Secrets (12 page)

“Come on,” Althea said, “let's go upstairs and start cataloguing. Or do you want to be alone with your misery?”

“I've spent too much of my life alone,” Cassie said.

“Me too,” Althea said, but when Cassie looked at her in disbelief, she shrugged. “Okay, so I've only spent the last few years alone, but that's more than I can stand.” She put her arm through Cassie's as they went up the stairs. “There's a young man who's been writing me every month for about ten years now. He wants to write my biography.”

“I think that sounds like a good idea,” Cassie said.

“Maybe. It has run through my mind. Do you think anyone out there would be interested in the life of an old movie star?”

“I think that if you told the truth about everything, it might be a shock, and shocking stories sell well, don't they?”

“My thoughts exactly.”

They were at the attic door and Cassie opened it and let Althea go in before her. “Why don't you tell
me
the truth and I'll help you decide.”

“Only if you tell me the truth about yourself,” Althea said.

“But I just did,” Cassie said. “I told you everything.”

“Then I guess it'll just be me on the stage. Oh, darn,” Althea said, and they laughed together.

 

Cassie spent all that week with Althea. They were two lonely women, and even though Althea's life experience was much longer than Cassie's, there were similarities. They had both grown up as misfits in their families. Cassie was nothing like her mother, and Althea had been nothing like her relatives. In spite of the unhappiness of her leaving Jeff's family, Cassie had a good week. She was Althea's audience and she loved every minute of it. She loved every story Althea told about her life onstage, and when Cassie suggested that they start recording the anecdotes, Althea had agreed readily. Althea talked into a microphone while Cassie catalogued, and they helped each other with their loneliness.

But most of all, they developed a friendship. While Althea talked about herself and her extraordinary life, she bossed Cassie around about everything, starting with how she needed to lose weight and exercise. “The concept of ‘hard bodies' wasn't invented by your mother's generation,” Althea said as she put on a mink stole she'd worn in
First of the Days
. “I think that young man of yours could be won with a little old-fashioned sex appeal, what we used to call the ‘it factor.'”

“Like Skylar,” Cassie said with a sigh. Althea made no reply, but she looked at Cassie in speculation. Sometimes she thought that Althea looked as though she was planning something for Cassie, but there was never a hint as to what it was.

By Friday, Cassie felt a great deal better. She was almost looking forward to her weekend with Brent.

 

At 3
P.M
. on Friday Cassie was in Jeff's house when Dana appeared at the back door with a basket full of home-baked muffins and cookies.

“They're in there,” Cassie said, pointing toward the big living room. There was a DVD showing on the TV, and Thomas and Elsbeth were looking at it, but Cassie was willing to bet they weren't seeing it.

Cassie could do no more than nod toward them, then she scurried out of the room, leaving Dana to cope on her own.

“I am going to be happy and have a good time this weekend,” Cassie told herself as she put on her jacket and got her duffel bag. She remembered how she and Brent had had a good time on their all-day date. True, he had a wandering eye and three times she'd seen him staring at some other female. But that was normal, wasn't it?

They'd had lunch on Richmond Road, then went to see the five James River Plantations: Sherwood Forest, Westover (divine garden!), Shirley, Evelynton, and Berkeley. Cassie had loved them, and Brent said that he did, but sometimes she got the impression that he'd have much rather gone to Busch Gardens and ridden the big roller coaster. Cassie would have liked that too, so why had he chosen something historical instead? Was he trying to impress her? But as the day progressed and they came close to running out of things to talk about, she had the oddest idea that Brent was trying to impress not her but Jeff. Now and then, as though it were of no consequence, Brent asked a question about Jeff. What was he like at home? Did he have any hobbies? What had he told her about his job?

Cassie answered all the questions with a lot of words, but she didn't tell much. It wasn't as though Jeff ever did anything that called for secrecy, after all, he was just a normal, hardworking father. But there was something about the way Brent slyly slipped the questions in as he was doing something else, like reading a guidebook to a plantation's history, as though the questions didn't matter, that bothered her.

