Nineteen Seventy-Four

by Sarah M. Cradit

  “This sounds an awful lot like you’re about to ask me for money.”

  Darwin grunted under his breath. It was evident even talking to Charles was a pain to him, and Charles found great satisfaction in this. “I can handle the business side of things, thank you. I’d never ask you for help with that… not when your social calendar is so daunting.”

  “What can I say? Being an heir is tough work.”

  “For me, it certainly will be, as I work to save this business our father built and is now so damned determined to run directly into the ground.”

  Charles wasn’t buying this poor attempt at misdirection. There was no doubt Darwin wanted in on his sister’s future family’s fortune, but Charles had not yet sussed out how he intended to accomplish it. “So, what, then?”

  “Our reputation is as valuable to us as the money earned,” Darwin went on, with all the airs of an aristocratic espousing the virtues of name. “I can be sure that Cordelia and I will do our part to protect our name in this delicate time, but I need to know you, as well, can be counted on.”

  “Meaning what?”

  Darwin cleared his throat. “Everyone knows of your… proclivities. Your predilections. Now that the engagement is public knowledge, and the wedding imminent, I’m asking you to put that behavior on hold.”

  Charles wiped his hand across his mouth, grinning. “You want me to stop fucking around.”

  Darwin shifted in clear discomfort. “If you want to say it like that, then yes.”

  “And why the hell would I do that?”

  “It would create an unnecessary scandal that could only hurt both families. Not just the Hendricksons, Charles. Society has forgiven and maybe even encouraged your dalliances because you were a bachelor. They will not so easily forgive you making a cuckold out of your fiancée.”

  Charles laughed. “Dalliances? Cuckold? What language are we speaking here? What are you, a returning soldier from the Revolutionary War?”

  “Charles, I know you’re not fond of me.”

  “I don’t trust you as far as I can fucking throw you, if we want to be specific.”

  “Have I earned that?”

  “One word: Elizabeth.”

  Darwin paled. “That was clearly a mistake, and in retrospect—”

  “Speak English, will you?” Charles shook his head. “You might think, because of my reputation, that I’m all fun and games. I don’t care about much, but my family is off fucking limits. And if you think time, and your sister popping out some of my kids, will dull that, then you’re in for a rude surprise. So you want me to do you a favor? Really?” He spat at the ground, missing Darwin’s feet by an inch. “Sure, no problem. Why not?”

  Catherine, his Catherine, in that fuck me dress and simpering smile, stepped out from the shadows. “Is everything okay, Charles?”

  Charles licked his lips. Laughed. “Yes. You were both just leaving.”

  He whipped around and disappeared inside.

  Two

  The Ocean

  Colleen couldn’t decide how she should feel about her own actions. She’d come to terms with moving to Scotland for graduate school, but even with the greatest of mental gymnastics she couldn’t find a selfless reason for leaving so early… even if she had moved the date back from her original insane idea to depart right after Christmas.

  Her need for self-punishment came entirely from within. All of her siblings, and her mother, had happily seen her off after Augustus’ wedding. Evangeline promised to look after the family, as Colleen once did. Maureen promised to stay out of trouble. Elizabeth said only that Colleen leaving was where she was meant to go, and that she should move happily forth in that knowledge.

  Charles said she was wise to get “the hell out of New Orleans, and as far away from the Sullivans as possible.”

  Augustus had offered more words than usual. “We have to find ways to live, Colleen. All of us. Don’t you dare feel a lick of guilt in leaving. Not one of us has done more for this family than you have, and it’s time to do for yourself.”

  Colleen had embraced him, overcome with her own fears. She had a bad sense of Ekatherina, something she’d dismissed when Evangeline first expressed hers. Colleen couldn’t pinpoint the source of her discontent; it wasn’t that she thought her brother’s bride was evil, or necessarily bad at all, but the energy surrounding her, and them together, was palpably malevolent. But Colleen was a healer, and this was the only ability of hers she could trust to guide her true. “A bad feeling,” wasn’t enough to send her brother’s happiness crashing down around him.

