He filled our glasses and then proposed a toast.
"To Celeste. Let this be the beginning of many, many successful accomplishments," he said.
The three of us drank. I felt bad about Wade not being here to enjoy all this. It promised to be a very special dinner. There was none of the tension I usually felt when Wade was here. Perhaps Ami had been right, I thought. When Basil was happy, the house seemed to take on more light and be filled with the echo of more laughter.
Mrs. Cukor stepped out of the kitchen to serve us our dinner. Although she looked at me with the same dark eyes filled with foreboding, she didn't seem as aggressive or angry. I wasn't happy about that, how-ever, because she looked more defeated, fatalistic.
There was an air of doom about her as though angry, bruised clouds hovered over her head and followed her about the dinning room, into the kitchen, and back, never leaving her and threatening constantly to rain down a tragic storm. She moved almost listlessly, placing dishes, serving potatoes and vegetables in silence. She didn't appear to hear Basil's laughter and joyous voice, Ami's thin crystal giggles, or my own happy protests at Basil's endless
compliments about my learning abilities, my motor skills, my politeness and mature ways.
"When they first brought you to this house," he said, taking on a more serious tone, folding his hands together and leaning forward, "I thought, what a foolish thing to do, bringing a teenager to live here, and only for a short time at that. Of course," he said, nodding at Ami, "I thought it was nice of my children to do generous things, but I know firsthand how difficult young people can be. Why add more turmoil to your life? Just give the orphanage or whatever a donation. Other people are better equipped for this sort of thing.
"Little did I know that Ami was bringing so refined and accomplished a young lady into our lives. I've heard about your piano teacher's compliments already," he said. "And your accomplishments at school, of course, which is why I said I would like to help you continue your education.
"Ami's our little shopper," he continued, smiling at her. "She always buys the right things, gets Wade the right things, gets the right things for the house, whatever. It shouldn't have surprised me that she went out and did her homework when it came to bringing the right young lady into our home. You're to be congratulated, Ami," he said.
She smiled, glanced at me, and looked down, out of not modesty but sadness, I thought, which sounded a discordant note.
Basil slapped his hands together before I could think any more about it.
"No more speeches. Let's eat!" he declared, and Mrs. Cukor brought out the rack of lamb, staring ahead, I thought, like someone assisting an
executioner, bringing the victim her final meal.
Later I discovered that Mrs. McAlister had baked a chocolate cake inscribed "Congratulations Celeste" in whipped cream for our dessert.
While we ate, Basil asked me if I had any questions about the car and how I was enjoying it so far. I looked at Ami to see if her face would betray what she knew--that I had taken Trevor home after school--but now she looked amused and happy, her small smile stuck around her lips.
I wondered why Wade wasn't home yet, and hoped he would at least appear for dessert. As if my thoughts could affect events, Basil was called to the phone a few minutes later and returned to tell us there had been an accident at the warehouse. One of their workers had been struck by falling pipes and taken to the hospital.
"It's just one of those days," he said, referring to the manager's wife's car accident.
Mrs. Cukor muttered, "Trouble always comes in threes."
"Please," Ami moaned. "We don't need to add to the sadness with dire predictions."
Undaunted, Mrs. Cukor glanced at me sternly before leaving.
"What's Wade doing?" Ami asked Basil.
"He's gone over to the hospital," he said. He was thoughtful a moment. "I lost a young man once, almost the same way. Someone else was careless, and the pipe struck him in the right temple and killed him on the spot. Second year after I began the business, matter of fact.
"Wade takes it all too personally," he concluded. "Accidents happen everywhere. Anyway," he cried, "let's not permit this to spoil our
celebration."
Basil decided we all needed an after-dinner drink, so we went into the living room for what he called "our final toast of the night."
It was a rather sweet, but strong cognac. In fact, it made me a little dizzy.
As soon as we finished the drink, Basil decided he had to go over to the hospital.
"My name is still on everything that happens there," he explained. "It's a family business and will always be."
He kissed me, and I thanked him again for the gold key chain. Ami walked him out, and I returned to my room to finish my homework and begin another newspaper assignment, but as I felt a little giddy from all the wine and the after-dinner drink, I decided it would be better if I just woke up a little earlier and did the rest of the work before breakfast.
