Hades

2. Stephanie

CHAPTER 2

STEPHANIE

Of course. Of course, my father overheard my boyfriend insinuating that we should try to circumnavigate the virginity contracts we’d both signed.

I knew that even before I turned around to find him staring down at me with a thunderous look on his pale brown face.

“Sir, this isn’t what you think,” Luk sputtered. “I was just kidding around. I wouldn’t really…” He dipped his head and gave my father a significant look. “You know that, right?”

My father thinned his lips, as if Luk were a buzzing insect who’d somehow found its way into our pristine house, and directed his gaze toward me.

“There are a few things I need to discuss with you,” he said, ignoring Luk completely and taking me by the arm. “Come with me to my office.”

To get dressed down and lectured about what it meant to be a Perreault. No, thank you, sir. No, thank you.

“It’s just a few minutes before midnight. We don’t want to miss the fireworks,” I pointed out to my father. And just in case that was too subtle, I added, “People will talk if we don’t go out to the balcony to watch like we do every year.”

“Yes, it’s almost midnight,” Dad repeated. “That’s why we must talk.”

He glanced nervously around the party and tightened his hand around my arm.

“Don’t cause a scene,” he advised me. Just low enough that Luk couldn’t hear him.

Alarm bells went off in the back of my mind. Wow, Dad must really be upset. Usually playing the “people will talk” card was enough to get me out of anything—from one of his long lectures to having to wear the same party dress two months in a row.

“Steppie, can I watch your fireworks with you?”

I looked down to find my nine-year-old sister, Daphne, in the sparkly smock dress I’d bought her a week ago when we realized the dress Mom picked out for her didn’t fit and also didn’t come in plus-sizes.

Normally, she had to be in bed, lights out, by 9 pm. But everyone in the world got to stay up until midnight the night before my birthday, including her.

“Sure, Daph…” I carefully extracted my arm from Dad’s grip.

At the same time, Eunice West, our local Councilman’s wife chose that moment to swoop in and introduce Dad to yet another divorcée around his age. Mrs. West had been one of my mother’s best friends, and they’d served together on the Lakefront Historical Preservation Society’s board. But a man as rich and eligible as my father couldn’t be allowed to remain single in our gated community. Oh, no, no! It just wasn’t done. Now that my mother had been dead for almost a year, Mrs. West considered it her personal responsibility—nay, her mission—to introduce Antoine Perreault to his next wife.

I would have felt bad for Dad if it wasn’t also the perfect excuse to leave him behind—along with that serious conversation he’d wanted to have with me.

“Yes, let’s go watch your sister’s much-deserved fireworks,” Luk said to Daphne, gallantly offering her his arm.

My heart melted at the sight of them, walking in front of me. Luk was also great with kids. It was one of the many reasons I loved him—even if I didn’t exactly burn with passion for him.

Still, his words didn’t settle right in my chest.

Yes, they were my fireworks. I signed the work order and paid the bill for the show with my black Amex card that morning—not to mention getting all the necessary permits.

So yes, the fireworks definitely belonged to me. But I couldn’t say I deserved them. In fact, I knew I didn't.

These new year birthday galas had always been more about my parents than me. And now that my mother was gone, it struck me as even sillier.

My mother had considered Tulane just a place to acquire my “MRS. degree.” But after three years of living in New Orleans, I couldn't help but notice all the gross disparities between this party and the living conditions in the underserved communities surrounding my university and city.

So, did I deserve this? Heck no.

Did anyone truly deserve a birthday party that cost four times an average Louisianan’s annual income? I mean, why did we have to go out of our way every year to make people we didn’t particularly like jealous? Was this really the whole point of being Black, excellent, and elite?

I knew a thousand girls would kill for everything I had. But this wasn’t how I wanted to live. This didn’t even feel like my life. Fake hair. Fake friends. Fake life. So, so, fake….

Don’t do this, I warned myself. Be happy. Drink more champagne.

So that was what I did. I drank champagne. And I counted down with all my guests who yelled, “Happy Birthday!” instead of “Happy New Year!” after we got to midnight.

And we all laughed and air-kissed like we were starring in a rather melanated production of The Great Gatsby.

Then I pretended I didn’t see my father trying to catch my eye as I thanked a bunch more people for coming to the gala.

Eventually, I noticed Daphne had disappeared from the balcony.

Continuing to avoid my father’s eyes, I told Lukas, “I’m going to take my sister upstairs and tuck her into bed.”

He nodded. “You’re a good big sister. But come right back to me.”

“I will,” I promised, giving him a peck on the mouth before I searched for Daphne.

I found her sitting on the servant's stairs, rocking with both arms wrapped around her waist.

“You okay?” I asked, a ping of worry popping off in my chest. I might have been away at school for the last few years, but I could still tell when she was on the verge of tears and trying to hold them back.

“I ate too much cake!”

I think most kids would say that because they had a stomachache. But I knew Daphne’s reasons were different.

“It’s okay,” I quickly assured her.

“No, it’s not,” she whispered with tears in her eyes. “Mama would be so mad at me. I promised her…”

“Oh, Daph…” Even all the champagne I consumed couldn’t keep my heart from sinking for her.

I loved my mother. And I know that in her mind constantly monitoring our weight was her idea of being a good mother. She’d mentioned more than once that the women on her side of the family struggled with weight, and we had to be vigilant if we wanted to catch a good husband, like she did.

