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

by Sarah M. Cradit

  They began to follow her, at first between classes, and later as she walked through Brussels. They did this in a way which suggested they wanted to be seen, and it began to make her nervous. When she was followed into a tunnel one evening on the way home from the store, she spun around to meet her stalker.

  “It was Pierre, the youngest, but still older than me. He said if I didn’t stop taunting them, I would regret it. Taunt them! I did everything in my power to ignore them, for all the trouble they caused me!”

  Then the day prior to her expulsion, their taunts came to a climax. The four boys, Pierre, Armande, Jean, and Berenger, found her one night as she walked home from the public library. They forced her into the bushes, ripped at her skirt and panties, ignoring her protests as she struggled. “You can’t have tits like that and never use them!” they taunted her. “We know you’re not as innocent as you look!”

  She fought as hard as she had ever fought in her life, but in the end it came down to simple math. There were four of them, all older and stronger. They sucked and bit at her until she bled and screamed all the more. In the end, it was luck that saved her from being raped.

  I was amazed at the frankness with which she told the story.

  “I was screaming and biting their hands and I had finally begun to give up. I was becoming resigned to the fact they would have what they wanted when an old woman happened by.”

  This old woman, hearing her cries, chased the boys away with her walking stick and offered her hand to a tattered and terrified Adrienne. The woman quickly scuttled away before Adrienne could thank her or think to get her name.

  The next morning, she went straight to the headmaster’s office, but when she arrived, the four boys were walking out. They wore smug, satisfied grins on their faces as they passed and one said, “It’s over, ma cher. “

  The headmaster pulled her into his office immediately and demanded an explanation for her actions. Before she could recount her side of the story, the headmaster told how the boys had come to him, confused. “Adrienne seduced us,” they said. “She’s a witch.” “She cast a spell on us and we didn’t know where or who we were.” One look at this developed woman-child and the headmaster cast the first stone.

  “Lolita,” he spat. There was no room for that behavior there, he said. He would not allow her to contaminate his beloved school with such filth.

  “Didn’t you argue, protest?” I asked. I’d seen a lot of unexplainable things, especially around the Deschanels, but I couldn’t imagine anyone believing a young girl had spelled four boys! How could she have forced them to do anything? This headmaster was irresponsible to the point of ignorance. He should be fired! I would call my father about this immediately.

  Of course she did, she said, in a slightly scoffing tone; had I ever known her to not speak her mind? The headmaster had already drawn his conclusion. It was easier to lose the funding from one individual rather than four, and there was nothing to be said that would change the math.

  “What of Mlle. Durand? Surely she knew you well enough to put an end to the nonsense.”

  Adrienne shook her head, slowly. I wasn’t getting it. “Not everyone is as fortunate as us. She needed her job.” She stopped talking and finally took a sip of her tea. The ice had melted. “So that’s it.” She had tears in her eyes.

  As her words settled into my heart and mind, I felt rage threaten to boil over. Those four punks, doing crude and horrible things to sweet Adrienne.

  “How dare they!” I yelled. I stood up fast, nearly toppling the chair. This girl was the closest I ever had to a little sister; the fury was almost beyond my control. “How dare they do this to you!”

  She stood up, matching my pace, and grabbed me by both arms. “No, Oz, I didn’t tell you this to upset you. Please, Oz.”

  I caught my breath and looked down at her. Great big blue eyes implored, begging me to be calm. I tried not to imagine them ripping off her panties, suckling her crudely. This beautiful redheaded child, standing in front of me in her too-tight jeans and her coquettish linen tank top. My family. My friend. My fantasy.

  I wanted to crush her to me right then, stamp out all of the pain and envelop her with kisses. She must have read my mind.

  “This is why I came here, to you. Oz, you have always been there for me.” I had no idea what she was talking about, only that I wanted to protect her. “I want you, Oz; I want you to show me what those boys meant. I want to justify what they did. Make love to me, Oz. Make me understand the difference!”

  The spell was instantly broken. I pushed her away from me. “What did you say?”

  “You know what I said.” She was desperate to make me understand. “You wouldn’t feel compelled for me to repeat it if you didn’t. Oz, those boys took something from me I can’t get back. There is this void, this endless expanse of the nothing they left in its place! They stole from me what was left of my girlhood. Only they did it all wrong, because I am left feeling tainted but without the secret satisfaction which should come with it. I feel cheated and incomplete.”

  Adrienne was blathering, and we both knew it. Her throat moved as her heart raced. I watched her short, quick breaths and realized I was breathing the same.

  She moved back in closer to me, and I could smell the oils of her hair, a mixture of jasmine and wisteria. If she kissed me right then, I could not do a thing to stop it. “Oz, make love to me. Finish the story. I need to know what all of this was about; I need a reason for why this happened.”

  “I can’t give you a reason, Adrienne! Bad things happen, and we can’t always explain them.” I was retreating, trying to stop something terrible from happening.

  “That doesn’t mean we have to accept it and be victims!”

  A million thoughts and arguments were running through my head and I couldn’t harness any of them into a coherent statement. “This is insane. If Nathalie only knew this was why you wanted to come see me!”

