Secret Lives (48 page)

You're being paranoid, she told herself as
Cassie ran toward her.

“Did you see me, Mom? Did you see how high up
I was? His name is Dusty. He's my favorite horse in the whole
world.”

“Do you want to go again?” Ben asked.

“Yes!”

Eden started to say no but caught herself.
She would not give credibility to an irrational fear. She reached
into her wallet and handed Ben a dollar bill.

“Are you all right?” he asked. “You look a
little pale.”

“I'm fine.”

This time when Ben lifted Cassie onto Dusty's
arthritic-looking back, Eden turned away.

On the drive home Cassie and Ben talked about
Dusty. Ben told Cassie about his first horseback ride, something
about Sam and their grandparents, and Eden felt apart from the two
of them, as if a glass shield divided the car in two. She could
barely make out their words.

Once they reached Lynch Hollow, Ben cornered
Eden in the kitchen.

“What is it?” he asked.

“What's what?”

“Something's got you upset.”

“I can't imagine what,” she snapped. “My
ex-husband's only trying to take my daughter away from me. What the
hell do I have to be upset about?”

He stared at her for a moment before he
caught her shoulders and drew her toward him. He kissed her,
slowly, deeply, and she felt her fear disintegrate with his touch.
When he started to pull away from her, she wouldn't let him go.

“I'm sorry, Ben,” she said. “I'm acting
crazy. I'm thinking crazy things. I'm just scared.”

She felt better by evening. They played board
games with Cassie, ancient ones like Uncle Wiggly and Candyland
they found tucked away in the hall closet. Her paranoia from that
morning's pony ride seemed ridiculous by dinnertime. She put fresh
sheets on Lou and Kyle's bed while Ben barbecued chicken. They
would have a good night tonight.

“Do you still need to connect to me?” he'd
asked her earlier, in the middle of Candyland.

“Yeah.” She'd smiled at him over Cassie's
head. “What are my chances?”

“I'd say the probability of a mutually
satisfying connection is good to excellent.”

Cassie stood up and clapped her hand over
Ben's mouth. “Stop using those big words!” she demanded.

After dinner Eden did the dishes while Ben
played cards with Cassie at the kitchen table. She was putting away
the last plate when the phone rang. She considered letting the
machine pick it up but thought better of it. It might be Lou or
Kyle.

“Hello?”

“My God. Is that Eden Riley answering the
phone herself?”

“Nina.”

“Well, I have a surprise for you, kiddo.
Michael and I are in a little hamlet called Coolbrook. Ever hear of
it?”

“You're not.”

“Yes, indeed we are. We figured if you
refused to take our calls, we'd just have to force ourselves on
you. So please tell us how to get from here to there. Lynch Hollow,
right? I'm sure someone around here can give us directions if you
choose not to.”

“Nina.” She ran a hand through her hair and
looked helplessly at Ben. “Please don't come here. There's a hotel
in Coolbrook. Why don't the two of you stay there tonight and I'll
meet you for lunch tomorrow?”

“No way, Eden. We're here because we care
about you and we're scared shitless by what's going on with you.
You're going to see us tonight if we have to kidnap you.”

“All right. There's a restaurant just outside
Coolbrook.” She gave them directions to Sugar Hill. “I'll meet you
there in an hour.”

“Michael's with her?” Ben asked when she got
off the phone.

“Yes. Cassie, would you go watch TV for a
little bit?”

“But, Mom, it's my turn to say 'Go
Fish.'”

“Come on.” She scooted Cassie out of the
room. “I need to talk to Ben.”

Ben waited until he heard Cassie switch on
the TV in the living room. “Do you want me to go with you?” he
asked.

Eden laughed. “That would certainly foil
their plan,” she said. “They're here to tell me what a fool I am to
be seeing you. They could hardly do that with you sitting right
there.”

“You are a fool to be seeing me.”

“Please don't say that. And thanks for
offering, but I don't want you to come with me. We'd both be very
uncomfortable. Do you mind watching Cassie? It's almost her
bedtime.”

“No, I don't mind.” He picked up the cards
from the table. “But would you please get her ready for bed before
you go? Into her pajamas, I mean?”

