Secrets of the Red Box (13 page)

Bonnie nodded. She let her eyes meander over his face, wondering why she felt so little for him.
He possessed everything she’d ever wanted in a man, yet she felt nothing. The thought occurred to
her that maybe she was incapable of feeling. But really, she knew it was that she wouldn’t allow
herself to feel. To feel is to lose control, she told herself. She could never afford to do that—never
again.

“I’ve missed the symphony since the war started,” he said as he watched the small chamber
orchestra appear on stage. “This is about as good as we can do. I think next year everything will be
back to normal.” The house lights dimmed. Paul’s hand tightened on hers as if to express his
anticipation. Within moments, the first notes of Vivaldi’s violin concerto, “Spring” from the
Four
Seasons
, resonated from the stunted orchestra.

Bonnie tried to concentrate on the music, but her thoughts were focused on Paul’s hand on
hers, their linked arms, as if he was trying to anchor her to him. It made her feel like a possession,
something to be claimed, or a prisoner chained to a prison guard. There was no affection in it for
her, nothing that made her feel secure or wanted. She tolerated it as long as she could, allowed him
to keep her pinned against him until a sense of panic rose within her. She felt a scream lurking in the
back of her throat. If she didn’t free herself soon, it would erupt. Bonnie pulled away and folded her
arms across her chest, keeping her eyes focused on the musicians. Paul didn’t seem to mind and
placed his empty hands around the program.

She felt herself calming now, and then, as she sat in the dark, she felt nothing; nothing but the
dark and the emptiness within it.
Bonnie knocked on the door, her fist balled as she struggled to keep her tears from falling. The door opened slowly,
the light from inside spilling into the dark. It was Evan’s mother. Bonnie kept her fists knotted, as if relaxing her
fingers would allow her emotionsto trickle out through her fingertips. “Is Evan home?”
The woman gave her a stern look. “What do you want, Bonnie?”
“Is he here? I need to see him.” She hoped her voice didn’t sound as anguished as she felt.
Evan appeared over his mother’sshoulder. “Bonnie, what are you doing? It’s late.”
Bonnie backed from the porch, away from his mother’s stare, away from the light. “Can I talk to you?”
He made a motion to pass his mother. She caught him by the arm, flashing him a warning look. “I told you to
stay away from her,” she hissed.
Evan eased by his mother and closed the door. He stepped from the porch and Bonnie moved toward him,
untangling her fingers now, less afraid of her emotions. “What do you want?” he asked.
His mother shut the door. The streetlight cast a pale yellow light across his face. He almost looked perturbed, as if
she had interrupted him in doing something important. Bonnie peered up at him. “Come away with me, Evan,” she
blurted out without thinking. She took hold of his hands. “Right now. Come with me.”
Evan’s face screwed into a web of confusion. “Where?”
Bonnie tugged on his hands. “Anywhere. It doesn’t matter. Just come with me and everything will be all right.”
Evan shook his head and pulled his hands free. “What are you talking about? Where do you want to go?”
Bonnie took his hand again, gripped it hard. “Away from here.”
Evan resisted her tugging. “Are you crazy? It’s late. You should be in bed. Go home, Bonnie.”
Her face hardened. She thought about the knife, the one she’d threatened her father with, the one she’d thrown
into the bushes on her way here. She wasn’t going back there. Her voice softened and she held her hands out to h im.
“Evan, please.”
“You’re obviously upset,” he said with a note of annoyance. “I can see that, but everything will be better in the
morning.”
Bonnie covered her face with her hands and let out a sigh of exasperation. She forced back her tears, clasped he r
hands together. “You don’t understand, Evan.” She saw his mother peering from behind the curtain, glaring at her.
She turned her eyes back to Evan and opened her hands. “We can run away—”
“Run away?” he asked with a vicious laugh. “Are you crazy? I’m not running away with you. I don’t want to
leave. I want to finish high school so I can go to college.”
Bonnie felt tears welling in her eyes. Her throat tightened with an aching throb. “But you said you loved me…you
told me that night when we, when I let you…”
“Look,” he said firmly, his hands gripping her arms. “It’s late. I don’t know what happened to get you so upset,
but running away isn’t the answer. Just go on home and get some rest.”
“I can’t stay in that house, Evan. Please, come with me and we’ll—”
“We’ll what?” he snapped, pushing her back from his hold. “Sleep in the street? Starve to death?”
“But if you love me, you’ll come with me.” She heard the desperation in her voice and it frightened her. “You said
we’d always be together.”
He ran his fingers through his sandy hair and expelled a sigh of exasperation. “You can’t live on love, Bonnie. It
takes money.”
She jammed her hand into her skirt pocket and pulled out a wad of bills. “Look,” she said with a trembling
smile. “I have money. I’ve been saving it from my after-school job.”
