by Ilie Ruby
“Egg whites. I brush them and bake them at extreme heat for thirty seconds, then let them cool, repeat, three separate times.”
Just then a large orange tabby jumps up on the counter and Clarisse gently nudges him off. “Bad Ella,” she chides. “You know she thinks she’s people. She likes to go visiting,” she says.
Echo picks up one of the cookies. “Clarisse, this is my Jeep.”
“A masterpiece. Take a bite.”
“I’ve already done enough damage to it,” Echo argues. Clarisse winces, tries to hide the pain she feels in her legs. “Are you okay, Clarisse?”
“My knees are giving me trouble lately. But creativity is good for these old bones, though. Here, taste this one. Don’t be shy. Go ahead.”
Clarisse holds up a mayfly cookie, its wings striped with blue and yellow frosting, and shimmering with tiny silver threads. “It’s good,” Echo says, taking a bite. “I bet you never run out of ideas.”
Clarisse holds up another. “Guess this one.”
“Two Bears,” says Echo. “The feathered cap and all.”
“He wasn’t as mysterious as people think. And yes, there are enough secrets here to keep me going for the next thirty years,” says Clarisse, peering out at the lilac bush, which is starting to scratch at the window. “See, I’ve been thinking about starting my own business. Cookietales, I call them. People have always raved about my baking. I’ve always lacked confidence. Now I figure, why in the hell not? Oh, I hope my swearing doesn’t offend you.”
“I admit, I do admire a woman who can swear well,” Echo assures her, and laughs.
If I had a daughter, she would be just like you, Clarisse thinks, enjoying the connection as she shuffles over to the cabinet and takes out a Tupperware container. Throughout the years, she has caught herself looking for reflections of herself everywhere. That hair. Those eyes. My daughter would look like that, sound like that. She would say things in just that way. “I thought you could talk to Joseph about selling them in his store. I’m giving you some samples to take to him. I’ll split the profits.”
“Why not ask him yourself, Clarisse? He’d say yes to you.”
Clarisse is suddenly distracted by what she sees in the window. A police car driving up to Leila’s house. “Well look who it is, there goes old Charlie Cooke, coming back to break Leila’s heart again. The sonofabitch wouldn’t be the first. Poor Leila. A person can only take so much disappointment,” says Clarisse, her voice softening. “After all this time, with this family living next door. Their turmoil has drained the life out of me. And with Melanie. Four days gone. And Maya, she never got over the little boy’s death. I’m not suspicious by nature. But that little boy knew how to swim. You don’t live on a lake and not learn how to swim, for God’s sake.”
“It was an accident. There was a storm.”
“Storm or not, those kids were like fish in the water.” Clarisse is shivering. “It just got cold, didn’t it? Keeps happening.” She closes the window. “It all goes back to Leila. She made some bad choices. Even smart women do dumb things when they’re afraid of being alone. As they get older, this fear clouds their vision. They settle for less than they deserve. They get hurt. Their children, too.”
Echo notices something yellow caught underneath the window frame. “Is that a paper airplane?”
Clarisse is unusually calm as she picks up the airplane and tosses it into the garbage. She can no longer deny its presence any more than her other secrets. “It’s nothing,” she says.
Sitting at the kitchen table, Clarisse deals out the cookies in front of Echo like playing cards. The secrets of a town can weigh on a person. These stories have to come out. The canoe. Two Bears. A silver tomahawk. A medicine bag. She can’t keep it silent any more. “We could start small, just with our town. Then we’ll expand into a custom cookie business. People from all over the world can send us their pictures, and we’ll decorate cookies for Christmas, or birthdays. You’ll do the writing, tell my stories for me. You’re a writer, aren’t you? You know how to tell stories?”
Echo is holding the Jeep cookie. “I refuse to write about this one on the grounds that no one will give a rat’s ass about it.”
“Oh, good, you swear, too,” Clarisse says.
Echo smiles. “We’re a lot alike, you and I. Don’t you think?”
“So it seems,” says Clarisse, letting herself bask in the recognition.
“What would I say about myself anyway? Do people want to read about my issues with freckles?” Echo asks.
