Sleeping Awake (12 page)

Fuck.

"This is why you should
take your medication," Dr. Stein’s voice hissed in my ear. “Don't you want
to be well, Noira?”

What's the point? You're only
going to be disappointed in the end, aren't you? Smile today, cry tomorrow.
Here one moment, gone the next. It's the way of the world, isn't it?

"Don’t you love
yourself?"

I sometimes thought about what
it would be like to break the mirror in the bathroom and to use the glass to
slit my throat. In high school when I went swimming during physical education, I
fantasised about remaining under water and holding my breath for so long that
my lungs had no other choice but to collapse. I spent a lot of time thinking
about how best to end my life.

Dying really was an art, an
exquisite one at that… Everyone knew that I could more than paint a pretty
picture.

**~*~*~**~*~*~**

The sun hung languidly in the
sky, dripping ever so slowly over the garden, like honey oozing from
honeycombs. As luck would have had it, our central air decided to break down,
and it required a part that would be delivered the next week. I sat on my bed,
windows wide open with the ceiling fan turned on high. I was practically asleep
when the phone rang and startled me.

“Hello?” I wanted to yawn, but
that would have required extra muscle movement.

“Mooi?”

Nicolaas.

“Hello!”

“What are you doing, Mooi?” he
asked.

“Waiting for you to climb up
my tower and rescue me,” I replied.

“Well let down your hair,
Rapunzel. I’m almost there.”

“Almost where?” I sprang up in
the bed.

“At your tower. I’m about
twenty minutes away, give or take.”

“Twenty minutes?” I cried. I
looked across the room at the mirror, which sat atop my armoire. My hair was
plastered to my face and there was an unmistakable sweat stain on the front of
my tank top.

“Yes. Have you got anything
flapper-like?” Nicolaas continued. It was as if he hadn’t heard the alarm in my
voice.

“Flapper-like?”

I didn’t need to do a mental
sweep of my wardrobe to know that I did not in fact have anything flapper-like.

“1920s fashion…”

“I know what flappers are,” I
snapped. I was trying my hardest not to panic. Nicolaas was on his way and
expected me to be dressed like a 20s It Girl. Where in the hell was I supposed
to find something flapper-like?

At the same moment, Cienna
fluttered past my room door.

“Nicolaas, I have to go and
get ready.” Dropping the phone on the bed, I jumped up and raced out my door.
“Cienna!”

Cienna stopped just seconds
shy of Camelea’s room door and turned. “You summoned?”

Realizing that it was then or
never, I swallowed my pride and made my request. “I need your help. Please.”

There was a mirror in the
hallway, but I didn’t look to see how I must have seemed as I shifted my weight
from one foot to the next and tugged on my skirt.

“With what?” Cienna’s eyebrow
rose up her tiny forehead.

“Nicolaas is about twenty
minutes away and apparently I have to dress like a flapper and I don’t know
anything about dressing like a flapper except that they had those feather
things in their hair and smoked and I just don’t know if I have anything
that’s…”

Cienna’s hands clamped over my
mouth. Her eyes locked with mine. “Breathe.”

I nodded, slowly inhaling.

“Are you going to a costume
party?” She removed her hands from my mouth and took a step backwards.

I shrugged. “He just said that
he was twenty minutes away and that I was to dress like a flapper.”

“Hhhmmm well flapper, I can
do,” Cienna said. “I don’t know about the being ready in twenty minutes part…”

Turning ever so slightly, she
leaned her head towards Camelea’s room. “Camelea!”

Camelea appeared in her
doorway looking as sour as always. “Yes?”

“Nicolaas will be here in
twenty minutes,” Cienna said. “Get him a cocktail and keep him busy. I have to
turn Noira into a flapper.”

Camelea continued to stare.

“For fuck’s sake, woman!”
Cienna snapped. “Do your Christian duty and help your sister out!”

Camelea rolled her eyes and
started walking towards the stairs. The doorbell rang.

“He said twenty minutes!” I
squeaked.

Cienna grabbed my hands and
pulled me as she walked. “Breathe, Noira, or I’ll go back to my
Vogue
.”

