Ding!
The food held up under inspection and she sat down on the couch to eat it. Of course this meal didn’t compare to creamed oysters, but that was no surprise.
Del was right, she thought, chewing gingerly and sliding an old movie into the VCR. She must have somebody. The reason why she wasn’t there on Saturday could easily be that she was with someone else, somewhere else…
Lydia ruminated slowly.
It was a bit tough and hard to swallow.
And the movie was stupid and the food sucked.
And the bed was uncomfortable and the sheets scratched.
And she hated not knowing what to think anymore.
_____
The week closed high at Soloman-Schmitt. Hopes of a merger. Hopes. Rumors. Fears. And lots and lots of speculation.
Whatever it takes sometimes.
_____
She missed her.
It was proving chancy lately, counting on Frank’s for glimpses of the blond. She wasn’t there Friday night nor the subsequent Saturday for lunch and Lydia found that the vacuum created by her absence could not be filled with anything else, no matter how exciting it was to see the progress in the apartment, with all the raw wood seeping through it, filling the place like the rising tide, no matter how busy she kept herself so that her mind wouldn’t wander after the woman.
There was no substitute for her Saturday ritual and she could not go home yet. That’s what she was inclined to do when she felt like this, lock herself in. Soon, she said, trying to reassure herself. Soon she could move back into her penthouse. Soon the woman would return and this time she would speak to her.
Reconstruction was taking longer than projected, however, and Lydia was advised by the foreman that the crew would require another week past the original deadline and that he was terribly sorry for the inconvenience.
This did not help matters any, but it didn’t stress Delilah, either, who insisted that she was not put out by the delay and rather enjoyed having a roommate. It made her feel so young, she claimed.
That being the case, Lydia affected the most cheerful impersonation of herself as possible for Delilah, it being successful enough to prevent any skillful probing, but a far cry from an actual cure for what she was coming down with.
_____
She made it to Friday, but the blond was still missing from Frank’s Place. Saturday, the same. No more speculation now, she knew without a doubt that she was in love with her because without a doubt she was heartsick.
All throughout the following week a great black shadow hung over Lydia and by that Friday there remained no activity left which could promise any comfort or relief from it. The inexplicable disappearance was worse than anything Joe had put her through. It was almost impossible not to scream out loud.
Moreover, she could tell that Delilah suspected her again and was once more growing concerned about her mood. There must be something I can do to get over this, she told herself. Something to alleviate the angst. But she couldn’t even bring herself to imagine what it could be.
Twice she approached the waiter, tongue-tied but nevertheless prepared to ask about the woman. Both times she lost her confidence and bailed out without a word, cursing her cowardice all through the subsequent sleepless nights.
She–whoever she was–was gone. And Lydia Beaumont–whoever she was–had been all wrong in judging the matter. She was wrong to have underestimated her feelings, wrong to try to wait out the attraction like it was an affliction she expected to recover from, wrong to hope it would eventually disappear without leaving a mark. There was a disappearance all right. She just hadn’t contemplated this kind of vanishing.
As it was impossible in such closed quarters to escape from her friend’s oversight, Lydia seriously considered going to a hotel, but in the end was paralyzed by the idea of offending Delilah. And although the work was finally coming to completion there, she additionally berated herself for having disrupted her life by throwing herself out of her own apartment.
This negativity was at last fully palpable. Lydia Beaumont was not herself again and Delilah knew why.
She had seen the abandoned window seat the last few Fridays and the pall it had cast over Lydia. You didn’t have to be a psychotherapist to decipher the meaning of that.
It was eccentric, not something Delilah would have thought she was capable of, but her tastes in lovers had always bordered on the exotic and she was not impetuous, certainly never fickle. There was, very likely, no way of undoing this.
She pondered the matter in silence as she observed the suffering.
_____
So close on the heels of a broken heart, the last thing her friend needed was a full-blown case of love sickness, yet there it was, as plain as the olive in the martini she was having with Lydia at Frank’s Place Friday night. The woman at the window seat still unaccounted for and clearly not forgotten.
Delilah watched Lydia going through the motions and letting workplace neophytes rub at her elbows. She watched her harpooning the olive in her drink, playing catch-and-release with it until it was finally mutilated, and then ordering another one, abandoning the first drink, otherwise untouched. She saw her clamp her teeth when she smiled, talking through them as if they had been wired shut. After about an hour of this performance she grabbed her by the arm and led her outside.
“Let’s go home, Dame Beaumont.”
They walked a few blocks without speaking.
“I’m sure she’s on vacation, that’s all,” Delilah stated.
Lydia disposed of it with a silent shrug and continued counting the cracks in the sidewalks, thinking of the spring and what on earth had taken it so long. It was nice to not have to walk home alone, she thought, and she shot Delilah a thankful glance, but declined to comment on her remark.
“When I was a little girl–”
“I am not a little girl, Del.”
“I know you’re not—let’s stop in here for some ice cream—you’re a woman in love.”
She was taken aback. “I don’t want any–how do you know?”
“Because I’m not a little girl, either. Who doesn’t want ice cream after a martini?” she asked, gently pushing Lydia inside the deli door.
