Keeping His Secret

by Danes, Ellie

  “And it’s really affecting the town that badly?” I asked.

  “First people just cut back on hours, you know, open weekends only and all that. It’s been a slow decline for a while now and now the market’s good, so people are selling,” Rick said.

  I looked around his crowded record store, all jumbled up with memories. “Please tell me you aren’t closing.”

  Rick brightened. “Me? Nah. I’m too smart for that. Started a great online blog a while back, and I make a good amount selling collectors’ items and rare albums.”

  I grinned at that. “You always were the smart one, Ricky. So, big plans for the weekend?”

  “Well, funny you should bring up Storm and the mansion and all.” Rick leaned forward and whispered, “I hear rumors there might be a party there this weekend.”

  I giggled. “Should we hang around in the back orchard and plan some party-crashing?”

  “Or you could just have dinner with me.”

  “You’re sweet, Ricky, but I gotta check on my mother before I make any plans,” I said.

  Rick nodded his head with the same smile everyone in town had when they thought of my mother: a mix of admiration and embarrassment that was most people’s reaction to an exuberantly eccentric artist.

  “Good luck with that. We’ll catch up later,” Rick said.

  I squeezed his arm again and squared my shoulders. It was time to visit my mother.

  Outside of the record shop, I paused and took a deep breath. My mother’s art studio was just a few doors down on the other side of Main Street, and I could see the wide front windows from where I stood. As I watched, a man walking his dog passed the studio windows. The man stumbled to a stop and stared.

  I cringed inside, wondering what my mother was up to now. Caroline Sinclair ‘expressed’ herself in outrageous ways that had deeply embarrassed me since birth. It all came back to me as I stood there watching the man and his dog hurry away from her studio windows, throwing curious glances over his shoulder, as if he was afraid of being caught staring.

  I dragged my feet down Main Street toward the studio. Once, when I was eight years old, my mother had hung a swing from the center of the art studio. I had assumed it was for me because I was always spending long and boring hours waiting for her creative work to be done. No, the swing was for her. Caroline had stood on the swing, brandishing multiple paintbrushes dripping with color, and had Ian Morris’ equally famous drummer spin her wildly to the cheers of the crowd outside.

  Then there was the time when I was fifteen and my mother decided the studio was the perfect place for what she called a ‘performance installation.’ Caroline had set up a bedroom in front of the wide windows and let the world watch her sleep. She would work all night and then sleep during the day as curious passersby stood and watched. I could still picture her sequined night mask and the way my classmates laughed as she drooled on her pillow.

  I hunched my shoulders and crept up to the studio windows. Surely, my mother was too old to be doing anything outrageous, right? Wrong. Caroline, still lithe and supple despite her years, was clad only in a string bikini. As I peeked, she slathered herself with paint and then began a Yoga flow. The bright colors swept and smeared onto a large canvas as Caroline shifted gracefully through the poses.

  The movement, recorded with gentle brushes of paint, was beautiful, but who on earth would buy such a large canvas? It was four times the size of a Yoga mat and would cost a fortune just to frame.

  Practicality and long-term planning meant nothing to my mother. She was all about freedom and art, and that was the reason I spent most of my childhood stretching her small commissions and struggling to pay our bills. I shook my head and reached for the studio door handle. The town of Murtaugh might have been changing but my mother was just the same.

  “Cora? Is that you? It is! Oh, Caroline, our little Cora is back!” Susie Q, my mother’s best friend and occasional patron, caught me in an excited hug.

  Susan Quaker was a former rock groupie with a string of ex-husbands who still fondly funded her vagabond lifestyle. She’d met my mother when she followed Ian Morris home to Murtaugh and since then our hometown had become the one place Susie Q would stay for more than a week at a time.

  “Thank god,” my mother yelled. “Ask her if she can do Kapotasana. There’s a whole bucket of peach-colored paint over there.”

  I held up both hands to ward off Susie Q. “No. No way.”

