The Last Secret (14 page)

“I think I will.” Kay laughs. “It's been a long week.” Kay isn't missing a thing here, Nora knows, her own coldness, Eddie's push to keep the conversation going. He asks Kay what line of work she's in.

“Real estate. Mostly residential.” She finishes her wine.

“You're kidding! I wish I'd known. All week I've been out looking at properties. We need a couple acres, six or seven at least. Part of a consortium. Mixed-use housing, that's our specialty. The whole spectrum, luxury, middle class, right down to low rent. Subsidized. With the right connections. Faith-based, if we can.” He smiles at Nora.

“Sounds like quite an undertaking,” Kay says.

“It is. That's why when I saw
Newsweek
, the article that mentioned Sojourn House, I figured what the hell, what've I got to lose, I'll look up my old friend Nora while I'm here and maybe she can steer me in the right direction.”

“Well, if she can't,” Kay says, watching Nora, “I don't know who can.”

“It's not looking good, Kay.” He sips his soda water. “I seem to be
striking out here. Big-time.” His eyes settle on Nora with cold mocking light. Bitter, somehow, as if there has been an actual business proposal that she has spurned.

“Excuse me,” Kay says, putting her napkin on the table. “I'll be right back.” She heads toward the stairs, down to the restrooms.

“So, how're you doing?” he asks, grinning at Nora.

The waitress delivers his salad. The minute she leaves, Nora leans over the table. “What is it? Why're you here? What do you want?”

“Help.” He smiles. “A helping hand, that's all. To make up for lost time. Chances I never had. Opportunity.”

“So this is about money, then, isn't it?” She is almost relieved.

“It's been a long time. How do you put a price on that? On time? I don't know,” he sighs. “You tell me.”

“So how much? How much do you want?”

His laughter is sad, regretful. “You don't get it, do you? But then, why should you? Nice family. Nice town. Nice life. Hey! Maybe if I hadn't been so worried, driving back and forth tryna find you, maybe I'd'a gotten away, too.”

Kay is chatting her way back through the crowded dining room. Eddie stands and pulls out her chair.

“Thank you.” Kay smiles up at him, then at Nora, her quizzical gaze seeking direction. “A gentleman, how very refreshing.”

Nora has just
closed her office door when the phone rings.

“What was that all about?” Kay asks on the other end. “I feel like I just got sucked into a tornado or something.”

“I'm not really sure,” Nora says, trying to steady herself on the half-truth. “I haven't seen him in years, and now he shows up, acting like … well, you heard him, like I'm some vital part of his networking plan.”

“I know. Vague, wasn't it?”

“I'll say.”

“How'd you know him?”

“I'm not even sure.”

“Well. Be careful. There's so many scams around,” Kay says.

“I know. And strange people.”

“I'd put him more in the hungry category, you know what I mean?”

“I don't know, maybe. Anyway, I better get started here.”

“He is nice-looking, though, you have to admit that,” Kay allows in a low purr. “Those eyes, they go right through you. I wouldn't mind showing him a parcel or two.”

For Nora the rest of the afternoon drags. Hard to concentrate. Her thoughts wheel between Eddie Hawkins's intensity and Kay's nonchalance. She feels stranded again.

Annette's thick dabs
of oil give her subjects not just texture but a depth that is sensual yet still precise with certain details. The paintings are beautiful. Maybe her best work, Nora thinks as Stephen and Donald come through the door on the other side of the gallery. She notices that Stephen and Ken merely nod at each other. Stephen wanders off, leaving Donald to talk to Ken, who keeps glancing past him.

“Look at that. The roses,” Christine McGuire says to Bibbi Bond and Nora. They are admiring a portrait of two barefoot girls in gauzy blue dresses, sitting on a stone bench. Behind the girls is a latticed arbor and, interestingly, Nora thinks, not the usual profusion of roses but a single arched vine. “The thorns, they look so sharp. You can even see dew on the petals, little beads.”

“She's got such an eye,” Bibbi says, tilting her head this way and that. For years Bibbi has been a docent at the MFA.

“And still, other details, they're kind of hazy. Like, unfocused,” Christine says.

“Impressionistic realism,” Bibbi declares with covetous authority. “It's her way of controlling the viewer's perspective. Taking you from the glint on the roses to the light in the girls' eyes.”

Nora slips away from the women. She has lost sight of Ken. Strange for so small a place. Probably in the men's room or outside having a cigarette. In the past he was a social smoker, one or two with
a drink, but he never wanted the children to know. Lately, though, he has started smoking at home, not in the house, but outside in the driveway or on one of his nighttime walks, which he says help him sleep better. In the morning, she sees him through the window, cigarette already lit as he backs out of the garage.

