No Perfect Secret (19 page)

“Maybe you did. But Frank only got a tiny slice of it.”

“He could’ve asked for another—or cut it himself.”

“No he couldn’t. He was raised that it was not polite to ask for seconds.”

“Helen, so was I—but that’s only at birthday parties.”

“You Midwesterners are something else. I’m from the south where a cook is insulted if you don’t ask for seconds.”

“Well, I’ll bake another a cake. Let him eat the whole thing.”

“Do you like him?”

“Please. I’ve only just met him.”

“You’re avoiding the question.”

“Had I met him under different circumstances—”

“Different circumstances and you’d still be married to Nesmith.”

“I haven’t come to terms with being a widow yet.”

Helen slurped the last of her tea. “I guess that’s fair.”

Caburn came in through the back door and stood for a moment in the kitchen doorway shedding ice. Helen spotted him first.

“Oh
. Hi, Frank. You look pished...I mean, pissed.”

Anna turned. “Did you come to the front door? We didn’t hear you knock.” He had a very nice overcoat draped over his shoulders, beneath which was another hospital gown, and he had traded his Borsolino for a knit ski hat. Helen was right. He did look somewhat angry. Or, perhaps he was in pain, especially if his wound had to be restitched. He dropped a gym bag into a kitchen chair.

“Helen, you’re supposed to be taking care of Anna, not getting sloshed.” His coat slid off his shoulders, the hospital gown gaped, and Anna saw his arm was now taped to his side from shoulder to elbow.

Helen sniffed. “I’ve taken good care of Anna. She hasn’t had a tantrum, fainted, or pulled her hair out. I made certain she kept an ice bag on her ear, too.”

“This it?” Caburn asked, picking up the sealed plastic bag filled with melted ice.”

“My head feels fine,” Anna said in Helen’s defense.

“Mine feels a little woozy,” Helen admitted, and giggled. “Anna, tell me the truth, don’t you think he looks a little like Harrison Ford?”

Caburn glared at his colleague. “Where’s your coat, Helen? I’m calling you a taxi.”

Helen began to sing
Somewhere
Over the Rainbow
. She had a surprisingly fine soprano voice. She belted out the first chorus, then said sotto voce—“
zap!
”

Anna couldn’t help it. She laughed. Caburn scowled at her beneath his lashes. “Sorry,” she said. “Inside joke.” She hiccupped. “Oops.”

It took three phone calls to find a taxi service willing to brave the icy streets. And another fifteen minutes to get Helen together. Anna found her purse on a chair in the sun room, her coat behind the sofa in the living room, and work papers in a chair in the dining room. One-armed, Caburn hauled her to the taxi, paid the driver and tipped him twenty dollars to make certain Helen got safely into her front door.

Anna was brewing coffee when Caburn returned to the kitchen. “I pushed your little kilim rug aside,” he told her. “No drips.”

“I don’t give a fig for that runner any more.
Things
don’t seem so important now. You didn’t have to come back, Frank. I don’t need a babysitter.”

“It’s a damned good thing I did. Suppose Helen had tried to drive home?”

“I would’ve done just what you did, or put her in the guest room.” Anna began to stack the dishwasher. “What happened at the hospital?”

Caburn sighed. “The surgeon was royally upset that I had undone his ‘magnificent work’. He took great delight in redoing it with a whole lot less anesthetic.”

“Oh my goodness.”

“Goodness had nothing to do with it. I let out a few choice words. That embarrassed him, so I got a bit more anesthetic. Enough about me, why aren’t you in bed? It’s been a long day. You have to be worn out.”

“I had a nap, remember?”

He did remember and he also remembered who woke her up. She was either taking it in stride or burying it deep. She closed the dishwasher and began taking food out of the fridge, slicing tomatoes and sourdough bread, chopping fresh basil, and stirring it into mayonnaise. Caburn felt his stomach growl. It was past eleven. Coffee and cake would’ve taken care of his munchies, but the remainder of the cake had gone home with Clarence. “Are we eating?”

