Who Will Hear Your Secrets?

by Robley Wilson

  “Not really. Now and then. Two or three times a month. I can’t predict it.”

  “Could be stress,” Gavin said. “Something as simple as that.”

  The doctor backed away from the apparatus, his chair wheels a rumbling across the linoleum, and switched on the overhead lights.

  “I don’t know,” Reece said. “I get the feeling that everything about me is deteriorating slowly but surely. You know that chiropractic office Ben Furey has, over near the Sycamore Mall?”

  “Know it well,” Gavin said.

  “The other day—it was long before the evil saline solution—I was driving out Sycamore Avenue when I saw this sign that said ‘Fuzzy Chipmunks.’ Of course, once I got closer I could see it said ‘Furey Chiropractic.’” Reece stood up. “That’s what I mean by deterioration. I’ve lost my distance vision.”

  “I wouldn’t worry,” Gavin said. “The important thing here is that you’re coming along fine. Just a few more days, a week at the most, your vision should be back to normal. Meanwhile, take that Tylenol.”

  * * *

  AT HOME REECE WALKED from the car with Margaret alongside, though this time she made no move to help him up his steps. He stood at the door for longer than was comfortable, using both hands to work the lock—his left hand locating the keyhole, the right inserting the key.

  “I appreciate your patience,” he said.

  She laughed. “How formal.”

  “Well I do appreciate it.” He pushed open the door and preceded her inside. “You didn’t have to do any of this.”

  “I don’t mind.”

  “I could have got a taxi.”

  “You don’t need to go on about it,” she said. “I know you think you walked away for good on the day you called me by that other woman’s name in bed. But you didn’t walk away. We’re both still here.”

  “You see marriage differently,” Reece said.

  “And you don’t see at all.”

  “Very funny.”

  In the living room the curtains were closed, but it didn’t matter; if he really did go blind, dark and light would be all the same to him.

  “Sit here,” Margaret said. She steered him to the leather chair. “Are you hungry? Can I fix you something before I go?”

  “It’s all right,” he said. He leaned his head against the chair back. The pain was faint now, scarcely a bother. “I should probably take a couple of those pills.”

  “Where are they?”

  “On the kitchen counter.”

  “I’ll get you a glass of water.”

  He heard her in the kitchen—the rattle of glassware, water running and stopping, running and stopping. Now she was beside his chair. He took the water glass with both hands.

  “Here,” she said. “Two capsules.”

  He swallowed them and handed back the glass. “Thank you.”

  “I cleaned up that mess in the kitchen. It looked like orange juice.”

  “I couldn’t see to mop it up,” he said.

  “What about something to eat?”

  “I’ll be fine,” he said. “Don’t worry about me.”

  “Why don’t I make you a fried-egg sandwich. You used to like those. It only takes a couple of minutes.”

  She was already out of the room. He heard the frying pan, the breaking of an egg, the sizzle. In no time she had thrust a plate into his hands and he was eating the familiar sandwich—the fried egg, a slice of cheddar, a touch of mustard on the rye bread.

  “I noticed there’s an almost empty bottle of wine in the fridge,” Margaret said. “Do you want some?”

  “No, thank you.”

  “Then I’m going to pour myself what’s left,” she said, “if you don’t mind.”

  “I don’t.”

  She sat across from him beside the bookcase while he finished the sandwich in silence.

  Margaret sighed. “You should probably sleep,” she said. “I’d better head home and let you recover.”

  “No need to rush,” he said.

  She stood and came to him. “If you need anything else, you can call me.”

  “I’ll remember.”

  “Get some rest. I’ll wash up and put the dishes in the drainer.”

  “Thank you.”

  She paused in the doorway, a blurred silhouette against the light from the kitchen. “This isn’t forgiveness,” she said.

  The Phoenix Agent

  He was tall and good-looking and fiftyish—older than her mother, but not what you would call old. He was deeply tanned, with character lines at the corners of his eyes that suggested he either did a lot of squinting into the sun, or laughed a lot, or maybe both. He looked to her like one of those White Hunters you saw in the black-and-white jungle films that turned up on the movie channels—one of those men who was always seducing the wife of the rich guy who was paying for the safari but was wimpy to the core. This man was too cool.

