Secret Lives (11 page)

She's been bitten, he thought. Like her
mother. Like himself.

“Plus I have the feeling Kyle can use all the
help he can get before the grant's up.”

“Yeah, you're right. He had a couple of
graduate students, but they left about the time I came.” Actually,
the two women had left the day after his arrival. Kyle made up some
excuse for their abrupt departure, but Ben knew that he was the
cause of their flight.

Eden lifted the plastic from the square of
earth she'd been working on the day before and picked up her
brush.

“Eden,” he said.

She raised her eyes to him.

“I want to apologize for last night. It's
been so long since I've been out with anyone. I was nervous.
Sorry.”

“It's all right,” she said. She wasn't
saying, It's all right, we can try again. She was dismissing him.
I’ll forgive you, but you blew your chance.

He sat down on the ground at the other side
of the pit and began working. The silence was intolerable to him.
He could feel her behind him, content to work quietly. Maybe Kyle
had told her last night. Maybe she'd gone home and said to Kyle,
“That guy's really screwed up,” and Kyle nodded and said, “Yeah,
well, he spent six months in prison, you know.”

“I'm finding some little clumps of stuff,”
she said suddenly, and he turned around to see her examining the
soil in her hand. “But I swear they're just dirt.”

He moved next to her, and she set the little
brown lumps on his palm.

“They're pottery all right. Probably pieces
of that bowl you found yesterday.”

They worked together quietly for the next
hour, dusting the ground in front of her, charting her finds on the
graph paper. It was close to eleven when he stood up to
stretch.

“Want some o.j.?” he asked.

She looked up at him. Her lips were dusty and
beautiful. “That'd be great.”

He got two bottles of juice from the cooler
in his truck and returned to the pit. She sat with her back braced
by the corner of the pit, twisted off the cap and took a long
drink. She no longer looked the Hollywood actress. Brown dust
coated her calves and traced the line between her temple and
jaw.

He lowered himself into the opposite corner
and took a swallow of juice. “So, what's your mom up to these days
in her journal?” he asked.

Eden stared at the toes of her tennis shoe as
she spoke. “Well, her mother committed suicide, the Japanese
invaded Pearl Harbor, and she learned to make love to herself.”

Ben smiled at her candor. Kyle must not have
told her after all. “I guess when the world's crumbling around you
the only way to survive is to comfort yourself,” he said.

She looked up at him. “I hadn't thought of it
quite that way.” She pulled a pad and pencil from her shorts pocket
and wrote something down.

“I didn't know Kyle's mother killed
herself.”

“She was crazy.” Eden fingered the crumbs of
pottery lying next to her on the newspaper. “She did crazy things.
She hallucinated. She beat my mother and Kyle. She shot herself in
the head. Kyle found her. He was only about fifteen.”

“Jesus. That must have been horrendous. Did
you know before you read the journal that she was crazy?”

Eden nodded. “I got teased a lot for being
the daughter of a woman who lived in a cave and the granddaughter
of a lunatic. The kids at school used to jump rope to this song.”
She shut her eyes and began to recite.

“
Old Lady Swift was crazy as a
loon,

Washed her clothes from night till noon,

Ate bugs for breakfast and bats at night,

And blew her head off when the time was
right.”

Eden opened her eyes and looked at him. “No
one cared that my mother had published twenty-six books. I learned
to talk about my father even though I'd never known him, because he
was respectable. He started the Coolbrook Chronicle.”

“I didn't know that.” He was completely
certain now that Kyle hadn't told her. She would never speak this
openly to him if she knew.

“But anyway, I learned that my grandmother
was not actually my grandmother after all. Katherine and Kyle were
cousins. Kyle's parents adopted her after her own mother killed
herself.”

“A lot of early deaths in your family. A lot
of suicide.”

“They say it runs in families.”

“Have you ever felt that way?” he asked.

“Like killing myself? No. You?”

“The thought ran through my mind after my
marriage broke up.”

She set her juice down on the ground between
her feet. “What ended it, Ben? Or is that too personal?”

