Brigitte's Cross (The Olivia Chronicles)

by Angelic Rodgers

  “I could hear them arguing from my room in the main house.” He took a swig of water. “It’s weird to think that morning was the last morning I woke up in that room.” He continued.

  “It was early for me, and I was barely awake but I could hear them arguing. They didn’t argue often; usually, they just clammed up, refusing to talk to one another. What was especially odd that morning was that it was Maman who was the loudest. As you know, she typically rebelled through quiet action, like when she sent you away to school.”

  “Do you remember what they were arguing about?” Vivienne asked.

  “It was about Maman taking over grandmother’s clients. I didn’t understand at the time why it was such a big deal. It’s not like they never visited clients together. Maman was angry, though, and it was clear that she felt that it was an invasion of her privacy and power of choice. Grandmother kept saying that it was insolent of her to refuse, that the client was expecting them both that day, but Maman stood her ground. I heard her leave the house, and the next thing I heard was grandmother tapping at my door, asking me to take her since Maman was obviously indisposed.”

  “And you didn’t see Maman again?”

  “No. She was over here when we left, and when we returned, I decided to come to her first, going through the courtyard gate and coming in here. I was standing just inside the door when I heard grandmother screaming. It was the most horrible sound I’ve ever heard. I didn’t know what keening was until I heard that sound.” He had a faraway look in his eyes. “I was too frightened by the sound to move.”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  She could hear her mother’s voice calling her name softly. Vivienne. . .Vivienne. . .are you playing opossum? Wake up, child.

  She sat up in her mother’s bed. The sheets were warm and smelled clean; her mother’s perfume, woodsy sandalwood tones with undertones of sharp citrus, filled her nostrils. Moonlight came in through the window opposite the altar in her mother’s room, making the seven day candle jars glint, almost as if the candles inside were lit. She didn’t want to leave the warmth of the bed, but she also yearned to talk to her mother. The floorboards under her feet were smooth and cool.

  Her mother continued to call her. The sound of her voice was soft and low enough that Vivienne was sure she was hearing things out of wishing too hard. But still she kept moving toward the sound.

  Downstairs, she noticed that Christophe was gone. The voice kept coming and it sounded as if it were outside in the courtyard. As she opened the door, she saw the flash of a child run past her; it was a younger version of herself. Her mother, Rosalie, was pinning up a clean set of sheets. Vivienne smiled at the memory of her mother refusing to put her sheets in the dryer. “Why would I want anything other than the sun to sweeten my sheets?” she’d said once. As the child ran past the mother, Vivienne heard Rosalie take back up the sing-song “Vivienne. . . Vivienne. . .are you playing opossum? Wake up, child.” As her child self became more boisterous and ran in closer circles to her mother, Vivienne could hear the laughter in her mother’s voice bubbling up until the child got so close that she could grab her, scooping her up in her arms and kissing her all over her face and in the tickly crook of her neck.

  The image took Vivienne’s breath away. She could see the love in her mother’s eyes, how they gleamed and twinkled as she laughed at her daughter’s squirming and giggling. She moved closer to them, reaching out to touch them. Her hand should have rested on Rosalie’s shoulder, but she felt it move through the air, only a slight shimmering resistance. Rosalie felt it, too, though. She shivered slightly and set little Vivienne down. “Go fetch Maman some more clothespins, chére. I seem to have run out.”

  Vivienne watched her child self hesitate, looking past her mother, as if she could see Vivienne standing there. She saw a flash of recognition, and then the child was gone. Rosalie’s back was to her; slowly she turned to face Vivienne.

  “We don’t have much time. How beautiful you are, child.” Vivienne felt her mother’s hand on her face, as light as a whisper. She could see her clearly, and she realized that she looked so much like her mother.

  “Know that I am with you always. You have the letter that explains why I had to leave you and your brother, but as you know from your studies in the path that death is not an ending but a different beginning.” She smiled and Vivienne couldn’t help but smile and nod back.

