St. Charles at Dusk: The House of Crimson and Clover Series Prequel

by Sarah M. Cradit

  Adrienne wished she had gone with her usual decision to say nothing.

  She couldn’t stay here anymore. No matter the consequences, she had to find her escape, and quickly.

  13- Oz

  A couple of days after arriving home from Abbeville, I finally sorted through my overflowing stack of mail.

  I walked into the dining room, turned on the lights, and went through the mess.

  “Bill, bill, magazine, bill, junk mail, bill, coupons,” I said mechanically as I tossed everything into neat piles.

  I picked up a piece of mail with no return address, this one addressed to Nicolas. With hardly a second thought, I tossed it in a basket on the top shelf of the armoire, there to hold other items for him.

  Nicolas had his mail sent to my house since departing abroad, because he didn’t want his mail sent to Ophélie. I never truly understood this, but that was one of the many quirks and nuances of my friend. I think he liked to remain a mystery. To not be predictable, or easily figured out, seemed very important to him.

  The accident affected us both in different ways. He was always garrulous and daring, speaking whatever came to mind and acting upon it as quickly, with a sort of determinedness that took everything a step further than needed. If he saw a girl he was interested in, he did not pursue her; he conquered her. He did not pass an exam; he aced it. Nicolas Deschanel did not win a race; he pulverized the competition.

  Now, though, he went through life with a careless, almost sloppy, lust. His confidence was no longer mysterious, but suited for cheap one-liners, easy flirtations, and entertainment value. It was as if he had lost his grasp on whatever force propelled him to be the best at everything, and settled for simply being charming and carefree.

  I could only imagine the advice he would give if I told him about my trip to Abbeville: Ozzy, it’s a hell of a lot cheaper to find a girl in the Quarter.

  I smiled at knowing Nicolas so well I could give myself his advice when he wasn’t even around.

  When I came to the last letter on the stack, I paused, turning it over in my hands. It felt like a letter, although I couldn’t be sure because it was nearly torn up. The return address had no name, but it was stamped Abbeville, Louisiana. I assumed it must be from Jesse, but no one from the legal side of my life had my home address. Everything went to the firm.

  I used my letter opener to break the seal. Inside was a piece of parchment paper, written with a quill and bottled ink. Certainly, there was an effect someone was trying to get through here.

  Oz,

  I understand why you left so quickly, but I really need to speak with you. I'm sorry for what happened in the diner. You can’t know what it’s like to be overwhelmed with the desire to remember who you are.

  Jesse told me you've gone home, so I assume you will get to read this letter. My neighbors, the Santiams, have agreed to help me. If you call, they will come and get me and then I will return your call. I leave you with their phone number.

  It is my hope I did not scare you off for good. Please call, I am dying to speak with you again!

  Always,

  Adrienne Deschanel

  I folded the letter in my hands and set it down on the table. “She is certifiable,” I affirmed, before picking back up the note, crumpling the paper, and flinging it against the wall. It dropped to the ground, missing the garbage.

  Pouring myself a glass of water from the fridge, I tried to calm down. As an afterthought, I added some vodka to my water. It was the cheap drink from my struggling college days, but it still did the trick. I winced as I took a deep swallow. Making my way to the couch, I sat back with a sigh to sort it all out in my mind, again.

  I thought about the meeting in the diner. At first she had seemed pleasant and ready to talk to me. Then, suddenly, she put on her game face and toyed with me while I struggled to maintain my professionalism. After, setting her boyfriend after me… the walk home I should not have gotten lost on… the overwhelming exhaustion I believed was attributed to that strange woman in the bar who ordered me at least one drink.

  Adrienne’s letter was baffling; there was simply no other word for it. I seriously considered sending Jesse a number for a psychiatrist. Maybe whatever caused her to lose her memory had jarred something else loose in her head.

  I knew if I continued to think about things for which I had no answers, or even any rational assumptions, I would go mad, so I decided to call her. To hell with Jesse. Jesse was not the one whose reputation was at stake. I found the crumpled letter and smoothed it out enough so I could read the phone number. It rang eight times before a woman answered.

  Yes?” The voice was old, with a rattle to it. Mrs. Santiam, I deduced.

  “Yes ma’am, this is Colin Sullivan. I’m calling for Adrienne Deschanel; she left me this number to get in touch with her,” I said politely.

  I heard a click followed by dial tone. She hung up on me.

  I held the phone out in front of me in disbelief before dropping it down in the cradle. I dialed the number again, but this time no one answered. Really, at this point, was I surprised?

  I went to go pour myself another potent water-vodka mix when the phone rang. I decided to let the machine get it; I didn’t feel like speaking with my father just then, who was in the recent habit of demanding answers I simply did not have.

  I started back down the hall toward my bedroom as the recorder began to play. “Hi you’ve reached the land of Oz. You know the drill,” sang my voice, followed by a beep.

  “Oz?” I heard a soft female voice on the other end and froze, drink in hand. “Oz, it’s me, Adrienne. Are you there? If you’re there, please pick up.”

  I sprang, leaping for the phone before she had a chance to hang up. I tripped over the couch and sloshed my drink all over the carpet.

