Eau de Beauté
The darkened evening sky and the hot apple cider that Lorona was sipping made her drowsy. Yuki hummed a show tune in her bedroom as she folded laundry. Kyle and Teri had left and the flight to California was only a few hours away, and everything in between its departure and the present time had grown dull as old paper to Lorona.
She reached for her new cell phone, thinking fondly of the familiar scars on her old one. It vibrated with an incoming call. Lorona squinted at the number. Unknown.
Kestrin could be calling from any phone.
“This is Lorona.” She used as neutral a tone as she could manage.
“Lorona darling, it's your mommy-in-law, Amanda. How are you doing?”
The cider in Lorona's stomach threatened to come back up.
“Hi, Amanda,” Lorona bit the edge of her thumb to hold her teeth still. Yuki poked her head out of her room, noticed Lorona's face, and sat down beside her.
“Oh, call me Mom! It's better that way.”
“Mom.” Lorona seized Yuki's hand and squeezed it.
“I think we got off to a teensy bit of a rough start with me and you and Kestrin and all of that this Sunday. Kestrin must have told you that I'm a protective old hag!”
Yuki overheard hag and nodded vigorously.
Lorona remembered Kestrin telling her that his mother would eventually warm up. Could she possibly be as manic as this? She said, “Oh.”
Amanda said, “I was wondering if you would be so lovely as to help me out.”
Lorona swallowed. She wanted a favor. That didn't sound so terrible. “What do you need?”
“I have this bottle of special perfume that I need to pick up before the store closes. They're open till eight-thirty tonight, and I accidentally scheduled my manicure straight across my pick-up time! I know this sounds silly, but I've got to get my nails done for my niece's birthday party and that perfume is supposed to be my gift to her. The people at the shop know me and I've already paid for it in advance, so just give them my name and say you want the bottle of Eau de Beauté that's waiting for me.”
“Water of Beauty?”
“You speak French! Good girl! It shouldn't take you very long. I can meet you at the coffee shop next to my beauty parlor once I've finished my manicure. I'll be getting my nails done at Nails a Plenty in Wallingford. They're keeping the shop open late, since I'm a regular.”
Lorona pushed the cider away. The first thing that came to her mind was: If you have a chance to get on Amanda's good side, take it. Perhaps Amanda had finally bounced to the other extreme, and if there was any little part of Lorona that hoped for a happy ending with Kestrin, she had to make peace with his mother, didn't she?
She took a deep breath. “All right. What's the address?”
Lorona wiped her face with the towel and stood dripping in front of the bathroom mirror, shivering from the cold shower. She was fully alert now. The pallor of her skin made her freckles leap out like a secret message. She chose her cobalt blue dress with the spaghetti straps and wriggled into it. She twisted her hair up and let the curls spill over at the top, then slid on her warm knee-high boots and wrapped herself in a winter coat. The shivering didn't stop.
Yuki gave a low whistle. “You look way too cute. I should come with you.”
“No, I need to do this by myself.” Lorona hoisted her purse over her shoulder. “She's my mother-in-law and I need to stand on my own two feet.”
Yuki tossed the paper with the address to Lorona. “This place is in the industrial district. Just be careful, okay? It's dark out.”
Lorona did her best to ignore all her instincts. She had to park three blocks away and venture down a trash-strewn alley to find the right address. This was no fancy establishment, unless it wanted to maintain a false front.
Lie number one.
Clutching her pepper spray in one hand and her cell phone in the other, Lorona knocked lightly on the door and hoped that no one answered.
A man in a wine-colored Armani shirt answered. The top few buttons were undone and she could see curly black chest hair. Lorona stepped back, sweating as she forced her feet not to turn and run.
“Can I help you?” His voice was oily like the glistening skin on his nose and forehead.
“I am here to pick up a bottle of perfume for Amanda Feather. It's called Eau de Beauté?” Her voice shook.
“Ah yes! Come in,” he waved to her.
Lorona, you are an idiot, she told herself.
Here she was, walking into the perfect place to be mugged, assaulted, or worse. Lorona hiccupped and gritted her teeth as she stepped over the threshold. Her feet echoed on the tiled floor and the door thudded shut heavily behind her. The entire left wall was made of long mirrors edged in dark wood frames. A black marble countertop ran along the wall below the mirrors and plush swivel stools were placed every few feet. Various glittering shapes lay scattered across the counter.
A match hissed and orange light flashed from a white candle that the man placed in her hand.
Don't these people know what electricity is? She shivered.
