St. Charles at Dusk: The House of Crimson and Clover Series Prequel Read online

  Oddly enough, it was my love for Adrienne that finally brought them together as brother and sister.

  The rain outside had stopped, but the water continued to drip from the gutters and against the windowpanes. I let the memories slowly fade off, and forced myself to focus on the present. The history, what happened, was in the past and should not have any bearing now. Adrienne had returned, was alive, and now I had to plan how to properly approach her.

  Professionally, not personally.

  4- Oz

  “Adrienne,” I whispered to the photo in my hand. My body was weary of sitting in the same chair for hours, my mind tired from the stress of this news.

  I had loved her before and it nearly killed me, but it didn't erase what I felt now. She was alive! I was infused with a new energy, and a renewed desire for life. Why was I still sitting here, brooding, when Adrienne was alive somewhere, waiting for me?

  But no! I had to stop this! She lived another life now, without me, and possibly even chose it willingly.

  I could not prevent the feelings of love I would always have for her, but neither could I forget the torture her disappearance put my heart through. I would do my job, and we would owe each other nothing.

  I noticed, for the first time, a piece of folded paper my father had apparently dropped on the corner of the desk. Unfolding it, I found a map, with a red circle west of here, in bayou country. Abbeville. Bayou Queue de Torque. Vermillion Bayou area. That’s where she was.

  There was a note in my father’s handwriting: “Be as a lawyer, ever guarded of your personal feelings, as you prepare to meet Adrienne. I pray you have no regrets, either way.”

  Perhaps I had underestimated my father after all.

  Early the next morning, I found myself reviving an old custom. I told myself it was on the way to where I was going; that it was perfectly normal.

  I turned on St. Charles and drove down the avenue, past the Pontchartrain Hotel, past Houston’s, and took a left on Calliope Street, merging onto I-10 West.

  Within 45 minutes, I was exiting at Gramercy. Soon, I was on Highway 18, the West bank of River Road. A small chill traveled through my body with the familiarity of driving past first the old Creole plantation, Laura, then the ruins of Valcour Aime Garden, Felicity, St. Joseph, and Oak Alley.

  Ophélie, two miles west of Oak Alley, was the last great plantation on the West bank road to Baton Rouge, excepting Nottoway. It lay just past Vacherie, near Donaldsonville, along where Bayou LaFourche forked from the Mississippi River before they built the dam.

  Although it was set back off the road, you could see the belvedere on the roof, and the tops of the columns through the trees. I saw these come into focus slowly, as I always had, and slowed the car.

  I drove through the open gates and down the brick driveway, toward the Big House.

  The size of the house never failed to catch me by surprise; each floor had tall ceilings, and the third floor gave a rare view of the river over the top of the high levee. Some of the other plantations, especially the Creole ones, had experimented with other colors, but Ophélie was completely white in color, its two-storied columns extending around the entire home, the Ionic capitals at the top gleamed like brand new; an indication the Deschanel trust was being used to its intentions.

  I drove past the parterre gardens and stopped in front of the house. How many times had I been out here as a child? Then, for Adrienne? And later, when she went missing? I had always envisioned Adrienne and I raising our family here, despite her persistent talk of leaving and seeing the world.

  As was my habit, I did not get out of the car. I could have knocked and been greeted by Richard, the Ophélie butler for as long as I could remember. He and Condoleezza remained, preserving the household for a family who would never come home.

  Right on cue, Condoleezza waved from a parlor window; validation I had stopped by and they still knew me, despite the fact I had not stopped at this particular haunt in a long time. It occurred to me, on this visit, it could have been me who was the ghost of Ophélie, not the Deschanels. This home, and its trusted staff, saw many strange things over the years. In retrospect, Condoleezza’s casual welcome confirmed my irregular visits were likely unremarkable.

  I reversed the car and started the trip toward Abbeville.

  On the long drive to Abbeville, I couldn’t stop my thoughts from drifting back to the sequence of events which brought me to this point.

