Chapter 26 SIOBHAN
Chapter 26
S IOBHAN
Daylight struck her right in the eye. Groaning, she tried to lift her arms to cover her face, but they felt weighed down, like there were sandbags on top of them. Her mouth felt furry, almost anesthetized, and the jackhammer in her head wouldn’t let up. The air stank of alcohol. Correction: she stank of alcohol. She pried her eyelids apart with difficulty. It took a few seconds for her eyes to focus. She was staring at the ceiling of ... of somewhere. The Duponts’ living room? What was she doing in the living room? Why had she slept on the sofa? A fuzzy image swam up from the depths of her brain and surfaced; even then, she couldn’t remember a thing. She tried to get up slowly, holding her temples to minimize the pounding of her head. Little by little, the events of the previous night slipped into order in her mind. She had gone out for dinner with Marcel, and then they had a Sazerac. They had danced, together, very close together; she remembered that much.
And after that, nothing.
“Good morning, princess,” he said, coming into the living room. How could he be fresh as a daisy when she felt the way she did? “How are you feeling this morning? Much of a hangover?”
“My head is pounding.”
Marcel gave a slight smile.
“I’m not surprised. Here.” He held out a glass of fizzing water. “I brought you an aspirin. I thought you might need it.”
“Thanks. Did I really drink that much last night?”
He shot her a skeptical look.
“Don’t tell me you don’t remember,” he said, folding his arms over his chest.
“Well, I know we went out for dinner and then to a jazz club and all that, but ... how did I end up sleeping on the sofa?”
“It’s quite simple: you passed out. Chaz wanted me to carry you to your room, like I’m some kind of goddamn Marvel superhero with the ability to climb forty stairs with a dead weight in my arms and not break my back. By the way, how much do you weigh?”
“A hundred and fifteen pounds. So, Chaz saw me in that state?” She sighed and stared down at the glass of water, which she was clutching with both hands. “Oh my god, how embarrassing. I’m never going to drink again in my life,” she said, before downing her medicine.
“It was no great drama. The most interesting bit was when you kissed me, but apart from that—”
Bubbles shot out of her mouth. She almost choked.
“I did what?” she asked, eyes wide like saucers.
“You kissed me.”
“What? No! I didn’t ...! It can’t ...” Her ability to produce syntactically coherent sentences had melted in her brain, so she made an effort to gather her composure and maintain a reasonable and calm tone. “Are you being serious? Please, tell me you’re not being serious.”
“One hundred percent.”
Siobhan hid her face in a cushion and wished for a meteorite to land right on top of them.
“I know. Dutch courage, I guess.” His “no big deal” attitude should have calmed Siobhan, but it only increased her panic. “Oh, and you touched my ass,” he added. He appeared to be enjoying this moment a tad too much.
A fresh wave of humiliation broke over Siobhan like a tsunami.
“It’s not true! You’re making it up!”
“You kissed me. Without my consent. And you touched my ass. You know I could sue you for that? And I could sue you for snoring like a buzz saw.”
“I don’t snore,” she grumbled.
“Oh yes you do.”
“There’s no way you heard me from your room.”
“Who said I slept in my room?”
“So, where did you sleep?”
“Right here,” he pointed at the floor. “What? I couldn’t leave you unsupervised. Do you know how much my dry-cleaning bill would have been if you vomited on the rug?”
Siobhan ground her teeth. She felt like her jaw would break she was clenching it so hard.
“Okay, but in the end I didn’t vomit.” She suddenly grimaced with horror. “Did I?” Marcel shook his head, amused, and she felt instantly relieved. After a brief pause, she glanced at him slyly. “Was it good, at least? You know”—she licked her lips—“the kiss.”
Marcel’s eyes darted around her face for a few seconds, and she could have sworn she saw something like adoration flickering in his gaze. Her chest inflated as though she were holding a deep breath.
“Mmm. It wasn’t bad, although I’ve had better, princess.”
“You jerk,” she burst out, her pride wounded, before throwing a cushion in his face.
“A jerk who’s handsome, tall, and sexy, to use your precise words,” he replied, as he caught the cushion midflight. Siobhan opened her mouth to protest and then closed it again. “Hey, don’t take this the wrong way, but you stink like a distillery. Why don’t you take a shower before breakfast? I’ll tell Mrs. Robicheaux to make you something restorative. Nothing like some Southern-style pork chops to cure a hangover.”
The nausea rose in her throat in an instant.
