And after a while Emma realized that her cultural heritage was what she was interested in anyway. But she was going to be no more religious as a Jew than she’d been as a Baptist.
Jesse had never quite understood it. “Why do you want to identify with a group that’s been so persecuted, if you don’t have to?”
“Would you pretend that you weren’t black if people couldn’t see your skin? Jake and Rosalie pretended for so long that I was something else, the label is important.”
Jesse shook his head.
When she tried to talk with Jake on visits home, he’d smile, as if it really pleased him that she thought of herself as Jewish, but he always said, “Not too loud. It’ll upset Rosalie.”
So Emma left behind The Joys of Yiddish and wondered whether Jake had ever read it. But he probably never came into this room. (He did, though. When he was lonesome for Emma, he sat on the edge of her bed and patted the pretty dolls he’d won for her.)
Rosalie was in and out of the room all the time. She filled the closet with the overflow of her scores of polyester pantsuits. When she found the fabric on sale, she couldn’t resist. The quilt on Emma’s bed was made of little scraps of all those garments, patched together with her sewing machine’s zigzag stitch.
Around the walls marched Rosalie’s drawings of Emma. Some of them were hung side by side with the original photo. Was that so that the viewer could see how close she’d come to capturing the image? Emma wondered. Or was it some kind of voodoo—casting a spell that would bring her back home again?
Did Rosalie think about things like that?
They had never talked about their feelings for each other since that awful Christmas when Emma had snapped out her suspicions about Rosalie being her stepmother. That had been nearly ten years earlier. Since then, on her annual duty calls they politely walked around each other. They smiled and exchanged pleasantries, that was all.
Yet she was my mother, Emma thought. She raised me since I was ten months old. But I live in California, and she might as well live on Mars.
It was so strange: for all the trouble Rosalie had gone to to have a daughter, Emma couldn’t remember Rosalie’s ever having said the words I love you. Neither to Jake nor to her. She said them to her little dog Bootsie, but never to people.
Instead she talked about being hurt, cheated, slighted, about things being overpriced. Was love too expensive for her, too? Was the chance of being short-changed just too great—so that she’d decided simply not to deal in that commodity, even though the husband and child she’d cut a bargain for in a moment of emotional profligacy were already in place?
Had the deal been sealed before she realized, too late, that she just couldn’t play? For if she truly considered the world too terrible and hurtful a place to bring her own child into, why did she think things would be any different for a stepchild?
Suddenly the air in the room felt even more close. Emma sat up again and pulled her T-shirt off. It was too hot to sleep in anything. Except for the little oscillating fan, nothing moved. The room smelled musty.
“Rosalie, you really ought to get someone in to clean once in a while and to help you with the yard,” she’d said early this afternoon.
“I can keep my house myself. It’s perfectly clean.” Rosalie had the same disdain for housekeeping that she had for cooking. She slapped a dust mop around every once in a while. “And no one else knows what I want done in the yard.”
“They could at least mow the lawn. How much could it cost?”
“Too much.” And that was the end of that.
It was Rosalie’s life, Emma reminded herself. If she wanted to be out there in the broiling sun pushing a lawn mower, it was her choice.
Emma stretched out, trying to find a cool place in the sheets. They felt like polyester, too. Perhaps Rosalie had been running up bedclothes from sheet-sized remnants.
She would be scandalized if she could see Emma lying naked in her bed. But, God, it was so hot.
Emma wiped a trickle of sweat from between her breasts. And for the first time since she’d left him standing in the airport that morning, she thought of Jesse.
They’d done the right thing, choosing to never involve him in any of this. What would be the point? He didn’t want to be part of West Cypress and her family any more than they would have wanted him to be.
She closed her eyes and saw his handsome face. She rubbed the fingers of her right hand across her naked wedding-ring finger. It still felt a little numb.
