Looking Glass

Chapter Three


1999


“Fuck that. Why should I go? It’s a total waste of time, Thomas. What can they teach me there that I don’t already know, huh? Yeah, you can’t think of anything, can you? ‘Cause there isn’t anything. No use. There is no point in going and I won’t do it.”

Thomas sighed in frustration as he gazed on his young charge. Nineteen, and already a more talented sculptor than he could ever hope to be. It was true, he had taught her everything he knew. She should still go to college. She would learn other mediums of art, other ways of seeing and showing. He had told her that. She had blown it off as he had known she would. Thomas really wanted her to go for a totally different reason: she would learn how to interact with other people, how to socialize and have fun with people her age. He had failed her in that, he knew. She had always been so eager to create that he had never thought of offering her the opportunity to just play. Five years she had lived in his home, and he didn’t know anyone she called a friend. College would be good for her. If he could convince her to go.

“Damnit, Deirdre! You’ve got a goddamn full scholarship to Chicago! You can’t just suddenly decide you don’t want to go! You’re going, and that’s final!” he yelled. She had a thick skull. It took a lot of decibels to push their way through.

“Fuck you!” the young woman yelled back. His head is like a rock, she thought, running her hands through her short hair. She had remembered to shower that morning before diving into her art, but now her short back hair was spiked with fine brown clay.

“Fuck you!” Thomas shouted back, even louder.

Suddenly Deirdre collapsed into giggles. “Eww, you’re old.”

“Thanks. Bitch.” Thomas sighed dramatically. “Well, I guess that’s the last time I pick up a girl from the street. Next time I’ll hit up the nursing home.”

Deirdre chuckled and swatted his arm. “That really is gross. Your knees might get tangled in her boobs.” Thomas shuddered and pulled a face.

Suddenly, Deirdre got serious. “Thomas? Why do you really want me to go to college?”

Damn, the girl was smart. That should have been reason enough for her to go. “I worry about you, living here with an old man like me. You should be going out late at night with friends your own age, getting trashed passing out in other people’s yards. It’s the healthy thing to do.”

Deirdre cocked one slim eyebrow. “Are you serious? You want me to go to college to party?”

Thomas thought about that for a moment. “Yeah, I guess I do.”

She pumped one fist into the air. “Sweet! I’ll go pack my shit.”

Thomas could only blink as she raced up the stairs. How the hell had he done that? He’d employ that method more often if he only knew what it was. He smiled with satisfaction and lit a cigarette in celebration.

In her room upstairs, Deirdre let out a sigh. Damn, but she didn’t want to go. But it seemed to be important to Thomas... She didn’t really understand his reasoning. Sure, she didn’t hang out with many people her age—okay, she didn’t hang out with any. Still, she figured she got far more mental stimulation from Thomas and his group of artist friends than she would some stupid, pink-wearing, lip gloss-toting teenage girls with nothing on their minds but the great sale at Abercrombie and the boys they might see there. Deirdre hadn’t been able to stand them during high school, had been more than happy to graduate and be done with them. And the boys who talked to her breasts with sweaty palms and pimply faces. She had tried dating, once. Paul had seemed different from the others—he was confident, and good-looking, and nice. She had thought. Then she had discovered that he wasn’t confident—he was arrogant. He wasn’t nice, either—he had pinned her in his car one night and had tried to—well, whatever. She had disabused him of that notion rather quickly. He hadn’t been so excited when he realized that the reason she had reached for his balls was to twist them until he sang soprano. She had walked six miles home that night. Noah had offered to break his nose when he heard, but she told him haughtily that she could break his own damn nose, thank you very much.

Not that Noah was around much. Ever. He had already been in college when Thomas had brought her home five years ago, and after that he had stayed in Chicago, working as a manager at a chain bookstore. He didn’t get down to New Orleans that often, staying in touch mostly though email.

Deirdre hadn’t really wanted to follow in Noah’s footsteps when she had applied to Chicago, too. She had never actually planned on going. Her senior year of high school, Thomas had started insisting that she look into colleges. She said she would, but warned him that if she had wanted to go the fall after graduating, she should have started looking the year before. In this way she had bought herself an extra year. It had been a great year, too. She had made huge strides in her art—she really felt some of it was getting to the point she wanted it to be at. She was even starting to get the interest of the galleries Thomas had connections to. Her future looked bright.

Then Thomas started nagging her about college again. She had applied to Chicago to buy herself some more time and get him off her back. Yeah, that had backfired a bit. She hadn’t done so well in high school, focusing mostly on her art, but apparently that was good enough to merit a full scholarship. She had felt guilty enough when Thomas had been so excited about her acceptance letter. Her financial aid letter had only made things so much worse.

So she was going, and that was that. It sucked. Deirdre had really thought she had managed to get away from all those prissy girls and grasping guys. And now she’d have to live on a campus full of them. Shit! Shit, shit, shit. Could she say it once again? Just one more fucking shit.

Well, at least she had the summer.

* * * * *

Thomas waggled a letter under her nose, tempting her outrageous curiosity.

“What is that?” she asked, grabbing for it. He teased her a few seconds more, keeping it just out of her reach, but finally let her have it. She grasped it firmly to her chest, crumpling it slightly. It was addressed to Thomas, and she wondered what news would make him so excited. She pulled the single sheet of fine-quality stationary from the mangled envelope. After carefully flattening it out on her thigh, she unfolded it and skimmed its contents. She looked up at Thomas, her eyes wide and shining.