“Ah. Lemon,” Clarisse says.
“Oh, no thank you.” Echo looks at her teacup.
“No, for the freckles.”
“It’s okay, I like them now,” Echo says, self-consciously rubbing her arms.
“You know what? I do, too.” Clarisse pulls another tray out of the oven. “Anyhow, I think you say a little something about what you’re doing now. What you miss most about our beloved town, or who?”
“I’m flattered but I’m sure someone else is more interesting. Why would people want to read about me?”
“Gossip makes people feel a part of a place.”
“Then you tell me what to write.”
“A story about unrequited love. You’re not the only one who’s been through it.” Clarisse sighs, placing her hand over her heart. “Look at where we live. This is a place where hearts are broken and buried. I think this is what the Seneca really meant when they named it, you know.”
Echo looks away.
“What’s the matter, dear? You look like you’re about to cry. I said something wrong?”
“Oh, no, I’m fine,” Echo insists. Clarisse’s saucer-gray eyes grow wide, her hair, luminescent with streaks of silver. They’ve been a universe apart but it doesn’t matter. Clarisse is overwhelmed with the closeness she now feels to the girl. She tries to listen as a mother might, with unconditional love, with patience, without judgment. She listens to Echo talk about seeing Grant again. About how Echo had fooled herself into thinking that there would be no distance between them. About how all the hurt and disappointment had come flooding back, making her say things that she regretted. Clarisse nods, thinking the girl very brave. Although the confession is painful for Echo, it makes Clarisse feel no longer so alone.
“What about you, Clarisse?” Echo asks, suddenly.
“What about me?”
“You were in love once.”
“Sadly, no, it wasn’t in my cards. Not at all. See, in my day, when I was young, I was a wild girl,” says Clarisse, blushing. “In love with everything, you know, one of those types, had fun everywhere I went. Those days, we just danced and danced. Me, I loved the Charleston.”
“You were gorgeous, I bet,” says Echo.
“No. But I was what they called, ‘full of personality.’ And I had a good pair of legs.” Echo lets out a laugh. Clarisse is startled by the sound of laughter in her house. It echoes through the hallways, filling the house.
“Well, I had many suitors, but none was the right one. None was the one I wanted.” Clarisse remembers how she used to boast that she liked playing the field. In truth, she liked playing it safe. No connections meant no threat of rejection. Clarisse watches Echo winding her curls around her fingers and Clarisse thinks back to those wild days, when her own hair was so thick she could hardly get one hand around it to put it into an elastic. “There was only one for me. But, I never told him.”
“Why?” asks Echo, leaning forward intently.
She doesn’t tell Echo that she was afraid of not being in control, of losing herself in something, in someone. The truth is that denying it all these years hasn’t worked. Her feelings of love have been just as consuming, just as overwhelming. She still lost herself, but remained as lonely as ever. “It was a long time ago. Love ruined me. I let it ruin me for years.” Clarisse watches Echo’s expression turn serious, almost wistful, her large brown eyes burning red as she stares at Clarisse.
Echo takes her hand, comfo
rting her. “But what if Joseph felt the same way?”
Clarisse feels the blood rush to her face. “You knew?” She hadn’t known anyone could tell. Hadn’t she appeared tough enough? Hadn’t she kept enough distance? “I’m so embarrassed,” she whispers.
“Please, Clarisse. I’ve always known. I’ve seen the way you look at him.” All this time, Echo held her secret for her, just as Clarisse had held all of Leila’s. Maybe there was this natural instinct among women to keep each other’s secrets, especially those that were painful, that concerned love and death.
“You knew. I don’t know whether to thank you or to run and hide,” says Clarisse, stumbling over her words. She feels exposed, but somehow Echo’s presence makes her feel brave enough to continue. It’s almost a feeling of relief, coming clean. “I guess you saw how I pined away all this time. See, he was married when we met. I couldn’t do that, not with a married man. I’ve seen how badly that can turn out. Then, his wife died, but it wasn’t right. Once, just a short time before you arrived on his doorstep, he came right out and asked me if I had feelings for him. But it had been so many years, and I knew he didn’t really want me. He was just lonely, the way men are.”
