The Secret Keeping (8 page)

And at Frank’s Place the waiter opened the patio.

Lydia Beaumont languished out there Saturday with zero expectations of the hot new spring. Still, she appreciated the sunshine. It was warm on her skin, stimulating to her blood, its heat long awaited. She basked in it, listening without too much resentment to the birds singing their I love you’s. She even watched them up in their branches as they flirted and played tag.

Beside her table, on the sidewalk, flowed a multitude of fellow sun worshippers, bedecked, as she was, in their pre-summer best. She admired their flowers, their stripes, all the seersucker suits marching or meandering to similar churches like Frank’s or wandering aimlessly, just to show off. She searched their ranks without meaning to, a habit by now. Searching for her favorite blond.

She found her, too, her body reacting first to her discovery, the heart leaping in her chest, the knees going weak with adrenaline, the arms wanting to lift up in the air, to hail the woman or hold her or both, the cords in the neck tense with a restrained yell, a whoop of joy trapped in there. She watched the woman nearing, those green eyes hidden behind sunglasses, her own eyes glistening, dewy with desire, the object of complete desire appearing in the flesh now, in full focus, her image once more in alignment with the one held so long in her mind’s eye, emblazoned there. She processed the woman anew, her synapses fantastically tripping with information, her brain’s search engine declaring a perfect match.

The blond left the parade and selected the table adjacent to hers.

The waiter came out to greet her and she smiled wearily as he held her chair. He lifted the umbrella and she removed her glasses holding Lydia’s gaze longer than usual.

Delilah was mistaken. The woman had not been on vacation, that was clear. She was not rested. Her eyes, typically bright and dancing, didn’t have an ounce of joy in them today. Indeed, to Lydia, it looked as if she may have spent a good deal of the past month or so staying up late, crying. She waved with her book and whispered a soft hello. Lydia mouthed it back to her, her body leaning forward in a subconscious display of sympathy. The woman smiled then, laying her book on the table, her glasses on top of it. Something’s on the tip of her tongue, Lydia thought. So say it.

The waiter reappeared with his menus and he read off the luncheon specials while the woman listened distracted. He seemed uneasy today as did the blond, Lydia observed. She threw around some scenarios in her mind trying to determine which one she could use to get herself at that table.

Behind her a commotion sounded in the street, squealing tires and honking horns. She turned as did the other patrons to see what was going on.

A yellow sports car screeched up to the curb alongside the patio. It idled a minute in its own exhaust and then finally emitted a long-legged beauty from the passenger side who nonchalantly hung over the open car window as she laughed and chatted with the driver. After a few moments, she stepped away from it, turned and began cutting a path through the tables of curious spectators on the patio. The car exited the same way it arrived.

She didn’t need such a grand entrance. She was tall and commanding with exotic good looks, the type of girl they wrote songs about, that got attention even in crowds. Used to being stared at, she was dressed perfectly for it, so that you knew in an instant that her body was as flawless as her twenty-something face.

She was quite the girl, walking in a gliding manner as if her feet didn’t actually touch the ground, floating as if she had wings. As she neared her table, Lydia thought she could detect a slight snarl in the girl’s smile. It was, she noted, possibly the only defect in all that astonishing perfection.

“Helaine.”

And a songster sang, Oh, that shark has…pearly teeth, dear…

Helaine? Out of the corner of her eye, Lydia saw the blond stiffen.

“Helaine,” the girl cooed in a spoiled voice, stopping at the table next to Lydia’s, bending to whisper in the tired blond’s ear, her lips parting into a seductive smile for her audience…and she shows them pearly white…for “Helaine.”

Daughter, Lydia hoped. Perhaps just her daughter?

The blond–Helaine–attempted a smile for the girl, failed.

Daughter, niece, sister, whatever, no. No resemblance. Girl too old. Blond too young, too nervous.

LOVER. Lydia leaned back in her chair and took them both in, sighing sadly at the picture they made.

