The Secret Keeping

by Francine Saint Marie

  _____

  Archetypes: Generally, we’re looking for real people here. Larger-than-life people. Sadly, these are usually scary types or extreme types–Mommy Dearest, Mary Poppins, Henry the Eighth, Atilla the Hun–memorable and influential people that loomed over us, most likely when we were no bigger than bread baskets. At their core–at our core–they are real people, completely indispensable to us. They die or disappear, we replace them…with a close facsimile thereof.

  She was so preoccupied with her inquiry that she sat dazed through her afternoon sessions and even felt obliged to apologize to one bemused couple.

  Lana. She had liked the nickname, enjoyed being her, yet no one but her parents ever called her that. After they died four years ago, she never heard the name again.

  The Kristensons’ daughter, Lana, for as long as she existed, was infallible, never made any goofs in her life, never failed at anything. When she disappeared, she was survived by Helaine who did make some mistakes. Sharon Chambers was certainly the proof of that. The years of misery…there was so much distance between who she was now and who she had been seven years ago that her former self seemed to have taken on a mythical shape of its own. Lana had become to her a perfect stranger. She could see that from the red leather chair, see the trap that she had set for herself as a result. Lana doesn’t err, therefore, somehow, Helaine couldn’t either.

  And Sharon Chambers? A mistake–but it couldn’t be a mistake. Oh, but it was, it was. She had spent years denying it, disguising it every day of her failed and sorry romance, converting Sharon’s lies into promises she would wait for.

  There was something scary about that, about being in denial. She stared through the couple on her couch as if they weren’t there. For how long had she been in denial? Four years? That could be. The loss of her parents had thrown her. But hadn’t it been bad before that? Wasn’t it really more like seven years of misery?

  In fact, to be perfectly honest, hadn’t she been dissatisfied with the relationship since the moment she first took the model to bed with her? She nodded to herself. The couple nodded back, encouraged to continue their conversation. Yes. She admitted it. But, if that was the case, and of course she could see that it was, then she was still Lana Kristenson when she had first met Sharon.

  Lana, Lana, Lana. Dr. Kristenson weighed the implications, still nodding her head after her clients had left. Back at her desk she saw the light on her phone blinking as if concurring with her conclusion: Lana was an archetype.

  “Yes, Jen?”

  “There’s an awfully pretty box here with your name on it. Looks like a love letter attached to the ribbon.

  Shall I tell the messenger to send it back?”

  A box! “Jenny, don’t you dare!”

  “You’ll have to come and sign for it then. Your signature is required.”

  _____

  Monday, eight in the morning.

  “How long, if I can ask?”

  The guard sized the woman up before answering. Her looks didn’t trouble him. “I’d say she’s had her offices in here about three years.”

  Three years, Lydia repeated in her head. She stared at the white lettering of the professional directory, a strange exhilaration coursing through her veins. There was a story here, an erotic bedtime tale she wished to be told. Right this minute!

  Dr. Helaine Kristenson, twelfth floor, the plaque read. So the telephone operator had been correct about the address! It was no mistake. Helaine’s offices were practically across from her own.

  Lydia could think of nothing else. She stood back from her own window, all day trying to catch sight of the blond head on the twelfth floor without being seen, all day resisting the urge to phone her there. Across the street, you scoundrel! The discovery that Helaine was less than a stone’s throw away from her, and had been all this time, aroused in Lydia an excitement that surpassed all others known to date and as she tried to work she grew more and more preoccupied with the dozen roses still in a vase by her window. There were as well other obvious and sensually distracting features about the situation to be considered. She did, until it was necessary for her to go home early.

  Tuesday was a repeat of the day before and so on until, with the end of the week nearing and feeling professionally impaired by her sensations, she decided to work with her back to the window, stoically refusing to take any breaks. She was on a fixed timetable now. Helaine was to call by Friday to inform her that the mission had been accomplished. But since their Saturday meeting, Lydia had fallen into a state of readiness, heightened by Monday’s revelation, and she had wished to hear from the blond much sooner than that.

