Stolen Secrets

by L. B. Schulman

  I wanted to see how Franklin D. was reacting to her sob story, but I didn’t dare take my eyes off Vickie’s face.

  “Anyway, I won a gift certificate to a restaurant through this radio contest,” she continued. “It’s a good place, right downtown, but definitely a steak and potatoes joint. I’m thinking about going vegetarian, so I thought you might want to have it. It’s worth a hundred dollars. You can have a good meal for that. Oh, and I hear it’s a nice place for couples.” She winked at me, which made me want to bend over the settee and throw up. “It has to be used this Tuesday, though.”

  “My shift starts at five,” I said.

  She shrugged. “It won’t kill me to work a few extra hours. You can owe me the time.”

  “Thanks,” Franklin D. said, his voice flat.

  Vicky pulled the certificate out of her purse. She handed it to Franklin D.

  “Yeah, thanks,” I repeated.

  “You’re welcome. I just hope you know that when your mother gets back on Friday, the three of us will make a great team for your grandmother.”

  When she left, Franklin D. switched off the monitor. “I think she’s been listening so she can catch you doing something irresponsible, like making out with me on your shift,” he whispered. “Then she can tell Mr. Laramie and get you out of the picture.”

  “If she’s out to get me, then why would she give us her gift certificate?”

  He grinned. “Who knows, but a free meal’s a free meal.”

  I smiled uneasily.

  “You know, I bet she’s worried about job stability with your mom coming back,” he mused. “You heard what she said about the three of you making a great team, right? She’s keeping her options open. If she can’t get rid of you, she wants to join you.”

  I rolled my eyes. Fat chance of that.

  I looked behind the porcelain cat again, verifying that the green light on the monitor was still off. “Could Vickie know about the diary pages we found?” I whispered. Between the reshelved books in the library and the hidden monitor, the possibility seemed more likely than ever. But it wasn’t as if she needed to send us away somewhere to look for the diary. I was at school eight hours a day. She had more than enough time to search the house.

  I was glad that Franklin D. and I had discussed the wildest part of the theory at the park, away from Vickie’s spy setup. Then again, I couldn’t be sure how long the baby monitor had been recording our conversations. Even if Vickie only had part of the story, the fallout if she blabbed would be major. If Oma really was Anne Frank, a lot of people could be furious that she didn’t come forward. Everything she’d sacrificed for the good of society might come back to haunt us. And what about the revisionists that Franklin D. had mentioned that first day in debate class? Would they claim that Anne Frank’s “lie” about her death proved that the Jews had also lied about the Holocaust?

  “Remember when I told Vickie that Oma had written the entries as a short story?”

  Franklin D. nodded. “You said you weren’t sure she bought it.”

  “Well, I’m thinking now would be a good time to reinforce it.”

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY-THREE

  AFTER A FEW WHISPERED REHEARSALS IN MY ROOM, we returned to the living room. Franklin D. switched the baby monitor back on.

  “Look what I found,” I began.

  “What?”

  “I told you those entries were fiction. Here’s a letter to Oma from some publisher.” I cleared my throat and read from the script we’d prepared. “Thank you for the short story you sent us about Anne Frank’s diary from Bergen-Belsen. Unfortunately, at this time, we are going to pass. Though the imagery and imagination of the piece are strong, we are hesitant to publish a fictional account of this well-known historic figure.”

  “What happened to that story? I thought it was pretty good,” Franklin D. said.

  “Oh, Elizabeth spilled milk all over it. I had to throw it away.”

  “Too bad. Oma was a decent writer.” He waited a second. “Hey, you got any food around here? It’s been at least an hour since I last ate.”

  I laughed. “Yeah, sure. Come on.”

  When we got to the kitchen, Vickie was typing on the laptop, the baby monitor on the ledge beside her. Franklin D. and I traded looks, then headed to the refrigerator for an afternoon snack.

  On Tuesday, I went directly from school to my room to avoid Vickie. I wanted to get ready for my dinner out with Franklin D., even though the reservation wasn’t until six thirty. I’d already looked at the menu online, and I had my order memorized.

