The Secret Keeping (10 page)

“There,” Robert pointed.

Kay cheered her decision. This was more like Helaine. “You’re lying you know?” she said as she moved away from the table.

“There,” Robert repeated.

Helaine eyed the spot and glanced at Kay. “About what?”

“Against the wall,” Robert ordered excitedly. “Throw it, Helaine.”

“That there’s no one else,” Kay pursued.

Helaine laughed, trying to dodge her. Well, there is no one else. “You’re sure?” she asked, preparing to throw a curve.

Robert nodded, grinning in anticipation.

“I’m sure,” Kay said.

Against the wall. “You’ll have to clean up after me, Robert. I hate a mess.”

“We’ll clean up, Helaine. Throw it.”

It was their glass. It was their wall. It smashed against the whitewashed brick, a shower of glass and burgundy red settling in little gleaming puddles on the hardwood floor. What do you see, she asked herself as she took in the red-spattered wall like an ink blot. Robert and Kay cheered themselves on like the old days.

What did she see? The wine trickled along the edge of the bricks on its way down the wall. Something incriminating, she suddenly thought, stepping up to it. Something sinister. The bright shards of glass glittered forbiddingly at her feet, bloodied. She saw a menacing shape on the wall, a pile of bloody diamonds on the floor.

“Helaine?” Kay said, noticing her pallor. “You’re so pale. Sit down.”

She took a deep breath. “Too much excitement for this old gal,” Helaine offered. “Will you call me a cab, Robert? I’d better go home or we’ll be drinking from paper cups next time.”

He left the room. Kay scrutinized her as she primped in the mirror.

“Maybe you’re pushing yourself too hard. A little fun, you know?”

“I know,” she answered. She did look pale. She turned and smiled one of her emptiest smiles. “There is no one, Kay. I’m sorry. There just isn’t.”

_____

“How did you like it, Jon?” An evening with an old flame.

“It’s really just a lot of screaming to me. All those conflicting emotions!” He smiled wryly, tapping his knife on the salad plate. He hated the opera.

“It’s like that sometimes. The microphones, I think. No star power.”

“Star power. A must, heh?”

She avoided that. “It really doesn’t hurt sometimes.”

“I wouldn’t know, Helaine. I’ll wait till I hear it from you.”

She fixed her gaze on his forehead. “Well, thanks for coming anyway.”

“Would you have gone alone if I said no, Helaine?”

She thought to spare him but was too tired. “Yes, probably.”

He leaned across the table. “Then thanks for asking me,” he said. He reached with his leg under the tablecloth and she pulled hers away. “Come back to my place and seduce me, Helaine.”

She gave a throaty laugh at his dare. “I wouldn’t want to make a fool of myself.”

“Okay.” He resumed his tapping. “That bad?”

Dr. Jon! She regretted the direction of the conversation. It was too late to change it.

“That bad, Helaine? Can’t have a little fun with an old friend?”

He had gotten old. Around the eyes. She smiled. “Am I too oppressive, Jon?”

He plunged his fork into a tomato. “Hardly!”

“Okay.” He was qualified to say so. She waited for the rest of his opinion.

“That’s your problem, Helaine. You’re willing to give too much space.” He diverted his eyes when he said this.

“Oh?” She smiled weakly. “Is that what it is?”

He was sorry he mentioned it. “Yes,” was all he managed then. He could feel her foot tapping against the table leg and he squirmed around in his chair to search for the waitress.

Too much space, wasn’t that was interesting? “But, Jon…” she completely despised the discussion, “you asked for more space.” She had his attention once more. So now they were stuck with the subject.

More space. Yes, he had. “But I didn’t expect you to give it to me, Helaine.”

Mmmm. She saw him smile sheepishly at his confession. There was something charming about it, albeit sad. “You have such a strange way of complimenting me,” she finally said. She would have liked to wring his neck and did her best to hide the notion from him.

He was relieved to have gotten away with it. “Some of us want our lovers to put up a fight, dear. I would have thought by now you would have tried that.”

He was implicating her again. Love and war. She never believed in it and he knew that.

“I doubt it’s what Sharon’s asking for,” she said at last. “I truly doubt it.”

“You never know,” he said, “seems pretty classic.”

