All That Glitters

12

Body Double

Our first evening out as Beau and Gisselle Andreas was a great success. I wore one of Gisselle's strapless outfits with a tight-fitting bodice. Beau laughed at my reaction to my image in the mirror. Almost all of her dresses had the same low necklines, so they revealed more cleavage than I would have liked.

"Your sister always pushed to the limits when it came to what was and was not socially acceptable," Beau said. "I think she enjoyed outraging high society."

"Well, I don't."

"Still, you look enchanting," he said; stepping back with a sensual smile painted on his face. He laughed. "There was nothing Gisselle liked more than walking into a fancy, expensive restaurant and having heads turn her way in astonishment."

"I'll be blushing so badly, everyone will know who I really am!"

"They'll just think it's Gisselle's way of flirting," Beau replied.

Heads did turn when we entered the restaurant. Beau carried Pearl, who looked adorable in the little sailor girl outfit we had bought her. I tried to imagine Gisselle's arrogance and swagger, but when people's eyes met mine, faces smeared into one giant blur and I instinctively looked down. However, none of the people we met who were acquaintances of Beau and Gisselle's displayed any suspicions. Whatever nervousness or uncharacteristic behavior they saw in me, they attributed to the current tragic situation. Gisselle was always willing to let people know how much she suffered. Nevertheless, I noticed that most people showed their sympathy more to Beau than to me, and I realized quickly that those who were friends with Beau and Gisselle were friends with them mainly because of him.

Beau cleverly announced anyone's name in greeting before I had to say anything.

"Marcus, Lorraine, how are you?" he would cry as they approached the table.

"Whose lovely child is this?" almost everyone asked.

"My sister's," I replied with a smirk. "But for now and maybe forever, she's my responsibility."

"Oh?"

That would lead to Beau providing the explanation. If anyone did show sympathy to me, it was solely because of the new burden I was to bear.

"As you can see," Beau told me on the way home, "most of Gisselle's friendships are thin and artificial. I used to notice how they never really listened to each other or cared that much about what each other said."

"'Snakes of the same color are drawn to each other,' Grandmère used to say," I told him.

"Exactly."

We were both so buoyed by my premier performances in the role of my sister, our hearts felt light and gay when we returned to the house. Beau had arranged for interviews the next day, hoping to hire new servants as soon as possible. I put Pearl to sleep in her new crib and new room, thinking to myself how wonderful it was that she was to have the room that had been mine. My father had been so proud of it and so happy with my elated reaction to it and the views of our gardens and property. To me it was the doorway to a wonderland. Hopefully it would become that for Pearl, too.

Beau came up behind me and put his hands on my shoulders and his lips on my neck.

"Feeling better?" he asked softly.

"Yes."

"A little happy?"

"A little," I offered.

He laughed and turned me to him for a long and passionate kiss. Then a small smile played about his beautifully shaped lips. "You know, you did look very sexy tonight."

"Not in front of the baby," I chastised gently when his fingers found the snaps on my dress and he began to lower it off my shoulders. He laughed and scooped me up to carry me to our suite. After he placed me gently on the bed, he stepped back and smiled strangely.

"What?" I asked.

"Let's pretend this is really our first night together as man and wife, our honeymoon night. We've never made love with each other before. We've touched each other, kissed each other hard and long, but I have always respected you when I courted you and you always said, let's wait. Well, now we're married; now it's time," he declared.

"Oh, Beau . . ."

He knelt down and put his fingers on my lips. "Don't speak," he said. "Words are too clumsy now."

I sat quietly as he gracefully peeled my dress down my arms. He kissed my shoulders, now gleaming in the soft light of the three-quarter moon streaming through our bedroom window. He unfastened my bra and drew it off me. For a moment all he did was gaze at me. My heart pounded so hard, I thought he could see the hammering under my breast. Slowly he brought his hands to me, caressing me. I moaned and lay back on the plush, fluffy pillows. I closed my eyes and just listened to the rustling of his clothing. I remained still, quiet, as he completed undressing me and moments later brought his naked body to mine.

