It was tough being an audience of one, especially when she was tired of the same old show. The burden was far too great; he wanted her to see, come up and see, every little bit of work. She had begun to feel like a mother watching her child in the swimming pool: Look, Ma, look.
Besides, if she was the only audience, she had to be perfect, didn’t she? And Jesse’s rules of perfection were unwritten. Yet if she loved him, she would know them or intuitively figure them out.
Just as she ought to know how he’d like her to iron his white shirts, cook his eggs. She ought to know what size washers, screws, nails he’d like her to pick up at the hardware store on her way home.
She needed to be finely tuned to hear the vibrations of the mines that lay in the fields of the territory that was Jesse’s private world.
For when she misstepped, made the wrong move, said the wrong words, the explosions were fast and furious. They burst out of Jesse like cherry bombs. Then the silence would fall.
The ensuing quiet covered the house and the yard like a thick blanket of fog. It was familiar; it reminded her of Jake, whose angry outbursts had punctuated his long silences throughout her childhood. Once, when he had already been angry at Rosalie, he’d flown at Emma in a rage because she hadn’t swept under her bed. The price for those dust bunnies was a stillness that lasted two months.
Jesse’s silences weren’t as long. But they were long enough, so that by the time he decided to speak again Emma had developed a rainbow of bruises from beating her head against his implacable will, and they hurt. She wanted them kissed and made well before she kissed and made up again. Jesse, on the other hand, wanted to be rewarded for returning from his muffled kingdom back into her less-than-perfect world. So he’d pull the drawbridge back up before she even crossed it, and she would fall back into the moat to swim alone.
After a while, she’d gotten used to it, to being alone again. For hadn’t she been like that for most of her life? Hadn’t she protected herself from all those names in her little notebook, the names she’d inscribed in purple ink, of men she’d given her body to but from whom she’d oh so carefully hidden herself? And maybe she’d been right to do so. Maybe the mistake had been in giving in to Jesse, who had seemed so different from all the others, who had charged in and swept her up before she had time to think.
Not that he was like those men. He didn’t bore her. Well, mostly not, though she was getting awfully tired of talk of Skytop. How different from the reality had been her fantasy of what their life together would be. For when they met, he had been at the apex of his career. She had imagined openings, shows, a circle of his scintillating friends. Little did she think that he’d become the hermit of Skytop.
Nor did he suffocate her, as so many of those old beaux had done, with their tiny vision of the world, as tiny as West Cypress. No, of course not.
But he was choking her—with his need. Sometimes it reminded her of Rosalie, who had wanted her, needed her in some way that Emma couldn’t understand, expecting her to fill a void that she didn’t want to be, couldn’t be, responsible for.
Jesse had said to her recently that she’d been hiding from him, that he didn’t feel like he could reach out and touch her.
“I’m not hiding,” she had answered. “I’m right here.”
Yet when he reached for her, she pulled away. “Honey, I’m not…”
“You were tired last night.”
“But I wasn’t the night before.”
And then his beautiful voice had grown so cold that she imagined it a wedge of steel.
“I never knew another woman who didn’t want to make love.”
“Every night?”
“Every night I wanted to.”
“That’s not normal, not year after year.”
“How do you know? Did you read that in a magazine?”
Yes, she probably had, in an article or a book. There were statistics on things like this. Besides, she knew what she felt and didn’t feel, and she didn’t feel passion every night.
“I never have time to build any need. You never give me any breathing room.”
“I’ll give you breathing room.” Then he’d jumped out of bed and pulled his jeans on.
“Where are you going?”
“What do you care?”
“I care a lot.”
“Why? You don’t love me.” His eyes brimmed with tears.
“I do love you.” Then her tears too began. “I love you very much.”
“Why do you find me so loathsome?”
She shook her head. “I don’t.”
He reached out again and touched her breast. And despite herself, she flinched.
“There!” he shouted.
“Does it always have to be sex?” she yelled back.
