Sleeping Awake (10 page)

I smiled, eager to see her reaction
once I had corrected her. “I met him at a party.”

She abandoned her tea, turned
in her seat so that she had a perfect view of me, and just stared. It was a bit
discomforting.

“Stop it,” I demanded.

 “Who are you and what have you done with my sister?”
she asked.

“Whatever,” I muttered. “His name is Nicolaas.”

“And is he of this planet?”

If anything, tact was something that Cienna was
definitely lacking. My hands clenched tighter around the steering wheel. “Stop
it. He’s French.”

“French?” Cienna snorted. “You couldn’t pay me a
million dollars to date a French man.”

“Not all French men are bad, Cienna,” I warned.

“I’ll take your word for it if you and this Nicolaas
fellow make it past summer’s end,” she said, folding my arms. She turned to
gaze out the window, finally becoming silent. Soon, she started chewing on her
nails. A few minutes later, she was tugging and kneading her lips, like dough.
I didn’t know what was worse: the anguished silence or her rude remarks about
my ability to attract men. Finally, she swivelled in my direction again.

“Do you get scared when you’re around men who like
you?” she asked.

I wasn’t expecting that. My eyebrows rose. “Scared?”

“Yeah, you know. Do you stop breathing and do you feel
nauseated and defensive?”

“Does that sound like a normal reaction to you? What’s
going on?”

She bit her lip. “I went to dinner with Andreas last
night. He forced me into doing it.”

“Andreas is the person who sent you those flowers,
no?” I asked.

She nodded.

“And how did he trick you into it?” I inquired.

“He showed up at the photo shoot with more flowers and
got down on one knee. I only said yes so that he’d leave and stop embarrassing
me.
Everyone
was watching,” she said. “To be honest, I forgot about it
until he showed up last night. Maman opened the door when he arrived, and I
couldn’t bring myself to take away her happiness. I went to dinner with him, in
his home, with the candles and home-cooked meal, and I was scared shitless.”

“Well why do you think that you felt that way?” I asked,
trying my hardest not to laugh as I imagined Cienna, her eyes two times their
normal size and knees buckling under the table as Andreas came close to pour
the wine.

“I don’t know!” She threw her hands in the air.
“That’s why I asked you. You’re the one who’s been to all those psychiatrists.
Haven’t you learned anything at all?”

“I’m not insane; I’m unwell. If I take my medicine,
I’ll get better,” I replied, reciting the script that had been drilled into my
head.

“And how’s that going for you?” Cienna asked, dryly.

I met her answer with silence and stared ahead. She
started flicking the pair of ballet shoes around the rear view mirror.
Eventually, I muttered my reply.

“Are you reaching out to fish, Noira?” she asked.
“Humans can’t hear at those decibels.”

“Some days are better than others,” I repeated. I
didn’t look at her.

“I see,” she replied. “Well you’re going tanning for
him, which is a step in a positive direction, no?”

“That’s one way of looking at it,” I replied. “Enough
about me. How did you survive your date if men petrify you?”

“Men do not petrify me!” she countered. “And I
survived the date by drinking three quarters of the bottle of red wine.”

I couldn’t help my reaction; I threw back my head and
started convulsing like an epileptic. My whole body was in that laugh. Tears
sprang from the corner of my eyes. When finally I was able to stop the laughter
I let out a long, low whistle.

Cienna’s teeth struggled in the corners of her mouth
against her shaking lips as she watched me. “You sounded like a train pulling
into a station,” she informed me. “I fully expected to see steam coming from
the corners of your black dress.”

“Sorry,” I replied. “So you almost drank an entire
bottle of wine…”

“Liquid courage.” Cienna continued, rolling her eyes.
“It made me tell Andreas things that I’d never admit and even worse, I have
another date with him.”

I reached over and patted her head.

She slapped me away. “I’m not a dog!”

“On the bright side,” I said, ignoring her. “At least
people will stop thinking that you’re a lesbian.”

“And on the dark side, I’ll just get drunk again and
tell him some more secrets. Want me to let him in on a few of yours?” Cienna
shot me a look of contempt.

“What on earth could he have possibly gotten you to
admit?” I asked. “Why are you so worked up?”

“He guessed that I use my anger as a defence
mechanism,” she said.

“Well you do.”

“Yes, but I didn’t know that people knew that!”

“Not everyone does;” I replied. “Just those who know
you.”

“Which is precisely the point!” She wailed. “He is not
supposed to know me! I don’t like him, and I have never hung out with him!”

“Maybe he’s your soul mate,” I mused.

 “Like Nicolaas is yours?” She snapped.

“Nicolaas is not my anything,” I replied, staring
straight ahead. There was a slight twitch in my jaw.

“Oh really?” Cienna smirked. “Then why are you getting
a tan?”

I didn’t bother to reply.

Cienna started twirling the ends of her curls as she
turned to look out the window. Her entire body jerked as she tapped her feet.
We sat through three red lights before she spun towards me. “Do you believe
that it’s possible to change after years of being a specific person?”

I thought about her question for a while before
answering. “Are you sure that you shouldn’t be asking someone else who is more
qualified?”

“I’m asking the right person,” she replied. “If anyone
needs changing for the better, it’s you.”

I tried my best to ignore her last comment. “I think
that change is possible, but only if the person really wants to change. What
exactly are you trying to change?”

“Everything,” she declared. “Who lives like this,
Noira?”

“Who tans regularly, gets chauffeured in a Range Rover
because she’s too fragile to drive, and has a closet that Carrie Bradshaw would
envy, you mean?”

