Page 80 of The Big Easy & Other Lies
I’d been on the receiving end of so many of Mrs. LeBlanc’s well-intended inquiries that I had no problem sympathizing.
“Angelique has spent her whole life trying to measure up. She’s a cool girl, and she genuinely does like helping folks, but she pushes it to a whole new level to impress her mom. She has to get the best grades and do the most volunteer work and have the most friends, and so on.” She paused and flashed a smile. “Angelique can tire me out, too. She thinks if she can do enough things and be the best at all of them that her mama will finally approve of her.”
“How can shenot? Angelique’s the perfect belle.”
“I’m going to tell you something that I think you need to know because it will explain a lot.” She fidgeted with a fabric pencil, tapping it in a hard staccato against the worktable. “You can’t use this against her.” She seemed to be searching my face for something.
Angelique didn’t deserve my discretion or pity or whatever it was that Amber thought telling me this would get her friend. But I glanced around at the clear evidence that Angelique hated me more than I ever imagined, and I needed to know why—even under the condition that I couldn’t repeat it to anyone. I had spent ten miserable years with Delphine because I didn’t break my promises. Ever. If I accepted Amber’s terms, I was stuck with Angelique’s secret.
Amber said nothing, only waited. I didn’t know what she wanted to hear, so I nodded. Once. It was enough.
“The night before that party at the Guidrys, Angelique slept with Cash. It was her first time. She was super freaked out about it because her parents are so strict. Sometimes I think she’s a littletooCatholic,” she said, grimacing. “She was weird about it all day before the party, feeling guilty and stuff, and then when she caught him groping you, she lost it.”
I stared at her, shocked. “Thatis the big secret? That she slept with him? Does she care that much about her goody-goody reputation?”
“Yes. And so does her mom. And when Miss Cecilia walked in on Cash and Angelique fighting that night, she heard Angelique screaming about it. And um...” She trailed off, looking totally uncomfortable. “Um, what made it worse was that Angelique was yelling about you, and how Cash was slumming with you to embarrass her because she didn’t do some of the stuff he wanted, and then Miss Cecilia lost it.”
Annoyance at how stupid the whole situation sounded flooded through me. “Why? Because her daughter wasn’t the Virgin Mary anymore?” I snapped. For two years I had put up with Angelique’s crap because of this?
“Pretty much,” Amber said.
My jaw dropped. “I was kidding. Mrs. LeBlanc really got that upset?”
She shrugged. “She was upset that Angelique hadn’t acted as a Christian woman, I guess. Between sleeping with her boyfriend and not having a more charitable attitude toward the less fortunate, which is, um, you, she said that Angelique showed a serious lack of moral character, and she doubted that Angelique would ever do more than learn to go through the motions of being a good and moral person.”
“That is insane,” I said. I couldn’t think of other words to describe it. It somehow changed the whole tone of every interaction I’d ever had with Mrs. LeBlanc. I used to think of her as the well-meaning if slightly nosy person behind my scholarship every year. But now I pictured her smiling face in my head, and it shone with an eerie fanatic glow.
“Oh, come on, Cam. Didn’t you notice that you suddenly became Miss Cecilia’s pet project after that night? She’s been, like, trying to make up for Angelique ever since.”
Bran would say this was all more evidence of rich people guilt, of this need they felt to coddle the poor or something.
“I actually didn’t notice. I thought it was because Mrs. Broussard told her about what I could do in design.”
“Which brings us back to this,” Amber said, touching the dress form. “Angelique isn’t naturally good at anything, but she works really hard at everything. When her mom got so interested in helping you, Angelique got interested in being better than you.”
I thrust my fingers into my hair and yanked in frustration. “Why does she needthis? She has everything else.”
“She wants her mom back. I think she’s got it in her head that doing what you do even better than you can do it is supposed to prove to Miss Cecilia that Angeliqueisbetter than you.”
“This makes no sense! She wouldn’t even have any of this if it weren’t for the designs I thought of first!” I swept my arm to encompass all the rip-offs hanging around us. “All she’s proving is that she has better fabric, not better ideas.” I dropped my hands and wrapped them around my waist, as if they could settle my heaving stomach by protecting it from the outside. It still rebelled.
“My therapist would say she’s projecting.”
I looked at her in surprise.
“Yeah, I have a therapist. I have issues with perfectionism,” she said, rolling her eyes. She walked to the door and turned to face me. “Look, Angelique and I have been best friends since preschool. I want to keep it that way. Please, promise me you won’t tell her that I told you all this stuff. And especially not that I showed you this. I’m still not sure I did the right thing here, but I tried.”
“Amber—”
“Please. You owe me. If I hadn’t showed you this, it would have ruined everything for you, right?”
“I’m still not sure everythingisn’truined,” I said.
“I’ve seen what you can do. You can make it all work,” she said. “Please. Don’t tell.” Her voice shook.
She was right. She had given me two weeks that she didn’t owe me to make something happen. Even if Angelique didn’t deserve my silence, I didn’t want to hurt Amber in the crossfire. “I promise,” I said, nearly choking on the word because it committed me.
“Thank you.” Relief washed over her face. “We need to go. She’ll look for me soon.”
