Gabriel's Inferno (Gabriel's Inferno 1)

“I’m sorry, Rachel. I didn’t know.”

“I’m not excusing his rudeness. I’m just telling you who he is. Did you know that after his horrible fight with Scott, Mom lit a candle every night and placed it in one of the windows? She thought that if Gabriel happened to be in Selinsgrove and saw the candle, he would know that she was waiting for him, that she loved him, and he’d walk up the front steps and come in.”

Julia shook her head. She hadn’t known that, but she believed it. That’s just who Grace was — charity unbound.

“He pretends to be whole, but he’s been broken. And deep down, he hates himself. I told him to treat you nicely, so I think his behavior will improve. Let me know if it doesn’t and I’ll deal with him.”

Julia snorted. “He ignores me, mostly. I’m a lowly grad student, and he doesn’t let me forget it.”

“I find that difficult to believe. I doubt very much that he would stare so intensely at a ‘lowly’ grad student.”

Julia busied herself with her chocolate. “He stares at me?” She was trying very hard to sound relaxed, but her voice sounded unnatural, shaky even.

“He stares at you all the time. Haven’t you noticed? I caught him looking at you over dinner the other night and when we were at the club. Every time you took a drink, actually. And when I winked at him, he scowled.”

Rachel looked at her friend thoughtfully. “I see the two of you together, and I feel like I’m missing something…He knew that I was going shopping this week, and he not only encouraged me, he gave me money.”

“So? That’s nice. That’s what big brothers are for. What did you buy?”

“The money was for you, not me.”

Julia frowned and turned sideways on the bed, cross-legged, so that she could face her friend. “Why the hell would he do that?”

“You tell me.” Rachel cocked her head to one side.

“I don’t know. He’s been rude to me since I got here.”

“Well, he gave me some money and told me to buy you a gift. He was very specific. So here it is.” Rachel placed the box in Julia’s lap.

“I don’t want it.” She tried to hand it back, but Rachel refused.

“At least open it and see what it is.”

Julia shook her head, but Rachel insisted. So she opened the box. In it she found a very nice chocolate-brown, Italian-made leather messenger bag. She held the bag up by its strap and looked at it. The label said Fendi.

Holy crap, thought Julia.

“Well? What do you think?”

“I don’t — know,” she stammered, staring at the beautiful and classic bag in astonishment.

Rachel took it from her and began rummaging through it, muttering about its internal stitching, numerous compartments, and overall quality workmanship. “See how perfect it is? It’s functional and feminine, since it’s a messenger bag and not a briefcase, and it’s Italian. And we both know that you and Gabriel have a thing…for Italy,” she added, after a pause that was designed to elicit some kind of reaction.

Julia’s telltale flush and immediate nervousness told Rachel all she needed to know, but she chose not to embarrass her friend any further. “I’m not supposed to tell you it’s from him. He was very explicit. Of course, I ignored him.” She chuckled.

“Your brother wants me to have this because he doesn’t like looking at my ratty old knapsack. Its very existence offends his patrician sensibilities, so he thinks he can use you to persuade me to get rid of it. But I’m not going to. It’s an L.L. Bean, damn it, and they offer a lifetime guarantee. I’ll send it back to Maine, and they’ll replace it. He can take his messenger bag and shove it up his I’m-too-good-for-domestic-items ass.”

Rachel was stunned momentarily. “It’s not as if he’ll miss the money.

He has piles of it.”

“Professors don’t make that much money.”

“That’s right. He inherited it.”

“From Grace?”

“No, from his biological father. A number of years ago a lawyer tracked Gabriel down and told him his father had died and left him a lot of money.

I’m not sure he even knew his father’s name before that. Gabriel refused the inheritance at first, but later changed his mind.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. It was after his fight with Scott. I didn’t talk to Gabriel after that for a very long time. But as far as the money is concerned, I think he’s trying to spend it faster than it accumulates interest. So don’t think of this as a gift from Gabriel — think of it as him sticking it to his old man.

He wants  to give money away. And he wants you to have something nice.

