The Seven Boxed Set

by Sarah M. Cradit

  And Rory. Do not lose another hour of sleep over it. Rory isn’t the man you’re going to marry. Colleen had guessed as much, less because the union didn’t make sense and more that it did. Colleen Deschanel and Rory Sullivan… it was hard to imagine two people who fit together better, if one reviewed the sum of their parts on paper. Their esteemed families, their shared focus and commitment to family. Rory, with his beautiful raven hair and green eyes, like all the Sullivan men, and Colleen, with her soft brown tresses and high, contoured features. Their eventual marriage had even been hinted at in the Tattler, and the more esteemed gossip rag of New Orleans Uptown, Moonlight & Magnolia, even outright suggested that invites were imminent. On Again, Off Again Sullivan Spare and Deschanel Debutante Secret Winter Trysts Revealed.

  He’d even called her about the articles. “Colleen, we need to either put this gossip to rest or stop hurting each other and just be together. I love you. I’ll always love you, no matter what we decide.” She hadn’t missed the slight uptick at the end of the sentence; his voice cracking, hopeful.

  “Carolina can give you what I can’t.”

  “Carolina? You know it isn’t the same with her… I care for her, but it just isn’t the same as it is with us. You know that.”

  “With Carolina you’ll have stability. She’d do anything for you.”

  A long pause permeated his end of the line. “So, that’s it? After everything? You don’t even want to try?”

  I want to… despite Ophelia’s outlook that trying would lead to nothing in the end… despite it all. I love you, too, Rory. I love you and it’s hard to imagine ever loving anyone again, to these same depths. Maybe I’ll die alone. But to love you means exposing more of the compartments where the bad things are. Where my thoughts come to strangle me. “I can’t.”

  He was crying on the other end. “Colleen, I can’t go back and forth like this anymore. It hurts too damn much. If this is it, then this is it, and I won’t keep coming back and trying to change your mind. Just tell me… tell me I’m not wrong, that you’re just afraid to ask someone else to be strong for you. Or with you. I can handle anything, except my heart in limbo.”

  You’re not wrong. You’re not wrong, Rory. “I’m sorry, but you’re wrong. I’ll always hold our time together with fondness, but that season is past us now.”

  “You don’t even sound like yourself.”

  “Maybe because I’m telling you what you don’t want to accept, but need to.”

  Summer would be tougher to perfect her avoidance skills. She’d signed up for classes, of course, but there were so few of the ones she needed that were offered in what was effectively the off-season, and so she had to settle for two, instead of her usual six—already more than most students. She’d hoped to fill the spare time with more alone time in the vault, but now that Pansy had confirmed she was not pregnant, Placide had agreed to let her spend all summer assisting Colleen.

  She’d need to find something else; some other place, or activity, or escape. A place where Madeline’s death—I don’t think you’ll be happy until the world burns around you and you’re the goddamn glowing center of it all—wasn’t real, and her love for Rory had never existed. Where Evangeline was just another ship passing in the night.

  These thoughts consumed her, dancing on the surface of the compartments protecting the thoughts she could not, would not, access. She hardly recognized herself anymore. Focus had always been part and parcel of who she was, but not escape. She was a leader, not a golem, lurking in the shadows, skittering from corner to corner to avoid anything real.

  It had worked for a year and a half. She never expected it to last forever, but an hour longer, a day longer, anything was a relief, and a way to heal, deep down, so she could be whole again. Someday.

  Augustus, of all people—the last person she expected—was the one to shatter her good run.

  “We need to talk,” he said. He appeared in her doorway without knocking, and already she knew it was nothing good.

  Colleen suspected nothing about her face suggested she was open for talking, but he either missed that or wasn’t concerned by it, because he closed the door behind him and stood at the end of her bed, arms crossed.

  “Everything okay?” she asked, though she didn’t want to know.

  “No, it isn’t.” He dropped his arms at his sides. His hands twitched, fidgeting as if searching for usefulness and finding only discomfiture. “You need to work things out with Evangeline.”