Just after I got undressed and ready for bed, Ami knocked on my door.
"Have you heard from Wade?" I asked immediately. "How is the employee?"
"No, he hasn't phoned yet. Don't worry about it. I'm sure they'll do what they can. The Emersons always look after their own. That's why they're so successful," she added, finally giving Wade a decent compliment.
She hesitated a long moment, keeping her eyes down.
"Is there anything else wrong?" I asked.
She looked up at me with tears clouding her eyes. "I'm so happy for you, happy for us all. But--"
"But what?"
"I know," she continued, "that young love is often blind and relentless. It's the nature of young people that they have to make their own mistakes. My father used to say wisdom is wasted on the old. I know you're still involved with Trevor Foley, and I've already seen how deep that involvement is."
"Ami, I just took him home. Nothing else happened."
"I believe you. We didn't get you a prescription for the pills the other day, but I'd like you to start with this," she said, holding out her palm, in which she had a small white pill. There was something written on one side of it, but my vision was too cloudy to read much of the small lettering beside an R at the beginning of whatever word was embossed. I did see an encircled 2 on the other side.
I realized Ami wasn't going to leave until I took the pill, so I got some water and did it in front of her. She looked relieved.
"I really don't think it was necessary, Ami," I said. She smiled at me.
"Oh, it was necessary," she said with a strange assurance.
I shrugged.
Whatever, I thought.
"It's so wonderful how Basil has taken to you, Celeste. He'll do wonderful things for you. Let him. It gives him so much pleasure. You know his own daughter won't let him do things for her."
"But you said that was because of what he did when her mother was alive."
"Yes, yes," she said, waving her hand, "but you'd think children would be more forgiving of their parents."
"You told me--" What had she told me? Everything was so mixed up.
"We've got to go with the flow, silly. We've got to do whatever makes life happier and easier for us. That's what I've been teaching you.
"Don't worry about all this," she said, closing my schoolbooks and my notebook. "You can do it later."
"I know. I--"
She pulled back the blanket on my bed.
"Go on, get some sleep," she said. "You've had quite a day and quite an evening. Come on, silly," she urged, and I laughed and climbed into bed. She tucked the blanket in around me. "Sweet dreams, Celeste, my Celeste," she said as she stroked my hair. "You're always in mine. You've been there for some time. Even before I set eyes on you," she added, which made no sense to me.
But then, nothing was making sense to me. I started to think about things that happened at dinner, things that were said, but everything was so jumbled. I felt her kiss me on the cheek, brush my hair again, and then I heard her walk out, turning the lights off as she slowly closed the bedroom door.
Moments later, I felt as if the room was spinning. I closed my eyes and surely blacked out, but it wasn't for long. I opened my eyes again and tried to move my arms, but they seemed disconnected. The same was true for my legs. A moment later I was drifting back, falling into the bed, sinking deeper and deeper. I closed and opened my eyes, but nothing changed.
It was as though I was asleep and yet still awake. I heard a voice, and I smelled men's cologne, the cologne that Basil wore. Was it so embedded in my memory from when I had smelled it on him earlier? I vaguely thought so. I thought I was moving my arms, moving my legs, but it seemed too much like a dream. I was drifting again. My body shook and then seemed to rise and fall as though I was sliding down an undulating hill, moving through warm and then cold places. The feeling lasted for quite a while, and then it was truly as if all the lights had been turned off, and I was sinking into a dark pit.
When I woke, daylight was pouring through my windows. I was terribly confused. For a while, I couldn't remember where I was. Was I in the orphanage again? It was as if everything that happened to me during the recent past was a dream. I groaned, stirred and sat up, and immediately felt nauseous. I thought I had to vomit, but that passed, and I dropped my head back to the pillow. Gradually, I remembered where I was. When I looked at the clock on my night table, I was shocked to see that it was nearly eleven.
Eleven!
I had slept this long?
I looked at myself and realized I was naked. How did I get naked? Didn't I go to sleep in my nightgown? Where was my nightgown?
