Entertaining the Enemy

Today was the day my job got creepy leaving me suddenly suspicious of everything and everyone and if I didn’t know why Caspar had unexpectedly hired me today might have given me a clue. Caspar spent the morning being metro in front of the mirror, if all the little girls in Bishop Vale saw how metro this straight man prepares himself they would be convinced he is not quite that, as for me I am still deciding, regardless of who he sleeps with.

A call came over the phone then he was all suddenly private walking off to talk and then about an hour later another call comes in and he says we are off. I grab the organiser, the samples and we zoom off in his car. I ask him the job as I have to call it something but he doesn’t answer me. At first I think it’s cause he didn’t hear me but then we start going up Hillcrest Road and there is only one place this leads to and that is the Dubois Compound.

I find this confusing as the Dubois never entertain, they lock their compound up tightly with only the select few allowed access and they are so bound to the Dubois circle that no gossip comes out of the place. No staff talks, no one talks about the Dubois family and what they get up to and from the antics of Gervais, Elyce and Ladonna they actually get up to a lot, it’s just that no one is talking about it. We start driving up the curvy hillside and I am begging the universe not to make it Gervais because if I see him again after yesterday I will have to quit yet another job for I couldn’t take being in close quarters with his creepiness all over me.

We drive up to the gates where Caspar presses the intercom and the gates are buzzed open, I am used to gates and intercoms but not like these for the Dubois compound has to be seen to be believed it is so beyond anything else in our town. Old man Dubois, their great great grandfather decided he was going to create a little kingdom for his family, at least that was one of the stories, another was that he just wanted to control all the comings and goings of his crazy family as control is a favorite pastime of all the Dubois. It seems that they were all at some point about to get arrested as the various Dubois family members were either being killed from driving too fast, too drunk or too many drugs. They started fights, they started wars, they made fortunes, and they lost fortunes until their great great grandfather built the compound and locked them all up. From then on the compound was pretty much off limits to the town and press alike and if any journalist looking for a story was stupid enough to sniff about he would find his life suddenly in shambles. The Dubois are like a silent menace owning and controlling everything around them with a family unable to stay in relationships long enough to have many children and Gervais, Elyce and Liselle were the most prominent Dubois left. The rest were minor cousins who were tolerated at family functions but the rest of the time the gates were firmly and ominously closed.

We drove up the long driveway lined with tall sweeping pines whose branches met over the top of the car making the road seem dark and forbidding. At the end the driveway opens into three forks each leading to one of the huge mansions sitting in a circle at the top of the hill. They were strange Victorian looking buildings that belonged in some gothic novel and I half expected the gargoyles to swoop down and carry one of us off, preferably Caspar. He stopped for a minute as if uncertain which I thought was weird as being a friend of Gervais he should have known his way around, then a second later I realised why when Ladonna came out to greet us. I don’t think he had been to Ladonna’s manor before and didn’t know which one was hers.

She ushered us in talking non stop in her loud voice while her staff were nowhere in sight then she sat us down in the sitting room and went off shouting for someone to bring in the coffee. She came back and sat down sort of spreading all over the sofa so when she motioned to Caspar to sit beside her he had to squeeze in where he could. Ladonna was not a Dubois by blood she was a Dubois by marriage. She was this tall big black woman with a sparkling smile that shone brighter than a spotlight and she spoke in this loud voice as if she was still working in a noisy strip club and so people could overhear everything she said and once Mother remarked that she thought Ladonna put on that voice so everyone could hear her insults. Ladonna was the final scandal of the Dubois family when their utterly freak of an uncle Axel brought her home one day as his wife. She was not shy about her past nor was she afraid of any of them, holding her own even against Gervais and despite the disapproval of the matrons of Bishop Vale Ladonna was secretly admired for taking on the Dubois and surviving!

Ladonna leans forward and tells us in a conspiratorial whisper which in reality was a small shout that she wanted to give a big event that would outdo everything ever seen in Bishop Vale, even the Spring Opener by that skinny assed upstart Vanderhaven tart. This made me giggle but when Caspar frowned I turned it into a cough and started typing in the organiser. She gave Caspar free rein to do anything, from dancing bears to elephants and said she wanted this event to be remembered as the event to have attended. She stopped and suddenly glared at Caspar in a way that was pure Dubois, marriage or not and told him that he was not going to pawn any of his puce satin off on her. She wanted something unique and with class and if he couldn’t deliver she would call up Cameo Larsen.

I could see now how she had survived living here, for all her cartoon mannerisms Ladonna was nobody’s fool. I kept looking over my shoulder waiting for Gervais to ooze in but he never appeared so I was able to get through the interview without shuddering too much. Ladonna took us into her grand ballroom and it really was impressive with marble floors and a huge atrium you could imagine elegant women in satin gowns waltzing the night away. Caspar was entranced and promised Ladonna this was going to be an amazing event then Ladonna turned to me and asked what I thought of her ballroom and I said it was beautiful. She asked me if I had a boyfriend and I don’t know what got into me I guess it was nerves from being in the compound but I told her it was none of her business. Caspar looked like he was going to have a fit but she just laughed and laughed before telling Caspar I wasn’t as silly as she thought. Then before we knew what was happening we were dismissed and the absent housekeeper magically appeared to show us out. Driving back to town Caspar started on at me about talking back to Ladonna but I didn’t care for I was more interested to know if Gervais put him up to this and I asked him outright. I told him if he had I was going to quit then and there and Caspar went all quiet before saying he was capable of getting jobs on his own reputation as he did not require Gervais to find him work. I was not confident about his answer despite his offended silence as everyone knows that what a Dubois wants, a Dubois gets.

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