The Art of Keeping Secrets

by Rachael Johns

  ‘Relax.’ Seb moved to stand beside her and rubbed his hands up and down her arms as he met her gaze in the mirror. She drank in his smoky-grey eyes and his long, dark lashes that matched his slightly-too-long black hair. Hair that reminded her of Johnny Depp in Pirates of the Caribbean. He was so handsome, so hot, and she felt herself melting beneath his touch.

  ‘I was stealthy,’ he told her. ‘And besides, Max and Chanel were too busy schmoozing outside to notice little old me.’

  She had to smile at that. ‘I bet her clothes were amazing.’

  ‘You have no idea. It was a drag queen’s fantasy!’

  Flick turned around to look at him properly, reaching her hand up to cup Seb’s smooth cheek. He’d had a sexy five o’clock shadow at the party, but while she’d been at Emma’s he’d obviously done more than try on a new shade of lipstick. Most people would have been shocked if they knew her husband liked dresses, shoes and all things girly, but she figured there were plenty of worse things he could get up to.

  Would her friends think the same about Seb if they knew he was a cross-dresser who had a better fashion sense than she did and went by the name of Sofia when in that zone? Strictly in the privacy of their own home, of course. She was the only person in the world who knew his secret—well, aside from some other cross-dressers who he sometimes spoke to online, but as they weren’t ‘real’ people, they didn’t count. He wasn’t a gambler or an alcoholic, he didn’t abuse her and he’d certainly never cheat on her. Perhaps theirs was an odd relationship, one most people couldn’t understand, but Seb was her best friend and her soulmate.

  It had been that way almost from the beginning.

  They’d met at university. She was in her first year of a fine arts degree and he was at the tail end of his degree. She’d been reading an article about taxidermy in a journal while eating her lunch in the crowded cafeteria and he’d stopped to ask her if he could share her table. That voice. Even before she’d looked up to see who it belonged to her stomach had flipped at the delicious, deep, intensely masculine sound.

  When her eyes met his startling grey ones—so different, so gorgeous, so honest—she’d felt heat rush to her cheeks. Everything about him, from his luminous smile to the way his long brown hair flopped across his eyes, had her answer stumbling on her tongue.

  Until then, she’d never experienced such an intense reaction to a guy. She’d had little experience of boys or men, except for the guy she used to hang out with at school—Jeremy; but he’d certainly never made her toes curl and her heart skip. The man in front of her now absentmindedly reached up to brush the hair off his forehead while he waited for her reply and she may actually have whimpered.

  Okay, she’d definitely whimpered.

  ‘What was that?’ he asked, his smile cheeky as if he wasn’t surprised about the effect he had on her; probably he had the same on every woman he asked to share a table with.

  ‘Sure,’ she choked, gesturing to the seat opposite and hoping she didn’t have any pumpkin soup on her face. ‘Sit.’

  Still smiling, he dumped his backpack on the ground by the table and pulled out a chair. He introduced himself as Sebastian Bell (oh what a lovely name) and offered her his hand. Somehow, despite her heart galloping wildly and her inability to think straight, she managed to place her hand in his and not leap halfway to the ceiling when his warm fingers closed around hers. It appeared the jolt she’d read about in romance novels wasn’t a myth after all.

  ‘And your name is?’ he asked, after a short silence in which she sat gawking at him with her tongue hanging out like a happy and contented dog.

  She blinked at him, her mind a void of everything except him. And then, thank God, she pulled herself together and attempted a confident, slightly flirtatious smile. Hot guys like this didn’t come along every day. ‘I’m Felicity,’ she said. ‘Felicity Bird, but most of my friends call me Flick.’

  ‘And what would you like me to call you?’ he asked, suggesting that their acquaintance might be longer than the time it took for him to eat his sausage roll.

  She almost said, ‘Sweet stuff, you can call me anything you want to,’ but chickened out at the last second. Flirting had never been her forte. ‘Flick’s fine.’

  ‘Great.’ He picked up the sausage roll but didn’t yet take a bite, instead nodding towards the journal. ‘What are you reading?’

