Sweetie's Diamonds (13 page)

Now if he could just make it happen without incurring the wrath of Aaron Valentine and wind up getting his throat cut, Darren Marshall foresaw nothing but blue skies ahead.

T
o Diane, the next few days passed so slowly that she thought time had been altered.
 
School took up most of her activities, of course, and she found that she was too exhausted in the evenings to do much about the unpacking and arranging of the apartment.
 
She was lucky if she got one box emptied and off the floor.
 
Sometimes she would search for a particular box that she knew contained something she needed and in the process often picked up one carton and placed it on top of another.
 
This was how the box of newspaper clippings became buried and forgotten.
 
Much later, when Diane eventually found the carton of clippings, she attributed her forgetfulness to her own subconscious denying that they even existed.
 
This was most likely the truth.

David got his room put together much faster and was able to use it as a retreat after school.
 
He spent the time doing homework or listening to music.
 
Billy came over one afternoon and they were able to use the Playstation 2 that had finally been set up in the living room.
 
Billy had not mentioned the video they had seen and David was relieved about that.
 
He hoped that Billy would forget all about it, although he knew that this was unlikely.
 

Diane's schoolwork was therapeutic for her in many ways.
 
When she was in the classroom and faced a group of students, Diane felt empowered and confident.
 
Teaching was something she did well and enjoyed.
 
The days were long and the pay was not compensatory, but other rewards were beneficial to her psyche and self-image.
 
She missed her girls' self-defense class and wished that she could conduct it more often than just during the fall semester.
 
Unfortunately there were so many extra-curricular activities available to the students at the high school that space was a problem.
 
She should be happy she got to teach it at all.

When the bell to her last class rang, Diane sat at her desk without getting up.
 
She immediately turned off her energetic teaching mode and slumped.
 
She realized that she had a headache and spent a minute massaging her temples.
 

Why was she so tired these days? she wondered.
 
She could speculate that it was the stress of moving but she also knew that she was depressed.
 
Diane had been aware of her condition for years but didn't put much stock in the fashionable treatments offered by psychiatrists.
 
She had always been one to believe that matters of the mind could be dealt with by the mind itself.
 
Concentration on work and family made a big difference in how she felt and she wished that more people in this day and age could do that.
 

Diane finally sighed, stood to gather her things, and noticed that the message indicator light on her phone was blinking.
 
She picked up the receiver and punched in her code to listen.

It was a woman's voice.
 
“Hello, Ms. Boston?
 
This is Trish Hunter with the
Chicago Sun-Times
.
 
I was wondering if you wouldn't mind calling me.
 
I'm doing a story on suburban single moms who are also school teachers.”
 
The woman gave out her phone number and hung up.
 
Diane thought she sounded very young.
 

Diane figured that she didn't have anything to lose, so she dialed the reporter.
 

“Trish Hunter,” the woman answered.

“Oh, hi, this is Diane Boston returning your call.”

“Ms. Boston!
 
I'm so glad you called.
 
Hold on just a sec…”
 
The woman clicked off for a moment.
 
Diane hated to be put on hold for any reason but the reporter came back within five seconds.

“Sorry about that, I had to get rid of someone,” she said.
 
“Now then, can you talk a few minutes?”

“I guess so, if it doesn't take very long.
 
I just finished my classes for the day and I want to get home.”

“I can understand that.
 
First of all, how long have you lived in Lincoln Grove?”

“Quite a while,” Diane answered.
 
“Let's see…”
 
She did the math in her head and replied, “Over twenty years.”

“And where were you before that?”

Diane hesitated.
 
Where was this leading?
 
“Excuse me, what's this story about?
 
And how did you learn about me?”

“Ms. Boston, weren't you in southern California in the late seventies?” the woman asked, ignoring Diane's questions.

“What?”

“Southern California.
 
Isn't it true that you came to Illinois from California?”
 
The woman's voice had become more intense the way lawyers on television get when they're cross-examining a witness.

“Listen, Miss, uhm…”

“Hunter.”

“I'll be happy to answer some questions but I don't want a biography published in the newspaper.”

“Is that because you used to star in pornographic movies, Ms. Boston?”

Diane's heart skipped a beat.
 
She suddenly felt a tightening in her stomach that immediately brought on a wave of nausea.
 

“What did you say?” she asked after what seemed like an hour.
 
The words came out as a whisper.

“Pornographic movies, Ms. Boston.
 
