F Paul Wilson - Secret History 02 (10 page)

           
"No, you won't," she said
as she buttoned up her silk print blouse. "You can come back to my place
while I spruce up, then we'll head for Julio's."

           
Rob didn't move.

           
"Are you coming?"

           
"No, Connie," he said.
"Really. It sounds like a drag."

           
Suddenly, she was angry. Her eyes
flashed.

           
"No!
You're
the drag, Rob! You've been moping around for a couple of
days now! What's wrong with you?"

           
The last thing Rob wanted this
morning was a fight.

           
"Nothing, Connie. Let's drop
it, okay?"

           
"Drop it?" she said.
"I'll drop it! But that's not all I'm going to drop! You're no fun
anymore, Rob! And you weren't so hot in bed last night either!" She turned
and headed for the bedroom door. "See you in the movies, Rob!"

           
"Say hello to Peter McCarthy
for me," he said to her retreating back.

           
A few seconds later, the walls of
the apartment shook with the booming slam of the front door. Rob sighed.

           
"Women."

           
He lit another cigarette and stared
out at the Sunday morning sky.

 
 

           
"It smells in here, Mom,"
Jill said, her nose wrinkling at the rancid odor.

           
Kara coughed. "That it does,
Jill. That it does."

           
Smells
like something died in here.

           
Which wasn't a very comforting
thought, seeing as this was Kelly's apartment. Kelly had given her the key
years ago, telling Kara to feel free to come visit and stay any time she was in
the city.

           
Kara left the door open. "Wait
here," she said.

           
She left Jill standing in the
hallway by their overnight bags while she made a quick round of the rooms.
Empty. Good. No one here who shouldn't be here. The odor was strongest in the
kitchen. Kara opened the door under the sink and found the cause: rotten
leftover Chinese take-out in the garbage sack. She tied the bag closed and
brought it out to the hall. She'd throw it away later.

           
"All clear," she told
Jill.

           
"What was it?"

           
"Week-old egg foo yung and
fried rice, I think."

           
"Ugh!"

           
"You said it."

           
Kara helped Jill off with her coat
and shrugged out of her own. She felt uneasy here, like some sort of
grave-robber, or a vulture picking at the bones of the dead. But something had
to be rotten here besides egg foo yung. Something had gone wrong in her
sister's life. Kara wanted to know what.

           
She stood in the center of the main
room and did a slow turn, taking in everything around her.

           
So
ordinary.

           
Kara found that very ordinariness
reassuring, but it didn't answer the questions that had brought her here.

           
The furniture was a motley
assortment of new and good quality used. There were a couple of original
watercolors of flower-filled fields on the walls along with a few framed
posters from the
Metropolitan
Museum
's Van Gogh in Aries show. A selection of
photos of Jill and Mom and Kara herself stood on one of the end tables. The big
thick
The Art of Walt Disney
sat
right where it belonged—on the coffee table. Beside it was a stack of nursing
journals.

           
This
was the Kelly she knew. Not a swinger, not even a terribly exciting person, but
a rock solid, steady, reliable professional who loved nursing and loved the
throb and rattle of
New York
. Sweet and attractive. Although they were identical twins, Kara had
always thought of Kelly as the better looking one. She'd had her love affairs,
and she'd told Kara all about them when they got together. Once or twice she
thought she'd found Mr. Right, but one had turned out to be not-so-Right, and
the other, Tom, the most recent, had been keeping a little secret from her: his
wife and child on Long Island.

           
But Kelly seemed to bounce back from
those traumas like she bounced back from everything. Kara had often wished she
could be as flexible, as resilient as Kelly. Which was probably why Kelly had
been able to stay on in
New York
and Kara hadn't: Kelly could accept the city on its terms, Kara could
only accept it on her own.

           
Which was why Kara lived in
Pennsylvania
and Kelly lived in
New York
.

           
And maybe why Kelly had died in
New York
.

           
So
why am I in
New York
now
? Kara asked herself.

