The Secrets She Keeps (28 page)

Kit Covey held out a gold-wrapped box of chocolates, and for a moment I thought it was old-fashioned courting. Flowers would be next, a nervous interview with the father I never had, but Kit set me straight. “We heard your aunt had been in the hospital,” he said. “A little something from all of us.”

“P.R.,” I said.

“No,” he said, and seemed to mean it.

“Thank you.” I set the box on the table near the door. If Nash knew where those chocolates came from, she’d never touch them, but Shaye and I would. You’d better believe it.

Kit looked around the room as if he was in a museum, which in a way he was. He tilted his head as he looked at the cuckoo clock. I followed his eyes and then his slid to mine and held. He cleared his throat. “I was wondering,” he said.

My heart thumped around. I was nervous, because I felt the crackle between us, and because I could smell him, some warm outside smell mixed with skin and leather.

“We’re done for the day, and there’s this place, about an hour from here. You might like to see it. If you haven’t already. That old resort, the Cal Neva?”

“I haven’t.”

“You’ve heard of it?”

“Mmm, afraid not.”

He smiled. “Oh, you’ll like this. Beautiful place, on the lake. Tahoe. Full of history. The first casino, way back in the thirties. The gangsters used to run it. Guys with names like Pretty Boy and Baby Face. Sinatra owned it in the early sixties. Think Rat Pack and Marilyn Monroe, and toss in a few Kennedys and haunted tunnels, gangsters, and crooners…”

“Crooners—I’m in.”

“I thought you might appreciate a different view of what it’s like out here. The topography…”

“The topography.”

He laughed.

“A field trip,” I said.

“Dinner, maybe?”

“Great.” I wasn’t sure if it was great. Something inside apparently felt so, though, because this is what I answered without thinking. “After two days of hospital food, that sounds amazing. Let me make sure my sister’s got this under control.”

Upstairs, Shaye’s arms were crossed and she was doing that great trick where she raised one eyebrow. I could never do that. “More like, does
my
sister have this under control,” she said.

“You were listening.”

“Of course I was listening.”

“Well, then, of course I have this under control.”

“For God’s sake, change your clothes,” she said. “And don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

“I won’t do anything you would do.”

“Oh, thanks a lot.” She gave me a little shove. “Well, I guess if anyone needs to get
Renovated,
it’s you. But forest-service men, you know…Only YOU can prevent forest fires. Better hold on to your matches, sister.”

—

The highway from the ranch to Lake Tahoe climbed steadily up, up from the desert. Before I knew it, the terrain had changed drastically. We were high in the mountains, with views over the Washoe Valley, and then the vegetation changed again, becoming thick and green with tall pines on either side.

“This is more like home,” I said. “All the trees. And mountains. I make fun of Seattle, with all its effortful outdoorsy-ness, but I love it there. It’s so beautiful, like this. Whenever I leave and come back, I’m always shocked by how beautiful. Water everywhere. Boats, seaplanes. Clean, clean air. You ever been?”

“I was in Seattle maybe a year ago.” Kit flicked on his turn signal, checked the mirror, then passed a slow-moving RV, with a license-plate holder that said Captain Ed. “Giving a paper on ‘The Public Response to Designated Wilderness and Roadless Areas.’ Exciting, huh?”

“Sorry I missed it.” I sort of was.

“I saw the inside of the Hilton, which I could give you a narrated tour of someday, if you’d like.”

“Let me guess. The Rainier Room, which opened to the Cascade Ballroom, something along those lines.”

“That was about it.”

“Well, the next time you come, I’ll show you around properly.” It was one of those things you say. I couldn’t imagine Kit Covey in my world, any more than I could imagine myself back home right then. We were there in his truck, and he shifted gears as the truck climbed, and it was everywhere else that felt imagined. His fingers tapping the steering wheel—they felt real, and so did his profile as he drove.

“It even smells more like home here,” I said.

“Smells like green.”

It did smell like green, and as we got closer to the lake and you could see the solemn, snowy peaks of the Sierras and the lake itself in the deep basin, it smelled like white and then blue.

