House of Secrets Read online

  “Hi,” I said stupidly, as if I was just meeting them. I was that nervous. I knew all my girlfriends were watching and wondering.

  Just as I sat, Paul Gabriel approached and sat beside me. Alison still didn’t look terribly happy about my joining them, but Ryder was smiling in anticipation. So that was why he invited me, I realized. The prom invitation was to come here and now. I held my breath, wondering if, when it came right down to it, I would back out and maybe make Alison happy.

  “Hey,” Paul said. I turned to him. Hey? Great way to start a conversation, I thought. On the other hand, my mother had told me that hey in Swedish meant hello. Not that Paul Gabriel was Swedish.

  The awkwardness in his movements, however, seemed to have invaded his face. When he smiled, it influenced only the right side of his mouth, his lips parting enough just at the corner. I had never noticed the color of his eyes, having hardly given him a second glance, but now I noted how they were a dull, faded blue. He had a thin nose and slim cheeks that flowed down to his angular jaw. He wore his long light-brown hair unruly, looking like someone who brushed it quickly in the morning with his fingers.

  Ryder said Paul had the perfect baseball pitcher’s body, tall with good shoulders and long arms and hands. He had already broken the school’s record for strikeouts when he was only a sophomore, and there was real talk that a major-league team was scouting him. Right now, he wore a Hillsborough T-shirt and jeans. He had an expensive-looking watch that I would learn was given to him on his sixteenth birthday, more as a celebration of his athletic achievements than for his special year.

  “Hey,” I replied, and looked at Ryder, who gave me a slight nod of encouragement. Should I want this more than I was demonstrating?

  I turned back to Paul and smiled. For a moment, I thought he had used his entire vocabulary. I saw him glance at Ryder, maybe for help. Now that I gave him more thought, I realized Paul had no special girlfriends, no one special cheering for him at games. When it wasn’t baseball season, he was practically lost in the woodwork, as my mother would say. Maybe going to the prom with him was so far from an achievement in the eyes of my girlfriends that no one would be jealous. Of course, I wasn’t doing it to draw their envy. I liked to think I was doing it for Ryder.

  “So what’s up with you, Paul?” Ryder asked. He tilted his head toward me.

  “Huh? Oh,” he said. He turned back to me. “So, Fern, anyone ask you to the prom yet?”

  “Not yet,” I said.

  Ryder’s smile widened. “You’d better move quickly, then,” he told Paul.

  “Yeah, so I was thinking that maybe you’d go with me,” Paul said.

  Like Ryder, there was a part of me that enjoyed teasing sometimes. “Go where?” I asked, and put on a face of confusion that even I had trouble not laughing at.

  “The prom,” he said, as if there was absolutely nowhere else in the world to go.

  “Oh, the prom. No,” I said. “No one’s asked me to that.”

  “Well, do you think you would go with me?”

  “Yeah, I think so,” I said. “When you ask, I’ll know for sure if I would.”

  Alison couldn’t hold back a laugh this time.

  Ryder threw a piece of carrot at Paul. “Ask her, already. I’ve got to finish lunch.”

  “Would you go with me to the prom?” Paul asked, like a line he had been practicing all night.

  “I will go with you,” I said, as if I had memorized the next line.

  Maybe imagining we were in a play together wasn’t such a fantastic idea. I felt like I was taking on a role just so I could be on the same stage as Ryder and Alison after all. Most of the time, we were all performing for each other around here anyway, I thought, and it did make this easier.

  Paul smiled. “That’s great. We’ll double-date with Ryder and Alison. Okay?”

  “Ryder?” I said, looking at him. “You’re going to the prom?”

  “Smart-ass,” Ryder said.

