Secrets of the Red Box (25 page)

Bonnie felt something odd building within her, something rising up and curling through her
insides like hungry tendrils. Feelings she’d never known before, never wanted to know, began
gnawing at her resolve. She wanted to taste his lips, feel his hands on her. Those were dangerous
feelings, ones she wasn’t sure she could control or overcome. And worse, she wasn’ t sure she cared
to.
She tore herself away from his gaze and headed back the way they’d come, swallowing down her
thrashing heart. Bonnie was afraid to speak, afraid if she opened her mouth he’d hear the sound of
her beating heart.
“You know, Bonnie,” he said as they neared the house, “I learned a valuable lesson from the
war.” He stopped and fixed his gaze on her again. “You can’t take one minute for granted. One
minute could be the end of everything.” Glen smiled softly. “Before the war, I wouldn’t do thi s, but
now…everything’s changed…
I’ve
changed.” Bonnie held her breath, braced herself for what was to
come next. “I’d like to see you again,” he said.
Bonnie rejected the idea for the briefest of seconds before she nodded. “I’d like that.”
His smile broadened and the dimples revealed themselves again. “Great. I’ll call you this week.”
They turned and retraced their steps into the back yard of the Orton home. When Glen went
inside, she paused on the back steps and pinched the bridge of her nose. What had she just done?
///////
The women cleaned the kitchen, did the dishes, and put away leftover food while the men
ordered the dining room once more, put away chairs, and took out the garbage. Eventually family
groups began to peel away, gathering children and bidding goodbye to Glen, who stayed until
everyone else was gone, then he and his father went home.
Bonnie busied herself vacuuming the rugs, picking up bits of discarded hot dog bun from the
dining room floor, and making certain everything was tidy. As she put the vacuum away, the quiet
seemed pronounced now that everyone was gone, the noisy laughter and conversations subdued for
another day.
She took out the combs from either side of her hair and remembered how Glen had tucked the
loose strands behind her ear. A tiny smile touched her lips. Bonnie went to the kitchen and found
Irene putting her habitual nightly teapot on the stove. Irene swiveled her head and smiled. “Quite a
day, wasn’t it?”
Bonnie let out a sigh. “It was. I’m glad it’s over.” She looked around. “Where’s Don?”
“Oh, he’s out in the yard talking to the neighbors about cars or something,” she replied with a
waving hand. “Sit down, the tea’s almost ready.”
Bonnie folded herself into a chair and leaned an elbow against the table. She hesitated before
asking Irene a question, wasn’t sure why she should even ask it. Then quietly she said, “How did
Glen’s mother die?”
Irene’s brows arched as she brought the tea to the table. She hesitated a moment, as if it was still
a painful memory. “My sister fell down the stairs and broke her neck. Glen always blamed
himself—still does, I suppose.”
Bonnie felt herself grow a little sick as she envisioned the scene. “How awful…but why would
he blame himself?”
Irene sat down and ran her finger around the rim of the empty cup. “She’d asked him to clean
out the clinkers from the coal furnace before he left for school one day. He balked at the request
and told her he’d do it later. When he came home, he found her in the cellar. She’d probably been
dead for some time.” Irene drew her eyes to Bonnie. “Anyway, he’s always believed she’d gone
down to do his job, and he’s never quite forgiven himself for it.”
Bonnie felt a twinge of sorrow for him. “But she could have gone downstairs for lots of
reasons.”
Irene nodded. “That’s what we all told him, but he wouldn’t believe it. He was convinced she
was dead because of him, convinced that if he’d done as she’d asked she wouldn’t have died.” Irene
sighed heavily and got up to fetch the sugar. “After that, Glen never seemed to care about much of
anything. He’s carried that burden all these years, and it just breaks my heart.”
“That’s so sad,” Bonnie said just above a whisper.
“He’s very tender-hearted…too much so I think.” She began to stir her tea.
Bonnie spooned some sugar into her cup. “He asked me about Baby Girl—well, actually he
asked me how I came to be evicted over a cat.” She smiled and stirred her tea.
Irene drew the cup to her lips. “He has a soft-spot for animals—always has had. He was always
bringing home some stray creature of one kind or another. I used to tease him that he should
become a veterinarian because he loved animals so much. But he said he couldn’t—didn’t want to
have to put them down when they were too sick or injured to save.” Irene was thoughtful a
moment. “I can’t imagine how he was able to—” She stopped herself. “Well, never mind.”
