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A/N: Disclaimer I know nothing of the past...And my apologies to The Beatles for brief usage of one of their songs, of course I take no credit for the song lyrics...or is it Michael Jackson I should apologize too, who owns the songs anyway? And also an almost direct quotation from the novel this story is based on... if ya wanna know which quote read the book. OK, I think I’m covered for this one.
Chapter 53: Mimi VIII
Spring—1986—Montreal
Fold in the eggs gently.
Michele frowned. Fold? Fold?! What did the eggs need to be coddled? Did they need to be tucked in as if they were children? Fold?
Disgusted, Michele blew out a breath of air and watched as the recipe she clipped from the newspaper floated off the table and spiraled to the carpet. "Piss on it," she muttered. "I’ll never learn how to cook...useless habit."
Tap, tap, tap, she tapped her fingernails on the wooden table in time to the incessant ticking of the clock on the wall. Asides from that, it was silent in the apartment. Everything was silent nowadays.
Patrick had moved from Lucien’s basement a month ago, and Michele had joined him. She couldn’t bear to be home anymore. No one at home knew what she had seen and been through and how she had changed. They didn’t know how cold she felt when they hugged her or smiled at her or held her hand.
At dinner, when everyone was laughing at a joke, Michele had known it was time to leave when she jammed a fork into her palm underneath the table. It wasn’t enough to draw blood, but it was enough to hurt, to send jolts of pain up her arm and into her elbow. It had been so hard to hear, she hadn’t heard the joke. It was as if she fighting to listen to them through a pane of glass or from beneath the water’s surface and she thought, maybe she wasn’t alive anymore. So she jammed the fork in her hand and when it hurt she knew she was alive, and that’s when she smiled.
It had been next to impossible for her to go a day without bursting into tears, and it was getting more and more difficult for her to hide it from her family. They didn’t need to know or worry, they didn’t need to be troubled by her mistakes. So Michele had known it was time for her to leave. And she didn’t want to see them smile anymore.
Besides, all her family, her acquaintances, her friends and the friends of her family’s friends, all they wanted to talk about to her was Patrick, Patrick, Patrick. It seemed that everyone had the same three questions to drill into her, as if she were the carrier of some mystic secret for their Habitant frenzied playoff hopes. Was Patrick taking better care if his physical fitness for a good playoff run, after all he was a rookie and he needed to be fit? Is he devoting himself to stopping those soft goals? Do you think he’s taking this seriously enough that he’ll stop wandering? Over and over and over they asked her these questions, stopping short of informing her of her duties as Patrick’s paramour, that she use her influence to make him more responsible. Michele was going mad trying to become deaf to them.
Now, ensconced in Patrick’s new apartment, season ended and playoffs not yet begun, Michele didn’t have to see any of them and she didn’t have to hear any of it. She paced back and forth in it throughout the day, Patrick usually gone, attending to a new fitness regime with a team appointed trainer. Often she cleaned, for want of anything better to do. Other times she just sat in the bathtub, slipping underneath the bubble-less water and imagining that she would never come up. But she always came up, gasping for air and clawing at the porcelain sides of the tub, back into a quiet apartment.
It was after tiring of Patrick’s ceaseless diet of cereal, french-fries and spaghetti that Michele started collecting recipes from magazines and newspapers. As she read over the sterile and complex world of measurements and ingredients and precise temperatures, she found that it helped dull her and forget about the past month, and Patrick’s increasingly bizarre behavior. He had always been ceaselessly competitive and she had never minded that, but this conversing with goalposts, believing the forum ghosts were whispering to him.... It was almost too much.
She had just been brave enough to attempt a recipe when glancing over it, she saw that the eggs needed to be folded. Folded? Absurd!
"It will be tougher for you the day they drop the puck on Game One, my love," Coco Lacroix said to Michele, smoothing the back of her hand across Michele’s cheek, wiping off a tear. "Goalie’s are quite delicate fellows and they cannot be bothered, especially during a playoff run."
