Secret Lives

by Diane Chamberlain

  I nodded. It's the only class I go to because it's the only class I have with Kyle, the only one I can breathe in.

  “I guess I want you to be somebody you're not able to be. That's not fair of me. I'm sorry.” He moved closer to me then and lifted my hand. He pushed my shirt sleeve up to my elbow and turned my arm over so he could look at it. I looked myself. There must be twenty or thirty little marks, little double crescents from my nails, some of them just pink, some scabbed over with delicate little moon-shaped scabs. I felt like I'd never seen them before, there in the light. It shocked me and I tried to draw my arm away but Kyle held tight to my hand. Then he lowered his head to my arm and set his lips on it and it was a minute or two before he raised his head up. “You'll have to go back to Lynch Hollow, Kate. It was wrong for me to talk you into going to school. You knew what was best for you all along, and this isn't it.”

  “But I like learning,” I said. “I don't go to class, but I study the books anyway.”

  “When I get back to Lynch Hollow I'll teach you what I've learned.”

  “I want to stay here,” I said. “I'm fine in the room. And I can still work.” (That is not quite true. A few times lately I've had to leave work early, but I wasn't about to say that just then.)

  “I'm scared for you, Kate. I thought if I could get you away from home, get you around other people, you'd be all right.”

  “I am all right,” I said. I wanted him to stop talking so sadly, like I was dead.

  “It's been torture for you here.”

  “I'm fine in my room,” I said again.

  “All right,” he said. “Until the end of the semester.”

  I feel like the weight of the world's been lifted from me. I can stay in the room all I want, although I do have to work—I will have to force myself to do that—and in the summer Kyle and I can both return to Lynch Hollow. Next year he will leave again but we can cross that bridge later.

  May 10, 1946

  Kyle brought Julia home with him tonight. We usually study together in one of our rooms in the evening, him teaching me what he's learned that day, but tonight he poked his head in my door to say Julia was here and he would see me in the morning.

  He's been grumpy lately and yesterday he told me it was because he hasn't made love to anyone in so long. Hopefully he'll be in a better mood in the morning.

  May 21, 1946

  I cannot stand the nights Julia is here. She is a nice person and it doesn't bother me so much that she takes Kyle's time away from me because I am fine in my room studying by myself. But once I go to bed, I can hear them. Kyle's bed is directly on the other side of the wall from mine so I am just a few feet from them. They laugh, or talk quietly, though it's rare that I can make out their words. But it's the quiet moments that disturb me most, when I imagine they are kissing and touching each other, and there are times I can hear Kyle's bed rocking and I know he is inside her. I wonder what that feels like, being filled up by a man? I doubt I'll ever know.

  Most times, I am grateful for my good imagination. Stories pour out of it and it's like I can actually see everything that happens in them clear as day. But sometimes it's a curse. Like now, when Kyle is with Julia on the other side of my wall and I can see in my head his lips on hers, his hands on her breasts and between her legs. I know this will be one of those nights when I pull my blankets and pillow onto the floor and sleep there to try to still my thoughts.

  May 25, 1946

  Kyle is no longer seeing Julia. They had a fight and now he is grumpy again. Last night he was so rude while we were studying that I got mad at him. I told him that I'm grumpy too, that he's not the only person in the world who needs sex. I am reading Lady Chatterley's Lover and it is making me crazy. Kyle doesn't think much of Constance Chatterley. “She's a tramp,” he says. “She married that poor guy in the wheelchair in sickness and in health. She should learn to keep her skirt down.” I told him if she kept her skirt down it wouldn't make much of a book.

  Some nights I have to chase him out of my room early so I can go to bed and put out the fire by myself. He says I am in “critical need” of a boyfriend and he offered to find me one, saying it wouldn't be hard because I'm so beautiful. He actually said that!

  “I'll never have a lover,” I said. I am resigned to this.

  “You're only eighteen. I wouldn't approve of you having a lover now anyway.”