What had ever happened to kissing, necking, making out? She remembered never being hotter in her life than sitting in the front seat of Bernie Graubart’s old green Ford touching and exchanging spit.
She’d told Jesse that once.
“That’s what you want? Some adolescent groping in the dark?”
“Yes,” she cried, “sometimes. And sometimes couldn’t we just be? Just sit? Just talk?”
“And snuggle?” he asked sarcastically.
For that seemed to be what Emma enjoyed most about their time in bed together.
“Snuggle me,” she said almost every morning. “Hold me for a few minutes.”
That was what was important, more important than anything else, though she could never convince Jesse of it, those few minutes, only seconds out of unconsciousness, of feeling loved, safe.
His morning erection always got in the way of that.
* * *
“Emma!”
“What? Sorry.” Then she pulled herself back into the lanai, back into the Fourth of July barbecue.
“Did Rupert call? Say when he was coming?” Maria was still asking the same question.
“Where the hell is that white skunk, anyway?” Rupert was a very very light-skinned black man. His father, when he left his mother, had moved to another state and passed for white.
“He’s always late,” said Emma, answering Clifton. “Did he call, Jesse?”
But Jesse’s attention was on the radio. “Why is it you can’t find the classical station when you want it?”
Why is it when we have people over, you drink instead of smoking dope? Emma asked herself. And how long was it going to be before he crossed the line from mellow to mean?
“Man may not be dark, but he sure does operate on colored people’s time,” Clifton said, talking about Rupert.
“He’s bringing Lowie?” Maria asked.
“No, I don’t think so.” Jesse was back with them again.
Emma gave him a questioning look. “Why not?” She had liked Lowie, a woman as funny as she’d ever hoped to meet, Rupert’s second cousin as well as his wife.
“How you think we always kept this blood so white?” Rupert had laughed at Emma’s surprise when she’d first learned that fact.
Lowie did look like Rupert, with blue-green eyes and fair skin, though hers was dotted with a million round freckles that looked like M&Ms across her broad nose. Her hair was crinkly orange, and she wore it in a big natural halo. Besides Lowie’s sense of humor, Emma had been looking forward to her playing the piano. When Lowie came to visit, they’d gather around the square rosewood grand piano. Emma had found it in an antique store and couldn’t live without it, both because she thought it would be perfect up at Skytop and, as Jesse said, because it made her think she was living on a plantation in the South.
“Was no plantation behind that corner grocery store,” she reminded him.
“Yeah, but we all have dreams, darling, we all have dreams,” he teased.
“Where is Lowie?” she repeated in the here and now.
Jesse shrugged. “I’m not his keeper, Emma, just his friend. Rupert called yesterday while you were out and he said he might be bringing someone else.”
Through the screen of the lanai, Emma could see the figure of a short woman, a smudge of long black hair, but she couldn’t make out the details until they’d climbed the flagstone path.
The Oriental woman Rupert had thrown his arm around in a proprietary fashion was definitely not Lowie.
“Howdy.” Rupert smiled with a grin so bright it dazzled. He grabbed Jesse in a bear hug, and Jesse grabbed him back. Then Rupert began an elaborate routine of hand-slapping and wrist- popping that made everyone laugh.
“This man might as well be speaking Swahili, the way he shakes hands,” Jesse said.
“Arigato,” Rupert answered with a clownish bow.
The Japanese woman who was standing there still unintroduced smiled ever so slightly.
“That’s ‘Thank you’ in Japanese,” Rupert said, then pressed the woman to him. The top of her head came about halfway up his chest.
My God, doesn’t she speak English? Emma wondered. Has Rupert brought his honey into my house to spend the Fourth of July and I can’t even be rude to her because she won’t understand?
For Emma was offended at the idea of Rupert’s flaunting his unfaithfulness. It seemed like awfully bad manners, not to mention poor taste. She knew that Jesse would tease her about her proper Southern upbringing when she complained about it later. The gall of Rupert! And this woman, what nerve! But wait, Emma, she caught herself. Maybe she doesn’t know he’s married. What could she know, if she didn’t even speak English?