  ‘Oh.’ Her cheeks flushed again but this time with embarrassment. She generally didn’t talk about her dream career until she’d known people quite some time. The last thing she wanted was for this man to think her an oddball; then again, if her fantasies came true and he asked her on a date or something … Well, if things ever got serious she’d have to tell him. Of course, her imagination was now running away on some tangent—as if someone like him would ever think of someone like her in that way. She doubted mousey brown haired, too-thin plain Janes were his type.

  ‘Is it a secret?’ He leant forward a little and whispered, ‘I promise I’m good at keeping secrets.’

  And Flick thought, what the heck? If it scared him away then he wasn’t man enough for her anyway. It would be a good test in fact.

  ‘It’s about taxidermy actually,’ she said, her chin held high, although her belly wobbled.

  He showed surprise, but not in a bad way. ‘Just something you randomly stumbled upon?’

  ‘I want to be a taxidermist,’ she declared, holding her breath for his reaction. The very few guys who had previously shown vague interest in her had run for the hills the moment she told them about her desired career. They thought it, and therefore her, weird.

  ‘That’s … amazing.’ He put the sausage roll back down on its paper bag as if too fascinated—or horrified—to eat. ‘Where did your interest come from?’

  At that point, all her nerves about talking to a hot guy evaporated. She told him about her childhood, how her mother had died in a house fire before Flick could even remember her. That her father had saved his little girl but failed (in his eyes) to save his wife and had apparently never been the same again, not that Flick really remembered how he’d been Before Fire. The whole house had burned to the ground—pretty much nothing had been salvageable—and the happy world she’d known since birth had also gone up in smoke. No photos, no clothes, none of her toys were saved. Miraculously there’d been one brooch undamaged from her mother’s jewellery stash.

  ‘Have you ever heard of a grouse claw brooch?’ Flick asked Sebastian.

  The cutest little furrow appeared between his thick, dark eyebrows as if he were flipping through all the information in his brain, looking for recognition. She was about to explain when he blurted, ‘They’re those stuffed bird claws the Scottish used to wear on their kilts, right?’

  He was so excited—as if he’d given the right answer on some TV game show in the nick of time—that she couldn’t help but laugh.

  ‘How did you know that? I’m very impressed. I feel like I should give you some kind of prize. You might be the first person I’ve ever met who I didn’t have to explain the grouse claw to.’

  ‘That’s because I’m not your average bloke, Flick.’ He smiled at her as if she were the only person in the cafeteria and she felt its effect right down to her toes. That smile made every single cell in her body happy.

  No, he wasn’t average at all.

  ‘So,’ she said, sitting straighter and trying to cling on to some kind of composure. ‘A grouse claw is the only possession I had of my mother’s. Dad wanted to get rid of it as he couldn’t bear to look at anything that reminded him of her, but I begged and begged for him to keep it. In the end my grandparents said that it would be good for me to have something of Mum’s as a keepsake and he relented.’

  Whereas most five-and-a-half-year-old girls collected Barbies and My Little Ponies, Flick’s most prized possession had become this odd, slightly macabre brooch. After a while her two grandmas worried about her obsession with it, but her mum’s father taught her the Scottish tradition
of the claws and how this particular one had been made by a relative who’d been a taxidermist-turned-jeweller. Flick spent hours on end listening to tales of this ancestor and the animals he’d found and brought back to life, of the happiness he’d returned to people who’d lost beloved pets and found comfort in having them eternalised. Looking back, she guessed these stories and the brooch somehow made her feel closer to her mother, but her grandmothers had been right to worry.

  When most of her friends decided they wanted to become hairdressers or nurses, she’d proudly announced her determination to become one of only a few female taxidermists.

  ‘And you need an arts degree for that?’ Sebastian asked.

  She nodded. ‘Taxidermy is an art form and my father insisted that I go to university, but I’m also apprenticing with a local expert who does a lot of work for the state museum. And I’m enrolled to do a summer course with a world-renowned taxidermist in London.’

  ‘Well,’ Sebastian said when she’d finished explaining, ‘that officially makes you the most interesting girl I’ve ever met.’

  She laughed and blushed, but was secretly ecstatic. ‘Is that right? And are you interesting too, Sebastian? What are you studying?’

