Secrets She Left Behind (31 page)

Andy

“T
HIS IS THE BEDROOM I STAY IN WHEN I SLEEP OVER SOMETIMES,”
I whispered to Kimmie. I wasn’t sure why I whispered it. No one was home at Uncle Marcus’s, because I planned it that way.

“Is the bed made?” Kimmie asked.

Anybody could see the bed was made. It had a dark blue bedspread on it, all tucked under the pillow like it was supposed to be. “Yes,” I said. “That blue thing is the bedspread.”

“No, I mean is it made
up.
” She pulled the bedspread down a little and I figured out she meant were there
sheets
on the bed. “Oh. Good,” she said.

There were blue-and-white striped ones under the bedspread. I remembered when Uncle Marcus and I bought them. He said they were musculine sheets, or something like that. The room that Maggie stayed in sometimes had yellow sheets that were girlie. That was the room where Keith lived now, so maybe he got different sheets.

Kimmie sat on the edge of the bed with her hands folded up while I got the condom out of my pocket. I looked at the date again to be sure it was the same as before. I didn’t know if I should open it now so it would be totally ready or not.

“Should I open it?” I asked.

She nodded. “I think so.” Kimmie usually uses a lot of words, but not now.

The condom package was easy to open. Kimmie took it from me. She peeked inside and then put it on the corner part of the table.

People said I couldn’t plan good, but I planned this out totally. Uncle Marcus was at work and Keith wasn’t there because he was at a date. Mom said that. She said she asked him to come to dinner since Maggie was out late. Keith and Maggie don’t like to see each other. Keith said he had a date, so I knew the tower house would be empty. I couldn’t figure out how me and Kimmie would get there, though. Kimmie said, did Maggie have a bike? I was only thinking about
my
bike. I forgot about Maggie’s. It needed air in the tires but we had a pump. Then I lied to Mom about how we were going for a bike ride. That wasn’t a
big
lie because we did go for a bike ride. I just didn’t say where to.

“Should we get under the covers or on top of them?” Kimmie asked. Usually she told
me
what to do.

It was pretty warm in the room. “On top,” I said.

She took off her glasses and put them on the table. “Should we take off our clothes first?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” I said. Uncle Marcus gave me lots of rules but it turned out he didn’t give me enough. The people in Max’s magazines were already naked when I saw their picture. “I think so,” I said.

She got on her knees to shut the window things. Then we started getting undressed. It took me, like, one second to get off my shirt and my jeans, but it took her, like, one whole minute to unhook the buttons on her shirt. I felt funny watching her. I sat on the bed and made like I was folding my clothes up neatly instead. I still had my boxers on. I didn’t care about hiding my hard-on this time, because we were going to have sex.

She got off all her clothes and then I looked at her. She was so pretty.

“Don’t stare,” she said. She closed her arms over her breasts so I couldn’t see them.

“I’m not,” I said. She was right, though. I
was
staring. I really liked how dark and smooth all her skin was. She had way more public hair than me. Max said a lot of girls shaved theirs, but Kimmie didn’t.

“I want to get under the covers now,” she said.

“Okay.”

She got under the bedspread while I took off my boxers. Then I got under the bedspread with her. I kissed her right away. I put my tongue in her mouth, but she didn’t put hers in mine like she usually did. That was okay. I just wanted to get on top of her and put my penis in her. I started to get on top and then all of a sudden remembered the condom.

“The condom!” I said. I got it out of the pack and it went on perfect like it was supposed to because Uncle Marcus showed me a long time ago on a zucchini, which was so funny.

I got on top of Kimmie, then, but her legs were hooked together.

“You’re supposed to put your legs apart,” I said.

“I’m too scared,” she said.

“Why?” I asked. “You said you wanted to do sex with me.”

“I don’t want to now.”

I
had
to do it now. “Please, Kimmie!” I said.

She didn’t answer me. I couldn’t see her face very good, but I heard her crying.

I got off of being on top of her. She didn’t exactly say no, but that’s what she meant. Now I was supposed to go jerk off.

She turned toward the window. “I’m sorry,” she said.

I rolled off the condom and tried to stick it back in the pack, but it wouldn’t go. I was angry and sad and everything because I planned it so good and for nothing. I didn’t even feel like jerking off.

I looked down at Kimmie. Part of the bedspread was down, and Kimmie’s long hair was on top of the blue-and-white pillow. Her shoulders were jumping up and down, like when you cry. She was even sadder than me. I suddenly really, really got what Uncle Marcus meant about not pushing a girl.

I picked up her shirt from the floor and put it over her shoulder. Then I lied down behind her and put my arm around her. She turned and looked at me.

“Are you mad at me?” she asked.

“No.” I wasn’t mad anymore. I just didn’t want her to cry or be sad.

“I just got scared,” she said.

I wanted to ask her,
of what?
But that would be a kind of pushing her.

“That’s okay,” I said.

