+1+
Clara
The surface was cold underneath my cheek, I tightened my eyes wanting to get just a few more minutes of sleep. I turned my head flinching against the cold surface. I slowly opened my eyes to darkness and sighed.
I certainly didn’t remember falling asleep at my piano last night, but I’d been trying to keep up with Geri and . . . what was her flirty friend’s name? Lenox? It was a miracle I’d made it home, I didn’t even remember getting into bed. My head felt heavy but I tried to shake away the migraine.
Something wasn’t right.
My eyes were quickly adjusting to the dark and when I see what’s in front of me I nearly fall off the piano stool. This wasn’t my piano. This wasn’t even my house. In front of me lay a blacked out orchestra pit and beyond it hundreds of empty velvet covered theater seats. I lifted my chin to the balcony seats where I swear I see the outline of a man.
“Hello”, I call out.
I scan each empty seat in the mezzanine and orchestra. Even though there appears to be no audience I feel as if I’m being watched. I have no idea where I am . . . or how I got here. Jumping up from the piano I walk bewildered around the stage. I’m still in the lilac suit that I wore to work and to my lesson with Geri (where she asked me if I was late for an Easter parade),I’d taken off the jacket and tossed it in my car for a more casual look so my keys must be . . . somewhere?
“Fuck”, the curse rang out in the empty theater. It was empty. I’m sure.
Behind me the curtain raises.
My entire body was going stiff at the realization of the situation I was in. If I was caught lurking in a theatre after dark this would look bad. I could be arrested or deported. I could not be deported.I followed the exit signs, the floors of the theatre were torn up and I realize there is construction equipment everywhere. I felt a sigh of relief when I see a side door. Locating the bottom locks I pull the doors free and run into the fresh air.Outside I have to scurry over the broken up courtyard s and fight my way through construction tape and a faulty metal fence to make it onto the street. I walk as fast as I can, trying to orient myself. I was in Paris?
I turned back around and took in the majestic Huit Boulevard Theatre. I’d maybe passed the old theatre a few times since it was so close to work. A huge NO TRESPASSING sign is hanging off the gate.Without warning the door I had come through slammed shut and I think. . . I swear I heard the click of a lock.A large clock tower strikes the hour but I kept my eyes ahead, trying to keep in the tears.
“Get home”, I said to myself, “Get home, Clara”
I don’t have my phone so I waive down a taxi, the older driver slows and eyes me suspiciously. He asks me if I’m okay, I don’t answer and just give him my address in Yvelines County
“It’s off Monet Drive”, I say since it was the closest landmark anywhere near Château Mercier. When he hears where I live, he is more than happy to oblige even opening the door for me. A glance at the clock confirms that it’s almost 4am.
When we get to Versailles I focus on giving driver directions, I get us turned around a few times before we pull onto a familiar gavel pathway. The gate is swinging wide open, which is odd but I don’t give it a second thought. After a quarter a mile and a sharp curve our destination comes into view. Even at night the first thing I notice are the 18 mirror like windows set symmetrically across the gray slated roof and cream stonework. The residence stood stoically as if Château Mercier had always been that beautiful.
When we pull into the circular driveway, I run up the spiral staircase to the portico feeling a sigh of relief when I see the front door is unlocked. I feel my way through the dark and quietly stumbled over a few moving boxes to where my purse is lying on the floor with my keys, phone and jacket. I overpay the cab driver then quietly sneak upstairs. I take off my shoes and feel the freshly polished marble stairs beneath my feet. As I turn down the east corridor I nearly run right into Rosalie.
Rose’s skin was so fair she practically glowed in the darkened hallway. Her thick straightened pitch black hair was swallowed in the darkness. The same couldn’t be said for her large eyes that had become lighter and more mischievous with age.
Her bow shaped mouth was set into a harmless sneer against her very delicate features. She was more askew than cute but more complicated than pretty. She was like Château Mercier, perfectly symmetrical on the outside and a complete disaster on the inside. She also, for various reasons, should probably never speak.
