Page 126

"Well let's celebrate your giving Ruby your ring. Let's all go someplace. How about the Green Door? They don't check for IDs, or at least they never used to."

"We told Daphne we were staying at home tonight and it's late already, Gisselle. She'll be home soon."

"No she won't, and what's the difference what we said? She's being different, isn't she?"

"Which is why I don't want to upset her," I replied. "How about popcorn? We'll make it in the fireplace and play backgammon."

"Oh, that's just bundles of fun. Come on, John. Let's go back up to my room and leave these two old people knitting in the parlor." She ran her hand along John's upper arm. "Isn't he strong? I feel like a baby in his arms." She kissed him on the neck, and John blushed and smiled at Beau. "I'm so helpless," she wailed. "But John is gentle, aren't you, John?"

"What? Sure."

"Then let's go up. I need my diaper changed," she said, and laughed. I thought John was going to drop her, but he turned away, his face crimson, and hurried out of the parlor with her bouncing in his arms and giggling.

"I can't help wondering," Beau said, "why I ever started with her."

"It was Fate, Destiny. If you hadn't," I told him, "you and I might never have met."

"I love you, Ruby. I love the way you can find the good in things, even in someone like Gisselle."

"That's a challenge," I admitted, and we laughed. Then he asked me to play Louis's symphony. We sat listening with his arm around me.

"It's wonderful how you inspired someone to do something so beautiful," he confessed.

At twelve we went upstairs to call John out of Gisselle's room. She complained, of course, and did her best to try to get him to stay, if simply to violate Daphne's curfew. But Beau wasn't taking any chances about riling Daphne again. He told John sternly to come out and he did so.

I kissed Beau goodbye at the door and then went upstairs.

Gisselle was waiting in her doorway. The sight of her standing, even though I knew she was capable of doing it any time she wanted, still looked

incongruous and surprising.

"Well aren't you the happy one now," she said. "You've got Beau Andreas forever and ever."

"Do you want someone forever and ever too?" I asked.

"Of course not. I'm too young. I want to explore, have fun, have dozens of different

boyfriends, before I marry someone just dripping with money," she said.

"So why are you jealous?"

"I'm not jealous." She laughed. "I'm hardly jealous."

"Yes you are, Gisselle. You won't admit it, not even to yourself, but you want someone to love you, only . . . no one's going to love someone so selfish."

r />

"Oh, don't start one of your lectures," she whined. "I'm tired. John's a very good lover, you know," she added, smiling. "A bit stupid, but a good lover. My pretending to be so helpless turns him on. It turns them all on, you know. Men like feeling in charge, even though they're not. I could play him like a . . . a flute," she said, laughing.

"So then you are going to keep pretending to be crippled?"

"Until I don't feel like it anymore. And if you have any ideas about exposing me . ."

"I really don't care what you do, Gisselle, as long as you don't hurt anyone I care about," I said. "Because if you do . . ."

"I know. You'll break my neck. The only neck that's going to be broken around here is yours when Beau's parents find out what he's given you. You'll have to give it back, you know. You had better prepare yourself for it. Good night, dear sister, and oh . . . merry Christmas."

She closed her door and left me trembling in the hallway. She was wrong; she had to be wrong, I thought. Besides, tomorrow morning I would show Nina Beau's ring and ask her to prepare a chant or find a ritual that would throw a blanket of protection around our love.