"Oooooh," Michele growled, backing away from Coco, wiping off the rest of her tears. "I’m tired of crying. I’m tired of Patrick’s crying. I didn’t call you here for you to see me crying!"
"You answered the door in tears, Darling," Coco said. "What did you call me here for?"
Michele shook her head, composing herself and then pouring a glass of water. Almost immediately, she poured it down the drain.
"You make such lovely meals when you and Pierre have us over for dinner," Michele said quietly, "I cannot cook a thing, not a thing...and you said... you said that I might call you anytime if I needed anything... and I need help! Please help!"
"Is that all?" Coco said with a friendly laugh as she pinched Michele’s chin, "My dear you had me scared for a moment! Of course I will help you, a better way to Patrick’s heart, yes? So flustered over that? I forgot how dire these things seem for the young!"
"Oh thank you!" Michele breathed, suddenly feeling a moment’s relief.
"Well," Coco said brightly. "Let us see what we have, eh?"
Michele stood still, clasping her hands together, as Coco opened up the refrigerator to find it empty.
"There is barely a thing in here, Mimi," Coco said, staring into the fridge.
The store was only a few minutes away, Michele thought as she looked at her hands. She had meant to go shopping, she should have gone shopping. There was the dull click of the refrigerator door closing and the sharp click of Coco’s shoes as she came walking across the kitchen floor to her.
"I’m sorry," Michele whispered. "I’d forgotten, there is barely anything in the fridge. I shouldn’t have bothered you. There is your busy life... There is your husband, and sons..."
"Pierre has the boys with him," Coco said. "They’re off to visit Monsieur Angelil and his little ingenue, apparently she has the voice of an angel when she sings. I have all the time in the world right now. Tell me, what is troubling you?"
Michele swallowed. "Just my culinary incompetence," she said weakly.
The sobs were almost pushed from Michele as Coco hugged her tightly, drowning her in a soft baby powder scent. But Michele didn’t cry she refused.
"You love him deeply, eh?" Coco said rubbing her back. "It is hard. Very hard for you young ones, to fall in love with these boys. They always seem to play these games with your love and it hurts. They’re never in tune with our hearts, my dear. Never think dear girl that their love is like ours. They certainly feel that same intoxication that we do, perhaps they are more carried away by it. But they know nothing, anything at all of that restless eagerness, that eats us alive as we wait for them, and then we do not see them, and we wait more. It is cruel, but it is inevitable perhaps, and we need our distractions, we are entitled to them."
Sharpness was still nestled in Michele’s gut, but there was a slight dulling of the pain. There was a relaxation easing through her the likes of which she hadn’t felt since... well in a while. When Coco placed her hands on Michele’s waist, holding her back at arm’s length, Michele managed a small smile. She was still hurting but just a drop of Coco’s sympathy was an ocean of relief for her.
"Take a hot bath," Coco said softly, "That’s what you need right now, it will do so much for you. I will go to the store and buy some things for your kitchen, and tomorrow, when you’re rested I will teach you to cook, hmm?"
Michele nodded; she would have done anything Coco asked her to at that point.
Lying in the bath, Michele could hear Coco’s bustling around the apartment, singing to herself and putting away groceries in the kitchen. It was a comforting sound, like listening to her mother bustling away with the week’s groceries when she was a girl. Michele decided at that moment that she loved Coco as she loved her mother. And Patrick did too. Everyone seemed to. She couldn’t think of anyone that disliked her or anyone who would ever want to hurt her either. If people love you, not just like you, then they couldn’t bring themselves to hurt you. Was that what she needed to do? If everyone loved me... The thought germinated in Michele’s head. If everyone loved me... With a flighty good-bye through the door, Coco was gone.
Upon entering the kitchen, Michele was amazed at how full it suddenly looked, with bread, and fruit and a full refrigerator and cupboards. It was amazing how empty the kitchen must have been, and how could she have let it get that way? The first reaction in her was her stomach growling. When was the last time she had eaten? She couldn’t remember. She was sick of canned spaghetti, so she had been thinking of anything but food for a while.
She tightened her robe around her and looked at the fruit, did she want that?
