November 6, 2010

• nanowrimo, day six.

  (Feel free to comment if you like what you read!
  See my November 1st entry to start at part one. <3)

  

  “Jonathan LeBlanc, if every man cooked as well as you do, I’d be one happy polygamist,” Zahari says as he hands her a plate of beignets that smell beyond amazing.

  “Sugar, you best not tell a man these things,” Jonathan narrows his big chocolate brown eyes and the corner of his full lips curls up in a flirtatious smile. “It gets him to thinkin’. And you know what happens when a man gets to thinkin’, don’t you?”

  Z rewards him with childish, snarky wit. “His butt cheeks fall off?”

  “Oh, cher,” he says, slapping his forehead. My limited knowledge of French all comes from conversations with Jonathan himself, and I know he’s calling Z ‘dear’. Jonathan’s thick New Orleans accent is alluring, especially paired with his mixture of French and English, and his deep voice. “I s’pose you guessed it.”

  “I suppose I did,” Z hooks her nearly black hair behind one ear and gives him a slight smile. The spark between them is palpable, even to a naïve child like myself.

  “I do hope you enjoy those beignets, though, cher. I used my grandmother’s recipe – see if you notice a difference from any you’ve ever tasted. I know you will – my Tante Josephine swears by it.” Jonathan wipes a bit of flour from his long black apron. He towers over the two of us, yet I’m not intimidated by him – he has a lovely heart.

  “Baby doll, these are the first beignets that will ever touch my lips, and I know without a single doubt that they will be the greatest,” Z lifts one of the powdered-sugar-covered pastries and brings it to her lips.

  Jonathan watches intently as she takes the first bite, his big, gorgeous eyes alight with fascinated anticipation. Once again, I am surprisingly grateful that I am not in everyone’s head like my sister and Louise both have to be. This time, I really just want to hear what they want to say out loud, not what they want kept hidden inside.

  Zahari closes her eyes and chews slowly, savoring the classic bit of New Orleans culture, and probably enjoying the torture she is inflicting on Jonathan’s psyche at the same time. (She can be evil when she wants to be.)

  “Well?” he says, his voice betraying his impatience.

  “Well, Johnny boy, I’d have to say that this here beignet is very close to culinary perfection,” Z admits, smiling. She licks a bit of powdered sugar from the corner of her lip and I nearly laugh out loud at the deliberate flirtation.

  “Very close to?” Jonathan smirks.

  “Well, nothing is perfect, you know,” Zahari explains, “Mostly because I don’t want to know how many calories I just ingested with that one mouthful.”

  “Oh, cher, do not worry about that,” Jonathan waves a flour-dusted hand at her. “You are what I consider to be very close to perfection.”

  I bite the inside of my cheek in amusement, looking back and forth between them. Zahari lifts only one corner of her mouth, and I know she is very pleased but trying not to show Jonathan just how much he has flattered her.

  “Very close to?” she echoes coyly.

  “It is as you say,” he shrugs, feigning nonchalance, “Nothing is without flaw. However, if I could call you mon cher, then perhaps I could also consider you to be absolute perfection.”

  “Well then.” Zahari says, keeping her cards close to her chest. “So, only things that are yours can be considered perfect?”

  “You misunderstand,” he fires back, placing both hands on the table and leaning closer to her, “Others may achieve success on their own, but some can only reach true perfection at another’s side.”

  Zahari looks up into his gorgeous face and her expression is taken aback; she opens her mouth to speak but nothing is released. This never happens to Z; she is seriously the wittiest woman I have ever met in my twenty-one years on Earth, and this is the first time in the three years that I have known her that I’ve seen her speechless.

  Jonathan winks at her and leaves the table, heading back toward the kitchen from whence he came.

  “Oh, my goodness,” I breathe for her. “That got pretty freakin’ intense.”

  Zahari shakes her head, and I notice that her cheeks are pink.

  “What are you thinking right now?” I ask my best friend, smiling broadly because I have a pretty good idea already.

  “That I want to have his babies,” Zahari breathes, hiding her face in her hands.

  I burst out laughing. “Right now?”

