Secret of Lies

by Barbara Forte Abate

  That my contentions were in vain was an issue made clear the following Saturday when Uncle Cal drove Eleanor into town to shop for a dress, apparently happy and willing to take on the responsibility when Aunt Smyrna declined to embrace the task herself.

  Rejected and neglected as I felt about not going to the party, it was my exclusion from even the shopping trip that proved the final insult; the grievous affront of being left behind to pass the long dull afternoon with a simmering Aunt Smyrna only serving to firm my earlier resolution to hate Eleanor and my uncle forever. Or at least for an especially long time.

  “Want to see my dress?” Eleanor smiled sheepishly, peeking out from behind the oversize box she cradled in her arms like a million dollar prize, the enviable logo Maxie’s Dress Shop imprinted across the front in elegant pink script.

  “Not hardly,” I answered, holding my eyes anchored to the TV and Movie Screen magazine lying open on my bed.

  “Oh, come on, don’t be like that.”

  While I was altogether taken aback by the apparently genuine appeal in her voice, the enduring width and breadth of my indignation kept me from softening.

  “Don’t be like what? Oh yeah, that’s right, I forgot, it would be selfish of me not to give a fig about seeing Princess Eleanor’s show-off new dress. Well big deal. Guess who cares? Nobody–that’s who.”

  “I don’t know what you’re so mad about, Stevie, they said you could go next time.”

  “Who says I want to? I’m not even sure if I want to come here next summer,” I sniffed, though I’d never uttered a sentence so abundant with lies. It was just something to say. I had more than enough reason to come here for the next fifty summers–and that reason’s name was Jake. “Not if Uncle Cal’s gonna be such a creep.”

  “Suit yourself, but you shouldn’t be so mean about Uncle Cal. He’s going through difficult times.”

  “He makes difficult times.”

  “You’re wrong about that.”

  I stared at her, incredulous. “Excuse me, but haven’t we been living in the same house all summer? He attacks Aunt Smyrna fifty times a day when he’s out here.”

  “He’s not attacking her, he’s defending himself.”

  “Really. And when did you become such an expert?”

  “He talks to me, Stevie,” she said, her voice dropping to an uncharacteristic level of earnest intensity. “He tells me things because he says I understand–because I see the real person he is inside.”

  I turned away, at once discomforted by the press of her solemn expression and unwilling to think the disquieting thoughts the weight of her words were sinking into my head like dropped anchors. “And is this real person inside the same ratfink who’s dolling up his incredibly gullible niece for a cocktail party just because he knows how much it’ll annoy his wife?”

  I watched her face crumble, at once remorseful as she dropped the box holding her dress onto the bed and swung away. “Look, El, I didn’t mean–” I began, unable to finish before she flew from the room, just short of slamming the door on my flagging apology.

  Chapter Eleven

  It was less than a week later when I rediscovered the missing watch–either the original or an identical twin–the glint of light reflected from its face, winking teasingly from its boastful position on my uncle’s wrist as he speared a thick slab of steak with his fork.

  How long I sat there with my mouth ajar in startled surprise I had no conception, but it was Uncle Cal himself who rattled me back to consciousness.

  “What is it, Stevie? Do you need something? Salt?”

  I nodded dumbly, an immediate surge of galloping suspicions racing to reach my brain like Thoroughbreds out of the gate, tripping over top each other as the timepiece and the hand it adorned reached forward to proffer the saltshaker. I dropped my gaze, sprinkling a brisk shower of white granules over the meal arranged on my plate.

  “Good Lord, Stephanie, stop that,” Aunt Smyrna said. “You’ll ruin your food with all that salt.”

  “That’s how I like it,” I said, aware now that I’d gained the unwanted attention of everyone seated at the table.

  “Well stop it, that’s awful. Horrendously unhealthy.”

  “Yes, Aunt Smyrna.”

