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

by Sarah M. Cradit

  There was other family, beyond her brother Nicolas. Many aunts, uncles, cousins. Most Deschanels never left Louisiana. Her aunt Colleen, self-professed head of the family, would be perfectly suited for the task. Nicolas certainly would have deferred to her in a situation like this. He didn’t put much stock in Aunt Colleen’s view of the family curse, and strange powers that some of the family possessed, but he did respect her more than he'd ever respected his own parents.

  One of many, Colleen was not the only one who could give Adrienne the answers she craved. The Deschanels were a massive brood, many with the unique sorts of gifts suited for helping others. Together, they would tell her all she needed to know, and I could wash my hands of the situation. I would call Jesse, let him know she was safe, and set up the appointment he’d requested.

  “Oz, did I call at a bad time?” I had switched off the lights and been on my way to bed when the phone rang. It was nearly midnight.

  “It’s late, Adrienne. Where are you?”

  “I don’t know exactly where I am… the truck driver dropped me off downtown… I think I might be standing in front of the… Superdome?”

  “Adrienne, you hitchhiked! Do you know how dangerous that is?”

  “I promise to tell you the whole story later, but I need to know how to find you.”

  I told her to stay put and drove out to pick her up. When I found her, she was sitting at the bottom of a large lamppost, knees to her chest, drinking Diet Coke through a straw as she read a worn paperback of Tennessee Williams’ play, A Streetcar Named Desire.

  She chewed her bottom lip ever so slightly in concentration; a long bang of red hair lay across her cheek, a small piece of it resting on her lips. She was a delight to my senses, as she once was.

  I shook off the effect. The lawyer in me needed to assist her with figures, information, and paperwork. There was no room for the confused ex-lover demanding answers.

  I rolled the window down and called out to her. She seemed surprised to see me so soon and tucked her book inside her shabby brown leather satchel. In her blank tank top, and wide linen palazzo pants, she looked simultaneously trashy and elegant.

  "You didn't tell Caitlin you were coming to New Orleans, did you?" I asked, as she put her bag in the back seat.

  "Who’s Caitlin?"

  "Caitlin Richards, the attorney from our firm you met with about your estate?"

  Adrienne shook her head in confusion. "I never spoke with Caitlin, or any attorneys, other than you. I've received a few business cards in the mail from other firms, but I threw those away."

  It was my turn to be confused. Caitlin may have been a lot of things, but she wasn’t a liar. The entire episode, from the trip to Abbeville to the current moment, continued to be a chaotic jumble of unknowns. Caitlin’s lack of contact was yet another mystery that needed solving, but it wouldn't be solved here. It would likely fall into place when everything else did. If everything else did. I decided to drop it for now.

  "I’m guessing Jesse isn’t aware you’re here, either?”

  She took another sip of her Diet Coke and looked out the window. “No.”

  As we drove down Canal Street and turned onto St. Charles, she didn’t offer more than a few cordial words. When I occasionally glanced her direction, all I saw was the back of her head; she was fixed on the sights streaming past her window. Adrienne's thoughts were nearly audible as she scanned homes and restaurants lining the Avenue. I wondered if any of it was familiar.

  I turned onto Seventh and parked behind the house. She was already out of the car before I could get around to the passenger side to open her door. I attempted to be a gentleman once more by holding the front door open, but she gestured as if to say, “After you.”

  “Have I been here before?” she asked. Her lips were twisted together in concentration as she looked around the room, her bag dropped and forgotten at her feet.

  “A few times,” I replied. Before she could turn around, I reached for her bag and placed it next to the closet door. “But I wouldn’t expect you to remember something so ordinary. This is nothing compared to where you grew up.”

  “Ordinary? I’ve been here less than an hour, and all I’ve seen around me is decadent homes, decadent cars, decadent architecture, decadent people. Anything but ordinary.” She sat down on the couch and crossed her legs at the ankles. She never took her eyes away from me, gazing at me both innocently and intently.

