Secret Lives (10 page)

Lou's easel stood next to her and Eden
stepped back to study the painting. It was typical of Lou's
work—ramshackle houses made of mud and tin set against a vivid
blue, cloud-flecked sky. Some little village in South America, no
doubt. Lou and Kyle had spent most of the last decade traveling in
Ecuador and Colombia, Kyle completing his research, Lou taking
photographs to use in her painting. She had an eye for irony, for
contrasting the poverty of man against the richness of nature.

Eden turned at a sound from the kitchen, and
in a moment Kyle walked into the living room and handed her a mug
of coffee.

“Thanks.” She took the mug from him and sat
down in the Barcelona chair by the fireplace. She felt awkward with
Kyle this morning. There were things he hadn't told her, a world of
things she hadn't known.

“You're up early.” He lifted his own mug to
his lips.

“I didn't sleep very well.” She'd lain awake
the night before thinking about Ben. What a disastrous evening.
She'd finally concluded that Ben was a manipulator. He'd probably
never accomplished what he'd hoped to as an archaeologist. He'd
gotten this job from Kyle and was now going to kiss up to him for
connections so he could move on to something grander. She'd grown
so irritated thinking about him that she finally got up to read the
journal, and after that it had been impossible to sleep. That was
probably just as well. Sleep was not a friend these days. It was
just the waiting period between nightmares.

“Why didn't you tell me you're not my uncle?”
she asked, the words blunt, reproachful.

Kyle stiffened. “What do you mean?”

“I mean no one is who I thought they were. My
grandfather was not really my grandfather. You're my…what is it,
second cousin?”

“Ah, I see.” Kyle sat down on the sofa and
rested his mug on his knee. “I think it would be first cousin once
removed.”

“Why didn't you tell me?”

Kyle ran a hand over his beard. “When you
first came to us, Eden, you were so withdrawn. I thought it would
make it harder for you, more confusing. I didn't think it was that
important. Then later…” He smiled. “Well, you were not the easiest
adolescent to talk to.”

She found herself smiling back. She was
having a hard time holding on to her indignation. “No, I guess I
wasn't.”

“Maybe Lou and I just didn't know how to
raise a teenager."

Eden sighed. “I think it was my fault, Kyle,
not yours. I hope Cassie will be a little easier to deal with than
I was.” The tenderness in her words surprised her.

“So.” Kyle lifted the mug to his lips. “How
was dinner last night?”

“A little strained. I don't think we'll ever
be the best of friends.” She waited, expecting him to say something
nice about Ben, something to endear him to her.

But Kyle leaned back on the sofa. “Well, that
relieves me somewhat. It's probably best for you and Ben just to
work together at the site this summer and keep things
impersonal.”

She was surprised. And curious. “I thought
you liked him.”

“I love him. Like a son. But he's the wrong
person for you to get involved with right now.”

“Why?” She was right in her assessment of Ben
after all, but she felt disappointed all the same.

Kyle shrugged and looked into his mug.

“I thought he might be using me. For my
money, or his ego. Or to get more from you,” she ventured.
“Connections or something.”

Kyle's eyebrows shot up and he laughed. “No,
honey, you're way off. Ben has more connections in the field than I
do at this point. And he's no schemer. He had a very messy divorce,
that's all. He's not over it yet. I'd love to see you with someone
outside of Hollywood, Eden, but it should be someone who has his
life in a little better shape.”

“But why is he working here for ... I'm sure
with your loss of funding you can't pay him much.” She suddenly
realized that Kyle was probably paying Ben out of his own
pocket.

“You'll have to ask Ben that question.”

“Where did he work before coming here?”

“University of Maryland. He taught there. He
was vice-chair of the department.”

She sat forward. “Then why is he here at such
a tiny enterprise?”

Kyle shrugged.

“You're not going to tell me, are you.”

“My advice to you regarding Ben is to treat
him kindly but keep your distance.”

