It wasn’t his fault, really, that he couldn’t remember. He never brought the same one twice, and there was only so much useless information a brain could retain. There was science behind that, he was quite certain, but wasn’t willing to weather Evangeline’s knowing smile by asking.
“How did you catch them?” Jessica leaned forward on her elbows, her thin, braceleted arms wound together. If there was anyone enjoying this story more than Charles, it was probably her.
Cat sipped her wine and laughed. “We didn’t.”
Jessica’s mouth and eyes widened in tandem, scandalized. The glitter from her eyeshadow twinkled under the chandelier. “They probably ran off to start their own little mice families. Do you think so? I do.”
Charles shot a hard look at Colin, who replied with an imperceptible shrug and twitch of the head. Colin had chosen this one, and Charles would be damned if that fact wouldn’t be continuously pointed out throughout the evening, every time she said something that all but guaranteed Charles wouldn’t have sex with her later.
“I don’t know,” Cat said pleasantly. “I hadn’t thought about it, but that’s a nice idea.”
If any one of Charles’ male friends had suggested runaway mice had run off to start a happy family, he would’ve smacked them upside the head and told them to go home and think about shit, real hard, before they opened their mouth again. As it was, he had to bite his tongue with his date.
But then, there was Cat, always, to remind him there were other virtues than anger and annoyance.
Still, he was annoyed.
Annoyed this date wasn’t pretty enough to cancel out her stupidity.
Annoyed this meant he wasn’t getting laid later.
Annoyed at this silly year-and-a-half anniversary.
Annoyed it was Colin, and not Charles, going home with Cat tonight.
Even if he put his own confused feelings aside, he struggled to understand the attraction between his best friend and Catherine Connelly. Colin was settled, solid and predictable, while Cat led with her heart. She did well in school, but didn’t see the same point in it that Colin did, and would have been equally happy aimlessly roaming the world. Colin had panic attacks if his routine was disrupted, but Cat always suggested they go off script and try something spontaneous, like two weekends ago when she’d dragged him to Destin and made him camp out on the beach, under the stars. She’d been glowing when they returned, and Colin, smiling, nonetheless looked as if he’d been dragged through the outer bands of a Category 5 hurricane.
Yet here they were, a year-and-a-half later. And here Charles was, the third wheel, paired with yet another date he’d forget in a day.
Charles told himself it didn’t matter. Irish Colleen had her mind set on marrying him off soon, and it was unlikely he’d have any choice in the whole affair. She probably had the woman picked out already. Every day he went home, his muscles twisted in apprehension, prepared for her to pounce and deliver the inevitable news.
Whoever Charles married, she would be nothing like Cat or Jessica. Pliant, fertile, and rich were the only qualifications his mother would worry herself with. The other six could marry for love, but not him. And if not him, then why not Colin? His best friend, who had stuck by him through his endless stream of crimes and mishaps? He might get angry with Charles, but he never left.
“So, Charles, what are you doing with yourself these days?” Cat asked.
Now that you’ve been kicked out of college again and half the establishments in town to boot, she had the kindness not to add.
“Yes, Charles, what have you been doing with yourself?” Colin asked, with a grin Charles wanted to smack right off his face.
“Helping out with the family, mainly.”
Although he’d been avoiding his family at all costs, it wasn’t a total lie. After the business with Maureen and that pervy teacher, and then the loss of Madeline—Look at our mother! Look at that gray! That’s you, Maddy! You! You stupid, ungrateful bitch, you are sending our mother to an early grave!—Charles had made it his sole business to look after his sisters, whether they liked it or not. Elizabeth was in trouble again, and Evangeline was up to something… he just wasn’t certain what, yet.
“You’re such a family man,” Cat said, and she gifted him with an adoring smile that sent soft pains to his chest. “You’re so lucky to have a big family. Being an only child can be so lonely.”
“It sounds incredible to me,” Colin said. “I wouldn’t have had to share my toys growing up, or my clothes.”