Evan turned on her, headed to the porch. “Good night, Bonnie,”he called over his shoulder. “I’ll see you at school
tomorrow.”
Bonnie stood there, stunned by his rejection. A heat began to rise in her belly that turned to an ugly anger,
grabbing her by the throat. To hell with him, she thought. She’d go alone, take care of herself. “Go on in to your
mama, Evan,” she shouted after him. “I don’t need you! I don’t need anyone!”
She felt her heart sink into an oppressiveblackness, pulling her downwith it into some unfathomablehell. He’d
lied to her. Everything he’d said had beena lie. He didn’t love her. He’d never loved her. The stinging realization of it
flared within her like a poison. She staggered back, watched as he closed the door and left her alone in the dark.
The house lights came up to the roaring applause of the audience. Paul turned to Bonnie, his
hands still clapping. “That was great, wasn’t it?”
Bonnie nodded and got up from her seat. “It was.”
They walked silently from the theater. Paul put his arm around Bonnie’s waist. “You’ve been
awfully quiet tonight,” he said with a pensive look. “Is everything all right?”
Bonnie’s head had begun to pound. She wanted to tell him no, that everything wasn’t all right,
that the last three months had been a waste of time. She wanted to tell him to leave, to just leave her
alone. There was no contemplation of his hurt feelings. That was the least of her concerns. She just
knew she had to get away from him, away from everything.
“Because,” he continued, filling the silence, “I’ve been thinking we should take a little trip to
New York.”
Bonnie stopped at the curb beside his car. “New York.” She heard the words come out of her
with a mixture of surprise and skepticism. She couldn’t imagine a more wonderful thing in her entire
life than to actually go there. But a trip to New York together…
“I thought it would be fun to get away, just the two of us—”
“Wait. Paul, I have my job. I haven’t been working there long enough to ask for time
off—”
“Forget about your job,” he said, pulling her close. “I thought a trip to New York could double
as our honeymoon.”
Her mouth gaped open, but he smothered it with his, muting her potential reply. “I love you,
Bonnie,” he murmured against her neck. “I loved you the moment I saw you.” His hands slid down
her back to her hips, pulling her into him. “Marry me.”
Again his mouth covered hers, drowning the words in her throat. She reached for his hands,
tried to pry them away from her. He grabbed them, pinned them behind her back. “I want you so
much, Bonnie,” he moaned, pressing her against the car.
“Paul, stop,” she cried, wriggling to get free of him.
He stopped, leaned back, aware now of people passing them on the sidewalk. He waited until a
couple walking by had moved on. “I’m sorry,” he said backing away from her. He held his fingers to
his forehead. “I got carried away.” He stepped forward, took her hands, and held them tenderly this
time. “I do love you, Bonnie, and I want you to be my wife.”
Bonnie wanted to laugh. He didn’t even know her—he only thought he did. He only knew the
lies she’d told him, the past she’d created for him: a girl from New York whose husband had died in
the war. She should have stopped this a long time ago, she realized.
Bonnie pinched the bridge of her nose and shook her head. “I can’t.” She pushed herself away
from the car and stepped around him. “I thought I could be someone to you, Paul…thought I could
get past Jimmy’s death, but I can’t. And it’s not fair to you…”
Paul placed his hands on her shoulders and turned her to face him. “I’ve been patient,” he said,
his brow furrowed, “and I can be more so—”
“No.” Bonnie pushed him back, turned again so she couldn’t see his face. “I’m sorry I let things
get this far between us. I only thought that maybe…” She covered her face with her hands.
She could feel Paul’s pain radiating through her, could sense his anguish. She felt it, but it barely
caused a ripple in her conscience. She couldn’t help how he felt about her, couldn’t stop him from
falling in love. It hadn’t been her plan. She hadn’t meant things to happen this way.
Paul opened the car door. “Get in,” he said, his voice raspy and low. “I’ll take you home.”
She turned to him, tried to appear remorseful. “No, I think I’ll walk. It’s not far. Goodbye,
Paul.”
Bonnie started walking, her heels clicking against the sidewalk, reverberating off the cool,
uncaring buildings. Yet the deafening silence between them grew ponderous, forcing her to quicken
her step, to get away from him. She hadn’t meant to hurt him, hadn’t wanted to, not really. She’d
seen the way he looked at her, felt the way he held her. She knew, yet she did nothing to stop it in
time. And now she’d been forced to be cruel to him, all for a meal ticket and a little fun.
The walk home was longer than she’d thought. It gave her too much time to think, too much
time for guilt to begin eating at her like an acid. Drip by drip, it started eroding her steel y defenses.
Don’t feel, don’t feel
, she repeated over and over.
If you start now, it’ll all cave in on you…
By the time Bonnie walked up the stairs to her apartment, she knew what she had to do.
