“You miss her.”
“God, yes.”
Eden leaned forward. “Is money the reason you aren't having her visit this summer? You shouldn't let that stop you. You don't need money to love a child. You and she could have such a special relationship out here, something she'd always remember. You can teach her about nature and the site and give her plenty of things nine-to-five fathers with loads of money can't begin to touch.”
“Eden.” He stood up and took the photograph from her fingers. “I just can't talk about this.” He walked over to the dresser and slipped the picture back into the mirror, and she felt a wall go up between them, as it had at Sugar Hill.
“I'm sorry,” she said. “I don't seem to know when to shut up."
“It's not you, it's me.” He stood in front of the small stereo, hands in his pockets. “What kind of music do you like to dance to?”
“Anything.”
He put on a tape of oldies. The first song was slow, and he held out his hand to her. She took it reluctantly. “Are you going to push me away again like you did the other night?”
“No.” He drew her against him.
She shut her eyes and an agreeable dizziness filled her head. She drank in the subtle scent of his after-shave, the laundered smell of his shirt. He tightened his arms around her. The pressure of his thigh between hers seemed something more than accidental. Be very careful, honey. She re-turned the pressure, and he groaned. He lifted her chin with his fingertips and kissed her softly, but she backed away from him, although her arms still circled his neck.
“I'm afraid to get any closer to you,” she said. “You won't let me know you. If I get close I'm afraid you'll disappear.”
He laughed. “You summed up my insecurities perfectly. I'm afraid if I let you know me, you'll disappear.”
“Why would I do that?”
“Other people have.”
“What could you tell me that would be so awful?”
“Shhh.” He pulled her against him again. “Let's just dance. It's safer than kissing, and definitely safer than talking.”
The music quickened and they danced to every song on the tape, sometimes touching, sometimes not. She felt the wine and the heat. She liked watching him move. And she liked to imagine how this cabin would look from outside, from deep in the woods, where the music could just be heard and two shadows moved dizzily in the amber light.
Maybe Sharon had kidnapped Bliss. Parents did that sometimes, ran off with the kids for one reason or another. But Sharon was still in their house, so that didn't fit. What did it matter? She didn't need to know his secret. Let him have it. She would focus on the here and now. Forget the past.
When the next slow song came on she didn't wait for him to reach for her before settling into his arms. She held him tightly, listening to their breathing work out a pattern. The song ended and she looked at her watch behind his head. It was nearly midnight.
“I'd better go,” she said without moving, although another song, this one fast, had started.
He lifted her hair and it caught on the damp skin of her neck as he buried his lips just below her ear. She felt his heart beating against her breast and pulled her head back to find his lips. They were warm, and salty from her own perspiration.
“Nice,” he said, his mouth on hers.
She thought of the bed, half twin, half full, the beautiful quilt. She wanted him to lay her down on it. She couldn't remember the last time she'd actually wanted a man. Her breasts ached for Ben to touch them. She was her mother's daughter. But there were things to be concerned about these days before you had sex with a stranger. With a jolt she thought of his secretiveness, of Kyle's warning.
“Could you have AIDS?” she whispered.
Ben laughed and took a step back from her. “You really know how to bring a guy back to reality. No, I could not, and where is your mind, woman? I was only kissing you.”
She pressed her forehead against his chest so he couldn't see the color in her face. “I don't know how to date,” she said.
“Well, that makes two of us. Anyhow, I'm the one who should be worried about getting AIDS. Michael Carey's something of a Casanova.”
“That's true, but he and I aren't lovers.”
“Right, Eden. What about that scene in Heart of Winter?”
“We were acting. We didn't actually do it.”
“But after something like that—after you've been that intimate with someone, even if you're only acting—how do you date and not…?”
“I haven't been interested in sex with him.” She wondered how much she should say, how vulnerable to let herself be. “I haven't been interested in making love to anyone since Wayne. And I wasn't very interested in making love to him, either.”
He was quiet, his face serious, his eyes on hers. Then he kissed her forehead. “I'd better get you out of here before any more slow songs come on.”
Kyle was still up when she got home, although it was close to one.
“You waited up,” she said, feeling a mixture of annoyance and gratitude.
“No, no.” He raised himself slowly from his chair and handed her a notebook. “Just reading your next journal installment. Did you have a nice evening?” She didn't miss the worry in his voice.
“I like him, Kyle, but I haven't completely disregarded your warning.” She had almost forgotten that an hour ago she wanted this man to make love to her on his quilt.
Kyle smiled at her. “You know, there was a time many years ago when I thought of fixing you up with him. My favorite two young people. I thought I could send him out to California and you'd fall in love with him and he'd bring you back to us.”
She felt a little stab of very old guilt. “I had a dream for myself, Kyle, and I had to go after it.”
“I know.” He put his hand on her back and steered her toward the stairs. “Ultimately I guess it was the right thing for you. I just wish it hadn't driven such a wedge between us.” At the bottom of the stairs he caught her elbow, turned her to face him. “Has Ben told you anything about ... his marriage breaking up?”
