that grand, but it’s an original Art Deco house. These easy chairs and the coffee table, they’re authentic pieces of Art Deco furniture.” She gestured toward one of the chairs and said, “Here, why don’t we sit down?”
So they both sat down in the Art Deco easy chairs. She sipped some tea and said, “These chairs all by themselves cost Daddy a fortune. The thing is, Daddy doesn’t” ::::::doesn’t:::::: “want Philippe and me to forget that our origins are French. We’re only allowed to speak French at home. I mean, Creole—Daddy loathes” ::::::loathes:::::: “Creole, even though he has to teach Creole at EGU. He says it’s so-oh-oh-oh-oh primitive, he can’t stand it. That’s why when Philippe came home from school speaking Creole with a kid like this boy Antoine, who grew up without ever knowing anything but Creole… and Philippe obviously wanted to be accepted by this, I’m sorry… imbecile—it just killed Daddy. And then when Philippe talked back to Daddy in Creole to impress this moron… that’s when Daddy really went up in smoke. I mean, I love Daddy, and you will, too, once you get to know him” ::::::“once I get to know him,” meaning…?:::::: “but I think Daddy has just a tiny bit”—she put a thumb and forefinger out in front of her until they were this close to touching—“a tiny bit of snobbery. For example, I could tell Daddy didn’t want to let on how excited he was about my joining South Beach Outreach.” ::::::my joining, not me joining:::::: “I honestly think he was more excited—”
“What’s Philippe think about his French origins and everything?” said Nestor. He hadn’t meant to cut her off, but he had no patience with Daddy’s snobbery and South Beach Outreach and the rest of this social stuff.
“Philippe’s only fifteen,” said Ghislaine. “I doubt that he thinks anything about it at all, not consciously. Right now he wants to be a Neg, a black Haitian, like Antoine and this Dubois, and they want to be like American black gangbangers, and I don’t know what American black gangbangers want to be like.”
So they talked about Philippe’s troubles and schools and gangs.
“This city is so broken up into nationalities and races and ethnic groups,” Ghislaine was saying, “and you can try to explain all that to somebody fifteen, like Philippe, but he won’t listen. And you know what? Even if he understands, it’s not going to make—”
Ghislaine suddenly shhhhhhut her lips with her forefinger and turned toward the rear of the house… listening… Barely above a whisper to Nestor: “I think that’s him, Philippe. He always comes in through the kitchen door.”
Nestor looked in that direction. He could hear somebody, presumably Philippe, plunking something heavy down on the kitchen table… and opening a refrigerator door.
Ghislaine leaned over, and in the same whispery voice, she said: “He always gets something cold to drink as soon as he gets home from school. If he thinks Daddy might be here, he gets a glass of orange juice. If he knows Daddy won’t be here, like today, he’ll get a Coke.”
Thunk. The refrigerator door closed. Ghislaine looked that way warily before turning back to Nestor. “Daddy doesn’t try to keep Coke out of the house, but every time he sees Philippe drinking one he’ll say, ‘Just like drinking a liquid candy bar, isn’t it.’ Or something like that, and it drives Philippe crazy. He can’t stand it. When Daddy says things that are supposed to be funny, Philippe doesn’t dare laugh… because half the time Daddy’s slipped in some sort of… some sort of subtle sarcasm he’s got to deal with. He’s only fifteen. Sometimes I think I should say something to Daddy about it.” She looked rather searchingly at Nestor, as if he might have some wise counsel to offer.
Nestor smiled at her with as much warmth as he could put into a smile… smiled a couple of beats too long, actually. “Depends on your father,” he said. Depends on your father? What was that supposed to mean?… It meant that he was distracted… He loved the completely vulnerable, unguarded look on Ghislaine’s face… a look that seemed to say, “I surrender my judgment to yours.” When she leaned forward like that, her face was barely eighteen inches from the knees of her crossed legs. Her shorts were pretty short. Her beautiful legs were vulnerable, unguarded innocence in its carnal manifestation. He wanted to embrace—::::::Cut it out, you idiot! Isn’t it bad enough that you’ve decided to