Every Single Secret

by Emily Carpenter

  Heath handed him the keys, and Reggie nodded at our bags.

  “Give you a hand with those?”

  Heath slung the strap of my bag across his shoulders. “I got it, thanks. Just point me in the right direction.”

  “Of course. Right this way.” He led us up the front walk and then the porch steps, talking over his shoulder. “The other two couples, the Siefferts and the McAdams, have already arrived and are getting settled. You’ll have your private tour, meet the doctor, and then dinner in your room. Tomorrow after breakfast, Mr. Beck, you’ll have your initial session with Dr. Cerny.”

  I expected some side-eye from Reggie because of my refusal to take part in any sessions, but without so much as a hiccup, he ushered us through the mustard door, and we stepped into the front hall. I stopped in my tracks.

  “Wow.”

  I was used to the vast, open floors of modern office buildings—prefab cubicles, collaborative meeting rooms, and dog-friendly courtyards. Everything was bright and visible in those places. All things movable, adjustable, temporary.

  This house looked like it had been here a thousand years, like it breathed the moldered air of a long-ago past. The lower halves of the walls were paneled in coffered oak, the upper halves in cracked leather embossed with a trailing-vine design. The floors were a dingy brown veined marble, and an oak staircase with multiple landings rose from the middle of the room to the floors above. The stairs seemed to have as many switchbacks as the road we’d just driven up.

  Chairs upholstered in frayed silk were scattered among monstrously oversized sideboards. Ornate brass gas lamps converted to electric did their utmost to light the room, but the place was still oppressively dark. The air felt stale, like the windows had never been opened. I tried to ignore a creeping sense of claustrophobia, looking into the rooms just off the front hall. There were several—a dining room, a salon, maybe, or music room. A library. But their doors were closed or they were dark and I couldn’t see inside. Old houses with cloistered rooms and layers of bric-a-brac always did this to me. I snuck a look at Heath but couldn’t gauge his reaction to the place. His face was a blank.

  Reggie brightened. “Ah, surprise, surprise. Looks like the McAdams are back downstairs. We can meet them before the tour.”

  Heath dropped our bags, and Reggie ushered us into a library, done up in more dusty silks and somber velvets, with one wall a massive, carved bookcase. Twelve shelves, all filled with old books. I turned away, fiddling with the hair band around my wrist, and focused on the couple standing beside the bay window. They were in their midthirties, the man sporting a pair of Oakleys looped around his neck by a camouflage neoprene strap, the woman dressed in a swingy paisley dress and cowboy boots. Both of them held crystal goblets of red wine.

  “Heath Beck and Daphne Amos, I’d like you to meet the McAdams, Jerry and Donna. They’re one of our three lucky couples at this month’s session.”

  Three. Why does it have to be three?

  I took a deep breath and forced a smile. After the flurry of handshakes and greetings, I turned to the woman. “Are you from around here?”

  She glanced at Reggie.

  “Actually, Ms. Amos,” he said, “we ask that all Baskens participants not share personal details with each other. You’ll be seeing very little of the other couples this week. All meals are delivered to you in your private suites by Luca, our cook—who speaks very little English. Sessions are scheduled with everyone’s utmost privacy in mind. You may see the other couples on the grounds during free time, but Dr. Cerny asks that you respect the intensity of everyone’s experience and refrain from socializing. The doctor believes the fewer the distractions, the more you can adequately focus on your partner and open yourself up to the therapy. It’s one of the hallmarks of Baskens’s unique approach. Speaking of which, you read the agreement regarding your cell phones, correct?”

  “Yes,” Heath said.

  “The gift of silence, that’s what we like to call it.” Reggie produced a small basket and held it out. Heath dropped his cell phone in. “Dr. Cerny and I both have telephones in case of emergency. The nearest village down the mountain, Dunfree, has a fire department and hospital, if needed. Though it never has been,” he rushed to add.

  I tried not to imagine the awfulness of driving back down that rutted gravel road with some sort of medical emergency. I couldn’t believe people actually chose to live up here, almost completely cut off from society. And SuperTargets.

  “Babe,” Heath said.

