The Secrets She Keeps

by Jolie Moore

  “Your birth state is where you’ll need to start. Each state handles the opening of records differently. Your case is a little more complicated as you were born in one state and adopted in another. It’s doable. But I’m not the lawyer to do it for you. You can do it yourself—”

  I shook my head. Seeing patients, dictating files, making referrals, and wrangling with insurance companies was already more than a full-time job. Throw on that heap fixing what-the-hell-ever had happened with Nari and I was all out of time.

  “I can’t. Maybe. I don’t know.”

  Vara pushed a thick soft cover book into my hands, making my choice for me. She had my next few weekends sewn up. “Read this. It’ll tell you where to start.”

  Chapter 3

  Nari

  One hundred thirty dollars and two cab rides later, I was ready. I drew the curtains, thrusting the sun-soaked room into early dusk. After I pulled matches from my pocket, I lit the candles one by one, each representing a month we’d been together. Then I extracted the box from my suitcase. Trying to hold back the tears that would blur my vision and make this more difficult, I sucked in gulps of air.

  The album was always first. Pictures of me, Andrew, and our friends filled the polypropylene sleeves. I traced their tiny paper faces. We’d all looked so young then. Andrew, Daisy, Isabella, even me.

  Then I opened a smaller book, its leaves gilded, and looked at the pictures of my wedding day. I’d worn a white wool dress that hid my expanding belly. Andrew had worn his tux. He was the first person I’d ever met who owned a tuxedo.

  I hadn’t come to college looking for love. The fact that I’d found it had galled my parents. They had told me time and again they weren’t paying for courtship. They were paying through the nose for me to get my pre-med bona fides. That as their only child I was subject to certain expectations. That I was coming close to failing to meet any one of their goals for me.

  Getting more comfortable on the rug, I leaned back against the front of the couch and let the memories do what they always did, soothe my grief. Bring me back to a time when everything was headed in the right direction. When the future had seemed brighter than the past.

  On that single night in his Owen dorm room more than ten years ago, I’d changed the course of both our lives.

  I had laid back on the extra long twin bed, my arm reaching for the pillow. I’d tucked it under my head and turned toward the dingy wall that was probably supposed to be white. New England was nothing like California. Sometimes I wondered if Yankees were allergic to paint. Every campus building I went into looked like it could use a new coat. My parents had painted their walls nearly every two years. Owen did not use the biannual refresher plan.

  The bed dipped; Andrew had come back from the bathroom he shared with three other seniors. He shucked the boxers he’d pulled on to dispose of the condom with some kind of modesty. At least he had some manners. Owen sometimes reminded me of the cable movie Animal House with all the drinking, burping, farting. The girls were marginally better, but I’d spent nearly all my time on the boys’ side.

  “Ri?” His voice was a question. A single finger bumped down my spine.

  I turned toward him, our fronts nearly touching. Avoidance never got me anywhere. “I…got into USC,” I blurted.

  “That’s great!” Andrew’s hug was a tackle. We bumped against the springs under the thin, lumpy mattress.

  “I didn’t get into Perlman.” Not that I’d put much effort into the interview. The whole time we’d been in Philadelphia, I had twin thoughts running through my mind. Life in leafy Philly with Andrew, idyllic. My parents’ ire at not returning home, less than.

  “Anderson or Marshall, here I come,” he said, laughing.

  “Your dad wants you to go to Wharton.” Where Andrew’s dad and probably a thousand generations of Clarkes had gone to school.

  “My dad will get over himself,” he said.

  Andrew’s nonchalance was foreign to me. I tried to imagine telling my dad that I’d chosen something other than what he’d wanted. I closed my eyes for a second, blinking away that image. Owen had only been a go because a few other churchgoing kids had blazed the path years earlier, otherwise I’d have been limited to Cornell or Riverside. But at either of those schools I’d never have met Andrew. My heart nearly stopped at the thought. I closed my mind to that possibility.

  “Do you think we should go to separate schools?” I asked, testing him.

