Secrets Everybody Knows

by Christa Maurice

  “Ruin what?”

  “You have a good life. You’re well respected.”

  “Good life? You think this is a good life? My God, have you been living under a bridge for the past fourteen years?” Elaine gripped the edge of a worktable so she wouldn’t throw herself into his arms. She’d be better off throwing herself under a train.

  “You always wanted to be a teacher. You told me that the day I kissed you the first time.”

  The cool scent of the woods enveloped her, and she thought she saw the mist rising out of the grass. “Sweet sixteen and never been kissed,” he had said. She shuddered and felt one of her fingernails crack against the wood.

  “If you got mixed up with me now, it would only be worse for you. Once the mess my dad has made becomes public, my family is going to have to move out of town.”

  “The mess your dad made?”

  “He’s screwed up the finances so badly it’s no wonder he had a heart attack.” Johnny touched the back of his head. “I think I’m bleeding.”

  “Bend down and let me see.”

  He leaned toward the table, turning the back of his head toward her. Brushing her fingers through his hair nearly brought tears to her eyes again. “Just a little bit, but it’s stopped. You’re going to have a goose egg.”

  “When I heard your voice it surprised me.”

  Elaine slid her hands around his neck, guiding him around so he was leaning over her. She looked up into his eyes, and it was so painfully familiar. His arms around her, the position of his hands on her back. Her body drank in the sensation like rain after a drought. “Johnny, I missed you so much.”

  “Elaine–”

  She stopped him with a finger over his lips followed by her mouth. He groaned, pressing her against the worktable, lifting her off the floor. Elaine’s whole body remembered every touch. His thumb along her spine, the scent of his skin and the taste of his mouth. More tears gathered, fourteen years of tears, until the salty taste changed his flavor. She twined her hand into his hair, careful around his bumped head. His hand ran under her thigh, wrapping it around his waist.

  “Oh yes,” he murmured. “I missed you. Just like before.” He kissed her throat.

  “Come to my house. Right now,” she whispered. “Please.”

  “I can’t. You know that.” He pulled away.

  Elaine thought she heard the zip of Velcro separating as he stepped back. “Why not?” She stretched for him, but he moved out of reach. Again.

  His expression hardened. “Are you screwing with me?”

  “What?”

  Johnny made a face. “I heard you were different now.”

  “Different how?”

  He rubbed the back of his neck. “A lesbian.”

  “Oh, for crying out loud. You’ve got to be kidding.” Elaine jumped off the table. “How many hours were you in town before you heard that rumor?”

  “Is it true?”

  “Do you think it’s true?” She threw her hands in the air.

  “I don’t know. You could be trying to get back at me.”

  Elaine shook her head. “No, it’s not true. People around here just think that if they don’t see you with a man you must be a lesbian. One and one makes four.”

  “So you’re not.”

  “No. Now will you come back to my house with me?” She felt utterly craven for wanting it, but she couldn’t stop herself. Johnny was the addiction she’d been trying to fill with ice cream and alcohol.

  “You know I can’t. Someone would see me.”

  “And you’re embarrassed to be seen coming to the house of a known lesbian in the middle of a Sunday afternoon?”

  Johnny put his arms around her and kissed her forehead. Elaine knew this maneuver. This was his way of making her listen to something she didn’t want to hear. It used to work every time. “If somebody sees me going to your house, they’re going to know about us.”

  She wasn’t going to let it work this time. “They already think I’m a lesbian. Having an affair with the former town bad boy would be an upgrade. Then I would become ‘normal.’” She made quotation marks with her fingers.

  “It’s not a risk I’m ready to take with your life. When this mess my dad made comes out–”

  “Your dad made. Not you. Your dad. How is that your scandal? Besides, half the town probably already knows. You know how hard it is to keep a secret around here.” She wanted to grab him and shake him. He always claimed to be stupid, but he wasn’t. Given a problem to solve, he could always work out a solution. Almost always a good one. Almost. What was he trying to do here?

  “What are people going to say when we are suddenly seen together?”

  “You just got into town.”

  “You didn’t associate with me before I left.”

