Secrets in the Attic

  I looked forward to these dinners with just my father and me. I had been doing the dinner warm-ups and preparations ever since I was ten. Most of the time, Jesse was there, too, but sometimes he was at a practice or at an away game or even on a date. I know that these dinners with only the two of us brought my father and me closer. He would ask me questions about school, and he would even tell me about his legal work, why a case was interesting and what he intended to accomplish. It was at these special dinners when he would tell me more about his own youth.

  What worried me tonight was whether or not he would see the turmoil inside me. He wasn't as good at reading my feelings and thoughts as my mother was, but when there were only the two of us, he could focus sharper attention on me and see right through any false face. If he had even an inkling of what Karen and I were planning, he would surely go through the roof. I had seen him when he was very angry because of something one of his law partners had 'done or something a judge had decided. He could swell up and look pretty intimidating. Fortunately for me, I could count on the fingers of one hand how many times in my life he had been more than just a little irritated at something I had done, and the same was true for Jesse. I could sense that he hated being angry at either of us more than we hated it.

  That didn't mean he would let either of us get away with anything Jesse and I were certainly not spoiled. Our parents were firm and far from doting. Anything they gave us, they gave us after careful consideration, and we were always made to appreciate it. Nothing was to be taken for granted. My father, especially, was always keen on us understanding the value of a dollar, as he put it. That, he said, was the way his father had put it to him.

  "Show me you're responsible, and I'll give you more responsibilities:" he always told us.

  For most of our lives, it seemed, we were always proving ourselves to our parents.

  I was already setting the table and getting everything ready for dinner when my father came home.

  "Little Mama's at it again;" he sang to me when he stopped at the kitchen doorway. "Be right down."

  The debate began to rage in me. One side of me said I should tell my father everything and ask him to keep it a secret but do what had to be done to protect Karen and her mother. The other side of me came roaring back, the voice screaming about how I would hurt my best friend so deeply even the other students at school would hate and distrust me. I would have to move away as well.

  "So, how's it going?" Daddy asked, slipping into his chair.

  "Good," I said, and quickly turned to the food. I could feel his eyes on me as I worked.

  "Everything looks good," he said. "And I'm hungry. I had one of those working lunches where you don't know what you're eating after a while. I'm not sure I ate anything."

  He started to eat.

  "Everything okay?" he asked. I knew why he asked. I was being too quiet.

  "Yes, Daddy. I have this test to study for, so I'm going over to Karen's after I clean up."

  "Oh. How is Karen? Your mother mentioned she was having some sort of a health problem?"

  "No, it's nothing," I said quickly. "She had a headache one day in school, that's all."

  "Glad she's feeling better. She's a nice kid," he said. "When I was your age, I palled around with one guy most of the time, Bobby Mallen. We were inseparable."

  "I never hear you talk about him."

  "That's because when I went off to college, he went into the army, and we lost touch. I made other close friends, and I'm sure he did, too. It's natural. You go off in different directions. Not many people remain close friends with the friends they had in high school. That's true even with college friends, for that matter. Jobs, careers, travel, change it."

  "That sounds sad to me," I said.

  He shrugged.

  "Sometimes it is sad. It's all part of . . ."

  "Growing up. I know," I said, and he laughed.

  "I wasn't going to say that. I was goifig to say something bigger, part of life. We zigzag through the years, turning this way and that. I went to one highschool reunion, but Bobby didn't show, and I had trouble even recognizing some of the other

  classmates. One of these days, you'll read that novel by Thomas Wolfe, You Can't Go Home Again."

  "What's that mean?"

  "You can't recover the past. It's something that is gone forever, despite albums and yearbooks and old letters. We're just not who we were, honey. It's foolish to try to be. Be comfortable with who you are now and later. But you're too young for any of this talk, so don't worry about it," he said, waving his hand as if the words and thoughts were annoying flies. "When you're my age . ."

  "I'll forget Karen and all our days together?"

  "You won't forget. It will just be different. Everything is so intense right now. Time has a way of making what you think is terrible now not so terrible and what you think is wonderful not so wonderful. There are things, Zipporah, older people can tell you but you just can't appreciate or even understand until you go through them yourself. Then you wish you could go back and do so much differently.

  "Hey," he suddenly cried, "why are we being so heavy here? I want to talk about my new golf clubs. You should have seen me on the third hole at the Monster golf course last Sunday. I won ten bucks, too."

  I laughed. It felt good. It felt like a cool breeze on a terribly hot and muggy afternoon.

  How lucky I was to have parents like mine, I thought, and how horrible it was for Karen to be where she was. It made me even more determined to do what I could to help her.

  My father went into his home office after dinner to finish up some work. He heard me shout to him that I was off to Karen's, and he called back not to be too late. I promised I wouldn't and left after putting my bundle of books and notebooks in the bike bag. At least, we had to make it look as if studying was what we were doing, I thought.