  I dug my phone out of my purse. “Oh, right. One sec. Just something from work I should check real quick.” I turned and tapped open Instagram. A couple of notifications—@fairlyweirdbeard had followed me. And left me a message. I opened it.

  I was wondering when I’d hear from you. Emailing you now.

  “Daphne,” Heath said.

  I switched off my phone and let it clack into the basket. Annalise Beard was emailing me. This was a good sign. Better than good.

  Reggie checked his watch. “All right, then. I’ll take you to your suite. You can unpack, rest a bit from the trip. Luca will deliver your dinner at seven o’clock—fish, I believe—along with a complimentary bottle of wine.”

  “Fish,” Heath said under his breath.

  I furrowed my brow at him, but he looked away.

  “It’s actually scallops in some kind of cream sauce, if I’m not mistaken. You’re not allergic, are you?”

  “He’s not allergic,” I interjected. I glanced at Donna McAdam, smiled, and rolled my eyes. A prim look was all I got in return.

  Reggie cleared his throat. “After dinner, the doctor will meet with each couple in his study, so we’d like to get your private tours of the house and grounds in before that. There are a few quirks to the property, and we want everyone to feel comfortable during your stay. The Siefferts have already had theirs. The McAdams are next, and then I’ll take you.”

  I looked over at the McAdams. They’d migrated back to the windows, still holding their wine.

  In the main hall, Reggie led the way upstairs. “You can drop your things in your room, freshen up if you like, and then we’ll meet back downstairs for your tour. Do either of you know why the house is called Baskens?”

  Heath spoke up. “The property and house originally belonged to the Baskens family, from Dr. Cerny’s maternal side—built back during the gold rush. Dr. Cerny inherited the place, lived here a while, and eventually turned it into a counseling retreat.”

  “Wow,” I said. It was certainly more than I’d been able to dig up online.

  “Very good,” Reggie said.

  “Mason, the guy from work, told me that,” Heath said.

  “Here we go,” Reggie puffed, and Heath hooked a finger through one of mine.

  As I stepped onto the first landing, I happened to look back. I could just see—through one arched opening—a woman standing in the dark dining room. She had silver or blonde hair that shone, even in the shadows, and a long, elegant neck. I thought, at first, that was all I could see, but it wasn’t exactly true. There was something more, something strange. She was staring at us—at me, specifically—with an expression of naked, undisguised curiosity.

  Chapter Three

  Nine Months Prior

  In January, the Atlanta Business Chronicle picked Lenny and me to participate in their annual “Thirty Under Thirty” issue, which was an incredible coup for us—a PR rocket booster that meant our little company, the Silver Sisters, could leapfrog to the front of the line and bid more prestigious jobs.

  It also meant we were morally obligated to go out (along with Kevin, our one employee, an assistant-slash-bookkeeper) and blow our expense budget on a three-course dinner and a bottle of real French champagne. The next day, still gloriously hungover, Lenny and I met the reporter for lunch at Farm Burger, where the two of us put on our dog-and-pony show about how we’d started the Silver Sisters.

  Well, Lenny put on the show. I sat quietly and snapped the hair
band on my wrist so many times the skin on the inside of my wrist burned in the shower later that night.

  Lenny explained to the reporter that both of us were only children, each having always longed for a sister. Friends who’d met at Savannah College of Art and Design, a pair of starry-eyed, scrappy girls; we’d dreamed of starting a business together since the day we met in Space Planning our freshmen year. After graduation, we finally did it, me with the design talent and Lenny with the kick-ass business savvy. Through sheer force of will (and a nice pile of startup cash from her father), we created our own business as well as the sisterhood we’d always longed for.

  Of course, the story made me sound as if I’d shown up at art school like Athena springing from the head of Zeus, but the real story was different. The truth was I’d gotten there the hard way—seven years at a group foster home southwest of Macon, during which time my absentee mother died of a drug overdose. I made it through those early years mostly unscathed, my only visible scar a secret but mostly controlled obsession with food.

