No Perfect Secret (11 page)

“Yeah,” added JoJo. “We’re thinking a massive tsunami is gonna happen. One that will make those earlier ones seem like kiddie waves.”

Clarence turned the computer so everyone could see. Big black headlines warning of a tsunami from the eruption of a volcano called
Cumbre Vieja
in the Canary Islands. “The last eruption was in 1949. The next one is going to split off part of the island into the ocean and that’s going to make for a very big wave—over three hundred feet high. By the time it gets to the Eastern seaboard of the US, it will still be about a hundred-forty feet high.”

JoJo was nodding. Her purple, spiked hair did not move so much as a quarter inch. “So we’re thinking of selling our condo on Sanibel Island in Florida.”

“That’s why we’re going to Guatemala for the New Year, instead of Sanibel,” added Clarence. “The Mayan pyramids are the largest on earth. JoJo and I are going to climb them.”

“We want to feel the vibes. You know, what the Mayans were feeling.”

“Sanibel is off the West coast of Florida,” said Lila. “I went there with the Colonel maybe fifty years ago—before it was built up—and Cedar Key, too. We used to watch the Portuguese washing their sponges.”

“But there’s no use being in Sanibel when the rest of Florida is gone
—Miami, Daytona, St. Augustine, Jacksonville—washed away—every city along Highway One—literally washed off the face of America.”

Anna turned slightly towards Caburn, and whispered. “Eschatology.”

“Eska what?” He leaned close, his eyes downcast. The view down her sweater was world-class awesome. She smelled lollypop-licking good.

“Eschatology
, the study of the end of the world. That’s what they’re into.”

“Oh, not St. Augustine,” said
Clara-Alice, coming to life. “Kevin and I used to vacation there before he married Anna. We stayed with—I mean, we stayed in a place right on the waterfront facing Matanzas Bay. It was glorious. We walked up and down St. George Street, toured the old fort, saw the oldest house, the oldest school, and Flagler College. Henry Flagler built it, but as a hotel. All the frieze work was done by Italian artists and the windows were by Louis Tiffany. Exquisite! It would be awful if it was washed away.”

Anna stiffened slightly, not certain what she was hearing. She had asked Kevin about his visits to St. Augustine on numerous occasions. He refused to talk about it. Furthermore, last year she’d done some research for a trade delegation on potato growers in St. Johns County. St. Augustine was located in St. Johns, so she’d skimmed some of the historical data. It looked like a great vacation spot: St. Augustine billed itself as: 26 Miles of Beache
s and the Rest is History. Five hundred years of it. She had brought it up to Kevin. Clara-Alice refused to fly, but they could drive. Kevin nixed it. Would not even consider it. She couldn’t fathom why such a thing as a vacation destination was given such short shrift. Especially since both he and his mother had visited St. Augustine, and on more than one occasion.

Caburn had
noted JoJo’s attention go on full alert when Nesmith was mentioned. He stood up, pulled his notebook from Clarence’s hands, snapped it shut and began packing peripherals for a second time.

Anna stood up, stepping out of his way. “It was nice meeting all of y
ou folks.” She turned to Lila. “We need to go home.” She didn’t wait to see if Lila and Clara-Alice followed her out of the tea shop.

Caburn caught up with her. “Anna!”

She shook her head. “No and no. You know what Kevin has done. That woman in there—Helen—she knows what Kevin has done.
I want to know. Why won’t you tell me?”

“Here’s my card. If you need anything
—”

She snatched it from his fingers and tore it half. “I need answers. My life is on hold
—don’t you get that?”

“I do get it, more than you know. Tell me what upset you in there? Those weirdoes Helen dragged in?”

Anna rolled her eyes. “Those weirdos are just a couple of young adults. Very bright ones at that. They’re just trying to find their way in a screwed up world.”
Like I am right now
. Anna put the torn business card in her coat pocket. “My mother-in-law startled me talking about vacationing with Kevin. She had a guilty look on her face, as if she’d just revealed a secret. I mean—it was before Kevin and I married. I think it’s nice that they went on vacation together.”

