His voice was heavy and clear. Veronique knew men. He said, "Yes", and she knew he'd keep his word.
CHAPTER 3
They dressed and walked up the street in the little mining town. Dick Harden passed them. He saw Etienne. His expression would have killed lesser men. He spat at Etienne's boots and grumbled something obscene. Etienne paid no attention.
Veronique said, "Why does that man give you the dislike, mon amor? He has hate in his heart toward you."
"We worked in the same camp. His axe broke, and he got fired. I had a spare and wouldn't give it to him. It's not my problem."
Veronique held his arm and made him stop walking. "That is wrong. When someone else wants an important thing, and you can help; you have to help. God will punish you if you don't." She saw that her argument didn't penetrate beyond the surface of his eyes. "Let me ask you the question. What if it had been around the other way, your axe did the breaking and he had the other axe instead. How would you feel?"
"Same as he does. It's still not my problem."
"Listen to me. This is important. Do you credit me? Do you think I have the wisdom? Answer me."
Etienne took a deep breath. "Yes. I credit you with wisdom."
"Bon. The world makes things even. If you hurt someone this afternoon, the world makes someone else hurt you tomorrow morning. It goes the other way, backwards, too. If you help someone, someone else helps you. You must give to get. Do you understand?"
Etienne gave that some thought. "Yes, I understand."
"You are big and powerful, but that will not always be. Help that man. You will need his help sometimes again."
Etienne nodded.
Veronique waited. "Now, my handsome fellow. Now."
Etienne grinned. "You think I'm handsome?"
"Yes. Brutish, like the cave mans, but handsome. Why do you stand before me still? Catch up to that mans and help him."
Etienne ran down the street. Buildings along the way didn't actually shake as he loped past, but they could have. He spotted Dick walking quickly and angrily along the sidewalk. Etienne caught up with him. Dick turned, still angry. "What do you want?"
"I've got to help you. My woman told me I should have done it yesterday. She's right. Let's get you an axe and get your job back."
Dick couldn't move. He was so used to life giving him a kick that he couldn't process something nice. Etienne put his arm around his shoulders. "Let's get this done." Etienne steered Dick into a hardware store. They bought an axe and some decent work clothes.
We don't always see the changes in our life when they happen. They seem too insignificant to notice. Etienne didn't notice his character change at that moment. He looked Dick in the eyes and saw gratitude and something else. Etienne said, "When was the last time you had some grub?"
"Two days ago. I haven't been paid yet."
"You can't go without eating. You'll fall over."
Etienne bought him a meal and gave him enough money to eat for the rest of the week. Dick tried to keep the tears out of his eyes and failed. "Thanks. You rescued me."
Etienne said, with sincerity, "I'm glad I could help." He ran out of the cafe and found Veronique looking in a store window at some very silly hats. Etienne said, "I made it right. I bought him an axe and some clothes and a meal. I know where the foreman lives. I'll talk to him this afternoon."
"Very good. It feels better. The giving of the good instead of the bad. It makes you happy, does it not."
Etienne's face lit up in surprise. "It does." He grinned. "Damn all. That's a surprise."
Something occurred to Veronique. "He didn't have the meals since when?"
"Two days. I bought him some grub and gave him some money. He'll be able to eat until he gets paid."
"Bon." She kissed him on the cheek. "You are the good mans as well as the big one. Bon."
CHAPTER 4
Ten years later, Etienne and Veronique, now his wife, moved to the bigger city of Victoria. Etienne worked as a town marshal. Veronique tended to their three children, two girls and a boy.
It was dinner time. Veronique put food on dishes and set the dishes on a tray. She called, "Angelique, Jean Paul, come for the tray to give to Mrs. Peters."
A beautiful girl, age eight, and a handsome boy, age seven, ran into the kitchen. Veronique handed Angelique the tray and covered it with a towel. Jean said, "Why do we take food to Mrs. Peters every day, mama?"
