To My Senses The Nicci Beauvoir Series Book 1 (38 page)

“
Oh, I just can’t believe
it. I am so happy.” Mrs. Fagles wrapped her arms around Michael and
me. “Oh, we will have such a beautiful wedding for the two of
you.”

“
I haven’t even asked her
yet, Mom,” Michael complained. He then pulled me from his mother
and took me to the side of the room. “Do you mind?” Michael
pressed. “I thought there was no point in delaying the inevitable
any longer.”

At that moment, my father
walked up to me and kissed me on the cheek. Uncle Lance was at his
side.

“
Congratulations.” Uncle
Lance shook Michael’s hand and edged him away.

My father leaned in closer
to me. “I got the impression from your reaction this morning that
there was still someone else,” he whispered. “Michael is not the
one you want, Nicci.”

Then Michael was back,
cutting in between us, and grinning with pride. “So, Mr. Beauvoir,
what do you think?”

My father glared at me, and
then shook Michael’s hand. “If this is what Nicci wants, then I am
happy for the both of you.” He and Uncle Lance walked away, leaving
me alone with Michael in the corner of the living room.

“
Well?” Michael said to
me.

My mind went blank. What
could I say?

“
Hey, are you going to say
anything, Nicci? Most girls get excited. You are like a statue. Is
it yes or….”

“
I—I’m stunned, Michael. I
never expected this,” I managed to get out.

His face fell a little, and
I could see the apprehension in his blue eyes. I did not want to
hurt him. He had been good to me, but the picture of David in the
newspaper kept flashing across my mind. Maybe if I tried, I could
grow to love Michael.

“
Yes,” I whispered. “Yes,
Michael.”

He picked me up and twirled
me around in the air. When he set me back on the floor, I felt
dizzy. He took the ring out of the box and placed it on the
appropriate finger of my left hand. Beyond Michael’s grinning face,
I spied my father in the corner of the room. His eyes were
saturated with disappointment.

Leaving an exuberant
Michael, I went to the bar and poured a glass of champagne. Once I
finished that one, I had another, and then another.

Michael came up to me.
“What are you doing?” he grumbled, looking around the
room.

“
I’m having a
drink.”

“
You are having several
drinks. Slow it down. What…are you nervous or
something?”

I did not reply. I spent
the rest of the party next to the bar gawking at the ring on my
finger, and dreading the future.

***

Michael ushered everyone
home later on that afternoon. Not wanting to face my father’s
cross-examination just yet, I volunteered to stay behind and help
clean up. After the last guest had left, Michael pulled me into his
arms.

“
I never thought they would
all leave. I have wanted to be alone with you all day.” He guided
me toward the sofa.

“
Don’t you think we should
clean up first?” I asked, as he started pulling down the zipper of
my green dress.

He slipped the dress off my
shoulders and pushed it to the floor. “Later.”

As Michael unzipped his
pants, he helped me onto the sofa. His hands were all over me,
canvassing my flesh. He eased my panties down my legs while pushing
my head against the hard arm of the sofa. Before I knew it, he was
biting the flesh around my right nipple and spreading my legs
apart. He roughly stroked my sensitive folds, right before he
thrust himself inside of me. Soon the dull throb of his thrusting
ended when he groaned, and collapsed on top of me.

I lay there with his weight
crushing me, and thought about the times I had been with David.
Unlike sex with Michael, I had enjoyed sex with David. He had been
a patient lover, who had relished both taking and giving pleasure.
Michael, however, was like every other hormonally challenged boy I
had known. He made sex more of a race than an adventure.

I poked his shoulder.
“Michael?”

He mumbled and opened his
eyes. “What’s wrong?”

“
Michael, have you ever
done anything creative?”

“
Creative like what? Paint
a picture?” He stood from the sofa and zipped up his
pants.

I sat up and reached for my
dress. “Paint, draw, or write. Has anything ever made you feel
impassioned?”

He appeared to consider the
question for a moment. “I spent my days learning something
practical and useful; a career with which I could support a wife
and family.” He went to the bar and poured a glass of champagne. “I
guess, in some ways, I am creative in how I help my patients, in
how I plan their care.” He shook his head. “Why all these questions
about being creative and impassioned. What do you want to do, take
art classes?”

“
Forget I mentioned it,” I
said, zipping up my dress.

I was heading to the kitchen when his voice
stopped me.

“
Hey what do you think
about a December wedding?”

“
December?” I tried to
stifle my surprise. “That soon?”

“
Yeah, a December wedding
would be real romantic.”

“
Funny,” I glanced back at
him, “I never thought you were the ‘real romantic’
type.”

He stared into his glass of
champagne, seemingly lost in his thoughts. “That reminds me. We
never talked about kids.”

I was taken aback.
“Kids?”

“
I’ve always wanted a big
family. Around four or five kids, but when you’re ready, of course.
I figured you would want to work for a while before we started a
family.”

“
You have all this planned,
don’t you?”

He sipped from his
champagne. “Is there anything wrong with that?”

“
No, I used to be the same
way, but things change.”

I hurried out of the living
room, uninterested in any more of Michael’s plans.

***

Hattie was all in favor of
a December wedding and she, along with Michael’s mother, buried
herself in the planning. The two found an available church and came
up with the date of December tenth for the wedding. Michael agreed
and I just went along.

However, my father was not
at all pleased with our plans.

“
December is too soon. I
want you to have more time than that to change your
mind.”

“
How long of an engagement
do you want me to have?” I had asked him during one of our constant
rows.

“
Ten years.”

“
Be fair!” I had
argued.

“
I am being fair. You are
not in love with that silly moron. Why are you
pretending?”

