_____
Nine PM. She really should go home now, throw some weights around, the dumbbells.
“Liddy? Aren’t you going to say anything?” Delilah asked.
“No.”
“Don’t you think you’d feel better if you did?”
“No.”
“Wouldn’t it at least be better to be on speaking terms?”
“No.”
“But you see him everyday at work. Isn’t it awkward for you?
“No.”
_____
Ten PM. There was no moon at all. A light drizzle was soaking the city which only served to underscore Lydia’s ennui. No umbrella, she walked briskly from Frank’s to her apartment, stopping this evening at every crosswalk, finding herself waiting at them much longer than she actually needed to.
She had spent a considerable amount of time in this city, living in it with her friends, those that she had met at university like Delilah and the others she had later met at work. In finance, they were all the same, none of them the type to sit in Frank’s with only a book for a companion. She sought to remember the last book she had read. She couldn’t. No books. No newspapers.
An aching sensation was beginning to creep in under her coat and clothes. An old feeling, she knew it had nothing to do with the cold, although the cold certainly didn’t help. She shivered at the next intersection and set her briefcase down, pulling her gabardine tight to her chest and conferring with an amber light. Yellow means worthy, she suddenly remembered. Yellow roses. Worthy. Didn’t it? Or did it mean yield? She grabbed the briefcase and ran to the other side.
The only thing Lydia did read were the financials. Nothing to brag on there. The briefcase felt exceptionally heavy tonight. Her back hurt. She wished for a warm spring rain to make the city misty, to cloud it up. This one was as cold as snow.
Why hadn’t she gone on vacation this year?
All night deli coming up on her right. She had a sudden craving for sweets, she realized. All-night deli coming up on her right. Sweets or a cigarette? When was the last time she had a cigarette? She lingered undecided at the entrance. Or sweets for that matter? Her mouth had the aftertaste of wine in it, sour and woody. Bed was calling. No sugar tonight. She walked on.
_____
Home. Inside her apartment it was warmer than usual. Downright balmy, like it had gotten at Frank’s. She turned the heat off and scanned the bookshelf for something to read and, finding nothing of interest, sighed with disgust.
Why hadn’t she gone on vacation this year?
The bookcase. Exactly like her father’s with his tight rows of leather bound editions, none of which she had ever seen him read. She dragged her fingers over them. Dusty bindings. Like his, her books never came off the shelf either.
Financial papers on the coffee table. She cleared them with an impatient sweep of her hand and they landed in disarray on an otherwise spotless carpet. That accomplished nothing, she admitted. She stood over the debacle feeling foolish and wrestled down the overwhelming temptation to reorganize it.
Is there a problem, she asked herself. Yes, but nothing she could put her finger on. She contemplated the possibility of a mid-life crisis and did the easy math. Life expectancy, seventy-two. What a frightening sum.
You do act like a tourist, she confessed. In any event, you certainly feel like one tonight. Or a spy, spying on whoever I am, on the name on the door.
She glared at her belongings accusingly.
The stainless carpet, the curtained windows, the trophy books, all seemed in tacit agreement. They didn’t know her anymore either, or why she would be investigating them.
“She’s not a spy,” the waiter had said.
Lydia saw herself in the mirror and stopped short. Leaving for work in the dark, coming home in the dark, it was taking a toll on her, she suddenly thought, eyeing the impostor. She was shocked by the woman’s disheveled appearance, the missing button on her shirt collar, the rain-soaked coat, the hair wet and dangling in her eyes. She went up to the mirror and inspected her eyes. More than just exhausted, there were shadows beneath them, almost as blue as her irises. Her blue eyes. They had an unusual gleam in them. She was concerned about it. Not cool, she muttered, sitting down in the middle of the room as quiet as a sphinx.
“Excellent,” she remembered the waiter saying. “Will that be all?”
_____
Why did I bring this in here? Lydia wondered, accidentally kicking her briefcase as she crossed her legs under the table. Another Friday at Frank’s Place and her friends were late.
The blond sat at the window seat, engrossed as ever in her reading. Now and again she seemed to stretch a little, a slight smile appearing and then disappearing from her lips. Lydia immediately thought of a cat reclining on a sunny sofa, about to lick itself.
“May I get you something while you’re waiting?”
She jumped in her skin.
The waiter smiled.
She blushed. “I’m sorry?”
“A glass of wine until your friends get here?” he asked.
She nodded and avoided looking at him. He had a funny expression.
“Red?” he suggested.
“What?”
“Red?” he repeated.
“Red?” (Red?) “Red! Yes, please, that will be fine.”
Four-thirty already. The girls were supposed to be there at four. With growing annoyance Lydia saw herself stuck alone in a bar and looking available, something which she did not relish.
Regulars were steadily arriving for happy hour. As they checked their coats at the door they scanned the barroom hungrily. She visibly registered discomfort whenever one strutted by and said hello. They all reminded her of Joe.
