Secrets (13 page)

The gravestone was easy to find. The daisies were all wilted, but around the headstone grew wild cornflowers and Queen Anne’s lace. Jessica knelt and read the inscription, “Lindsey Sue Atkins. March 3, 1971-September 3, 1991. Loved by all. Safe in the arms of Jesus.”

Atkins. Kyle’s last name was Buchanan. Was she related to him? A former lover? Someone he rescued? How had she died?

Jessica was about to leave when she noticed the gravestone next to Lindsey’s. It read, “Thelma Jean Atkins, beloved wife of Clyde Jacob Atkins. Born: January 7, 1909. Died:
November 14, 1991. Safe in the arms of Jesus.”

She died only a few months after Lindsey. Did they die of the same thing? Were they related?

Jessica slowly walked away from the grave, finding that her curiosity had been heightened rather than satisfied. She went over to the stone bench and sat down. It was cold. She felt cold.

Some of the trees around her were just beginning to shake out their summer greens. Some of them were already adorning themselves with gold lace around the edges. The clouds covered the sun, and a few drops of rain found their way through the leafy maze overhead and plopped down next to Jessica, as if they had been invited. She didn’t mind the company. She was thinking of her mom again.

Jessica realized that this was what she had missed all the years of growing up. A cemetery. A tombstone. A place to mourn her loss. She couldn’t visit the cremated ashes that had been sprinkled into the Pacific Ocean. No marker existed in the ocean to read again and again and to remember.

Strangely, Jessica felt clearer about her mom’s death than she ever had before. The gut wrenching cry of a few weeks ago must have done her good. This quiet bench was doing her good, too. She could come here and sit and remember whenever she needed to process the feelings she had kept inside for the past seventeen years.

Jessica closed her eyes and listened to the birds. The fresh smell of rain rising from the thick grass filled her nostrils and comforted her.

“Miss Fenton?” A gentle voice seemed to speak from out of nowhere.

Jessica snapped her eyes open and saw Dawn Laughlin standing in front of her. “Dawn, you startled me! I didn’t hear you walk up.”

“I saw you here and, well, if you don’t mind, could I talk to you for a minute?” Dawn had on her purple and gold cheerleader’s outfit, and her long bare legs were covered with goose bumps.

“Sure, but it’s kind of chilly here.”

“That’s okay,” Dawn said, sitting down on the cold stone bench next to Jessica. Dawn crossed her legs and folded her arms, tucking her hands under her upper arms and slouching so that her long, straight hair fell over her shoulders. Dawn looked younger than sixteen. Perhaps it was her round features. Her nose was round, so was her chin, her eyes, her face, and even her cheeks when she smiled. It made her look like a little girl.

“It’s about something you said in class this week,” Dawn began.

“Yes?” Jessica heard a truck engine and glanced over Dawn’s shoulder toward the street. Dawn’s bright yellow sports car was parked next to the cemetery’s entrance, and right in front of it, Kyle’s truck had pulled up and stopped. The engine was still running.

Jessica looked away, wondering if Kyle had seen her. She focused on Dawn. “What did you want to ask me?”

“You know that book you were reading from yesterday?”

Jessica thought back. “Oh, yes,
The Pardoners’ Tale
, by Chaucer. I won’t use any of it on the test, if that’s what you’re wondering. I was only reading it in the old English style to give the class an idea of how it sounded.”

“Actually, what I was wondering was where you got the book. You said you bought your copy for fifty pence in a secondhand bookstore.”

“That’s right.” Jessica couldn’t imagine why Dawn was asking her about this. It had only been a fleeting comment. “It’s my hobby; I collect antique books.”

“Did you buy it in England?”

“Yes, in London. Why?”

Dawn’s face lit up and her round brown eyes looked relieved. “So you’ve been to England.”

“Yes.”

“Have you been to Paris?” Dawn ventured.

“Yes.”

“So have I,” Dawn said. “My mom lives there.”

“Yes, I heard that,” Jessica said. She chanced a glance over Dawn’s shoulder again and saw that Kyle’s truck was still there but Kyle didn’t seem to be in sight.

