The Language of Secrets

by Dianne Dixon

  As she said this, Caroline wondered how it was that young children, unconscious of the workings of politics or theology, had such clear awareness of the concept of fairness. It was a sensitivity so keen, it reduced them to tears when they discovered that absolute justice was unavailable. Caroline wondered if, in the mysterious place from which children had so recently come, there was a realm where the human spirit existed in a perfect balance between right and wrong. “What a sweet thing it must be,” Caroline murmured into Lissa’s ear, “that place of complete fairness.”

  Lissa laid her head on Caroline’s shoulder and sighed softly, as if in benediction, or resignation.

  Caroline remembered how strongly she had once felt about the issue of fairness. She had begun crying out for it when she’d been about the same age as Lissa and Julie were now. But when little Caroline would weep that something was “no fair,” her mother would simply shrug and say: “You want fair? Go to Pomona.”

  And the idea of Pomona had become a talisman for Caroline. For years she had imagined it as an Eden, a place of perfect justice. But the summer she was eleven, she and her mother took a road trip and Caroline discovered the truth. Pomona was nothing more than the site of the Los Angeles County Fair. Her imagined paradise had turned out to be a low-slung, gritty place, more desert than garden, more blight than beauty. Caroline had looked up at her thin, dry, tightly wound mother and had hated her. Her mother had taken away the purity of Pomona and left in its place a brawling carnival soaked in spilled beer and the piss of prizewinning pigs.

  “You know what, girls?” Caroline said. “Mommy can’t fix it that there’s only one Smurfette in the whole world. But Mommy can fix s’mores. Lots and lots of s’mores. Hundreds and millions and gazillions of s’mores!”

  During the next hour, her children’s delighted laughter was all Caroline heard. Then the phone rang.

  For a moment, she wasn’t certain that anyone was at the other end of the line; there was only the indistinct background noise of a restaurant, or perhaps a cocktail lounge. She was about to hang up, when she heard his voice.

  “Ah. Sweet Caroline” was all he said. And she instantly knew who it was. She had never forgotten the sound of him: rolling velvet, edged with filaments of diamond dust. Seduction traveling with the promise of things both beautiful and cutting.

  “Mitch.” Simply saying his name created an electricity in Caroline, a sensation that felt like fireworks and brandy.

  Caroline didn’t notice that Julie was trying to boost Lissa high enough to reach an open jar of caramel sauce on the kitchen counter. Both girls tottered and fell. The jar broke. Caramel sauce splattered across the floor. The dog yelped. Lissa shrieked. And Julie shouted “You dummy-head!” at the top of her lungs. Caroline wedged the receiver between her shoulder and cheek and dropped to her knees, checking to see if either of the girls had been hurt.

  “Sweet Caroline, have I called at a bad time?” Mitch sounded faintly amused. His tone embarrassed Caroline. She could picture him, immaculate and cool, phoning from a chic eatery or an elegant bar—some fastidious region where there were no sticky kitchen floors or little girls screaming “dummy-head.”

  “Mitch, I didn’t turn out like the women I’m sure you hang around with now. I’m a mom with two kids and a dog. My life is noisy, okay? I don’t spend my time quietly clawing my way up the ladder at some big law firm and then basking in silky silence while I get my nails done and my legs waxed.”

  “Hmmm. I remember a lot about those legs. But I don’t remember much silence.” He paused, waiting for Caroline to respond.

  She wanted to erase how envious she’d just sounded of the kind of sleek, accomplished women who were a part of his life. She wanted to come back at him with something light and witty. But she was too distracted—worried about the broken glass and the fact that the girls weren’t wearing shoes.

  Mitch chuckled. “Ah, but that was a long time ago. When we were all young and beautiful. You, of course, were especially beautiful in the buff. But I digress. The purpose of this call is to ask if you and my old buddy Rob might want to have dinner with me tomorrow night.”

  “What? You’re not in Chicago? You’re here?” Caroline took a towel out of the sink and wiped at the mess on the floor. Her face had flushed the moment she’d realized he was in town. All it had taken was the thought of seeing him.