  Instead, she’d made him a promise. “Aggie, you call me. For anything, right? Anything, and I’ll be on the next plane home.”

  He’d grinned. “I thought I was the family fixer.”

  “For those things troubling us from the outside world, yes…”

  Augustus paused long enough to take her meaning, and then waved the thought away, pushing it back to the place where all things unwelcome to him must go. “You’ll be here in the summer for Huck’s wedding. I’ll see you then.”

  “Of course.”

  Sullivan & Associates had used their connections, whatever they might be, to help her secure an apartment on Blackfriars. They offered to have pictures taken, but the least of her penance would be showing up to her new home sight unseen—though she knew they would’ve never secured her anything less than what she was accustomed to. Even if she’d insisted they find her a hovel, they would’ve laughed it off.

  She wasn’t disappointed. The apartment was two stories, and from her upstairs window she could see both Edinburgh Castle and Arthur’s Seat, as well as the start of the famed Royal Mile. The smell of freshly baking bread carried through her upstairs windows as she watched the morning come alive behind a dense fog. Shopkeepers appeared from the narrow closes, sweeping the remnants of the prior day into memory. All around her, on Blackfriars, young businessmen and women appeared on the street and disappeared into taxis, off to begin their days at the office.

  Colleen yawned, then again, and then once more. Here in Edinburgh, the day was coming to life, but her body was still on New Orleans time and would be until she adjusted. And adjust she would, because this was home now. She was home, at least for the next few years.

  That heavy realization mounted on top of her lack of sleep, and she decided a nap wouldn’t be any harm.

  * * *

  Dearest Colleen,

  You will be shocked to death to hear this, but the world continues to turn in New Orleans in your absence. I know… impossible. Impossible!

  I miss you, though. But enough of the fuzzy stuff.

  Poor Charles. He goes back and forth between accepting that he’s marrying an evil hag and being a complete spaz. I worry about him all alone out at Ophélie (don’t take that as an invitation to come back, now!), but he’ll figure it out. I still don’t understand why he’s marrying Cordelia to begin with, but I stopped asking when he kept taking my head off. Honestly, I’m more worried about the whole Cat thing coming to a head. Chelsea told Maureen that Cat has been acting weird ever since Charles’ engagement party, and she didn’t outright say she thinks something is going on with them, but if Chelsea starts putting things together and Rory already has put it together, then it’s only a matter of time before Colin gets wise. He’s a square, but he’s no fool.

  For what it’s worth, I don’t think Charles is encouraging any of this. Baffling, I know. He seems like he wants nothing to do with Cat. Maybe he’s growing up.

  Hah! That’ll be the day.

  Maureen got a job! I repeat, Maureen got a job! She’s working for some old recluse businessman. A Blanchard. I think he’s an architect or something? She dresses up every day and goes into the office, like a respectable woman about to come of age. I hesitate to predict she’ll stay out of trouble, but the forecast looks promising.

  Augustus is… well, Augustus. I’ve been thinking I should move out, but he’s downright insistent I stay. I thin
k he’s afraid of his new wife, and he should be. I’m not even sure they’ve had sex, Colleen. Not that I’m spying on them! But they act like brother and sister, not man and wife. He’s so formal with her. And she’s just so weird. I still don’t trust her, but I promised him I wouldn’t say another word about it, and I won’t. Now that he’s married the crazy Russian, I can only hope I’ve been wrong about her all along.

  Thank God for Sullivan & Associates and their ironclad prenups, right? (I’m not literally thanking God, of course, seeing as I’m an atheist).

  Elizabeth is the same. I’m starting to think she and Connor might be more than friends, but I like the kid, and if anyone deserves to be happy, it’s our sweet Lizzy. But what is it with our family and Sullivans, eh?

  Just don’t tell Mama, or she’ll never let him anywhere near the townhouse again. She still treats Lizzy like a baby, and probably will long after she spits out her own babies.

