The Secret Life of CeeCee Wilkes

by Diane Chamberlain

  “Dahlia,” Naomi said, “would you go into the other room now and play? We need to have some grown-up time.”

  Dahlia grabbed CeeCee’s hand. “Let me show you my toys,” she said, as though she knew CeeCee would be more comfortable playing with her than she would staying with the “grown-ups.”

  “Go ahead,” Tim said. “We’ll fill you in on anything you need to know later.”

  Letting Dahlia drag her into the living room, she felt relieved. The conversation in the kitchen wasn’t going to be pretty. Please talk them out of it, she thought to herself. Please.

  “This is my Barbie.” Dahlia sat down on the braided rug and pulled a brunette Barbie doll from her toy box. It seemed laughable that this child of hippies owned a Barbie doll.

  “She’s pretty.” CeeCee sat down next to her.

  “She’s from a garage sale,” Dahlia said, running a finger over the doll’s miniature denim jeans. “So I’m happy I could give her a good home.”

  CeeCee smiled. The little girl touched her heart. She heard Tim say something in the kitchen but couldn’t make out the words. Forrest’s voice, deep and resonant, responded. Then Naomi said something unintelligible. She should be in there, taking part in their discussion.

  What’s wrong with you? she asked herself. She felt very young, as though she truly belonged here with Dahlia instead of in the kitchen. She was sixteen and looked more like fifteen and felt more like thirteen. Did everyone know it? Were they whispering about her in there? Wondering if it had been a mistake to involve her and if she was up to the task?

  “We’re not dragging you into anything!” Marty suddenly shouted. Someone else said, “Shh!”

  Dahlia looked at CeeCee, alarmed. “Why is that man yelling?” she asked.

  “Oh, it’s nothing,” she said. “He yells a lot. That’s the way he is.”

  Dahlia looked toward the kitchen for a moment, then returned her attention to the toy box. “And this is my wedding doll,” she said, pulling out a naked baby doll.

  “A wedding doll?” CeeCee asked, confused.

  “Wet-ting!” Dahlia said. She lifted the doll so CeeCee could see the hole between its legs. “She pees.”

  “Oh!” She laughed. “I get it.”

  There was an innocence in Dahlia that she envied. The little girl had no idea what her parents were discussing with Tim and Marty. She had no idea that her parents had once done something illegal and had at one time been known by other names. They’d had other lives. Was this how Tim would end up? Would she have to drive miles into the woods to be able to see him?

  “You have pretty eyes.” Dahlia stared at her.

  “Thank you.” CeeCee stroked her hand over the girl’s hair. “And you have the prettiest hair I’ve ever seen in my life.”

  “It’s gossamer,” the girl said.

  “It is.” CeeCee smiled. She wanted a child like this someday. She looked toward the kitchen. She couldn’t see Tim, but she could picture his green eyes and blond curls and full lips. They could have beautiful children together. She wanted to raise children the right way, with both a mother and a father. She would write letters to them every year, in case she died. She teared up at the thought.

  Dahlia reached out to gently touch CeeCee’s cheek. “Why are you crying?” she asked.

  “Oh, I think my eyes are a little burny today.” CeeCee used her fingertips to wipe away the tears. “I’m allergic to something, maybe.”

  “Agnes?” Dahlia pointed to the cat asleep on the back of the couch. “Mom’s friend is allergic to her.”

  “Maybe,” she said. “It’s not too bad.”

  Naomi came into the room, the baby, whose name was Emmanuel, in a sling tied over her shoulder. She squatted down next to Dahlia, her skirt flowing over her knees and touching the floor.

  “Hope she’s not wearing you out,” she said to CeeCee. Her smile looked forced.

  “Not at all,” CeeCee said.

  Naomi smoothed a hand over her daughter’s head. “Time for you to get ready for bed,” she said.

  “No, Mom,” Dahlia said. “I can stay up ’cause of company.”

  “This company has a lot to do tomorrow, so we can’t tire them out.” Naomi stood up, her hands under the sling and her baby’s little body. “Come on,” she said. “Hop to it.”