  Susie Q laughed. “Come on, Cora. It’s only Pigeon Pose. I’ll talk you through it.”

  I slapped her hands away as she plucked at my cardigan. “I’m just here for a visit, and I’m not letting her suck me into any of her projects.”

  “Fat chance.” Susie Q smirked but relented. Instead, she looped her arm through mine and pulled me into the studio.

  My mother was arched in a turquoise-slathered version of Bridge Pose, much to the shocked delight of a couple of older men passing by. My cheeks flamed with embarrassment, but Caroline did not even look up.

  “If you aren’t going to be part of the art, the least you can do is snap a few pictures, Cora, hun,” my mother said.

  “Oh, please do!” Susie Q. clapped her hands and dug out her very expensive new phone. “I don’t even know how to use the camera but if you do it, we can add it to Caroline’s social media.”

  My stomach dropped. Of course, the whole world could see my mother’s art via the Internet. Why should my embarrassment be contained to my little hometown?

  Still, Susie Q’s phone with its fancy camera was tempting. “Who gave you this?” I asked her.

  Susie Q shrugged. “Number three, I think. Or maybe it was five.”

  I knelt and got a great shot of my mother as she smoothly moved into Cobra Pose. The light from the wide studio windows was perfect, and I shifted to get a better angle.

  “Watch the paint, Cora Bora,” Susie Q teased.

  I grimaced but kicked off my boots and stepped farther into the paint-splattered studio. My mother splashed on lemon-yellow paint and began another flow of Yoga poses. I gritted my teeth as more people walked by on Main Street, but soon the photos took over. Susie Q put on music from her second husband’s world tour and danced around the edges while singing out encouragement.

  Twenty minutes passed without me noticing.

  Finally, my mother stepped off the canvas and grabbed a towel. “Let’s see what you got, sweetheart.”

  I handed the phone back to Susie Q, whose bright red lips dropped open as she swiped through the shots. “Oh, Cora, these are amazing. Caroline, look at the light she captured! And look at this! You can actually see the movement!”

  My mother put a paint-splattered hand on her friend’s shoulder to steady the phone. She peered at the photographs with a dreamy, sad look. “You sure you’re not an artist, my love?” Caroline asked me.

  I turned my back on the photographs and pulled my boots back on. “Someone’s got to pay the bills.”

  It was a practiced remark that I had said one thousand times before, but now it hurt. After all my years of talking responsibility and financial stability, I had gone and gotten myself fired. I knew my mother wouldn’t care but my pride swelled stubbornly.

  “Yes, dear, yes, but don’t forget we have a bet about that,” my mother said.

  “Ooo, I love bets! What are the stakes?” Susie Q clapped her hands and jumped up and down.

  Caroline laughed. “I bet Cora that once her big important career failed her that she would come back here and work with me in the studio.”

  “So we can both starve to death together?” I asked.

  My mother gave an exasperated laughed while she wiped paint from her bikini-clad body. “I have a roof over my head and enough food to eat. Honestly, Cora, art has always provided for us. Why can’t you just believe in it?”

  I felt a smoldering burn in my chest. As much as I longed to look at the photographs I had taken, shots that Susie Q was still admiring with wide eyes, I couldn�
��t give in. Someone had to stand for practicality and the normal considerations of life.

  “I heard business is a little slow on Main Street these days,” I said in a tight voice.

  Caroline threw down her paint-splattered towel. “So, you’ve only come home to check up on me? Wanna go over the books, too?”

  My mother pulled on a bathrobe and tied it tight. Susie Q, still gripping her phone, slipped away to turn down the music. Why did I think this visit would be any different? Why were my mother and I always missing each other by a mile? I felt the weight of it on my shoulders, and I could see it in my mother’s tight lips. We would never see eye to eye.

  “No, that’s actually not the reason, but I stopped by the record shop on the way, and Rick told me a lot of the storefronts are closing up,” I said.

  Caroline paused for a moment and her eyes, a dark blue the exact shade as my own, studied me closely. “Why’d you come home, my love? What’s going on?”