I sat up again and looked about, finally seeing it crumpled on the floor beside the bed. Once again, I caught a whiff of Basil's cologne, so strong that I actually looked about the room and into the bathroom to see if he was here.
What was going on? The last thing I remember. . . what was the last thing I remembered?
Wasn't Ami here?
Where was she now? Why hadn't anyone tried to wake me up for school?
I sat at the edge of the bed and tried to get my bearing, get my head clear, but the spinning wouldn't stop, and the nausea returned. What was wrong with me? I had started to stand when the phone rang. I reached for it slowly, my arm seeming to telescope out of my elbow. I'm hallucinating, I thought, as the walls of the room pulsated like the walls of a heart.
"Celeste?" I heard. I guess I had been holding the receiver against my ear but for seconds had not said a word.
"Yes?"
"It's Trevor. Why aren't you in school?"
"School? Oh. I don't know," I said.
"What? What do you mean, you don't know? Are you sick or what?"
"I don't know," I said. "Yes. Maybe I'm sick."
"Maybe? Well, do you have any fever? What's wrong with you?"
"I don't know," I said. "Maybe."
"You're not making any sense."
"I know," and. "I mean . . . I'm tired. I'll see you later, okay?"
"What?"
I hung up the phone. Take a shower, I thought. Take a cold shower. My body trembled when I stood up. I wasn't cold as much as I was simply unsteady. The room spun again, and I had to sit back on the bed to wait for the spinning to end.
Suddenly I heard my door open, and I turned to see Ami step in, yawn, and look at me.
"I thought you were still here. I thought I heard the phone ring."
"I overslept," I said.
"Obviously."
"I don't know what happened to me. I don't know why my nightgown is on the floor. I don't know why I . . . I feel strange. I have these visions running through my head."
"Oh, I'm sure it's all just a dream," she said, smiling. "So you overslept. Big deal. I wish I had a dollar for every day I missed school. I'll see that Mrs. McAlister prepares a late breakfast for us." She smiled. "It'll be nice spending the whole day together. Wash up and get dressed. meet you downstairs, okay?"
I stared at her and then nodded.
"You're just having dreams," she insisted. "Stop worrying about it. We both drank a little too much last night, but it was fun, wasn't it?"
"Yes," I said, even though the night before still remained very vague in my thinking.
She nodded and then left. I sat there a while, trying hard to think, to remember. Something terrible was bothering me, something very bad.
I looked down at my naked body and saw what were clearly black and blue marks on my thighs. I touched each of them, and they hurt. It looked like I had been squeezed very hard, like . . . someone had seized my legs.
Images of hands all over my breasts, down my stomach, flowed past my eyes. I felt lips on mine, on my neck, on my breasts and on my stomach.
What had happened to me? What couldn't I remember?
Walking like someone still in a daze, I went into the bathroom and looked at myself in the mirror. There were red blotches on my neck and on my breasts. I closed my eyes. Basil's cologne filled my nostrils again, and again I opened my eyes and looked about quickly. I almost called out to him.
Visions paraded across the mirror. I was being embraced, held, twisted, and lifted. What it suggested struck me so hard, I felt a ball of ice drop into my stomach, sending chills up around my heart. Slowly, I returned to my bed and pulled the blanket back. Then I brought my face to the sheet and inhaled. Basil's cologne reeked.
My head snapped back, and I gasped.
What had happened to me? What had he done?
I felt like screaming. Panic seized my feet, froze me in place. I stood there embracing myself, my mouth open in a silent cry, trembling.
And that was how Ami found me, nearly twenty minutes later.
17
All Orphans
.
"W
hat's the matter with you, Celeste?" Ann
asked, her face twisting before me as if it were made of rubber. I wavered as if I was standing on a ship at sea, tossed about in a small storm.
"I don't . . . I think . . . did Basil come back last night?"
"Basil? No, of course not. He went to the hospital. Remember? The accident at the warehouse? What's this all about? Why ask about Basil?"
Yes, why ask about Basil? I wondered and then remembered.
"Smell my bed, my sheets, my blanket," I said. "Why? Did Mrs. Cukor put garlic in them again?"
"No, it's something worse. It has nothing to do with Mrs. Cukor."