We walked under the welcoming awning of the Cal Neva Resort and opened the doors of the main building, with its Alpine-chalet, high-peaked roof. The place was empty; it looked closed, but we could still get in. The Indian Room was locked, so we peeked inside. It had log walls and wagon-wheel chandeliers, elk heads and hides on the walls. I imagined mobsters and mistresses, the blare of saxophones, glasses clinking, and the kind of swagger and glamour that’d been long gone, replaced with us pecking at our phones in athletic attire.

Outside, Kit pointed to the small cabins on a ridge. Number three was where Marilyn slept, he said, likely with Kennedys, plural. Number five was Sinatra’s. They looked smaller than you’d think. Not too different from the cabins at Tamarosa, although when we looked in, there were shiny gold bedspreads and wicker chairs. I expected larger and grander, though I guess in those days things were both grander and smaller. We have closets the size of bedrooms now, but they’re absent of satin and crinoline.

“Ghosts,” I said.

“Everywhere,” Kit said.

“Look how beautiful.” The lake was a glassy mirror reflecting mountains and trees and the resort itself, turned liquid. I wished my girls could see it. We had plenty of gorgeous lakes in the Northwest; right in the city itself there were four, two very large ones. Lake Washington was stunning, with its large, tech-bought houses hugging the bank and fresh, deep aquamarines, and Lake Union was a quirky cornucopia of floating homes and seaplanes and sailboats. But this huge lake looked almost eerie and cold and even mystical, maybe because I could feel the history there. I could sense the ghosts of movie stars and gamblers and the FBI, betrayers in cement shoes.

“Beautiful,” Kit said. He grinned and squeezed my arm. “You, too. You are.”

It was a casual, easy compliment, devoid of deep import. It seemed merely refreshingly sincere, and so I smiled. “It’s the good air and good company,” I said. But I felt beautiful, even in my hurried-on sundress and hair pulled from its ponytail. I felt young, and light, and myself. And Kit—he matched the place; he fit. Even in his jeans and T-shirt, he had an air about him, something lasting. Maybe he was another person who had always been old.

“The sky’s as amazing as the water,” I said. It was dotted with white quotation-mark clouds.

“I could watch a sky like a movie,” he said. “But that water makes me want to be
in
that water.”

We walked and explored until hunger hit. At the Crystal Bay Café, we ordered steaks and baked potatoes, which arrived wrapped in tinfoil. It was another thing to love about this place—at home, food was soy-filled, gluten-free, everything-free; here, people ate gravy and enjoyed it. Evening fell. A country-western band was playing. A woman in a hip-hugging black dress and cowboy boots sang into a microphone, as if she’d loved that thing her whole life long. A few people were dancing. We were now on our second time in a bar with a band. Things had changed since our first, and I don’t even know how it happened. Change was sneaky like that.

Kit pushed his plate away. He tipped the last of his drink down his throat, grabbed my hand, and I went with him. It was a slow song, and his cheek was next to mine. He smelled like alcohol and warm skin and our mouths were close. I wanted him bad then, I admit it. His shirt was soft where I touched his shoulder. It was the shortest song ever, and we parted and applauded the singer. She bent her head forward in a bow, and her dark hair fell down straight over her face. I wondered whom she went home to—maybe the drummer, with his aviator glasses and wild hair and wet rings under the arms of his black shirt.

“You’re a dancer after all,” he said.

“I was going to say the same thing about you,” I said.

“Only in the delirium of high altitude.”

I insisted on splitting the bill, a gesture Shaye would surely mock. Still, I knew what this was and wasn’t and would never be. Outside, the air had grown cold and crisp; it was the kind you want to take a bite out of. The night had fallen in earnest, and small points of light had begun to twinkle around us. By the time we’d started down the mountain, night had gotten serious, and the curves felt treacherous.

“It’s all right,” Kit said. He looked over at me, but I wished he’d keep his eyes on the road. “I’ve got it. I know this road.”

“Ah, that obvious?”

