A gasp, little more than a quickly indrawn breath. Ellie lifted a tear-stained and puffy face to stare at Dawn. “Oh! I didn’t hear you come in. I was just … I was just … ” She stopped, mouth slightly open, apparently unable to come up with a reason for her presence or her tears.
Dawn closed the distance between them and put a hand on Ellie’s shoulder, worried. Ellie was an athlete, stoic. She’d never seen her cry. “You’re crying. What’s wrong?”
Ellie snuffled loudly. “I hate this room.”
She said it with such intensity that Dawn looked around, almost expecting the room to have darkened, a hairy spider to have appeared, or Villette’s ghost to be lurking in the corner. She’d never sensed Villette in here, though, probably because the room hadn’t been part of the original castle. The space was still light-filled and cozy, brimming with thriving potted plants in shades of green ranging from chartreuse to forest to emerald.
She pulled a wicker chair up beside Ellie’s. “Why?”
Ellie bit down on her lip, drawing a bead of blood. Then the words burst out of her as if no force could contain them. “This is where I saw them.”
Dawn blinked in confusion. “Who?”
“Evangeline and Scott. There.” She pointed to the overstuffed sofa with its pilled upholstery and plethora of bright throw pillows.
“Is Scott here?” Dawn hadn’t known Ellie’s husband was coming. “Isn’t he home with the boys?”
“No!” Frustration strangled Ellie’s voice. “Not now. When we were juniors. The third time we came here. Remember, Scott came with me.” Waiting only long enough for Dawn to nod, she barreled on. “I saw them. Saturday afternoon when everyone else was playing horseshoes. I came back because I cut my hand and needed a Band-Aid, and I saw them. They were having sex.”
“Evangeline and your Scott?” Holy shit.
Ellie hugged a pillow to her chest. “He was sitting on the sofa with his shorts around his ankles. She was in his lap, riding him, her hair falling around her face, making little noises like my cat used to when you scratched under her chin.” Ellie dug her knuckles into her ears as if trying to scrub them clean.
Ellie’s story shocked Dawn, but didn’t really surprise her. She could remember the electricity that had hummed between Evangeline and Ellie’s boyfriend that weekend, the way his eyes lingered on her ass under the cut-off jean shorts, and the way her pointy tongue licked her lips when she was talking to him.
“Well, that was a long time ago … ” Dawn didn’t know what to say and shifted in the chair, uncomfortable with Ellie’s confidences, shying away from the images her words evoked. Why now? “It was before you got married … ”
“It’s why we got married!” Ellie sat straight up and planted her bare feet on the floor. Her eyes were wide, her jaw set. She looked like a vengeful Amazon.
Ellie’s declaration made no sense. Dawn half-formed a couple of questions and settled for a simple, “I don’t understand.”
“When I saw him with her, I knew that I was losing him.” Grief colored Ellie’s voice as if the wound was still raw and weeping. “I knew that if I didn’t do something drastic, that he’d—that we—I loved him. I love him. I was a virgin, saving myself for marriage.” She choked on a laugh. “That sounds so pretentious, so, I don’t know, holier-than-thou. But it was important to me, and Scott and I had talked about it, and I thought he understood, but then … But then I saw him with Evangeline and I decided that I had to, well, that is, I knew he was the one, so I … ”
“You slept with him.” Dawn said it so Ellie wouldn’t have to.
“Yes,” Ellie whispered. “Two weeks later. After the world championships. I won gold in the 200-meter breaststroke. Scott got a silver with the men’s four by two hundred freestyle relay team. It was a celebration and it just seemed right. We did it wearing nothing but our medals, in the pool after everyone had left.”
She fell quiet, and Dawn got the impression she’d drifted into her memories. Who’d have known Ellie had it in her to break so many rules and behave so wildly? She was so disciplined about her swimming and her eating and her classes. Dawn was getting a new perspective on a friend she thought she’d known pretty well. Obviously not. “I still don’t see.”
“I got pregnant.” Ellie dabbed at her eyes and nose with her shirt hem. “That first time. You’d have thought all the chlorine would have done something to the sperm, but no. It turned my hair green but couldn’t kill off a few microscopic cells. There I was: twenty years old, pregnant with twins, no job and no husband. I lost my scholarship, of course, when I couldn’t compete, and I had to drop out of college.”
