Secret of Lies

by Barbara Forte Abate

  The modifications in her personality were becoming increasingly and disturbingly palpable; effectively transforming her into someone I recognized less and less–a darkly humorless replacement for the jovial woman who’d always reigned as my favorite aunt.

  “You’re rather good at puzzles aren’t you, Eleanor?” Aunt Smyrna said, though there was nothing evident of a genuine compliment in her tone.

  Her facial expression faltering only momentarily, Eleanor held her eyes cast downward, one eyebrow briefly twitching as though steeped in concentration, but otherwise declining either response or acknowledgment of the curious statement.

  “It seems you’re good at everything, aren’t you dear?”

  “No … no, actually I’m not,” Eleanor said, her voice high and tight.

  “You needn’t be so modest. It doesn’t seem necessary, does it?”

  In the space of an instant it seemed their peculiar exchange had effectively rendered me invisible. I slid a quick glance toward Eleanor, her face all at once washed of color, bringing to mind a sadly imprisoned creature in wait of execution.

  “You’re not the first you know. He’s always had a weakness.”

  “What’s going on?” I pressed once Aunt Smyrna had taken her empty glass and left the room.

  “Nothing,” Eleanor said, her hands visibly quaking as she continued sorting through the puzzle pieces spread out on the table.

  “We need some more blue edge pieces for this section of sky,” she said, holding her eyes downcast, as though the quest to find the appropriate blue and white shaded pieces of a paper sky was all at once the most important task she’d ever undertaken.

  “I’d have to be an idiot not to notice the way everyone in this house suddenly hates each other.”

  She took a moment to answer. “Look, Stevie, just be glad you’re not involved. It’s a mess. Everything just got out of hand. I never meant for anything to happen, but it did … it just did, and I don’t know how anybody’s supposed to fix it.”

  “Fix what?” Something simmering just below the edges of my immediate memory elbowed its way to the surface. “It was the cocktail party, wasn’t it? Something happened that night.”

  She shrugged her shoulders in a gesture of defeat–the condemned resigned to her sentence of the gallows. “Yes–no … it’s not just that … it’s a bunch of stuff. But it doesn’t really matter now, she hates me.”

  “Aunt Smyrna? Don’t be ridiculous. She’s definitely mad about something, but it’s not like she’d ever hate you.”

  “She saw him kiss me.”

  “Who?”

  “Come on, Stevie, who do you think this is about? Cal–Uncle Cal–she saw him kiss me.”

  “So what. He’s kissed us before.”

  “Not like that.”

  “What do you mean?” I felt an immediate sense of distaste, both her tone and expression clearly detailing what her words had not.

  “Don’t look so stricken.” Her face relaxed a fraction, easing the tension around her mouth. “We were dancing and everyone had been drinking a lot. It just happened. She should understand that and not act so crazy over it. It’s not as if she still loves him or anything. I don’t know why she even cares.”

  “You mean you just let him kiss you? In front of everyone?”

  “No, don’t be ridiculous. It happened outside on the terrace. No one else was around.”

  “No one except Aunt Smyrna.”

  “Things happen, Stevie. Things just happen sometimes and there’s not always an explanation.”

  “But he’s our uncle.”

  “Not by blood–he’s still a man.”

  “Oh my, God. How could–

  She pushed her chair back from the table, knocking a handful of puzzle pieces to the floor. “You know, you always want to hear everything but it’s only so you can pick me apart like everyone else.” She spun on her heel, gone from the room before I could compose anything resembling of a response.

  “Teach me to dance,” Jake grinned, signing his request.

  We’d gone a good distance down the shoreline to a deserted section of beach, far enough that the eyes of Aunt Smyrna’s house couldn’t reach. The radio played softly for my enjoyment as we lay side by side on our beach towels, drying off from our brief swim in the chilly ocean.

  “What? We can’t dance here.”

  “Why not?” he persisted, as I’d once done.