  “Adrienne? Are you there?” I asked breathlessly into the receiver.

  “Oz? Yes, I’m here, why are you out of breath?”

  “I didn’t hear the phone ring,” I lied. “I didn’t think you were going to call back. Mrs. Santiam, or whoever that was, hung up on me.”

  Adrienne laughed, and she sounded nothing like the argumentative spitfire in the diner. “She rushed over here to tell me about your call. She must have forgotten her manners.”

  Damn you for being sweet now. “Listen Adrienne, I think you owe me an explanation. On more than one account.”

  “If you’re talking about the way I acted in the diner, Oz, I am so sorry. I don’t know what came over me. It’s been such a shock finding out about my life after not remembering any of it. You can’t know how it feels to wonder where the first sixteen years of your life went and to suddenly have the opportunity to find out,” she explained. For the second time now, she sounded rehearsed, scripted. Our connection was fading in and out.

  “I’m talking about the nasty little note you left for me, and then accusing me of trying to assault you.”

  There was silence on her end and for a moment, I thought she had hung up.

  “Oz, I have no idea what you're talking about. I didn’t leave you any note, and I sure as hell never accused you of something like that. I don’t know where you are getting this, but it’s not funny.” She sounded as if she might cry.

  “Save it Adrienne, it’s just you and me here so you can cut the crap!” I yelled at her through the receiver. “I came down there to do my job, and you thought it would be funny to mess with me. Play head games, and see how I’d react. That’s it, isn’t it?” I demanded.

  I could almost see her shaking her head no on the other end. “No, Oz, I have no idea what you're talking about. I’m not lying to you. If you don’t believe me, ask Jesse, my boyfriend. I went straight home after seeing you, and I was there until after you left town. I swear it on my father’s grave!” She was definitely crying now, but I couldn’t distinguish whether they were genuine tears or not.

  “What father? You don’t even remember him.”

  “That’s not fair Oz,” she said.
Her voice had gone soft. “I would like to.”

  I shifted on the couch so I was sitting completely erect. She had my full attention. I knew I was softening, but my voice was now condescending rather than infuriated. “Okay Adrienne, let’s say you never did any of that. Then tell me this: how did the note get on my door, signed by you? And why did my father receive a call from your lawyer saying I tried to force myself on you?

  “A note? My lawyer?” she repeated. “I don’t even have a lawyer!”

  “Perhaps it was Jesse, then, acting as your lawyer. He is, after all, acting on your behalf,” I said.

  “Now you’ve really lost me.”

  “I’m sure you haven’t forgotten sending him to see me in the bar.”

  “Again, I have no idea what you are talking about.” She was hiding something; I was sure of it.

  “Are you trying to say I imagined all of this?”

  “Is that so impossible? Oz, what you are accusing me of could not possibly have happened.”

  “Then how else would you explain it, Adrienne?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I should never have come to see you. You’ve never been anything but bad luck for me,” I mumbled under my breath. It was barely audible, but she caught it.

  “Now, why would you say something like that?” I realized I had stung her with the comment.

  “I don’t know,” I said honestly and lay back against the couch. “Except that now my life might be ruined, and the only person who should know what’s going on conveniently doesn’t.” I explained everything that had happened from the time I left her up until the present. She listened attentively, and when I was done, she spoke again.

  “I don’t know what to say.”

  “I guess I’m not surprised,” I replied and finished off what was left of my drink.

  I heard some voices in the background, and she spoke back to them in a tongue too quick for me to pick up.

  “Oz, I have to go. We didn’t even get around to talking about why I wanted you to call,” she said. “I wish you hadn’t left so soon.”

  “Why?” I asked. I wanted to know before I hung up. At least I could get something from her.

  “I wanted you to take me to New Orleans. I want to see if it triggers any memories. I feel I don’t have a choice.”

  “Adrienne, I told you that I don’t think I can help you.”

  “I’m not asking you to do anything you don’t want to do,” she told me hurriedly, but she knew I was holding back. She covered the phone and explained to the people behind her she was almost done.

  “Then what are you asking, exactly?”

  “Let me stay with you. I have nowhere else to go."

  “Adrienne, you’re a rich woman! You could stay anywhere you want!” I exclaimed with a laugh. It seemed such an odd concern for a billionaire, finding a place to stay. I supposed because it was all new to her, but then, she had been wealthy for over two thirds of her life, even if she didn’t remember any of it.

  “I’m hurrying,” Adrienne told the background voices. “Oz, I really have to go.”

  “Wait, why me?” I pressed.

  She sighed. “Because I’m scared of the city, and of what I might find when I get there. I trust you for some reason.”

  “How do I know I can trust you, though? All signs point to the contrary.”

  Adrienne sighed again. “You can. I don’t know what else to tell you.”

  “What would your boyfriend say?” I knew at this point I was being a jerk.

  “I don’t intend to tell him,” she said, and then was off my line before I could say anything else.

  After my phone call with Adrienne, I resolved I wasn’t going to talk to anyone, except Adrienne, until I had answers. I knew what my father–and probably the rest of the firm–thought and I had no defense against it. The person who had purportedly made the accusations was claiming to know nothing about them.