Bonnie knew what Irene meant to say—that she couldn’t imagine how a tender-hearted soul like
Glen could go to war and kill human beings when he couldn’t stand the thought of watching an
animal die. But Bonnie understood. When her back had been against the wall she’d done what she’d
had to do—she’d picked up a knife and held it out to save her own life. And she believed that was
what Glen had done too.
///////
Bonnie went downstairs, undressed and got ready for bed. She sat in her chair and patted her lap
for Baby Girl. The cat obediently jumped into the chair with Bonnie and began purring. The kitten
sat facing Bonnie, her little paws kneading her nightgown with a look of delight on her whiskered
face. Bonnie stroked the silky gray fur and smiled. “I missed you, too, Baby Girl,” she murmured.
The basement was cool. She reached for the throw over the end of her bed and draped it across
her legs. With her head against the chair, Bonnie closed her eyes and listened to the cat’s soothing
purr. She let her mind drift, wander to the moment she saw Glen Taggart for the first time. She liked
his rugged good looks, his ready smile, and especially his dimples. His dark eyes had a way of
penetrating deep into her soul, leaving her breathless.
Reason eased its way into her thoughts, crowding out any burgeoning feelings of interest. How
could she go out with him? She knew that if she did, at some point she would have to lie to him to
protect her secrets. It was inevitable. Wasn’t that the reason she’d left the Rose Building—to stop all
the lies, to keep people from knowing too much about her? She couldn’t risk anyone notifying the
police of her whereabouts if the truth was ever revealed.
Bonnie almost let out a bitter laugh. Stop all the lies, she thought
. How do I do that? I’m still living a
lie even now. I have too much to hide, too much to protect. I have no business going out with Glen Taggart, not now,
not ever. It’s too risky.
No matter how she rationalized her reasons
not
to see Glen again, the underlying desire to do so
became overwhelming. Her reaction to him had been different. She wasn’t repulsed by his touch, or
uninterested in him as a person. She couldn’t explain it, nor could she comprehend why it was
different with him.
Maybe, she thought, she could make this her chance to be genuine, to be who she was, not some
manufactured persona. It had been so long since she’d been herself. She wondered if she even knew
who that was anymore. Maybe, if she was careful not to reveal too much, at least not what had
happened in the last four years, she could still protect her secrets. It would be worth a chance,
wouldn’t it? If she’d reacted to Glen the way she did most men, she wouldn’t even consider it. But
this had definitely been different.
Her head was spinning in a galaxy of conflicting thoughts, like shooting stars firing at one
another, each one attempting to obliterate the other. She shook her head as if she could quash the
battle, stop her thoughts from firing. It didn’t help. Bonnie threw the cover off her legs and put
Baby Girl on the bed. Pushing up from the chair, she went to the closet and tugged out a box. The
Scotch was easy to find, it’s cool glass bottle in the front corner. Bonnie unscrewed the lid and took
a swig. She swallowed hard and felt the burn all the way to her stomach. For good measure, she took
another long draw and waited for her senses to dull just slightly. One more sip, she thought, and
she’d be able to sleep.

Glen used a full Windsor knot for his tie, then fit it up snug to his neck. He fixed the collar of
his white shirt over the blue-and-white striped tie, then studied himself in the mirror. A smile
skimmed across his lips, surprising him. But he wasn’t smiling at himself. It was Bonnie. The
thought of seeing her again had the smile erupting on his face.

He couldn’t get her out of his mind. Her honey blonde hair and cornflower blue eyes set off her
oval face with skin as translucent as a mayfly’s wings. She was beautiful—there was no doubt of that,
he thought. But there was something about her that intrigued him. He’d liked that little flash of
temper when he’d accused his aunt of match-making the two of them. He liked her sense of
independence and that she liked animals. She hadn’t been flashy or flirtatious, yet just beneath the
surface, he felt heat. He’d never felt anything like it before, never experienced a desire to know a
woman more intimately. Sure, he’d dated before, but no one ever had the effect on him that Bonnie
did, and especially not in such a brief span of time.

Glen snatched his navy blue sport coat off the back of the chair and left his room. His father
was sitting in the living room, the static and pop hissing from the radio speaker as his father
searched for his program. As Glen walked down the hall, he could hear music humming from the
radio.
You’ll wonder where the yellow went when you brush your teeth with Pepsodent!
The announcer’s voice
broke in
.