What was going to happen to them? she wondered. Was their story going to have a happy ending? Were they going to grow close again? (They were nice, weren’t they, those moments they’d spent together in bed before the phone call from Rosalie. She couldn’t remember when she’d last felt so close to him. She’d whispered, “I love you.” He’d whispered the words back.) Was it going to get better when she went home—life with Jesse, her secret husband?
Or worse? Would she one day tell Rosalie and Jake, “I have a good-news/bad-news joke. The good news first—I’m divorced.”
God, she was never going to get to sleep with those kinds of thoughts. She should read a little while. She reached for the lamp, fumbled, and then there was a crash as all the carnival dolls fell onto the floor. One of them suffered a shattered skull beneath its blond wig, and its blue eyes rolled under the bed. What could they see under there? Were there monsters? Was the Green Skeleton waiting?
“Emma? What was that?” Rosalie, alarmed, was standing in the doorway.
“Go back to bed. Everything’s all right. Go back to sleep, Rosalie.”
And for the thousandth time in her life, Emma thought, who’s the momma here? In all the secrecy and hush-hush, did we swap places?
* * *
A week of tests passed. Then a week and a half.
“You’ve had a little stroke,” Marshall said to Jake. “Probably several tiny ones.”
Jake’s eyes looked frightened behind his glasses. He turned to Rosalie, who was twisting the strap of her plastic purse.
“What does that mean, Marshall?” Emma asked.
“You’re going to be okay, Mr. Fine. It’s going to take a little while to see the effects of the medication we’re putting you on. You’ll have to take it every day.”
Jake nodded obediently like a child.
“The voices?” Rosalie asked.
“They’ll disappear.”
Jake looked from Rosalie to Emma, then down at the plushy brown carpeted floor of the doctor’s office, as if the hallucinations were something of which he was ashamed.
What did I say, Jake wondered, when I was out of my mind? Did I tell them everything? I must not have. Everyone is being so nice.
“They’re not your fault, Mr. Fine. I know the images are very real to you, but they’re triggered by the lack of oxygen to the brain. It’s funny how the brain responds when it doesn’t get enough air to breathe. We’re going to give you some tranquilizers to make you rest easier until they subside. So you’ll be sleeping a lot at first. But we’re going to keep close tabs on you.”
“He doesn’t need to go to the hospital?” Rosalie asked.
“Oh, no. I’m sure he’ll be safe in your hands. You’ll see that he takes his medication. Home is where he needs to be.”
* * *
“I need to go home, too,” Emma said later that afternoon. They were sitting on the back porch drinking iced tea. Now that the crisis was over, she couldn’t sit still. When they walked back into the house after stopping by the pharmacy for Jake’s medication, the old claustrophobia had grabbed her by the throat. She could stand it as long as she had to. Now she didn’t have to anymore.
Rosalie looked up from the peas she was shelling. Each one pinged into an enamel pan. She’d picked them at dawn that morning before the blistering heat rose. Her garden was in full harvest, popping out vegetables almost faster than she could gather them. “You’re not going to go so soon.”
“I have to. I really
need to get home.”
“But you don’t have to be back at school till after Labor Day.”
Emma looked down at her hands. The vacant spot on her left hand no longer looked naked. She had ceased to miss the heavy gold band’s weight. But Jesse was waiting for her, and her house, her work, and Skytop. There was so much straightening out to do.
Suddenly she’d missed Jesse with a palpable ache. It was good to have gone away—now she had a fresh perspective. She needed to get back. They could make a new start and make things work. She knew they could.
She looked over at her father, who had just taken his pills. He had a pleased expression on his face, like a little boy who had been very bad but now was being good.
She needed to be good, too, she thought. She needed to try harder with Jesse. She could be more loving if she tried, more patient. She didn’t want to strike out on her own again. They’d have a long talk when she got back.
“I’m going to call Susan and tell her when to pick me up at the airport,” she said, using the name of her imaginary roommate.
