When We Lost Our Heads by Heather O'Neill

Author:Heather O'Neill [O'Neill, Heather]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2022-02-08T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 24

Marie Antoine Strikes Back at the World

The foreman stopped outside Marie Antoine’s house in the summertime. He hadn’t been to visit in quite some time, not since Marie’s father had died. He was quite used to wealthy women having nervous breakdowns. But nothing he had witnessed had prepared him for the state the maids were in. A girl wearing a white shift dress with a black butler’s tailcoat over it opened the door.

“Right this way, sir,” she said with a slight Caribbean accent. Then she walked away without taking his hat or his jacket. And he was entirely unsure whether he was supposed to follow her or not.

He stepped over a pile of dog shit. There was a Great Dane walking around. It disappeared behind the corner like a sinister creature.

There was a group of maids sitting at the table playing cards. One of the girls was in her undergarments. She screamed and jumped up and ran out, to the amusement of the other maids.

He inquired after Marie. They looked at him quizzically, as though they had no idea who in the world he might be looking for.

“She doesn’t see guests anymore. Who let you in here anyhow?”

“I’m here to speak about the Antoine factory.”

“Well, look around for her then.”

“Ask Sarah to fetch her.”

“Sarah!”

The girl who had answered the door came running back in. She stopped in front of the man and put her arms akimbo. “I did say right this way, sir!”

Marie was sitting on a completely destroyed couch in a large room. She was wearing a beige dress that looked as though it was desperately in need of a wash. Her hair was down and there was a white flower in it that looked as though it had been stuck in there a day before or so and had been forgotten. She put her hand out to see his proposed changes. She read through them carefully for twenty minutes. At no point did she tell him to sit, nor did Sarah, who was perched on the arm of the couch reading over Marie’s shoulder with one leg swinging back and forth, offer him a chair.

He imagined it was some sort of production that Marie, for whatever reason, was pretending to read the documents.

The Great Dane walked in and curled into a ball at Marie’s feet. It resembled a large piece of driftwood that had settled on the beach. Marie raised one of her feet and placed her boot on the back of the dog as though it were an ottoman. He saw her stockings that were white and, although expensive, covered in runs.

When she was done, she handed over the documents. And she stared at him with a look of intelligence he hadn’t been expecting at all. It threw him off, making him immediately terrified about what he had done. He had never seen such a look, except on the face of a young girl at the factory who demanded to see Mr. Antoine after she lost a finger.

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