Secret Lives (32 page)

The trip was fun, but Eden couldn't shake the
feeling of dread she had at being in New York with Lou and Kyle
again. From each point in the city she was acutely aware of how far
they were from the intersection of Twenty-third and Park. It pulled
at her from the seventeenth-story hotel window, and although the
view was blocked by a mile of skyscrapers, in her mind's eye she
could see that intersection clearly. She wondered if it had
changed, if the streetlights still formed a spotlight in its
center. She wondered how many other accidents had happened
there.

On their last night in New York, the four of
them went to dinner in a small Italian restaurant in the Village,
not far from where she had lived with Kyle and Lou as a teenager.
They'd spent the day shopping, and by the time they were seated
behind the red-and-white checkered tablecloth, they were hot and
hungry. Eden and Lou told the men what they wanted and left for the
ladies' room.

The rest room was cramped and dirty, with one
narrow stall.

“It's not wheelchair-accessible,” Lou said.
“I'll need your help, Eden.”

Eden supported Lou as she hopped from the
chair to the toilet, where she struggled to lift her skirt and pull
down her underpants. Eden's arms shook with the strain as she
lowered Lou to the seat. She stepped outside the stall and held the
door closed.

“What do you do if you're someplace like this
and don't have another woman around to help?” she asked.

“Kyle comes in with me. We holler first to
get the women out and apologize to anyone who walks in on us. But
most people are very understanding.”

Eden closed her eyes and leaned against the
wall. She pictured the corner of Twenty-third and Park. Could Lou
ever pass through that intersection without remembering?

“I'm ready, dear.”

She helped Lou back into her chair and turned
it toward the sink just as a woman entered the rest room. Eden gave
the stranger a quick smile while she waited for Lou to wash her
hands. The woman stood in front of the closed bathroom door, making
no movement toward the stall, and Eden assumed she was waiting for
the sink. She watched the woman from the corner of her eye. Her
greasy blond hair was hacked off chin-length. Her once white
sweater was ratty and gray with a long mustard-colored stain down
one arm. She wore gold polyester pants over doughy legs. There was
something peculiar in the way she stood motionless, speechless.
Something that made Eden's heart pick up its beat.

“Excuse us,” Eden said as she grasped the
handles on Lou's chair.

“You ain't going nowhere till you give me
your pocketbooks,” the woman said. Her eyes were big and brown, her
stare unnatural and riveting.

“We have to get back to our table,” Lou said.
“I'm sure our husbands are wondering where we are by now.”

The woman reached slowly, calmly, into her
own purse and drew out a knife, a steak knife with a cheap plastic
handle and a serrated edge.

Lou made a sound of disgust and opened her
purse. “How much do you need?”

“The whole pocketbook.” The woman's teeth
were brown and crooked. “Hand it over.”

Eden thought of the contents of her own
purse. Credit cards, driver's license, check-cashing cards, keys.
All those things that were a nuisance to replace, and all those
things that identified her as Eden Riley. This woman would think
she'd struck gold. And then there were the pictures of Cassie,
starting with the baby picture taken at the hospital.

The blade of the knife caught the yellow
light from above the sink, and Eden handed over her purse.

“Money,” Lou said. “That's all you get from
me.” Her voice was strong, but as she opened her wallet Eden saw
her hands shake. It took her a few seconds to grasp the three bills
and hand them over to the woman, who took them without protest.

“Now why don't you give this young lady her
purse back, dear,” Lou said. “Take the money but let her have the
rest. I'm sure she has pictures of her family in there that are
irreplaceable.”

“It's all right, Lou.” Eden set her hand on
Lou's shoulder. “Just let us out please.”

“Stay back!” The woman held the knife in
front of her menacingly, and Eden drew Lou's chair back as close to
her as she could. Then the woman spun around, pushed the door open,
and ran into the hall.

Suddenly more furious than afraid, Eden
pushed her way out of the room. She spotted the woman running down
the long, dirty linoleum hallway toward the back door of the
restaurant, the gold polyester pants straining over her bulbous
rear end. “That woman stole my purse!” she screamed.

