Secret of Lies

by Barbara Forte Abate

  Rather than the staid snappish man we’d become accustomed to, who barked and bickered through conversations with Aunt Smyrna from the moment he arrived on Friday evenings until he left again on Monday mornings, our uncle had been magically replaced by a spirited genial companion. And over the course of the next two weeks, we swam, fished, and carried picnic lunches into the dunes for long hours of lazy camaraderie, until drunk with sun and salt air we stretched out like a trio of sated cats to doze on sand-sprinkled beach towels.

  It never occurred to me whenever I’d lazily open an eye from napping–limbs turned to golden liquid beneath the sun’s throbbing rays–to find question with the two empty towels spread out beside me. My mind detecting nothing alarming or suspicious about their companionship, content in knowing my sister and uncle would likely be swimming or walking along the shoreline.

  The more time he spent with us the less time Uncle Cal allowed for Aunt Smyrna, leaving her as merely an observer of our gaiety and amusements. And while I experienced an occasional pang of guilt at those times when I’d throw a glance up toward the house and see her out on the porch reading or watching us down on the beach–her expression undecipherable from the distance–my reasoning just as readily stepped in to remind me she easily could’ve joined us at any time. The truth, as I began to see it, was that she’d chosen the role of outsider herself.

  “El … are you awake?” I whispered, though certain she couldn’t have fallen asleep already, considering she’d only just slipped into bed a moment earlier.

  “Umm ...”

  “What time is it?” I asked, knowing full well it was nearly midnight.

  “I don’t know.”

  Her back was turned toward me in an obvious barricade, her clipped tone a clear assurance she possessed no inclination to share any of what I so intently wanted to hear.

  “Where’d you go?”

  “We were walking on the beach, what do you think?”

  “Aunt Smyrna was pretty mad.”

  “That’s a surprise? She’s always mad at him.”

  “Well I feel sorry for her. He never does anything with her.”

  Eleanor rolled over, a sharp pitch of anger instantly rising into her voice. “You see how she is. He likes to do things and have fun, and all she cares about is sitting around like a lump, reading and doing those stupid puzzles. It wouldn’t surprise me if he left her.”

  “Eleanor!” I hissed, shocked by the hard implication of betrayal in her statement. We always sided with Aunt Smyrna. That’s the way it was. We were her allies. Our loyalties belonged with her, no question. “How can you say something so mean?”

  “It’s true whether you want to admit it or not. She isn’t the sweet person we always thought she was. Maybe she used to be, but not anymore. Uncle Cal is a romantic, sensitive man, but she just wants him to roll over and play dead.”

  “Romantic? Uncle Cal? When did you ever see him being romantic?”

  “You don’t see romance, Stevie. It’s something you feel in a person. It’s the way they are.”

  “What’re you talking about? He’s too old to be romantic. And I can’t believe you’d say something so rotten about Aunt Smyrna.”

  My rebuke brought no response.

  “El?”

  She was silent for a long moment then, “He knows a lot about people–about life. He said Sammy was a jerk and he was right. He warned me I have to be careful–boys are only after one thing from a girl.” She paused, and when she spoke again her voice hovered low and quiet in the dark. “Love … romance, that’s the real thing. Aunt Smyrna has it right under her nose, but she doesn’t want it. She doesn’t want him. And that’s precisely why you shouldn’t feel sorry for her.”

  Except I did. Just as I thought Eleanor was wrong. I believed Aunt Smyrna did want him—wanted him so badly it was driving him away.

  Chapter Seven

  “Don’t even think you’re putting that on the wall,” Eleanor glared.

  “Aunt Smyrna already said I could,” I said, pressing in the final thumbtack anchoring my newly acquired 8 x 10 magazine glossy of Elvis onto the wall overlooking my bed. Perfect. Now, if I angled my pillow just right–slightly to the left of the center of the headboard–it lent the appearance that he was nearly looking directly over me. He would go to sleep with me every night and be the first face I saw in the mornings.

  “Well it’s my room, too, and someone might’ve asked me.”