  The little girl got to her feet. She leaned over and kissed CeeCee’s cheek. “Good night. I love you,” she said, then turned and ran toward the hall.

  CeeCee watched her go. “She’s the nicest girl,” she said.

  “Thank you.” Naomi watched her daughter disappear into a room at the end of the hall. “She’s an angel most of the time.” She turned to CeeCee. “You come with me,” she said.

  CeeCee followed her down the hallway. They walked past a bedroom just big enough for a double mattress on the floor.

  “You and Tim can sleep in there.” Naomi nodded toward the room. “Marty can have the sofa.” She poked her head into another bedroom, this one with bunk beds. Dahlia was sitting on the bottom bunk, a Golden Book open on her lap.

  “You can skip your bath tonight,” Naomi said to her.

  “Yippee!” Dahlia bounced on the bed.

  “Daddy and I will come in later to tuck you in.”

  “Okay,” she said, returning her attention to her book.

  “She loves when we have company,” Naomi said as she turned the corner into the bedroom at the end of the hall. “Partly because she can’t tie up the bathroom.”

  This had to be Naomi and Forrest’s room. The double mattress rested on a frame off the floor and there were two old mismatched dressers. The room was poorly lit and smelled stuffy.

  “Sit here in front of the mirror,” Naomi said.

  Obediently, CeeCee sat on the edge of the mattress. She felt young and shy with Naomi, who had to be at least fifteen years her senior. In the dim light, she could barely see herself in the mirror above the dresser. She looked a little like a nun—pale-faced, with a habit made of long brown hair.

  Emmanuel let out a whimper as Naomi lifted him from the sling.

  “Can you hold him for a minute?” she asked. “I have to get something out of the closet.”

  “I’d love to.” She took the baby from Naomi’s arms and cradled him on her shoulder. Emmanuel mewed a little, then let his head fall against her as he sucked his fingers. His feathery blond hair brushed her cheek, and she pressed her lips to his temple. “How old is he?” she asked.

  “Four months.” Naomi opened a closet that was so neatly organized CeeCee felt a kinship with her. The outside of the house and its yard were a mess, but inside, it was clear that Naomi was in control.

  “You really have a nice house,” she said, as Naomi climbed onto a step stool inside the closet.

  “Thanks.” Naomi reached for a cardboard box on the shelf above the clothes. “We’ve been in it eight years, which is hard for me to believe. Time flies.” Grunting a little, she lowered the box to her chest and stepped off the stool. “Eight years, CeeCee.” Blowing away the thin layer of dust on the top of the box, she set it on the bed. “We’ve worked so hard to build a new life for ourselves here,” she said. “I know I’ve been…I’ve been an ungracious hostess tonight. Forrest thinks that helping you is no big deal. And I think what the three of you are doing is magnificent. I don’t disapprove at all, don’t get me wrong. That girl—Andie—she’s a victim of the system and you’re doing what needs to be done.”

  It meant something to her, hearing Naomi say that. She trusted this capable woman, and if Naomi thought what they were doing was magnificent, then maybe it was.

  “But involving us…” Naomi’s voice trailed off as she looked at Emmanuel, asleep on CeeCee’s shoulder. “We have too much to lose now.”

  “I’m sorry.” She felt terrible. “I just went along with what they told me. They said SCAPE members would help us and I—”

  “And we will help you. Just please…please forget you ever met us.”
/>   CeeCee nodded. “I will,” she said. “We will.”

  “Now let me take him back so we can give you an alter ego.” Naomi lifted Emmanuel from CeeCee’s arms and settled him once again in the sling. She opened the top of the box. “You’ve never done anything like this before, I take it,” she said.

  “Like what?” CeeCee asked.

  “Something you need a disguise for.” Naomi began pulling out wigs and masks.

  “Oh,” CeeCee said. She was amazed that anyone would have a box of disguises in her closet. “No, I haven’t.”

  Naomi put her fist into a short brunette wig and fluffed up the curls. “I hope it’s not only your first time, but also your last,” she said.

  “Me, too,” CeeCee said.