“Yes, folks, Pepsodent is proud to bring you the Pepsodent Show starring Bob Hope…”

Al reached over and turned down the volume as Glen entered the living room. “Here are the
keys,” he said, handing them to his son. “Have a good time.”
Glen snagged the car keys and smiled. “Thanks, Dad. I appreciate it. I should have my old jalopy
running by the weekend, Ihope.”
“I don’t know why you insist on trying to get that piece of junk running again. It barely ran
before you left.” Al shook his head. “Why don’t you get a nice used car—”
Glen interrupted his father. “Because it would be cheaper to get the old one running than to buy
a used one.” He placed his hand on his father’s shoulder. “Don’t wait up, Dad.”
Al conceded the subject of the car and looked up at Glen. “Have a nice time, son.”
Glen left the house whistling the Pepsodent jingle. As he drove to the Orton’s, he thought it odd
that he should be picking up his date from his aunt and uncle’s house. But then, if Bonnie hadn’t
been living there, he most likely would never have met her. He made a mental note to one day thank
Baby Girl for getting Bonnie evicted from her apartment.
Glen pulled up to the curb in front of the house on Laurel Avenue and got out of the car, still
whistling. He was looking forward to tonight, getting back to normal life again, putting more
distance between himself and the war. And then he thought about Amy and what she’d be doing
tonight. He figured she’d probably be sitting home alone, reading old letters from Charlie. A flood
of sympathy and regret washed over him, but he ordered it to the back of his mind. Tonight
belonged to him and not to ghosts, he thought. Tonight he would think only of the present.
He rapped on the door. His uncle answered and invited him in. Glen felt his heart skip a beat
when Bonnie walked into the room. She wore a pale green dress with a matching bolero-style jacket.
She’d left her hair down, curling around the bottom and sides. Glen neared her with a welcoming
smile and caught a whiff of her perfume. “Wow,” he said under his breath.
Bonnie smiled back and locked her eyes on him.
“Isn’t she just lovely?” Irene said, following in after Bonnie. “You’ll be the best -looking couple
in town.”
Glen offered his arm to Bonnie. “Don’t know about the couple part, but I’ll be with the best looking
woman
in town, that’s for sure.”
Bonnie actually blushed as she linked her arm through his. Irene followed them to the door like
a proud mother hen. “Have a wonderful time, you two.”
“Thanks, Aunt Irene,” Glen said, walking Bonnie through the door.
“We’ll leave a light on for you, Bonnie,” Don called after them.
Bonnie waved and stopped beside Al Taggart’s Ford. Glen opened the door for her. “I cleaned
the inside of the car for you,” he said. “My dad lets it get a little dusty just driving back and forth
from work.”
“You didn’t need to do that.”
“Well, I wanted everything to be nice for you,” he said as he closed the door.
Once in beside her, he smiled. “Is there a particular movie you’d like to see?”
“It doesn’t matter. I like all kinds of movies.”
Glen stared at the steering wheel. He didn’t really want to go to the movies. He’d only used that
as a suggestion to ask her out. He didn’t want to sit in a crowded theater and share her with other
people. A quiet, secluded place was more to his liking. He turned to face her. “Would you mind if
we didn’t go to the movie?”
Bonnie angled her head. “No. What else did you have in mind?”
“Well, I’d like to go someplace quiet. A lot of noise sort of makes me jumpy. I suppose it’s
because of the war. Even the family party on Sunday was almost too much.” He began to wring his
hands. “Geez, listen to me. I sound like an old woman.”
Bonnie touched his arm, her eyes warm on his. “I understand, Glen. I think quiet sounds pretty
good myself.”
“Really? You’re not just saying that?”
She gave his arm a squeeze. “Really.”
Glen started the car and thought he liked Bonnie even more now. He drove down Laurel
Avenue, trying to decide what to do next. An idea came to him, and he discovered a wry grin
wedged on his lips.
“You should have seen Irene tonight,” Bonnie said with a laugh. “She wanted to know what
dress I was going to wear and how I was going to fix my hair. She practically stood in the bathroom
with me while I dressed, making sure everything was perfect.”
Glen glanced at her and chuckled. “Just goes to show how much she cares about you. She
wouldn’t fuss if she didn’t.”
“Sometimes she reminds me of my mama, except she wasn’t as outgoing as Irene. She was kind
of quiet and, well…” She let her voice trail off and then continued. “She wasn’t a strong woman,
like Irene, but that was because of my father. I like to think she’d have been a different woman if she
hadn’t married him.”
