Secret City

by Julia Watts

  And then she was leaning toward me, her eyes closed, and just for a moment, her lips touched mine. My heart inflated like a balloon, and I felt other feelings, too—physical feelings I liked but wasn’t used to.

  Iris smiled, a little shyly. “I’m afraid I’m a little drunk. Maybe we’d better sit down.”

  We sat on the couch, and she rested her head on my shoulder. “I used to be able to drink and dance all night. But now give me two glasses of champagne, and I’m ready to pass out. I blame motherhood. It wears a girl out.”

  “I’m sure it does.”

  I stroked her hair, and she snuggled closer and said, “Mm.”

  We must’ve dozed off that way because the next thing I heard was the sound of a door opening. I opened my eyes to see Warren. Iris’s head was still resting on my shoulder, and I jumped, startled.

  “I didn’t mean to frighten you, Ruby,” Warren said. His eyes looked strained and tired. “I guess you ended up taking care of both my girls tonight.”

  Iris stirred. “Wha—?”

  “Happy anniversary,” Warren said. “I’m sorry I’m so late. Are you alert enough to drive Ruby home?”

  “Yes, I can do it,” Iris said, sitting up and stretching. “I think I’ve slept off my champagne. I know how much you hate to drive at night, and you’ve had to do it a lot lately with these hours Uncle Sam is making you keep.”

  After Iris got her purse and car keys, I said, “Good night, Mr. Stevens, and happy anniversary.”

  “Thank you, Ruby. And thank you for all you do to help out around here.”

  I don’t think he could’ve said anything to make me feel more guilty. I don’t suppose I had done anything wrong, exactly, and clearly Warren didn’t think a thing about finding his wife asleep with her head on my shoulder. But how would he feel if he knew his wife had kissed me on their wedding anniversary?

  Iris and I rode in silence all the way to my house. When she parked the car, I said, “Iris, I know you were kind of drunk, but do you remember everything from…earlier?”

  I was relieved when she smiled. “I remember,” she said, “and it’s already a beautiful memory. You are lovely.” She took my hand, and we sat there for a minute, hands clasped.

  I think I’m starting to understand something about myself, and I’m scared of what it might mean. I feel about Iris the way I’m supposed to feel about Aaron. But I know better than to tell anybody. It’s just one more thing about me that nobody would understand.

  May 18, 1945

  I haven’t looked at this diary for nearly a week because all my time has been spent studying for tests and finishing my Jane Austen paper. But school is out now, and I ended the year with a straight-A average.

  At first I was a little sad about getting out of school, but now I couldn’t be happier.

  After Iris and Warren’s anniversary, I was nervous about seeing Iris again. I was afraid she’d be embarrassed about the kiss, about falling asleep with her head on my shoulder, about how close we were that night. But when I went to her house on Tuesday, she seemed to have no trouble looking me in the eye, and she talked to me like she always did, telling me that as soon as my schoolwork was done, I had to go to the library and check out this book by Dawn Powell called My Home Is Far Away.

  And then on Thursday afternoon, Iris asked me to have a cup of tea and told me she had a proposition for me. “I was thinking,” she said, sitting on the other end of the couch from me. Sharon sat between us, holding a cookie in each fist. “You’re about to be out of school, which means you’ll have some extra time on your hands. Might you like to help me out a few more hours a week during the summer? I talked to Warren about it, and he thought maybe you could come in for three hours a day on Monday through Friday.”

  “That’s fifteen hours a week. Are you sure he’s okay with paying me that much?” I didn’t say I would be more than happy to spend fifteen hours a week with her for free.

  “He’s fine with it. He and I were talking about how you’ll be going to college after this year and how nice it would be for you to be able to save a little money for living expenses.”

  “Thank you so much.” I leaned over and hugged Iris, sandwiching Baby Sharon between us, who laughed and spat half-chewed cookie on my blouse. We hugged for a long time, tickling Sharon between us and joking about making a Sharon and jelly sandwich.

