No Perfect Secret

Copyright 2014 by Jackie Weger

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ISBN: 1500977101

ISBN-13: 978-1500977108

Cover Design: The Cover Collection

Formatting by Rich Meyer of Quantum Formatting Service

Copy Editing by Carolyn Steele of Friendly SEO

CHAPTER ONE

Anna
Nesmith tugged
on a white velour caftan, its cool silk lining whispering over her supple flesh. She stood very still, trying to disengage her mind from her body's reaction to the silk. The mental trick did not work.
Kevin...Kevin... You have to find time for me—and soon.

She went into his closet and buried her face into an old favorite sport coat
—one Kevin wore with jeans or khakis. Around the collar and lapels, the coat was redolent with the faint scent of
Jean Patou
. She inhaled deeply, and her loneliness became a thing so alive, so unbearable, her knees refused to support her; she folded slowly onto the floor, bringing the coat with her.

Anna
inhaled and exhaled slowly several times, calming the thud of her heart before she returned the coat to his closet. Her thoughts shifted to all the reasons they had not made love in weeks: Kevin worked on his days off or he was jet-lagged, or worse and least acceptable—his mother, Clara-Alice, was not feeling well—and bedroom doors had to be left open.

There were other reasons, problems
Anna felt like a weight inside her—arguments about money, when best to start a family, the subtle manipulations Kevin foisted upon her and which served to erode her sense of self. That was an argument in itself.

Yet everything her eye touched these days seemed to have some sort of sensual symbolism, like the Renoir print,
Le bal a Bourgival,
hanging over the bed on the textured gray wall. The couple portrayed actually seemed to be moving in their dancing embrace, and in her mind, Anna carried their delicately painted movements into bed.

In the small reading nook was the chaise longue, covered in Chinese silk
—an ordinary piece of furniture—yet as soon as she picked up a book or magazine and leaned back onto the soft, feathery pillow, her mind strayed; she saw herself lying upon it and beckoning to her husband to join her in sensual play.

Sadly, that was
mere fantasy. She ran her fingers along the spines of her favorite books, some she had owned since childhood. Volumes of
Nancy Drew
, a library of
How and Why
, four coffee-table sized books thick with children’s poems and stories, from
Jack and the Beanstalk
to
Sing a Song of Six Pence
and
A Visit from St. Nicholas
, which every child in the world knew as
Twas the Night Before Christmas
—all of which she hoped to read to her own children one day. There was C. S. Forester’s
The African Queen,
tattered and held together with a rubber band
.
Anna thought it the best love story she’d ever read, even better than
Doctor Zhivago.

But books and love stories could not take the place of the real thing.
The longing for a child was so deep within her psyche she seldom mentioned it any more for fear she would sound obsessed. Nor could she fathom what was so wrong with her marriage that her husband wanted her so seldom.

She began the ritual self-inventory
to boost her self-esteem. Not that it worked as well as one hoped, but it was usually enough to remind her to be thankful for the life and opportunities she had when so many others in the world had none. Moreover, it had become a habit, a mental litany, which she suspected was not healthy. She had graduated college with a degree in Library Science. Of course, librarians were dull by anyone’s standards—she knew her expression was often serious, but a smile or laughter transformed her. Lord knows, she had practiced for hours in front of mirrors to make it happen.

She could cook. Not only ordinary everyday meals, but
a few fabulous concoctions that pleased the eye, and did not disappoint the palate. She had used a portion of her inheritance from her widowed mother to treat herself to a year in France and she had not squandered her time. She had attended
Le Cordon Bleu,
sharing a miniscule flat in the 15th arrondissement with another student from Ottawa. Not only had she learned to cook and speak passable French, as well, the experience gave her otherwise dull résumé élan.

She kept
a moderately clean house, her decorating skills honed by visits to museums, villas great and small in the French countryside, wineries, and elegant shops.

I have a well-paying job
. That, too, was a bonus, especially in these difficult economic times. She was a Senate research assistant at the Library of Congress, a job that was neither exciting nor glamorous, but the holy truth was that outside of politics, few ordinary jobs in D.C. were glamorous. She did not mix with the public or tourists, but worked like the other staffers in a warren of cubbies below street level. She worked on demand and those usually from a secretary or speech writer for a famous orator—or one who hoped to be famous and in the limelight. She had been beside herself with excitement the first time a query came in for an obscure quote from Lincoln’s papers. She watched the political news to catch it being broadcast, only to learn the quote had been included in a document read into the Congressional Record for posterity—not for public consumption, unless it one day turned up in a biography of the late great and very dead.

On the physical side, she was
not pencil-thin chic, but all soft curves and her flesh hugged her bones. She wore her richly brown hair parted on the side, and kept it professionally cut so that it framed her face and loosely brushed her shoulders. At least, that was how she imagined it the first few hours out of the salon until a muggy or foggy mist rolling over the city had her putting it into a ponytail, or like she had worn it today—shoved beneath a knit cap pulled down over her ears because comfort was everything.