Funny the power our illusions had over us, I thought, because we did make love as if it were for the first time. Each kiss was a new kiss, each touch a new touch. We made discoveries about each other, listened to each other's moans and heavy breathing as if we both heard things we had never before heard. Our passion was so great and so deep, it drove me to tears of ecstasy. If we declared our love once, we declared it a hundred times as we stroked the deepest part of ourselves repeatedly.

It was exhausting, but ecstatically so, leaving us both tired but content. All the problems and difficulties ahead of us became insignificant. Our lovemaking left us feeling invulnerable, for surely a romance this great was blessed and protected. It was immortal, indestructible, invincible. We fell asleep in each other's arms, blanketed by confidence, and my dreams took off on wings of fancy.

The phone's ringing early in the morning, even before Pearl woke, startled us. Beau groaned. For a few moments I forgot where I was. I blinked in confusion and waited for my memory to catch up with my senses. Beau groped for the phone and struggled to sit up.

"Hello," he said in a raspy voice. He listened so long without speaking, my curiosity was aroused and I ground the sleep from my eyes and sat up beside him.

"Who is it?" I whispered.

He put his hand over the mouthpiece. "Paul," he replied, and listened again. "Fine. You did the right thing. Just keep us up-to-date. No. She's still asleep," he added, fixing his gaze on me with wider eyes. "I'll tell her. Right. Thanks." He cradled the phone.

"What?"

"He said his doctor advised putting Gisselle into the hospital for tests, a CAT scan. His doctor had the same initial diagnosis as mine did, but he's not as pessimistic as my doctor was about the outcome."

"How did she spend the night?" I asked.

"Paul said she had a few periods of consciousness, but her babbling was so incoherent, no one suspected anything,"

"What's going to happen, Beau?"

"I don't know. My doctor was so definite about her condition." He thought a moment and shook his head. "I don't think anything will come of this."

"I don't want to have to wish for her to be sick and die, Beau. I couldn't be happy knowing my happiness was based on that wish."

"I know. It doesn't matter what you wish. Believe me," he said assuredly. "It's beyond what any one of us wants, even Paul," he added. "Might as well get up and start the day." He rose, but I sat there.

Mornings always had a way of sobering us up, I thought. Reality rode in on the back of the sunlight, erasing the magic we experienced under the stars and in the moonlight. I heard Pearl's cry and rose myself, that tentative feeling returning.

It had been a while since I had been in a kitchen, but cooking and baking for me was like riding a bike. The moment I began, everything came back to me and I not only prepared our breakfast, but began a gumbo for our lunch as well. Beau wasn't sure he could get back for lunch.

"Since the settlement and Bruce's departure, I've been running the Dumas Enterprises," he explained. "Of course, Gisselle did little more than cash checks and spend money. She was always bored with business."

"Paul conducted all of our business," I said, "but I wouldn't mind getting involved and being a real partner for you."

He shook his head.

"Why not?" I asked.

"Everyone working for us knows how Gisselle is."

"Tell them I've had a sudden change of heart and mind because of what happened to my sister. Tell them . . . I've got religion."

"Religion? Gisselle? No way anyone would believe that, mon chère."

"Well then tell them a voodoo spell was cast over me," I suggested, half-seriously.

Beau laughed. "All right. We'll figure something out to explain your new interests. We'll have to ease you into things slowly, though, so as not to arouse suspicions. In the meantime, I'll do what has to be done. I have three interviews set up beginning at two this afternoon: a candidate for butler, maid, and cook."

"I could do all of our cooking," I said.

"Gisselle couldn't boil water without burning it," he reminded me. I felt like a graceful dancer who had to suddenly appear clumsy. All my talents had to remain hidden. Beau kissed me on the cheek, kissed Pearl, and hurried off to the office.

After he left I took Pearl around the house to show her our new home. She loved our patios, fountains, and gardens, but was especially excited when I brought her to my old studio. The familiar sight of easels, frames, drawing tables, paints, oils, and clay brought laughter to her lips. She clapped her hands and I put her down on the floor and gave her a set of colored pencils and some paper with which to amuse herself while I began to reorganize my studio.