  Though I had known Adrienne for years, she had not always been a part of my life. I had twenty-one years of living under my belt before she left her mark.

  I was a precocious child, which morphed into a curious and studious teenage life. While I appeased my father by going out for sports, I preferred spending time in the biology lab, or the library. I discovered early on that knowledge of things around us, nature’s processes, man’s discoveries, and learning from our own history, was what made life interesting. I was determined to understand the nature of everything.

  I maintained a normal teenage life for the most part, and only when asked did I ever talk about the things I learned in the research I devoured. But Brother Martin was a small school, and the other kids observed the books I took out of the library, and how I hung around after class to ask the teachers questions.

  I was an enigma to my friends, especially girls, who curiously pursued me as I grew older.

  But despite their interest, I only had eyes for Anasofiya Deschanel. We grew up together, just as I'd grown up with her cousin Nicolas. I watched as she blossomed from a quiet, intelligent child, into a thoughtful and beautiful young woman. By the time I realized I was in love with her, my heart was already hers.

  In her, I recognized myself: awkward, misunderstood. I could be myself, and she embraced, even encouraged it. But it was not until our junior prom where we finally connected on a deeper level, surrendering our innocence to each other.

  The metamorphosis of our relationship terrified her, leading to one misunderstanding after another. After a horrible fight, I broke up with her. Then, upon realizing my folly, I went to pour my heart out and apologize, only to discover she'd found solace in the arms of my cousin, Clancy. Knowing what I know now, she'd done nothing wrong. But the bruised ego of a young man holds a powerful propensity for grudges, and so I pushed her away. It was a wound that never healed.

  Ana was my first experience with love. A part of me believed then, and even still now, that it might have lasted forever. But this failed attempt at connecting with the one person who ever really understood me, only reminded me why it was easier to stay attached to someone superficially.

  So I moved on in the only way I knew how: by taking the path of least resistance.

  A line often heard in the halls of Brother Martin High was, “Which Rosary girl is it this week, Oz?” The Rosary girls were students attending the Academy of the Sacred Heart. Because Sacred Heart was so close, I made a point to stop there daily on my way home from school.

  One week it would be Jessica Alvarez, the next maybe Tanya Carroll, or even sexy Cassidy Weatherly with legs that went on forever under her Pendleton wool Catholic school skirt. The more time I spent dating, the less attention I gave my personal studies. When you’re up to your knees in beautiful girls, little else seems important. No teenager has ever been accused of having their priorities straight.

  I was accepted into Tulane. I kept my grades up, and activities current. When I graduated in 1999, it was with a 3.9 grade point average. By that time, my taste for female companionship had taken an altogether different turn.

  I'd known Adrienne Deschanel since she was born and never seen her, really noticed her, until the summer after I graduated. I had my own house by then, but school kept me away from home most of the time. While I had been immersed in education, scholastic and otherwise, Adrienne had grown up into a strikingly beautiful woman-child.

  I fell in love with this girl, and that was really what she still was, though listening to her educated, well-heeled t
ongue told an entirely different story. She spoke with a directness that was startling; a woman’s voice coming from the mouth of a child. She was seductive and beguiling, lacking completely in narcissism, but almost bursting with self-awareness. Adrienne was absolutely, without a doubt, the smartest human being I had ever known. She was no more sixteen than I was twenty-one, and we both had burning desires to see the world; to be well-read and respected. The women of my college days paled when compared to Adrienne’s vibrancy.

  Best of all, she understood me, which was something I had all but given up hope on after things with Ana went sour. For example, Adrienne was a huge fan of War and Peace, and had read it several times! She was taken especially with Natasha Rostova and her conflicting desires to be a child and a woman.

  I was beside myself.

  “Will you break my heart the way she broke Prince Andrei’s?” I asked her once, only half-teasing. In truth, I felt all moments spent with her were stolen. I was always waiting for the “catch.”

