Secret Lives (14 page)

Well, okay, he'd have to give up that little
ploy. It hadn't worked anyhow because Sharon always answered. He'd
called about once a week, hoping that Bliss would answer. He
wouldn't talk to her—he wasn't crazy. He just wanted to listen to
her voice. He'd asked Sam and Jen if they could tape a conversation
with her and send it to him. He hated that her voice was lost in
his memory, that he couldn't recall her tone or the way she strung
her words together. She probably sounded different now, anyway. He
wanted to hear. “I don't think that's a very good idea, Ben,” Jen
had said. “You don't need any more reminders of her.”

Sam and Jen called him once a week, on Sunday
nights. Sam would get on one extension, Jen on the other, and
they'd tell him how their adoption plans for a baby were
proceeding, how well-adjusted Bliss seemed the last time they saw
her. They'd ask him questions about his work. He hadn't told them
yet this job would be up in December. He didn't want to worry them.
He didn't want to think about it himself.

Sam called him sometimes during the week. At
those times Ben knew his brother was playing shrink. “How are you
sleeping?” Sam would ask. “How's the appetite?” Once, a long time
ago, Sam asked if he felt like killing himself. Ben had managed to
laugh that question off in such a way that Sam apologized for even
thinking such a thing. It would only worry Sam if he knew the
truth. Or, God forbid, he'd try to stick him in a hospital. The
last thing he needed. When he thought about doing it, when those
pills started calling to him from the bathroom, it was often the
thought of Sam that stopped him.

This morning that bottle of pills was ten
miles from his body and a thousand from his mind. He stood up and
leaned against a tree to stretch his calves. They'd tightened up
from sitting. He'd probably have to walk most of the way back to
his truck. And he shouldn't have eaten that doughnut. But he
started a light jog, and as the diminutive shops of Coolbrook fell
behind him and the cornfields took their place, he broke into a
run.

–
13–

November 8, 1943

There is a new boy in our class named Matt
Riley. He is Kyle's age, seventeen. He and his mother just moved
here from Richmond to be closer to his grandmother who is ailing
and he is the talk of the class as it's been forever since we had a
new face. Kyle particularly likes him. They spent all Saturday
fishing together while I wrote.

November 16, 1943

Something shocking happened today.

I usually sit in the great room of my cavern
where I have my mattress, the settee, an old rocker and a couple of
straight-back chairs. This great room is about the size of a small
church but the space is broken up by the different rock formations
and the stalactites and stalagmites. The ceiling is low near the
entrance, but as you walk farther into the room, towards the
reflecting pool at its rear, the ceiling is very high and decorated
with stalactites.

Off this room is a tunnel. In all the time
I've had my cave, I've never gone into it more than a few feet.
Today I was writing a story about a girl who explores a cave. She
crawls through a tunnel to discover a spectacular cavern that's
been turned into a shrine of some sort.

So I thought, why am I writing about this
when I've never even bothered to see where my own tunnel leads? So
I took my lantern and stepped into the tunnel. It was spooky! I am
not afraid of such things yet the closeness of the walls and
ceilings was difficult to bear. At first it was high enough for me
to walk upright, but then I had to hunch over. The floor rose
steeply and at times I nearly lost my footing. The lantern only lit
a few feet in front of me and I felt like I was walking into a
black emptiness.

Finally I reached the end. Instead of
finding myself in the grand shrine of my story, I was in a huge
cave with a low ceiling that had long stalactites dropping from it
like spikes and long thin stalagmites growing from the ground to
meet them. They met at the level of my waist, forming stone
columns, so that to walk through this room I had to twist and turn
and I felt like I was in the middle of a giant taffy pull. The
lantern knocked into the rocks as I walked and I was trying to keep
a sense of direction so I would be able to get out.