  “Yup, for two days. Doing a deposition in a major criminal case. Very high-profile. Big article in this month’s Newsweek. I’m in L.A., at the Baldwin. You know, we should call Barton, too. Get the whole gang together. The last time the four of us were in the same place at the same time was at your wedding, Sweet C. We’re overdue. So what do you say? Eight-thirty tomorrow night? Here at the hotel. My treat. Champagne, caviar, and lots of French crap with truffles on it.”

  “Tomorrow night? We can’t. It’s Halloween, the girls need to go trick-or-treating. And besides, Robert’s not here. He’s in Fresno. He went to an insurance seminar.” Caroline immediately wanted to take the words back. They made her feel like the idiot wife of a small-town businessman, carelessly revealing the excruciating blandness of her life.

  “Okay. Forget Rob. And Barton.” Mitch’s voice was low. There was the slightest hesitation before he spoke again. “It’s you I want to see.”

  “I want to see you, too.” Caroline was dropping bits of broken glass into the trash—tiny jagged shards slipping in among the remains of a blueberry muffin and a crumpled coloring-book likeness of a fairy princess. “I mean, I’d love to, but …”

  “So if dinner’s out, have lunch with me instead. Come on, Sweet C, who knows when we’ll ever see each other again. Bring pictures of the kiddies. And I’ll show you snapshots of my overvalued co-op and my dog. A lot of people think there’s an uncanny resemblance.”

  “Between you and the co-op or you and the dog?” she said.

  Caroline heard him explode into laughter and she felt effervescent—like someone she used to be.

  *

  It was late. The girls were finally asleep. There was perfect quiet in the house.

  Caroline lifted her foot from the water and traced the tiny fish shapes embossed on the tiles of the bathroom wall. She’d lit candles on the shelf above the tub and had sipped half a glass of wine. She was relaxed and ready to go to sleep.

  She lowered her foot and lay, for a moment, savoring the quiet. When she got out of the bathtub, her movements were slow and dreamy and she saw that in the candlelight she looked radiant. She raised her arms above her head and moved in graceful circles around the bathroom, watching her misty image in the mirror and flirting with the momentary belief that what she was seeing—this sensuous angel—was the truth. Breasts perfectly round and lifted, skin that was flawless, a belly that was tight and unmarked. For an instant, she imagined what might happen if Robert could see her like this, confident and shimmering; if he could see every inch of this exquisite nakedness.

  She stumbled over a pair of rubber ducks on the floor, and almost immediately she heard the phone ringing. Not wanting the noise to wake the girls, she opened the door and ran out of the bathroom.

  The fog on the mirror was sucked away. The sensuous angel had vanished.

  In the bedroom, Caroline lifted the receiver and heard Robert say: “Hi, honey. Sorry to call so late. Did I wake you up?” His voice sounded solicitous.

  “No. I was taking a bath. Now I’m standing here nude and dripping.” There was a silence, and for a second, Caroline hoped she had set off a spark. Then Robert said, “Everything okay with the girls? You guys all ready for Halloween tomorrow?”

  “Yeah. We’re all set.” Caroline yanked the sheet off the bed and used it to dry herself. “How was the drive up?”

  “Long. Uneventful.”

  “Well there are worse things than uneventful, I guess.” She tossed the sheet aside and pulled on an old pair of sweatpants and a wrinkled T-shirt. Then she lay on the bed and stared at the ceiling. She felt heavy and dull.


  “So. How was your day, honey? Good?”

  “It was fine, Robert. Oh, guess who called?”

  “Who?”

  “Mitch. He’s in L.A. for some kind of meeting. He wanted to take us to dinner tomorrow night. Barton, too.”

  “Too bad we won’t be able to make it.” There was a faint edge to Robert’s voice. “He should have let us know he was coming.”

  “Yeah, I guess it was all pretty last-minute. He was disappointed about dinner but he … uh … he said maybe that we could … that I could meet him for lunch instead.” Caroline was up now, pacing.

  “So you’re going to have lunch with him?”

  She glanced down at her colorless T-shirt and wrinkled sweatpants. “I don’t know. I don’t know if I’m up to it.”

  “You sound tired. Get some sleep. And don’t forget to lock up first, okay?” Robert’s tone was gentle, but the comment made Caroline feel combative. “Robert, if there’s one thing I’m good at, it’s taking care of this house. And my children.”

