Secrets (10 page)

“Yes,” Jessica said, following him. She pointed to the round ivory device above the refrigerator, but didn’t mention it had gone off last night.

“By any chance did Ida have a safety check done on this place before you moved in?” Kyle asked. “I could do one for you real quick, if you don’t mind.”

How could she refuse a safety check?

Kyle began by looking under the sink and following the electrical plug in from the coffeemaker and toaster oven to the wall outlet. He effortlessly pulled out the refrigerator, checked behind it, rolled it back, and then opened the refrigerator door.

Jessica held her breath. Would he notice it was empty? Of course he would.

Kyle stood still a moment, the door open, studying the dial in the back of the cold box. “Everything looks good,” he said, closing the door but not asking why it was empty. “Nice and safe.”

That’s how Jessica was beginning to involuntarily feel around Kyle, nice and safe. But she couldn’t, she wouldn’t. She wasn’t supposed to meet someone like Kyle in Glenbrooke. Something drastic needed to be done, and it needed to be done
now
.

“Look, Kyle,” Jessica said, “I appreciate all the nice things you’ve done for me. Thank you. But you have to leave me
alone. I can’t have you waiting for me in my classroom or carrying my books home from school or checking my kitchen for fire hazards.” Her voice was rising to a near shouting level. “I’m sorry I have to say this to you, but please leave me alone.”

It took everything within her to hold back the tears. “I mean it. Leave me alone! Just leave me alone!” She was yelling now as she pointed to the door.

Kyle looked stunned. He stood his ground and said, “What is it, Jessica? What’s the problem?”

Jessica had to look away from him. The instant she did, the tears began to overflow and came crashing down her fiery red cheeks. Depleted of her burst of anger, Jessica spoke mechanically and repeated her request in a lower tone. “Just leave me alone.”

“Not until you tell me why.”

“I can’t.”

“Is it another guy? Financial problems? What is it, Jessica? I can help, if you’d let me.”

Jessica blinked hard and tried to find another compartment of anger inside herself from which to draw her response. “It’s none of your business,” she said levelly. “Leave me alone.”

She turned her back on Kyle and limped through the kitchen and out her back door so she could be the one to slam a door behind her. Collapsing into the chaise lounge, Jessica let the tears fall—tears for how she had just treated Kyle, tears for the pain creeping up her leg, tears for all the fears she was running away from.

The back door opened, and slow, deliberate footsteps approached her. Jessica refused to look at Kyle. She commanded her tears to halt, but they refused to obey. Kyle stopped behind her. She wouldn’t turn around.

“Jessica, let me tell you something about secrets.” His words were firm and delivered with what sounded like deep
rage. “The longer you carry them, the heavier they become.” With that, he turned and marched away. This time, it was Kyle’s turn to slam the door.

What is that supposed to mean? What does he know about my secrets?

Jessica rose and angrily walked to the front door. The minute she reached it, she could hear the engine of Kyle’s truck rumble to a roar and the tires squeal as they peeled away from the curb.

She stood there for a long time. Finally her throbbing leg persuaded her to climb the stairs and soak in a long, hot bath. While she sat in the tub, Jessica tried to convince herself she had done the right thing.

On Friday, she sat uncomfortably through the morning session of endless and, in her opinion, unnecessary meetings led by their commander in chief. Teri wisely didn’t bring up the subject of Kyle. The meetings ended at noon so there was no catered buffet. Jessica hoped the donut and orange juice she had gleaned from the snack table that morning would hold her through the rest of the day. She had finished the remainder of her sandwich, which she had smuggled into her purse at yesterday’s lunch, and she had nothing at home.

When the teachers were dismissed, Charlotte announced over the microphone, “I need to see Ms. Fenton immediately in my office.”

“Do you want me to go with you?” Teri asked. “I can come in looking for a requisition form or something.”

“No, Charlotte doesn’t scare me. Look, she’s up there talking to that P.E. coach again. I think I’ll go on over and be waiting for her in her office.”

“You do that,” Teri said. “Hey, are we still on for tonight? I have cheerleading practice with the girls until 5:30. I could come pick you up after that.”

“I didn’t know you were in charge of the cheerleaders.”

“Yeah, sort of a flashback to my old days at Kelley High School in Escondido. I was a cheerleader my senior year. I almost didn’t make it, but…” Teri and Jessica both noticed Charlotte leaving the podium and making her way out the front door toward her office. “Well, that’s a story for another day.”

