Secret of Lies

by Barbara Forte Abate

  She swung the car into the vacant spot, resting the front tires just over the mound of earth running parallel to the row of speakers.

  “Do you want something from the snack bar before the movie starts?”

  “No thanks, Aunt Smyrna. But I’ll get you something if you want.” It’d been days since I’d acknowledged anything as trivial as hunger or thirst–everything previously essential now overshadowed by continuous thoughts of Jake. My mind proving incapable of addressing both entities at the same time: nourishment and Jake.

  “Oh no, don’t tell me you don’t feel well either.”

  No one had been more surprised than me by Eleanor’s assertion she was feeling too sick to come out with us. While it was true my sister’s choice of movies had been far removed from my own selection of a double-feature starring enormous killer insects, (her heart cement-bound on seeing a life-size Marilyn Monroe wiggling across the screen in a poured-on dress to innocently tantalize Laurence Oliver in The Prince and the Showgirl) she’d nevertheless surrendered with minimal argument when Aunt Smyrna rendered her final decision that our mother would absolutely not care to have her daughters exposed to Miss Monroe’s particular brand of overt sexuality. Lending me to believe Eleanor had wisely come to the conclusion that the drive-in experience itself was of far more importance then whatever film Aunt Smyrna eventually allowed us to see. (Particularly when considered against the chances of some third generation Callicoon farmer electing to plow under his cornfield in favor of planting a few acres of pole speakers and erecting a mammoth size movie-screen–an occurrence as likely as snow in July.)

  “I’m fine, Aunt Smyrna.”

  “Maybe I shouldn’t’ve left her by herself.”

  “She’ll be alright. Besides, won’t Uncle Cal be home by now?”

  “He might be. I don’t know. He wasn’t very clear about it on the phone,” she said, her brittle tone assuring she cared little either way.

  “It feels kind of stuffy in here. Is it alright if I go out and sit on the bumper?”

  “Go ahead, but don’t put your feet on it. Your uncle will throw an all out hissy fit if he finds a scratch on his new car.”

  The night air, gently stirring the thin cotton fabric of my blouse, carried the subtle hint of salt and seawater. I found myself oddly surprised by the unexpected odors–wondering how it was possible the breath of the ocean could reach us all the way out here, so far away from Aunt Smyrna’s house and the shore.

  It was the scent of all my summers. All the ones I’d loved the most and remembered best. Seasons woven of sun, and sand, and saltwater–a golden trio lacing through deliciously languid days. And although those perfect days were increasingly threaded through now with the coarse bitter scenes that had come to characterize my aunt and uncle’s life together, I’d still managed to safeguard my sense of contentedness at being here away from my otherwise bland existence back home in Callicoon.

  The ending credits were scrolling up the enormous screen and I found myself wishing I wasn’t obligated to sit through another feature. Far too distracted by thoughts of that perfect night on the beach with Jake to pay attention to the oversized sequence playing out against the backdrop of an indigo night sky, I would’ve much preferred the privacy of my room where my imagination was free to spiral and drift without interruption or boundary.

  “Stevie, will you go and get me a cola before the next movie starts?” Aunt Smyrna asked, sticking her head out through the open car window.

  “Sure, okay.”

  “Oh, and make sure they don’t skimp on the ice. I can’t tolerate tepid soda,” she said, handing me a dollar. “Get something for yourself, too.”

  I nodded, heading off toward the swarming snack bar, frustrated with myself for not telling Aunt Smyrna that what I really wanted was to just go home.

  It was past midnight when Aunt Smyrna rolled the Studebaker along the dark line of the driveway–the soft yellow glow spilling out from the porch, the only light visible from the otherwise sleeping house.

  “How were the movies?” Uncle Calvin’s voice unexpectedly greeted us as I trudged wearily up the wide porch steps.

  I stumbled briefly as I swung my gaze to where he sat in one of the wicker chairs, his pipe held carelessly in one hand, face flushed behind an expression suggesting near remarkable happiness. “Pretty good,” I answered, seeing no particular reason to mention I’d fallen asleep early on into the second feature, long before the invasion of enormous ants had gotten through their opening appetizer of Japanese tourists.