“This probably sounds totally stupid, but could I talk to you about Paris sometime?” Dawn asked. “See, nobody in this town has ever been anywhere. Well, except the ones who go on the Mexico trip with the church. That’s different, though. It’s like I have this whole other life because I spend summers with my mom, and I can’t talk about it to anyone. Do you understand?”

“Yes, I think I do. I’d love to talk to you about Paris,” Jessica said warmly. “My door is always open to you, Dawn. I live on Marigold Lane—the yellow two-story cottage with the white shutters.”

“Yes, I know the house,” Dawn said.

“You’re welcome to come visit me any time.”

Dawn popped up from the bench, a broad smile pushing her cheeks into their rosy, round posture. “I will. Thanks! I have to go.”

“Bye,” Jessica said, watching Dawn’s cheerleader skirt swish as she jogged to her car. “Stop by anytime,” Jessica called out.

Dawn waved, slid into her snazzy car, and zipped away. Jessica watched her go and strained her eyes to see if Kyle was still in the front seat of his truck. She couldn’t tell. Now she had
to make a decision. Should she leave, chancing an encounter with Kyle? Or should she stay here on this cold bench and wait to see where Kyle was?

Before she could decide, a rich, deep voice behind her said, “Hello, Jessica.”

J
essica involuntarily jumped up and turned to face Kyle. At the first sight of his rugged jawline and clear green eyes, Jessica felt like a schoolgirl, all tongue-tied and self-conscious.

“I noticed you were talking with Dawn, and I didn’t want to interrupt.” Kyle wore that timid, little-boy look he had the morning he had visited her in the hospital. “I won’t keep you. I just wanted to let you know that Ida asked me to come over and check that leak in your bathtub.”

“Oh,” Jessica said, picking up her purse and book bag as if she were about to make a dash for it. She remembered mentioning the leak briefly to Ida on Wednesday. Never had she guessed that Kyle would be the handyman assigned to look into the problem. “That’s fine.”

“Well, I wanted you to know that I can’t get to it for a few days, maybe even a week.”

“That’s fine. No problem. Whenever.” Jessica began to take a few steps backward.

“I’m going to Nevada for awhile.” Kyle threw out the words as if he had no confidence that she would receive them. “I’m on a hot-shot team of firefighters. We leave tonight at six. I’m not sure when we’ll be back.”

Jessica vaguely remembered hearing about a wildfire in Nevada, along with another raging in Wyoming. “Oh, is the Nevada fire getting bad?” Her heart was still pounding hard and Jessica felt awkward trying to form a sentence.

“It’s burned more than four hundred acres already. It’s coming close to the town of Fallon. They’ve called on the Oregon teams because all their local hotshots went to Wyoming a few days ago.” Kyle looked almost like a soldier going off to war who wasn’t sure of his return.

Jessica didn’t know what to say.

“So,” Kyle concluded, taking a breath, “I’ll look at your leaky bathtub when I come back.”

In contrast to the drama of going off to fight a fire, a leaky tub seemed trivial. Jessica said, “Well, don’t worry about it. It’s not that bad, really.”

A thick silence hung between them. The few sprinkles of rain that had escaped from the heavens during the past half hour were now joined by all their friends and relatives in a true drizzle. Jessica stood silently, the cold stone bench posted between her and Kyle. She wondered if he were going to ask if she wanted a ride home.

But he didn’t.

He left, awkwardly, and she walked home alone in the rain.

That night, in the silence of her bedroom, tucked under her warm covers, Jessica listened to the rain falling steadily on her roof and thought how strange it was that Kyle was now in a very hot, dry place fighting a fire, while here, everything was cool and wet.

She didn’t want to think about Kyle. She had done enough
of that in the past three weeks to last her a lifetime. What she needed to do was think about Jessica. She had enough of her own problems to work out without adding Kyle.

Food, once again, rose to the top. Could she last until Tuesday when her paycheck would supposedly arrive? She fell asleep dreaming of pork chops, baked potatoes, and DoveBars.