She pulled in the corners of her lips and lowered her chin.
"Are you still drunk?"
"Smell them!" I cried.
"I will not. That's the stupidest request . . . Go take your shower and come down to breakfast and stop this nonsense immediately," she ordered, and then she smiled. "Later, we'll do something together, take a nice ride, maybe to the discount shopping center they just built."
"Look at my neck, my breasts. Look at my thighs!" I demanded.
"So?"
"I have blotches, black and blue marks," I said, pointing them out to her.
"Oh, I get that often myself," she said. "It's nothing. Maybe you're allergic to something. I'll take you to see the doctor if it continues."
"It's not an allergy. I was. . ."
What was I? Why couldn't I remember exactly what had happened? Had it been a dream? How could it have been?
"You were what, Celeste?"
"Why was I naked when I woke up?"
"How would I know? You probably had a hot spell or something from drinking and tossed your nightgown off. Then you hallucinated, and now you're just confused. It's nothing. It happens to people when they drink too much. You're not used to wine and cognac. It's nothing terrible. Take a shower. Get dressed. Eat something, and it will pass. You'll see," she promised. "Hurry up. I'm actually somewhat hungry myself."
I shook my head. I wasn't making sense to myself. How could I make any to her?
I nodded and returned to the bathroom to shower. Even afterward, I felt listless and still halfdazed. I ate very little for breakfast and found myself dozing off periodically. I noticed Mrs. Cukor studying me with some interest, but saying or doing nothing. Afterward, Ami went up to dress for our ride and told me to do the same, but when I got back to my bedroom, I lay down for a moment, and the next thing I knew, it was nearly four-thirty.
This time, when I woke up, I did feel a little better. I threw some cold water on my face and went to look for Ami. Mrs. McAlister said she had gone, but she'd left a message for me that she had looked in on me, seen I was asleep, and decided to let me rest.
"She said she'll come to you the moment she's home," Mrs. McAlister added, annoyed that she had to pass messages on to me.
Now I felt bad about missing school, so I returned to my room and called Trevor.
"I was afraid to call you again," he said immediately. "You sounded so weird this morning."
"I know. I mean, I can imagine. I don't remember much about the morning. I thought you and I had spoken, but I wasn't sure it wasn't a dream."
"Wow, what did you have to drink last night?"
"We celebrated my passing my driving test. Basil came to dinner, and I drank too much wine and cognac, guess," I said. Some details began to rush back. "But there were two accidents, one involving the plant's manager's wife and one involving an employee. I haven't seen Wade yet, so I don't know how everyone is."
"Oh," he said, not sounding very interested. "Well, how are you now?"
"Better, I think. What did I miss at school?"
"Not much. A surprise quiz in math. Lynette Fire-stone was dying to know why you weren't in school. She wasn't the only one asking after you. You'd think some of these kids didn't have a life."
"Maybe they don't," I said. "You'll be at school tomorrow?"
"Yes, of course," I said.
"Okay. I'm sure it won't take you long to catch up." I heard a knock on my door.
"I'll call you later," I said. "I think Ami's here." Just as I hung up, she entered.
"How are you?" she asked.
"Better, I think. I still feel confused."
"Oh, you'll be fine," she said. "Sorry I left you, but you were so dead asleep, I didn't have the heart to wake you. Guess what? Wade's not coming home for dinner again tonight. There's a big brouhaha at the plant. The accident might not have been an accident."
"Why not?"
"Seems two employees were angry at each other, and one might have caused it to happen to the other. The police have been there all day,
investigating. Newspapers heard about it already. Wade's over-wrought. Basil's been there all day, too. Nothing's ever easy anymore," she said, which came as a surprise out of her mouth. As far as I could tell, everything was easy for Ami.
"How sad," I said.
"It's just the two of us again."
"Again? Basil was here with us last night, wasn't he?" I asked. She had me wondering even about that.
"Oh, yes, but I was referring to Wade. Anyway, let's just have a nice dinner and relax until he comes home with his stories."