The front door opened with a loud flourish of Patrick laughing and falling in the room. Startled, Michele gasped and then peeked out of the kitchen into the living room. Patrick was on his back on the floor, red and giggling, pink still from his visit to the sauna no doubt. The door was wide open, and Patrick’s teammate, that quiet voiced Larry Robinson was standing in the doorway, looking down at Patrick and grinning through his scruffy mustache. A six pack of beer was dangling in his hand. Michele’s heart sunk, was Patrick drunk again? Had he gotten Patrick drunk again?
"You haven’t!" Michele sighed, not remembering if Larry spoke French or not, she hoped he did. "You haven’t intoxicated him again?"
Patrick stopped giggling and looked at Michele, a goofy grin on his face. Larry sniffed and raised his eyebrows. "No," Larry answered in very passable French. "He’s not drunk, far from it."
"No, no, no," Patrick said, smiling and resting his skinny arms at his sides. "Not drunk.... Two beers is not good enough to get drunk on Mimi, you know that. No. Not drunk... yet." Patrick broke into another fit of laughter.
All of the comfort and relief Coco had given Michele evaporated like a hiss of steam. She put her face in her hands. Two beers always left Patrick affectionate and giddy, being drunk left him useless and euphoric... or just plain pissed off, one of those extremes. It was another recent disturbing trend of his, these drinking bouts.
"Aww, don’t cry," Larry said. "See, he’s in one piece."
Michele glared at Larry with all the daggers of anger she could summon. "I am not crying!" Michele snapped. "Nothing you can do will make me!"
Yawning, Larry stepped into the apartment, softly closing the door behind him. Suddenly, Michele didn’t feel safe, she felt trapped. He had invited himself in, and she didn’t want him there.
"Come on," Larry said, gripping Patrick’s pale hand in his own and hoisting him to his feet. "Get up, you’re making Michele uneasy."
Winking with that jittery eyelid of his, Patrick looked at Michele. To her relief, she saw that his gaze was clear, and not inebriated. His smile was friendly and warm.
"Meeeee-shell, mah belle, son les mots qui vont tres bien ensemble, tres bien ensemble!" Patrick sang nasally, badly to her instant irritation, as he approached her.
"Stop it," Michele said testily, "You know how I hate that song!"
Squeezing her in his arms, Patrick merely giggled and kissed her hungrily. Michele let him at first, not having had a kiss from him in days, and then his hand began to wander into her robe. Michele shoved him back, tugging her robe closed.
"Patrick!" she cried, her cheeks flushing.
She glanced at Larry, of course he was watching them, leaning against the door, the beer at his feet. His expression was blank.
"Sorry," Patrick said with a sheepish smile. "Caught in the moment, you smell so nice."
Shaking her head slowly, Michele sat down at the dining table. The surface of it was cold, and hard and smooth when she leaned her chin on it. "I’d offer you a drink, Larry," she said quietly, "but I see you already have that covered."
Larry strode over to the table, beer in hand and then he clunked the six pack onto it. Patrick grabbed another beer and Larry sauntered into the kitchen.
"Patrick," Michele said, almost begging, "You don’t need that."
Patrick yawned, pink faced and looking like a sleepy child, and he slid the beer to Michele. "I don’t need it either," Michele said.
"You know what you need," Larry said, his voice close behind her.
Michele jumped in her seat and turned around to look at him, but he moved around her, sitting near her at the table. He was holding a big, red, fat apple in his hand. The very sight of it made Michele’s stomach turn in hungry knots.
"You get skinnier and skinnier each time I see you," Larry said, his eyes wandering over her body so much so that Michele wanted to cover up more.
"She never eats," Patrick said, "She don’t like eating."
Michele could feel herself blushing, but she really didn’t know what to say. She just wanted him to leave.
"Maybe cause all you eat is shit, Casseau," Larry said to Patrick. "You don’t know the first thing about feeding a lady, they’re finicky, they don’t eat what they don’t like." He then looked straight into Michele’s eyes and she dropped her gaze. "Am I right?"
Michele muttered something, but she didn’t even know if she actually said anything.