A couple of workers darted from the kitchen
and took off after the thief. Eden heard them laughing, saw their
grins. It must have been a boring night for them.

She went back into the rest room to find Lou
shaking almost convulsively. “I'm a little dizzy,” Lou said.

Eden wrung a paper towel out in cold water
and laid it on the back of Lou's neck just as Ben pushed the door
open. “What's going on? Are you two all right?”

Eden explained what had happened, and Ben
left to call the police. She knelt in front of Lou's chair. Her
aunt's face was gray, her hands clammy and cold. “Put your head
down, Lou,” she said.

Lou obeyed and Eden put her arm around her,
pressed her cheek against Lou's forehead. “You were so brave,” she
whispered.

Lou chuckled and lifted her head. “I'm an old
fool, that's all. Let's get out of here. No air in here.”

Two police officers met them outside the
ladies' room, and the gleeful cooks turned Eden's purse over to her
intact. She leaned against Ben's back to write them each a check
for a hundred dollars, while Kyle pulled up a chair and sat down
next to Lou.

“It's fucking Eden Riley!” one of the cooks
said as he looked from the check to Eden's face and back again.

“Shhh.” Eden pressed her finger to her lips.
“Our secret, okay?”

The cooks walked away, shaking their heads
and patting each other on the back, and Eden turned her attention
back to Lou. From the distance she heard a siren, getting closer,
louder, and she realized someone had called an ambulance. No. Her
stomach churned.

Lou heard it too, and there was panic in her
eyes as she gripped Kyle's arm. “I'm all right,” she said. “Tell
everyone just to leave me alone.”

The siren wound down to a low moan as the
ambulance stopped outside the restaurant. Eden felt dizzy herself.
Nauseated. The dim light in this dirty hallway, the clatter from
the kitchen, the questions and commotion from the police, made her
head spin.

Two uniformed paramedics, a young man and a
younger woman, joined them in the hallway.

“I don't need you,” Lou said, trying to wave
them away. “False alarm.”

The young woman ignored her. She wrapped the
blood pressure cuff around Lou's arm and set her fingers on her
wrist. Then she told the other paramedic to get a stretcher.

“She should go to the hospital for
observation,” she said to Kyle.

“I'm fine,” Lou insisted, although her face
was still chalky, her eyes glazed and a little wild.

“I'll go with you, Lou,” Kyle said.

Lou clutched his shirt in her fist. “No,
please, Ky. I don't want to go to the hospital. Please, no
ambulance.”

“It's all right, hon.” Kyle squeezed Lou's
hands. He looked up at the young woman. “No ambulance. I'll take
her back to our hotel in a taxi. She'll be all right.”

“You're taking responsibility?” the woman
asked.

“Yes,” Kyle said.

“We'll drive you,” one of the police officers
said.

Eden leaned against the wall as she watched
Kyle wheel Lou out into the hot evening air. Ben put his arm around
her.

“Come on,” he said. “They just put our food
on the table.”

“I can't eat. Could we please just go back to
the hotel?”

“That really shook you up.”

“I'm sorry,” she said. “But I really want to
leave.”

Once they were outside, Ben slipped his arm
around her waist. “I'm sure Lou's okay,” he said. “She looked as
though she just needs a good night's—”

“Eden Riley!”

She looked up quickly as a man darted onto
the sidewalk from out of nowhere and flashed a camera in their
faces.

“Thanks!” he called behind him as he took off
down the street. She never even saw his face.

“Damn.” She scowled.

“What was that all about?” Ben asked.

“I don't know,” she said. “I guess we'll find
out when and if that picture ever sees the light of day.”

The sound of screams and grating metal woke
her. She bolted up, her own scream caught in her throat.

Ben sat up and put his arms around her.
“You're all right,” he said. “You're here with me.”

She pressed her fingers to her eyes. “It
seems so real.”

“Was it the same dream you had that night in
my cabin?”

She nodded. “They'd stopped. But I guess it's
being here in New York with Kyle and Lou. It brings it all back to
me.” She looked toward the window and felt the odd electric pull of
Twenty-third and Park again. “It's Lou's accident. I see it playing
out in front of me in slow motion. And I feel so helpless.”

