Secrets in the Attic

  "Right," I said.

  Karen waited impatiently in the hallway. As soon as I hung up, she started for the attic stairway. Why did we have to go up there now? I wondered, but I followed her. She went right to the leather sofa and sat, pulling her legs up and under herself. Her face was lit with anticipation.

  "That was my mother," I said. "She and my father went to the funeral. My mother said your mother was so sedated she could barely stand, and your aunt and uncle from Texas were there."

  "I don't want to hear about it," she said immediately, and covered her ears to emphasize it. Then she smiled. "Tell me about your day. That's far more interesting for me than my mother putting on an act for the community."

  I began by describing my confrontation with Alice Bucci and worked my way to lunch and Dana Martin.

  "I knew it. I knew it," she said. "Didn't I tell you he'd be interested in you now?"

  "He told me about his coming to Sandburg at night to see you secretly."

  "So?"

  "He said you met him the night before . . . before it all happened."

  She shrugged.

  "Did he?"

  "Yes, it's true. I saw him for a little while after you left the house."

  "You did? How could you? I mean, considering what we were planning and everything."

  "I wasn't planning on all this happening, Zipporah. I was still trying to have a normal teenage girl's life in this town. You knew that. You knew that was why we were coming up with a solution."

  I nodded. "He wants to talk about you, about it all. He said he was going to call me."

  "I bet he will."

  "What should I say if he does? He wants to see me." "Of course, he does. You'll meet him. I'll tell you exactly how to act and what to do."

  "I don't want to meet him."

  "Why not? Is there someone better-looking at school?"

  "No, that's not it. I'm sure he just wants to talk about you, but it will make me uncomfortable, and I'm liable to slip and say something."

  "You won't. You'll get him to change the subject, believe me. Don't underestimate yourself. He won't just want to see you to talk about me. He mentioned you enough when we were together."

  "He did?"

  "Yes, Zipporah. You can be so thick

  sometimes. With a little work, you're going to look pretty damn sexy, sexy enough for Dana Martin, believe me."

  "But I'm not sure . . ."

  "We need these experiences, Zipporah." We again? I thought.

  She had a very strange smile on her face.

  "Speaking of experiences, guess what I discovered today," she said.

  "What?"

  She reached down under the sofa and came up with a black-and-white notepad.

  "Your brother's diary or journal, whatever boys call it. Diary's too feminine-sounding to them, I suppose."

  "What? Where did you find that?"

  "In his room."

  "You went into my brother's room?"

  "What's the big deal? It's just another room, and I got bored. I didn't expect to find it. He had it hidden under a box full of stamp albums. I started to look at the stamps and moved the box, and voila!"

  She held out the notebook.

  "I don't want to read it. It's his personal thing. You shouldn't have read it."

  "It's not a classified government document, Zipporah. It's just your brother's journal. There's all sorts of good stuff in it. He's kept it for some time. It goes back to when he had his first sexual experience. Of course, it was with himself." She laughed.

  "Stop it!" I screamed, and pulled the notebook out of her hands.

  She looked at me askance and then smiled. "You're embarrassed. I can see we have a lot to do, a lot to catch up on, before you meet Dana Martin."

  "I'm not meeting him," I said.

  "Why not?"

  "We can't keep you secret much longer. My mother almost discovered you yesterday when she smelled the pizza and wondered why I had made it for myself, and then she found you had opened the new box of graham crackers. I had to lie about that, think of something quickly. She knew I didn't like them and wouldn't have eaten them. I told you to be more careful. I told you."

  She started to nod her head slowly and glared at me. "So, you're going to betray me, too."

  "I didn't say that. I'm just . . . how can we do this much longer, Karen?"

  "After I confided in you and told you about all the disgusting things that were happening to me and you came up with the plan, you do this now?"

  "I didn't come up with the plan to kill him."

  She looked as if I had slapped her across the face. Again, she nodded, but this time, she said nothing She rose and went to her own clothes hidden behind the big cushion chair. She dropped my robe from her body. I was surprised to see she was naked. She kept her back to me as she started to dress.

  "What are you doing?" I asked.

  "What am I doing? Well, it's pretty obvious you don't want me around anymore, so I'm going to leave."

  "Where are you going to go? Are you going to the police?"

  "And do what, go to prison? With Darlene not supporting me, I'll be convicted of some terrible crime. It's all right. I had no one before; I have no one now."

  "Stop it. I didn't say you had to leave immediately. I'm just saying it's going to get harder and harder to keep you secretly up here."

  "It hasn't been too hard until now, has it? I've been quieter than a butterfly."

  "But how long can we do this?"

  "As long as we have to. We came up with the New York idea, didn't we? It will keep them from looking too hard for me around here."

  Again, we. It had been her idea entirely to record the message and have me pretend to be her and call her mother.

  "Things will calm down, and we'll come up with another plan, a bigger one," she said. "We're pretty good at it, aren't we? We're a team, birds of a feather. At least, we were," she said, and returned to her clothes. "Bird Oath," she muttered under her breath.

  "All right," I said. "Maybe you're right. I'm sorry. We'll keep going."

  She smiled. "I knew you would stand by me. You know I would stand by you."

