Shadows of Pearl (The Pearl Trilogy, Part 2)

by Arianne Richmonde

  “She does. Her guilt is almost tangible. Every time I see her, her eyes spell out regret.”

  “You know that Edith Piaff song?”

  “Why is it, Pearl, that you and I can read each other’s minds? I was just thinking the same thing! Non, je ne regrette rien…”

  He starts singing. He has a good voice, perfectly in tune.

  “Do you regret anything, Alexandre?”

  He squeezes my hand. “I regret not having kissed you sooner.”

  “No, seriously, if you could re-live your life what would you choose to do differently?”

  “I am who I am because of all my choices, the good and the bad. Perhaps if I’d done everything in the perfect order I’d be married to Laura, and you and I would have never met.”

  “D’you still think about her?”

  “She’s a dear friend, we shared a past, of course I still care for her and worry about her wellbeing.”

  A clown comes bounding in front of us, interrupting our heart-to-heart conversation. Not Now! I glare at him and his painted face and turn my head back to Alexandre, “So you don’t agonize over choices you made in the past or about things you wish you hadn’t done?”

  “Sometimes you don’t have a choice, Pearl. Sometimes external forces choose for you.”

  “Natalie says we always have a choice.”

  “Well maybe Natalie’s had a relatively lucky life. Perhaps she’s never been a victim of circumstance or ever had to battle with personal demons.”

  “Your main demon being your father?”

  “And the tidal wave he left behind.”

  “What happened to your father, anyway?” I ask, relieved that for the first time Alexandre’s opening up about his past. I need to strike while the iron’s hot – I may not get this opportunity again.

  “He disappeared.”

  “Really?”

  The look on Alexandre’s face is a chilling mask when he says, “Yes, really, Pearl. The nasty piece of shit just disappeared into thin air.”

  “Aren’t you worried he could re-surface one day? I mean, not that he could hurt you now that you’re a grown man, but psychologically speaking. He could come back to haunt you in some way.”

  “No. He won’t come back. He’s gone for good.”

  “How can you be so sure? Sometimes when you think something’s buried it can come back with a vengeance just when you least expect it.”

  “Because as far as I’m concerned, that bastard’s buried for good.” Alexandre’s eyes are cold fire, the green in them flicker to a pale, icy gold and for just a second I feel as if I’m looking into the gaze of a man capable of murder.

  Chapter Eight

  Two days have passed. I’ve been working with Alessandra at her house in Topanga Canyon. Her attitude has changed. She’s less cocky than when we first met, as if she had something to prove then – as if she felt competitive with Alexandre in some way. Since that first day, she hasn’t been coming on to me or flirting. Thank God. We’ve made huge headway with the script. She has a sharp sense of humor and has managed to slip in a lot of great one-liners. They still haven’t chosen her leading man – everything is up in the air while Sam awaits decisions from tough-cookie agents and managers. Whatever, whoever, the actor will be a star. If this film is successful, I’ll get a nice percentage of the box-office. This is a win-win situation for all of us.

  I’ve been so busy that I haven’t had a chance to speak to anyone about my nightmares.

  When I get back to the hotel after a full day’s work, I call Daisy. I need her sound advice. It’s strange – when you get older you become more and more picky about who you spend time with and in whom you confide. I used to wear my heart on my sleeve and had never since associated bottling up my feelings with that dreaded night. But when I think about it, it was after that that everything changed – when I lost my trust in people. I had never put two and two together. Because I had not been aware, until now, of how it affected me psychologically.

  I lie back on my deliciously comfortable hotel bed leaning against the padded headrest and I stretch out my legs. Daisy takes a long time to pick up.

  “Amy stop that,” she finally shouts into the receiver.

  “Daisy?”

  “Oh, hi Pearl. Sorry, Amy’s being all needy right now. One sec. Amy - if you want my attention then you need to sit quietly with your coloring book for ten minutes and then we’ll choose your Halloween outfit together. Is that a deal? Ten minutes only, I promise, then I’m all yours.”