Then I saw there was a break in the maze, a
small, open area with no tites or mites. Lying on the cave floor
was—at first I thought I was wrong and I held my lantern very
close—a human skeleton! I screamed so loud my ears hurt from the
echo. I backed into the maze again and in a panic tried to find the
tunnel. It took me minutes and by that time I was partly crying and
partly laughing and the skin on my legs and arms was scraped from
the rocks. I got through the tunnel as fast as I could and ran
outside the cave and didn't stop running until I reached the far
end of Ferry Creek where Kyle and Matt were fishing. I grabbed
Kyle's arm. “You've got to come with me!” I said.

“
What are you doing with that lantern?”
he asked.

I was still carrying the lit lantern, out in
bright daylight. “Just come with me!” I said.

Kyle sighed like I was a terrible bother and
started reeling in his line. “Let's go see what she wants,” he said
to Matt.

“
No!” I said. “Matt can't come.”

Kyle looked at me with his mouth hung open
like he couldn't believe I could be that rude, but I didn't
care.

“
Kyle,” I said in a voice too low for
Matt to hear. “It's the cave.”

Kyle turned to Matt who was pretending not
to be interested in any of this. “I'll be back as soon as I can.
You can use my pole too.”

Matt nodded without looking at us—he is
strange, but I have no time to write about that just now.

I explained what I'd found on the way back
to the cavern so he was prepared by the time we got to the little
maze room. We each had a lantern now and I was shivering from the
cold and my nerves. The tites and mites cast shadows everywhere
that we moved as we walked through the maze.

I expected the skeleton to be gone because
by now I'd convinced myself it was only my imagination that I'd
seen it at all, but there it was, laid out like its owner had died
in his sleep.

Kyle's face went white as he knelt down next
to it. “God,” he said, looking from the skull to the toes and back
again.

“
I screamed like a girl when I saw it,” I
admitted.

“
You are a girl,” Kyle said, still
staring at the bones. “And Matt's noticed that. He likes
you.”

“
I don't like him,” I said.

“
Look how small this is.” Kyle stretched
his six foot body down next to the skeleton. He was nearly twice as
long as the bones. “It must of been a child.”

That made me feel sad. “How did it get
here?” I asked. “When did it get here?”

Kyle shook his head. “We should tell someone
about this,” he said as he stood up.

“
No! They'd come in my cave.”

“
Kate, this was a human being. We can't
just act like we didn't find it.”

“
We're not telling,” I said. “It's my
cavern and I say we don't tell.”

November 20, 1943

I named the skeleton Rosie. I haven't
returned to the maze room to look at her and at first I was
uncomfortable in the cave, knowing she was at the end of the
tunnel. But now that I've given her a name I feel more comfortable
in her company. I wonder sometimes what killed her. An accident?
Murder? Disease? I guess I'll never know.

I am more envious of Matt Riley than of Sara
Jane. Kyle spends so much time with him. They are like brothers and
at times they joke with each other in a way that leaves me out.
When they see I don't get it, one of them explains the joke to me
but by then it's no longer funny.

Matt's grandmother died last week. He has
been red-eyed since. He is a very soft boy and feels things over
sensitively. He looks young and girlish compared to Kyle, who can
pass as a man these days.

Kyle is begging me to let Matt into the
cavern. I've decided to let him, not because I want Matt there but
because Kyle visits so infrequently these days and this is the only
way I can think of to get his company back.

–
14–

Eden needed to tell Ben about the skeleton.
At least that's what she told herself when she called for an
invitation up to his cabin. He'd sounded pleased as he gave her
directions. “It's hard to find after the sun's down,” he said. “Do
you want me to meet you somewhere instead?”

She thought of their grisly date at Sugar
Hill. “No, I'll find it.”

The moment she hung up, Michael called. It
had been only a few days since she'd last spoken to him, yet it
seemed like months. Nina was upset about her, he said. She wanted
to know what Eden thought of the script she'd sent.

“Haven't looked at it yet,” Eden said.

“She says she has a few more for you to see
if you don't like that one. She wants to know if you ever plan to
work again.”

“Tell Nina to relax.”

“She doesn't like having you three thousand
miles away from her. Out of her control, you know?”

Eden grinned into the phone. “Well, I like
it.”