“I’m Caroline,” the woman said as if on cue. “Caroline Kitana.” She had a lovely low and musical voice. “Rupert’s told me that you’re very good friends of his,” a beat passed, “and his wife.”
Well, that certainly answered those two questions, didn’t it?
* * *
Caroline might be lots of things, Emma thought as the afternoon wore on, but she was not stupid. If arigato was Japanese for “thank you,” Emma wondered what the word was for “vamp.” For she knew Southern belles, and she knew Jewish princesses, but Caroline was a new variety of that seemingly helpless female who laughed at the men’s jokes and smiled sweetly at the women, with clever eyes that looked right through them. But behind all the lightness and birdlike flutter, behind the geisha fan, was a mind that knew—and almost always got—exactly what it wanted.
Emma wondered what she wanted from Rupert.
“Caroline is a physical therapist,” he’d answered for her when someone asked her what she did. Then he’d winked. “Gives a great rubdown. You wouldn’t think a girl this little could.”
Caroline smiled up at him as if he’d just paid her a great compliment. Lowie would have slapped him upside his head and said, “Man, what the fuck are you talking about?”
Emma wanted to know more. “Where do you work?”
“At the VA hospital in Palo Alto. Most of my patients are boys from Vietnam.” Caroline shook her head. “Very sad.”
“Well, they must perk right up when they see you coming, huh, sugar?” Rupert grinned.
Emma wondered about that. How did men perceive Caroline? Emma couldn’t decide whether she was pretty or not. Her round flat face was pleasant, her mouth wide, her nose a nubbin. Her hair fascinated Emma; long, silky and inky blue-black, it curled in ringlets at her shoulders.
“Oh, it’s a perm,” Caroline said and dimpled, and then, in that moment, she was as lovely as a peach.
But seconds later, when Jesse said something clever about Governor Reagan and Caroline laughed, her teeth grew big as a bunny’s, and her skin, the exact shade of an old ivory bracelet Emma wore, pulled back until Emma thought she could see her skull.
But the transmogrification wasn’t only when she smiled or laughed. There was something chameleonlike here at work. On, off. Pretty, ugly. Helpless, strong. Was this geisha-princess routine the Japanese version of that dual role Emma knew so well from home, the Southern lady who hid her iron fist in a velvet glove?
Now she and Caroline stood together in the living room. The others were gorged, resting around the dining table. Emma was playing hostess.
“I love your house,” said Caroline.
“Thanks, but it’s got a long way to go.”
“Well, I think it’s lovely. And look at that gorgeous coffee table!” It was one of Jesse’s pieces, an ebony slab resting on a pile of golden balls. “Rupert told me that you are both so clever with your hands. You are a wonderful cook. And of course I know Jesse’s work. I’ve always wanted to meet him.”
Really, Emma thought. Rupert not enough of a conquest for you?
“Oh, what a pretty piano! Do you play?”
“Not really. I took seven years of lessons as a girl, but ‘Chopsticks’ is about all I can manage. Do you?”
“A little,” Caroline said and tucked her chin modestly.
“Please. Help yourself.”
“You’re sure you don’t mind?”
“No, not at all. Lowie plays it all the time.”
She bit her lip. She hadn’t meant to say Lowie’s name, as if speaking it in front of Rupert’s girlfriend besmirched it somehow. If she just kept Lowie out of this afternoon, she wouldn’t have to think about her own culpability in not showing the woman the door.
She could imagine doing that, pointing in outrage. “Out, out, you shameless hussy! You son-of-a-bitch!”
If Jesse had showed up at Lowie’s house with a piece of fluff in tow, she’d have expected Lowie to do the same.
“Man, what the hell are you thinking about?” She could just hear Lowie. “Have you lost your ever-loving mind? Get that tramp out of here. Git, you no good dog!”