She sat back again, wrapped her hands around
the mug in her lap. This entire exchange seemed familiar. Kyle
sounded just as he had when she was a teenager and getting in with
the drama crowd at school. She had finally belonged. But Kyle
didn't like her new friends. His admonishments were always gently
offered but unyielding. Softly masked authority that made her want
to slug him. The kids were on drugs, he'd say. The boys would use
her. “They're no good, honey, can't you see that? The only thing
they're good at is acting, and they can charm you into doing things
you'll regret. They can only hurt you in the end.”

From her adult perspective she knew Kyle had
been absolutely right. But she had been getting attention from her
peers for the first time in her life. She'd experienced a
confidence on stage she'd felt nowhere else. She could pull a role
over her head like an article of clothing. But the drama crowd had
been wild and she'd been ripe for the attention of the boys. Their
long hair and earrings intrigued her. They plied her with their
grass and poetry, those unrhyming verses that always had a sexual
overtone to them, so that when they stopped reading and started
touching her it seemed to be the natural progression of things. She
learned to slip into a role, into someone else's skin, and do
things the real Eden might not want to do. She convinced herself
that seventeen was a magical age. No one could hurt her anymore,
and her life suddenly filled with excitement, with a joy she'd
thought she would never know. She couldn't understand back then how
Kyle could ask her to give that up.

And now she felt something of that old
teenage rebel in her at his words about Ben. Ben was not trying to
use her. That was the most important thing. He was troubled, yes,
she could see that. But someone could give him the same warning
about her, couldn't they?

“Are you ready for the next notebook?” Kyle
asked.

“I guess,” she said. Last night's notebook
had left her so drained she wouldn't have minded if Kyle slowed
down a bit in dealing them out to her. She looked around the living
room and added quietly, “This is the room where your mother killed
herself.”

He nodded.

“Finding her must have been terrible for you,
Kyle.” The words slipped out easily, but even so she knew it was
the first empathic thing she had ever said to him.

“She was sitting in a rocking chair right
where you're sitting now,” Kyle said. “My father burned the rocker.
It was caked with blood. There was blood on the ceiling and the
floor and pieces of her head back there.” He pointed toward the
wall behind her. “Nothing I saw later in the war compared to what I
saw in this room that night.”

She looked up at the ceiling. It was painted
a clean white, crossed with huge oak beams.

“She left you and Katherine to raise each
other.”

“We'd already been doing that for years.”

“Katherine seemed a little sexually
precocious for fourteen.” She shifted uncomfortably in the
Barcelona chair. She'd meant to change the topic but hadn't
expected those exact words to come out of her mouth.

“Did she? Seems to me the only thing any of
us had on our minds in those days was sex.”

“Was she really that nasty to other
kids?”

“Worse.” Kyle laughed. “She makes herself
look like a saint in her journal. But she was nasty in
self-defense. The other kids weren't very nice to her either.”

“You were all she had. Didn't you resent her
dependency on you?”

He leaned forward and rested his elbows on
his knees. “I was dependent on her too. It doesn't come across in
the journal—maybe Kate never realized it. I talked a good line
about wanting her to be with other people, but later on, when she
became friends with Matt, I was pretty jealous.”

“The journal's not as easy to read as I
thought it would be,” Eden said. “It's harder to stay objective
than I expected. Katherine's become so real to me.”

He nodded as though he'd fully expected that
to happen.

“What will this be like for you, Kyle? I
mean, the film. Seeing yourself—the actor who plays you—finding
your mother after her suicide, coping with all you had to cope
with. Can you stand it?”

“It was a long, long time ago, Eden. All I
ask is that you present the past honestly, that you don't exploit
it.”

“When I finish the first draft of the script
I'd like you to read it,” she said, surprising herself again. “I
want to be sure you're okay with it.”

“I'd like that,” he said.

Eden squeezed the mug hard between her palms.
“Kyle, I understand why you've waited so long to tell me about the
journal. I know I'm reading your story as well as Katherine's. I
just want you to know I appreciate it.”

He nodded slowly, a thoughtful smile on his
lips. Then he stood up and walked to the door. “I'm glad you're
here, Eden,” he said. “It's time.”

She called Cassie from the phone in the
kitchen before leaving for the site.