  “You underestimate me. I only relate to her desires, not her whims. She is far more impulsive than me. I am calculating. Manipulative even.” Her face lit up when she said this, as if considering it for the first time. It made me laugh.

  “Ah, you fancy yourself more Cleopatra than Natasha,” I teased. “You would only be sated when you had the world. A simple prince would not suffice.”

  “You sound disappointed? Would you prefer I fancied myself Scarlett O’Hara, in keeping with our regional heroines, or the fated Helen of Troy?” She tilted her head in an act of coquetry which did not at all become her.

  I loved listening to her. “No, I’m definitely getting more of the Cleopatra vibe from you,” I decided finally.

  “Would you be my Antony then, or my Caesar?”

  “Who would you have me be?”

  She appeared to think about it for a minute. “Maybe a little of both. Right now, I’d like to call upon Antony.” Then her eyes twinkled and I knew exactly what she was thinking.

  That there was a girl I could talk to like this, without judgment, amazed and scared me all at once. I enrolled in law school that summer, a term earlier than I planned, going to school every day with the knowledge each moment I spent in the classroom would enable me to provide a life for the two of us. At the end of each day, I unwound in her arms with my woes of the past hours apart. She, in turn, would take me into her arms, into my bed, and make me forget there was anything else in my life as important as what we had.

  Yet, Adrienne was still sixteen and that was a fact we could not ignore.

  She still had to go to high school every day, still had to answer to her parents. She had homework, and a curfew, and her friends still talked about things like what they were going to wear to the mall and who they hoped would ask them out next. It was painful for Adrienne to remain in this world of children when mentally she had moved far beyond.

  I would ask her sometimes, “Am I rushing you? You haven’t even finished high school…”

  “No,” she would say. “I’m on the fast-track to conquering the Western Hemisphere.”

  She always kept me guessing at the true intentions of her heart, avoiding direct answers to serious questions. I never doubted her love, only her ability to grow up and continue to love me as a woman the way she loved me as a girl.

  Then my biggest fear came true. The little woman I loved more than life itself disappeared and I could do absolutely nothing to stop it. For the first time in my life, I had a problem I could not even fathom how to solve.

  We searched for months. Both the local authorities and private detectives hired through the Deschanel Trust combed through all of South Louisiana, and I tagged along for much of it. When, finally, I heard the words, we've done all we can, and then, cold case, the reality she was not coming back finally sunk in.

  Mourning is not exactly convenient; tears would come to me not only as I lay in bed missing the feeling of her lips on the back of my neck, or her arm draped over my waist, but also at the supermarket, school, and stoplights.

  I discovered what others around me must have already known for years. Your mourning tears can be an addictive catharsis you are afraid to let go, because letting go means letting go of hundreds of memories, feelings, experiences. Tears can leave you lost and found at the same time; can be both helpful and hopeless at once. And finally, they can leave you desperate for anything else.

  In the months following her disappearance, I thought of her constantly. The smell of her hair, that one pair of Irish corduroys she wore, the way she carelessly creased her books. Her laugh, her smile, her oddly serious expressions; how she laughed with her mouth wide open, the way her bottom felt in my hands, and the sensation of the down on her arms tickling my forehead when she slept. These were the things that visited me whether I was sleeping, eating, or speaking with a client. My mind always had two focuses: one half would be on whatever I was doing at the moment, the other half playing out scenes or remembrances of her.

  After the first few months, I recognized that while this phenomenon was not hurting my ability to function in the outside world, it was nevertheless having an effect on me. I started to see circles under my eyes. “Yes,” I told my doctor, “I am getting plenty of sleep.” Then my skin took on a sallow, grayish quality. “Yes, I do take my vitamins and exercise regularly." When finally all the obvious culprits had been ruled out, my doctor told me I had to let her go.

  “I don’t know what you mean,” I protested, looking at the statue on his desk.