  My brain was filled to overflowing with a hungry menagerie of questions and suspicions gnawing and snapping in a tangled mass. And yet as diligently as I grasped into thin air for a handful of instant answers, I wasn’t altogether certain they even existed, and if they did, whether I was capable of seeing them. My mind was already beginning to hint at things it had no business implying and it was becoming increasingly arduous to convince my logical self that I was senselessly constructing a granite monument atop a foundation of weak coincidences.

  Until the night of the party, I couldn’t recall having had occasion or interest in seeing Eleanor in any light other than the one reflecting her as ‘plain ol’ Eleanor.’ No previous event when I might have found myself recognizing her as a good deal more than just remotely attractive. Not until I saw her primed and painted for the cocktail party.

  Making every attempt to appear disinterested, I lay stretched out on my bed watching her rituals of preparation from behind the briefly lowered pages of the Archie comic I held open in a sheltering screen obscuring my face–shifting my pupils for an occasional peek from the corner of my eye.

  Entranced as she seemed in her ritual, Eleanor gave no indication she noticed my presence either way as she stepped into her silky undergarments (long coveted items I hadn’t known her to own until now), then garter belt and hose. She glided into a sleek satin slip like a snake discarding old lackluster skin in lieu of a newly polished sheath–proceeding with talc, hairspray, mascara, rouge, lipstick–slipping the beautiful white strapless dress with its shimmering layered skirts of tulle and organza over her head before stepping into matching pumps ... another shot of hairspray – finishing off with a dab of Aunt Smyrna’s favorite perfume, Evening in Paris. The result being that my otherwise ordinary sister had metamorphosed into a startlingly unfamiliar creature.

  “How do I look, Stevie?”

  I lifted the paper shield of my book an extra two inches, further obscuring my gaze, unwilling she should detect even a pinhead speck of interest spawned from my direction, even as I carefully recorded every detail of her attire. “Okay, I guess.”

  “Gee, thanks, that means a lot to me.”

  “Stephanie …” Aunt Smyrna’s called from downstairs.

  “Did you ever notice how much the name Stephanie sounds like Cinderella? I can’t remember the names of the wicked stepsisters though–maybe something like El–”

  “Look, I know you don’t believe me, but I’m sorry you’re not going too. I understand it’s not fair, but it wasn’t my decision.”

  I managed a pitiful little half smile as I headed out the door, believing her regrets were possibly authentic, and that maybe–once I was finished being furious with her–this entire unfortunate episode might very well prove a notable milestone in our future life sentence of sisterhood.

  “Do you have to humiliate me by hiring a baby-sitter?”

  “She isn’t a baby-sitter. She’s my friend.”

  “Put any label you want on her, she’s still a baby-sitter.”

  “Well you’re not staying here alone so you can just get that idea out of your head.”

  “Why not? I’m fifteen for cripes sake.”

  “Watch your tone, missy. There’s been a storm warning on the radio since this morning. What do you think you’re going to do if you’re here alone and the electricity goes out?”

  “Sit in the dark,” I smiled, concluding the time had come to change tactics, thus softening my manner accordingly. “Please, Aunt Smyrna. Edna always makes me play those stupid card games.”

  “I don’t know ... I’m concerned your mother wouldn’t–”

  “It’s because you don’t trust me,” I interrupted, instantly grasping the importance of not allowing her tim
e to consider over what my mother would or wouldn’t do given the identical situation.

  “Now, Stevie, you know that’s not true.”

  “Yes it is. If it was Eleanor you’d let her stay alone without a baby-sitter.”

  She stared at me for a long instant as if the very utterance of Eleanor’s name had magically turned the key in the lock of some secret vault–her eyebrows drawn straight, lips tightening as though zippered shut. “All right, fine.” She threw up her hands in surrender. “I’ll call Edna and tell her not to come. But you’d better never tell your mother about this. She’d be furious, and you know it.”

  “A million thank yous, Aunt Smyrna,” I said, feeling the grin that split across my face and stretched all the way around to the back of my head. “You can trust me to take our secret to the grave.”