  As it turned out, my father was more than happy to give me a leave of absence. I think he knew I would be no good to anyone in my present state.

  I used the time to take care of chores at home. I had a few things around the house that had needed fixing. By the second day, I was done with the original repairs and moved on to other tasks. I fixed the bathroom doorknob (it had been slightly loose), re-affixed the weather stripping (I replaced it last year, but had done a careless job), re-caulked the kitchen window (it seemed a bit drafty lately), and picked out a new paint pattern for my office.

  Throughout the days, the phone rang a good twenty times, and I let the machine get it every time. My father, mother, and Caitlin all made their attempts. The latter apologized and hinted toward wanting to reconcile. I barely heard any of it; I wondered if Adrienne was on a bus to New Orleans.

  On the fourth day, I slept. My obsessive attempts to put everything aside failed, for all I could think of was Adrienne. I needed to talk to her, to see her. Every time my answering machine would kick in, I dropped everything to be sure I didn’t miss her call. Which caused repeated disappointment when it would be my parents, or Caitlin, again.

  This behavior went on for nearly a week before the hourly calls stopped flowing in and someone finally decided to stop by to see if I lived through the ordeal. The first time I heard a knock on the door, I had been half-asleep at the foot of my bed.

  “Colin, open up. It’s your father,” I heard. I blinked the molasses humidity from my eyelids, then closed them again. It was too hot to deal with this nonsense. He eventually left.

  Caitlin, who by this time had left a passel of messages on my machine in her range of moods, also stopped by.

  In the beginning, her calls had been filled with a calm rationality that would have threatened to reason with my stubbornness had I not been so preoccupied with other thoughts. Her first one was even work related.

  "Oz, I’m calling to let you know I met Adrienne today. Not at all what I expected, having listened to you harangue about how volatile and unreasonable she was. Our conversation went very well. She is more than willing to sit down sometime in the near future and discuss the details of her estate. Perhaps, if you get your act together, your father will turn the case back over to you. My schedule is completely overbooked at the moment. Call me and we can discuss in more detail. Ciao."

  As time progressed, her messages were less frequent and more abrupt. The last one had been almost amusing.

  “Oz…. we can’t go on like this… I just… I think you are being completely irrational and, well, childish. Yes, childish! There, I said it. You are acting like a goddamn baby, not returning my calls, or even those of your father and your poor, suffering mother. What kind of a selfish jerk are you? Why did I even bother calling you? God, I must be an idiot. You know what? We are through! Asshole!”

  Though in my mind the relationship had been over in Abbeville, it was almost a relief she’d taken it upon herself, in her busy schedule, to make it official. I didn’t even care I was the one being dumped. It was one less thing to deal with.

  Caitlin's visit had been a follow-up to her silly voicemail. She wanted her things, which I anticipated and neatly placed in a small, cardboard box.

  Her demeanor was completely the opposite of her voicemails. “Thanks,” she said quietly. She looked as if she wanted me to say something, maybe a plea for her to give me another chance or an apology that I know she thought she had coming to her. “You know, Oz…”

  “Goodbye Caitlin,” I said, and was surprised at my own boldness as I closed the door in her face. Had I really done that? Between the vodka-water balance (which had slowly become less balanced) and the fanatical home repairs, I wasn’t sure what the hell was going on anymore.

  My father’s third visit was his first successful one.

  “Dad, I’m not going to talk about this,” I said through a crack made by a barely open door.

  Instead of being his usual, non-confrontational self, he surprised me by shoving the door open with a startling degree o
f force. I stumbled back a few steps, catching myself on the edge of the fish tank.

  Surprisingly, rather than a barrage of words, I was greeted with stunned silence, as he took my measure. I had been busy and hadn’t even bothered looked in a mirror in over a week.

  As if reading my mind, he glanced to the mirror over the fish tank and I followed his gaze. My black hair was a spiky, disheveled mess, with hairs going every which way but the right one. Traces of dirt lived in the creases of my forehead and beds of my dimples. I had the beginnings of a facial beard, though it was only a week of growth, and my skin was sallow. To top it off, I was wearing a torn white wife-beater tank and some old running pants from high school. I looked like a heroin addict. No wonder my father looked horrified.

  I touched my face as if to confirm what I saw. “Yikes,” I couldn’t help saying.

  My father shook his head. “I don’t need to say a word then, I suppose,” he sounded somewhat relieved and awkwardly waited for me to offer him a seat. This struck me as funny after the bold way he burst into the house moments earlier.

  “Have a seat,” I obliged, and trudged into the kitchen. The only sound between us was the swishing of my slippers against the wood floor.

  I could have asked him what he wanted to drink, but all I could offer was water or, well, vodka. In the end, I poured us both plain water, sans the liquor. With my father, one needed their wits about them.

  I paused. Nothing had changed, really. I still wasn’t ready for the “I-told-you-so’s.” I didn’t want to talk about what happened in Abbeville, or after, or any of my many theories. But I supposed hiding in my house was only prolonging the inevitable.

  On second thought, I decided to add a little mix to my water.