"Here ya go, hon," Larry said, picking up her hand in his dry, warm one and slipping the apple into it. "Take a bite of that, it’s better for you than nothing."
Michele stared at the apple, desperately wanting to take a bite, but not with them looking at her so intently, as if it were some grand event to watch her eat. She merely held it tight and looked at Larry.
"Thank you for bringing him home, and being such a friend to him," Michele said, "But we’re tired now, please go."
She heard an annoyed grunt from Patrick but otherwise he didn’t say anything. Larry stared back at her. "How do you feel? How have you been feeling? You seemed to be holding up real well there for a while, real well, I was impressed."
Michele held in her breath, and she could only look at him in disbelief, looking quickly at Patrick who had only blushed as scarlet as she no doubt was. Larry’s voice was sounding distant again, and she was getting that heavy drowning feeling.
"Stubborn, the both of you," Larry said. "After all that, and you still followed him on his road trips. I liked that so much, you know, I like that spirit. But now, the both of you seem to be collapsing, and someone needs to tell you. If not for your sakes, then for the team’s sake, for the playoffs..."
"Damn the playoffs!" Michele snapped. "Damn them! Suddenly he is important for you after all you have done to us, all of you! And now you expect him to be perfect, to act like nothing has happened and that we will smile and forgive! Damn you!"
"What do you feel like every day, Mimi," Larry said calmly.
Why was Patrick being so silent? She thought.
"Mario is gone," Larry said, "And what do you feel like?"
Michele fluttered her eyelids, not quite able to close them, and she wanted to close them and never open them again. She wanted to go deaf and pretend she couldn’t hear, she wanted him to shut up. She was tired of yelling and fighting and crying. She could feel the numbness starting to seep into her again.
"Drowning," she whispered. "I feel like we’re drowning... I hate the water now, I can’t bear it touching me sometimes... I can’t bear to drink it sometimes..."
"Then learn to swim," Larry said. "It’s easier to enjoy it when you can."
Michele’s mouth dropped open a little at the sudden feel of Larry’s hand gripping her knee, sliding under her robe to do it. She looked at Patrick, and he only was looking at her sadly, with his eyes all pleading and helpless. Michele brushed his hand off and sunk her teeth into the apple. It was an explosion of sweet juices and crunch. Michele sighed, chewing and then before finishing, she took another bite. Her stomach was angry now, daring her to swallow anything more, punishing her for ignoring it for so long.
She swallowed and then held it out to Patrick. "Here, I cannot finish it, you need it," she said.
Patrick took it gingerly, looking at it as if it were something alien and then he took a bite. Immediately he took another one, and he looked dead set on finishing it.
The numbness settled into her again, Michele watched Patrick working on the fruit, and then she felt Larry’s hand on her again, squeezing a little tighter. Michele slowly turned her gaze to him, and as soon as she did, he leaned forward and kissed her on the mouth. There was nothing chaste or friendly about it, it was hard and open and forceful. One of his hands on the side of her throat, the other on her belly, she felt like he was scalding her skin all over. And all the movement she heard from Patrick, was the hissing pop of another beer can being opened.
Michele moaned in frustration and placing her palm on Larry’s rough, stubbled cheek, she pushed his face away from her. She should slap him now, or scream at him, or plead to Patrick, chugging at his beer to stop this, to throw him out... But what was the use? There was no use fighting for her virtues anymore, or pleading with someone else to respect them... because she had no virtues anymore.
"I’m not going to hurt you," Larry said, still leaning close to her, holding her hand in his. "I won’t hurt either of you, but I do want to help you."
Michele looked at Larry as he stood up holding her hands. "I want to wake you up, and let you two see what is possible. You don’t have to be victims. Will you let me?"
Michele didn’t want him there any longer, she wanted to scream for him to leave. But Patrick was silent, so suddenly she was as well. She nodded her head, she had meant to shake her head, and still holding onto her hand, Larry began to lead her out of the dining room, into the hallway and to the bedroom. Patrick coughed and grabbing the rest of the beers he followed them.