“Plain old toasted tomato sandwiches and coffee. I overindulged just a bit with the scotch. I’m afraid if I go to sleep with all that sloshing around inside of me, I might regret it in the morning. I have tons of things to do, and I’ll need a clear head.”

“
—If the city isn’t shut down because of the ice storm.”

Anna nodded. “Government offices might close, schools close, but grocery stores don’t, dry cleaners don’t. The post office will be open. Banks will be open. And I really, really need to find out what’s going on with our
—I mean—the household account.”

“If you get bad news at the bank, I
’ll help, if you’ll let me.”

She paused plating their sandwiches. “That’s a nice offer. Thank you, but I’ll be fine. If the bills hadn’t been paid, I would’ve had late notices by this time of the month. It’s just we kept a sizable cushion in the account against emergencies. I still have half of the money from selling my mom’s house in Mission. I didn’t tell Kevin how much I got for the place. I was saving it
as a surprise for when I needed to take a leave of absence from work, when I had—”
a baby
. She inhaled deeply. She wasn’t going there, not now. “Let’s eat in the dining room,” she said, putting everything onto a tray.

Caburn’s contribution was to carry in the coffee pot. Anna turned on the wall sconces, lit some candles and pushed them to the end of the table. “In case the electricity goes off,” she said.

Caburn thought it was romantic, but didn’t dare voice it. Anna had made him two sandwiches. He could’ve eaten three. “Anna, when is the last time you saw a movie?”

“Well, when I’m cooking dinner, I sometimes turn on the little TV in kitchen.”

“No. I’m talking about going out to a movie, having a giant box of popcorn, a humongous Coke, and some Milk Duds.”

Her eyes were huge. “I
—it’s been years.”

“Okay. Put that on your to do list. Movie. What about ice skating? Bowling? Horse-back riding? Camping? Having lunch with your girlfriends?”

“Same answer.”

“What about a county fair? Cotton candy? Ferris Wheels? Or feeding the monkeys at the zoo?”

“None of the above since high school and college. I guess I’m a dull piece of work.” Her eyelids were beginning to droop.

“Yep, you’re dull as a mop handle, and I’m a dork.”

Her eyelids lifted. “You’re not a dork and you know it. Women probably fall all over you.” She looked away from the golden hair on his chest above the hospital tape.

“Oh, they do. I get felt up in elevators, chased down the halls at work. Some even let me peek down their blouses. Then there are the heavy breathing dates on Friday and Saturday nights.” He wiggled his eyebrows.

“I see,” she said.

Probably right through me
, Caburn thought, but he was happy to note the tiniest bit of disappointment in her voice.

Anna looked at him over the rim of her cup. “Has there ever been a
Mrs
Caburn?”

“Yep,” he said, letting it hang out there a few moments. She put her cup down, fidgeted with her napkin, wadded it up then tore it into tiny pieces.
That’s my head
, Caburn thought.
I’d better end this
. “My mother.”

Anna glared at him. “Your mother.”

“Yep. Of course, my brothers’ wives are all named Caburn, too.”

“Indeed.”

Caburn smiled inwardly.
Indeed?
Cobra venom! It was a lucky man whose woman got his humor,
and
could dish it back! He popped the last bit of sandwich into his mouth and washed it down with lukewarm coffee. “That was delicious. Thank you.”

Anna stood and blew out the candles. “I’m going to bed. Good night.”

A few minutes later Anna emerged from the bathroom in an ancient pair of flannel p.j.s. She passed through the dining room on her way to the living room with a pillow and comforter. Caburn was wiping down the table.

“Hey. Whoa, there. I thought you were going to bed.”

“I am,” she said and sailed on through to the sofa.

“What’s wrong with your bedroom? Didn’t Clarence clean it up?”

