Blackwood Farm - Anne Rice [151]
“ ‘But I don’t even know where you live!’ I said to Mona.
“I stared at Dr. Winn. His cold blue eyes and impassive face told me nothing.
“ ‘Come on, Quinn,’ said Fr. Kev.
“ ‘First and Chestnut Streets,’ said Mona. ‘Can you remember that? Riverside downtown corner. That’s the Garden District—.’
“ ‘I know it totally,’ I said. ‘My grandma grew up on Coliseum Street. I’ll come to see you.’
“I let Fr. Kev direct me back to my table. Stirling Oliver was in my chair talking heatedly to Aunt Queen.
“ ‘We only mean to help people,’ he said. ‘A person who sees spirits can feel very isolated.’
“ ‘You’re right,’ I said, ‘you’re so right.’
“And there stood Goblin staring down coldly on the proceedings and then looking over to the blossom of loveliness that was Mona.
“Stirling rose. He put a white card in my hand. ‘Take this. Call me if you feel you need to talk to me. And if your aunt, Mrs. McQueen, will allow it.’
“ ‘I despise having to be rude,’ said Aunt Queen, ‘but I do not think this is a very good idea, Mr. Oliver, and I do prevail upon you to leave my nephew to his destiny.’
“ ‘His destiny,’ said Mr. Oliver. ‘Oh, but that has such a ring to it.’
“ ‘Yes, indeed it does,’ I said. ‘Aunt Queen, I’m in love. I’m in love with that girl. Turn your head. You won’t believe your eyes.’
“ ‘Good Lord,’ she said, ‘it’s a female Mayfair.’
“ ‘What kind of remark is that!’ I said.
“Fr. Kevin chuckled under his breath. ‘Now Miss Queen,’ he said, smiling, ‘you’ve always tolerated me very well. I know you’ve had your driver bring you all the way over the lake just to hear me say Mass at St. Mary’s Assumption.’
“ ‘You do say Mass with a lovely flair, Fr. Kevin,’ she responded, ‘and you are a priest of God, as we well know, and a consecrated priest of the Roman Catholic Church, no dispute on that matter—but we are talking about your cousin Mona, if I’m not mistaken? Yes, Mona, and that is entirely another matter. Darlings, I think it’s time for us to go home. Quinn, dear, you’ve been discharged and your room packed up. Nash, you don’t mind too terribly—.”
“ ‘Aunt Queen, what is happening?’ I asked.
“ ‘We’re leaving, darling. Mr. Oliver? I wish I could say that it has been a pleasure. Your good intentions have been acknowledged.’
“ ‘Please, keep this,’ he said as he gave her his card again.
“I still held the one he’d given me. I put it in my pocket.
“I looked back at the radiant girl. And as our eyes connected I heard the message, clear as if Goblin had spoken it to me: First and Chestnut.
“Goblin vanished. I was being rushed out of the restaurant. Never had I felt such angry bewilderment!
“Only when we reached the car did I demand that we stop.
“ ‘Goblin,’ I cried. ‘Don’t you see? He’s off plaguing her now. Goblin, come back to me.’
“Then came the cold murmured reassurance I required, like a gnat at my ear. ‘You are a fool, Quinn. I don’t want to be with her. She doesn’t love me. I’m not hers. I am with you. I am yours. Quinn and Goblin one person.’
“ ‘Thank God,’ I whispered.
“The big stretch limousine pulled out of the porte cochere, and I started to cry like a little boy.
“ ‘You just don’t understand,’ I said. ‘She saw Goblin. And I’m in love with her. She’s the most radiant gemstone of a creature that I’ve ever seen.’ ”
22
“THAT NIGHT I connected with Nash as I have connected with few people in my life, and we forged a bond which lasted for my mortal lifetime and beyond it. He sat up with me for hours, comforting me as I poured out my soul, as I agonized over my fatal glimpse of Mona Mayfair.
“I made him privy to every nuance of the panic I’d been experiencing since Lynelle died, and I even dared to tell him in profound words and circuitous sentences of how I feared the recent shifts of emotional temperature