Jezebel

by K Larsen

  As she waltzed into Jezebel’s room she made a note to ask the woman about her findings. But first, she wanted to have a little fun.

  “Hey there tiger,” Jezebel said.

  “Hi.”

  “You look . . . dare I say it, happy today,” Jezebel said dryly. Annabelle laughed at her delivery.

  “I am,” she answered kicking off her shoes as she rummaged through her purse. Finding her phone she held it up victoriously and smirked.

  “What the hell is that face for?” Jezebel asked, a weary look on her face.

  “We are going to have some fun,” she started. “I want some pictures of you and me together.”

  “Oh, no no no,” Jezebel clucked, looking horrified.

  “OH, yes yes yes,” Annabelle answered. She walked to Jezebel and perched on the arm of her chair, leaning her head in near Jezebel’s. “We’re taking a series of selfies together.”

  “What the hell is a selfie?” Jezebel balked.

  “Okay, it’s like this, we make faces at the camera. There’s duck face, where you make your pursed lips sexy and your eyes sultry.” Annabelle demonstrated the expression while Jezebel laughed at it heartily.

  “You look ridiculous!” Jezebel squawked.

  “Then there’s sparrow face-open your eyes as wide as possible, and then you make your mouth like a chirping sparrow,” she continued, unfazed by Jezebel’s ribbing. “Frog face is where you stick your tongue out sideways and squint, and fish lips is the duck face move that requires you to suck in a little bit of your cheek. Well, expects you to completely suck it in, like you would like to swallow your face until it disappears.” Annabelle laughed trying to demonstrate.

  Jezebel struggled to catch her breath as she doubled over laughing loudly. Annabelle snapped a picture, it was perfect. Jezebel’s hair cascaded over one shoulder, her eyes crinkled at the edges and her smile filled her entire face.

  “Please,” Annabelle pleaded and gave Jezebel her best puppy dog face.

  “You’ll have to explain them again, but why the hell not!” Annabelle squealed and flipped the camera on her phone to front facing before she explained, again, the different faces to make.

  By the time they’d run through them all they were both hysterical with laughter. The reel of pictures she’d captured were priceless and it warmed Annabelle’s heart to know that she would always have a piece of Jezebel with her wherever she went.

  “My God, child, you should delete those. I don’t want anyone seeing me with any of those faces—ever,” Jezebel said while fixing her hair. She swept it up and off her neck and secured it in a neat bun at the nape of her neck. Effortlessly as always.

  Annabelle went wide-eyed. “Never. I’m printing them all and plastering my locker with them when I get to school,” she proclaimed.

  Jezebel chuckled and shook her head at Annabelle. “You’re a silly girl, a very silly girl. It’s much better than the bad attitude shithead that first showed up here.”

  Annabelle’s jaw dropped before she could think better of her reaction. “You are still a mean old woman,” she retorted.

  The two stared at each other a moment before dissolving into giggles again.

  “We’ve wasted enough precious time today and there is much to tell you still. Are you ready for Celeste?” Jezebel asked.

  Annabelle chugged her water before setting the empty glass on the side table. “Yes. Oh! I have questions—remind me before I go,” Annabelle said.

  Jezebel nodded her head and thought in silence a moment.

  “Paris, nineteen ninety-four.”

  Chapter 38

  Celeste

  Paris 1994

  April

  She squeezed her eyes shut and crossed her arms against the chilled breeze blowing. The night sky had clouded over, blotting out the stars and calming the wind. A chime hung motionless from the roof eaves as she pulled into the driveway of her childhood home.

  A fireplace piled high with logs cast light and warmth into the dismal gray foyer of her parents’ home as she entered.

  “Celeste, honey, what a surprise. Is everything alright?” her mother said rounding the corner.

  She thought about the question and exhaled harshly, shaking her head. “No. No Mom, it’s not.”

  Her mother closed the remaining distance between them quickly, worry evident on her face, and enveloped Celeste in a fierce hug. “Tell me,” she breathed into Celeste’s ear.