  I can hear Amy’s willful voice soften and she says, “Okay Mommy but just ten minutes. I’m watching the clock, you know.”

  “Sorry about that, Pearl. Johnny’s away on a business trip so she’s being really demanding. He’s been away a lot lately.”

  “I’ll try to squeeze everything I have to say in ten minutes,” I say jokingly.

  “I know. Foolishly I taught her how to tell the time and now she’s got me on a tight leash. She doesn’t miss a trick.”

  I lay bare to Daisy the details about my nightmares and how I’ve been keeping their content a secret from Alexandre - bearing in mind, I let her know, about what she said about him being a ‘Latin man at heart.’

  “Okay, Pearl, first off, since we had that conversation in my office? Things are not the same as I had previously imagined.”

  I plump another cushion behind my head. “What d’you mean?” I ask - sure that whatever advice she gives me will be sound.

  “Well, how you are describing the situation now colors things very differently. You’d always led me to believe that you had been totally up for that threesome with the two footballers but you were so out of it, that later, you couldn’t remember what happened.”

  “Yeah, well that’s still true. I mean, it’s only since these flashbacks - these dreams, that I realize there was more to the whole story.”

  “This is what you have to figure out – were these actual flashbacks or are they just dreams, figments of your imagination?”

  “They’re so detailed, so in depth that I think it’s what went down that night.”

  “When you confided in me years ago about this I remember you saying that Brad found you alone in the boys’ room drunk as a skunk, naked in a stranger’s bed with used condoms strewn about and vomit all over the bedclothes. And he freaked out but took you home and then, basically, never spoke to you again and that was the end of your relationship.”

  “That’s what I thought. I mean, yes, that’s what happened afterwards when he found me, but before that I can’t be sure what took place. At the time it was just a blank. I’d blacked-out.”

  “So now it’s all coming back to you? What triggered the memory?”

  “I don’t know – my upcoming marriage, all that talk we had about being honest with Alexandre and…this color…electric blue…Rex was given an electric blue collar and it must have just made something click – I remembered this skirt I had that was also electric blue – I wore it that night. Something about remembering that color must have activated a part of my brain that had been shut off all that time.”

  “So then what happened after the third guy came through the door?”

  “That’s what I can’t remember.”

  “You said your body was practically numb? Like a rag doll with no strength in your muscles?”

  “Yes. I remember that clearly. I had no strength to move – I must have been really inebriated.”

  “Sounds like a lot more than just tequila to me.”

  “But I didn’t smoke any weed or anything, I wasn’t stoned.”

  “Sounds to me as if you’d been slipped some Ecstasy or something, maybe even Rohypol or Valium.”

  “Ecstasy?”

  “I took it once, twenty years ago. Big mistake. Well, a lot of people were doing it then, it was all the rage – I thought it would be a laugh. I remember being exactly like that, like a flopsy marionette. I couldn’t move a muscle. Everybody else was dancing all night but
with me it had the opposite effect. I spent the night with this guy who I thought was God’s gift to the human race but when I woke up the next morning I was horrified. HORR. IF. IED.”

  The way Daisy tells me this with her exaggerated British accent makes me chuckle. Comic relief from a serious subject.

  “That’s why it’s called Ecstasy,” she goes on. “People are convinced they’re madly in love. You see everything with rose-tinted glasses while you’re high. But actually, those bastards probably gave you Valium or something. These types of drugs affect everyone differently but mixed with all those shots of tequila? You wouldn’t have stood a chance, Pearl.”

  I twiddle my hair in thought, retracing my nightmare. “Maybe you’re right…in the dream one of them said something like…what was it? Like…’it’s really taking effect now.’ You think they spiked my drink?”

