The Language of Secrets

by Dianne Dixon

  Justin had no idea what Zack expected, or what he thought. Zack was foreign territory. He was a baby, and Justin didn’t feel completely at ease in the wordless, unknowable world of babies. But Zack was also his son. The simple act of looking at him—seeing the sleepy brown eyes and honey-blond hair that were so like Amy’s, watching the dimple appear in Zack’s cheek when he laughed, the dimple that was so like his own—produced a rush of love and protectiveness more powerful than any emotion Justin had ever experienced.

  Zack let the last of the rose petals drop from his hand. He rested himself against Justin’s leg and yawned. Justin picked him up. He lay back, closed his eyes, and allowed Zack’s warm, dense baby weight to settle against his chest; as he did, Justin knew that he would, without question, give his life for this little boy—and that he would, without hesitation, take the life of anyone who dared to harm him.

  The tenderness of this moment was the only thing Justin wanted to think about, the only thing that he was allowing himself to think about.

  *

  “Did you find everything you were looking for?” The remark was addressed to Justin, but the clerk’s gaze was fixed on something at the far end of the store. Justin tossed his American Express card onto the counter, letting it land beside two bottles of wine that were already there.

  The nap he’d taken with Zack had used up most of the afternoon, and now he was running late. He glanced impatiently in the direction of the clerk’s mesmerized stare.

  A girl was standing at the magazine rack. Her face was hidden by a fall of auburn hair, but her crop-topped, miniskirted outfit left the rest of her on grand display. She was beautiful, and the sight of a beautiful woman always brought a rush of pleasure to Justin, an instinctive spark of joy similar to the feeling he got from seeing a mint-condition muscle car or a perfectly hit baseball. These were the places where, for Justin, art and grace could be found.

  The second or two he spent looking at the girl were seconds in which he briefly forgot the fog that surrounded his life.

  The clerk was ringing up the two bottles of wine: “Wow. DuMOL. That’s a seriously outstanding chardonnay.”

  “My in-laws are coming to dinner,” Justin said.

  “You guys must really be into the good stuff.” The clerk handed Justin a receipt and carefully slipped the two bottles into a bag.

  “I’m into good, my father-in-law is into expensive. This gives us both what we like.” Justin picked up his wine and headed for the door. The clerk went back to gazing at the girl with the auburn hair.

  As Justin was leaving the store, he almost collided with a man and woman who were coming in.

  The man did a double take. His face lit up with a grin. “Justin Fisher. My God, what are the chances of coming to the States for a holiday and running into you?” He spoke with a crisp British accent. “How are you enjoying being back in your homeland, m’boy?”

  Justin had not a clue as to the man’s identity, and it frustrated him. For as long as he could remember, he had been plagued by the inability to recognize people’s faces. He was often in the awkward position of talking to someone, of having to feign a cheerful familiarity, while he was desperately trying to figure out who the person was. The blankness was so complete that Justin could spend hours with people in business meetings and then, when he met those same individuals on the street a few days later, they’d be complete strangers to him.

  “Darling, this is the great Justin Fisher.” The man smiled at his companion, then looked back at Justin. “This is my wife, Fiona. I’m not certain, did you two ever meet?” In the split second Justin took in deciding how to respond, the woman came to his rescue. “No,” she said. “Actually we never did. But Trevor often speaks of you, Justin. He so enjoyed it when you lot would have your afterwork get-togethers in Cadogan Square.”

  Justin laughed. Not with amusement, but with relief. He now knew who the man was. He had been the manager of the hotel across the street from Justin’s in London. “Great to see you, Trevor. Next time I’m in the UK, we’ll have to get together. Sorry I can’t stay and talk, my wife and I have a dinner party tonight and I was supposed to be home helping in the kitchen ten minutes ago.” He shook the man’s hand, gave the woman a quick kiss on the cheek, and was already sprinting toward his car as he said: “Wonderful to have finally met you, Fiona.”