  When we came out of the hug, Iris said, “It’s me who should be thanking you. I’m always happy when you’re here. On the days you don’t come over, I spend too much time brooding. Sometimes I get downright obsessed with what Warren’s doing all day, what this place is really about. I guess that’s my nosy journalistic background. Oh, I’ll try to amuse myself visiting with Eva and Hannah, but with them I always have to put on my best lady manners. With you, I’m just me.” She smiled. “Of course, Warren thinks I want you around to help with Sharon and housekeeping. But mostly I want your company.”

  “Well, you can pay me for helping with Sharon and the housekeeping, but my company’s free.”

  Neither of us said anything about the kiss. Probably I was the only one who thought about it after it happened. Sometimes in the movies I’d go see with Virgie, actors in tuxedoes and evening gowns would kiss each other as a greeting—a little peck to say hello or goodbye—no more serious than a handshake. Iris’s kiss had probably been that kind of kiss—the kind that sophisticated people don’t even think about—and the fact that I had thought about it a lot just went to show how unsophisticated and silly I was.

  So I’ve decided to try not to think about the kiss. And what I’ll think of instead is her saying, “I want your company.” I want her company, too, and we’re both going to get what we want. Plus, I get to earn some money to help out my family and some to save for myself. I do love school, and at first I was nervous at the thought of three months without it. But now I love the thought of these three months unfurling in front of me, as bright and colorful as a ribbon streaming from a Maypole.

  May 30, 1945

  I should be writing more. Samuel Pepys never laid down on the job. But the past week and a half I haven’t even felt like myself because I’ve been so happy it feels like my life must surely belong to somebody else.

  Mornings are nothing special. I help Mama with the washing or the dishes or the sweeping up and half-listen to my sisters giggle about one thing or another. But the whole time my body is in the house, my mind is elsewhere, anticipating the afternoon I’ll spend with Iris.

  Most afternoons we take Sharon to the playground. She likes to toddle around, examining the playground equipment and the bigger kids like she’s a scientist doing research. And then she’ll settle down in the sandbox, often with another little kid or two, and Iris and I will spread a blanket on the ground, stretch out, and read. There’s something special about reading beside Iris. All my life I’ve been the only reader I know—the solitary girl whose parents and sister shake their heads in disbelief. To have somebody lying on a blanket beside me who’s just as absorbed in her book as I am is a pleasure.

  Some afternoons we stay home, and I help straighten the house while she fumbles around in the kitchen trying to fix something for supper and Sharon bangs on pots and pans. We listen to records and talk and laugh, and on these days I like to pretend that Iris’s house is really her house and mine and that we live together and her and me and Sharon are a family, even though I know such things are not possible.

  Yesterday Iris took a notion she wanted to play tennis and she wanted to teach me how. She loaned me this little white dress that made me look downright silly, and we put Baby Sharon in her stroller and walked down to the tennis courts, with me laughing and saying, “I ain’t got an athletic bone in my body.”

  “Sure you do,” Iris said. “You just haven’t found it yet.”

  We parked Sharon’s stroller by the fence on the edge of the tennis court, so she could see us and we could see her, but there was no danger of her getting hit by a flying ball.

>   “Okay,” Iris said once we were on the court. “I want you to get on this side of the net. I’m going to hit some balls to you, and I want you to hit them back to me.”

  “Don’t get your hopes up,” I said.

  Iris’s little white tennis dress made her look pretty and graceful in a way mine did not. It was strange, too, to see her showing so much leg, but her legs, even in tennis shoes, were worth showing.

  A ball whizzed by my head.

  “Don’t watch me. Watch the ball,” Iris said, laughing.

  “Okay. Sorry.”

  I watched the balls. I watched them sail past me as I swung my racket too soon or too late or too high or too low. Finally, when I was about to decide I was a lost cause, I hit one. Not hard enough to send it over the net, but I did hit it.

  “Yay! You got one!” Iris jumped up and down like a cheerleader. “Look out, Bobby Riggs!”

  Baby Sharon, I noticed, had fallen asleep in her stroller. Apparently, tennis, as played by me, wasn’t a very exciting spectator sport.