Gothic really, Helaine thought then. Bad opera. Maybe there’s too much romance, too many little self-helpers, lonely hearts and talking heads. Dr. Jon and Dr. Helaine. We’re all making a pretty good living at it with our hypocritical oaths and half truths, our little confidences. Helping? Maybe. But was anyone being saved? She would have liked to know that for sure. Was it right to profit from this brand new religion? She eyed Dr. Jon. He seemed pretty content. Obviously he didn’t feel it was a grim reaping.

“Then what would Dr. Jon advise a sorry case like myself to do?” The food arrived as a form of salvation, but she was committed to an answer. “In your own words, not mine,” she added slyly.

They laughed, uncomfortable with their new positions.

“Well, you broke all the rules when you first asked out your tall-dark-handsome,” he said serving up her words anyway.

“Ugh. So I’m hopeless?”

He jabbed at his food absently. “No, I couldn’t say that, but it may prove difficult to establish your boundaries now.”

She smirked at that. “I have no boundaries. Remember?”

“That’s right,” he said, grinning and swallowing more than he could chew. “I’d get free of her then.”

“Not ‘work it out’?” she said, this time eating her own words.

He shrugged. “What’s to work out, Helaine? Sharon wants everything and you give it to her. Does she even know what you want?”

She does. “Yes, she knows what I want.”

He chewed pensively. “Well, has she ever promised to provide it for you?”

He was pretty good. Helaine looked out the window at nothing in particular. “All the time,” she answered without turning her head.

Jon fell silent. He blew air through his nose. “Then you’re a hopeless case.”

They laughed at the diagnosis.

“Good enough. Let’s change the subject, Jon.”

“A fine idea. You want to talk about my love life instead?”

(No, not really.) “Okay. And how is your young wife?”

“Ex-wife, please.” He smiled pleasantly at her, knowing he had it coming.

“Ex. That’s what I meant,” was all she said about it. She let him go on.

“Expensive.” He sighed, laying his silverware on the plate and casting her his puppy dog eyes. “Very expensive.”

“You should have taken my advice.” She emitted a quick laugh, but he scarcely smiled in return. She regretted saying it, afraid of his expression.

“Really? But, my love, you never said a word about it. Not one word. In fact, you acted as if you didn’t mind at all.”

Is that right? It sounded sort of like her. She offered a thin smile back to him. It was over with, what difference does it make anyway? She pursed her lips, looking through him. Didn’t mind? How could anyone have come to that conclusion? She raised her arm to signal the waitress, speaking in a constricted voice as she did.

“Well, Jon, you only told me you needed more space. You never said you intended to marry her.” The waitress arrived. She faced her. “Water, please.”

“That would have made a difference, Helaine?” He had revived, seeming to be enjoy this part of the discussion. “You would have fought then, Helaine?”

Fight, oh brother. Her lovers always seemed to be after more than love. The waitress came back with the water and she gulped it. She was thankful Jon was not her lover anymore and set her glass down with relief.

“I only bring it up now because you asked.” She smiled sweetly hoping to end it there.

“Flatter me, darling,” Jon pressed, “tell me that you minded.” His eyes twinkled at her discomfort.

She ignored him and pushed her food around awhile. A half hour later he asked her again, the corners of his mouth turning up as he pursued her answer. Helaine chuckled nervously.

The waitress came back with the bill and they split it. She heard Helaine whisper through her teeth, “If you hadn’t been lying, Jon, then you would have known the truth,” but the girl wasn’t quite sure what it meant. The man only grinned at the blond. He looked like a cat with a mouse.

After the waitress left the table Helaine extricated herself from the sticky conversation. “I don’t mind anymore, Jon. Can you be satisfied with that?”

He drove her home and held her at the door. He had been an affectionate lover and had wasted himself on a gold digger. She wondered if she couldn’t let him in.

“She is a disease,” he whispered into her hair, “highly infectious.”

She let him caress her hips without commenting. He had hands as soft as a woman’s.

“You’re safer in a leper colony,” he said, kissing her neck.

Lips as soft as a woman’s. “I don’t want to discuss this,” Helaine said. She toyed with the idea of letting him come in. “Seduce me, Jon.”

Her perfume was intoxicating. “What are you wearing?”

She tried to remember. “Obsession, I think.”