  “Julia was only eighteen,” I pointed out. “And Sara Jane was just seventeen.”

  “Yes,” he said, “but they weren't my sister.”

  May 29, 1946

  Yesterday we got an amazing surprise. When I got home from work, who should be sitting with Kyle on the front porch of our townhouse but Matt! I was overjoyed to see him and that shocked me because although I've missed him, I have certainly not been pining for him. He has not even been much in my thoughts. But when I saw him sitting there, grinning up a storm at me, my whole heart seemed to expand with happiness. I hugged him like I wanted to break him in two.

  He is out of school for the summer already, although Kyle and I have another week left. He's visiting Washington for a couple of days, staying at the very hotel where I work! We stayed up late last night talking and catching up on things. He looks wonderful and has had a few girlfriends this year but no one serious. Kyle says that Matt's still interested in me, so I guess I will have to make it clear once again that all I want is his very good friendship.

  May 30, 1946

  Matt just left and I'm trembling as I write this. We went out to dinner tonight, Kyle, a girl Kyle likes named Sally, Matt and I. It's rare for me to go out like that, but I felt safe with Kyle and Matt there, like old times. Afterwards we came back here and Kyle and Sally went in his room and Matt came in mine.

  We sat on my bed, talking about his school and his studies. He wants to work for a newspaper when he's done with school. We talked for an hour or so and then suddenly he said, “Kate, I want to kiss you, but you're the scariest girl in the world to kiss.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “The last time I tried you went running off on me.”

  I said he could kiss me, but that it wouldn't change things, that we had a friendship and that was all I wanted. It was a mistake to let him kiss me, I can see that now. But the truth is, I wanted to do it. I wanted to feel what it was like, and it was wonderful. Better than I ever imagined. I never knew how hooked together everything is in my body. When he kissed my lips, I felt it in my breasts and my stomach. He laid me down so my head was on my pillow and I just couldn't get enough of his lips and tongue. I knew I could make love with him and leave it at that, but he couldn't. He certainly would never settle for friendship after that.

  And then he asked if he could touch my breast. I said no and he said, “Just through your blouse. Let me just rest my hand on it.”

  My breast was begging me to let him touch it. “Just set your hand there,” I said. And at first that's all he did, but then he was kissing me again and his hand started playing with my breast, squeezing it, pulling at it, and I actually said for him to touch the other one too. He was groaning, and I might have been too. I never felt so on fire. Then he reached up my blouse and around back to undo my brassiere. My head was saying no and my body was saying yes. I wanted him to touch me everywhere, but if he did what would it mean? Something different to him than to me, I was sure of that.

  When he touched my naked breasts, I had a sudden crazy need to tell him I loved him. I managed to stop myself from saying it, but it was like I lost all sense of where I was and who I was. And then he said it. “I love you, Kate,” and it snapped me back. I sat up right quick and pulled my blouse down, feeling real embarrassed all of a sudden.

  Matt was breathing hard, still trying to kiss me and I held him away. “Oh, Kate, please.” He was practically whimpering. I could see the bulge in his trousers trying to break loose and I looked away from it.

  “Matt,” I said. “Next to Kyle you're my best friend. You know t
hat, don't you?”

  He said he did, and I went on to tell him how best friends don't make love, how that kind of closeness led to expectations and changed a relationship forever. I told him I hoped we already didn't do it damage that couldn't be undone.

  I went on that way for a while until finally he told me to shut up. That's just what he said. “Oh, Kate, shut up. I've heard this all before from you.”

  He was sulky for a while, but then we got back to talking and laughing and I think we'll be all right. He left around eleven and said he'd stop in tomorrow before he heads back home to Coolbrook.

  After he left and I thought over all that had happened I started getting really shaky. I cannot trust this body of mine. It has a mind all its own.

  June 4, 1946

  I am nearly packed for the trip back to Lynch Hollow, and I can hear Kyle next door opening and closing dresser drawers. I will be so glad to get home. I long to see my cavern again.

