Keeping Secrets (24 page)

He phoned again at six-thirty, one hour before the party was to begin. “I'll be on my way in five minutes. Fill the tub with hot water, will you?” I told him I would, bristling. He could stand reminding I wasn't his maid. Six weeks away, he could stand reminding a lot of things.…

It is almost painful to look back at myself on that night, recalling my confident mood as I stared into the mirror and placed the headband on my head—the final touch to my new “look,” which would have made Lyla Stuttgart sit back and take notice, masking her envy with a smile of approval.

When Emory walked through the door at seven o'clock he took one look at me, standing across the floor, and said, “My God.”

“It's the newest thing, don't you like it?”

“I've never seen you look more becoming … or should I say, tempting? What time is it anyway? Ah, never mind. Wait till I get you home. We won't be staying late.” He winked.

A little later, as he buttoned his shirt and reached for his tie, he glanced at me and asked, “How about your opals? Wouldn't they look good against—”

“I—I'm having the catch repaired on the necklace,” I interrupted quickly, then added, “Besides, I think maybe this dress is statement enough in itself, don't you?”

“You're probably right,” he agreed. I folded my hands, hoping he wouldn't notice the absence of the emerald ring from my finger.

I sat back on the bed and watched him pull on a tapered black waistcoat. Thin as he was now by comparison to three years before, he still did more justice to a suit of clothes than any man I had ever seen before or since we married. In truth, I wanted nothing so much as to walk up behind, put my arms around him, and forget the Tetzel party altogether. Yet, for him the party was business and therefore not to be missed. And I needed to speak to Adolph myself.

He turned around and opened his arms. “How do I look?”

“Handsome as ever.”

“Why do you look so glum all of a sudden?”

“Oh, I just wish we didn't have to rush out so fast. You've been away so long.…”

“I know. I've missed you, and I have a lot to tell you about, but it can wait till after the party. I feel good. Let's get going … I'm anxious to show you off.”

Well, that answers one of Lyla's questions anyway, I thought, and smiled to myself. Emory's good mood was becoming infectious as we left the bedroom, and started arm in arm down the stairs. Nathan had been dispatched to pull the car around to the front, and I could see its headlights moving toward the edge of the walk. But just then a white envelope at the foot of the stairs caught my eye.

Emory picked it up. “Your name's on it,” he said, handing it over. “Looks like someone slipped it under the door.” He walked out on the porch and looked around as I loosened the glue.

Shaking violently, I reached inside and pulled out a slip of paper, on which there was a short typewritten note: “A lucrative business opportunity at little personal risk is available. Come to the corner of Durango and Flores, three o'clock next Wednesday. An auto will be waiting.”

I read the note twice before I grasped its meaning, then stood stock-still, unable to speak.

“What is it?” Emory said, and snapped it from my hand.

I made for the nearest chair and slumped into it. I thought I was going to faint, but I could not take my eyes off his face as he read the words. He started to look toward me, then read the note again, one eyebrow cocked. Then he asked, “What's it all about?”

I looked down, and shook my head.

“Have you ever gotten one of these before?”

I looked up. “Of course not.”

He considered for a moment, then asked, “Have you been talking to anyone about my financial affairs—at the coffees or—”

“Certainly not,” I said, head down again. Could he have only seen, the meaning was very clear.

I looked at his face. His eyes were full of questions yet he didn't utter one. Finally he flung it aside and said, “Some son-of-a-bitch is pulling a cheap trick, that's all.”

“Yes … maybe that's it,” I said, weakly. My voice sounded hollow and faraway.

“Look, don't worry about it. Let me think on it. Let's go on to the party—we're late now. We'll talk about it when we get home.”

I stared at him. “Party?”

He knelt down in front of me and pressed his hands on my shoulders. “Now, you listen to me,” he said. “Maybe some maniac has been watching us and knows more than we'd like him to about our business. Maybe he knows I'm out of town a lot and thought he'd have a little fun with you. I don't know. But I can tell you one thing for damned sure. He didn't send you that little greeting to make your day more pleasant, and if he were outside somewhere watching, he'd love to know you're in here white as an Easter lily.

