Tiny Little Thing (23 page)

Pepper takes my sobbing face against her collarbone. “Oh, Jesus. You poor thing.”

“I can’t do it again, Pepper. I can’t go through that again.”

“Go through
what
again?”

I lift my head from her wet skin. “I have to show you something.”

•   •   •

H
oly cats.” Pepper angles the photograph to the light from the window. “Nice tits. I mean really lovely. I didn’t know you had a bosom that lovely. You should show them off a little more.”

“Pepper!”

She lifts her gaze from my reclined black-and-white image and looks me straight between the eyeballs. “Who took these?”

“Caspian.”

“
Caspian?
Caspian
Harrison
?
Major
Caspian?”

“That’s the one.”

“Holy cats.
Caspian
. Did you sleep with him afterward?”

“That’s my business.”

“So you did. Well, screw me. I’m . . . wow. The good major.” Pepper closes her mouth and turns back to the photograph. “And when did all this happen?”

“Two years ago.”

“Two years ago? But that’s—two years ago—that’s when you got married, wasn’t it?”

“Just before the wedding, to be exact. Two or three weeks before, something like that.”

Pepper lets out a whistle, long and low, making her cheekbones pop out above her pursed lips. “Tiny, Tiny. To think you wore white. Cold feet, was it?”

“Something like that.”

“Have you done it since? Since he got back?”

I snatch the photograph away. “Of course not!”

“So why are you showing me this now?”

I reach for the manila envelope and shove the photograph back inside. My nakedness disappears from sight. “Because remember when I had you sell that bracelet, a few weeks ago?”

“Sure I do. I— Wait a minute.” She snatches back the envelope. “You’re being
blackmailed
, Tiny? Caspian
Harrison
is
blackmailing
you?”

“Of course it’s not Caspian. Give that back!”

But she’s already opening the flap, already sliding out the contents. The photograph, the note. “Jesus. Oh my God. This is like a movie. One of those gangster movies—”

“This is not a movie. This is real life,
my
life, and if this ever gets out, it won’t matter whether I leave Frank or not, he’ll be ruined, and it will be my fault, to say nothing of
my
life being ruined—”

“Why will
your
life be ruined?
Frank’
s career will be over, sure, but that’s no more than he deserves, the cheating bastard.”

“Oh, Pepper. Think. Think about it. Think about this photograph being splashed across the newspapers for every man Harry to look at.”

She fans herself slowly with the contents of the envelope. Her face is a little flushed beneath the olive tan. “Could you open a window or something?”

I walk to the window overlooking the beach and lift the bottom sash. A rush of hot wind catches me in the stomach. “It’s warmer outside, actually.”

“At least it’s fresh.”

I lie down on the bed, back to front, and prop my feet up on the wall above the headboard. My stomach growls, wondering where lunch has got to. I fold my arms across my rib cage to muffle the sound. The shock of Dr. Keene is receding at last, taking the rest of my emotions with it. The brain left behind is unnaturally sharp, unusually cold. Ready for action.

“If it’s not Caspian, then who is it?”

“I don’t know. Someone who found the photographs.”

“Well, screw him. Go to the police.”

“I can’t do that. Frank will find out.”

“So what if he does?”

“Pepper, Caspian’s his cousin. How am I supposed to tell Frank I slept with his cousin?”

“You never told Frank?”

The fan overhead is rotating at low speed. I imagine myself grabbing hold of one of the blades and going around and around, like a carnival ride. I can almost feel the air rushing against my cheeks. “Not exactly. A little. I think he guessed the rest, except about Caspian. But he’s never spoken to me about it. He never seemed to care. He was just . . . He was just glad I came back. Glad I changed my mind and went through with the wedding. A gentleman, you might say.”

“What does Caspian say?”

“About the blackmail? I haven’t told him.”

“Why not? He took the pictures, goddamn it!”

“I just can’t, that’s all. He might tell Frank, or Frank’s father.”

“Do you think so? He seems pretty square to me.”

Round and round, getting me nowhere. “Oh, he might. Trust me. It’s the Hardcastle way. The family comes first, when the chips are down.”

“I think you’re wrong, there. I think he’s his own man.”

I swing upward to sit on the edge of the bed, gripping the comforter with my fingers. “I said,
trust me
.”