“Sharon ended it because…” He hesitated a
long moment. He could think of no lie he was willing to tell her.
Omission was one thing, lying another.

“It is too personal.” She let him off the
hook. “Sorry I asked. Kyle told me you used to teach. That you're
well known as an archaeologist. Why are you here in a failing
site?”

“Kyle didn't tell you?”

“He just said your divorce was
traumatic.”

Ben nodded. “It was bad. And I…couldn't keep
up with my job, really.” Well, okay. So there it was. The lie. Not
bold-faced, exactly, but now she probably assumed he'd had a
nervous breakdown. Still, that was preferable to the truth: “Kyle
heard about my problem and rescued me.”

She smiled. “That's his hobby, rescuing
people. He rescued me a couple of times too. Will you be ready to
go back to teaching when the grant's up here?”

He looked at the streak of dirt across her
cheek, at the strand of blond hair that had fallen free to rest
against her throat, and wished he could be as open with her as she
was being with him. “It's a little more complicated than that,” he
said.

Eden stared at the blank screen of her word
processor, trying to concentrate on her mother but able to think
only of Ben. The morning with him had been thoroughly comfortable.
She'd worn no mask and she'd survived. She hadn't meant to spill
quite so much to him, but he'd treated her words with interest and
respect.

His sadness touched her. He's harmless, Kyle.
He'd sat there in that pit with the body of a football player and
the aching vulnerability of a little boy. God, he was attractive.
He lacked Michael's polish, and perhaps that was what pleased her.
Nothing stirred inside her when she was with Michael. The fact that
he'd been voted People magazine's sexiest man of the year had no
impact at all on her body. He thought she was exercising herculean
willpower when she refused to sleep with him, but the truth was,
she found him extremely easy to resist.

Could she resist Ben? Would he ever give her
the opportunity? She liked the feel of his gray eyes on her as he
drank his juice in the pit this morning. The cut of his jaw, the
dark hair on his chest where it curled ever so slightly above the
neck of his green T-shirt, the splay of his dusty fingers as he
swept them across the earth…She had no desire to play a role with
him, and that scared and excited her at the same time. If he ever
touched her again she wanted it to be Eden Riley the woman, not the
actress, he touched.

But he hadn't come near her today. She'd felt
her body longing for it, just for his fingers on her knee. She
smiled at the thought of her mother, whose breasts ached when she
passed the boys at school. Katherine was so real to her now, so
very human. She switched on the word processor and began to
write.

–
10–

September 9, 1942

Kyle begun courting Sara Jane this summer.
He goes to her house about two evenings a week, and on those
evenings I write and write and write to keep from thinking. Sara
Jane is my enemy and I don't understand why Kyle likes her so much.
At first he asked my advice about what to say to her and how to ask
her out. He'd say, “What would you think if a boy said 'Would you
like to go to a movie with me?' or 'Can I come to your house this
evening?' ”

I was amazed he trusted my opinion to be
like other girls', and I tried to answer like other girls might,
saying “I'd be pleased to have your company,” etc, not at all sure
what words Sara Jane would use. I realize how little I know about
these things.

He dresses pretty to go out with her and
stops by the cavern to ask “How do I look?” and I tell him how
handsome he is and how thrilled Sara Jane will be by the very sight
of him and I can see the excitement in his eyes. I asked him the
other night if he's kissed Sara Jane yet.

“
Sara Jane loves to kiss,” he said and I
was sorry I asked. I believe Sara Jane is trying to be nicer to me.
She offers me sweets and tries to talk to me before school, but I
ignore her. She thinks if she is nice to me, Kyle will like her
even more.

The other girls are jealous of her. She and
Kyle hold hands or tip their heads together to share a secret. Kyle
is no longer off with the boys at recess and lunch but now is with
Sara Jane. They sit on the bench close together and talk. The girls
make their circle without Sara Jane, but their eyes are always in
the direction of the bench and I wish I could hear what they say. I
sit on the stoop, reading as always and watching. I'm beginning
another school year the way I ended the last one, reading, writing,
and watching the world go by. Only this year is worse in a way
because I feel real nervous in school, like I'm going to pass out
or get sick. I can't wait for that bell to ring at the end of the
day.