“Go ahead and tell me now. Charlotte can wait.”

“No, it’s kind of a long story. I’ll pick you up after 5:30, okay?”

“Okay,” Jessica agreed. Teri went her way, leaving Jessica to make the journey to the office alone.

Charlotte wasn’t there when Jessica arrived so she went in, at the secretary’s recommendation, and took a seat facing the wide desk and full bookshelves. One of the books caught Jessica’s eye. She wanted a closer look. Checking over her shoulder to make sure Charlotte wasn’t about to walk through the open door, Jessica slid over to the bookshelf and pulled out the book.

It was old, like the antique books that filled her own shelf. Jessica carefully opened the book and read the copyright, “London, Chapman and Hall, 1872.” The binding on the book next to it read, “Essays, First Series, Emerson.” Jessica paused. It was a book of essays by Ralph Waldo Emerson, a book she would be thrilled to add to her collection. She carefully put the book back and scanned the spines of the others on the shelf. The collection was impressive, and it belonged to Charlotte Mendelson.

Jessica returned to her seat perplexed. She never would have guessed that Charlotte had a love for classical literature. It had been easy to write off Charlotte when she seemed to have no human side to her. Now Jessica found it difficult and painful to continue disliking a person who shared her hobby.
It also seemed a pity that she would never be able to compare collections and swap stories of how the treasured volumes were acquired.

The office door swung open, and Charlotte marched in. “We seem to have a problem with your files, Ms. Fenton. You failed to list anything under ‘nearest relative’.”

From the look in Charlotte’s eyes, Jessica knew she was out for blood. All thoughts of common interests evaporated.

“We need a name, address, and phone number in case of emergency.”

“Okay, I’ll bring it in on Tuesday,” Jessica said coolly.

“You mean you don’t know your parents’ name, address, and phone number?” Charlotte mocked.

Jessica paused before answering. “My mother is dead. Now if you’ll excuse me,” she rose from her chair, “I’ll bring the information in for you on Tuesday, like I said.” Jessica began to walk stiffly to the door.

As Jessica reached for the knob, she heard Charlotte say in a low voice, “I see it left a scar. Too bad.” Her voice displayed no pity.

Jessica’s hand froze on the knob. It took everything within her to ignore the comment and continue out the door. She succeeded. She even closed the door calmly and said hello to Mrs. Blair, the secretary. Mrs. Blair looked as if she had aged five years since Jessica had seen her on Monday. The phone was ringing, papers were everywhere, and the woman had spilled coffee or hot chocolate down the front of her white blouse. Jessica wondered how long Mrs. Blair would last in her position. Having Mr. McGregor as principal must have been quite different.

Jessica walked home slowly, forcing all thoughts of Charlotte to flee. It was a warm afternoon, and she enjoyed the old homes in her neighborhood. Each house was different.
Some of the houses had broad porches and inviting porch swings. Other homes looked colonial with white, fat columns out front, boasting that someone important lived there. Next to one such mansion was wedged a little white bungalow with green flower boxes in the front. Eighty years ago, the servants to the big house probably lived there. Or maybe it used to be the carriage house. Today, it was someone’s starter home and probably cost more than the servants who used to live there had made in their entire lifetimes.

The hot afternoon sun made it seem as if it were the middle of summer, with many more weeks of warm nights, watermelons, and giggling children running through sprinklers. Only the sunflowers at the house on the corner of Marigold Lane gave away the truth. Their five-foot-tall stalks sagged. All of them had popped their seeds and seemed to beg for a chance to lie down in the compost pile. A few more golden days and then the cool winds would come, and with the winds, the rain.

Everything in Glenbrooke was the way Jessica had thought it would be, as far as the houses, weather, and neighbors were concerned. She stopped on the sidewalk two doors away from her cottage and watched something she never saw in Los Angeles: white sheets flapping in the wind on a clothesline. A woman about her age clipped the last fresh, white pillowcase on the line while a tow-headed toddler waddled around the clothesline pole, contentedly singing to himself. The scene made Jessica’s heart ache. She wanted to be the woman hanging clothes on the line. She wanted a little blond boy to sing at her feet.

