Sweet Secrets

by Rhonda Sheree

  “Is he still hot?”

  “I don’t know if he’s still hot because I didn’t ask. And I told my mother not to ever mention him to me again. I don’t want to know anything about him.”

  “I can’t believe you held out on me for an entire year. Whatever happened to trust?”

  I chuckled. “I warned you not to trust anybody.”

  “I didn’t think you meant you!”

  “Here’s the airport exit,” I direct her. Dell swings the car over like she’s a stunt driver. The notion of a smooth integration with traffic is foreign to her. She jerks the steering wheel in an exaggerated movement like one would expect to see in the movies. If I make it to the airport in one piece, I’ll be sure to write it down in my grateful journal tonight.

  “Have you heard from Robert?”

  “He sent me a text.”

  “A text? He didn’t call? What a jerk!”

  “I’m sure he has his reasons,” I say, not wanting to remind her of her indirect dis last night.

  “The man is hot, I’ll give him that. But he’s too much of a control freak, for my taste. Remember that night he came over for dinner and asked if I cooked the veal in vegetable oil or olive oil and then started spouting off about the health benefits of olive oil and how eggplant would’ve been a healthier choice? I wanted to take the veal and smash it in his face.”

  “Hey, what can I say? The guy likes to take care of himself.”

  “Taking care of himself is one thing. Telling other people how to take care of themselves is another.”

  “I don’t disagree, but in general, I’m starting to think I don’t give guys enough of a chance. Maybe I could’ve worked with him—brought him down a peg.”

  “Your heart likes what it likes and it wasn’t into that guy, Cole. Get over it.”

  “My heart doesn’t seem to be into anyone. I date, I have boyfriends, but never anyone who makes me feel…”

  “Like you-know-who?”

  I take a deep breath and let my lips flap like a horse. “Yeah. Which is stupid because we were kids in high school and emotions run high at that age.”

  “My mom and dad met at that age. They’ve been married for more than thirty years and they still have the hots for each other, so I wouldn’t be too quick to dismiss it as kid’s stuff. Maybe it was the real thing.”

  “If it was the real thing he’d still be around. And I’m glad he’s not. Once a cheater—”

  “Always a cheater,” Dell says.

  She stops short of a white car in front of us, narrowly missing it, then swerves the car two lanes to the right into the departure lane. She stops in front of my airline and we make slow business of getting out of the car.

  We give each other a big hug and Dell says, “Promise me we’re not going to be those people who say they’ll keep in touch but never do.”

  “I promise. You have my number and my mom’s address.”

  “Yes,” she pops the trunk and removes one of my bags. “By the way, you look hot in those jeans.”

  “I can barely breath in them. Way too soon to be trying to wear jeans from my high school days.”

  “Nonsense. You’re rocking the hell out of ’em.” She sighs. “Okay, girl, this is it.”

  “Dell, you’ve been awesome.”

  “I’m not saying goodbye,” she says, slamming down the trunk. “See you later. Have a safe journey.”

  Another quick hug and she’s off. I stand there for a second and watch as her car speeds out of sight.

  “Yeah, you too.”

  In less than an hour, I’m in my aisle seat on the plane and seriously debating whether or not to discreetly undo the top button of my jeans.

  “Too soon,” I mutter to myself. “About six pounds too soon.”

  “Excuse me,” an attractive older man interrupts my self-admonition. “I’m at the window.”

  “Sure thing,” I say and unbuckle my seatbelt so he can squeeze by the empty middle seat to get to his. We are clumsy in the tight cabin as we trip and shuffle around each other. He finally collapses like a boulder into his seat. He looks about as comfortable as a linebacker on a tricycle.

  When I reclaim my own seat, sharpness suddenly pierces my thigh. Flight attendants buzz down the aisle, closing the last of the overhead bins, and I nearly jab one of them with my elbow as I try to remove whatever is in my pocket that’s pinching the hell out of me.

  Well, I’ll be damned. . .

