Sleeping Awake (13 page)

My favourite
Cole Porter song began to play then. Quite surprisingly, Nicolaas began to sing
in my ear.

“
But
that's why birds do it, bees do it; even educated fleas do it. Let's do it,
let's fall in love…”

His voice
stirred something deep within me. I closed my eyes. “Yes,” was on the tip of my
tongue. I stopped dancing.
Yes
what? As if I wasn’t going crazy enough,
a voice answered
Yes to falling in love
.

I stumbled.
Nicolaas held me tightly and prevented my fall. My heart began to race as a
familiar sense of panic surged through me. I couldn’t breathe.

“Noira, are you
all right?” he asked.

I shook my head.

“Do you need a
doctor?”

“Take me home,
please,” I whispered.

“What?”

“I need to go
home,” I said, pulling away. “Please.”

“Noira…”

“Just take me
home,” I whispered, trying my hardest not to cause a scene.

Wordlessly, he
led me through the crowd and outside. During the ride home, I felt his gaze on
me, but I dared not look at him. A million thoughts were racing through my
head. I thought about opening the door, jumping out, and having a car run over
me and end my pathetic existence. Knowing my luck, I’d only end up scaring
Nicolaas and no car would come to save me from my fate.

“Noira, did I do
something wrong?” he finally asked. We were turning onto my driveway.

“I just need to
be alone,” I said, reaching for the car door.

“But none of
this makes sense,” he said.

I turned then,
tears and mascara running down my face and looked at him. “Thank you for
inviting me to the party, Nicolaas. Goodnight.”

He didn’t follow
me inside.

“Back so soon…
What happened to you?” Cienna was descending the stairs as I came through the
front door.

“Not now,
Cienna,” I begged.

She nodded and
stepped aside to let me pass.

Once I got to my
room, I went to my medicine cabinet and reached for the old bottle of
Lonazepam. I took two of them and another two Benadryl tablets. The Lonazepam
didn’t do what my doctors had wanted it to do, but it made me completely numb.
I needed to be numb. Numb and under my comforter, blocking the light out,
waiting for the Benadryl to kick in and hopefully bring on a dreamless slumber.

*~*

The next morning was Sunday.
We sat together having
breakfast before going to Mass.

“How was the opera last week,
Camelea?” Maman asked. “You never told me.”

Camelea’s smile could have
rivalled the rays of the sun. “
Marvelous
.”

I spat my pills back into my
orange juice as Maman leaned closer and absorbed Camelea’s tale. Across from
me, Cienna’s head was bent downwards as if in prayer. I knew that she was
reading something in her lap. I took out my phone. There were four text
messages and two voice mail notifications. I turned it off.

“Oh look at the time!” Maman
exclaimed.

Cienna and I looked up.

“We’ll be late if we don’t
leave now,” Maman said.

I put my phone in my clutch
and tossed my napkin onto my uneaten food.

Once we returned home, I threw
the clutch into the back of my closet, undressed and got under the covers. My
eyes closed before I could even get the comforter over my head.

*~*

On Monday morning, I called
Bryn.

“Noira, my love!” he greeted.

“Don’t my love me,” I snapped.
“You abandoned me at your party for that she-devil, and I’ve seen neither hide
nor hair from you since. What kind of best friend are you? I’m in a very
fragile state right now!”

“I’m sorry, babe,” he said.

“Whatever,” I hissed.

“Look, how about I make it up
to you?”

“How?” I leaned against the
kitchen counter, chewing on my bottom lip.

“She’s having the house
redecorated,” Bryn said, referring to his mother. “I don’t think that you want
to be here with all the banging that’s about to start. Want me to come over
there?”

“Yes,” I replied. If there was
anyone in the world who I needed at that moment, it was Bryn.

“Give me an hour then.”

I stomped my right foot on the
ground and pouted. “What am I supposed to do for an hour?”

“Clean your closet or
something,” he replied. “You’re always complaining that you can never find
anything in there.”

I sighed. “Fine.”

“See you.”

My closet somehow always
looked like it had been to war and back. There were even stilettos hanging
haphazardly from a few hangers. It was probably because I had to spent so much
time taming my hair that the few minutes that I had to get dressed were
literally a world-wind. I decided to tackle the shoes first and started taking
them all out. I was bending down to pull the last shoe from behind a garment
bag when I spotted the box. I froze.

I hadn’t seen it in almost a
year, but I knew what was in there. I shoved the bag aside and pulled it out. I
took off the paisley-covered top and took out the photo album. My hands were
shaking as I opened it, because I knew whom the first photo was of. Laying on a
hammock with his eyes closed was my father, Philippe. He was using his hands as
a pillow, but he looked so casual and content with the tiniest smile on his
face. If it hadn’t been for the one streak of premature gray, his curls would
have made him look a boy in his sleep. I knew that he wasn’t sleeping, because
I had been the one to order him to pose for my camera. We were in Málaga when
the picture had been taken. Andalusia seemed to suit Philippe, or at least it
looked so in the picture.

I ran my hands along the
photograph. After I had taken the picture, Philippe had jumped up, grabbed me
and started spinning me in the air. I tried to remember what it felt like to
have the wind whirling around me as I orbited around him. He had stubble on his
cheek. I couldn’t remember whether or not he’d kissed me or said anything to me
as he spun me, but I remembered the feel of rubbing my face against his. I felt
safe.

The next picture was of my sisters
and I, once again in various states of toothlessness as we grinned for the
camera. Maman had taken the picture of us. I flipped the page to the next
photograph, another one of Philippe. I had his eyes. They were like milk
chocolate.