  ‘Architecture. Which isn’t that far from what you want to do when you think about it. We’re both creators, artists, and we both want to make things to last.’

  They’d spoken so long that by the time they realised they’d missed their next lectures, the cafeteria was empty and Flick was more than halfway to falling in love. Seb asked if she wanted to continue the conversation over a drink at the university tavern. One drink turned to two and eventually led to dinner. Flick never wanted the day to end, but neither did she want to do something stupid like sleep with him on the first date.

  Not that he pressured her. He’d walked her to her little secondhand Corolla and kissed her goodnight—on her hand. For some reason Sebastian Bell found her fascinating. And fun to be with. And, most surprisingly, he christened her the most beautiful girl he’d ever laid eyes on. In hindsight that line was rather cheesy, but at the time she’d swooned like Lydia Bennet over the rakish Mr Wickham. Sebastian made her feel beautiful, and not at all ashamed about the person she was and the one she wanted to become.

  ‘Flick! Felicity! Is there something on my face or have you fallen asleep standing?’

  Back in the present, she startled at Seb’s slightly raised voice, wondering how long she’d been staring at him. ‘Sorry,’ she confessed, as she reached across and wiped a faint trace of lipstick off his mouth. ‘I was just reminiscing about the day we met.’

  The worry in his eyes evaporated and his lips curved into his delicious smile. ‘The best day of my life,’ he told her, scooping her up into his arms.

  ‘Mine too,’ she said as he walked her out of the ensuite and into the bedroom.

  Seb gently laid Flick onto the bed, tucked her under the covers and then kissed her on the forehead. ‘Sweet dreams, my darling,’ he said, before walking round to his side of the bed and climbing in beside her.

  The day had been a tumultuous one emotionally, but falling asleep in his arms made her feel safe and content. The kids might be growing up, she and her friends might be getting older, but as long as she had Seb, all was right with the world.

  Chapter Five

  Emma

  ‘Has everyone got everything?’ Emma asked as she popped two painkillers out of their package and picked up her glass of water. ‘Library bags, sports shoes, homework, musical instruments, iPads? You’re all ready to go?’

  Her three kids—all of whom towered over her now—nodded as they picked up their school bags. She downed the tablets in quick succession, sighed at the absolute state they were about to leave the kitchen in and made shooing movements towards the front door.

  Caleb, Laura and Louise sounded like a herd of elephants (and not baby ones at that) as they hurried down the hallway, each of them talking loudly over the top of the others so that she couldn’t make out what any of them were saying.

  ‘One at a time,’ she called after them as she grabbed her handbag and keys from the kitchen bench. She really hated to leave the morning’s breakfast dishes and lunch preparation stuff all over it, but between getting everyone up, making breakfast and lunches and ironing the uniforms which she hadn’t managed to get done on the weekend, she hadn’t had the time.

  How did other working mums do it? And make it look so damn easy? When Max still lived at home, he hadn’t helped much with the domestic duties—although he’d probably have claimed otherwise—but then she’d only worked part-time at the travel agency at the time. She’d kept house, made sure her family ate nutritious meals, enjoyed her job and had even gone to two or three exercise classes a week. Nowadays the kids were lucky if they got vegetables with dinner and she couldn’t remember the last time she’d stepped inside the gym. Everything just felt so damn overwhelming.

  The kids were waiting by the car as she shut the front door, so she pointed the key fob and beeped it unlocked. There was the usual squabble over who’d sit in the front seat but she ignored it, knowing that by the time she’d landed in the driver’s seat, one teen would have won and the other two would be reluctantly doing up their seatbelts in the back. She didn’t have the energy to deal with bickering this morning, not when her head was still pounding like a heavy metal rock band was rehearsing inside it.

  ‘Mum,’ Laura (winner of the front seat contest) said the moment Emma climbed into the car. ‘Can I have ten dollars?’

  ‘Me too,’ Louise piped up from the back.

  Caleb chuckled. ‘If you’re handing out money, I won’t say no.’

  She hadn’t even turned the key in the ignition but Emma’s hands tightened on the steering wheel. ‘What do you think I am?’ she snapped. ‘A bloody ATM?’

