Secret Lives (33 page)

“Strange.”

“One day he asked me if I'd like to go to
California with him. That was my dream, California. I wanted to be
a movie star and I knew I had to be there to make that happen. So I
said yes. Kyle and Lou thought I hadn't seen Tex in months, but I'd
actually seen him every day, and had an abortion to boot. Well,
Kyle was out of town…” She shivered and Ben pulled the spread up
from the foot of the bed and tucked it around their shoulders. “I
packed my toothbrush and a change of clothes. I waited until Lou
was asleep; then I called Tex to come get me. I left Lou a note. I
wrote that I was going to California with Tex and that I'd let them
know when I got there. I left the note on the kitchen table. Lou
must have heard me leave. She found the note and—in her nightgown
and robe—got into her car to follow us.”

“Oh, Jesus,” Ben said. He knew where this was
going now.

Eden rolled onto her back and looked up at
the dark ceiling. “She caught up with us at the first stoplight.
She honked the horn and started to get out of the car, but Tex took
off again and she took off after us. I thought she was crazy to do
that. I thought she was so angry with me she was going to this
insane length to catch up to me so she could kill me. It never
occurred to me then that she was afraid for me, that she wanted to
keep me from making a huge mistake, wrecking my life. Tex was
laughing, going faster and faster, zipping around corners, and Lou
was keeping up with him. At first I wanted to get away from her,
but then I got scared. I started worrying about her. We were moving
way too fast.

“Then all of a sudden there was a crashing
sound behind us. Tex stopped the bike and I jumped off. The
sound—the crashing metal sound—wouldn't stop. At least in my memory
it goes on for minutes while Lou's car and a big black station
wagon tie themselves together in the middle of the intersection.
Then Lou started screaming. Tex said, 'Let's get out of here,' and
I said no and he took off without me. I ran over to the car. The
guy in the station wagon was dead, but I didn't know that till much
later. I didn't even notice him then. I just wanted to get to Lou.
I opened her door and started to pull her out, but her legs were
pinned. There was a chunk of metal slicing into her leg and blood
all over her robe and the floor of the car. She was screaming for
me to help her.” Eden stopped. She felt sick again, as she had in
the Italian restaurant earlier that evening. She swallowed hard
against the nausea. Next to her Ben was so still that she couldn't
even feel him breathing. “The police were there very quickly, and
an ambulance. Sirens everywhere. Just as the cops pulled up the
other car burst into flames, so they had no choice but to pull Lou
out with that piece of metal cutting into her leg, practically
cutting it off right there.” Eden covered her ears with her hands.
“I'll never forget her screaming. I got sick to my stomach and the
police thought I'd been in the car with her. And that's what we
told them. And Kyle.”

“Why would you tell Kyle you were with
her?”

“I rode with Lou in the ambulance, and all I
could think about was what Kyle would say when he found out I'd
caused all this by running off with Tex. I held Lou's hand and I
kept saying to her over and over again, 'Please don't tell Kyle.'
It was the most selfish thing I've ever done. And she kept my
secret. She let him think we were both in the car, going to the
store. She was in her nightgown and I was going to run in and get
whatever it was we needed. We had to keep talking about what a
miracle it was I wasn't hurt. When Lou got out of the hospital I
moved into the dorm. I couldn't stand to see her struggle to get
around and know it was my fault. But it still wasn't far enough
away, so the first chance I got I left for California. That time I
didn't bother with a note.” She closed her eyes. “I didn't even say
good-bye.”

From far below them Eden could hear the sound
of traffic. Car horns. Brakes squealing. She wished Ben would say
something. She put her hand on his chest. “Ben?”

He squeezed her hand and set it on her hip.
“I need to get up.” He stood up, and the cool air hit her side for
a second before the spread fell back over her. He was so quiet. He
pulled on his jeans, zipped the fly, and snapped them closed. Then
he sat down in the chair next to the window. Cool white moonlight
caught the edge of his jaw and spilled onto his bare chest.

She sat up, hugged her knees. “What are you
thinking?” she asked.

“Just stunned.”

