The Secret Keeping (39 page)

_____

Midtown, Helaine felt it, too. A terrible silence had engulfed the city. She had rung Lydia’s suite enough times to know the woman had taken her phone off the hook. That reaction didn’t surprise her, although she had been hoping for a miracle to prevent it. A busy signal. She pondered the implications until she was rendered immobilized.

Robert and Kay were gone for the weekend. She felt virtually friendless, naked if she was to go outside and make her way through the reporters. She drank in the quiet, rocked herself gently and, eventually, wept.

Sharon had outdone herself. She had gone over the top this time and, by all outward appearances, for mere monetary gain, though Helaine knew better than that. Sharon had expressed what she was after the last time they had met with their lawyers. It was then that Helaine felt she should tell her she was in love with Lydia Beaumont. Mistake.

She was unsure of what her damages would be with Lydia or if she could stop the bloodletting. The only thing for certain was that, with this brutal exposé, Sharon had put the skids on her own love life, too. It would be quite a while before any one else would trust her.

It seemed ridiculous to challenge the story. This little part here is true, but the rest is not? And that sort of happened, but not quite that way? This is a gratuitous embellishment? And what about amateur night? Yah.

Should she sue her over it and further the she said/she said contest already consuming her life like a cancer?

Would it change anything anyway? It was doubtful at best.

Helaine waited by the phone all weekend but it didn’t ring and on Monday dragged herself to work via limo, in dark shades, her hallmark smile completely missing from her face.

She had a few hairy morning sessions with very probing questions from very horny clients which she managed to effectively sidestep with very direct questions of her own. Few people enjoy that. At lunch time she rang the suite again. Busy. Busy. Busy. She had Jenny reschedule her afternoon so she could muddle through the paperwork she’d been putting off for weeks. Four o’clock, Robert called with a let’s-sue-her-ass strategy. Sorry he wasn’t here sooner. No, she said, flatly. He had expected that response, he told her. It didn’t surprise either of them that Lydia was suddenly scarce.

_____

Tuesday?

_____

Wednesday?

_____

“Helaine…?”

“Lydia!–thank you, Jenny. I’ve got it.”

“I need to discuss–”

“Absolutely, I agree. Please. Let’s talk.”

“I don’t…I need to see you in person.”

“Lydia, anywhere. Tell me where.”

“This crap. I’m just–”

“Darling, tell me where to meet you. I can be there in a half an hour.” She waited an eternity while Lydia considered in silence. “Are you still there, Lydia?”

“Your place, Helaine. I’m walking. It’ll take about that long.”

“There’s a nest of reporters there, you know?” Silence again. “Did you hear–”

“Fuck them. Fuck them all.”

“Lydia…?”

“I’ll see you in a bit. Alone, I hope.”

“Lydia, of cour–” (click)

_____

There were bodyguards available but she didn’t have time to wait and it was unlikely that they would want to escort her on a cold and blustery day. Lydia took the elevator to the lobby and informed the doorman that she was leaving the building. He smiled and noted it.

It was quiet on the street as well, the eerie calm of winter in a metropolis, the time of year when cities look abandoned. No reporters waiting for her here. Paula was good. She sucked in the cold and started downtown.

_____

“Ms. Beaumont! Over here! Ms. Beaumont! Hey! Care to comment, Ms. Beaumont? MS.

BEAUMONT!”

Plenty of reporters at Helaine’s though. Lydia pushed through them with no comment, assisted, once inside, by a crew of security officers. You need a bodyguard, they told her at the elevator. A coupla goons like us, they said cheerfully, bragging they had just helped Dr. Kristenson break in. She smiled humorlessly and stepped into the elevator. A pair of sunglasses, too, they shouted, like the movie stars do. She waved as the doors closed and rode without interruption to the penthouse. Her hands trembled as she knocked on the door.

“Darling,” Helaine said in as natural a voice she could muster. There was no return greeting.

She moved aside and Lydia brushed past her without speaking. “Lydia,” she began, locking the door and following her into the living room. “I’m–”

“Tell me about it, Dr. Kristenson.” Lydia demanded, producing a newspaper from the inside pocket of her coat and throwing it at Helaine’s feet. “What is this about?”

“Lydia–”

“Tell me!”

Helaine bent and picked up the paper. “I know you’re upset–”

“Oh? And how can you tell that?” Lydia paced to the window and back again. “Don’t just think of something to say, doctor. Tell me the meaning of that trash. I need an explanation.”

