Nineteen Seventy-Four

by Sarah M. Cradit

  “The Hendrickson family comes first. You know that.”

  Cordelia’s heels sounded. “To you, it comes first. But my child will be a Deschanel, and I will not have his name tarnished by your inability to save a failing business without resorting to blackguard tactics. You take those pictures and you burn them, and if I hear you’ve been peddling them anywhere but your imagination, I will murder you myself, Darwin. Do not fuck with my family.”

  Darwin blubbered in a series of fits and starts. “But… I’m your family, Cordelia.”

  “This is my family now. I don’t have to love someone to understand the nature of loyalty. Now, go, and think very, very hard about what you decide to do next where my husband is concerned.”

  “Cordel—”

  “Go.”

  Charles crept back behind the stairs as Darwin stormed out of the parlor. He opened and tried to close the door, but underestimated the weight and had to stomp back to finish the job, though not without a series of complaints.

  Cordelia appeared in the parlor door. She pulled her shoulders back and straightened her skirt. Her face had the preternatural shine of a mythical beast returning from the slaughter of her greatest foe.

  Her expression softened. One hand massaged her belly, and with the other, she pulled herself up the stairs by the bannister, one step at a time.

  Charles didn’t have the emotional fortitude to process what he’d heard, and he resisted the urge to go to Cordelia and ask. She wouldn’t show the same loyalty to his face. They were not friends. They were hardly partners.

  But loyal she was, nonetheless, in her own way. In the same way, perhaps, as sworn enemies who found themselves in the same military company on the eve of deadly battle.

  Now he knew but didn’t yet understand what this meant for their future.

  Eighteen

  The Lockbox

  Evangeline knew. She’d known all along, she just couldn’t bring herself to accept the truth.

  She’d known as soon as she checked the lockbox under the false board on her bedroom floor.

  She’d known when she picked up the faintest whiff of patchouli, which was not her scent, and never had been, not even when she was playing around with Ethan’s gang.

  She’d known when Amnesty reappeared at the house, showing up at a time Evangeline would not normally be there, and gaped at her with that deer-in-headlights gaze.

  And really, she’d known before that. Known something was amiss with Amnesty, maybe very amiss, and it went well beyond whatever speculations Evangeline had cast, and then cast aside, in order to make the relationship fit her world. Amnesty was everything Evangeline needed coming off a year that left her wondering if life was even worth all the damn trouble. But even though she’d known much of what passed between them was as elusive and unpredictable as Amnesty herself, she’d nonetheless convinced herself that the one true thing about her was her affection. She could be an heiress or a laundress, but when she kissed Evangeline, she was kissing with her whole, true self.

  And no one else knew about Amnesty. Evangeline had no one to talk to about the pain eating at her heart, because she’d designed the secrecy around the relationship. In refusing to define it, she’d accepted it was more than what she felt others around her would understand and drawn the line in the sand, circling them.

  If Evangeline couldn’t even have an honest conversation with herself about what she was feeling, how could any of this have existed in the real world?

  She’d told herself she was playing around. That if you didn’t define something, it was fluid and movable, and there was nothing to be afraid of. They’d never gone much further than kissing… and some petting. Love was love, right?

  It didn’t make her a lesbian. Even thinking the word terrified her; just last week, a gay man had been beat to death in Crescent Park for his sexuality, and that wasn’t an isolated event. If she was a lesbian, then she was different. Other. Exposed. Evangeline was not so narrow-minded to believe there was anything wrong with how humans were biologically made, but she was smart enough to understand that science and society were not often in synch.

  And anyway, she still liked men. She might not be jumping to date them, but she still turned to look when a hot guy passed, and when she was alone, it was men who occupied her fantasies, not women. But then, why did Amnesty ignite something so powerful within her? She would’ve said it felt like fireworks, but everyone said that about love, and she was tired of hearing it.

  Evangeline rocked in the chair on the front porch of the house she now owned, but didn’t live in. She’d left the note, suspecting Amnesty still slipped in for shelter in the early hours of late nights, and wasn’t surprised to see it missing.