  “When did you get home?” Aunt Smyrna said, coming up the steps behind me.

  “Not long ago,” he said, dropping his eyes to study the smoking tool in his hand as if comprehending its existence for the first time.

  “Who drove you up from the station?”

  “I took a cab.” He rapped the last of the glowing embers from his pipe into the ashtray on the table beside him.

  “Wasn’t Sadie Metcalf there to pick up Will?”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t see them,” he said, the bite in his tone clearly betraying his annoyance at her questions, the pleasant expression rapidly dying on his face.

  “I thought you said he was called into work, too. Didn’t you see each other on the train?” she pressed, approaching him now with the same unbending stance she took whenever the two sparred–working quickly to corner him, holding the bone of contention clenched in her teeth and not letting go until all evidence of remaining flesh had been torn away.

  “Look Smyrna, it’s like this,” he said, his face at once hardened into a mask of tight control. “I went to work. I took the nine o’clock train home. I caught a cab at the station and requested that the kind fellow drive me out here. And in consideration of the late hour and his courteous manner I offered him a rather generous tip. That’s pretty much it. Okay? Those are the juicy details. Now I’d appreciate an end to your line of questioning. I’m tired.”

  “You bastard,” she spat the words, striking her purse against the back of a chair like a slap. “You’ve been away for two days and I’m not supposed to say a word? We’re married for God’s sake. I believe I’m entitled by law to ask an occasional question and expect a decent answer.”

  I vanished inside quickly, anxious to distance myself from yet another of their toxic battles. I hated how they couldn’t so much as exchange a simple sentence without adding a heavy dose of rancor. Hated how their anger knotted my stomach and shrouded our household under oppressive clouds of bitterness and gloom that oftentimes lingered for days.

  I crept noiselessly into our bedroom expecting to find Eleanor asleep, but her bed was empty. Her blankets drooped over the side of her mattress like a pair of crumpled wings, pillow wedged into the corner between the wall and headboard. I’d wanted to tell her how fantastic my night at the movies had been; omitting, of course, the minuscule detail of my having paid little attention to the first and then sleeping through the second.

  The room was cold. I undressed quickly, pulling the oversized T-shirt I slept in over my head. For the space of an instant I considered going down the hall to brush my teeth; but just as quickly concluding I was far too tired for the pursuit of hygiene, instead burrowing beneath the bedclothes and tucking my chin against my chest like a bird folded into a nest.

  Nevertheless, despite the heavy pull of weariness, the damp chill shivering across the room kept sleep from settling. It was only as I tugged the blanket higher, tenting it over my mouth and nose, that my gaze caught the gentle flutter of the curtain over the window beside my sister’s bed.

  With an exaggerated sigh of annoyance I threw back the covers, stumbling across the dark expanse of floor separating Eleanor’s bed from mine. We both knew the significance of closing the bedroom windows against the cold night air rolling up from the ocean–a responsibility generally falling to Eleanor since the sash was there just above her bed.

  I knelt across her jumbled sheets, yanking hard on the frame in anticipat
ion of its general tendency to stick and finding myself surprised when it shut easily. I slid my knees backwards across the mattress, returning my feet to the floor, when, “Ow,” I yelped in surprise, my bare toes touching something hard and cold burrowed in the square of carpet next to her bed.

  I could vaguely decipher what appeared to be a circle of glowing pinpricks nestled into the rug and I bent to retrieve the object, turning it gingerly in my fingers as I stared at it in the darkness. A watch–the strap broken and dangling on one side where it should’ve been joined to the face.

  Neither Eleanor nor I owned a watch of any sort, and judging from the large round face and thick leather strap, this was apparently a man’s timepiece; a comprehension coming less as a curiosity than it was a discomforting recognition.

  Chapter Ten

  It was late morning when I finally opened my eyes to the ominous gray of a cold steady rain, unable to immediately shake myself loose from the groggy weight of being too long asleep.

  Eleanor was already up and gone. Her bed made-up neatly.

