"You're right, Gisselle. We're going to have a good time." She laughed gleefully and we went into the parlor to wait for Beau and John.

Less than half an hour after Beau and John arrived, Gisselle had John take her upstairs to her room and Beau and I were left alone. The house had grown very quiet. Nina had gone to her room, and Edgar and Martha were in their quarters. Only the occasional bong of the grandfather clock in the hallway interrupted the silence.

"I thought and thought for months about your Christmas present," Beau said after we had kissed passionately for a few moments. "What could I give a girl who has everything?"

"I'm hardly the girl who has everything, Beau. True, I live in this luxurious house and I have more clothes than I know what to do with, but . . ."

"What do you mean? You have me, don't you?" he asked, laughing. "You promised you were not going to be serious, that we'd relax and have fun, and here you are taking everything I say literally."

"You're right. I'm sorry. What did you buy the girl who has everything?"

"Nothing," he said.

"What?"

"Oh, I did buy this solid gold chain to hold it around your neck," he said, plucking the chain and his school ring out of his pocket. My breath caught in my throat. For a young Creole man in New Orleans, the giving of his school ring or his fraternity pin was a step below the giving of an engagement ring. It meant that all the words and vows we had whispered to each other and pledged over the telephone would be consummated. I would be his girl and only his girl, and he would be my young man, not only in our own eyes but in the eyes of our families and friends.

"Oh, Beau!"

"Will you wear it?" he asked.

I looked into his soft blue eyes, eyes filled with promises and love. "Yes, Beau. I will," I said, and he put it around my neck, and then with his fingers he followed the chain down to the valley between my breasts where his ring sat snugly. I thought I could feel its warmth through my blouse, a warmth that traveled with electric speed to my heart and started it racing. He brought his lips to mine and I moaned, feeling my body soften and mold to his embrace. The parlor was only dimly lit by the illumination of one small table lamp and the flickering flames in the fireplace. Beau reached over and turned of the lamplight. Then he turned my shoulders and I permitted my body to slide under him on the sofa. His lips were on my neck, his fingers unbuttoning my blouse so he could follow my breasts to their fullness.

Filled with abandon, tired of the anguish and agony that had pursued me relentlessly these past months, I turned myself to Beau with kisses that were even more demanding. Everywhere his fingers traveled I welcomed them, and when he lifted the cups of my bra away and nudged my nipples with his tongue and then his lips, I sank deeper and deeper into the warm pool of ecstasy that had flowed down from my shoulders, over my waist and legs, and brought tingling to the tips of my toes.

I kept my eyes closed and just listened to the rustling of his clothing and felt his fingers move under my skirt and slip my panties down. I raised my legs and let him take them off completely. The realization of my nudity drove my excitement to an even higher pitch. I tasted his tongue, his lips, and kissed his closed eyes. Both of us were whispering "Yes" into each other's ears. I opened my eyes for just a moment and saw the shadows and light from the fire dancing on the walls and even over us. For a moment, perhaps because of the heat between us, I felt as if we were in the fire, consuming ourselves with our own flames. But I wanted it, I wanted it very much.

I opened myself to him and he pressed himself forward and inward, calling my name as if he feared he would lose me even at this moment. I clutched his shoulders, pulling down on his back and joining him in the undulation that would make us feel as if we had become one entity. Wave after wave of passion washed over us. I couldn't distinguish one kiss from another. It became one long kiss, one long embrace, one graceful turn after another.

"I love you, Ruby. I love you," he cried at his climax. I muffled my own cries in his shoulder and hung onto him with all my might as if that would prolong the ecstatic moments. Then we stopped moving and simply held each other and breathed hard, waiting for our pounding hearts to slow down.

It had all happened so quickly. There hadn't been much of a chance to reconsider, not that I thought I would have. I had welcomed him, welcomed the relief and the passion, the love and the tenderness, the beautiful feeling; and in moments, I had smothered the darkness and the sadness that had haunted me for so long. As long as I had Beau, I thought, I would have sunshine.

"Are you all right?" he asked. I nodded. "I didn't mean to be so . . ."

"It's all right, Beau. Let's not make each other feel guilty or dirty. I love you and you love me. Nothing else matters, and that makes whatever we do good and pure, because it's good and pure to us."

"Oh Ruby, I do love you. I can't imagine loving anyone else as much."

"I hope that's true, Beau."

"It is," he promised.

The sound of Gisselle's laughter coming from the stairway sent us both into a frenzy. We replaced our discarded clothing quickly and he turned on the lamp. Then I straightened my hair. He rose from the sofa and went to the fireplace to stir the logs just before John, carrying Gisselle in his arms, entered the parlor.

"We decided to see what you two have been up to," she said. "And John's so strong, it's faster and easier for him to carry me up and down the stairs than for me to use that stupid electric chair." She clung to him like a baby chimp holding onto its mother, her arm wrapped around his neck, her cheek against his chest.

Kneeling at the fire, Beau looked at me and then up at her.

"I know that expression on your face, Beau Andreas." She smiled at me. "Don't try to hide anything from your twin sister, Ruby." She looked up at John, who was holding her as if she hardly weighed a thing. "Twins sense things about each other, did you know that, John?"

"Oh?"

"Yes. Whenever I'm unhappy, Ruby senses it quickly, and when she's been excited . . ."

"Stop it, Gisselle," I said, feeling the heat return to my cheeks.

"Wait a minute," she said. "John, bring me to the sofa." He did so, and she gazed down at me. "What's that around your neck? Is that your ring, Beau?"

