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Gladys looked enraged for a moment. Then she gazed at her two daughters, who looked puzzled by her reluctance.
"Of course, if Ruby would really like that," she said reluctantly.
"Please," I said, my lips trembling.
"Fine," Paul said, and rose.
"What should we look at first?" I asked Gladys Tate. "You should do your bedroom first," Jeanne suggested.
"They have separate bedrooms with an adjoining door. Isn't that like a royal couple, Mother?"
There was a deep moment of silence. Then Gladys smiled and said, "Yes, it is, dear. Very much so."
As we walked upstairs and down the hallway, Gladys remained a few inches behind me. She said nothing. My heart was thumping as I searched frantically through my mind for small talk that wouldn't make me sound silly or nervous. I started to talk about the colors I was considering, babbling quickly about color coordination, furniture design, and accent pieces. When we paused in the doorway of my bedroom, she finally looked at me.
"Why did you do it?" she asked in a hoarse whisper. "Why, when you knew the truth?"
"Paul and I have always been very close,
Mother Tate. Once before, I was forced to break Paul's heart so that I could hide the truth from him. You know what it was like for him once he found out," I said.
"And how do you think it was for me?" she demanded. "We weren't even married that long before Octavious . . . before he was unfaithful. Of course, your mother wove a spell over him. Catherine Landry's daughter wasn't without mystical powers, I'm sure," she said.
I swallowed hard. I wanted to defend the mother I had never known, but I saw how Paul's mother had developed this theory to accept her husband's infidelity, and I wasn't about to poke holes in her balloon.
"But what did I do?" she continued. "I accepted and I covered things up and I made it possible for us to remain respectable and for Paul to grow up protected. Now the two of you . . go off and . . . It's sinful," she said, shaking her head, "just sinful."
"We're not living together that way, madame. That's why we have separate bedrooms."
She shook her head, her flinty eyes unrelenting in their condemnation. Then she sighed deeply and took on an expression of self-pity.
"Now I must pretend again, swallow my pride once more and do what I must do so that my children are not disgraced. It isn't fair," she said, shaking her head. "It isn't fair."
"No one will know anything from my lips," I promised. She laughed a short shrill laugh.
"Why should you say anything? Look at all you have now," she added harshly, and lifted her arms. "This house, these grounds, this great wealth. . . and a father for your child." She fixed her eyes on me.
"Madame, Mother Tate, I assure you--"
"You assure me. Ha! I'm sure you cast the same sort of spell over Paul that your mother cast over Octavious. From mother to daughter, only I'm the one who pays for it all. . . not my dear husband, not my dear adopted son. Funny," she said, pausing. "I have never used that term once, never; but now, here with you, I can't say anything else but the truth: my adopted son."
"It's not the truth," I spit back. "You love Paul in your heart the same way you would had you been the one to give birth to him, and he loves you that way, too. I will make you one promise, Mother Tate, and that is that I will never do anything to interfere with that love. Never," I insisted, my eyes narrow and fixed with determination on hers.
She smiled coldly as if to say I couldn't even if I wanted to with all my heart.
"But you should know that Paul loves Pearl as much as he would had she been his from the start," I warned. "I hope you will accept that and love her as much as a grandmere should."
"Love," she said. "Everyone needs so much of it, no wonder we're all so exhausted." She sighed again and then looked into my room, her face hardening with criticism. "You should do something nice with drapes on those windows. The sun will be setting on this side. And those colors you were thinking about . . . I thought you were supposed to be an artist. You'll use beige with a little pink in it in here," she commanded. "Now, when you get to New Orleans," she continued as she walked on, "there's this place I know on Canal Street . . ."
I followed along, grateful for the truce that had fallen between us, even though it was a truce on her terms.
We rose early the next morning for our trip to New Orleans. Fortunately, the morning overcast broke and the patches of blue with the bright sunlight seeping through made the trip more enjoyable. I hated going long distances in the rain. But as we traveled the familiar highway, I couldn't help but feel like someone reliving an old nightmare. I recalled my first trip, when I had run away from Grandpere Jack. I had arrived in New Orleans during the Mardi Gras and was nearly raped by a man in a Mardi Gras mask who pretended to help me find my way through the city.
But that was the day I had met Beau for the first time, too, I remembered. Just as I was about to give up and turn away from my father's house, Beau arrived like some dreamboat stepping off a movie screen. I knew from the first moment I set eyes on him that he was special, and from the way he gazed at me once he knew I wasn't my twin sister, I knew he thought the same about me. When Lake Pontchartrain came into view with its water a dark green and its small waves capping, I vividly recalled my first date with Beau and how passionate we had been even then.
I was so lost in these memories, I didn't even realize Paul had driven us into the city until we pulled up to the Fairmont Hotel. Pearl had slept for most of the trip, but when we stepped out, she was fascinated with the sounds of traffic and people and all the activity around us as we checked into our suite of rooms. Paul had arranged for us to have a room with two double beds that adjoined a room for Mrs. Flemming and Pearl.
After we had a little lunch in the hotel, Mrs. Flemming took Pearl up for a nap, and Paul and I began our shopping spree. I had forgotten how much I loved the city. It had its own special rhythms that changed as the day grew into night. In the morning it could be so quiet. Most of the shops weren't open and the shutters and balcony doors were closed, especially in the famed French Quarter, the Vieux Carre. The shadows were still deep and the streets relatively cool.
