Hidden

by Karen E. Olson

  I don’t look at him. ‘He’s not as bad as we thought,’ I say.

  ‘I hope not.’ His voice is laced with his concern.

  ‘I’m just taking your advice,’ I say.

  ‘What advice?’

  ‘It’s just a fling, I guess,’ I say. ‘Long overdue. He’s going to be gone soon.’

  ‘I guess I never realized,’ Steve says, and I look at him then. He is scratching his beard as he does when he’s thinking.

  ‘Realized what?’

  ‘You never seemed to be lonely before,’ Steve says. ‘You always seemed to like being alone.’

  He is right. This is out of character for me, and he is justifiably confused.

  ‘Jeanine talked me into it,’ I say, wanting to blame someone else for what I’ve done. ‘She said it might be good for me.’

  ‘Jeanine’s a nut,’ Steve says. ‘All her talk of the spirit and chi and all that crap. You never took her that seriously.’

  ‘But I let her rearrange my furniture according to feng shui,’ I remind him. It was an odd experience, Jeanine fluttering around my house in her long flowing skirt, pushing furniture around so I’d have more ‘balance’ in my life.

  ‘You only did that because you’re a nice person,’ Steve said, and tears unexpectedly well up in my eyes. Steve puts his arm around me and squeezes as I press the coffee.

  I am pouring Steve a cup when I hear his footsteps behind us.

  ‘Hey, Tina, got any razors?’

  ‘Under the sink in a basket,’ I say automatically, not even looking up. His footsteps disappear back where they came from.

  I hand Steve the cup, the steam wafts up toward his face. He wears an expression of sheer confusion.

  ‘What did he call you?’

  I manage to convince Steve that he has made a mistake; I didn’t hear him call me Tina so it didn’t register with me. I feign surprise, then dismay that the man I’ve obviously slept with doesn’t even know my name. Steve pats my hand and drinks his coffee, obviously seeing me as pathetic. I feel pathetic, lying to him about everything. But I’ve gone too far now, there’s no turning back, and I have to keep up the charade.

  He comes out of the bathroom showered and shaved. He looks as though his clothes have been pressed, too, but I had smoothed them out when I couldn’t sleep and folded them over a chair after finding them in a heap on the floor.

  He leans over and pecks me on the cheek. ‘Later, right?’

  I nod, and we watch him disappear out the back door.

  Steve frowns. ‘You’re going to see him again?’

  I shrug. ‘He’s not that bad,’ I say again.

  ‘There are a hundred other guys who would be better for you.’

  ‘Name one,’ I challenge him.

  ‘Chip Parsons.’

  I laugh. ‘Chip? The guy who hangs out at the Yellow Kittens? You’re kidding me, right?’

  ‘He’s a well-respected fisherman. Makes a good living. I also know for a fact that he’s always been sweet on you.’

  ‘Sweet on me? Oh, Steve, you’re so old fashioned.’ As soon as I say it, I’m sorry, because his face clouds over. I smile and sigh. ‘I’m sorry. I know you’re just looking out for me.’

  ‘You could marry me, and we could live happily ever after,’ he says.

  ‘How about next Thursday?’ I say, continuing our long-standing joke, but something about his expression makes me stop smiling. ‘My God, Steve, you’re not joking, are you?’

  He starts pacing. ‘Maybe I’m not,’ he says. ‘Maybe we should just do it.’

  ‘But you’re—’ I don’t want to say it.

  ‘I’m not too old for you.’ He anticipates my argument. ‘There are plenty of women who marry men twenty years older or more.’

  I put out my hand and touch his arm, which stops his pacing. He looks at me so sincerely that I want to cry again. I shake my head. ‘I love you, Steve, you know I do, but not that way.’

  It should not be a surprise. We have never ventured here before, and it’s not as if we’d never had the opportunity if we both felt that way. I know he is just reacting to finding me here with another man. Somehow he is threatened.

  ‘He’s just a fling,’ I say lightly, although something heavy is weighting down my chest. ‘He’ll be gone soon.’

  ‘By Friday?’

