Nineteen Seventy-Four

by Sarah M. Cradit

  She had a small, but generous mouth. Augustus once heard Maureen telling one of the other girls about how she’d been pinching her bottom lip in order to give herself a “feminine pout,” and while he had no actual idea what that was, it seemed Ekatherina had this naturally. She never wore lipstick—something he was only certain of by the frequency of which she chewed her lips, and the unchangeable color of the surface—but she didn’t need to, and even today, on her wedding day, he was happy not to taste the waxy blend that reminded him of kissing Carolina.

  When he pulled back, Ekatherina was smiling, and that was enough to restore his heartrate to normal.

  He pitched forward as his brother, looking both dapper and out of place in his bespoke tuxedo, clapped him hard on the back. “Congratulations, my man.” Charles stepped around Augustus and kissed Ekatherina on both cheeks. “Welcome to the family, sister.”

  “Thank you.” Her timidity in the face of Charles’ intensity caused Augustus’ anxiety to reappear as he agonized over whether or not she would ever be happy as a Deschanel, in a family so unlike hers.

  Or was it? Augustus didn’t know, but he intended to find out. For her.

  Irish Colleen had grudgingly agreed to a small wedding, after Augustus threatened to elope, but she insisted all his siblings be represented in the wedding party. This was the first wedding of the generation, and the family would be a part of it. Augustus didn’t mind this part so much. He loved his siblings, and when he’d declared he wanted a small wedding, he of course meant they should be there. But this posed a problem, because he had a disproportionate number of sisters.

  Colleen paired with Charles as the maid of honor, but that left his three younger sisters needing groomsmen. Augustus didn’t have friends, only business acquaintances, a fact that never bothered him until faced with deciding who should be at his side on the biggest day of his life. Now, it was a bleak reminder that the life he required to keep himself focused on what was important was also no life at all by the standards of most.

  In the end, he chose the Sullivan brothers. They were practically family, and ready-made for the task. Colin, Rory, and Patrick were all too happy for the honor.

  Was Ekatherina resentful of having four women she hardly knew stand at her side as she married? Was she thinking of her own sister, Anasofiya? As a wedding gift, he planned to present to her a copy of his letter to the Soviet Embassy, making a formal request for her family to join them in New Orleans. By Christmas, she’d be reunited with her beloved family, and all would be well. The last of her tension would slip away, as would his, and they could begin anew.

  Evangeline pressed through the small crowd gathering at the altar. The taffeta bulging at her arms set off her wild hair with even more of a feral look than usual as she stomped in her platform heels.

  She shook Charles aside and took Ekatherina’s tiny triceps into her hands. The cornered look in Ekatherina’s eyes put Augustus on edge, but he trusted his sister not to murder her new sister-in-law on the day of her wedding.

  “We didn’t get off to the best start, Ekatherina,” Evangeline said. She released her hands temporarily to tug at the hem of her dress, shuffling her body around in very obvious discomfort. “But you’re the first person to make my brother happy, since… well, since. So welcome to our family, sister.”

  Ekatherina dropped her eyes, but not before Augustus witnessed the tears brewing. She’d so far said one thing and only one thing about the family she was marrying into, and it had come days before the wedding. You have many sisters. They will not want another.

  They will if they see me happy.

  Are you happy?

  Augustus had taken her diminutive hands in his and turned them over, studying the lines in her palms. I think this is the happiest I’ve ever been, he said, not adding that he didn’t really know what happiness felt like so he wasn’t sure he’d recognize it in any case. This must be happiness. Perhaps he just didn’t feel it at the decibel of most.

  “Well, I need a drink!” Evangeline declared and, lifting her skirts, stomped off in the direction of the bar set up just beyond the parterre garden.

  Maureen appeared and slid her arm through Ekatherina’s. “Welcome to the family, Catherine!”

  Augustus breathed out, relieved at least one of his sisters remembered how sensitive his bride was about her traditional name. Even if he couldn’t bring himself to use it.

