The Darkest Secret: A New Adult Romance Novel (24 page)

They laugh.

“And that, to me, is the beauty of this Center. It doesn’t matter how far you’ve gone down the rabbit hole, how deep your abuser has dug that rabbit hole, nobody here is going to judge you or bear a grudge that you took forever to make that call. There is always a hand out, waiting to pull you up, prize you loose. To break that hold on you. It’s a hold that thrives on loneliness and isolation – it can’t survive in the light of empathy and experience, the kind of empathy and experience that’s right here in the hearts of all the survivors in this room.
You know
. You know how hard it can be to make that call, write that e-mail. Which is why you – like my friend – don’t care how long it takes to make it. Just so long as you do.”

I told myself I wouldn’t cry, but I do anyway, bathed in the warmth of applause. After the speeches there’s cake and coffee, and a stream of women of all ages and colors. I used to think I was the only one; it was both heartening and depressing to discover just how common my experience really was.

Once upon a time I used to hate this time of year. I used to think of Thanksgiving as the time when it all started to unravel. Now I know that what I had with Justin was doomed to fall apart from the beginning. Now I know how healthy relationships are supposed to work – in theory, anyway. Sometimes I think about Jaime, but I never hear from him. He’s probably found someone a lot more stable. Someone who can dance.

On my way home I go to the grocery store; this year is going to be the year I get Dad on board with Thanksgiving. I load the pumpkins in the back seat of the car like some modern day fairy godmother, and head back up Laurel.

The big kitchen is empty, and there’s no sign of Dad. I set the groceries on the side and wander through to his lair, only to stop dead in the doorway when I see who’s looking into the fish tank.

At first I’m not sure. His hair looks a little longer, revealing a wave I didn’t even know it had, but when he inclines his head I know the line of his jaw. And I know the rest of him – let’s not kid ourselves. I know those skinny, graceful hips. I know the slight, sweet curve of his ass – I dug my bare heels into it enough times.

I step forward and join him in front of the tank. I’m wearing flats and my steps are so silent that he jumps.

“Wow. Hi.”

How long has it been? A year? About that. Oh my God – I think he got better looking. Yes, his hair is definitely longer. And a little stubble now – not quite so clean cut as before. But his eyes are as big and as brown as before, his eyelashes as thick and black.

“Amber,” he says, with a wide but wary smile. “How are you?”

“I’m good. Great.”

“You look terrific,” he says. “Really well.”

“Thanks. I am. I’m...doing good. Well.”

Jaime waves a hand to the fish tank.

“I was just...um...looking at the nautilus. I remember it from when I first came here. Your old man told me they hadn’t changed in millions of years.”

“Oh. You got the living fossils lecture, huh?”

“Yeah. One of nature’s grand designs, he said. Ain’t broke, didn’t fix it.”

I laugh, nervous.

“Pfft. Please. They’re not that great. They can only move backwards and can’t see where they’re going.”

“Is that right?”

“Yep. We had to move my stupid No Fishing sign when he got the nautilus – it kept knocking the sign over.” I can feel my face turn warm. I really thought I was over this, but he looks so good. A year has carved stronger angles in his jaw, and he looks a little bigger in the chest and shoulders – like he wasn’t quite done filling out at twenty-three.

“So...uh...what brings you here?” I ask.

“Your dad, actually. I was in town and he asked me to stop by.”

“You’ve been away?”

Jaime nods.

“A few places, yeah. He did me a favor – put me in touch with a friend of his who does rock band security.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah. It was cool. I saw a lot of places. New York, Europe. England.”

“Really? How was that?”

“Wet,” he says, after a moment’s hesitation. “You know everything they say about British weather? Well – it’s that. And worse. I don’t know why they have all those big rock festivals when it rains all the goddamn time.”

“I expect they’re used to it.”

“Maybe,” he says, and looks me up and down. “How about you?” he says, like he’s afraid to ask but he’s forcing himself to because of good manners.

“Oh, you know. The usual. Paragliding, bungee-jumping, public speaking – all those old agoraphobic favorites.”

He frowns and I take pity on him.

“Actually not kidding,” I say. “Well, about the last one, anyway.”

“Wow.”