  “Yeah, girl. Right here on the table,” she rolls her eyes, “On his perfect beignets.”

  “See, now you gotta go and make beignets sound so dirty,” I scold her, taking one from her plate and taking a bite.

  “Damn,” I say, my mouth full. “You are nuts, girl. These are perfect.”

  Z gives me a look, and I grin at her with crushed, soggy beignet in my teeth.

  “Zahari Elise Oliver!” Charlotte exclaims as she plops down across from us at the table, a plate of maple syrup soaked pancakes clutched in her little white hands. “That is one fine hunk of man you were just talking to. When are you gonna take care of that?”

  “She was just talking about having his babies,” I inform her, turning my attention back to my bagel that is loaded with a wonderful mixture of eggs, cheese and bacon in the middle. “So, she’s way ahead of you.”

  Z gives me an indignant look, but I know she still loves me.

  “Way to go, Zahari,” Charlotte waggles her eyebrows suggestively, and holds her hand way up for a high-five.

  Zahari ignores her, and goes back to eating her beignets, so I reach out and slap Charlotte’s waiting hand without looking up from my breakfast.

  “So, what are we getting into today?” Lottie asks, cutting into her short stack of fluffy yet drenched buttermilk pancakes.

  “Well, I have a meeting with Lydia, but that’s not until seven. And seven-thirty is my memory-sorting class. But other than that, Wednesdays are pretty boring for me, as you know,” I inform her. “I was thinking maybe we could take a drive, check out all the freaking gorgeous trees – maybe bring my camera along to get some autumn shots before all of the leaves fall.”

  Charlotte is pretending to snore loudly, her mouth hanging open and her head leaned all the way back, and I scowl at her.

  Mockingly, I interrupt her phony sleep,  my tone biting and impatient. “Why, Lottie, what’s your remarkable idea for us to do today? Bungee jumping? Cliff diving?”

  “Actually, I was thinkinnnng,” Charlotte draws the word out obnoxiously long, and Z mutters, “that’s never good,” under her breath.

  Charlotte rolls her eyes and continues, “I was thinking we should organize some sort of formal dance. I mean, we’re all supposed to be at this super prestigious private college, right? So if we never have picture proof of collegiate events for our Facebook pages, how is anyone supposed to believe us?”

  “Nobody I know expects pictures from me,” I tell her. “I was in a psych ward for the first three years of my expected college experience. You don’t take pictures in there. Everybody looks like a bunch of drugged-up monsters.”

  “That is not true,” Charlotte argues, mocking me. “I bet you looked very cute with bags under your eyes, talking to yourself, with your loose-fitting clothing and plastic sporks at lunchtime.”

  “You’re so cruel,” I laugh despite myself. “But you paint a beautiful picture.”

  “Thanks, it’s a gift,” Charlotte shrugs.

  “It wasn’t really like that,” Z pipes up finally, snapping out of her Louisiana trance. “I was in there with her, remember? It was just a safe place for us to fall. Although, in the end, they couldn’t ‘cure’ us, which is how we got shipped here. Thank God for Lydia being so in tune with our kind. I swear, I owe her my life.”

  “Same here,” I admit. “I am grateful for her involvement at Quiet Creek every single day that I don’t have to be at Quiet Creek anymore.”

  “The QC was a cruel mistress,” Z sighs. “I wonder how Carol-Ann is doing.”

  “Carol-Ann was a girl in our wing who was constantly on suicide watch,” I answer the question on Charlotte’s pancake-eating face. “She was labeled bipolar schizophrenic, with a side of dissociative identity disorder.”

  Charlotte swallows. “Dissociative what?”

  “It used to be known as having multiple personality disorder,” I explain. “Her childhood trauma was so bad that her mind split up into like twenty different people.”

  “I always liked Felicia,” Z admits. “She was freaking hilarious.”

  “Felicia was the mean one,” I roll my eyes. “She was the one that got a kick out of calling us fat.”

  “Well, whatever. She was funny anyway. And besides, we ain’t fat,” Z says confidently. “We’re dead sexy.”

  “Damn straight,” I agree, high-fiving her.

