"I'm doing what I think is best for everyone, Gisselle. I thought you understood. Daddy wants us to be away. He thinks it will make life easier here for Daphne and him and for us too. Especially after all that has happened!" I emphasized, my eyes as big as hers could be.

She sank back in her bed and pouted.

"I shouldn't have to do anything for anyone else. Not after what's happened to me. Everyone should be thinking of me first and my suffering," she moaned.

"It seems to me everyone does."

"Who does? Who?" she snapped, with sudden energy and strength. "Nina cooks what you like, not what I like. Daddy asks your opinions before he asks mine. Beau comes around to see you, not me! Why . . . why . . . even our half brother, Paul, writes only to you, never to me."

"He always sends his regards to you."

"But not a separate letter," she emphasized.

"You've never written one to him," I pointed out.

She considered this a moment. "Boys should write first."

"Boyfriends, maybe, but not a brother. With a brother, it doesn't matter who writes first."

"Then why doesn't he write to me?" she wailed.

"I'll tell him to," I promised.

"No you won't. If he won't do it on his own . . . then . . . he won't. I'll just lay here forever, left to stare at the ceiling as usual and wonder what everyone else is doing, what sort of fun they're having . . . you're having," she added sharply.

"You don't lay here wondering about anything, Gisselle," I said, finally unable to stave off a smile. "You go wherever you want, whenever you want. You merely have to snap your fingers and everyone jumps. Didn't Daddy buy the van just so you could be taken everywhere in your wheelchair?"

"I hate that van. And I hate being taken in the wheelchair. I look like something being delivered, like breads or . . . or . . . boxes of bananas. I won't go in it," she insisted.

Daddy had wanted to drive to Greenwood in Gisselle's van, but she vowed she wouldn't set foot in it. He wanted to use it because of all the things she had insisted on taking with her. She had had Wendy Williams, our maid, in her room for hours and hours packing everything, deliberately demanding the most insignificant things just to make it all that much more difficult. My pointing out to her that we had limited space in the dormitory and we had to wear uniforms didn't dissuade her.

"They'll make space for me. Daddy said they would do all that they could to accommodate me," she insisted. "And as for wearing uniforms . . . we'll see about that."

She wanted her stuffed animals—each and every one—her books and magazines, her photograph albums, almost her entire wardrobe, including all her shoes, and she even had Wendy pack every last thing from her vanity table!

"You'll be sorry when you come home for vacations," I warned her. "You won't have the things you want here, and then—"

"And then I'll just send someone out to buy them for me," she replied smugly. Suddenly, she smiled. "If you would insist on more, Daddy would see how horrible this move is and maybe then he would change his mind."

Gisselle's conniving never ceased to amaze me. I told her that if she put half as much energy toward doing the things she had to do instead of working on getting out of her responsibilities, she would be a success at anything.

"I'm a success when I want to be, when I have to be," she replied, so I gave up on another sisterly conversation.

Now it was the morning of our trip to the school and I just dreaded going into her room. I didn't need one of Nina's crystals to predict how I would be greeted and what to expect. I dressed and brushed out my hair before going in to see how far along she was. I met Wendy in the hallway hurrying away practically in tears and muttering to herself.

"What is it, Wendy?"

"Monsieur Dumas sent me up to help her get started, but she won't listen to a word I say," she complained. "I plead with her and plead with her to get her body movin' and she lay there like a zombie, her eyes sewn shut, pretending she's asleep. What am I supposed to do?" she wailed. "Madame Dumas will yell at me, not her."

"No one's going to yell at you, Wendy. I'll get her up," I said. "Just give me a few moments."

She smiled through her tears and wiped them off her plump cheeks. Wendy wasn't much older than Gisselle and me, but she had stopped going to school when she was only in the eighth grade and become a maid for the Dumas family. Ever since Gisselle's car accident, Wendy was more like Gisselle's whipping boy, bearing the brunt of her rages and tantrums. Daddy had hired a private duty nurse to look after Gisselle, but she couldn't tolerate Gisselle's tantrums.

Neither could the second and third nurse, so the responsibility of looking to Gisselle's needs was unfortunately added to Wendy's chores.

"Don't know why you even care about her," Wendy said, her dark eyes as furious and bright as two shiny discs of black onyx.

I knocked on Gisselle's door, waited, and then entered when she didn't respond. She was as Wendy had described: still under the blanket, her eyes shut. I went to her window and looked out. Gisselle's room had a view of the street. The morning sunlight glittered off the cobblestone walk, and there was light traffic. Along our cornstalk fence, the azaleas, yellow and red roses, and hibiscus had all bloomed in a burst of breathtaking color. No matter how long I lived in this mansion, this estate in New Orleans's famed Garden District, I remained in awe of the homes and landscaping.

"What a beautiful day," I said. "Think of all the nice things we're going to see on the trip."

"It's a boring trip. I've been to Baton Rouge before," she said. "We'll see ugly oil refineries belching smoke."

"Oh my, she is alive!" I declared, slapping my hands together. "Thank heaven. We all thought you had passed on during the night."

"You all wished, you mean," she said angrily. She didn't pull herself to a sitting position. Instead, she turned and left her head sunk in the big, fluffy pillow, her arms at her sides, and sulked.

"I thought you finally agreed to go and not to make a fuss, as long as you could take everything you wanted along, Gisselle," I said with controlled patience.

"I just said I give up. I didn't say I agreed to go."

