Secret Lives (37 page)

He'd forgotten to ask Sharon if Bliss smiled
anymore.

He'd promised her pizza, and she'd driven up
to the cabin expecting to be greeted by the aroma of oregano and
tomato sauce. Instead all she could smell as she neared the open
cabin door was the heat.

He sat at the table in the center of the
room, his back to her, and at first she thought he was working on
the dollhouse. “Ben?”

He turned around, clearly startled. “I didn't
hear your car."

She walked toward him. “You must be deep in
thought.” She put her hands on his shoulders, and as she bent down
to kiss the top of his head she saw the photographs lined up on the
table in front of him. “Are these new pictures of Bliss?”

“Sam brought them.” His voice was flat.

“Sam was here?”

He nodded.

“I'm sorry I missed him.”

Ben stared at the pictures in front of him
and she felt the stiffness in his shoulders beneath her palms.

“She reminds me of you,” she said. She was
stunned again by the delicacy of this child. She looked as though a
breeze might blow her away. “A blond version of you.”

Ben suddenly jerked up his arms to throw off
her hands. He stood up. “Sam thinks Jeff might have done it.” He
looked at her briefly, then looked away.

“But I didn't think he even knew—”

He waved his arms in the air. “Who the hell
knows who knew whom when? What does it matter? I'm in prison here
while my daughter's living with some creep who might have…” He
shook his head. “I can't talk about this right now."

She sat down on the edge of one of the wooden
chairs. “Ben…”

“Do you realize how pointless my life is?” he
asked. “People either despise me or they feel sorry for me. What's
my next job going to be? It'll be charity, whatever it is. Maybe
I'll make just enough money to keep food in my stomach. That's a
great life, isn't it? And the one thing I care about—my
daughter—might still be in danger, and I'm as helpless to do
anything about it as if I were dead.”

“You're forgetting about people like me and
Kyle and Lou and Sam. We're sticking by you because we care about
you, not because we feel sorry for you.”

He picked up a newspaper from the table and
thrust it in front of her. “How about this? Great, huh? They don't
know who I am now, but it's only a matter of time, isn't it?”

She looked at the picture of her and Ben on
the cover and her stomach lurched.

“So how long are you going to stick by me
now?”

She barely heard his question. “What does the
article say?”

“Nothing.” He paced halfway around the table
and back again. “They don't know a damn thing. They just had the
picture that guy took in the Village and had to do something with
it. Had to wreck a life or two.”

“It's not a big deal, Ben,” she said,
although the picture terrified her. “They publish stuff like this
all the time. It'll blow over.”

He stopped in front of her, dug his hands
into his pants pockets. “Look, Eden, I need to be alone right now,”
he said. “I'm sorry. There's just too much on my mind.”

“Ben.” She set her hand on his arm. “Let me
help.”

He shook his head, led her to the door. “Give
me some time alone, all right?”

She spotted the package to Kim Parrish on his
bed. She'd thought he'd mailed it long ago. “Do you want me to take
that to the post office?”

“It's already been. They sent it back. Didn't
even open it. Maybe Cassie would like the furniture for her
house.”

“I'm sorry.”

“Go.”

She drove down the twisted road toward Lynch
Hollow, her hands locked on the steering wheel. That tabloid. Had
Wayne seen it? What price would she have to pay for that weekend in
New York? What price would she have to pay for this
relationship?

Ben was shutting her out. Worse, he seemed
volatile and agitated. His life was pointless, he'd said. He was as
good as dead. She pictured the bottle of Valium on the edge of his
sink and stopped the car. She waited for a van to pass her before
making a K-turn on the narrow road. Then she pressed the gas pedal
to the floor. Please, Ben, don't. Her heart raced as she pulled up
in front of the cabin. The front door was still open, but the cabin
was empty. Then she saw the crack of light under the closed
bathroom door.

She knocked on the door. “Ben?”

There was a second of silence. “I thought
you'd left.”

“What are you doing?”

“I'm getting ready to take a shower.”

“Let me in please.”

“Eden, I told you, I really want some time
alone.”