Lovers. Obviously lovers. She now knew too much about the pretty blond in Frank’s Place. Helaine, she repeated inaudibly. It rolled beautifully off the tongue. Helaine, a woman named Helaine, not reading anymore but listening and looking for all the world as if she was being eaten alive. And not fleeing, as Delilah had suggested, but probably waiting the whole time. A beautiful lover, it all made sense. Alone and waiting for her lover, a pretty dangerous looking thing, but young and beautiful nonetheless. Well, why not?

Helaine, Helaine, Helaine. Helaine so-and-so. That rhymes with Joe, Lydia said, kicking herself. What a beautiful name. A beautiful name for a beautiful woman. And, if at all possible, the beautiful woman had become even more pale than when she first arrived. She put her sunglasses on again, grabbed her purse and glanced briefly in Lydia’s direction before allowing herself to be lifted from her chair and escorted to the sidewalk.

Let it be, Lydia told herself as she watched the girl claiming her prize, wrapping her arms around the pale woman’s waist, guiding her onto the sidewalk, taking her away, the blond slowly fading from view, never looking to her left or right, not once looking back.

Lovers. The couple stood across the street now, looking like day and night.

Worth waiting for, Lydia forced herself to admit. A perfect ten.

They stood now on the opposite side of the street, waiting. The girl raised a magnificent arm above her head, a cab pulled over, they were gone.

You know when that shark bites…gone…with those teeth there…probably for good, Lydia realized…there’s never…never a trace of…gone for good.

For good, she murmured, wishing the stupid song would end. What’s so good about it? She followed the cab with her eyes until it was swallowed by traffic.

The waiter–where the hell was the waiter?

The waiter had been missing in action and suddenly appeared stone-faced at the abandoned table. He dropped the umbrella and tucked a forsaken book and menu under his arm. Lydia lifted her hand to get his attention and, neglecting to smile, he acknowledged her, approaching her slowly, as if carrying ten trays.

She nodded quizzically at the book.

“Burns,” he said in a flat tone.

“Burns?”

“The poet.”

Burns. She smiled bitterly. Yeah, it sure did.

_____

The week dragged her unwillingly along with it and Lydia was relieved Wednesday morning to get the good news that her parquet floors were finally done and ready to walk on. She had not shared her weekend revelations with Delilah and it suddenly seemed she could avoid it altogether, if she could just keep up appearances for a few more hours.

That same afternoon she got word from her antique dealer that the sofa she had been eagerly waiting for would be delivered this week.

The sweet old sofa. That was welcome news, too. Now she could throw herself down in it and cry.

She had been charmed on the spot by it, lying in it while the dealer went on and on about value and importance. Value, fine. But she was more attracted to its worn finish, its threadbare arms and comfortably depressed pillows. There were ancient stains joyously scattered among its fauna and flora that whispered of good wine and fine food and it made the cheerful piece seem alive to her, that if she poked gently into its soft recesses she could get it to giggle and gossip.

She was in need of its good cheer; it would be there by Thursday afternoon.

For the rest of the day Lydia undertook to tie up the loose ends that had accumulated since winter. She came across Rio Joe’s last cover letter, copied it and put the stinky original through the shredder.

He had switched strategies on her and all week she felt him circling again, all week casting her those long looks loaded with old suggestions. The renewed advance was filling her with an unwanted tension. She resented him for it and if he continued she feared an explosion, so she was constantly watching over her shoulder in an effort to evade him. She was not sure that she could make it to the weekend.

With that in mind, she closed her office door, working then without worry or interruption, and mulling things over until five. After that she hung around putting the office in order and at six, just before leaving, sent a brief memo to VP Treadwell. Satisfied, she locked her desk, her files, and her office door and then left to have dinner with Delilah. Somewhere other than Frank’s had been Lydia’s only stipulation. She hadn’t said why.

Armed with the diversion of the floors and couch, Lydia managed to escape her friend’s careful analysis, as well as any inquiry concerning her plans for the upcoming Friday night. Even after dinner, as she packed her clothes at Delilah’s and chatted, not a single word or emotion betrayed her.

By ten that evening, she was living in her own apartment again, admiring the beautiful floors, checking her answering machine, and filling a garbage bag with the outdated papers that had piled up in her hallway while she was gone.

