In My Sister's Shadow (10 page)

“Well, I didn’t want to jinx it, I guess. Hey, why weren’t you at the funeral? I could have found out then.”

“Would it have mattered?”

“Probably not.”

“Well, then.” Mr. Kennedy laughed. “I didn’t go because I was ill. Unfortunately though, I haven’t been close to that side of my family for years. Last time I saw them girls, they couldn’t have been more than eighteen and nineteen…beautiful girls, too. They could’ve been big-time models.”

Mark laughed. “And all this time, I thought you were white.”

Mr. Kennedy chuckled. “Yeah, everyone that ain’t from here thinks I am ’til I tell them otherwise. I’m Creole, thru and thru. Bijou and Rhine’s mama was from Baton Rouge, pretty brown skin woman…she worked like a dog though, taking care of them girls.”

“Where was their father?”

“Out paintin’ the town red…my brother’s son, my nephew Reginald, had a gamblin’ problem, a drinkin’ problem and a womanizin’ problem. He kept a job though, I got to hand that to ’im, but them girls practically raised their ownselves. They were grown before they were grown, if you know what I mean. Like little adults…rarely smiled, so serious…and mean, especially Rhine. Must’ve got that from Reginald. He was known to curse someone out and whip out a knife for the tiniest slight.”

Mark frowned at the words. This morning he’d decided to confide in an old friend, Mr. Kennedy, who he’d met two years ago at this bookstore. The lonely old man had invited him to play a game of chess with him while Mark hustled past him, trying to find a quick cup of coffee and a map…the rest was history.

“When I first met Bijou, she was…rather detached. I figured it was just due to the death of her sister. People respond to loss differently. Anyway, this standoffishness, I’ve seen glimpses of it here and there…” He looked down at the table, sorrow filling his chest. “She had a rather hard life. I didn’t realize that…but what you’ve shared explains it.”

“Now, hold off there.” The old man shook his finger in Mark’s direction. “They were good girls, OK? But, Rhine was not a pleasant young lady to be around. I remember just standin’ there, and she’d shoot me a hateful look. She hated their father, really and anyone associated wit’ him. Bijou, on the other hand, was always courteous the few times I spent any real amount of time around them. She’d offer me drinks and talk, smile and laugh…and Rhine, she’d stare at us interactin’. I even asked their mother, ’Lizabeth, if somethin’ was wrong with Rhine. She didn’t answer either way but that woman knew her daughter wasn’t wrapped right nor tight.
Everyone
knew it.”

“So,” Mark cocked his head in confusion. “She was crazy?”

“I reckon. Not the kind of crazy that would cause her to go out and kill an innocent man I s’pose, but she had a lot of rage inside her, the kind that isn’t normal for a girl her age. She would flip like a switch, like she was one of those…what do you call em? Like Sybil.”

“Schizophrenic?”

“Yes, all those damn personalities but all of her personalities went from mean to meaner to meanest.” He snapped his fingers.

Mark laughed, but it was more a laugh of nervousness.

Wonderful. So not only is she trying to keep Bijou away from me and sexually harassing me now, she is also a lunatic…

“Hmm, well, if this entity is in fact her, I need some help.” He sighed and rubbed his hands roughly over his face. “Because I was just getting somewhere with Bijou.”

“So you willin’ to fight a wayward ghost for a girl you barely know?” the old man laughed loudly, holding his stomach. He scratched the side of his thin, long lips with his index finger and looked around the store before taking another sip of his coffee. “I did some shit like that once, not the ghost part, but fell head over heels over a pretty face. I woulda fought ten men to get ten minutes wit’ ’er.”

There was a brief pause.

“Yeah, I can dig it,” the old man continued. “Bijou got that kind of beauty you’d fight
twenty
bears for, right?”

Mark didn’t respond.

“She has that effect on men, from what I’ve heard. You are the latest fallen soldier.”

Mark felt himself becoming angry. Something in him believed he needed to defend her honor, but his curiosity pushed him forward to inquire versus react. “What do you mean, effect on men?”

“My brother’s grandbaby was a siren, Mark. She was untouchable. Men would try to take them out, both of ’em, but no-can-do. Reginald kept them under lock and key, the few times he was sober and around, but he instilled in them that old fashioned modesty, he and their mama. They weren’t whores.” The old man sneered.

The mood in the room changed as Mr. Kennedy’s eyes went from medium blue to dark. Blue veins showed under his thin skin as he moved his neck to the side and scratched it with brute force. He left chalky white lines along it, a few of the dry skin flakes falling down onto his brown and green wrinkled, plaid shirt.

“That whole damn family, Mark was known to be stuck in time. It was incredible. The women cooked, cleaned, brains, beauty! BAM!” He slapped his palm against the table. “The men, strong, stoic and serious. To this day, I have no idea how Reginald fit into this. He didn’t fit at all…he was like a charity case. I guess that is what love will do, make someone defer from their teachings, their home trainin’.”

Mark felt sickened. He began to wonder if Bijou was a virgin before they’d slept together. Nothing about her mannerisms, confessions, utterances, the way she moved or screamed, tipped his hat during the experience but now, as he reflected, there were small things, like the way she received him, her gritted teeth…in some ways, it
was
like her first time…

Then there was the way she got up out of the bed afterward…slowly, so slowly he’d noticed it, but still hadn’t made the connection. He rubbed his chin as he tried to decipher if it were true or not. If she was, he’d known for a fact that she liked him just as much as he liked her. She’d chosen him, out of all the men that wanted her. She. Chose. Him.

Mark half listened while Kennedy continued to speak, still trying to make sense of it all. He sighed, as if a light had come on in his head.