“No, but I've decided it doesn't matter. I'm only here for the summer—I'm not planning to marry the guy. We don't need to know all the gory details of each other's pasts.” She started up the stairs and then stopped to look back at her uncle. He hadn't moved. “If I knew, would it change the way I feel about him?”
“There's a good chance of that, honey.”
“Then I don't want to know.”
–15–
February 3, 1944
We have become something of a threesome, Kyle, Matt and I. At school now, when Kyle is off with Sara Jane, Matt sits with me on the stoop to read. He doesn't expect me to talk to him, just accepts me as I am and I like that about him. Although he is still pretty as a girl, with his dark eyes and black hair, in just these few months since I've known him his features have taken a more masculine turn and his voice has deepened to a pitch I like to hear in the cavern. He has the proper amount of reverence for the cave and I have complete trust in him.
I have even read my stories to him. He calls them “children's stories” and I realized he is right about that because although I'm now sixteen and a half, the children in my stories are never older than twelve.
I just reread this and it sounds as if I'm as close to Matt as I am to Kyle. This is not at all true. I don't talk much to Matt, but that is fine because he himself is a quiet person. Often, Kyle and I have conversations with Matt just looking on, smiling at us. Last night Kyle and I spoke about how he keeps Sara Jane from getting pregnant (he uses trojans, which are disgusting but apparently work). Matt said he couldn't believe we would talk about such a private thing and Kyle said there was nothing we didn't know about one another, that we are each other's best friend, now and forever.
April 3, 1944
Matt's mother had a terrible accident last week. A neighbor who had just learned to drive drove them both to the market and the car's brakes went out and
they hit a tree. Matt's mother is in the hospital and she can't move her legs. Matt has been quieter than usual this week at school and in class. I watch him stare out the window, or fold and unfold the edge of the paper he's supposed to be writing on til it falls apart. At recess he sits next to me on the stoop, his book on his knees, never turning the pages.
Last night he came to the cavern for the first time since the accident. Kyle was in the rocker and I was on my mattress and we were quizzing each other on our spelling words. Matt sat down on the settee and began to cry. Kyle set his book down and was next to Matt in a flash, asking him what was wrong.
“The doctor said she's permanently paralyzed,” Matt said. “She'll never be able to walk again.”
I moved to the settee too and Kyle and I both put our arms around Matt while he cried. My arms were around Matt, but my hands were on Kyle's shoulders and I had the feeling, not of comforting Matt, but of holding on to both of them because we are still at war and very soon I will lose my brother and our friend and I cannot bear it. They plan to enlist as soon as they graduate. I didn't realize I was crying too until I felt Kyle wipe the tears from my cheeks with his fingers.
Later, after Matt left, Kyle told me I must be in love with Matt to have reacted so strongly to his crying.
“No, I'm not,” I said. “I like Matt but I don't want him or anyone else as a boyfriend.”
“He's in love with you too,” Kyle said as if I hadn't spoken.
“Kyle, I'm not in love with him!”
“Sure.” Kyle smiled at me like he knew more about me than I know about myself and then went off to meet Sara Jane, with his trojans in his pocket.
June 5, 1944
I haven't slept for days. At night, I lie awake in my bed, watching the moonlight as it moves from one side of the ceiling to the other and finally disappears in the dawn. I listen to the sounds: Kyle's breathing from the other bed, a few night calling birds, a few cicadas, though it's still early in the season. In the middle of the night I hear Daddy and Susanna's bed start its rhythmic creaking. Sometimes Susanna cries out but most times she doesn't and I don't feel a thing listening to them. I don't remember the last time I felt the urge to touch myself down there. I know if I try it will be like touching dead wood.
In another week Kyle will be gone. Oh, why must he go? Why did he have to graduate when we are at war? He is excited about leaving. I lie awake thinking of Susanna's brother who died at Pearl Harbor, the other Americans who have died in Europe, and the ones who came back with one leg gone or worse, and I think, selfishly, of what my days will be like working without him at the mill this summer, going to school without him or Matt. I wish I could quit, but Daddy says no.
At least Matt is not enlisting. His mother is home now and he is her nurse. He turns her in bed to keep sores from forming, he gives her the bed pan, he bathes her. It is a horrible existence for him. There is a neighbor woman who cares for her for a few hours in the morning so he can finish out this school year and graduate.
The only other person who is as sad as I am about Kyle leaving is Sara Jane. At school, her nose is always red and she clings to Kyle, but Kyle is unable to offer sympathy to either of us. He won't miss us. He believes he has an adventure ahead of him and maybe he does.
June 13, 1944
Kyle is gone. We had a party for him last night, Daddy and Susanna, Sara Jane, Matt and I. We fed him chicken and cake and told jokes and tried to laugh. I watched Kyle's face and I could see he had already left. His eyes were faraway, full of his new life.
Towards the end of the evening, Sara Jane pulled Kyle outside, where I'm sure they said their long, sappy goodbye while I cleaned up. I didn't see him again til he came to bed. He sat down on my bed and told me he'd miss me more than anyone. I said I would miss him, too. I was trying hard not to cry. Then he got a real serious look on his face.