At eleven-thirty she placed a long distance call and had a friendly discussion with the person on the other end of the line.

At midnight she pulled her mattress out of the walk-in closet where it had been stashed by the workmen.

She was going to replace that, too, eventually. She hauled it into the living room, threw some sheets, blankets and a pillow on it and went to bed where she lay wide awake into the wee small hours of the morning.

In the morning she stayed in her bathrobe with no plans to go to work. Instead she waited until afternoon when the promised couch arrived. She had the delivery men place it next to the mattress and they eyed her funny as they left the apartment. After that she showered, dressed and put on her makeup, placing one more call to a midtown address before making herself some toast out of the stale bread left in her refrigerator.

She had not unpacked her bag from the night before so there was no reason to fuss. She slung it over her shoulder, checked to see that the coffee was off and turned her answering machine back on before leaving the apartment and locking the door.

In the hallway she took a deep breath, clutched the map she had drawn and hoped it was accurate.

Downstairs in the lobby, she advised her doorman of her plans and tipped him handsomely for his confidence. She then proceeded to walk to a nearby parking lot, stopping to chit chat with a talkative booth attendant who finally handed her the keys to a rental car.

It started fine, everything seemed to be in good working order, there was plenty of gas. She threw her luggage into the back, put the crude map on the passenger seat where she could refer to it when needed, pulled out of the parking lot and hurriedly left town.

She’d send Delilah a postcard when she got there so she wouldn’t worry.

_____

Happy hour and everyone wondered where Lydia was. They called her penthouse and left loud messages full of the jubilant sounds of the bar, singing poor versions of well known songs, hoping that if she was there it might entice her to come out. It was odd for their friend to be absent, especially now that the patio had reopened.

The waiter thought so, too. He inquired twice about her.

A blond woman sat inside reading at the window seat, nursing a glass of wine. From time to time the spine of her book fell to the tabletop and roused her from her thoughts. She would then glance hopefully outside and over again toward the entrance, but whoever she was expecting never showed up. She left roughly at nine. Lydia’s friends sometime after midnight.

The waiter closed around two in the morning, turning the lights out after him and locking the door.

Done for the day. The chairs had been stacked on the tables. The shades had been drawn. The sign on the door read “closed” once more. In the darkness, the rubber tree plants lining the walls trembled ever so slightly. They were glad to be alone there and proud of their flexibility.

“Everyone is searching for a tall, dark and handsome stranger…such persons are rare and there is simply not enough of them to go around…the real Mr. Right is very likely someone you already know.”

Dr. Helaine Kristenson, “Keeping Mr. Right”

Helaine knew precisely the moment when she first laid eyes on her dark-haired stranger and it was not, by happenstance, in Frank’s Place. The overnight success of her book the year earlier had proven to be a boon for her private practice and had enabled her to move out of her small downtown offices and to take the lease on the larger and more luxurious ones located midtown in the city’s financial district.

She had always been attracted to the youthful vitality of this neighborhood and now enjoyed observing its weekday inhabitants from her twelfth floor window as they flowed in and out of the city’s heart and rejuvenated its tired old veins. Weekdays the streets and buildings teemed with their optimistic activities.

Even on the weekends when they had all gone home she could still feel their energy pulsing from the empty sidewalks and the high-rise windows.

Helaine had just finished her Friday with one last difficult session and was trying to unwind in a chair beside the window, drinking her tea and making final entries in her journal. The Friday ritual. She had been listening to music as she worked, Ravel launching A Boat At Sea, when she glimpsed the young woman standing and daydreaming in the full-length office window directly across the street from her. She put her pen down and counted up fifteen stories with her finger, guessing by the woman’s elevation that she had probably earned the privilege of a few quiet moments there. The woman gazed out at the horizon, downtown, toward the waterfront.

The music played, tranquil in the background. Helaine stopped writing. The boat drifted further and further from the shore, dropping its oars and sails. She could hear the water as it lapped at its sides and feel the cool spray on her face as the craft bobbed gently in the waves. Behind it she saw a wake of brilliant sparkles. It spread like a blanket across the deep blue sea.