I was so lost in the work and my memories of pictures I had done here that I didn't hear the tapping on the windowpane for a few moments after it had begun. It grew louder and I turned to see a curly-haired young man smiling in at me. He was dressed in a short-sleeve blue shirt and jeans, the shirt opened down his chest to reveal a gold chain and medallion. He was a slim man about six feet tall with a dark face, light brown eyes, and very light brown hair, and I didn't think he was much older than twenty-four or -five.

"Open the window," he cried.

I walked toward him slowly and undid the latch.

"Pauline told me you were back. Why didn't you call?" he asked, and started to crawl in through the window. I stepped back amazed, but too shocked and confused to speak. As soon as he was in, he reached out to take my shoulders and bring me to him to kiss me passionately on the lips, twisting and turning his head and jetting out his tongue. I gasped and pulled out of his grip.

"What's wrong?" he demanded. He smirked. "Did Pauline tell you something? Because if she did, it wasn't true. Helaine Delmarco was here for only a couple of days, and her parents and my parents are like relatives. I think of her the way you would think of your sister."

"Pauline didn't tell me anything," I said.

"Oh." He heard Pearl mumble some of her baby gibberish and looked around the corner of the settee to see her seated on the floor. "Who's that?"

"My sister's child. It's the reason we returned so quickly. My sister became very sick. She's in the hospital. I'm looking after her baby."

"No kidding? You? Volunteered?"

"I didn't exactly volunteer."

"No," he said, laughing. "I guess you wouldn't. So that's it. All right. I forgive you, then." He started toward me again. "What's wrong?" he asked when I retreated a step. He smiled. "I watched and waited to be sure Beau was gone for a while. Where did he go, to the office?"

"No, he's coming back soon," I said.

"Oh. Too bad," he muttered with disappointment. "I thought we'd make up for lost time, especially in here. We had a good time in here once, didn't we?" he said, gazing around with a lascivious smile washed across his face. "On this very sofa," he added. "I still don't know why it was so important we do it in here," he added. "In fact, as I recall, it was a little uncomfortable. Not that I'm complaining," he said.

His revelation so amazed me that the expression on my face intrigued him.

"What's the matter? You don't remember? You make love so often in so many places, you forgot?"

"I didn't forget anything," I said sullenly.

He nodded and gazed at Pearl again. "So when will I see you? Can you come up to my apartment later?"

"No," I said quickly, perhaps too quickly. He squinted and continued to study me curiously. My pounding heart brought a hot flush to my face. I knew my cheeks were crimson.

"You're not yourself, for some reason."

"Well, would you be if your twin sister came down with a fatal illness and you were left caring for her child because her husband was too overwhelmed?"

"Fatal? I'm sorry. I didn't realize it was that serious."

"Well, it is," I snapped.

"Why don't you just hire someone to watch her for you?" he asked after a moment.

"I intend to, but not right away. I've got to pretend I care at least," I said.

"She's a pretty little girl," he said, gazing at Pearl again. "But little kids are little kids." He stepped toward me again, his eyes soft, demanding, his lips folded into an impish smile. "I missed you. Didn't you miss me?"

"I miss my freedom," I replied.

He didn't like the response and grimaced. "You weren't so indifferent the night before you left. You were moaning so loud, I thought I'd have problems with my neighbors."

"Is that so?" I said indignantly. "Well, you don't have to worry about the neighbors anymore. I'll do my moaning at home," I added with my hands on my hips in Gisselle's way and my head wagging.

"What?"

"You heard me." My voice took on the steely edge of a razor. "Now, leave before Beau comes back and you have to explain your injuries to your parents."

"Huh?" He shook his head. "Looks like you're the one with the fatal illness, not your sister."

"Would you get out of here?" I demanded, and pointed to the window.

He stood there and then smiled at me. "You'll change your mind. You'll get bored and call. I know you will."

"Don't hold your breath."

My reaction confused him. I could see him struggling to understand. A theory flashed. "You're seeing someone else on the side, aren't you?" he accused. "Who is it? Kurt Peters? No, you wouldn't sleep with Kurt. He's not wild enough for you. I know, Henry Martin, right?

"It's Henry, isn't it?" He nodded, convincing himself. "I should have realized that would happen when you told me you thought he was cute. How is he? Is he as exciting in bed as I am?"