  Appetizer: Pumpkin, Squash, and Apple Puree Soup

  Entrée: Grilled Salmon with Meyer Lemon Relish on a bed of Mashed Potatoes

  Dessert: Molten Chocolate Lava Cake

  At four, I put on makeup. I’d lightened up on it since coming to San Francisco. But tonight was special. Not because of who I was going with, I told myself, but because I hadn’t had a decent restaurant meal in months.

  With painstaking effort, I applied foundation, powder, and blush. Even brow-setting gel—I don’t know, in case a hurricane blew through town and tried to take my eyebrows with it. When I finished my second application of mascara, I looked in the mirror. Not bad. Except I still had an hour and a half until it was time to go. A little before five, I touched up my lipstick. As I reached into the front pocket of my backpack for passion fruit lip gloss, my hand brushed over the science test I’d gotten back today. I took it out and looked again at the large A+ and the WAY TO GO! that Mr. Karnofsky had written on the page. I started to put it back but changed my mind. It didn’t deserve to be buried in my three-inch binder. I propped it against my alarm clock where I could see it.

  A minute later, Franklin D. called. “I got us a cab since we’re living the high life tonight. But man, this driver dude drove like a maniac, and I’m outside your house already. Hey, did you get my text?”

  I glanced down at my phone. Sure enough there was his message that he might be getting here “a tad” early.

  “Any chance you’re ready to go, like, right now?” he asked.

  I glanced in the mirror. “Uh, yeah, just about.” I checked that my lipstick hadn’t smeared.

  “Ah, Livvy, you’re already beautiful. You don’t have to do anything.” He let out a sigh. “What was I thinking? You’re right. Girls have to do girly things. This is so not cool of me. I guess I’m just enthusiastic, that’s all.” He seemed sincerely apologetic, which was rather charming. “When you’re ready, we can go and wait for our reservation at the bar. We’ll order Shirley Temples, in honor of Oma.”

  I laughed. “Sure. I’ll be right out.”

  I straightened my dress and crammed my feet into my favorite pair of killer high heels. Then I slipped out the door, shutting it softly behind me.

  The hostess said she could seat us early, so we followed her to a private corner, carrying our Shirley Temples with us. A red candle glowed in the middle of our table beside a miniature glass vase with a pink-and-white striped rose, snipped below the bloom.

  “Wow, this is, uh …” Franklin D. struggled to find the word.

  “Nice?” I suggested.

  “Romantic,” he said.

  Oh. “It’s, um, pretty, too.”

  We stole peeks at each other as the waiter took our order. I couldn’t help but notice that Franklin D. looked handsome in a charcoal-gray jacket, a blue button-down shirt, and khakis. I checked out his shoes, expecting to see sneakers, but his dress shoes shone like black licorice. His unruly curls were tamed, framing his face. Funny that I’d never noticed his chin before. It was strong and square—the kind that’s called chiseled when you see it on a male model, which Franklin D. wasn’t. But he did have a masculine chin, I’d give him that.

  When the waiter brought our soups, we stared silently into our bowls. This place was way too romantic for comfort.

  After our entrées came, Franklin D. spun his fork in his pasta and offered me a bite. “Want some
?”

  “No, thanks.”

  We debated who had the best meal until the waiter asked if we wanted dessert. “Share?” Franklin D. asked me. “I’m too stuffed to eat one by myself.”

  “Can you divide a molten lava cake?” I asked the waiter. There was something too intimate about sharing a dessert plate.

  “I recommend an intact dessert,” the waiter said, looking mildly offended. “If we cut it, the chocolate will spill out.”

  “I feel a tickle in my throat,” I lied. “I should probably have my own.” The waiter nodded once and walked away.

  “I don’t want you to get sick because of me,” I added lamely.

  “No problem,” Franklin D. said.

  I opened my purse and took out Oma’s poem from the anthology, glad to have something to talk about other than us and this place where people came to propose or celebrate anniversaries.