“I want you to promise me something,” he said.
The only thing I couldn't promise him, I thought, was to become friends with Sara Jane.
“Promise me you'll leave the cave. I mean, leave it. Close it up. It's not normal to spend so much time there.”
“I don't care about being normal,” I said.
“The cavern's from your childhood and you're not a child anymore. You don't need it.”
Yes I do, I thought to myself. But the last thing I wanted tonight was to argue with Kyle.
“All right,” I said.
Kyle smiled and leaned over to hug me. I started crying then and he stroked my hair and told me everything would be all right, that he'd be home before I knew it, and all in one piece to boot.
August 22, 1944
Matt is the prettiest man I've ever seen. Last night I watched him as he read in the cavern by lantern light and I wished I was a painter so I could make proper use of his beauty. He always looks like he should be on stage—his eyes are so dark and his lashes so thick that he looks like he's wearing mascara. His lips are very full and in the lantern light, a pale rose color. I was certain that if I touched them with my fingertips they would feel like velvet.
I know Kyle told him to look out for me. He sits in the rocker or on the settee and reads while I write. I want him to be here. I want his quiet companionship, yet I feel guilty because not only am I still in the cavern after promising Kyle I would leave it, but I have made Matt dependent on it as well. If I were in love with him as Kyle thinks, it would be all right. But I am not and Matt should be meeting some girls who would appreciate him better than I do.
For my seventeenth birthday a couple of weeks ago, Matt bought me a typewriter! (I think he has a lot of money saved up from when his father died.) The typewriter is big and black and wonderful. At first I was very reluctant to use it, but Matt gave me a book that shows how to type and now I am good at it. I've got it on a little table in front of one of the straight backed chairs. It echoes horribly in the cave so I put cotton in my ears when I use it, and I only use it before Matt arrives in the evening so as not to disturb his reading.
I can't believe the way my words look in print!
October 3, 1944
School is horrid. I'm more nervous there than ever, like I am when I'm in town. I've moved my seat so it's right near the door because that's the only place I can breathe in there.
Sara Jane brings her letters from Kyle to share with Priscilla. I believe she's gotten more from him than I have and it disgusts me that she reads them to Priscilla. I'm sure Kyle didn't mean his words to be heard by anyone but Sara Jane. Sara Jane is getting fat.
October 15, 1944
There is a large, fast-growing bush next to the entrance of the cavern and every few weeks I hack back its branches to let in the sunlight. Yesterday I decided to dig it up and be done with it once and for all.
It was a hard job and took me most of the morning because the roots went very deep. After I'd pulled out the bush and carried it over to Ferry Creek, I started to fill in the hole. Then I spotted something in the bottom of the hole and lifted it up with my spade. It was an arrowhead, perfectly chiseled and unmistakable for anything else. I dug around a little more and found a second, less perfect than the first but still obviously something that had been carefully made by someone.
When Matt came that evening it was too dark to dig further but we decided to look for more next weekend. I keep thinking about Rosie the skeleton and wondering if her family was connected to these arrowheads. Maybe I'm not the first person to live in this cavern?
December 22, 1944
Matt asked me to a Christmas party at Priscilla's. I was not directly invited, but I don't blame Priscilla for that. She probably figures if she asked me I would say something nasty back to her and there is a chance I might have.
I told Matt no at first and he said he expected me to say that, but he wanted to ask me anyway. Matt understands me. He never demands anything of me.
He said he wished I'd reconsider because he wanted to get out and he didn't want to go alone, so I finally agreed to g
o. It is tomorrow night and I am nervous.
December 24, 1944
Matt borrowed his neighbor's car to take us to the party. He drives very slowly because he really doesn't know how.
I couldn't think of what to wear because all I have is dungarees and skirts that are only fit for school. Susanna said I could borrow something of hers but she is too tall for me to fit in her clothes.
So I wore nothing. Just my heavy brown coat.
I figured I'd better tell Matt before we got there. In the car he looked over at me and said I looked very pretty. I had tied my hair back with a red bow. I thanked him and then said, “I don't have anything on under this coat.”
“You mean, nothing special.”
“No, I mean nothing.” I hadn't even worn underwear and the lining of my coat felt cold against my bare skin. Now that we were halfway there I was feeling some regret at my decision, but Matt laughed.
“I don't believe you,” he said.
I unbuttoned my coat and opened and shut it quickly and he gasped and stepped on the brakes so that we skidded to the side of the road. And there we sat. He stared at me speechlessly and then suddenly started laughing. We both laughed so hard tears rolled down our cheeks. When he could talk he said, “You are the most unusual person in the world, Kate.” Then he started the car and we continued on to the party.
I think even Kyle would have turned the car around to take me home to change. Maybe that's what I was hoping would happen.
Of course at the party I couldn't take my coat off and had to be careful how I sat and Matt kept grinning at me over the secret we shared. Everyone from our class was there (I guess I was the only person who hadn't been invited). Plus Getch who graduated last year and what seemed like a dozen of Priscilla's cousins. She has a cousin our age in every town around here.