I nodded, breathing through my
mouth all the while.

“Now… When you return, if you’ve
even so much as a piece of thread missing from my dress, I will kill you,”
Cienna warned.

I nodded once again,
struggling not to roll my eyes, and followed behind her.

After a hasty shower, the
plucking, rouging and curling seemed to go on for eternity as I sat before her
wall-length vanity mirror and allowed her free reign of my body. I kept my eyes
closed, not wanting to see just what she was doing to hide my imperfections and
make me flawless.

“Finis!”
Cienna finally cried.

Slowly, I opened my eyes. I
could barely recognize the person with the smoky eyes and hair that was tightly
curled to flank the sharpness of her facial features. The dress was the deepest
of reds and set against my skin, made me glow. I was initially worried about
the deep V-neck—it only ended as the dress fitted to my stomach, like a
corset, and resumed its flow into the skirt. Thankfully, Cienna fished some
tape out of her drawer and all was right in the cleavage world. As I twirled in
her mirror, the skirt of the dress gave the illusion of being long, but
steadily appeared shorter with the dipped, scalloped hemline.

“Well?” Cienna asked.

“Wow,” I breathed.

She beamed. “Ravishing, no?
And to think that it only took me an hour!”

“Thank you.” I managed. I
couldn’t bring myself to look away from the mirror. “I look…”

“Marvellous!” Cienna did a
little clap.

I turned. Convention called
for us to have a sisterly embrace, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Instead
I squeezed her hand and quickly pulled away. “Thank you.”

She shrugged, turning quickly
as her cheeks rouged. “Just don’t scuff my shoes or spill anything on my
dress.”

I nodded. I glanced once more
at my reflection in the mirror and walked as gracefully as I could out of her
room and down the stairs. As my heels hit the marble of the first floor, the
chatter in the parlour ceased and two sets of eyes turned towards me.

The smile on Nicolaas’ face
seemed to reach his eyes as he stood. “Mooi.”

Mooi. Beautiful. His name for
me.

I felt the familiar surge of
adrenaline as Nicolaas crossed the room and took my hands.

“Bye Camelea,” I called.

Once we were outside, Nicolaas
pulled me towards him in the fiercest of embraces. I leaned forward, eager to
inhale his scent. He wouldn’t let me. Instead, he pushed me slightly against
the door. His fingers trailed the length of my arms and down, down, down before
making their journey upwards and languidly crossing over the curves of my
breasts. He bent his head and kissed the base of my neck. As he sighed, his
breath sent ripples through my body.

“Mmmm…” he moaned. “You look delicious.”

I lifted his head and pulled
his face towards mine.
He
tasted delicious.

“Let’s go,” he whispered,
“before I decide against going to the party.”

Nicolaas held my hand as we
drove deeper and deeper into Long Island. I closed my eyes and tried not to
imagine what it would be like to have his lips pressed against mine—tried
not to remember what it
felt
like to have his lips pressed against my
skin, making his way slowly down my spine and sending spasms through my body. I
shivered.

After about forty-five
minutes, we turned onto a private road that cut through a forest. As we got
closer to the house, the pepper lights that were draped along the trees
twinkled through the night. In the centre of the driveway a fountain with a
statue of a cherub lit up the driveway. Nicolaas swerved to the right and
joined the queue that was circling the drive.

“Where are we?” I whispered as
Nicolaas and I began the ascent into the sprawling mansion. The house loomed
above us with its ornate trimmings and sprawling columns.

“Pascal’s house; his birthday
party. I only remembered about it when a friend of ours called to see if I’d be
here tonight.”

“So that’s why I had no
forewarning,” I mused.

“Sorry about that. I receive
too many invitations to keep track of what’s happening and when. I usually just
rely on someone calling to see what time I’m going to be somewhere in order to
decide where to go that evening.” Nicolaas shrugged and nodded at someone ahead
of us. “I suppose that I should just hire a social secretary…”

“Perhaps,” I agreed. We
stepped into the mansion and joined another queue. Inside screamed “fussy old
woman” with everything in various shades of pink and enough frills to make a
classroom of pre-school girls’ party dresses.