Michael was silent. “You like being that far
from me, too?”

“I just needed a break from the whole scene.
From L.A. I didn't even realize it till right now. Don't take it
personally.”

“You sound like you're getting a hillbilly
accent or something.”

Did she? “I'm getting in character early, I
guess.” She glanced out the window at the dusky woods. She wanted
to get to Ben's before dark. “I've got to run, Michael.”

“Where are you going?” He sounded hurt.

“I need to see a friend of Kyle's.”

“Call me when you get back?”

“I'm not sure what time that'll be.”

“Doesn't matter. I'm not going out. Parties
aren't the same if I'm not getting high. Or if you're not there.
Aren't you proud of me? Three weeks straight.”

She had told him that one reason she could
not consider a serious relationship with him was his cocaine use.
“That's great, Michael.”

“Have you found out anything about Matthew
Riley?”

“My mother writes in her journal that he's
overly sensitive and girlish.”

“Whoa! If you want me in that role, you'd
better bend the truth a little.”

“We'll see. Gotta go now.”

“Eden? Don't forget I'm here, okay? I love
you.”

She cringed. “‘Bye, Michael. Thanks for
calling.”

She took pains with dressing, finally
deciding on khaki pants and a plain white shirt. She let her hair
down and actually sneaked out of the house. Kyle and Lou knew where
she was going, but she didn't want them to see how she looked. Her
appearance would give her away tonight: they would be able to see
in her face that this evening meant something to her.

She drove first to Coolbrook to pick up fried
chicken and biscuits and then headed back past Lynch Hollow and
into the hills. Ben's cabin was about seven miles above Lynch
Hollow. There was no address, only landmarks to guide her. The car
filled with the smell of fried chicken as she passed the big oak,
the farm by the creek. She pressed the gas pedal harder.

What was she doing? She'd been cold,
practically rude, to the man she'd been seeing for months because
she was anxious to see a man she barely knew. A man who rescued
lobsters from seafood restaurants. Well, she needed to tell him
about the skeleton. Ha! If she had not read about the skeleton in
the journal she would have had to invent a reason to see him
tonight. She hadn't seen him in two days. She'd spent all of
yesterday at the archives in Winchester and most of this morning in
Richmond, giving a pep talk to the Children's Fund volunteers. Then
she'd had lunch with Fred Jenkins, the dynamic blind director of
the Virginia Children's Fund. By this afternoon she could no longer
remember the shape of Ben's hands or whether his eyes were blue or
gray, and that mattered to her in a way that nothing had mattered
in a long time.

She almost missed the cabin. It was tiny,
tucked so thoroughly into the trees that all she could see from the
road was the amber light of the two small front windows.

“I like it,” he called from the open front
door before she had even gotten out of her car. “Your hair
down.”

“Thanks.” She handed him the bag of chicken.
“You got a haircut. Looks good.”

“What's that?” He pointed to the notebook in
her hand.

“Part of the journal. There's something I
want you to see in it.”

He pushed the door open for her. He wore
jeans and a T-shirt that had once been red or purple but had faded
to a mauvey pink that looked good against his tanned arms. “Sorry
it's so hot in here.”

It was hot. The cabin was the size of her
bedroom in Santa Monica and purely functional. The floor was bare
wood. The tiny kitchen in one corner held a small refrigerator, a
two burner stove, and a sink. A sofa and chair, both upholstered in
an industrial-strength brown plaid, sat in a second corner next to
a wood-burning stove. Newspapers and books littered the heavy
wood-plank coffee table, and a fan in the window above the stove
blew hot air across the room. The third corner housed a small
closet or, more likely, a bathroom. Ben's bed was in the fourth
corner, in front of one of the two front windows. The bed was
somewhere between twin size and full, with no head- or footboard.
It was covered by a blue-and-white quilt which stood out in the
room for its handmade beauty. In the center of the room stood a
round table with spindly legs and four wooden straight-backed
chairs.

“Sorry this place is so small.” Ben looked
around him as if he'd just noticed the size of his cabin. “And
primitive.”