Explore Her, More of Her (8 page)

“Anton Bisset?” she says.

“You know him?”

“He’s your mother’s brother’s son, which makes him and me unrelated, but Papa still considers him family, so I know him. Like
know
him, know him.”

“Ha! No way!” I say.

“Yes way.”

“Oh my God. He’s strange. Do you know he never even mentioned we were related?”

“He probably thought you should’ve known who he was,” Angelina says. “He’s crazy like that.”

“Crazy?”

“Crazy in a good way.”

“How can one be crazy in a good way?”

“He’s an artist—an exciting and tormented one.”

“Tormented?” I ask.

“You know like,
tormented
.” I visualize her putting her shoulder into the word “tormented” as she says it.

“Oh, got it.”

“He dropped out of college and became hooked on drugs. Then he put his life back together, and now he’s a well-known artist. He makes a lot of money.”

“He said he’s married. Is he?”

“I don’t think so, unless it happened in the last two years.”

“I figured he was just being facetious.” I roll my eyes. “Whatever.”

“I’m so sorry for putting you on that island. I regretted it the minute I left you lying on that bed. You were knocked out, and I just didn’t want to leave you that way.”

I sigh as I sit up. “Stop apologizing, Angel. What’s done is done, and you were only trying to help.”

“But what would happen to all of us if you and Belmont get a divorce?”

“Who are the ‘all of us’ you’re referring to?”

“Maggie…”

“Maggie is like family.”

“Me and you…”

I’m taken aback. “Angelina, we’re sisters. Nothing can tear us apart.”

“I don’t know about that. I’m the one who’s always calling you.”

“But I just called
you
.”

“It doesn’t happen often.”

I frown and shake my head. I can’t believe what I’m hearing. “Like I said, we’re sisters. I’m not going anywhere. I love you.”

“You say that now.”

“I know I suck at relationships—well, healthy ones at least—but I’m getting better at them as I sit here and soak in this royal tub.” I spread my hand across the withering suds. “My husband isn’t answering my calls though. Have you heard from him?”

“No, I haven’t,” she says.

“What about Charlie?”

“No. I don’t know if you’ve heard, but there are some stunning allegations against Belmont.”

I sigh hard. “I heard, but he and I haven’t talked about it. He sent me a text telling me not to worry.”

“Well, Maggie’s been working on clearing his name, and your friend is attached at her hip.”

“What friend?”

“The English guy.”

“Javar Les?” I flinch, splashing water all over the place.

“He was in the apartment when we came to get you, and he just sort of latched on to Maggie.”

I shake my head. “Yes, because he’s a human leech. Maggie’s got to get him off her butt, or he’ll stay there.”

Angelina chuckles. “He’s actually helping her a lot, and he definitely wants you to know about it.”

I roll my eyes. “Then Maggie knows where Belmont is?”

“I don’t think so, Dais. She would’ve called me and said something like ‘Shit, take cover, they’re off the island.’”

I smirk at her sarcastic humor. “Which didn’t happen?”

“Didn’t happen.”

“Okay then...”

Angelina and I chuckle.

“I love you,” I say.

“I love you, too.”

Angelina agrees to call me as soon as the brothers make contact. I invite her and Charlie to the chateau, but Angelina doesn’t think it’s a good idea for her to see Anton. They apparently had a pretty steamy relationship.
 

I finish my bath and put on a purple spaghetti-strap T-shirt dress. I don’t have my computer or my backpack, two things I never hit the road without. There’s a camera on my new phone, so at least I can take pictures. I put on my sandals, stuff my mouth with more cheese and crackers, and head out. I walk down the grassy hill into the vineyard, snapping away. I love the way the soil feels under my feet. I squeeze the grapes, testing their ripeness. They’re too firm to taste.
 

When I find the winery, I take a gamble and push the barn door, and surprisingly, it opens. I walk among the barrels, snapping shots. I’m the only one here, but I see a wine-covered rag on a bench, and it’s pretty fresh. Someone was here not long ago, maybe yesterday or the day before. I take shots of the rafters and the lights attached to them. I get a close-up of the brick pillars. Other than that rag, everything is so neat and in place.
 