Late Saturday afternoon Jessica heard a knock on her front door. She left her papers on the mahogany secretary and padded to the door in her stocking feet.

“Hi. Is this a good time to visit?” Dawn asked, her round face puckered with a hesitant expression.

“Sure, come on in.” Jessica motioned toward the living room. Dawn took a seat on the green couch, crossing and uncrossing her bare legs. It had rained off and on all day, but it wasn’t particularly cold. Still, Jessica had on leggings, a long sweatshirt, and socks. Dawn wore sandals, shorts, and a denim shirt. Jessica still thought like a Southern Californian, who, when it rained, dressed warm, built a fire, and stayed inside all day. Oregonians apparently saw it as just another day.

“I’m afraid I don’t have anything in the house to offer you to drink,” Jessica said.

“That’s okay. I’m not thirsty.” Dawn gazed around the room, taking in the details. Jessica hadn’t done much more decorating than to place a small vase of wild flowers on the dining room table.

“Were you writing letters?” Dawn asked, noticing the papers spread out on the secretary.

“Oh, no, it’s just some notes and things.” Jessica didn’t feel comfortable telling Dawn that she was working on her
Under the Flowering Bush
story. She wished she had closed the desk up before answering the door. “So, tell me about Paris,” she said, trying to change the conversation’s focus.

“It’s all right, I guess. The people are different from the
people here. More private. It’s actually a lonely place for me. I think my mom is sort of lonely, too, only she would never admit that. She’s too proud. She would never admit that she made a mistake when she ran away from home.”

“Ran away?” Jessica asked, thinking it a humorous term to use in reference to a grown woman leaving her husband.

“She wanted the glamorous kind of life her sister had. My aunt married some rich guy, and my mom thought that was better than being married to a doctor, so she just left one day. We didn’t know where she was for about a month. Then my dad received this letter, and he told me they were getting a divorce. About six months later my mom called me and said she was remarried and wanted me to spend the summer on the Riviera with them on his yacht.”

“Did you have fun?”

“I didn’t go. I told her I already had my summer planned. The next summer I went, though. And this past summer I went, too. It’s like a movie in some ways, you know? The servants, the huge mansion, the yacht, and everything. But it’s really lonely.”

“I bet,” Jessica said, trying to sound as sympathetic as she felt.

“It’s just so false. I met this guy last summer. Giovanni. He was from Italy. He came to this party on the yacht one night and…” Dawn stopped and looked down at her knees. She didn’t say anything else.

“Did Giovanni make you do something you didn’t want to?” Jessica asked cautiously.

“Kind of,” Dawn said, tears beginning to fall onto her tanned thighs. “I wanted him to kiss me, but then when he did, he wouldn’t stop. I felt like such a baby. He was kissing me and touching me everywhere, and when he tried to unbutton my
shirt, I ran away and locked myself in my room. It was so humiliating.”

“I think you did the right thing,” Jessica said softly. “You weren’t ready.”

“My mom thought I should be. She had a little talk with me the next morning,” Dawn said, looking up and blinking back the tears. “All about ‘protection’ and ‘being prepared.’ She even gave me some…, well, you know, some of those things to carry in my purse.”

Jessica waited for Dawn to continue.

“I’m just not ready,” Dawn said.

“That’s okay.”

“But see, everybody seems to think I already have, you know, slept around. The guys at school treat me differently than they do the other girls. To be honest with you, I almost feel like going out and…” Dawn seemed to be searching for the right word. “And just getting it over with.”

“You have to be true to who you really are, Dawn,” Jessica said. “Only you can decide who that is and who that is going to be.”

A hint of a smile pulled Dawn’s lip up on the left side. “That’s what I’m trying to figure out. And that’s what I’m hoping you can help me figure out. See, it’s like I said before, you don’t seem like the other people in this town. You’ve been places. You know things. I can tell. You’re experienced.”

“Well, maybe not exactly the way you think, Dawn. Besides, you can’t try to make your life like someone else’s. You have to live your own life.”