“Of course.” She understood. He wanted to
protect himself from anything she might imagine.

It was a Friday night and Sugar Hill was
packed. She should have suggested someplace less popular. But she
found Michael and Nina easily, sitting at a corner table far from
the bar. They greeted her quietly, not wanting to attract
attention.

Michael squeezed her hand and grinned at her.
He had on a blue shirt open at the neck, and his hair was swept
back from his face and longer than she'd ever seen it. Still, he
was so unmistakably Michael Carey that she wondered how he'd gotten
in here without all the women recognizing him.

“You look beautiful,” he said, “but awfully
white. You need some California sunshine, doesn't she, Nina?”

“She needs some common sense,” Nina said.

“Look, guys, I'm here because you've given me
no choice. But if you intend to insult me and rip me apart, just
tell me now so I can leave and save you the trouble.”

“We're not here to insult you, are we,
Michael? We just need to see with our own eyes that you're
okay.”

“Well, you can see that, can't you? I'm just
fine. I've had a good summer and everything's—”

“Eden, slow down,” Michael said. “Relax. You
don't need to be so defensive. I have something to say to you,
okay? Let me just get it out.” He took in a big breath, and she
knew he had rehearsed this. “I've been in love with you for a long
time, but I have no reason to believe you'll ever feel the same
about me. I tried to make you fall for me, but it didn't work, did
it?” He smiled. “So I know that most likely you and I will never
end up together. I'm just telling you I know that so you won't
think that's what's motivating me here. It's not.” He took a sip of
his drink and held the glass up to her nose. “Plain orange juice,”
he said. “A.A. says one substance is as bad as the next, so I've
quit them all. All those wonderful mind-altering, pain-dulling
substances. I'm clean now, Eden. I've been clean since before you
left and sometimes I hate it but I know it's best in the long run.
I know the stuff was destroying me. It was going to ruin my career.
Thanks to you I saw that in time, before I went down the tubes. So
what I'm saying is, what you're doing is not that different. If you
keep seeing Ben Alexander, it's going to destroy you. It—”

“Michael…” she said.

“Shh.” He set his finger to her lips. “Let me
finish. I don't think you realize how nasty this thing has gotten
already. You're very isolated out here, so you don't know what
people are saying and—”

“You're going to be blackballed, Eden,” Nina
cut in.

“It wouldn't be so bad if you were a
different sort of actress with a different sort of image,” Michael
said. “But you've built your career around children. You're the
daughter of the loco but lily-white Katherine Swift. You've done
more single-handedly to help handicapped kids than any other
actress around. Do you remember how worried you were when Heart of
Winter came out? Remember how you worried you'd lose your fans?
Well, Christ, Eden, if you'd gone out and looked for a way to lose
your fans, you couldn't have done a better job of it than taking up
with this guy.”

Hopelessness hit her, dragged her down like
an undertow. She looked at her own drink, studied the rim of the
glass. She wouldn't let herself cry in front of them. “But he's
innocent.” The words came out in a whisper. “He really is. And I'm
in love with him and I think it's terribly unfair that I should
have to give him up just because the rest of the world thinks he's
guilty.”

Nina covered her hand, and when she spoke her
voice was soft, laced with pity. “Sweetie, what in the world makes
you so sure he's innocent?”

“I know him.”

Nina looked at Michael, who, on cue, lifted a
manila folder from his lap to the table. “I've been doing a little
research.” He opened the folder and pulled out a stack of
photocopied newspaper articles. “Have you seen any of this stuff
from his trial, or do you only know what he's told you?”

“Just what he's told me,” she admitted. She
felt like a child, sinking lower in her chair while the two of them
grew in stature. She looked at the article on the top of the stack.
Michael had marked certain paragraphs with a yellow marker, and
there was a picture of Ben. Michael turned the article toward her
so she could see the picture.

“Is that him?” he asked.

The black-and-white photograph was so
unflattering that in and of itself it was incriminating. Ben looked
swarthy, his beard jet black against white skin, and he stared
unsmilingly into a space somewhere above the camera.

“I would barely recognize him,” she said. She
was embarrassed. Michael, with his beautiful black hair, his huge,
clear dark eyes, asking her if this ruined-looking man was her
lover.