  Andrew sat up, unselfconscious. I matched his movements, but with the duvet firmly wrapped around my own body.

  “What’s going on, Ri?” He blinked his blue-green eyes at me. My heart did the same skip it had been doing from the first day I’d seen him singing on the rush line. Simply, I adored him like I had no other boy or man. The floppy dirty blond hair he gelled into a sleek pompadour on performance nights. The smooth, lean swimmer’s body that ended in goofily large size thirteen feet.

  My mouth opened and closed, but no words came out. I imagined I looked like a koi gasping for flakes of food in a backyard pond. Instead of searching for the right words, I pulled a small plastic stick from under one of the pillows.

  “What’s—”

  I pushed the human chorionic gonadotropin test into his hands.

  “You’re pregnant?” Though he made an attempt to mask his shock, it was still palpable.

  “I don’t know how—” My arms flailed uselessly under the covers.

  “I do,” he said, his smile crooked. Blunt tipped fingers snaked through the covers, spanning my waist.

  I looked down between his legs. Did nothing turn him off?

  Boys.

  Batting his hand away, I said, “This is serious.”

  “So is this.” A half-smile played around his lips.

  I gave him my scary serious face.

  Andrew sobered, draping the free end of the comforter over his erection. “What do you want to do?”

  I scrutinized his face. Was he suggesting I have an abortion? Would he dump me if I didn’t get rid of the baby? What did he want? Gawping fish mouth, again.

  Words had never failed me. Not since I’d entered kindergarten and realized the children spoke a language different from my parents. Not since my attempts at play were rebuffed when I’d asked politely in Korean. Since then, knowing the right words and having them always at my fingertips had been very important to me.

  I took in a lungful of air. He wasn’t asking if I wanted to see an action movie or eat at the four dollar Indian buffet, both of which I’d tolerated for years while smiling. I needed to tell him the truth.

  Another deep breath. “I want to have the baby,” I finally admitted. It was an irrational, career-limiting, possibly relationship-ending decision, but I wanted the baby anyway. I’d always wanted to be a mom. If it was meant to be now, then so be it.

  A child could be worked around. After all, wasn’t I going into a profession predicated on saving human lives? Adding one more life to the mix couldn’t be a bad thing.

  Andrew leapt from the bed like the sheets were on fire. He hopped back into his boxers, then pulled pants and a button down shirt from his small closet. I glanced at the clock on his desk. Where was he going five minutes from midnight on a Friday?

  “Andrew—”

  “Wait.” He held up a hand, then pulled open drawer after drawer, making a mess of the contents.

  I spied my clothes on the back of the desk chair. Should I get dressed as well? When I slept in Andrew’s room, I slept naked. The heating system in the century old building only had two settings, off and hot. Hot avoided hypothermia. But right now, being nude put me at a distinct disadvantage.

  Caught between keeping tonight’s sushi down and making a run for the room I shared with my longtime roommate Daisy, I remained immobile.

  Satisfied with whatever he’d found, Andrew stopped moving. Sometime in the last minute while I’d been planning my escape, he’d added a sport coat to his ensemble.

  I made a
quiet study of my feet, flexing them and mapping out the metatarsals and phalanges. It was never too early to get a start on Gross Anatomy. I’d heard it was the hardest course.

  “Ri, babe.” Andrew’s voice was tentative, which wasn’t at all like him. I looked up, then down. He was on one knee. A navy blue velvet box in his right hand.

  The shakes started then. I put my hands in front of my mouth, stifling both the scream and the dinner that threatened to erupt.

  Andrew shook his head. “I totally planned to do this a different way when I asked Mom for Grandma Maude’s ring. Me and the Spizz have been practicing for weeks. But here goes: Nari Yoon, will you marry me?” He’d sang the last in his smooth baritone. I imagined the a capella group practiced a three-part harmony for this moment.

  I swallowed. Tears leaked onto my hands. Then I nodded. With each bob of my head I became progressively more certain. This is what I’d wanted when Andrew had come for me tonight. When I’d picked through dinner, looking for fully cooked fish. When I’d made love to him.