“No one is going to do that to my wife, do you hear? Now, get up.”

He must have lifted me to my feet. He helped me on with my coat. I felt like a drifting feather. In a moment we were at the door and I could feel the chilly air hitting my face. The car sat at the curb, lights glowing. I hesitated at the porch steps, and Emory, mistaking my thought, said, “It isn't Nathan. I can assure you of that.” He kept his hand on my elbow and guided me to the car.

Inside he asked Nathan, “Did you see anyone around here just now, leaving the house?”

“No. Were you expecting someone?”

“No. Let's go, and hurry up, we're late.”

He sat back and clasped my forearm. All the way there he neither looked at me nor spoke to me. He just rubbed my hands, over and over, and kept talking to Nathan about nonsensical things, as people do on the way to a funeral.

“We were about to begin without you,” said Sophie as we entered the dining room. I couldn't make out the inflection in her voice, but I heard Emory apologize and say he'd just arrived from out of town. He was close, very close, but sounded very distant. I looked over the crowd of expectant faces—it seemed like hundreds, each one peering right through me, yet there must have been no more than twenty guests. I could not seem to remember the occasion for the highly formal affair. Sophie was hurrying us around the table, explaining introductions could be saved for later. I spotted familiar faces, and tried to return their smiles, unsure what showed in my face. Emory was speaking, covering for me, guiding my elbow. It seemed a long way from one end of that white-clothed table to the other. Tall candles in huge silver candelabra, their flames glancing off mirrors underneath, and gleaming silverware, gilt-edged plates, and beveled crystal goblets graced the festive board. All of it shimmered in front of me. I think I was close to fainting.

Finally a servant seated me near the end, beside Emory. I was grateful to be positioned behind a huge, footed bowl of winter fruit. I managed to get through course after course of obviously sumptuous food that tasted like paste to me, my only comments as people began to notice I hardly touched the food, “I've been feeling a little off today, you see.” This explanation served very well because the look in people's eyes told me they speculated Emory and I were in the family way.

Tetzel was at the end just to Emory's left, and though they exchanged guarded comments throughout the dinner, Emory kept giving my knee a reassuring pat under the table so that I knew he wasn't ever disregarding my predicament. In fact he did not leave my side all night. He was unusually attentive, and though half the time I did not grasp what he said, I could not have been more grateful.

I wished to hide behind a pillar and sip champagne once the dancing began, but I was only halfway through the second goblet when Emory noticed Terence Brown, whom we'd met at a Tetzel party before and who had proved to be so divine on the dance floor. He was on his way toward me. Emory murmured, “Oh hell,” and, in order to save me from him, rose to his feet and took my hand. “Come on, we're going to dance.”

“Can we just go now?”

“No.”

It seemed everyone talked louder, laughed more, and behaved with more abandon than I'd noticed since I came to San Antonio. Maybe my shattered perspective was to credit, yet there seemed a tacit arrangement that we would not hold one another responsible for what happened that night. Did they all feel the time for grand parties such as this one was grinding to a desultory halt? No, I thought, it is only me … this kind of life will go on and on.…

Round and round we waltzed, as more people, not included in the dinner party, arrived for the dance. Emory held me closer than ever and once I looked down in shock to see the white crescents of my breasts above the plunging neckline of the black dress. It was the first time I'd even thought of the dress since I saw the envelope. “Oh heavens, I look indecent,” I whispered to Emory.

“Shut up. You do not. You look stunning, right in style.”

“What if it was someone here?” I said … maybe Mark knew someone here.…

“It wasn't, and even if it was I don't give a damn, do you hear? Will you ignore the bastards who pulled that nonsense? They're not fit to wipe your shoes. Now, throw your head back where everyone can see your beautiful face.” He clenched my spine tightly, forcing my head up into the glow of lights.