 “Are you sure that we’re
at the right place? This doesn’t seem like a man’s home…”

“He just inherited it from his
grandmother,” Nicolaas replied. “Apparently he hasn’t bothered to redecorate.”

I nodded. “Will Bryn be here?”

“Bryn was supposed to have
been here, but he went to Palm Springs with a friend of his. I can’t remember
her name; I think that it begins with A…”

“Anjali,” I replied.

He nodded. “Yes, her. He’ll be
back tomorrow.”

The doors to the ballroom were
held opened for us and with a quick whisper, we were being announced.

“Monsieur Nicolaas Armgard et
Mademoiselle Noira Saint Clair.”

I inhaled deeply
as I took in the sight before me. Men in sharp tuxedos embraced
très chic
women dressed in their various flapper fashions, furs, rouged cheeks, and short
hairstyles. I felt like Cinderella before the ball.

“You decided to
grace us with your presence, I see!” Out of nowhere, a Marlon Brando
look-a-like appeared at our side. He handed us each a glass of champagne.

“I always make
time for the little people,” Nicolaas replied good-naturedly.

The stranger
rolled his eyes and turned his gaze towards me. If I were meat on a plate, I
imagined that he’d waste no time in devouring me. “Going to introduce me to
your delectable friend?”

My cheeks
rouged.

Nicolaas frowned
and pulled me closer. “Pascal this is my
girl friend
, Noira. Noira, this
is Pascal, my whore-of-a-flatmate during the St. Andrews years.”

“Me, a whore?”
Pascal rolled his eyes again. “One simply has to read the papers to see who’s
the biggest whore of us all...”

I giggled and
took a sip of my champagne.

“Oh!” Pascal’s
face froze. “Am I offending you?”

I shook my head.
“I’ve read all about Nicolaas. Go on; this is entertaining.”

“Go away,
Pascal, before you really ruin things for me.”

“I’ll just go
off and mingle with the interesting people, shall I?” Pascal said, sneering a
bit.

“See you
tomorrow at polo,” Nicolaas replied, raising his glass of champagne.

Pascal turned
towards me. He took my hand and kissed it. “I bid you farewell, my dear. Your boy
friend is threatened by my virility.”

With a final
look of contempt in Nicolaas’ direction, Pascal disappeared into the crowed.

“Sorry about
that,” Nicolaas said. “His brain is light years behind his tongue.”

I smiled,
finishing my champagne. “It’s nothing that I didn’t know before.”

I placed my
empty glass on the tray of a passing waiter. A Paul Whiteman tribute band
stirred mayhem as a Bix Beiderbecke tune began. I tapped my feet on the
ballroom floor.

“Dance with me.”
Nicolaas took my hand and reeled me in.

I laughed,
breathing in his scent. Something took over me as we dipped and swayed along
with everyone else. I moved closer to him until we were pressed firmly against
each other. He looked down, a look of surprise on his face. I stood on my
tiptoe and kissed him on his cheek. He smelled like home.

As if on cue, a
fast tune began and we spun away. Nicolaas knew just what to do as we danced. I
felt as if I was being tossed out to sea among the waves as we surfed through
the tide. I didn’t even care that a few tendrils were coming out of the
complicated hairstyle that Cienna had created for the night.

Somewhere after
the fourth song or fifth song, I’d lost count by then, a waiter came by, and
Nicolaas got two more glasses of champagne. It was sweet and went down
smoothly. I licked my lips, catching the stray drop.

“Like it?”
Nicolaas whispered, pulling me closer.

“Yes,” I
replied. I took another sip and sighed. “
Je l’aime beaucoup.”

Nicolaas smiled
down at me.

“What?” I asked,
not being able to help the smile that was forming on my face.

“Nothing, you’re
very beautiful that’s all, Mooi.” He kissed me softly on my eyelids; they
fluttered against his touch.

 “Thank you
for inviting me,” I murmured, snuggling closer. There really was no place that
I’d rather be than right there with him.

“Thank you for
accepting my invitation,” he replied. “It wouldn’t have been the same without
you.”