"Yes," he said, standing up.

"You gave her your ring! What are your parents going to say?"

"I don't care what they say," Beau replied, coming to my side. He took my hand. I saw Gisselle's look of surprise change quickly into a look of green envy.

"Well, there's someone back at Greenwood who's going to be heartbroken," she quipped.

"I've already told Beau about Louis, Gisselle."

"You did?" she asked, dripping with disappointment.

"Yes, she did," Beau said. "I must see if I can thank him for helping her at the hearing," he added. Gisselle smirked and then beamed with excitement, her facial expressions clicking on and off and changing as if her face were a television screen changing channels.

"Well let's celebrate your giving Ruby your ring. Let's all go someplace. How about the Green Door? They don't check for IDs, or at least they never used to."

"We told Daphne we were staying at home tonight and it's late already, Gisselle. She'll be home soon."

"No she won't, and what's the difference what we said? She's being different, isn't she?"

"Which is why I don't want to upset her," I replied. "How about popcorn? We'll make it in the fireplace and play backgammon."

"Oh, that's just bundles of fun. Come on, John. Let's go back up to my room and leave these two old people knitting in the parlor." She ran her hand along John's upper arm. "Isn't he strong? I feel like a baby in his arms." She kissed him on the neck, and John blushed and smiled at Beau. "I'm so helpless," she wailed. "But John is gentle, aren't you, John?"

"What? Sure."

"Then let's go up. I need my diaper changed," she said, and laughed. I thought John was going to drop her, but he turned away, his face crimson, and hurried out of the parlor with her bouncing in his arms and giggling.

"I can't help wondering," Beau said, "why I ever started with her."

"It was Fate, Destiny. If you hadn't," I told him, "you and I might never have met."

"I love you, Ruby. I love the way you can find the good in things, even in someone like Gisselle."

"That's a challenge," I admitted, and we laughed. Then he asked me to play Louis's symphony. We sat listening with his arm around me.

"It's wonderful how you inspired someone to do something so beautiful," he confessed.

At twelve we went upstairs to call John out of Gisselle's room. She complained, of course, and did her best to try to get him to stay, if simply to violate Daphne's curfew. But Beau wasn't taking any chances about riling Daphne again. He told John sternly to come out and he did so.

I kissed Beau goodbye at the door and then went upstairs.

Gisselle was waiting in her doorway. The sight of her standing, even though I knew she was capable of doing it any time she wanted, still looked incongruous and surprising.

"Well aren't you the happy one now," she said. "You've got Beau Andreas forever and ever."

"Do you want someone forever and ever too?" I asked.

"Of course not. I'm too young. I want to explore, have fun, have dozens of different boyfriends, before I marry someone just dripping with money," she said.

"So why are you jealous?"

"I'm not jealous." She laughed. "I'm hardly jealous."

"Yes you are, Gisselle. You won't admit it, not even to yourself, but you want someone to love you, only . . . no one's going to love someone so selfish."

"Oh, don't start one of your lectures," she whined. "I'm tired. John's a very good lover, you know," she added, smiling. "A bit stupid, but a good lover. My pretending to be so helpless turns him on. It turns them all on, you know. Men like feeling in charge, even though they're not. I could play him like a . . . a flute," she said, laughing.

"So then you are going to keep pretending to be crippled?"

"Until I don't feel like it anymore. And if you have any ideas about exposing me . . ."

"I really don't care what you do, Gisselle, as long as you don't hurt anyone I care about," I said. "Because if you do . . ."

"I know. You'll break my neck. The only neck that's going to be broken around here is yours when Beau's parents find out what he's given you. You'll have to give it back, you know. You had better prepare yourself for it. Good night, dear sister, and oh . . . merry Christmas."

She closed her door and left me trembling in the hallway. She was wrong; she had to be wrong, I thought. Besides, tomorrow morning I would show Nina Beau's ring and ask her to prepare a chant or find a ritual that would throw a blanket of protection around our love.

I went to sleep, curling up in my wonderful memories of lovemaking with Beau, memories and feelings that were still so vivid, it was as if he were still beside me. I even stretched out my arm and pretended he was there.

"Good night, Beau," I whispered. "Good night, my darling Beau."

With his kiss still on my lips, I drifted back into the warm darkness of my own love-filled heart.


15

  Bought and Paid For

Even I slept late the next morning. When I was a little girl, I hated the hours of sleep between Christmas Eve and Christmas morning. It was torture waiting for the sun to come up so I could go downstairs and unwrap my presents. No matter how poor our year had been, Grandmère Catherine always managed to have wonderful gifts for me, and all of her friends brought things over for me as well. There was always one secret gift, a present without a name on a card to tell from whom it had come. I liked to pretend it was from my mysterious father, and maybe Grandmère Catherine let me imagine such a thing so I would continue to believe I had a father waiting for me out there. Prophet that she was, she anticipated the day I would leave to find him.

But with Grandmère Catherine gone and now Daddy gone too, the excitement and the joy of Christmas morning had diminished until it was practically reduced to just another day. I thought this was true for Gisselle as well, but for different reasons, even though she bragged to everyone about the pile of gifts for us under the tree. With all that she had—the tons of clothes in her closets and dresser drawers, the mountains of cosmetics and the rivers of perfume, a queen's stash of jewels and more beautiful watches than there were hours in the day—I wondered what she could possibly be given and what would possibly excite her. I'm sure she felt the same way, for neither the morning sunlight nor the bong of the clock stirred her from her stupor. I knew she had to be suffering a hangover after all she had drunk the night before.