Rose opened her tiny mouth and started to complain. I don’t know what is was about this time, but I just gave my usual canned response in French. I watched her mouth move wondering when she would notice my red eyes, swollen feet and exhaustion. Did she even notice I was gone? Or that I was wearing the same thing
“ . .. The water is unbearably cold and quite frankly I—“
“I’m tired, Rose.” I finally snapped cutting her off and heading towards my bedroom. It takes her a minute to realize what I’d said but she shuffles behind, blindly following me in that unnerving way she’d done when she was a baby.
Not seconds after I collapsed into my bed did I hear Rose rummaging around in my bathroom? There were seven bathrooms (3 that currently worked) on this floor, the pipes were so old you had to be lucky to get hot water.
I put a pillow over my head just as my alarm starts blaring my least favorite Chopin arrangement. At the same time I hear water gushing out of the bathroom faucet and a clink. Suddenly all the lights in my room flicker on and off at the same time. I bolt up and curse.
“It’s cold”, I hear Rose complain from the bathroom door.
“Did you break my new tub?”
“No. . . It’s just . . . chipped”, She says.
“Rose—“
I stopped as the lights flickered on and off again, I could hear Rose struggling to turn off the old—er antique faucet off. She was going to flood my bathroom Great. I’d deal with that later. I held out my right hand in front me, slowly massaging my bare ring finger.
My engagement ring was gone.
+2+
Clarence DeLune
This couldn’t be her
This could not be her
Clarence DeLune had this thought every time he saw her. Sometimes when he and his cousin Audrey (she was actually his niece but Claudia said it was more polite to say cousin) were alone they’d talk in hushed voice about the pale little girl they kind of remembered from their childhood. The little girl who’d terrorized them and who had watched with her face pressed up against the window as they played outside in the sunshine.
Audrey had been older and remembered more, having been adopted into the family as a kid. They each had bits and pieces and over the years. Clarence still didn’t really know anything about her other than she existed. But this could not be her. Sure the last time he had ever seen her she’d been four and he’d been five, but still.
For one she was tiny. She was normal sized, he supposed, for a girl but she was stick thin and sort of floated in her clothes. Clarice had said she had been sick and it would be rude if he ever bought it up. So he didn’t. Rose had thick black hair cut into the front bangs Audrey said she’d wanted go get. Rose also wore these peculiar gray tinted glasses on her tiny nose all the time. No one had warned him about that. Could he bring that up?
Rosalie Fierro also seemed to not realize there was a whole world around her, she only seemed forcibly apart of it. Like this morning she’d somehow just appeared at the kitchen bar with an old hardcover French to English dictionary and a silver old-fashioned pen that wrote in thick pale pink ink.
The whole morning she never flinched, she never blinked, she never even looked at Clarence who was sitting right next to her. Her hand kept moving across the dictionary pages and her eyes seemed vacant. She didn’t react to her mother’s sleepy good morning over a cup of coffee or the kiss her father gave her.
Miss. Tobin had set up breakfast each morning for the three days Clarence had been here. Every day the woman set out a cereal dispenser, a large fruit tray, coffee and mini croissants. She also did the grocery shopping and cleaning, something Clara explained was only necessary because of their long commute and how far they lived from town. If anything all of his big sisters loved to explain things to him. Just not the things he had questions about.
They always ate breakfast outside in the courtyard. When Claudia was here she’d nudged Clarence and told him it was because air conditioning in that half of the house didn’t work. Today however, Rose was sitting inside next to the large table top fan Miss. Tobin had turned on. For some reason Clarence had decided to sit down next to her.
Clarence was tired of cereal. It was a big day for him and he wasn’t sure how he was supposed to make it without a nice hot breakfast. Marie Southerland had told him she had eaten crepes for breakfast when she and her parents visited France last year. How come no one offered him any? Instead He resigned himself to cereal with dried fruit and strangely thick creamy milk.
Clarence could never remember the moment he realized his family wasn’t like other families. There were things they never talked about and things they just didn’t do. He’s convinced himself his spot in-between his non-traditional family was something special, but as of late he wasn’t so sure.
He was used to change. Used to making adjustments. So it wasn’t that he thought of his older sister Clara as a stranger, he just thought of her as another version of his other big sisters.