  “Seems to me you don’t know very many people here, do you?” Maureen asked. She laughed. “Hell’s bells, I didn’t know you until Christmas. Don’t you be letting Augustus hide you away, okay? He’s too private for his own good, but you don’t have to be.”

  Ekatherina looked at Augustus for direction. He smiled, and then Ekatherina smiled at Maureen.

  “Brother, can I borrow your bride for a bit? I’ll introduce her to the people you failed to. Heaven knows you’ll have her all to yourself tonight.” Maureen winked.

  Augustus flushed and nodded. In an awkward series of starts and stops, he leaned forward and pecked Ekatherina on the lips before watching them disappear into the small crowd of close friends and family.

  “She’s smoking hot,” Charles noted, pulling up at his brother’s side with his arms crossed. “I mean, not in a way you’d notice right off the bat. But Russia sure does know how to make ’em. No wonder we’re at war with them.”

  “That’s not what the Cold War is about,” Augustus replied, channeling Madeline. Today, of all days, seemed the occasion to take up her cross. Her absence rarely felt so acute as it had seeing his beautiful sisters lined up to celebrate his day. All his sisters but one. “People are starving in the Soviet Union, Charles. Her family included.”

  Charles nodded and a slow realization spread across his face. “Is that… what this is, Aggie?”

  Augustus shook his head, not only to dispel his brother of this, but also himself. He couldn’t pause on this thought long enough to consider that Ekatherina’s affections might not be as in earnest as his own. “No, but I’ll bring them here if it’s the last thing I do. Ekatherina came to this country to make a place for them. Why shouldn’t I make that easier?”

  “Yeah, right. Of course.” Charles nodded into the crowd. “Fucking Cat. My Cat, that is. Or not my fucking Cat, not anymore. Look at her.”

  “What am I looking at?”

  “That dress. Girls don’t wear dresses like that unless they’re wanting someone to notice them. That’s a fuck me dress, if I’ve ever seen one.”

  Augustus thought Catherine’s dress was modest, if flattering to her figure, but Charles was looking for affirmations, not reality. It was easier for him to believe Catherine was miserable, crying into her pillow every night for the love that got away. “And just whose attention is she trying to get, do you suppose? You know, being a married woman, with her husband at her side.”

  Charles reached into his tuxedo jacket and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. “Won’t give her the satisfaction,” he muttered as he slipped one between his lips. “Not now. Not ever.”

  “Your fiancée is around here somewhere anyway,” Augustus pointed out.

  The cigarette bobbed in Charles’ mouth as he gave his brother a powerful sideways glare.

  Augustus stifled a chuckle, but not well. “I don’t understand why you’re marrying someone you clearly despise.”

  “You know why.”

  “Mama?”

  Charles tilted his head as if to say, bingo.

  “You’ve never listened to Mama about anything. Why this?”

  Charles took a deep exhale and held the smoke in his lungs for a theatrical intermission. He released it in two streams from his nostrils. “You don’t know the half of it.”

  “She figure out you moonlight as a murderer and hold it over your head?” Augustus realized how much things had changed since Madeline died, that he could joke about something so horrific.

  Charles rolled his tongue around, across his bottom lip and inside it. “If you only k
new.”

  “I could talk to her.”

  “Mama?” Charles released another cloud of smoke. “Or Lucifer?”

  “Lucifer? Jesus, Charles. No, Mama. I don’t think she realizes what she’s doing. She wants you to settle down, of course, but this is only going to make matters worse, forcing you into a marriage.”

  “Thanks, but please don’t. I don’t want to get into it here, but I’ve made my decision, and I’m going through with it.”

  “She’s not ugly,” Augustus offered.

  “If this is your idea of a comforting thought, don’t quit your day job.”

  Augustus shrugged. “I won’t lie and say she’s pleasant. We both know she’s a touch different.”

  “A touch?”

  “There’s still time to call it off, Charles. You don’t have to throw your life away for some misguided idea of honor.”