  Paul laughed. He did look very pleased, like he had just saved the ball game. Maybe it would be a fun time after all. Ryder would help me find the dress up in the attic. Perhaps my mother would let me have my hair done at a beauty salon. It would be exciting to try a new style, one that would reduce the frizziness. My mother had some earrings and necklaces that might work. She never told me how she had gotten them and never wore them herself, but when I was little, I’d put them on and pretend I was going to a charity ball like Bea Davenport, who was always so bedecked in jewelry that I thought she would sink if she fell into a pool. I started to realize that the glamour of the prom, staying out late, and going to an after-party had the potential to make this the most exciting night of my life up to now.

  Ryder winked at me. Then he and Paul began talking baseball. Ryder was the starting third baseman.

  “Boys can be so boring,” Alison said. “And some are too spoiled,” she added, throwing a look back at Ryder.

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “I think it would be cool to go to the prom in a chauffeur-driven limousine, but just because he comes and goes to school in it, Ryder thinks it’s no big deal. Instead, he hatched this plot to double-date with Paul just to have him drive us.”

  “Oh,” I said.

  “I mean, he could have had Paul take you anyway if that was important to Paul, and we wouldn’t have to ride in his old car.”

  I didn’t know what to say. Did she think I had put Ryder up to it? “You saw I didn’t try to arrange this, right?”

  “Whatever,” she said. “I hope you have something good to wear. I’m getting a new dress just for the prom.”

  “Oh. What’s it like?”

  “I’ll let you know,” she said. “Ryder told me about getting you one of his mother’s gowns. I don’t know why he’s so excited about that. It could be very wrong, too old-fashioned.”

  “Is he very excited about it?”

  She paused and pursed her lips. “I’ve never seen him so excited about a woman’s dress. He never gets that excited about what I wear.”

  “But it is his real mother’s dress, after all,” I said. “I’m excited about it, too.”

  All my girlfriends looked surprised at how intense my conversation with Alison was getting. Most looked a little jealous. I wasn’t thinking of her as much as I was thinking about the actual prom date. I felt as though I had made a leap for myself, a giant leap for womankind. This would be the first time I would be out with Ryder at night, and for me, even though I wasn’t his actual date, that was like reaching the moon.

  “Yes, well, maybe I’ll have to help. If you look stupid and we’re together, I’ll look stupid,” she said, and walked off to class.

  At the end of the day, I couldn’t wait to get home to tell my mother. She was having a cup of coffee with Mr. Stark in our small kitchen. The moment I entered, I paused, checking my excitement. I believed that some of us were born with sharper instincts than others or at least developed those instincts sooner. One thing I had grown up being alert to in Wyndemere was when someone was talking about me. Even when I was only seven or eight, I could sense when I had been the topic of discussion. I knew Mrs. Marlene was always concerned about me, as concerned as a mother or a grandmother might be, and when I walked into the kitchen and everyone would grow silent and busy, I knew my name had been on everyone’s lips.

  It seemed to me that this attention was directed at me because I didn’t have a father. For most of my time living in Wyndemere, because of the demands that were made on my mother, I was left alone to fend for myself far more than most girls my age. I was the object of some concern, even some pity. At a much younger age than any of my classmates, I had to start preparations for our dinner or help to look after our small section of the great house, vacuuming and washing down the kitchen floor and counters as well as the windows. None of the maids was permitted to do any cleaning for us, but my mother was keen on us keeping the old and worn furnishings immaculate. She wanted to take another possibl
e criticism out of Bea Davenport’s bag of complaints for sure. While my mother was off supervising their care of the grand mansion, the washing and drying of clothes and the preparation and serving of meals, I was left with much more responsibility than any other girl my age.

  I didn’t mind it. I was never lazy or neglectful. I think some of my determination to do well came from my reaction to Bea Davenport’s obvious condescension, the way she looked down on us and especially me, making me feel as if I might contaminate Sam. I never felt the doctor was looking at us that way, but he wasn’t home as much as Bea was, of course, and when he was home, he rarely came to our section of the house or had much to do with the servants. I knew that he usually retreated to his office-library. Ryder told me it was very rare for his father to relax with him and his stepmother in the living room to read or watch television. The truth was, both he and his father went to their respective private places, which was why Sam wandered down to my room so often, especially when Bea was out at one of her social events.