She laughed and nudged him. “You have no imagination, Olly.”
Charles suppressed a laugh. Colin hated being called Olly, but he’d never breathe a word of that to Cat. He might lack imagination, but he was sensitive, far more than he’d ever let on.
“Yeah, Olly,” Charles said, and it was completely, totally revenge for the Jessica incident.
Colin shook his head. “I only meant… I have a big family, not just my immediate one, either. The Sullivans are a big lot. I’ve always wondered what it would be like to just have peace and quiet.”
“Of course,” Cat said and kissed his cheek. “But that won’t stop us from having twelve children, right?”
Colin coughed out a laugh.
Charles downed his wine. Twelve children. That would take a lot of sex. He knew they were sleeping together—hell, that Cat was Colin’s first—but something about the organic permanence of children made that far more real.
“I think I’ll adopt,” Jessica said with a dreamy look. “I don’t like the idea of a human blooming from my passion flower.”
“Your passion flower?” Cat asked.
Jessica blushed. “You know.”
“No, I…” Catherine paused. “Oh.”
“You know, you could just say you don’t want to shit a baby out of your pussy, and we would’ve all gotten it on the first try,” Charles said and signaled for more wine.
Colin set his lips tight. He looked more scandalized than usual, which was an incredible feat. Score another for Charles. “Charles. We’re at a nice restaurant.”
“Well? Am I wrong?”
Cat hid a smile in her wine glass. She set it down and looked at Jessica. “A lot of women adopt. I think it’s an admirable charge, and there are a lot of babies out there who need homes.”
“Mice babies, even,” Charles said.
Colin kicked him under the table.
“Yes,” Cat agreed, and this time she couldn’t hide the smile so easily. “Even mice babies.”
Charles tipped his glass at Cat. “The good news is, we know where you can find a few.”
* * *
Charles was drunk enough that by the time Colin raised his glass in toast, Charles no longer cared so much about the lovey-dovey bullshit being passed around the table. Blah fucking blah, happy anniversary. Go fuck yourselves.
Their celebratory kiss was lingering, even a little sloppy. Charles could have, would have, kissed her so much better… and more. He’d bet Colin had never even made her come, with his lack of imagination.
After, when they’d dropped off the girls, and Colin drove Charles back home, Colin remarked that the night had gone fairly well. He said it as if he was surprised.
“Yeah, pretty fucking well for a made-up anniversary.”
Colin tightened his hands over the steering wheel. “You’ve never been in a relationship, Charles. You wouldn’t understand.”
“You’re right, Olly. I wouldn’t.”
“Stop.”
Charles threw his hands up. “Where did you even get that idea? The Sears catalog?”
Colin’s face recoiled. “The what? No… that doesn’t even… I got it from Rory, actually. He used it to win Colleen back, and I guess it worked. She was really touched.”
“He’s not fucking her again, is he?”
“I don’t think so,” Colin said. “I mean, not at present.”
“At present? What does that mean? Like at this very moment? Ar
e you Superman? Do you have X-ray vision?”
Colin breathed out, a heavy sound. “You’re drunk, Charles.”
“Very. Now tell me what you meant!”
Colin shrugged his shoulders, but his hands never left the wheel; always the responsible one. Never off his game. “I don’t know! I just know they were back together for a little while this winter, but as far as I know, Colleen told him to split again.”
Charles laughed. That sounded like Colleen. He pitied the man who eventually married her. That was, if she didn’t die a miserable old maid.
But she was still his sister, and a part of him had liked the idea of her with Rory Sullivan, who was, if nothing else, stable and from a good family.
“You seem upset by that.” Colin laughed. “Really? After you chased Rory out of your house, how many times?”
“It’s my job.”
“Your job? To harass your sisters’ boyfriends?”
“Don’t lie to me and say you’ve never scared off one of Chelsea’s boyfriends.”