  Since I know you’ll take me to task if I don’t mention it, classes are fine. Gonna ride out this year and see how things fare with the fam, and then, maybe, MIT.

  Maybe. No lectures.

  I was thinking I’d come out this summer and help you get settled. I could fly back with you after Huck’s death sentence, I mean wedding. Any objections? No, I didn’t think so. It’s settled!

  Love,

  Evie

  * * *

  Evangeline paused as she sealed the envelope. She’d kept it all so lighthearted, never diving too far below the surface.

  She couldn’t say why she’d never told Colleen about Amnesty. There’d been plenty of opportunities. Maybe, she thought, it was because Colleen would have questions Evangeline couldn’t answer. She couldn’t answer them because she herself had no answers, and she’d promised Amnesty that having a full understanding of the situation wouldn’t be a condition of their… friendship? Relationship?

  Evangeline didn’t know what it was, and that, too, made up the substance of the box containing her deepest secret.

  Amnesty had shared one thing, though. She’d shared it only because showing up with bruises without explanation was unacceptable, so she grudgingly revealed her father was not only still alive—despite telling Evangeline he’d died when she was a child—but terribly abusive, which explained her floating from place to place. He searched all over for her whenever she’d disappear, and so she was always changing things up. He kept finding her because she had nowhere real to go, and so she slept under trees and on porches, out in the open.

  Evangeline could solve this. Every problem had a solution, or multiple solutions. She couldn’t very well let her stay at Magnolia Grace. Augustus would have a conniption. But Evangeline, like all Deschanels, had her property entitlement coming to her. She was twenty now, and all entitlements were available at eighteen. She’d only delayed hers because she was in no real hurry. Augustus wanted her to stay, for now, for inexplicable reasons that made no sense for a newlywed. But he wanted her there, so she stayed.

  But the property on Third and Chestnut was hers.

  And right now, for now, Amnesty’s. Evangeline had picked up the keys last week and now she slept a whole lot better with the comfort of knowing Amnesty was safe from her father’s sick abuse.

  Evangeline opened the front door. She opened her mouth to call out for Amnesty, when a chill passed through the air. Arms came about her waist. Lips tickled the back of her neck.

  “I’m so glad you’re here,” Amnesty purred, and Evangeline melted into her touch.

  Three

  Working Girl

  Maureen pulled the completed sheet from the typewriter, blowing on the ink. She grinned. It may have taken her twelve tries to get a clean letter, but no one else had to know that. Not Mr. Blanchard, and certainly not the snickering biddies scrutinizing her every move.

  For the moment, they weren’t a problem. They’d taken their ugly purses and shuffled off in their too-tight dresses to the lunch counter at Maison Blanche. They’d return precisely an hour later, hands pressed to their bellies, bemoaning the poor decision to “eat so much,” and vowing to nap under their desks, don’t think they won’t.

  Not Maureen. Even had she been invited, she knew better than to spoil her figure with a noontime meal. She was strictly a grapefruit-at-breakfast and half-a-plate-of-Mama’s-dinner gal, because there was a reason these women had either never married, or were left by husbands seeking something more attractive than award-winning muffin tops and the art of gossip.

  They were awful, these women. From their lipstick that bled due to sour mouths full of wrinkles, to their fat feet bulging from the swell of standing on heels all day. They spent their days buried in vicious giggles like a pack of bridge trolls, forgetting they were hired to do actual work.

  Most of their derision was reserved, at present, for Maureen. They seemed incapable of sharing a genuine smile and word, instead passing her with knowing sneers and under-the-breath comments about how she “wasn’t special,” and would “learn about Mr. Blanchard and his young girls soon enough.”

  Maureen, who’d been raised to respect even the most vile of elders, said nothing in return, but knew they’d die miserable and alone. Her life was only beginning.

