Keeping Secrets (32 page)

Jesse winked at Emma. He was having a good time, as was everybody else. “For my lady,” he said and bowed formally toward her. Well, wasn’t that sweet? But she kept an eye on Caroline, who, unless Emma was mistaken, was flirting with her husband, and the other on the drink he had forgotten now, placed on a corner of the polished rosewood. It would leave a ring, Jesse of all people should know that, but she bit her tongue.

They began. The song, though an old chestnut, was one of his best. It gave him a chance to show off his vibrato, his deepest, most dramatic notes.

Caroline clapped her little hands when they were finished. “That was wonderful.” Jesse smiled back at her.

“You make anyone sound good.”

“Rupert,” Caroline turned to her escort now, “you’re so lucky to have such wonderful and talented friends.”

I may, thought Emma, have to excuse myself to puke.

She glanced across the room to Maria, who returned a look of cool assessment and an imperceptible nod.

“Well, we hate to break up the party.” Maria rose, smoothing her skirt. “But Clifton and I have to hit the road.”

Clifton, who appeared to have been dozing on the sofa like an old bear, but never missed a trick, shook himself and stretched.

“What say, Rupert?” He slapped the man on the shoulder. “You headed back to Oakland? Want to drive on up to Berkeley with us? It’s not too late to hear some music.”

“You dragging my party away, old man?” Jesse asked. There was a storm flag ruffling ever so slightly in his voice.

“No, ’course not. It was just a thought. Why don’t you and Emma come, too? You can stay over at
our
house.”

“What do you think, sugar?” Rupert asked Caroline.

“We can go if you want to, but I’d just as soon stay here. If that’s okay with you, of course?” She directed the question to Emma, who wanted nothing more than to usher them all out and shut the door—and then tuck into bed. She was even in the mood for a little loving. Caroline make you appreciate what you’ve got? she twitted herself. Well, maybe, maybe not.

“Why don’t you
all
stay?” she heard herself, the perfect Southern hostess, saying. “The evening’s young.”

“Thanks, bro,” Rupert said and returned Clifton’s slap on the back. “But I think we’ll hang here and help Jesse finish up this bottle of scotch.”

“There’s plenty more where that came from,” Jesse said.

“Well, it was just a thought. Some other time.” Clifton had his hand on the door.

Declining Maria’s final offer to help with a wry smile that wasn’t just about the dishes, Emma said, “You clean at your house, next time.” Then Clifton and Maria kissed their thanks and farewells and were gone.

* * *

Because Caroline couldn’t talk and act at the same time, and the scotch she’d been sipping all afternoon had loosened her tongue, she stood holding a dish in one hand, telling Emma about her two children, the husband who had left her, her apartment in Palo Alto, her job. The dish never moved.

Suddenly she remembered her manners. “Rupert said you teach?”

“Yes, in Santa Clara at—”

But before Emma could continue, Caroline burbled, “
I’ve
always wanted to teach. I was thinking about going back to school to study art. I love to draw. And I love kids.”

“You should have talked to Clifton about that. You know, he runs a workshop for art teachers at Berkeley in summer school.”

“Oh, really?”

He had talked about it for half an hour. Where was
your
mind all afternoon?

“Does Jesse teach, too?”

“He did for a while, a few private lessons. But Clifton’s your man.”

“I should talk with Jesse about it.”

Was the woman stupid, or just drunk? Emma took the dish out of Caroline’s hands, dumped the remaining coleslaw into a plastic refrigerator container and said, “That’s enough. Let’s get out of this kitchen.” Before I scream, she thought.

Things weren’t much better in the living room, for Rupert and Jesse were well into their cups.

“Coffee, anyone?” she asked.

The answer was no.

“Come on over here, Emma.” Jesse patted the dark blue leather sofa beside him. “Come and have a little drink.”

“I think I’ll stick with my iced tea.”

“You’re such a prissy schoolmarm,” Rupert teased. “Come on, loosen up, live a little.”

Emma smiled stiffly. How many times did she have to refuse?

“Rupert’s right. Caroline’s going to have one, aren’t you?” Jesse stood and took Caroline’s glass out of her hand. “See?”

See what? That Caroline is a good sport who doesn’t know when she’s had enough?

But there was no point in resisting. “A light bourbon and water,” she said. Jesse made her one, dark and stout. It didn’t matter. She’d just hold it for the rest of the night, however long that eternity promised to be.

When he was sober Rupert was funny. When he was drunk, he wasn’t. He was well into a routine that went “And I says, ‘Bro, you full of shit.’”

“Say what?” Jesse answered, and they laughed, slapped hands as if they lived in the street. Jesse’s grandmother Lucretia, who had taught him to speak, if not the King’s English then a close approximation thereof, would have washed his mouth out with soap.

“And so I axed him, ‘Is that why yo eyes be’s so brown?’”

This was going to go on all night, and she couldn’t go home, because this
was
home. Emma closed her eyes and imagined excusing herself with a headache, slipping into the bedroom. She’d sneak her flashlight on under the covers so that they couldn’t see the light, and settle into her new book,
Fear of Flying
.

“Excuse me,” Caroline said suddenly. She staggered slightly as she stood. “Bathroom.”

“Are you okay?” asked Emma.

“Sure,” Caroline answered, but she tripped as she left the room.

Rupert looked up, and then the men went on. And on. Emma disappeared into the kitchen for a while, put the dishes away now that they’d drained. She drummed her fingers on the counter. She dawdled as long as she could.

“Can I get anybody anything?” She poked her head back in.

No one answered. That meant no.

“Where’s Caroline?” It must have been fifteen minutes she’d been gone.

“In the bathroom, I guess,” Rupert said.