Patrick is here, so it’s OK. There’s nothing wrong... There’s nothing wrong...
Michele couldn’t sleep. Patrick was next to her on the bed, not so much sleeping as he was unconscious, having drained the rest of the beer. Oddly enough, he wasn’t snoring, but Michele could see his pale back moving up and down with his breathing. So she knew he was still alive. The warmth on the bed to the left of her was what was disturbing Michele. Larry hadn’t left yet. Was he ever going to leave?
She had to admit now, that she felt her pulse inside her now. She had to admit that she felt alive. Something was stirred inside her, something that she had forgotten about, or never known was there. Something awoke the moment Robinson had eased her on the bed, kissing her softly and gently pressing her down, sliding her robe off her shoulders.
There had been flutterings of panic inside her and she had fully expected that fear to be there, like a wound that had not yet hardened, she was tender.
I’ve got you now you haughty bitch.
Dirty whore!
Don’t be so goddamn stubborn....
Everything will be fine....
And everything will be fine...
Blood pounded in her temples as she had tried to suffocate those bellows in her brain, clanging inside her and berating her. She couldn’t shut them up.
The hair on his face, the stubble on his chin, it all had tickled her as he had kissed her softly She tried to hold her breath as his mouth and his breath moved over her face, her throat down to her breasts, her belly, moving lower still. Exhaling slowly, trying not to moan, feeling the warmth igniting inside her, she looked over to the darkened doorway, where Patrick watched, still so silent.
His fingers brushed lightly over her still tender ankle, where those angry purple spots had faded to yellow. He had gripped it tighter, causing little flashes of pain, and then his hand slid up her calf, his mouth following it. It was impossible to block herself, it was impossible to dull herself anymore.
"Patrick!" she cried out, aching all over with pleasure.
Within the moment, Patrick was at her side, standing beside the bed and holding her firmly, stroking her hair. "Are you OK?" he whispered. "Is this good?"
She wrapped her arms around him and kissed him, forcing his mouth open and inhaling every bit of him, and then trying not to breathe. He kissed her cheeks and then her throat and she closed her eyes. Larry was lightly stroking her thighs now, his mouth teasing her someplace else, releasing a moan from her. Her teeth scraped over Patrick’s throat, and she even contemplated sinking them into his skin, but she stopped herself, she wouldn’t do that again, this wasn’t the same. How dare she enjoy this! But she was, and the pleasure was fast building into that ecstasy she never dreamed of feeling like this.
Patrick’s body was arched over her and she could glimpse Larry’s pale hand as it began to pull Patrick’s shirt up, touching his skin. A flash of anger went through her and she swatted his hand away. She slid her own hand up Patrick’s shirt and over his back, enjoying his moans as she moved it to his chest and trailing it down to his fly, fumbling with the button, with the zipper, finding exactly what she wanted.
And now she was lying wide-awake, and Patrick was drunk and asleep, and his friend was lying on her other side, warm and alien.
It’s all right, she thought over and over, Patrick is here, it can’t be wrong if he was here.
She knew that it wasn’t right, and for a spell, she was angry with Patrick for not stopping this. But had she fought either? Larry was a veteran, and she knew far too well by now what a veteran’s rights were, or what a veteran felt his rights were. Could she blame Patrick for being just too tired to object anymore? He must be just as tired as she was or perhaps more.
"How old are you?" Larry’s voice broke through the stillness and her brain. Why wasn’t he asleep?
"Nineteen," Michele whispered.
"Really?" Larry said, "Still a baby, you don’t seem that young. I thought you were older than Goose."
"Don’t call him that," Michele said quietly, "Stop calling him those terrible names. I’m tired of you."
"You are that young," Larry said, as if he had decreed it that way. He leaned up on one side and ran his palm over her body. Michele flinched and tried pushing his hand away but his other hand was there, just gliding over her body. "You still pulse with fear and heat, the way the young do," Larry said. "Almost like the way a pigeon or dove does."
"Just leave!" Michele choked out, "Leave! Haven’t you had your way? What more do you need?"