Only ten more minutes, she promised herself. This is unbearable. She glanced over at the window seat. A book sure would come in handy right now. She raised her arm to signal the waiter and the blond looked over, smiled an acknowledgment and went back to her reading.
“May I see a menu?”
“Certainly,” the waiter said. He returned with one a few minutes later.
Whenever she felt irritated she thought of Joe. An unrewarding habit she had just discovered. These past few days she found herself thinking of him a lot.
Joseph Rios. Everyone called him Rio Joe, but she doubted he knew that, not that it would bother him, not someone who spent as much time as Joe did making himself larger than life. He had cultivated that persona.
Rio Joe. The stuff of literature. “Good evening,” came a come-on voice from her left. Oh, please, she screamed in her head. She put her face in the menu, pretended to read it. The technique proved surprisingly effective. Talking head gone.
Tall, dark and handsome Joe. Her junior by four years. She had met him at work and instinctively disliked him, detecting something a little too slick and rather illicit in his style. In a way she couldn’t then explain, he’d given her the creeps. His interpretation that she was hard to get is what motivated him to pursue her so ardently. And it was nice to be ardently pursued. In the end…well…getting is the fun part for a Rio Joe. The romance left her with the same sick sensation she had after eating too much chocolate.
Love, sex, heartburn, nausea. This was as far as she could venture in her mind whenever she reviewed the matter. But she could see far enough. She knew that he had broken her heart because it stopped in pain whenever she saw him or heard his name mentioned. She knew he was not one of her greatest accomplishments, which is why she refused to discuss the mess with anyone.
Dear Joe. She had ended it months ago but still ran into him at work, still in Frank’s Place on Fridays.
Only recently had she stopped trembling at the sight of him. Only recently had she stopped wanting to lie down every time he was near. Only recently had she discovered she wasn’t thinking of him every moment of the day.
Lydia took a deep breath. Only recently, but thank god!
Another suit strolled by. She put her nose in the menu again
–lunch? Wrong menu. Lydia blamed herself for not discovering it sooner. Everything’s been out of whack this week, seven days like this, all gone awry in precisely this manner. She hailed the waiter one more time and attempted to disguise her frustration.
“Madam? Ready to order?”
“Yes, but I think you brought me the wrong menu,” she said, handing it back to him.
“Oh,” he said, taking it from her, “the right menu at the wrong time.” He pulled another one out from under his arm and laid it on the table. “Or,” he added with a wink, “the wrong menu at the right time.”
She felt a tinge in her cheeks again and turned away without speaking. The clock over the bar read five.
Swell, she thought. So where are my friends when I need them? Sinatra sang something about being irresponsible, being undependable. The blond at the window seat, reading. Reliable. That waiter was so strange. It’s difficult to be alone, Lydia realized. She was sick of waiting. You can forget yourself, what you normally do or what you’re supposed to be thinking. Isn’t that old waiter kind of crazy? Sinatra sang on, singing about irresponsible madness. Lydia waited.
_____
“I told you she’d still be here! Liddy, you’re not mad, are you?”
“No, Del. I just love sitting by myself on a Friday afternoon, drinking by myself on a Friday afternoon, eating by myself on a–”
“Oh, good. You ordered already?” Delilah slid Lydia’s bread plate away from her and laughed at her friend’s dour expression. “Oh, come on, Liddy” she said, pushing it back again. “I hate it when you pout. We were hoping you might mingle a little. We’re not really all that late and you do look marvelous, dear. Arsenic obviously becomes you.”
_____
Half past five. The furniture around her scuffed loudly with a life of its own and Lydia was once more absorbed into the dull but comfortable roar of her table. She watched her friends coming and going, the girls falling one by one like flower petals into their chairs, each one exhaling on arrival about a week’s worth of office air as they landed, the guys circling like hawks. Happy hour. Another respite. Exquisite nails tapped on the tabletop to the music. The ladies cooed about that one’s sweater, this one’s skirt, a new piece of jewelry, who they had recently run into. The guys heckled. It wasn’t hard to be distracted–even the blond looked over–at the loud chatter, sordid details of cubicle life, the funny stories and tales of intrigue. Gossip, gossip, gossip.
By six, even the waiter was once again himself, once more the prerequisite aloof that one might reasonably expect a waiter to be.
Fine. Everything would return to normal, Lydia hoped, as she glanced about the room and back to her own busy table. Normal, whatever that is. She turned in her seat to observe a few of her friends who had snatched up partners from the row of men at the bar. They were, as Del fondly called it, “doing their war dance.” World War Two. They were all faking it of course. Nobody knew these old steps except from imitating classic movies, but it looked right in the vintage atmosphere of Frank’s Place and it belonged there with the old songs and posters and dim light. Warriors dancing.