  “You should just be grateful you get to look at it.” I stood on tiptoe, giving Elvis a loud smacking kiss on the glossy paper surface of his lips.

  “Oh cripes,” Eleanor groaned, carelessly dropping her hairbrush on the bed once finished with her daily hundred strokes and gathering her perfectly polished hair into a tidy ponytail.

  “Jealousy suits you, El.”

  “Jealousy? You’ve got to be kidding.” She bent down, grabbing her swimsuit from the floor. “If you’re coming down to the beach you’d better get moving. Cal–Uncle Cal said he’d take us sailing this morning and I’m not waiting around while you maul that pathetic picture.”

  It was impossible to concentrate on finding something else to do. Not with my mood swinging wildly between anger and frustration–surges of emotion that pitched and fell like surf churned in a storm the more I stewed over the impossible fact that Eleanor and Uncle Cal had left without me.

  Aunt Smyrna was as furious over their defection as I was, but her wrath would glean me little satisfaction until the scarlet pair returned. As it was, it was still early and the entire day lay stretched out before me like a dirge. Aunt Smyrna offered to take me to the diner in town for lunch, but I declined. My attentions all but consumed with vengeful thoughts of retaliation–brutal punishments that stopped only just short of lynching or dismemberment.

  Now, literally drowning in excess time–pacing the beach, pacing the porch, pacing my room–I considered over whatever configuration of magic words might exist to repair the broken state of my friendship with Jake. Because not only would it have been especially consoling to have him here now–patiently listening without judgment to my outpouring of frustrated rage–more than anything I missed him. Pretty much missed everything about him.

  But when I at last summoned my courage, bundled it in determination and walked out to the jetty, apology composed, polished, and ready, Jake wasn’t there. And I headed back home feeling that much more forlorn and miserable.

  I skulked into the kitchen, purposely letting the screen door slap sharply behind me in testament of my annoyance with the world and all things in it.

  Aunt Smyrna glanced up, continuing with her vigorous stirring of a pitcher of lemonade, banging the long handled spoon against the insides of the glass vessel with such aggression I found myself waiting for it to shatter. “Feel like a cold drink?”

  “No thanks,” I said, dropping heavily into a chair, watching in silence as she ignored my refusal and poured a tall glass of the still swirling drink and set it on the table before me with a sharp thwack.

  “Jeannie brought over some of her cookies,” she said, tipping her head to indicate the plate of colossal chocolate chip cookies sitting on the counter.

  I nodded my disinterest.

  “You know, I understand you’re upset, Stevie, but mark my words, they’ll be plenty sorry when they get back here.”

  I offered her a smile, comforted to have such a tenacious comrade in anger.

  “Alright then, I’ll be out on the porch reading if you need anything,” she said, and I knew it was a lie, the forced calm of her exterior assuring that, like me, she was far too angry to do much of anything beyond watching the horizon for the glimpse of a returning sail.

  “Okay, thanks Aunt Smyrna,” I said, boundlessly appreciative that she wasn’t one of those adults who went in for soppy-heart-to-hearts, insistent on discussing hurt feelings and the like when pure old-fashioned rage felt a good deal more justified and necessary.

  The door whine-snapped shut be
hind her and a moment later I heard the scrape of her favorite wicker chair being dragged back across the floorboards to the particular spot where she preferred to sit; the sound reminding me of how the chair had come to be out of place, Eleanor having moved it the night before to sit at the table for a game of checkers with Uncle Cal.

  I refilled my glass and reached for the plate of cookies, setting them on the table in front of me. Not only did Aunt Smyrna’s neighbor Jeannie make the best cookies I’d ever eaten, the fact Eleanor loved them above all other treats made every mouthful especially satisfactory to me now–each one I consumed signifying one less for my lousy inconsiderate sister to enjoy.

  Without question, it was my appetite for vengeance that kept me there devouring the cookies, each swallow serving as fuel to kindle the flames lit beneath the simmering stew of my indignation. So that even once I’d reached the point of no longer tasting the food I pushed into my mouth, I continued to eat. Methodically chewing and swallowing, until finally–other than for a dusting of crumbs–the plate before me lay bare.