  “The time has come for her to start demanding things of you, Vivi. I hoped that I broke the cycle and that she would realize what she’s done and stop, but she has begun to prepare. The first step is for the two of you to being practicing together and seeing her clients. That’s the preparatory period, Vivi. I refused to go that morning because she was readying to move on to the next step.”

  Vivienne nodded. “What do I do? I don’t understand.”

  “Look on my altar, chére. You’ll find help there.” As Rosalie turned back toward the laundry basket and the direction little Vivienne had run, Vivienne felt a tremor inside and a tug, as little Vivienne ran through her. She felt like she had been shattered, pieces of her flying through the air, and her mother’s laughter as she scooped up her child self filled her ears.

  Vivienne woke up, Rosalie’s laughter still ringing in her ears. The house was quiet, and as she sat up in the bed, she recognized her mother’s home altar across the room. She was in her mother’s bed, Christophe’s now. She had fallen into bed in the early hours of the morning, her brother giving up his room to her. She vaguely remembered feeling guilty about it, but she also thought she remembered hearing him leave quietly after she’d gone to bed, and she realized she’d not heard him return.

  The home altar was a simple one that Rosalie had always kept, one where she did her own work separate from work she did with her mother inside the big house. It didn’t look as if Christophe had changed it, but she did notice a few new slips of paper and that some of the candles on the altar had been replaced with newer ones. She had initially wanted to take the altar with her to her home, but she realized that Christophe needed it more than she did. And, it seemed wrong to remove it from her mother’s home.

  She lit the candles on the altar and sorted through the scraps of paper on the altar. She felt silly, realizing that she’d been through the papers before, and not sure what she expected to find that was new here. Her brother had added slips to the pile, and his handwriting was bolder and rougher than her mother’s. She picked up one slip, expecting to see Christophe’s lettering, but it was Rosalie’s.

  Stand at the crossroads and look; ask for the ancient paths, ask where the good way is, and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls.

  Vivienne dressed quickly, tucked the paper in her pocket, extinguished the candles, and left.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Liz was happy to get back to regular painting, and the project at Lisa’s was really just what she needed. The fact that she had done the first mural already and the second had been picked months before made working on it almost meditative. Lisa had chosen the first Jazz and Heritage Festival poster for her room; the poster was from 1975 featuring a man in a suit holding a tasseled umbrella. The colors were brown, red, and gold and the mural was much simpler than the one she’d painted on Ashley’s wall, which meant that she could block in the colors quickly. The lettering would take more time, but it was an easy job overall, just large.

  The only problem was they had spent the night together. The morning after, they were both fairly hung over, having split two full bottles of red wine and a bottle of cava. Both women remembered the sex, and over coffee that morning, Lisa had just laid her cards on the table. Ashley had woken them up by knocking on Lisa’s door on her way off to school. She had put on a pot of coffee before she left. As Lisa got two mugs out of the cabinet and poured for them both, she said, “We can talk about it or not. It doesn’t change anything, Liz. It’s something I wanted to happen, and while I’m glad it did, I’m still going to New York.”

  Li
z exhaled. They sat drinking coffee for a bit, and finally, she responded. “Thank you, Lisa. I never wanted to hurt you, and I’m not sure what got into me.”

  Lisa kissed her on the cheek. “Well, I am irresistible. Look, I know your history enough to know that it’s not like you to hop in bed with just anyone.”

  Liz was relieved and smiled. “Thanks. So, things won’t be too weird if I keep coming over and working on the mural? I’d also love to see you two before you go. I’ll do my best to behave myself.”

  “Absolutely, tiger. I’ll leave it up to you how much you behave. We’re both grownups.”

  Even with the conversation, though, Liz had kept her distance for several days, letting things cool off. She felt a sense of closeness, almost a kinship, with Lisa that she couldn’t quite define. She wasn’t crushing out on her, but she felt different about her somehow. Her memory of the night seemed to blur; she knew she’d had strange unsettling dreams after, but where the sexual encounter stopped and the dreams began was murky for her. She did notice as she washed the remnants of make up off the next morning that her skin looked fresher than it had the night before, and her lips were stained from the lipstick Ashley had put on. Despite being hung over, she no longer looked gaunt and washed out.

