LITMIR.BIZ

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Two

      Every day the Gregoire mansion waited for Eve to arrive. The painters, wood workers, masons, and fabric hangers, who Eve’s friend, Cora had insisted on her hiring were coming closer to finishing the massive list of requested changes in the main house. Together they had transformed the mansion room by room. They had re-plastered the faded blue and painted the walls a warm, soft cream done in a faux texture with a hint of mustard gold. The color was finished with the slightest kiss of lavender all blended under a Venetian sheen that suggested the first hint of summer dusk.

      Cora had been a Godsend. Decorating was in her blood and the air she breathed. She had them strip the years of paint off the plaster crown moldings and patch and refinish them in a rich, bold white the color of ivory clouds. The moldings framed the silk moray fabric that stretched along the entry stair walls and into the master dining room. The wainscoting that lined the entry, lower halls and climbed the curved stairway, Eve matched to her molding, but in a shade warmer to enhance the hues that flowed up from the grand, travertine floors of the entry. The stone was buffed flat to look raw, muting the shine to a dull haze. The house seemed to come alive under Eve’s touch and Cora, with her whirling energy, iron fists with the workers, hilarious wit, laughter and a few bottles of great French wine from her extravagant cellar, made it fun. Everything fell together as the house awoke into modern life.

      Once or twice when the headaches got her, Eve tried to share what she was experiencing with Cora, but Cora laughed and asked only that she please share whatever psychedelic drug of choice was making her trip like a bad sixties movie.

      “Better still, I don’t want any unless we can get you to make it into a happy high and have much more fun, Suga.” Cora said and focused them both onto the task at hand. “Now I won’t hear another word. Promise? There is much too much to do.”

      “Promise,” Eve replied, knowing she would try to get Cora to help her figure out the Gregoire mystery.

      Cora had been Eve’s best friend since she moved to New Orleans from Chicago. They met on a double date, got crazy drunk, dumped the guys and partied the rest of the night. They also almost died in a speed boat on Lake Charles, but Eve pulled Cora out and saved her life; a fact that bonded them for life. Cora was a seriously old moneyed, TFB (Trust Fund Baby) and had never worked a JOB a day in her life, but Eve knew better than most that, her dear friend was the hardest working woman in New Orleans’ old family, high society. Cordelia Belle Bouvier, Cora to her friends, had twelve generations of southern history flowing in her veins. She and Beau’s family bloodlines were among the oldest and most respected in the state. Cora sat on the Board of Directors of six charities, two banks, a liquor company and two universities. She was smart, beautiful, young, and very rich and she loved Eve like the sister she never had.

      “You, you northern hussy, need to buy yourself a wedding dress. I’m taking your ass to Paris for Fashion Week and we are goin’ to go crazy! You better warn Beau you need his black American Express with no limit,” Cora told her.

      “I could never max out a black card,” Eve said.

      “That’s the point of it being black and bottomless. No one can max it out. However, I’ll teach you how to give it a workout, suga,” Cora replied making them both laugh so hard they cried.

      Today Eve was alone. She found herself in one of the mansion’s four attics. Vast rooms inside pitched roofs with round windows covered in dust. There she’d found stacks of old paintings of Beau’s family covered with tattered, muslin cloth. Some paintings dated as far back as the seventeen hundreds. Each told a story about his family history. Their faces looked austere and stern to Eve. The men looked strong and determined to live life to the fullest in a world long forgotten. There was a powerful, cruel edge in the eyes of the men and a frightened plea in the eyes of the women that disturbed her. As she dragged the muslin off the largest painting, Eve covered her mouth and coughed from the haze of dust particles that danced on the sunlight around her. She gasped as she found herself staring face-to-face into the azure eyes of Pearlette and Gofney Lafayette Gregoire, Duke and Duchess of Maurice, dressed in the lace and velvet, gold and pearls that symbolized their wealth in both the old and the new world. There was a cold timelessness about their features she found disturbing. She found an ancient bible and looked on the page that listed the marriages and christenings. A handful of pages were torn out at the beginning and, on a rag of a page, she saw what looked like the name Gremoire. It was hard to read and had been scratched out and changed to Gregoire. She Googled them both. She found no reference to Gremoire, only a variation on the name found in some of the earliest writings in France that had something to do with dark, demonic magic. Eve was sure that was a mistake so she moved on to Google Gregoire, but here she discovered only snippets of their history, much of which had been lost to time or destroyed thanks to the fires that devastated their sprawling French chateau during the height of the French Revolution. They were harsh landlords feared and disliked by the people of the region. They were listed as killed by guillotine, but here they were… proof they’d escaped and come to America. They changed their destinies by fleeing the bloody blade of the guillotine to become the matriarch and patriarch of the Gregoire American lineage.

      Eve could see their character and resolve in the set of their eyes, the tilt of their chins and the strength of their broad, erect shoulders and the same cold stare in Gofney’s eyes. Philip had his eyes, the eyes of a conqueror. Eve vowed Philip’s eyes would never be cruel… never. There was no question these were brave and strong adventurers who left their French chateau and vast lands in France to come to America and settle in the new world. Her son came from strong, noble genes. Eve ran her fingers across the ancient oil, cracked with age, and wondered what their journey from France must have been like; months across the turbulent Atlantic, into the gulf where they would change to a barge. The first glimpses of the wild, primordial bayou, filled with snakes and alligators, Indians and pirates, slaves and free blacks. Finally, up the Mississippi until the bustling frontier city of New Orleans unfolded like a blossom--exciting, deadly and beautiful. They’d bought land titles from Louis the Sixteenth long before the revolution, perhaps trying to help save France, perhaps visionary enough to see the inevitable demise of the aristocrats and the coming blood bath of the guillotine. Then, once in America, they fought charlatans, Native Americans, weather and bouts of Yellow and Scarlet Fever. They built the first wood and rock frame version of the mansion and carved out a life for themselves and their seven children with the ten thousand acre deed that would set their wealth for generations to come.

      One Sunday, when the workmen were gone, the house was silent. Beau had taken Philip for a drive, so Eve returned to her secret adventure in the attic. This time she searched for the weathered old leather trunk with an arched lid and brass hinges and handles. It contained a treasure of old books, letters and papers. Most had fallen apart over the years from neglect, but a few of the books, maps and the antique bible that had caught her interest were still readable. Her French was modern, yet she could still make out who was who on the opening pages, which revealed the Gregoire family genealogy dating back to the twelfth century with detailed records mapping the family lineage. There was one more mention of the oldest lineage that tied to the name Gremiore. Again, the name was scratched and torn away. Every family book she looked into, dating back before the sixteenth century, always ended with the remains of the tattered pages, torn out and intentionally removed.

      Eve brought the Bible down from the attic to show Beau, but, once again, he acted a true Southerner by saying he cared little about the past. Eve saw a flash of anger pass across his face before it was replaced by a sweet smile.

      “This is the past and it’s done…unchangeable,” he said. “Let’s lay it to rest and live life here in the present. Please.”

      He kissed her and she promised, but in her heart she knew she couldn’t. Family history meant something to her and besides, rummaging through the attics distracted her mind from the haunting images that plagued her. As a matter of fact, the headaches never came when she was up there among the historical treasures. The Gregoires have what she never did, a written chronicle of their family’s evolution. It was the history missing from her family. Her mother was an orphan who never knew anything about her real parents or their past, so these fascinating, ancient family histories of Beau’s

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