  My satisfaction was fleeting; eclipsed almost at once by a tremendous urge to throw it all back up; a sensation that only worsened as I pushed myself up from the table, the massive bulk of cookies and lemonade gurgling and churning in my stomach like putrid seawater.

  I staggered into the living room and sprawling my enormous bulk across the couch, swearing a thousand oaths that I would never eat or drink another drop or morsel as long as I lived. Hoping Aunt Smyrna couldn’t hear me, I proceeded to moan loudly, the outpouring of anguished sounds magically allowing me the tiniest fraction of relief. I lay perfectly still, trying hard to concentrate on the methodical drone of the ceiling fan turning over my head, and not the grossly distended stomach pressing me into the couch cushions.

  From the porch came the dull thud of something falling, followed by the scratching sound of Aunt Smyrna’s chair against the wood floor as she leaned to retrieve the object. I uttered an urgent prayer she wasn’t coming inside already since I hadn’t yet prepared a suitable explanation of my purpose in stuffing myself to the point of explosion.

  Hefting my bulk from the couch, I waddled toward the kitchen door. Careful to keep out of sight, I called around the corner of the porch, “I’m going for a swim. I’ll be back later.”

  “All right,” came the disinterested reply.

  The sand was blistering, scorching the soles of my bare feet as I waddled toward the promised relief of water. I waded up to my ankles in the foamy surf, at once disconcerted by the unusually large number of people dotting the beach. Most days found only a scattering of sunbathers perceptible along the length of sand in any direction; the houses here spaced far enough to keep neighbors decently remote.

  Today, however, the brutal high summer heat wave had evacuated nearly everyone to waters’ edge where they roosted along the sand like an extended colony of shorebirds.

  Beneath my cotton blouse and matching Bermuda shorts I still wore my blue and white polka-dot bathing suit from the morning, the fabric now stretched taut across my engorged figure. There was no question as to the impossibility of my swimming here. Not with so many eyes positioned for scrutiny.

  And whether vain, foolish, or both, it was with this absolute reasoning in mind that I went in search further up the shoreline for an adequately secluded spot away from inquisitive stares.

  The thin fabric of my blouse was ringed with patches of salty sweat, sticking to my damp skin like a compress of wet paste by the time I at last reached a safely deserted section of beach where the smooth sand turned rocky, making it an impractical choice for anyone hoping to sunbathe or doze comfortably.

  Before me lay the sea, calm and flat–quiet and still beneath a shimmering stretch of smooth glass skin. And there above, flooding over the rocks from a sky of milky blue perfection, was the blazing sun of summer–intense and unrelenting.

  Mindful of my newly elephantine proportions, I shed my blouse and shorts and stepped carefully over the boulders along the shore, the tranquilizing relief of shivery water closing over me as I slipped down from the rocks. The sea instantly rose to my chin, impelling me to stretch my toes to touch bottom. I could feel a sharp drop in the stony ground beneath my feet, and I made a mental note for caution should the need arise. I swam out a few strokes further, rolling over to float on my back as I tilted my face to absorb the sun’s golden heat; bobbing gently like a buoy dropped on water.

  I wondered if I’d be able to spot Uncle Cal and Eleanor from here once they finally concluded their decidedly rude expedition and returned to the dock. They’d been gone for hours now and I couldn’t quite remember if we’d passed this same section of coast when we’d all gone sailing several days earlier. Nevertheless, I made a point to train my eye on the distance at regular intervals just in case the blip of a sailboat should appear on the horizon. I most definitely didn’t want to miss being back at the house in time to catch the initial shots of Aunt Smyrna’s frontal assault on the deserters.

  Feeling significantly refreshed and slightly less bulbous, I began paddling back toward the shore. And it was only then, as I lifted my eyes to the colony of grassy dunes reaching up behind the angular structure of rocks, that I saw him there above me–Jake–stretched out like a sleeping cat in a cradle scooped between the gentle rise and fall of sand.