“Yeah. It’s...um...it’s been good. I’ve been volunteering with this women’s refuge and it’s made things a lot easier, knowing I can help make a difference.”

He reaches out and squeezes my hand.

“That’s terrific.”

“I’m getting there.”

Dad wanders into the room and we jump apart like guilty teenagers.

“There you are,” he says. “I wondered where that pumpkin came from.”

“The farmer’s market. I picked it up on my way back.”

“How was your thing?”

“Good. I made a speech.”

He blinks and I know that later he’ll complain I didn’t tell him, but Jaime’s here and so he’s trying to be all unparental, if there is such a thing.

“She’s still keeping secrets from me,” he says, in a stage whisper. “As you can tell.”

Dad wanders off into the next room and I can feel Jaime being pulled along in his wake. It’s weird to see how that magnetic, celebrity effect works on other people. It never worked on me; he’s just my Dad.

“I’d better...”

“Sure.”

Jaime walks maybe three paces and then decides to go for broke.

“Listen, do you want to maybe...do something?”

“Sure,” I say, my heart starting to race. I remember something he once said, back when I wasn’t myself. “Dinner and a movie?”

His face lights up – I think he remembers too – and I’m half-afraid of the depth of my feelings.

“That would be great.”

“My place?” I ask. “It looks a lot different to the last time you saw it.”

“Okay. I’d like that.”

I float back to the kitchen. It’s not until I’m wrist deep in the slime and goo of pumpkin innards that I realize I’m still smiling. Oh God. Perhaps this was a bad idea. Am I supposed to feel this way? After all, I never explicitly said it was a date, and neither did he. I don’t know how this works.

I’m twenty-two and I’ve never even dated before. How weird is that?

Immediately I reject the comparisons – I’m tired of him. I’m tired of him twisting my life from beyond the grave. He doesn’t get to have that power of me – not any more. I’m done.

My Dad gives me Jaime’s number a little too willingly, and not for the first time I suspect him of interfering in my love life. I let him off because I know I should have accepted his interference out in Las Vegas, when he came to my hotel room with a pile of leaflets – Ten Signs That You May Be In An Abusive Relationship. I tore them all into confetti and threw them on the floor.

We set the date for Saturday night. I get up early and tidy the apartment, so that he doesn’t think I’m a lazy rich brat. I cut up chicken and worry that my meringues won’t rise, although they do. Since I started cooking for pleasure I’ve got pretty handy at it. I’ve turned my roof terrace into a little herb garden, so that there’s always fresh basil and mint. I’m thinking of getting a dog – something small and cuddly, like a poodle or a pom. Life is starting to come together at last.

Jaime shows up five minutes late, this time with a pot of white chrysanthemums.

“I figured you already had a vase,” he says. He kisses my cheek and I’m grateful for the gift in his hands in more than one way – if his hands weren’t full I’d probably throw myself at him all over again. And I mustn’t. We agreed on dinner and a movie, and it’s way overdue.

“Right there,” I say, gesturing to the vase he bought me. It stands on the sideboard in front of an Art Deco mirror.

“Wow. You weren’t kidding when you said this place looks a little different.”

“I know. I have furniture now.”

“I love this mirror. Really fits with the rest of the apartment.”

“Thanks. That’s why I bought it. I saw it in a second-hand store and knew I had to get it. I don’t know if it’s genuine or a reproduction, but I like it.”

There’s a weird little gap in the conversation and I wonder if it’s because he’s still adjusting to the idea of me as a person who goes to stores and cooks meals and does normal things. After all, back when we knew one another I didn’t do much but cry, fuck, wave guns at people and suck at dancing.

He looks good. Really good. He’s wearing a white shirt and chinos and he has to know how pale colors look on him – how they bring out the rich tints of his skin and hair. He’s definitely bulked up, but then so have I. My old clothes don’t fit me any more and I have an actual cleavage for the first time in my life. I wonder what he’d think of my body now.

“Something to drink?” I ask, quickly steering my mind away from the past.

“Sure. Thank you. Everything smells wonderful, by the way.”

“Marsala chicken.”

“Italian?” he says, raising an eyebrow.

“Yeah. I’m not Italian, but I figured if I wanted to cook you the traditional food of my homeland you’re left with either British food or Irish.”

He laughs.