Glen glanced over at her and saw the reflective look on Bonnie’s face, her downturned mouth,
the sadness in her eyes. He couldn’t help but be touched by her tender feelings. “Was it a bad
marriage?” He asked it quietly, as if he didn’t want to disturb too many memories for her.
Bonnie let out a little huff of breath. “I guess you could say that. It was for Mama, anyway.” She
clasped her hands in her lap and looked pensive for a moment. “You know, Glen, you and I come
from very different backgrounds. I’ve been envious of people like you all my life.”
Glen gave her a quizzical look. “Envious of me? How so?”
“For years, we never had a real home,” she began. “My parents were migrant farm workers from
the time I was born. I started picking in the fields with them when I was four or five. Wherever
there was a harvest, that’s where we’d be. I never set foot in a real school until I was twelve years
old. We slept in the truck or in some shack, worked in the hot sun all day. It was a pretty tough life.”
She looked at him as if to register his reaction. “I begged my mother to take me away, to leave my
father.”
“But she didn’t?”
“She couldn’t,” Bonnie corrected. “She was too afraid…afraid he’d…kill her if she tried.”
Glen reached over and took hold of Bonnie’s hand. The fragile sound of her voice pierced his
heart. He couldn’t imagine living the life Bonnie described. He wasn’t shocked as much as appalled.
“Had he threatened her or tried to kill her before?”
Bonnie shook her head and left her hand beneath his. “He didn’t have to. He beat any rebellion
out of her she might have had. He’d leave her broken and bleeding nearly every day. I tried to make
her come with me, begged her to leave…”
“You ran away.” It wasn’t a question.
She nodded. “When I was sixteen. I’ve been on my own ever since.”
His brows furrowed and his voice became flat. “He beat you too, didn’t he?”
Bonnie nodded slowly.
Glen felt himself growing angry, angry that Bonnie had suffered at the hands of her cruel father.
It wasn’t fair, he thought. A spasm of regret stung him for all the pain she’d suffered. It made him
feel protective toward her all of a sudden, as if he could somehow keep her from hurting anymore.
“I’m really sorry, Bonnie,” he said quietly. “I saw a lot of mean men in the Army…men who did
things they had no right to do to people, things far beyond necessity, even during a war. They made
me sick…still do. I’m sorry you had to go through that with your father.”
Bonnie flapped her hands in the air a moment as if she could erase her words. “I’m sorry I
brought it up,” she apologized. “I don’t know why…it just came out.”
“It’s okay,” he said, reaching over to take her hand again. “Really.”
She didn’t try to pull her hand free, so Glen gave it a squeeze before he let go. He pulled the car
to a stop in front a little market and set the brake. “I’ll be right back,” he said with an impish grin.
He breezed into the market, picked up two bananas, two bottles of Coke, a bag of potato chips,
and a pack of Beeman’s gum. He paid for his items and jogged back to the car. “I wasn’t gone too
long, was I?”
“No,” she answered as he handed her the paper bag. “What’s this?”
He started the car and smiled, his dimples cleaving his cheeks with amusement. “Snacks,” he
announced. “I thought we might get a little hungry while we’re driving.”
Bonnie’s brows drew together. “Where are we going?”
“I don’t know,” he said, pulling back onto the street. “We’ll see where the road takes us.”
Bonnie peered into the bag. “How are we supposed to open the Cokes?”
He extended his hand toward her. “Give them to me.”
She handed a bottle to him and he proceeded to pry the cap off with his molars. “Learned that
in sixth grade,” he said, handing the bottle back to her.
Bonnie pulled a face. “Doesn’t it hurt?”
“Nah.” He opened the second and took a long drink from the bottle. “Boy, that hits the spot.
You know, the whole time I was in Italy, all I wanted was a cold bottle of Coke.”
“And potato chips?” she asked with a grin, peering back into the bag.
He laughed. “Yeah, and bananas. I hope you don’t mind.”
“No, I happen to be a fan of potato chips, bananas, and Coca-Cola.”
Glen took another drink and drove west with the setting sun glaring at them through the
windshield. “I hope you don’t think I’m crazy. I’m sure you thought you were going to have a
normal evening tonight.”
Bonnie took a sip of her Coke. “Well, this might be a little unconventional, but I’m enjoying the
company.”
“Me too .How about a chip?”
Bonnie put the bottle between her knees and opened the bag of chips. She offered him the bag
and took a chip herself. “So tell me more about you. Have you lived here all your life?”