  Adrienne managed a short, bitter laugh between her tears. “My dear sister was the very one who sent me here! She said you would understand, that you were a gentleman, and could help me!”

  “I doubt this was what she had in mind!”

  “This was exactly what she had in mind! Go ahead, call her! Call Nathalie if you don’t believe me!”

  She sounded more like a child than ever now. It was painful to sit there and listen to her ask for the very thing I was fighting against myself about. Yet I couldn’t do this to her. I felt I would be no better than the bullies in Brussels. “Adrienne, sleeping with me will not make right what those punks did.”

  “Don’t you think I know that?” Her hands were balled into little fists and the tears were flowing freely now. “I don’t want to make it right, I want to end it! Don’t you understand?” She screamed the last in desperation.

  I grabbed at her tiny wrists. She was shaking uncontrollably. My resistance was slipping. “Oh Adrienne, Adrienne,” I sighed and allowed her to crush her body against mine. Her breath was warm and rapid on my neck, and her tears quickly melted through my shirt.

  We sank to our knees onto the cypress floor and she fell back against the Oriental rug. I gazed at her, red hair spread like branches among the leaves on my pale carpet, tears glistening down soft baby cheeks, and I leaned in to kiss her.

  Her lips were soft and inviting, helping me believe what I was doing was right and I wasn’t going to hell for it. I told myself there were no other options; over and over in my head I justified every moment. I did nothing to stop her hands from fumbling with the zipper on my slacks, assisting her when she didn’t move fast enough.

  Both our shirts were dismissed to the side and her bra laid draped half over her arm in her rush to get it off. She looked up into my eyes, as if seeing me for the first time.

  “My Big Hero,” she whispered, rolling her head to the side to reveal her delicious, milky neck, still throbbing with quickened pulse. “Please.”

  The last of my resistance crumbled with those wo
rds. I slipped inside of her, at first gently, and then later, as she became more aggressive, with a hunger and intensity that was insatiable. She cried out, the cry of a girl becoming a woman for the first time, but the cries turned to moans and the moans to sighs.

  We made love until her driver pulled up in front to take her home, dinner forgotten entirely.

  “You’ll come back?” I asked, as she closed the screen door and walked toward the stairs. It was my turn to sound like the child. What have I done?

  Adrienne turned to me and smiled, a smile of happiness, relief, and resolve. No longer a child. The smile of a woman.

  “I love you, Oz.”

  16- Oz

  Adrienne awoke the next morning before I did. Around six I found her sitting on the front porch swing, using her foot to keep the tiny motion going. She was wearing a flimsy night shift, and the old fabric had become translucent, the bottom lace ruffles of her slip clinging to the tops of her knees as she watched the sun rise over the trees. She hadn’t yet put a comb through her hair and the snarls sparkled as the light broke over them. She looked so peaceful, I hated to disturb her.

  “You’re up early,” I softly announced. Even at this hour the air was balmy and alive.

  “Not as early as the cicadas.” She sighed and continued to stare ahead. “I could never live somewhere the cicadas didn’t sing.”

  “Don't they sing much in the bayou?”

  “Yes, but they have more competition here.”

  I tried to imagine what it had been like for her, living in a world so different from the way she was reared. When I thought of the bayou, I conjured up old Boudreaux and Thibodeaux jokes. I imagined folks with convoluted family trees who murdered the French and English languages. I felt like such an uncultured bastard for basing my sole opinion on a common stereotype. After all, she represented none of these things.

  The first night Adrienne came to me, now a distant memory, I remembered her telling me, over and over, it had been Nathalie’s idea, Nathalie’s suggestion. The terrible spiral of events which unfolded since that night might have been averted had I shown the presence of mind to pause, consider my actions, and perhaps call Nathalie to confirm.

  Adrienne stopped swinging and looked at me. “Oz, if at any time my being here causes you any inconvenience or any-”

  “Would you like some lunch?”

  She appeared confused, then began to understand. This was my gentlemanly way of telling her I didn’t want to start that conversation. As I had hoped, she gracefully replied, “As long as you’re not cooking.”

  I feigned offense. “Excuse me?”

  She wrinkled her nose and scoffed at me, “I saw your kitchen.”

  I couldn’t argue her on that point. The food in my kitchen consisted of chips, old beer, a moldy block of cheese, and an endless supply of ramen noodles. Like many of the Garden District, I had a maid. Solange lived on St. Peter's and came during the day while I was at work, to tidy up and leave dinner warming in the oven. The day I returned from Abbeville, I asked her to take a vacation, so I could have some much needed privacy with my thoughts. While I kept the house clean, the kitchen reflected her absence.

  “Touché,” I said.

  An hour later, we walked up to St. Charles Avenue and jumped on the crowded streetcar in the direction of the Vieux Carré. It was Monday, and people sat around us with their briefcases and cell phones, only an occasional tourist in the group. It was too hot this time of year for anyone to be here who didn’t have to be.

  As the streetcar turned past Lee Circle and on to Carondelet Street, I pointed out the office of Sullivan & Associates. I saw my father’s car parked on the street.

