Secret Lives (6 page)

Ben had been keenly aware of Kyle and Lou
sitting next to him, watching the woman they'd raised through her
teen years, the woman they adored and rarely saw, making love to
the rakish Michael Carey. He heard Lou's muffled “Oh, my” and
Kyle's chuckled response before he was swallowed up by the images
on the screen. There was a hushed stillness in the theater, an
electric tension that seemed rooted in his loins. After months of
feeling nothing at all he was stunned by the aching in his body, by
the yearning in his chest that went far beyond the sexual. And for
a few brief moments he kidded himself into thinking that life might
still hold something for him, that perhaps he had not lost
everything in that Annapolis courtroom.

Then he'd returned to his cabin, to the
silent telephone, the numbing emptiness. Kyle and Lou had their own
lives to live and he could not spend every evening with them. He
tried his old friends one by one and their rejection of him stung.
No one bothered to feign politeness. He was not even worthy of
common courtesy in their eyes. He'd become a vehicle for their
disdain about everything that was wrong in the world.

He saw no way out of his loneliness. The
whiskey had become an escape for him, but he took no pleasure in
the taste or the burn or anything other than the temporary oblivion
it offered. The pills could provide something more permanent.

But he'd promised Kyle a favor. He'd help
Eden with the digs, show her what to look for, how to catalog what
she found. It was the least he could do for Kyle.

–
5–

“I called Ben,” Kyle said as he poured milk
over the granola in his bowl. Lou still made her own granola, just
as she had when Eden was a teenager, long before granola was a
household word. “He's expecting you this morning. I'll walk you
over there after breakfast.”

“I remember the way,” Eden said. The site was
in the field between the cavern and Ferry Creek. She'd rather walk
there by herself, rather not have to make conversation with
Kyle.

“The grant's up the end of this year,” Kyle
said.

“Then what?”

“Then we fold.” Kyle shrugged as if it didn't
matter to him, but Eden knew better.

“Isn't there some way to get new
funding?”

He shook his head and swallowed a mouthful of
granola before he answered her. “Too much competition. It's hard
for a little site in the Shenandoah Valley to survive. I can work
there on my own, but the site won't have much credibility without
the money.”

Eden sipped her coffee, watching Lou dart
around the kitchen in the electric wheelchair. Refrigerator to
toaster to coffeepot and back to the table again, where she set a
plate of toast in front of Kyle.

“I'm ready for the second notebook,” Eden
said.

Kyle raised his eyebrows above his coffee
cup. “Always were a fast reader. What do you think so far?”

She had fallen asleep last night thinking
about how much of Kyle's life would be exposed to her in the pages
of her mother's journal. Suddenly she could picture him as a young
kid in this very kitchen, bent over the table, sparing Katherine a
beating by accepting it himself. She understood his reluctance to
share the journals with her. They would tell his story as well as
Katherine's. She thought of thanking him but returned her attention
to her cereal instead. Had she ever thanked him for anything?

“You were a nice kid,” she said.

His smile was quick and surprised. “And your
mom?”

“I'm not thinking of her as my mother right
now. I'm trying to stay objective as I read.”

“Hmm.” Lou tapped her coffee cup with her
fingertips. “I wonder how long you'll be able to do that.”

“Long enough to get the screenplay written, I
hope.” Eden ignored the challenge in Lou's words, although if she
was to be honest with herself she knew her objectivity was already
slipping. “I never realized how difficult her childhood was."

“No harder than yours,” Kyle said.

“Well”—Eden poured cream into her coffee,
dismayed to see the tremor in her hand—”I'm here to think about my
mother, not myself.”

“I'm not sure you'll be able to do one
without the other, honey,” Kyle said.

“The journal's amazing,” Eden said. “I can
see her writing style emerging already.”

Kyle let her change the subject. “She read
constantly. Our father—your grandfather—was always sneaking her
books. I never did figure out where he got them.”

“I have to think about who should play her as
a child. And we have to find someone to play you, too.” She had
given no thought to whom she could cast as Kyle, as either child or
adult. Until last night she had not realized how significant his
role would be.