  Lisa put the house on the market immediately after the job offer came, and she was happy Liz could be in the house painting if the realtor showed it. It wasn’t that Lisa didn’t trust the realtor, she just felt better knowing someone who really loved the house was there to not only inform perspective buyers how great it was, but also so Liz could get a sense of whether the buyers were interested or if they were a bad fit for the neighborhood. She and Ashley had been there a few years and really put a lot of work into the house, so she felt sentimental about it. They had both done a great deal of growing up in there.

  Liz got to the house early enough on a Monday morning to have a cup of coffee with Lisa before she had to head off to work. The few days of distance had been good for both of them, and they settled back into their easy friendship. Liz hoped to get a good amount of work done before the realtor came by at lunch for a showing. She was so focused on the job that time passed quickly and soon she heard the car doors closing outside.

  From Lisa’s upstairs bedroom window, she could see the realtor, a flashy, tiny brunette in a horrible but appropriate for her age animal print blazer and black skirt. Liz couldn’t see her face, but she bet herself that the lipstick was a little too loud for most women in the daytime and that a cloud of perfume followed her wherever she went.

  With the realtor was a youngish couple, late twenties or early thirties, she figured. They looked really happy together and she wondered if the woman was pregnant, as there was an almost imperceptible curve under her clothes, a fullness that didn’t seem to go with how fit she looked. As the realtor keyed open the door, Liz’s suspicions were confirmed on all counts.

  “I really think this is just the right place for the two of you. I know that some of the other places were a bit too in need of TLC or not quite in your price range, but this is the right size and I think the owner might work with you a bit on the price. And, she’s got a daughter who has practically grown up here and they have just loved it. You could easily turn the daughter’s room into a nursery.” Liz could faintly catch the perfume and she wondered if those glossy, ruby lips were ever going to stay still for a minute so she could let them know she was there.

  She was halfway down the stairs before she got a chance to interrupt with a hearty “hello!” The couple looked grateful to have a real person to talk to. The man stuck his hand out first. “You must be the owner? I’m Vaughn and this is my wife Audrey.”

  Liz shook his offered hand and smiled. “I’m a friend of the owner. I’m doing some painting in her room, and she asked me if I minded being around when the house was shown.” She slid her hands in her pockets. “I’m Liz.”

  When Vaughn first saw her, he thought to himself that she looked familiar, but he was too caught up in the moment and in husband mode, rather than being in reporter mode. As soon as she said her name, though, he realized who she was. Elizabeth Camp.

  Liz noticed his odd expression. “When you say painting, what do you mean?” He didn’t want to jump to conclusions, and he thought to himself that surely this was too good to be true, so he didn’t want to rush it. He was trying to play it cool.

  “Oh, you’ll see it when you guys make it upstairs. I did a mural for her daughter and Lisa liked it so much that she commissioned me to do one in her room. I totally understand if the new owners decide to paint over them, but for now it gives me a good project.”

  Vaughn realized he was holding his breath. He didn’t want to disrupt the showing as that would upset Audrey. She had gotten a tip on this house from a friend and customer at her shop and she already had a feeling about it. He decided to wait and see how the showing went and he could always try to ask her about an interview before they left.

  The realtor was obviously irritated by the interruption in her own presentation and looked a little thrown off her game. She tried to cover her irritation by shaking Liz’s hand and thanking her for being around to share a personal touch to the showing. Having played nice, she turned on the charm to Vaughn and Audrey, turning her back on Liz and moving on.

  “Let’s go look at the kitchen first. I think kitchens are so important, don’t you? I mean that’s where everyone winds up hovering whenever there’s a party. . ..” and she was off, heels tapping on Lisa’s hardwoods. Audrey and Vaughn gave Liz a “what else can we do” kind of look and smile, and the three of them followed the agent, whose name was Misty, through the dining room and into the kitchen.