  “Because this is sand,” I said, sifting a handful through my fingers. “You can’t feel vibrations in sand–can you?”

  He stood, reaching for my hand and pulling me to my feet.

  “We don’t need music,” he teased, drawing me into his arms, waltzing me across the sand in erratic, dizzying circles.

  I dropped my forehead against his shoulder, laughing, imaging the hilarious picture we made, not realizing until it was too late that his intention all along had been to twirl us back into the surf.

  “You devil,” I shrieked, as he pulled me against the solid wall of his chest, my hands clinging to his shoulders. And tasting the saltiness of his lips, I desperately wished I could hear his voice say my name. Could hear him tell me that he loved me.

  “I was thinking of sending the girls back home a little earlier this year,” Aunt Smyrna said with all too deliberate ease one evening while we were eating supper, Uncle Cal now returned to the house for the weekend.

  My fork, which up until then had been stabbing green beans like enemies rather than food, froze midway to my mouth.

  “But, Aunt Smy–”

  Uncle Calvin cut my words short. “What for?”

  “Well, I need to get back to the city. I have a few things I should take care of.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous, Smyrna. Their vacation’s nearly over anyway. Let them enjoy the rest of it. If you have things to do in town, for cripes sake, just tell me what you need done and I’ll take care of it when I get back on Monday.”

  Silence filled the air like a distasteful odor–immediate and discomforting.

  “Never mind,” she conceded weakly. “I suppose it can wait.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  It was miles past inconceivable to think that in two more weeks Eleanor and I would be boarding the train home to Callicoon.

  Now, in every moment I spent with Jake, there was no way of avoiding the current of hopelessness threading its way between us, consistently reminding me of my upcoming departure. It was unbearable even for an instant to contemplate the thought of separation for so many months, an altogether tragic sentiment worsened by my multiplying fears Aunt Smyrna wouldn’t allow us back next summer. And if that proved true, then what? All because Eleanor had let our foolish drunken uncle kiss her at a party.

  Late one afternoon as I sat on the beach, arms curled around my bent knees, I lifted my head to see Jake approaching, and rather than the expected fishing pole, his arms instead held a wildly tumbling bouquet of beach flowers. Reaching me, he proffered his gift proudly, only to find himself rewarded with a tumultuous outburst of tears. And even as he held me consolingly, resting his chin against the top of my head, I felt as though something were slipping away, vanishing before I could reach out and grasp it back.

  “She won’t come out if I’m here.”

  We’d come out to the porch after supper, Eleanor and I sitting with our eyes cast toward the ocean–the water a shimmer of green, purple, and pink where the sun was melting on the horizon.

  “Why’s she so angry?”

  “I already told you.”

  Earlier that day I’d been struck by the startling recognition that for the past few weeks–two months in fact–my sister and I hadn’t really known each other. Like boarders at a seaside resort, we’d passed in the hallways, glanced at each other disinterestedly over morning coffee, and occasionally passed an afternoon together on the beach. But aside from those impersonal moments, our lives had taken ninety-degree turns in opposite directions.

  “Aunt Smyrna wouldn’t sta
y mad like this over a stupid kiss. You said it didn’t really mean anything,” I said at length, pausing for her reply. Then when none came, “I was just thinking how we’ve hardly done anything together all summer. It’s almost like we haven’t even been living in the same place.”

  “Yeah, I guess maybe it has felt like that. But you did all right without me, Stevie,” she said, her grin more than hinting at an implication barely cloaked within her words.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” I said, shielding myself with an immediate instinct to pretend ignorance.

  “Oh, honestly,” she shrugged. “You know exactly what I mean. And you can relax, I’m not gonna tell anyone what you’ve been up to. Summer crushes are as common as fleas on a dog.”

  I promptly reached for a change of topic, unwilling to discover how much of my private doings Eleanor had actually perceived. And although it lay heavy on my tongue to take issue over her erroneous analogy of my romance with Jake in affinity to fleas and dogs, mostly I just wanted her to be wrong.