Delilah decided the flavor and they went home to eat it.
“I can’t eat. What did you mean, Del? Who goes on vacation now?”
“Yum–oh, you’re depriving yourself here–she’s obviously on vacation.”
“Go on, you have it.” She watched Delilah wolf the ice cream.
“Vacation, Liddy. I’m sure of it.”
Lydia weighed the possibility. It didn’t make sense to her.
“That never occurred to you, did it, Liddy?”
(NO.) “What am I going to do, Del?”
“Last bite?”
Lydia shook her head no.
“You need a plan.”
“Plan? How do you plan for this?”
Delilah laughed. “Tell me all that you’ve done about it.”
“Nothing,” Lydia admitted.
Delilah threw the empty container and the spoon into her sink. “Oh, really? That much?”
_____
At first, though she had no idea how she got there, it was quite pleasant. It was nice to be alone with just the gentle slapping of the waves against the little boat. Nice, the butterflies in her stomach as she lifted and fell with each wave, the fluttering sound of the solitary sail in the gentle sea breeze.
And it was so sunny.
But then the wind suddenly picked up and the ocean swelled around her. There were huge waves now rocking the boat, each time lifting it a little higher, each wave bringing her closer to the darkened sky and depositing her harder against the water.
The butterflies gave way to sea sickness. The boat jerked from side to side, rising and falling, groaning and listing. She saw the mast nearly touching the surface, felt the craft threatening to capsize. And from under the hull, there came a thud. Once. Twice. At th
e sides and then below her again. She could hear it through the wind and waves whipping at her, stinging her face and body. She flipped over. There it was behind her.
Something was in the water, bashing against her boat, trying to see what the craft was made of, testing its worthiness.
Something big.
The waves crashed violently over the deck. She was tossed to the back and clung to the edge there, face up and drenched. The boat was filling. Over her head the wind tore at the remnants of her sail. She heard the crack of the mast and the rigging as it ripped free and the persistent thud, thud, thud of the thing, something that was circling her beneath the water.
Lydia was damp and inextricably bound up in her bed sheets when she awoke from her nightmare. It was still dark and she was not sure of the date or even what time it was.
But it was five o’clock on a Saturday morning.
And everything was fine.
Just a dream.
_____
It was a morning opulent enough to rouse even the summer gods from hibernation and they woke on such a day no different than the mortals under their dominion, ambitious and edgy, eager to exercise their authority.
They stirred and stretched their powerful arms, reaching far into the brilliant sky around them. They squinted at their clocks, grinned and reset them, time arbitrarily altered just for fun.
Just for fun they tickled the universe in all its sensitive places and made it laugh again. Below them, they lengthened the day.
If humanity suddenly lurched at the whim of these capricious fingers, if its endeavors now moved only in fits and starts, if all its boats rocked free from their moorings, it was just business as usual returning, the industry of fair weather gods determined to rule their kingdom and to test their subjects’ mettle. They were going to have fun this year.
The cherry trees were summoned by winged messengers and together they blasted a bright pink alert across the city. Indoors the wallflowers glowed and houseplants bloomed, bursting forth like popcorn. They stretched longingly toward their windows. The high and low places admitted the sun and displayed their finest linens. Decorated tables were sent outdoors and stood at attention on the sidewalks. Silver and gold settings relinquished their tarnish and gleamed on their own accord.
And at Frank’s Place the waiter opened the patio.
Lydia Beaumont languished out there Saturday with zero expectations of the hot new spring. Still, she appreciated the sunshine. It was warm on her skin, stimulating to her blood, its heat long awaited. She basked in it, listening without too much resentment to the birds singing their I love you’s. She even watched them up in their branches as they flirted and played tag.
Beside her table, on the sidewalk, flowed a multitude of fellow sun worshippers, bedecked, as she was, in their pre-summer best. She admired their flowers, their stripes, all the seersucker suits marching or meandering to similar churches like Frank’s or wandering aimlessly, just to show off. She searched their ranks without meaning to, a habit by now. Searching for her favorite blond.
She found her, too, her body reacting first to her discovery, the heart leaping in her chest, the knees going weak with adrenaline, the arms wanting to lift up in the air, to hail the woman or hold her or both, the cords in the neck tense with a restrained yell, a whoop of joy trapped in there. She watched the woman nearing, those green eyes hidden behind sunglasses, her own eyes glistening, dewy with desire, the object of complete desire appearing in the flesh now, in full focus, her image once more in alignment with the one held so long in her mind’s eye, emblazoned there. She processed the woman anew, her synapses fantastically tripping with information, her brain’s search engine declaring a perfect match.
The blond left the parade and selected the table adjacent to hers.
The waiter came out to greet her and she smiled wearily as he held her chair. He lifted the umbrella and she removed her glasses holding Lydia’s gaze longer than usual.
Delilah was mistaken. The woman had not been on vacation, that was clear. She was not rested. Her eyes, typically bright and dancing, didn’t have an ounce of joy in them today. Indeed, to Lydia, it looked as if she may have spent a good deal of the past month or so staying up late, crying. She waved with her book and whispered a soft hello. Lydia mouthed it back to her, her body leaning forward in a subconscious display of sympathy. The woman smiled then, laying her book on the table, her glasses on top of it. Something’s on the tip of her tongue, Lydia thought. So say it.