"I'm not sleeping with anyone but Beau," I said, and he threw his head back and laughed.

"You? Stay with only one man? Don't make me laugh. Oh well," he said, shrugging with an air of indifference. "We had a good fling. Carey Littlefield told me not to expect too much for too long. So, as you see, dear Gisselle, your reputation precedes you. The only one who seems oblivious about it is your darling Beau Andreas. Or maybe he's not as oblivious as you think. Maybe he, too, has found other distractions."

"Get out!" I shouted, and pointed to the window.

"I'm going. Don't worry." He looked at Pearl again. She was staring up with confusion and some fear in her face because I had raised my voice. "You better get someone to take care of that child soon, before you ruin her," he said, and headed for the window. "Au revoir, Gisselle. I shall never forget the way you squealed when I kissed that little beauty mark under your breast," he added, and laughed as he crawled out the window. He waved and was off as quickly as he had appeared. Only then did I release the air I had been holding in my lungs. I reached back to find the settee and sat hard.

My sister had been having affairs with other men after she had married Beau. Apparently he didn't know, because he hadn't said anything to me. How many more men would come sneaking around the house or calling? I had been lucky this time, but the next man might be more perceptive.

I should have realized Gisselle would have been involved with other men, I thought. She married Beau only as a way to get at me, to flaunt him. Even when she was going with him in high school, she was seeing other boys on the side. Whoever that man was who had just been here, he was right. One man was never enough for Gisselle. She was always thinking about what she was missing.

I could never be like that, I thought. Her friends would soon be chattering about how different she had suddenly become. I hoped they weren't smart enough to figure out why.

I regained my composure and continued to work on my studio. A little more than an hour later, Beau called to say he would be returning for lunch after all.

"Good," I said. He heard the tension in my voice. "Anything wrong?"

"I had a visitor."

"Oh? Who?"

"One of Gisselle's secret lovers," I revealed. He was silent a moment.

"I should have prepared you for that," he admitted.

"You knew?"

"Let's say I had some strong suspicions."

"Then why didn't you tell me, prepare me?" I demanded. His silence reconfirmed my theory. "You were worried I wouldn't go through with doing this, weren't you?"

"A little."

"You should have told me, Beau. It could have been a big problem."

"I know. I'm sorry. What did you do? How did it go? You didn't . . ."

"Of course not. I acted annoyed about everything and drove him off. He accused me of sleeping with someone else. I don't even know his name."

"What did he look like?"

I described him quickly and Beau laughed.

"George Denning. No wonder he was so nice to me all the time." He laughed again. "I would have thought she would have chosen someone better-looking."

"Doesn't it bother you to learn this now, Beau, and confirm your suspicions?"

"No," he said. "Because now that I have you, there is no longer any past. There is only the present and the future," he said.

"Beau," I asked before he could end the conversation, "were you seeing other women, too?"

"Yes," he admitted. "You. Remember?"

"I meant . . . other women."

"No. My mind, my eyes, my soul, were fixed only on you, Ruby."

"Come home, Beau. I'm a bit shaken."

"All right. I'll hurry," he said, and hung up.

We had met all the challenges and tests so far, I thought, but I was sure they would continue to come at me hard and heavy. I threw myself back into my work and kept busy so as not to worry, but at lunch Beau revealed we had to prepare for the biggest challenge of all.

"My parents," he announced. "They're returning from their European holiday trip in two days. We'll have to go there for dinner."

"Oh, Beau, they'll surely see the differences and know, and you remember how much they disliked me, thanks to Daphne," I reminded him.

"They won't be any more perceptive than anyone else," he assured me. "The fact is, they didn't see much of us after we were married. Gisselle wasn't very fond of my mother, and my father was too serious and too proper for her. They made her uncomfortable. I could count on my fingers how many times we were together. Whenever we were together, Gisselle was usually sullen and quiet. And we won't have to see them that often," he added, but I was still quite nervous about meeting them as Gisselle.

That afternoon we met with the candidates for butler, maid, and cook. The butler was a proper Englishman, about five feet seven with thin, gray hair and hazel eyes. He wore thick-rimmed glasses, which kept falling down the bridge of his bony nose, but he was a pleasant man who had obviously worked for many fine families. His name was Aubrey Renner and he had a warm, friendly smile.