  Two insignificant words. Two words that seemed so utterly ridiculous yet rocked her to the core. Tell her? Her mind circled around ways to spit out the question that needed to be said but none seemed right.

  “Mom, I think Dad needs to be here for this too,” she said, backing out of her mother’s embrace.

  “What’s going on? Celeste, just spit it out.” Her mother stood wide-eyed expecting the worst. It was written all over her face, lines creased across her forehead, her eyes slits. Celeste didn’t want to drag this out. No one was dead, but she felt it best to have both her parents sitting with her for this particular conversation.

  Celeste sighed and ran a hand through her hair. “Just . . . please, Mom.”

  Her mother looked over her shoulder and bellowed into the cavernous house for her husband before ushering Celeste into the living room. Her father’s lazy stride made Celeste happy as he entered the room. He sat, settling into his favorite chair, before giving her that look—that skeptical, eyebrow-half-cocked look that never boded well for anybody on the receiving end.

  “I was in the middle of my show,” he grumbled. Her mother made a choking sound next to her. Celeste inhaled sharply. They’d all been so good together in this house. She’d been so happy growing up. They were a family. Would all that be ruined now?

  “I need to ask you a question,” Celeste began.

  “What kind of question is so important that it necessitates a late night visit?” her father grumped.

  “Stop that!” her mother scolded. “Celeste, please . . . get on with it.”

  “Am I adopted?”

  Her words hung in the air. Two sets of eyes snapped at her. Two quiet gasps filled the large room. Two faces paled. Two incredulous looks faced her. Celeste didn’t need their answer, it was given without words. She slumped into the couch and rested her head in her hands and started to cry. It was her father’s hand that came down on her back and rubbed slow circles, which surprised her. His voice was raspy as he attempted to comfort her. “Celeste, you’re our daughter. We love you.”

  “How could you never tell me?” she asked. Her heart beat frantically against her ribs.

  “We made a decision around the time you were ten that we didn’t want to tell you,” her mother answered pushing loose strands of Celeste’s hair behind her ear.

  “That seems unfair.”

  “Not to us. We love you. You belong to us. We’re a family. We didn’t want to change any of that,” her father offered.

  Anger crept up Celeste’s esophagus. Her words bubbled out laced with resentment. “Who the hell am I though?”

  “You’re Celeste Fontaine. You’re our daughter. Celeste, please, this doesn’t change anything,” her mother said.

  “It changes everything,” Celeste scoffed, sitting up straighter. “It changes everything because I found out whose family I really am.”

  “What?” her mother gasped. “That’s impossible! We don’t even know who your birth family is.”

  “Dr. B.” she said.

  “What about him?” her father asked still kneeling in front of her.

  “He was my grandfather. There is a DNA report from FogPharm to prove it. My God, there are pictures of me in his house!” she shrieked.

  Her mother shook her head repeatedly. As if it would stop the moment from happening. Her father knelt, blinking, clearly shocked.

  “Matteo and I were going through his things, as his will stated, and there are . . . boxes and boxes of family photos. I look just like his daughter. There are pictures of me a
t two and three. The DNA report, I don’t know why he requested it or how he managed to get a sample, but he clearly had enough suspicion to do so.”

  “Unbelievable,” her father breathed before rocking back on to his rear. He stared at his thighs as if they might provide some great insight. Her mother clutched her shirt at the chest, her knuckles white.

  “My God, all this time . . . you’ve been working for him,” her mother said.

  She believed her parents. There astonishment was too evident to be anything but the truth. “Tell me everything,” Celeste urged.

  Her parents took their time telling her their story: her mother desperate to have children but unable. Wandering through the adoption center looking at babies to bring home. The way Celeste smiled at them, timid but genuine when they passed by her. The liaison informing them that she was anonymously dropped at the center months before and that they couldn’t turn a three-year-old away but didn’t expect to place her any time soon; people wanted infants. The way she knew her name, but not much else that was useful. Her illness, they thought, had impacted her memory, or perhaps some form of trauma had occurred. Celeste took it all in silently, letting her parents tell their tale. She needed to understand.