  Everything Karen had told me had changed my whole view of her home and her mother and Harry Pearson. The house looked ominous to me as I pedaled up the driveway. Shadows seemed painted forever over the front. The tree branches were as still and luminescent as skeletons caught in the moonlight. I saw the lights were on in Karen's room. I was sure she had told her mother I was coming. It was already past seven, so Harry was probably home. Karen came to the door so quickly when I rang the bell I suspected she had been waiting on the stairway.

  "They're eating," she said, nodding toward the dining room. "It's just Zipporah!" she shouted in that direction.

  "Hi, Zipporah," I heard her mother call back. Harry said nothing. I was happy I didn't have to face him right off. We practically ran up the stairway to her room and closed the door. She plopped onto her bed. The book of short stories was open to the right one.

  "Tell me exactly what you think is going to happen and what you were thinking we should do," she said.

  I hadn't thought up any details. It was just the concept. I stared at her and shook my head.

  "I don't really know exactly how we should do it." She looked disappointed.

  "But when the character in the story believed the ghost was telling him to kill his brother-in-law, he went ahead without any hesitation," I added quickly. "People who believe in ghosts believe that ghosts see everything, know everything, I suppose, and when you told me how he talks to his mother and even seems to hear her talk to him, I thought of this story. Maybe he thinks he sees her ghost."

  She nodded.

  "It's a pretty nasty story. I'm surprised your parents let you read it."

  "They don't know the book was in my room. It's Jesse's book, but it was moved with another carton of stuff."

  "So you think if we can get Harry to believe his dead mother knows what he's done, that he's come in here, and that she disapproves, he'll be sorry and stop?"

  I shrugged. "That was sort of my idea. What do you think?"

  "I think it's worth a try. What's he going to do to me that he hasn't already?" she muttered. She picked up the book and turned the pages. "I really don't k
now what we should do specifically, either. It was just the idea that excited me," she said.

  "Maybe it's stupid, after all."

  "No, no. It was good thinking. To do anything like this, I think we have to get into the apartment."

  "The apartment?"

  "There are two ways to get into the apartment, through the door that leads from the kitchen and the outside door. It has a separate entrance. Both are locked, but I know where Harry keeps his keys. We'd have to get one, probably to the outside door, and have a copy made while he's at the drugstore, so we can go in and out anytime we want. We can do it Saturday," she said. "As soon as he and my mother leave for the store, I'll get the key. We should not have it made here at Heckman's Hardware, though. We should go at least to Monticello or Liberty."

  "Perfect!" I cried. "Remember, I have to go see my grandmother in Liberty. I'll ask my parents to let you come along, and while they're visiting, we'll ask to take a walk and go to the hardware store there." "That's a very good idea."

  "Once we get in there, what are we going to do to convince him that his mother knows and disapproves?"

  She looked thoughtful.

  "We have until Saturday or so to figure that out. We'll come up with something," she said. She looked at the book again. "In the story, the man's sister forged their mother's handwriting."

  "The perfumed stationery really got him."

  "We can't use anything like that. I told you Harry's mother had all these allergies. She didn't wear any perfume. Besides, a mere note in what looks like her handwriting wouldn't be enough. No, we've got to find a better way."

  "What if when he came to your room, you were wearing his mother's nightgowns or something else of hers? He wouldn't know we got into the apartment, and he would be shocked enough to turn around and leave."

  She looked at me and smiled.

  "That's very good, Zipporah. I must be rubbing off on you. Maybe that would work." She looked at me hard. "Of course, if he did find out what we had done, found out you were part of this, you could get into very bad trouble, Zipporah. He might be so angry. Perhaps I should go into the apartment myself and get what I need."

  "I'm not afraid. I want to help you," I said firmly. "No matter what."

  "No matter what?"

  "Bird Oath. We'll be friends forever and ever, and we swear to protect and help each other as much as we would ourselves," I recited, and added, "no matter what."

  "Maybe we will be friends forever and ever," she said, as if the possibility had just occurred to her.

  Daddy's wrong, I thought. We'll never make turns, take different paths, and forget each other. This would bind us in a way that could never be unraveled or untied. For us, there would always be a way home again, home to each other.

  "Okay. Let's take it one step at a time, and then later we'll decide just how much I need you to do with me. Saturday, then, the key gets made."

  "Saturday," I said. I had the feeling we should be writing it in blood or something.

  "I was thinking of running away, you know," she confessed.

  "You were?"

  "Yes. I was going to steal as much money as I could from Harry and just run off. I'm afraid of something he could do to me."

  "What?" I asked, nearly breathless.

  "Well, he is a pharmacist. He could slip something into my food or drink and . . ."

  "Poison you?"

  "Drug me so he could have his way with me, maybe, and then maybe cause me to have a heart attack or something."

  "Nobody would believe that. You're too young to have a heart attack."

  "A lot of good it would do me, then," she said.

  I nodded. She was right, of course.

  "Maybe we shouldn't wait until Saturday."

  "No, that's perfect. I'll be all right. Don't worry," she said.

  We did try to do some homework, but neither of us could concentrate well enough. I decided I would do as much as I could on the bus and in study hall.

  I was hoping that I would be able to leave her house without seeing Mr. Pearson, but when I descended the stairway to go home, he stepped out of his living room and looked up at the two of us. I was surprised to see he still wore his pharmacist's coat.

