Secret Lives (25 page)

“Easy,” he said, holding her hips, drawing
her into a rhythm. The feeling grew again as she rocked with him.
“Okay?” he asked.

“Yes.”

Lightning struck dangerously close to them
just as she peaked, and a clap of thunder shook the ground beneath
their blanket. Ben's hands were on her shoulders, holding her,
containing her as her body spun out of control. He pressed into her
one final time, deeper now, his breath caught somewhere in his
throat, and then she felt him shudder and go still. Eden breathed
with her mouth open, pulling in warm, wet air. She ran her hands
down the length of his back, slick with rain, and he said in her
ear, “You really ought to do something about that lack of desire of
yours, Eden.”

She laughed as he raised himself to his
elbow. He leaned down to kiss her and in the darkness found her
eyes instead of her lips. “That was pretty dramatic,” he said. “I
thought maybe you'd been struck by lightning.”

“That's what it felt like.” She wished she
could see him. She reached up and stroked his lips with her
fingertips. He caught her hand and turned it to kiss the palm, and
in that simple gesture she felt reassured that what she had just
done was not a mistake.

“You can have the shower first,” Ben said
when they reached the cabin. “I'll dig up something for you to
wear.”

The bathroom was tiny. There was barely
enough room for her to turn around. Ben knocked on the door and
handed her a towel.

“Oh, and leave Charlotte alone, please.”

“Charlotte?”

“She's in the shower stall and she was here
when I moved in. She's kind of my roommate.”

He shut the door and Eden pulled open the
shower curtain to reveal a huge black spider hanging in the corner
near the ceiling. She kept her eye on it while she showered in case
Charlotte was the jealous type.

She brushed her teeth with Ben's toothpaste
on her finger. Then she noticed the bottle of Valium on the ledge
of the sink. She lifted it, read the label. Ben Alexander. The date
was six months earlier. The doctor's name was also Alexander. His
brother, most likely. The label specified twenty pills. She opened
the bottle and poured the pills into her palm to count them.
Twenty. He hadn't taken any. But they were here, close at hand. She
looked at the bathroom door as if she could see Ben on the other
side. Poor man. What had he been through?

She jumped at the knock on the door and a few
of the pills fell to the floor.

“You ready for some clothes?” Ben asked.

“In a second.” She picked up the pills that
had fallen and set the bottle back on the sink before opening the
door.

“You look great,” he said when she finally
emerged from the bathroom.

The T-shirt he'd given her was black and, she
thought, looked passably sexy on her. The blue drawstring shorts
were cinched at her waist but otherwise hung from her.

“How about some dinner?” he asked.

She looked at her watch. Nearly ten. She was
starving. “Okay.”

“I have some hot dogs and a can of baked
beans but that's about it.”

“I'll cook while you shower.”

“Will you stay tonight?”

“After you feed me baked beans?”

He smiled. “Please?”

She wanted to. “I'll have to call Lou and
Kyle.”

Ben lost his smile. “Maybe I'd better call
them.”

“No.” She gave him a push. “Take your
shower.”

She had never seen a kitchen so desolate. The
shelf above the stove held a couple of cans of soup, some rice, and
a box of cornflakes. The refrigerator was no better with its
lettuce and hot dogs, milk and wine and orange juice. She put three
hot dogs in a frying pan, poured the can of baked beans into a
saucepan and set it on the stove, all the while staring at the
green phone on his night table. What was the worst they could say?
Ben was not Tex or Will or Bo. They loved Ben.

Lou answered.

“Hi, Lou,” Eden said. “It's so stormy out.
I'm going to stay up here tonight.” She grimaced, and for a moment
Lou said nothing.

“You're at Ben's?” Lou asked finally.

“Yes.”

“The storm's really letting up.”

“I want to stay, Lou.” She twisted the cord
in her fingers. Lou sighed. “You know how it is, dear. You never
stop worrying. Wait until Cassie's a grown woman. You'll see.”

“I'm fine.”

“Of course.”

–
25–

It was still dark when he heard Eden gasp and
sit up in the bed.

“Eden?”

“Nightmare,” she said.

He tugged at her shoulder. “Lie down
again.”

“I can't. Can we turn the light on?”