  My heartbeat quickened behind my ribs in a flurry of frantically flapping wings. This was precisely the opportunity I’d been looking for, wasn’t it? A chance to try and rectify the damage I’d done to our friendship.

  Yet, even with an occasion so conveniently presented to me–handed out like a perfect gift ready to be opened–I felt hesitant to grasp it. Despite all my earlier rehearsals, all at once I hadn’t the slightest inkling what to say or how to say it. Each day passed since our trip to The Promenade having the effect of so many cinder blocks cemented onto the sky-high barrier now separating us.

  I stroked back around smoothly, out and away from the shore once more, deciding that I’d simply stay in the water a little while longer until I came up with something a good deal more meaningful than a cheap, generic apology.

  My eyes darted back, then away, then back, to his prone form as I churned my arms and legs through the water like mechanical pistons. It seemed I was struggling to stay afloat now and I was rapidly beginning to tire, until all at once, no matter how I stretched my toes, I couldn’t touch bottom. Only then did I realize I’d gone out too far.

  The entire episode that followed unfolded in slow motion snapshots customarily signifying the passage of an eternity. I began paddling toward shore but instead of growing closer, the rocks appeared to be moving further away. And despite my intent to remain reasonably calm, panic swelled, clutching a firm hold inside my chest as I struggled to reach a spot where I could at least feel something of the earth’s foundations beneath my feet. Never before had I experienced anything quite like the cold fear rising into my mouth like a clawing hand–a silent screaming alarm no one else could possibly hear.

  It started as a pinching stitch in my side–that first cramp. The sort I’d oftentimes suffered in school when playing sports–after I’d run too hard, too far, too fast. The intensity of the ache becoming sharper as I struggled to reach land, stalling me helpless in the water. I managed to call out to Jake just before my head jerked below the surface, my plight too critically urgent to logically recollect he was incapable of hearing me.

  Afterward–even as I attempted to strike the terrible ordeal from memory–my thoughts strove to pull it back, effortlessly succeeding in summoning a frightening slideshow of images. The pictures accompanied by a series of horrifying sensations: my body struggling in vain as my head slid down into the suffocating void of cloudy green sea, gulping volumes of water as I fought for air. The realization, coming all at once, that I was powerless to save myself. That there was no time to stop and analyze, or otherwise change, what was happening. I was drowning.

  With one final desperate effor
t, I gulped again–and incredibly, miraculously–it was air that filled my lungs rather than the salty sea. Stretching out all around me, an endless expanse of white brilliance filling my vision as my leaden body was steadily propelled through the water, my hands clutching something firmly against my neck. Something not otherwise belonging to me pressed up under my chin, wrapping around to embrace my head. Something solid and unflinching–an arm? Was it someone’s arm?

  All at once the weight of the sea was gone. Evaporated. No longer smothering me within the heaviness of its airless murk. Instead, the nettled discomfort of rocks elbowed along my spine. My eyes opening wide to catch the seamless stretch of blue falling hard into my unblinking stare.

  An unfamiliar rhythm rocked against the swell of my stomach–pressing hard, and then releasing–again, then again–the repetitious action rapidly effective in expelling an eruption of seawater from my lungs. The force of it riding out on an unsightly tide of chocolate chip cookies and lemonade.

  Then the hideous dream dissolved–and the screen fell to black.

  Chapter Eight

  I knew from the slant of sunlight in my room that it was late. I struggled weakly to pull myself up into a near sitting position, then collapsed back against the pillow, fighting to push down the immediate drunken whirl crashing sickeningly against the insides of my head.

  I listened for some hint of sound beyond my own shallow breathing, but the house lay still and quiet around me.

  “Oh, thank God, you’re finally awake,” Aunt Smyrna cried, appearing in the doorway with Eleanor pressed up behind her like a Siamese twin.

  I eyed them quizzically. They looked so ... relieved. So genuinely happy to see me. Even Eleanor.

  “Finally? What’re you talking about? What time is it?”