  Elaine threw up her hands. “Crap. Give me a minute. I’ll think of something. I was friends with Sue. I was with your father when he had his heart attack. We hit it off when you came back to town. Maybe it’s pity sex. Survivor guilt. I can make it work.”

  “And we immediately started sleeping together? Aren’t the parents of your students going to wonder?”

  “They’re all adults. As long as we’re not having sex in the classroom they won’t care too much.” Elaine put her hands in his. “Johnny, I’m not underage anymore. Sheriff Myers is retired. We can do this now. Why are you so afraid of being seen with me?”

  Johnny closed his eyes.

  Puzzle pieces Elaine never wanted to see together met and clicked into place. “Why are you so afraid?” she whispered. “You’re embarrassed.”

  “No.”

  “You’re ashamed to be seen with the ultra-good, possible lesbian Elaine Hammersmith. I’m too straight-laced.”

  “That’s not true.” Johnny pulled his hands away from her.

  “It was never about the damage you could do to my reputation. It was always about you.”

  “Elaine.”

  “No, no. I see now. First I thought you loved me so much that you had to leave me. Then I thought you had had your fun and moved on. But now–” Elaine grabbed her list off the counter. “Now I know you just never wanted anyone to know you had a secret fetish for ruining good girls.” She wrestled open the door. “I am so happy.”

  “Elaine.” Johnny stopped in the closet door.

  “If you can’t be seen with me in public, I don’t want to be with you.”

  “Elaine.”

  “Just fix the bus.”

  * * * *

  Elaine locked the door behind her, dropped Lily’s list on the floor and went to her bedroom to throw herself across the quilt that was supposed to remind her not to get involved with men in general and Johnny McMannus in particular. The withdrawal was a hundred times worse than she remembered. Her whole body seethed and ached. It was a migraine and impacted wisdom teeth and burst appendix and starvation all at once. Every memory of the times she had spent with Johnny shattered in her mind, leaving shards of pain. She curled into a ball, dragging the blanket around her.

  He wouldn’t even follow.

  He couldn’t.

  He didn’t know where she lived.

  She jerked the quilt over her head. The room was hot, but suffocating under layers of fabric felt right.

  So many years, a life, she had wasted on him. Believing he loved her and not wanting anyone else. Now she could be honest. She had nothing else. There had been no one else in her life because she hadn’t wanted anyone else. She wanted Johnny. Only Johnny. Every other man had been like tepid water after fine champagne. Cheap canned fruit cocktail after tree-ripened peaches. She’d had the best. The most exciting. The most tender.

  Or she thought she had. He had just been pursuing a goal. He was ashamed to be seen with her. All her life she’d been told to be a good girl and she would be happy. She’d done all the right things. Been more kind, courteous and helpful than an Eagle Scout. And look what happened.

  She owed Kitty an apology.

  Late
r.

  Elaine closed her eyes and prayed for oblivion.

  * * * *

  Johnny sat on the couch with a beer forgotten in his hand, staring at the television when Sue and his mom got home from the hospital.

  “Dad comes home tomorrow,” Sue yelled from the back door.

  Johnny blinked out of his fog. Most of his brain was still in the parts storage closet at the bus garage. He’d finished the repair, locked up, dropped off the keys, come home and didn’t remember most of the trip. Elaine clouded everything else out.

  Almost everything.

  “He’s coming home already?” Johnny went to the kitchen. Sue was starting dinner. His mother had found a bottle. Johnny squinted at the label. Bottom-shelf rotgut. This was why Elaine couldn’t be seen with him. “Why?”

  “Because we have shitty insurance,” his mother snapped. “Him and that goddamn garage. Can’t afford anything decent.” She started for the stairs.

  Johnny put his arm across the doorway to stop her. “Where are you going?”

  “Up to my bedroom.”

  “You don’t need this.” He took the bottle out of her hand.

  “Give that back.” She clawed for the bottle, which he held above her reach.

  “Johnny, stop it,” Sue pleaded. “Just give her the bottle.”

  “You’re a drunk. You’re going to end up just like Dad,” Johnny told his mother.