  I looked at her and then down at my brother's notebook.

  "You shouldn't have taken this, Karen."

  "Don't make a big thing of it, Zipporah. We'll put it back where it was, and no one will be the worse for it.

  But," she said, "there are some very interesting things in there about you, too."

  I looked up at her. "Me?"

  "I think you'll be pleased with what you read. Toward the end of what he's written so far, there are some interesting things about me as well. Maybe you should know about that. I felt myself blushing as I read it, in fact, and it takes a lot to make me blush, as you know."

  I stood there, thinking and looking at my brother's secret journal. I imagined this must have been the way Eve felt in the Garden of Eden, so tempted to do something so forbidden. I shook my head.

  "You know," she continued, "if it was the other way around, he finding your diary, he wouldn't hesitate to read it. Boys are like that, and then they love to tease their sisters afterward."

  "How do you know that? You don't have a brother."

  "I know. I've heard some of the other girls at school complaining about their brothers, younger and older, doing just that or something similar."

  I sat on the sofa. She reached down, picked up my robe, and put it on again.

  "Jesse wouldn't do that," I insisted.

  "Oh, boy. When you read the journal, you'll have a more informed opinion."

  "I'm not reading it."

  "Suit yourself," she said, and shrugged. "Celui qui vous satisfasse, mon cher. Whatever pleases you, my dear, but you're making a dreadful mistake:' "I would just feel so sneaky, Karen."

  "I know what we'll do," she said, bursting with an idea. "I'll read it aloud to you. That way, you're not really reading it. You're just listening."

  "It's the same t
hing. Isn't it?" I asked.

  "Not really, but the choice is yours."

  I thought it would be worse having her read it. It was bad enough that she had read it already. Here I was, betraying another member of my family. All that was left was for me to betray myself, if I hadn't already.

  "I'll think about it," I said. "For now, I want to put it back."

  She shrugged. "Suit yourself. You'll change your mind," she predicted. "Okay. Let's talk about Dana Martin. When did he say he would call you?"

  "He didn't say exactly when."

  "He'll call soon, maybe even tonight. You have to be prepared."

  "What do I have to prepare?"

  "For starters, would your parents let you go on a date with him?"

  "Why wouldn't they?"

  "Have you gone on a date, a date meaning a boy picks you up in his car at night? Well?" "You know I haven't."

  "So, you don't know if they will. You'll find out soon enough, I suppose, but what are you going to do if they say no?"

  "I won't go."

  "Dumb," she sang. "Come to think of it, why even bother asking permission? You'll go, but you'll do it a different way. You'll meet him in the village secretly, as I did:'

  "How can I do that?"

  "You'll take a bike ride, supposedly to get some ice cream or something. Be creative."

  I shook my head. "Why is it so important for me to be with Dana Martin, anyway?"

  "You want to be a virgin forever?"

  "What?"

  "One thing I did learn from my mother that makes sense, Zipporah, is that we have the

  opportunity to decide with whom and when we want to have our first full sexual experience. Too many girls have it spontaneously, get swept into it or talked into it, or just are too stupid to realize what's happening. Not us, not you and me," she vowed.

  "Now," she continued, taking my hands into hers and looking directly into my face. "Can you think of a better-looking, more exciting boy to be with this first time than Dana Martin? It's something you'll have forever. Imagine," she said, "having the experience with some oaf or some ordinary boy who just happens to ring the right bells."

  I started to shake my head again, memories of my mother and my conversation in the sitting room returning.

  "It's too dangerous even to consider," I said.,

  "Dangerous?" She laughed. "No, it isn't. That's what adults, mothers and fathers, are supposed to tell you, even though they didn't live that way themselves. It's the crowning hypocrisy of parenthood. We'll be different sorts of mothers, won't we? We'll be honest with our children."

  "But weren't you afraid of becoming pregnant?"

  "Dana is sophisticated, Zipporah. He comes prepared. You know what that means?"

  "Yes," I said. "Stop talking to me as if I were a child, Karen."

  "Good. So, you know what to do, then."

  "I'm not saying I know everything I need to know. I know about that, at least. Why is my sexual progress so important to you now, anyway?"

  She smiled and sat back. "Because I want us to be together, silly. I want us to share everything. We're closer than sisters. We're practically two parts of the same person. Les oiseaux d'une plume, remember? Well? Are we, or are we not?" she demanded.

  "Yes, of course, we are," I said.

  "So, then? You've got to catch up. I can't go flying higher and higher and leave you behind and below. I love you too much," she said. She held her gaze on my face. I felt the tears come into my eyes. "I hope you love me too much, too."

  "I do," I said.

  "Then remember the Bird Oath. We're friends forever and ever, sworn to protect and help each other as much as we would ourselves. Isn't that still true?"

  I nodded, and we hugged.

  She looked at Jesse's journal in my hands.

  "Go on and put it back," she said. "I understand and respect your feelings about it."

  I smiled. That was the right decision. Ironically, however, I resented the fact that she knew what was written in it, and I didn't. Would that eventually get me to read it?

  We heard the phone ringing below.