The shower managed to wash away the smell of the booze but not the shame or the shakiness in her legs. She had kissed him. She had kissed Marcel. And she didn’t know what was worse, the fact that she had done it or the fact that she couldn’t remember it. While the water rinsed off the last traces of soap, she brought her fingertips to her lips and tried to imagine what that kiss would have been like. Soft and gentle? Or fiery and passionate? Her mind rewound to the night of the role-play. She was tormented by what might have happened between them if not for that silly fit of the giggles. And more to the point, had it been laughter or fear? She still wasn’t sure. And she had no sense of whether it had been as real for him as it was for her or simply a game. She had spent every minute of the next day debating whether or not to raise the subject, trying to act normal and hide the fact that her knees went weak every time she visualized Marcel on top, under, behind her. And now ... that kiss she couldn’t remember. Goddamn alcohol and lousy hangover! Kissing that man had been at the center of her fantasies for a long time. This was not the way she had imagined it: it should have been he who kissed her . And it would have been a movie kiss. She couldn’t imagine it any other way; not after sensing how passionate he was up close. The very idea of Marcel kissing her, first on the lips and then on the neck, caressing her breasts and then grabbing her buttocks to squeeze her against his half-naked body while he whispered obscenities in her ear ... That image turned the spark into a flame and the flame into a furnace. She had to press her hands to her chest to try to slow the beating of her heart.
For god’s sake, Siobhan. Calm down.
She stepped out of the shower breathless from that exquisite torture. She put her erotic thoughts on hold, but the aspirin and the fact that he had slept on the floor so as not to leave her alone played on a loop in her mind. In his own way, Marcel was concerned about her. They had a connection. They got on well. They had fun. And sometimes, he looked at her in a way that made her feel dizzy. She couldn’t allow herself to think about him romantically—the notion that he might harbor some feeling for her was absurd—but then, he wasn’t the same arrogant and reserved man she had met in New York. She dried her hair and pulled it back into a messy high bun. She glanced at her watch: 10:00 a.m. There was no chance of her feeling any fresher than this, so she put on a floaty dress and went downstairs for breakfast. The voices coming from the kitchen made her stop short: Marcel and his sister were arguing. She knew she shouldn’t eavesdrop on other people’s conversations, but she couldn’t fight her instinct. There were too many pieces in the Dupont family puzzle that she didn’t know how to fit together. So she stood still and trained her ears on their argument.
“The only thing I asked you to do was to go and see him, for Christ’s sake. Once. One lousy visit. Is it really so much to ask? You’ve been here four days, Marcel. You expect me to believe you still haven’t found time?”
“I don’t give a damn what you do or don’t believe, Chaz.”
“But yesterday you promised me you’d go.”
“No, I didn’t promise shit. I just said that—”
“Your obligation—”
“Stop there, Charmaine. Don’t go down that path. Don’t do it.” Siobhan held her breath. Marcel’s tone had suddenly become more serious. “Don’t talk to me about obligations because I think I’ve more than fulfilled mine.”
“Are you throwing something in my face?”
“I’m not throwing anything in your face. For the love of god! Have I ever? You’re my sister. You know I’d give my life for you. But do you think I would have come back home if the old man was still here? You really think that? The last time was hellish. Or have you forgotten? He hit you, goddamn it! Right in front of me.”
Siobhan silenced a cry with her hand when she heard Marcel’s words.
“Dad is sick. He’s not himself. He’s lost his mind.”
“Stop making excuses for him! Healthy or sick, that man has made your life a misery. He made both of our lives a misery. I don’t want to see him. What for? If I couldn’t stand being near him before, I certainly don’t want to now. I’ll pay whatever it takes for him to live out his final days with as much dignity as possible, but don’t ask me to feel sorry for him, because I won’t.”
“One day, Marcel Javarious Dupont, that pride of yours will give you a good smack of reality. Pride or rage, I don’t know which will hit you first.”
Marcel laughed, a loud, sarcastic laugh.
“Tell me something, Chaz. How long has it been since you had a night out? How long have you thought about nothing but the well-being of a man who sucked you dry over the years like a fucking parasite? First, Mom. Then the carpenter’s shop. Then the fucking storm. Then his wretched illness. And now the clinic.”
“And so what? Were you here, by any chance? No! You weren’t here. You’ve never been here. You hotfooted it to New York at the first sign of trouble and left me alone to deal with him. You think you were the only one who suffered over Mom? Okay, so you put the money on the table, but I’ve had to bear the cross of being the daughter who stayed behind. I’m the one who had to put up with his bitterness and his bad temper all these years, the one who cleaned up the shit, who turned the other cheek, again and again. And the one who feels guilty for sending him away, despite it all. You’ve achieved your big dream of being a successful writer and living in Manhattan, but ... what about me, Marcel? What do I have? Nothing.”
“You have me. Although apparently that’s not enough for you.”
Then Siobhan heard footsteps approaching. It was Marcel. He saw her there, next to the staircase, but he walked right past her. He seemed to be looking at something in the distance. An uncomfortable leaden feeling formed in her stomach when she noticed he was holding the car keys and heading for the door.
“Are you going to Lakeview?” shouted his sister, who appeared before he had time to unlock the vehicle. Her eyes and chin had a stubborn set to them.
Marcel turned around. He exhaled and rolled his eyes as though he had just lost his final ounce of patience.
“No, okay? I’m not going to Lakeview. Not today, not tomorrow, and not the next time I come to New Orleans. If there is a next time. Happy?”
The slam of the door as he left shook Siobhan to the core.
Charmaine squeezed her eyes shut.
“Go with him, please,” she asked. “Don’t leave him alone.”