  “Yes. Of course. Yes,” I said.

  “I know we’re young,” he said.

  “Yes,” I said again.

  “But my parents had us in their twenties, and I’m here today,” Andrew continued.

  Why was he still talking?

  “My brother and I turned out—”

  “I said yes, Andrew.”

  He stopped speaking and lifted me into the air, duvet and all. For a moment I was flying, then he tackled me back onto the bed. Then we were kissing all over again.

  “That’s why you weren’t worried about USC,” I said when we came up for air.

  Andrew’s navy wool clad shoulder lifted and dropped.

  I wanted to cry with relief. “I’ve been worried for months that you were going to dump me at the end of the year.”

  “Nari. Never. I love you so much. I thought you knew that.” Mingled with the happiness in his voice was hurt at my lack of faith.

  “I did. I do,” I said, smoothing over the bump quickly. “It’s just that you never mentioned anything about marriage.”

  “I wanted this to be a surprise. The Spizz. A serenade. You deserved all of that.”

  I’d have loved the other. What girl wouldn’t? But this was okay too. This was just us. Andrew had slipped the small diamond on my finger. “I’d planned to follow you to wherever you needed to go,” he had said, full of youthful confidence in the future.

  It had been the happiest moment of my life.

  Bolstered by Andrew’s faith in us, I had even been nearly ready to have that conversation with my parents. That conversation where I talked about going to Penn instead of my dad’s alma mater. The conversation where I finally told them how serious I was about Andrew and how a future with him was nearly as important as pursuing medicine.

  I’d still have to have that talk, but it would be supported by an engagement…and a baby. Self-consciously I’d patted my still flat stomach. Maybe I’d save the baby for later and let them get used to the engagement first.

  Quickly, before I lost my nerve, I flipped through the rest of the scrapbook, the memories bittersweet. Thank God I hadn’t known then what was to come. I arranged my legs into a crisscross position, braced my hands on my knees, and let the memories take me away once more.

  An hour later, I blew out the candles, tucked the albums carefully in my carry-on bag, and opened the curtain. I’d survived another year without him. It was time for some retail therapy.

  Chapter 4

  Lucas

  “I give ’em the meds,” Dr. Rami said. We were sitting in the hotel lounge in full sight of every guest coming and going.

  “How do you justify that?” I asked, only half focusing on him, although he sat right in front of me.

  “They’re only going to doctor hop. Maybe this way, I can keep an eye on them. I’m talking zolpidem and alprazolam, not oxycodone,” he said defensively.

  Shapely legs and glossy bags turned my head. Nari, saucer-sized sunglasses firmly in place, white dress setting off her tan skin, swished into the lobby. I looked down at the shopping bags again. Well, she didn’t go cheap. I might be new to the west coast, but I recognized the sheen of ultra high end boutique bags. Nari had them in spades.

  Forgetting my manners and Dr. Rami, I rose and moved toward her like moth to flame.

  “Let me help you,” I offered, matching her pace.

  Closer up, I could see her eyes through the dark lenses. Warmth was not the word I’d use to describe the emotions radiating from them. “Got it,” she said, not breaking her stride.

  Tripping over my feet, I tried to keep up with her. “Going up?” I asked when we reached the gleaming brass elevator doors.

  At her barely perceptible nod, I pushed the up arrow call button. I followed her into the empty elevator and pushed ‘14’ for her floor. She didn’t protest, so I picked up the bags when she dropped them to wrestle the key card from her tiny purse, covered in a rainbow of designer logos.

  “I don’t really need—”

  I was determined to do this one thing for her. So I pushed through the door and put the bags on the floor by the bed. What the hell? I’d never seen so many half burned red candles. Each wick was dark. How had she not set off the fire alarms? Her room smelled like an apple pie had exploded.

  For a single moment, jealousy shot through me like an arrow. She hadn’t gotten it on with another guy in here, had she? I looked around. Nah, this wasn’t seduction. It was something else entirely. Had she done a human sacrifice in here? Was she Wiccan or what?

