Secret Lives (13 page)

“
Well, I don't know what to do. I mean I
understand basically what to do but��” He started giggling
uncontrollably. I just stared at him in amazement because I never
saw him act silly before. Once he finally stopped giggling I asked
him, “How far has it gone already?” I loved that he was drunk
enough that I could get away with being nosy about this.

“
Just above the waist,” he said, all
straight-faced now. My breasts started that weird aching that I
knew would only go away if they were touched.

“
She's getting impatient,” he said. “But
I don't know how to touch her…below the waist. I mean, I'm not even
sure what's there.”

I couldn't believe Kyle was saying all this
without even blushing.

“
I mean, the only girl I ever saw was you
and you were only about five years old.”

Kyle and I used to inspect each other down
by Ferry Creek where we could take off our clothes and let the
water run over our bodies.

“
Well,” I said. “Let me show you now.” I
started to unfasten the straps of my overalls, but Kyle was not
drunk enough for that! He leaped from the mattress as though
someone goosed him.

“
Kate!” he said. “Don't you
dare!”

“
All right.” I shrugged. “I'll draw you a
picture instead.”

So I drew it the best I could. I drew
pictures of the inside, too, the uterus and tubes and all and
explained to him everything I'd learned about menstruation. I
wasn't about to just teach him what felt good to a girl without
making sure he had some respect for her body. He sat with his head
on my shoulder, watching me draw. Then I pointed out the place he
could touch to make her crazy with longing for him.

He grinned and told me Sara Jane was already
crazy with longing for him.

“
No, this is different,” I said. “If you
touch this place, just kind of rubbing, but real easy—well, you'll
be amazed what will happen.” I set down my pencil, thinking what a
favor I was doing Sara Jane.

“
How do you know all this?” he
asked.

“
I do it to myself,” I said.

“
Really? I thought only guys did
that.”

That was a surprise to me, because it never
occurred to me that guys could do this too. But I suppose that
makes sense.

We talked a little longer, but Kyle was
slowing down. I managed to half walk and half carry him to the
settee before he passed out. I told him he'd be right sick this
morning (and he was). Then I lay down on my mattress, all of my
body burning from our conversation, and spent the rest of the night
with my own loving hands.

October 22, 1943

Sara Jane and Kyle are closer than ever. I
watch them at school, sitting on the bench, not noticing anything
but each other. They touch by drawing their hands slowly across
each other's skin, like some gluey substance connects them.

The other children are more respectful of me
these days and I'm sure it's because I'm Kyle's sister and Kyle is
looked up to more than anyone in our school. I want to know if my
anatomy lesson helped him, but I know it would embarrass him if I
asked. I'll have to wait til the next time he's had some to
drink.

Yesterday Miss Crisp had a long talk with
me. My stories have improved, she said, and my writing is “wise and
touching.”

“
But your characters are more alive than
you are, Kate,” she said. “You always have your nose buried in a
book, and while I certainly don't want to discourage you from
reading, there are other things in life.”

“
I'm happiest when I'm reading or
writing,” I said.

She looked at me like she didn't believe me
and I am not too convinced any more myself, but that is the type of
happiness I'll have to settle for. There are parts to life I'll
never have: a best girlfriend, a boyfriend. I'll never have
children. I myself will be my only lover. I'll never see other
parts of the world. The only place I can breathe easy is in my
house or my cave.

Susanna took me shopping for clothes
yesterday and I felt nauseous the whole time, so bad that when I'd
twist or bend to try things on I would start to retch. The streets
in town looked wavy and made me dizzy. I was afraid to be with
Susanna alone because I couldn't think of anything to say to her.
She is nice and I feel bad about this. I always thought the reason
I had trouble talking to people was because they were idiots, like
at school. Now I know it is something about me, not them, that is
the problem.

Lou wanted to stop at the bakery in Coolbrook
on the way home from the doctor's office. “Some rolls for supper,”
she said.

“We have that wheat bread,” said Eden. There
was still at least half a loaf from last night's dinner.

