The Secret Keeping (7 page)

Work was a rough ride from Monday through Wednesday and she spent most of that time fielding panic calls from jittery investors.

On Thursday afternoon, even though it was against policy, she turned her answering machine on and left work early.

She was staying with Delilah and hadn’t been to the apartment since last Sunday. The contractors had begun the floor installation Monday morning as promised and she was as excited as a child for Christmas, even though it was nowhere near completion.

On arrival, she found only the parlor and part of the living room done, but she nevertheless beamed with joy when she saw how it brightened the place.

The foreman kept the men working, though it was clear they would rather have stood around bragging about their techniques. He took that pleasure for himself while he cast predictions about the time schedule and repetitively reminded her that even when they were done with the actual installation there would still remain an extensive cleaning and the expert application of three coats of finish.

“You shouldn’t walk on it for a coupla’ days,” he said.

That was logical but disappointing.

“Specially not with them.” He pointed at her heels and grinned.

She thanked him and headed back to Delilah’s just a few blocks away.

“Hey! You’re in a good mood.”

“Del, wait until you see it.”

“I can’t wait. Come and tell me about it.”

She was wearing a mud mask in preparation for a dinner date.

“It’s gorgeous.”

“The crew or the floor?”

“Oh, it’s all beautiful, Del. What’s on your face?”

“Nothing. I’m green with envy, Liddy.”

“Each room is going to have a different pattern…but I can’t walk on it for three days after it’s done.”

“Oh? Pass me that. Thanks. Can you crawl?”

“I’m just gonna roll on it when it’s done.”

“Yah! With no furniture to get in the way. That’ll be easy.”

“Got to paint the place first, Del. Get ready.”

“What do you think I’m doing here? Isn’t this about the same color?”

Delilah left around six-thirty.

“If all goes according to my plan, Liddy, I’ll see you tomorrow.”

She gave one last look in the mirror.

“If not, I’ll be home later to masturbate.”

“Del!”

“Don’t wait up!” she shouted gleefully.

The closing door and the now quiet apartment marked the first opportunity for Lydia to be alone in almost a week and she inhaled the moment like a breath of fresh air.

Suppertime.

The unrewarding search in Delilah’s refrigerator brought forth the image of her Saturday feast again and she worried anew about the empty window seat and what it all might mean. She opened and closed the cupboard doors searching in vain for something to eat. Nothing in the pantry, either. Delilah Domestic she is not. It was foolish perhaps to go too far with conclusions, she reminded herself about the lunch, as she looked for the freshness date on a box of crackers. Toss it, she said, looking for the garbage can. Hungry and nothing but fungus in the fridge. After all, she really didn’t know anything. The benefactor, so identified by the waiter, need not be the blond, in which case it would be smart to stop playing with food and to exercise a bit more caution. Need not be. That blond.

But who else could it be? A man? What man? Ugh, a married man. She hadn’t considered that possibility.

Would a married man be that discreet? She pondered it, her head in the freezer. Nah, wouldn’t a man be confident enough to publicly solicit her, married or not? Of course, she decided, rummaging through frozen lumps of aluminum foil. Whereas a woman…a woman trying to seduce another woman? She thought of the black silk gloves. She would never attempt it, not even with silk. That would take balls. Or tits, she laughed, still reluctant to rule it out. She discovered a triangular shaped wrapper in the back of the icebox and opened it out of curiosity. Pizza. Lydia cringed at the idea of it. Knowing Del, she thought, this could be ten years old. She stuck the slice into the microwave and peered at it through the glass with as much surety as a student performing a science project.

Ding!

The food held up under inspection and she sat down on the couch to eat it. Of course this meal didn’t compare to creamed oysters, but that was no surprise.

Del was right, she thought, chewing gingerly and sliding an old movie into the VCR. She must have somebody. The reason why she wasn’t there on Saturday could easily be that she was with someone else, somewhere else…

Lydia ruminated slowly.

It was a bit tough and hard to swallow.

And the movie was stupid and the food sucked.