Clara always called him on Birthdays and holidays. He’d spent the first five years of his life living with Clara, something she always mentioned to him with a strange pride. Having a big sister who didn’t live in the country had managed to come in handy for Clarence. No thanks to Kyle Halloran. Kyle Halloran had what his ex-brother-in-law, Derek Locke, had called a punchable face. Kyle and his punchable face had gotten Clarence suspended from his third school.
He’d been living with his sister Clarice at the time, who’d just found out she was expecting another baby. With a new baby on the way and his other sister Claudia still in the middle of her divorce, they’d sent him off with Clara to deal with. And as he looked at his sister sitting out by the pool with her fiancé seated on the other side--- perhaps they thought he needed another father figure. Great.
“Don’t you have any toast”, Clarence asked the housekeeper.
The petite housekeeper focused on cleaning the counters, ignoring Clarence’s question. He’d never had a housekeeper ignore him before. Mrs. Howlet at Clarice’s house had known him since he was a baby and always told him what a nice young man he was before she helped him.
“Or how about cheese eggs?”
“She only speaks French”, said a clear crisp very soft voice.
So the strange girl did speak. He swore in the past three days he hadn’t once heard her speak. She had a strange sort of misplaced accent and she sounded a few years younger than she was.
“I don’t speak French”, Clarence said looking at the plate in front of his cousin. She’d chosen a variety of sliced fruit, but had only taken one bite out of each slice “Don’t you ever want a hot breakfast”
For the first time his cousin turned to look at him in the eye and she tilted her head in confusion. She had a wide pale face and tiny eyes and nose. Her skin looked so thin he thought it might fall right off. There was something strange about her eyes, other than the color.
She closed her book and (while still staring at him unblinking) very carefully opened her mouth and said something in French (he assumed). The housekeeper let out a sigh, she set her rag down and started going through the pots and pans.
Clarence had to admit that even he was beginning to feel a little better as the woman cracked fresh eggs into a bowl and began to make what would be the best cheese omelet he had ever had. The housekeeper also set an omelet in front of Rose but he never saw her eat it.
Rose had abandoned her dictionary for a sketch book that looked huge compared to her frail form. She’d pulled a pink monogrammed pencil from behind her ear and started sketching.
“What are you drawing there”, Clarence asked beginning to feel the ice break with his cousin.
Rose looked up at him as if she was an adult and he’d interrupted a private conversation. He’d seen that look plenty of times with three big sisters.
He leaned over to see where she had sketched several fluffy looking flowers and what looked to be rabbits. Her index finger was blackened from where she was smudging lines to create realistic shadows.
“That’s good, can you do people?”
“Not yet.” she said and she sounded so sad.
His cousin stared blankly at her smudgy rose sketches for several minutes, then she scrambled for her severely outdated pink iPod and turned up the volume on it. She closed her eyes and started to very slowly rock back and forth. The housekeeper seemed nonplussed about her young mistress episode and continued cleaning the kitchen.
Clarence stuck out a finger and poked her cheek to see if she was still . . . there
“Hold”, she whispered, “just . . . hold on.”
“Huh?”
Her oversized eyes snapped open
“It’s time to go to school”, Rose announced.
“Not its no—“
Rose slid off the stool and as gracefully as she could and she hurried to the open back door. Suddenly afraid to be in the house Clarence followed, leaving his half eaten omelet to grow cold on the counter.
+++
Clara
I understood it now.
I nodded along not really listening as Fierro flipped the pages of the leather bound ledger, I just kept thinking I should have put another shot of espresso in my coffee. I was still so fucking tired.
Fierro’s financial ledger was so new it smelled like my car. While I was more than content with my semi-updated spreadsheet and paperless billings I’d conceited. I’d compromised.
The first few pages of the ledger had broken down all of our income into nice even monthly increments including Le Fleur Marche, my inheritance, my trust fund, my paycheck and his family trust. Then there were the losses. We’d acquired so many losses
There was the medical bills from Roses’ treatments, the lawsuit from the damn treehouse that tragically collapsed and killed a man, and the millions of dollars put into making this cesspit château--I’d totally been tricked into buying-- livable. Plus construction and property taxes. Well at least one thing was still certain.
