"Events carried me in a different direction," he replied cryptically. "It wasn't meant to be. But," he added quickly, "perhaps that was because it was meant for you."
What events? I wondered. How can something you desire so much not be meant to be? Daddy was so successful in business, it was difficult to imagine anything he couldn't do when he set his mind on it. When I pursued him for the answers, however, Daddy tightened up and became uncomfortable.
"It was just the way things were," he said and left it at that. Because I saw it was too painful for him to discuss, I didn't nag, but that didn't mean the questions were gone. They hung over all of us, dangled invisibly in the house and attached themselves to the pictures in our family albums, pictures that traced the strange and mysterious turns my parents' lives had taken before and just after I was born. It was as if we had secrets buried in some dusty old trunk in the attic and someday—maybe soon—I would open the trunk and, like Pandora, release the discoveries I would quickly regret.
"I'm afraid you'll have to have breakfast with your brothers only this morning," Daddy said. "I've al-ready eaten, and so has your mother, and we're busier than two bees in a hive."
"I wish you and Mommy hadn't planned quite such a large affair for me, Daddy."
"What? I wouldn't have it any other way. In fact, it's not big enough. Every hour I remember someone else we should have invited."
"The guest list is already a mile long!"
He laughed."Well, with my business interests and your mother's art crowd, not to mention your teachers and friends, we're lucky it's only a mile."
"And my portrait will be unveiled in front of all those people. I'll be so embarrassed."
"Don't think of it as your portrait, Pearl. Think of it as your mother's art," he advised. I nodded. Daddy was always so sensible. He would surely have made a wonderful doctor.
"I'll eat quickly and help you, Daddy." "Nonsense. You relax, young lady. You have a big night ahead of you. You won't know how big until it starts. And you have your speech to worry over, too."
"Will you listen to me practice later?"
"Of course, princess. We'll all be your first audience. But right now I've got to see about our parking arrangements. I've hired a valet service."
"Really?"
"We can't have our guests riding around looking for a place to park, can we? Make sure your brothers eat their breakfast and don't annoy anyone, will you?" he asked and kissed me again before hurrying to the front of the house.
Jean and Pierre were at the table, both looking so polite and innocent that I knew they were up to something. Strands of Jean's blond hair hung down over his forehead and eyes. As usual his shirt was buttoned incorrectly. Pierre's appearance was perfect, but Pierre wore that tiny smirk around his lips and Jean looked at me with his blue eyes twinkling. I checked my seat to be sure they hadn't put honey on it so I would stick to it.
"Good morning, Pearl," Pierre said. "How's it feel to be graduating?"
"I'm very nervous," I said and sat down. They both stared. "Did you two do anything silly?"
They shook their heads simultaneously, but I didn't trust them. I scrutinized the table, checked the floor by my chair, and studied the salt and pepper shakers. Once, they put pepper in the salt shaker and salt in the pepper, and another time, they put sugar in the salt shaker.
They dipped their spoons into their cereal and ate with their eyes still fixed on me. I looked up at the ceiling to be sure there wasn't a fake black widow spider dangling above me.
"What have you two done?" I demanded.
"Nothing," Jean said too quickly.
"I swear if you do anything today, I'll have the two of you locked in the basement."
"I can get out of a locked room," Jean bragged. "I know how to pick a lock. Right, Pierre?"
"It's not hard to do, especially with our old locks," Pierre said pedantically. He had a way of making his eyes small and pressing his lower lip over his upper whenever he offered a serious opinion.
"I can take the hinges off the door, too," Jean claimed.
"All right. Stop talking about it. I'm not serious," I said. Jean looked disappointed.
"Good morning, mademoiselle," our butler, Aubrey, said as he came in from the kitchen with a glass of fresh orange juice for me. Aubrey had been with us for years and years. He was the proper Englishman at all times. He was bald with small patches of gray hair just over his ears. His thick-rimmed glasses were always falling down the bridge of his bony nose, and he would squint at us with his hazel eyes.
"Morning, Aubrey. I'll just have some coffee and a croissant with jam this morning. My stomach is full of butterflies."
"Ugh," Jean said. "They were caterpillars first,"
"She just means she's nervous," Pierre explained.
"Because you got to make a speech?" Jean asked.
"Yes, that mostly," I said.
"What's it about?" Pierre asked.
"It's about how we should be grateful for what we have, for what our parents and teachers have done for us, and how that gratitude must be turned into hard work so we don't waste opportunities and talents," I explained.
"Boring," Jean said.
"No, it's not," Pierre corrected him.
"I don't like sitting and listening to speeches. I bet someone throws a spitball at you," Jean threatened.
"It better not be you, Jean Andreas. There's plenty that has to be done around here all day. Don't get underfoot and don't aggravate Mommy and Daddy," I warned.
"We can stay up until everyone leaves tonight," Pierre declared.
"And Mommy let us invite some of our friends," Jean added. "We should light firecrackers to celebrate."
"Don't you dare," I said. "Pierre?"
"He doesn't have any."
"Charlie Littlefield does!"
"Jean!"
"I won't let him," Pierre promised. He gave Jean a look of chastisement, and Jean shrugged. His shoulders had rounded and thickened this past year. He was tough and sinewy and had gotten into a half dozen fights at school, but I learned that three of those fights were fought to protect Pierre from other boys who teased him about his poetry. All their friends knew that when someone picked a fight with Pierre, he was picking a fight with Jean, and if someone made fun of Jean, he was making fun of Pierre as well.
Mommy and Daddy had to go to school to meet with the principal because of Jean's fights, but I saw how proud Daddy was that Jean and Pierre protected each other. Mommy bawled him out for not bawling them out enough.
"It's a tough, hard world out there," Daddy said. "They've got to be tough and hard too."
"Alligators are tough and hard, but people make shoes and pocketbooks out of them," Mommy retorted. No matter what the argument or discussion, Mommy had a way of reaching back into her Cajun past to draw up an analogy to make her point.
After breakfast I returned to my room to fine-tune my valedictory address, and Catherine called.
"Have you decided about tonight?" she asked.
"It's going to be so hard leaving my party. My parents are doing so much for me," I moaned.
"After a while they won't even know you're gone," Catherine promised. "You know how adults are when make parties for their children; they're really making them for themselves and their friends."
"That's not true about my parents," I said.
"You've got to go to Lester's," she whined. "We've been planning this for months, Pearl! Claude expects it. I know how much he's looking forward to it. He told Lester, and Lester told me just so I would tell you."
"I'll go to the party, but I don't know about staying overnight," I said.
"Your parents expect you to stay out all night. It's like Mardi Gras. Don't be a stick-in-the-mud tonight of all nights, Pearl," she warned. "I know what you're worried about," she added. Catherine was the only other person in the world who knew the truth about Claude and me.
"I can't help it," I whispered.
"I don't know what you're so worried about. You know how many times I've done it, and I'm still alive, aren't I?" Catherine said, laughing.