  “Do you think they’ll have us back next summer?” I said, not sure if I even wanted to hear her answer.

  “I’m surprised you need to ask.”

  “It feels like something’s about to explode between them.”

  “I think something already has.”

  Eleanor became unusually companionable. Rather than going off by herself all day as she’d done for the last several weeks, she lingered with Jake and me; the three of us passing the remaining days of our vacation together, clinging fiercely to those final brilliant rays of summer. And although I would’ve preferred spending every last moment alone with Jake, I sensed how deeply troubled Eleanor was by her falling out with Aunt Smyrna and so couldn’t quite harden myself to the task of telling her to scram.

  It would’ve seemed altogether impossible for the unspoken grievances to sink any deeper; the atmosphere in the house having worsened to that of strangers barely tolerating each other. Conversations stiffer, silences endless, simmering fury always a heartbeat away from splitting wide open.

  I found myself anticipating Uncle Cal’s weekend arrivals, his added presence now bringing a realignment of sorts to the tensions knotted between us. Inasmuch as Aunt Smyrna would go back to her battle stance against him, and for the span of a weekend Eleanor could step away from being the focus of our aunt’s churning discontent.

  “Listen to this, El,” I said, halting my twisting of the radio dial. “Here’s that storm warning again. What a bunch of idiots those weather guys are. I mean, look up there–not a cloud in the sky.”

  “That doesn’t mean anything. It must be moving this way.”

  “Moving this way from China maybe. Although, you know, it might be cool if we did have one more killer of a storm before we go home–just as long as it holds off until after tonight. Jake and I are gonna make a gigantic bonfire on the beach. Huge. An inferno!”

  “Really? That sounds neat.”

  “Oh jeez, don’t tell me I’ve captured the interest of the beach bimbo.”

  “It must’ve been Jake’s idea. You never think of anything worth doing.”

  “Yeah, well you can’t participate unless you help gather wood.”

  She pulled a face, but didn’t argue as she normally would’ve done.

  After supper, we waited on the beach for Jake to return and help with the hunting and gathering of driftwood. It wasn’t long before we saw him coming towards us; his arms already loaded with several limbs of twisted wood.

  Gulls screeched, their wings flapping heavily as they circled overhead in anticipation our presence would encompass a meal. While dusk lingered, we scavenged the shoreline for necessary fuel, paying little attention to the impatient cries of the persistent birds.

  Night descended rapidly, dark and damp as a basement room; the indecipherable expanse of ceiling overhead devoid of moon or stars. The heavy breeze blowing in from the ocean made it near impossible to get the fire going, until finally the weak flames fanned briefly, licking a fragile trail across the dry wood, gathering strength–the teetering pile all at once erupting into a fledgling blaze.

  We hovered close around the fire like a trio of street vagabonds, attempting to melt away the cold settled into our limbs. Jake tossed another armload of wood onto the growing flames, our meager supply of fuel already beginning to disappear.

  “What did you do with the marshmallows, El?”

  “I don’t have them. You know I hate marshmallows.”

  “Then you should’ve brought something else down.”

  “I brought the radio.”

  “We can’t eat the radio,” I snapped, turning my head to see Jake watching us, the smile flicking at the corners of his lips indicating he’d deciphered a goodly portion of our exchange.

  “Stop thinking of food all the time. Keep it up and you’ll end up the size of a locomotive before long. Just because you’re skinny now doesn’t mean you’ll always be. Not the way you’re abusing it.”

  “I guess you’d know, what with that caboose you’re carrying.”

  “Jerk.”

  For all her petty annoyances I was grateful now that Eleanor was there with us, her presence allowing something of a distraction from my gloomy focus on the swiftly approaching day of our departure for Callicoon.