What did Brent and Jeff have to do with each other? she wondered. When she got home that night and Jeff started warning her against Brent, Cassie wanted to scream at both of them. She felt as though she'd been caught in some Shakespearean drama. Her instincts told her the men weren't fighting over her, but that there was a deeper issue between them. It was just that she had no idea what it was.

When she left the house, she didn't exactly tiptoe and sneak out, but she certainly didn't make any noise. She was almost to the road when Brent arrived in his little red sports car.

“You're here,” he said, and she could hear the disappointment in his voice.

“Jeff isn't home,” she said as she tossed her bag in the back and got in the passenger seat.

“I know. He's—” Brent cut himself off as he backed out of the driveway. “I think I saw him on 199.”

“What is it with you two?” Cassie blurted out. “Are you two in love with each other?”

“In—?” Brent began, then laughed. “Of course not. Baby, I'm pure heterosexual. Maybe your boss swings the other way, but…” He glanced at her. “Does he?”

“I know nothing whatever about Jefferson Ames's sexual preferences, so you can stop that line of questioning this minute.”

“I had no intention of asking about him,” Brent said stiffly.

“You're the one who brought it up. Boy! You're in a bad mood, aren't you?”

Cassie took a moment to calm herself. “Sorry. I guess I am. Thomas and Elsbeth are really angry at me for quitting my job. But then, I'm the one who takes care of them, so they'll miss what I do.”

“I think it's more than that,” Brent said softly. “I think they love you.”

It was more than Cassie could take. All Althea's attempts at distracting her flew out the window. She put her face in her hands and began to cry. Brent opened the center console, pulled out a pack of tissues, and handed her a bunch of them.

“I'm sorry,” Cassie said, blowing her nose. “I didn't mean to do this. I love them too. They've become my family, and I don't want to leave them, but I have to.”

“Because of Ames?”

“He's going to get married and his girlfriend hates me. It's either now or later, so what's the difference? It's just that I'd think Thomas and Elsbeth would have some sympathy for me, but they look at me as though I'm the cruelest person on earth.”

“Maybe they think you should stay and fight.”

“I thought about it, but how do I do that? I burned a hole in an expensive jacket of Skylar's just to show her I wasn't going to be bossed around by her. But if she married Jeff, she'd be my employer. Would I have to burn up all her clothes?”

“She'd complain about anything you cooked, so you'd better burn that too,” Brent said without a hint of a smile.

It took Cassie a moment to get his joke. She didn't laugh but she quit crying.

“Look, I'm sorry I made you think I was prying about you and Ames,” he said. “It's just that I wanted to know about my competition. You see, Jeff and I know each other from way back, and there's always been some rivalry between us.” He glanced at her. “I know what you're going to say, that Ames is old enough to be my father, but women seem to like him, so there have been some, uh, problems.”

“You and Jeff fought over a woman?” Cassie asked, wiping the tears from her eyes. “When was this? He married Lillian when he was very young, and since then there've been no women except Skylar.”

“Is that what he told you?” Brent asked, smiling as he turned onto Highway 64.

“I live with the man. I should know,” she said, then stopped. “I mean, I don't really
live
with him, not in the old-fashioned way.”

“No, you just take care of his life so he has time to do whatever he wants. You don't think that all the time he's away from home that he's actually working, do you?”

“Yes,” she said hesitantly. “I think so. Thought so. He isn't?”

“I have no right to tell anyone's secrets. Let's just say that I know some things about Jefferson Ames and he's not what he seems to be.”

Cassie opened her mouth to say that that's just what Jeff had said about him, but she didn't. Her mother once told her that it was better to take in information, file it, and put it all together later. Margaret said that keeping her mouth shut and listening was half of why she'd been such a success.

