The Secret Keeping

by Francine Saint Marie

  _____

  Another book signing, another lecture, another month. And then another. And another. There was every indication this was the rest of her life. That damn book! Someone wanted her to write a weekly column. She turned it down. She did not want to become a household word, her face in every kitchen like some popular detergent, making the whites whiter or the colors brighter, getting the spots out of all the glasses. She liked things as they were, somewhat confidential.

  The rest of her life. It could be spent just like this. Waiting for Sharon Chambers, leering after Lydia so and so, whoever she was. That could go on forever, she worried. Or perhaps in a year it would be someone else. Worse, she could take up the offers of ex-lovers. Go back in time instead of forward. Or hang in the now, in emotional limbo, until her friends desert her.

  The future. She wanted that to be a woman named Lydia, as unlikely as that seemed.

  Lydia. It had yet to set in with her tall-dark-handsome that the blue-eyed woman had thrown him off.

  Helaine watched smugly as he relentlessly tugged at her chain. She still wore it, of course, but she didn’t want to be taken prisoner by him anymore, watching as he flirted with her friends and took lesser women home, waiting until he got the idea to satisfy her. It was over before he knew it. He tugged at the chain in disbelief, pushed at all her buttons, but the woman no longer responded to him. He had lost her.

  Good for you, Helaine thought, watching the woman struggle with her broken heart. It probably didn’t feel like it to her, but that was the healthy thing to do. She shouldn’t begrudge him for the heartbreak, though. A broken heart can make a woman out of you. If you’re well meaning, it makes you a tender lover. If you’re not, like poor Sharon Chambers, it makes you hard and cruel.

  But it was a sorry thing to see nonetheless. It had taken some of the wind out of the queen’s sails. She sat cheerless with her friends or sometimes stared off into the distance. Helaine felt her eyes on her sometimes when she sat reading in the window seat. Just as Kay had said, she was staring at her, with eyes of a sleepwalker, roaming eyes, something undefined beneath all that preoccupation.

  Fleeting fantasies, Dr. Kristenson realized, humanity’s cheapest narcotic. Everyone fell victim to them at some point. Romeo had put the woman up on shelf and in her current state of mind she felt most comfortable there. She was keeping herself from him and a world of similar suspects. That was understandable. She mistrusted her desires now and in repressing them they bubbled up in unexpected places. If she had too much to drink, she dropped her guard and there they were popping up in a fantasy. It was, after all, the safest place to keep them at the moment. Safe excursions, mental joyrides. Helaine had no objection to being her vehicle. She let her look as long as she liked.

  _____

  Dr. Helaine Kristenson, not only watching but being watched, the sleepwalker from time to time searching her, undressing her with her eyes. Again and again she was stripped bare by her, until her conscience was hardwired for it, until she could feel it happening without even looking. She knew by the flustered expression that appeared on Lydia’s face whenever she looked at her that she was shocked by what she saw herself thinking, so Helaine feigned to be unaware. Yes, it was opportunistic, but she was not going to discourage it. She wanted to be accessible, to pull the woman under a spell as deep as the ocean, to be as warm and comforting as a favorite blanket.

  Witchcraft. Those fingers through the hair and subconscious come-hither stares. The young man had left a charm on Lydia. Dr. Kristenson bet the woman hadn’t expected that to happen, that he would leave a spell on her, make her wander restless, leave her heart swollen and ripe for the taking. If she would ever let herself be taken again. IF. But not by him, though. That was obvious.

  What an unlucky guy to be born such a fool! Helaine reveled in his misfortune.

  _____

  “Fatal exception? What’s that mean?”

  (Computer problems.)

  “That’s the third time this week. We should update this, Dr. Kristenson.”

  Four o’clock. Her secretary was hoping to leave early this Friday. She glanced at her watch.

  “Leave it until Monday, Jen.” Helaine was hoping, too.

  “It doesn’t seem to be having any negative affect,” Jenny offered as she put on her coat. “I’ll look at it Monday.” She was about to leave when the phone rang.

  Exceptions? Yes, Helaine was thinking, they could be fatal sometimes.