And the bed was uncomfortable and the sheets scratched.

And she hated not knowing what to think anymore.

_____

The week closed high at Soloman-Schmitt. Hopes of a merger. Hopes. Rumors. Fears. And lots and lots of speculation.

Whatever it takes sometimes.

_____

She missed her.

It was proving chancy lately, counting on Frank’s for glimpses of the blond. She wasn’t there Friday night nor the subsequent Saturday for lunch and Lydia found that the vacuum created by her absence could not be filled with anything else, no matter how exciting it was to see the progress in the apartment, with all the raw wood seeping through it, filling the place like the rising tide, no matter how busy she kept herself so that her mind wouldn’t wander after the woman.

There was no substitute for her Saturday ritual and she could not go home yet. That’s what she was inclined to do when she felt like this, lock herself in. Soon, she said, trying to reassure herself. Soon she could move back into her penthouse. Soon the woman would return and this time she would speak to her.

Reconstruction was taking longer than projected, however, and Lydia was advised by the foreman that the crew would require another week past the original deadline and that he was terribly sorry for the inconvenience.

This did not help matters any, but it didn’t stress Delilah, either, who insisted that she was not put out by the delay and rather enjoyed having a roommate. It made her feel so young, she claimed.

That being the case, Lydia affected the most cheerful impersonation of herself as possible for Delilah, it being successful enough to prevent any skillful probing, but a far cry from an actual cure for what she was coming down with.

_____

She made it to Friday, but the blond was still missing from Frank’s Place. Saturday, the same. No more speculation now, she knew without a doubt that she was in love with her because without a doubt she was heartsick.

All throughout the following week a great black shadow hung over Lydia and by that Friday there remained no activity left which could promise any comfort or relief from it. The inexplicable disappearance was worse than anything Joe had put her through. It was almost impossible not to scream out loud.

Moreover, she could tell that Delilah suspected her again and was once more growing concerned about her mood. There must be something I can do to get over this, she told herself. Something to alleviate the angst. But she couldn’t even bring herself to imagine what it could be.

Twice she approached the waiter, tongue-tied but nevertheless prepared to ask about the woman. Both times she lost her confidence and bailed out without a word, cursing her cowardice all through the subsequent sleepless nights.

She–whoever she was–was gone. And Lydia Beaumont–whoever she was–had been all wrong in judging the matter. She was wrong to have underestimated her feelings, wrong to try to wait out the attraction like it was an affliction she expected to recover from, wrong to hope it would eventually disappear without leaving a mark. There was a disappearance all right. She just hadn’t contemplated this kind of vanishing.

As it was impossible in such closed quarters to escape from her friend’s oversight, Lydia seriously considered going to a hotel, but in the end was paralyzed by the idea of offending Delilah. And although the work was finally coming to completion there, she additionally berated herself for having disrupted her life by throwing herself out of her own apartment.

This negativity was at last fully palpable. Lydia Beaumont was not herself again and Delilah knew why.

She had seen the abandoned window seat the last few Fridays and the pall it had cast over Lydia. You didn’t have to be a psychotherapist to decipher the meaning of that.

It was eccentric, not something Delilah would have thought she was capable of, but her tastes in lovers had always bordered on the exotic and she was not impetuous, certainly never fickle. There was, very likely, no way of undoing this.

She pondered the matter in silence as she observed the suffering.

_____

So close on the heels of a broken heart, the last thing her friend needed was a full-blown case of love sickness, yet there it was, as plain as the olive in the martini she was having with Lydia at Frank’s Place Friday night. The woman at the window seat still unaccounted for and clearly not forgotten.

Delilah watched Lydia going through the motions and letting workplace neophytes rub at her elbows. She watched her harpooning the olive in her drink, playing catch-and-release with it until it was finally mutilated, and then ordering another one, abandoning the first drink, otherwise untouched. She saw her clamp her teeth when she smiled, talking through them as if they had been wired shut. After about an hour of this performance she grabbed her by the arm and led her outside.

“Let’s go home, Dame Beaumont.”