  I examine the cheap gold necklace with the half heart hanging precariously from the thin chain. I’d forgotten I had it. I run my finger over the jewelry, remembering how much it had meant to me, how much he had meant to me, my hero. Back in the days when I actually believed in heroes and fairytales. He’d slid it across the table to me while we were at the library. I was there to study. He’d shown up to study me. Those were good times. Up until they weren’t.

  I toss the chain in the pocket of my blazer and settle back in my seat, willing myself not to wonder if his eyes are still that rich gold with a hint of green. I pray that I never find out.

  The aspirin I took this morning is finally kicking in and I close my eyes to help ease the persistent throb. I thought I’d closed my eyes only for a minute during takeoff, but when I open them, the flight attendant is asking me if I’d like a beverage.

  “Yes, ma’am,” I say and stop short. No, ma’am. My ma’am and sir days are officially over. The flight attendant looks at me expectantly.

  “Water,” I say.

  She hands me a plastic bottle the size of a toddler’s sippy cup.

  “Can you believe this?” I ask the guy sitting in the window seat. “Water and pretzels and we have to pay for our carry-ons. Prisoners get better snack food. I miss the good old days.”

  “The good old days?” he says and chuckles. It’s deep, slow, indulgent, like that of Santa Claus. He strokes his low-cut beard and I notice flecks of gray in it. I put him to be about fifty. A very fit fifty, I might add, but the gold band around his finger is as effective on me as a cross is to a vampire. “You can’t possibly know anything about the good old days. Like when you could walk your loved ones right up to the door of the plane.”

  “In the waiting area?” I ask, disbelieving.

  “Yep.” He leans in closer. “Or you could get a meal on this very same flight and, although it wasn’t all that great, at least it was warm and came with dessert.”

  “I’ve never had a meal on a plane.”

  “And an entire can of soda. Two whole cans of sodas if you wanted to live large.”

  “Now you’re telling stories,” I tease.

  “And then there were the days when…No, I’m not sure you can handle that.”

  “Try me,” I say, enjoying the game.

  “There was a time when you could put an entire full-sized bottle of shampoo and conditioner in your luggage and walk it right onto the plane like you were a big shot walking onto a private jet.”

  “Shut up.”

  “I knew you couldn’t handle the truth.”

  I extend my hand for a shake. “Congratulations. You are officially an old geezer.”

  He laughs hard at this and accepts my handshake. He has the type of eyes that reminds me of a St. Bernard puppy, warm and loyal. Those are exactly the type of eyes that could dupe an unsuspecting woman.

  “An old geezer named Jeff Mead.”

  “Sergeant Cole.” Ugh! There I go again. “Callia. Callia Cole.”

  “Callia? Never heard that name before.”

  “It’s easy to remember if you think of Kahlua.”

  “Kahlua,” Jeff says. “Maybe that was intended to be your name but they messed up at the hospital.”

  “Ha! If you knew my parents you’d know they would never name me after liquor.” I mime drawing a square.

  Jeff asks, “You just got out?”

  “Yep.”

  “I used to be in the military, too. Which branch?” Jeff Mead asks and sips his soft drink.

&
nbsp; “The best one there is.” I smile at him.

  Jeff raises a challenging brow at me and says, “Go blue.”

  I reach out my fist and we bump. “Go blue,” I say.

  “So why’d you get out?” Jeff pops a pretzel into his mouth. “You did your twenty?”

  “Watch it, buster,” I say.

  “I’m fooling with you,” he says. “I did four years, got my degree, then went back into the real world. Taking orders doesn’t suit me.”

  “I did ten years. For a girl who needed a safe harbor until she figured out what she wanted to do with her life, the military seemed like a good place to hide.”

  “You figured it out?”

  I open my pack of pretzels and nibble one. Pretzels have always reminded me of what I imagine chalk to taste like. Now if they were covered in dark chocolate, I could have a good time of it.

  “Not really. But my mother is getting older, my dad is deceased, and I’m tired of the sameness of it, you know?”

  “Sameness. Shoot, the military always had me going from one place to the other. I craved sameness.”

  “Yeah, but even the moving gets old. Losing people.”

  “Oh, my goodness, yes. You never get used to leaving someone you love.” He drifts off for a second then turns his narrowed eyes back on me. “You left a boy behind?”