  Finally I got so I could hit about half the balls Iris served to me, but not with any aim or force. They went every which way but stayed on my side of the net.

  I had just missed a ball that swiped my ear when I heard a voice say, “Iris?”

  It was Eva Lynch. Hannah was standing beside her. Both of them were wearing white tennis dresses and had their hair tied up in scarves.

  “Oh, hi,” Iris said.

  Mrs. Lynch looked over at me and then back at Iris. “Is playing tennis one of Ruby’s responsibilities as a babysitter?”

  Iris smiled, but it wasn’t a real smile. I could tell. “I’m giving her lessons in exchange for her doing some extra work around the house. Before long she and I will be ready to play doubles with you and Hannah.”

  “Oh, I’m sure one of the wives in our neighborhood could play with us,” Mrs. Lynch said. “Really, one should play with people one’s own age.”

  “Hm,” Iris said. “I never thought age was a particularly important factor in choosing the people I spend time with.”

  Mrs. Lynch smiled. “Well, I suppose it isn’t for you. Or for your husband either, given the number of years between you.” She flashed a syrupy sweet smile. “Have a lovely afternoon, Iris.”

  “You, too,” Iris said, but she rolled her eyes at me once Mrs. Lynch’s back was turned. “Well,” she said, once they were out of earshot, “since I insist on playing with children such as yourself, can I buy you an ice cream?”

  “You don’t have to buy it for me. I can buy my own.”

  “No, I’ve got it. I feel like you should have something sweet after putting up with all the bile Eva just spewed. The funny thing is, despite your chronological age, you’re much more of an adult than she is.”

  At the soda fountain Iris ordered a dish of vanilla for Sharon and a big chocolate soda with two straws for her and me to share. We watched Sharon paint herself with ice cream and took turns sipping through our straws. Once we both bent to drink at the same time, and our faces were almost touching, our lips puckered over our straws. We laughed and blushed and looked at Baby Sharon instead of each other.

  I don’t know how to explain things except to say I’m happier when I’m with her than I’ve ever been, and when I’m not with her, I think about being with her. And maybe it’s just silliness or wishful thinking, but I’m starting to wonder if maybe she feels the same way about me.

  June 4, 1945

  Today when Iris answered the door, she put her finger over her lips in a “shh” gesture. I followed her into the living room, where she pointed in the direction of the couch. Baby Sharon was lying on it in that special kind of deep sleep that belongs only to babies. “I’m afraid she’ll wake up if I move her,” Iris whispered, arranging cushions to protect Sharon from rolling off the couch. “Come keep me company while I smoke a cigarette.”

  I followed her into the bedroom, a room I hadn’t been in before. She sat on the bed, propped up on a pillow, stretched out her legs, and lit a cigarette. I looked around for someplace to sit, but the only chair was at the desk which must be Warren’s. “You can sit here,” she said, patting the space beside her.

  I sat, but I didn’t stretch out like she did. Even though I was on a bed, I was sitting as straight and proper as if I was at my desk at school.

  “I’m glad Sharon ended up napping early,” Iris said, tapping her cigarette against the glass ashtray on the nightstand. “I’ve been wanting to talk to you about something, but now that I’m about to do it, I’m a nervous wreck.”

  “Don’t be nervous. It’s just me.” But I was nervous, too.

  Iris turned over so that she was facing me. “I know. And you’re the one person in my life I can talk to.” She took a puff from her cigarette and exhaled with a sigh. “Ruby, do you remember that night when we were dancing and I told you about how I used to dance with Miriam back in school?”

  “Yes.”

  She hid her face in her hands for a moment. “God, this is hard. Ruby, when I said Miriam and I were really close, what I meant was that I loved her. Do you understand?”

  I nodded. I understood perfectly.