           
To find a reason, some sort of hook
that would help her understand what had happened. Damn it, she was going to
find out why and how Kelly had changed or go half crazy trying. And she was
going to tear this place apart in the process.

           
"When are we going to Aunt
Ellen's?" Jill asked.

           
"Soon, honey. I've just got to
look around here for a while, okay?"

           
Kara found something on the tv for
the child to watch, then she headed for the bedroom. She'd start there.

           
Nothing.

           
Kara had to admit her twin sister
was boring. Not that that was bad. In this case, it was good. But puzzling.

           
How could a woman who liked New
Amsterdam Beer, read Agatha Christie, Ed Gorman and John D. MacDonald, dressed
in flannel nightgowns, and was voted Nurse of the Year at St. Vincent's twice
in the last five years come to be a legend in the Oak Bar? Her major vice
seemed to be Creamette pasta.

           
Drugs? In the night stand drawer was
a prescription bottle from a Dr. Gates labeled: "Halcion 0.25 mg. One
tablet at bedtime as needed for sleep." Twenty or so blue ovals rested in
the bottom of the amber plastic container. It looked as if Kelly had suffered
from insomnia. That might be important, but probably not. The medicine cabinet
in the bathroom yielded even less. Midol was the most potent pill there,
followed by Tylenol.

           
As she looked over the collection of
lotions and creams and powders and scents lined up in the cabinet, arrayed
around the sink, and clustered atop the tank lid of the toilet, Kara shook her
head in wonder and dismay.

           
Look
at this!

           
From Giorgio there was Red
Extraordinary Perfumed Body Moisturizer; from Lancome there was Progres, Savon
Fraichette, Savon Creme Exfoliante, and Effacil; Sebastian contributed Hi
Contrast Gel, Sheen, and Cello-Shampoo; but Chanel had hit the jackpot: Lotion
No. 1, Creme No. 1, Fluide No. 1, Creme Exfoliante, Lift Serum Correction
Complex, Lotion Vivifiante, Demaquillant Fluide, Huile Pour Le Bain, Poudre
Apres Bain De Luxe, Creme Pour Le Corps No. 5, and of course, the indispensable
Mask Lumiere. Something called Summer's Eve Feminine Wash—"the intimate
cleanser"—sat on the edge of the tub. The drawers were filled with
different shades of eyeliner, eye shadow, lipstick, and make-up.

           
Kara never ceased to be amazed at
the gullibility of her sex. It seemed to know no bounds. Even the monstrously
cynical and endlessly voracious cosmetics industry, despite decades of
unrelenting effort, had yet to find its limits. This collection was proof.

           
She had long lived with a smoldering
anger toward the cosmetics industry for its alluring hype and empty promises of
eternal youth and beauty. She had even sold a few articles on the subject—all
to feminist magazines, of course. Magazines with no cosmetics advertisers to
lose. She had wondered as she was writing them why she bothered. She was, after
all, preaching to the converted. But the articles weren't totally useless: they
kept her name in print, kept a little cash flowing through her checking
account, and gave her credibility as a writer when she'd approached the book
publishers. And her articles had been somewhat unique in that her venom hadn't
been directed solely at the cosmetics industry. She'd also taken the modern
woman to task for allowing herself to be so continually duped.

           
She was chagrined to see the extent
to which her twin had bought into the Big Lie. And
bought
was the word! This junk must have cost a small fortune!

           
Kara guessed it was a barometer of
how well skilled nurses were being paid these days.

           
So. There was evidence that Kelly
had been moisturizing herself into Nirvana, but nowhere could Kara find a trace
of illegal drugs or their paraphernalia—no joints, no unlabeled capsules, no
powder-smeared mirrors, no coke spoons, no rolled-up bills, not even a razor
blade.

           
She had ransacked the bedroom,
pulled the living room furniture apart, gone through all the cereal boxes and
flour canisters in the kitchen.

           
Nothing.