The ledger was all very organized. It was kept in a lock box in the drawing room, with all our IDs and passports. It was neat and orderly like every half empty room in the house.
Fierro had managed to keep a very solid schedule. He was up at 5:00 am He walked the entire 200 acre property 6:00 and he always outside with the paper by 6:30 am. I was always too tired and coffee deprived to even think about reading that early.
By 7:00 am he’d most likely shut himself away in the glasshouse only venturing out to have lunch in Versailles or drive out to meet with Emile. It only made since for me to take Rose to school since it was on my way to the University of Paris. The summer seminar I was leading on 20th century American Composition was supposed to be an audition for a full time lecturer position, but I already knew it had been offered to a gentlemen from Yale.
I’d been prepping for my foreseen unemployment by renting space and consulting high school students to audition for music school. I’d also started learning to play guitar and drums because . . . marketable skills. Plus there was setting up the foundation and international corporate law was way over my head.
Whenever I finally managed to get home, Ms. Tobin would have dinner prepped on the counter and on a good day I’d cook it. On a bad day I’d make the dinner prep disappear and start unpacking carryout while Rose watched me with a judgey look.
And there was Rose. Rose who had seamlessly become the bright spot of his life all those years ago. Rose was predictably obsessed with drawing roses. She liked to sit in the glasshouse on weekends with Fierro and practice drawing the flowers. I could never figure out the unspoken communication they seemed to share. Sometimes I’d just hover around and watch, pretending to water something.
As an occupational hazard Fierro always smelled like roses, he was very polite and generous with our single person house staff, Rose had everything she needed and even more things she didn’t. He didn’t even hesitate to say yes when I asked if my little brother could stay for the summer.
I understood it now
I understood it now. I understood why Lucie had such a hard time letting go.
Addison Fierro made a very good husband
Not that he was my husband.
Not yet anyway.
“..6 years”, he said
“What?” I said
“The estate should be in better financial shape in 6 years. I think we can even manage the foundation.”
“That’s . . . good”, I said tilting back my coffee cup. I needed a bigger cup.
“It will be better once I sell the Fierro land in New York.” He said.
“. . . You still own that?”
“I wanted to hold onto it if I were to ever return, but I don’t quite see that.”
He said those words. I understood those words, but what I had to say next had nothing to do with them. I just turned to him and said
“We should throw a party?” I said.
“What was that?” Fierro said capping his fountain pen.
What was that?
“We should throw a party”, I said again because it felt good for reason. It felt. . . Due. “Like a housewarming—“
“Mother”, Rose cut in.
I jumped at Rose’s sudden appearance in front of me, my coffee cup toppled out of my hand and smashed on the cement.
“I’m ready to go to school”, Rose said clutching her new designer leather lilac messenger bag, which kind of clashed with her yellow and purple tartan uniform.
“Okay, Rose”, I said. I hadn’t even eaten breakfast yet but fine.
I picked up my purse and rolling work bag, which housed my heels and copious notes I’d taken for today’s lecture. I was fluent in French but holding a lecture in it was something else entirely. I’d hoped looking confident in perfectly matched pencil skirts and modest blouses would make up for any . . . faux pas.
“Have a nice day, Clara”, Fierro said picking up his newspaper.
“I will, Mr. Fierro—“
I stopped once I made it into the grass. He’d stopped with the paper halfway to his eyes and I’d tried to make words.
“Oh, gosh. I mean Addi—um. Fierro.” I said.
“No, Clara it’s—“
“No maybe I should—“
Before we could finish our probably very separate conversations my car horn blared. I turned to see Rose in the driver seat of my Range Rover, leaning on the horn while Clarence sat in the back looking mortified.
“Honestly.”
+3+
Clarence DeLune
“You’ll like it”, Clara said turning up the American pop station she had playing. She’d seemed to sense he was nervous and had rebelliously stopped at a McDonalds for more coffee and French toast sticks. For a few moments he almost felt like he was back on familiar ground, “It’s an international school, so everyone speaks English . . . but you should really try to learn another language. Immerse yourself in the culture and after school we can do whatever you want okay?”