“Why didn’t you tell me any of this?” Dawn burst out. “I would have helped. I thought you quit school because you and Scott were so in love you couldn’t wait to get married. That’s what you said.” Hurt that Ellie hadn’t trusted her enough to tell her warred with sadness for Ellie. It must have been hell.
Ellie scraped her blond hair back with one hand and the sun struck her strong facial planes. Her high forehead gleamed and tear residue was sticky on her cheeks and chin. She sniffed. “He asked me to marry him when I told him. To give him his due, he never even hinted at an abortion.” She paused. “Evangeline suggested it, though. She offered to go with me and to pay.”
“You told Evangeline?” Dawn asked slowly. Just because she and Ellie had been roommates didn’t give her the rights to Ellie’s confidences. Still, it rankled a bit.
“She guessed.”
Guilt mixed it up with the jealousy. She should have guessed. She had lived with Ellie, for heaven’s sake, shared a dorm room no larger than a walk-in closet, and she hadn’t been tuned in enough to notice her roomie was knocked up.
Ellie seemed to sense something of what she was feeling because she leaned forward and said, “I was really careful around you, Dawn. I didn’t want you to know, to think less of me. Evangeline, well, something she said made me wonder if she’d been pregnant before, if she’d maybe had an abortion. I think that’s why she noticed. I had a miscarriage ten days ago.”
It took Dawn a long second to process Ellie’s words, delivered like a non sequitur in the same tone she’d used to speculate about Evangeline’s possible abortion. When their import hit her, she reared back and her chair scraped across the tile floor. “What? My God! I’m so sorry. What are you doing here?” Maybe this was why Ellie was sobbing her heart out in the sunroom and spilling her guts. It wasn’t really about Scott and Evangeline hooking up years ago; it was about her lost baby, and maybe hormones. Leaning forward, she grasped Ellie’s hand and squeezed hard. “Oh, El, I’m so sorry.”
Ellie gripped her hand painfully and tears leaked again. “I’m sorry. I thought I was done crying about it. I was fourteen weeks along. A little girl. Scott—we—thought that I should come here as planned, that it might help take my mind off it.”
Dawn knew how much Ellie longed for a baby girl and wished she could say something that would lessen her friend’s pain. She wasn’t good at this crisis stuff. She tried to channel her mother, who had seen eight kids through emotional breakdowns of various sorts ranging from not being invited to a six-year-old friend’s birthday party to a cancer diagnosis. “Look, let’s get you some tea or a shot of whisky—”
“Tea.”
“And a box of tissues.”
“Two.”
Dawn laughed gently. “Okay, two boxes. And I’ll find a cold washcloth so you can wipe your face. Then maybe you’d like to lie down for a while before dinner?” She helped Ellie out of the awkward papasan chair and led her, as if she were a little child, out of the sunroom and upstairs, making soothing noises the whole time. Her excitement at selling her art and her drive to share her news had faded into the background; the important thing was to take care of Ellie.
After settling Ellie for a nap, Dawn worried that her friend wouldn’t be up to jo
ining them for dinner, but Ellie was in the parlor talking to Geneva when Dawn came down. Wearing an above-the-knee dress with heavy beading at the neckline and a not-too-clingy fit, Ellie was pale but otherwise showed no sign of her earlier distress. A brave slash of red lipstick brightened her face and she smiled uncertainly when she saw Dawn. Dawn read her expression as a combination of “thank you” and “please don’t tell the others.” She gave a slight nod of acknowledgment and accepted a sidecar cocktail from Mr. Abbott, who was playing bartender, his black suit and white shirt making him look like an undertaker. Did the man even know how to smile?
Dawn didn’t want to like the sidecar—it was just like Evangeline to pre-determine what they were all going to drink and make it something pretentious—but she did. The richness of the Cointreau and the sprightly taste of citrus blended well and went straight to her head. Holding the glass up, she enjoyed the swirl of amber and gold, the almost oily vein that ran through the liquor when the light hit it. Maybe she could paint an abstract series based on cocktails. New Orleans was a city that liked its hurricanes and absinthe, God knew; she could do limited editions that would sell like hotcakes.
