The Art of Keeping Secrets (6 page)

How she wanted to speak their language, call their names.

Her own name had changed three times since birth, although only she knew this fact. The thought that the most beautiful creatures on earth had names they kept all their lives was a comfort to her. The loss of loneliness began with the naming.

She was blessed to have this job, to be able to be on the water with her dolphins almost every day. The Marine Conservation Technology Lab had chosen Sofie to work on this project for her summer research. She’d worked with the center since she was fifteen years old, always willing to do whatever was needed. She’d cleaned tanks, swept floors, filed and entered data, until this year when she’d been hired as an intern to record the movements, behavior and vocalizations of the dolphins around commercial fishing boats. The head of the lab, Andrew Martin, said her meticulous record keeping made her one of the best interns they’d ever had. There was already a thorough catalog of identified dolphins from New Jersey to Florida, so after identifying each dolphin, Sofie could spend her time recording and listening to the mammals. What Andrew didn’t know was that the acoustic records were contributing to her own private investigation into whether dolphins called each other by name.

She didn’t understand her deep-seated need to prove that the dolphins loved one another enough to give names. And maybe they named the humans they also loved. She’d once read an essay by Loren Eisley in which he called the human need to bridge the gap between human and animal “The Long Loneliness.” It was an apt description of her own belief that if she could call a dolphin by name and also understand his name for her, the abyss between them would be crossed.

A single flash shot across the sky and water—lightning. John grabbed her arm. “Get under cover in the cockpit, Sofie.” Rain fell in a sudden, sharp downpour as though gravity were pushing the rain into her face harder than necessary.

She felt the ache of isolation. After the dolphins left her, she often felt even more alone than before, as though they opened that empty space inside her. They seemed, she thought, to lower her emotional barriers so that when they were gone she was more aware of her own needs.

Being with the dolphins was the only time when she thought:
This, now, this is what I was made for.

John poked his head down into the cubby of the boat. “We’re getting ready to drop you off at the research center.”

“Got it,” she said.

“Come on up. We’re pulling up to the dock.”

Sofie went up on deck, sat on the wet bench in the back, lifting her face to the rain and shivering. The Marine Research Center was situated on a massive outcropping of rock that edged into the bay like a floating fortress. John tied the boat to the cleats while Sofie unloaded her gear and recording equipment.

Sofie liked John and felt comfortable with him, but often she grew uneasy when men paid her too much attention. Her mother had taught her, long ago and early, not to trust men, to avoid eye contact at all costs, and to confide in only the few men they already knew. Sofie’s deeply ingrained lessons were hard won and firmly entrenched.

She grabbed her overstuffed bag and headed back toward the research center. “Thanks, John. See you tomorrow.”

“Yeah, yeah,” he called after her.

She crossed the parking lot, pushed open the door with her foot and entered the center, where moist, artificially cooled air caused her breath to catch. She made her way to the locker room, showered and changed before sitting down at her computer. She needed to transfer the recordings to a hard drive and enter the statistics she’d logged.

Now that she was back at her desk, she felt safe from emotions she didn’t want to admit.

The phone rang; she grabbed it and Bedford greeted her with his warm voice. “Hey, darling, just making sure you weren’t out on the water in this weather.”

“Nope, here at my desk,” Sofie told him, clicked open a document.

“I’ll come get you around six o’clock for dinner, okay? I need to talk to you about something. I thought we’d go to Benittos.”

“What do you need to talk about?” Sofie’s fingers paused over the keyboard. Had she done something wrong?

“Nothing big, baby. I’ll see you soon.”

Sofie hung up the phone, and closed her eyes. She loved Bedford; he made her feel secure, cared for. The few times she became overwhelmed by his demands, she reminded herself of the utter and total panic she felt when she imagined leaving him, or when he threatened to leave her. She still hadn’t told him many things about her life, and maybe if she confided in him, she could cross that bridge of lonesomeness she often felt when she was with him.