  Naomi set down the dark wig, then pulled out one with fluffy blond hair. She turned it upside down and gave it a shake. “It’s brave and loving, what you’re doing,” she said. “I’d like to think that if my kids were ever in the position Andie is, someone like you would help them out of it. But we have to make sure you can’t be identified. Not just for your sake, but for ours. So if you ever wake up in the middle of the night with a guilty conscience, kindly don’t turn yourself in. They’ll pick your brain until you can’t see straight, and the next thing you know, you’ll lead them right to our door.”

  “I won’t,” CeeCee reassured her again. “Tim said it’s really impossible for me to get caught. That there’s no way they can figure out where we’ll be holding the wife.”

  “You’ll be spending a lot of time with her, though. And once she’s free, they’ll be looking for the person who held her hostage. That’s why this disguise has to be foolproof.” She held up four wigs, two in each hand. “So, which color do you like?” she asked.

  CeeCee was still stuck on her words: They’ll be looking for the person who held her hostage. God, that was a frightening sentence! She studied the fake-looking hair with a new intensity. “This one.” She pointed to the blond wig. “It’s as different from mine as it can be.”

  Naomi dropped the other wigs to the bed. “Put your hair up and we’ll pin it.” She stood up, one hand under Emmanuel, and pulled a box of bobby pins from a dresser drawer. CeeCee wrapped her hair around and around her head, flattening it in place with the pins. Then she pulled on the wig.

  “A perfect fit,” Naomi said. “How does it feel?”

  “Okay,” she said. She looked in the mirror. It was clown hair, thick and curly and silly looking. She touched it with her hands, then closed her eyes, suddenly weary. “Naomi, can I ask you a question?”

  “You can always ask,” Naomi said. “Whether I answer is another matter.”

  “I’m…” She wasn’t sure how to express her thought.

  Naomi had her hands in the box again. “You’re what?” she asked.

  “I’m worried about how Tim and I will get to see each other after this is over, with him having to go underground and everything.”

  “It won’t be easy.” Naomi pulled out a black eye patch, glanced at it, then tossed it on the bed. “Forrest and I managed to find a way, though.”

  “But you’re both in hiding, right?”

  “We met in SCAPE many years ago,” she said, “but more than that, it’s better you don’t know.”

  “Okay,” she said. She was catching on that no one wanted to know too much about anyone else in this business.

  “You have very distinctive features.” Naomi studied her face. “You’ll really need a full-face kind of mask.” She rummaged through the box and pulled out a plastic mask, the face of a princess topped by a gold crown. “I think this is supposed to be Sleeping Beauty or something,” she said. “It might be a little small.” She stretched the elastic over CeeCee’s head and set the mask in place. “No, it’s perfect,” she said. “Can you breathe okay?”

  “I can breathe,” she said, although she wondered how long she could wear the mask without going crazy.

  “Good. Don’t take it off while you’re with the wife. If you have to eat, do it where she can’t see you. And try to disguise your voice when you talk to her,” Naomi said. “And the final thing is, you don’t want to leave fingerprints anywhere in the house or cabin or whatever it is. So.” She pulled out a plastic bag filled with gloves. Yellow rubber gloves. Clear latex gloves like a doctor would wear. Heavy wool men’s gloves. “Let’s go with these light white ones.” Naomi handed her a pair of lacy white gloves. They looked as though they’d never been worn. “Try them on.”

  CeeCee pulled on the gloves. The fabric was stretchy and felt warm on her hands. “Good thing it’s not summer or I’d die in this getup,” she said.

  Naomi nodded, adjusting the mask a little. “It was summer when I had to wear a disguise,” she said. “I threw away that mask. I never wanted to see it again.”

  “What were you?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Like, I’m sort of Sleeping Beauty…”

  “Oh. I was some kind of space alien or something. It was weird.”

  “Can you tell me what you did?” she asked. Was it as bad as what I’m going to do?