  When he was safely inside the car, it took him a few minutes to calm down. The encounter with the Brits had rattled him. In light of the strange events set in motion by his visit to the house on Lima Street, Justin’s visual amnesia and the odd blank place it occupied in his mind suddenly felt diabolical—like brushing against the rot of insanity, or evil.

  *

  “So, Mom, are you raking in the cash?” Amy poured the last of the chardonnay into her mother’s glass.

  “By the carload, honey. By the carload.” Linda’s laugh was full and hearty, the product of a voice that had years ago been burred by whiskey and sanded with cigarettes. Justin was sitting across the candlelit table from Linda, thinking about how much she and Amy resembled each other. They had the same expressive brown eyes, the same effortless grace. Looking at Linda, Justin could see how lovely his wife would be in middle age. Amy glanced up and caught Justin studying her. She winked at him before turning her attention back to her mother.

  “Judge Atwater,” Linda was saying, “you remember him, Amy darling. Always used to come to parties and stay way too late. He had that toothy wife who was supposed to be related to the Kennedys.”

  Amy’s father interrupted the story with a boisterous laugh. “Good thing the old guy’s got a checkbook as big as his prostate. Your mother relieved him of a million two this afternoon. To underwrite some community center for ghetto kids.”

  “Daddy.” Amy gave her father a quick frown. “Nobody says ghetto anymore.”

  Her father looked at her over the rim of his wineglass, baiting her a little. “So what am I supposed to call the poor bastards?”

  “Underprivileged.”

  “Baby girl, get up in the morning and call the boil on your backside a beauty mark all you want, but come the end of the day, you’re still stuck with the same festering bag of pus you started with.”

  “Oh Don, for goodness’ sake.” Linda threw her napkin at him. “Dial it down. We’re trying to have a civilized conversation here.”

  Don lobbed the napkin back at his wife and turned to Amy. “Kiddo, you’re never going to solve the problems of the poor, the hungry, and the pissed-off with a dictionary. The only way those kind of problems get solved is with brains, with a core group of the poor and the pissed-off who give a shit, and with cash. That’s where your mother comes in.” Amy’s father sat back, smiling. “This girl of mine is the best thing that ever happened to charity in L.A.” Amy’s mother gave him a kiss that was as swift and sweet as one passing between a schoolgirl and her first love.

  Justin finished the last of his wine and glanced at his watch. He had never been at ease with Amy’s parents. They were a daunting combustible mix of big money, high visibility, and vaguely undignified beginnings. Linda had once been a Vegas showgirl. Don had traces of South Philly in his speech and the swaggering body language of a gangster.

  Don liked to brag about how he’d gone backstage at the Tropicana and introduced himself to Linda by presenting her with a marriage proposal and the keys to a new Corvette; and Linda liked to tell the story of how she had accepted the keys, then told Don she had a date and that he’d have to wait for an answer to his proposal.

  They both reveled in telling the tale of their initial seventy-two hours together. At the end of those seventy-two hours, Linda said she’d learned all she needed to know about Don. That he was a concert promoter. That his last name was Heitmann. That he was funny, generous, a little crass, and a guy who wanted to see the world and succeed in the music business. Don always concluded their story by saying that on the seventy-third hour they got married, drove out of Vegas together, took on the worl
d, and then “goddamned conquered it.”

  It was Justin’s suspicion that Linda, over the years, had carefully refashioned the woman she once was: She had observed refinement and style in the people and places she’d encountered, and then applied them to herself in polished, tissue-thin layers. Now, aside from her lusty sense of humor, there was very little evidence of the showgirl that she had been. Linda was a smooth, seamless, self-made pearl.

  Justin moved his attention to Don. Don’s transformation had not been as complete as Linda’s. The international travel and the staggering amount of money he’d made had improved Don’s table manners and given him a more refined wardrobe. But in spite of those surface enhancements, he had never lost the menace—or the feral instincts—of a street punk.

  Don turned abruptly and fixed Justin with a quizzical look, as if he had somehow read Justin’s thoughts. The intensity of the look made Justin fumble his hold on his wineglass. Don laughed and said: “You’re a little jumpy, kid.”