Bedford Whitmore was forty; she was twenty. She’d first noticed him two years ago when he strode onto the dock of the research center; he’d looked like a safe harbor. He’d smiled at her and she’d gone to him without hesitation. He’d asked her name, then asked her out to dinner. She’d practically moved in with him less than a month later.

Everyone at the research center told her not to get involved with him—he was too old for her, a wanderer; he never stayed in Newboro for more than six months at a time. He was a marine biologist who specialized in environmental chemistry. He taught as a guest lecturer at numerous universities, yet was in Newboro often to consult with the research center on environmental problems in both the natural habitat and in the tanks housing the wounded marine life.

He’d stayed with Sofie for the past two years. He hadn’t moved on except for the few weeks he traveled to various universities for his lecture series, which allowed him more freedom than full-time teaching would have. This month he would be in Raleigh.

Bedford loved her; he told her so every morning and every night when she lay in his king-sized bed under the white down comforter. She felt guilty sometimes, knowing that she kept so many things from him—her family history and her love of mystery—intangibles that could not be measured on charts and proven with experiments.

He was proud of Sofie’s research, of the work she was doing for dolphin conservation, which he thought would bring her both academic distinction and publication in scientific magazines. She basked in his admiration.

The rest of the day flew by as she transferred numbers onto databases and graphs. Although Bedford would also proof her work, she felt the need to get everything as perfect as possible before his red pen hit the paper. She’d made a deal with herself—if she finished this section, she could work on her private research.

She wanted to prove that dolphins communicated with one another, named each other. It would be a landmark paper. But more, Sofie felt instinctively that her theory was true. Providing empirical evidence would elevate the mammals to a higher place in the animal kingdom, and thus, she hoped, help protect them.

Then she wanted to write a children’s chapter book in which a child learned how special every dolphin was, since each had a name. If there really were a way to combine “truth” and “story,” Sofie thought, life would make some sort of sense, shift into a definable paradigm. But she would tell no one of her work or why it mattered so much to her. She had made a bargain with God—
I’ll only have one
real
dream and not ask for anything more.
She wasn’t quite sure if God was in on the bargain or not, and she was being a bit dishonest since she also wanted to prove that dolphins not only named each other, but also had names for the humans they loved.

When she looked up at the clock, the day was gone and she hadn’t been able to switch to her own work. She pushed her hair out of her eyes, stood and was stretching when Bedford walked into the room.

She smiled at him. “Hey.”

“You look tired, baby.” He walked toward her, touched her face and kissed her lips.

“I am. Can we just go back to your place and grill some shrimp?”

“I don’t have any food at home.”

She grabbed her rain slicker off the chair. “We could stop by the market.”

“I thought we could sit and really talk if we weren’t rushing around the kitchen cooking.”

“Oh,” she said, as usual unable to find an argument against his irrefutable logic.

He held out his hand. “Let’s go.”

She took his hand, felt the warmth of him and leaned into him.

 
Philip, the maître d’, welcomed Bedford and Sofie, led them to their favorite table at the far end of the restaurant and left them alone.

“Okay, what is it, Bedford?”

“I know you don’t like to talk about your mother, but I thought you should see this.”

“What is it?”

Bedford reached down, pulled a newspaper from his briefcase and held it out to her. “Read page one of the arts section.”

Sofie took the Raleigh newspaper and read the article while her feet and hands went numb, while her heart slowed to an erratic pace as if she’d dived too far down following a dolphin.

The article told of an art historian, Michael Harley, who was traveling along coastal Carolina communities looking for Ariadne—the painter whose art was characterized by broad brushstrokes and translucent paint; who employed innovative methods to integrate background and foreground images on metal, wood and other surfaces. Her work had been dispersed throughout the country by tourists who had bought pieces while on vacation in the Carolinas, yet no one knew who the artist really was, not her full name or where she lived. No new work had shown up in years.

Harley had started to collect Ariadne’s work. He was researching her for an article, and he was intent on finding her—or him.