Etienne answered, "Because she doesn't eat if we don't. She loses track of time and forgets."
Jean continued, "But why do we do it?"
Veronique said, "We have the communications problem on this. She won't eat unless we take it to her. Comprendre, mon amor?"
"But why us?"
Etienne stood up. "Because we can. It's that simple."
Jean said, "Oh."
Etienne, his son and daughter carried the food over to Mrs. Peters while Veronique fed the baby. Mrs. Peters was delighted for the food and the chance to visit with her neighbors.
In 2008, an eighty-year-old Etienne and his seventy-seven-year old wife, Veronique stood, happily, in the basket of a hot air balloon flying over the whales off the coast of Quebec. They made a fine wrinkled, grey-haired couple. They loved their grandchildren and great grandchildren, and it showed in their faces.
They heard a hissing sound and looked up. The tanks full of propane exploded with enough force to shred everything and everyone in the basket.
Within seconds, they found themselves standing on the water underneath the obliterated balloon. They stared at each other in surprise. Veronique said, "We are young again." She stared at Etienne. "My darlings, I can see through you. You aren't you, anymore."
"I also can look at the ocean through your body. It's a lovely body. This is how you looked when I first saw you."
"We ought to wear some clothes, though, I think. It is more dignified. We might meet others like us."
Etienne walked across the water and slid his hand into Veronique's body. She giggled, "Etienne, that tickles."
They said the next words at the same time. "We're dead.
CHAPTER 5
“I can’t just strip my clothes off and jump on him. That won’t work,” said Julie
“Well, it would work, but not the way you want it to,” responded her best friend Monica.
“That’s true, but I’m getting pretty desperate. I might have to actually give it a try,” she giggled.
“Jim’s blind. You are hot. There’s not a single guy on campus whose head doesn’t turn when you walk by. I’ve seen it.” She thought for a moment. “I could always put a little birdy in my brother’s ear. I don’t know, just kind of suggest that you might be interested in him in more than a friendly kind of way, or something.”
Julie was mortified. “Don’t you dare! You know Jim as well as I do. He is not going to find pushiness or over-aggressiveness attractive. This is Jim we’re talking about here. This has to be his idea.”
Monica knew she was right, which is why she hadn’t said anything thus far. Her brother, Jim, was highly competitive. He had been a basketball star in high school. In fact, Jim excelled over others at most things he tried. Not necessarily because he was naturally gifted, but because he worked harder than the next guy until he was the better of the two.
As far as women were concerned, he liked to take the lead. Monica always teased him calling him “Mr. Macho”, and saying that he was ultra-picky when it came to women. But, that wasn’t it. He was selective, he called it. He had dated a few women. Jim didn’t want just any woman, and women who threw themselves at men, he felt, lacked dignity and self-respect, as did men who slept with any woman just because she was available to him.
Julie and Monica both sighed at the same time.
Julie and Jim had known one another since he was a pimply-faced greasy-haired teenager, and she was a skinned-kneed third grader with braces and a pixie haircut. She and Monica met in third grade, became instant best friends, had been inseparable eve
r since.
The problem for Julie was that while she now fawned over the handsome, honorable man Jim had become, he still saw her as the annoying awkward tomboy who hung around with his little sister. If Julie could only catch his eye, capture his attention, she knew they were right for each other. She was pretty sure he’d see it if only he could see her.
They all lived in Victoria, now a well-ordered and active city. Julie and Monica were seniors at the University of Victoria. Jim was a constable in the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
Julie and Monica continued their walk along a forest path on the west side of Vancouver Island. The island is divided along the mountain range that runs north and south down the middle. One side is dense rain forest and the other almost a desert.
"I love the forest. It's so alive and growing." Julie looked around her. She absentmindedly rubbed her tummy below her navel. "It makes me think it's getting thicker as I look at it."
"Doesn't it ever make you think it's coming for you? Like it's going to grab your ankle and drag you into the moss and bushes and eat you alive or something?"