“Oh, yes. Then muffins for breakfast.” Lou
seemed determined to go to the bakery. She raced down the sidewalk
in her chair while Eden struggled to keep up with her.

An enormous round-faced woman dressed in
white stood behind the counter in the bakery. “Hi there, Lou!” she
said. Her mouth was a tiny red rosebud in a sea of white chins. Her
curly white hair was cut far too short for the enormity of her
face. “What would you like today?”

“Half a dozen muffins,” Lou said. “Three
blueberry, three bran.”

The woman started to reach into the case for
the muffins but froze when her gaze fell on Eden. She stood up
straight. “Lord, you have got to be Kate's girl. Eden Riley,
right?”

Eden smiled. “Yes.”

The woman laughed. “Kate's girl, all grown
up. Lord, if you aren't the spitting image. And just as pretty in
person as in the movies.”

Lou looked up at Eden, cocking her head so
she could wink without the woman seeing. “Eden, this is Sara Jane
Miller, an old friend of your mother's.”

“And your Uncle Kyle's,” Sara Jane said.

Eden's eyes widened and Lou squeezed her hand
to help her stay in control. “It's nice to meet you.” Eden reached
across the counter and Sara Jane gave her hand a pulpy shake.

They made small talk while Sara Jane put the
muffins in a paper bag. Then Eden held the door open for her aunt,
who barely made it outside before she started laughing. “Every time
Kyle sees her he says, 'If only I hadn't met you, Lou, all that
could have been mine.' “

Eden stopped walking and looked down at Lou.
“You know exactly where I am in the journal, don't you?”

Lou nodded. “Yes. Does that bother you?”

“I don't know.” Eden started walking again,
slowly. “It feels strange, as though I'm being observed every step
of the way as I learn about my mother.”

“And what are you learning about her in this
notebook?”

“That her isolation was not as much a matter
of choice as I'd thought. That she was phobic of people, of leaving
Lynch Hollow.”

“You're right. Kate was afraid of the world
to such a degree that it paralyzed her. Her fears crippled her far
more than this old leg cripples me.”

Eden set her hand lightly on her aunt's
shoulder. She felt the bones through the thin blouse. “You get
around so well, Lou. It relieves me to see that.”

Lou patted her hand. “Yes, sweetie, I'm
fine.”

The atmosphere in the car on the ride back to
Lynch Hollow was no longer strained. Eden felt freed by
something—Lou's little plot to introduce her to Sara Jane Miller
perhaps, or maybe it was just that Lou's leg had ceased to become
an unmentionable between them for the first time. Whatever the
cause, Eden felt safe enough to ask Lou's opinion of Ben.

“Ah, Ben.” Lou smiled and nodded as though
she'd been wondering when Eden would get around to asking that
question. “Ben was always a favorite of mine, of all Kyle's
students. He traveled with us in South America, you know. I guess
the more important question is, What do you think of him?”

“I don't know. Kyle tells me he'd like to see
me with someone outside of Hollywood, then he throws me into a pit
five feet by ten feet with a good-looking guy and tells me, `But I
don't want to see you with this someone.'"

Lou laughed. “Well, he's right. Ben needs to
get his own life in order before he can do justice to sharing it
with someone else. But that doesn't make him any less a dear.” She
turned onto the road toward Lynch Hollow, lifting her foot briefly
from the gas pedal to negotiate the first curve. “My favorite story
about Ben was the time we had dinner in a little seafood
restaurant, somewhere in Ecuador, I think it was. It was just the
three of us—Ben, Kyle, and myself—and we had a table right next to
the tank where they kept the live lobsters. Well, all the lobsters
looked bored and resigned to their fate. But there was this one
that was constantly on the move, trying to engage the others in, I
don't know what you'd call it, playing or fighting or whatever. He
wouldn't give up and we watched him through our entire meal. When
it was time to leave, Ben bought him. He thought he was special—a
survivor—and shouldn't end up like all the others, as somebody's
supper. Then we had to drive about thirty miles out of our way so
he could set him free in the Pacific.”