“Would it help if I looked into that?”

“How?”

“Do you know if your husband keeps weekly or monthly notebooks, sort of like diaries
—with dates, travel times, stuff like that?”

Yes, he
does
. She special ordered them—one of her annual Christmas gifts to him. “Let me think about it.”

“That’s a non-answer.” The winter sun was weak on Anna’s face, but Caburn was seeing her as she would look on canvas. An artist would have to use lots of light and shadows to catch her oval beauty, to show the intense depth of her copper-flecked brown eyes.

“You’ve been flinging non-answers to my questions left and right. Two can play that game. I’m still going to think about it.”

Oh, boy! He really screwed that up.

She turned away, leaving Caburn standing on the sidewalk.

Even as he was a
dmiring the lithe way she moved and the long strides carrying her away from him, facets of the investigation surged into his mind. Its labyrinth a maze of truths and lies, each of which Anna would have to face, absorb, and suffer. His hand touched the pocket that held Nesmith’s diary. His face tightened, and he felt himself filling with outrage at the unjustness and emotional devastation headed Anna’s way. And—not just Anna. If there was any single notion of truth in this world, it was that Kevin Nesmith was one of the devil’s profanities.

~~~~

Anna had the car toasty warm by the time Lila and Clara-Alice arrived.

“I’m having a party Sunday,” Lila said, settling herself into the front seat. “Clarence and JoJo are coming. They are so smart and interesting. Maybe, Helen, too. But I don’t know. She’s a strange one! I haven’t given a party in forty years. It’s going to be so much fun. When I asked them, they burst into tears. Can you imagine? JoJo said no one has ever asked them into their home.”

“That purple hair would scare anybody off,” sniped Clara-Alice from the back seat.

Lila turned to look at her. “Excuse me? Don’t we go to Mitzy’s Salon every other Saturday? What color is your hair when we come out?”

“That’s different. That’s a rinse to cover my grey!”

“Purple is purple,” Lila said with finality. “Anyway, Anna, I thought you might make Chicken
Cordon Bleu. I bought enough food to last three months—or until that awful tsunami comes. We don’t want to cook anything Christmassy so close on the holidays.”

“No, we don’t,” said Anna. “Lila, girl, you are really wound up.”

“I know it. Having a party is so fun. And get this, Clarence has OCD—so he’s got to come early and clean everything—otherwise he might have an anxiety attack. JoJo is going to put her magic fingers to work on the Colonel’s old Mac computer and fix it up so I can go online. I can’t wait to get into all those political blogs! The
Post
won’t publish my letters. The editor thinks I’m some old crank. But I’ve lived under the administration of eighteen presidents—and that’s enough to make anybody cranky. This is so much better than knitting socks for old people!”

“You don’t knit,” said
Clara-Alice.

“Well, if I did.”

“
Eighteen
presidents?” said Anna, awed.

“Yep. Well, I was ten when Taft died. He was already out of office. He was alive when I was
—so he counts. He set up the parcel post system and that was a blessing to us folks who lived in the sticks.” She put her hand on Anna’s shoulder. “Thank you, Anna, today has been just great. I made two new
young
friends. Believe me, that’s something at my age. I really had a good time.”

“I did, too,” said
Clara-Alice in a tone that said a ‘but’ was coming, if not now—then later.

Anna helped Lila carry in her bags, and as she and
Clara-Alice were carrying in their own, Lila came rushing up.

“Anna! We forgot to buy Christmas trees!”

“Kevin always picks out our tree,” said Clara-Alice.

“Well, he doesn’t pick out mine, and I forgot it.”

“We can go to Safeway tomorrow,” Anna told her.

“That’ll work. Don’t let me forget some of those duraflame logs for the fireplace. We can’t have a decent winter party without a fire.”