  For several long moments I lay absently staring at my sister’s vacant bed, wondering over how I might pass the gloomy day, ragingly disappointed the downpour left little chance for bumping into Jake–my mood teetering on the cusp of surrender into melancholy when my thoughts were all at once jarred alert by a remembrance from the previous night. And I reached to retrieve the watch I’d placed on my night table, eager to study it closely beneath the light of day. Only my fingertips felt nothing there other than cool bare wood.

  I sat up, fully expecting to see the object in question pushed just out of reach. But to my bewilderment, it was nowhere–was in fact altogether gone.

  I searched the floor, peering around the back and sides of the night table, discovering nothing other than a wad of tissue, creased bookmark, and half a roll of Lifesavers.

  “Lousy jerk,” I said to the empty room. There was little doubt in my mind that Eleanor had taken it–more than likely in a desperate attempt to conceal the evidences of some illicit crime she’d committed in the recent past.

  I quickly pulled on my blue jeans and a thick cotton sweater, dispensing with the addition of socks or underwear, intent on interrogating Eleanor.

  The house felt unnaturally silent as I padded down the long upstairs hallway, descended the stairs and pushed through the swinging door into the kitchen–surprised to find the room uncharacteristically vacant.

  Although I could feel my stomach gnawing on itself in hunger, I lacked the motivation to prepare anything. Even the process of pouring cereal into a bowl and adding milk seemed far too laborious a task. I stared blankly into the refrigerator, my eyes accessing the contents but finding nothing worthy of temptation; in the end settling on the last three chocolate cookies in a package left open on the counter.

  I’d only just popped the last bite of cookie into my mouth when a loud crash echoed through the quiet from somewhere down the hall–the sound closely followed by a muffled exchange of angry voices.

  “I said I’ll clean it up when I’m finished, Smyrna,” Uncle Cal was saying as I peered into the living room.

  He didn’t look up from where he sat plucking odd notes on the piano, clearly unconcerned by the amber liquid splattered across the glossy wood floor amid a minefield of splintered glass and rapidly melting ice cubes.

  “It’ll ruin the floor. You’d better do it now.”

  “If you’re so concerned do it yourself.”

  “I’m finished with cleaning up after you,” Aunt Smyrna snapped, turning her back to him. “Go ahead and leave it there for all eternity then. This is your house after all, isn’t it?”

  “Well, yes, that it is,” he replied, sounding far too jovial given the situation.

  “Good morning, Stephanie,” he lifted his head and smiled, evidently the only one having noted my appearance in the doorway.

  “G’morning. Good morning, Aunt Smyrna,” I said to the rigid line of her back, even as my eyes darted to where Eleanor sat curled up on the window seat thumbing through a magazine.

  “Yes, good morning, Stevie,” Aunt Smyrna said without turning, aggressively pretending undue interest in her task of rearranging a vase of flowers.

  “It’s so dark out I thought it was still nighttime.”

  “Um hum.”

  Crossing the room and plopping myself down beside Eleanor, I wasted no time on preliminaries, “Where’s the watch?” I hissed in a single impatient breath.

  “What?” Her eyes remained rooted on the magazine.

  “The watch. Where’s the watch?”

  “What’re you talking about?”

  “You know exactly what I’m talking about and you’d better give it back before I decide to snitch.”

  “Snitch on what?” she said, briefly glancing in my direction, and for just an instant I was certain I’d detected something in her expression that looked remarkably akin to fear; but the look was just as quickly gone and now she merely looked annoyed.

  “That you had a man’s watch under your bed.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about and I doubt you do either.”

  “Oh, you think so. It just so hap–”

  “Girls! Stop your bickering. I’m in no mood for it today,” Aunt Smyrna admonished, no longer organizing the stems, but instead yanking them out of the vase one by one–snapping off each brilliant head onto the table like decapitated chickens.

  I landed a sharp kick on Eleanor’s ankle with my bare foot. She shot an angry glare in my direction but said nothing.