 She pushed me gently. “Go away. That’s not what
I meant. Who gets so scared that her natural reaction is to run when a boy
comes close to her? And who barks at people so that they won’t see what she’s
really feeling? Up to last week, I thought that nothing was wrong with me, when
clearly there was. Why did no one say anything?”

“Would you have listened?” I asked.

“Probably not,” she admitted. She sighed again and
gazed out the window. “Why am I like this?” she whispered.

Do you want an honest answer?” I asked, turning the
car into a parking space.

Cienna turned in her seat again. “Enlighten me,
Freud.”

“It’s because you’re hurt.”

“How am I hurt?”

I smirked. “Don’t ask stupid questions, Cienna, you
use words that most people need a dictionary to understand and get A’s without
trying. We’re all hurt; we just show it in our own reckless way.”

“You make it sound so simple,” she replied.

“Oh but it is.”

“So if it’s so simple, why are you the textbook
definition of psychotic? Why don’t you just get over your hurt and be normal?”

“There’s more to me than just being hurt, Cienna,” I
whispered. My frown was back. “Besides, life is far more interesting when
you’re crazy.”

*~*

My conversation with Cienna
had left me drained. Once we got home, I went straight to my bedroom, kicked
off my shoes and got under the covers. Functioning as a normal person was very
tiring.

I burrowed deep under the
comforter and willed sleep to come. After a few minutes, my breathing began to
even, and I felt the familiar calm that usually came before slumber. Just
before I drifted into unconsciousness, an image of Philippe popped into my
head. I sat up.

“Damn you, Cienna!” I cursed.
I fell back on to my pillow and groaned. I knew that I wouldn’t be able to
sleep now.

As much as Cienna’s crisis was
affecting me, I was right about one thing; I was hurt. My entire family and my
dog might as well have died and left me alone in the world, for that was how I
felt after waking up that first day and realised that Philippe would no longer
be coming back.

I ran to his office expecting
to see him there, waiting to tell me that is was all a lie. His desk was empty.
I knew then that he was really gone. Like a book knocked off a shelf, I tumbled
haphazardly to the floor. My sorrow floated above me, bounced off the walls and
barrelled their way through the office door. It didn’t stop when my attendant
came and dragged me, kicking and slapping her, up the stairs. I was like a
wounded stray, too wild to know that anything could possibly help me.

I didn’t understand what any
of it meant. I refused to calm down. I kicked the lamp off the nightstand in my
bedroom. When that didn’t stop the pain, I threw my pillows to the floor. I
went over to my bookshelf and started ripping apart the books. Philippe had
bought nearly all of them. If he didn’t want me, I didn’t want them. I screamed
until my throat bled. When I could no longer vocalise what I was feeling, and I
was too tired from destroying my room, I crawled onto my discarded pillows and
fell asleep.

When I woke up, it was dark.
The house was so silent that I could hear myself breathe. Normally, I would
have called for Maman, but I knew that she wouldn’t come. She’d locked herself
into her room the day before and refused to come out. I told myself that I had
done something wrong to push Maman and Philippe away. I was barely twelve; what
did I know about life and love? What did I know about complications? Math was
complicated for me at the time; I didn’t understand that things could get more
complex than that.

I didn’t want to be alone; the
darkness scared me. Slowly, I made my way through the mess and went into
Cienna’s room next door. She and Camelea were cuddled together, sleeping on her
bed. I joined them. When the attendant came to wake us the next morning, I
didn’t bother to open my eyes.

“
Laissez-nous tranquille!”
I yelled, pulling the covers back over my head.

“But you have to go to
school,” she pleaded.

“Then tell Maman to come and
wake us,” I shot back.

Maman never came. No one tried
to get us out of that room again. We stayed in Cienna’s bed, sleeping and
crying and becoming as gray as the Parisian skies until one day in the middle
of July when Grandpa Bill arrived from Jamaica, where he had retired after my
grandmother, Hélène died.

Like Maman, Grandpa Bill was
used to hardship when it came to love. His and Grand-mère Hélène’s story was
atypical. He was the black driver, and she, the white debutante from Louisiana whom
he chauffeured. Needless to say, a baby was the outcome of their secret
café
au lait
union; Maman. My great grandfather, Marc Jeannot, was none too
pleased with the news. Despite this, he paid for Maman to attend the best
schools, and as a graduation present, she was sent to Paris for the summer,
where she met Philippe. Fifteen years later, she was finally going to make the
journey back home.

When Grandpa told us to go and
have a shower, we didn’t contest.

“Do you think that he’s going
to live with us?” Camelea asked as we dressed for breakfast.

“I don’t know,” I replied.

“Do you think that Maman is
going to be downstairs?” Camelea asked again.

“I don’t know,” I said.

“Do you think that Papa is
going to be downstairs?” Cienna ventured.

“I don’t know!” I yelled.
“
Laisse-moi tranquille!”

They knew to stop bothering me
then.

When we went into the dining
room, we were surprised to find Maman sitting in her usual seat. I turned
slightly, expecting to see Philippe. It was just Grandpa Bill. No one spoke
during the meal. Two days later, the movers arrived. Grandpa Bill told us told
to show them all that we wanted to take with us.

“No,” he said. “Before you
even ask, we aren’t going to see Philippe.”

We got on a plane at the end
of July and flew to New York. By August, Maman had gotten rid of our attendant.
She took us to St. Croix for two weeks. She came back to us then, and we never
spoke of France or Philippe again. Eleven years later, I was apparently still
the wreck that I had been after I’d destroyed my room and fallen to pieces on
the floor.

I got out of bed, opened my
curtains and went over to my vanity. I stood before the mirror for a good five
minutes trying to recognise the little girl from Paris in my facial features. I
tugged on my cheeks, pulled my hair back, did a half-turn and smiled. She
wasn’t there.