The Secret Keeping (20 page)

“Liddy, I only–”

“What did you tell her?”

“Liddy…”

“You didn’t tell her anything! Oh, Del, what did you fucking say to her?”

Delilah sighed and stood up. “Liddy, I was only trying to get you laid. You are a child sometimes.”

“What did she say? Tell me what she said to you.”

Delilah walked toward the kitchen without answering. Lydia chased after her. She saw her going through the refrigerator.

“Del…please?”

“Why isn’t there anything to drink in here?”

“Delilah Lewiston–”

“The feeling is mutual, Lydia Beaumont. Now get your act together.”

“The feeling is mutual?”

Delilah was annoyed. “Your feelings. Hers. MUTUAL. You’re making yourself look like a child. I’m at least trying to get you laid.”

She went back to the couch empty-handed and threw herself in it with a loud sound of disgust, so loud it almost seemed to come from the furniture itself. Lydia stood over her speechless.

“Get some paper and a pen, Dame Beaumont.”

“Paper and pen? What for?”

“A love poem.”

“A poem? I don’t know how to write a poem. What about–”

“Liddy, it is not a happy union, that’s what I can tell. You’ve seen them together, not me. Get over how beautiful her girlfriend is. Do they look happy together?”

No.

“Paper and pen.”

She vacillated over the request. “Is this what you would do, little Miss Shanghai?”

That prompted a throaty laugh from Delilah. “You wouldn’t do what I would do!”

There was paper in the briefcase. A pen. Lydia rummaged for the items, one eye studying Delilah as she sat with an arm over her eyes, her head nearly lost in the pillows. Her friend had slept with a woman. “Here.”

“Not me. I’m not courting the woman, you are.”

“Delilah, tell me. Describe what it’s like. I’ve got fears about it.”

There was no response from the pillows.

“You understand, Del?”

“Veni, vidi, vici,” said the sofa.

“Del, that’s you, not me.”

“You think too much, my friend. You’re being impossible. And you’re making it impossible.” She rolled over on her side and stared at Lydia. “Liddy, don’t make me pity you. Start writing, please.”

“I can’t do this. I’m not a poet.”

“Then get a book. You don’t think all the poems you got were written by the men who sent them, do you?”

“They weren’t?”

“I doubt it very much. What, you think they grew the flowers, too?”

“What a bunch of frauds,” Lydia exclaimed.

“Us too–what kind of poetry do you think she reads?”

Poetry? “Burns! She was reading Burns the last time I saw her.”

“Robert Burns?”

“I guess so. You’ve heard of him?”

A helpless laugh emptied from Delilah. “This is going to be so much easier than you think, Liddy. Grab some Burns on one of your excursions. You’ll see what I mean.”

_____

Sherlock Holmes had nothing substantial to report to Sharon Chambers about the Love Doc. He had begun to think that title a bit specious since the doctor apparently had no love life of her own, unless you factored in the insanely possessive super-model who was paying a mint to have her followed while she plea bargained in LA.

Casing out Frank’s was an act of futility, though she had resumed her original habit of Friday dinners and Saturday lunches. But she still ate there alone.

He had discovered that she looked very nice in navy blue, striped linens and flowing silks. Privately he would have liked to see her step out a bit, something more flashy now and then. She could pull it off, he thought. A bright red dress, mid-thigh, cut low in the front, way down in the back. Liven things up a bit.

Course she might not look so much like a doctor then. Or a bookworm.

_____

“Altho’ my bed were in yon muir,
Amang the heather, in my plaidie;
Yet happy, happy would I be,
had I dear Montgomerie’s Peggy.

When o’er the hill beat surly storms,
And winter nights were dark and rainy;
I’d seek some dell, and in my arms
I’d shelter dear Montgomerie’s Peggy.

Were I a baron proud and high,
And horse and servants waiting ready;
Then a’ ‘twad gie o’ joy to me–
The sharin’t with Montgomerie’s Peggy.”

Except for the two of them seated at their separate tables (and the ghost of Robert Burns), the dining room was finally empty, the bar vacated. Outside, only a few lunch stragglers still sat on the patio, apparently immune to the wilting heat.

The worst she could say is no.