Glen shoved a chip into his mouth and munched a minute. “All my life.” He thought about
Bonnie never settling down, living like she did, and wondered how lonely it might have been for her.
“I can’t remember a time when my house wasn’t filled with cousins or friends. My brother and I
spent a lot of time at Aunt Irene’s after our mom died. We played with Ralph and Randy all the time
and teased the heck out of Ann. We were more like siblings than cousins.”
Bonnie took another chip from the bag. “You were really lucky. Iwould have loved to have had
what you did, lots of people around, parents like Irene and Don, to live in the same house, go to
school with the same friends you met in kindergarten—to have a sense of roots, I guess.”
“It was pretty good, really.” He reached for another chip. “I’m not sure I appreciated it at the
time, but I think that’s how most kids are.” He steered with one hand, balancing the Coke between
two fingers and a thumb, the butt of the bottle on the wheel. He extended his other hand. “How
about a banana?”
Bonnie returned her Coke between her knees and reached into the grocery bag. She took out a
banana and peeled back the skin for him. “You drive,” she said, pushing the banana toward his
mouth.
He laughed and took a bite. She waited until he swallowed, then offered him another bite. “Me
Cheetah, you Jane,” he said, then bit off another chunk. Bonnie laughed and peeled the banana skin
back some more. “My brother and I never missed a Tarzan movie. One time, we tied a rope to the
tree in the back yard, but we didn’t know enough to use a really thick, sturdy branch. No, we tie it to
this branch about two inches around, which might have been big enough for one of us, but we both
got hold of the rope and started swinging, screaming like Tarzan until the branch cracked and broke
off the tree. Sam and I crashed to the ground. We knew Dad was going to be madder than a hornet.
So we decided to nail the broken branch back to the tree and figured Dad would never be the
wiser.”
Glen started laughing and Bonnie joined in. “Did it work?” she asked.
“Well, better than you might think,” he replied, grinning. “We used these giant nails, thinking the
bigger, the better to hold the limb, right? So we pounded in the nails at an angle and thought it
looked pretty good. We backed up toward the house and you could hardly tell it had been broken.”
He took a drink of Coke and ran the back of his hand over his mouth. “So Sam and I thought
we’d dodged a bullet…until dinner time. We were all sitting around the table and my dad looked out
the kitchen window and saw this tree branch hanging down. The leaves were already wilted and
starting to die. He looked at us and said, ‘You kids been hanging on that tree again?’ Sam and I
figured we were okay, because we fixed it. So we shook our heads and said no. Dad pointed to the
tree and said, ‘We must have some mighty heavy squirrels, then.’”
“What happened when he saw the nails?”
Glen snorted out a laugh. “We figured we were going to get it but good. He took us by the arms
and marched us out to the tree, but when he saw how we’d tried to fix it, he busted out laughing. He
couldn’t punish us, but we knew better than to play Tarzan like that ever again.”
“Was your mother still alive then?” Bonnie asked.
“Yeah, that was about two years before she died.”
“Did she think it was funny too?”
Glen looked at her with raised brows. “Did she? She called Aunt Irene that night and told her all
about it. Sam and I could hear her on the phone after we went to bed. She was laughing the whole
time and then we could hear Dad laughing, too.”
“I tried to fix a teapot once,” Bonnie said, angling herself in the seat so her back was against the
door. “After I ran away from home, I’d found a job as a housekeeper for this woman. The job came
with a room behind the kitchen, so I was really grateful to have it. I always figured she felt sorry for
me—I mean, I showed up in these ratty clothes, had nothing much other than that. To this day I
don’t know why she hired me. Anyway, one day I was dusting this curio cabinet filled with bric-abrac and there was this little teapot. Ifigured it was a family keepsake from someone’s childhood
because it wasn’t big enough to really use. It slipped out of my hand and hit the edge of the cabinet,
breaking off the spout. I was devastated,” she said. “Terrified to tell her, so I hid it in my room and
went to the store for some glue.
“I didn’t know what kind of glue to buy or if there was any glue that would even fix it. So I
bought the one I hoped would do the job and went back to my room.”
She used her hands to mimic the actions as she continued. “I daubed some glue on the spout
and the teapot and pushed them together with a prayer. I held it together for a while and tested it by
inching my fingers away. It looked like it was going to hold. I was elated. You could hardly tell
where it had broken, so I put it back in the cabinet and never said a word.”