  “Yes, you do. You have to stop thinking of her, and letting her intrude on every moment of your life. Not only is it slowly damaging your health, but it’s not…”

  Not normal. Yes, thanks doctor. I needed that reminder. I feel so much better. Do you take checks?

  He offered hypnosis; I declined. He gave me an anti-depressant; I took the prescription but threw it in the garbage on the way to my car. The receptionist asked if I wanted to make my follow-up appointment now or later. I said later.

  The doctor, my parents, all looked at me as if I should simply flip a switch and turn the feelings off. Voila!

  I couldn’t. I couldn’t stop her from co-existing with everything else in my mind, or hijacking my emotions just when the day seemed to be going smoothly. There was no Adrienne switch; if there had been, it had since broken or shorted out. Part of the difficulty was the sense of not knowing. There was no funeral, no finality. In the back of my mind, there was always the possibility of her return.

  And then Adrienne's aunt, Colleen, self-proclaimed head of the Deschanel family, decided it was time to put some formality around the conclusions stated by law enforcement. Suppositions none of the family’s “gifted” had been able to contradict. While Adrienne’s body was never found, Colleen’s daughter, Amelia, the strongest of all of the Deschanel empaths, determined six souls died that night in the bayou. And so Colleen planned a Celebration of Life event. In lieu of a wake, they threw a party at Ophélie instead.

  Nicolas skipped town, refusing to attend. Unlike me, he was not in denial, so much as he refused to let others see his grief. I almost followed his lead, but the idea of being around Adrienne's loved ones made me feel somehow close to her, even in her absence.

  I entered Ophélie, where I'd spent my whole life making myself at home, and felt immediately an outsider. With Nicolas not in attendance, and all the other Deschanels I'd once loved gone, I was alone. Cousins, aunts, uncles all swarmed around each other in comfort, but who was I, except the man who had, perhaps inappropriately, loved a young girl, now gone? I had no right to be there. There would be no comfort for me.

  But within minutes, I felt an arm snake through mine, and looked over to see Ana. Her smile, sad and encouraging all at once, unexpectedly put me at ease. She seemed to understand the apprehension I felt inside, and so she dutifully did what I could not, leading me from relative to relative, assisting me in paying my respects. She could sense when my discomfiture grew unbearable
, always knowing when to move on, and mingle with another crowd.

  Eventually, I moved toward the door to leave, and Ana stayed beside me. I heard her whisper to one of the staff to make sure her car was delivered to her house, later.

  "You don't have to come home with me. I'm fine," I insisted, realizing her intention.

  She opened the car door and slid into the passenger seat. "Do you have anything to eat at your house? Those oysters were suspect."

  "Ana, I'm serious."

  "So am I. Condoleezza was probably livid with those caterers.”

  There was no arguing with the stubbornness of Anasofiya Deschanel, so we drove back to my house in silence. Once there, she went straight for the kitchen, and attempted to fix us some jambalaya.

  "You've always been a terrible cook," I pointed out, remembering some of the failed kitchen adventures of our youth. "Maybe we should order in."

  "Even terrible cooks have one dish they can make well," she protested, throwing a subtle wink toward where I sat at the table.

  As we ate, I watched her; my first love, my old friend. I felt the loss of her, suddenly, almost as keenly as the loss of Adrienne.

  "Why did you sleep with Clancy?" I blurted, before I could even make sense of why I'd asked.

  Ana’s eyes widened briefly in surprise at the frank question, but then she responded evenly, “You're the one who left me, Oz."

  "Because you were-" I realized I didn't want to finish that sentence. Any of the words I'd need to do so would be unnecessarily harsh. "You stopped caring."

  "That's not true," she argued. "I just… are you sure you want to talk about this? Today?"

  "I don't see why today is different than any other day."

  She sighed, pausing for a long, uncomfortable moment while she collected her thoughts. "When I realized I was in love with you… really in love with you… it scared the hell out of me."