  By the end of their conversation, Celeste was exhausted. She didn’t dare drive home, but she knew she needed to deal with Gabriel. Her father phoned him for her, knowing only that they needed to talk, assuming perhaps it was about Celeste’s adoption. Her parents turned down her old bed for her and Gabriel before each kissing her on the forehead and retiring for the night. Her mother’s tears trailing down her cheeks as she told Celeste how much she loved her nearly broke her heart.

  ~***~

  Celeste rested her chin on her hand and stared into the fireplace, deep in deliberation as she waited for Gabriel to arrive. The heat from the fireplace seeped through her clothes, through her chilled skin and into the core of her. She wanted to sleep for days, for years even. She’d suffered the distresses of a thousand lifetimes in just days and it was taking a toll on her. She tried to will herself to be calm. It would be fine. Everything would be fine. They just needed to talk about their marriage. Everything else could wait for now.

  Celeste felt his eyes on her and found herself suddenly shy. She looked up from the flames that licked the logs to Gabriel. He towered in the entrance to the living room, lips pressed in a firm line, dark circles under his eyes, his hair sticking out every which way as if he’d run his hands through it repeatedly. He looked skyward. He looked like she felt. How would this go, she wondered. She felt her courage, her fight, was all used up already and yet her marriage needed her to make it a priority. To fight.

  “Hi,” she whispered. Gabriel closed his eyes and leaned on the door frame. Shadows from the fire danced around him.

  “Tiens.” Hi, he said.

  An abyss between them stretched on infinitely. “I don’t know how to do this,” she started.

  “Celeste, I need you in my life.” He spoke the words slowly, deliberately, as if imparting a threat instead of simple declaration of love.

  Celeste shook her head left to right and back. “Need and want aren’t the same, Gabriel,” she said. Her heart felt cracked, a crack so deep that surely at any moment it would drop into two even halves inside her chest and she’d cease breathing.

  “Need trumps want, mon amour.”

  She shook her head violently at his words. “No. No it doesn’t. I need to know the truth even though I don’t want to. Are you and Monique sleeping together?” Her heart hung in the balance as she awaited his answer. She was angry. Tired and angry. She felt small. Inconsequential. It hurt.

  “Non.”

  She huffed irritated at his brevity. “Were you?” she restructured her question.

  “Oui.”

  Celeste’s heart jumped into her throat. She tried to swallow but couldn’t. Her hands shook with such force that the after-effect left her arms shaking too. Her entire marriage flashed in her head: so many happy times, the love, the devotion, the rough patches, working through them. Did she want to forgive him? Could she? Her anxiety spiked as she swallowed huge gulps of air. She finally managed to ask. “Is the baby yours?”

  “Non,” he answered simply. Did she believe him? Could she? He didn’t lie about sleeping with his assistant, so why lie about the baby? Celeste knew in her heart he would spare her the hurt of having a baby, maybe above anything else. He would lie, she thought.

  “Gabriel,” she started. Her voice cracked. She didn’t know what she needed or wanted to ask. Words sat poised on her tongue ready to lash out but for reasons unknown she couldn’t make them come out. Anguish and rage, hot and swift, rushed through her as she tried to wrangle her thoughts into something constructive.

  “Je suis à vous, Celeste.” I am yours, he cut her off. Moving toward her with purposeful strides, he collapsed to the floor next to her. “You are my world.” The deep timbre to his voice sent an eruption of shivers down through her spine.

  He rubbed his palm against his forehead as if he had a headache. He looked tortured. His green eyes bored into hers in that deep, intense way only he could manage. His words were her undoing.