  “Hey, it happens all the time at colleges and parties, that’s one of the reasons they call it ‘date rape.’ I bet they slipped something in your drink. It can cause retrograde amnesia which is obviously what happened to you. I mean, it’s common for people to wake up the next morning without any memory of huge chunks of the night before. It’s really rife in Britain with all this binge drinking going on with young girls. There are so many cases of fake taxi drivers raping them – you know, they get into a car thinking they’re going home and end up being violated. Some even murdered. But I’m digressing – what happened to you was a classic case of date rape. Even if you had gone to the doctor for a test the next day, a lot of these date rape drugs don’t even show up in urine samples.”

  “How d’you know all this?”

  “It was part of my training. Date rape is way more common than people think and it usually goes unreported – but often it’s revealed years later in therapy sessions. Like with incestual rape, people often don’t want to admit to themselves that they were abused, let alone confide in someone else – it can take years to resurface sometimes. Or like with you, the victim genuinely forgets about it – blocks it out and something triggers the memory years later. It could be a smell, a word, a movie or book – in your case it was a color that was the trigger reminding you of that skirt and everything that followed.”

  “The truth is, though, I asked for it, Daisy. I was dancing around in that little skirt coming on to them, flirting like crazy. And I agreed to go back to their place – they didn’t force me. I was even looking forward to having a threesome. At first it seemed like a great idea.”

  “Oh so you think you asked to be basically, gang raped? This was not your fault, Pearl. This was not your fault. Do you hear me?”

  “I felt so ashamed at the time and I still feel ashamed even speaking about it now.”

  “You and every other person who ever gets raped. It’s classic – the victim feels like somehow it was their fault and they were asking for it. Their lipstick was too bright, the skirt too short, they shouldn’t have worn high heels that evening - they should never have got into that car. The list goes on.”

  “The worst thing is that I suddenly feel repelled by sex – the repulsive details are all flooding back and I feel grossed out.”

  “That’s why you need to tell Alexandre about what happened.”

  “But you said—”

  “Pearl, that’s when I thought this was about a fun, wild night out during your university years - something he really didn’t need to know about. But this? This is affecting your relationship. This is a whole different kettle of fish. It was rape. Just because it happened ages ago doesn’t make it any less serious.”

  “He might think it was my fault.”

  “I doubt it very much. We all have a past – we’ve all done crazy things. This was eighteen years ago, for fuck’s sake.”

  “Just yesterday he said how he couldn’t imagine me ever having been promiscuous or wild – he thinks I was perfect.”

  “Well, wakey, wakey, Alexandre Chevalier, you are engaged to be married to a mere mortal! Pearl, if he can’t stomach what happened to you and if he can’t deal with it in an adult way then you really shouldn’t be marrying him anyway. Listen, Amy says my time is up and I don’t like breaking promises. Call me tomorrow and we’ll finish this conversation. It’s good you’re letting it all out, anyway.”

  “Bye. Thanks, Daisy, thanks for listening. Say thank you to Amy for being so generous with her mom’s time.”

  “Please, stop making yourself sound like a bore. Of course I’m listening, This shit is serious and you need to sort through it. We’ll talk tomorrow. Love you, and thank you for trusting me with all this, I know it’s painful.”

  I get out my iPad and look up the words online that Daisy mentioned, ‘retrograde amnesia.’ I always thought that was a nifty trick they used in soap operas but never could have imagined it would happen to anyone in real life – to totally blank something out. At least, not unless you’ve had some sort of physical head trauma from a car accident or something. Although, I understand now that it was trauma - only mental.

  If I’d remembered the course of events at the time I could have defended myself – Brad would have seen me in a different light, not as some complete slut with no morals at all. Not that having a threesome is wrong, no. But I was going steady with him. The fact that he admitted he had slept with Alicia didn’t let me off the hook. I broke his heart. Broke his trust in me. We would have got married if he’d been able to forgive me. Maybe we would be together now.

  I take a deep breath and try to stop the self-blame flooding over me. It’s true what Alexandre said, you have to accept your mistakes, the good and bad because they define who you are as a person. Perhaps if that had never happened with the footballers I wouldn’t be with Alexandre today. Then again, maybe I would have had children. Who knows which path would have been the ‘right’ one. Are our lives destined by fate or does every single choice we make offer a gamut of possibilities like a CD with several different tracks? I chose that song, All I wanna Do Is Have Some Fun…and that’s where it led me that night.