They walked a few blocks without speaking.

“I’m sure she’s on vacation, that’s all,” Delilah stated.

Lydia disposed of it with a silent shrug and continued counting the cracks in the sidewalks, thinking of the spring and what on earth had taken it so long. It was nice to not have to walk home alone, she thought, and she shot Delilah a thankful glance, but declined to comment on her remark.

“When I was a little girl–”

“I am not a little girl, Del.”

“I know you’re not—let’s stop in here for some ice cream—you’re a woman in love.”

She was taken aback. “I don’t want any–how do you know?”

“Because I’m not a little girl, either. Who doesn’t want ice cream after a martini?” she asked, gently pushing Lydia inside the deli door.

Delilah decided the flavor and they went home to eat it.

“I can’t eat. What did you mean, Del? Who goes on vacation now?”

“Yum–oh, you’re depriving yourself here–she’s obviously on vacation.”

“Go on, you have it.” She watched Delilah wolf the ice cream.

“Vacation, Liddy. I’m sure of it.”

Lydia weighed the possibility. It didn’t make sense to her.

“That never occurred to you, did it, Liddy?”

(NO.) “What am I going to do, Del?”

“Last bite?”

Lydia shook her head no.

“You need a plan.”

“Plan? How do you plan for this?”

Delilah laughed. “Tell me all that you’ve done about it.”

“Nothing,” Lydia admitted.

Delilah threw the empty container and the spoon into her sink. “Oh, really? That much?”

_____

At first, though she had no idea how she got there, it was quite pleasant. It was nice to be alone with just the gentle slapping of the waves against the little boat. Nice, the butterflies in her stomach as she lifted and fell with each wave, the fluttering sound of the solitary sail in the gentle sea breeze.

And it was so sunny.

But then the wind suddenly picked up and the ocean swelled around her. There were huge waves now rocking the boat, each time lifting it a little higher, each wave bringing her closer to the darkened sky and depositing her harder against the water.

The butterflies gave way to sea sickness. The boat jerked from side to side, rising and falling, groaning and listing. She saw the mast nearly touching the surface, felt the craft threatening to capsize. And from under the hull, there came a thud. Once. Twice. At the sides and then below her again. She could hear it through the wind and waves whipping at her, stinging her face and body. She flipped over. There it was behind her.

Something was in the water, bashing against her boat, trying to see what the craft was made of, testing its worthiness.

Something big.

The waves crashed violently over the deck. She was tossed to the back and clung to the edge there, face up and drenched. The boat was filling. Over her head the wind tore at the remnants of her sail. She heard the crack of the mast and the rigging as it ripped free and the persistent thud, thud, thud of the thing, something that was circling her beneath the water.

Lydia was damp and inextricably bound up in her bed sheets when she awoke from her nightmare. It was still dark and she was not sure of the date or even what time it was.

But it was five o’clock on a Saturday morning.

And everything was fine.

Just a dream.

_____

It was a morning opulent enough to rouse even the summer gods from hibernation and they woke on such a day no different than the mortals under their dominion, ambitious and edgy, eager to exercise their authority.

They stirred and stretched their powerful arms, reaching far into the brilliant sky around them. They squinted at their clocks, grinned and reset them, time arbitrarily altered just for fun.

Just for fun they tickled the universe in all its sensitive places and made it laugh again. Below them, they lengthened the day.

If humanity suddenly lurched at the whim of these capricious fingers, if its endeavors now moved only in fits and starts, if all its boats rocked free from their moorings, it was just business as usual returning, the industry of fair weather gods determined to rule their kingdom and to test their subjects’ mettle. They were going to have fun this year.

The cherry trees were summoned by winged messengers and together they blasted a bright pink alert across the city. Indoors the wallflowers glowed and houseplants bloomed, bursting forth like popcorn. They stretched longingly toward their windows. The high and low places admitted the sun and displayed their finest linens. Decorated tables were sent outdoors and stood at attention on the sidewalks. Silver and gold settings relinquished their tarnish and gleamed on their own accord.