“Maybe we should go back to your house,” she said. “I don’t want to be here anymore.”

“Okay.”

We got dressed and walked down the metal stairs that went round and round to the living room. We were partway through the living room when a car door slammed.

“Uh-oh,” Kimmie said. “Is that your uncle?”

It better not be. I’d be in a lot of trouble. We might have to sneak out the door by the deck. Or maybe we could hide on the roof. I went to the kitchen window and peeked out. “His car place is empty,” I said. But then I saw Keith’s car.

“It’s stupid Keith,” I said.

“Should we hide?” Kimmie asked.

I wasn’t sure. Would Keith tell Uncle Marcus he saw us there? I took too long figuring it out, because all of a sudden Keith and a girl came in the front door. The girl was laughing and kind of hanging on him. Me and Kimmie froze perfectly still, like they wouldn’t notice us if we didn’t move. And for a minute, they didn’t. Keith was too busy kissing the girl.

All of a sudden, the girl saw us and stopped kissing Keith. She pointed at us, and Keith turned around.

“What the hell are
you
doing here?” he asked.

“I wanted to show Kimmie the Operation Bumblebee tower,” I said.

“Yeah.” Keith laughed. “I bet that wasn’t the only tower you wanted to show her.”

I didn’t know what he meant, but the girl laughed, too. She had gigantic eyes that were blue and black hair with a red plastic clip thing on her head. I knew her. When she turned her head, I saw that funny spot below her ear. Like a heart tattoo. I waved to her.

“Hi,” I said.

She just smiled at me. She looked really different than the other time I saw her.

“This is Kimmie,” I said. You’re supposed to introduce people when they didn’t know each other. Keith didn’t introduce the girl, though. Probably because I sort of knew her already even though I didn’t know her name.

“I’m going upstairs,” she said to Keith.

“Right behind you,” Keith said. He looked at me. “You’d better get out of here,” he said.

I wanted to ask him not to tell Uncle Marcus me and Kimmie were there, but he was mean. Mean people sometimes did the opposite of what you asked them to.

“Okay,” I said. “We’re going.”

We walked outside to our bikes.

“Will he tell?” Kimmie undid the kickstand on her bike.

“I don’t know.” I could get in so much trouble and we didn’t even have sex. That would be totally not fair.

Kimmie put her hand on my arm before I could get on my bike. I hated that her eyes had water in them and her nose was red. “Will you still be my boyfriend after today?” she asked.

It was a crazy question. “I’ll
always
be your boyfriend,” I said.

She smiled and even though her nose was still red, I knew she was finally done crying for now.

Sara
Losing Jamie
1997

J
AMIE’D PROMISED ME THAT THIS WOULD BE THE WEEK HE’D
tell Laurel he wanted a divorce.

A year had passed since Marcus’s return, and I had done nothing to pressure him—although the thought of an ultimatum swept through my mind a few times. How could it not? A year! But if I told him it was now or never, that if he didn’t ask Laurel for a divorce, I would take Keith and leave…well, he’d know I was lying. I’d never leave the island.

Granted, it had been a terrible year for him. For everyone, really. Hurricane Fran had swept across the island, demolishing homes and roads. It lifted my trailer up and spun it around, setting it down again on a sea of beach grass. Of course, we’d all evacuated, so we were safe, but it took months to get my home back where it belonged, and the Sea Tender, while still standing, was wobbling on its foundation of stilts. The Lockwoods would not be able to live in it much longer, so Jamie was building a gorgeous new house for them on the sound. As I tried to put my dented trailer back in order, I felt my envy of Laurel creeping back in. She still had it all.

Jamie wanted to talk to Marcus about the divorce before he said anything to Laurel, he told me. He wanted his brother to be ready to give Laurel emotional support, because he knew she was going to need it.

“I’m dreading telling him,” Jamie’d told me.

“It’ll be okay,” I’d reassured him. I just wanted him to get this
over
with. I’d been waiting so long. He’d asked me months earlier why I never wore his mother’s necklace, and I told him truthfully that I was saving it for our wedding day. He promised me that day would come soon. “Everyone’s going to be shocked at first,” I said, “but they’ll be all right, Jamie. You know they will be.”

Finally, that Friday night, Jamie called to say that he and Marcus were going out on Marcus’s boat in the morning and he would tell him then. Then a quick “I love you.” It was the last I’d ever hear.

In the morning, Laurel called me in hysterics. There’d been an accident on the boat. A whale lifted it into the air, she said, tossing Jamie into the water. He was gone. Lost.
Dead.

I raced over to the Sea Tender to stay with the children, while Laurel joined Marcus at the police station. Maggie was eight, and she had some understanding of what was going on. Keith, at six, less so. And five-year-old Andy was in the dark, as usual. I took the children out to the beach and huddled there with them in the sand, thinking,
This has to be a mistake. It
has
to be.

But in my heart, I knew it was not a mistake at all.