“What did you say when he asked you?”
“I denied it. Years go by and the more time that passes, the more things seem right just the way they are. I couldn’t tell him.”
“Do you regret it?” Echo asks, pushing her hair from her eyes.
“Of course. Regret is a painful thing to live with,” says Clarisse. It has taken her out of so many moments. It is like a constant presence at her back, a shadow of what could have been, causing her to look over her shoulder, following her wherever she goes, never truly disappearing.
“At the time I simply could not be honest with him. I had waited and waited for that window of opportunity. I should have told him the truth about how I felt. Then I’d have no regrets. I could have played the hand I’d been given. I could have just said it and let the chips fall. I waited a long time to do it. I thought I would. Then when the window opened, I couldn’t jump. I was too afraid I’d get hurt. I just let the opportunity, my life, slip away.”
Echo finishes her tea and takes the cup to the sink. The talk is making her anxious. “Speaking of time, Clarisse, I’m seeing Grant tonight. He is actually cooking me dinner, if you can believe that. I’ve got to leave.”
Clarisse is trembling. She takes Echo’s face in her hands. “Listen to me. Don’t let him get away again. Don’t make the same mistake I did. No regrets. When a window opens, jump through it.” Clarisse can feel her heart racing. She feels as though she is running after a plane that’s about to take off. She can feel the words piling up inside her, pushing to get out. She’s running out of time. Echo is staring at her, a concerned look on her face.
“Take my cookies. These cookies here, these are little girls,” says Clarisse.
“Princesses. The silver balls on the dresses are perfect.”
“Now they’re grown.” Clarisse looks Echo straight in the eye, daring her to ask. She knows she is so far out she can’t stop now.
“The Ellis girls?” Echo asks. She points to the other cookie Clarisse is holding. “And that’s the old canoe.”
Clarisse’s heart is fluttering and she places her hand over it.
“I’ve kept a secret all these years. I can’t live with it any longer.” Clarisse picks up a sprig of mint and drops it into her cup, glancing Echo’s way. Clarisse wants this to come out right so that she only has to say it once. She wants to be rid of it. And at this point, she doesn’t even care if she looks or sounds crazy. It can’t be any crazier than going over and over the scene a hundred times in her mind. The relief that will come will restore her to sanity. “Maybe I could have prevented something. The Ellis children, when they were little. See, I face the house like this. I wasn’t looking out the window to be nosy, I was only doing the dishes.”
“Of course,” says Echo, reassuringly.
Clarisse’s body has begun to ache, as though releasing a secret that had long ago infused her joints. She leans against the counter, silently telling the pain to go away. “I’m not ashamed to say this. I never intentionally eavesdropped on Leila. But see, I stand at the window like this sometimes when I can’t sleep. Sometimes when I wake up in the middle of the night, I come downstairs and have a glass of water and I stand right here, and I notice things.”
Clusters of lilacs are batting against the window. Echo startles at the sound and looks up anxiously.
“It’s okay. Let him be.” Clarisse knows she can’t turn back. She knows her eyes are tearing, but she can’t stop herself. “Victor was away on one of his godforsaken hunting trips—that man was a menace, if you heard the way he used to yell at Leila and tear up the front lawn with his damn car—I didn’t blame Leila for what she did. I still don’t. Leila was alone with two baby girls and a crazy drunk for a husband. A woman gets lonely. A woman gets angry. She does things she shouldn’t when she feels all alone, trapped, and it looks like there’s no way out.”
“What did Leila do?” Echo asks, nervously glancing at the window, realizing that it is now open, somehow, and that a cluster of lilacs is spilling over the frame.
“I’d see a car pulling up in Leila’s driveway whenever Victor was away. It was always late at night. The man would stay an hour or two, never more. Then, he’d leave in a hurry,” she says. “Leila’s affair lasted almost a year.” Clarisse knows she is beginning to sweat. “Get me a glass of water, dear? My throat’s so dry.”