  Thanks to a state scholarship program, I attended SCAD, where I met Lenny Silver. Lenny took an instant liking to me and swept me under her motherly wing. My reluctance to talk about the ranch or my mother’s death must’ve frustrated her, but she never let it stop her from deluging me with her friendship. After we graduated and moved to Decatur, just outside Atlanta, her parents absorbed me into their warm, chaotic family like I was a stray pup. At Hap Silver’s insistence, I moved into one of his properties, an adorable updated bungalow on Ansley Street. I paid him a laughably low monthly rent and furnished it with Barbara Silver’s exquisite nineteenth-century castoffs. I walked to Agnes Scott College every morning in the soft dawn and sprinted around the track until any jagged memory from Piney Woods Girls’ Ranch that may have poked through my formidable psychic walls and into my consciousness was safely stuffed away again.

  And the food-hoarding thing eased, thanks to the stability provided by the Silver family. I no longer stashed cookies and granola bars under my mattress. Now when I felt anxious, I just silently counted whatever happened to be nearby. My slimmer physique reflected my new calm (and the running I’d taken up), and although I didn’t date much—I hadn’t met anyone I felt a strong connection to—I was content with my life. Work kept me busy enough. It was all the therapy I needed.

  The photo shoot for the Chronicle feature was held in midtown, at a drab warehouse on a side street off Ponce de Leon. The thirty anointed ones (Lenny and I counted as one) gathered in the frigid space for a group shot. The wardrobe guy wheeled around us, slapping shirts and blazers and scarves on those deemed underdressed, while two makeup artists scuttled frantically between the women, spackling and dabbing and hair fluffing.

  They spent an inordinate amount of time on me, I thought, sniffing over my pale skin, which they predicted would blow out the shots, and my long, lank blonde hair that “just lies there.” One of them kept pulling off my glasses and saying my eyes were pretty. But I couldn’t see a damn thing, so I put them back on.

  After the group shot, the woman in charge told us they’d take the individual pictures in rapid-fire, fifteen-minute windows. Everybody scattered to check their phones. Lenny and I were last on the list, so I settled in to wait at the craft-services table and try not to count every last Cool Ranch Dorito.

  The photographer, an elfin woman with a fuzz of snow-white hair and tight black leather pants, went to work, positioning the first subject, a stunning female lawyer from the state’s attorney general’s office. The attorney struck poses like a Vogue model, and I felt fear begin to gnaw in my gut. There was no way I was going to be able to pull off that level of confidence. No way I could even fake it.

  To distract myself, I assessed the offerings at the craft table. Heaps of fresh fruit, chips, crackers, popcorn, and cookies, all gourmet, tumbled over the table in reassuring mounds. Grateful for the low lights, I busied myself assembling a plate. Feeling calmer, I nibbled on the food while Lenny worked her way around the room.

  I had started in on an oatmeal-raisin cookie when I realized the cavernous studio, which had previously been buzzing with conversation, had suddenly hushed around me. In unison, everyone seemed to have angled themselves toward the black-paper backdrop, where a guy I hadn’t seen until now, tall and broad-shouldered, stood in the pool of light created by hot tungsten bulbs and silver umbrellas. He was gorgeous, but that wasn’t all. There was something more interesting about him. He was . . .

  Like me, I thought—surprised, yet somehow not. He is like me.

  It was a bizarre, out-of-the-blue thought, as the guy in the lights was an arresting sight, beautiful and brooding—clearly nothing like me. At best, I was average, maybe a little above, and that was on a cute-hair day. He was also at ease in front of the camera, self-contained and mysterious, which was surely not going to be the case with me.

  Regardless, there was something about him, something that struck me in a very particular but indefinable way. I couldn’t look away from him. A tiny burst of electricity zipped through me—a charge that sizzled under my skin all the way down to my toes. How had I not noticed him earlier? Where had I been? This guy was not the sort of person you missed. Pale skin, sharply angled cheekbones and jaw, with shaggy, slightly-too-long coal hair and wide-set deep-brown eyes.

  “Heath Beck.” It was Lenny, at my five o’clock, whispering in my ear. “Real-estate wunderkind. Works with the Holland Company. He negotiated the sale of that entire area between Foster and Spring.”