Laurel Muir came in then, dressed in an understated black dress with openwork detailing at the hem and a neck that put it just barely in the “cocktail” category rather than the “funeral” category. How a woman who made the kind of money Laurel did could dress so drably was beyond Dawn. She glanced down at the pouf of yellow she was wearing. People in glass houses shouldn’t be catty about other women’s clothes. Laurel came toward her, smiling, and they exchanged real hugs and complimented each other’s dresses.
Dawn wrinkled her nose. “It’s a bridesmaid dress.”
Laurel nodded sympathetically and smoothed a hand down her thigh. “I never know what to buy and always end up in black because you can’t go wrong with black, right? Hey, I heard you sold some pieces. Sold out your whole exhibit, as a matter of fact. Congratulations!”
Dawn beamed. “Thank you. It’s validation—finally. You can’t imagine the high, knowing that total strangers were moved enough by what I created to spend their money on it. I think I’m finally on the brink of being able to do art full-time.”
“Fingers crossed,” Laurel said, holding up twined fingers. “Tell me about the exhibit. I saw the catalog, but I want to know what it was like.”
Dawn launched into a detailed account of the exhibit opening and reception, a description of the pieces, and a list of the things she hoped to do with the money. Only after Mrs. Abbott sounded the dinner gong and they were seated around the table did she wonder where Laurel had gotten the news.
The meal was delicious, and the conversation flowed easily with lots of laughter. Even Ellie seemed to be genuinely enjoying herself. They caught up on Geneva’s progress on her doctorate, heard about a big case Laurel was handling, and discussed Ellie’s recent move to Virginia and how her boys were doing, Evangeline leading a tour group in Italy, and Dawn’s art show. They amused themselves through dessert—a tart rhubarb-strawberry cobbler—with ever more outrageous suggestions for how Dawn should spend the money she’d made: a cruise, dreadlocks, a donation to good ol’ Grissom U so the art building could be named after her. Dawn swallowed the last of her third sidecar and said that her eight thousand dollars was unlikely to impress the university’s trustees that much.
Finally, Evangeline, who had shimmered with suppressed excitement the whole evening in a royal blue dress that brought out her eyes, tinged her fork against her glass. “Everybody. Everybody!” she said, speaking louder and faster than usual as a result of the sidecars or her excitement. “I have an announcement.”
“You’re getting married,” Geneva suggested.
“You’re moving to Australia,” Ellie guessed.
“You won the lottery,” Dawn said, “and if that’s right, I hope you’re about to tell us you’re splitting it evenly with your best friends.”
They dissolved into raucous laughter at that, all of them (except Geneva, who didn’t drink anymore) at least tipsy. Evangeline quieted them by tapping her fork on the glass again. “No. Better than any of that.” She paused to build the suspense. “I’m buying Cygne. I’ve come into some money, and I made an offer to the company that owns the castle, and they accepted it. It’s what I’ve always wanted, a dream come true. Come June, it’s a done deal. That’s when we close. And you guys get to stay here free whenever you want, forever.”
The sound of shattering china broke the momentary silence that followed her announcement. They swiveled in their seats to see a white-faced Mrs. Abbott standing over the remains of a tureen, twisting her apron in white-knuckled hands. After a moment she hurried out, muttering about fetching a dust pan. Then they exploded in congratulations and questions, surrounding Evangeline, who responded to all the questions in fits and starts, laughing the while and smiling triumphantly.
Dawn participated through a sidecar-fueled glow, pleased for Evangeline, pleased for herself, happy that they were all together, that they loved each other enough to get together every year, that they could count on each other, that her dress was yellow, wondering how soon her check would arrive and thinking about giving each of them matching pins or necklaces. Nothing too “sorority,” but something special that would remind them of their ten years as friends. Something related to Grissom or here? A G? Too blah. A tiny castle charm? A swan!