To up the adventure factor, I exit out a different door, which puts me on a pathway. Three feet in front of me is a field of trees: pines, oaks, and other wild types. I succumb to my impatience and walk through the wild. Low brush scratches my calves. Dirt slithers between my toes. I glance back at the castle just to get an idea of where I am. It’s not far away, but if I remember correctly, the lake is nearby. I cross the road and keep walking until I’m beyond the grapevines and looking out over the lake. The narrow waterway snakes across the valley. It was probably cut to irrigate the fields. I make myself a seat in the grass, hug my legs, and bask in this perfect moment.

I hear brakes squeal to a halt. I look behind me and see Anton getting out of a car.

“Hello, cousin,” I say.

He grins and walks in my direction. I just noticed that his car isn’t a cab, though perhaps it was at one time. The roof is painted black, but the body is a faded yellow. It’s not the kind of car a man who makes “a lot of money” would drive. However, Anton doesn’t strike me as the type who collects status symbols.

“You like lakes?” he asks.

“Only the muddy ones.” I smile.

Anton scans the cliff that dives into the bank of the lake and the trees on the other side of the water. “To me, it’s old. To you, it’s new. Maybe that’s what you like. The new.” He sits beside me.

I snort. “Another man trying to tell me what I feel.”

“Ah ha. Is that why you do not wear your ring?”

I wiggle my ring finger. “I would wear it if I had it. Peculiar circumstances landed me here without it or my husband.”

“I see.”

“Do you?”

Anton digs into the soil with the heel of his brown leather shoe. They’re nice shoes. He’s the kind of man who thinks about what he wears.
 

“You did not remember me,” he says.

I snicker. “You spoke to Jacques?”

He nods.

“If you’d said something, then I would’ve looked closer and recognized you.”

His chuckle is quiet. “I last saw you at your brother’s funeral.”

“I didn’t see you, but that doesn’t mean you weren’t there. I didn’t see anyone.”

“This I know. You only saw your grief.”

My memories want to carry me back to those days, but I won’t allow that. “I do remember your family visiting us before then.”

Anton tilts his head and studies me. “Home is for losers.”

I snort. “Daniel’s motto.”

“My brother and I thought we were cool until we met you and Daniel.”

“We didn’t do anything that was particularly ‘cool,’” I say.

“You were, as they say, laid-back. That was cool.”

I chuckle. “All Californian kids are laid-back. It’s the air we breathe.”

“No, it was the freedom. When we came in, you and Daniel were leaving. You had skateboards, very long ones.”

“Ah, our longboards.”

He points at his head. “You wore
calottes
.”
 

“Our beanies.”

“You both had long hair.”

“I remember you and Leon thought I was a boy,” I say.

“You remember my brother’s name?”

“I remember you both clearly. You don’t look that much different now than you did then.”

He laughs and rubs his face. “I look old, but you are very beautiful, Daisy. You are no more a tomboy.”

“You don’t look old. I think back then, I was trying to become Daniel, and Daniel wanted me to become Daniel.”

He nods, grinning nostalgically. “You would have gotten away with ditching us if my mother had not asked Tante Heloise where you had gone all day.”

I laugh as I remember why we got in so late from our excursion that day, which had started so early in the morning. “Daniel and I got separated because some guys on Venice Beach tried to steal my skateboard. We took off running in different directions to confuse them.” I chuckle as the memories race through my head. “I jumped a rail and ended up on a patio bar. Even though I was underage, they let me stay because I told them I was being chased. A pack of drunk guys realized I was a girl, and they went after the boys chasing me. It was the sort of crazy day Daniel and I used to always have.”

“I never said I’m sorry, but I’m sorry,” he says.

I flinch. “Sorry for what?”
 

“That my mother complained.”

“Oh, I was a selfish little snot-faced kid. Daniel and I were just lucky nothing seriously bad ever happened to us. We teetered on the line of getting our butts kicked by punk kids every day.” I smile. “But I pouted about being on house arrest longer than Daniel did. He had a way of making a bad situation go up in smoke.”

He nods while smiling at the grass. “We had fun.”

“Jumping off the skateboard and into the swimming pool,” I say.

“You were daredevils…”
 

I chuckle, then we sit in silence. The memories fade into the distance, where they belong.
 

I smile impishly. “So you and Angelina?”