Lydia watched Helaine take the slip of paper from the waiter’s tray, the long fingers anxiously unfolding it.

The blond had clearly not expected to see her again, let alone the love note. She cast curious sideways glances in Lydia’s direction and then a long and pensive look out the window after she had read it.

The feeling is mutual, get over how beautiful her girlfriend is. Lydia was trying. The blond bomb.

Electrical interference. Short circuits. Solar flares.

She was more rested than the last time Lydia had seen her, although at present the woman had lost some of her normal composure and appeared to be considering a hasty retreat in an effort to regain it again. Lydia watched her slip the note inside her blouse and gather her other things into a purse. Despite her obvious confusion, the blond looked quite well. Beautiful. It was too much to hope that the source of her recovery was due to that she had not been with her lover for awhile. She hoped for it anyway as Helaine filled out her bill, handed it to the waiter and without a word swished past her table in a whisper of fine fabrics, her soft silks billowing like the sails of a tall ship, the scent of sandalwood wafting on her breeze and descending like a cloud all around Lydia, in her hair, on her skin. Lydia lowered her eyes and drew the intoxicating air deep into her lungs.

Running away? Now, is that supposed to happen? Lydia rested her chin on her hand and watched out the window as the woman evaporated into traffic.

That was a waste of courage, she told herself, wishing she had never been born.

“Congratulations,” whispered the waiter. He deposited a napkin beside her plate and disappeared without further ado. “Lydia”, it said on the outside. Dear John, she bet, waiting till he was out of sight before reading it.

“Her flowing locks, the raven’s wing,
adown her neck and bosom hing;
How sweet unto that breast to cling,
and round that neck entwine her!

Her lips are roses wat wi’ dew,
O, what a feast her bonie mou’!
Her cheeks a mair celestial hue,
A crimson still diviner!”

Signed simply, “Helaine.” The waiter returned with Lydia’s bill.

“What is your name?” she asked him.

“Harry.”

Harry. A fine name. A wonderful, uncomplicated name. Easy to remember. She smiled like a child. A perfect name in a perfect world. Harry. Just as light as a kite in her cloudless sky. “I really don’t know what I’d do without you, Harry.”

He grinned impishly. “You’d better figure it out soon.”

_____

The first week back and everything she touched turned to gold. No conundrums, no hassles. Corporate governance at its best. Lydia could almost stand leading the tribe again. Rumors abounded concerning an inside trading scandal and all of Rio Joe’s activities were suddenly under scrutiny. It shouldn’t surprise anyone, she wanted to say. He was likely the mastermind.

He acted like a hunted animal these days, sending her beseeching looks as if she was his only salvation.

She ducked them, allowing them to drift past her without interception. He had sought to become a lone wolf in the firm, alone he really was.

At free moments she studied Helaine’s handwriting. She wished the blond had given her number, but then what? Forget her beautiful girlfriend. Think of the sensuous “L” in Lydia, that elegant scrawl. Maybe the blond was a writer. That would explain her interest in books. Lydia couldn’t recall seeing her with one last Saturday. Had she dashed off this poem from memory?

Friday morning a dozen red roses arrived at her office. She feared them at first, almost certain that Rio Joe was resorting to different tactics, but when she saw and recognized the handwriting on the envelope her heart jumped out of its normal place and hid all day in her throat, disguised there as a suppressed scream of joy. (Our Mr. Burns again.)

“By night, by day, a-field, at hame,
The thoughts o’ thee my breast inflame:
And aye I muse and sing thy name–
I only live to love thee.

Tho’ I were doom’d to wander on,
Beyond the sea, beyond the sun,
Till my last weary sand was run;
Till then–and then–I’d love thee!”

She placed the flowers on a stand in the window, speculating over them all day. That Helaine knew her name had not surprised Lydia. At Frank’s her friends yelled it all night. It would be odd considering how loud they were not to have heard it at least once. But where she worked? Too titillating. It cast a bit of intrigue over the affair. She pondered it at the window standing beside her bouquet.

She had already made plans to meet her father at the club this afternoon or she would have sought the blond out at happy hour. Discreetly, of course, in case she wasn’t alone. The red, red roses…what in the hell am I thinking?