  I am mulling all this over and thinking about a light dinner in tonight at the hotel restaurant, when my cell goes. It’s Alessandra.

  Her smoky voice sounds languid and rich. She doesn’t even say ‘Hi, Pearl’ but begins, “All we ever do is work, you and I. I think we should just hang out this evening together.”

  I’m taken aback. “Well, I—”

  Her voice is almost a whisper. “Actually, I’m cheating. I’m already here - down in the lobby – thought I’d take a chance.”

  “Wow, Alessandra, what if I’d been busy?”

  “I figured you’d be free. I’m on my way up to your room.”

  When I open the door a few minutes later, I’m stunned. It’s like action replay, except the seductive person standing before me uninvited is not Alexandre but Alessandra. She stands there dressed in a clingy, silky dress – almost see-through - her nipples erect, her cascading dark hair wild and untamed about her shoulders. She’s holding a chilled bottle of Dom Pérignon and some pink roses. Déjà-vu. Except, she also holds a glass vase for the flowers.

  It plops out of my mouth, “You look pretty,” I say. My eyes fall on the roses. “These are for me?”

  “No, they’re for your alter ego, the Pearl who takes work way too seriously, the Pearl who needs a little sweetening up.”

  I try to stifle a grin. It’s true, we’ve been working non-stop on the script and not spoken about anything else. “Come in, Alessandra – sorry, it’s a little messy, I was just choosing something to wear. I always end up rooting through every piece of clothing I have, never knowing what to put on. I thought I’d go downstairs and eat in the hotel restaurant – the food’s great here –join me if you like.”

  “I love this place,” she says in her husky voice – “so romantic. Let’s open the champagne while it’s still cold. Oh, look you have a balcony, how lovely.” She steps onto the balcony and surveys the ocean view. The breeze blows her dress revealing the outline of h
er thighs and ass. No underwear. Another thing she and Alexandre have in common. Oops, maybe we won’t be dining downstairs after all; her dress is no better than a negligee. Unless I lend her a pair of my panties. No, far too intimate, perhaps room service is a better idea.

  I fill up the vase Alessandra brought with water and place the flowers inside and then grab a couple of flute glasses by the mini- bar. “Thanks so much for the roses, they’re beautiful.”

  “The rule is - this evening we won’t mention the film, is that a deal?”

  “It’s a deal,” I agree. I look at her, my eye like a camera and know that this woman is on her way to movie stardom. It’s obvious. Her beauty is breathtaking. Her skin is olive-colored but flawless, an advantage these days with high definition cameras showing up every blemish. Her eyes flick up at the corners and her dark lashes are like frames making the green greener, the flecks of gold more pronounced.

  She pops open the cork and some of the champagne bubbles over. She licks her fingers, her tongue slowly rimming her top lip. It’s as if she and Alexandre are twins; their mannerisms are the same. Am I in the middle of a soap opera? First this retrograde amnesia business and now this. Am I about to discover that Alexandre’s mother gave up one of her babies for adoption and Alexandre and Alessandra are long-lost brother and sister? She and I have been working so hard on the script, I haven’t had a moment to really observe this woman but everything about her fascinates me, mostly because she reminds me of him.

  We clink glasses and make a toast to the success of the film but burst out laughing simultaneously when it occurs to us that we’ve both broken our rule to not mention it this evening She tells me about her hybrid upbringing, that she was born in Chicago but then moved to Italy when she was six, raised in Florence by her single mom who had at that point divorced her father, an American. She spent her summer vacations with her grandparents in Sicily. She returned to the States when she was sixteen and modeled in New York before landing a commercial and an agent. Little by little, she found her way into the theatre although it was a slow progression. Finally, she got the part which won her the Tony Award and things have been going skyward from there.