The maid's name was Sally Petersen. She was a tall, thin woman in her mid-forties with a long face that had eyes as big as half dollars and a thin nose that dipped over her pencil-thin mouth. I saw that being a maid was a profession to her, not a job. She appeared to me to be a very responsible person, a bit hard, but efficient.

Our cook was a light-skinned quadroon woman who said she was sixty, but I thought was closer to seventy. She called herself Mrs. Swann and said she rarely bothered to tell people her first name these days because it made her sound too rich, Delphinia. She was a short woman, not more than four feet five, with rolling-pin arms and a chubby face. But I imagined she was once a very pretty young lady. She had full, dark liquid eyes, coral lips, and teeth of pearl. She had worked in the homes of two wealthy Creole families most of her life. I had the feeling that she had retired and then became bored.

Once the servants were hired, Beau thought we should look into the nanny for Pearl; but I was reluctant about throwing another person at Pearl so soon.

"It's something Gisselle would do immediately," Beau reminded me.

As luck would have it, a friend of his knew of a Frenchwoman who had worked as a private tutor as well as a nanny, and was now unemployed. Her name was Edith Ferrier. Beau had her come to the house the next day. During the interview I found out she had been married, but for only a short time. Her husband had died in a train accident, and the traumatic effect had left her terrified of forming another romantic relationship.

She was a soft-spoken woman of fifty-four with short, black hair streaked with gray, a soft, gentle mouth, and warm, almost sad brown eyes that brightened at the sight of Pearl. Caring and nurturing other people's children had become her whole life, every one of them replacing the children she never had. Pearl was a little suspicious of her at first, but Mrs. Ferrier's soothing voice and happy tones perked up her interest, and in a short time she was letting Mrs. Ferrier show her how to do a new picture puzzle.

Beau had met with all of these candidates before I had and he had explained the situation to them: how we were caring for my sister's child. Few questions were asked, and since none of them had ever known my sister, I didn't have to put on any performances. Beau emphasized with each of them that confidentiality about the family and its affairs was of primary importance. Anyone who talked out of school would be released immediately.

Both of us were happy about the people we had hired. Establishing our new lives seemed well under way, but before I could take a breath and relax, Beau reminded me that his parents had arrived and our dinner was arranged for the following evening.

I had never really gotten to know Beau's parents when I lived in New Orleans. Right from the beginning, because of my stepmother, Daphne, they treated me like common trash. They were people who were quite in love with their own place in high society, the sort who constantly had their names in the society columns and their pictures in the newspapers for attending or sponsoring charity balls and other affairs.

"You can choose something to wear that is more in your character, if you like," Beau told me. "Gisselle knew how my parents were and at least made some small effort not to antagonize them by wearing one of her outrageously sexy outfits. She would wear some of Daphne's jewelry, too. And she would be a little less heavy-handed with the makeup."

"I'd rather wear my own. Your parents won't know the difference." I didn't want to touch anything that had once belonged to my dreadful stepmother, even though her things were expensive and quite chic.

We decided it would be easier for us if we left Pearl at home. My knees were practically knocking together when we drove up to the Andreas mansion on Chestnut Street, which was one of the famous old houses, dating back to the 1850s. It was a classic example of Greek Revival architecture and had double front balconies with Ionic columns below and Corinthian above. Beau emphasized how proud his father was of their home, never missing an opportunity to describe its historical significance to the Garden District.

"Gisselle showed little interest in his lectures, once even yawning while he spoke about the `dep windows," Beau said.

"What are they? If I don't remember. . ."

"I wouldn't worry about that. Gisselle barely listened to our conversations, and my parents knew it. Dep windows serve as doorways when a wood panel beneath them is opened. Don't worry. My father won't show you around. He showed Gisselle around and was disappointed in her reactions."

"Then they didn't like Gisselle any more than they liked me, did they?"

"Not much," he said, smiling. He was amused, but all this made me even more nervous. How was I to behave knowing his parents weren't happy he had married me?