  “Do I?” Colleen laughed. The old Colleen wouldn’t have, and she liked that Colleen better, but she was gone at the moment. On holiday. Out to lunch. Insert euphemism here.

  He frowned. There was more than concern there; judgment lurked in the gesture. “What’s the matter with you?”

  She pointed at the book splayed before her on the bed. “At the moment, physics.”

  “Don’t you want to know why I’m here?”

  “I suppose you’re going to tell me either way.”

  Augustus grumbled something under his breath. He slumped against her desk chair. “Evangeline has gotten herself into some trouble.”

  “So, talk to her. Aren’t you two working together?”

  “If I try to say something, she’s going to bolt, and that will only make things worse. She might not come back and… I feel better knowing she’s there, where I can keep an eye on her at least some of the time.” His face knitted into a deeper frown. “You didn’t ask me what trouble she’s in.”

  “Okay, Aggie.” Colleen closed the textbook. “What trouble is she in?”

  “Have you even asked yourself why she didn’t go straight to college?”

  No, Colleen didn’t want to go there. All their escapes rested upon the same, shaky foundation. For that matter, she was more than surprised to see Augustus, who had easily withdrawn the most after the… incident, trying to open up about that very thing. “Tell me about the trouble.”

  “That’s the thing. I don’t exactly know.”

  “Then why are you here?”

  “Colleen, Jesus. You’re not yourself.”

  Not the first time someone she loved had said those words.

  “So, Evangeline?”

  He stood up straight. “She has this group of friends. I’ve heard some things that make me uncomfortable. She met them through some astronomy club, but they spend more time partying than looking at stars. One of them is a prolific drug dealer. The others… just rumors, but not good ones. For the past month, she’s come in most mornings hungover and worse for wear, but there’s more to it. I can see it, I just can’t put my finger on it. Unfortunately, that’s all I know. But it’s enough that we need to do something.”

  “So, do something.”

  “Colleen!”

  Something in her brother’s voice pierced through a layer of compartments. Even buried deep, she understood very few things in life brought Augustus to this level of pique. He had always been content to keep to himself, and never more so than the past eighteen months. The last time he’d let himself worry so much over a sister, things had not ended so well. That he was here now… it was important. More important than running away.

  “Okay,” she said, exhaling. She closed her eyes. “Okay.”

  “You’ll talk to her then?”

  No, not that. “I’ll handle it. Go back to your little office, and your little business, and your own little world.”

  “That’s not fair,” he said. “I’m here, aren’t I?”

  “Nothing’s fair,” Colleen said.

  * * *

  She would regret this. Of that, she had absolutely no doubt. Colleen could feign ignorance, but it would be a weak defense, for she knew Charles possessed not a reasonable bone in his body.

  But she couldn’t have this conversation with Evangeline without having the other, and one was impossible. Charles would solve this, even if his solution would involve a level of permanence she might later find it hard to live with.

  Colleen fo
und him in the parlor, which he’d turned into his makeshift office. An office for what, she didn’t know. Charles had never known or desired work, but it didn’t stop him from sitting at the desk, cigarette dangling precariously, pen bobbing while his thoughts went wherever they went.

  Through Rory, she’d known a little of what her oldest brother had been up to this spring, but, like many things, she’d found a safe compartment for this information. Seeing him now, disheveled with his shirt half-open and his face soaked in sweat brought trickles to the surface.

  “What do you want?” he barked.

  “You look terrible.” Her thoughts became words before she could stop them. Just one of the side effects of being someone else.

  “Yeah? You’re no Cheryl Tiegs.”

  “I need your help.”

  Charles took a hard drag from his cigarette and stubbed it out in the mountainous pile of butts pouring out of the ashtray. “Trouble staying up to study? We have a few options. Mollies will keep you up all night, but one hell of a headache in the morning. I can score some powder, but that shit’s addicting if you don’t know what you’re doing, and it’s safe to say your shape is square. LSD is always an alternative, but everyone responds differently. It might actually put you to sleep, which is what you’re trying to avoid. Quads are also out.”