Moving slowly, he firmly gripped her wrists and crossed them over her breast, he leaned on top of her. "Tell me you didn’t enjoy it," he whispered, "tell me that you weren’t pleasured the way a woman should be. Tell me that you didn’t enjoy what just happened now, two men worshipping your body as if you were some goddess and not some scared, skinny, temperamental teenager. Tell me that and then I’ll leave."
Michele opened her mouth, but she didn’t say anything, her pulse was racing, and she could feel his pulse too, slow and ponderous and steady. Was he feeling her heartbeat, fast and scared like a rabbit’s? Did it excite him? It was horrid, but she was becoming excited.
Abruptly, Larry rolled off her body and off the bed, leaving her cold and disappointed. He left the room and when he came back he sat on the edge of the bed handing her a cold glass of water. "You must be thirsty," he said.
Michele snatched the glass, drinking greedily. As she drank, Larry leaned over her body, crawling over her and to her horror she saw him kiss the back of Patrick’s neck. He had been trying to do that all night the sneaky basterd!
Michele dropped the glass and pressing her hands on his body she used all her meager weight to shove him aside. Patrick didn’t awake and Larry laughed throatily. "Don’t you dare touch him!" she cried grabbing the glass and trying to hit him with it. He swatted it from her hand and it clattered on the floor, not breaking but rolling across the room.
"I hate you!" she cried. "I hate all of you!"
Her mouth was stopped up again, as he kissed her, feeding off her anger, holding onto arms and then her waist until she stopped struggling. She gasped for air when he pulled away from her. "I can’t live like this, it isn’t right," she moaned.
"Not for any other girl your age, you’re right," Larry said. "But you don’t qualify for such delicate treatment."
"I’m not a whore!" Michele snapped.
"No you’re not," Larry said. "Not yet. You have the potential for so much more, my dear. It would be a shame to see you fall to the status of a common, trampy, groupie in the chicken coop."
"Then stop treating us like whores," Michele murmured.
"It was your idea, wasn’t it? What Patrick did to Mario?" Larry asked.
Michele went cold all over. "Yes," she said.
Larry laughed quietly. "You have a talent. You have a talent in a wicked little brain, don’t waste it."
"What?" Michele could only ask.
"That’s what started this mess, Mimi," Larry said. "Don’t deny it, you know it. Your little scheme set this ball in motion. You weren’t innocent. You were rash and you struck too quickly and you weren’t ready for the repercussions of your actions. Young things never are ready. You can go on tomorrow and fester and whither away in starvation and self pity, or you can learn from this. The choice is yours."
Michele sat up and looked down at Larry’s gleaming, milky body.
"A tramp is a woman who is never discreet, who flaunts her appetites, and who is extremely unlikable." Larry said resting his hands under his head. "You can do that if you want. You enjoyed what we just did to you, and you’re going to crave more of it, and you’re not going to deny yourself of it ever again. Now you can decide to brazenly pursue your new tastes, or you can be a little subtler. Have whomever you want, whenever you want and if you do it under a cloud of feminine weakness, making them fall in love with you, then no one would be the wiser. It would be fun."
"Why are you telling me this?" Michele exclaimed.
"I just would love to see something interesting happen with you two, and I’d like to know that it was because of me," Larry said bluntly. "Patrick is going to be a star, there is a competitive fire in him I’ve never seen before, and you will be by his side. It would be great if you two would raise yourselves head and shoulders above everyone, use the world, don’t let it trample you two and burn you both out."
A burning was beginning in her chest, and Michele sighed and fell to her back on the bed. Almost immediately Larry was on her again, his warmth relaxing her suddenly, warmth she hated to enjoy. She arched her back a little, sliding her legs around his waist and making it easier for him to enter her body.
"Oh you are sweet aren’t you," Larry groaned.
Michele cried out a little, kissing his forehead and dropping a few tears. Something had just snapped inside her, she knew she was never going to be the girl she used to be, and Patrick would never be the same either. It was frightening knowing that she could always point back to this moment as the moment something died in her and as the moment she knew who she was going to be.
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