  Tears poured unapologetically down her face. Her heart stuttered and in that moment she didn’t care about anything as long as she and Gabriel were together. Tears slid from his eyes, rolled down his cheeks, as he took her face in his hands. “Je suis tellement désolé. Tell me how to fix this, I will do anything, mon amour.” I’m so sorry, he said, his voice hoarse. Celeste didn’t have answers. She didn’t know if she ever would. What would the first step be?

  “I don’t know,” she said just before he kissed her. She melted into his lips, the warmth of them, the passion they produced, the comfort and familiarity of them. Gabriel scooped her into his arms and stood slowly. Celeste wrapped her arms around his neck and nuzzled her face into that perfect spot where his neck met his shoulder as he carried her to the bedroom. She was exhausted. Her husband was there, with her. Sleep would be the most logical choice for now. They’d have the start of a new day to dig in deep and begin repairing their marriage tomorrow.

  She fell asleep nestled in her husband’s embrace. She dreamed of a hospital room, the sounds of a baby crying and her husband’s face beaming with pride. She woke up just as the mother of the infant began to appear from the hospital room. Her eyes shot open and she sat up in bed, panting. Raising a hand to her forehead, she felt her sweat-soaked skin. She ran her fingers through her long, wet hair and snuck out of bed silently. Gabriel lay in the bed still, chest rising and falling evenly. Her heart felt like a fist in her chest as she stood looking at him. She pulled back the drapes and saw a white curtain of rain falling from a low gray sky outside the window. The light of day was faded, the sky hidden beneath a low-lying fog that continued to spew rain and did not appear ready to let up anytime soon. The thermometer mounted outside on a tree indicated the temperature had fallen to thirty degrees and Celeste thought that was just fine; it suited her very mood.

  Spring was upon them and she wanted no part of it. Spring brought new beginnings and currently all she felt in her gut were endings. The turmoil of her situation, of her life, hammered down on her. She felt paralyzed.

  Chapter 39

  Annabelle

  “Remember, tick tock, tick tock, tick tock people. Time’s tickin’ away.”

  ~ Tick Tock, Stevie Ray Vaughan

  “Oh, my God, this is getting insane,” Annabelle commented.

  Jezebel nodded her head excitedly. “It is. Just wait until next week.”

  “I’ll be on pins and needles waiting.” She laughed.

  “Mark’s probably cursing up a storm at me right now.”

  “He can wait a couple minutes,” she assured Jezebel.

  “What were these questions you had?” Jezebel asked.

  “Oh! Right. Okay, so I looked up FogPharm and Celeste,” she rushed. Jezebel’s face had a curious look. Nervous, even. “And, well it’s a
ll true! But there’s nothing to find after nineteen ninety-four. Why is that?”

  Jezebel smiled and relaxed into her chair. “I will explain that to you soon. It’s all part of the story.”

  “So, was Celeste really your friend?”

  “Yes.”

  “This is so cool. I mean sad kinda too, since you probably liked her a lot,” Annabelle offered as she slipped her feet into her shoes.

  “It was very difficult, yes,” Jezebel answered.

  “Oh, hey, so next week, I want to do something drastic. I gotta run but I’m super excited for the rest of this story,” Annabelle said. “I think we need some excitement together.” She popped a kiss on Jezebel’s cheek and snatched her bag from the floor before sprinting down the hall to go see Mark.

  ~***~

  “So tell me about this lady you visit with,” her father asked through a mouthful of food. Annabelle made a disgusted face at him and finished chewing and swallowing her bite before speaking.

  “Jezebel. She’s . . . I don’t know, Dad. She’s amazing. She’s telling me this story . . . it’s a love story, kinda, well it’s turning into more of a horror story now but she’s got me on the edge of my seat,” she happily rambled.

  “Wow, edge of your seat, huh?”

  Annabelle blushed. “Yeah. Dorky I know, but she tells it really well. Oh! And it’s true! A true story. Very cool.”

  “Seems like it. Anything that gets you smiling and excited like she does is a good thing,” her father said.

  “Dad?”

  Her father grunted in response as he shoveled another forkful of dinner into his mouth.