  Colleen grimaced. “Not that kind of help.”

  “No?” He reached for the pack of Marlboros, found it empty, and chucked it across the room. “Afraid I’m not good for much else.”

  “There’s at least one other thing you’re good at,” Colleen said, hedging. Even committed to the idea of soliciting his help, she knew what a terrible decision it was.

  Charles spread his legs and leaned his elbows onto his knees. “I’m intrigued. This better be good.”

  She told him all Augustus had shared. The words came easily—too easily—and she was angry at herself, for not being stronger, or strong enough to avoid this.

  But there wasn’t anyone else. Maureen and Elizabeth would be no help with this, and Irish Colleen was out of the question.

  “I’ll get my spies on it tonight,” Charles said, a new excitement taking over his haggard appearance. His face brightened, and there was a glow about him, like new life, or air entering an old, shriveled balloon for the first time in years. “Tuesdays and Fridays this space club meets?”

  “Astronomy,” she said, and the dread swelled within her. “And yes. But she meets with these kids almost every night, according to Augustus.”

  He scribbled notes on the back of an envelope. “I think I know the fucker who leads this bullshit.”

  “You do?”

  “Ethan Summerland. Trust-fund dipshit, deals to all the Uptown kids. Never runs out of supply, and he doesn’t discriminate on age.”

  “You know this, because…”

  “Because he’s my fucking dealer, Colleen. Or one of them. I detest the piece of shit, but he’s the only one in town who can get Colombian cocaine, and so until some of these other fuckers step up their game—”

  Colleen held up her hands. “I get it.”

  “Any-fucking-way, he uses his parents’ pied-a-terre on Dauphine for his business, which is more than slinging dope. A lot more. I don’t care how fucking boss his coke is, he does not get to fuck with my sister.”

  “Information only, Charles,” Colleen said, and now the dread was full-blown, an organ all its own, come to life. Her words were hollow and meaningless, for why else would she have told him if not for him to take care of the problem so she could forget it and return to her land of oblivion?

  “Yeah.” Charles didn’t turn, didn’t look at her as he tapped the pen on the desk. “Yeah, information only.”

  * * *

  Charles didn’t need his spies. He didn’t tell Colleen this, because she didn’t need to be nosy about everything. He already knew about Ethan’s parties. What went on. The nature of the clientele.

  What he couldn’t wrap his mind around was what Evangeline had to do with any of it. That strange little genius stomping around the house in camo and combat boots and hair like a million tiny corkscrews didn’t belong anywhere near that crowd. They’d chew her up and spit her out without missing a beat, and she’d never even know what hit her or why.

  He happened to know Ethan reserved Wednesdays for cutting the blow and counting scratch. No parties. No sales. That would be a perfect time to pay him a visit. To have a “chat,” man to man.

  In the meantime, he had another family matter to sort out.

  Charles revved the engine of the Trans Am and peeled out into the afternoon sun.

  * * *

  The cement was cold beneath him, even after the hours he’d sat upon it. He couldn’t make himself lie down on the slab, no matter how hard his eyes fought to stay open. He knew the kind of men who’d been here before him.

  What he still couldn’t figure out was why the cops had been waiting for him at Elizabeth’s school. How did they know? It’s not like he’d told anyone. He hadn’t even told Elizabeth, unless…

  Jesus. Had she seen it? Had she known and tried to stop him, her own brother? Had him set up to rot in jail?

  Augustus showed up around midnight. He could have come sooner, but making him wait, making him sweat it out, was a message, clearly.

  Well, message fucking received.

  He didn’t see Augustus stepping up to do right by Elizabeth. Or Colleen, or Evangeline, or Maureen. If not him, then who? Certainly not their mother, who preferred to extend her help only so far as her judgment.