  There is a tense silence between Kyle and me tonight that I hope will pass with a good night's sleep. I know the cause. I was getting dressed for dinner this afternoon and I was late. I had put on my skirt but had nothing on up top and I was standing in front of my dresser mirror, brushing my hair. I was, to be truthful, admiring myself. My hair is full and sparkly from the damp air and my breasts are round and white. Suddenly, there was a knock on my door and I knew it was Kyle coming to get me for dinner. I don't know why I didn't answer him. I just kept still, knowing full well that he would open the door. He did and I stood frozen, facing the mirror with my back to the door, my brush in my hair. “Kate,” he began and then forgot the rest of whatever he was going to say as he saw my state of undress. I watched him in the mirror as he watched me in the mirror. Our eyes locked for the longest time, neither of us moving or speaking. Finally he took a step backward into the hall and closed my door quietly after him.

  He was already at the table when I came downstairs. Just a couple of other boarders are left now, and he spoke to them, not to me. We walked upstairs together after dinner and he said that I could have the larger suitcase if I liked, and that he had a box we could put our books in. His friend, Pete, can drive us to the train station tomorrow, he said, and he hoped they serve us hotcakes for our last breakfast here. He talked all around that moment in my bedroom, made circles around it with his words and never got close enough to touch it. I am not sure if he feels he is at fault for walking in on me or that I am at fault for not warning him. I am not sure if either of us is embarrassed. The only thing I am sure of is that if I could choose over again whether to answer his knock or not, I would not change a thing.

  –23–

  Eden spent the morning in her room. Twice she'd turned on the word processor and read what she'd written over the past few days, and twice she'd set her fingers on the keys, waiting for inspiration that never came. Three or four times she lay down on her bed and stared at the ceiling. Now she sat once again in the rocker, studying the picture of her mother. Katherine Swift, the public Katherine Swift, with her thick honey-colored braid and perfect white teeth, smiling broadly up at the camera from her seat in the pit. Eden had always taken this picture at face value, never wondering what lay hidden behind that smile. So much lay hidden. Too much. She felt overwhelmed at how to present it on the screen.

  Her mother had described her emotions far too well. As she read the journal earlier that morning, Eden felt herself inside Kate's skin, sometimes to the point that she had to set the journal down and stare out the window to break the mood. She'd pinched the inside of her own arm to see how much pressure it would take before she drew blood. She dug her nails into the skin until tears sprang to her eyes, but she had still barely left a mark.

  She started at a knock on her door. “It's one-fifteen, Eden,” Kyle said through the door. “Don't you want some lunch?”

  One-fifteen? She'd been brooding in her room half the day. She opened the door to face her uncle's furrowed brow. “Are you all right?” he asked.

  “Yes. I'll come down.”

  He walked ahead of her down the stairs. “Lou's out with a friend at one of the scenic overlooks. She goes there about once a week to paint. Not really her favorite subject matter, but she enjoys the company.” They'd reached the kitchen and he opened the refrigerator door. “I made some tuna salad. Can I get you a sandwich?”

  “I can take care of it, Kyle. Have you already eaten?”

  “Yes, but I'll sit with you.” He poured himself a glass of iced tea and proceeded to tell her about the woman Lou was out with. She was from Georgia, he said. She had three grandchildren and was a nut for African violets. The chatter was not at all like him. She sat and listened, picking at her sandwich.

  After a while he stopped talking to take a long drink from his tea. Then he looked across the table at her. “You're very quiet,” he said.

  “She needed psychiatric care, Kyle.” She hoped her tone didn't sound accusatory. She didn't mean it to be.

  He ran his finger down the long iced-tea glass. “Yes, she most definitely did. But it was 1946. Things weren't like they are today and—”

  “I know there was a stigma attached to seeing a psychiatrist back then, but God, Kyle, she really needed help.”