“Frank, I think you’re decent. You might even be something of a renaissance man, maybe even a little sexy looking—”

He held the dish cloth against his heart. “Music. Keep talking.”

“And that little trick you did with the mistletoe? I admit I felt a little tingly—”

“I’m a happy man.”

“On the other hand, you’re as clueless as a dead fish if you think I’m gonna sleep in that bed in my bedroom. That was my marriage bed. A farce bed, like a one-night-stand bed. Moreover, my husband has—had, another marriage bed—and...and...a baby bed, too.” She swallowed back the lump in her throat. “So here’s another thing to put on your fun list: call the Goodwill to pick it up A.S.A.P.”

“I stand fiercely chastised.
Fiercely
, I’m telling you. That bed has to go. Absolutely. No question. Is Clara’s old room off limits, too?”
Clueless as a dead fish?
Oh, that was begging it.

“Have you been in there? There are about a hundred pictures of the golden boy in there
—on the dresser, on the chest of drawers, tucked in the mirror and hanging on the walls—she even uses one as a place holder in the Bible on the bedside table.”

“Oh. More bad juju.”

“Right.” Anna snapped off the living room lamps and settled herself on the sofa, covers up to her chin.

“Want me to put a match to the wood in the fireplace? Take the chill off this room?”

“If you want to.”

Caburn got the fire lit and sat in the armchair, content. His stomach was full, his eyes were on Anna’s face, and the rich crusty smell of burning fire logs just added to the ambiance. Her eyes were closed, firelight playing across her lovely features. When sleep overtook her, tension lost its hold and she was even more alluring.

“Are you going to sit there and watch me sleep all night?” she asked without opening her eyes.

‘No, no. I’m just resting my eyes a minute. How’d you know I was still in here?”

“You’re breathing.”

Well,
I can’t stop that
. “I was wondering something while I was staring into the fire.”

Exasperated, and wanting to get to sleep, Anna shoved the covers down and leaned up on her elbows. “What’re you wondering about?”

“What do you think about people living together?”

“Well, based on my most recent experiences, I don’t think it’s a good idea. People get on each other’s nerves, and then they go bonkers, or they become philanderers. I’m thinking now that everyone should be free to do what he or she wants. It’d make life easier, you know. Plus, there’s no arguing over the thermostat setting. Was there anything else you were wondering about.”

“Uh, no. That’s it.”

Anna lay down, turned her back on him and pulled the covers up over her head.

Actually, he
was
wondering about something else. He was wondering about the kink in Nesmith’s personality that allowed him to behave in so cavalier a manner that he could destroy the lives of two women—three, if one counted the mother.

However, the only single thing that mattered to Caburn now was that he wouldn’t let Anna suffer any more. There had been enough of that. And he wasn’t kidding when he said this house was full of bad juju. He’d have to plan something, get Anna out of it for a while
, or forever. As well, he’d make doubly sure that he did
not
get on her nerves. Moreover, he would never, ever touch a thermostat again. The decision made, he moved quietly to put the fire screen in place, make certain all of the doors were locked and the curtains drawn. He took a half of a pain pill, and finally, in the wee hours of the morning, fell into a sound sleep.

Caburn woke to
the smell of coffee and the radio turned low. He got through his morning ablutions as quickly as he could one-handed, pulled on jeans—thank you God for zippers; and managed to drag a Tee up his right arm and over his head.

It wasn’t Anna in the kitchen, but Lila Hammond. The elderly woman was ironing.

“Miss Lila, do you hire out?”

“Hell, no! I’m just doing Anna a favor. She needs a couple of blouses for the week until her dry cleaning gets done. Anyway, I owe her big time. She’s done many a favor for me over the years.”

Caburn poured himself coffee, added cream and leaned against the counter. “Miss Lila, could you fit in a favor for me?”

Lila snickered. “I ain’t ironing your underwear. You’ll have to find another way to impress your girlfriends.”