Anton laughs. “You have spoken to Angel?”

My eyes are lit by anticipation as I bobble my head.
 

He shrugs. “She is beautiful.”

“Beauty’s never enough, is it?”

“Her soul is beautiful. Her face and her heart are beautiful. Her dance is beautiful. Her body is beautiful. Her mind is…”

“Beautiful?”

He shakes his head. “Full.”

I can’t help but chuckle. Anton is as melodramatic as most artists, but so far, he’s not as narcissistic.
 

“Is full a bad thing? Women shouldn’t have
full
thoughts?” I ask.

“A woman’s thoughts should not only be full but infinite. Women are men, and men are women. We dream together or not at all.”

“Wow… deep.”

“Not deep. True.”

There’s the arrogance. “And so who was the infinite dreamer: you or Angelina?”

“Angelina was the infinite dreamer. I was kicking a habit.” He bumps his finger against his nose and sniffs, indicating that his addiction was cocaine.

“
Les enfants perdus de Bisset
. The lost children of Bisset,” I say. “By the way, in case you’re wondering, she’s happy and in beautiful love with my brother-in-law, whom she’s infected with her beauty.”

“Infected?”

“I guess he let her make him beautiful too, because he was a hot mess when I first met him—but then, do people actually save people?”

Anton rifles through his pants pocket. He takes out a pack of cigarettes and lights one. He doesn’t ask if I mind, but the French never do. I do mind, but there’s nothing I can do about it.

I stand. “I think I’m going to go home.”

He looks at me with a grimace. “To the United States?”

I nod. “Yeah… it’s time I get back to my husband.”

Anton offers me his cigarette. I shake my head.

He snorts. “You almost made me believe you were a French woman.”
 

I laugh.
 

He hops to his feet. “Stay. We can go to a party.”
 

I pull back. “A party?”

“Yes. Do you dance?”

“Sometimes.”

“You can stay, get to know me and I can know you.”

I twist my mouth contemplatively. I’m dragging it out, but he’s already convinced me. “A party?”

“Yes.”
 

I narrow one eye. “It’s not going be a tame, family, wine-and-kids kind of party, is it?”
 

“Kids? Like goats? We can have goats but
enfants
—no. We will, as you say, have a blast.”

“Okay… then sign me up!”

“You said, yes?”

“That’s a definite, yes.”

Anton’s smile matches mine. “I am happy. Come, I’ll drive you.”

This time, I take the front seat, and Anton drives us to the main house. We enter through the front door and are met by a plump French lady. Anton sweeps his arm around her waist, kisses her cheek, and asks her to make dinner taste special for ma fleur of Mes Fleurs.
 

“Ah…” The lady shakes my hand and tells me that her name is Inés.
 

“Je m’apelle Daisy.”

However, Inés is done humoring me. She waves her tiny hand and tells us that dinner will be ready soon. Anton takes me on a tour of what he deems the only interesting part of the house. We climb the spiral staircase to the castle tower. The brick walls have been painted white, and portraits are tacked to them.
 

“Look. Pépé and Mémé,” Anton says.

I move in close to get a good look at a black-and-white photo of our grandparents. She’s in his arms, and he’s spinning her as they dance. “They look happy.”

“They are happy.”

Our grandparents visit Heloise and Joseph once a year, but I’ve never felt the need to stop by to say hello. I’m too ashamed to admit that to Anton.
 

“Papa said they’re in Switzerland,” I say.

“You are a travel writer?”

“I am.”

“Like you, they love to travel,” he says.

“Maybe I inherited the bug from them.”

“There is no doubt.”

Anton continues my schooling. I like him. He knows I haven’t seen our grandparents in over twenty years, but no part of him knows to judge me for it. We stop to admire photos of his parents, his brother, and his little sister. I’ve never met her. We stop at one of Angelina. Anton slides the backs of his fingers down her face and moves on without comment. There’s a picture of my aunt who lives in Washington, DC. Her name escapes me for moment, but then it comes to me—Lorraine Nestor. There are my father’s brothers: Cyprus, and Pey and Dongo, who are a set of extremely handsome twins. Gosh, I haven’t seen them in eons. By the time we make it to the top, I feel terribly guilty but also curious. I’m not the only one who was left out of the hall of family—so is Anton.