“Holy shit! Seriously? London?! You’re being showcased in London? Oh my god, when do we leave?”

“Two weeks from Friday.”

“Woot! What do you think I’ll need to bring? God, I’ve never been out of the country before. This is so going to rock!”

Deirdre was practically jumping up and down; she was so excited. She had been working when Thomas had interrupted her. Two years ago, she had moved into the three-room attic of the town house, so she could have her own studio. She mostly did smaller sculptors, no bigger than about three feet in diameter, but she liked having the freedom to do something larder if she so pleased. Today she was completing a clay model of a sculpture she hoped to finish before the summer was out. The attic was not well ventilated, especially in the hot July weather, so she was down to a pair of jeans and a sports bra. Her bare feet were slimy with clay she had dropped uncaring on the floor. Her world tended to condense to include only her art when she was working, and no one but Thomas dared invade that personal realm. She usually tried to be surly when he did so, at least for form’s sake, but today she was too happy for him to care. They were going to London!

She suddenly noticed that Thomas looked rather guarded. What could possibly be wrong? This was great news, super for his career—what would he be so nervous about?

She had her answer as soon as he opened his mouth. “Nothing, Deirdre. You won’t need anything. I’m going alone.”

She smiled in confusion and shook her head. “Sorry. What? Of course I’m going. You’re too paranoid to let me stay here alone.”

Thomas’s jaw set. “No, Deirdre, I’m sorry. They only sent one ticket, made reservations for one. I’ve arranged for you to spend the rest of the summer with Noah. It’ll be a good opportunity for you to get to know the city.”

“Opportunity? You call it opportunity when you ship me off to fucking Chicago, America’s fucking heartland, when I could go to one of the most cosmopolitan fucking cities in the world? Bullshit, Thomas. This is bullshit.”

Thomas just shrugged and shook his head.

“No! No! I won’t do this! You can’t make me go. Goddamn it! How can you do this to me? Screw you, Thomas. I’ll see you in hell before I spend the fucking summer in fucking Illi-fucking-nois.”

“You’re going, Deirdre. You’ll have your things packed by Friday so I’ll have time to pack and decide which pieces to ship over.” Thomas crossed his arms over his chest, just to be sure she knew he was serious.

“London, Thomas. Come on. London. You know how much I’ve always wanted to go there. Please. Don’t do this to me. Please, Thomas.” Deirdre hated begging. Fucking hated it. But she wanted to go to London more than she wanted to keep her pride.

Hearing her beg almost made Thomas change his mind. She had never begged him, not since he had first met her and she was in dire straits. He knew how important this would be to her. He would have loved to bring her to London with him, knew instinctively she would love everything about the bustling, moving city. There was a reason London inspired so many artists. The fact of the matter was, Thomas wanted to investigate more closely the reason behind Deirdre’s precise diction. Despite her crude vocabulary, her diction was, occasionally, nearly as perfect as the queen’s. It had mellowed over the years, her r’s becoming Americanized and her vowels becoming lazier, but one could immediately hear the British influence in her voice. If the girl slipped, that was. Usually she spoke in affected New Orleans accent, so naturally that Thomas couldn’t be sure she realized she did it. Deirdre herself had never commented on it, only shrugging when someone asked her directly about it. It was possible she didn’t even know, Thomas admitted. Still, he needed to take this opportunity to check out the possibilities. He would hire a private investigator, see what could be turned up. She was his girl, and he wanted to know what in her past she was so afraid of. Now that she was over eighteen, he felt safer, knowing that no one could take her away from him. Now he felt it was safe to poke quietly into her past. But she had to be kept unsuspecting. She hadn’t had nightmares in two years, and Thomas preferred to keep it that way. How she used to cry at night, whimper and cry. But when he had tried to comfort her, she had pushed him away with a string of choice words. What could make a fourteen-year-old have nightmares like that? Whoever had hurt her was going to pay.

Thomas didn’t want to alert her to his proceedings, however. She would get angry and defensive, and she might hide herself away again. When she had first arrived he had questioned her about her past. After a week of allowing her to hide in her room, Thomas had jimmied the lock to find that the few belongings she had were in a Shopko bag, ready to go when she was. Thomas knew that only the modeling clay he had provided her with had kept her there. Though neither of them had ever mentioned the episode, Thomas had never pried again.

Though the hurt in her eyes nearly tore him apart, he shook his head again. “I’m going to be having a lot of meetings, and I’m going to be busy with the showings. This is important for my career, and I’m going to have to focus. I can’t afford to have you around distracting me.” There. He had said it. It was a total lie, but he knew it pushed all the right buttons. She would feel guilty now for having wanted to impede his career, something she understood perfectly.

“Oh. Right. Well, uh, well. I guess then I’ll start cleaning up. Then I was thinking of ordering Thai for dinner. Will that work okay? Otherwise I’ll just have some cereal or something; it doesn’t matter.” She went back to her model, careful to not let him see the tears of disappointment and guilt and envy that were uninvited in her eyes.

God, he hated when she did this. Every time she was disappointed, she had this tendency to revert to thinking she was a great burden on him. He hated that she withdrew like that, that some part of her would never trust him. He sighed that this time, he had initiated that tendency. It was for her good, he reassured himself, but her face was still fallen.

“No. Yeah. Thai will be fine,” he said inadequately. Damn.