  “Good afternoon. Dr. Kristenson’s.” Jenny shot a look at the doctor. “One moment, please. I’m not sure if she’s still here…it’s a Sharon Eddlebaum?” she whispered.

  Sharon? “I’ll take it in the office. You can go, Jen.” She waited for the sound of a closing door. “Sharon?”

  “Is the doctor in?”

  “Is everything all right?” Gone four months and a phone call? Helaine had heard very little about Sharon’s forays this time.

  “Calling to see if you miss me, Helaine. So there.”

  Missed her? A little. She swiveled the chair around and lifted the blinds. Lydia. She spun back, put her elbows on the desk. “Of course. Where are you?”

  “LA. On contract. Trying to behave myself. How’s my favorite blond?”

  Helaine hesitated, fighting the urge to look over her shoulder.

  “That would be you, Helaine. I said how are you?”

  (How am I?) Helaine coughed. (Horny.) “What’s your itinerary, Sharon? When do you return?” she asked, casting a guilty look over her shoulder.

  “Don’t know yet. My agent and all. Busy, busy.”

  Helaine overheard voices in the background. “Working?”

  There was a brief pause. “Yeah.”

  A painfully dissatisfying conversation. She wished she would come out with it. A phone call. Was she trying to prove something?

  “You going to be home tonight?”

  (NO.) “What time?”

  “Late.”

  Late? Of course, where else? “I’ll be there.”

  “I’ll try to call then.”

  Try? How unnerving! Helaine’s hands trembled in acute rage.

  “Helaine?”

  “Okay.”

  “I’ve got to run, Dr. Kristenson.”

  “Where are you staying, Sharon? Don’t you have a number?”

  “I’m leaving here tomorrow night. I’ve got to go. Be home tonight, Helaine.”

  Be home? “Okay.” She loathed herself for agreeing to it. Where would she go anyway? She heard the click and a dial tone and slammed the receiver.

  Lydia, up on her throne. Helaine dropped the blinds again. It was becoming a ridiculous battle. Up and then down. Up. Down.

  She took a deep breath. Friday. Hungry. Thirsty. Etceteras.

  _____

  If she had to guess she’d say it was her smell she had fallen in love with. The inebriating bittersweet of her. On her skin. In her hair. Like the flowering plum trees of her childhood. Childhood in her mother’s garden. Before she was cast out of it.

  And it was the sound of the beautiful blond. The reckless surrender in her voice, the bedroom voice, her pretty moans, the helpless orgasms, the drawn out dying when she was made love to. The resurrection. It was easy to love Helaine Kristenson. She was a goddess.

  Snagging her was, as far as Sharon was concerned, her greatest conquest.

  But Helaine was different last time. Cool. She suspected her, though she hadn’t discovered a reason for it.

  She was not the type for affairs, Sharon knew, but still something had changed to make her doubt the woman. She couldn’t quite put her finger on it. Perhaps she had left her too long? That had been a long time.

  And of course the coverage. Endless. The blond was very sensitive to that. Some people were about such things. She was glad she wasn’t one of them.

  It was two in the morning, Helaine’s time. Sharon dialed her home. It rang once. Twice. Three times.

  Four? Five? Where was she? Six? Seven times
?

  “Hello?”

  A sleepy sexy voice. Sharon’s insides jumped. She listened quietly as Helaine repeated the greeting and then, without speaking a word herself, hung up.

  Good. Her lover was where she told her to be.

  _____

  Saturday. Half a day at the office. The damn computer. Something wasn’t working right. Helaine hoped that Jenny could fix it or the week ahead would be a mess. She attempted to shut it off. Another fatal exception. What exactly is a fatal exception?

  Maybe a fatal exception is what happened to spring this year, Helaine mused along the way to Frank’s Place for lunch. It certainly was negligent. Rain. Snow. Cold. Not a bloody sign of it. She stepped into the foyer and took her coat off.

  “Ah! Dr. Kristenson.”

  She smiled at the waiter, holding her finger to her lips.

  He read lips, she had learned from him. “Trust me,” he said.