  I watched Aunt Smyrna pour herself a drink then cross the floor to sit on the piano bench. She looked beautiful in a black sleeveless dress randomly sprinkled with a Milky Way shimmer of icy rhinestones, and her chic new hairstyle reminded me of the pretty redheaded model I’d seen in all the latest fashion magazines.

  When Eleanor appeared in the room a moment later, my attentions were immediately caught and held by the near startling contrast between the two women. Eleanor: captivatingly lovely with her aura of young uncertain grace. Aunt Smyrna: sophisticated and impeccably elegant.

  “Is Edna here yet? We’ve got to get going,” Uncle Cal said, coming into the living room. Immaculate in a navy dinner jacket, the smooth cap of his neatly combed hair cast to a glimmering shade of burnished gold by the lamplight, he, too, looked notably striking.

  And I’d seen without intending to, the way he’d immediately glanced at Eleanor as he’d entered the room rather than at his wife. A split second reaction on his part that sent a sobering thud of discomfort slamming over me like a granite slab dropped from the sky.

  “Everything’s taken care of. We might as well go,” Aunt Smyrna said standing, leaving her untouched drink there on the piano bench.

  “Don’t keep Edna up late playing cards,” my uncle quipped, and I shifted my eyes in an effort to keep from glaring back at him.

  “I’ll try and bring you back something,” Eleanor promised. And I knew it meant she’d slip something into her purse for me–after dinner mints or a flavored toothpick–one or another of the accoutrements generally placed about in crystal bowls to complement the elegance of an evening.

  And a moment later they were gone.

  A great clap of thunder broke open the heavy cloak of silence pressed over the house, the skin on the back of my neck and along my arms instinctively tensing. Brilliant flashes of lightning slashed out against the inky sky, followed shortly by distant rumbles working to bring the storm closer, a warning it wouldn’t be long before the rain came hammering over the seascape.

  I’d spent the earlier part of the day planning over the first thing I intended to do once everyone was gone and I was blessedly alone–easily deciding I’d make a beeline up to the bedroom I shared with Eleanor and listen to the radio while I experimented with her makeup.

  The radio however was nowhere to be found. I often brought it to the beach, but now I couldn’t quite remember where I’d left it, only hoping it wasn’t right now lying in the sand, moments away from being pounded into ruination by the oncoming storm.

  I sat at the makeshift vanity Eleanor had set up in our room using a wobbly-legged card table covered with an old lace tablecloth, staring back in disgust at the reflection studying me from inside the mirror Aunt Smyrna had unscrewed from an old dresser in the attic and given to Eleanor to prop against the wall above her vanity. Mine was such a modest, ordinary face the only antidote for its lack of inspiration seemed to lie in altering as much as I could with Eleanor’s cosmetic chemistry set.

  For the next hour I painted, smudged, and shaded with an extravagant hand, plumping my lips with color and swabbing on liberal coats of rouge, mascara, and shadow, until there was no pore left untouched. I posed for imaginary photographs–a movie star without a single film credit, yet greatly desired by the masses–went through several costume changes featuring Eleanor’s prettiest skirts and pearl button sweaters. Strutted and preened until I ultimately lost interest.

  Once I’d carefully replaced Eleanor’s wardrobe into closet and drawers I washed off everything excepting the mascara and lipstick, liking how the black coating I’d lacquered over my lashes lent a definite exotic appearance–very Cleopatra–especially when complemented by the vivid redness of my color swollen lips.

  The rain arrived with the force of a broken dam. Loud drops pelted heavily against the windows, wildly splintering jolts of lightning accenting the blackness of the night–each fragmented slice of bright white light followed almost immediately by a rumbling crack of thunder. The intense madness of the storm as it resounded throughout the cavernous rooms of the monstrous old house leaving me decidedly jittery and increasingly ill at ease.

  Returned downstairs, I curled into one of the sagging overstuffed chairs in the living room to eat my dinner: leftover chicken salad and cold buttered noodles washed down with a warm bottle of cola someone had forgotten to return to the icebox and instead left out on the kitchen counter to grow tepid.