“Can we go now?”

“No.”

I looked at him then, and measured at last the strength of the man and the depth of his feelings for me. He had assumed my innocence of any dealings with the sort of people here in San Antonio who work in filthy, underhanded ways. Though he must have wondered tonight more than ever since he brought me here, he had not asked the one question I could not dare answer honestly: what were the things he did not know of me, the parts left out of what the agency he sent after me learned that might come back to haunt us both?

I knew at that moment I had been the petty one, gathering meager shreds of evidence against him and another woman; building up cases against him which did not exist, constantly setting limits upon the amount I was willing to give in our marriage because I did not understand any more than the tokens that lay on the surface of love. Little did I realize, until tonight, I wanted the Emory who had brought me ribbons so many years ago.

It was then, at last, I finally let go of the fantasy I'd clung to, and fell in love with the man Emory had become. Once I had entertained the notion that many years from now, after my debt was paid, and I was rid of Mark for good, I might tell Emory what I fought so desperately to hide over the past few years because it would lessen the guilt I endured alone. But I knew now that day would never come because I loved him far too much to hurt him that deeply.…

Afterward I relaxed somewhat as we danced, and enjoyed the feel of him next to me, the smell of him, the look in his eyes, riveted on me, and gradually found myself being carried along by the growing momentum of the party mood.

In a while we sat down again. Every few minutes, more champagne. Once I looked out at the floor to see Adolph Tetzel whirling around with Camille Devera, and soon after he was approaching our table, asking for my hand. An excellent dancer, he moved about the floor with sure-footed grace, and complimented me on my natural ability to hear the rhythms and follow. I told him he could thank his excellent champagne for that, whereas I wouldn't ordinarily have made such a statement. Tetzel threw back his head and laughed. His uncharacteristic reaction brought me to my senses and I said, “Have you an answer yet … please?”

“Now, now, my dear, you must trust me in this. I'll have more definite information shortly.”

I nodded, looking up at him hopefully. Uncertainty surfaced again as I realized that, like my husband, I had placed myself in Adolph's hands. I brought my face nearer his and said, “By Wednesday, you must,” then glanced quickly at the face of Emory, who sat alone at our table, watching us through cigar puffs. Adolph kept smiling and dancing. Had he not heard me?

“Doubtful,” was the only word I caught in his parting phrase, but I knew then he had heard.

Back to the table for more champagne, to make the prospect of Wednesday seem farther away.…

Near the end of the party, as Emory sat near me with his hand on my knee under the table, the orchestra began to play tango music. Never before had I felt such a rise of expectancy at the uneven beat of the music, nor become so charged by the dark, mysterious tones followed by shrill, exciting chords. Emory, apparently of the same mind, caught my hand and led me to the floor. What happened soon after was a rare space of time that could never be recaptured.

We began to tango with several other couples around us, all in “proper” form, stepping down the floor, knees slightly bent, arms straight out like arrows, moving together but as separate figures, conscious of the four short steps, then the long pauses as the tortuous music wound tighter and tighter.

Like all the rest, Emory and I were the pictures of correct execution, keeping our distance from each other, measuring time, concentrating on graceful control as the steps followed by closes went carefully ahead … one, two, three, four, close.…

Then all at once I saw a change in his expression, the crafty gambler caught off guard, revealing he was on the verge of wiping the table clean. Our bearing switched: our bodies were closer than skin to bone, moving as one, heads pressed together, thighs locked, two black contours closed, like a finished puzzle. The dance became a ritual of twirling, curving, sensuous motions … one, two, three, four, close, together, hold, turn … and the music went on and on until at last we were alone on the floor and all the people watched as we continued dancing, mesmerized by each other, nothing else in the world existing, the music flowing around and through us until, finally, we ended in the last prolonged close followed by the sudden deep bend, my head nearly touching the floor, and Emory above, his eyes fixed on mine, triumphant.

The audience cheered and clapped, and whistled as we left the floor together and Emory said, “
Now
, we will go.”