“You want to know if any of it’s true?”

Lydia refused to look at her.

“I can’t explain it so I won’t even try. It is not an accurate account, I can say that much–”

“What am I, Dr. Kristenson? A chump? Is that accurate?”

“No.”

“What is she talking about then?”

“Anything she can think of to put an end to us.”

Lydia faced her. “Then you can just go get yourself another one, right? What with how practiced you are at it.”

Helaine felt the blood rising to her cheeks. “You can’t believe that, Lydia. You must know better.”

“How could I? You’re the only–I’m only an amateur.”

“Lydia…let me hold you.”

“No.”

Helaine threw the newspaper on the coffee table. “Are we talking yet? I thought you wanted to see me.”

“I’ve been trying to see you for weeks. What’s up with that? Found someone else to play with?”

“I wanted you to stop hiding out there. It’s not healthy.”

“Healthy? Like that shit there in the papers is healthy? Like my having to hear about it, have my friends and family hear about it, that’s healthy?”

“I have no control over Sharon.”

Lydia cast her a lethal stare. “So I hear.”

“Lydia…don’t dwell on this. I beg you.”

“Helaine. First you turn me down for weeks–”

“I was wrong. Take me to bed. Right now.”

Lydia put her hand to her head. “Helaine. I need–”

“I know what you need. You have my permission.”

It was Lydia’s turn to blush.

“Come to bed with me, Lydia Beaumont. Now.”

“NO. I’m too angry. It would not be all right. I want–”

“Yes, then.”

Lydia dropped her arm. “Yes what?”

“Yes. Some of it’s true. We were lovers, Lydia. Sharon and I. That’s what’s really bothering you. So take me to bed and let me resolve this for us.”

Some of it’s true. Lydia knew that. The perfumed air of the apartment felt suddenly toxic, the familiar scent smelled exceptionally bitter now. Elegant Helaine Kristenson, roughing it up with Sharon Chambers.

“I can resolve this,” Helaine repeated uneasily. “Lydia…please. I can resolve it.” She should be able to. She was an expert.

The newspaper caught Lydia’s eye. “Oh, I’m sure you can. You’re an expert after all.” The tone of her voice was ugly. She stopped herself from speaking.

“Oh, no, Lydia. Don’t. Don’t think like that.”

Don’t think like that. She shouldn’t have said it. Lydia looked away. “Which parts are true then,” she asked, “amateur nights?”

“That’s just nonsense. She knows I’m in love with you, that’s all.”

“In love?” Lydia glanced at her. “And how would she know that?”

“I told her. She knew it anyway, long before then.”

Love, that’s all. Just an extreme sport. At least to Sharon Chambers. Lydia tried to picture the woman’s reaction to Helaine’s declaration. Must have felt like falling off a cliff.

Helaine took a few steps forward, stopped when she saw Lydia back away. Time was of the essence here.

“Let me take your coat.”

She had forgotten to take off her coat. It was hot in the apartment. She felt the urge to pace and grasped at the back of the sofa when she passed it. “What makes me an amateur, Dr. Kristenson?” She inched along the length of it until she was finally clear. “That I don’t go around fucking everything I can get a hold of, like she does?” She was addressing the woman who had cornered her in the ladies’ lounge at Frank’s Place, who had grabbed her like a Rio Joe, her first kiss from a woman. How pissed she had been by that. “Would that be more exciting for you, Helaine? Would that improve my ratings any if I just fucked all the time? Fucked you, fucked her? If I fucked around and around and around?” Fucked. She hated the word. She felt her hands clenching. “Fucked anything I could get my hands on?” She was making her way back again, to where Helaine stood. “I need some feedback here, doctor. Tell me why this trash is in my face all the time.”

They were waltzing without knowing it and Lydia found herself beside Helaine, this time in the doorway of the bedroom. Helaine went inside and quietly got undressed. Lydia cleared her throat self-consciously, stopped talking. She felt flushed and overdressed, confused as to how they had made it this far.

Helaine was in only her slip. She sat down on the edge of the bed. “She’s simply trying to have an impact on our love life,” she offered. “A negative one to be sure–here, sit with me.”

Lydia hesitated, buried her hands in her coat pockets. “We have a love life? That’s news I haven’t read anywhere.”

Helaine smiled, laid backwards across the bed. “I love you. You love me. That’s quite a love life, Lydia.”