Pepper folds her arms. She’s starting to look a little rounder now, Pepper. If you look closely, you can maybe even see a trace of fullness at her belly, about the size of a man’s spread palm, beneath her cotton shift. A wide scarf holds her hair back from her face, and I’ll be damned if the sculpture of her cheeks hasn’t taken on a layer or two, a coating of new clay. “Just what the hell happened between you two?” she asks.

“It doesn’t matter now.” I hoist myself up and turn around to face her, sitting cross-legged in the middle of the bed. “The point is what I’m going to do now.”

“Did you reply to
this
little valentine?”

“No. Not yet.”

Pepper drums her fingers against the envelope, which dangles from her crossed arms. A plain manila envelope, the kind you see in offices everywhere. The photograph and note are still outside it, pinned to the manila by her scarlet-tipped thumb. Her head tilts to one side as she watches me. Her face is half in shadow, half alight with the golden glow of an afternoon beach streaming through the window. “You have no idea who this guy might be? No idea how he got his hands on the photographs?”

“Caspian says he packed up the photographs, before he left for Vietnam. An attic or a closet somewhere.”

“Well, anyone in the family could have gone in the attic, right? Two years is a long time.”

“But why would anyone in the family be blackmailing me?”

“That bitch Constance. She’s no friend of yours. You should hear the stuff she says, behind your back.”

“She loves Frank more than she dislikes me,” I say absently. My head is tilted, my eyes are fixed on Pepper’s thumbnail, which covers my slender black-and-white hip at the edge of the photograph like a scarlet fig leaf. “Could you give me that photograph for a moment?”

She hands it to me. “What about her husband? Tim?”

“Tom.”

“He’s got a chip on his shoulder the size of Plymouth Rock. I’ll bet he—”

“This photo was developed in a shop,” I say.

“What’s that?”

I look up at her. “There’s a time and date stamp on the border. It was processed in a professional lab.”

“Well, of course it was.”

“You don’t understand. Caspian develops all his own film. He has a darkroom in his apartment.”

Pepper frowns at me. “Let me see that.”

I hand her back the photograph.

She holds it up to her nose, squinting a little. Surely my little sister doesn’t need reading glasses, does she? Wouldn’t that be a hoot. Pepper, wearing glasses. She reads out, “Eleven twenty-two a.m., May the fourth, nineteen sixty-six,” and looks up at me. “Is that a clue, Mr. Holmes?”

Already I’m putting on my sandals. My brain is buzzing, my veins are fizzing with something. Hope? Purpose, maybe. Doing something. I head for the door.

“I don’t know. But I’m going to find out.”

“Are you, now? And how do you plan to do that, Miss Scaredy-Cat?”

I pause at the vase of flowers on my chest of drawers. Hyacinths, delivered yesterday with a handwritten note:
To my darling wife. I love you. Frank
. They’re a lovely shade of blue, unearthly, each tiny petal poised in dewy perfection. But when I bend my face to smell them, the scent is almost too faint to catch. As if they’ve left their essence behind in the hothouse.

I straighten from the flowers, take the envelope from her fingers, and tuck it under my arm.

“I’m going to talk to Caspian.”

•   •   •

F
or lack of anything more, I address Caspian’s feet. They’re shod in old army boots and stick out from beneath the elegant swoop of the Mercedes-Benz rear fender like a pair of gigantic leather bookends.

“What’s that?” he calls, in a metallic voice. “You’ve got the sandwiches?”

“Would you mind coming out of there for a moment? I can’t stand here shouting.”

Caspian scoots out slowly, foot by foot, clad in worn Levi’s and a stained old shirt. He’s lying on one of those wheeled planks, like mechanics use. He straightens to a sitting position and braces his boots against the floor so he doesn’t roll. “Is something wrong?” he asks, when he sees my face.

“The photographs,” I say.

He doesn’t ask which photographs. “What about them? I told you I boxed them up. I checked on them, when I was back in town. They’re still there.”

“I know. I mean, I’m sure they are. I mean the other photographs. The ones you took of me on the sofa.” My lips are thick and clumsy; the words seem to stick in them.

Caspian frowns. “Those? That’s just film. I never developed them.”

“What did you do with the film?”