He switched on the lamp on the apple crate.
She raised the sheet to her chest and looked around the room, from
object to object as though assuring herself she was here, awake.
She reminded him of Bliss when she'd awaken from a bad dream and
need reassurance that she was in her own room, surrounded by the
safe and familiar.

In the circle of light from the lamp he could
see rough shadows on her face, fine lines across her forehead. The
signs of age in her face touched him, the signs so few people were
allowed to see.

“Tell me about the dream.” He laid his hand
on her back. Her skin was damp with perspiration.

“I've had it nearly every night since I've
been in Virginia.”

“Really?”

“It's about Lou.” She shook her head, smiled
as though she felt foolish. He could see the threads of the dream
leaving her, falling away. “Can't talk about it,” she said.

He did not mind that she wanted to have a
secret. It gave him more right to keep his from her. Still, he felt
sad that reality was so quickly seeping into this perfect
night.

“We can leave the light on.” He eased her
back to the pillow. She was shivering in spite of the heat, and he
tucked the sheet around her shoulders. “Are you all right?”

“I gave myself to you.”

“Yes,” he said, puzzled.

“I don't mean physically.” She looked up at
him, her eyes credulous, unmasked. “I mean, I've told you so much.
I've let you know the real me. It's always scared me to do that.
But it's okay, isn't it? I'm safe.”

“Yes,” he said, and he felt a lump form in
his throat because he knew that she was not safe with him at
all.

She sighed and pulled herself closer to him.
“Just hold me, Ben,” she said, although he already was.

When he woke for a second time, the sun was
pouring into the cabin. Eden's head was on his shoulder, and a
sinking feeling lay heavily in the pit of his stomach. Kyle would
be angry with him, and justified in his anger. The only way he
could make it right was to tell her.

He felt the heavy warmth of her in his arms.
She stretched, her body lithe and catlike, then leaned back to look
at him. She gave him a big smile, a smile that told him she was
waking up exactly where she wanted to be.

“Would you consider moving to California?”
she asked.

He laughed. “Sure. I could become one of the
plastic people.”

“I wasn't joking.”

He kissed her. “I need to talk to you.”

She set the tip of her finger on his lips. “I
don't want to hear.”

This was not the time or place, anyway, he
thought with some relief. Not in bed, for Christ's sake.

She sat up and turned to face him, holding
the sheet against her chest as she had the night before. She
grinned at him. “We wrecked your bed.”

“We certainly did.” The sheets had pulled
free of the mattress and were twisted like sailors' knots over
their legs. In the middle of the night they'd heard one of the bed
slats give way under their endeavors but had been in no mood to do
anything about it. He had not had a night like this in many
years.

Whatever signs of age or fatigue he had seen
in her face the night before were gone now. Her skin was smooth and
the sun rested like gold on her long eyelashes. He carefully pried
her fingers from the top of the sheet and it fell to her lap. He
watched her nipples rise under the touch of his eyes. He was about
to tell her that he wanted to make love to her in the sunlight, but
he stopped himself. He knew he would not be able to. The trap he
was in was entirely too clear to him this morning.

Suddenly she stretched over him, her breasts
a delicate weight on his chest, her lips on his. He should have
told her last night. He had no right to make love to her without
her knowing. She set her head on his chest and reached for his
lifeless penis with her long silky fingers. He let her stroke him,
but he felt nothing. What words could he possibly use to tell her?
He ran his fingers down her arm until he reached her hand and drew
it up to his lips. “I think we wore it out,” he said. “I'm
sorry.”

“No, I'm sorry. I don't mean to be
greedy.”

He got out of bed and headed for the shower
without looking at her because he had a horrible feeling he was
going to cry. I gave myself to you, she'd said. Jesus. He'd had no
right to take as much as he did.

When he returned to the room she was dressed
and sitting on the edge of his bed, an empty orange juice glass in
her hand. She looked up at him with worry in her face. “Are you
upset with me?”

“God, no.” He bent over and kissed her. “I'm
in love with you.

He watched her swallow, watched how quickly
her eyes filled. “Oh, Ben,” she said.

“But it's absolutely essential that you and I
talk about my divorce.”

“Okay.”

“Why don't I take you out for an early dinner
tonight?” Probably not a great idea. Could he tell her in a
restaurant?