  “No, nothing like that.”

  “You’re returning to a dude back home?”

  “Hah! Nope. Starting fresh.”

  “Hmm, and where is home? Let me know if I’m overstepping.”

  “No, it’s fine.” At the moment I find the small talk a comforting diversion from dwelling on what I’ve left behind or fearing what’s in front of me. “I live in a small town about thirty miles north of Manhattan called Trinity.”

  “Get out,” he says.

  “I would but I left my wings behind,” I say. “You know the place?”

  “I live there, too. We’re over in Richmond. My wife and I run a bed and breakfast and we live on the third floor of it.”

  I know Richmond—it’s the next town over from Trinity. It’s the place my dad drove us to as kids so we could gawk at the stately homes and manicured lawns. He told Carmen and me that we could live like that if we applied ourselves. Trinity, on the other hand, is an area of modest homes owned by working class folks who’d reached the pinnacle of their application.

  “Nice area,” I say.

  Jeff snorts. “If you think that’s impressive, you should see my tax bill. Tell you what,” he reaches into his jacket pocket and withdraws a business card. “I’d love it if you swung by sometime. Come by for breakfast when you can. Viv would love to meet you.”

  I take the card. Jeff Mead. Senior Corporate Trainer. Pathway Leaders and Learning Institute. “That’s sweet, but I can’t make you any promises.”

  “If you feel comfortable,” he says and takes another sip of his beverage, “drop in. I’m sure you and my wife will hit it off. And everybody can use a friend, right?”

  “Right,” I say, willing myself not to think of my beloved Dell and her big personality. “Right.”

  Chapter 3

  At baggage claim, Jeff offers to wait on me to retrieve my luggage and share a taxi. I decline the offer—I want a few minutes of “me time” before I get home, so I assure him I’ll be in touch and watch as he makes his way through the automatic doors, wheeling his carry-on behind him. I hope Jeff Mead is one of the good guys. One of the few men in the world—like my dad—who has promised his loyalty and has actually managed to honor his word. If there were more men in the world like that, then being in a relationship wouldn’t make me feel like I’m cruising on an airplane and at any moment the door will open and I’ll be pushed into the wind.

  Distrust is my life preserver. If every woman guarded her heart as protectively as I do, there would be fewer women turning over their paychecks to weight loss centers, desperate to show him what he’ll be missing. Television shrinks and unattractive men penning books about what women must do to keep a man in her life—short of chaining him to the bed—would be as passé as New Coke. There would be no reality shows where women claw at each other like wild cats over a man who’s only looking to score a quick romp, a little cash, and a few media impressions. Imagine if we all melted at the slightest attention that every handsome man paid us. The world wouldn’t exist; an ocean of estrogen floating above sea level, swallowing men and children whole. You hear that sound? That’s the sound of another woman who just slid into the ocean: first her heart, then her mind, and then her body. It isn’t noticeable. Even she can’t hear it. But it happened. Another woman has lost herself.

  I’ve sharpened my defenses to a fine point and there are only two things in this world that can make me fall to my knees and cry. The first is premium chocolate. Not that crap sold at quickie marts and corner stores for a buck and a quarter. No, I mean the really exquisite chocolate. The kind that is so smooth and dark and rich that you know you’re going to have three zits on your face the next day and damn it, you don’t care. I am committed to naming my first child—girl or boy—Ghirardelli.

  The only other thing in this world that can chip my well-suited armor is my mother’s voice. Not just my mother’s voice, I should clarify. But the sound of my mother’s voice asking me in that sweet, cajoling, distinctly manipulative manner of hers to do something she knows I don’t want to do. This time, she’s used it to ask me to come home. Mind you, Mother Cole, as all of her church friends call her, didn’t ask me to separate from the military completely. That was my choice. She simply asked me to come home for as long as I could because she missed my sweet giggles. She actually said that. I miss your sweet giggles. Mom knows how to wrap me like twine around her arthritic little finger. She reduces the armor around my heart to fragments of cheap tin.