  “Yeah, yeah, curvy girls rule, skinny girls drool; you could use me as a toothpick; why have a twig when you can have the whole tree; eat a cheeseburger – I’ve heard it all,” Charlotte waves off our declaration of chubby girl pride. “Now tell me if this Carol-Ann girl was an Outsider like us.”

  “No, Carol-Ann wasn’t an Outsider,” I shake my head. “She was just nuts.”

  “She wasn’t nuts, Georgia Lynn,” Z corrects in Carol-Ann’s defense. “She was completely traumatized. Wrecked for life. Her stepfather was a cruel, sadistic bastard who did unspeakable things to her and her younger brother. I’d be nuts, too, if I went through what she had gone through.”

  “What happened to her brother?” Charlotte asks, her face wrinkled with concern.

  “He shot himself,” I state; the words come out before I can soften them.

  “Oh, my God, I didn’t want to know that,” Charlotte blanches. “You couldn’t have shielded me from that ugliness?”

  I give her a wry look. “Did you ask me a direct question?”

  “Yeah, but…” Understanding lights her face. “Ohhhhh. Right. I’m sorry about that.”

  “I forgive you,” I chuckle softly. “It’s easy for others to forget that truth comes out of me like projectile vomit against my will.”

  “That’s just gross, Georgia,” Charlotte laughs. “Mm, now let me dig in to these gorgeous, soggy pancakes.”

  “That’s what she said,” Z blurts, and we both burst out laughing.

  “Sick!” Charlotte chokes. “You guys are sick!”

  When the laughter dies down, and I wipe my eyes, I turn to face Charlotte again. “So are you serious about this whole formal dance thing, Lottie? It sounds a little tame for it to be your idea.”

  “I resemble that remark,” Charlotte jokes. “But yeah, I am serious about it. I think it would be really fun. We could make it all, magical and whatnot. I was always a loner in high school, so I missed out on all that crap. But I think it’d be fun for us freaks to get all dolled up and dance around all night.”

  “Should it have a theme? Like, a masquerade ball?” Z asks, her eyes lighting up with enthusiasm and ideas.

  “Yeah, and we should all speak in confusing period English, and go out and marry perfect strangers from rival families against our parents’ wishes,” Charlotte says, all Shakespearean sarcasm.

  “Better have an apothecary on speed dial for that idea,” I joke, and Z scowls at me.

  “You are both jerks,” she declares disapprovingly.

  “And using classic literature to be jerks, no less,” Charlotte holds up a finger, pleased with herself.

  “That’s what classic literature was meant for,” a male voice interjects from behind me. Charlotte’s golden brown eyes are wide for unknown reasons and I wonder at whom she’s staring.

  “I mean, being a jerk is entertainment, right? And that’s what Will Shakespeare was all about – I’m pretty sure he was a total smartass,” the voice continues as it pulls out a chair right beside me and its owner plops down in it.

  “I’d have to agree,” Z speaks up, and I can see she is hiding a huge grin from me. “You read a lot of Shakespeare in your spare time, Mr. Browning?”

  My heart seizes at that name, and I’m ticked off at its unwelcome violent reaction.

  “I do enjoy the Bard, yes,” Lucas Browning tells my best friend in a voice that’s nearly as smooth as a Frank Sinatra ballad. “I prefer to hear poetry in the form of lyrics, though.”

  I swallow, hard.

  He’s a musician? Come on, now, that just isn’t fair.

  Nadia sits down beside Charlotte out of nowhere, and grins at my most recent thought.

  Jerk, I think at her fumingly. You invited him over here just to torture me.

  Her lips are still twisted in a smug grin, but she says nothing.

  “How about you – Georgia, is it?” Lucas turns his attention on me, and I bite the inside of my cheeks.

  “Georgia Freebird,” I hold my hand out to him, refusing to turn my head.

  “Freebird, like the Skynyrd song? That’s incredible,” Lucas takes my hand and squeezes it, but I shake his, trying to ignore how warm and scratchy his palm is as it presses against mine.