  She did.

  “This weather–I’ve left something warm at your table.”

  “A body?” she teased.

  He laughed. “I’m sorry, no.” He pulled out the chair for her. “We’ll have to work on that.”

  She sipped the brandy he had set out for her and scanned the menu.

  He was taking her order when Lydia walked in. “Ooh,” he said to Helaine under his breath, “here’s your warm body.”

  Lydia. “You’re bad,” she scolded into the menu.

  “Let’s make her ladyship feel welcome then.” He tucked the menu under his arm and went to greet her.

  Helaine grabbed her book and pretended to be engrossed with it, sending the woman her most casual smile as the waiter escorted her to a table on the other side of the room.

  Oh, he was sharp. Son-of-a-gun, Helaine lipped in admiration. He grinned back, pleased with himself, his silver hair and spectacles gleaming with a fantastic light. She wondered how far he could go with this and sat back into her chair, watching from the corner of one eye as Lydia relaxed and sipped at a glass of red wine, compliments, no doubt, of the patient waiter.

  Lydia on a Saturday, hiding all the way across the room, against the wall. Helaine cursed herself for the cable knit and baggy woolen trousers. It was so cold though and she hadn’t expected her. She waited to see if it would make a difference.

  It did not.

  Why was she hiding in the shadows then? Why not say something to me for godsakes? She sighed inaudibly and stared out the window without changing her pose. Was it too late to stop this?

  Her food came, served with a wry smile which she ignored. A fabulous dish of seafood, she eyed it hungrily but barely touched it. Her stomach was over-stimulated and she felt strangely self-conscious bringing anything near her lips. She couldn’t trust herself to that sensation. She felt compelled instead to lie down and Frank’s was hardly the place for this. The waiter came back later and she asked him to wrap it up for her, putting her face into her book, back into chapter whatever. She must have read it fifteen times today, dumbly dragging her eyes over the words as if she were suddenly an idiot. What did she really know anyway?

  Stupid books. Case studies.

  _____

  Sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll, and a few under-aged prostitutes. Guess who’s in the thick of it?

  “Whoweee. Some people sure know how to live!”

  Helaine eavesdropped, cringing as a blond-haired woman explained it all to Lydia. The story was on everyone’s lips. Everywhere.

  “The super-model, Liddy. What planet are you from anyway?”

  “I wouldn’t know the woman if I fell over her, Del.”

  Helaine was glad to hear that. She sat back in her chair in relief. She was pressed for time tonight, a book signing and then later cocktails at the Keagans.

  Lydia’s table. They seemed to be moving in on Helaine lately. She bet that was no accident and searched the room for the waiter. He acknowledged her and started for her table.

  Lydia. Helaine saw her smile and drop her head. She was glad the woman had never heard of the Sharon Chambers. It reflected well on her. She wished she had never heard of her, either. She smiled demurely and looked away.

  _____

  Seven o’clock. Helaine paid the bill, collected her things, and made her way through the crowded bar. She was going to have to hear about Ms. Chambers all night, she was sure. The model and her colleagues had created quite a mess for themselves and, as for Sharon herself, she had outdone even her own reputation. It was time to make some long overdue decisions.

  _____

  Beep. “Helaine? Where are you? (impatient sigh) I’ll try back later.” Beep. “I’m coming back briefly. I’ve got to return in thirty days for–I’m sure you heard. Helaine? If you’re there pick up. (pause) Shit. Where the hell are you?” Beep. “I’ll be at the flat by Tuesday (noise in the background). Call me there.”

  Worrisome messages from Sharon. Helaine erased them and threw herself down on the couch. Sharon, it’s over. Sharon, I don’t want to see you anymore. Sharon, we need to break it off. Sharon, I can’t do this anymore. Sharon, I don’t love you anymore. Sharon, you’re on your own now. Sharon.

  The sleepwalker in Frank’s Place was emerging from her trance. Soon she would be wide awake. Helaine had worried that when Lydia did come to she might be horrified by how far she had strayed, but that did not seem to be the case. She blushed a lot about it, that’s all. At this point Helaine knew it was simply inexperience holding the woman back. And the lack of encouragement.