  We need to talk. You can keep the money, but I need closure. You owe me that much.

  So she sat, waited, using the tips of her toes to move the rocker back and forth, back and forth.

  * * *

  This wasn’t happening. It couldn’t be. Not when she’d gotten better over time. Her precision at timing, her skill at hiding. If Connor was going to catch her, it would have happened a long time ago, not now.

  But he hadn’t caught her, exactly. He hadn’t dug up any of her drug paraphernalia, or walked in and caught a whiff of something scandalous. It was a feeling, he said, but he wouldn’t let it go.

  “Elizabeth.” He sat at her desk, not at the edge of her bed, or even next to her. He folded his hands over his lap, but it seemed so unnatural, as if he was doing something he’d watched adults to.

  “Connor.”

  “Stop smiling. This isn’t funny. It’s not a joke.”

  “Who’s laughing?”

  “I knew something was up that day we…” Connor sighed. “I didn’t know how to put my finger on it. The way you talked about the drugs, and then there was something, I don’t know, I guess, maybe in the ease of how you lit that joint and smoked it. You didn’t even choke, it was like… like you do it all the time.”

  “Well, I don’t.”

  “What are you doing with your jaw?”

  “Nothing.” She’d been rotating it to alleviate the soreness from coming down off of a larger-than-usual high the night before. But she’d seen and touched Charles, and that snowballed into terrible visions, and now that she was blocking them, she found she no longer had any of her natural defenses anymore. She wasn’t desensitized; she felt every last thing.

  “I’m not asking you if you’re doing drugs, Lizzy. I’m telling you…” He rolled his lips tight. Looked down at his lap. “I’m telling you I already know you are, because I know you, and I’ve known for a long time, I think.”

  Elizabeth shoved her trembling hands under her bottom. “And I’m telling you—”

  “Stop,” Connor said. “You’ve been lying to me for months. I can’t bear to hear you lie to me now. I love you too much for this, Elizabeth. If you love me, you’ll stop lying.”

  Elizabeth scoffed. She turned her head, but this dislodged one of her hands, and Connor spotted what she was trying to hide before she could stuff it back under her. God, she hated him right now! Hated him! He could sit there and live a normal life! He wasn’t plagued by horrible visions. He didn’t have to see everyone he loved in constant pain, pain he couldn’t prevent. It was so easy for him to judge, when he never had to deal with any of that.

  “You don’t know anything, Connor. You never did.”

  “I’m the only one who knows, Lizzy. Which is the only reason I agreed to touch the stuff with you earlier this year, even though it went against everything I believe in. Because I believe in you, and I have watched you suffer for years.” Connor blinked through the growing damp film in his eyes. He looked toward her, but not at her. “I would’ve robbed a bank, or killed a man, or anything to help you. Anything, Lizzy. Anything except watching you slowly kill yourself.”

  “Quit being dramatic, Connor.” The tremor wasn’t limited to her hands anymore. It traveled up to her elbows and now they were qua
king at her sides. “You’ve always been like this, overreacting about stupid shit.”

  “That won’t work on me, Lizzy. Not today.” He leaned forward. “What the hell are you doing with your arms?”

  “Nothing, Jesus!”

  “You’re practically inverting over there, Elizabeth.”

  “I told you to stop calling me Elizabeth!”

  Connor looked at his feet and then, reluctantly, stood. He shuffled toward her, his stance tilted slightly to the side as if afraid to come too close. “I didn’t come here to fight with you.”

  Elizabeth shot to her feet before she could think too much about what that would do with the visibility of her hands and arms. She didn’t like feeling so vulnerable as he towered above her. She didn’t like any of this. “Then try not to pick fucking fights with me by throwing around all this bullshit!”

  Her foot caught something, probably the shag carpet, and she launched forward, arms flailing. Connor leapt forward just in time and caught her, but she felt his tight recoil as their flesh touched.

  “Elizabeth… you’re burning up.” He eased her back onto the bed. He leaned his hand against her forehead, like her damn mother would do, as if he had a clue what he was doing.