  “I know. But I love it when I can take care of all of you. Maybe being away is making me feel disconnected. I love us. I love being a family.”

  Caroline didn’t answer him; she laid the receiver on the bed and went across the hall. Into the bathroom.

  She took off the T-shirt and the sweatpants. And then she looked at herself in the mirror. This time, there was no angel in misted candlelight. There was simply Caroline—alone—needing to feel beautiful.

  When she returned to the bedroom and picked up the receiver, Robert was saying: “I love you, Caroline. I’ll always love you. No matter what. You have to believe that.”

  She hung up the phone with such gentleness that there was no click as she lowered the receiver; there was only silence, as if there never had been a call at all.

  Caroline went downstairs, then out into the backyard. She sat in the moonlight. For a few minutes, tears flowed. After they were gone, she stayed gazing at the night shadows, thinking about a cream-colored dress she had bought a long time ago and never worn, and about how perfect it might look on her now, in the lobby of an elegant hotel.

  *

  “Sorry you had to wait.” The valet opened Caroline’s car door and offered her his hand. “Welcome to the Baldwin. Are you checking in?”

  “No. I’m meeting someone for lunch. Just lunch.” Caroline knew she looked flustered, and that the valet was amused.

  He grinned as he handed her a claim check. “Well, enjoy yourself.”

  As Caroline walked away, she saw the valet exchange a glance with the doorman who was standing near the hotel’s etched-glass entrance. It was a look that said they’d noticed her and liked what they saw: a woman with good legs and green eyes and hair the color of dark chocolate; a woman in a revealing cream-colored dress and stylishly high heels. It made Caroline feel desirable, and alive.

  The air in the hotel lobby was cold and smelled of rose-scented perfume. A string quartet was playing soft, elegant music. And everywhere there were well-dressed men, beautiful women, and extravagant arrangements of expensive flowers.

  Being in this opulent setting was stirring excitement, and guilt, in Caroline. She desperately needed to believe that there was no harm in having come here; no harm in wanting Mitch to see her the way she looked today, and wanting him to think it was the way she looked every day. No harm at all—if it was only for the length of a lunch.

  When Caroline was approaching the entrance to the hotel restaurant, a man across the lobby was putting his arm around a woman who had just arrived. He kissed the woman’s cheek; she gestured toward the restaurant. He whispered something; she hesitated. He whispered again. This time, she smiled and let him lead her into an elevator.

  Caroline watched as the elevator doors closed. She knew there was much more than lunch awaiting her here. She understood that it would take very little for her to be the next woman stepping into an elevator, waiting to be carried away.

  She was almost running as she came out of the hotel, hoping to catch the valet before he moved her car. She wanted to go home and get away from what she had come so close to doing. But the valet and the car were gone and an airport bus was idling in the driveway. When the bus pulled away, Caroline saw the spires of the church across the street.

  It was St. Justin’s—Barton’s church.

  *

  The doors of his office slid apart and Barton looked at Caroline with absolute, radiant joy. “Oh, what a lovely surprise!” He opened his arms and gathered her into them as if she were a cherished treasure. “I thought we’d said our final farewells on the phone last week.”

  “Me, too. But it turned out that I was in the neighborhood, so here I am.” Caroline spoke without looking up at Barton. She didn’t want to move away from him just yet. His embrace had always been something unique—strong, yet infinitely gentle. And Caroline loved the way he smelled: elegant citrus-scented aftershave and fine cigars. To her, being hugged by Barton was the physical manifestation of the word delicious.

  He held her at arm’s length and studied her. “Wow, you look fantastic.”

  Caroline saw the same was true of him, and she realized that it had been true for quite a while. Barton had grown into his height and his copper-colored hair had mellowed to reddish brown. His face and body had filled out and made him handsome. “You grew up and got so good-looking,” Caroline said.

  Barton ducked his head in the fleeting bow he always made when he was embarrassed. And seeing that gesture told Caroline that no matter how much Barton had changed physically, his spirit remained the same. He was as an adult what he’d been as a boy: empathetic and intelligent.