  Sharon Chambers loomed like a dark shadow over her happiness. Helaine realized that she had mismanaged the entire situation. Had underestimated everyone and everything in it. Especially herself.

  On the couch and off the couch again. Contemplating the future was proving to be strenuous exercise.

  Helaine paced from room to room. There was a mountain of duties she had shirked or set aside. Doing so had led to a complicated turning point, a turn which she was in danger of missing if she didn’t handle the moment right.

  She could seduce Lydia, that seemed possible now, but she didn’t want a backdoor affair with the woman.

  She very much doubted Lydia would tolerate being someone’s other woman in any event. Especially another woman’s other woman. No, not likely. Ugh! It was a complicated folly and Helaine didn’t relish having to explain it to anyone. Oh, good faith–one of her own tenets–it was a lot easier said than done!

  She lay on her bed in the darkened bedroom, listening to the horns and bells and yells of the world just outside her window. It was as if they had decided to throw a party and everyone was invited. She wanted to run outdoors and join them. Shout at the moon and count the stars in the sky. Fall down.

  Falling, just like children in the damp, night grass. Sixteen, she fell like this. Eighteen, she fell. Twenty.

  Thirty. Forty and falling. Falling in love to the ground, or in a back seat. She remembered the sensation, love with boys so young their bodies were still as smooth as girls. Girls. Pure love without hesitation, without a contract, rolling in love in the grass and all around her the starry skies of youth to hide and seek in. Joy without prescription, before her body hardened to the natural feel of it. Seventeen’s joy. Lifting herself up in the brand new night and day. And twenty-one again. Wandering in yesterday’s dawn, peering from it unafraid at green, cloudless horizons, the twists and folds of them looking just like unmade beds. Forty. A blue moon was recalling morning and playfully tugging at her night sheets. Forty. Her life lit up like a torch, burning the darkness away.

  We all fall down. Helaine Kristenson knew she had fallen like that again. She could smell the grass around her, feel the dew on it where she lay staring up at the moon. Forty and the moon was blue. She couldn’t change it back even if she wanted.

  It was necessary to face Sharon. She had to confront them both with reality. She would, of course, omit any mention of Lydia. There was no point in it. Lydia was exactly the type that Sharon Chambers would want to eat alive. That h
ad to be avoided at all costs. The tiger and the lady. Helaine smiled grimly at the prospect.

  Tuesday. That would be the day. She was resolved to it. She would never again have to see herself searching the waterfront. Never.

  She undressed and studied her body in the mirror. Not much had changed since she was last in love. She couldn’t remember when that was. The gods had treated her well in the meantime, she acknowledged gratefully. Her face? Well, it seemed to have gone a bit sallow. Some wrinkles. Tired eyes. The skin was no longer perfect. Perhaps Lydia hadn’t noticed these things. She stared apprehensively into the looking glass, straining to see what the blue eyes saw, no longer worrying about anything else.

  _____

  “We have to talk.”

  “It’s no big deal, Helaine. It’s not true anyway. I don’t do children.”

  “No, I really need to talk to you.”

  “Helaine, not now.”

  “When?”

  “I just got a message–I wasn’t supposed to leave jurisdiction. We can’t talk about this now. I’ve got to go back to LA.”

  “LA? When, Sharon?”

  “ASAP, they said. I’ve retained an attorney. Helaine…I don’t know when I’ll be back. My new agent quit.”

  “I’m too old for this.”

  “Helaine…”

  “Do you understand what I’m saying?”

  “Helaine, I know you’re upset…it’s a mess…I’ll talk with you when I get back.”

  “Sharon, it’s more than that. We need to talk now.”

  “More than what?”

  “I can’t do this anymore. I simply can’t. Do you know how old I am?”

  “How–No, actually I don’t.”

  “I just turned forty, Sharon. FORTY.”

  “Forty? Listen to me. I did not have sex with minors. I know how you are about tha–”

  “Listen to me. I don’t care anymore and I don’t want to hear about it. Not from you. Not from the press.