  He wants reassurance that our Friday night date is still on. That I won’t abandon him like Dotty did by dying. I think about what I’m about to do and suddenly regret it. Things might not be the same afterward. They have already begun to change. ‘By Friday,’ I promise, glancing toward the laptop. I have no choice. If I want to reclaim my life, I have to learn how to use it quickly, get the job done and him off the island.

  TEN

  Steve didn’t want to leave me, but business was starting to pick up, and he had to get down to Old Harbor to meet the next ferry. Some people like to come to Block Island in early to mid-May. The hotels and restaurants are open, but they don’t have to contend with the crowds. Steve takes advantage of the situation and waits next to his Explorer, offering his services to anyone lugging a bag off the boat.

  I am relieved when he leaves. I take a long shower and take my time getting dressed, thinking about what he’s said. After a fifteen-year drought, I have two men vying for my attentions. I know Steve will get over it, but it might hang between us for a while and make our easygoing relationship a little uncomfortable until it wears off.

  He has left me a laptop case that’s a backpack, so I shove everything inside it and climb onto my bike. It looks as though I’m just taking one of my normal rides, but instead I fly down Spring Street and into Old Harbor. The bakery here has wireless; I remember seeing the sign announcing it when I was here recently for a latte and a muffin. As I dismount, I eye the small storefront and wonder about that wireless Internet. There is so much to learn.

  I glance around, checking to see if he is lurking somewhere, but I see no one. I lean my bike against the rack and lock it up, the heavy backpack tugging on my shoulder.

  The scent of coffee overwhelms me so that I momentarily forget my mission and order a medium latte. A croissant also seems like a good idea, and I take my cup and pastry to a small table in the corner. I position myself so I am facing the door, the laptop screen not visible to anyone but me. He has given me a URL for a VPN, but I ignore it. I would rather find my own, which I do, easily enough.

  Once I’m connected and hopefully safe, I pull that other URL out of my brain, the one that’s been in hiding as long as me. My fingers are trembling as I type it in, wondering if it’s still the same, if I’ll find anyone I know there.

  I know better than to use my old screen name, so I create a new one: BikerGirl27. It sounds like I ride motorcycles, not bicycles, which is the whole point.

  I go into the first chat room and have a total déjà vu moment. The first time I was here, I was fourteen. One computer class at school had opened a door for me that I hadn’t known existed. I was fluent in French even then, but this was a language that came even more naturally. It made sense when so many other things didn’t, but in my youth and ignorance, I made a lot of mistakes. I was an anomaly: a girl hacker, and I didn’t know enough to keep that a secret. I left portals open that should’ve been shut tight behind me, and my father caught me hacking into his business files. That’s when I found the chat rooms full of other kids just like me, computer geeks who had a special gift of making complete sense out of what looked like gibberish to most people.

  It’s where I first met Tracker.

  He’s not going to be here, it’s been so long, but I find myself scanning the names, looking anyway, following threads and getting my sea legs back, so to speak, until I force myself to stop. I am not here to rekindle old relationships. I am here to get help.

  This is the thing that he doesn’t know. I didn’t do it alone.

  I glance out the window and see him walking toward the cafe. Quickly, I shut down the laptop and shove
it into the backpack. When he comes in, I am waiting in line for another coffee.

  ‘You’ve got an early start,’ he says.

  ‘Thought I’d get a coffee first. Do you want one?’ The barista raises her eyebrows at us, and he orders two lattes to go.

  ‘I’m not sure a coffee shop is a good idea,’ he explains. ‘Wireless has no boundaries, and you’re right. Maybe we shouldn’t be seen too much together. Let’s go to my room.’

  The implication is intimacy, but I know better. We pay for our coffees and head outside.

  ‘I’ve got my bike.’ I indicate it, locked up outside.

  ‘Meet me there,’ he says, already crossing the street, both of our coffees in his hands, and I unlock my bike, riding behind him, the backpack slapping against my back.

  When we get to the Blue Dory Inn, instead of going into the main building, he veers to the right, toward an outbuilding. He pushes the door open and waits for me as I lean my bike against the building just outside his door. There is no place to lock it up, but it’s so close by it shouldn’t be a problem. I hope.