  I shook my head and laughed. There was always something arresting about the directness and simple honesty of her speech, the way she gave no forethought to reaction.

  “No, you’re sure right about that.”

  I acquainted her with the house and gave her the “make yourself at home” speech. How ironic; had she not disappeared, this would have been her home.

  “You can’t know what this means to me. I hope we get to know each other, again, and become great friends. There’s something very honest about you, Oz. You’re a good guy.”

  "You might change your mind after you stay here awhile," I joked with a smile. Internally, I began to appreciate my mother’s wisdom and wondered if I had completely lost my mind, opening up my house and life to her after all that happened.

  She didn't return the smile, understandably lost in thought again.

  Adrienne was clearly exhausted and it struck me she was waiting for direction on where she could sleep. Her eyes were glazed, her voice not as confident. It was now well past midnight.

  Never having needed to outfit a guest room, I showed her to my bedroom and told her she should sleep there. “I’ll take the couch,” I said, to her protests, but she was too tired to argue for long. In the end, she offered a compromise: I could sleep in the bed with her. She asked me this so innocently, no clue we intimately shared that bed for a summer.

  I told her gently, no, that would not be such a good idea. Then I left her there and went to make my bed on the parlor sofa.

  What are my intentions with this girl? I thought. She had no clue who I really was, what role I had played in her life, and yet I offered her the use of my home, my things, my very bed, as if she did. I kept saying things in my head like, “until she goes to Ophélie,” or “after I take her to Ophélie,” but I wondered if I would be able to do that if she insisted on my help. And the inevitable call to Jesse... would I make it?

  As my mother theorized, Adrienne was different now. She wasn’t the girl who stopped time for me when she flashed her winsome smile. She had grown up and away from me, from New Orleans, from her very origins. It remained to be seen who Adrienne was now.

  Despite my confident statements to that effect, had I actually succeeded in my attempts to stop loving Adrienne? That was the real question, and I knew I had to face it soon. When should I tell my sleeping beauty she spent many nights in that very bed, whispering promises of a future in my ear?

  When I left her in the bedroom for the night, she asked me to keep her whereabouts a secret. “Just until I have some answers. I don’t want any interference. I have to know who I am.”

  I had absolutely no one to turn to. Neither one of my parents would understand. They would tell me to call Jesse right away to ease his worries, as promised. Adrienne asked me to do the opposite. Where did my loyalties lie?

  I spoke with Nicolas frequently, but he had been in Japan for the last few weeks with a fifty-year-old woman from Tokyo. Ozzy, I am a kept man! You should really hook something up for yourself, he said to me one day after nearly forty straight hours in Yokohama and an “obscene amount of saké."

  He was always doing and saying outrageous things, real attention-grabbers. Benign maybe, but Nic definitely had a knack for keeping the Deschanel name in the gossip papers. Although he was my best friend, I often found it difficult to relate to someone whose idea of fun was running with the bulls in Pamplona or doing competitive tequila shooters in Caracas. Last year he called from a drunken bash on the yacht of a Serbian prince, somewhere in the Adriatic Sea. I wondered if he was e
ven aware of what was going on with his sister.

  I thought, briefly, of Ana. The only woman I'd ever loved, other than Adrienne, and my oldest friend, other than Nicolas. As Adrienne's cousin, she might be able to provide me guidance on the matter, and I knew I could trust her. But almost as soon as the thought surfaced, I knew it was a bad idea. Her deepest loyalty was to Nicolas, and I'd be putting her in a position requiring her to keep something very important from him. I couldn't do that, to either of them.

  Calling any other relative, then, was also out of the question until I was ready to tell Nicolas.

  The decision was mine to make. At the moment, my loyalties were to Adrienne. I had to decide how much of her life I should reveal, when, and how. Telling her about them was only the beginning. Even though she was aware she had no surviving immediate family, other than Nicolas, I doubted she had any idea how that came to pass. There were two edges to this sword. I could tell her everything and potentially destroy her, or, I could tell her nothing and deny her the truth that was rightfully hers. I had no right to be the one to tell her all of the sordid details, and at the same time, I had an obligation to.