“I wouldn't object to having Robert Redford
portray me as an adult.”

Lou laughed. “He's not randy enough to play
you, Ky.”

Eden raised her eyebrows. “Kyle? Randy?”

“You don't know your uncle very well, dear,”
Lou said.

“I'm not sure what age Katherine will have to
be before I can play her. I'm already five years older than she was
when she died.”

The phone rang. Kyle stood to answer it but
he turned to Eden before picking up the receiver. “You could pass
for eighteen, sweetheart.” He spoke into the phone for a few
seconds and then covered the receiver with his hand. “It's for you,
Eden. Your friend, Michael Carey. You can take it in the living
room if you like.”

She sat on the love seat in the living room
and waited for Kyle to hang up before speaking into the phone.
“Michael?”

“‘Morning.” He sounded half asleep.

“God, Michael, what time is it? Is the sun up
there yet?”

“I'm calling you from my bed.” He yawned.
“Wish you were in it with me.”

She had never been in his bed, nor he in
hers. She could picture him, though. The dark wavy hair against his
pillow, the long-lashed brown eyes that drove women crazy. “The
roses are beautiful,” she said.

“I can't function without you, Eden,” he
said, his voice syrupy with sleep. “Went to Sophie's party last
night and left at eleven. Eleven. The women were beautiful and I
couldn't have cared less. Had no interest in getting high either.
Everybody said I was a wet blanket. You've ruined me.”

She smiled. “I miss you.”

“Well, shit. Did you really say that?”

She could hear him moving, perking up, and
she wished she could take back her words. It was not really Michael
she missed. It was the safety of him, of the role she played with
him.

“I don't know. You'd better not give much
credence to anything I say right now.” She turned her back to the
kitchen door and spoke quietly into the phone. “I'm trapped in the
boonies with two people I thought I'd escaped from years ago.

“Hey, it's all for a good cause. Keep your
goal in mind, baby. And as soon as I get a break I'll join you,
okay?”

They had discussed this without resolution.
He could help her, he'd said. He could do some of the research on
Matthew Riley himself. But she could not picture him here. She'd
have to do a balancing act between him and Lou and Kyle. “I don't
know, Michael. Let's talk about it again in a few days, okay?” She
steered him into a conversation about Sophie's party and safer
ground. It was a world she knew well, a world that welcomed her and
honored her status. She had built it with no help from anyone and
she couldn't afford to lose it. Without it she was uncertain of her
next step.

The trail through the woods was narrower and
more primitive than she remembered. She imagined the camera
following young Katherine as she walked along it barefoot and
frightened. The trail seemed to go on forever and Eden was
beginning to think she'd taken a wrong turn when she reached the
steep, wooded embankment that led down to the cave. There was a
fresh path zigzagging down the side of the hill. That was new. They
would have to cover it up when they filmed. When she was small she
just slipped and slid down to the cavern and the field below. But
Kyle, with his arthritis, would need this trail now.

She passed the sealed cave entrance and
stepped out of the woods into the field. It ran between the
embankment and wide Ferry Creek, stretching from the dirt road to
the Blue Ridge foothills, perhaps a mile away. The section of the
field directly in front of the cavern formed the archaeological
site first discovered long ago by her mother. There were three pits
open now, each about five feet wide by ten feet long, at varying
distances from the cave. She'd been lucky the night before she
hadn't fallen into one of the pits in the darkness.

The site had a deserted, somber feel to it.
She hadn't known that the grant would be up in December. For as
long as she could remember, Kyle had talked about reopening this
site after his retirement, spending the rest of his life sifting
comfortably through his roots after the intensity of his work in
South America. Losing the grant would put an end to his dream.
Already the quiet, barren pits had the look of being abandoned.

She walked slowly past the first pit. It was
deep and empty, the bottom level, the sides square and straight.
The floor of the second pit had been carved into different levels,
large wafers of earth covered with sheets of plastic.