“Okay. But it's my treat this time. You
bought me lunch, and I've been drinking your wine and eating your
baked beans.”

She was pitying him, patronizing him. He
thought of the four dollars he had in his wallet and his body
jerked as though he'd touched a live wire. A terrible impotent fury
reared up inside him.

“I don't want to live this way any longer!”
He grabbed the empty orange juice glass from her hand and threw it
across the room, where it hit the wooden wall with a dull crack and
fell in pieces on the floor.

She stood up calmly and folded him into a
tight embrace. “It's all right,” she said.

His body shook beneath her arms; his
breathing was raspy, uneven. “I'm sorry, Eden.” He clutched the hem
of her T-shirt in his fist. “I scare myself sometimes. I don't
recognize myself.”

Her arms tightened around him. “Money isn't
important,” she said.

He let go of her and took a few steps
backward, sinking his hands into his pockets. “Eden, no matter what
happens between us from now on, thank you for last night. I don't
remember the last time I felt that completely happy.”

“You make it sound as though it has to
end.”

He felt the happiness slipping away. “I think
that will be up to you.”

It was nearly eleven when Kyle joined him at
the site. He climbed down the ladder into the pit where Ben was
working and turned a bucket upside down to sit on. Ben felt the
muscles in his chest contract. Kyle wasn't here to work.

Ben stood up to face him. “I guess you have a
few things to say to me.”

“About January. Do you want me to write to
Carl Petrie? He can use some help down there in Florida.”

Ben frowned. He'd expected Kyle to talk about
Eden. But this was the same thing, wasn't it? “What if I said I was
going to try to find something in California so I could be near
Eden?”

“Well, I'd say maybe you weren't being too
realistic.”

“You mean I'm not good enough for her.”

Kyle sighed, set his hands on his knees. “If
things were different, you'd be the best thing in the world for
her. But your situation, Ben…I don't want to see her hurt.”

“Neither do I.”

“She came home this morning all light and
smiling—and a little tired.” He gave Ben a concessionary smile.
“I've never seen her like that. She doesn't trust easily. She's
been let down once too often, and I worry that the higher she goes
with you, the steeper the drop's going to be.”

“Maybe there won't be a drop.”

“And it seems to me you're setting yourself
up for a lot of grief, Ben. Even if you could work out this one
major snag, I can't picture you fitting into her lifestyle. You
barely know her. And she certainly doesn't know you.”

“I'm going to tell her today,” Ben said
quietly. “She's bringing something over here later for a
picnic.”

“Nice timing. You tell her after you sleep
with her.”

Ben ignored the cut. He looked down at Kyle.
“I'm going to lose her.”

Kyle shook his head. “You don't have her to
lose. The little you have you got under false pretenses.”

Ben's throat tightened, and his voice shook
when he spoke. “What's happening between you and me?” he asked. “I
don't want to argue with you, Kyle. You're just about all I've
got.”

Kyle rose to his feet. He walked over to Ben
and put his arms around him, held him close. “I don't want to argue
with you either,” he said. He stood back and reached for the
ladder, avoiding Ben's eyes. There was something unfamiliar in his
face. A helplessness. A powerlessness so alien to Kyle's demeanor
that for a moment he looked like a completely different man, and
Ben felt afraid for him.

“Kyle?”

Kyle turned back to face him, one hand on the
ladder. “I'm going to have to hurt her myself soon, Ben.”

Ben stepped toward him, truly frightened now.
“What do you mean? You're not sick, are you?”

Kyle shook his head. “No, nothing like that.
I can't say just now. I'm only telling you that it's going to
happen. I don't want her to feel betrayed by both of us at the same
time.”

–
26–

August 3, 1947

Last night, on my 20th birthday, Sara Jane
gave birth to a baby girl who has no arms. Susanna told me this
morning and I guess it is the talk of Coolbrook. This baby has
little dangly hands where her arms should be. Much as I had
differences with Sara Jane in the past, I feel sorry for her now.
Imagine how it feels to carry a baby all those months and be full
of hope and joy, only to take one look at it and know it has no
chance for happiness. I was trying to work on a story in the cave
this afternoon, but I just can't get Sara Jane and her baby off my
mind, so I figured I would have to write about it in my
journal.