Eden stared at her aunt. “That's the most
ridiculous thing I've ever heard.”

Lou smiled. “If that's what you think, dear,
then I doubt Ben's the right man for you.”

–
12–

He drove his truck into the Valley as the sun
crested the hills, warming the cornfields with its pink morning
light. He parked on the shoulder of the narrow road, got out, and
began running toward Coolbrook. He had not run in a long time. It
used to be a passion. In Annapolis he'd leave the house early in
the morning before Sharon and Bliss were up and run along the
river, not even counting the miles. It had been thinking time, and
back in those days all his thoughts were good.

He'd run a little during his first few weeks
in prison, when he still thought he could find a way to survive the
experience without losing his spirit. He would stay in shape, he
had told himself. Read the classics, study Spanish and French. But
the numbness settled in so quickly he wondered if the food was
drugged. He'd never watched much TV before, but soon he knew the
story lines from the soaps and his dreams were full of game-show
drivel. Any extra energy he could dredge from his depression was
devoted to keeping his fellow prisoners from learning what he was
in for, and for protecting himself when they did. His was not a
respected crime.

It was a good sign that he felt like running
now. He was coming back to life, like a drowning man surprised to
find himself on the surface of the water. It had not taken much to
put him there. Just a few simple conversations with a woman who
treated him like a person rather than a criminal.

He wouldn't see her for two days. She was
working at the archives in Winchester, and tomorrow she would meet
with the Children's Fund volunteers in Richmond. She'd told him she
visited local Children's Fund headquarters every chance she could,
and she'd invited him to go with her, but he'd declined. He could
just imagine her introducing him to a bunch of people who work with
children. Surely one of them would recognize his name, and that
would be the end of that. She'd told him she'd nearly lost her job
as spokesperson for the Children's Fund after her role in Heart of
Winter. “They said I was tampering with my wholesome image,” she'd
said. Being seen with him wouldn't do her wholesome image much good
either.

He arrived in front of the Coolbrook post
office and took a minute to stretch and catch his breath before
going inside to check his mailbox. There was a large envelope from
Sam. Once back on the street he caught his reflection in the
mirrored glass of the post office. Christ. He ran his hands through
his hair. He looked like an aging hippie.

He stopped at the barbershop, where a small,
gray-haired man took great delight in cutting his hair shorter than
he requested, and then walked across the street to Miller's Bakery.
He bought a doughnut and coffee, which he carried for another block
until he reached the park outside the Coolbrook Museum. He sat on a
bench, took a swallow of coffee, and opened the envelope.

There were three copies of journal articles
and a short note from Sam. He peered into the envelope to see if he
might have overlooked a picture of Bliss. Sam sent them sometimes,
even though he had to do it behind Jen's back: she thought it would
only make things harder for him. How much harder could they
get?

He glanced at the title of the first article:
“Discrediting the Child Witness.” He shook his head and slipped it
back into the envelope. He'd told Sam to forget that tack, but Sam
seemed determined to leave no stone unturned. The second article
was on the same general theme. But the third was a study done by
two social workers—”In the Child's Best Interest: The Healing Power
of Visitation.”

“Yes,” Ben said out loud. He took a bite from
his doughnut and read the article through, then turned to Sam's
note. He wasn't having much luck with the lawyer, Sam wrote. An
appeal seemed out of the question at this point. The best they
could hope for was supervised visitation and they might get a
chance at that in January. Only thing was, they'd have to get
approval for it from Judge Stevens. Ben groaned. Stevens had hardly
been able to keep the grin off his face when he pulled the future
out from under Ben's feet in the courtroom. Ben shouldn't worry,
Sam wrote. The evidence that visitation would be the best thing for
Bliss was everywhere. He just had to compile it and find a few
expert witnesses and they'd be all set.

And by the way, Sam added in a P.S., Sharon
and Jeff told him that someone was calling the house and hanging
up. They suspected Ben, and they were thinking of getting an
unlisted number. So if by some chance it's you calling them, bro,
slow it down a bit.