  Charles shook his head and gripped his shoulder in a quick squeeze. “We can bitch about life later, Augustus. Today’s your wedding day, and I’ll be damned if you don’t finally enjoy something for a change.”

  * * *

  Augustus played the gracious host, greeting each of the guests individually as he thanked them for coming to his special day. Even Carolina, whose belly was so swollen with pregnancy that it overwhelmed her small frame to the point he was certain she would tip over and be unable to get back up.

  “You’re glowing,” he said as he kissed both her cheeks. Rory hovered protectively at her side, one arm steadying her from behind. The white rose pinned at his breast, denoting his role as groomsman, had already begun to wilt and curl in the spring heat.

  “You are too, Aggie.” She pressed both her hands into her lower back and winced. “You look happy, and I’m glad to see it.”

  “Thank you. I am.”

  “Catherine seems lovely.”

  “She’s a tiny little thing,” Rory remarked. “She reminds me of the dancers in that ballet you like, darling.”

  “Swan Lake. Tchaikovsky was Russian, too.”

  “Catherine is American now,” Augustus said. “We’ll be starting the citizenship process first thing.”

  “Of course,” Carolina said, her words rolling forward in a rush. “But, then, we’re all a little of something else, aren’t we?”

  “Can you believe, there will be two big Deschanel weddings this year?” Rory said. “I might as well keep the tux for a bit. You think it will work for Charles’ as well? He hasn’t said.” He laughed and looked off into the distance, his eye catching something.

  Augustus followed and saw immediately the target of Rory’s gaze: Colleen, huddled together with Colin, Cat, and Patrick. He diverted his own attention before Carolina wised up.

  But Rory dug himself into the hole on his own. “I suppose I should say hello to Colleen. When does she leave?”

  “Tomorrow,” Augustus said, and it hurt him to see the flash of pain in Carolina’s eyes.

  “So soon?” Rory chuckled, but his anxiety on the matter was plain as day, written across his face. “What about Huck’s wedding?”

  “She’ll fly back for that, but she wants to get settled in Edinburgh as soon as possible.” Augustus had a sharp urge to reach forward and touch Carolina in some soft, subtle way. To push her hair behind her ears, or run his finger across her cheek. He shouldn’t be thinking of another woman on his wedding day, but he felt it a great injustice that the one man who should be thinking of her—and the child growing within her—was instead fixated on another. She deserved to be loved wholly, and to experience tenderness. Augustus’ odd desire to give it to her wasn’t born of his own love for her, but of a detached but intense fondness for the young woman who had tried to save him.

  Instead he found a more appropriate option. Augustus pressed a hand to her belly, ever briefly, and smiled. “Do you know what you’re having?”

  “A boy.” Her cheeks flushed. “We’ve decided to name him Clancy.”

  “Well, we don’t know he’s a boy, of course, but we believe he might be,” Rory added.

  Augustus smiled wider. “A fine Southern name.”

  Rory kissed his wife’s cheek and excused himself, in an odd, distracted manner, and jogged off toward Colleen.

  Tears welled up in Carolina’s eyes. She looked away, ashamed of them, and then explained them as a byproduct of her overworked emotions.

  Augustus squeezed her hand. “You can’t let that bother you, Carolina. I know what you’re thinking, but you’re wrong.”

  She sniffled. “And what am I thinking, Augustus?”

  “I won’t dignify it with words. He adores you, and he will adore your son. First loves are powerful, but they end. All things not meant to last do.”

  Carolina wrapped her palms over her swollen belly and grinned. “Listen to you, talking of first loves, on your wedding day, with your own first love.”

  Was she his first love?

  He supposed she was.

  Augustus leaned in and kissed her cheek again. “Rory is a lucky guy,” he said. He beckoned Chelsea over. “Look after your sister-in-law, Chels. We both know she’s stubborn. Don’t want her running up the levee or something.”

  Carolina’s smile that followed him was grateful.

  * * *

  Augustus tried to retrieve his wife, but every time he spotted her, she was on the arm of one of his sisters, and much as he ached to be near her, in search of some reassurance that she ached for him too, he accepted this fire drill initiation into her family was good for her and would only help her become a Deschanel with greater ease.