  Through the wide expanse of glass facing out over the ocean, I watched the violent brilliance of nature’s fury–lightning zippering crazily across the dark sky then instantly swallowed into the blackness of the churning sea.

  Back home on the farm my mother was forever admonishing us never to use anything requiring electricity during a storm; not a toaster, radio, hair dryer, anything with a plug attached, no matter whether a torrential downpour or merely the threat of one. And although she’d never fully admitted to the source of her reasoning, we’d come to the conclusion our mother’s paranoia with all things electrical had doubtless been birthed with the untimely death of her childhood friend Louise Baker–the luckless woman electrocuted in her bathtub when the radio she’d perched on the lip of the tub accidentally tumbled into the water. Because the unfortunate incident had occurred in the midst of a summer rain shower, Mom had come to the unshakable conclusion that rain and electricity within spitting distance of each other was as much a recipe for doom as anything else which has ever been etched in stone.

  While I’d always perceived her warnings as rather silly, secretly thinking it was Louise’s own foolishness and not the rain most responsible for her death (why would she put a radio on the edge of a bathtub and not simply within reach on the floor?), I nevertheless recalled the long-lived cautionary tale now as I thumbed through Aunt Smyrna’s collection of records, questioning whether or not there was actually a trace of wisdom in what had always sounded so ridiculous.

  Though it had been quite a long time since she’d cared to play any of them, Aunt Smyrna had cultivated a sizable collection of records over her summers here–loads of old, unfamiliar stuff, but also a few newer titles I recognized: The Coasters, The Platters, Little Anthony and the Imperials ... She’d even bought an Elvis record the previous summer after I’d earnestly (and tirelessly) emphasized the utmost importance of her doing so.

  Once I’d determined how to operate the phonograph, the music magically swelled outward, flooding the enormous room and washing over the gloom with waves of vigorous energy. And while the rain battered down unabated against the skin of weather beaten clapboards sheathing the house, pummeling sea and sand like machine-gun fire–I danced–spinning, twisting, and gyrating with wild wicked abandon, as song after song dosed me with an invigorating intensity. And it felt like the most amazing thing in the world right then–to be alone–incredibly, wonderfully alone, blissfully enraptured within the arms of my own joyous insanity.

  The second record ended, I darted to the phonograph to flip the disc to its opposite side, unwilling that the leering echo of silence should have even a single moment to settle. And it was right then that I heard a peculiar rapping sound–sharply insistent, seemingly comin
g from somewhere outside. I crept up alongside one of the long windows streaked with rain and peered out into the blackness beyond, my heartbeat marching up into my ears on the heels of a steady drum roll.

  The sound seemed to originate from the side porch off the kitchen. I held to the doorway without approaching, my eyes swinging around the room on a rapid search for … something … anything even potentially useful. I spied Uncle Calvin’s long black umbrella leaning in the corner by the door where he’d forgotten it and snatched it up quickly, raising it to my shoulder like a weapon. The banging grew louder as I passed through the hallway and into the kitchen, the certainty arriving with a jolt that someone was there pounding on the door.

  The knocking abruptly ceased. The shadowy presence poised on the other side of the night apparently having seen me and now waiting for me to come and unlatch the door.

  Still gripping the umbrella–uncertain of what to do, only knowing I was required to do something–I turned the lock with quaking fingers, opening the door little more than a hairline crack.

  “Yes? Who’s there?”

  No reply.

  “Edna?” No answer. If I shoved the door closed and immediately locked it, there was still a chance I could sprint up the stairs and hide before they managed to break a window and get in–

  There was a gentle yet insistent push on the door, a face appearing in the narrow crack separating inside from out.

  “Jake ...” I stumbled back allowing him entry. “What’re you doing here?” I stared in startled confusion while my heart continued its mad crescendo inside my chest, only now the wild thumping signified something altogether distinct from fear.

  He was thoroughly soaked from the storm. His hair lay plastered to his head like a swimming cap, pants clinging to his legs in long wet patches. He unzipped his jacket and slipping his hand inside, pulling out a familiar object–the missing radio.