  "Well, hi there, Zipporah," he said, smiling. "How are your parents?"

  "Fine, thanks," I said. I couldn't help shifting my eyes and hoped he didn't notice.

  "And your brother? He's enjoying college?" "Very much, Mr. Pearson."

  "Good. I'm sure you're all proud of hint. You tell your mother and father hello for me," he said, and kept walking down the hallway.

  "I will," I called to him.

  Karen nodded toward the front door. We hurried to it and stepped out.

  "Did you see that? He doesn't even look at me if he can help it," she said. "I do my best to avoid him."

  "Your mother has to notice something's not right."

  "She doesn't."

  "How can .. ."

  "She doesn't want to notice," Karen answered before I could ask the question. It was what I had feared myself. "Forget about that. I'll see you tomorrow," she said. She turned to go back in, stopped, and turned back to give me a hug. "Thanks for being there for me," she said, and went back inside.

  I got on my bike and then turned when I heard a door open and close.

  Mr. Pearson came out of the house and walked toward the rear, where Karen said the apartment was located. He didn't look my way. He looked as if he was talking to himself.

  I got onto my bike and shot off down the road, my heart pounding as if I had been riding for hours. My father was watching television when I arrived.

  "All studied up?" he called from the living room when he heard me enter.

  "Yes," I said.

  "This is a pretty good show," he told me.

  "I have to do some more reading for English class," I said. I really did, and I couldn't do that and the homework I planned to do in the morning and in study hall

  "Go ahead. I'm going to bed after this. Big day tomorrow, two depositions and a court procedure. Your mother has the same shift as she had today. I might not be back for dinner. I'll let you know. You all right with it?"

  "Yes. Maybe I'll invite Karen over."

  "Good idea," he said. "Sleep tight, princess."

  It brought tears to my eyes to hear him call me princess, because I was lying to him, or at least not confiding in him, and he trusted and loved me so. I wasn't his princess right now. Was that terrible, or was it okay to be loyal to a friend in need?

  Lately, I was inundated with concerns. I felt as if I was in a downpour of question marks, rushing from the cover of one answer to another. I lay there thinking about what we had decided. Somehow, some way, we were going to try to get Harry Pearson to believe his dead mother disapproved of what he had been doing to Karen. That was a good thing, and if his mother were alive, she would disapprove for sure, anyway, I thought.

  However, in my heart of hearts, I suspected from what Karen had described that Harry Pearson had a very special relationship with his mother's memory. If he found out what we were planning to do or realized we had done something that violated that memory and relationship, he could become so angry he would do something terrible, maybe poison Karen, just as she feared. And we would have been the cause of it! I truly felt as if we were juggling dynamite sticks. And lit ones to boot.

  In the morning, we looked at each other like two conspirators, dying to talk about what we were planning but afraid of being overheard.

  "I've been thinking and thinking about it all," Karen told me on the bus. "You hit on a good idea. His mother was big on wigs, and I'm sure they're still in the apartment."

  "Wigs'?"

  "She hated that her hair was thinning. 'She was actually getting bald, like a man gets bald. I saw her without her wig a few times, and she looked worse than a woman on chemotherapy. Even her eyebrows looked almost gone. Although she was allergic to lots of things, she was heavy with what makeup she put on. Her
cheeks were always too red, clownish. Her lipstick was on so thick it made her lips twice the size. That's not hard to copy."

  "But . ."

  "I'll look through the window into the apartment to see what's there, what we can utilize."

  I nodded, but just the idea of sneaking into that apartment made me shiver now. Maybe I shouldn't have pushed so hard to go along with her.

  That night, with my parents both gone, I prepared dinner for Karen and myself. I had spoken to my mother, and she told me to prepare one of my favorite things, lamb chops. She told me she had bought a rack and would have it ready to bake. Karen had to go to the drugstore to tell her mother she was coming to my house for dinner and studying.

  While I waited for her, my father called to say he wouldn't be home for dinner, after all. My mother called to see if everything was all right, and then Jesse called.

  "Daddy's away at a deposition," I told him, "and Mama's got an evening shift tonight."

  "All by yourself in the Bates Motel?" he teased, and hummed the background music from Psycho.

  I knew he was referring to the notorious Doral story, but that was exactly the wrong thing for him to be telling me at this moment.

  "Very funny. Thanks."

  "You can handle it," he said. "So, what are you up to?"

  I told him I was preparing dinner for myself and Karen, and he asked after her.

  "She have a boyfriend yet?" he wanted to know. "No. She doesn't like any of the boys at school. They're all dorks."

  "I don't see how they can all be dorks, but that's okay. Karen probably needs an older guy," he said. "She's too sophisticated for the boys there."

  Did my brother think he would become Karen's boyfriend someday? Wasn't she too young for him? What about the girls at his college?

  "What about you? Did you find a new girlfriend?"

  "I'm working on it," he said. "Am I still the best- looking guy you know?"

  "No, you're the best-looking guy you know," I said, and he laughed.