“I'm brown as a strawberry, Mommy,” Cassie
said. Eden heard Pam's laughter in the background. “Just a plain
berry, Cass,” Pam said. “Brown as a berry.

“Oh. I'm brown as a berry, Mom.”

“Don't get burned, honey.” She pictured Pam
standing next to Cassie, pretending to be engrossed in some chore
as she listened in on this conversation. “Does Daddy have some
sunscreen for you?”

“Pam does. We have a raft for everybody!
Mine's blue.”

“Your favorite color.”

“Yes, and you know what?”

“What?”

“That's April's favorite color too!”

“I miss you, Cass.”

“And you know what else? Tomorrow we're going
to Hershey Park!”

“That's wonderful, Cassie.” She struggled to
get some enthusiasm into her own voice, which sounded depressingly
flat to her ears. “I'll call you tomorrow night to hear all about
it."

“Okay.”

“I love you, honey.”

“I love you too, Mommy.” Eden listened as
Cassie planted a dozen messy kisses on the mouthpiece. Then she
heard Pam's voice in the background.

“Oh Cassie, that's disgusting. Other people
have to use that phone too, you know.”

Eden heard the click of the phone being hung
up. She listened to the silence for a few seconds before hanging up
herself. Then she climbed the stairs to her room and made it all
the way to the wicker rocking chair before the tears started.

–
9–

Ben woke up the same way he'd fallen asleep:
angry with himself. His shirt was still beneath his head on the
pillow, but it had lost Eden's scent overnight. Time to step out of
fanta-syland and back to the real world.

The phone rang and he raised himself up on
one elbow to answer it. “Hello?”

“Ben? This is Alex.”

For a moment he said nothing. He'd called
Alex Parrish twice since he'd gotten out of prison, and the last
time Alex had asked him not to call again. “I'm surprised to hear
from you,” he said.

“This is business, Ben. Do you remember Tina
James?”

“Sure.” Tina had been one of his most
promising students.

“She's applying for a position with Stanford
and wanted me to ask you if you'd write her a reference
letter.”

So that was it. Poor old Alex had no
goddamned choice but to call him. “I think a letter from me will do
her more harm than good, don't you?”

“I talked to her about it. Her thinking is
that no matter what you did in your personal life you still have a
name in the field and—”

“Yeah, I'll do it.” He picked up the pen and
a pad of paper from the apple crate. “Give me her address and I'll
mail her a copy."

“Well, she said maybe you could just mail it
to me and I'll send it on to her.”

Ben sighed. She wanted a reference from him
but didn't trust him with her address. “Whatever,” he said. “So,
are you teaching this summer?”

There was hesitation on the other end of the
line as Alex debated whether or not to prolong this conversation.
“Yes. Just one class.”

“How's Leslie?”

“Fine.”

“And my goddaughter?” Ordinarily he would
refer to Alex's eight-year-old daughter as Kim, but he wanted to
remind him of just how close they'd once been.

“She's okay.”

“Her birthday's in a couple of weeks.”

“God, you have an incredible memory. I'd
forgotten myself.”

“Alex…I wish you'd see me.”

“We've been over that.”

“You've only heard things from Sharon's
perspective. Give me a chance to talk to you.”

“I can't, Ben.”

“Could you at least talk to Sam? Let him tell
you…”

“I've spoken to Sam. I know he thinks you're
innocent, but frankly I don't know what he's basing that on other
than brotherly love.”

“You've got some legal background. You might
be able to help him figure out a way to—”

“Forget it.”

“How long have we been friends, Alex? I
really think you owe it to me.”

“I don't owe you anything.” Alex's voice had
a nasty edge to it. “I'll tell Tina you'll get that letter out
within a week or so?”

Ben clenched his teeth. “Right,” he said, and
he hung up the phone.

“Good morning.”

Ben looked up from the pit to see Eden
shading her eyes against the morning sun. He was relieved to see
her. He stood up. “I was afraid you might not come back after last
night,” he said.

She climbed down the ladder into the pit. “I
wanted to see what else I could find.”