Colin flicked his turn signal and eased the car onto Third Street. The ride changed from the concrete of St. Charles to the uneven bumps of the cobblestones and brick of the Garden District. “Chels is responsible. She doesn’t date.”
Charles laughed so hard his stomach seized. He belched up a mix of vomit and red wine. “She’s sixteen! Everyone is fucking at sixteen, brother. Everyone.”
“I wasn’t.”
Charles’ laughter faded. Something burned behind his eyes. No, Colin wasn’t then, but he was now. And all those years of restraint had been worth the wait, because now he was sleeping with the kindest, most beautiful woman in the world. A gift Colin deserved, and Charles never would.
“Let me out here,” Charles barked.
“What? It’s pouring rain!”
Charles threw the door open and made as if he was going to jump out.
“Jesus, Charles, what are you doing?” He slammed on the brakes and the car came to a sliding halt halfway into the intersection. “Okay, okay. Fine. What’s gotten into you, anyway?”
“Happy Half-Anniversary,” Charles muttered and stumbled off, drunk and sobbing, into the rain and darkness.
* * *
Evangeline tossed back the shot of tequila. She winced and started to declare how awful it tasted when one of the others shoved a lemon in her mouth.
She spat it out. “That doesn’t help.”
“Sure it does!” Delia exclaimed, swinging the bottle around. “It neutralizes the taste!”
“No,” Evangeline said. “Tequila and lemons are both acidic. You can’t neutralize an acid with another acid. What you meant to buy are limes, which are acidic when in their natural state, but become alkaline when ingested by the body.”
“Huh?”
“Nothing. Never mind.”
Evangeline thought her brain might explode from the grating tambourines and synthesizers of the music they called disco. It wasn’t music at all, as far as she was concerned, but she was no judge of such things, and so she said nothing. Whenever she did voice an opinion on popular culture, her words were often the catalyst for widening the chasm between normalcy and weirdness.
What was worse, these were kids who were supposed to “get it.” She’d found the ad in the paper, small and shoved in the corner of the Classifieds. ASTRONOMY CLUB. COME SEE THE STARS. That sounded incredible, even if she hadn’t been actively in search of excuses for taking time off before college. They met twice a week, at the handful of observatories in Orleans Parish, at 10:00 p.m. sharp.
What hadn’t been mentioned in the ad was that thirty minutes later, their interest shifted from planetary study to hard-core partying, running far past the hours the bars closed. Their energies flowed sometimes into sunrise, with Ethan’s flat in the French Quarter providing the perfect venue.
Evangeline had little interest in partying, especially with her keen understanding of what alcohol did to the brain while intoxicated, but she hadn’t known how badly she craved friends until she saw the promise of them dangling before her, at the end of a decision. She suspected they weren’t really the fans of astronomy that she was—she later learned it was a way of procuring college credit without doing much actual work—but maybe that didn’t matter.
At first, she’d told herself the ingestion of alcohol was for scientific reasons. It was one thing to understand something intellectually, and another to experience in a practical setting, and this gave her the perfect laboratory. But as time went on, she ran out of excuses, and the only one left was the truth: when drinking… when stoned out of her mind… she could forget the rest. Colleen. Madeline.
Madeline. Screaming and crying.
Madeline. Scared and alone.
Madeline. In the bus stop at the edge of town, in the middle of the night.
Only Augustus understood, even if there was an unspoken agreement between them never to speak the words aloud. But she felt their shared agony in the spaces between the work they did together, quietly, channeling their focus into results.
He wasn’t the reason she’d taken the year off school. Or he was, but he wasn’t the only reason. There were many, and like the great Theory of Gestalt, when placed together they were so much more malignant than the sum of their parts.
Craig handed her a beer. “I don’t like that liquid fire either,” he said and flopped beside her on the oversized purple couch. The thing smelled like piss, booze, and something more human, more feral, but no one seemed to mind.