  After grabbing my luggage, I walk out to the taxi stand. It doesn’t take long for a taxi to pull up and I give him my home address. Although it is early summer, the weather in New York is in sharp contrast to Florida. The sun is gentle here, not aggressive; the air is cool and comforting instead of wet and smothering. Long gone are salty scents of the Gulf of Mexico and the sight of swaying palm trees. Now I am surrounded by diesel fumes and fast food. I stop at Penn Station and take an Amtrak train up to my town, where I hop in another taxi that takes me home.

  As we drive, I see how a tough economy has affected this working-class neighborhood. If my father were still alive, he’d be heartbroken to see the homes here, all chipped paint and broken wooden banisters, or fences in need of repair. The community has turned into a microcosm of any large city, I suppose, with an invisible line distinctly drawn between the haves and the have-a-whole-lot-mores. As the taxi rounds the corner to our street, I notice a community watch sign on the corner has been spray painted, undoubtedly by bored teens left home alone while their parents worked overtime to keep up with the tremendous cost of living in this struggling suburb.

  “Right here,” I tell the driver when we pull up to my house. The curtains flutter shut before I can see who’s standing behind it. I give the guy a few bills and tell him to stay put and pop the trunk. A needless instruction, considering he didn’t look like he would dislodge his butt from the seat anyway. He must be a transplant from the city.

  “My baby’s home!”

  The pint-sized drag queen charging at me, I realize, is my mother. The last time I saw her was a couple of years ago when I slipped in quietly to spend Christmas with her while Carmen was in the Bahamas with girlfriends. Over the years, my mother has become a little more eccentric, with heavier makeup and a growing wig collection. Now, however, she looks as though she has crossed the line from eccentricity to straight-up madness.

  “Mom, hi,” I say and hug her tightly. The wisps of her short, curly wig tickle my nose. The fluffy mass stops at her neck but has height and width bigger than her body. “You look great,” I say. “Is this new hair?”

  She pats it and smiles. “The lady in
the book I’m reading has her hair kinda like this so I thought, what the hay? Oh, Cal.” She puts her warm hands on my cheeks. “You’re here to stay?”

  “Yeah.”

  “My girls are both home now. Just like old times. Well…” Her eyes dim and I know she’s thinking about Dad. Behind us, the taxi makes a three-point turn and burns rubber down the street.

  “Mom, let’s go inside.”

  She reaches down for one of my bags and I lightly slap her hand away. Once inside, I am overcome with disbelief. There are books everywhere. A bookshelf—at least five feet high—stands crammed with paperbacks. In front of the bookshelf, more books cover the floor in stacks. There are some on the recliner and, as I move further into the room, I see yet more on the kitchen counter. Some book spines have tiny pictures on them of shirtless men, half-clad women, and sexy, hungry-looking vampires.

  “We have so much catching up to do, Carmen.”

  “Callia,” I correct her. “Mom, this place is a fire hazard.”

  “That’s what everyone keeps telling me. If they read some of these novels they’d know I’m more likely to combust from the heat inside those covers than from anything else.”

  Great. My mother has turned into a dirty old woman.

  Although there are books everywhere, the house smells of Pine-Sol and the carpet still shows fresh tracks from the sweep of a vacuum cleaner. Mom has never been a fan of housekeeping, so I wonder if Carmen has come over with her toothbrush and bleach.

  She used to be such a neat freak. Even as a teen, Carmen kept her closet arranged by color. The night before school she’d lay out her earrings, watch, socks, and hair accessory that coordinated with her clothes. One night as she slept, I snuck into her room because, well, why not? I went to her bureau and switched the positions of her earrings and headband that she had laid out for the next day. She awakened that morning, screaming bloody murder about how her things had been tampered with. Tampered with. As though her earrings had been submitted into state evidence as Exhibit A.

  “I’ll take these suitcases up to my room.”

  “We’ve got plenty of time for that,” Mom says. She pulls up the material of her ankle-length dress—a hybrid between a nightgown and a summer dress—and fans it across the sofa. I sit beside her with far less grace. “Your sister will be by this evening, and then we can all head out to dinner. She would’ve picked you up but she’s been pretty busy at the shop.”