Michael set the article in front of him again
and began reading the marked portions. He had the articles in
chronological order and she followed Ben's ordeal from arrest to
conviction. The outburst of his guilty plea had made the headline
for two days straight. Bliss was described as “the star of the
show” by one reporter. “She had most of the courtroom, her father
included, in tears,” Michael read. “The poised and lucid
four-year-old identified the defendant, Ben Alexander, as her
father and clearly stated that it was her `daddy' who hurt her.
After his daughter's testimony, Alexander became ill and had to be
escorted from the courtroom.”

There were other pictures of Ben and one of
Sharon, dabbing her eyes with a tissue. And finally a quote from
the prosecuting attorney: “I'm proud of this jury. I've never been
more certain of a verdict in my entire career.” Michael closed the
folder and looked at her.

Eden was shaken. If she had not known Ben, if
she had been one of the hordes of people following his trial, she
would have thought far beyond a shadow of a doubt that he was
guilty. She would have wanted him hanged. She shook her head. “I
still can't imagine that the Ben Alexander I know…” She saw his
hand on the seat of Cassie's shorts and remembered Wayne's words,
Alexander is a pathological liar.

“Are you one hundred percent certain he's
innocent?” Nina asked.

Eden hesitated just long enough to let
herself know that, no, she was no longer one hundred percent
certain.

“Because if you're not, Eden,” Nina said,
“you can't take that kind of risk with Cassie.”

Cassie was with him. Eden looked at her watch
and saw that her hand was trembling. Right this minute he'd be
putting her to bed. She let out a small, audible gasp.

Michael leaned toward her. “You've lost your
objectivity, Eden.”

“You're in love with him.” Nina put her hand
on Eden's shoulder. “You've slept with him. So you had to make him
innocent in your own mind.”

“Right,” Michael said. “You had to justify
your feelings somehow.”

“And it's one thing for you to be involved
with him.” Nina was so close that Eden smelled the alcohol on her
breath. “It's entirely another for you to involve your
daughter.”

“Cassie's with him right now,” Eden said.

Michael leaned back so suddenly she jumped.
“You left this guy”—he held up the stack of papers—”with your
four-year-old daughter?”

“He cares about her,” she said. “I know he
does.”

“I'm sure he cared about his own daughter,
too.” Michael leafed through the articles and then read her a quote
from a psychiatrist. “Men like Ben Alexander can't help themselves.
Their behavior is out of their control. Even with treatment, the
prognosis isn't good. Those men who are aware of their problem will
struggle to keep themselves out of trouble by avoiding temptation
whenever possible, but it's often a losing battle.”

She thought of Ben asking her to change
Cassie into her pajamas before she left. Was he trying to avoid
temptation? “Oh, God.” She reached for her purse. “I'd better
go.”

“One more thing, sweetie.” Nina grabbed her
arm. “You have to rethink your decision on the Katherine Swift
film.”

“Christ, Nina.” Michael glowered at her. “Not
now.”

But Nina ignored him. “Bill Crispin's gearing
up to do it and I hate to see that cretin make a mint off your
idea.”

“I can't do it, Nina.”

Nina stood up and grabbed the check from the
table. “Let me pay this and then we can all leave. Talk some sense
into her, Michael.”

Michael pulled his chair closer to Eden's and
put his arm around her protectively. “Ignore her,” he said as Nina
walked toward the cashier. “You don't need to think about the film
right now.”

She leaned against him. He smelled good. He
smelled safe. “I found out something while I was doing the
research, Michael.” She looked at him, felt his hand soft on her
arm. “Don't tell this to a soul. Not Nina. Not anyone. I found out
that my uncle—the one I'm staying with—is actually my father. He
and my mother were cousins, but his parents adopted her, so they
were raised as brother and sister. They were lovers.”

Michael's eyes widened as her words began to
make sense to him. “Katherine Swift had sex with her brother?”

“Shh. Yes. How can I possibly write the
screenplay knowing that?”

Michael looked toward the front of Sugar Hill
where Nina was paying the bill. “Leave it out,” he said. “Forget
you know it. Write the screenplay with Matthew Riley as your
father. No one will be any the wiser.”