“Have a seat. I know this isn't a pretty waiting room, but we run a different business here during the day. Amanda is a good friend and we special-order things for her, on occasion.”
“What kind of business do you do?” Lorona asked cautiously.
He beckoned her closer to the mirrors and the candlelight fell across empty bowls, sharp scissors, piles of clean towels, and a row of razors.
“We're an old-fashioned barbershop, Miss.” He gestured to a barber chair and had her sit on it, then spun her to face the mirrors. “We cater to those who prefer things done the old way. You wouldn't believe what some still pay for a close shave without one drop of blood.” He smiled, a little too widely.
Lorona darted a glance at the door. The man moved as if to leave. “If you need anything, you need only to call for me. My name is Angelo.”
He could as easily have been a vampire as a barber. Lorona tore her eyes away from a particularly sharp pair of shears and wished suddenly that Kestrin was with her.
“I should just leave,” she whispered to herself, but the part of her that was desperate to please Amanda whined and made her stay. “Maybe he'll come back with the bottle of perfume, I'll take it and leave, and this will all be over like a bad dream.”
The residue of something dark was spilled across the countertop and Lorona kept telling herself that it wasn't blood, it was a dark shampoo. Lorona gripped the armrests of her chair, closed her eyes, and started humming a Mexican lullaby.
She heard the side door open. It sounded like Angelo was walking very quickly—or perhaps that there was someone with him. She pushed her foot against the floor to spin around and saw three men walking rapidly toward her.
Angelo snapped his fingers and two somewhat stouter men, who might have been his sons, rushed toward her, each grabbing one of her arms and pressing it down firmly into the metal armrests.
“What's going on?” Lorona demanded.
Angelo snarled, all the politeness gone from his oily voice. “Amanda told me why you're really here.” He looked pointedly at the two men who held Lorona's arms and they pulled her to her feet, tore her coat away from her, pressed her back into the chair, and unfastened their belts.
Oh my God. This is it. Lorona squeezed her eyes shut. She felt leather strips binding her wrists to the chair. A cold sweat of relief broke across her forehead. She opened her eyes to see Angelo, very close to her face as he pulled his lips back from his teeth. She smelled basil and heavy cologne. She thought of Kestrin's cologne: airy and fresh like the ocean on a clear day, and she wanted to cry.
Angelo was saying, “Amanda asked me to do this.”
The men standing by her arms laughed.
“She has a grudge she's been holding against you.” Angelo sidled leisurely past Lorona and stood at the countertop where she knew he was surveying the barbershop implements. She heard the gentle zing of metal rubbing against metal. He was manipulating the large cutting shears. She felt his breath in her left ear, but still couldn't see him. “The question is, would a slit nostril appease Amanda?”
Lorona thought of her pepper spray, but she'd dropped it when the two men had grabbed her arms. It was rolling around somewhere on the floor, out of reach.
“Appease her? As if she's some goddess who I've offended?” She felt her confidence returning as she heard her own voice in the dark room. As long as she was speaking, she wasn't dead.
The shears made the metal-against-metal sound very close to her ear. Out of the corner of her eye, Lorona saw a single curl fall to the floor.
“What do you want?” she growled. “I'm not going to offer a bribe. If Amanda wants me hurt, she won't be bought off.”
Lorona suddenly felt overwhelmingly lonely.
“The girl is smart, at least,” muttered one of the nameless cronies by her arm.
Angelo circled her and snipped another curl. It fell into Lorona's lap. He paused for a moment, then slipped the shears under the strap of her dress. He cut both sides, but the dress was tight enough to stay put. He stepped back and studied her, as if assessing what he would cut next.
Lorona shuddered.
One of the nameless men spoke, running a hand from one shoulder, across Lorona's collar bone, to the other shoulder. “I don't know as I'd agree and say there's nothing she can give that we wouldn't want as a bribe.”
Lorona felt the desperate urge to plead seizing her tongue. She bit down on it hard. She'd never wanted to sob so badly in her entire life. She didn't want to look brave anymore. She wanted them to pity her and let her go. Don't touch me. Just leave me alone.
Angelo knelt so his eyes were on level with hers while one of the other men held her head so that she couldn't turn. “Most girls cry when we get this far.”
Since it was all she had, she decided to embrace the tough façade. “It's your lucky day. I don't cry.”
“We'll see if that's still true when I'm done.”
Lorona summoned memories of her mother and barraged him with every Spanish cuss word she could recall. He listened, amused, and then leaned forward and sniffed her hair, luxuriating in his slowness, then drew back, pressing the shears into the flesh by her neck, below her left ear. He waited until the flesh broke, and then made a second cut close by. Again, the sensation of being in the presence of a vampire settled over her.
