Helene
“Helene, did you order the charcuterie board like I asked?” Vassily, Helene’s father asked her.
The buffet table that was sitting in the middle of the foyer was nearly bare. Besides the napkins, plates, and silverware Anatole had placed down, there was nothing to display.
“I would have to pick it up from the butcher shop. Could Anatole drive me there?”
Helene turned her head towards her brother, who was rearranging the pillows on the sofa. At the mention of his name, Anatole spun his head around.
“Could Anatole drive you where?” He set down the pillow and walked over to the buffet table, where Helene and Vassily were standing.
“The butcher shop. I have to pick up the charcuterie board.” Helene gestured over to the bare buffet table.
Vassily tossed him his keys. “Be quick. The Gala starts at Eight, and how rude would it look if you two were late to your own gala?”
He shifted his eyes between Anatole and Helene before walking off to the musicians, who were setting up their equipment.
“You mean your gala…” Helene said, under her breath.
“It'll be fun, Helene. Cheer up!” He wrapped an arm around his sister.
“Think about it, you get to dress up in a gown and socialize with the other rich families that only came to flaunt their wealth in our faces and fake sympathize with us on our late mothers passing.”
Helene looked up at Anatole.
“She wouldn't have wanted this...The glitz and the glamour. Even though she had all this money, she never chose to spend any of it, only when we all went to Moscow. And even then, she could've used her money to heal herself of cancer, but she chose not to…”
Helene shook her head in disappointment at her father.
Anatole heaved a heavy sigh.
“How about we go get that charcuterie board, huh?” Removing his arm from Helene’s shoulder, he walked over to the front door.
Helene followed behind him and they both walked out of the house and to the car.
“Do you ever think about that? How mom’s side of the family was so wealthy but she was the only one who didn't let it go to her head?”
Helene opened the passenger door of the car, and hopped in.
“No Helene, I don't think about that.” He slid the key into ignition.
“Because you choose to forget.” Helene muttered into the window of the car.
“I don't.” He said sharply, and turned his head towards the girl.
Helene, a little frightened by the tone of his voice, looked at Anatole as he looked back at her.
“I'm grieving too, Helene...just not in the way you are.” He said in a quieter tone this time.
Anatole put the car in reverse and backed out of the driveway.
After 40 minutes of silence, they arrived at the butcher shop. The silence gradually became more and more awkward as Anatole got lost about three times on the way there. He knew when they returned back home, Vassily would verbally assault him for taking so long to come back.
He put the car in park.
“I'll be back.” Helene said, breaking the silence.
She opened the car door, and slid out onto the sidewalk of the street.
She walked into the shop, and made her way towards the front counter, being as though no one was in line, and she was the only customer in the store.
“Hi, I placed an order for Kuragina. A charcuterie board.” She dug in her wallet for the fifty dollar bill her father gave her this morning.
“Sorry but, we just sold the last charcuterie board a few minutes ago.” The man in the white apron in front of her said.
“You what?” Helene paused for a moment to process what he was saying.
“I’m really sorry miss. Can I offer you something else instead? A roast? A brisket?” He pointed to the various meats in the glass display case to his right.
“You can’t make another one?” Helene was sweating. The trip to the meat shop already took long enough. What will her Father say when she doesn’t come home with the charcuterie board? Insult to injury is what this situation was.
“I can’t…” He looked into the case once more.
“...But I do have some leftover salami, and some left over pepper jack cheese. I can sell you those for half the price of the charcuterie board. It's not perfect, but at least you will have something.”
He began to take out the salami out of the case, and place the hunk of it onto the wooden table.
Like the man said, she might as well go home with something...much to her benefit if it meant Vassily wouldn't be too strict with them.
“I'll take it.”
====
“Where’s the charcuterie board?”
Vassily stood in front of Helene, peering into the bag she just gave him.
“They ran out. This was the best I could get. If we just arrange the meat and cheese in a way where - “ She tried to explain herself until her father interrupted her.
“You waited until the last minute to get it, Helene. I don’t want to hear excuses…” He set the two trays of delectables on the buffet table.
Helene sighed, and walked to go upstairs.
“And what took you two so long?” Vassily glanced at the watch on his wrist.
“Anatole’s fault!” She scurried upstairs, not wanting to be a part of that conversation.
“Anatole, come down here now!”
Anatole, who was already upstairs, quietly crept back down the stairs, meeting Helene on the top step.
“Thanks, gracious sister…” He scowled at her.
“Love you too Tole.” She patted him on the back as he came downstairs.
Helene could hear the scolding from her room. Vassily’s voice boomed whereas Anatole’s was more sharp and ridgid with every word he said. It seemed like as the days went on, the angrier and angrier their father would get over the littlest of things. Helene chose to focus more on the good memories she had with her father, rather than the outbursts and the insults and the arguing.
Opening her closet, she found her black, cold shoulder dress. It featured hints of green and gold along the chest area and midsection. One of her favorite dresses.
“Maybe if I put this on, I'll feel better about this whole gala thing.”
It was at that moment when a certain someone popped into Helene’s head.
At least Marya will be there...