He laughed and held her at the waist, abandoning his plan. “I wouldn’t want to embarrass you, Helaine.”

Obsession. She saw the humor in it and though the idea had left her now she let him kiss her mouth, press into her body.

He was excited. “Ask me again.”

But she didn’t. It was as hopeless as he had said.

“I’ll sing at your funeral,” he taunted, leaving her at the unopened door.

“Hah!” She watched him drive away. Above her there was no moon at all.

_____

None of her friends knew about the waterfront flat, only that she had once lived there, but not that she still kept the lease on it or that she had furnished it for Sharon, to Sharon’s liking, to be used as a home for the wayward companion.

Helaine stood in the dark of it on a Saturday evening, once again breaking her promise to not go there.

My friends might be right, she thought. I am terminal. She flicked on the lights.

It looked the same as the last time, Sharon’s clothes strewn about it like flotsam after a shipwreck and as usual the girl had neglected to make arrangements for the place to be cleaned in her absence.

Helaine clung to the door and sighed. She had been wanting to cry for days and now she did. It was nothing but a flophouse, the once beautiful waterfront flat with its spectacular views. She had redecorated it for Sharon, but this is how the creature really liked it. An absolute wasteland. She made her way to the couch.

She didn’t know why she bothered to keep the place. For a lover who was never there?

“I don’t really live anywhere,” Sharon had told her over dinner, when they first met. “I have lots of friends and I work for months at a time.”

She modeled. That explained it.

“Then how can I get in touch with you again?”

“I’ll call you,” Sharon said coyly.

Helaine gave the girl her number. “When?”

“When would you like me to, Helaine?”

Helaine had hesitated. She didn’t know why. “Anytime,” she finally replied. It was her first mistake.

Sharon grinned fabulously, pleased with herself. “I have to go now. I’m late for an appointment.”

“You work nights, too?”

Sharon slipped on her coat. “Sometimes.” And then she was gone. Helaine paid the tab.

Sharon called late that very evening. “I was thinking of you,” she purred.

She had roused the doctor from her sleep, out of her senses. “Ah. And what were you thinking about?”

Helaine foolishly asked. She listened, moved and captivated by the speaker on the other end of her line, recklessly flirting with her, slipping under the spell of an obscene call and the power of all those suggestions.

When the girl asked to come over Helaine drew in her air and said yes. Rules are made to be broken. Her second mistake.

Sharon came quickly, pleasured quickly and was ready to leave quickly. Record timing. “When will I see you again?” asked a tousled blond already in over her head.

“When do you want to see me?”

“Now. Stay for the night.”

Sharon smiled provocatively. But it wasn’t going to be that easy.

“I’m sorry,” she purred again, “I can’t, Helaine. I’ll be back.”

“When?”

“Soon,” Sharon answered, pulling on her hose, buttoning her dress and admiring herself in the mirror as she put on her lipstick. She turned to face Helaine. “Soon,” she repeated, stepping into her heels ready to start walking, wearing a satisfied expression.

“Tomorrow night?”

Sharon’s eyes narrowed with calculation. She sat down beside her and stroked her breasts until the nipples went erect, holding them in her mouth, leaving them covered with her lipstick. “Pretty name. Helaine Kristenson.”

“Thank you. Tomorrow?”

Tomorrow. Sharon leaned against the blond and closed her eyes, her hands teasing, traveling her creamy flesh, her tongue tempting the moist mouth, licking her lips. She felt long legs drawing her in. They might never refuse her, she suddenly realized, letting them enfold her, lying between them once more. The blond sighed and Sharon took a quick breath. She was quite a catch, she told herself. She heard the woman breathing excitedly, swaying gently beneath her and she wanted to make her come again. The mouth, the lips, the tongue requested it of her. She felt between her legs and was stricken by the sound of the woman’s low cry, her urgent whispers. Her breath tickled her insides, moving them in ripples of excitement, with a bang bigger and better than cocaine. Oh, when she moaned like that–it felt just like falling!

Falling?

She pinned the blond to the bed and quickly entered her again. It was no big deal to tell the doctor she thought she might be in love with her. She could take it back tomorrow. She opened her mouth to speak but the clock beside the bed informed her she was late for her date and saved her from it. The blond would therefore never know this.