  Then he got up and went to the alcove bar in the living room and cracked the seal on a bottle of expensive bourbon. His movements were aggressively proprietary: the deliberate opening of the sealed bottle, the careless tossing of ice cubes into a crystal tumbler, the overly generous pouring of the drink.

  All of it annoyed Justin, and he sensed that Don knew it and took pleasure in it.

  “Come outside, kid. Keep me company.” Don strolled out onto the patio without waiting for Justin to reply. Amy gave Justin a little shove as she and Linda began to gather up the dinner plates. “Go visit with Daddy. Please, sweetie. For me?”

  Justin shook his head. “Sorry. I’m not up to a one-on-one with your father tonight, Ames.”

  Amy’s wineglass was still on the table. She slid it toward Justin and whispered, “Just five minutes, please.” The glass was almost full. After Amy was gone, Justin drained it. Then he went outside and waited for his father-in-law’s opening gambit.

  Don was stretched out in one of the lounge chairs, sipping his drink. He was gazing at the night ocean, listening to the breaking waves. After a few minutes, he said: “So this weird crap with your family, it’s quite a story. Amy tells me you found out both your parents are dead … that you went to see one of your sisters and she freaked out … and that when you were scoping out your parents’ graves, you came across one for yourself. She also mentioned you’ve been moody and fucking hard to live with.”

  “I don’t know what else I can tell you, Don. That’s pretty much it.” Justin’s reply had a quiet “Don’t fuck with me” quality to it.

  “Yeah? Well, maybe that’s it and maybe it isn’t. Smells to me like you’re trying to cover something up.”

  Justin moved across the patio and angrily planted himself in Don’s line of sight. “You’re way off base.”

  Don shifted his gaze so that he was again looking toward the sea. He continued as if Justin hadn’t spoken. “If you are covering something up, I don’t give a crap. I don’t give a crap about your family, your past, or anything you did before you married my daughter.” His eyes were expressionless. His voice was low. “All I’m saying is there’s no need for fairy tales and bullshit. Whatever the truth is, fine, so be it. End of story. You got a good life going for yourself, kid. Don’t fuck it up.”

  “Thanks for the input, Don.” Justin started back toward the house. He knew that if he didn’t get some distance between himself and this arrogant asshole, he was going to hit him—hard enough to split his face open.

  Don sat up and turned toward Justin. “Listen to me, kid,” he said. “I’m trying to help you out. What I’m saying is, you’re back in L.A. It isn’t London or anyplace like it. In this town, who you are is who you are at this moment. Nobody gives a fuck about what anybody did in their past. As long as you’re good-looking, or you make movies, or you can throw a basketball, or you have a talk show, or even if you’re nothing but an ugly prick who’s just plain fucking rich, this town’ll roll over for you faster than a fat whore taking a slide on ice.”

  Justin grabbed the empty bourbon glass from Don’s hand and motioned toward the house. “It’s cold. Let’s go in.”

  Again, Don went on as if Justin hadn’t spoken. “I bought you this place as a wedding present so that when you and my daughter moved back to California you’d be set up with the right address. You both got looks. You both got style. You both got me and my money behind you every step of the way. And in this town, pal, life doesn’t get any better than that.”

  Before Justin could speak, Don waved him off. “I know. You have a good job and you’re on it with everything you got. You’re a good provider. All I’m saying is … as long as I’m around, you’re working with a net. No shame in that. The only thing a man has to be ashamed of is not doing what it takes to keep his family safe and happy. Nothing comes before that, nothing. So whatever you’re trying to hide with all the smoke and mirrors about sisters who don’t know who you are and headstones that say you’ve been dead for thirty years, forget about it. Shut it down. It’s history. And nobody in California gives a shit about history.”

  Justin knew it was true. He was in a place that didn’t care about things that were dead and buried. But he sensed that what had been unearthed by his return to California wasn’t dead, and that it wouldn’t allow itself to stay buried.