Turning away from him, Cassie looked out the window at the beautiful Virginia scenery and at last began to realize that she had two whole days away from the turmoil of the Ames household. Between days working for Althea and evenings with an angry child, Cassie hadn't slept much in the last week. Before long she found herself nodding off. It was a four-hour drive to the cabin, and the next thing she knew, the car had stopped.

She awoke with a jolt, sitting up straight and looking about her in confusion.

“You okay?” Brent asked as he turned off the engine.

Cassie rubbed her eyes. “I think I must have dozed off.”

“You slept soundly enough that horns and motorcycles didn't even make you move.” He was smiling at her.

“I'm sorry,” she said, embarrassed.

“You slept like a very pretty baby.” He nodded out the window to the little store in front of them. “We're here and this is it,” he said.

They were in the gravel parking lot of a grocery store, with two gas pumps in the front. Next door was a shop that seemed to do everything from rent DVDs to pack and ship. It also seemed to have a tiny café.

“Want some coffee?” he asked. “Or a Coke? Ice cream bar? Marijuana?”

She was still sleep befuddled and could only look at him.

“Local gossip says that they grow it in the backyard where they keep the dog, but that may only be a rumor. But they do serve a spaghetti that has some very suspicious-looking green flakes in it.”

Cassie smiled.

“That's better. Wanna help me get groceries?”

“Sure,” she said, opening the car door.

He held open the screen door to allow her to enter before him, and she smiled when she saw the interior. It was the kind of place she loved. The wooden floor was so warped it looked as though it had been through a flood. Along the back wall was a glass-doored refrigerator case that contained lots of different drinks in bottles. To her left was a glass butcher's case with meats that probably came from a local farmer's herd. To the right was a cash register on a cabinet that was so piled with things to sell there was almost no room to put purchases.

But Cassie's smile soon left her because standing in the back, near the ice cream chest, was Jefferson Ames. Ten feet away from him was Skylar Beaumont.

“What the hell are
you
doing here?” Brent said loud enough that the butcher and the woman behind the register stopped to look at them.

Jeff had a red plastic basket over his arm with three bottles of wine sticking out of it. For an instant there was shock on his face, but he got himself under control. “I think I should ask you the same thing, Goodwin.”

Cassie stood silent, still in the doorway, and looked at Skylar, who was now glowering at her. Cassie remembered that Brent said Jeff had been out with lots of women in the years since his wife's death, but Cassie had defended him. She'd said Jeff worked long, hard hours. But did he? Right now he was supposed to be at work or with his daughter, but he wasn't. How many other times had he let them think he was working when he wasn't?

Cassie couldn't bear to listen to whatever Jeff and Brent were saying to each other, so she left the store. Outside, it was that beautiful time of twilight and she leaned against Brent's car to look at the trees across the road.

“Cassie?”

It was Jeff, but she didn't turn to look at him.

“It seems that Althea has played a joke on all of us. She asked Goodwin to check on her cabin and asked me, through my father, to do the same thing. I have no idea what she had in her devious little mind, but here we all are together.”

“I thought you were working,” Cassie said, still looking straight ahead.

“I am,” he answered, then glanced back at the store. “Oh, I see. You think I was lying. For your information, I called Dad and told him that I'd be away for the weekend.”

“Away for the weekend,” she said as she looked at him. She really had no right to be angry at him. He'd made no secret that he was nearly engaged to Skylar, so of course they wanted to spend time alone. At least he was considerate enough not to parade a string of women in front of his daughter, she thought. No, he'd waited until he found the right one, Skylar, then brought her home.

Jeff leaned on Brent's car beside her. “So now what do we do? It's too late for you two to drive back to Williamsburg.”

“Us? Why not you and Skylar? You two could spend the weekend at her house. Neither Brent nor I have private homes. He lives over Althea's garage, and I live with you. Sort of, anyway. Until Monday.”

Jeff moved away from the car to stand in front of her. “You came up here to spend the weekend with a man you just met a few days ago?”