The Secret Keeping (18 page)

He recognized the leggy woman right away. Magazines and billboards. And front page gossip. He had a bad feeling about that paper doll. He strained to read her lips as she spoke with the driver of the yellow sports car she had just emerged from, but he was only able to catch bits and scraps of her salacious remarks.

She was putting on a show, building up the audience. The main attraction.

He was quite sure whose table she would be heading for. He studied the blond, waiting for her response.

Out of the corner of his eye he observed Lydia. She looked on the unfolding event completely clueless, oblivious to what was just about to hit her. In fact, trouble slithered to within ten feet of her table before she actually saw it.

Fortunately it was all over before it began. Sharon Chambers simply threatened through her teeth to make a scene and the discreet Dr. Kristenson got up instantly and left with her, leaving everything behind but her purse.

_____

Standing on the sidewalk, twenty blocks from home, Helaine stood trembling with rage and an indescribable pain filled her chest. She hoped it was a heart attack but didn’t feel lucky enough for such a prognosis.

It was a warm day and she was dressed for it so she decided to walk back to her brownstone instead of being stuck in another cab. What she would do when she got there she didn’t know.

She would return to Frank’s next Friday and explain her situation. What’s to explain? There was no explanation needed. It is what it appears to be. Even worse than that.

She thought of Sharon’s threats. She thought of Harry’s warning. She thought of a disappointed face.

The afternoon passed into night, the night into another day. Day after day the same agonizing, until it was yet another weekend. Friday, but the woman was not there. Not across the way, either. A week and then another week. No way to explain. No setting things right again. No return to status quo. No Lydia.

Harry spoke very little about it and it was better that way. Helaine knew she had screwed up. There was no remedy for the pain.

_____

Lydia had wandered off the beaten path into a lightly wooded area on the private side of the pond. She sat against a young birch, hidden from view in the ferns and cattails, and stared longingly at the water. She had no suit but it was eighty degrees and she was toying with the idea to skinny dip. Above her on the path she had just heard voices but they soon faded away. She was just about to strip when she suddenly heard the unmistakable sound of lovemaking coming from an area not far to the left of her. She froze against the tree, afraid to be discovered, and then slumped to the ground and lay there, hoping it would end quickly and quietly considering her options if it didn’t.

After more than ten minutes of this, curiosity got the better of her and she raised her head and peered across a sea of ferns. Two women in the thick of it, not more than fifteen feet from her hiding place. If she got up to leave now they would know she had seen them. If she stayed any longer she was a peeping tom.

She put her head down on her arms and closed her eyes. She would have to wait them out, it would be too difficult to explain otherwise.

Two hundred miles. Lydia had driven that far to get away from something like this, away from thinking of it all the time, but even here in the wilderness...she heard the frenzied sobs and gasps of orgasm and glanced at her watch. Fifteen minutes. She lifted her head and studied the woman’s motions, resting her face on her arms again. It was genuine. She was close enough to them to see their glistening skin, the patches of sunlight that camouflaged their nakedness.

Three weeks in retreat and now this bringing it all back to her. Two women. The baths, the wraps, the massages, the peaceful walks. Lydia’s troubles had seemed to peel away from her, one by one, like dead skin.

The trouble with work, with–she had put it all out of her mind, she thought. Now here she was, lying face down in the woods, ambushed, the problem assaulting her, descending on her through the music of another woman’s pleasure, the song of it rippling across her spine, the weight of it heavy on her shoulders, holding her in her place, bending her down beneath it, into the soft earth, ferns, moss. Into a bed of moss she went lonely, terribly lonely, only half of something she wanted to be, maybe because of it, only half of what she used to be. She felt the ground give gently under her and the scent of moss and of bittersweet filled her nostrils. She could hear the woman call out her lover’s name, crying low when answered, could feel the tickle of her own hair against her cheek. It was an unbearable sensation. She pushed a lock of it away from her eyes and exhaled a long and unhappy breath.

Above them sounded the shrill protest of woodland tenants. Disturbed from their routine, they abandoned their perches and screamed warnings and epithets at the intruders. Unrequited! Unrequited!