Striding to her home, Jessica unlocked the door, went straight upstairs to her room, and opened the barrel top of the old trunk at the foot of her bed. Underneath her black felt hat and a box of Italian leather gloves, Jessica pulled out the photo album she had brought with her.

Before she opened it, she decided the occasion was worth using her last tea bag. She brewed herself a cup of tea, good and strong, and then retreated back to her bedroom where the album awaited her.

The afternoon sun pierced through the fluttering lace curtains, tracing its warm pattern of light on the floor. Jessica sat in the middle of the mosaic, with her back pressed against the old trunk. Slowly, she opened the family photo album. Having looked at it a thousand times, she had each page memorized. When she got to the fourth page, she stopped. There, in the upper right-hand corner, was the picture she was looking for. It was a black and white snapshot nearly identical to the scene she had just viewed. A curly haired, aproned woman with wooden clothespins in her mouth was hanging white sheets on a line. At her feet stood a grinning little girl in pigtails, proudly handing her mama a pillowcase from the wicker basket full of clean clothes. The little girl posed for the camera. Short little dress. Left sock scrunched down around her black shoe. She was endearing. And she was Jessica’s mother.

Releasing a heartbroken sigh, Jessica mourned the loss of her mother as the dust fairies rode in the beams of sunlight and floated around her. They were her only consolers this afternoon.

No one had ever mourned with Jessica. Not even that first day when she came home from school. She was eight, about the same age as her mother had been in that photo. Jessica had walked into the house, and Aunt Bonnie had grasped her by the hand and ushered her into the kitchen for some milk and cookies.

“Why are you here, Aunt Bonnie?” Jessica had asked. “Did Uncle John come too?”

“No, Jessie. I’m here because your mommy was sick.”

“She only got sick two days ago. She’ll be better soon.”

“Well, Jessie, sometimes people don’t get better. Sometimes they have to go somewhere else.”

“You mean to the hospital?”

“No, I don’t mean to the hospital, Jessie. Sometimes people have to leave us. You see, your mommy is gone. She went to be an angel.”

Jessica remembered how her Aunt Bonnie had begun to cry and how Jessica hadn’t understood, so she was the one who comforted Aunt Bonnie without shedding a tear of her own. And she didn’t cry later. Not when her dad came home that night from his business trip and wrapped her in his arms and cried until the top of her pink mouse pajamas was soaked. Not when she sat on the deck of a sleek yacht off the coast of Catalina Island and watched the grown-ups cry as they sprinkled some white powder in the water.

She hadn’t cried. Until now. At twenty-five and all alone, Jessica finally cried, hugging her knees and rocking herself back and forth, back and forth. First she sobbed silently, then audibly, then from deep within the core of her. She groaned and mourned until she finally surrendered to her grief.

Exhausted, she lay on the floor. Then sleep came to Jessica, sweet, soothing sleep with the end of the summer sun as her blanket.

Somewhere in her foggy dream, Jessica heard a voice calling her name and then loud knocking. Shaking herself awake, she realized someone was downstairs knocking on her door.

Teri
.

“I’ll be right there!” she called out and tried to pull herself together. Carefully nudging her stiff legs down the stairs, Jessica opened the front door and began to apologize. “I fell asleep. I’m not feeling really great, Teri. Would it be okay if I took a rain check on tonight?”

Teri carefully looked at her and asked, “Are you sure you’re
okay? Is there anything I can do?”

“I think I need to sleep, that’s all.”

“Should I come in and fix you something to eat? Some soup or something?”

“No,” Jessica said, responding a little too quickly. “I mean, no thanks. I’m not hungry. I’ll be fine. I’m sorry I didn’t call you, and you had to drive all the way over here.”

“All the way over?” Teri said. “It’s half a mile, and you’re on my way home anyway.” Teri took one last look. “You sure you’re okay?”

Jessica forced the most convincing grin she could find. “It’s been a full week.”

“I’ll call you tomorrow,” Teri promised.

“Okay. Fine. Bye.” Jessica gave a weak wave, closed and bolted the door, and returned upstairs. She opened her dresser drawer, looking for some clean pajamas. The first thing she grabbed turned out to be a large T-shirt, which she slipped into and crawled into bed. Her arm brushed across the front of the shirt. It felt rough. Then she realized it was the letters on the T-shirt, the ones that spelled out, “Eleventh Annual Glenbrooke Firefighters’ Pancake Breakfast.” Kyle’s shirt.