“It was these.” He loosened my fingers from the seat edge. You can hold so much tension in your body and not even realize it, until you roll your neck or take a deep breath and suddenly it’s as if the wrongly accused prisoner has made his joyous escape.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“For what?”

“It implies something. About your capability. I didn’t mean anything by it.”

“I know that. No offense taken.”

“Well, good.”

“I think you’re confusing me with someone else.”

He glanced at me again and grinned. He did know that road. His own shoulders were easy and his face relaxed. I wanted that drive to last and last after that. Even on those dark and twisty roads, I could have driven all night and into the next day and the next, but we were back at the ranch so fast. Time is so mean, the way it quickens and slows opposite to your desires. I suppose if your only task were to stretch on to infinity, you’d need to play some games, too, but how cruel.

We arrived. Kit turned off the truck, and I could hear crickets. There was that same dilapidated fence and the empty pool and the tractor, which Shaye had abandoned in the driveway, but now Nash’s new car sat shiny in the light of the moon. “This was a treat,” Kit said.

“It was. Thank you.”

“Thank
you
. I needed that, I’ll tell you that much.”

I leaned in to hug him goodbye and our cheeks set against each other again. I shut my eyes, took in his smell and his warm skin. “Ahh,” he said, as we separated. I opened my door and got out. Leaned in through the window.

“Thank you again,” I said.

“My pleasure, ma’am. Truly.”

The ground slid under my feet. The earth cracked open and left a gash, and I had no idea how deep it was or for how many miles it went.

I was startled when I opened the front door. Nash and Shaye were both up late, sitting in the living room, which was dark except for the light of that stereo. Dr. Yabba Yabba Love’s molasses-and-ginger voice poured from it.
Every apple’s got its seeds
. Nash’s feet were up on the sofa. She was still wearing those socks with the nubs on the bottom they gave her in the hospital.

“Eric bought plane tickets. He’s taking the girls on a cruise,” Shaye said. Even in the dim light, I could see that her face was puffy from crying.

I had barely set my purse down before Nash spoke, too.

“If there’s one thing I know, it’s that love is complicated. But, Callie…”

I’d disappointed her, but I wasn’t sure I cared. I’d spent too much of my life not disappointing people. “What, Nash?”

“When the horses are gathered…I’ve seen it. Terrible, life-altering things can happen.”

“Life-altering things aren’t always terrible.”

“That’s true, of course.”

“It isn’t the old days anymore,” I said.

“I was going to tell you the same thing,” she said.

But we were both wrong. The present was ever-changing, but the past lasted.

In her room, the curtain drifts like an afterthought, and, outside, Nash hears the
thunk
of a heavy knapsack dropped to the ground. Jack and Danny are taking the gals on a pack trip, and even Ellen is going, in spite of the fact that they’ll be on horseback for hours. Veronica and Hadley got her a little tipsy last night and made her sign a promise on a cocktail napkin.

Cook has prepared fried chicken, and the smell lingers. Nash should help her wrap the food and bring it out to Danny, and she should make sure that Ellen is calm and that Veronica has brought more than just a fashionable hat. But Nash stays where she is, in Lilly’s room, where they’ve been chatting and laughing. Lilly told her how she used to collect ants in a relish jar when she was a girl, and Nash told Lilly about Oscar, the old dog they had before Boo, how he used to catch flies in his snapping jaw. In the light of Castaway, Lilly’s eyes are the color of larkspur, and they are talking like real friends, and Nash is having fun. Who cares about chicken and nerves and sunburn—everyone can look after themselves for once. Alice would be disappointed in her, but she isn’t sure she cares. She’s spent too much of her life not disappointing people.

Jack’s voice rises and enters through the window, on the same gust that moves the curtain. That’s another thing she must do, and soon. She badly needs to talk to him about what she saw in that horse trailer. He can explain it, in some way where she’ll stop seeing those images when she shuts her eyes. “Oh, what a beautiful Zorro!” Jack sings, to the tune of “Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin’.” He’s a terrible singer, and Lilly rolls her eyes.