  “I am not a drunk. Give me that bottle,” his mother demanded.

  “Spoken like a true alcoholic.” Johnny shoved the bottle in the top of the cupboard and leaned on the closed door.

  “Give me that bottle. I’ll turn you over my knee,” his mother threatened.

  Johnny surveyed his frail mother. She was bent, puffy-faced and looked about eighty. He was surprised she could wrestle the screw top off her booze. “I’d love to see you try.”

  “Johnny, give it to her.” Sue crossed the room but stopped short of reaching around him. “Stop torturing Mom.”

  On cue, his mother started to cry.

  Johnny folded his arms. “I’m not falling for this. Sue, are you making dinner or am I ordering a pizza?”

  His mother ran out of the room, weeping. Sue scowled at him. “How can you be so cruel? Dad’s in the hospital. You’re taking away the only thing she has left.”

  “Except you.”

  “Don’t make this about me.”

  “Why not, Sue? What are you afraid of? You know she’d pick the bottle over you any day. So would Dad. The reason the booze is the only thing she has left is because she picked it over us.”

  “And that gives you the right to be cruel?”

  “Somebody has to be. We can’t just stand around here letting them destroy themselves and us too.”

  “Stand around? You left. I was sixteen when you took that car you were working on and drove out of town in the middle of the night. You didn’t leave a note, you didn’t call. You sent a postcard from Florida three weeks after you vanished, and you left me here to manage things on my own.” Sue’s face turned red, and her lower lip started to wobble. “I did the best I could.”

  “I never said you didn’t, but this isn’t working. It’s never worked. We can fix it.”

  “How are we supposed to fix it? How? They’re our parents.”

  Johnny hesitated. He hadn’t thought about what to do beyond taking Mom’s bottle away. He hadn’t really planned that either. It had been a momentary inspiration. “I don’t know,” he admitted.

  “Great. When you figure it out, let me know. In the meantime, why don’t you let Mom have her bottle?”

  “No. We have to start someplace.” He took it out of the cupboard and poured it down the drain. “I’ll make some phone calls and see what I come up with.”

  Wandering back to the living room, he grabbed the phone book and sat down with it. Then he noticed he’d been watching a home improvement show. If he came in and straightened out everything, he could be the kind of guy Elaine could be seen with. If he got his parents dried out, fixed their finances and dealt with the myriad of repair projects they had been ignoring around the house, he might be good enough.

  Hopefully, there was someone in the office of the recovery unit at the hospital.

  * * * *

  “Dear Lord, what happened to you?” Kitty asked. “And why are you wrapped up in a blanket? It’s eighty degrees.”

  “Honey, are you sick?” Her mother reached through the doorway to press her hand against Elaine’s forehead.

  Elaine rubbed her face. The last thing she remembered was trying to suffocate herself in the quilt. She hadn’t succeeded before she must have fallen asleep. “What time is it?”

  “Four-thirty.” Kitty pushed past her into the house. “Lily called us freaking out because she couldn’t get hold of you.”

  “She just talked to me yesterday.” Elaine tried to dodge her mother’s nursing instincts.

  “You don’t have a fever. Did you eat something?” Her mother tried to peel the quilt away from her neck.

  “Knowing Elaine, she ate everything.” Kitty inspected the room. “Nothing amiss. Lily said she hadn’t heard from you since Saturday at the game.”

  “Yes, I talked to her yesterday at the Little League game.” Elaine pulled the quilt tighter. She was sweating, but she didn’t want to be uncovered at all.

  “Yesterday Sunday. Little league Saturday.” Kitty raised an eyebrow. “I’ve never heard of anyone blacking out on Bailey’s.”

  “Blacking out on Bailey’s? Who is blacking out on Bailey’s?” Her mother looked from Kitty to Elaine. “Not you, Elaine.”

  “I did not black out. I fell asleep. I must have slept longer than I thought.” Elaine walked into the kitchen. Her mouth was dry, and she could still taste Johnny on her lips. She filled a glass from the tap.

  “Twenty-four hours? What did you do to get so tired?” Kitty followed her into the kitchen.