  The rain had slackened to a fine misty drizzle. I stared out the window, watching the fog roll in off the water in fat waves, everything washing together into a single depressing shade of grey; an enormous dreary canvas effectively melding any usual definition between land, sea, and sky.

  I traced my finger along the condensation frosting the window pane, despite my knowing full well how much it would irritate Aunt Smyrna when she discovered the lingering smears and fingerprints at some later time. My immediate concerns lay elsewhere–fretting over the probability of rain again tomorrow, which in turn meant the passage of yet another day when I wouldn’t see Jake. I hadn’t laid eyes on him since the night on the beach. And while each passing day left me increasingly anxious at the thought of facing him, I was far more afraid not to.

  Uncle Cal pushed himself up from the piano bench, continuing to ignore the liquid puddled on the floor at his feet. He walked to the tray of liquor bottles perpetually located on the long narrow table behind the couch and poured himself a fresh drink.

  “Shelton asked me last week whether we were going to the cocktail party at the club,” he said, dropping a single ice cube into his glass.

  “Oh? And what did you tell him?”

  “We always go, Smyrna. What do you think I told him?”

  “Well, I’m not sure I want to go this year. The occasion has lost its appeal.”

  He took a deep pull from his glass as if preparing for a long trek across a torrid landscape, then paused, the glass still tight in his hand. He half-turned toward Aunt Smyrna, evading her eyes when he spoke despite the assured temerity in his tone. “Fine. Do whatever you want, but I intend to go and I was thinking Eleanor should be allowed to come as well. She’s certainly old enough now to have a little fun with the adults.”

  The unexpected receipt of my sister’s name sent my eyes sweeping toward Eleanor, the pink stain spreading across her cheeks and the startled lift of her eyebrows indicating she too had been caught unawares by his suggestion.

  “Eleanor? Don’t be ridiculous. My sister would go through the roof if I brought her daughter to a cocktail party with a bunch of “teetotaler” drunks.”

  “Our friends would be interested to hear you refer to them as such,” he paused, then, “There’s no reason why Libby would disapprove of Eleanor going somewhere with us.”

  “Don’t try telling me what my own sister would or wouldn’t approve of. And aren�
��t you forgetting about Stevie? It’s certainly not fair for Eleanor to have a night out while she’s just left here by herself.”

  I watched closely, holding my breath, anxious for Aunt Smyrna to dig in and prepare to hold her ground. Who knew better then she, the truth that once Uncle Cal made up his mind he expected that to be the end of it? He could neither be coaxed nor shouted into changing his intent. He simply plowed under the obstacles like weeds, burying each in the very soil from which they’d sprung. A certain habitude made all the more effortless in light of the unpredictable changes in Aunt Smyrna’s own tactics over the past weeks–a sort of weakening of the spirit as their battles raged with increased consistency over subjects both major and minor. A secession, even as she continued to war against him.

  “You’d enjoy going, wouldn’t you, Eleanor?” Uncle Cal said, making no allowance for her answer before adding, “And Stevie doesn’t mind, do you? You’d only be bored at your age.”

  “Don’t talk to her like she’s an eight-year-old, Calvin. Edna Price will stay with the girls just like she has every other year and that’s the end of it.”

  I felt my heart parachute down past my lungs on a rushing current of disappointment. It was far from the end of anything. Even I knew that.

  The unfinished business of the vanished (stolen) wristwatch was momentarily brushed aside as the argument between Aunt Smyrna and Uncle Cal over Eleanor’s proposed attendance at the cocktail party escalated beyond all previous heights. And while I was pretty certain no one was listening, or even interested in, any contribution I had to offer to the disagreement (having immediately been rendered invisible) as they sharpened barbs and readied for the final charge–I held firm to my insistence it would be grossly unfair if Eleanor got to go to a cocktail party while I was made to stay home. Because despite Uncle Cal’s insulting assertion that only Eleanor qualified for inclusion on their evening out, at fifteen I wasn’t such a barbarian I didn’t know well enough how to behave in certain social settings; was in fact confident I could successfully navigate my way through an evening in the company of adults without causing undue horror or embarrassment.