  ‘Nice room,’ I say as I step inside and he closes the door behind me. It is a nice room, cozy with a queen-sized bed covered with an old-fashioned patchwork quilt and small throw pillows, the windows covered with lace curtains like the ones I have in my house. I drop the backpack on the bed and peer out the window at the water shimmering under the late morning sun.

  ‘You called me Tina,’ I say quietly.

  His eyes grow wide. ‘I did not.’

  ‘Yes, you did. When you came out of the bathroom looking for the razor.’

  ‘What did you tell him?’

  ‘I said I didn’t hear you say anything. He thinks you don’t know my name.’

  ‘He lost some respect for you, didn’t he?’ His tone is kind. ‘I know you’ve made friends here, but I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t important.’

  ‘I know.’ But as I say it, I wonder, do I?

  I am sitting on the edge of the bed, and I reach across it to pull the laptop out of the backpack, but he puts his hand out, takes it from me. He stands in front of me, placing the laptop on the dresser. Gently, he pushes me back and leans over me. ‘I’m sorry,’ he says softly. I put my hand on his neck and feel his pulse quicken, and he smiles at me. I remember how it was, in the beginning, when my heart raced every time I saw him. I see it in his eyes now, the way he used to love me, and I let him kiss me.

  The lesson starts two hours later. We make a feeble attempt to discuss how we can’t keep our hands off each other; we try to laugh about it. But there is an undercurrent of desperation, as if each time we think it will be the last. As if it is a second chance we must cling to before it’s over again.

  There is some truth to that.

  I throw on one of his shirts, and he pulls on a T-shirt and a pair of running shorts as we turn on the laptop.

  ‘We can get access to the library’s wireless from here, since it’s just across the street and the signal is pretty strong,’ he explains. ‘We could technically use the inn’s wireless, but I would need to register, and we can’t have our names attached to anything.’

  I think about his name and how that could be a red flag, unlike Nicole Jones, who is a ghost living on an island.

  ‘Why Zeke Chapman?’ I ask him.

  He shrugs. ‘I needed a name. So did you.’

  ‘Have you been using it all this time?’ My throat feels as though it’s about to close up, and the words skitter through hoarsely.

  ‘If I didn’t run into you, and you found out someone named Zeke Chapman was here, you’d know it was me, right? I wanted to get your attention.’ He is staring straight at me, as if daring me to keep protesting.

  I swallow the lump in my throat. ‘Well, you got it.’

  ‘Come on,’ he says, indicating the laptop. ‘Let’s get to work.’ He gives me a wink. ‘I know you want to.’

  I don’t let on that I know what he’s doing as he shows me how to activate the Internet. Even though I have already done this, a surge of adrenaline rushes through me.

  ‘It’s addictive,’ he warns, but the smile playing at the corners of his mouth indicates he knows too well my addiction and he is teasing.

  He shows me YouTube and Facebook and other things that I hadn’t even dreamed about before. This is new, and I am amazed at how much more there is now. He explains podcasts and I am in awe of the video quality.

  I look up at one point to see him smiling at me curiously.

  ‘What?’ I ask.

  ‘You. It’s like a kid with an ice-cream cone. You should see the look on your face.’

  I feel my neck and face grow hot, embarrassed. He reaches over and touches my cheek. ‘It’s cute,’ he says.

  Another flashback to the same touch, the same words. I catch my breath, look back at the laptop and, wanting to keep my hands busy, put my fingers on the keyboard.

  His hand covers mine, stopping me. ‘VPN,’ he reminds me, and he explains how to get in, how to set it up. I am ahead of him, but again allow him to think otherwise.

  I don’t need him, my fingers flying, old passwords cluttering my head. I can’t use them, who knows who found them, who tried to track me down with them. Instead I remember a newspaper story about passwords, how to keep hackers away. Like me.

  I chew on my lower lip as I put together letters that are gibberish to anyone except me. I am careful not to let him see my fingers as they move across the keyboard. He is smarter than he looks.