A flirty old Frenchman had once told her that she had eyes that lived, that saw and recorded life
,
enchanting eyes
. After which he’d invited her to his apartment for an aperitif. When she declined, he’d laughed, ‘Ah! You Americans—so prudish.’ Enchanting eyes, indeed. Perhaps that had been true ten years ago; all she saw these past months were brown eyes made darker by angst and unrest.

She had one of those oval faces people always thought were so photogenic
—no compression, no sultriness—a high forehead and well-shaped mouth. The funny part was she didn’t photograph well at all. She was always the one in the group with her mouth hanging open or eyes closed or looking down at her feet.

Clara-Alice
bolted into the bedroom, startling Anna into a sharp adrenaline rush.

“Anna! There’s a strange man sitting in a car parked behind your Saab. He’s just sitting there, staring at our house.”

“Clara-Alice—please! I’ve begged and begged you. Knock! Even if the door is open—knock.” Please, God, somehow allow me a life, some privacy—a fulfilling marriage and a mother-in-law who lives on the other side of the country. The plea was no more in her mind than Anna felt an instant stab of guilt.

“Let’s turn off the lamps in here
.” Clara-Alice moved around the bed switching off the lamps without waiting for Anna’s consent.

Anna tried not to sigh, but it escaped anyway. “Let’s go into the kitchen. I’ll make us some chamomile tea.”

“No. I don’t like chamomile.” Clara-Alice pulled back the heavy cotton-lined drapes, and tweaked a blind, peeking out to the street. “It’s starting to sleet. Now the windshield wipers are going.”

Folding her arms, Anna leaned against the doorjamb of the darkened bedroom and waited. Outside
, the winter wind howled, a companion to her thinning patience screaming for relief.

Her mother-in-law had been in the Pentagon when American Airlines Flight 77 flew into the building. A low-level file clerk, Clara-Alice had escaped with no physical injuries, but so traumatized by the experience that she never returned to work. Within a few
months it became apparent that she was so fearful and dysfunctional she would need long-term care.

Anna
and Kevin had been married just nine days when those tragic events unfolded. They had returned to Washington only two days before September 11 after having spent five rapturous honeymoon days in Cabo San Lucas.

Anna had used half of the balance of her inheritance for the down payment on their newly
-purchased home, and before she saw it coming Kevin insisted his mother move in with them. Anna recalled how Kevin wore her down
. He was an only child. He promised his father he would always take care of his mother. Why did she feel so compelled to start their marriage with an argument that made no sense? By the time they were ready to start a family, Clara-Alice would surely be stable, no longer so high strung, and able to function on her own.

She
loved her husband. She wanted him to be happy and worry-free. She believed his every word.

She had to give Kevin credit
—he was wonderfully skilled at guilt maneuvering. The bedroom she had planned for a nursery belonged to Clara-Alice—and had done for years. If Kevin were home more often, he would see for himself how impossible the situation was becoming. Though Clara-Alice refused to fly and needed a lot of emotional support, in Anna’s opinion, her mother-in-law was now entirely functional.

“Anna,”
Clara-Alice whispered, “The man is out of the car and coming up our sidewalk.”

“Maybe it’s Kevin. He probably caught a ride from the airport.”

“No, it not Kevin, I know what my only son looks like. This man is too tall. He’s wearing a hat, like the one Humphrey Bogart wore in
The Maltese Falcon
. Oh, the wind just blew his hat off.”

“All right. I’ll see what he wants.”
They lived in one of the older neighborhoods in Washington that wasn't backed up to a ghetto, a government building, or an exquisite brownstone. In the years they had lived there, Anna had noticed subtle signs of deterioration along the patched boulevard; old growth tree roots had cracked the sidewalks; a few of the houses needed a coat of paint. On this house or that, a shutter was missing, yet there was nothing so alarming that Clara-Alice should fear anyone coming to the door.

Anna heard the
insistent tattoo of the brass doorknocker as she emerged into the hall. She put her eye to the viewer. The porch light was faint, wobbly in the wind and sleet. She could make out few details. In an aside she thought tomorrow’s news would be all about the damage to the cherry trees. The man had his muffler wrapped around his face almost to his eyes, and those were enigmatic. She saw his hand come up to the knocker again. She opened the door a crack. "Yes? May I help you?”

He unwound the muffler from his face. “Government business, Mrs Nesmith.
I have a few questions. May I come in?”

Clara-Alice
hovered nervously behind her. “What did he say?”

Anna took her mother-in-law’s arm. “
Give me a minute to find out. Now, be a dear, and put the kettle on for tea.”