  As the days slipped by without word, she caught her attention entirely missing from her work, saw her imagination running amok with disturbing visions. Her emotional deluge had begun to drown her and she bobbed up and down in an endless stream of unhappy possibilities. Twice she battled her hand from the phone.

  By three o’clock Thursday, no word, her spirits sinking, Lydia gloomily packed her briefcase and once more headed for the solitude and safety of her penthouse, this time overloaded with misgivings. They trailed behind her like tin cans after the wedding.

  She could practically hear them clanking as she rode the elevator down, her state of mind in such commotion that by the time she noticed herself stuck alone in there with Rio Joe it was too late to do anything about it.

  And before she could prevent it he had her cornered and was interrogating her about the roses. She dropped the briefcase and he kicked it aside.

  “Who is he?” he whispered into her hair, his hand groping her.

  She reached for the switchboard. He grabbed her arm.

  “Joe. Let me go or I’ll scream.” His chest heaved against hers. She could taste and smell his thoughts.

  “Let me go or I’ll scream.”

  He pressed his cheek against hers and pushed her into the corner. “Scream then, Lydia. You know I love it when you scream.”

  She felt her skirt hiking up. “Joseph…” The elevator stopped. Ding! The doors opened revealing them to a group of surprised executives.

  “Oh! Sorry!” Lydia heard from the hallway. “We’ll get the next one.” The doors closed again. The bell tolled.

  “Scream for me, your highness.”

  She fell silent. Overhead the floor numbers glowed in a slow motion countdown as the elevator descended toward the lobby. By the tenth floor he had worked the skirt up past her thighs.

  “Who sent you the flowers, Lydia?”

  “Joe, for Christ’s sake! Are you out of your mind?” She was wet–always wet now–and didn’t want him to know it.

  He knew it. The elevator stopped. Ding! She glimpsed people waiting and hid her face in his shirt.

  “Use the other one,” he snarled over his shoulder.

  “Excuse us,” someone quipped humorously. The doors closed. Ding! She heard laughter through the floor and saw the elevator ascending this time. He reached into her blouse.

  “Joe, let me out of here.”

  “Lydia,” he murmured in an unusually tender tone. He was breathing heavily, his hand caressing her between her legs. “You want it.”

  “Shit…” she swore under her breath, “oh, shit.” She did. Her nipples were hard. “It’s over Jos–” She gasped, as he slid his fingers inside her. Too late. She let him stroke her, one and…two and…three…until she slumped back into the corner. Four…five…six…seven…eight…nine…ding! The doors opened wide and she came to him, so fast he lifted his face to hers in surprise.

  “Whoa, sorry!” someone shouted.

  Joe regained himself and fumbled furiously with the front of his pants, pulling her close as he did.

  She quickly pushed him back again. The elevator bucked before heading downward. “It’s over Joe,” she repeated, her eyes issuing a warning as she managed to free herself from him.

  He took her by the wrists. “Then why are you wearing my bracelet?” he asked, lifting it to her face.r />
  She looked from it to him, wide-eyed and dumbfounded. There was no explanation to offer the man. Just a foolhardy choice in accessories, she guessed. She had utterly forgotten he had given it to her. Over him she saw they were finally approaching the lobby. She could tell by his face that he was no longer mindful of the elevator. Ding! He turned, startled by the bell, and she fixed her rumpled skirt, grabbed her briefcase and breezed past him.

  “Lydia?” he called, as she stepped out of the elevator.

  Such a strange sound in his voice. It filled her suddenly with a sense of pathos. She glanced back at the elevator, past the crowd waiting to board it, and saw him as they might, a desperate man, his zipper down, his suit coat abandoned on the floor, his shirttails partially hanging out of his pants. She took the bracelet off her wrist and tossed it to him, a consolation prize perhaps. He made to catch it and missed, diving for it as it bounced off the wall behind him and fell unceremoniously at his feet.