He told me so.”

Julia shook her head. “I can’t accept it. I don’t care where it came from or why.”

Rachel gave her friend a pained look. “Please, Julia. Gabriel has been on the outs with all of us for so long. He’s finally letting me back into his life. I don’t think I can lose him now after everything…” Her face crumpled, and she looked very upset.

“I’m sorry, but it’s too much. He’s my professor — he’ll get in trouble!”

Rachel clutched Julia’s hand. “Will you tell on him?”

“Of course not.”

“Good, because you’re supposed to think this is a belated birthday gift from me or Mom.” Rachel’s eyes widened as she realized her mistake. “Oh God, Julia, your birthday. I forgot. I’m so sorry.”

Julia clenched her teeth a little. “I don’t really celebrate it anymore.

It’s just too hard…I can’t…”

“Do you ever hear from him?”

Julia immediately felt ill. “Only when he’s drunk or pissed off about something. But I changed my cell phone number when I moved here so he couldn’t call me.”

“Bastard,” said Rachel. “Wel , I wasn’t supposed to tel you the messenger bag was from Gabriel, but I just couldn’t lie to you. I know how much it hurts you when people lie, and I wasn’t going to do that.”

The two friends exchanged a meaningful look. Julia contemplated this one gift from Gabriel and all of its implications, spoken and unspoken. She didn’t want to receive a gift from him. He’d rejected her, plain and simple.

Could she have this bag in her little hobbit hole? Could she use it, carry it to school, knowing all the while that it was from him? Knowing that he’d be staring at her smugly, thinking that he’d done her some kind of service?

Not for Gabriel. Not for all the tea in China.

Rachel saw what Julia was about to do even before the words had formed in the back of her mind. “If you don’t accept the bag, he’ll know something went wrong. He’ll blame me, instead.”

Julia silently cursed him. Oh gods of all pretentious pole-in-keister Dante specialists, send him a rash on  il pene . Please. Something extra itchy.

But for Rachel, Julia would do anything. “Fine. I’ll do this for you.

But will you please tell Gabriel not to buy me any more stuff? I’m starting to feel like one of those kids on the unicef box at Halloween.”

Rachel gave her friend a nod and a smile and bit into a chocolate. She licked the cocoa from her lips and closed her eyes. It was good.

Julia hugged the briefcase to her chest, like a shield, and inhaled the lovely leather scent. Gabriel wanted me to have a present. He must feel something for me, even if it’s only pity. And now I have something of his besides a photograph…something I’ll own forever.

She waited a moment before delicately changing the subject. “Will you tell me what happened at the funeral? I sent a card with some flowers, and Gabriel saw them, but he had no idea why I sent them.”

“I heard about that. I saw the gardenias, and Scott said they were from you, but the card disappeared before I had a chance to explain it to Gabriel. I was a wreck. My brothers were fighting, and I was trying to keep them away from each other before someone went through a window. Or a coffee table.”

Julia thought of shattered glass and blood on a white carpet, and she shivered. “Why are they always fighting?”

Rachel sighed. “It never used to be that way. Gabriel changed when he went to Harvard…” Her voice trailed off mysteriously.

Julia didn’t feel comfortable pressing her, so she kept silent.

“As you know, Gabriel didn’t come home again for years after his fight with Scott, and when he did, he would only stay a few days. He insisted on sleeping at a hotel, and that broke Mom’s heart. Scott won’t let Gabriel forget it — all the stuff he put Mom through.” Rachel chewed another truffle thoughtfully.

“Scott looked up to Gabriel. It really hurt him when things went sour.

Now they barely speak to one another, and when they do…” She shuddered.

“I don’t know what I would have done without Aaron. I’d probably have run away and never come back.”

“Even a dysfunctional family is better than no family at all,” Julia said softly.

Rachel looked sad. “Well, that’s what we are now. We were the Clarks — now we are a dysfunctional family.  A dead mother, a grief-stricken father, a hotheaded black sheep, and a pig-headed brother called Scott. I guess I’m the partridge in the pear tree.”