In the far corner, his back against the wall, Oliver is talking to three men. He is often waylaid like this when he goes anywhere, because he is so rarely seen in public. Rumpled and wild-haired as ever, but at least he's making the effort. Only Annette's show has been able to lure him from his hermetic existence. And then, right before Nora and Ken left to pick him up, Oliver called to say they should go on without him. His back was acting up and he didn't see how he could be on his feet all night. He asked Nora if she'd be sure and tell Annette what happened.

No, she told him. Absolutely not. Not only was it his responsibility, but it was unfair of him to ask her.

“It's getting worse,” Ken said when she got off the phone.

“What?”

“The agoraphobia,” Ken said, and she was stunned. She'd never thought of it as a psychological condition, just another of her brother-in-law's quirks.

“Who told you that? Oliver?”

“Nobody,” Ken said quickly. “Pretty obvious, though, don't you think?”

Once again, she realizes how little credit she gives Ken, especially lately. His sensitivity was what had first attracted her to him. For all his party boy bonhomie, he cares how people feel. Cares deeply. Sometimes too deeply, she thinks with the dull ache swelling in her chest. Cared how Robin felt, but not about her, his own wife. His own children. No! No, she can't keep doing this. Get tough, take charge, be strong, she is constantly reminding herself lately.

They were going out the door when Oliver called back. Could they pick him up? He'd just taken three ibuprofen.

“Yeah, and two quick Johnnies and a cologne shower,” Ken muttered when his brother Oliver climbed into the back of the car, the reek
of florid booze forcing them to open the windows. The entire ride, he and Ken never spoke to each other.

The crowded gallery is growing noisy. Nora has to step closer to hear what Annette is saying. “Thank you for getting Ollie here. Did you have to hog-tie him?” Annette smiles over her glass of wine, the same deep ruby as her lipstick and long dress. She continues to grow even more beautiful in her maturity. Handsome, with the fine laugh lines around her eyes and mouth, the dramatic streaks of white through her black hair, and her keen-eyed scrutiny.

Oliver seems to be holding up well, they agree. He's still here, at least. Nora tells Annette how stunning her paintings are. They remind her of the portraits Annette did a few years ago of Chloe and Drew.

“You captured something. In each one of them. Their … trueness. Such an amazing skill. It must be so hard. Or do you look at someone and just know?”

“Sometimes,” Annette says, throwing her head back with the sure, haughty confidence Nora finds fascinating, yet so bewildering when it comes to her relationship with Oliver. “It's quicker with children, they're so much more open.”

“What about Oliver? Has he ever sat for you?” she asks too quickly, embarrassed by the feint of the old reporter in her.

“God, no. Oliver? Someone else's vision of him? That'd be like losing the last vestige of control.”

“I never thought of it that way. But … well, maybe you'd know,” she blurts. “Is everything okay with Oliver? Lately, he just doesn't … I don't know, I mean, he and Ken …” The words trail off.

Annette stares at her. “I probably shouldn't say this, Nora. It's not my place. But I know them too well, the brothers. And no matter what happens, neither one really wants to be free. Of the other, I mean.”

“Well, that's not such a bad thing, I guess.”

“No. Not unless you're caught in the middle,” Annette says, then smiles past her with the gallery owner's bustling approach. “Speaking of portraits, Nora, I'd love to do yours. Would you ever let me?”

“Oh. I don't know. I guess so.” She is bewildered, but with the
owner hovering can't very well ask Annette what she meant by being caught in the middle. “I'd trust your vision. Sure!”

“People always think you're so reserved, don't they? Maybe even unapproachable. But I see vulnerability and depth,” Annette says, her eyes taking Nora's. “And you won't be used. By anyone, will you?”

“So I'd be a challenge, then.” Lighthearted as she tries to sound, a tremulous neediness hangs in the air. Its voice, hers, pleading,
Help me! Please!

Annette smiles. “I would hope so,” she says, and Nora's face smarts. Acutely conscious of all the voices and laughter in the room, she feels stranded again, and foolish. Roland apologizes for interrupting, but the writer for
American Arts
is here and wants to meet her. He leads Annette through the buzz of admiring patrons.