Unrequited! Lydia was convinced that’s what they yelled. The lovers obviously heard nothing of the sort. She cursed them and checked the time–thirty minutes–debating whether or not she could crawl the twenty or so yards to the footpath without being noticed.

Ten, perhaps, but not twenty she realized. It was too far to go. She turned over on her back, inconsolable, and stared up at the sky through the canopy of birches.

It was a perfectly clear day. She still wanted her. A sigh of frustration slipped free from her and she put a hand to her mouth to prevent another.

“Yes, there,” an excited lover instructed. The next words were choked.

Lydia heard a muffled response from the other woman.

“Mmmmm,” came a quick approval.

She felt her heart jump and scolded herself for it.

The woman’s voice raised up and then died down once more, settling into a seductive whisper of encouragement. It was followed by a low moan that drifted skyward to the treetops, which was soon chased by another. She could imagine Helaine here. Standing in the hot sun. Sitting in a window seat. Lying in the woods. Making love with her lover. Oh, it had not gone away at all. She shut her eyes and brought her hands to her ears, but it was too late for that.

She was a hopeless case. She saw this perfectly. That she was running, hiding, trying to block out anything that might remind her of Helaine. Moans and cries carried on the wind and taunted her. She wished to become numb again, impervious to the inspiration they sparked in her and castigated herself for wandering so far from the trail. Why the ladies had to pick this spot she hadn’t a clue. She checked the time, sighed into her hands, closed her eyes.

She was at the beginning once more, the genesis, and once more trapped in the void, hopelessly lost now between an elusive heaven and an immovable earth. The depth of who she had been, Lydia Beaumont, was gone forever she realized, staring up at the sky. She admitted that something dark and formless had taken her place, as dark and formless as a body of water and on that water she could see the spirit of a goddess moving, her wake disturbing the surface, rippling on it, like goose bumps on skin. She could see the light, a reflection.

Shouldn’t she just say it was good? Shouldn’t she divide herself from this darkness? Call it a day? Call it a night? Yes, but then what of the morning? What of evening? She groaned low. Her heart was a firmament.

She wanted to throw it across the water like a skipping stone, a shooting star, let her flame divide the water, gather it all in one place, that she might have dry land. Safe land, fertile and yielding.

Wouldn’t that be good? And then the only darkness would be the sky above her at night, full of stars for wishing and for the signs of the zodiac, or to happily mark the seasons, the days, the years. Darkness then would be good, too, simply a place for the sun to sleep at night or for the creatures of the earth to rest in until morning. Creatures like her. And a goddess. A goddess must have sleep, too.

Another scream. Lydia felt she should applaud the lovers at this point. Wood nymphs. Lydia marveled at their stamina and listened for the climax.

Listening, she thought maybe it was just as well the blond was not available. How could she have made her happy like that? A minute or an hour, it’s probably a question of experience. Perhaps she had been spared by the gods at the last minute. What did she know about such things anyway? There’s no book on that, she bet. (Sobs and gasps through the ferns again.) Is there?

Ten minutes, maybe fifteen. One orgasm, that was all Lydia was used to getting, even from Joe. Clever Joe. She rolled over on her stomach and stared through the greenery at the two women, now kissing, now embracing, their stomachs touching. Breasts, lips, arms, palms, thighs. Cognac? Oysters? How exactly do you make love to a woman?

The lovers were trying to stand. Whoops. They were kneeling again. Lydia was finally able to see their faces. That one she had met last week. She had noticed that she wore a wedding band. The other one had just arrived. Both about forty-something, good shape. They had either known each other before or…? Lydia scoffed ruefully. Nah, they had just met. She dropped her head down and undertook to memorize the patterns of moss as she rested on her elbows, contemplated her mistakes.

She who hesitates. It should be our tryst in the woods she thought grudgingly. Us scaring the birds off their nests. She had hesitated, that’s for sure. More than hesitated, she had lollygagged, as if she had all the time in the world. She could at last admit it, ridiculously stranded as she now found herself to be. Out of her league, an entirely new experience: incompetence. Why, she had never even spoken to Helaine, didn’t even know her last name. Was there a whole universe of ready-wear women simply for the asking? Could she possibly be the only woman in the world who hesitated?