  “Stop babying me, Connor.” She wiggled away from him. “Why are you even here?”

  Connor looked stricken. “Why do I ever come over, I guess?”

  “To torment me!” She didn’t know when she’d started crying. “To harass me and tell me all the things you think I’m doing wrong, while you sit on that Sullivan pedestal of yours and—”

  Two things happened, almost exactly in tandem.

  Connor kissed her.

  Elizabeth slapped him so hard she saw stars at the moment of impact.

  Connor fumbled backward off the bed. He staggered toward the desk, wearing a look that was both incredulous and devastated, and Elizabeth felt, for a moment, vindicated, and then she was lower than she’d ever been in all her life.

  She wanted to apologize… needed to. She had to take it back. No, this was all wrong, all of it. Connor was her anchor, her only peace.

  Tears appeared on his stung cheek. He took one last look at her and then stumbled out her bedroom door.

  * * *

  Amnesty showed up shortly after midnight. Evangeline didn’t see the bruises at first, but they flickered to light under the dim porch gaslights, and as Amnesty stepped closer, the full extent of the damage was evident.

  Evangeline stood, but didn’t approach. She wanted to, but she couldn’t make herself. “What the hell happened to you?”

  “My father,” Amnesty said, sniffling. When she wiped at her nose, her hand came away with blood.

  “Is that bullshit?”

  “No. No more bullshit.”

  Evangeline waved her hand. “Doesn’t matter anyway.”

  “Doesn’t it?”

  “You stole my money. You lied to me. I’ll never know if you’re telling the truth, and don’t think I care at this point.”

  Amnesty nodded. As she turned her head, the dark purple ring around her eye came into view and Evangeline gasped.

  “Hey, why don’t we get you cleaned up,” Evangeline said, pointing to the door.

  Amnesty shook her head. “It’s not as bad as it looks. I’ve had worse.”

  Evangeline rolled her eyes. “Of course you have. You’ve had a whole life you don’t want me to know about, so why change that now?”

  “Why did you call me here, Evangeline?”

  Evangeline sat back down, this time on the porch swing. She squished to one side of the bench to allow Amnesty to sit, too; to show her it was okay.

  “I don’t really know. I didn’t like how it ended. I still don’t.”

  “I did take your money,” Amnesty said. “I know you know, but I don’t want to lie to you anymore.”

  “Thanks for confirming, I guess.” Evangeline clutched her hands over her belly, which felt hollow with wanting. Wanting answers. Wanting absolution. Wanting her.

  “Don’t you wanna know why?”

  “You can tell me, but how will I know if it’s true?”

  “Because I have no reason anymore to lie.” Amnesty wrung her hands in her lap. She kept to her side of the bench. “I didn’t meet you that night by accident.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I was looking for you,” Amnesty said. She played with the bruise forming at the side of her chin. “You, specifically.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense. We’d never met before. You didn’t even know me.”

  “I didn’t know you, but I knew who you were. Or, my father did, and he’s always been the one to choose.”

  None of this made sense to Evangeline. She decided not to interject until she had a specific question to ask. “Okay.”

  “My mother died when we were little. I was five, or six. Old enough to miss her, but not old enough to understand what it meant. My sister was two, and still attached to Mom’s hip all the time, and so she came to be attached to mine instead. My dad wasn’t around much then. He changed jobs like most people change outfits, and he was often on the road, which was better for us, because when he was home, my mother was always scared. We were scared, too, but back then, he didn’t take it out on us. Maybe he thought we were too young to get beat. I guess even monsters have some standards.”

  Amnesty wiped at a fresh spot of blood on her knuckles. “Once Mom was gone, that all changed. He put me to work within a year. Taught me how to pick pockets. You know, it’s really not that hard to steal from an adult when you’re a child, because they’re not expecting it. You tell them you’re lost and they take that very seriously. They want to help you, and they’re so focused on that, they don’t see or feel you slip the wallet from their purses or back pockets. They just don’t. But, you know, word gets around and you gotta keep changing neighborhoods, because folks start looking out for the poor, little thieving kids in Tremé, or the 8th Ward. They stop feeling sad for you and start being wary.”