“It wasn’t that bad over there. Not as bad as people make out. And their Indian food is amazing.”

I pour us a couple of glasses of Chablis and lead the way to the couch.

“You want to pick us a movie?” I ask, turning on the TV.

“From Netflix? This could take a while. What’s in your queue?”

I’ve been on a classic movie kick lately – All About Eve, Sunset Boulevard, To Kill A Mockingbird. Every other thing in my recommendations is either black and white or at least fifty years old.

“You like Marilyn Monroe?” asks Jaime.

“Sure. Who doesn’t?”

“Okay. How about Some Like It Hot?”

“Isn’t that a bit heavy on the talking for you?” I tease. “Not enough explosions.”

“Nah. It’s a comedy, right?”

“One of her very best. Allegedly she drove Billy Wilder nuts because she kept screwing up the takes on purpose – she was determined to be as funny as humanly possible.”

“You should talk to my brother,” he says. “He loves all that Hollywood history stuff.”

“I’d like that.”

“So would I.”

And just like that I’m fixed to meet his family. I can do this. I can do normal. Now all I have to do is not screw it up.

Dinner goes off without a hitch. I drink maybe more than I should and he has me in stitches with indiscreet stories about the antics of various rock n’ roll roadcrews. We don’t talk about Justin, Big Sur or abortions, which reminds me of one of the reasons why I liked him in the first place – he made me feel like things could be okay again. And now maybe they are.

Afterwards we curl up on the couch in the flickering glow of one of this town’s loveliest ghosts – all lips and lashes and tangled platinum curls as she croons her way through ‘I Want To Be Loved By You’. I wonder if this is how kids used to feel back in the old days, when they went to movie theaters in the hope of curling up in the dark with the one they loved. The old maneuvers you see on TV shows – the exaggerated yawn, the stretch that handily deposits an arm over the back of the girl’s shoulders.

Except we’re not like that. Not exactly. When I stretch my legs out towards him he takes hold of my ankles and dumps my feet in his lap, like we had a lifetime’s familiarity behind us. I kind of like it; it’s peaceful. No pressure.

But as usual I have to prod – not like me to leave anything alone.

“Are you seeing anyone right now?” I ask.

He glances over at me.

“Nope.”

“Were you?”

“Since us?” He shakes his head. “No. Nothing serious. I was never in one place for long enough.”

“Weren’t you surrounded by groupies?”

He laughs.

“Not really. And most of them aren’t girls you want to mess with.”

“Why not?”

“Young,” he says. “Real young. They
say
they’re eighteen...”

“Oh, I see.”

I push my foot against his thigh and he gives me a teasing, sidelong look.

“I told you,” he says. “Nothing serious. And none of them were like you.”

“Crazy, you mean?”

“No,” he says, with a glint in his eye. “I mean they could dance.”

I kick him gently.

“Asshole.”

He laughs and I’m dizzy with the sense of my own brand-new freedom. That I can say these things and not worry that the repercussions will bleed out for days, weeks – it’s enough to make my head spin. In a good way. On the screen, Jack Lemmon tangos back and forth, stone-faced, a rose clenched between his teeth. Jaime laughs. This was always one of my favorite scenes.

“I’m gonna learn,” I say. “It’s not my fault I never had enough lessons.”

He yawns.

“I don’t know. You might just be too white.”

“I’m so not.”

“Amber, you’re practically ultraviolet. Insects mistake you for a bug zapper.”

I can hardly breathe for laughing.

“Rude.”

“I told you – the tango’s a
criollo
thing. It’s a lot of wailing about crossing the ocean and missing the motherland.”

“You don’t think I’m familiar with that? I’m part Irish, for God’s sake.”

He laughs, but I get up from the couch and hold out my hand.

“Once you told me there was love and loss at the heart of the tango,” I say. “And I think I know enough about that, don’t you?”

His expression turns serious.

“You do,” he says, and stands up.

Jaime leads me to a space near the windows.

“Do you remember?” he asks, holding out his arms.

“No. You’ll have to remind me.”

He takes me through the steps once more. I’m inexperienced and unsteady and I keep missing beats. When he tells me to follow his lead I stiffen up and he laughs.

“Amber, relax – I feel like I’m dancing with a Swiffer mop.”