She thought to herself as she pulled the dress of the hanger and set it on her bed.
Suddenly her mind went elsewhere, as she caught a whiff of a pungent smell.
“Ugh, I’ve got to take a shower. I smell like beef.”
The first time she said that, it was meant to be unironic.
By the fourth time, she just could not contain her laughter any longer.
====
In the total amount of time it took Helene to shower, get dressed, and apply her make-up, the gala had been going on for forty five minutes... What can she say? It takes time to look good!
She could hear the music, the silverware clanking with the plates, and the soft murmur of people talking. She mentally prepared herself for all of the older rich ladies she was about to hug, and their disgustingly overpowering perfume. Her Father has hosted too many of these things, for her to know that the older rich ladies were the absolute worst.
She was just about to step down the stairs when she saw a face at the bottom of the stairway. A face she couldn’t have prepared for. Andrey Bolkonsky.
Helene could feel the boiling anger rising to her head. However, this was certainly not the appropriate setting to display such emotion. She plastered a smile on her face, and stepped down the stairs. A few of the older rich ladies gave her a smile as she made her entrance. She also caught a glare from Vassily, but that was the least of her worries at the moment.
Helene cautiously watched as Andrey was talking to a beautiful young girl...of course....
She watched as he flashed his charm at her, which wasn’t really charm at all - it was a trick; Helene could see right through him. She knew what he was really like.
Catching a glimpse of Helene from behind Natasha, Andrey said a few words to her before sneaking away.
Helene made her way to the spiked punch bowl and grabbed a cup.
Not so much to her surprise, Andrey Bolkonsky appeared next to her, grabbing a cup of his own.
“Elena Kuragina, never thought I’d see you again.” He began to pour.
“You're the one at my Fathers gala. Can't say I entirely believe that statement.”
Helene whipped back.
“Still sharp as a needle, huh?”
Andrey smirked.
“Why are you here Andrey? I thought I made myself very clear when I said ‘things are over between us’.”
Helene poured herself a large cup of the punch.
“I missed you. I can’t miss you?”
He grabbed another cup and began to pour.
“What is there to miss? It was just one time. And it meant nothing to me.”
Her words bit with every syllable spoken.
“You know that’s not true.”
He turned his head towards her, and looked her in the eyes.
She scoffed in amazement.
“My God, you’re still such a dick...Why can’t you just leave me alone?”
Not wanting to draw attention to the encounter they were having, she lowered her voice to a whisper.
Andrey whispered along as well, leaning in closer to Helene.
“Because I know you. You’re still the same girl who will sleep with any guy she meets.”
Helene looked him dead in the eye. She wanted to kick him. She wanted to go off on him, make him wish he never even showed up tonight, but instead all she could do was stare while every word he said stung her.
“What’s your body count now, Helene? Or have you lost track?”
He popped a salami slice into his mouth.
“Get out of my house Andrey.”
Helene was paralyzed. Disarmed. Andrey triggered something in Helene, and he knew it. He knew he’d won. He smiled at the girl in front of him.
“Gladly, ma cherie…” He took both cups, and headed back towards Natasha, but before he left Helene’s air, he whispered one last thing into her ear.
“Sorry about your mom.”
He walked off.
Helene could tell that his so-called ‘apology’ was actually just a way to fuel her anger even more, and it must’ve worked because just then Helene gulped down the punch. She didn’t even mind when the burning at the back of her throat came about. She poured herself another as she watched Andrey and the girl exit her home.
After about five or so minutes, she decided she was in no shape to be greeting people at the gala. Her body was flowing with alcohol, and her mind was swarmed with bits of anger and sadness.
Did he really just call her a slut? Was that truly who she was? A slut?...
Back and forth between believing Andrey and disbelieving him, Helene’s mind was at a tug of war. She didn't want to believe him, but she can’t change the past. What’s done is done, and the damage has been made. But if she could, she would take it all back in a heartbeat.
She went outside to her front porch. There she could be all alone, away from everyone else who might see her as just “the girl whose mother just died”.
Outside she could look at the stars in the nighttime sky. Feel at peace. It was what she used to do when she was younger after a really bad nightmare. And again when her anxiety wouldn’t let her sleep. And again every day in Moscow, without her mother.
She liked to believe her mother was watching her from the sky, and that she was right there with her in every one of those moments.
Some time had passed on when Helene suddenly heard the door fly open and close within a matter of a second. The girl marched right past Helene, making her way towards the driveway.
Helene immediately recognized who the girl was. Perking up at her sight, she made her presence known.
“Oh, gone so soon? I don't like parties either. Why I'm out here.”
Marya spun her head around to face Helene.
‘Beautiful…’
=====
Helene entered the home of Marya Arkhrosimova. Even Helene knew she had reached her own limit, when she plopped down on the sofa in the front room. She heard Marya say a few words, but everything just began to feel so heavy on her. Her eyes began to close, as she clutched a blue blanket from off the back of the couch, pulling it over her body.
Before she knew it, she had fallen into a slumber on Marya’s living room sofa, and for the first time in a long time, she felt at peace.