“Do you think we ought to check on her?”

“Don’t be such a mother hen.”

Fuck you, Jesse. She smiled and retreated back into the kitchen. What the hell was she doing here—hiding? Yes, hiding with nothing to read. She should cache books all over the house the way the squirrels did nuts. But her purse book was in the bedroom. Her car book was in her car. Her truck book in the truck. Then she spied some old
Gourmet
magazines she’d meant to file.

In minutes she was arm in arm with Elizabeth David on a journey through the countryside of southern France. They were hot on the trail of the perfect chanterelle when she heard the sound of breaking glass. She dropped the magazine and hurried into the living room.

“What was that?”

“What was what?” Jesse looked up.

“Didn’t you drop something?”

He grinned. “What are you smoking in the kitchen?”

She took a quick look at the ebony coffee table. Nothing broken there.

“Where’s Caroline?”

The two men exchanged blank looks.

“Still in the bathroom, I guess,” Rupert ventured.

“Jesus Christ, she’s been in there for half an hour. You ought to go and see about her.”

Rupert didn’t move.

“Hell, I’ll do it myself.” Emma strode across the room, knocked and, when there was no answer, threw open the bathroom door.

Caroline was passed out on the toilet, her skirt up above her knees. Her head had crashed backward into the mirrored shelves behind. Shards of silvery glass glinted on the floor.

“You guys better get in here,” Emma yelled. Caroline didn’t move.

* * *

“Well, they say God protects drunks and fools.”

Emma closed the door behind Rupert, who had come back in to say one last loud farewell, having thrown Caroline over his shoulder and carried her out to his car.
She
was fine. Only one shelf was broken. Rupert had insisted that he drive her home now rather than spend the night, and Emma put up no argument.

“Lord, am I glad
that’s
over,” she said as the door closed.

“You’re awfully tough on people. You should learn to relax and have a good time.”

“I did have a good time, up to a certain point.”

“And then?”

Emma wanted to say, “And then I’d rather be reading a good book, or washing my hair, or doing almost anything,” but she knew better. Jesse had been drinking far too long for her to tell him that most late nights with his friend Rupert bored her to death.

Instead, out fell the words she’d been thinking all night.

“That woman has the hots for your body.”

“Who?”

“Caroline. Who do you think—Maria?”

Jesse looked at her with narrowed eyes, measuring whether she was putting him on or not.

“You’re kidding.”

“I am not. Are you blind?”

“Well, I didn’t notice.”

How could he not see Caroline’s fluttering approach? She’d watched other women do it, too, and it had ceased to amuse or flatter her as it once had when they sidled across a room, chest first.

Well, never mind, she’d let it drop. “Why don’t you go on to bed,” she said. “I’ll clean up the glass so we don’t step on it if we get up to pee.” She patted him on the shoulder. “I’ll be there in a minute.”

Emma dawdled in the bathroom, took her time with the dustpan and broom. The sexy thoughts she’d had earlier had long since evaporated. She was exhausted and had the first cranky twinges of a headache. She swallowed two aspirin. Then she wet a paper towel and carefully mopped the tiles for invisible slivers.

Suddenly the thought struck her: For whom was this broken mirror going to be bad luck? For Caroline or for her?

Jesse was snoring when she joined him. The bedside lamp was still lit. She picked up
Fear of Flying
and found her place. Soon she was reading about the zipless fuck, the one-time encounter with a stranger, no ties, no recriminations, no goodbyes. Just guiltless pleasure in the dark with a blind, deaf and dumb cock. Sounded like old familiar territory to her.

“Happy Fourth of July,” she whispered to Jesse and turned the page to the next adventure with a dampened fingertip.

13

It seemed to Emma that for the rest of that summer the phone never stopped ringing.

Jesse never answered it if Emma was home, and she began jumping at the sound the way Rosalie always did—as if the phone couldn’t possibly bring good news. That summer Rosalie would have been right. It didn’t.

Caroline’s voice was high and fluty with a thrill of laughter running through it, though she seemed a little surprised that Emma had answered.

“Emma!”
she said, and then once again,
“Emma!
I want to apologize for my behavior on the Fourth. And I want to replace your mirror.”

“Oh, don’t be silly.” Emma waved a hand in dismissal of the idea, and the pie crust she was holding almost bit the dust. She rested it atop a pile of papers on the bookshelf.

“Well, I felt like such a fool. I really can’t drink, you know.”

Which is why you shouldn’t, thought Emma, biting her tongue. She’d been doing a lot of that lately.

“Anyway, I’d like to speak to Jesse about the mirror.”

Jesse? Was he in charge of the mirrors in the bathroom?

“Sure, I’ll have him call you when he comes in. He’s up at Skytop.”

“Thanks.” Caroline left her number. “Thanks so much. And again, I’m really sorry.”

For what, Emma wondered, exactly what?

“Ummm,” Jesse murmured that evening over dinner when Emma told him Caroline had called.

“I wonder why she wants to talk with you?”

“Beats the hell out of me.” He shrugged.

A couple of nights later, just before they got into bed, he said, “Caroline wants to have us by for coffee and to give us the piece of glass.”

“What?”

“She took the measurements for the mirror so she could have a piece cut.”

“Why the hell didn’t she just drop five bucks in the mail if she felt so goddamned guilty about it? We go to the hardware store almost every day of our lives. Didn’t you tell her that?”

“I didn’t want to make her feel worse than she already did.”

“So it’s going to make her feel better for us to schlep all the way the hell to Palo Alto to get her stupid piece of glass?”

“What are you so angry about? You don’t have to go, you know. I can do it.”

“I bet you can,” Emma muttered, not quite managing this time to keep her tongue in tow.