  I ignored her comforting concern, the stubborn stiffness returning to my spine. “Rick says the tourist trade is drying up and all the businesses are suffering. What about you?”

  My mother gave my concern a flippant wave of her hand. “Same as always. Money comes and goes, Cora, but it’s not what makes the world go ‘round.”

  I followed her into the studio’s large back room. The open space was divided into a small kitchen, a seating area that was nothing but large floor pillows and scattered rugs, and a bathroom hidden only by a large boudoir screen. A ladder descended from the sleeping loft, hung with Caroline’s bohemian assortment of clothes.

  She disappeared behind the screen, and I heard the shower start. Instead of an actual bathtub or stall, my mother’s shower was nothing more than a rain shower head aimed at a drain in the floor. Paint splashed on the white subway tiles as she rinsed her long, still-blond hair.

  It took a minute, but I found the kitchen drawer where my mother had shoved all her mail. Paperwork was not something Caroline deemed worth her time, and her bills usually stacked up until myself, a friend, or a loving patron couldn’t stand it any longer. As I sifted through the large, chaotic stash, I realized just how dire the situation was in Murtaugh, especially for my mother.

  Tourists loved her wild shows of creativity and most bought something, even if it was just a postcard. Since my mother refused to advertise, those tourists were the only ones spreading her art to a larger audience. Through them, she got the larger commissions that sustained her freewheeling life. Now that fewer people came to ‘discover’ Caroline, she was woefully behind on all her bills.

  The shower stopped, and my mother peeked around the screen stark-naked. “Oh, Cora, don’t worry yourself with that stuff.”

  I looked up with tear-blurred eyes. “Your landlord has filed eviction papers?”

  My mother tugged her bathrobe back on and walked barefoot over to the kitchen. The letter had been unopened, but she was entirely unsurprised.

  “How about a little lunch?” my mother asked. “You must be hungry after driving all the way from the big city.”

  “Mom, do you even know what this means?” My voice wavered.

  “Baby girl, I wish you wouldn’t worry so.” Caroline caressed my cheek.

  “They got an offer on the studio and the two shops next door. Your landlord is going to sell, and they’re going to put in some big chain pharmacy!”

  A deep furrow appeared between my mother’s eyes. If Caroline believed in any sort of devil, it was large corporations and chain stores, but especially big pharma pushing their horrible, unnatural drugs. Then she took a deep breath and let it out with a loud, guttural whoosh.

  “There are fresh tomatoes. Could you slice up a few?” my mother asked.

  We worked silently in the kitchen, putting together a fresh farmer’s lunch of tomatoes, French bread, olive oil, and slices of salami. My mother pulled cottage cheese out of her small refrigerator, and I automatically sprinkled it with pepper. Together, we chopped up carrots and peppers and tossed them with lettuce she grew in giant pots by the back door.

  “You two make such a perfect team,” Susie Q said dreamily from the studio door.

  “Good,” I said. “Because I’m staying until this all gets sorted out.”

  My mother hugged me tight. “I’m so glad, my love. And maybe while you’re here, you’ll tell me what’s really going on.”

  “She seems nice,” I said to Rick. “Who is she?”

  The record store owner straightened up behind the counter and frowned at me. “Nobody. Just passing through.”

  I glanced past the pasted concert posters in the window and watched as the young woman walked slowly down Main Street. Her dragging gait did not make it seem like she was anxious to get out of town, but I couldn’t blame Rick for lying. She was very attractive: unruly blond hair, dark blue eyes, and a shy smile. I wondered what she’d look like with a little confidence.

  “You get the record from Bobby?” Rick asked, clearly trying to distract me from his friend.

  “Yup. He’s working on a rhythm similar to track number three. I told him I’d have something to play over it in the next few days.” I pushed open the record store door. Outside, a large white truck rumbled down Main Street.

  “Good luck getting anything done. Looks like your manager is cooking up something at the house.” Rick chuckled as I left.