  Evangeline was too shocked, too enraptured with what she believed was the truth, finally, and she said nothing at all to break the spell.

  “I got boobs when I was eleven, and bully for me, because that meant a whole different kind of work, in my father’s eyes. He had to be careful, because eleven is too young even for the assholes who like the young ones, and so it wasn’t all the time, not at first. When I was around fourteen, that’s when I was turning tricks every day and night. And my sister, I couldn’t bear it happening to her, so I begged, I begged my father to let me take the work for her. I’d do twice as much, so Cara didn’t have to do any. I had half a fear that he might instead make me do twice as much and then still turn her out, but he didn’t. At least not at first.

  “On my eighteenth birthday, I thought that made me free, but my father wouldn’t relinquish Cara. He said if I left he’d turn her out, and he knew that would make me stay. It did. How could I leave? And she was fifteen by then, and I knew I was on borrowed time. I knew he wouldn’t let her beauty and innocence be a waste to him and his drug habit. And I was right. One day, he came to me and said, the money isn’t enough. That sex with strangers four times a day wasn’t enough, and that I either needed to do more, or Cara was going to hit the streets.

  “Evangeline, believe me when I say I wanted to do more. I even tried to for a while. But once a day is hard for most of us, and four was already impossible. I was sore all the time. Half the time, the johns complained about the bleeding, I was so worn down. What could I do? Nothing. Just laugh and smile and make them forget about it, while I was dying, inside and out. The only thing that kept me going was knowing that my time on the streets kept Cara in school.

  “My father was never one to be moved by anything sentimental. He never saw us as his children, I don’t think, only, first, his burdens, and later, his opportunities. But I do think he appreciated, in his own way, the work ethic I’d conjured up to make protecting Cara possible. Even his sh
itty friends made comments about it, like Hell, Carl, I wish I could get my daughters to do half as much! He knew I was burning the candle at both ends, and he knew I couldn’t pick up Cara’s slack. And so, he gave me another option.”

  Amnesty reached into her beaded bag and pulled out a bottle of Coke. “I have two. Want one?”

  “No, thanks,” Evangeline said, although she was powerfully thirsty. Her mouth was a bed of cotton.

  The bottle hissed as Amnesty opened it. She took a deep swig, offered Evangeline a sip, and went on when she shook her head. “He told me the money wasn’t as good as it used to be in whoring me out. His words, not mine, but I knew what I was, and I was used to what he called me. A buddy of his was talking a good talk about how he’d get in with some of the upper crusts in New York, get to know them, and then squeeze real money. Not fifty here and there, and not hundreds, but thousands. Real money. And, I suppose it was his way of complimenting me when he said I was young enough and pretty enough to do the same kind of hustle here in New Orleans. So I did.”

  Amnesty swallowed more of her soda and closed her eyes. “It wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be. I’d never been around decent men, so all I knew were men like my father, but decent men are easy to charm. They like flattery and conversation, and the married ones made it even easier because they couldn’t tell anyone about me. If no one knew, then what could they do, later, when the money went missing, except fess up and ruin their lives? Or look like fools?

  “My father didn’t let me keep much of these big scores, but he dished out enough cash to make sure my clothes were nice enough to be in these fancy hotels, and that I could get my hair and nails done every few weeks. How generous, right?”

  “I…” Evangeline swallowed. Her mouth was so dry. Her head felt even worse. Listen, then process. “How, or why, did he pick me? If you were out there bamboozling men…”

  “I asked the same thing. He’d had his eye on your family for years, I knew that, but I thought he was out of his mind for thinking he could come anywhere near any of you. But then, he said, he had a plan. I asked if you were, you know, a lesbian, and he said he didn’t know what you were into, but he knew you’d been…” Amnesty’s eyes flashed wide with guilt, and she trailed off for a moment. “He knew what happened to you, and he knew other things, too, like the fact you hadn’t gone to college, which, to him, was a sign you were vulnerable. He said you were the smart one, and there was trouble in paradise. I didn’t think he was right, but…”