She turned the knob, pushed the door in. He
stood in front of her in white boxer shorts, his hands on his hips
and a scowl on his face. “What the hell are you doing?”

She looked at the sink. The bottle of Valium
was still on the ledge. She could see the shadow of the pills
inside. “I was afraid you'd try to hurt yourself.”

He looked at the pills, so abruptly that she
knew if he had not planned to use them at that moment, he had at
some other time. He lost his scowl, and when he spoke his voice was
soft. “I'm not going to hurt myself.”

She drew in a breath and realized she was
winded. “I'm sorry. I thought…”

He reached out his arms and pulled her
against him. “Eden,” he said.

“It scared me.”

“I'm okay. I just had a rough afternoon.” He
let go of her. “Did you happen to notice that Bliss isn't smiling
in any of those pictures? Does she look like a happy kid to you? I
just wish I could see her for myself. I wish I could be a fly on
the wall in her nursery school. I want to watch her with other
kids, see her laugh a little. She looks so serious.”

Eden had a sudden idea. “I could see
her.”

“What do you mean?”

“I visit schools sometimes. Usually
kindergarten or first grade, but a nursery school would do. I read
to the kids from my mother's books. It's publicity stuff and I
haven't done it in a while. But I can fake it. I could see how
she's doing and report back to you.”

“I couldn't ask you to.”

She walked back into the main room of the
cabin and he followed. “Give me the name of her school,” she
said.

“Green Gables. In Annapolis.”

She sat down on his bed and took the phone in
her lap. She got through to Nina easily, as she'd expected. Nina
was more than anxious to talk to her. She'd been calling her for a
week now and Eden had returned none of her calls.

“What is it with you, Eden?” Nina asked. “Who
is this guy you're with? Michael's moping around. He's not eating.
Looks like a scarecrow. I'm afraid he's going to start using again,
and—”

“Nina, shush for a second.”

“Have you read the scripts?”

“No.”

“Have you forgotten you have a career?”

“Look, Nina, I need you to set up a school
visit for me.”

“What? Now is not the time, Eden. We have to
get you working again before—”

“Nina. Please. It's the Green Gables nursery
school in Annapolis, Maryland.” She looked up at Ben.
“Teacher?”

“I think she has Joan Dove again this
year.”

She passed the name on to Nina, who was
grumbling but writing down the information all the same.

“Bless you, Nina. Now listen and I'll tell
you what's going on with me. I'm happy. I'm in love. I haven't
forgotten you. I'm madly working on the screenplay. I'll call
Michael to see how he's doing, but if he starts using again that's
his decision. I'll tell him he won't have a role in A Solitary
Life, though, if he does.”

She got off the phone and looked at Ben, who
was leaning against the table in his sparkling white boxer
shorts.

“I'm going to see Bliss,” she told him. “No
doubt about it.”

–
33–

Eden knew Bliss the moment she stepped into
the classroom at Green Gables, and now as she read Child of
Fountains aloud, the other children were no more than a blur to
her. This would have been true whether Bliss were Ben's daughter or
not. Bliss stood out. She was taller than the others by a few
inches and her thick, straight platinum hair was extraordinary.
Eden sat in a low-to-the-ground beanbag chair with the children on
the plush carpeted floor around her and their teacher, Joan Dove,
in a chair nearby. Bliss sat immediately to Eden's left, as though
she knew she should get as close to this stranger as she possibly
could, and Eden could feel her fragility like something tangible in
the air. She looked up from her book from time to time to see those
enormous gray eyes watching her, alert and attentive. At one point
during the story, Bliss asked a question—a serious,
worried-sounding question about the welfare of the young
heroine—and Eden reached down to touch her as she answered. She
felt nothing but bone beneath her fingers. A knobby spine, ribs
that could cut paper. The child was all bone and beauty.

She had selected Child of Fountains because
it was the simplest of her mother's stories. She had often marveled
at how Katherine Swift's books grasped the attention of even small
children and held it fast. The stories were marked by wholesome
adventure and a subtly delivered moral message, qualities that Eden
viewed with some skepticism now that she was coming to know the
real Katherine Swift. She had viewed her mother as something of a
nonperson all these years. She'd thought Katherine's cloistered
existence was the result of her having few needs as an adult or as
a woman. But the truth was far more complicated, and it was up to
Eden to interpret her mother's life on the screen in a way that
would not lose her the sympathy and admiration of the people who
put their trust in her—those parents who picked up a Katherine
Swift book for their children with the certainty that it would be
entertainment in the purest sense.