  The doors started to close again and someone moved forward tentatively and stopped them, the others filed in after him like sheep. A woman ran by Lydia who had not yet seen the spectacle at the elevator.

  “Hey! Hold that elevator!” she yelled.

  Lydia walked away, her face blank, the tension in it gone for the moment.

  “Ms. Beaumont?”

  She turned to find a young security guard wearing a concerned expression and somewhat out of breath.

  She didn’t know he had witnessed the scene on a video monitor, that he had recognized the female VIP

  being molested in the elevator, and that he had run from floor to floor in an effort to rescue her from her assailant.

  “Yes?”

  “Are you all right?” he asked breathlessly, “I’ve got her,” he reported into his wireless.

  She listened to the static filled response and gave him a puzzled look.

  He pointed at the cameras hanging from the ceiling. “Security,” he stated, “in the elevators, too. I saw–do you want to file a complaint?”

  She hesitated. Joe was getting in deep with the firm. She couldn’t bring herself to sick security on him as well. “Thank you,” she said at length, “but I don’t think it will happen again.”

  He looked bashfully at his shoes. “I’ll make a record of it just in case.”

  “I appreciate that. Thank you. I mean it.” She left him standing there with his radio buzzing, a pencil poised for taking notes.

  “Wait!” she overheard as she was exiting through the revolving doors. “Hold that–” Ding!

  _____

  Lawrence Taft woke with a splitting headache and no memory of how he had earned it. He had had a couple of drinks at Frank’s after Sharon Chambers made her surprise appearance there, but the events that followed that were shrouded in a haze.

  But the bottom line was NOTHING. There was nothing going down at all, not at all. He popped some aspirin. This is it, he decided. Friday would be the last stakeout. He was becoming too attached to his pigeon.

  He could feel it under his skin. The way she wore her hair, the way she sipped her tea. And his memory? Not remembering an entire day. Friday was it, and then he was out of there.

  _____

  Helaine held the small box to her nose and sniffed it.

  “What are you doing, Dr. Kristenson?”

  The envelope attached to it smelled like Lydia’s perfume.

  “Savoring, Jen.” She took it back to her office over the objections of her curious secretary.

  “As fair art thou, my bonie lass, so deep in love am I; And I will luve thee still, my dear, till a’ the seas gang dry…”

  Helaine set the envelope next to her phone and ripped open the box. Fish net. Was it lingerie, her favorite? She preciously removed a pair of evening gloves from the blue tissue paper. Black silk.

  Mmmmmmmmmmmmmm. She slipped them on and went to the window to raise the blinds, glancing at the time. Four o’clock.

  Lydia wasn’t there.

  _____

  Lydia got out of the shower around four-thirty. She dawdled at the bedroom mirror for awhile, then lay on her brand new mattress, her wet hair done up in a towel wrapped like a turban around her head. She had settled for something new to sleep on, was the proud new owner of an extra plush queen size mattress and box spring, a brand new solid brass headboard and frame. She liked the golden shine of it. It matched Helaine’s hair. And the floors, of course.

  She took a power nap to rid herself completely of the thoughts regarding Rio Joe and twenty minutes later rose up refreshed and hungry, her thoughts returning instead to the question of dinner which she decided she would eat by the window in the sun-room, once she figured out what she was going to have. She threw on a silk kimono and went back into the bathroom to do her hair, considering food stuffs as she put on a little makeup. It was her intent to be positive until Friday. Then, if the call didn’t come, she would take it from there.

  She saw the answering machine winking at her on the way to the kitchen. She hit play and kept walking.

  “Darling…?”

  Lydia froze, balanced tenuously on legs of gelatin.

  “I hope you don’t mind…they’re just so beautiful…thank you…”

  Lydia smiled as she listened.

  “I’m settling into a new apartment Thursday…I’ll see you Friday.”

  Friday! What time? Where? Lydia ran and picked up the phone and heard only the dial tone. The voice on her machine was signing off.