She left, and I concentrated on the homework I hadn't finished the day before. Later, as she said, it was just the two of us for dinner. Mrs. Cukor wasn't there to serve; Mrs. McAlister did it all. I had a little more appetite, but nothing like I normally did, whereas Ami seemed ravenous. Despite all the turmoil around us, she was bubbling with energy and very gabby. Actually, my head spun as she jumped from one topic to another, describing new clothes, a new restaurant, a show we should see in New York City, men who flirted with her in the mall, and a bank teller who had the audacity to wonder aloud why she was withdrawing so much cash. I don't think I got in two words.
We went to the den to watch television and wait for Wade's return. Ami said I was dozing on and off again, and it would probably be best for me to get an early night's rest. I thought she was right, so I went up to my bedroom and prepared for sleep. Ten minutes later she came bursting in.
"Oh, I'm so sorry," she said. "I nearly neglected you."
"What do you mean?"
"I've been so selfish all day, shopping, talking to friends, I forgot to see the doctor about your pills. I promise I'll do it tomorrow."
"I'm not worried about that," I said.
"You don't understand, Celeste. It doesn't just work after one pill. You can't take one and stop. You have to be on a regimen. Here," she said, holding out another small white tablet. "Take another one of mine until I set you up. Go on. Otherwise, the first one would be a waste."
I took it and looked at it.
"What does this mean?" I asked.
"What?"
"Roche?"
"Oh, that's just the pharmaceutical company. Here," she said, going to the bathroom to get me a glass of water.
I hesitated a moment, and then, with her standing and waiting impatiently, I took the pill.
"Good. Now get a nice rest," she said, and left.
Soon after I got into bed, I began to feel listless again, but it wasn't unpleasant. I felt more like I was floating, more like what people described as having a nice buzz on. Even with my eyes open, I was dreaming, cruising on a cloud. I wasn't sure how much time had passed or if I was actually asleep, but the sounds I heard around me seemed to become more and more distant. I was then suddenly aware of being sexually aroused. Fingers strummed my nipples, and a warmth began to build between my legs, climbing higher and higher. I moaned and made an effort to slow down the rapidly building excitement within me, but once again, I felt as though my body was not my own. It wasn't obeying any commands. It felt like clay being molded by other hands.
Sounds became confusing. There were grunts and moans, the moans maybe my own. I heard the clicking of lips, the sucking of air, and felt a warm wetness over my neck and face., It made me laugh because it felt like a tongue. The sexual excitement exploded inside me. I thought I screamed, but I wasn't sure. Soon after, I blacked out and sunk slowly into the dark pool of dreams and visions, bright lights and sobs, flowers, Noble's face, a pair of eyes with candles burning in them.
I woke to the sound of my own voice crying, "Mommy!"
When I looked up, I was sure I saw the back of a man who was quietly leaving my room. The door opened, and the light from the hallway quickly identified him.
It was Basil.
I wasn't dreaming.
Unable to stop myself, I began to cry. I sobbed so hard, my stomach ached.
And then I really did scream. I screamed as loudly as I could. The effort was exhausting. I fell back to my pillow and gasped. I thought I would scream again or get up, but I didn't have the energy to do either.
In moments I was asleep, but this time I woke just before dawn. There was a hazy light in the window. I struggled to sit up and then took deep breaths.
I reached over to turn on my night-table lamp, and when I did, I gasped again.
Sitting there in the shadows and staring at me was Ami. She was in her nightgown and slippers.
"What are you doing here?" I asked in a loud whisper.
"I heard your screams earlier and came," she said. "Fortunately, Wade is dead to the world. He heard nothing. He needs sleep. He's been going full steam and didn't come home until very late."
"You heard my screams?"
"Yes."
Then I didn't imagine it, I thought. I didn't imagine any of it.
"Ami," I said. "I think. . . I think I've been raped."
"I know," she said. "I didn't like doing it this way, but he thought it was best at the start."
"At the start? At the start of what?"
"Of your ovulation," she said. "I'm sorry about what you've gone through, but you've got to do this for both of us, for you and for me," she said with desperation.
I shook my head. Was I still dreaming? Was she really sitting there, and was I really talking to her? "What do I have to do for both of us?"
"You've got to have an Emerson baby," she said. "I can't. I have trouble with all of it."