When she closed the book the children rushed
her. She was accustomed to this, and she knew that these kids
thought of her primarily as the beautiful witch from the film
version of Child of the North Star.

“How did you turn from that ugly girl into
the pretty one?” one child asked. “Are you a witch in real life?”
asked another. “Where is your big furry cape?” She answered them
all, and then the more personal questions began, as they always
did.

“Do you have any little boys?” asked a
freckle-faced boy.

“No, but I do have a little girl.”

“What's her name?”

“Cassie.”

“You should of brung her.”

“Well, she's visiting her daddy right
now.”

“I visited my daddy in Charleston on Friday,”
said the freckle-faced boy.

“My daddy has come back to live with us,”
said a little girl.

And then Bliss spoke up. Although she'd been
standing very close to Eden, she had been quiet since asking her
question during the story. “My daddy is gone away,” she said
softly. “But he visits me at nighttime sometimes.”

“Does he?” Eden asked her.

Joan Dove set her hands on Bliss's shoulders.
“Her daddy's very far away, so sometimes she dreams he's visiting
and it makes her feel happy—right, Bliss?”

“Mmm,” Bliss said noncommittally, her eyes on
Eden all the while. Eden wondered if there was something in her own
face that led Bliss to trust her, to lean forward and whisper, “He
really does come sometimes.” Her words sent a shiver up Eden's
spine

She wanted to watch them play, wanted to be
able to report back to Ben that she'd seen Bliss have fun. So she
stayed for their recess, a disorganized free-for-all on the grassy
Green Gables playground. She sat with Joan Dove on the steps.

“How did you happen to pick Green Gables?”
Joan asked.

Eden shrugged and smiled. “My agent handles
that end of things and I just show up.”

“I'm so glad you did. The kids loved it.”

Bliss was playing on a swing set. She climbed
up on the support bar, hung by her knees, sat upright, jumped off,
and sat down on one of the swings, all without saying a word to the
other two girls who shared the swing set with her.

“The tall girl,” Eden said to Joan. “She's
striking.”

“Yes. But she has a lot of problems.”

“Really?”

“That stuff about her dad visiting her.” Joan
shook her head. “Her father abused her. Molested her. She's been
through more hurt and trauma than anyone should have to go through
in a lifetime.”

Eden frowned. “That's horrible. How is she
doing now?”

Joan sighed. “All right, I guess. She still
talks about her father a lot. Her real daddy, she calls him. She
has a stepfather now, who seems pretty nice, but I don't think
she's really bonded to him yet. She's not allowed to see her real
father, but she can't seem to get him out of her head. He was one
of those guys who could really charm you—you know the type.”

“Hollywood's full of them,” Eden said, and
then grimaced at herself in disgust.

“Even I thought he was the nicest guy before
all this happened,” Joan continued.

“You never can tell,” Eden said.

“No, you sure can't. So Bliss, that little
girl, lost a lot of weight she's never put back on. She's in
counseling, but she's still not sleeping well and you can just tell
she's got a heavy load she's lugging around with her. Even here at
school she wakes up in the middle of her nap with a nightmare
sometimes.”

“Poor thing,” Eden said. Joan began talking
about some of the other children and Eden half listened, trying to
make appropriate comments. But her eyes were on Bliss, who was now
in competition with the girl next to her on the swings. She was
trying to go higher, pumping her long, thin legs hard, her head
thrown back and her mouth wide open. Was she laughing? From a
distance her expression could have been either fear or joy, but
Eden looked away before she knew for sure. She would tell Ben she'd
seen his daughter laugh.

When she left Green Gables she followed the
map Ben had drawn for her to Sam and Jen's. She'd told him she
wanted to meet them, and now after listening to Joan Dove's
description of Ben she was particularly desperate to be among his
friends rather than his enemies.