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"Well, I just meant . . . it's no problem for me."
"And it's no problem for me," I retorted. "Pearl." held out my arms and she ran to me. "Tell Paul we'll call him later," I said.
I hurried out with Pearl in my arms and Beau at my side before there could be any further discussion. My face was flushed, my eyes wide with near hysteria.
"Take it easy," Beau said when we were all in the car. "You did fine. Everything's all right."
I didn't calm down until we were well on our way. The rain that had hovered in the clouds all day kept its promise and fell in a constant downpour during the whole trip back to New Orleans. The sky over the city was ripped with seams of lightning and the thunder rolled so loud and hard, it shook us even in the car. I was happy when we finally arrived at the house. Aubrey greeted us with a list of phone calls and we saw that Bruce Bristow had called frequently.
"I see I'm going to have to get tough with him to get him off our backs," Beau said, and crumpled the messages in his fist angrily. At the moment I couldn't care less about those problems. Pearl was too groggy from the ride to eat anything, and I was emotionally exhausted. I put her to bed and then took a hot bath and crawled into bed myself. Hours later, I heard Beau come up, but I barely acknowledged him when he crawled into bed beside me, and minutes later, he was asleep, too.
I was filled with nervous tension and great anxiety during the next few days. For me the hours were like days and the days like months. I would stop myself and gaze at the clock, shocked that only minutes had ticked by. Every time the phone rang, I jumped and my heart skipped beats and pounded, but it was usually one or another of Gisselle's friends calling. I was short with all of them, and soon most of them stopped bothering to call. One afternoon Pauline phoned to tell me I was losing all my friends, driving them away one by one.
"Everyone says you've become more stuck-up than ever," she informed me. "They say you think you're too good to speak to them on the phone and you haven't invited anyone to the house."
"I have more important things to worry about right now," I snapped.
"Don't you care if you lose all your friends?"
"They weren't really my friends anyway. All they care about is what they can get from me," I told her.
"Does that include me?" she asked petulantly.
"If the shoe fits, wear it," I said.
"Good-bye, Gisselle. I hope you're happy in your own world," she said with disgust.
In weeks I had driven away most of Gisselle's friends, people I never liked anyway, and I had done it in character so no one thought anything unusual about it. Beau was amused and happy. It was practically the only bright spot in the gloomy days that followed our visit to Cypress Woods.
Whenever I called, either Toby or Jeanne came to the phone. Paul was always unavailable. They were very short with me, too. Gisselle's condition remained un-changed. Toby, who could be more caustic than Jeanne, said, "It's only a matter of time. I hope your sister's death doesn't interfere with anything you've scheduled. I know how important your social calendar is to you."
I thought to myself that Gisselle deserved such reprimands, and kept my lips sealed, but it hurt nevertheless. At the end of the last call, she said, "I don't know why my brother doesn't insist you bring Pearl home, where she belongs, but I think you should."
How could I tell her that Paul couldn't ask me to bring home the child who wasn't his?
"Worry about yourself, Toby. It seems to me you have enough there to occupy you," I snapped, and ended the conversation. I felt absolutely dreadful about it, and when I told Beau he nodded sadly.
"It's the way things have to be for now," he offered, but that wasn't enough.
"Sometimes I feel like I've put myself into a spider's web, Beau. The more I twist and struggle, the more I entrap myself."
"It will come to an end soon and we'll go on with our lives. You'll see," he assured me; however, I didn't have his confidence. Life had clearly shown me that it could take twists and turns when we least expected it.
Two days later one of those twists occurred. I had been doing well in my role as my sister mainly because I had driven away her friends and her boyfriends and stayed away from her usual haunts. Few, if any, were astute enough to see the differences. None expected such a switch of identities, of course. In their hearts they probably thought, who would want to be Gisselle?
My hope was that after a time, I would transform my sister's personality until it resembled my own, and Beau and I would even move to another location, perhaps another city, and start our lives over with far less deceit.
I was in my studio just dabbling with a picture when Aubrey knocked on my door to tell me I had a visitor. Before I could ask who it was, Bruce Bristow appeared behind him. My stepmother's husband looked like he had aged decades since I had last set eyes on him. His dark brown hair was flecked with gray, the temples all gray, and their were dark sacks under his eyes. He had lost considerable weight, too, his face gaunt, those flirtatious eyes now dim orbs. He slouched a bit and wore a creased jacket and slacks, the tie stained and his shirt open at the frayed collar. There was a scuff mark of some sort on his left cheekbone. He smiled coyly and entered. The moment he did, the stench of gin invaded the air.
"What are you doin' in here, tryin' to be your sista?" He laughed. Now that he was closer, I saw how bloodshot hi
s eyes were and understood why he was slurring his words.
"You're drunk, Bruce. Get out of here, this instant," I ordered.
"Not sooo fass," he said. He closed and opened his eyes, swaying for a moment. "You and your hushbun might think you're smoothies, but you better hear me out before you make a decision you'll regret."
"Getting you out of our lives can't be a decision I'd ever regret," I said, and because I meant it, I was able to be as vicious about it as Gisselle would have been.