  “It wasn't the stigma that worried me. Kate didn't know it, but I talked to people about her. Stan Latterly, for one. Trying to get advice on what to do for her. Everyone thought there was a good chance they'd lock her up. I wasn't about to let that happen.”

  “Oh.” She hadn't thought of that. “You must have felt so helpless.”

  “Well.” He stroked his beard thoughtfully as though he hadn't considered that possibility before, “I guess that was part of how I felt.”

  Eden smiled at him. “You certainly had your share of women. I can see what Lou meant about you being randy.”

  Kyle laughed. “Tame me down a little in the film, okay?”

  She'd felt intrusive reading about Kyle and Julia, Kyle and Sally, Kate and Matt. Kate had left nothing to the imagination. But she was writing in a journal meant for her eyes alone. Of course she wouldn't censor what she had to say.

  “Her writing was so…graphic,” Eden said. “Maybe she never meant for anyone else to see it.”

  Kyle shook his head. “It would never occur to Kate to mince words, no matter who she thought might read them. And I know for a fact she wanted you to have the journal.”

  “Did she actually say that?”

  “Uh huh.”

  “At what point?”

  “You'll have to read on. I think she liked writing that way. Making it graphic, as you say.” He drew another stripe through the condensation on his glass, then looked up at her. “After she died, I went into the cave to take the journal out. I knew she kept it on the ledge above her desk. Well, way on the back of that ledge I found a stack of stories that were definitely not written for children.”

  “Pornography?”

  “That would depend on your definition of pornography. I wouldn't have called it that. They were similar to the journal in that they were written in the first person, but the writing was more elegant, like her stories. And they were pure fantasy.”

  “Maybe they weren't. Maybe she had a secret lover who crept into her cave when no one else was around.” Eden could already picture it on the screen—a dark, wolflike man stealing into the cave at dusk, finding himself in Katherine's willing arms.

  “I wish that had been the case,” Kyle said. “She deserved a little more pleasure than she got out of life.”

  “Do you still have the stories? They'd be worth a fortune now.

  “No. I read them through and then destroyed them. Burned them. Lou was appalled. She said they were works of art, some of Kate's best writing—I didn't even notice the writing. I was afraid they'd get into the wrong hands.”

  Eden nodded, thinking that Kyle had probably been right to destroy them. The wrong hands were everywhere.

  “When does Katherine finally make love to my fat
her?” she asked.

  Kyle laughed. “You have no patience at all.”

  “It's hard to work on the screenplay when I'm not exactly sure where I'm headed.”

  “That must be a challenge.” He obviously had no intention of helping her out.

  “I'm struck by how different she and I were at that age. All she wanted was to be able to stay at home, and all I wanted was to run away.”

  “Oh, I don't know. I think you were more alike than different,” Kyle said. “You were both just trying to find a way to feel safe.”

  He understood, and she felt forgiven. But he had no idea how much there was to forgive. She stood up and dumped the rest of her sandwich in the garbage. “I'd better get back to work.”

  She returned to her word processor, her thoughts in better order but a lingering uneasiness in the pit of her stomach. She and Kyle had not talked about that last entry in the notebook, his walking in on Kate. She had wanted to say something about it and perhaps he had as well, but neither of them had known what to ask, how to respond, and she wasn't sure if their silence on the topic gave it greater significance or none at all.

  –24–

  It was dusk when she curled up on the living room sofa to call Cassie, and for the first time Wayne answered.

  “It's Eden, Wayne.” She could hear laughter and a few childish screams in the background. Three little girls. She could imagine the giggling, the teasing, the hugging, that filled that house. “I just wanted to talk to Cassie,” she said.

  “How's the screenplay coming along?” Wayne asked.

  “Slowly, but I'm pleased with what I have so far. I still have a ton of research to do, though. How's Cassie?”

  “She's having the time of her life. Hold on, I'll get her. She's out in the pool.”