  The officer handed the bag with Charles’ wallet, keys, watch, and smokes to Augustus, as if Charles wasn’t there and hadn’t just signed for it.

  “Thanks, dick,” he muttered with a snort, and the officer pretended not to hear it.

  “You can get your car from the impound when it opens Monday,” the officer shot back.

  Augustus said nothing on the walk to the car, and still nothing for the first mile or so on the road. At the corner of St. Charles and Third, he turned in and parked the car along the curb, then switched it off.

  “We gonna walk from here?”

  Augustus leaned back in the driver’s seat and closed his eyes.

  “You’ve really done it this time, Huck. You know that, right?”

  Charles snickered. “That? They dropped the charges. I didn’t even get a chance at those kids. They’ve got intent, nothing else.”

  “If only it was just that. Look.” Augustus shifted in his seat, to face him. Dark circles rimmed the lower half of his eyes, as if he hadn’t already looked sufficiently put-upon. “Today was a big day for the family. A bad day.”

  “Rub it in.”

  “You getting arrested was just the tip of the iceberg, I’m afraid.”

  “So, say it. What happened?”

  Augustus ran his hand over the gearshift. “The dean called. The board reviewed your expulsion today, and the decision stands. It’s permanent.”

  The blood drained from Charles’ face and neck. “So, I’ll go to Loyola. Or UNO. Who cares? Tulane isn’t the only fucking college in this town, you know.”

  “You don’t think they talk?”

  “Who the fuck cares!”

  “You’ve been in undergrad for six years. Six.”

  “So? Everyone works at their own pace.”

  “Mama also had news for us tonight at dinner. She called a family dinner, but you were… it doesn’t matter. Maureen’s troubles didn’t end with that teacher.”

  “What do you mean? She fucking another teacher?”

  “Charles, stop and just listen. No, not a teacher, at least we don’t think so, but she’s been promiscuous, it seems, and got herself in the family way.”

  Charles launched himself out of his seat so hard he hit his head. “Maureen is pregnant?”

  “Was,” Augustus said with a sigh. “Remember when we thought she was in the hospital for an appendectomy? That’s not what it was. That’s just what Mama t
old us, because she thought we couldn’t handle the truth. I don’t know. Mama took her to someone to perform the procedure, and things went wrong and Maureen got sick. Mama had to lie to the doctors and say Maureen tried to do it to herself with an, er, coat hanger, to avoid legal problems. They won’t arrest a kid, but they’d arrest Mama. Can you imagine?”

  “No,” Charles said, because he couldn’t imagine a damn thing with his head throbbing like this, throbbing and throbbing and throbbing. “Is that it?”

  “Is that it?” Augustus shook his head. “No, actually it’s not. With Maureen’s and Elizabeth’s troubles this year, she’s pulled them both out of school. She’s going to homeschool them going forward.”

  “Maybe that’s for the best.”

  “But not here in New Orleans,” Augustus said. He turned the key, but didn’t put the car into first gear just yet. “Mama is putting Oak Haven up for sale and we’re moving, to Vacherie. To Ophélie. Permanently.”

  SUMMER 1972

  * * *

  VACHERIE, LOUISIANA

  NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA

  Six

  I See You

  Charles didn’t need any outward encouragement to understand his value as a man, which displayed itself most prominently as heir and protector to this vast family. He was born into this role, and none of his flaws could outshine the honor in who he was by virtue of that birth.

  Yet, he never felt more enmeshed in this role than when he sat in the old oaken chair of his ancestors, in the venerable third floor office of Ophélie, reserved for the heirs alone. His father, and his before him had sat in the hard, unforgiving husk of wood, a piece of furniture that had supposedly survived the long voyage from France in the mid-nineteenth century. Somewhere along the way someone could have added a cushion of sorts to increase the comfort. But August once told his son that they should never be so comfortable they forget where they’d come from, and there was no better reminder than an aching back at the end of a long day.