Nora wanders into the next gallery. In here are Annette's smaller paintings. Floral compositions, small landscapes Nora pretends to study while she wonders who Annette thinks is caught. Herself? Nora? Or Stephen? Yes, it must be, their cousin with his token share in the paper, 10 percent to Oliver's and Ken's shares, forty-five each. She moves on to the serving table. She dips a broccoli floret in the gummy white dressing, then a celery stalk, carrot sticks. She's hungry. Chloe and Drew are at friends' houses. She'll find Ken and suggest they stop at Braddock's Grille after the show. They both like it there and it'll be dark and just noisy enough to fill in those painful silences, when each knows exactly what the other is thinking. Even if it's only small talk, at least it'll be a start. Better than this constant strain. This man she thought she knew. Like living with a stranger, but worse than that. The insurmountable problem here is that each knows the other too well and, in the knowing, has fouled all common ground.

Of the three this next gallery is the smallest. A few people mill by the door, none of them Ken. She returns to the main gallery but can't see him.

“Excuse me,” she says quietly to the elderly man leaving the bathroom. “I'm looking for my husband. Would he be in there?”

“Hardly, my dear,” the man says, with a twinkle of amusement. “It's a one-horse stall.”

“Nora!” Claudia Trekkle says, brushing cheeks. “I was just at Sojourn House, the other day. It was my first time, and oh my God, I couldn't get over it! All those poor women and their sad little children, I don't know, it just got to me. What is going on in this world? I blame the Internet, and all this freedom of speech, and everyone doing their own—”

“Excuse me, Claudia. I'll be right back.” She hurries toward the entrance. With the opening door, she spots Ken outside, on the sidewalk. His back to her, he's talking on his cell phone. “I know. I know,” she hears him say. “I know how it feels. Believe me, I know.”

Afterward, she won't remember which came first, the slap or throwing his cell phone into the road. He runs to get it. “Go to hell!” she says as he grabs her arm, trying to steer her down the street to their car. “Just go to hell, the two of you! I don't care anymore.”

“Get in the car!” he demands. “Get in the car and listen to me.”

“No!” She struggles to pull free.

“Is this what you want, a scene? A public scene?”

“Yes!” She laughs. “Yes, I do! And that way everyone will know what a—”

His hand clamps over her mouth. Two couples come out of the gallery. They turn in the opposite direction. Nora slumps against him. She feels numb. Numb and cold. Her teeth chatter as she gets into the car. Deadness. All of it.

Listen, he says as he drives. Will she at least listen? It was Bob on the phone. Bob Gendron. “Something happened, but I couldn't understand him. I don't know if he's drunk or—”

“Stop lying to me!” She hits his arm. “It wasn't Bob, it was her. It was, wasn't it?”

He can't even look at her.

“Did you call her?”

He sighs. “I had to. She left this hysterical message.” He speaks over Nora's bitter laughter. “There was a fight. Between Drew and Clay, and it sounds like our guy got the worst of it.”

Ken had turned off his cell phone in the gallery. When he checked his messages he saw Robin's three calls. He called her back and she
said she was at the emergency room. Clay and Drew had been at the same party, and there'd been a fight. The gallery was only a few blocks from Franklin Memorial. How badly hurt is he, she asks. Ken's not sure, but from the way he's driving she's imagining the worst. He speeds into the doctor's parking lot and pulls into a reserved space. The attendant shoots out of his booth and tells them they have to park behind the hospital in the visitors' lot.

“I'm calling security!” he warns in a high-pitched, accented voice as he stalks Ken and Nora through the emergency room doors into the crowded waiting room.

Robin hurries toward them. Behind them, the attendant squeals into his walkie-talkie, calling for backup, a security guard.

“How is he?” Ken asks.

“Good. He's good. The doctor's with him,” Robin says.

“I better go move the car. I'll be right back,” Ken says, and, as he hurries outside, Nora knows he can't face this meeting between them.

“We're in the wrong place,” she says, weak with the irony of her words.

The waiting room is filled with haggard-looking people, none more so than Nora. She feels drained, pinched with distress, while Robin's every word and gesture is a flourish of feelings, warmth, sympathy. Even in gray sweats, no makeup, and her hair tied back in a frazzled pony tail, her girlish prettiness glows. Lyra kneels on the floor, in Cinderella pajamas and pink bunny slippers, coloring on paper a nurse has given her. Unaffected by their last meeting, she smiles up at Nora, a familiar face in this sea of stress and pain. A toddler wails as his mother struggles to hold an ice pack on his forehead. An old man with his hand wrapped in a bloody towel stares dazedly at the floor. His fly is open. At the nurses' station a tearful young girl is trying to translate for the two frantic Spanish-speaking women with her. One is searching through her purse for pill bottles while the other holds her belly, moaning.