in the same “discreet” argument. But now the car was upside down and crunched into the side of a great oak, smoking.
“No,” she heard herself say, but her voice was weak and insignificant compared to what she was seeing in front of her eyes. “No!” This time, she screamed.
Her arms flailed around her, trying to gain movement apart from her legs. She slid across something slimy, and as she did, the water grew deeper. The tree she had been so close to grew further away. “No!” Where were her parents? Giselle? Nathalie? Lucienne?
“God, help me!” Adrienne screamed, now aware of the sound of tires spinning, and the hissing of the engine up ahead. She reached up to her forehead and felt the glass, all that glass, as she tried to steady herself. “Father!”
So much smoke, and darkness. She could see nothing except the outline of the car, now half the size it was before. “Nathalie! Please, someone! Giselle!”
“Lucie!”
Her vision blurred now and she stumbled to steady herself, instead falling further into the water as she went down, down into it until there was nothing.
Adrienne’s head lolled back against an arm. As she briefly opened her eyes, she saw the face of an old man. She knew this because he had white hair and his face was soothing, making her feel like she was in a dream state. He carried her, moving very slowly up and down as he lifted his feet through the murky water. The man talked to himself, praying, hoping aloud he could get her to the young man quickly, before it was too late.
She closed her eyes again.
Faces above her. Three. She didn’t know any of them. The old man was gone. She didn’t know why they were standing over her, or why she was there. Or how she had gotten there. Or where there was.
Or who she was.
A young man was holding her hand in his, looking defeated and sad.
Then, a woman, an older woman, with such kindness in her voice as she said, “There was nothing we could do about the baby.”
Adrienne awoke the next morning at Oz's house before first light, her mind heavy with thoughts both formed and unformed.
She had not changed her mind about one thing: she must leave.
Jesse had said to her, “Life doesn’t resolve itself neatly like it does in books or movies. This won’t end up the way you want it to, and you have to make a choice.”
Jesse. He was so smart, and wasted all of it on that ungrateful mother of his. Oh, how Adrienne loathed her. Almost as much as she loathed herself for believing that, somehow, this trip was for Jesse. Such self-deceptive bullshit!
It had been for her! Her and no one else.
It was a miracle Oz hadn’t figured her out yet. One could only attribute that to the self-protective barrier he had constructed around himself since the day he first saw her in Abbeville. He had spent months, maybe years, getting over her, believing she was dead and lost forever. It was so unfair to waltz into his life again. She knew it now.
And there’d been a child. A baby. A secret she’d known for almost two weeks before her family’s ill-fated trip. She had dangled it before him, promising to tell him but wanting to savor the moment by prolonging
it.
He could never know she had kept that from him.
For her part, she would keep her thoughts locked on the surface. She would not let herself think of everything she had lost. Her mind would not survive it.
Now, all she could do was hope; hope Jesse would accept her back; hope Angelique would not do something none of them could reverse; hope, somehow, Oz could forgive her for leaving him a second time with no explanation.
***
25- Oz
I did not sleep well.
I was beginning to wonder if something was really wrong with Adrienne; maybe she was experiencing some issues beyond her memory loss.
The entire visit was suspect. She had not even asked about her estate, despite this being the purpose of her trip to see me. She had, in fact, asked very little of anything, and she hadn’t made any attempts at going off on her own. Hadn’t requested to see any pictures, paperwork, news clippings. Nothing. And never mind how odd it was for her chivalrous beau, Jesse, to first take the time to establish his position for me in the bar, but then let her run off and stay with me having no end date in mind.
And then the episode at Ophélie. How to even interpret it? I won’t pretend I didn’t feel that old warmth at her neediness for me. It was achingly familiar, and for those few moments on the balcony, after she threw herself into my arms, I could almost feel the clock turning back three years and bringing with it the desperation we felt in our stolen time.
My logical mind was at a complete loss.
There was one person whom I thought might be able to help put things in order. I knew Adrienne would be unhappy with me after promising to keep her visit a secret, but at this point it was clear we were at an impasse. Either I couldn’t help her, or she didn’t really want to be helped. I was in over my head.