Did you ever star in any?”

“Of course not,” Diane said.
 
“I'm hanging up.”

“Wait, Ms. Boston, I just—”

But Diane slammed the phone down before the reporter could ask her anything else.
 

What the hell…?
she thought.
 
How did…?
 

She felt herself shaking.
 
All the blood sugar in her body seemed to dissipate and she couldn't stand any longer.
 
Diane fell back into her chair and stared ahead, a million thoughts racing through her head.
 
The nausea increased and she could have sworn that the room had tilted.
 
It was like one of those bad television science fiction programs in which the protagonist has been drugged.
 
All she could see was a blurry classroom that seemed to be twisting in two directions at once.
 

My God… my God… what was happening?

She attempted to breathe deeply, the technique she had used many times to combat anxiety and paranoia.
 
It seemed to work but only after she had sat at the desk for several minutes.
 
When she finally felt closer to her normal self, Diane looked at the phone and considered calling the woman back.
 
She would tell her to go to hell and that she was barking up the wrong tree.

Whoever she was, this Miss Hunter-Doo-Dah, she was dead wrong.
 
She didn't have the facts.
 
She didn't know the truth.
 

Isn't that right, Sweetie?
 

What should she do? Diane wondered.
 
Should she call the reporter back and explain that she was never a porn star?
 
She had promised to never reveal the actress' true identity.
 
Was the secret she had kept for over twenty years finally going to come out?

Diane brushed away the bombardment of doubt and stood once more.
 
She picked up what she needed to take home with her and headed for the door.
 
Once she got halfway down the hall, the nausea returned with a vengeance.
 

She made a beeline to the girls' bathroom, ran into a stall, knelt, and vomited.

D
iane parked her '97 Honda Civic in the one-car garage, opened the door, and jumped out of the vehicle.
 
Breathless, she unlocked the door to the kitchen and burst inside, slamming the door behind her.
 

“David?” she called.
 
“Are you home?”

There was no answer but she noticed a note on the kitchen counter.
 
It told her that her son was at Billy's house and that he'd be back before dinnertime.
 

That was a relief.
 
She could do her business without having to answer questions.
 
Diane eyed the remaining boxes piled in the kitchen.
 
The top one was a box of books.
 
She shoved it off the pile and the carton landed on its side, tipping over.
 
As the top flaps had been opened previously, the books came tumbling onto the floor.
 
Diane ignored them and continued down the totem pole of boxes until she found what she was looking for.

The carton of newspaper clippings was second-from-the-bottom.
 
Why hadn't she destroyed them the other night when she had said she would?
 
How could she have forgotten?
 
It was unthinkable.
 
She attributed it to simply being over-exhausted and stressed out.
 
She refused to imagine that something in her subconscious kept her from throwing away the clippings.
 
She didn't want them.
 
To her they didn't exist.
 
Why she still had them she would never know.
 
She should have burned them years ago.
 
Why hadn't she?

Never mind.
 
Get rid of them now, she commanded herself.

W
hen David walked into the apartment, he found his mother stoking a fire in the fireplace.
 
This was very strange, he thought, since it was a beautiful spring day outside.
 
The dregs of Chicago winter had faded away a month earlier.

“Hi mom,” he said.

“Hi,” she said.
 
Her eyes were intent on the fire as she stirred a mass of burning debris with the iron poker.
 

“What are you doing?”

“I lit the fireplace,” she said blankly.

“I see that.
 
How come?”

“I wanted to make sure it worked.
 
We're going to need it next winter, you know.”
 
It was a gas fireplace installed with fake logs.
 
One didn't need kindling to light it.

“Oh,” David said, unconvinced.
 
He looked closer at the ashes and asked, “What are you burning?”

His mother answered, “Just some junk.
 
How was school?”

“Fine.”
 
David knew what it was.
 
He could see the remains of paper—
news
paper.
 
She had burned the clippings from that box he had found.
 

The room was very warm.
 
David noticed that his mother's forehead was damp with sweat.
 
“How long are you going to do that?” he asked.

Diane inexplicably came out of her trance as if she had been awakened by an alarm clock.
 
“Oh.
 
I suppose I'm done.
 
The fireplace works fine, doesn't it?”

“Looks to me like it does.”

She reached for the metal key on the left side of the fireplace and turned it, shutting off the gas.
 
The flames diminished and fluttered out, leaving piles of white ashes over the fake logs.