  As for Mr. Blanchard, he was an aging recluse without anything too terribly special to offer beyond his successful architectural firm. She’d pieced together a few facts and determined he was probably around forty, though he could pass for sixty or more. He was devoid of humor, or joy for that matter, but there was something in the way he lumbered around the office he’d built from the ground up—literally, as he’d designed it as well—exuding a mysterious sort of power that had been his replacement for happiness. Edouard, she’d tried to call him once, and the look he leveled upon her was so scathing she wondered if she’d miscalculated his measure and he was, in fact, the Zodiac Killer. Then, he patted her shoulder and reminded her he was Mr. Blanchard. He’d then dropped the folder in his arms and watched her pick up each sheet, one by one. When she tried to shuffle them all together, he touched the small of her back and coached, “Slowly, Miss Deschanel.”

  Yes, he was odd, but what of it? He’d never been married, so how could anyone expect him to know how to deal with women? She imagined him returning at night to his mansion with no natural light, staring into the dark abyss until morning.

  Evangeline had taken Maureen and Elizabeth to lunch a week ago. Maureen almost told her older sister about her strict “no lunch” rule, but the idea of the three of them hitting the town, without their mother, felt so deliciously adult that she happily broke down. A salad couldn’t hurt.

  Both her sisters wanted to hear all about her new job, and she was excited to share. The growing look of horror on Evangeline’s face made her wish she hadn’t, though.

  “He did what?” she cried. “This is your boss?”

  “Don’t be vile, Evie,” Maureen protested. “Not everything has to be sexual or gross.”

  Evangeline’s mouth hung wide, and Maureen had the urge to ask her if she was trying to catch flies.

  “So,” Evangeline said. “He sat there and watched you sharpen all one hundred pencils in the box?”

  Elizabeth grinned into her grilled cheese.

  “He’s a perfectionist,” Maureen explained. She straightened her skirt, which she’d worn to show her sisters how far she’d come. “All successful people are.”

  Evangeline’s face played the spectrum of horror to humor. “Uh-huh. And how long did this take you?”

  “Oh, about an hour or so.”

  “I see. So this very successful, very busy, perfectionist stood and watched you sharpen each pencil, one by one. Where were his hands?”

  Elizabeth burst out laughing.

  “Evie!” Maureen cried. “Are you trying to corrupt our little sister?”

  Evangeline snickered. “This one? You realize she’s a year older than you were when you were fucking that Shakespeare flunky?”

  Maureen froze. “How do you
know about that?”

  “Don’t tell me you still believe there are any secrets in this family.”

  Maureen said nothing. If Evangeline had really wanted to rile her, she would’ve mentioned the Virgins Only Club, and the absence of this only proved Evangeline wrong about secrets.

  Elizabeth tapped her head. “Seer. Remember?”

  Maureen groaned. “Neither of you have ever had a job. You wouldn’t understand.”

  “That’s not true. Evie has helped Augustus for years.”

  “I just hope he pays well,” Evangeline said, hiding her grin in a sip of Coke.

  “You’re the worst, you know that?”

  “What did he do with the pencils after?”

  “Sorry?”

  Evangeline set her glass down and watched her from behind that wild mane of hers, looking like a feral cat. “Did he use them?”

  Maureen balked. “No, Mr. Blanchard uses pens.”

  She sat alone in the quiet office. The biddies wouldn’t be back for another thirty minutes, and Mr. Blanchard had a meeting across town until three.

  The office was hers. Every desk, every potted plant. Every watercolor of the birds of Louisiana.

  Her sisters could keep their cute little jokes. She was a woman now, and everything the world had taken from her now prepared her for something no one could claim.

  * * *

  Colleen held the card in one hand. Her other gripped the receiver of the phone on the desk.

  Rory and Carolina Sullivan are pleased to announce the addition of a healthy son, Clancy Sullivan.

  The enclosed picture was what gave Colleen pause. The birth announcements her mother had received over the years had the respective families standing in a yard, or under a tree, or sitting on a bench. Something light and happy. In this picture, Rory knelt at the hospital bedside, one arm around Carolina’s head, the other holding the hand of his son. Carolina smiled through bleary, purple-rimmed eyes.