  Laura blinked and raised her eyebrows. ‘No need to swear, Mum. It’s fine, we’ll just starve.’

  Emma sighed. ‘Why on earth would you starve? I’ve filled your lunchboxes to the brim.’ And all I’ve taken for myself is a banana and packet of Tim Tams that were on special.

  ‘Um … we have an extra band rehearsal this afternoon, remember, so school’s putting on dinner but it’s five dollars each.’

  Emma didn’t like Louise’s tone and also wondered why they needed twice that amount but instead of asking or reprimanding her, she said, ‘Since when?’

  ‘We told you yesterday.’ The twins often spoke as one, something that Emma rarely noticed but other people often remarked on.

  Had they? Emma couldn’t remember but then yesterday had been a blur. Saturday she’d spent in bed recovering from the excessive drinking on Friday night, and Sunday she’d had to rush around like a mad woman, doing the weekly grocery shop, cleaning the house, washing clothes and then collecting the kids from Max’s because he had something on and couldn’t drop them off himself.

  She sighed; this time she’d give the girls the benefit of the doubt. Truth was, it wasn’t the first thing she’d forgotten lately. Stress—it had a lot to answer for.

  ‘I’m sorry, it slipped my mind. Grab my purse and see what I’ve got.’

  While Laura rifled through her handbag and divvied out money among her siblings, Emma started the car, not wanting the kids to be late for school or her to be late for work. Her supervisor would have her guts for garters if she were late and the last thing she needed was to lose her job.

  The heavy metal band inside her head continued as strong as ever as she navigated the morning traffic, and thankfully, once the kids had snack money, they turned to their phones to do whatever teenagers did on those expensive devices. She should have been more vigilant about keeping an eye on their social media, email and internet use but she hadn’t even wanted them to have phones in the first place. Caleb she understood—he was almost an adult—but the girls were barely out of primary school. Of course Max had bought them all the latest iPhones without bothering to consult her.

  Thinking o
f Max did not help ease her headache at all. If only there was a tablet that would eradicate him from her life.

  ‘Mum, you planning on stopping?’ Caleb’s urgent tone jolted her thoughts and she realised she was almost past his bus stop.

  She slammed on the brakes and pulled the car to the side of the road, ignoring the angry sound of horns behind her. ‘Sorry, sweetheart.’ She summoned a smile to her face and turned around to say goodbye.

  He leaned forward to kiss her, then put his hand on the door but paused and looked back. ‘You okay, Mum? You seem kind of agitated lately.’

  As more horns sounded behind them, Emma swallowed the lump that formed in her throat at the fact her boy had noticed she wasn’t quite herself. Both proud of him and annoyed at herself for letting her stress affect the kids, she shook her head. ‘I’m fine, honey, just got a bit of a headache.’

  ‘You’ve had a lot of headaches lately,’ Louise mused, proving that although she was glued to her phone, she always had one ear to the ground. ‘Maybe you should see a doctor?’

  ‘I probably just need to drink more water,’ Emma said, thinking that maybe if she took the time to drink her two litres a day it could well help. But really, who had time for that? ‘Now, Caleb, go, before the man behind us has a road rage tantrum.’

  The second Caleb slammed the door, she flicked her indicator on, pressed down on the accelerator and shot back out into the unrelenting stream of traffic. She dropped the girls off next—their school was on her way to work—but neither of them bothered with kisses goodbye. As Laura and Louise rushed towards the school entrance, Emma waved but they didn’t see her, already having found friends to gossip with. Caleb was more affectionate and thoughtful than the two of them put together, but maybe it was just a stage they were going through.

  Emma took a deep breath, enjoying the sudden silence. As she resumed her journey, she turned the radio on, hoping her favourite station would help ease her headache before she arrived at work. When the kids were in the car, they didn’t listen to music because they all had very different tastes. She drove the rest of the way on autopilot, trying not to think about all the things she hadn’t achieved that weekend, and by the time she parked her car she felt marginally better. Her head still hurt but she was ready to face the day. At least in the office, she couldn’t see her messy house or unrelenting washing pile; instead, she got to make people’s travel dreams come true. Where most parts of her life had fallen apart over the last few years, at least she had a job she liked getting up for.