But I'll never forgive her for using her last deathbed talk with her then eight-year-old daughter to make Daphne promise to thin down. She’d actually told my sister that she’d be disappointed in heaven if she turned out fat.

As if heaven would actually let somebody in who chose those words as her last to a child.

I couldn’t say that to Daphne, though. The only thing that would upset her more than the possibility of our dead mom being mad at her in heaven would be the idea of her burning in hell.

So, I just took Daphne by the hand and led her up to her bedroom.

“Everything will feel better after a good sleep,” I assured her as I tucked her into bed.

“Do you think my real mom would be okay with a fat daughter?” she asked.

This birth mom business again. Mom had never hidden Daphne’s adoption from her—we even celebrated her official adoption birthday two days after mine. But Mom had never been forthcoming with the details for us or the family courts. The story was that Daphne had been left on our doorstep with a note from whoever left her: You can take care of this baby. We can’t.

I’d found the original note in mom’s things when I was cleaning out the desk. And that was it.

I’d almost think the trail was completely cold if Daphne didn’t look so much like mom and me. Minus the eyes, anyone would have mistaken her for mom’s blood-related daughter and my sister.

And the more hypothetical questions Daphne asked, the more that resemblance poked at me. Anyway, I didn’t want to get Daphne’s hopes up, but it was on my to-do list to hire a detective to look into finding the identity of her birth mother.

Right after we got through this silly party.

Until then, I answered my little sister’s question with the easiest truth. “Any mom would be lucky to have you as a daughter. I wouldn't trade you for any other sister in the world. You're the best late—”

She cut me off with a roll of her eyes. “I know, I know. I'm the best late birthday gift you’ve ever got. You make that same joke every year before my adoption birthday.”

“Because it's not a joke.” I pinched her chubby cheek. “If it was up to me, I wouldn't even have a birthday party. I'd just tell everybody how January third is my favorite day of the year, because that's the day I officially got you as my little sister.”

She pursed her lips like kids do when you're both delighting and embarrassing them. But then a worried look came over her face. “Are we really going to Disney World this year, Steppie?”

My chest ached with the memory of her ruined seventh adoption birthday. We were supposed to go to Disney World for a sister trip, just the two of us. I’d bought the tickets and everything. But then Mom had gotten the news that the cough she couldn’t seem to shake would require more than a prescription for antibiotics. And the year after that, my mother had only been a few weeks from drawing her last breath.

Almost a year had passed since Mom’s death, but Daphne stayed fretful about birthday promises. She’d be checking and rechecking to make sure the trip was still on until the day we got into my BMW 3 Series to drive to the airport. Even then, she might not stop until we checked into the resort at Animal Kingdom. It was just too hard for her to believe good things could happen to her anymore.

I couldn’t blame her for that, and I knew telling her about the character birthday dinner and private safari I’d already booked and paid for wouldn’t reassure her—only agitate her worse.

So, I just held up my pinky with a solemn, “I promise. Disney World, here we come.”

“Here we come,” she repeated. Her voice cracked with tentative hope as she wrapped her pinky around mine.

And yes, I know I'm biased, but I really didn’t understand how our mother could see this wonderful little girl as anything less than beautiful.

With our pinkies still attached, I dropped a kiss on her forehead, which was just a couple of shades darker than mine. “See you tomorrow, Best Birthday Gift Ever.”

See you tomorrow.

That promise had fallen from my mouth even more easily than the one I made about Disney World. But within twenty-four hours, both promises would come back to haunt me.

When I got up to turn off the lights, I didn’t know this would be the last time I saw my sister.

I figured that—save for a few barely staved-off panic attacks—this birthday gala would go the same as all those that came before it. So, I headed back downstairs, intending to drink enough to have a nice proper hangover when I met Daphne downstairs for our usual New Year’s Day pancake brunch.

Just the thought of it made my stomach grumble with hunger. I vowed to find some more hors d’oeuvres to tide me over until tomorrow.

So, my heart just about burst when I saw Luk standing on the other side of the foyer with a huge dinner plate filled with the tasty treats cater waiters had been passing out all night. He waved and pointed to the plate in a way that clearly said, “This is for you!”

Leave it to the sweetest boyfriend on Earth to make sure I could eat my fill when I returned to him.

A warm resolution tightened my chest as I made a beeline toward the guy I should have wanted above all others.

He was right. That contract probably wasn’t legally binding. No more hesitating. Tonight, I was going to give him what he wanted. What he deserved. Forget Dad’s stupid con—

“We need to talk.” My father appeared out of nowhere, his face as grim as Mama’s mausoleum stone. And he completely blocked out my view of Lukas.

Oh, geez. Not this again.

Maybe I could have handled an argument with Dad two glasses of champagne ago. But my head was all fuzzy, and that delicious plate of food in Lukas’s hand was so close to being achieved.

So instead of explaining the apparently foreign concept of a woman having agency over her own body, I went into pampered-Southern-daughter mode.

“Oh, Dad, Luk was just joking. Please don’t do this,” I wheedled. “You can reprimand me as much as you want tomorrow. It’s my birthday. Let me have tonight.”

“Yes, it’s your birthday.” My father’s expression remained unchanged.

He tended to drink too much at my annual galas, but tonight his words came out crisp and precise, without any slurring. Or joviality. “You’re twenty-one now. That’s exactly why we must talk.”

He took me by the arm, and this time he didn’t give me a chance to protest before dragging me back up the stairs to his office.