The butler let us in and we walked down the long corridor to the sitting room where his parents waited. His father, after whom Beau took the most, had grayed considerably in the temples since I last saw him. Beau had inherited his father's Roman nose and sharp jawline. He was an inch or so taller than his father, who kept his figure quite trim for a man of his age. Tonight he wore a white dinner jacket and a black silk ascot. He had color in his face, which brought out his deep blue eyes.

Beau's mother, a woman almost as tall as Beau's father, had gained some weight since I had seen her last.

Her hair was still that bleached light brown shade and she kept it styled and lacquered. She never let herself get even slightly tanned, coming from that generation of upper-class people who believed a tan made a person look common, like a street worker who was in the sun most of the time. Her best feature was her emerald eyes, which gave her tight, firm face some radiance.

"You're late," his father said, folding his paper and standing.

"Sorry. Hello, Mother," Beau said, and went to kiss her. She turned her face so he could press his lips to her cheek. "Father." He shook his father's hand.

"It was the baby," I said suddenly. "Otherwise, we would have been on time."

"Didn't you say you hired a nanny for her?" his mother asked Beau.

"We did, but . . ."

"She's a spoiled little girl and I had to help calm her down," I said. It was swallowing castor oil, but it was something that one might have expected Gisselle to say.

Beau's father raised his eyebrows. "You did? Well now, maybe the two of you will be thinking of having your own children soon. I'm expecting a grandson."

"If all children are like my sister's, I think I'll check into a nunnery," I said. It was almost as if Gisselle had crawled inside me to make these remarks. Beau formed a smile around his lips and his eyes danced with impish delight.

"Yes, well, I think we should go into the dining room. Our dinner is ready," his father said.

"What exactly happened to this Cajun girl?" Beau's mother asked as we walked to the dining room. Beau explained as much of it as he could.

"And you don't expect she will recover?" his father asked.

Beau shot a glance at me before replying. "It doesn't look promising," he replied.

"Well, what do you intend to do with the child? Why don't you just send her back to her father?" his mother suggested. "It was bad enough Daphne and Pierre tried to keep a Cajun girl in their home before."

"He's in a pretty bad way emotionally at the moment, Mother."

"Isn't there any Cajun family to look after her? Really, Beau, you and Gisselle will have your own family someday and—"

"For the time being, it's all right. Isn't it, Gisselle?"

"For the time being," I said. Beau's mother seemed to like that.

"Tell us about your European trip," Beau said, and most of the evening was filled with their descriptions of sight-seeing. Before the evening ended, Beau and his father got into a business discussion and his mother asked if I would like to see some of the things she had bought in Europe.

"Okay," I said with little enthusiasm. If they weren't things bought for Gisselle, she wouldn't care about them. I followed his mother to the master suite, where she showed me the elegant new gowns she had bought in Paris, the hats and the shoes. She told me proudly how she had bought things that were only going to come into fashion here in New Orleans this year and then she handed me a present.

"I thought you might like this," she said. "We got it for you in Amsterdam. It's the best place to buy something like that."

I found a diamond tennis bracelet in the box. It was exquisite and I knew quite expensive, but I remembered that Gisselle never really appreciated how expensive these things were and took most everything for granted.

"It's nice," I said, putting it over my wrist.

"Nice?"

"I mean . . . beautiful. Thank you, Mother," I said. Her eyes widened. Apparently Gisselle had never referred to her as Mother. She stared at me curiously. I swallowed hard, my nerve ends twanging.

"Yes, well, I'm glad you approve," she finally said.

"Let's go show Beau," I said, eager not to be alone with her too long. Goose bumps had come and chicken-skinned my arms.

"That's very beautiful!" Beau exclaimed with proper enthusiasm. His father nodded and his mother looked more satisfied.

I felt relieved when the evening finally ended and we left to go home.

"I think I made a faux pas upstairs," I told Beau immediately. "I called your mother 'Mother,' after she gave me the bracelet."

"Yes. Gisselle never called her anything but Madame Andreas or Edith. My mother isn't the type of woman who warms up to other women easily, and Gisselle made no effort to be a real daughter-in-law. But I think you did very well."