  “Thanks for your help.” Her cool voice penetrated the fog in my brain. I was being dismissed for the second time that day. But I wanted answers before I was banished this time.

  “Are you okay?” I asked. My hand did a Vanna White flourish encompassing all the half-burned candles in a single gesture.

  “Fine, Lucas. Burning candles won’t cause cancer.”

  With a sigh, she sat, her back ramrod straight on the white chaise. Nari pushed the glasses on top of her head. For the first time I looked at her closely. Her eyes were bloodshot. Fine lines kissed the corners. Smudges of fatigue lined her lower lids. For someone who never had a hair out of place, it was telling. I didn’t know though, what I should be gleaning from it.

  “Last night didn’t go the way I’d planned,” I started. Matching her posture, I took a seat on the accompanying love seat. I sat up straight, hands braced on the pillows at my side in case she changed her mind and wanted me out quickly.

  A small smirk played around her lips. “What did you plan?”

  “I didn’t plan anything. Wait, that’s not what I wanted to say. I…didn’t plan for us to end up in bed together…at least, not last night.”

  “What if I did, Lucas?”

  “Did what?”

  “Plan to end up in bed. I’m not a helpless victim. I went down to the bar looking to get laid. I never meant to sleep with a colleague, but the rum ruined my judgment, I guess.”

  Like a punch in the gut, her answer hit me. Preconceived notions flew from my head. “You were planning to have sex with anyone?”

  She pulled her sunglasses from her hair and carelessly threw them on the table. Rhinestones glinted in the sunlight streaming through the windows. The sparkling blue waves stood in sharp contrast to the gray mood in the room.

  Her sigh was world-weary. “Yes.”

  I looked around to see if I had walked into an alternate universe. Everything about this was a little bit off. Conservative Nari Yoon who minded her manners and was nice to nurses had been looking to get laid. Her formerly pristine hotel room was littered with half burned candles as if she’d adopted an unknown religion. Her normally immaculate appearance was frayed around the edges.

  I tried to gather my straying thoughts into one coherent picture. “So you were looking to sleep with anyone who wandered by?”

  “That’s about the size of it, Lucas. I needed to blow off some steam. A
convention full of oversexed doctors didn’t seem a bad place to start. At least I wouldn’t have to convince them that a condom was a good idea.”

  Because like everyone else, it had been drilled into my head that a barrier method was the least any sexually active couple should do. But she’d have been sexually active with or without me.

  I needed to get out of there. This was going nothing like I’d expected. On the ride up here, I’d been wishing that maybe we’d talk, get to know each other, share a meal. Maybe fool around again. At that moment, though, I realized my fantasy Nari had little to do with the real woman in front of me.

  “I have to stop confusing expectation and reality,” I said.

  “Come again?”

  “Nothing.” I rose. I’d flown to Hawaii to learn about medical advances and find my parents. Maybe I needed to get back to my original plan. “Have a good rest of the conference, Nari.”

  “Thanks for understanding.” Relief softened the body she had held rigid. If she really wanted me gone, I would go. “See you Monday?”

  I needed to get the hell out of here.

  I nodded. On Monday we’d be colleagues again, nothing more. Then I turned and headed for the door, all the while wondering how in the hell I’d misjudged that so badly.

  Chapter 5

  Nari

  Three months later

  Turning my second bedroom into a full-sized closet and dressing room had been the best decorating idea I had ever devised. Rolling garment and shoe racks made getting dressed a breeze. I took a final glance in the full length, three-way mirror of my dressing room.

  Hair. Check.

  Fingernails and toenails. Check.

  Not that my appearance mattered much. Asian woman plus L.A. bar equaled hookup. Every. Single. Time. That math was easier than anything I’d tackled in college.

  After knocking back three glasses of Chamisul soju in quick succession, I was ready. By the time I made it down the elevator and covered the half mile to the bar on Melrose on three and a quarter inch heels, I was feeling pretty damned good.