“Okay,” Rosalie answered, deciding to be brave. It didn’t make any difference what she said, for Emma had always done exactly what she wanted to. “That’s awfully nice of her.”
“Yes, it is.” Emma smiled. “Susan’s always gone out of her way.”
* * *
Jake insisted on making the drive to the airport, though Rosalie thought he ought to stay home and rest. “Let him go,” Emma said. Later, when Jake was out of hearing, she whispered, “I don’t think he ought to be home alone.” There was that, but she knew he felt it was his duty to wave her off.
The airport was crowded. Businessmen clutched briefcases, sample cases, under the arms of their pale-blue-and-tan rumpled ice-cream suits. Running in and out of the crowd were a passel of black children all dressed up in their Sunday best. The little girls’ patent-leather shoes squeaked on the shiny floor.
“Would you look at that?” Rosalie whispered behind her hand.
“What?” asked Emma.
“All those Nigras flying—with money from their welfare checks.”
Emma didn’t answer. But in her mind’s eye she saw winged blacks filling the skies like crows—or black angels.
She focused on the group of black people clustered by the gate. There must have been twenty of them, laughing and talking, all standing close together as if they didn’t want to say goodbye. Then one of the women, a round short woman in late middle age, nodded at her. Emma smiled tentatively and nodded back.
She turned Rosalie’s shoulder in the direction of the woman. “Do you know her?”
“Who?”
Emma didn’t want to point.
Suddenly Jake beside them said, “I do.”
“Why, so do I,” said Rosalie. “That’s Hattie, the woman I told you came to the house. Jake, you remember Hattie, don’t you?”
“Yes, I said I do.” He smiled at Hattie across the room.
Rosalie was distracted by the announcement of incoming planes. But Emma caught the sweet look that passed between the black woman named Hattie and her father. It made her catch her breath. She took Jake’s hand in hers.
Hattie was coming toward them; now she was only about three feet away. “These here’s my grands. My daughter Viola’s kids.” Then she turned and caught a tall black man by the shoulder. “This is my oldest, Marcus. He’s on his way back to San Jose, California.” San Jose was just north of Los Gatos, where Emma lived.
Marcus, a handsome man in a yellow polo shirt and tan khaki slacks, reached over and extended his hand to Emma, who shook it. Behind her she could feel Rosalie’s discomfort. Men and women didn’t shake hands in West Cypress, and certainly not black and white. But this was almost California. Once she stepped foot on the plane, West Cypress would be gone.
“I remember you,” Marcus smiled. “You were the little girl with the chocolate.”
“Yes.” Emma laughed and she could see her own hand, small again, slipping two Hershey bars into Marcus’s grocery sack. Then her memory flipped back a couple more days. It was his hand now reaching out to stop her from slipping down the muddy canal bank. A few months later, he was waltzing with her in a dream. She’d never forgotten that dream, the Green Skeleton, the boogeyman of her childhood, releasing her into this man’s arms. Except then he had been a little boy.
* * *
“So you got away, too,” Marcus said as they settled into their seats on the plane.
“Yep, I made it out alive. And never looked back.”
“You were home visiting?”
Emma told Marcus about her daddy.
“I’m sorry to hear that. The doctor said he’s going to be okay?”
“Yes, he’ll be his old self again soon, I’m afraid.” They both laughed. “A gin and tonic,” she said then to the waiting stewardess.
“Make it two.”
Marcus insisted that the drinks be his treat.
“I owe you at least one for those candy bars.” He winked. “To West Cypress,” he toasted her. Their plastic glasses bumped silently.
“To getting out and coming back and getting out again.”
* * *
Jesse greeted her at the airport with a big hug.
“Did you miss me?” she whispered into his ear.
“You bet,” he said. “I almost starved to death.”
“Is that the only reason?” She poked him in the ribs.
“Nooo. That’s not all I missed. But you’ll have to wait till we get home for that.”
She smiled, but inside she stiffened a little. Relax, relax, she reminded herself. Everything’s going to be different.