  Caroline

  822 LIMA STREET, FALL 1971

  *

  The screen door banged open and Caroline came running out of the house. “That was a married people’s kiss!” She was barefoot, dressed in a T-shirt and shorts.

  Robert was halfway across the wide porch and heading toward the steps. He wore a three-piece suit and had a garment bag in one hand and his briefcase in the other. “What?” He stopped and turned to look at her.

  “It was an eleven years in, romance at room temperature kind of thing. I’ve had mosquito bites take longer.” She went to him, pressed her lips against his, then slowly pulled away. His mouth tasted like coffee and toothpaste. “I hate it that we kiss like married people.” The October morning sun was warm on her body and a flutter of desire was making Caroline want to pull Robert back into the house.

  “But we are married people. I like being married people.” His kiss was quick, companionable. “The kitchen faucet’s leaking,” he said. “I’ll take care of it when I get back.”

  The flutter of desire faded, and Caroline turned her attention to cleaning up the drifts of sand that Lissa and Julie had brought back from the park across the street. They had used it to make a beach for their Barbie dolls.

  Robert was at the curb now, tossing his things into the trunk of the car. He waved to her. “I’ll call you from Fresno. Love you!”

  She returned a perfunctory wave. Irritation and disappointment were already filling the space desire had so unexpectedly opened and then abandoned. She moved the sole of her foot across the little beach her girls had made. Lissa and Julie were three and four, just a year apart, and when Caroline had been their age, she had loved playing in the sand. She’d gone to the beach every day. To a real ocean beach. A fabulous postcard coastline that glittered like a jewel, its air sharp with the smell of sea salt and warm tar and eucalyptus. The beach in Santa Barbara.

  Santa Barbara was where Caroline had met Robert. She’d been just seventeen, excited about her first day at college, and she had run into the path of an oncoming bicycle, Robert and Barton’s.

  Robert, a blond fraternity boy in surfer trunks and flip-flops, was steering; Barton was perched on the handlebars. Both of them fell as Robert swerved to avoid hitting Caroline. When they got to their feet, Robert was smiling. Barton was serious and self-conscious; blushing to the roots of his coppery hair; seeming too tall as he scrambled to pick up the books Caroline had dropped. When he handed them to her, he gave a quick bow of his head—shy and reverential—the gentle gesture of a gentle soul.

  It was Robert and Caroline who had become a couple. But it was Barton who had been the one to hold and cons
ole Caroline each time she and Robert swore they were breaking up. And it had been Barton to whom she had gone when she failed chemistry and when one of her roommates had died in a skiing accident and when, after weeks of waiting, Caroline’s period had failed to arrive and she’d begun to be sick to her stomach every morning.

  It was Barton that Caroline was thinking about now as she was sweeping the last of the sand from the front porch. A station wagon was passing the house; the female driver was dressed as a witch—a reminder that Halloween was tomorrow, and that Barton was leaving for New York on November 1. Caroline’s impulse was to go inside and call him, to say one final good-bye. But just then, Lissa and Julie burst out of the house, bristling with indignation.

  Julie was trying to wrestle a tiny Smurf doll away from Lissa. “Mommy,” she was saying. “We were going to play Smurfs and I choosed Smurfette first! Tell Lissa I get to be Smurfette.”

  Lissa threw herself at Caroline’s legs, clinging tight and insisting: “No. It’s my turn!”

  Caroline gathered her up and did a little waltz around the porch, tickling her cheeks with butterfly kisses. “I have a good idea … There are dozens of Smurfs. Why don’t you both be a Smurfette?”

  Julie shook her head and sighed, clearly exasperated by Caroline’s ignorance. “Mommy, that won’t work.”

  Lissa leaned close, her breath damp and warm on Caroline’s cheek. “In the Smurfs there’s only one girl.” She whispered this, as if trying to shield Caroline from embarrassment. Then her chin began to quiver and her eyes filled with tears. “And that’s no fair,” she said.

  Caroline breathed in her child’s sweet scent—baby shampoo and crayons and vanilla. “No, honey. It isn’t fair. It isn’t fair at all.”