 As he thought back, however, he realized that in her own way, she
did
tell him. He played the conversation back in his mind…

When was the last time you made love?…
“
Well,”
she’d laughed.
“Let’s just say it’s been a while. I think my wait was long enough. I was waiting for the right person.

She never gave a date and time and when he was inside her, her tightness told her truths, loud and clear, but never in a million years did he think it was so literal. It all made sense now. He swallowed as his mouth became drier and drier.

 Mark drummed the table while he tried to settle down and hide his realization.
A twenty-eight year old virgin? Are you kidding me? One that looks like THAT?

“So, your sister, she is…a spiritual woman you say?”

“Call a duck a duck, Mark. She’s a damn witch, made a blind man see, and that’s for real. This is family, she’ll do it. Give me your phone. Let’s call ’er right now and see what she can do…”

* * *

“Bijou, wait!” Mark hastened his steps as he followed her down the small studio hallway into the darkroom. The blinding red light flooded the area. “A darkroom? I had no idea photographers still had darkrooms.”

“Yes, some of us are rather old school and with that said, you need an old school slap across the face! You shouldn’t even be here. Turn that light off!” she snapped as she placed her gloves on. Mark watched in the red flooded murkiness as he turned off one of the overhead lights.

“Why are you so angry with me? I’m here because I care about you!”

“Mark, I said all that I had to say to you.”

“I can’t believe you’re doing this. You cared about me way more than you admitted, and you are still acting like this. You really are unbelievable!” he yelled as he walked towards the door to leave, then thought better of it and turned back around. “No, you don’t get off that easy. You gave me one of the most sacred things to you, and now you act like you just want me to go away.”

Bijou looked over her shoulder. “What are you talking about?’

“You know what the hell I’m talking about, you were a damn virgin! You let me take your virginity and didn’t even tell me.”

There was an uncomfortable silence growing between them. Mark watched as her eyes widened then narrowed. Her lips turned downward and her body stiffened. The air seemed to instantaneously turn colder.

“I didn’t tell you because that isn’t exactly the thing most men want to hear,” she snapped as she quickly turned away. “Not to mention, I wanted my first time to be special. I didn’t want whoever I was with to act differently towards me because of it. What? If you’d known would you have been gentler?” she rolled her eyes and turned back towards the tubs filled with watery, pungent solution.

Mark thought for a moment. “Actually, no. You didn’t even give me a chance though. It wouldn’t have upset me or made me feel different towards you. I would have felt special. It just would’ve let me know how you felt about me. I know that had to have been a big deal for you, Bijou. Everything, the way it happened, would have occurred the exact same way…”

They were quiet for a few moments.

“Anyway, I’m here for something way more important.”

“And what is that?” she asked dryly.

Mark put his hands on his hips and bit his lip, taking a deep breath before responding.

 “I had a very interesting chat with your Uncle Pete and Aunt Clarabelle…”

Bijou spun around, a shocked expression on her face.

“Pete? Uncle Pete? My grandfather’s brother?” Bijou’s voice softened.

“Yes. He and I are friends…we play chess together.”

“He’s the old man you told me you meet with once a week at the bookstore?” Her tone remained calm, soft and even.

“Yes. I was surprised as much as you were. I decided to unload my worries onto him, after missing you so much. Once I described you physically and said your sister had just died, he asked what your name was…you can imagine both of our disbelief. What a bombshell.”

Both of them were quiet under the red light and the strong smell of the developing chemicals that floated past them.

“I…I haven’t seen Uncle Pete in years and I really don’t know my Aunt Clarabelle.”

“I know. Enough of that though, Bijou. You have some explaining to do and I’m not leaving here until you talk to me and this time, I want the
entire
truth. Your running away is over with…”

* * *

Bijou stretched out on her couch and rubbed her throbbing head. She knew he was staring at her, and she knew he was beyond pissed. His body language, tight and tense, his lowered eye lids, crossed arms and cutting tone to his voice made it crystal clear.

I did this for him because I love him…why doesn’t he understand that? I’ll make him understand.

She sat up, trying to choose her words carefully before she blurted the first thing that came to her mind. She shifted her weight and cupped her chin as she leaned forward.

“Look Mark, if you think I was going to leave you alone, let our relationship just disappear, you are mistaken.”

She watched as his bewilderment grew, understanding that this time, she had to tell not half of it, but all of it, regardless of how ridiculous it may sound.

“What? I called you; you never picked up or returned my calls. And you said when you left that – ”

“Never mind what I said. I needed to get away from you so I could try to address what was going on and get my head on straight.” She sighed. “I’m sorry I did it that way, but you know how they say human beings are – fight or flight. Well, I did a bit of both but running away and being alone is how I work things out. It’s just who I am, who I’ve always been.”

“So you think I enjoyed your sister running her finger up my neck and pretending she was Mary Poppins in my damn kitchen?” He sat straighter. “It was OK for you to just leave me to deal with all of this shit on my own, thinking you were gone for good?” His fierce gaze burned through her. “It hurt me more that you left than anything your sister, or whatever the hell this is, did.”

“Look, that night freaked me out too, OK?” She put her hand on her chest as she tried to make him see, make him understand. “I knew it was her, right after you told me what happened, but I didn’t want to get you more upset. I told you I don’t believe in this shit,” she said coolly. “But
obviously
I was wrong. As soon as I got home, I called a priest but…there is like a six month waiting list for exorcisms and well, I’m not Catholic.” She shook her head. “Now that you know about my little secret…” She laughed lightheartedly, trying to ease his obvious anger. The attempt failed. She watched his frown grow as he crossed his muscular arms across his chest. He breathed so heavily, it looked like one of the buttons on his shirt would pop off at any minute. “I was trying to get help after I got home and cooled off for a bit. I got some calls in, and spoke to some people that specialize in paranormal activity but…”