  Audrey was pretty clearly enamored with the kitchen and was able to shut out Misty’s yammering about the appliances coming with the house and being recently updated. Liz noticed that Vaughn seemed to keep watching her out of the corner of his eye, although he was obviously interested in the house and was also enjoying Audrey’s satisfaction with the kitchen.

  The downstairs was a fairly quick tour after the kitchen. The living area with working fireplace was pleasant to them both, and Vaughn seemed interested in the library as a home office. Liz found herself getting into the spirit of the showing and she liked these two. She started hoping they’d make an offer. She was a bit curious how they would respond to the murals, and found that suddenly she did care if the new owners wanted to paint over them.

  She was happy to hear their reactions to them when they got upstairs. Misty did her agently duty by showing them the master bedroom first, and even though there was a bit of clutter and mess since Liz had been working all morning, they were impressed by the partially completed one. After the obligatory fawning over Lisa’s master bathroom, they went into Ashley’s room.

  Vaughn ran his fingers over the mural and seemed to be looking at the details close up. The mural was a reproduction of the 1998 Jazz Fest posters of Dr. John standing on the street, with a piano just visible in a room behind him. The poster was in various shades of blue with yellows and some oranges to it. As he searched for what he hoped was in the painting, he heard Audrey ask her about the choice. “Isn’t it a bit odd to have a large painting of Dr. John in a teenage girl’s bedroom?”

  Liz laughed. “She’s one of his biggest fans, and she does love to play the piano. The poster is from her birth year, too, and the colors worked in this room. She loves it.”

  Just as she finished her response Vaughn saw what he was looking for—Liz had not put her name in the lower right corner or near the bottom. Instead, she had worked it into the painting so that one had to search to find it. But there it was—Elizabeth Camp. She’d hidden it in the piano—where the pedals were, he could just make out her signature done in slightly darker paint than the pedals were painted in. When he stood up and backed away, the name disappeared.

  Now Vaughn just had to find a way to ask her for an interview without upsetting her, Audrey, or the real estate agent. Audrey an
d Misty were talking about possible furniture layouts or something. “There is a third bedroom up here, and a separate bath, so let’s look at those. “ They all filtered out of the room, Liz leaving the room last. She split off from the rest of them and headed back downstairs to let them have some time to talk to the agent and really look around more.

  He found her at the kitchen counter, making a cup of tea. He’d made an excuse to go back out to the car to get a tape measure. Liz smiled when she saw him. “How’s it going? Can I get you something? The kettle’s still hot.”

  Vaughn shook his head. “No thanks. I did want to introduce myself, though. I’m Vaughn Morris, a reporter from the Times Picayune. I called you not too long ago and spoke to John Kirby. Look, I really am here with my wife looking at the house, but I couldn’t pass up the chance to give you my card and ask you for an interview.” He handed her his business card.

  Liz was flustered. Unsure of what to say, she just nodded and took the card.

  “I’m sorry if this is a bad time, but this puts the ball in your court. I’d like to write a book on the case, and you can give me far more insight on it, I think. But, if you don’t want to talk, that’s ok. I’ll let you decide when you are ready.”

  He walked out of the house to the car, as he knew he shouldn’t return without the tape measure he had used as an excuse. When he came back in the house, Liz was gone.

  Chapter Thirty

  When Vaughn walked out of the house, Liz immediately went to the kitchen drawer that held Lisa’s dish towels and pulled them out, knowing she’d find Lisa’s stash of cigarettes in the back. She smoked expensive cigarettes and only occasionally, but she hid them because Ashley always complained when she saw any sign that her mother was smoking. Liz was sure Ashley knew about the hiding spot, but it was an agreement that mother and daughter were willing to keep—if Lisa kept her habit hidden, Ashley would stay quiet about it.