One more day, is what she was thinking, preparing herself for dinner with her father. She was just going to get her feet wet, test the waters as Delilah had suggested she should do. She would ask Helaine to join her for lunch tomorrow and take it from there. One more day.

She put her lipstick on and adjusted herself for her father’s inspection, in a low grade dread over the inevitable inquisition which had become so routine in their relationship. She hoped this time he would not have the gall to set up a double date with her as he had done the last time. She had very nearly walked out on dinner that night, hooked up without advanced warning to the son of his most recent squeeze, the three of them waiting for her to arrive like cats would for a mouse. Poor Mom. Why she wouldn’t divorce him, Lydia didn’t know. Maybe just not living with him anymore was enough. She often wished her father was as smooth and debonair as he actually looked.

Stepping out on the sidewalk fifteen flights below, the heat was high, burning away the last weeks of summer. Suffocating humidity. It sat heavy on her shoulders shocking her air conditioned body. She was not going to struggle with it today. She stood on the corner and hailed a cab.

Above her, across the street, Dr. Helaine Kristenson stood at the blinds again. She had been engaged in that activity all day, ever since the roses she had sent first appeared in Lydia’s window. She had a great deal of apprehension now and it mingled with elation to create quite a potent poison to her nerves. For the moment, she was not going to struggle with it. She wouldn’t have to. Lydia was not going to Frank’s tonight.

A strange sense of relief claimed Dr. Kristenson once she realized this. She watched the taxi pull into the traffic and disappear around the corner without fear as to where it was going. It was not Lydia’s whereabouts that worried her anymore. It was Sharon’s.

_____

It is Saturday. Two women stand in the entranceway of Frank’s Place. They aren’t aware of each other yet, or the similarity of their missions. A blond woman older than both of them, and the object of their desire, is seated at her usual table for lunch. She has noticed them up there. Her eyes flash red lights, green lights, even yellow, without her knowing it. Different signals to both of them which get crossed in the air. If the three ladies were dots on a piece of paper and you drew lines connecting them, you’d be drawing a triangle, the blond of course at the apex. Both women are equally beautiful in their own right and although the last thing the blond wants to see today is the two of them in the same place at the same time thinking the same thing, it provides for an unusually good opportunity to compare them with each other, which she is also doing without meaning to. Both are young, but one is older than the other. How much older? You can’t tell. Both have dark hair, the older one’s is more brown than black. The younger woman is taller than the other, perhaps by three or four inches. She is an exotic thing with an animal’s grace and snarl. The defending champion, she wears a spoiled expression and is on a constant prowl, this very second admiring the strapless back and legs of her unknown rival. Her rival is a fine physical specimen with an elegance that borders on regal. She is armed in this contest with lofty ambitions and with unassuming good looks that come from deep beneath her skin. And she has blue eyes, Helaine’s favorite color. Her instincts are good. This second she senses someone behind her and is turning around to see who it is. At the same moment a hand expertly brushes against her bare back and a bedroom voice offers a disingenuous apology for the trespass as its owner passes too close to her on the way into the dining room. This woman seems oddly familiar and she follows her with her eye, glimpsing a cautionary glance from the blond as she does it. In her eyes she sees a yellow light flashing, then the light turns suddenly red and she balks. On the periphery the waiter finally appears heading for the entrance with a look of stupefaction. The seat Lydia wants, the one next to the blond is now occupied and the sight of those two women together again instantly jogs her recollection. She goes pale, and turns to leave.

“Madam, wait,” says the waiter.

_____

“Harry?”

“Please. Let me seat you for lunch.”

“Harry, I–”

“Please. This is just the tricky part, believe me.”

Lydia gazed past him, sized up Helaine’s tortured expression, her panicked body language. The dining room was less than half filled. She could be seated inconspicuously if she consented to it. “Three’s a crowd,” she whispered.

“Of course.”

Lydia was silent, her face darkened with disappointment.

“She really wasn’t expecting her,” the waiter assured.

What does that mean? “I can’t do this, Harry. I’m not the type.”

It was pride talking. All that pride. “It’s too late for a’ that,” he said.

She let go a bitter laugh. “For a’ that, an’ a’ that, our toils obscure, an’ a’ that…?”