Calmly, Clarisse grabs hold of the lilac branch that’s trying to get in. She pushes it aside. The branch flops back, and she has to push it behind the flower box and quickly shut the window.
“Clarisse,” says Echo. “Here’s your glass of water.”
“Thank you, dear.” Clarisse reaches for the water, but her hands are shaking so much that she spills it. Echo takes the glass from the old woman and wipes up the mess. “I don’t know what has gotten into me. I’ve usually got a steady hand.”
“Go on, it’s okay,” says Echo.
“The point is that one night Victor was on a bender. Victor and Leila were out in the backyard, fighting. And the next thing I know Victor is yelling to holy hell out there, dragging Leila by the hair.” Clarisse knows she should stop but her eyes are tearing. “He punched her hard in the face, cut her cheek up. It swelled like a plum and her eye, and she fell right into that tree…oh…my,” she says. Clarisse looks up, realizing that she has smashed one of the cookies with her fist. Two Bears. It is in pieces in her hand.
“My God. Poor Leila. I had no idea. Clarisse, you’re shaking. You’re sweating. I’m worried. Can I call someone to stay with you?” Echo asks.
“No, don’t. I’ll be fine.”
“Why not?” demands Echo, taking out her cell phone.
“Because there’s no one to call!” Clarisse cries. She turns her back to Echo. “I’m sorry. It’s humiliating,” she whispers, rubbing her eyes. “It’s difficult. Remembering. You see, Leila came running over here. I made her some tea and gave her a bag of frozen peas to hold next to her cheek. I should have called the police that night. But she begged me not to. She stayed here for an hour. And then she wanted to go home to the girls. Victor had gone, at least we saw him go. Somehow the babies had slept through it, thank the Lord. I think he knew she was seeing someone else. That she didn’t love him.
“I fell asleep for a while that night, and I woke up around dawn. I heard the strangest noise outside, and I ran to the window. Victor was staring right at me, holding my cat, Bella, so tight. Bella was just wailing for dear life.” Clarisse wipes her eyes as Echo hands her the glass. “I thought my favorite cat would disappear. I knew it. I could feel Victor threatening me. Victor wasn’t just a drunk. He was violent. I was afraid of him,” Clarisse continues. “Do you see that after living next to them for all these years, their secrets have become mine? That lilac tree survives on secrets.”
“If I had only called the police then. I could have prevented everything.”
“Prevented what?”
“Luke.”
“What are you saying?” Alarmed, Echo glances out the kitchen window at the tombstone in Leila Ellis’s backyard.
Clarisse’s eyes are deep with regret. “I have no proof, if that’s what you’re thinking,” says Clarisse. “I know it sounds crazy. But I’m an old woman and I know what I know. I’ve never told anyone. Not a thing. I couldn’t see it would do any good. I didn’t want to cause poor Leila more pain.” Clarisse grabs the side of the counter, as though she might fall. “I never told Leila what I believed. I was too afraid to press her. We weren’t close, other than that night that she ran over here and I took care of her. And whenever we saw each other after that, Leila would pretend it never happened. She made it known. How could I force her to remember what was already buried? I couldn’t do it. Not to that woman.”
Clarisse braces her hip against the sink for support. She is holding her hands under the steaming water, unaware that the skin is reddening. Echo reaches over and turns off the water.
A hush falls over them. The two women look out over the backyard. Clarisse suddenly feels safe when Echo puts her hand on the back of her head and strokes her hair as though mothering her.
“Clarisse. Why tell me? And why now?”
“Because Melanie has disappeared. Because of all the secrets. And because of who Leila was in love with, all those years ago. Women can make bad choices. Because of it, terrible things happened.”
“Who was it?” Echo wants to know. She looks worried, the color having drained from her face when she notices that the closed window is now open again. “Clarisse?”
Clarisse is unable to speak, the familiar tightness in her chest mounting. The truth is like a thread that has wound into a tangled ball in her throat, impossible to unravel. So much time has passed, and so much emotion, she feels confused, unable to find the beginning, or the ending of the thread. She turns away, keeping the truth silent, suddenly noticing a sticky syrupy smell in the air, as lilacs come spilling through the open window.