“Why do you call it Lou's accident, as if you
weren't with her?”

She wanted to tell him the truth. “I wasn't
with her. But I saw the whole thing. It was sickening.”

“They told me you were in the car with
her.”

She shook her head.

Ben was quiet. He slipped his fingers between
hers, locked their hands together. “Maybe it would help if you told
me about it.”

“I can't.”

“But look what you know about me. You know
everything.”

“Yes, but you're innocent. I'm guilty.”

“Of what?”

She didn't answer.

“Whatever it is happened a long time
ago.”

“You won't be able to look at me the same way
once you know.”

“There's nothing you can tell me you did at
eighteen that could change the way I feel about you now.”

“I was nineteen.”

He laughed. “Oh, that's different.”

She had never told a soul, not even Wayne,
what had happened that night, but she knew she was going to tell
Ben. She would have to start way back, have to explain it all, or
he'd only be able to see the ugliness in what she was about to
say.

She lay down next to him again, settled into
his arms.

“I lived for Kyle and Lou's visits when I was
little,” she said. “They were like folk heroes around our house.
Bigger than life. They dressed differently than anyone I knew, and
talked and acted differently. They only made it to Lynch Hollow
once or twice a year, so their visits were a major event. In
between visits they'd send me wonderful gifts.” She told him about
the huge rocking horse they'd sent her from South America, brightly
painted as if it came off a carousel, with real horsehair as its
mane and tail. “The only times I felt loved after my mother died
were when they were around.

“The happiest memory of my childhood was when
I was about eight. Kyle and Lou came to the States and took me to
Washington, D.C., for the weekend. We went to the zoo and the
natural history museum and a puppet show. I fantasized that they
might take me with them and I wouldn't have to go back to Lynch
Hollow, back to Susanna and my grandfather. We had a hotel room
with a double bed for them and a twin for me. The last night we
were there, they thought I was asleep and they were talking about
me, about how unhappy I seemed, and I thought, oh God, they hate
me. The next day I tried to act happy and perky—I wanted them to
like me so much they'd keep me, but of course they didn't.” She
stopped, bit her lip. “I'm sounding pathetic.”

Ben ran the back of his fingers up her arm.
“You had a lot to overcome.”

“Once I was in the orphanage, I gave up
completely. But when Kyle and Lou found out where I was they took
me in after all.”

“You must have been very happy.”

“I was afraid to be happy. I thought it
wouldn't last, that they'd send me away one day. I know now that
wasn't ever their intention, but I never could relax. I was a good
kid up until my senior year when I finally got the courage to join
the Drama Club. I was in my element then, and I stopped caring
about anything else. I met a lot of people and suddenly had friends
and a social life. There were a few guys in the club who were
pretty rowdy. They smoked a lot of dope and played around with
other drugs. And they were very attentive to me. It didn't take
much to seduce me back then because I was dying to be held and
loved and”—she sighed—“whatever. I starting sleeping around. Kyle
knew what was going on. These guys would come to pick me up, and
they'd be polite as hell to him, but he could see right through
them.” She laughed. “After reading the journal I know why. He
wasn't so different himself. So my grades started slipping, and
Kyle finally said that as long as I was living under his roof I
couldn't go out with these particular guys any longer. I started
sneaking around. Lying all the time. And then I got pregnant.”

“No,” Ben said.

“I didn't even know whose baby it was, but I
told the guy who was the most likely candidate—his name was Tex—and
he said I had to get an abortion. I didn't want to abort that
baby”—her hand moved to her stomach—”but I couldn't see any way
out. I felt like I was abandoning my own child, the way I was
afraid of being abandoned myself.” Her eyes filled. “Kyle and Lou
don't know about any of this.”

“They would have understood. I don't think
you needed to go through it all without them.”

“Oh, God, we weren't getting along at all
then. I was a bitch. I'd swear at them, tell them I hated them. I
was determined to hurt them before they could hurt me. After I
graduated, I went to NYU and lived at home, but I was still seeing
Tex. He was an extremely attractive psychopath.” She tensed at the
memory of how easily she'd been drawn in by him. “He had long blond
hair and he wore all white and rode a big black Harley.”