The memorial service was held at the chapel, and there were so many people that they spilled from the doors. A Wilmington minister Jamie’d respected performed the service, but everyone knew it was too flowery and regimented for a man like Jamie Lockwood. Afterward, Laurel and Maggie and Andy tossed Jamie’s
ashes into the inlet, while Keith and I—his second family, the one no one knew about—hung back with the others.

That was the hardest part of being the other woman, I thought in the days to come: grieving alone. While friends reached out to Laurel in huge numbers, no one said a word to me except a passing “Shame about Jamie Lockwood, isn’t it?” In addition to my grief, I was fearful about what would happen when Jamie’s will was read, remembering what he’d said about “making arrangements” in case something happened to him. Everyone would know about Keith and me then. But days passed and I never heard a word about anything being left to us. There was no call from Jamie’s attorney. No outraged call from Laurel. And I knew that nothing had been left to us after all. Nothing to me, and nothing to Keith.

We were on our own.

Keith

W
ELL, ONE THING I HADN’T FIGURED OUT ABOUT KAYAKING
was that I wouldn’t be able to paddle with my screwed-up arm. That meant we had to rent a double kayak, and that Jen had to do all the paddling, which was humiliating, but she just kissed me and said she didn’t care at all. Even after she discovered paddling wasn’t as easy as it looked, she didn’t complain. I felt like a total loser, though, just kickin’ back while she did all the work. Adding to that was the fact that I’m not supposed to do sun, and of course, I didn’t think about that, so I didn’t have a hat or sunscreen. So Jen gave me her straw hat to wear and slathered her sunscreen all over my face and hands. Oh, and we had to wear these dorky life preservers. Dawn got Frankie to rent us the kayak for free. She probably paid for it, but whatever. Anyhow, Frankie said, no life preservers, no rental, so that’s why we looked like total wusses as Jen paddled us through the narrow waters of the sound.

Except for all that, it was pretty cool being out on the water. You get so used to living someplace that you don’t notice how amazing it is sometimes. We were so close to the birds in the marsh that we could practically see the pupils in the eyes of the blue herons. It was like I didn’t have to think about all the shit in my life for a while. Jen was into the exercise part of it. She liked seeing how fast she could paddle.

“Where does that Maggie Lockwood girl live?” she asked, as Stump Sound widened in front of us. She was studying the houses along the shoreline. There weren’t that many. “You said she lives on the sound, right?”

“Yeah. She lives in a little shack we should be coming up on soon.” I looked to my left, but the world was totally different from the water and I felt disoriented. Finally, I pointed ahead of us. “That’s it,” I said.

“Wow,” she said as we floated past the end of the Lockwoods’ pier. “It must really piss you off to know she lives in a house like that.”

“Royally.” I couldn’t even look at the place. My burned left hand had felt fine up until that moment, but suddenly I could feel the sun hitting it. Stinging it. I pressed it between my knees.

“Well.” Jen sounded down all of a sudden. “My arms are telling me it’s time to turn around.”

I felt kind of depressed, too. It was like seeing Maggie’s house had killed the fun we’d been having up till then.

Jen paddled us back to the boatyard, and we thanked Frankie and gave him our life preservers, then walked across the parking lot to Jen’s car.

“Let’s get a burger somewhere,” she said, opening her car door.

“Cool.” I took off the straw hat and tried to put it on her head, but she was already ducking into the car. The hat caught on the door frame and fell to the sand. When I bent over to pick it up, I saw something shiny beneath her seat. “What’s that?” I asked, reaching for it. I wasn’t sure what I thought it was, but the second I touched it, I knew. I pulled my hand away.

“What the…There’s a
gun
under your seat!”

“Shh!” she said, although there was no one nearby to hear us. “Don’t worry. It’s not loaded.”

I left the gun where it was and stood up straight. “Why do you have a gun?” I asked. I knew lots of people who owned guns, but it still shocked me that Jen was carrying one around in her car. I hadn’t figured her for the gun type.

“If you were a girl, you’d understand,” she said. “Driving alone at night and all that.” She nodded toward the passenger seat. “Come on,” she said. “Get in. I’m hungry.”

I got into the car, leaning over to get another look at the gun, but with the doors shut, it was too dark to see it.

“Don’t get obsessed,” she said. “I told you, it’s not loaded. I just like having it in case I need to scare somebody off.”

“Where’d you get it?”

She didn’t answer right away. “My father gave it to me,” she said. “He’d take me to the range. Said if I was going to have it, I needed to know how to use it.”

She’d never mentioned her father before, and I suddenly pictured this tall, skinny black-haired dude, teaching his daughter how to shoot a gun. I wanted to know more. Did he live in Asheville? Was she close to him? To her mother? Did she have brothers and sisters? I didn’t know a thing about this girl except that she was dynamite in bed and the best thing that had happened to me in a long time.

“Is your father in Asheville?” I asked.

She turned to me with a smile. Pressed her fingertip to my lips. “Let’s talk about where to get our burgers,” she said.