  Cinda had never seen him before. She’d been working at the EcoMart since the summer before her senior year—now graduation was only three months away—and she was almost sure this was his first appearance in the store. If she’d needed confirmation, she got it almost immediately while she was ringing him up.

  “This is quite a market,” he said. “A terrific selection of health stuff.”

  “We think so,” she said. She was in the midst of scanning his “stuff”—nut bread, organic peanut butter, broccoli and carrots. “We’re not as big as the chains, like Whole Foods, but people like us.”

  “The personality makes a difference.” He was leaning in to read her name tag. “Folks like you, Cinda.”

  “Thank you.” Now she was wary. Was he hitting on her, like some kind of pervo creep, or was he really being nice? She went on scanning his purchases: milk, deli turkey slices, two boxes of loose tea. The jumbo box of detergent he had let stay in the cart, and she reached over the counter to hit the product code with the hand scanner.

  “Good shot,” the man said.

  “Excuse me?” She rang up his total.

  “It always impresses me, the way checkout clerks zap the UPC’s— like a cowboy shooting from the saddle.”

  “Your total is eighteen eighty,” Cinda said. She began putting the groceries into paper bags.

  He held a credit card out to her. “What do you suppose is the range of one of those things?”

  She took the card and slid it through the reader. “Range?” she said.

  “How far away can you stand and still hit the code?”

  She looked at the front of the card—Edward Hansen—and the signature on the back, before she handed it back to him. “I’ve no idea,” she said.

  * * *

  CINDA TOLD HER MOTHER about Edward Hansen over supper that evening.

  “He’s sort of a hunk,” she said, “but weird, you know?”

  “It sounds as if he was just being friendly,” her mother said. “Making conversation.”

  “Some conversation: how good a shot am I with the stupid scanner.”

  “You say you’ve never seen him before,” her mother went on. “If he’s new in Orlando he probably doesn’t have many friends. You can’t blame him for reaching out.”

  Cinda looked scornful. “Is that what you call it? ‘Reaching out’?”

  “Don’t poke fun,” her mother said.

  “And anyway, how do you know he’s not just a handsome pedophile? And what he’s actually reaching out for, you wouldn’t care to know.”

  “Cinda,” her mother said.

  Mother disapproved of worst-case scenarios.

  * * *

  “IT’S A CURIOUS NAME: CINDA,” Edward Hansen said. “I mean it’s unusual.”

  This was the second time she’d checked him out. Whether it was only the second time he’d shopped at EcoMart, she couldn’t say, since she worked only Sundays and Wednesdays.

  “It’s just Linda with a ‘C,’” she said. “Your total is twelve twenty-six.”

  This time he gave her a
twenty, one of the newer bills with the giant numbers so nursing-home types could read them. You had to hold up the twenties and look for the little silver thread; if somebody gave you a fifty or a hundred, you had to call for the supervisor.

  “I’m sure it’s real,” Hansen said. “I just got it from your ATM at the back of the store.”

  “You never know who to trust,” Cinda said. “Your change is seven seventy-four.” She put the coins in his palm and laid the bills on top of them.

  “That’s very good,” he said.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Some clerks put the coins on top of the bills—so they can slide off.”

  “I don’t even think about it,” she said. “Have a nice day.”

  He picked up the brown bag. “Have you tested the range of that hand scanner?” He made a pistol of his free hand—forefinger aimed and thumb cocked. “Zap,” he said. “I wonder if it could read the code on that TV Guide at the next checkout stand.”

  “I seriously doubt it,” she said. The magazine was on a rack that was about five feet away, and the product code was half covered by an astrology paperback.

  “Have you tried it?”

  “I have better things to do.”

  She began sliding the next customer’s items across the scanner glass. Edward Hansen cradled his bag of groceries and moved away.