“You’ve eaten?” he asked as they were about to pass Los Gatos on the highway. “Last chance. You want a hot dog or something?”
“No. I ate on the plane.”
“You smell like you did a little drinking too.”
“More than a little. I think I’m still a little drunk.”
Jesse raised an eyebrow. “Can’t let you go anywhere. Well, I’ve got some leftovers in the refrigerator. If you’re hungry later we can fix you up with something.”
“You cooked?”
“Of course I cooked.”
* * *
Oh, it was good to see the canyon again. She loved this little mountain road, the wooden bridges, the death-defying curves up the final hill.
“And the windows are almost finished? Great!”
“Yep. It’s been going well—beginning to see daylight. I’ve even been sleeping up there.” He paused. “I had a phone installed.”
“Where?”
“At Skytop.”
“Really? Why?”
“I just told you. I’ve been up there so much, and I’ve been thinking about what you said about being isolated.”
“But you never even answer the phone.” Emma didn’t know why she was being so contrary, but something was niggling at her.
“Don’t you get tired of driving up when you need me?”
“I’ve been doing it for almost four years.”
“Well, now you don’t have to anymore.”
The bottled salad dressing was the first thing she saw when she opened the refrigerator door.
“Jesse,” she called, “who’s been here?”
“What do you mean?” He was in the bedroom.
“There’s Roquefort dressing in our fridge.” Jesse hated Roquefort cheese.
There was just a pause, a two-beat hesitation. She felt him taking a deep breath.
But his voice was ever so natural as he answered, “I had some friends over.”
“Friends?”
“Rupert. You know.”
No, she didn’t know at all. Rupert had been here twenty, thirty times before. He’d never asked for Roquefort.
And then she did know, had already known in her heart, in a place where a door had begun to open with a warning creak. Caroline and Jesse must have had quite a love feast in her absence.
She couldn’t go into their bedroom yet. “I need to call Rosalie and let her know I got back okay,” she said.
Emma looked around her kitchen, where nothing was different—the same old cabinets, the same testy electric range—but suddenly everything had changed.
15
Months rolled by. Summer slid into fall, the rains began, and Emma closed her eyes to Jesse’s affair with Caroline. If she didn’t admit that she knew, she wouldn’t have to deal with it. And since she wasn’t sure she really wanted him, but wasn’t willing to let go, either, since she couldn’t decide whether or not to get off the pot, she pretended to be deaf, dumb and blind, and she coasted.
There were some rewards. In the place of the intimacy of their early days there was a sort of calm. Jesse seemed kinder, more solicitous, less fractious. Well, he was getting what he wanted, she guessed—whatever that was.
Sometimes she stood off and looked at her teaching, her cooking, her long tight body, and she thought, Let Jesse go, why not? You’ll be exactly where you were before him, just a little further along. And wouldn’t it be delicious, to take a good deep breath without feeling that he was worrying at you about that thing he had so long referred to as your secret part?
As in: “There’s a secret part of you, Emma, that’s self-possessed and far away. You don’t really need anyone. You think you do, for a while, but you don’t. It’s like you popped out whole, Aphrodite from Zeus’s forehead, but you did it all by yourself.”
“You make me sound like some kind of machine, an automaton. I’m not like that.”
But she was, Jesse thought, sort of. For what she did, without knowing it, was use people up.
He’d watched the phenomenon again and again. At first, if someone appealed to her, Emma would turn to him with her unique warming focus—like a magnifying glass in the sun—asking questions, paying a kind of attention that was as flattering as it was unusual. It was as if the object of her attention were a new dish Emma wanted to taste. But once she’d rolled it around in her mouth, chewed on it until she had discerned the ingredients, well, then her curiosity was slaked, and she was ready to move on. However, the someone would by that time consider himself or herself (gender was not an issue here) a friend, certainly more than an acquaintance.
Keeping Secrets Page 27