That was true. Lydia walked to the bedside. “I can’t do this. I’m not mysel–”

“It’s all right,” Helaine said, pulling her down.

The scent in the air was sweet again, sweet in the blond hair and on the creamy skin. Lydia crushed the soft mouth with her own. Helaine opened her legs. “Helaine…”

“It’s all right.”

“Sharon Chambers…” She hated that woman. “In this bed?”

“Lydia–”

“Yes then…and you loved her?”

Oh, no, not that. Helaine wrapped her arms around Lydia’s neck. Yes, but she couldn’t bring herself to say it, her lover still wearing her overcoat. “Lydia,” she whispered instead, “would you rather we lie on the couch?”

She felt Lydia’s hand searching her, gasped as Lydia answered no.

_____

“Well? Good morning?”

“Good morning.” Lydia answered, playing with the fringe of the covers. “How are you?”

Helaine was laying on her stomach. “Sore,” she mumbled into her pillow.

“Oh.” (Didn’t sound serious.) “Sore mad, or sore sore?”

Helaine chuckled. “Sore sore.”

Lydia pulled the covers down. “I’m sorry.”

“You lie.”

“And other than these complaints?”

Helaine exhaled loudly into the pillow. “Other than those, aroused.”

“Okay. I’m interested.”

“I thought you might be.”

Lydia bent over her back. “You are something, my dear Ms. Kristenson. I’m thinking of having your baby.”

Helaine laughed, opened her legs. Lydia slid between them.

“Make love to me, Ms. Beaumont,” she said, over her shoulder.

“I thought you were sore?”

“I am…I don’t mean there.”

“Not here?”

“Yes…not there.”

“Where–here?”

“Mmmm.”

“I don’t–you’ll have to show me how.”

“Darling…I can’t. There’s some oils. Pick one.”

“Lana…I don’t want to pick. Which one?”

“Lavender–this’ll ruin you for a garden, you know.”

“Too late now.”

“You think I’ve ruined you, Lydia?”

Lydia massaged her without answering.

“Do you?”

“Lana...how could you have?”

Helaine lifted herself and fell back down. “With all this trouble?”

Lydia put her face into the mass of blond hair. “All this trouble,” she teased, sliding her arm under her and continuing to stroke her.

Helaine stretched and relaxed into the bed. “Worth it?”

“I think so. As long as I don’t end up like the last one.”

“Like Sharon?”

“Was that her name?”

“You think I did that to her? Ruined her?”

Lydia massaged the inner thighs. “Spoiled her. Not on purpose.”

Helaine tensed her legs. “I really don’t know what you’re saying.”

Lydia lay her cheek against hers. “I really don’t know what I’m doing.”

Helaine’s body went limp. “God, you’re an awful tease,” she whispered. “Am I spoiling you now, you mean?”

“Lana,” Lydia whispered, “I’m trying not to let you.”

“Darling, I–”

_____

The press upped the ante. They followed the happy couple everywhere they went, to their homes and back, to dinner, even to the opera. Three nonstop weeks is all it took before Sharon blew her lid. Meantime Rio Joe turned stool pigeon on his friends, producing all kinds of interesting evidence and, since it’s true that what goes up must come down, the elevator tapes proved interesting, too.

“Where did you get it?” Lydia asked, visibly shaken.

“Team Chambers,” Stanley replied. “It’s not admissible, of course.” He rolled his pen in his hand. “Just thought you should know it’s out there.”

“It’s been altered. Seriously edited.”

“Looks it. We’re following up your lead, but security at Soloman-Schmitt leaves something to be desired, apparently. They don’t have any idea where it might have come from. But they’re sending the complete video, if that’s any reassurance. Written record, too. Dates. Events.”

“Has Helaine seen this yet?”

“Haven’t heard a word from them.”

“This is going to be endless, isn’t it?”

“Well, Lydia. Hathaway wants you to settle. He knows they can’t take you to trial as anything but a hostile witness so this is how they’re playing the game.” He threw the pen on his desk and sat back in his chair, his hands folded behind his head. “It’s called upping the stakes. They’re betting you won’t want to have to explain this stuff.”

“That’s blackmail.”

“It is, sort of. The plaintiff’s hopping mad, Lydia.”

“And?”

“I wouldn’t recommend paying them to keep it secret. She’ll make sure Helaine sees it anyway. That’s my hunch.”