  I gritted my teeth and headed down Main Street toward my beat-up truck. Another truck, this one marked with an event planner’s flamboyant logo, rumbled past. If Rick was right, then I had to get back to the mansion and kill my manager. I picked up the pace until I got stuck behind two loitering teenagers.

  “I thought the place was abandoned,” the taller boy said.

  “If there’s a party there, we should totally try to get in,” his friend said. “My dad said the parties there were legendary.”

  The taller boy stopped and pulled a face. “Seriously? We should totally gate-crash.”

  I cringed as the boys sang a few lines from my one-hit wonder. Somehow, the damn thing was still popular despite its obviously aged sound. The boys were mocking it but knew every word. I lengthened my stride and passed them before they got to the chorus. I walked faster but could not escape the song that had dominated and then destroyed my career.

  No one cared that I had more in me than just one catchy tune. No one cared that I could play the guitar to beat the devil. That one song had killed my chances of doing anything else. I was nothing but my father’s disappointing legacy who flamed out after one international hit.

  Luckily, enough time had passed, and I had changed my look enough, that the boys did not recognize me. Still, my need for privacy made me cross the street.

  I could have stewed on it the rest of the way home, but a camera flash caught my eye. Instinctively, I tucked my chin down to avoid paparazzi before realizing the camera was not pointed at me. I looked up and stopped dead on the sidewalk.

  Caroline Sinclair’s art studio was always worth a second look but today it was impossible to look away. The flighty but attractive woman I had seen earlier was barefoot on the paint-splattered floor, stretching with impeccable balance to capture another shot of the artist at work. Caroline, true to her outrageous reputation, was clad in nothing but a bikini as she let her lithe body paint through Yoga moves. But it was the photographer who captured my attention.

  She shoved back her short, unruly blond hair and lined up another shot. Gone was the confused and embarrassed expression I had seen in the record store earlier. Concentration set her full lips in a pout, and the light of inspiration shone in her blue eyes.

  I recognized that light; it had beamed from my father’s face day and night as he wrote the music that had launched his band into the stratosphere of rock history.

  It was hard not to notice Caroline, but I had seen the sweeps and experimental body-painting before. It was the young woman’s face that was new, her expression both irritated and inspired. I chuckled to myself
as she slipped in a patch of paint and let out what clearly looked like a string of obscenities. Besides her wild blond hair and her current situation, the young woman looked neat and tidy, one of those straight-laced women who unravel in the most surprising ways.

  I dragged my eyes back to the paint-smeared artist. She struck an impressive Warrior Pose but I struggled to concentrate on her normally-inspiring work. Caroline had always fascinated me with her utmost dedication to art. She let everything else go, including her reputation, and I admired her bravery. But today, it was the photographer, now biting her lip as she bent low for a better angle, that had my full attention.

  I wished I could see the photographs she was capturing. I wanted to see the world through her dark-blue eyes.

  The riff came out of nowhere, sounding off in my head so clearly that I straightened up to listen. It never failed to amaze me how inspiration struck when I least expected it. I replayed the idea in my head and started walking. By the time I reached the end of the sidewalk, the riff was expanding into a song.

  At the corner, I tried to shake it off. I still had errands to run, and who was I kidding? I wasn’t a music phenomenon like my father. Why would I think anyone but myself would like the music I heard in my head?

  I stopped in at the post office and tried to return to normal life. “Hi, Larry. How’s the wife?” I asked the postmaster.

  “Potty training our youngest,” Larry replied ruefully.

  I laughed. “So, nice day to be at work?”

  Larry tapped his nose to show I was right on point. Then he slipped into the back room and returned with my package. It was small and wrapped in nondescript brown paper, just a box of my favorite guitar strings, but Larry marveled over it for fun.

  “Let me guess, rose petals from the Riviera?” Larry had handled many of my father’s unique orders in the past.

  “Not for me,” I reminded him.

  Larry smiled, having known me from childhood. “Working on a new song?”