  “Honey, your sister is right. It’s not normal to sleep that much. Do you have any other symptoms?” Her mother followed on Kitty’s heels. “Chills perhaps?”

  “Can we go back to that part where I’m right? I’d like to commemorate it for posterity.” Kitty sat down at the table and picked up the bottle of Bailey’s sitting there. “Let me guess, this is the first one. It’s only two-thirds empty.”

  “I don’t have chills. I was just really tired. The festival planning has been very stressful this year without Beth to help and then Mr. McMannus having a heart attack.” And Johnny coming home because of it. Elaine filled the glass again and sat down across the table from Kitty.

  “Speaking of whom, you’ll never guess what I heard yesterday.” Her mother took the chair between them. Kitty rolled her eyes at Elaine. “I was having lunch with Lou from the recovery unit and he said he got a call from Johnny McMannus.”

  The glass slipped out of Elaine’s fingers, spilling water down the quilt and bouncing on the floor.

  “Good heavens, Elaine. What happened? Have you been doing that a lot? It could be a sign of a neurological problem.”

  “Why did Johnny call the recovery unit?”

  Her mother stood up. “I want to get you in to the emergency room. This could be serious.”

  Elaine planted her feet on the floor. “Why did Johnny call the recovery unit?”

  “Elaine, don’t argue with me. We’re taking you to the hospital.” Her mother grabbed her arm. For a sixty-year-old woman, she had the strength of a bear, but Elaine had gravity on her side.

  “Answer the question.”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake. If I answer, will you go?”

  Elaine weighed her options. Her mother had always been a big fan of medical intervention, even before she got her nursing degree a year ago. Now she had not only motherly impulse behind her, but professional experience as well. Nothing short of time travel was going to help Elaine, but a CT scan would satisfy her mother. She glanced across the table and found her sister was wearing a disturbing expre
ssion as well. Kitty had narrowed her eyes and raised one eyebrow. Her sister was registering something beyond the end of her own nose. This would end badly. “Fine. I’ll go to the ER if you tell me why Johnny McMannus called the recovery unit.”

  “He called to find out what he had to do to get his mother in. Happy?”

  “His mother?”

  Elaine’s mother threw up her hands. “I don’t know. Maybe he’s just realized she’s an alcoholic. It doesn’t matter. Lou told him she had to be willing, and if she wasn’t, recovery wouldn’t work. Now, I’m going to start the car. You change clothes and chop-chop.” She walked out.

  “Johnny?” Kitty asked.

  “Yes, Johnny McMannus. I was friends with his sister for years, you know.” Elaine stood up and shook off the quilt. She was still wearing yesterday’s clothes. If she changed, Kitty would have more time to interrogate her. These clothes would do.

  “Just ‘Johnny’?”

  “Leave it alone, Kitty,” Elaine snarled. “It’s nothing. A slip of the tongue. Can we go?”

  Kitty tapped her manicured nails on the table one last time before standing up. “All right, but this isn’t done.”

  “When is anything ever done with you?” Elaine stomped through the living room. “I’m still fighting the same battles with you that I was when we were kids.”

  Chapter 7

  “What are you doing?” Sue demanded.

  “Admiring the basement floor, what does it look like I’m doing?” Johnny sat back on his heels and stretched. After spending most of yesterday trying to get his mother into rehab, he’d decided to tackle home and garage repair today. Will and Dale, Dad’s dour mechanics, had been enthusiastic about the idea of straightening things up. It wasn’t just the subs Johnny bought for lunch from Sinkers next door to the garage either. They finished that day’s scheduled work in half the time so they could start the cleanup. Then they had to flip a coin to see who had to stop working on the parts room to work on Jade Kimball’s Crossfire while she leaned on it looking perturbed that any man would choose cleaning over her. She would never understand that she wouldn’t be a draw for either Will or Dale. They viewed her as inaccessible as Farrah Fawcett on the ancient poster still hanging on the back of the storage closet door. Johnny ended up doing the repair himself while Jade leaned over his shoulder trying to seduce him and telling him what a wonderful manicurist his sister was.