Julie laughed. "Is that what this makes you think of? Monsters in the undergrowth, waiting to take you away."
"Don't laugh. It's true. Well, anyway, it seems to be true." Monica threw a pointed looked at Julie's hand as it made small circles on her body. "Are you baby hungry?"
Julie studied her hand. It hadn't stopped moving. "Frankly yes, I am. I want Jim's baby,” she giggled, “I could grow it right in here and give birth and raise it. Why can't I?"
"Because he can't see you!” Monica played along. “No, he won't see you. If he doesn't notice you, he can't plant the seed that makes the baby," she wiggled her eyebrows up and down and flashed Julie a cheesy grin.
Monica agreed that Julie and Jim would make a perfect couple. They were similar in some ways, and in others their differences seemed to complement one another. Plus, there was the fact that her best friend was almost family already. Heck, if Jim and Julie got married, they would actually be family. Hers and Julie’s children would be cousins, they could plan family reunions together, spend holidays together... If her brother would just get his head out of his arse.
They looked at each other with dissatisfied faces. Monica said, "Tonight's the party at his frat house. Maybe you can make some progress."
Her friend Julie was indeed hot Monica thought to herself. She had deep blue eyes and blonde hair and a figure that men who aren’t Monica’s brother, Jim, thought about way too much. Monica was the opposite. She was shorter than Julie and fuller. Julie had longer legs but Monica was more outgoing and flirted much more effectively.
CHAPTER 6
In Julie’s bedroom, Etienne and Veronique Beauregard sat on top of a tall dresser; or rather, they sat three inches above the tall dresser because it was dusty. They'd gotten dressed. Veronique said it was not dignified to be naked in polite society alive or dead.
Veronique wore a dress from the 1920’s; silver with a short skirt and a low neckline. Etienne wore the clothes of a lumberjack; rough pants and a wool shirt with heavy boots. They'd worn the same clothes the first time Etienne saw Veronique in a dance troupe at the local bar. Veronique came west to Vancouver Island because she was tired of polite, slow moving men with no hair on their chests.
They watched Julie and Monica walk into Julie's bedroom, Veronique with a worried frown on her face. Veronique shook her head. “These English girls are never taught to be the woman. My mama showed me how to sit, stand and walk in a way that attracts the mans attentions. They have no idea.”
“It’s just ‘attention’, mon petit chou-chou, not ‘attentions’.”
As Julie grew, her bedroom changed. It no longer held dolls and a play house. She'd gone through the stage of putting rock stars on her walls and moved on to a pleasant, sunny room with quilts on the bed and pictures of her family and friends on her dresser.
Veronique said, “English is tres ennuyeux. I looked it up to say it in the English. ‘Ennuyeux’ means boring, stupid, awkward, tedious and annoying. That is what this language is.”
“That’s all true but it is the language of Canada today.”
“If we had stayed in Ontario, I could hear French spoken every day.”
“That’s true, but we are here.”
“That’s not the only thing. The weather out here makes my skin dry.”
Etienne looked at her steadily for a few seconds. Veronique frowned and said, “Well alright, if I still had skin, it would be dry all the time. Anyway, I can’t stand the rain in the winter.”
“I know, mi amour. But we stray from the topic which is how to get the dull-witted Jim to notice the beautiful Julie.”
“Bah, that is easy. I will her mind open to the possibilities of her feminine side. It will surprise her English morals, and I will love it. But first, she must have a case of the desperates. She must fail at something she most wants to make happen."
CHAPTER 7
That night, Etienne and Veronique followed Jim to a party thrown by Jim's former fraternity. Jim stood six feet four inches tall. In addition to playing high school basketball he had also been on the swim team at his high school and college. His shoulders stretched far enough on each side to have their own time zone. His smile, dark hair and deep blue eyes could turn any woman under the age of eighty into a puddle of desire. As Jim went in the door, an acquaintance named Inez Moreau took his arm.