  “I love you.” (beep)

  Love you! The dial-tone? Right, it’s just a message. Friday! She whooped with joy and slam dunked the receiver.

  “Hey, Liddy…it’s Del…tried your office…you weren’t there. Heard you left one Mr. Rios with two blue balls in the elevator…hah! I wouldn’t have left him with any! Call me…I’m home now.” (beep) Oh, my god. Lydia hung over the machine, hit save. How many people were discussing that elevator ride?

  She went out to the kitchen and rattled some pots and pans. An hour later she chewed thoughtfully on her dinner, staring out at the cityscape from the divan in her sun room.

  The buildings looked exactly like boxes on a grocery shelf. She marveled at her observations. It really is a small world.

  _____

  “I need to walk. Meet me?”

  “Walk or talk?”

  “Both.”

  “I’ll meet you on the corner by the paint store. Don’t bathe.”

  “What?”

  “Forget it, Liddy. You’re so obtuse.”

  Delilah was dressed in a brand new jogging suit, a wind-breaker made of silk.

  “Liddy, slow down. I don’t want to get all sweaty. It’s brand new.”

  Lydia grinned in her dingy sweats. “Really?”

  “What’s on your mind, smart ass? Is this about Joe? You haven’t said ten words. You know I’d rather talk than walk.” They were passing a deli. “Let’s go in here and sit.”

  “Not about Joe. Don’t want to sit.”

  “Ugh! Heap big broken English. Slow down then!”

  They slowed down.

  “She looks like Catherine Deneuve,” Delilah said after she caught her breath.

  “Who does?”

  “Your blond Venus, Helaine. That’s who she reminded me of. Stacked like her, too.”

  “Del! Are we going to talk like men now?”

  Delilah swung around. “Which men? I knew there’d be something in this for me. Where are they?”

  Lydia laughed despite herself. “You know, there really is more to life than just sex.”

  “There is? Oh, my god! Liddy, what is it? What have I been overlooking all this time?”

  “Del…very funny.”

  “Oh, okay, Dame Beaumont. So you’re in love with Helaine’s mind, right?”

  “Her mind?”

  “You know, a higher love that you arrived at through all the numerous intellectual exchanges you’ve had with her. Isn’t that right? Could we slow down or are we expe
cted somewhere?”

  “I…” Lydia balked and then laughed.

  “You can tell me, Liddy. You’re feelings for that sexy blond. Why, it’s really just a mental thing. You don’t get wet, your loins don’t ache, your tits don’t lunge through your bra whenever you see the woman.”

  “Hah! Point taken.”

  They walked a half a block without speaking.

  “Things finally moving, Liddy?”

  “Indeed.”

  “When do you see her?”

  “Friday.”

  “I see. And you’ve got cold feet?”

  “Yes.”

  “Sweaty palms? Dizziness?“

  “Del?”

  “Chest pains? Palpitations? Swelling in the joints?”

  “What? No!”

  “Memory loss, loose bowels, blood in the stools and or cramping?”

  “Del! Don’t make me laugh. This is very, very serious. Why is everything always so funny to you?”

  “Why are you laughing?”

  “I’m nervous. It’s nervous laughter. And you’re supposed to help me. You’ve done this before, I haven’t.”

  “That was a long time ago, I told you. Besides, all that exotic booze…you don’t really want to know.”

  “Why didn’t you ever tell me about it?”

  “Liddy, why do you think? You’re so proper, so…straight.” She flashed a Buddha grin at the idea.

  “Anyway! It was just one of those things.”

  “A trip to the moon on gossamer wings?”

  “A fling, like the song says. You on the other hand, go and figure. You’re in love.” She put her arm through Lydia’s and they strolled up the block. “And because of that you have cold little feet.”

  Lydia cleared her throat. “I want to, you know, please her. You know?” She cleared it again and barely squeezed out, “In bed.”

  “In bed?”

  “Mmmm.”

  “Oh, that does sound serious, Liddy.”

  “HELP.”