As she neared the third pit, she saw that the
site was not deserted after all. A man knelt in the far corner,
engrossed in something on the ground. His back was to her and she
watched him for a moment. He wore earphones attached to the tape
player on his belt, and he was humming along with the music. His
hair was brown lit with gold—Cassie's color—and a little too long
in the back. He wore a blue T-shirt and jeans. His feet were bare,
but his sandals were set neatly on the scarred grass at the rim of
the pit. A white pickup truck Eden assumed to be his was parked in
the shade of an elm over near the creek.

His partner, Kyle had said. She'd expected
someone closer to Kyle's age, someone content to spend his last
active years in a small, quiet site. She hesitated a few yards from
the pit, staring at the faint snow-angel pattern of sweat on the
back of his T-shirt, the faded-to-white denim covering his thighs.
Even from this distance she felt something long buried, at once
compelling and dangerous.

Snap out of it. She lifted her chin and
walked toward the pit, relieved as the old, familiar armor closed
protectively around her.

“Are you Ben?” she asked when she'd reached
the edge of the pit.

He jumped to his feet, pulling the earphones
from his head as he turned to look at her.

“Sorry I startled you,” she said.

“No…no problem.” He looked up at her, the
pale gray of his eyes holding the sunlight, and she let herself
stare for a moment, unnerved. This was ridiculous. She was
surrounded by attractive men in L.A. and felt nothing. Then she
meets this sweaty, scruffy guy in a hole in the earth and she…

“Have a seat,” he said.

She lowered herself to the edge of the pit,
her knees at the level of his shoulders. He looked away from her,
adjusting the tape player on his belt, and she sensed his
discomfort. She was used to it. People often squirmed when they met
her. She reached out her hand. “I'm Eden. Kyle's niece.”

“I know.” He wiped his hand on his jeans but
she still felt the warm layer of dust against her skin as he
pressed his palm to hers. “You're doing research on Katherine Swift
for a movie.”

“Yes. Kyle said you could show me
around.”

He nodded. “We can start right here.” He
motioned toward the ladder and she climbed into the pit, feeling
him watching her from below.

“I'm at the four-thousand-year level here.”
Ben knelt down where she'd first spotted him and pointed to a
foot-wide plateau carved into the bottom of the pit. “About two
thousand B.C. These are pieces of pottery.” He touched a few tiny
lumps of dirt resting on a piece of newspaper.

“They are?” She knelt next to him.

“Nothing fancy. They didn't do anything fancy
back then, just functional. They look like dirt right now, but they
won't disintegrate like dirt when they're washed. You'll see.”

He showed her how to dust the ground for the
clay fragments. He seemed relieved to have the work to focus on.
Shy, perhaps. These scientific types often were. She didn't want to
intimidate him. She asked him questions, hoping to boost his
confidence and get him to look at her—she wanted to feel the pull
of his eyes again. But he answered her with his eyes on the
ground.

“You can work here and I'll start in the back
corner of the pit,” Ben said.

For the next hour neither of them spoke. At
first Eden was fascinated by her hands, imagining the camera on
them as they swept, as the fine tan earth began to coat her
fingers. But her shoulders grew stiff as she dusted layer after
layer of earth and came up with nothing. She began to understand
why those little lumps of clay seemed so precious.

“Are you having any luck?” she finally turned
to ask him.

He laughed but didn't turn around. “Bored
already?”

“Is this usual? I mean, not finding
anything?”

“Think of it as examining a space, so it's
just as significant if there's nothing there as if there's
something there.” He turned now and smiled at her. “You are the
first person to touch that dirt in over four thousand years. Does
that help?”

She laughed. “Not really.”

Ben sat back against the side of the pit.
“Your mother never got down this far. She'd be amazed by what we're
finding now.”

“Where are all the artifacts she found?”

“In the museum in Coolbrook, for the most
part. Kyle has the rest of the collection. He keeps it in the old
springhouse.” He suddenly grinned and shook his head. “I can't
believe I'm digging in the dirt with Eden Riley. You look like a
regular person. I don't think I'd recognize you if I passed you on
the street.”