“Listen carefully.” His voice rumbled in her ear as a warm trickle moved down her neck, “If you go anywhere near Amanda's son again, you will experience much worse than you have seen tonight.”
The belts on her wrists loosened. Angelo drew a finger across the cuts on her neck and licked it. The vampire image was complete.
Lorona jumped off the chair, one hand clutching the top of her dress. She ducked and grabbed her pepper spray, raised it, and hissed, “I swear I will use this if you try to stop me from leaving.”
The two accomplices brought her purse and coat to her, which she thought was very odd. She let go of her dress long enough to snatch them out of their hands and kept her weapon raised. “Stay the hell away.”
Angelo said, “On the contrary, I caution you to stay away from hell. You don't understand who you're dealing with.” He followed her with his eyes, his fingers rubbing together as if he was massaging the remaining blood on them.
Lorona groped for the door handle. As soon as she stood outside, she pulled off her heels and ran the three blocks barefoot to her car. She shut her door and curled up in the driver's seat, shaking convulsively for five straight minutes before her breathing slowed enough to stop wheezing.
Kestrin! All she'd wanted the entire time was for him to appear and smash in their faces, the sort of thing a boyfriend or husband was supposed to do. And then she'd hoped in some insane twist of impossibility that Kestrin would be waiting in the car for her and then he would have been holding now her while she shook. But the car was still empty and Lorona was alone with a thick layer of cold sweat.
…the second in the scent of deception. Lorona heard Madame Ovary whisper inside her head.
Her thoughts froze into an ice dagger that pressed its flat blade against her throat and stopped her from breathing. What if Amanda was right? What if Kestrin had agreed to let her change the locks? What if he'd known about this barber shop mob?
Lorona jammed her key into the ignition, consumed by the frantic need to be held in a hug, in arms that could protect her. She jiggled her steering wheel so fiercely as she drove, she was mildly surprised it didn't twist free of the column before she pulled onto the road in front of her father's house. She'd made the drive in half the usual time, escaped without a speeding ticket, and managed to swallow every single orange-flavored tic-tac from the box she found in the glove compartment.
Yuki gave great hugs, but she wasn't a guardian; Kestrin was gone, and who knew his current state of mind? And although Yuki was logical in her own special way, Lorona knew that if she wanted someone to give a solid, less-hysterical opinion, that only left her one option, however distant the relationship might be. There was one remaining person who she had a right to demand protection and wisdom from, even if just for a few minutes of his time.
The thought that Kestrin might have agreed to let Amanda hire Angelo and his friends to threaten her was too much, but over the last few hours, reality had grown to a heavy mass too terrible to bear anyway, and Lorona didn't trust herself to be a wise judge of things. That was why she needed to talk to her father. She'd almost choked on nothing as she zoomed like a smear of light down the highway.
Her hyperventilation slowed only when she'd stepped out of the car and collided with the calming balm of her father's night-blooming jasmine that grew on the trellis over the main gate. As she let herself into the front garden, she heard fiddle strings cease abruptly and saw the shadow of a man and an instrument move across a lit window on the upper story.
Patrick Connelly flung open the door a few seconds later, dim firelight from within casting his face into a shadow. The porch lantern illuminated Lorona in harsh contrast and though she tried to move her hand in time to cover the cuts on her neck, the shadows didn't conceal her father's expression of shock and horror.
“Lorona? What happened to you?” He pulled her inside and she tripped on the threshold. He caught her with strong arms, though the hairs on them were grayer than she remembered seeing them six months prior when they'd met for Easter brunch.
When he was sure she could stand on her own, Patrick left her to dab her neck with a washcloth as he made a clumsy-sounding commotion in the bathroom medicine cabinet, rummaging for antibiotics and a bandage.
After clearing his throat several times in false starts, he said, “So, what happened? Who did this to you?” He interrupted himself, gave a disgusted glare at the broken straps on Lorona's dress, and disappeared into his bedroom. He emerged with a long sleeve cotton shirt. Lorona finished applying the ointment and Band-Aid to her cuts and pulled the shirt over her head. The light scent of her father's aftershave tickled her nose and, in spite of everything, she relaxed.
Again, Patrick seemed to have difficulty with his speech. He filled a kettle with water, stared at the gas flame under the kettle's belly for several long seconds, and then looked Lorona in the face for the first time since he'd let her in. “Does this mess you're in have anything to do with your new marriage?”