The article explained that in Greek mythology Ariadne was the daughter of King Midas. She married Dionysus, god of the sea, after escaping from the island of Crete. The historian’s theory was that the artist was a strong woman who wished to hide her identity behind a goddess who represented an escape from patriarchal society.

Sofie faked a smile, looked up. “None of this makes sense. Greek myth? Art technique? Fake names?”

Bedford touched the top of her hand, stroked her wrist with a featherlight touch. “Sofie, that is the name of the artist whose canvases are sold in the Newboro Art Studio. The article says Newboro has the largest collection of Ariadne’s work. Your mother owned the art studio. I know you know about this. . . .”

Sofie felt her bones soften, collapse into her flesh as though she might disappear. She dropped the newspaper onto the table, closed her eyes and felt the room spin; nausea rose and she stood, ran for the bathroom.

The door safely shut, she leaned over the toilet and retched. Panic ran through her body in a familiar pattern, and then Bedford’s voice echoed through the bathroom. “Sofie, Sofie, are you okay?”

She stood, walked to the sink to wash her face. “I’ll be right out,” she called to the closed door.

She pinched her cheeks, smoothed her stick-straight blond hair back into its ponytail and walked out to face Bedford. “I think the oyster sandwich I had for lunch was bad.”

“Tell me what’s going on.” He hugged her. “I know when you’re hurting. I hate bringing up the subject of your mother, but you have to talk about her death someday. This man”—Bedford held up the paper—“is coming to Newboro to ask questions. You can’t pretend your mother is coming home in two days.” He said this in the quiet voice of a father—or what Sofie imagined a father would say, since she’d never had one.

They walked back to the table. She sat across from him, and he reached his hand out to her; she took it. “Just talk to me. . . . Did your mother know this artist?”

Sofie released the long-rehearsed words she’d prepared for this moment. “Bedford, she’s gone. I can’t ask her if she knew Ariadne. I have no idea who Ariadne is. It was Mother’s studio—not mine.”

He ran his fingers across her palm, over her forearm. She shivered with the familiar desire that rose up in her when he touched her. “I’m really not that hungry. Can we just go now?” she asked.

“I’m starving,” he said, smiled.

The waiter approached and took their order. When the wine bottle arrived, Sofie nodded yes to a glass. She spooned her clam chowder, but didn’t take a bite. Bedford cut into his steak, stared at her. “Why don’t you eat? You’re going to float away soon.”

Sofie was thin—she always had been. She could eat a lot or a little, and her frail frame neither gained nor lost weight. Bedford circled his fingers around her wrist. “Eat.”

She sipped her soup, looked up at him and realized he had no idea, whatsoever, of the fear that lived and moved inside her when she thought of the consequences of telling the truth. Each time she contemplated the possibility of speaking the facts of her mother’s life, anxiety folded over her in a suffocating blanket of silence.

“Well.” Bedford sat back. “You know he’s going to come try and talk to you.”

“Let him. What do I care? I’ll tell him the same thing I’m telling you. I don’t know anything about the artists whose work Mother hung in her studio, where she found them or where they went. I was a child. I didn’t pay any attention.”

Bedford ran a hand through his hair, a familiar and irritating gesture that Sofie often thought feminine. He dropped his hand and lightened his furrowed expression. “So,” he said, “tell me about your trip out with John. How did it go?”

For a minute or two she forgot about her mother, Michael Harley and Bedford’s questions as she talked about her work, content to be discussing the subject she loved best. She told Bedford about her day, or at least the part of her day that would make him smile. She wanted to love him as much as he did her, as much as she had once loved another man.

Yes, there was a time when she’d loved someone else. Of course she’d never told Bedford about him: Christian Marcus, who’d worked with her at the Marine Research Center. When she thought of Christian, sorrow came in a wave of regret. He was the loss she bore because of her inability to tell the truth. He was the debt she paid for keeping secrets.