  I stole a sideways glance at Jake where he stood barely an arm’s length away from where I sat on the edge of the tattered old blanket we’d dragged down from the porch, the reflection of the leaping flames bathing his face in a soft orange glow. A perfect beautiful face I wanted now to memorize–to trace my fingers over the sharp definition of his jaw, the smoothness of his lips, the curving sweep of dark eyelashes.

  He turned his head to look at me and I wondered if he’d felt the weight of my eyes watching him. I met his gaze for barely an instant, glancing away when I felt the sharp stab of something resembling grief shoot up through my insides, unintentionally causing me to bite down hard on my lower lip.

  As we stared into the fire, saying little, feeling none of the revelry we’d anticipated in the plans of the morning, a small crowd began to gather. First came someone from the big house next to ours, then two more neighbors, followed by several others from somewhere up the beach.

  With the new arrivals came more wood. Offerings made with the hope or expectation of an invitation to join our end of summer ceremony.

  It was only a short while later when I caught sight of someone descending the steps leading from our own house–surprised and enormously gratified that for the first time this summer Aunt Smyrna had finally decided to come down and join us.

  But when the lone figure stepped into the circle of light ringing the bonfire, I was at once disappointed to see it wasn’t our aunt after all, but rather Uncle Cal, unexpectedly returned from the city. “I’ll bet no one remembered marshmallows,” he announced, holding up a bag.

  “Marshmallows!” Eleanor squealed. “Perfect.”

  I stared at her with thinly veiled disgust. It seemed there was no limit to her inane flirting.

  We passed the bag amongst those gathered, skewering the spongy white candy onto sticks, then poking them into the flames just long enough to blacken the outsides and turn the insides bubbly.

  Someone began to sing–one of those simple songs always sung around campfires–several other spirited voices joining in shortly after.

  And when I think back to that night I vividly recall not only the smells … he sounds … he crackling yellow blaze, but also the comforting glow of companionship. The one time camaraderie of a group of friends and strangers singing old familiar songs on a circle of sand in the middle of the night. All of it just as clear to me as the hideous thing that would later unfold and shatter my existence. Every action. Every detail. And I can still feel the golden warmth of the fire, smell the burning wood, hear the voices singing ...

  Chapter Fourteen

  As much as I loved to sing, it was a guilty pleasure I only dared indulge in private. My intona
tion was too unsure of itself–invariably grasping for unattainable notes, rising from soprano to alto of its own accord–for me to consider what would be assured humiliation should I ever attempt a public unveiling of my far from musical tones.

  Of greater significance, however, was my conviction that by joining in with the others I would succeed in drawing attention to another of Jake’s limitations; an especially unpardonable sin since I had yet to wholly forgive myself for my denial of him on that regrettable night when we’d gone to The Promenade with Eleanor.

  But really none of that mattered, at least not as much as sitting there on the blanket, shoulder to shoulder, enwrapped by a soft web of contentment. My thoughts centered on the feel of his hand holding mine, the singing voices, the blazing fire … a trance holding steady until the moment when I felt him gently squeeze my fingers in a silent bid for attention. And when I turned my head, I’d effortlessly read his expression—the suggestion in his eyes.

  I scanned the assemblage of relaxed and happy faces dotted by firelight, searching for Eleanor’s visage among them. Should she chance to witness us as we slipped away I would later pay an exorbitant price by becoming the subject of her crude jokes and innuendoes.

  But she wasn’t there, and although I assumed it more than likely that she’d dashed up to the house to pee or put on lipstick–both of which she did with some regularity–I was nevertheless surprised that I hadn’t seen her departure.

  Jake stood, pulling me to my feet; no one appearing to take particular interest as we easily drifted away.

  Removed from the fire the night was dark and cold. We walked for a short distance, each holding to our private thoughts–my mind choked to near suffocation by the screaming echo pressing hard against us–words and emotions too brittle to shift or otherwise release. I swallowed hard in an attempt to dislodge the mass wedged in my throat like a cement cork, and for the first time ever I was thankful that our necessary means of communication had no reliance on speech.