For one sentence, it packed a painfully direct punch. Lorona teetered inwardly for a moment and looked away from his gaze and down at the floor to steady herself.
He physically looked a few inches away from pulling his baseball bat from behind his bedroom door and driving to the last location where Kestrin had been seen. Lorona shook her head, avoiding words and swallowing on a dry throat. “It's complicated,” she said finally.
“Try me.” His voice was still tense, but his eyes quickly softened into the familiar and ever-present guilt, self-imposed blame, that he'd carried on his chest since the divorce.
The kettle boiled and he poured two cups of water and mixed in spoonfuls of hot cocoa powder. Without asking her, he sloshed Bailey's into both mugs. “Drink it all while I'm watching,” he said quietly.
Lorona sipped it and coughed. “My throat is too dry to drink this fast. But I'll finish it.” She forced a smile. “Thanks.”
“Let's sit.” He guided her into the living room where the fireplace glowed in a stone hearth with a few sleepy embers deep in its red mouth.
Lorona curled onto a cushion beside the hearth as Patrick eased into a threadbare armchair. He was staring into his mug, absorbed in frowning thoughts as his toe wriggled in the hole in his sheepskin slipper. After so many years of mutually accepted silence and sporadic communications, starting this conversation felt like embarking on a marathon without training. Finally she said, “I guess we're both just unlucky in love.”
That got his attention. Patrick looked quickly at the fire and then at her, and as he moved his eyes from the embers to her face, it was like he'd brought the flames up with them.
She couldn't help shrinking back slightly.
“What do you mean?” he said. “Did your husband do this to you?” His frown deepened. He was probably plotting violent acts to avenge his daughter.
In spite of the nagging doubt that had wormed its way into her head during the phone call with Amanda, Lorona felt a strong defensive urge crawling up her back, turning her spine into a firm iron rod. “No. It wasn't Kestrin. It was his mother. She—”
“Whoa, whoa. I think we need to backtrack. Who is Kestrin and what did you do to make his mom hate you enough to draw blood?”
Lorona looked down. She didn't want to talk about this, especially since it ran the risk of her losing complete control of herself. Her father didn't like intense displays of emotion because he didn't know what to do with them.
When Patrick realized that she wasn't going to answer, he scooted onto the floor so that their heads were on the same level, though he was still far removed across the room. The firelight caught his graying hair and kindled the remaining strands of red. They had left uncomfortable subjects alone for so long, this must have been monumentally difficult for him.
“Why don't we start with you telling me about Kestrin? That's your husband, right?”
She sighed. “Well, okay, but I don't feel like I really have the right to use that title for him. We were both really stupid. It was fast— the first kiss, the engagement, the wedding…” Lorona blushed. “I think it's safe to say that I married him for all the wrong reasons, my virginity and my vanity being two of them.”
Her father nodded, clearly listening. She watched his throat working up and down as he retreated into his own thoughts. Perhaps he was remembering his own reasons for marrying her mother, reasons he also was too embarrassed to share beyond the vague “We made a big mistake” whenever Lorona had asked him about it.
“I made a huge mistake,” she added, alluding to her thoughts without meaning to. She took a gulp of the hot chocolate and felt her system readily embracing the Bailey's.
“And do you love him, or was it just…” Patrick trailed off, clearly treading with shaky steps on the intimate territory.
“I think I do love him. But I feel like I shouldn't. Like maybe I'm nuts. I should just throw in the towel and move on and admit I made a dumb mistake.”
“You keep saying ‘mistake’ but you squirm every time you say the word. Do you really think this was a mistake, or are you just trying to get me to believe it was?”
Lorona blinked with surprise. The awkward dad was melting away, perhaps with help from the drink, but she had very few memories of her father drunk, and all the ones she had were within weeks of the divorce finalization. No, this was him really meaning what he said and asking a tough question.
She racked her brain to call up a catalog of her father's facial expressions. Anger. That was what she was seeing. She held her breath as he spoke again, his voice hot and raspy.
“So who did this to you, Lorona? I swear to God, I will make sure he can't walk again if it was your charming new husband.”
“No, it wasn't. I already said it wasn't. It was his mom. He would never—”
“His mom cut you and tore your dress?”
“No. She hired someone to do it.”
Patrick cleared his throat again and it sounded like a growl.
“Okay, so here's the brief version,” Lorona said. “I meet Kestrin at a party and we both fall for each other. We were both drinking.” Lorona felt a brief twinge of guilt for her intentional exclusion of the actual amount of vodka. “A day later, he proposes to me and I'm flattered and I say yes and then we're getting married and setting up house and…now he's gone.”