Caroline smiled. “Yes, I know. Rupert told me Lowie plays.” She paused. “You don’t like me, do you?”
Well, she had brass. Emma would give her that. “No, I don’t.”
“I’m not going to take Rupert away from Lowie. You needn’t worry about that.” Cool, that’s what Caroline was, very cool.
Then she settled herself on the piano stool that Jesse had made of exotic bubinga wood with little gargoyles reaching up for the player’s derrière. The best of Jesse’s work was full of jokes like that.
Caroline began with a Chopin study. It was all flash, a bravura performance for a woman who played “a little”—or a lot. The others bounced into the living room to witness the musical fireworks.
“Isn’t she wonderful?” Rupert asked.
Caroline thanked him prettily and smiled beyond him to Jesse, where her glance stayed, Emma thought, just a moment too long.
It turned out that Caroline, like Lowie, could improvise (Where did Rupert find these piano-playing women?), and they spent an hour gathered round her. Jesse, playing host, kept their glasses brimming, though Emma had long ago switched back to iced tea—as had both Clifton and Maria, with an eye toward the drive back home.
“Do ‘Go Down, Moses,’” Rupert urged. “You must hear Jesse sing.”
“I don’t know it,” Caroline answered. “But I’ll try.”
What a little trouper, Emma thought.
Caroline revolved on the stool and looked at Jesse from beneath her lashes. “Start and I’ll catch up.”
Jesse winked at Emma. He was having a good time, as was everybody else. “For my lady,” he said and bowed formally toward her. Well, wasn’t that sweet? But she kept an eye on Caroline, who, unless Emma was mistaken, was flirting with her husband, and the other on the drink he had forgotten now, placed on a corner of the polished rosewood. It would leave a ring, Jesse of all people should know that, but she bit her tongue.
They began. The song, though an old chestnut, was one of his best. It gave him a chance to show off his vibrato, his deepest, most dramatic notes.
; Caroline clapped her little hands when they were finished. “That was wonderful.” Jesse smiled back at her.
“You make anyone sound good.”
“Rupert,” Caroline turned to her escort now, “you’re so lucky to have such wonderful and talented friends.”
I may, thought Emma, have to excuse myself to puke.
She glanced across the room to Maria, who returned a look of cool assessment and an imperceptible nod.
“Well, we hate to break up the party.” Maria rose, smoothing her skirt. “But Clifton and I have to hit the road.”
Clifton, who appeared to have been dozing on the sofa like an old bear, but never missed a trick, shook himself and stretched.
“What say, Rupert?” He slapped the man on the shoulder. “You headed back to Oakland? Want to drive on up to Berkeley with us? It’s not too late to hear some music.”
“You dragging my party away, old man?” Jesse asked. There was a storm flag ruffling ever so slightly in his voice.
“No, ’course not. It was just a thought. Why don’t you and Emma come, too? You can stay over at our house.”
“What do you think, sugar?” Rupert asked Caroline.
“We can go if you want to, but I’d just as soon stay here. If that’s okay with you, of course?” She directed the question to Emma, who wanted nothing more than to usher them all out and shut the door—and then tuck into bed. She was even in the mood for a little loving. Caroline make you appreciate what you’ve got? she twitted herself. Well, maybe, maybe not.
“Why don’t you all stay?” she heard herself, the perfect Southern hostess, saying. “The evening’s young.”
“Thanks, bro,” Rupert said and returned Clifton’s slap on the back. “But I think we’ll hang here and help Jesse finish up this bottle of scotch.”
“There’s plenty more where that came from,” Jesse said.
“Well, it was just a thought. Some other time.” Clifton had his hand on the door.
Declining Maria’s final offer to help with a wry smile that wasn’t just about the dishes, Emma said, “You clean at your house, next time.” Then Clifton and Maria kissed their thanks and farewells and were gone.
Keeping Secrets Page 23