Daddy has a new lady friend, a real young
woman from Strasburg. One day a couple of weeks ago he said at the
breakfast table, “I'm thinking of gettin' married again. How would
y'all feel about havin' a new ma?”

Kyle and I looked at each other. We were
doing fine without a ma and Daddy could tell we were not too
pleased with his idea. He cleared his voice and said, “Well, she
wouldn't be your ma, exactly, but I could use me a wife. Y'all
wouldn't deny me that, now would ya?” He was grinning a grin I'd
never seen on his face before.

“
No, Daddy,” said Kyle, but my heart was
pounding. I didn't want some stranger in my house.

“
Her name's Susanna Cody,” Daddy said.
“She's a little young, but—”

“
How young?” I interrupted.

“
Nineteen. Nearly twenty.”

“
Nineteen!” Kyle said. I was too shocked
to say anything. Daddy is thirty-five!

“
That's too young for you, Daddy,” Kyle
said.

“
You presume to be tellin' me my
business, boy?” Daddy said. He was not really angry. Actually, I
have not seen Daddy angry since before Mama died.

So last Saturday, Daddy invited Susanna Cody
to dinner. Of course I had to do the cooking, which was fine with
me since it gave me something to do while Kyle and Daddy
entertained Susanna in the parlor. I was wondering if she knew that
was the room where Daddy's last wife blew her head off.

Susanna is near as tall as Daddy and very pretty. She is
not too talkative which makes me wonder what she and Daddy have to
say to each other. She has nearly black hair that she wears short
and curled and she looks no more than eighteen, I think. She looks
like she should be with Kyle instead of Daddy, but she took no
interest in Kyle whatever. She only has eyes for Daddy. I don't
understand it. Daddy's not bad looking but his face is lined and
his hair's shifting back from his forehead. Still, she's smiling at
him all the time and calling him Charles which is
new to our ears. Ma
always called him Daddy. Anyhow, Susanna seems like a nice enough
person if she'll just leave us alone. Daddy announced at dinner
that they'll be getting married in November.

November 7, 1942

Most of the time, I don't feel lonely, even
when I'm alone in the cavern. Or maybe least of all there. There is
something living about the tites and mites. They are my company,
along with my stories. And you, my journal.

But today at the wedding I felt lonelier
than ever before. The wedding was held in a little chapel in
Strasburg. Hardly a soul was there. Just Susanna's mother, who is a
widow and would probably make a more fitting bride for Daddy than
Susanna, considering age anyhow, Susanna's friend and the friend's
boyfriend, and Susanna's older sister and her husband. Kyle brought
Sara Jane, and he and I fought about this, I'm ashamed to say. We
were in the cave and he said he's tired of me criticizing Sara Jane
and being cruel to her. “She tries to talk to you and you ignore
her,” he said. “The other night she was talking to me about it and
she cried, she felt so hurt.”

I was outraged. “What about all the times
she hurt me?” I said.

“
When we were kids maybe. I know she was
mean then. But she's different now. She'd like to do things with
you. You could go shopping or just talk or do whatever most girls
do when they're together.”

“
I'm not like 'most girls,' ” I
said.

“
Well, I wish you were,” he said. “Look
at you. You live like a hermit in this stupid cave. You don't care
how you dress or how you look or—”

“
I'd like you to leave my cavern now,
please,” I said, very calmly. I wasn't about to sit there and
listen to his insults. His cheeks were red and he turned on his
heel like a soldier and left the cave. After he was gone I made a
decision to treat Sara Jane more kindly. Otherwise I'll lose
Kyle.

So I was determined to be nice to her at the
wedding. I sat on one side of Kyle, Sara Jane sat on the other, and
as I sat there I tried to think of things I could say to her after
the ceremony but my mind was blank as a sheet of new writing paper.
A panicky feeling come over me and I thought I would die if I
didn't get out of that church and into the air.

As we left the church, Sara Jane said to me,
“Your Daddy looks so happy.”