  “Miriam loved me, too. It’s not unusual for girls in all-female environments to form passionate attachments to each other. And once these girls grow up and enter the real world, they date boys, get married, have babies. That’s how it was with me. I went to college, had a couple of casual boyfriends, traveled a bit, then met Warren, and here I am.” She blinked a couple of times and rubbed her index fingers under her eyes. “All these years I thought my feelings for Miriam were borne out of our teenage hormones and our close proximity to each other. But there had to be more to it than that, or else how do I explain my feelings for you?” Now she didn’t try to stop her tears.

  “Oh, Iris”—I reached out and touched her tear-streaked face.

  “I love you, Ruby. I know I shouldn’t. I know how many ways it’s wrong, but knowing and feeling are two different things.”

  “I love you, too, Iris.” My voice broke with the force of all the feelings I’d been hiding for so long.

  Iris leaned toward me, then laughed and said, “Damn it, I’ve still got a cigarette in my hand. Just a second.” She ground the cigarette out in the ashtray and said, “Now.”

  There was no mistaking the meaning of this kiss, and I fell into it like Alice falling into the rabbit hole, like Dorothy falling in her Kansas farmhouse into the wonderful Land of Oz. Our lips, our bodies, pressed together, wanting to be closer, closer. It was so different from Aaron’s kiss, so much better than anything I’d ever imagined.

  When Iris pulled away, her breath was ragged. “I have to remember you’re just sixteen. I don’t want to take advantage of you. Do you think you could be happy with just kissing?”

  My hands were around her little waist. “Kissing you makes me very, very happy.”

  I was happy that way, lying on the bed with Iris, kissing and being kissed, until an hour passed and Sharon called out from the living room.

  Iris pulled away from me and called back, “Mama’ll be there in a minute, sweetie!”

  We sat up and straightened our rumpled clothes. Iris put her hand on mine. “You know we can’t tell anyone about this, right?”

  “I know. It’s just like that sign at the gate, ‘What you see here, what you hear here, what you do here, keep it here.’”

  “Yes, that’s exactly what it’s like.”

  “Don’t worry. I’ll keep it here.” I gestured to indicate the bedroom. “And here.” I took Iris’s hand and put it on my heart.

  “Oh, Ruby, I love you so much.” She kissed my hand, and we got up to see to Sharon.

  Iris’s face was flushed, and her hair was fluffy and loose from where we’d been rolling on the bed. When Sharon saw her, she smiled and said, “Mama pretty.”

  Iris kissed the top of her head. “Thank you, sweetie.”

  Sharon looked at me. “Bee pretty.”

/>   “You’re pretty, too,” I said, gathering Baby Sharon up in my arms. “The whole world is pretty today.”

  June 12, 1945

  It’s hard for me to focus on reading or writing these days. Love has made my brain as soft and sweet and mushy as banana pudding. Mama’s worried about my appetite, and if she knew how little I’m sleeping, she’d worry about that, too. But I don’t seem to need food and rest like I used to. I’m living on love.

  I spend every afternoon with Iris, from right after lunchtime until right before Warren gets home. We do all our usual things—read together, take Sharon to the playground or the library, play tennis (I’m improving). Only now it’s different because we know how we feel about each other, and sometimes we give each other this smile, and nobody else knows what it means.

  The only time Iris and I kiss or touch is when Sharon is napping. We think it might confuse Sharon to see her mama and me loving on each other, and also Iris is afraid (though this seems far-fetched to me) that Sharon might find some way to tell her daddy if she saw us.

  “She knows the words ‘hug’ and ‘kiss,’” Iris said the other day as we lay on her bed, “and she’s started to string simple sentences together, so she could conceivably say to her dad, ‘Mama kiss Bee’ or something to that effect.”

  “Well, we’ll just make sure she doesn’t see us, then.”

  “It’s strange,” Iris said, staring at the end of her cigarette. “I don’t even know how Warren would feel if he knew. It might not even bother him. After all, it’s not like you and I can do the same things he does with me.”

  I felt a wave of heat rising from my belly at the thought of what Iris and Warren did in the very bed I was lying on. At first I thought the feeling was embarrassment, but then I realized it was jealousy.

  Iris must’ve felt my discomfort because she added, “Not that he and I have been doing much of anything since he took this job. He comes home exhausted every night.”