Evangeline accepted the drink. She tucked her thick, wild hair behind her ears, but it was no use. It was never any use. She may as well be Medusa. “Thanks.”
“It’s copacetic,” he said and pinched the neck of the bottle between his thumb and forefinger. Took a swig. “You seemed really into the stars tonight.”
“I’m always really into it.”
“Yeah,” he said. “I’ve noticed.”
“You have?”
Craig nodded. He kicked off his shoes, which seemed to shoot out of nowhere from under his ridiculous bell bottoms. “I’ve figured out you’re not here for the college credits.”
Evangeline sipped her beer. “I think I’m the only one.”
“Nah, don’t be embarrassed, doll. It’s groovy.”
“Really?”
“I totally dig smart chicks.”
She heard someone fiddling with the record player behind her. The music switched to the one sound she hated more than disco: Joan Baez. Evangeline groaned.
“Wanna dance?” Craig asked.
Evangeline snorted. “To this shit?”
Craig threw his head back and laughed. His glasses toppled over his forehead and landed on the floor, which he didn’t seem to notice, though Evangeline couldn’t stop thinking about it and wondering when he would have the presence of mind to retrieve them.
“You’re an odd bird, Evangeline,” Craig said with a strange smile, but it was his eyes she noticed more, which held a hint of fun but also something more seductive and serious.
“I try,” she replied, growing nervous without understanding why.
Craig’s arm appeared behind her shoulder, and when she turned to look, to evaluate what had shifted between them, he shoved his tongue in her mouth and twirled it around, in something resembling a kiss.
He was a terrible kisser, not that she had much experience in such things with which to make comparison.
“The bedroom is open,” Craig said.
“I’m a virgin,” Evangeline replied. She didn’t know how to flirt, or if she even wanted to.
“Yeah?” Craig kissed her again, transferring a mouthful of beer he’d seemingly forgotten to swallow. “I can fix that.”
* * *
Evangeline draped her boots over one arm as she stumbled down Royal, toward Canal. She could hardly see her way through the tears, which were inexplicable to her, for she had caused her own discordance. She had followed Craig to the bedroom, let him undress her, standing
stiffly while he first shoved his fingers inside her and then, pressed on her back atop the scratchy afghan, the rest of him.
She was too exhausted, too empty, to even make a clinical observation of the act. She knew, though, that she hadn’t enjoyed it. That, in her inexperience, she hadn’t known she was supposed to clean herself up after and now felt what was left of the evening running down her left leg, which was why she couldn’t make herself put on her treasured boots. She couldn’t ruin those, too, like she’d ruined so much else.
There was blood, too. Of course there was. She’d known that would happen.
Evangeline had stolen a zip tie on her way out the door. For some reason, there’d been a whole bunch of them wound together on a table, without explanation. So she’d helped herself, wrapping the hard plastic around her dark mane. She hardly needed to tighten it at all, and it wouldn’t last, but it only needed to get her home.
Maybe she should have left. Gone far, far away to college, where she could lose herself in theory, where emotion was counter to science, and had no place.
Colleen would know what to do. She was the bridge between those worlds, always had been. But there would be no late night sessions with her sister, where advice and love would be dispensed in equal measure. Maybe never again, either.
But Augustus needed her. He needed her, even if he could never say the words, and Evangeline would hold on to that meaning with every last fiber, until there was nothing of herself left to give.
Five
Everything is Changing
Colleen successfully kept her thoughts at bay the remainder of spring, and as the season began to shift, from humid breezes to subtropical swelter, she felt content in having accomplished much while thinking of little.
She hadn’t exactly ignored Ophelia’s words. They were there, in the wings, awaiting consideration. Forgive Evangeline. Well, she had, but forgetting was something altogether, and forgetting would first require thinking, and a level of emotional focus Colleen couldn’t spend on anyone or anything. It was far from selfless, far from who she was before and still wanted to be, but it was safe. It was a form of living, even if not an altogether healthy one. Mostly, it was surviving.
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