"You and I looked over the brochures. You admitted it looked like a beautiful place," I reminded her. She focused her gaze on me, her eyes small.

"How can you be so . . . so . . . agreeable? You'll have to leave Beau behind, you know," she reminded me. "And when the cat's away, the mice will play."

Beau had taken my going to Greenwood very hard when I first told him. We had been having a hard enough time as it as, continuing to see each other. Ever since Daphne had discovered my secret painting of Beau, we'd had to keep our romance quiet. He had posed nude for me and she had found the picture and told his parents. He was severely punished and we were forbidden to see each other. But time passed, and slowly his parents eased up, as long as Beau promised to see other girls as well. He really didn't, and even if he came to a school dance with someone else or took someone else for a ride in his sports car, he ended up with me.

"Beau's promised to visit as often as he can."

"But he didn't promise to become a monk," she stabbed back quickly. "I know half a dozen girls just waiting to sink their nails into him: Claudine and Antoinette for starters," she happily pointed out.

Beau was one of the most sought-after boys in our school, as handsome as a soap opera star. He merely had to turn his blue eyes on a girl and smile to make her heart pitter-patter so fast she lost her breath and said or did something foolish. He was tall and well built, one of our school's football stars. I had given myself to him and he had pledged his deep love for me.

Before I'd arrived in New Orleans, he was Gisselle's boyfriend, but she loved to tease and torment him by flirting and seeing other boys as well. She never realized how sensitive and serious he could be. All boys were the same to her anyway. She still saw them as playthings, not to be trusted and not worthy of loyalty. Her accident hadn't slowed her down, either. She still couldn't be in the company of young men and not torment them with a twist of her shoulder or a whispered promise to do something outrageous when and if she and the young man were ever alone.

"I don't have a collar around Beau," I told her. "He can do what he wants when he wants," I said with such nonchalance it made her eyes widen. Disappointment flooded her face.

"You don't mean that," she insisted.

"And he doesn't have a collar around me, either. If being apart for a while causes him to find another girlfriend, someone he likes better, than it was probably meant to be anyway," I said.

"Oh you and your damned faith in Destiny. I suppose you'll tell me Destiny meant for me to be a cripple for the rest of my life, won't you?"

"No."

"What, then?" she demanded.

"I don't want to speak badly about the dead," I said, "but you and I know what you and Martin were doing the day of the accident. You can't blame

Destiny."

She folded her arms under her breasts and fumed.

"We promised Daddy we would go and give the school a chance. You know how things are here now," I reminded her.

"Daphne doesn't hate me as much as she hates you," she retorted, her eyes flaming.

"Don't be so sure of that. She's eager to get both of us out of her life. You know why she resents us: We know she really isn't our mother and that Daddy was more in love with our mother than he could ever be with her. As long as we're around, she can't escape the truth."

"Well, she didn't resent me until you arrived," Gisselle flared. "After that my whole life went downhill, and now I'm being carted off to some girls' school. Who wants to go to a school where there are no boys?" she cried.

"It says in the brochure that the school arranges dances with a boys' school from time to time," I said. The moment the words left my lips, I regretted them. She was always eager to pounce on any opportunity to point up her paralysis.

"Dances! Can I dance?"

"I'm sure there are many other things for you to do with a boy at Greenwood on the days they're permitted to visit."

"Permitted to visit? It sounds dreadful, like a prison." She started to cry. "I do wish I was dead. I do, I do."

"Come on, Gisselle," I pleaded. I sat on her bed and took her hand in mine. "I promised you I would do everything I could to make it easier for you, help you with your homework, whatever you need, didn't I?"

She pulled her hand back and ground her eyes dry with her small fists before peering over them at me. "Everything I want?"

"Everything you need," I corrected.

"And if the school is terrible, you will side with me against Daddy and insist we come home?"

I nodded. "Promise."

"I promise, but it has to be really terrible and not just hard with rules you hate."

"Promise on . . . on Paul's life."

"Oh, Gisselle."

"Go on or I won't believe you," she insisted.

"All right, I promise on Paul's life. You're absolutely dreadful sometimes, you know."

"I know," she said, smiling. "Go tell Wendy I'm ready to get up and get washed and dressed for breakfast."

"I'm right here," Wendy said, coming around the door jamb. "I was here waitin'."

"You mean you were spying on us," Gisselle accused. "Listening in."

"No I wasn't.” Wendy looked at me, horrified. "I don't spy on you."

"Of course she doesn't spy on us, Gisselle."

"Of course she does, you mean. She likes listening in and living a romantic life through us," Gisselle teased. "It's that and your romance magazines, isn't it, Wendy? Or are you meeting Eric Daniels behind the cabana every night?"

Wendy nearly burst with embarrassment. Her mouth dropped and she shook her head.

"Maybe we are better off going to a private school and not being watched and spied upon all the time," Gisselle said, and sighed. "All right, all right," she snapped. "Help me wash and get my hair brushed and don't stand there looking like you were just caught with your panties down."

Wendy gasped. I turned away to hide my laughter and hurried down to tell Daddy all would be fine: Gisselle would be dressed and ready for the trip.

Ever since Daphne had tried to have me locked away in the institution and my subsequent escape, life at the House of Dumas had been difficult. Our meals together, whenever we were all available to eat together, were usually very quiet, formal affairs. Daddy no longer joked with Gisselle and me, and if Daphne had anything to say, it was usually abrupt and to the point. Most of the time was spent sympathizing with Gisselle or promising things to her.