  “Our dad is an absolute superfan of Lynyrd Skynyrd,” Nadia tells him, her musical voice tinged with amusement as I pull my hand away. “He got his last name changed legally to Freebird the day he turned eighteen.”

  “That is most likely the greatest thing I’ve ever heard,” Lucas laughs, and the sound is so pleasant to my ears that it makes my stomach twist. “Did you guys ever get to see them play?”

  “Dad has, at least ten times,” I speak up, trying to be friendly despite the discomfort I feel. Plus, I have no choice, knowing the question is probably directed at me. “I love them but I was young when he and my mom went to their more recent concerts, and the other times it was before I was born.”

  “If you like them at all, you have to see them live,” Lucas tells me, waving his hands for emphasis. “It’s pretty much a redneck festival, but there is nothing in the world like Free Bird live.”

  “I know, just the recording I’ve heard of it live is better than anything,” I admit. “I can’t listen to the shorter studio version – it isn’t the same.”

  “I know!” he exclaims, squeezing my elbow.

  The contact of his calloused fingertips with my bare skin forces me to look over at him, even though after I do, I wish I hadn’t.

  His eyes are lit with excitement at our conversation, and are the greenest I’ve ever seen in my life, with just the slightest hint of brown; his hair is medium-dark brown and almost as perfect as Patrick Dempsey’s, and the matching thick stubble all over his perfectly angled jaw makes my stomach flip back to its original place in my guts. And when I realize that the girls have left us completely alone, it twists right back inside out again.

  “We should go see them when they come on tour near here,” he is saying eagerly, and I’m trying not to watch his perfect boy lips as they move. “Even if it means we gotta take a road trip. I know hearing Free Bird pouring from those giant speakers for fifteen straight minutes will change your life, because it definitely changed mine.”

  His speaking voice is so lovely to my ears, it’s like Michael Buble, John Mayer, and Frank Sinatra had some sort of freaky alien lovechild and he was sitting right beside me going on and on about one of my favorite songs in the universe. It makes my heart pound ridiculously fast, and I wonder what his singing sounds like.

  “Do you sing?” I ask, before I can stop myself.

  My cheeks burn, and I realize I have let my mouth get ahead of me yet again. “What I mean is, I do, which is why I love music so much, and often if people are music lovers, they tend to be musicians too because they can appreciate it…”

  “Yes,” he smiles at me, which is just cruelty to my pulse. “I do sing. Do you?”

  “I just said I do, didn’t I?” I tease.

  “I didn’t hear it in all the gibberish,” he teases back. “Do you play?”

  “No,” I shake my head, surprised by his calling me out. “I wish I did. For now, I can only strum the vocal chords.”

  “Sometimes that’s more beautiful than any manmade instrument anyway,” Lucas shrugs.

  “Do you play?” I ask, toying with my napkin.

  “Yes.” This time, his smile is just a half-lifting of the corner of his lips, crooked and gorgeous, and I swallow hard so that I don’t say anything stupid.

  “What?”

  “What, what?” he cocks an eyebrow, still smirking at me like I’m a dork.

  Which, I am.

  “What do you play?” I concentrate very hard on my words so that nothing unnecessary falls out of my mouth.

  “Piano, and guitar,” he shrugs like it’s no big deal. “I started piano when I was four, thanks to my father being a piano teacher, and went through my rebellious phase at age thirteen when I first picked up an acoustic. My dad was mortified, but my mother paid for lessons because she didn’t want me living in his shadow.”

  “That was a nice life story answer to my question,” I tease.

  “Well, it was a loaded question,” he jokes back. “For me, anyway. Music has always been my life. So, in my ears, it sounded like you wanted to hear my life story.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind,” I say to him, getting up from the table with my dirty plate and glass in hand.

  “Where are you going?” he asks, looking up at me with imploring eyes.

  “To put my dishes in the kitchen,” I tell him, which is the simplest version of the truth. “I need to talk to Jonathan – one of the cooks – about something.”

  “He your boyfriend?” Lucas asks, too casually.

  I half-smile at his transparency. “Now, wouldn’t you like to know?”

   

  • 7:28 pm
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