A piece of wood popped and hissed in the hearth.
“I think you skipped a part,” Patrick whispered.
“Well, I found his secret journal and read it, and that changed everything.” Lorona didn't want to talk more about it, so she repeated what she'd said earlier, “I really do think our family must just be unlucky in love.”
He heaved a deep sigh, rolled his shoulders, tilted his head until his neck crackled and said, “If you think you're ‘cursed’ because of what your mother and I did, stop thinking that right now. It's too late for me and her, but back when she was waiting for me to find her, I was busy wallowing in my own self-pity. You have to do what's right, but you can't hide behind the word ‘mistake’ and hope everything else just disappears, because it won't. Believe me, it won't. And don't lie to yourself, either. I did that, too.” He sighed. “I'm sorry that I can't give you better relationship advice.” He didn't meet her eyes.
Lorona faced the fire, trying to hide her own frustration and ward off the sensation of drowning. She pressed her forehead into the hearthstones as if the heat could iron away the stress forming there.
Patrick said, “Where's Kestrin now?”
“Somewhere in California.”
“Is he running away from you?”
She shrugged.
“Are you both set on ending it, then?”
Lorona was about to answer that she thought at least Kestrin was, when she stopped. Again she summoned the idea of her husband maliciously letting Amanda change the apartment lock and then conniving with her to form the plan to scare Lorona in the barbershop. It just wasn't like him.
Kestrin may have a weakness when it comes to resisting his passions, but he's not cruel. I sensed his soul and I knew he was good, she reminded herself. That has to count for something.
And she still hadn't figured out what Madame Ovary's weird riddle had meant, but she wasn't going to find out anything if she sat moping and sipping hot chocolate.
Her dad was waiting her for answer, tugging at a loose string on the hem of his t-shirt.
She said, “No. I actually think it's just his mother who's messing with all of this. I don't know about his journal stuff, but I can't let myself worry over it. I need to see him.”
“And I need to find out who did this to you.”
“She just wanted to scare me. But I'm okay now. That's all that matters.”
“What matters is whether I find out the identities of—”
“Dad, don't. I don't want you getting tangled in this, too.”
“And where does this diabolical mother-in-law live?” he asked.
“Nice try. She's somewhere near Seattle. I'm not exactly sure where.” Lorona's heartbeat quickened. “But I'd say it's safe to assume she's not in California.”
Patrick stood and opened a small box sitting on the mantle. “Are you planning a trip down there?”
“Tickets are already bought, thanks to Yuki's air miles.”
He took something from the box and hid it in his hand. “Then you were planning to go see him this whole time?” Patrick's green eyes were more confused than anything else.
“Yes, but I've changed my position since I got here. I can't be afraid or doubt myself anymore. I have to do what I need to do without flinching. Does that make any sense?”
He nodded, but she could see that he didn't really understand her. Lorona felt the distance between them widening again. She stood.
His hand opened. In his palm sat a copper bracelet set with bright green stones. “It was your mother's. She wore it around her ankle at our wedding. It was supposed to pass to you on your wedding, but…”He smiled weakly at her. “Wear it and think of me.”
Lorona accepted the gift. “Dad?”
He pushed one hand into his jeans pocket and scratched his head with the other. “Yeah?”
“This might sound weird, but can you hug me?”
“Hug you?”
She couldn't remember a real hug since her fourteenth birthday, the year she'd grown her thighs and curves, and she hoped he wasn't thinking the same thing.
“Sure, honey.” He opened his arms and Lorona walked into them. At first he held her limply, as if afraid to apply any pressure, but she squeezed her own arms tight and clung there until she felt his muscles liven and grip her.
“I'm sorry I'm such a bad communicator,” she whispered. “I promise I'll invite you to my next wedding, with whoever it is, Kestrin or someone else.”
His chin tapped her head as he nodded. “I'm just glad you're safe. Whatever you do in California with this husband, don't get hurt, okay?”
“I'll do my best.”
“And if you ever get the names of those guys who did this—”
“The police will never find the bodies. I got it.”
“That's right.”
She pulled back. He reached out and ruffled her hair. “I miss seeing you, kiddo. Let's visit more often.”
She nodded. “Thanks, Dad. Really. Thank you.”
“I don't think I really did much, but—” Patrick broke off with surprise as she hugged him a second time. “But I'm glad it helped.”
Lorona wiped her eyes hurriedly and stumbled toward the front door. She spoke with her back to him. “I love you.”
He was so astonished, he didn't speak, but Lorona looked back and saw his eyes, and it was enough.