The waiter reappeared with his menus and he read off the luncheon specials while the woman listened distracted. He seemed uneasy today as did the blond, Lydia observed. She threw around some scenarios in her mind trying to determine which one she could use to get herself at that table.
Behind her a commotion sounded in the street, squealing tires and honking horns. She turned as did the other patrons to see what was going on.
A yellow sports car screeched up to the curb alongside the patio. It idled a minute in its own exhaust and then finally emitted a long-legged beauty from the passenger side who nonchalantly hung over the open car window as she laughed and chatted with the driver. After a few moments, she stepped away from it, turned and began cutting a path through the tables of curious spectators on the patio. The car exited the same way it arrived.
She didn’t need such a grand entrance. She was tall and commanding with exotic good looks, the type of girl they wrote songs about, that got attention even in crowds. Used to being stared at, she was dressed perfectly for it, so that you knew in an instant that her body was as flawless as her twenty-something face.
She was quite the girl, walking in a gliding manner as if her feet didn’t actually touch the ground, floating as if she had wings. As she neared her table, Lydia thought she could detect a slight snarl in the girl’s smile. It was, she noted, possibly the only defect in all that astonishing perfection.
“Helaine.”
And a songster sang, Oh, that shark has…pearly teeth, dear…
Helaine? Out of the corner of her eye, Lydia saw the blond stiffen.
“Helaine,” the girl cooed in a spoiled voice, stopping at the table next to Lydia’s, bending to whisper in the tired blond’s ear, her lips parting into a seductive smile for her audience…and she shows them pearly white…for “Helaine.”
Daughter, Lydia hoped. Perhaps just her daughter?
The blond–Helaine–attempted a smile for the girl, failed.
Daughter, niece, sister, whatever, no. No resemblance. Girl too old. Blond too young, too nervous.
LOVER. Lydia leaned back in her chair and took them both in, sighing sadly at the picture they made.
Lovers. Obviously lovers. She now knew too much about the pretty blond in Frank’s Place. Helaine, she repeated inaudibly. It rolled beautifully off the tongue. Helaine, a woman named Helaine, not reading anymore but listening and looking for all the world as if she was being eaten alive. And not fleeing, as Delilah had suggested, but probably waiting the whole time. A beautiful lover, it all made sense. Alone and waiting for her lover, a pretty dangerous looking thing, but young and beautiful nonetheless. Well, why not?
Helaine, Helaine, Helaine. Helaine so-and-so. That rhymes with Joe, Lydia said, kicking herself. What a beautiful name. A beautiful name for a beautiful woman. And, if at all possible, the beautiful woman had become even more pale than when she first arrived. She put her sunglasses on again, grabbed her purse and glanced briefly in Lydia’s direction before allowing herself to be lifted from her chair and escorted to the sidewalk.
Let it be, Lydia told herself as she watched the girl claiming her prize, wrapping her arms around the pale woman’s waist, guiding her onto the sidewalk, taking her away, the blond slowly fading from view, never looking to her left or right, not once looking back.
Lovers. The couple stood across the street now, looking like day and night.
Worth waiting for, Lydia forced herself to admit. A perfect ten.
They stood
now on the opposite side of the street, waiting. The girl raised a magnificent arm above her head, a cab pulled over, they were gone.
You know when that shark bites…gone…with those teeth there…probably for good, Lydia realized…there’s never…never a trace of…gone for good.
For good, she murmured, wishing the stupid song would end. What’s so good about it? She followed the cab with her eyes until it was swallowed by traffic.
The waiter–where the hell was the waiter?
The waiter had been missing in action and suddenly appeared stone-faced at the abandoned table. He dropped the umbrella and tucked a forsaken book and menu under his arm. Lydia lifted her hand to get his attention and, neglecting to smile, he acknowledged her, approaching her slowly, as if carrying ten trays.
She nodded quizzically at the book.
“Burns,” he said in a flat tone.
“Burns?”
“The poet.”
Burns. She smiled bitterly. Yeah, it sure did.
_____
The week dragged her unwillingly along with it and Lydia was relieved Wednesday morning to get the good news that her parquet floors were finally done and ready to walk on. She had not shared her weekend revelations with Delilah and it suddenly seemed she could avoid it altogether, if she could just keep up appearances for a few more hours.
That same afternoon she got word from her antique dealer that the sofa she had been eagerly waiting for would be delivered this week.
The sweet old sofa. That was welcome news, too. Now she could throw herself down in it and cry.
She had been charmed on the spot by it, lying in it while the dealer went on and on about value and importance. Value, fine. But she was more attracted to its worn finish, its threadbare arms and comfortably depressed pillows. There were ancient stains joyously scattered among its fauna and flora that whispered of good wine and fine food and it made the cheerful piece seem alive to her, that if she poked gently into its soft recesses she could get it to giggle and gossip.
The Secret Keeping Page 6