  She went on. About how the Holland Company was at the forefront of the revitalization of some of these neglected pockets of Midtown and the Westside, about how she’d heard that he personally had bought a derelict warehouse in Cabbagetown that he was going to develop into high-end loft apartments. I could barely process what she was saying. Heath Beck’s silhouette, lit like an angel, turned her voice to a mosquito’s buzz.

  “It’s ridiculous, really,” she concluded, reaching for a can of Diet Coke.

  “What is?”

  “He’s supposedly dating someone, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen them together.”

  I whipped around to face her. “Who is he dating?”

  “That publicist, Annalise Beard, the one who works for the Hawks. She’s gorgeous. But, like I said, never around. Let me tell you, if I was dating that? One hundred percent never let it out of my sight.” She laughed at her own joke, then looked at me and narrowed her eyes. “Oh, no. Really? Seriously? Are you kidding me?”

  I turned back to look at him again.

  “So the woman who won’t give any man the time of day finally succumbs,” she marveled. And my friend was right. I had officially succumbed.

  Later, when Lenny had gone off to work the room some more, Heath Beck appeared on the other side of the craft table. He was wearing a fitted blue dress shirt, a black tie, and a pair of criminally well-tailored black pants. I lowered my plate of snacks and tried to swallow the remnant of a cheese straw.

  Up close he was even taller than I’d realized. Nice smelling and muscular. I tried not to stare directly at him. Or into his eyes, which were warm and brown and so intense that it felt like they were literally piercing my skin. I coughed. The cheese straw wouldn’t go down.

  He took a swig of water. “Fair warning? That is one hell of a hellish experience.”

  I laughed, clearing my throat as unobtrusively as I could. It sounded like a donkey bray. “You looked great. Totally aced it all the way.” I flushed furiously. I sounded like a teenage girl. I sounded like I liked him.

  “I’m Heath.” He looked at me for what seemed like a long time. So long that I felt my entire body grow warm. “What was your name again?” He asked it quietly, purposefully, like he’d been practicing the question in his head before he walked over.

  “Daphne,” I said. “Daphne Amos.”

  “Your company is the Silver Sisters, right?”

  “Daphne!”

  It was Lenny, calli
ng me from across the studio. We were up. I scuttled toward the nimbus of lights, aware that Heath was still standing back at the craft table and was probably—no, definitely—noticing the weird plate of snacks (four cheese straws, four grapes, four sea-salt-and-dark-chocolate-covered almonds) that I’d just set down on a stack of four cocktail napkins.

  Like I’d anticipated, the photo shoot was excruciatingly awkward. Lenny vamped and puckered and pouted at the camera while I stood beside her, trying to obey the photographer’s encouragement to give her some attitude. I wanted to give it to her, I really did, but instead my face went immobile, I stiffened up, and I had the overwhelming urge to pee.

  Somewhere in the middle of the horrific process, Heath ambled up behind the photographer and whispered in her ear.

  “Take five, ladies.” She stepped away, her assistant scurrying after her. Heath joined Lenny and me under the lights.

  “Lenny Silver-Hirsch,” Lenny chirped, offering her hand.

  “Heath Beck,” he said. “Would you mind if I stole your partner for a second, Lenny?”

  Lenny’s eyes went wide. She smiled. “Be my guest.”

  Heath put his hand on my arm—actually, just inside the upper part of my arm, the spot a little above the elbow—and led me outside the pool of light. In the darkness, he leaned toward me, and I inhaled. He smelled amazing—of some kind of intoxicating scent that I couldn’t place. My arm was tingling where he’d touched me.

  “You don’t like this,” he said.

  “This?” I asked, waving my finger in the space between us. He couldn’t have been more wrong. I liked it very much.

  He smiled. “I mean having your picture taken.”

  “Oh, right. No. I mean, yes. I hate it.”

  “Me too.”

  I blinked at him. “But. You were great up there. Like, completely . . . great.” My face was burning. I was glad we were outside the light.

  “I have a trick. A secret that helps me get through things like this.”

  I stared at him.

  “Do you want to know what it is?” he asked gently.