Bold and Simful

Two days after Christmas, Catherine Mendenhall left her daughter Elizabeth and a sizable donation in the care of the Sisters of Blessed Mercy.

Inside the convent walls, Elizabeth was wracked by another round of nausea.

“Come now, everything will be just fine. A little rest and a bowl of Sister Damien’s comfort soup and you’ll be 100%,” Sister Mary Katherine comforted. She had seen this numerous times before, so often in fact that the sisters had converted a wing of the mother house into boarding for expectant mothers.

With Catherine out of the house, Francis prowled around waiting for the maid to arrive. The few liquor bottles he had found lying around had given him cause for concern. He had tried to push the thought out of his mind, but it never got far before he remembered his wife’s frequent headaches, her recent habit of sleeping well passed noon and the mood swings that seemed to come more and more often lately.

Hearing rustling upstairs, he cornered Jay Gibson in the master suite, “Jay, isn’t it? Yes, well, have you noticed any bottles around the house lately?” Francis asked, trying to sound casual. There was no need to divulge family problems to the hired help, especially when he wasn’t even sure there was a problem.

“There are always bottles around, sir. What kind of bottles are you referring to?” Jay replied. He knew exactly which bottles Francis meant, he had found plenty of half empty bottles stuffed under pillows, hidden in closets or sometimes left out on the nightstands when Catherine had been particularly careless, but it wasn’t his place to get involved in the affairs of his employers.

Francis hesitated to answer, he had hoped Jay would get the inference. If he spelled it out, even Jay would come to the obvious conclusion. The hesitation lingered uncomfortably long, Jay stood waiting, knowing that revealing the extent of Catherine’s drinking could very easily cost him his job.

“You know what? It’s nothing, a few bottles were missing after our Christmas party, I probably just misplaced them,” Francis finally lied, unable to bring himself to ask outright if his own wife was an alcoholic. “Maybe they are in the wine cellar,” he mumbled, embellishing the lie on his way out the door.

With his family occupied with their own concerns, Xavier had been free to do as he wished for the last few weeks and what he wished to do was see Veronica Bettencourt. He had long ago learned that the easiest way in and out of Bettencourt Hall was through the servant’s entrance at the back of the house, it was always unlocked and right next to the staircase that led to Veronica and Maleena’s bedroom.

He had used it so often recently that he had begun to get careless and on this night, he cringed when he heard the glass in the door rattle as it closed a little too hard. Freezing in his spot, he waited and listened for the sound of anyone coming. He knew the house had been on edge since the break in, but when no one appeared after a moment or two, he tip toed off the porch and hoped the fence back to his own house.

Robert and Francis eyed each other over their glasses. It was rare for Robert to stop by and even more rare for Francis to receive guests, entertaining the neighbors was his wife’s job.

“What can I do for you, Bettencourt?” Francis asked, straight to the point as always.

“So I caught Xavier sneaking out of my house the other night,” Robert laughed, keeping his voice light. Of course he had heard the door but he already knew about Xavier’s comings and goings, it wasn’t because of him that the kids had to sneak around. “It doesn’t bother me if the kids see each other, my only complaint is that A. they are sneaking to do it and B. Veronica’s grades are beginning to slip and I don’t want to write another check to Hunter.”

“I’ll keep the boy home,” Francis said tightly.

Something in his neighbor’s tone made Robert sorry he had ever mentioned it, ‘I should have just spoken to Veronica or locked the servant’s entrance,‘ he thought with a twinge of fear for the poor kid.

“Well, it’s just for a few more weeks. Then they’ll be out from under our roofs,” Robert smiled at thought of his own college days.

Francis did not smile. “For now he is under my roof and he will stay there until he leaves for college,” Francis declared, concluding the conversation and showing his neighbor to the door.

Francis had already given his son the “What I Expect of You” version 3.0 lecture and true to his word, he had been on Xavier’s ass all week. With Francis’ tutoring, the boy’s grades had improved but he had somehow managed to loose some of his logic skill, ‘Not unexpected, the boy can’t think straight‘, Francis simmered when he heard the news.

“eh, it’s not so bad,” Elizabeth said when her mother arrived to check on her.

Sister Mary Katherine stood by quietly to observe the interaction between mother and daughter. She had noted that Elizabeth rarely spoke of her parents in good terms, she respected them but it was a respect mixed with fear rather than with love.

“You’re not even showing yet,” Catherine observed. “but you’ll have miss the prom anyway. It would be difficult to explain how you were able to show up for it. I guess I’ll be shopping for maternity clothes while other mothers are shopping for prom dresses.”

“I guess so, Mother,” Elizabeth sighed, remembering the dress her father had bought for her just a few weeks ago.

“Well, you’ll be ready for Hunter in the fall anyway. You are keeping up your grades? I don’t want you to fall behind,” Catherine looked for assurance of normalcy from her daughter and got it.

“Yes, Mother. I still have straight As”, Elizabeth answered.

‘As if prom is the most important thing at this moment,‘ Sister Mary Katherine thought, ‘and not a question as to how the girl is feeling or any talk of the baby. She must plan on leaving the baby here,‘ the sudden realization hit her.