  “You should give it a shot,” he said. “A fair test.”

  * * *

  “WHAT DOES THIS HANSEN person look like?” her mother wanted to know. “You’re certainly paying a lot of attention to him.”

  “Because he pays attention to me,” Cinda said. They were sitting by the pool, side by side on plastic deck chairs. It was Saturday afternoon, early April, hot. “I don’t invite it. Honestly.”

  “Does he remind you of your father?”

  “God, Mother. No, he does not remind me of Daddy. Besides, I don’t remember Daddy all that well.” She squeezed sunblock into her hand and smeared the goop on her legs. “He looks kind of like an over-the-hill lifeguard. Tanned, bushy hair that’s going gray around his ears, blue eyes—that really pale blue, you know? So pale, he might have come from ‘The Village of the Damned.’”

  “Is that a book?”

  “A horror movie. All the children in the village have eyes with pupils so pale and washed out, you can, like, see right into their heads.”

  Mother wrinkled her nose. “Not my idea of handsome,” she said.

  “No, but he is. A nice shy smile. A husky voice, like maybe he’s a smoker—except he isn’t, because I can smell nicotine a mile off.”

  Her mother smiled and gave a mock sigh. “A shame he’s too old for you.”

  “But not for you,” Cinda said. “For you he’d be just right.”

  “Said the baby bear.”

  “It’s his fussiness that’s the only drawback.” Cinda stretched and stood up. She pulled the bottom edges of the swimsuit over her buttocks and went into the water. She stood on the floor of the pool, her elbows on the edge, her chin in her hands. “Who notices whether you put the change on top of the dollar bills, or the dollar bills on top of the change? Who the hell cares?”

  “Language, Cinda,” her mother said.

  * * *

  JUST AT THE END OF HER SHIFT the next day, she saw Edward Hansen go through Veronica Ivey’s checkout lane, and she wondered what he was saying to Ronnie—did he have a regular “line” that he practiced on every cashier he met, or what. She ran the total on her register tape and carried the money drawer into the cash-up room behind the deli section.

  She finished counting down her day’s receipts, then went to the back room to clock out. When she was done with that, and tossed her apron into the laundry hamper, she gathered up her bag and went to wait for Mother. Hansen was sitting at one of the tables at the front of the store, eating a deli sandwich and drinking an organic soda. His bag of groceries sat at his elbow.

  “Hello,” he said. “The line was shorter at Veronica’s register, so I stood you up.”

  “No problem,” Cinda said. “We both work for the same company.”

  “She puts the coins on top,” he said.

  “Oh, my God,” Cinda said. She hitched the bag higher on her shoulder. “Please don’t get her fired.”

  He smiled. “I bet you’re waiting for your mom,” he said. “Can I buy you a drink?”

  “No, thanks.” She sat across the table from him. “But thank you for offering.”

  “That door behind the deli department,” Hansen said. “Is that where the cashiers add up the day’s receipts?”

  “Yes.”

  “If the money in your cash drawer doesn’t match the total on the register tape, do you girls have to make up the difference?”

  “We have to count down until it balances. And it isn’t only cash. There’s credit card slips, and usually a few checks, and store coupons—a lot of different sub-counts.” She frowned at him. “Why? Are you planning to rob the store?”

  He looked surprised. “What makes you say that?”

  “Your curiosity about how we do things. How we count the receipts. All your questions.”

  “Would I get away with it?”

  She shrugged. “Probably not. Especially if you tried to hold us up with a scanner gun.”

  He laughed—a kind of bark, short and finished, as if he didn’t want to make too much out of laughing. “Right,” he said. “Then it’s a good thing I’m not a holdup man.”

  She dragged her bag up to the top of the table, to get the weight of it off her shoulder.

  “What is your work?” she said. “If robbery’s not it.”

  “I’m almost sorry you asked,” he said. “It so happens that I’m between jobs right now, taking a sort of vacation.”

  “Did you get fired?”

  He smiled. “No. I quit.”

  “That’s what everybody says.”