  I was sure that Mrs. Marlene and my mother, and even Mr. Stark, were worried that I wouldn’t grow up normally in this environment. Not being permitted to have friends over and being caged in the way I was, I would surely develop all sorts of complexes. I was already heavily weighted down with the stigma of being what Bea Davenport had no trouble calling “an illegitimate child.”

  It made me wonder what a legitimate child really was. There were religious people who believed I had been born without a soul. Some of Bea Davenport’s posh friends looked at me as if I were no better than some wild animal born in the forest. I knew they were expecting me to be uncouth and ill mannered and have the poorest hygiene. When I was five years old and my mother had bought me a new dress for my birthday, I overheard a woman named Clair Edison, who saw me playing out front in my new clothes, say, “You can put lipstick on a pig, but it’s still a pig.”

  When I told my mother what I had heard Clair Edison say, her eyes turned into knives for a moment. She looked like she was going to charge out to confront both Mrs. Edison and Bea Davenport, who were sitting on the veranda having afternoon tea. She even went to the door, opened it, and took a step out before pausing. I was too young to understand why, but whatever had changed her mind saddened me. From that day on, I tried to avoid doing anything in Bea Davenport’s presence. I embraced my mother’s warning to stay out of her shadow.

  Right now, when I stepped into our kitchen and saw my mother’s and Mr. Stark’s faces, I felt my heart skip a beat. I closed the door behind me softly.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked. I borrowed one of Mr. Stark’s favorite expressions. “You both look like you’ve been nursing the same beer for the past three hours.”

  Mr. Stark smiled, but it was just a flash. He turned to my mother, the look of concern returning.

  “Mrs. Davenport was here about an hour ago,” my mother began. “Why didn’t you tell me you were going to go on a double date with Ryder to the prom?”

  “I wasn’t sure until today. Why?”

  “Dr. Davenport informed her this morning, and she’s upset.”

  “Ryder must have told his father a friend of his was going to ask me, and he must have told her,” I said, putting my books on the counter. “Why would that matter to her, anyway?”

  “Dr. Davenport told her Ryder asked permission to let you use one of his first wife’s dresses. I don’t think that went over very well with her.”

  “More like a lead balloon,” Mr. Stark said.

  “She accused me of putting you up to asking, since I would know there were dresses in the attic.”

  “So?” I leaned back against the counter and folded my arms across my breasts. Defiance stiffened my whole body. “I still don’t get it. What put a hot poker up her—”

  “Fern!”

  “Why is she upset?” I asked.

  “She says I should have first asked her permission. She’s the mistress of Wyndemere. I told her all of this was news to me, but she doesn’t believe me, of course. She thinks I deliberately went around her. She’s someone who stands on ceremony. She’ll never eat salad with anything but a salad fork. She’d rather starve.”

  “It was Ryder’s idea,” I said. “Why doesn’t she ask him?”

  “I imagine she will,” my mother said. “But she probably won’t believe him. She won’t want to believe him.”

  “So what does this mean? I shouldn’t go to the prom?”

  “When were you going to tell me about it?”

  “Right now. I was only asked at lunch. Bugger!” I added, mimicking one of her favorite British exclamations.

  Mr. Stark started to smile but stopped when he glanced at my mother.

  “I didn’t say you can’t go. I’ll just get you your own dress, Fern. Mr. Stark will be glad to drive you and the boy who asked you.”

  “My pleasure,” Mr. Stark said. “I’ve never been to a prom.”

  “The boy’s name is Paul Gabriel. He’s a senior, and he has his own car and can drive at night. Ryder wanted us to go together so he wouldn’t have to be driven by Parker.”

  “That’s his battle to fight, Fern,” my mother said. “You just stay clear of that woman until Dr. Davenport decides what’s what.”

  “Ryder wanted me to wear one of his real mother’s dresses,” I said, the tears starting to burn my eyes. “That’s important to him, and that’s what I’d like to do, too. I don’t think there are many alterations to do.”