///////
Bonnie suspected that Christine would be waiting for her the next day at noon. She was tempted
to call in sick just to avoid Christine, let alone Paul. She’d been stupid about the whole thing. She
should have been more careful, thought ahead a little more. But she’d been lured by his attention,
his position, and his money, and now it was too late to start thinking rationally.
Bonnie held her breath as she peered from the exchange door to make sure Paul wasn’t in the
lobby. There was Christine, however, pacing, her hands crossed at the wrists over her clutch. Bonnie
might as well face her and get it over with, she thought. She glided into the foyer as Christine turned
from her pacing.
Christine stopped short and her eyes widened. “What happened?” she hissed beneath her breath.
“Something happened, didn’t it?”
Bonnie didn’t respond. She motioned for Christine to follow her and they headed for the
Vineyard Café. “Why do you think that? What did Paul say?”
Christine’s shoulders fell. “He didn’t say anything. He didn’t have to. He came in this morning
lower than a caterpillar’s belly, as my Granddad used to say. I’ve never seen him look so sad. What
happened?”
Bonnie sighed. She felt more than a twinge of guilt now. She hated having to explain herself to
Christine. “It’s over between us.”
“Oh, Bonnie…” Christine’s voice dripped with sympathy. “I’m so sorry. I thought you two were
really hitting it off.”
Bonnie sighed again. “I thought I could get past Jimmy’s death. I thought I was ready for
someone new in my life, but I was wrong.”
Christine placed her hand on Bonnie’s arm as they walked. “Well, you can’t help how you feel.”
“And neither can he,” she said quietly. “He’s in love with me.”
They walked a few feet in silence, each of their eyes locked on the sidewalk. Christine lifted her
head. “What are you going to do?”
“I think I’ll look for another job,” Bonnie replied. “It’ll be too hard to work in the same building
with Paul. Every time he sees me, or I see him…”
“Oh, Bonnie, do you really think it has to go that far?”
“I think it will be best,” Bonnie said as they entered the restaurant.
Christine fell silent as they were seated. Bonnie could see the look of disappointment on her
face. She’d grown to like Christine, but Bonnie was never very good at friendships. She reached
across the table and placed her hand on Christine’s. “Hey, we’ll still get together after work. We can
go to the movies and go shopping on Saturday every now and then.”
Christine nodded, but didn’t raise her eyes from the tablecloth. “Iknow,” she replied softly, “but
it won’t be the same.”
Bonnie leaned back in her chair. A simmering anger cauterized her conscience. Why did
everything have to be so complicated? Why did she have to care about Christine, anyway? The fact
that she did was enough of an annoyance to keep her moving on, to start over again, to keep her
from entanglements. She was more determined than ever to separate herself from other people. No
matter what, she knew she had to be resolute this time. She would make a clean break, and this time,
she’d be a lot smarter about everything.
She’d also come to see that lying about who she was hadn’t helped matters either. The lying only
added to the layers of deceit to which she was already committed. She’d been foolish to think she
could re-create herself, invent the illusion of a past unlike her reality. She’d done enough lying,
enough for a lifetime.
Yet she felt herself mired at a crossroads, with both paths leading to a dead end. If she remained
aloof, protective of her past, she’d go insane with the solitude of it. Spending even one night at
home alone proved that. The hours dragged with incessant dullness and her limbs nearly ached to be
somewhere, as if they were begging her to leave the apartment. So long as she was occupied she
didn’t have to think, didn’t have to remember. It was then she realized just how much she’d trapped
herself. No matter what it cost her, she’d have to live with the ugly world she’d created for herself.
///////
“If you’ll just fill out this form,” said the woman behind the counter, “I’ll have you meet with
Mr. Hammond.”
The room was filled with desks and filing cabinets lined up in orderly rows. Workers, mostly
women, wrote, typed, cranked the arm of an adding machine, or spoke on the telephone, making the
busy hum of the office seem like an orchestrated symphony.
“Thank you,” Bonnie said, picking up the pencil the woman offered her. She began to fill in the
information on the application. The sooner she got away from the Rose Building, the better. She
dreaded having to give her resignation to Mrs. Kemp, especially after hearing her icy tone when
she’d called in sick that morning. Still, she had to be thankful to Mrs. Kemp for teaching her how to
use a switchboard. At least now she had an employable skill.
Bonnie completed the job application and waited until she caught the attention of the woman
behind the counter. She let her eyes wander around the industrious room, catching glimpses of
posters proudly displaying the company wares—boots and shoes, it seemed. Kirkendall, Jones &
Company was only six blocks away from the Rose Building, but it felt like miles. There was
something about the office she liked, a friendliness she observed in the way the employees interacted
with one another, the way the woman at the counter had spoken to her.