“I mailed it to you, of course. Before the wedding.” He rises to his feet. “Didn’t you get it?”

I almost can’t hear him, through the beat of my own pulse in my ears. “Where did you mail it to? Which address?”

“To your apartment. I didn’t want to take a chance that Frank would find it and get curious. Why? What’s going on?”

“Nothing.”

He reaches for my arm. “Tiny—”

I shrug him off and take a stumbling step backward. “It’s nothing. I was just wondering.”

“Did someone—”

I turn to the door, to the wedge of open sunlight, but Caspian bolts in front of me and takes me by the arms. “Hold on. Wait a moment.”

I stare at the buttons of his shirt. “Please let me go.”

“You’re in trouble.”

“No more than usual.”

“Tiny, I’m here to help you. To serve you. That’s why I’m here, the only reason.”

“Don’t you think you’ve done enough already?”

Caspian flinches and drops his hands, as if I’ve turned into molten metal. I gather myself and look up at his face. A black smear lies across one cheekbone, rubbed there by a dirty hand. His forehead is dark with grease.

“You’re one of them,” I say. “You’re a Hardcastle. You’re part of this whole racket. Frank’s campaign staff, carrying him into the White House with your bare hands. Never mind who gets hurt along the way. The end justifies the means, doesn’t it?”

“You know that’s not true. I don’t give a damn about Frank’s ambitions.”

“Then why are you campaigning with him? Why are you all protecting him like this?”

You wouldn’t believe a man with one leg could stand so still. You’d think he was made of stone, or wax, the way he looks down at me, or maybe through me. Not even a single dark pupil flexes against a green Harrison iris. I could count his eyelashes.

“Well?” I say, because I am not going to stand down this time, I’m not going to fade away. “Why do you defend Frank? Why do you let them dress you up in your uniform and your medals and . . . and
use
you like that?”

“I’m not.”

“Oh, really? Then what do you call it?”

He blinks at last and lets out a heavy sigh. He steps out of my way and makes for the car. I turn and watch him as he picks up a wrench and sinks back down to sit on the wheeled platform. “This,” he says fiercely, holding up the wrench. “Me, here.” He gestures around the shed, toward the door. “The ceremony in Washington, the hotel the other night. You think I’m doing it for
Frank
? Helping Frank? Protecting
Frank
?” He shakes his head.

“What, then? Tell me. For God’s sake.”

He leans backward on the wooden platform and stares at the ceiling. “When you’re done thinking about it, come and find me.”

A flutter disturbs the air, and the mother starling ducks in through the shed door and rushes to the nest in the roof beams. The baby starlings stir, opening their red throats, wide with anticipation.

I let my gaze fall to Caspian below them. His knees are raised, the left one a bit larger than the right. His hand with the wrench lies across his wide chest, moving slightly with the rhythm of his breath. His wide chest, which once sheltered me, which then traveled across the world and bled out into the jungle mud, which was hoisted almost lifeless into a helicopter while I wrapped Christmas presents in my tasteful Back Bay living room.

I step across the dusty floor and sink to my knees next to him.

“I’m here now, aren’t I?” I say.

He rolls his head and looks at me, without speaking. Exactly the same eyes, the same cheekbones, the same jaw, the same Caspian. Except for that scar on his forehead, curling around his brow.

I reach out a brave hand and touch his knee. “Does it hurt?”

“You mean now?”

“Now. Whenever.”

“Sometimes. A lot of the time. But not now.”

I lean forward and kiss the edge of his broad patella. The denim is hot beneath my lips and smells of oil. “I am so sorry. You don’t know how much. If I— I just keep thinking, over and over, it’s
my
fault, if I hadn’t—”

Caspian sits up. “It’s not your fault.”

“You wouldn’t have taken that second tour—”

“Then something might have happened in the first tour. You never know what might have been. You just never know.”

His breath is close to mine. His breath and my breath.

I lean my cheek against his knee, facing the wide old boards of the shed wall. Above us, the baby starlings exclaim delight at being fed. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. Your beautiful leg.”

“It’s just a leg, I told you.”

“I screwed up, didn’t I? I screwed up so badly. You should have found another girl.”

“There isn’t another girl, Tiny. Not in the wide world.”