As she had predicted, Catherine was shopping for maternity wear while Maxine Bettencourt was helping her daughter Maleena find the perfect prom dress.

“A cotillioin? how perfectly European!” Maxine fawned, a hint of jealousy in her voice.

“It has been a tradition at Lawrenceville since the school was founded,” Catherine answered haughtily. Building on the lie that her daughter was away at an exclusive east coast boarding school was sure to become complicated, but at this point she could think of little else to do to save the family’s reputation.

Maleena overheard the conversation and immediately felt for her mother. Maxine’s compulsion to keep up with her neighbors was wearing her out and changing her personality. If she knew that the Mendenhalls weren’t as perfect as their closely guarded veneer implied, she might be able to get some sleep. Resisting the urge to interrupt and reveal the secret to everyone in the store, Maleena went to model the dress in the mirror.

‘Red is too garish. Maybe a light…‘ her thoughts were interrupted by Catherine’s concluding words, “Remember that the girls will be living in the dorm my family built, so a certain level of decorum is expected,” and her face flamed as red as her dress.

It was only early evening when Catherine arrived home from the boutique to find her son passed out on the living room floor in his pajamas. Agonizing over his prostrate body, she determined to speak with Francis about how hard he was riding the boy.

“Do you think that maybe you are pushing the boy too hard, Francis?” Catherine asked over breakfast, conscious to avoid eye contact with her husband.

“Too hard? If I had pushed harder earlier, he would be at Lawrenceville with Elizabeth instead of sneaking into the Bettencourt girl’s bedroom in the middle of the night, which her father seems to find amusing, might I add!” Francis glowered at his wife.

“Ok, I just thought I would mention it, he has been exhausted recently,” Catherine withdrew before an argument could begin, “I have a million things to do today. I have to speak with the landscaper about getting the gardens ready for spring and the repairman should be here to fix the upstairs sink and the…” her voice trailed on, casual and light.

Francis’ mind wandered to his own list of duties. Like his father before him and his grandfather who had started the company, Francis was very hands on at Mendenhall Enterprises, he really couldn’t be bothered worrying about petunias and peonies and he expected his wife to make the house run smoothly.

“I can’t, Mrs. Mendenhall. It’s just not right,” Jay protested, lifting the covers to get out of bed.

“Can’t and won’t are two very different things, Jay. Can’t can be fixed, Won’t is more difficult,” Catherine swung her legs over the side of the bed and threw her dress back on.

She waited patiently for Jay to finish dressing and descend the stairs to continue with his normal duties, When he arrived in the kitchen, she pushed a stack of bills in his general direction, “This is this week and next week’s pay. You can go now”.

“But Mrs. Mendenhall, I thought that…” Jay began to protest, he could not afford to loose his job.

“I don’t care what you thought,” Catherine handed the bills over and turned at the chiming of the doorbell. Her heels clacked on the parquet floor, then stopped. She turned and called over her shoulder to the retreating maid, “Of course, I will expect full discretion on your part!”

Cooper Simpson glanced up from his work when Catherine came through the doorway.

‘Damn it! I thought I could get out of here,‘ he admonished himself for taking too long.

“It looks like you’re almost done and it’s looking good,” Catherine observed, her gaze not on the faucet at all. “Would you like to stay for a drink after work?”

“Sorry ma’am, I wish I could, I do but I have calls that will keep me busy ’til sundown,” Cooper responded, attempting to look disappointed and hoping to temper the rejection with a plausible excuse.

“Just finish up then and be out of the house before my husband comes home, he doesn’t like disturbances,” Catherine’s back straightened and she turned to leave. She wasn’t used to rejection and twice in one day was a little much to take. ‘Is it me? Am I getting old and ugly?‘ she wondered on her way downstairs to the bar.

‘It can’t be!‘ she determined as the fiery liquid warmed her throat and stiffened her confidence.

Jay arrived at his house in Rigel Heights earlier than usual and scooped up Jacob to stop him from tugging on his pant leg then took a deep breath and broke the news to his wife, “She fired me.”

Brenda’s face fell, “But Jay, we almost saved enough to buy a car, you know how hard it is to get around in a taxi especially with a baby. Why did she fire you?”

“Things weren’t up to her standards, she wanted someone new, I don’t know, she just canned me,” Jay partially fibbed. He sure wasn’t going to tell his wife the real reason for his dismissal.

“Doesn’t she know you have a family? a baby?” Brenda questioned pointlessly, “What a bitch!”

“I know, hon. But it’ll work out, I’ll get another job and things will be fine. For now we just have to tighten up our spending. It’s not like we’ve never been poor.” Jay comforted.

“Yeah, but do we have to keep being poor?” Brenda pouted for a second then realized the effect it was having on Jay, “ah, you’re right. We’ll figure something out,” she relented.

 

Posted on May 11th, 2008 under Mendenhall. Tags: brenda, elizabeth, francis, gibson, jay, maleena, maxine, Mendenhall, robert, sister mary, xavier. RSS 2.0 feed. Leave a response, or trackback.