“It's an ugly story.”

“Lou loved you very much.”

“And I repaid her by avoiding her. Avoiding
both of them. I married Wayne practically the day after I met him
so I'd feel safe out there, like I had a home and didn't need to
come back to Lou and Kyle. And I think I also married him so that
when I did visit Lou and Kyle I wouldn't ever have to be alone with
them. This visit—this is the first time I've been alone with them
in all these years.”

Ben's arms were folded across his chest and
he stared at the corner of the bed. The minutes ticked on without
either of them speaking, and she knew she had said far too
much.

She tightened her hands around her knees.
“Are you coming back to bed?” she asked.

He looked over at her and she wished it were
light enough to read his face. “I can't imagine what it's been like
all these years for Lou to keep the truth from Kyle. The strongest
thing in that relationship has always been their honesty and
openness.”

“I know.”

“It would be a wonderful gift to her. If you
told Kyle.”

“Ben, I can't. It was so long ago. I'm trying
to make it up to them in the present. I'm really trying. But I have
to leave the past alone.”

He looked back to the window and after a
minute she lay down again, pulling the spread up to her chin. She
closed her eyes, wondering if he was going to sit in the chair the
entire night and leave her with only her guilt as a bed
partner.

She woke to find the bed awash in sunlight.
She turned her head to see Ben sleeping next to her, his forehead
lined with a frown. In the light of day she felt exposed. The room
was filled with the secrets the safety of the night had drawn from
her. She should have kept it all to herself, as Lou was doing. Kept
it their shared burden. Now she had made it Ben's as well. On this
sun-filled morning, she felt defined by this one act in her life.
She was selfish, ungrateful, cowardly.

She had a sudden longing for Santa Monica,
for her simple house on the ocean, for the ability to pull a role
over her head when she got out of bed in the morning. If she had
one of the scripts Nina had sent her, she would start reading it
right this second. She would give anything to be able to make
believe.

She got out of bed and into the shower. Her
head was lathered in shampoo when Ben stepped in beside her and
took her in his arms. “I woke up and you were gone,” he said. He
pulled her head onto his shoulder.

She was glad he couldn't see her face so she
didn't have to fight the tears. “You said if I told you it wouldn't
change your feelings about me,” she said. “But it has, hasn't
it?”

“Yes, it has,” he said. “It makes me love you
more. Now I know that you need me as much as I need you.”

–
31–

October 3, 1952

When I came into the house tonight, Susanna
told me I had a visitor in the parlor. I went into the parlor where
Kyle was speaking with a young man I'd never seen before. They both
stood up when I walked in.

“
Here she is,” Kyle said. “Seth, this is
my sister, Katherine Swift. Kate, this is Seth Gallagher. Waverly
Books sent him down here to take some publicity photographs of
you.”

Something happened to me when I looked at
Seth Gallagher. It was as though the very sight of him made my
knees go weak and my stomach do a somersault. I knew all at once
why Matt and I have never been lovers. This feeling has to come
first, and dear as Matt is, I feel nothing but friendship when I
look at him.

Seth Gallagher is about Kyle's height and
build. As a matter of fact, he reminds me of Kyle—he has the same
straight-toothed smile, the same inquisitive look to his eyebrows.
But his hair is a little bit darker than Kyle's and his eyes are a
sparkling green. He looked surprised when he saw me. I had on a
flannel shirt and my overalls, and my hair was tucked up under
Daddy's old Stetson hat. I held out my hand to him and he shook
it.

“
You're Katherine Swift?” he
asked.

“
None other,” I said.

He laughed. He has this great roar of a
laugh that made Kyle and me smile at each other. “I expected
someone…I expected…I don't know.” Seth Gallagher was tripping all
over his tongue. “I expected a lady. You know, Katherine Swift—the
name sounds like it belongs to a real woman.”

Kyle burst out laughing. He walked behind me
toward the kitchen. “She is a real woman,” he said and he flicked
my hat off into his hand and my hair tumbled down over my
shoulders. I was annoyed with him for doing that, for showing me
off like I was a horse he was getting ready for the auction. But
Seth's mouth dropped open and I felt the power of being female.