  My mother shook her head. “Don’t push, Fern. A branch that bends in the wind lasts longer.”

  “I’m not a branch. I’m a human being with blood as red as hers,” I said sharply, then scooped up my books and went to my room, shutting the door behind me before falling onto my bed and embracing my pillow. Hours ago, I felt I was flying like an eagle. Now I felt I was crawling like a worm, a worm under Bea Davenport’s foot. I was hot with rage. My mother should find a job somewhere else. We should get out of this house, I thought. Why didn’t she ever try? She’s not appreciated and I’m certainly not.

  I turned on my back, folded my arms under my breasts, and sulked. What gave some people the right to believe they walked with angels? Was it simply a matter of money? This was America. We were all supposed to be equal, even me, an “illegitimate child.” Maybe that was only something taught to grade-school children so they would recite the Pledge of Allegiance enthusiastically.

  My mother knocked on my door and then peeked in. “Don’t get so upset over this,” she said. “You’ll have many more dates, dates without Bea Davenport putting her nose where it doesn’t belong.”

  She sat at the foot of my bed and put her hand on my leg. One thing my mother had taught me without formally doing so was that when you wanted to reach someone, really reach them, it helped to take their hand while you spoke or gently touch their arm. The physical contact reinforced your sincerity. I always wanted to do that whenever I spoke with Ryder, but I was afraid he would shake me off, and that would nearly bring me to tears. Something always kept us from getting too close, even when we were little. Would that always be true?

  And why were we both like that, anyway? Did we realize that if we opened up just a little to each other, a flood of emotion and affection would follow and be so strong it would overwhelm us both? I couldn’t even begin to imagine Bea Davenport’s reaction to that. Might as well try to imagine a hydrogen-bomb explosion.

  “As long as we’re under this roof, she’ll sneer down at us,” I said. “And Dr. Davenport doesn’t do enough to stop her. I don’t care how busy he is.”

  I realized there were many more words and feelings of rage bottled up inside me. I was always afraid to be too bold about my complaints or, as my mother might say, cheeky. The very thought of drawing Dr. Davenport into my tantrums was terrifying, not that he was any sort of ogre. He was more like some sort of king who shouldn’t be bothered with the day-to-day problems of his lesser subjects.

  “The best way to handle snobs is to prete
nd they don’t exist,” my mother said. “Nothing infuriates them more than being ignored. If I tried to convince her about the dress, she’d enjoy lording it over us, Fern. Believe me, it will bother her more to see you buy your own beautiful gown.”

  I looked away. How could I explain my feelings about it without revealing how much it meant to me to be wearing Ryder’s mother’s dress? If I looked beautiful in it, he would look at me so differently. The dress had a special meaning for him. The very idea that he would think of this, would want me to wear it, had filled me with such excitement. And here was Bea Davenport ruining it.

  “Tell me about your date,” my mother said.

  I’d better not say Ryder had arranged it, I thought. It wasn’t easy, but I dressed Paul Gabriel in what we had learned was hyperbole. “He’s the star of our baseball team, a senior, Paul Gabriel, and will probably become a major-league player and have his face on boxes of cereal someday. He’s polite, a little shy, but very popular at school because of his achievements on the baseball field. We might look funny dancing together, because he’s six foot four. In heels, I might reach five foot five, so maybe we’ll look all right, maybe even cute together. His father owns Gabriel Insurance.”

  “He sounds like the bee’s knees,” my mother said. She slapped my knee lovingly and stood up. “We’ll go dress hunting this weekend. Oh, when is the prom?”

  “Weekend after next,” I said. “It’s at the school. The senior class has to design it. Ryder’s president of the class, you know.”

  “Yes. He’s definitely the bee’s knees. Well, I’m sure it will be a special night for you. Forget about the rest of this.”

  “There’s an after-party, too.” I thought it best to reveal this while she was trying to cheer me up.

  “Oh? Why is that?”

  “The prom always ends early, and rather than drive around looking for something else to do, there’s this party.”

  “Where?”