The continual fighting with
my father forced me to spend more time over at Michael’s. I didn’t
get much peace there, either. Michael was constantly bringing up
ideas for the wedding. He had already made out the guest list and
was even picking out china patterns. When he came home one
afternoon with three patterns he thought would be ideal for
entertaining, I about lost it.

“
Christ, Michael, I don’t
know. You pick what you think is best.”

“
I thought women were into
choosing china patterns. When Pats got married, she spent days
deciding on the right china.”

He continued to badger me
by following me around his house and holding out a catalog with
different china patters in it.

“
I have other things to
plan, Michael. The engagement party Auntie Val is giving us is only
a few weeks away, and I haven’t even gotten together with her yet
to discuss the details. I just have so much on my mind.” I examined
the diamond on my left hand. “There are more important things to
consider when getting married than china patterns.”

“
Like what?”

I didn’t answer him. I just
darted into the bathroom to be alone.

***

Two weeks later, I was to
meet Michael at a flower shop in Lakeview to discuss possible
arrangements for the wedding. He and his mother had been trying to
cram a lot of the wedding planning into the few weeks before I
started work in late July. The owner of the shop was apparently an
old friend of Mrs. Fagles. I was sure Michael’s mother had already
decided on the appropriate floral combinations, and I was just
going to make an appearance as the bride-to-be.

Turning off the interstate,
I found myself back in the familiar stomping grounds of my days
with David. When I parked in front of the flower shop, I sat in my
car for several minutes, trying to find the strength to go inside.
I couldn’t do it. Instead, I put the key in the ignition, turned
off my cell phone, and backed out of the parking lot. I knew I
would probably never hear the end of it from Michael, but I didn’t
care.

I drove along the bumpy
roads and around the quaint neighborhood. I liked this small, quiet
area of the New Orleans. It was isolated from the hurried
atmosphere of the city, and surrounded by an expansive park filled
with trees, green grass, and open canals. I wound my way through
the streets knowing where I was headed, but not in that big a hurry
to get there.

Eventually, I pulled up to
the familiar blue cottage with its quaint front porch. There was a
For Rent sign on the left side. I got out of the car and breathed
in the air, feeling the tension of the past few weeks retreat. I
strolled under the shade of the wide oaks and down the walkway to
the porch. I sat down on the bottom step and marveled at the trees
and sky. It was so far removed from the other world in which I was
now buried.

“
Nicci, is that
you?”

I turned to see Cora
smiling down on me from her side of the shared porch.

I stood from the steps.
“Hello, Cora.”

She hugged me close, as if
I were a long lost child. “How are ya, girl?” Cora looked me up and
down and then the flash of my engagement caught her eye. “Now, I
know this here’s too big for a friendship ring,” she clucked,
examining the ring

“
It’s an engagement ring.
It just happened recently.”

“
For a woman that just got
engaged, ya don’t look none too happy ‘bout it. Anybody I
know?”

I forced a smile. “He’s a
psychiatrist. We met at my cousin’s wedding last
November.”

“
He works fast, don’t he? I
mean, if ya’ll jus met last year and all. Why ya rushing things?”
Her hands were on her hips. “You pregnant?”

“
No. We just want to get
married. That’s all.”

“
That don’t sound right to
me. Most folks in a hurry to get married are usually crazy in love.
You ‘bout as in love with this fella as a snake with a mongoose.”
She glimpsed my car by the curb. “Why don’t ya come on in for a bit
and we’ll talk a spell.”

Her place was filled with
musty furniture, worn throw rugs, and a collection of tattered old
dolls. Everywhere I looked there were dolls on the chairs, tables,
sitting on the windowsills, and even on top of the coffee table.
Their lifeless eyes gave an eerie ambience to cozy home. Cora saw
me inspecting the collection and giggled, sounding like a little
girl.

“
I used to collect ‘em when
I was a young’un. I guess I jus never gave up the
habit.”

She disappeared into the
kitchen while I made myself comfortable on the sofa. When she
returned, Cora was carrying a wooden tray with two mugs of coffee
and a cream and sugar on it. After setting the tray on a cluttered
coffee table, she got comfortable in a well-worn brown
recliner.

“
He sent me a letter few
months back. Said he was in New York paintin’.” She paused and blew
on her mug of hot coffee. “He sent me another three months of rent
and an apology. I kept the place for him for a while,
thinkin’…well, hopin’ he’d come back. I jus put it up for rent a
few weeks ago, but I haven’t liked much of what’s been comin’
round. I’m real particular.”

“
I never got a letter.” I
placed my mug of coffee on the table in front of me. I had to move
a doll or two out of the way to make room. “I saw his picture in
the paper a few weeks back; that’s when I knew where he was. It was
an article about an exhibition of his paintings.”

“
You mean his Jennys. I saw
that article, too.” She took a deep breath and let it out slowly.
“So this fella ya gonna marry, mind if I ask why?”

“
Why not?” I shrugged.
“He’s a nice guy and he’ll take care of me. He can be kind and
generous and—”

“
But ya don’t love him,”
she interrupted. “Not like ya loved our boy.”

“
He’s gone, Cora. It’s time
to pick up the pieces of my life and go on.”

She giggled like a
schoolgirl. “Child, ya sound like one of my soaps. Ya life was that
boy. Him leavin’ didn’ change that.”

“
Yes, it did. Even so,
Michael, my fiancé, is a good man.”

“
So you keep sayin’. Funny,
ya never struck me as the kind wantin’ to be taken care of, Nicci.
David would never have fallen in love with ya if ya had been. Ya’ll
two was jus the same, ya know, like fish outta wauta. He didn’ have
no business with those fancy friends of his. And ya don’t belong
with them people, neither.” She grinned, noting my quizzically
gaze. “I read the paper. I see ya name in them social pages,” she
clarified.