  "I'd better answer it. It might be my father," I said, and leaped up. I nearly fell down the stairs rushing to my room, but I got to the phone on the fourth ring.

  "Hello," I said.

  Karen had followed slowly and stood in the doorway. She saw my eyes widen.

  I covered the mouthpiece and whispered, "It's Dana Martin."

  She nodded, smiling.

  "Tonight? I don't know. I have so much homework. My parents don't like me going out on a school night, anyway."

  Karen smirked and shook her head.

  "No," I said. "Not this weekend. My parents and I are going to New York City to see a show. We'll see," I said. "I'll talk to you tomorrow. Bye."

  I hung up before he could say another word. "Actually," Karen said, tilting her head a bit and leaning against the door frame, "that's good."

  "What do you mean? What's good?"

  "Your reluctance. It makes you more desirable when you play harder to get. I like it," she said. "I wish I had been that way, but I didn't exactly have the benefit you have."

  "What benefit is that?"

  "Me, silly. Don't be thick. You have the benefit of my experience. By the time I'm finished with you, you'll seem as sophisticated as any girl he's been with. Boys like to think that they're using you, getting the better of you, but by the time we're finished with Dana Martin, he'll be the one who will feel he's been used, believe me. C'mon," she urged. "Let's go back up to the nest. We have lots and lots to talk about now."

  She turned and headed for the stairway.

  Somehow, I thought, some way, all that was terrible that had happened, even the fact that today was her stepfather's funeral, was forgotten.

  We really were like two small birds in our own nest, totally unaware that the woods were on fire around us. Upstairs, we could shut it all out.

  I hoped we wouldn't be shaken out and fall too soon.

  11 Another Orphan in the Nest of Orphans

  My parents hoped our upcoming weekend in the city would put a smile back on my face. I tried to be as upbeat as I could about it, but I was nervous about making the phone call to Karen's mother. There was still a great deal of chatter about her and what was going on as a result of what had happened. A parade of Pearson customers, even those who didn't particularly care for Darlene Pearson, visited her after the funeral, and everyone who left was pleased to leave with some sort of news, some information or discovery. Karen's gossip birds were very busy flitting from wire to wire to spread the chatter over telephone lines.

  It was quickly known that instead of trying to sell out and perhaps even move away, Darlene Pearson had immediately begun advertising for a pharmacist. She told people she wanted to hold on to the drugstore, keep her beautiful home, and remain in the community. Everyone, even her detractors, remarked about how well she was holding up. She wasn't avoiding anyone or anything, instead taking on all her problems head-on. Before we left for the weekend trip, I was even more surprised to learn that Karen's mother had called my father and asked if she could see me. He broke the news to me on Thursday night right after dinner. My mother obviously knew already.

  Karen and I had devised what she called our postal service, because neither of us was comfortable with her leaving notes in my bathroom. I might miss one, and my mother might find it. Karen decided she would leave a note for me in my copy of The Diary of Anne Frank, and I would respond and leave my answer in the book, just in case we had little or no opportunity to meet in the attic because my mother would be home when I returned from school and my father would be home before she headed off to the hospital for a late shift.

  "What do you mean, she would like to see me?" I asked my father when he made the announcement concerning Karen's mother's request.

  He had sat back and begun by telling me he had received a phone call at his office that afternoon from Darlene Pearson.


  "She asked how you were doing. She was concerned about you," he said. My mother stood off by the sink, quietly putting dishes into the dishwasher but keeping her eyes on my face as my father spoke. I didn't say anything.

  "It's rather generous of her to be worried about you with all that's on her head," he told me. I saw my mother nod. "I think she had expected you would come around to see her on your own. I know she was a little disappointed about that, but I explained how hard it has been for you at school and such, and she understood. However," he continued, fingering a coffee spoon, "she would very much like to see you, and I think it would be a nice gesture, don't you?"

  He looked up quickly for my reaction. "What does she want?" I asked.

  "Just to talk. These last few months, she felt as

  if she had two daughters," he added. "At least, that's what she says, honey. Eventually, you're going to run into her, anyway. There's no point in avoiding it, is there?"

  I shook my head. "I'm not avoiding it. I just don't know what I will say to her," I said.

  "You'll think of something. Why don't I pick you up after school tomorrow and we go over to her house together?" he suggested.

  I looked away quickly. The house? Returning to it, returning to where it had happened, where it had all been developing, was suddenly quite terrifying to me.

  "I'll be there with you the whole time," my father said, sensing the need to reassure me.

  "I could change a shift with Sue Cohen and be there, too," my mother offered. "We should probably all be together, don't you think, Michael?"

  "I guess. But I don't want to make it look like we're afraid to have her question Zipporah," he said.

  I shifted my eyes back to him quickly. "Question me about what?"

  My father smiled. "I don't know, honey. I'm sure she's as confused and troubled by it all as anyone can be. Maybe she thinks you'll be able to help her get through it, understand it better. It would only be a kindness, even if you add nothing to her search for answers."

  He looked at my mother. "Her sister and brother-in- law left a few days ago. It can't be easy remaining in that house alone now."

  My mother shook her head and clicked her lips. "To lose two husbands," she said. "It's a wonder she can function."