  It was my job to do everything in my power to assist her within the bounds of the law. It really wasn’t my role to protect her anymore. My own feelings seemed distant and unimportant at the moment.

  I was in some predicament.

  15- Oz

  Oz Reminisces…

  A lot can happen in three years. After that fateful day, when Adrienne was sent to the aging city of Brussels, I divided my efforts less than equally between my studies and depravity, “fell in love” eight times, obtained my bachelor’s degree, and purchased my house. Somewhere between getting my degree and buying my first home, I forgot about Giselle Deschanel and became charmed with her older sister Nathalie.

  Nathalie was very tall, almost six feet, but of a subtle build; clearly feminine, but without the lush curves of her sisters. Her legs and arms were long and slender, with delicate wrists and feet. If Adrienne had poise, then Nathalie had grace. She wore her dark hair pulled back from her face and twisted at the back in a dignified bun. Nathalie conducted herself as a young lady of nineteen should, but rarely did, with appropriate reserve.

  She had been a graduate of Sacred Heart for over a year but showed no inclination to leave her sisters for college. She took private tutelage at home in the mornings and spent the balance of the day reading.

  Given to artistic endeavors, Nathalie spent many afternoons on the upstairs back gallery of Ophélie, facing Brigitte’s Garden. She was particularly good with still life, and captured a number of angles from the garden and the distant oaks. These her father proudly displayed in his study and the double parlor.

  One particular afternoon, before my twenty-first birthday, I stopped by the plantation to drop off some paperwork to Charles. Richard answered the door and showed me to the double parlor to wait. Charles was not home but would be returning shortly. I was embarrassed this was the first time I truly noticed the beautiful paintings.

  When Nathalie wandered into the room, I asked her about them.

  A deep blush came into her cheeks when she admitted, “They’re just something I do to pass the time.” Nathalie never said more than ten words to me, and never betrayed any hint of vulnerability. I had always found her haughty and arrogant. Beyond my wonder at her skill, I was surprised to see her wearing her feelings so openly.

  We discovered we had much in common. When she said she was tired of feeling like her life was pre-determined by her family, I thought of the firm, and could relate. When I told her I was ready to meet someone who understood me, she sighed and nodded. I was amazed at how well she seemed to know me, and was able to identify with me.

  I liked Nathalie because, unlike most girls I’d dated, she accepted me as I was. She didn't share my knowledge or passion of literature or history–she was taken more with art and the sciences–but she didn't think me less of a man for it, either. And while the brief romance failed for many amicable reasons, the friendship continued.

  She was the one who ended up leading Adrienne to me. If only I had known she planned it all along, from that very day in the parlor at Ophélie perhaps, watching me, deciding if I was good enough.

  The week after Adrienne’s return from boarding school in Brussels, Nathalie called and asked if I would have Adrienne over for dinner to welcome her back.

  “She was always so fond of you Oz,” Nathalie encouraged.

  I sighed. I didn’t feel like entertaining anyone, especially my friend’s little sister. “I'm helping at the firm this week.”

  “What about the weekend?”

  I could tell it meant a lot to Nathalie, and I didn’t want to disappoint her, so I said, “I’m open Saturday evening. The two of you could stop by around six, I guess.”

  “Oh, it will just be Adrienne.”

  “You won’t be coming?”

  “No,” she said slowly. “I thought you and Adrienne might like some time to catch up after all these years.”

  I could not think of anything Adrienne and I would need to catch up on, but it seemed rude to say so. “Saturday evening then.”

  “I’ll go tell her right now. You don’t know what this will mean to her,” she assured and hung up.