"I hardly said a word at dinner."

"Which was the way Gisselle behaved. My father's very old-fashioned. He doesn't mind quiet women, with one exception. . . . He didn't mind Daphne because she was so astute about business. Actually, he was quite taken with her. I think my mother was a little jealous."

I didn't want to say it, but I thought Daphne and Beau's father would have made a good pair.

"Anyway," Beau said. "Another test passed." He squeezed my hand, his eyes happy and shining.

He was right: We were getting away with it. But when we arrived home, we had a message waiting to call Paul.

"He said it was urgent, madame," Aubrey explained.

"Thank you, Aubrey. Let me check on Pearl first, Beau." I ran upstairs and found her fast asleep. Mrs. Ferrier came out of the adjoining room to tell me everything was fine. Then I went down to the office and called Paul while Beau sat on the sofa.

"It's worse than we thought," he said in a voice so low and dejected, I thought I was listening to a stranger. His words were a little distorted, too, suggesting he had been drinking. "My doctor says it's the worse case he's ever encountered. She went into severe epileptic seizures and now she's in a deep coma."

"Oh no, Paul. What does the doctor say now?"

"He told me that if she did live, he's almost certain she would have permanent brain damage and, most likely, persistent epilepsy."

"How horrible. What do you want to do?"

"What is there for me to do? For any of us to do? It's what you and Beau hoped for, isn't it?" he said with an uncharacteristic note of bitterness.

"No," I said in a small voice.

"What do you mean, no? Didn't you tell me how you once went to a Voodoo Mama to get a spell cast on her?" he said. Why did he have to remind me?

"That was a long time ago, Paul, and I regretted it immediately afterward."

"Well, apparently that spell is still working. I'm happy for the two of you," he said.

"Paul . . ."

"I have to go now. I have something to do," he said, and hung up, before I could say another word.

"What is it?" Beau asked, seeing me holding the phone and staring. My heart was pounding and I felt as if the blood had drained from my face.

I told him what Paul had said about Gisselle's condition.

"I don't understand. It's not any different than I first described to him."

"He didn't believe it. I know he was hoping he would get her cured and thus bring me back," I said.

"What's he going to do?" Beau asked.

"I don't know. He sounded so strange to me, Beau, not like Paul. I think he'd been drinking."

"He made a commitment to us," Beau said firmly. "I'm going to hold him to it."

He got up quickly to embrace me, and I laid my head on his shoulder. He kissed my hair and stroked it gently as he kissed me again, whispering soothing words into my ear.

"It will be all right. Everything's going fine. It's meant to be," he insisted, but Paul's words had made my blood run cold and drain down to my ankles.

"I can't get rid of this sick feeling in the base of my stomach, Beau. I love you and I want to be with you and I want Pearl to be with you, but it's like a dark cloud hovers above us always, no matter how blue the sky."

"That feeling will pass," he promised. "Just give yourself a chance."

"I think we better go see Paul next week, Beau. We would bring Pearl back to see him anyway, wouldn't we?"

"I suppose," he said, but I saw he didn't like the idea.

Every day for the next few days, I called Paul to see how things were. Most of the time, he was not at home. The servants told me he was at the hospital holding vigil. At first he didn't return any of my calls, and then, when he did, he sounded stranger and stranger. I almost didn't recognize his voice the last time we spoke.

"She remains in a deep coma. There's talk now of putting her on a machine to breathe," he said in a voice that seemed devoid of feeling, the voice of someone who had had all the emotion drained out of him until he was just the shell of his former self.

"Paul, you're wearing yourself down. James told me you're hardly ever home anymore. You spend day and night at the hospital."

"A man should be at his wife's side at times like these, don't you think?" he asked, followed by a chilling little laugh. "He should be at her bedside, holding her hand, talking softly to her, pleading, begging, encouraging her to snap out of the coma, if not for his sake, for the sake of their child. Everyone at the hospital understands. They all feel so sorry for me. The nurse even cried herself today. I saw her wiping the tears away," he said.

For a moment it was as if I were the one who couldn't breathe. I felt my chest turn to stone, my heart freeze within. I tried to swallow and to speak, but I couldn't. I heard him sigh.