She was the one who sounded as if she was talking in her sleep now, not me. Her eyes were dark. Even in the subdued light, they looked empty, glazed. She sat stiffly, clutching her hands against her breasts.
"Trouble with all of it?"
"That's really why I'm in therapy now. Wade's been patient with me for a number of reasons, but Basil . . . Basil thinks his time is limited, and he wants to see his grandchild, his Emerson child."
"But why would you . . . how can he make anyone do such a thing?"
"I haven't told you everything about my family, about my marriage. I'm ashamed of it, if you want to know the truth. My parents got themselves into very deep debt. My father was a terrible businessman, and my mother thought economy was a dirty word. They spent way beyond their means, and we were going to lose everything about the time I met Wade.
"Basil was impatient with him as well. I didn't exaggerate about his not having any real girlfriends before me, and you can see from the little time you've been with us--and the little contact you've had with Wade that he isn't exactly a ladies' man. If you want to know the truth, I think he has problems with sex as well, male-female sex. I have my suspicions now because of how infrequently he has even attempted it, and at times Basil practically admits it."
"Admits what?"
I was having such trouble making sense of all this. My mind was still full of globs of murky clouds.
"Wade's lack of interest in women. The embarrassment to Basil of having such a son is too much for him to face. He takes it personally, an attack on his own virility.
"Anyway, he bailed out my parents and offered me this wonderful rich life." She laughed a short, thin, mad laugh. "The truth is, Celeste, Basil proposed to me first, but not to be his wife. To be Wade's. Then Wade proposed, at Basil's urging, I'm sure. Basil was in charge of everything in those days. He even had our prenuptial written. I promised to give him a grandchild within five years. When it became obvious that it wouldn't happen within that time, I became desperate. I came up with this idea, and Basil went along with it."
"What was your idea?" I asked, my heart starting to pound so hard, I thought I would lose consciousness again.
"I scouted you out. Oh, not you in particular. For some time I looked for someone like you. I almost chose a girl from a different orphanage, but when I did my research, I found out she was quite
promiscuous. I couldn't take the chance with her, you see. What if she got pregnant before . . . before Basil could have his grandchild? It would have all been a waste. That's why I was so upset about your rendezvous with Trevor Foley.
"When I learned about you, saw you, I knew I had found the perfect young woman. You were virginal and beautiful and intelligent. You would produce a wonderful child if I could protect you."
"You mean you brought me here right from the start to do this, to drug me so I would be a surrogate mother?"
"Would you have agreed to be a surrogate mother?"
"No," I said sharply. "Never."
"I knew that. But I hoped that after you saw the life you could have, the benefits, luxuries, advantages, you wouldn't be so reluctant. Maybe I could talk you into being a surrogate mother. Then--"
"What then?"
"Basil actually fell in love with you and decided he wanted to impregnate you the oldfashioned way," she said, and again laughed that mad, thin laugh. "Of course, he knew you wouldn't be so willing to do that either, so--"
"So you drugged me."
"They call it the date-rape pill nowadays," she admitted. "We waited until you would be in the period of ovulation, but I couldn't see doing this to you night after night, so I agreed to two, maybe three, but when I heard your screams . . . it would be easier if you would just cooperate now," she concluded.
I stared at her in disbelief.
"Cooperate? You mean, lie here waiting for him every night?"
"Yes. Listen to me. Look what he's given you already, what you have and what he will give you. You're going to get pregnant someday anyway. You do this small thing, and for the rest of your life--"
"Small thing? You call this a small thing?"
I felt the nausea returning, my dizziness. I closed my eyes and took deep breaths.
"Why don't you do it, if it's such a small thing?" I snapped back at her. "If you have trouble making love, then why don't you have a doctor plant Wade's or Basil's sperm in you?"
"We tried once, Wade and I, but it didn't take. After Wade told Basil about that, Basil became more determined and aggressive about it. He came to me himself, hoping I would agree to let him seduce me. He even attempted it one night when you were here, because he didn't think we could manage it with you. But I couldn't be with him, and he got so angry and disgusted, I thought he would bring everything to an end, including your wonderful new opportunity."