  “I hope you’re not avoiding work because of me,” she said in earnest.

  “I’ve taken a leave of absence.”

  “When are you going back?”

  “You know? I really have no idea,” I replied honestly. At the moment, I didn’t much want to think about it. Eventually I would have to, but now didn’t seem appropriate.

  We bought a muffaletta from Central Grocery and walked over to Jackson Square to share it. Watching the people pass by, she asked me about my life, my family, my job. We carefully avoided talking about her.

  “What’s it like working with your father and all those other relatives?” she wanted to know. I had been watching her attempt to tackle the messy sandwich in her hands and she just about had it.

  I took a deep breath and said, “It’s what all of the Sullivans have done since before the Civil War. Over the years, more than fifty of us have worked for the firm."

  “Do you enjoy your job, Oz?”

  I laughed. Something about the way she met my gaze told me she wouldn’t take anything but the truth. “Sometimes. There’s a lot of honor in what I do and I know I will always have a job there, and so will my children.” I paused, thoughtful. “But sometimes I wonder if there isn’t something else out there I would have been better at. Perhaps even something that would make me happier. Yet, if I went out and searched for whatever that was, what would my father think? He’s always given me everything I could ever need or ask for. It would be like slapping him in the face, him and all the other Sullivans who have sacrificed before me.”

  Adrienne was silent for a few moments, mulling it over, as if the answer would come to her. Finally, she said, “Oz, you should never live for other people. If you would be happy doing something else, then do it. Your father will understand.”

  What would she think if I told her we had this exact conversation? As before, I decided not to argue the tradition of family history. To her, the answer was simple and she wouldn’t see it any other way. I truly believed my father, to the contrary of her perspective, would not understand.

  When we were done with lunch, it was such a nice day, I decided our serious business could wait. Since we were already in Jackson Square, I suggested some sightseeing; the Cabildo, the Presbytére, Gallier House Museum, and St. Louis Cathedral. She quickly agreed.

  Had I known then that we would keep finding one distraction after another?

  Pirates Alley was her favorite. She spent nearly two hours in Faulkner House Books. I gave her some money to spend for her visit until she was able to get her hands on her own, but I couldn’t help my shock when she came out with two large sacks of reading material.

  “I hope you don’t mind,” she said as I gaped at her.

  “You know, I have a full library at home. You didn’t need to buy another one.” But I arranged for the books to be sent to my house.

  We took a stroll down Riverfront Park and into the French Market, which she said reminded her of the street merchants in Abbeville. We both marveled at the creative names given to the hundreds of hot sauces, and she made me purchase a few with promises to cook for me, since it was apparent I could not do so for myself.

  Adrienne was swept up in the tourist frenzy as she flitted from table to table, buying overpriced alligator heads and Mardi Gras beads. It was futile to explain to her the method by which these entrepreneurs stayed in business; she didn’t care. When she slapped a twenty down for a badly silk-screened bag not worth half that amount, I finally put an end to the madness.

  “Save your money. I’ll take you to Magazine Street later." The merchant narrowed his eyes at me as I guided her away.

  “I don’t understand what the big deal is. I know these men buy cheap goods from labor shops in the East and overprice them for sale to us, but it's how they stay in business. Don’t lawyers look for ways to get as much money as possible from their clients? Are street merchants really that different?”

  I laughed at her again. Her manipulation of words and language brought me back a few years, as did her interest in the tourist traps. The entire afternoon conspired to remind me of that summer, three years ago, when she lured me into a similar adventure.

  “I can’t argue with your brutal honesty, Ade. But for the sake of compromise, and my sanity, can we do something else?”

/>   17- Oz

  Oz Reminisces…

  I never realized the extent to which the Deschanel children were sheltered from the city until the summer I spent with Adrienne. Where I took sights for granted, she was a walking historian, giving me interesting details on this, and describing the architectural style of that. We couldn’t walk past a building without her reciting the year it was built, the architect responsible, and sometimes going as far as to quote the years of the modifications.

  “Did you know most of the French Quarter buildings were not built with iron balconies? They were added in the 1850’s when that style became popular in Europe. Also, did you know a majority of the ironwork here is not wrought iron, but cast iron?”

  “No, Adrienne, I did not know,” I said in my usual, dry humor.

  “It goes to show what you can learn about the city you live in if you pay attention,” she bragged. Adrienne knew something about every building, every establishment. If asked, she could probably list off all the tenants from past to present. I dared not ask.

  I teased her, but it occurred to me everything she knew about New Orleans she learned from books, while living barely an hour away. Here was a girl who had been to the South of France, the Swiss Alps, and the Russian frontier, but knew nothing of the city she came from; had never seen the Gulf of Mexico. I realized, through her fascination with books brought to life, how much I took for granted. Also, I was madly in love and refused to disappoint her by being disinterested in all her enthusiastic research.

  That summer we walked the dirty, crowded streets of the Quarter for hours. She made me step into every bead shop, and every tourist trap full of over-priced junk. She bought a plaster Madonna, which was peeling from sitting on the shelf for so long, and its size required her to have it shipped home.