I turned the page. Maman and
Philippe shared the hammock in this one. He always had boyish grin on his face
whenever he stared at Maman. I understood why she was all-smiles whenever he
was around. They’d share secret glances whenever they thought that we weren’t
looking. Cienna was curled into Philippe’s side as she slept with her head on
his chest in the next one.

These were the last photos
that were taken of our family while we were still happy. I sometimes wondered
how long Philippe had been contemplating his departure. There were no
photographs of him anywhere in our house. It was as if he’d never existed, save
for these lone pages in an old photo album at the back of my closet.

“I thought that you were going
to clean?”

The album fell to the floor as
I jumped. “Bryn!” I said, hands over my chest. “You scared me.”

“Sorry,” Bryn said, bending to
pick it up. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

“You said one hour,” I
replied. I took the album from him and made sure that none of the photos had
been damaged.

“The herd arrived early, so I
skipped deep-conditioning my hair,” Bryn replied. He pulled me into his
bear-like embrace and kissed my cheek. It felt good to be in his arms, safe
almost.

“Is that a café in France?” he
asked, peering down at the open album.

I looked down at the photograph
and pulled away. “Yes.”

I contemplated putting away
the album, but that would have meant explaining my actions. I didn’t trust
myself to be able to do that without crying. Fucking Cymbalta.

“It was taken about six months
before we moved to America,” I added.

Bryn leaned closer and turned
the album towards him. “Is that Camelea sitting on your father’s lap?”

I nodded.

“You look a bit like him,” he
mused.

“I don’t think so.” I shook my
head. “I don’t look like any of my parents.”

“Well I can see some of him in
you,” Bryn countered. “I’ve seen that smile before, and I’ve never met your
father.”

“Maybe,” I said, giving in.
“The picture was taken while we were waiting for Maman to come. We were going
to Mikonos that weekend, I think.”

“So then who took it?” Bryn
asked, turning the page.

“My
nounou.”

“Trust me,” Bryn said, rolling
his eyes. “I know all about nannies. I like this picture. You look very happy
here.”

The next picture was of
Philippe and me. I was sitting in his lap with a fishing rod in my hand.

“We must have gone to Wallonia
then,” I replied. “We only ever went fishing when we were in Belgium.”

“Your childhood in France
sounds rather quaint,” Bryn said. “The only thing that sticks out in my memory
about London was the divorce. It took four years for them to decide on who
would get the last pound. It was only afterwards that they realised that they
hadn’t yet argued over who got to keep me. They flipped a coin.”

I reached over and squeezed
Bryn’s hand.

“I’ve gotten over it.” Bryn
pulled away and flipped to the last page. It was another photograph of Philippe
and me. I was a newborn, and he was laying on a couch with me cradled in his
arms.

“He’s looking at you as if
he’s…” Bryn trailed off.

“Scared shitless?” I replied.

We burst out laughing. I
leaned against Bryn’s shoulder to brace myself. When I could finally breathe
again, I wiped the tears that had fallen and set the album aside.

“I don’t remember the last
time that I laughed like that,” I said.

 “You should have seen
your face as you went through the album and commented on the photographs,” Bryn
replied. “You looked absolutely radiant. Why don’t you ever talk about your
father if he obviously makes you so happy?”

I looked down at my fingers.
“Because talking about my father doesn’t make me happy.”

Bryn’s forehead was a bed of
lines. “I’m confused.”

I sighed. “Finding an old
album is one thing, but remembering how he just abandoned us is another. Do you
want to know how I felt when he left? Like I was on a rope that was enflamed
and suspended in midair. I could do nothing but watch as the inferno came
towards me. Have you ever felt like that?”

Bryn shook his head.

I continued. “
Maman
tried to put me together, of course, but she couldn’t pick up all the pieces of
shattered crockery. Bits fell too far out of reach or were too small to ever
have a chance of becoming part of the whole. Maman patched me up as best as she
could and brought us to America to start all over again. It was the pieces left
behind that mattered the most, however. Not the shanty version of a little girl
that Maman forgot to bubble wrap for her own safe keeping.”

“Christ, Noira,” Bryn said. “I
had no idea…”

 I shrugged, pretending
that I was all right with my life’s current state of affairs. “My sisters and I
locked ourselves in Cienna’s room and just cried. Maman wouldn’t see us.”

“Is that why you moved to
America?” Bryn asked. “Were you trying to get away from France?”

“I suppose so,” I said,
shrugging. “All that ended up happening was that we each disappeared into
ourselves and grew apart. We were a lot closer before we moved to America.”

“How sad,” Bryn commented.

“Indeed,” I said, standing up.
I didn’t want to continue slipping further down the downward spiral of
depression. “I’m dying for a martini, are you?”

Bryn’s eyes lit up. “Yes,
please!”

“Lychee, I think,” I added. There
was nothing like a lychee martini in the afternoon to chase the mean reds away.

Everyone else was out, so we
went downstairs to the parlour and made ourselves comfortable. Bryn took a seat
on a chaise lounge chair, kicked off his shoes, and propped up his feet under a
pillow.

“Comfortable enough for you?”
I asked from behind the bar.

Bryn reached for the
Vanity
Fair
magazine that Cienna had left on the coffee table and began to flip
through the pages.

I smiled, shaking my head
slightly, and began to assemble the ingredients.

“Oh look,” Bryn said a few
minutes later. “Nicolaas is in the Fairground citings.”

I stopped shaking the mixture.
“Your cousin Nicolaas?”