"You never understood, did you? Not really, I mean. You're married, but what's marriage to you? A convenient union serving your own selfish purposes?" he said, his voice coming almost like the hiss of a snake.

"Paul, please . . ."

"You should see how small she's getting, Gisselle. She's wilting like a flower in that bed, her beauty decomposing right before my eyes."

"What? What did you call me?"

"You know what I tell people? I tell them the angels were jealous. They looked down on us and saw how perfect our love was. Even heaven was not as perfect and so they conspired out of envy to cause this tragedy. Too romantic for you, Gisselle? You were never very romantic, were you? What was a man to you . . . a partner in bed, someone to tease and torment. You were jealous of your sister because she had the capacity to love and you didn't, right?

"Oh, what a miserable thing jealousy is. It rots you from inside. You'll see, Gisselle. You'll see. I feel sorry for you and for all the women of the world who don't have the capacity to love as Ruby had."

A numb kind of sensation in my chest made me feel unreal. "Paul, why are you talking like this? Is there someone standing near you? Why are you saying these things?"

"Why? Because . . . because I'm sick to death of the good suffering and the bad enjoying all the pleasure and happiness in this world. That's why. Anyway, thanks for calling. You did your duty. You can ease your conscience and go back to your pursuit of pleasures."

"Paul!"

"I'm tired. I need to get a drink and then try to get a little sleep. Good night, Gisselle. Oh, say hello to your dashing, debonair husband. I'm sure he feels lucky his wife isn't the sick-to-death one."

"Paul!" I cried as the phone went silent. I stood there holding the receiver in my hand as if it were a dead bird. Then I ran to find Beau. He was in the office going over some business documents, and looked up with surprise.

"What's wrong?" he asked immediately.

I told him about Paul and what he had been doing all week.

Beau thought a moment and then shrugged. "Just sounds like he's taken the responsibility of his role in all this seriously and he's putting in a good performance. We should be grateful."

"No, Beau. You don't understand. You don't know Paul. He wouldn't say the things he said to me. He's not well. I want to go to Cypress Woods tomorrow. We have to go, Beau. Don't try to talk me out of it!"

"All right. We'll do it," he said. "Calm down. Are you sure he's not just playing to your feelings, taking advantage of them?"

"I don't think so. You don't know how strange he sounded. Beau," I said, looking up with my eyes wide and full of anxiety. "He called me Gisselle and spoke about her as Ruby."

"So? That was the idea."

"But I don't think anyone was listening in. He had no reason to call me Gisselle."

Beau thought a moment. "Maybe he was just drunk," he said. "Confused."

"It put a chill through me," I said, embracing myself. "What have we done? Beau, what have we done?"

"Stop it," Beau cried, springing up from his seat. He took my shoulders into his hands, his fingers feeling like steel through the thin fabric of my blouse. "Just stop this now, Ruby. You're going to get yourself all worked up for nothing. He's upset that you're with me now and he's not taking that well. He'll get used to it and this will all end as we expected it would. Gisselle's condition isn't our fault. It happened and we just took advantage of the opportunity. Paul agreed to it, helped make it possible. Now he's feeling sorry for himself. Well, I'm sorry about that, but it's too late to turn back, and he's going to have to realize it and get hold of himself. Just as you must," he added sternly.

I pulled back my tears and nodded. "Yes, Beau. I'm sure you're right. I'm sorry I got a little hysterical."

"Hey. You've been doing fantastically. I understand the pressure you've been under and I appreciate it, but you can't lose it now."

I nodded again. "Okay, Beau. I'm all right."

"Sure?"

"Yes."

He kissed me on the forehead and held me to him tightly, kissing my cheeks and stroking my hair. When he looked at me, his soft eyes caressed me.

"I won't let anything happen and I certainly won't ever lose you again, Ruby. I love you more than anything." We kissed and then he put his arm around my shoulders and walked me out. We kissed again at the foot of the stairway. I started up, pausing to look down at him. He gave me a big smile. I took a deep breath and told myself he was right. Tomorrow we would go see Paul and we would calm him down, too.

It's all meant to be, I chanted, as I continued up the stairs. It's all meant to be.