Clarence had moved so many times in his 12 years that starting out in a new school was par for the course for him, though he didn’t know what to expect from an International school. He’d sort of expected it to look like the United Nations, but instead Parkington Dell was like every other school he’d been to.
Rolling green hills, large red brick buildings with gold plated signs engraved with names of countless alumni and donors. However Parkington Dell had a huge babbling fountain and small cart selling coffee, tea and the biggest pastries he’d ever seen.
He stepped out the car and had to run to catch up to his cousin who’d already bee lined through the front gates and into the busy courtyard. When he finally caught up, he realized he’d lost her in the sea of girls wearing identical uniforms.
Whatever. He knew the drill. He shuffled off to find the office and got his new schedule as fast as he could, to make sure he wasn’t the new kid who walked into class late.
Everyone was instantly interested in the new American boy. He’d learned to avoid the simple questions about his parents. He just said his father had died and his mother lived in upstate New York. Then shrugged his shoulders as if that was all there was. Then he’d focus on his friends or some of the stuff he and his best friend Matt Farber had done.
The classes were a bit harder to follow and he was constantly thrown off by the multitude of languages that filled the hallways in between cases. Luckily the students really liked him, the girls (for the first time ever) seemed to really like him. They thought he sounded like Justin Bieber and thought it was brave of him to travel all the way from America.
The girls took turns translating things for him and telling him the French words for things. Marlene Benoit was a pretty girl with thick auburn hair who was in two of his classes. Students were allowed to sit wherever they wanted and he couldn’t help but notice Marlene sat next to him both times. She and her friends had even invited him to join them at lunch
The group carried their trays to the courtyard and a group of kids sat on the grass, taking their time to talk and eat like it was a lazy Saturday afternoon in some picture book. Clarence tried to keep up but his French was mediocre at best. Some of kids got tired of speaking English and wandered off, but he and Marlene hit if off pretty well.
“Hold on.” said Marlene and she waives her hand at someone, “Clarence have you met Rosalie. She’s also American. She’s like amazing in art class. ROSE!”
Clarence sat up on the blanket as his cousin appeared. She was holding a small yellow lace umbrella over one shoulder and a bundle of books in the other. Rose thin barely visible lips were pursed and she gave Clarence an impatient glare. It wasn’t his fault Marlene had stopped her.
Clarence wondered if he should mentioned they were related. He wasn’t sure how that would play with the other students. Was she well liked? Did they think she was as odd as he did? But he couldn’t lie? Could he? Rose didn’t strike him as the type to tell.
“We’ve met. He’s my cousin”, Rose said simply and adjusted the books in her arm.
“Oh”, Said Marlene clapping, “I. . . I guess I can see the resemblance.”
“I don’t”, Rose said tilting her head curiously. And except for the black hair . . . there wasn’t.
“Where’s your lunch, Rose? You can join us.” Marlene said.
“I’m going to the library. I am working on a project”, Rose adjusted the armful of books again.
“On what? The semester has just started. ” Marlene said.
Rose let out a short pointed sigh and pulled a sheet of computer paper out of a book and presented it to Marlene and Clarence. It was a slightly . . . wobbly drawing of a woman with curly hair piled high on her head in almost a tower, the woman wore a poofy dress with lace and ruffles. The woman’s face was covered in a carnival mask and something about the picture looked familiar. There was another drawing of the same woman this time with the mask by her side, though Rose’s drawings of people were. . Terrible.
“I know her, that’s Marie Antoinette”, Clarence said hoping to impress Marlene, “They beheaded her for giving poor people cake.”
There was a measure of silence and then Rose took a small book off the stack and dropped it next to Clarence’s feet, “You can keep that one.”
Then Rose turned on her heels and headed back into the school.
“I’m sorry about her?” Clarence said feeling he should say something.
“Don’t be sorry. I like her and all . . . but she is a bit odd isn’t she?”
“You don’t know the half of it.”
+++
Author’s Note
When I first considered this story I was going to have all the girls compare him to Justin Bieber. Then Justin Bieber got replaced by EUROPEAN pop band. Luckily he is having a comeback.