  He took her hand and twirled her around as if they were dancing. “So,” he said. “This incredibly attractive getup you’re wearing, is it all just for me?” It was the happy question of a kid opening presents at Christmas—no hint of insinuation or innuendo. But Caroline was embarrassed—suddenly uncomfortable with being in a place filled with such innocence.

  A watercolored light was coming through a stained-glass window. There was a modest wooden cross on the wall, and an open Bible on a low table beneath it. On Barton’s desktop there was a snapshot of a fresh-faced woman wearing hiking clothes and standing in a snow-covered meadow.

  Caroline was surrounded by simplicity and virtue; it was making her feel shoddy.

  “No,” she told Barton. “I didn’t get dressed up for you. It was for something else entirely.” She pulled free of his grasp and turned her attention to the photograph on the desk. “This is a wonderful picture of Lily. I wish she could’ve come out to California more. I think all of us would have been really good friends. You two should be planning to live here, you know, not in New York. You’re breaking up the team, Barton. You’re going to go away and get married and we’ll never see you again. That’s not fair.”

  “Was it fair when you and Robert got married and moved south, leaving the rest of us alone and bereft on the beaches of Santa Barbara?”

  “Bereft for how long? A couple of months? Then we were back together. You were in seminary in Pasadena. You lived ten minutes away.”

  He smiled. “Well, be that as it may. For those few months the rest of us missed you fiercely.” He started to take the photo Caroline was holding. She moved it out of his reach.

  “What ‘rest’ of you? It wasn’t exactly a cast of thousands.” She glanced at the picture again, then put it back on the desk. “You, me, and Robert. That’s all there ever was, just the three of us. And Mitch. And it was hardly the same thing. I got married because I had to and we moved because Robert had to. Our wedding was at city hall, on the way out of town, with everything we owned jammed into the back of a U-Haul. That’s not exactly ‘The Manhattan Nuptials of Ms. Lily Hamilton in the Cathedral of St. John the Divine,’ is it?”

  Barton took her hand and held it lightly. “I was at your wedding and I remember you wore a white eyelet dress and beach sandals. You carried a single sunflower a
nd you were beautiful.” He stopped and looked her over from head to toe. “Which returns us to the subject at hand. Your present sartorial splendor, and the reason for it.”

  “Is it all that important, really?” Caroline moved away. He was being Barton; being intuitive. He was making her uncomfortable.

  “I think perhaps it is … Perhaps somewhere in that fabulous outfit there’s something that’s troubling you, and me. It could be I’m disappointed that you didn’t get all dressed up just to come to say good-bye to me.”

  “The truth is, I wasn’t even planning to see you today. I’m here completely by accident. I don’t think I knew it when I got dressed this morning, but I probably had some very questionable activities in mind for this outfit.” Caroline did a suggestive little shimmy, trying to pass the whole thing off as a joke. “It’s Halloween, Barton, this is my Housewife Out for a Day of Slutting costume. Couldn’t you tell?”

  He sat on the edge of his desk, folded his arms, and calmly waited for her to say whatever it was she was wanting to tell him. His silence rankled her.

  “Well don’t you have anything to say? I just made a confession to you, Father. It’s your last day in L.A. Aren’t you going to give me some kind of penance to do on your way out the door? A few Hail Marys or something?”

  “Wrong church. You’ve got us confused with the Catholics. The Episcopal way of dealing with human frailty isn’t quite as cut-and-dry.”

  “ ‘Human frailty’? That’s what they’re calling sin these days? What a nice little euphemism.” Caroline angrily pushed aside a stack of books and sat in the chair across from Barton’s desk.

  “I don’t see life in black and white, Caro. You always have.” Barton’s expression was calm. “You’ve always been harder on yourself than God ever thought of being.”

  Caroline picked up a magazine and busied herself with it. She didn’t want Barton to see how deep her anger went, how envious she was of his elegant wedding and of the things he had always so easily possessed. Things she imagined that he, and people like Lily, took for granted. All the priceless things that gave them dignity and made them whole. Things like parents who adored them for simply having been born. Things like bedtime stories and birthday parties—and addresses that didn’t change with the erratic regularity of a broken traffic light.