  When I feel safe, I look up at him. A small, amused smile tugs at his mouth.

  ‘You look like you used to,’ he says.

  I shrug, shaking him off. ‘Now what?’

  ‘I’ve got a username and password for us to use.’

  ‘Whose sign on are we using?’ I ask, immediately wary.

  ‘Not important.’

  ‘Yes, it is.’ He is setting someone up.

  He shakes his head. ‘You have to forget about before. It’s the same this time, but different. You’ll see.’

  ‘So tell me.’

  His face grows dark. ‘Tell you what?’

  ‘The username and password.’ This is not what he was expecting me to ask, but I can’t figure out what else he is thinking of. ‘Can’t do anything unless you tell me.’

  His face brightens. ‘Oh.’ He recites both for me.

  ‘Write it down,’ I instruct.

  ‘Nothing in writing.’

  ‘So where do I go from here?’

  He looks confused, as if I should already know, but the username and password are both useless unless I know which site to go to. I wonder if it’s the bank again, but when I start to ask, he gets up suddenly, jostling the bed, and I steady myself, watching him cross the room and look out the window toward the water. A sliver of blue sky peeks through the space between his silhouette and the curtain, beckoning me. I suddenly want to go outside, climb on my bike and ride around the island, visiting my favorite places, my friends. They are slipping through my fingers with each keystroke.

  ‘Did he tell you where I was?’ I ask his back, pushing aside the reason for being here.

  He turns to look at me. ‘No, he never told me.’

  ‘He didn’t know,’ I say. ‘Really.’

  He gives me a funny look. ‘I saw the postcard.’

  I gather the courage to look him in the eye, pushing up my glasses as I raise my face toward his. I’d bought the postcard when I’d seen in the newspaper that he was dying. I picked out the nicest one I could find, one with the North Light on it, the sea shimmering behind it, the hues of the sunset illuminating the lighthouse. I didn’t sign it. I didn’t write a message. I just mailed it to him, wanting to send the peace I’d found to him.

  ‘How did you know it was from me?’

  ‘I didn’t.’

  ‘Why did you think it was?’

  He smiles. ‘I’ve never stopped looking for you.’

  ‘But you really just want my h
elp. Help that you, for some reason, think only I can give you.’

  The smile disappears. ‘If I just wanted your help, you wouldn’t be in my bed.’

  ‘Maybe you’re in my bed because you want more.’ I cannot stop being cynical, unsure of my standing with him.

  He makes a small sound that’s not exactly a chuckle. ‘Still difficult, aren’t you? This place hasn’t changed you.’

  I stiffen. ‘Yes, it has.’

  ‘Then walk away.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Leave. Now. If you do that, I’ll know you’ve changed, that you won’t come back to me, that you don’t really want to help me.’

  ‘Help you? You keep using that word. Help. I know this isn’t anything noble, so why are you pretending that it is? A man died because of us. Because of what we did. And you want me to do it again.’ My voice has started to shake. My heart pounds beneath the thin shirt.

  ‘Then walk away, if you feel that way.’ He is challenging me again. And then he adds, ‘Or maybe this time we can go somewhere together.’

  My legs begin to shake, bare against the chill of the room, the shirt only coming down just above my thighs. I am exposed. But I cannot walk away. I am frozen in this spot as I think about what he’s saying.

  I might have to flee again. I might have to give up this life as well as the other one. My breath catches in my throat.

  He touches my face, running his fingers down my neck, tracing a line over my breast, pausing a moment to caress my nipple, then continuing down to my waist. He pulls me to him and kisses me deeply, quickly, before sensing my hesitation.

  ‘You’re going to have to leave anyway,’ he says, reading my mind. ‘Even if you don’t help me.’

  ‘Why?’ I manage to whisper.

  ‘I’m not the only one who knows about that postcard.’

  My body feels like a spring, ready to bounce. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I’m not the only one who’s on your trail. I just got here first.’

  ELEVEN

  I don’t need money. I have enough saved up that I could leave the island and find another place to hide. It is not money from before. That money is gone. I carried some with me on that ferry fifteen years ago, but there is none left now.