“Jim, it’s nice to see you. Come with me. I’ll introduce you around.” Jim went.
As was true to his nature, he'd exercised good sense in the fraternity he’d chosen. Pi Delta Zeta stood out from the rest of the fraternities. They had strict limits on drinking and rules against cheating on tests. The club house was always neat; not because the young men were neat, but because the fraternity hired a cleaning company to pick up, dust and polish, and a woman to cook and wash up. It cost twice the price of any other fraternity, but Jim came from major money, and he could afford it.
Inez didn't fit, or rather, she fit into the fraternity like a marauding mountain lion in a flock of lambs. She was the product of greed, naked ambition and talented plastic surgery. Her eyes were the only thing that hadn’t been expanded, trimmed or sucked. In a soft light, she looked experienced and intriguing. Daylight made her look hard and avaricious. Her bleached blonde hair failed to soften her look.
Standing in a corner, three inches above the floor, a man who had been known as Jacques Moreau watched Inez capture Jim. Jacques had been hung in 1924 for murdering an elderly couple for the rent money that they kept in a glass jar under their bed. His eyes sunk back inside his skull as if they were recoiling at what he’d done. His mouth was a thin, corrupted pink line across his face. His body was emaciated and weak. He moved his neck around as if it still hurt.
He waved his hand and Inez pressed Jim’s arm into her left breast. She whispered in his ear, “I’d like to talk to you some place private. I need your help on something.”
She didn’t wait for an answer. She grabbed his hand and pulled him into a spare bedroom. Jacques floated through the door and stood directly behind Inez talking into her ear.
Jim asked, “What is it?”
“I’m thinking of having plastic surgery. I wanted your opinion of my boobs.”
Jim frowned. He considered ‘boobs’ to be crude and unromantic.
Inez missed it. So did Jacques. Neither had much regard for other people, so they paid little attention.
Inez stripped out of her blouse and threw it on a chair. She’d spent time picking out the best bra to use on Jim. Jacques was a big help. He’d known dozens of women, most of them purchased for an evening, and he remembered what he’d liked. He helped her choose a push-up bra with wide set straps and lace along the top. Her already augmented breasts made a lovely fullness above the fabric of the bra.
She turned from side to side. She stopped and held up a hand. “Wait a minute. How can you give me a good opinion with the bra in the w
ay?” She unhooked it and threw it on top of her blouse.
The previous year, a talented plastic surgeon had changed her 32A breasts into 32C with the careful addition of pads of fifth-generation, semi-solid, silicone gel. Inez paid him partly in cash and partly with access to her new body.
She turned her weapons on Jim. “Should I get implants? What do you think?” Once again, she raised her hands, “Stop. How could you know it you haven’t touched them?”
She pounced, leaping toward him and snagging his hands which she held on her manufactured breasts. “Now, you can make a judgment. No, you can’t. You need to see my entire body to see if bigger boobs would fit with my figure.”
She reached for her skirt. Jim stopped her with his hand on hers. She said, “You don’t want to?”
Jim said, “You're beautiful, but we don’t know each other well enough to make love. I think that's where this is headed.”
Inez responded without thinking, which meant she told the truth. “I don’t think you’re understanding me. I just want to fuck, none of that ‘make love’ shit.”
“I’m sorry. I have to have a relationship with a girl before we get intimate.”
Inez took a few seconds to readjust her expression. She held her hands over her breasts. “Good for you. You passed. I have that little test for men who interest me. If you’d accepted my offer, I would have dumped you. I’m tired of men who go to bed a few hours after they’ve met a girl.”
Inez watched him move away. She put on her bra hurriedly. “Don’t leave. You passed.” She scrambled into her blouse. “Like I said, that was a test.” She buttoned the last button on her blouse.
Jim had the door open again. “I’m glad I passed. Why don’t we go back to the party?” He hurried out and closed the door behind him.
Bears of Burden: STERLING Page 66