Later, after Anna had put away groceries and arranged the flowers she’d bought; she poured a glass of white wine and carried it into her bedroom to relax on the chaise longue. Clara-Alice’s name calling preyed on her mind. Yet, the rest of the day had been very good. Recalling the happy family hauling their Christmas tree in a wagon caused a tiny tweak of envy. Well, more than tweak. She longed to have a child of her own. She couldn’t count the times she been a day late and had rushed out to buy a test kit. Month after month she tried to hide her disappointment from Kevin. Yet, there was no hiding it. Kevin seemed not to care. He was blasé, his standard comment, ‘We have each other. Why isn’t that enough for you?’

Now, she wondered:
Do we really have each other?
If she counted up the days and hours, she knew she would find that she spent more time with Clara-Alice than Kevin. That was not natural.

She went into the kitchen for another glass of wine.
Clara-Alice was sitting at the table, picking at the crab cakes from the Eastern Market, and from the look on her face, spoiling for a fight.

“
Clara-Alice, would you like a glass a wine?”

“No. I don’t want any wine and I don’t want that man, Frank, coming around here anymore either.”

“My, gosh. He’s just doing his job.”

“He shouldn’t be coming around when Kevin is not here.”

“That’s the very reason
he is
coming around. Kevin isn’t here.”

“I’m not blind. I saw the way he was looking at you at the tea shop.”

“Oh? How was that?”

“Like he could eat you up
—that’s how. Disgusting.”

Anna felt a miniscule thud in her heart. “He hasn’t been anything but business-like with me, or you, for that matter.”

“Kevin talks to me, you know. I know more than you think.”

Anna leaned against the counter and sipped her wine. “What do you know,
Clara-Alice? You want to tell me, so go ahead, spit it out.”

“I know you asked Kevin for a divorce and that you aren’t paying your share of the bills. Kevin told me you’re hoarding your money so you can leave. He said you’re having an affair and squandering his money. I’ve been loaning him money for over a year to pay the mortgage and the insurance on the cars.”

Anna could not breathe. A divorce? An affair! Hoarding money?

“That is so not true!” she managed, suddenly very, very afraid.

She moved to the computer, booted up and went to their bank site, her fingers flying over the keys as she typed in the password for their joint account.
Error. Incorrect password.
She tried again.
Incorrect password.
With Clara-Alice looking on she called the bank’s 24/7 hot line. When she finally got through to a person, she was told the password had been changed.
Sorry, but your name has been removed from the account.
The password could not be released to her
.
Anna thanked the voice and hung up. She checked her personal account. Sixteen hundred dollars a month had been transferred from her account to their joint household account. Anna went back a year to make certain no transfers had been missed. None had.

Ann was numb, beyond tears. She felt bruised, as if she’d fought a battle and lost. There was no use in speculation. Kevin had undone their marriage. It didn’t matter if it was another woman, gambling debts or illegal drugs, or smuggling on his job. Achingly she dragged her body from the chair. She felt hot all over. She drank a glass of water straight from the spigot. Then another.

She looked at Clara-Alice and felt an unbidden sense of pity for her. Kevin had lied to her as well. The question was how much financial damage had Kevin done—not only to their bank accounts, but to his mother’s?

“I wasn’t supposed to say anything to you,”
Clara-Alice said. “What’s going to happen now?”

“Nothing. I’ll try to sort things out on Monday.” Anna picked up her wine glass. “I’m going to bed.”

Anna came awake
gasping for air. She’d been having a nightmare. The room was dark. Not the dark of night, but filled with gray and an odd assortment of shadows. She couldn’t recall having turned out the lights. The sun had risen on a new day, but its sharp golden light lay hidden behind black scudding clouds. Her mood was as dark as the clouds. She went to sleep on a high stress situation and awoke suffering the same high stress. There was just no place to go with it. She somehow had to come to terms with a life event  she had never envisioned. Coping skills would be nice.