  The sun crested over the Mississippi, and, one by one, their guests filtered away to their own lives. Colin and Cat were the last to leave, and Augustus went to join them when he felt a soft hand tug him back.

  Irish Colleen wore a beautiful lace dress that had been in her family several generations. From the high neck and veil, to the trim grazing her toes, it was an incredible show of detail and he only realized, as he turned to face her and really see her for the first time that day, that she had worn it because of her own love, for him, and in that love she was absolutely beautiful.

  “You look so much like your father, Augustus.”

  “Mama,” he said. “Thank you for a beautiful day.”

  “My sweet boy.” Irish Colleen wrapped her hands around his forearms. She was too short to reach much higher. “Today is as good a day as any to tell you how proud I am. I know I don’t say it to you, and I should.”

  “Mama.”

  “No, don’t comfort me on my own failings, darling. I had seven children, nine if you count those who were in God’s hands before they drew breath, before I could even take a breath and decide what it means to be a mother, and I haven’t always been everything you need, but ‘tis not for lack of love. I love you more than my own life, my son, and though I was doubtful of the girl when I met her, I see now that your wife loves you and is worthy of you, and that is all I could ever want for you.”

  Augustus could not recall a time his mother had spent so many words on him in one sitting. He didn’t know what to say, or if he even should. “You look beautiful today.”

  Irish Colleen smiled and patted his arm. “Tell me in the summer when I wear it to your brother’s wedding.”

  * * *

  Charles had to give Augustus credit. For a hermit in the making, his little brother handled the host duties at his wedding with surprising finesse. He turned himself on, Evangeline said, and when Charles remarked that Augustus’ permanent switch must be set firmly on “off,” she reminded him he hadn’t become a successful businessman by retreating into his shell.

  Knowing Augustus was a rookie in the bedroom, Charles had found his big brother usefulness by proffering some advice on how to delight Augustus’ new wife. Some of the advice brewing, that he wanted to give, was no longer appropriate now that they’d reached the wedding day. He’d only dipped his toe into expressing his concerns over the bride’s motivations; there was no use saying
anything now. If he was right, Augustus was already married and the damage done. If wrong, he would plant the seed of doubt that could harm their already odd marriage.

  For it was truly odd. Somehow the Deschanel least likely to be married had been the first to do so. That Augustus had taken an interest in any woman was weird enough, but this particular woman could not have much to offer a man who was hard to impress to begin with. She was a shy, diminutive thing, who deferred to Augustus like they were landowners in the nineteenth century. Yet behind her eyes was pure fire, and Charles had a suspicion that when it came out to play, no good could come of it.

  Augustus thanked the last of the guests, and Charles decided it was high time to get the fuck out of his tuxedo. He made his way to the back door of Ophélie, the servant’s entrance by the kitchens, where he could come and go without fanfare. Before he reached the door, a familiar, but unwelcome, voice called his name.

  “Darwin,” Charles said tersely as he turned. “I thought you’d left with your father and sister.”

  “You mean your father-in-law and wife?”

  “Future.”

  Darwin pressed his lips into a tight smile that made him look as if he required prunes. “Family is family, is it not?”

  “Until she’s signing her name on checks with my name and money, we’re not family.”

  “Semantics.”

  Charles’ muscles tightened. All this talk of family could mean only one thing. “I don’t loan money to family. It’s bad business. Bad blood.” Also, I hate you and your vile sister.

  Darwin forced a laugh. “I’m not here for your money.”

  Yet, thought Charles.

  “My father isn’t himself, as I’m sure Cordelia has told you.”

  “What does that have to do with me?”

  “Family, as I said—”

  “What’s your point?”

  “He’s spiraling. The reasons don’t matter so much, but the outcome will. The business is failing, Charles, and we need to work together to protect it. I know our fortune is nothing to you, when compared to your own, but this is Cordelia’s legacy, which will be the legacy of your children as well.”