He stared at my hair. “Is the rest of you
that beautiful?” he asked, straight out.

“
Yes,” I answered, just as boldly, and I
knew right then I wanted this to be the man to put an end to my
long, dreary years of virginity. I am sick to death of being a
virgin.

Kyle leaned against the doorway, looking
amused and amazed, with his arms folded over his chest.

“
Seth is staying at the Coolbrook Hotel,”
he said. “He just stopped by to meet you tonight and tomorrow he'll
be back to take pictures.”

“
Why don't you stay for dinner?” I said,
and Seth did not need his arm twisted in the least.

I felt like a bitch in heat at the supper table as well as
later on when Seth and Kyle and I played Monopoly. Seth is so
nice-looking and his voice is real lively, though he sounds like a
Yankee through and through and Kyle and I couldn't stop ourselves
from teasing him about his accent. He is good-natured, though,
and
teased us
back. Especially me. I wanted his attention worse than I've ever
wanted anything in my life, and he was generous about giving it to
me. His eyes never left me—I could feel him staring at me no matter
what I was doing. I began to wish I had on something other than my
dusty old overalls.

Seth is twenty-six. He's from Philadelphia,
but he's lived in New York the past four years and he loves the
city, which I cannot understand for the life of me, but at this
moment I don't care. This has been the most exhilarating night of
my life. I can't stop thinking about him.

Before Kyle went off to the parlor to sleep
he stopped in my room. “That boy's going to have nasty dreams about
you tonight, Kate, that's for sure,” he said.

I told him I might have a few myself and
chased him from my room. So tomorrow I will see Seth again. I'm so
glad Matt picked this weekend to spend in New York. Otherwise he'd
be moping around here moon-eyed and I'd feel funny being so brazen
with Seth. Seth Gallagher. I love his name. I love his green eyes.
I am acting like a love-struck fool.

October 4, 1952

I wore my hair in a long braid down my back
this morning, and since it was warm, I put on khaki shorts and a
white shirt. When Seth arrived with his cameras and tripod, he
handed me a box filled with blood-red roses. I shook when I took
them out and put them in a vase, they were so beautiful, so
red.

“
The only color I could even think of
getting you,” he said. He wanted to take my picture where I usually
write, but that is either in the cavern or my bedroom. Tempted
though I was to let him in my room, I couldn't do it with Susanna
around, nor was I willing to let him see the cave. So I suggested
the pits.

It was fun having my picture taken. Seth is
so sure of himself and made me feel at ease. On the way back
through the woods, he took my arm. “Kate,” he said. “Will you go
out with me tonight?”

I wanted to say yes so badly, but go out? I
knew what would happen if I went out—I'd have one of my terrors and
make a fool out of myself. “Maybe we could just stay here and play
Monopoly again.”

“
No, I want to take you out to dinner and
dancing afterwards. There's a band at the Coolbrook Hotel
tonight.”

So I agreed on the condition that Kyle could come too and
bring a date. Kyle's not seeing anyone right now, so I wasn't sure
he would agree to this, but he did.
He's excited for me that I'm actually
interested in someone. He can't believe it and neither can
I.

“
I want to look sexy tonight,” I told
him.

“
You're the only woman in the Shenandoah
Valley who can look sexy in overalls, Kate,” Kyle said. We were in
my room and he opened my closet and shook his head. “You don't own
a single dress.”

I suddenly wanted more than anything to wear
a dress. I wanted to shave my legs and wear nylons.

Susanna spent the afternoon hemming one of her dresses for
me to wear. Susanna is a quiet person who usually keeps her
distance from me, but this afternoon she's been by my side every
minute, helping me get ready for tonight.
I'm even borrowing her nylons and
garter belt and a special strapless brassiere that wraps around my
ribs and makes it hard to breathe. Just what I need is to have more
trouble breathing than usual.

The dress is beautiful. It is black and hugs
my body and the long sleeves and yoke are made of a black lacy
material. It's cut to a V in front and the tops of my breasts
show.