  “Though in this case it’s true,” he said. “I had a disagreement with the boss, and I left the company. It was basically a breach of trust.”

  Cinda looked past him, out the windows to the parking lot. Her mother had left the Volvo wagon in the EcoMart fire lane and was coming into the store.

  “Here’s my mother,” Cinda said. “Illegally parked as usual.”

  Hansen turned to look as her mother came toward them.

  “Mother, this is Mr. Hansen,” Cinda said. “The man I’ve been telling you about.”

  Hansen stood and bobbed his head. “Edward,” he said.

  Her mother extended her hand to let Hansen touch it, then withdrew it. “Beth,” she said. “My daughter tells me you’re a great person for details.”

  He looked amused. “Did she?” he said. “Then it must be true.” He slid back into his seat. “Your daughter has what we call ‘a keen eye.’”

  “Do you have children, Mr. Hansen?”

  “A daughter, as it happens.”

  “Then you know about the judgments of the young.” She nudged Cinda’s shoulder. “Come on, babe. We have to go.”

  Everyone stood.

  “I’ll walk out with you,” Hansen said, and he waited while Fat Alan Dolby, the assistant supervisor, pawed through Cinda’s bag for stolen items.

  “Talk about breach of trust,” Cinda said.

  “That’s my blue Chevy just across the way.” Hansen pointed. The rear license plate read: Arizona and, in smaller letters, Grand Canyon State, under a picture of the kind of cactus you saw in Road Runner cartoons.

  “I thought the Grand Canyon was in Colorado,” Cinda said.

  “You see,” said her mother, “you don’t know everything.”

  “Nobody does,” Hansen said. “It was a pleasure meeting you, Beth.” He gave them a small wave and went to the blue car, his bag of groceries nested in one arm.

  When they were in the Volvo, Cinda said, “Didn’t you like him?”

  “He seemed quite personable.”

  “I think we should invite him to dinner.”r />
  Her mother started the engine. “Let’s not rush things,” she said.

  * * *

  A WEEK LATER, Edward Hansen was sitting with them at the dining-room table, drinking a white wine spritzer and talking with Mother as if the two of them were old school chums.

  “Is it really Beth?” he was saying. “Or is Beth short for Elizabeth?”

  “I don’t confess this to everybody,” Mother said, “but it’s short for Bethany.”

  He looked surprised.

  “You mustn’t tease me,” Cinda’s mother said. “Please.”

  “I wouldn’t think of it. Bethany is unique.”

  “So is Cinda,” Cinda said. “By the way.”

  Not that she felt left out or anything.

  “Cinda says you’re new in Orlando,” her mother said. “Where have you come from?”

  “I lived in Phoenix until a few months ago,” he said. “Well— Scottsdale, to be precise, but same difference.”

  “And what brought you here?”

  “Mother,” Cinda said. “It’s rude to pry.”

  “We’re only talking,” her mother said. “Nobody’s prying.”

  “And I don’t mind the question,” Hansen said. “The truth is, I’m not sure why I picked this part of the world. Except there looked to be a lot of possibilities. All the activity at Canaveral—the shuttle launches, the cruises—and what you people down here call ‘the attractions’—Disney and Universal and Sea World. You know.” He stopped and looked at his hands, which had short fingernails clipped almost straight across, not curved to follow their natural shape. “And a little bit of nostalgia, too.”

  “So you’d been here before,” Mother said.

  “I’d brought Ruby here—my daughter—when she was thirteen. We went to Disney.”

  Ruby. How lame was that? And he was the one who’d made a thing out of Cinda.

  “When was that?” Cinda asked.

  “Years ago. Twenty plus. The town was a lot different then.”

  Twenty-plus years ago, she wasn’t even on the horizon and her parents were still married.

  “Where is Ruby now?” her mother wanted to know.

  “I didn’t mean to mislead you,” he said. “She’s dead.”

  There was an excruciating silence. Finally, Cinda’s mother said she was sorry to hear that; it almost sounded as if she’d had something to do with Ruby dying.