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Elise blushed. “You like it?”
“Humm. Don’t know… but I think it’s…it’s very you. I mean the whole outfit… you have me aghast,” she laughed.
“Really?”
“You suppose you could help me,” Laney asked, as she juggled the packages in her arms.
From behind Elise, the voluptuous Sandra reached out to take the packages spilling from Laney arms. “What in god’s name did you bring?” she asked.
“Presents.”
“Presents?” Sandra’s blue eyes lit with interest.
“And wine, some cheese I bought at the deli, and Greek olives.”
“Oh, I see, you’re trying to make me fat. I’m on a diet, you know,” Sandra said
“You can diet tomorrow,” Laney crossed the threshold into the foyer. “How often is it that we get together?” She hugged Elise first, feeling the tickle of erotic excitement she brought with her bloom, then went on to melt into Sandra’s soft body. She stroked her long blonde hair and gave her an affectionate kiss on the cheek.
“You both look so lovely…” Laney said, on backing off. She had to fight back tears.
“Laney, it’s just the three of us, you can cry if you want,” Elise said.
Laney took a deep breath, and shook her head. “No, not tonight. Tonight I’m not going to cry. Life moves on and mine will, too,” she breezed by them both on the way to the kitchen. “Tonight I plan to drink some wine and laugh with my friends.” She turned back as she reached the kitchen door. “Now it’s time to open your presents.”
***
The fire in the grate had turned into glowing embers. Three empty bottles of wine stood like small sentinels on the coffee table. The cheese and the olives, along with Elise’s salad and Sandra’s cold-cuts had been devoured an hour before. Now nourished, happy and just a little drunk, the trio sat on the floor before the hearth, their backs resting against the sofa and two facing leather chairs, the table between them. The warm air was like a liquid bath around them, sensuous, but alarming, because it signaled an erotic mood they might all have reason to fear. They were best friends, but they’d been keeping secrets—several months of secrets. Maybe it was Erik Priestly’s death that made them close in on themselves. Laney had been their rock, their leader, and she’d crumbled like an ancient ruin when her husband died. The three became islands of their own making, afraid to talk, to touch, to laugh as they had before, driven into their private worlds where no one could disturb them.
After having opened Laney’s presents—music boxes from Denmark she’d picked up on a recent business trip—an unsettling silence gathered around them like a heavily laden cloud. The music from the prettily decorated boxes had been haunting, not the gay melodies Laney remembered when she chose them. Clair de Lune had never sounded quite so sad. But it was more than just the sad notes that quashed their merry reunion. Not since the funeral had they been together like this. Yet, it wasn’t just the recollection of that last meeting that colored their mood, but something that reached even further back.
“Do you ever think about the island?” Laney interrupted the quiet. She words slipped in, almost unbeknownst to her, as if she’d hadn’t really spoken them and they were still dancing in her mind. But with just the tiniest ripple of discomfort sweeping their intimate conclave, she knew that she had voiced her question and it had hit a nerve.
“No, I never think about the island,” Elise jumped in. She grabbed her wine glass and took another long drink of her Chablis, fidgeting nervously with her funky skirt.
“Really? I wonder why,” Laney mused. She wasn’t really asking for an answer.
Elise looked troubled, while Sandra’s gleaming eyes surveyed them both. “I don’t believe that,” she chimed in with an accusation aimed directly at Elise.
She backed up instinctively. Elise could look prim and proud—something her new casual wardrobe tried to contradict, and now woefully failed to do. The modest, self-effacing Elise reemerged.
“Elise, I don’t believe you,” Sandra said bluntly, her eyes lit strangely now. “Things have happened…I sense they have for you, too. I don’t think you can rid yourself from its influence any more than Laney and I have been able to do.”
“Well, this is a switch,” Laney looked at Sandra a bit surprised. She could feel her friend’s fear as a layer of goosebumps spread like a rash across her arm.
At that moment, a flame burst from the fire, its flickering light dancing across Sandra’s face. Something eerie, something wicked seemed to sweep through the room. Sandra hugged her arms as if she were shivering cold while Elise looked on with alarm and Laney’s vibrant expression pressed her friend for answers.
“I’m not sure the island has influenced me at all,” Elise said, defensively, as her gaze moved from one to the other.
“You don’t you remember what happened on Marquis Island?” Laney tried again.
“Of course, I do,” she shot out, as if she was trying hard to forget. “What good is it to talk about…”
“We get stranded in a storm,” Sandra cut her off, “the boat won’t start, and suddenly we’re captive to Jason, Matthew and Erik, imprisoned in a strange house with that strange caretaker Archibald Devane and his vile book.” Suddenly she’s a little dreamy, staring trace-like into the fire. “Chapter by chapter we followed the path of some mysterious Marquis, and were turned into sex slaves…stripped, bound, beaten…used …” Each word and her voice softened a little more.
“Sandra, dear, do you think we could forget?” Elise tried again to stop her, speaking plainly, but maybe a little too curt.
“I want to talk about it,” she declared, but her declaration was met with silence. Sandra looked up. “I have to talk about it. It’s impossible to forget—you’d think by now…. If I mention it to Jason, he just shrugs it off and when the three of us have been together—which has hardly happened—it sits like an elephant in the room that no one sees.”