Things felt right, at last, for the first time in a week. Lydia smiled back at the blond who then looked away. More right than wrong, she added, feeling like a pretty close facsimile of herself again. I am Lydia Beaumont, she said in her head, studying the profile of the reader, whoever she was. I am Lydia Beaumont.
Whoever she was, too.
Maybe who you are depends largely on who you’re with?
_____
But back in her apartment she discovered, much to her dismay, that the air was still rarefied, as it had been since last Friday. She instantly fell into the strange mood again, the funk that was ruining her, and despaired to think that her evening at Frank’s had been only a temporary success.
Standing at the foot of her bed, left unmade for the second time this week, she inspected the solitary impression that remained in the middle of it. It certainly showed how accustomed she was to sleeping alone.
And it looked odd. Maybe this was normal, the new normal of her life, regarding normal things as strange.
She wasn’t too comfortable with that. I’m not sleeping in this bed tonight, she told herself, and went to sit on the sofa in the dark instead, avoiding the bedroom mirror as she passed it.
All week Lydia had been distracted by Lydia. At Frank’s she had tried to overcome herself by concentrating on the events going on at the table, the free-for-all she usually ignored. She was glad to be able to focus on something other than the hum in her head, on her aching back, but now sitting alone in her apartment like a house guest on the sofa, trying to reflect, she could scarcely remember a thing about the long evening. All she could recollect was her friends showing up late, the silly waiter with his menus, the blond in love with her solitude. In love. In love. In love. Or was it a self-imposed exile?
Reflect. It had to be at least six months ago. Maybe longer. But not a year. No, not quite that long, she doubted. Not more than nine? Could it possibly have been more than nine months ago that I first noticed that woman sitting in there? Could be. Ah, I know why. Because before that, I was out on the patio. Right? I wouldn’t even have seen her from out there. Right. For all I know she could’ve been coming in for years without my knowing, if she only sat inside. All that time on the patio and before then? Ah, well, before then there was that thing with Joe.
She went into the bedroom to look at herself in the mirror. She could be coming down with something, going off into space like this, and her eyes looked funny. She’d see how she felt tomorrow and take it from there she promised.
On the way back to the sofa she bumped into the papers she had piled on the floor in one of her new private compromises. She swore under her breath. I don’t have what it takes to be alone anymore. That’s the thing.
The thing. That thing with Joe. She stretched herself out.
Is this Joe’s fault?
It felt good to get the weight off her shoulders.
Not having what it takes?
Off her back.
Being alone?
She let her eyes adjust to the darkness.
The longer it takes the farther you go–she had seen these words scrawled across the ladies’ room wall in Frank’s Place.
No. Not his fault, really.
She didn’t know who was supposed to have said it.
The farther you go. She sat up uneasy.
He had never offered her anything.
There was a hopelessness at the thought of him. She felt it lodged deep in her womb. That was the ache, a killing consumption.
Ugh. She didn’t know when her loneliness had stopped being Joe’s fault. She pictured an empty glass falling over the edge of a table and forced herself to remember the last time he was in her apartment, showing up late for her birthday, and he had been with someone else, too. That was no secret, but it was her goddamned birthday she had shouted as he slammed the door behind him. She saw her glass of wine whizzing through the air at him, could hear it smashing against the wall. There was still a slight stain where it had trickled like blood to the floor.
Her blood, she learned too late. He had been after her blood, running her through every time he could. At parties. Behind her back. He even did her wrong in bed. On purpose. Many, many times leaving her there, for no reason, to be cruel, that’s all.
The bright light of the kitchen made her eyes water.
It was overblown. A couple of months in bed. She had overrated him.
Lydia rose from the couch. And you never even sent me flowers, you rat. Not one goddamned blessed rose.
She turned on the living room light, feeling suddenly redeemed, and searched the room for her briefcase, then remembering where she had left it and headed into the kitchen.
All week she had been popping in and out of bookstores, spending entire lunch hours peering at racks of paperbacks and on Friday afternoon, unable to determine any subject of interest, she
had purchased a Sinatra CD from a street vendor on the way to Frank’s Place. She took it out of the briefcase and put it in the player.
The clock on the wall showed midnight, but Lydia was wide awake, opening and closing the cupboards and refrigerator door. There was nothing to eat.
She had brought work home for the weekend with the idea of barricading herself in, but at this rate by Monday morning she knew she would starve to death. There wasn’t even half and half for coffee.
“The right menu at the wrong time,” she suddenly recalled.
“Or,” the refrigerator door slammed shut one last time, an assortment of items clinking inside, “the wrong menu at the right time.”
“Excellent,” she said in a voice like the waiter’s.
The music played.
_____
Lydia worked feverishly all Saturday morning, as if she had an important appointment to keep and might not make it. She did without coffee or breakfast and by noon she was absolutely famished.
Lunch time and not a crumb of food. She grabbed her coat and hurriedly left the apartment.
The Secret Keeping Page 2