  “That’s one question you don’t ask someone who’s gone underground,” Naomi said. “It would put both you and me in jeopardy. I don’t like that we know as much as we do about what you guys are plotting.” She put the other wigs back in the box. “I’ll tell you though, people died because of what Forrest and I did. That part was an accident. We never meant that to happen, but we’d end up on death row alongside Andie if we got caught. And our kids…” Naomi’s voice trailed off. She peered into the sling at her son, then closed her eyes for a moment as though imagining the worst.

  CeeCee shivered. She could feel the dread that hung over Naomi’s world. “You won’t get caught,” she said, as if she knew that for a fact. She looked at herself in the mirror. A blond Sleeping Beauty stared back at her. “I can’t believe I’m really going to do this.”

  “You’re scared?” Naomi asked.

  CeeCee nodded.

  Naomi closed the box and moved it to the floor. “Think of a time you were courageous,” she said.

  CeeCee thought. She’d never done anything that qualified as courageous. “I can’t think of anything.”

  “I don’t mean mountain climbing,” Naomi said. “I mean something courageous you did in your everyday life.”

  She suddenly remembered being with her mother when she died. She’d been terrified, unable to imagine what it would be like to be with her when life left her body, yet she knew her mother needed her there, and so she stayed. She held her mother’s bruised hand as she left the world. It had taken all the courage she had.

  “Did you think of something?” Naomi asked.

  “I stayed with my mother while she died,” she said.

  “Oh, CeeCee.” Naomi touched her shoulder. “How old were you?”

  “Twelve.”

  “Damn, you were courageous,” Naomi said. “I couldn’t have done that when I was twelve. When you start getting nervous, remember the courage you had that day and you’ll start feeling it again. Okay?”

  She doubted it would be that simple. “All right. I’ll try.” CeeCee lifted the mask from her head. “Thanks, Naomi,” she said. “For everything.”

  She and Tim made love on the mattress in the small bedroom that night. Her body felt even more numb than usual when he entered her, and she was angry at it. She thought of Ronnie telling her to fake it. Who knew when she and Tim would get to make love again? How long would they be apart? It would be a gift for him. A gift that would keep her in his mind until they were together again.

  She began to pant, to writhe a little beneath him. Not wanting to overdo it, she only let a small moan escape her lips, but she felt his excitement mount and she grew more vocal. It was pretty easy once she got into it. She arched her back, biting the corner of the pillow as she shuddered with her counterfeit orgasm.

  Tim came an instant after her performance. “Oh, babe,” he
said, his breath hot against her ear. “That was the best ever. The best ever.”

  “It was,” she agreed.

  He rolled onto his side, pulling the covers over her shoulder as he held her close.

  “I love you so much.”

  “I love you, too,” he said. “I want you to know how much I appreciate what you’re doing for me. For Andie. It’s so generous.”

  “Thank you.” She liked the acknowledgment.

  “And that was phenomenal sex.”

  “It was,” she said again. She felt guilty for misleading him.

  “You weren’t faking that, were you?”

  Damn. Why did he have to ask her straight out like that? How could she lie to the man she loved? It would make a mockery of their relationship.

  “Of course not,” she said, her heart sinking a little with the words.

  Tim let out a long sigh. “Tomorrow’s going to be hard, babe,” he said. “And I realized when I saw you in that Sleeping Beauty getup that you have the hardest job of the three of us. Do you regret saying you’d help us?”

  She hesitated. Did she? She was doing something magnificent, Naomi had said. “I don’t think I’ll know the answer to that until it’s over,” she said. “I…you know what I’ll regret, Tim. I’ve told you so many times, you’re sick of hearing it.”

  “What?” He sounded puzzled. How could he possibly not know?

  “I’m worried about how we’ll ever get to see each other again,” she said.

  He hugged her. “That, my little Sleeping Beauty, should be the least of your worries.”

  What did he mean? Why couldn’t he, for once, tell her exactly how they would work it out? She was tired of his vague responses to the question. She needed to know more. She needed details. And this was her last chance to ask for them.

  “Tim,” she whispered, gathering her courage, “I need to know what you mean when you say it will work out. At least tell me what might happen. How will you be able to let me know where you are? How can you do that without putting yourself…putting both of us, at risk?”