  “Oma wrote this before she was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. It’s called ‘Anne Frank Kastanjeboom,’” I said. The poem had been one of the earliest clues about my grandmother’s identity, I now knew. I’d wanted to share it with Franklin D. before, but the moment hadn’t felt right until now. “Kastanjeboom means ‘chestnut tree’ in Dutch,” I explained.

  Franklin D. was watching me in a way that made my heart flutter like a moth against a window screen. I licked my lips, trying to focus on the page in my hand. “The tree helped Anne feel hopeful when she was in hiding. I mean, it made Oma feel hopeful.”

  The light from the candle flame climbed up the paper as I read aloud.

  “Stealthily, the blight moves in

  rotting the core

  from inside out

  The spine sways and saps the strength

  Leaves decay and

  drift down, to the ground

  one

  on

  top

  of the other

  in heaps, swallowed by the earth.

  Still it stands, this chestnut tree,

  reaching up

  with tired arms

  that creak at night,

  but it

  doesn’t

  give in

  Hope rests in its boughs.

  The boots of the storm

  march in, march out,

  rocking the tree

  to its roots.

  Kicking it when it’s down.

  It lies, a mound

  of crippled wood.”

  For the first time, the poem’s meaning, in all its shades, rose to the surface. There were still two stanzas to go. I took a breath, glad I didn’t have to hide my sadness from Franklin D. Tears rolled down his cheeks, too.

  “An evil wind

  that peels the bark, and

  shreds the clothes, and

  drives bare that which

  was beauty.

  Hope ends,

  a barren place,

  toppled down and left to memory

  like the others, that came before.”

  “The first time I saw this, I thought it was about a tree,” I said. “A tree that symbolized hope until it fell in a storm many years later. But it’s about so much more than that.”

  “It’s a metaphor for the people who were killed in the Holocaust,” Franklin D. said, so softly I almost couldn’t hear him. “It’s a beautiful poem. Beautiful and catastrophic.”

  I put it back in my purse and looked at him. Really looked at him. People looked different, depending on how you felt about them. For weeks, I’d been watching Franklin D. through a microscope, deconstructing his personality into categorical detail: nerd, goofball, Dungeons & Dragons type. But now, I zoomed out. I could see all of him. The complete deal. And the weird part was, Franklin D. wasn’t half bad. Actually he was kind of cute.

  I closed my eyes, feeling the heat of Franklin D.’s gaze on my lids. His fingers slid over my hand, and my eyes flew open. Friends didn’t think this way. Friends didn’t slide hands across the …

  My thought went unfinished because he leaned forward, mouth close. Then closer. Until he stopped and fastened his eyes on mine, seeking permission. I couldn’t look away. I couldn’t blink. All I could do was observe the green flecks shooting like rays from the center of his eyes. They were hazel, I realized. Not just brown. My heart was everywhere—in my chest, my throat, my ears, dulling the restaurant noise.

  And then my body grew tired of us researching the hell out of each other, measuring if the cliff was safe enough to dive. I reached behind his head, my fingers in his curls, and pulled him to me. His lips were soft and tentative at first, and then resolved. My mind shut down, lost in a moment that was so much more than I’d ever had before. Oh, God, I wanted to keep kissing him forever.

  Finally we pulled back to catch our breath. “Where did you learn to kiss like that?” I said.

  Franklin D.’s voice was a husky whisper. “Dora. Shakespeare Camp. She gave me lessons in exchange for the contraband Milky Ways I snuck in my duffel bag.”

  “Wow, that was …,” I started. “Wow.”

  “Yeah, it was a wow, all right. And stupendous. And fabulous. A prodigiously awesome moment in time that I want to repeat as soon as possible.”

  My mind emptied as I leaned forward again, our lips touching over the dancing candle flame. Whispers, like white noise, floated from the tables around us.

  Wait, what was I doing? My emotions, like waves on a beach, dragged me back into the room. Ripples, then bigger swells. Huge boulder-crashing breakers that knocked me off my feet. And then, suddenly, I was drowning. I pulled away, trying to suck in enough air to form words that could explain the panic roiling inside me.