  I couldn’t imagine the big to-do about seeing me, of all people. Who was I? Her brother’s best friend? An acquaintance of her sisters? I was surprised she remembered me. I pictured the precocious thirteen-year old she was, and didn’t consider the changes puberty might have wrought. I was flattered though, and fond of her, so I began to look forward to the visit as the week neared its end.

  When I opened the door Saturday night, her metamorphosis dawned as a complete shock.

  The awkwardness of early development which nagged her at thirteen had blossomed into a sense of completion by sixteen. Her blue eyes were like jewels crowning a slim, yet sensuously curved figure. The bosom she had developed three years ago was perfectly finished now, the cut of her linen shirt revealing the soft, round arcs. Vibrant red hair lit up her face, as if she were kissed by fire itself. Before me stood the most beguiling woman-child I had ever laid eyes on.

  Adrienne, clearly embarrassed by my perusal, crossed her slender arms over her breasts and broke the trance with, “Hi, Oz.”

  I quickly recovered and invited her in. “You look great, Adrienne.” My eyes followed her as she dropped her handbag by the door and found a seat on the couch. Taking a minute to compose myself, I picked up her purse and set it on a table in the entry.

  “Thanks.” She blushed and fidgeted with the gold bracelet on her left wrist. “This is a beautiful house. You recently bought it?”

  “I closed about a month ago,” I told her disinterestedly. I didn’t care about the house at the moment. I wanted to hear about her! I couldn’t believe this was Adrienne! The little genius child who was reading War and Peace the day she was sent off to school; the child who was solving quadratic equations at the age of nine.

  Adrienne looked around self-consciously. When her eyes finally came back to me, she acknowledged my rapt stare with a tentative smile. To my immediate relief, I realized she was anxious, too.

  I offered her something to drink and she requested iced tea. As I brought it in from the kitchen, I saw she was nervous as ever. I would not be able to relax until she did, so I asked her about school.

  Her face lit up, and fell, all at once. Composing herself quickly, she began to talk animatedly about the teachers, one in particular, Mademoiselle Durand, who had been her favorite. She was the trigonometry professor who wanted to advance Adrienne to calculus after the first day, but had been denied by the headmaster. Instead, Mlle. Durand and Adrienne formed a friendship. She spoke about how on the weekends, Mlle. Durand had taken her into England, to her parent’s home outside London. They would ride horses, pick fruit from the orchards, and read Dante.

  “Every weekend?” I asked. It seemed odd to me that a single woman wo
uld not have other things to do on a weekend than spend it with a student.

  “All but one,” her face darkened again. “The last weekend I was there we did not go to London.”

  “From the way you talk about her, it surprises me you would want to come home," I said, thinking of how Cordelia often treated her.

  She sat her sweet tea down on the table, untouched. “I didn’t have a choice.”

  Guessing she was referring to her father’s guilt over having sent her away, I said, “Sure, but you could always go back next year-“

  “No, Oz, I can’t.” Her tone was forceful, as if she had lost all patience with me. “I was accused of being sexually mischievous and expelled without the option of returning.”

  Her candor caught me entirely off guard. How was I supposed to respond to that? I was angry with my father for not sharing this with me, for surely he had known. He knew she was coming for dinner, I told him yesterday. And not a word!

  She laughed, short and bitter. Tucking her long red hair behind her ears, she intuitively understood my silence. “No, I didn’t suppose you’d have a response to that. You want to know what happened, I can see. First, you can stop staring at me. Would you like the truth or what the headmaster told my father?”

  “Both, I guess.” I was riveted. This child, sexual? And to think, I had been harboring immoral thoughts about her since I opened the door, secret fantasies of stealing her coveted innocence. Imagining it had already been done only fanned the fire inside of me.

  Talking about herself, being in control of the conversation, seemed to recharge her confidence. She told me about four older boys who had been following her around since her arrival in Brussels. It started out with innocent flirtations; one would snap her bra and the others would giggle. Another would run by and swat her across the bottom, and his friends would cheer him on. After a few years, though, her reactions became predictable and the innocent pranks grew mundane and boring.