Her head whirling, Dawn smiled at having hit on the perfect thing and tuned back in to Evangeline, who was motioning for them all to follow her. They trooped after her like obedient little ducklings, if ducklings wore organza and silk instead of feathers. Dawn heard herself giggle and realized she was drunk. Who cared? She tripped over the threshold of the music room and Geneva caught her arm with a sympathetic smile. A grand piano dominated the room, filling an embrasure by the window, and Dawn remembered someone saying that one of the earlier owners had been a concert-caliber pianist. She hummed “Für Elise.” A sheet was draped over rectangles leaning against the wall. They must be planning to repaint. There were gold velvet drapes and a cream wool carpet patterned with gold, yellow, and pale green leaves. Laurel, Ellie, and Geneva sank onto a brocaded couch while Evangeline stood near the piano like a conductor about to strike the downbeat. Dawn drifted to the harp in one corner and plucked a string, eliciting a soft bong. Evangeline was saying something about redecorating and Dawn made an effort to listen.
“Obviously I won’t be throwing out any of the antiques that give the castle its character, but I want a more eclectic style. Lighter. So I’ll be mixing in chairs and tables and art bit by bit to modernize—no, that’s not the right word. To vary the décor a bit. And I’ve found just the pieces to start with.” With a sideways glance at Dawn, she whipped the sheet away.
At first, Dawn couldn’t process what she was seeing. She must be drunker than she realized because it looked like all the paintings from her exhibit were here at Cygne, lined up against the wall, one after another. She frowned and squinted. With gathering dismay and confusion, she realized they were her paintings. How had they gotten here? Evangeline’s voice broke through the cocktail fog.
“ … couldn’t think of anything more perfect than some of Dawn’s art. I’m going to hang them the day after the castle becomes mine.” She beamed, inviting them all to smile or clap or crown her queen of the fucking world.
“You bought my paintings?” Dawn heard her own voice as if from underwater, thick and ugly.
An uncertain look clouded Evangeline’s face. “Yes. I love them. I—”
“All of them?” She hated that her voice cracked. She refused to look at her friends’ faces, keeping her gaze glued to Evangeline.
“Well, one had already been sold when I—”
Dawn had heard enough. More than enough. She whirled, wanting nothing except to escape before she started to cry or scream. The quick movement made her head spin. She grabbed for sup
port, but her grasping hand encountered only the harp’s strings. They tore into her palm, making a whizzing sound as she slid to the ground. She barely registered the pain as she vomited all over the rug, spewing a slick of rhubarb red tinged with bile that clashed dreadfully with the delicate yellow and green.
Nine
They dined in the formal dining room, redeemed from the darkness of rich wood paneling and mulberry velvet drapes by a multi-tiered crystal chandelier and numerous candles, at a table covered with a snowy tablecloth and set with china patterned with scenes of French village life. The china looked old. Geneva surreptitiously tilted her salad plate to examine the mark. Limoges. The flatware was equally elegant—heavy sterling silver engraved with the Vendome et Falaise family crest. The Abbotts must be getting some mileage out of the good stuff before packing it away. What would happen to all the dishes, linens, and collectibles? The nursing home certainly wouldn’t need them. There’d be an auction or estate sale. The thought of antiques dealers and bargain hunters traipsing through the house, fingering the snuff box collection and crystal, scuffing at the Oriental and Aubusson rugs, and joking about the portraits of the family members made her melancholy. She almost felt like slipping a monogrammed fork or embroidered napkin into her purse to remember the place by. A better idea came to her. She could buy the nineteenth-century cradle that was part of the décor in the room she stayed in every other time she’d come to the castle. It would be perfect for baby Lila.
Geneva looked around the table at her friends. She was glad, in a way, that Ray had been called away. It was nice to be just the five of them again. The flattering glow of the candlelight eased away wrinkles and made them all seem younger and more relaxed. Despite that, a thin membrane of tension stretched between them or around them. Oh, they were reminiscing and laughing, complimenting the food and toasting Vangie’s engagement, but beneath the banter was a strain revealed by Dawn drinking too much, just like she had last time; Ellie’s white-knuckled grip on her knife as she cut into the too-rare beef that left bloody puddles on all their plates; Vangie’s too-frequent and too-loud laughter; and Laurel’s watchfulness. Geneva caught Laurel’s eye for a moment and they exchanged smiles and a recognition that something felt off about this party. Lila rolled over and Geneva stroked her belly. One more month.
That Last Weekend Page 8