It seemed possible. She couldn’t imagine Delilah being so inhibited. She should have confided in her sooner, told her what really she wanted. Why hadn’t she? Because I don’t know what I’m doing–I’ve never pursued anyone, let alone a woman. She took stock of the last six months. Look how I screwed the whole thing up, she lamented silently.

She pictured the twenty-something living doll that had materialized as Helaine’s lover. That woman would never hesitate. Which is why she has her and I don’t. Which is why I’m stuck out here in the woods like a sex-starved maniac watching other women have a good time. She thought about that, her thirty-six-year-old heart sinking like a wrecked ship to the bottom of an ocean. No, being bold wasn’t the only reason. Helaine’s lover was also young and beautiful, a perfect ten.

Then why do you make eyes at me? Why were you always alone? Why were you so miserable the last time I saw you, acting like you wanted to be near me?

Laughter in the woods.

The ladies were finally getting dressed, doing that clumsy dance that people do when putting their clothes on hastily. There was the sound of clinking belts and zipping zippers. The final touches. Licks and promises.

Just for the record Lydia glanced at the time. They were heading her way. She lay low in the underbrush and made herself as small as possible as they cut across the ferns, passing within six feet of her on their way back to the path.

“I’m walking funny,” the married one announced.

Lydia held her breath as they walked by giggling and whispering.

“That’s because you’re greedy.”

“You’re so right.”

“I hope we weren’t in any poison ivy.”

“Wouldn’t that be something to explain?”

“Imagine what Charles would say. Isn’t that his name?”

“Charles!” They squealed at the mention of Charles.

“What are you doing for dinner?”

“You.”

“And what’s for dessert?”

“Me.”

They reached the top of the knoll near the path, their voices trailing off at last. Lydia lay quietly for a few minutes before sitting up. Eventually even the birds were still once more.

Lydia stood up, brushed herself off and considered the water. It was hard to gauge the distance to the other side of the pond, but it was certainly quicker than the trail and it would rule out running into the ladies who were sure to be taking their time, strolling leisurely, being satisfied with each other. She tied her sneakers to her waist and waded in.

_____

Back in her room, Lydia changed for dinner and scheduled a facial. It was nice at the spa, but she should think about leaving soon. She regarded the rendezvous in the woods as a setback of sorts and it made it seem rather pointless to continue hiding out.

She sat in the dining hall trying to formulate a better plan and reddened when the wood nymphs appeared in the doorway, looking a lot less casual in their evening attire, yet nonetheless interested in each other. She would never have guessed just by looking at them, but then she was willing to admit that she was a neophyte at these things. She would never have guessed it of Helaine, either.

Helaine so and so. Yeah, it was time to go home. Lydia had a life to live.

_____

“In love there is no east and west; no North and south. And there are no distinct borders or boundaries for dispute. Rather there are comfort zones and these must at all times be respected.”

Dr. Helaine Kristenson, “Keeping Mr. Right”

Check this out, observed Dr. Kristenson. The way he’s sitting, she could tell he was wearing one of his wife’s things under his clothes. Look how stricken the woman seems today.

Dr. Kristenson selected a benign expression. Best to be diplomatic about it.

Dr. K: (clears her throat) How would you like to begin today’s discussion?

S: Don’t ask me. I am not the one having the problem.

Dr. K: Okay…?

M: (deep drawn out sigh) Dr. Kristenson, I just want a normal life. Like it was before. I want him to be (long pause; he is glaring at her; she is trying not to look at him) to be a normal husband. A normal man.

Dr. K: We seem to be backsliding on this. Can you each describe what has happened since we last met?

(She looks from one to the other.)

S: Nothing, doctor. Nothing at all! She’s got too many hang-ups. You know what you are, M? You’re a rigid fundamentalist. And you’re oppressing me with your hang-ups. (crosses, uncrosses his legs; he has recently taken to wearing her undergarments and wants her to have intercourse with him when he is in drag) Dr. K: Let’s bring it down a bit, S. Would you like to respond to that, M?