  “I’m not sure we should complicate things,” I blurted out. My relationship with Sean had been simple. Straightforward and predictable—the way I liked it.

  Franklin D.’s face, ebullient seconds ago, seemed to cave in. Why was he looking at me that way?

  “But … don’t you want to be friends?” I said. “I mean, it’s not like you ever made a move on me before or anything.”

  Franklin D. looked stunned. “You insisted on that. I’ve liked you since the day I saw you, Liv. But you told me you had a boyfriend. Maybe I should apologize for losing my high ethical standards in the moment—” He paused. “But damn, I’m glad it happened.”

  Heat crept up my cheeks. I’d never bothered to clear up the miscommunication—well, lie—over the breakup text that day. “I’m not with Sean anymore,” I confessed. “I’m sorry I never said anything. It just kept me from thinking about you … you know, in that way.”

  “You lied to me?” He stabbed a fork into his molten lava cake, which had arrived without me noticing. The chocolate spread like a mudslide across his plate.

  I wanted to go home and dive under my pillow. “I’m sorry.”

  “I felt the world quake when I kissed you, Liv. Are you saying it was different for you?”

  I opened my mouth to speak, but nothing came out. I reached for my water glass and took a long sip.

  “You know what I think? I think you’re afraid,” Franklin D. said. “I think you’re terrified that someone will get to know you. Really get to know you. Because then you might have to feel for once in your life.”

  “What do you mean? I feel. I feel plenty! I feel like I … like I just want to be friends, okay?” My frenzied emotions settled to a simmer. I felt calm, in control again.

  Franklin D. balled up the napkin in his lap and tossed it on his plate. “Actually I just realized something. It’s not okay.”

  He stood up and I did the same, wobbling in my heels. He opened the bill, then dropped Vickie’s gift certificate onto the table. I watched helplessly as he pulled out his wallet and slapped another forty down. “That should cover gratuity, too.”

  My brain turned into a calculator, informing me that the tip was way too generous at 32 percent. At least I had the sense to let it rot in the graveyard of unspoken facts.

  We were in front of the restaurant when the waiter came
tearing out. “This certificate doesn’t work. My manager says it wasn’t issued by our establishment.” He looked at us the way I imagined security guards did when teenagers walk into Tiffany’s.

  I looked at Franklin D. and he looked at me. I turned to the waiter, blinking back tears so I could see him clearly. “I’m so sorry. Someone gave it to us, and—”

  Franklin D. peeled off some serious cash. “This should make up for the inconvenience.”

  The waiter counted the bills carefully, muttered, “Thank you, have a nice evening,” in a single breath, and went back inside.

  We stood in the misty rain as Franklin D., ever the gentleman, tried to hail a cab for us. I started to thank him, but he held up a finger, cutting me off. I mumbled something about taking the bus, which would save the added fare of two separate stops, and took off down the street. I flagged the Number 36, even though I didn’t know where it went. The stink of exhaust engulfed me as the bus pulled to the stop. I knew without looking that Franklin D. wouldn’t leave until I was safely on board.

  “Are you getting on?” the bus driver asked.

  I stood there, not answering. Faces peered out the bus windows.

  Franklin D. was right. I used facts to keep people away. They helped categorize life, to make sense of the world in a rational way. I used facts like my grandmother used lies. Our methods were different, but they had the same effect. Neither of us dug deeper, revealing what was inside of us. I didn’t want to end up alone, like her, because I hadn’t let anyone get to know the real me.

  Franklin D. wanted to know me, though.

  “I said, are you getting on this bus?” the driver asked again.

  I shook my head. The door swung shut.

  Sure enough, Franklin D. was still there. I limped back in my too-tight shoes.

  “I’m not Sean,” he said.

  “I know that.”

  “No, I mean, I’m nothing like him. I’m not cool. I’m not popular. I’m not especially hot to look at, or alluringly distant, or hard to get, or …”

  “How do you know all that about Sean?”

  He shrugged. “He’s the generic jerk that most girls fall for.”

  I smiled. At least I was over that stage.