Secrets 01 Secrets in the Attic Page 8

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

  I suddenly missed him more than ever. I longed to hear him strutting through our home, whistling or calling out something silly to me. Occasionally, he and I would have a very serious conversation about other kids we knew or plans we had for ourselves. There were nearly four years between us, but I couldn't remember him ever treating me like an annoying young sister. Somewhere I once read that it was usually in houses where,, there was a great deal of turmoil and conflict between parents that there were animosities between the children as well. I remembered the line, "The table was set for misery to flourish." That table's not set in our house, I thought.

  "What are you doing for fun these days?" Jesse asked.

  "Nothing special. Karen and I do a lot together."

  "Be careful."

  "Of what?" I asked quickly. He made my heart thump.

  "Of getting a crush on the same boy. Nothing breaks up a friendship between two girls faster."

  "What makes you such an expert about girls?"

  "Male instinct. Why, is something like that happening?"

  "No worries there. I told you, Karen doesn't like anyone at our school."

  "I can't believe it. Karen likes boys, doesn't she?" "Of course."

  Why was he pushing so hard to find out about her crushes?

  "And you do, I think"

  "Stop it, Jesse."

  "All right," he said, laughing. "I got to go. Tell Mom and Dad I'll call on Sunday. I'm starting on third base, too," he added, as if it was nothing

  "Wow. Daddy will be excited."

  "You're not?"

  "Stop it, Jesse. Of course, I am." After a long enough pause, to kid him back, I asked, "What's third base?"

  He laughed. "Bye, Zipper," he said. That had been his nickname for me as long as I could

  remember. "Bye."

  I hung up but stood there by the phone as if I could still hold on to his voice and keep his face in my eyes. He would surely be angry if he knew what Karen and I were up to, I thought. The doorbell rang. I knew it was Karen.

  "You're not going to believe this," she said, rushing past me and into my house as soon as I opened the door. She turned in the entryway. Her face was flushed with excitement.

  "What?"

  "As I said I would do, I went around to the apartment. Usually, the curtains are drawn and the shade is down on both windows, so it's impossible to see into the place, but the shade was up a good four or five inches, so I was able to kneel down and look into the place."

  "And?"

  "I could look into the bedroom. It's really not much more than a studio apartment."

  "Weren't you ever in there?"

  "No. I told you, his mother wasn't happy Harry married my mother and took me into their home. I don't think I ever looked at her without her looking back at me with an expression full of disapproval. I avoided her. She was just an older version of a zero."

  "What did you see in the apartment?" I asked.

  "On the bed, on the pillow, was one of his mother's wigs with one of those manikin heads people use to keep their wigs on."

  "Really?"

  "The head had as much makeup on its cheeks and lips as his mother used."

  I couldn't speak or swallow. I just shook my head. "That's not all."

  "What else?" I managed.

  "Under the, blankets, there must be more pillows or something. It looks like . . ."

  "What?" I practically screamed.

  "Like someone is under the .blanket. You know. Bunched up like a body. There was a chair beside the bed, which I imagined is where he sits when he goes in there."

  I stared at her.

  "What are you saying?" I finally asked, because she just stood there with a half-smile on her face. "Are you saying he's deliberately making it seem as if his dead mother is in that bed?"

  "That's what I'm saying. Only, he doesn't think of her as dead."

  I brought my hand to the base of my throat and stared at her with my mouth open. She smiled.

  "Why are you so happy about this?"

  "Don't you see? He is nuts. He will believe his mother is moving about. He really thinks she's still there!"

  6 Nightmares

  "W here do nightmares come from? I wondered. Some people believe they're caused by something you eat that's disagreeable, but doesn't there have to be something scary and horrible already in your head, stuck in your brain, something dormant that gets nudged and comes gleefully up, rising like some dark sea creature?

  "The first nightmare for everyone is being born," Jesse once told me after I had suffered a bad dream and cried. I think I was eleven.

  "That's stupid, Jesse," I said.

  "No, really. Just think about it. Here you are, happy, content, well fed, warm, and comfortable floating around in your mother's womb, and suddehly, for no reason, you get shoved and pushed, squeezed and pulled, until you're out in this. bright, noisy place called the world. That's why babies cry as soon as they're born."

  "Don't tell her things like that," our mother chastised, but she smiled at him and shook her head. "Spreading that story will hurt the feelings of everyone in the maternity ward in my hospital."

  I remember wondering if Jesse were right.

  Right at the moment, listening to what Karen was telling me about what went on in her stepfather's mother's apartment, I felt as if I could crawl back into the safety of my mother's womb. Who wanted to be in a world where such things were happening?

  "My guess," Karen continued, obviously still very excited about her discovery, "is that Harry crawls into that bed just the way he did when he was a little boy and something frightened him He wanted to be with his mommy.

  "And he still does!" she added. Her face turned angry, sour. "Wait until his mommy finds out what he's been doing to me. She'll throw him out of the bed."

  "Are you sure you don't want to tell your mother about all this?" I asked. "I mean, she can go in and see it for herself." I was actually trembling.

  "Oh, absolutely not. She would go ape wild if she knew I was spying on Harry."

  "But . . . it's so weird, Karen. She couldn't be upset with you."

  "Don't tell me what she'll be and not be," she snapped back at me. Then she smiled. "Look, Zipporah, don't you think I've tried in little ways to get my mother to see what Harry is really like? She's comfortable in the life she has now. There are no money problems. She can go and buy whatever clothes she wants. She has her own expensive car. The work in the drugstore is easy. She can flirt with other men, and Harry doesn't get upset. I have everything I need, and I'll have college tuition, which takes worrying about me off her back. We live in the village's nicest home. And now," she said after a pause, "you want me to go to her and tell her the man who is providing all this is a nutcase pervert, and we should pack and leave?"

  "The bad things are happening to you, not her. She's your mother first, whether she likes it or not."

  "My mother," she said, her eyes steely cold, "is not your mother, Zipporah. I told you. I was a blunder. If she believed in abortion, I'd be nothing more than an inconvenience, but she pretends to be religious, even though the last time we went to church was my real father's funeral. Not everyone has this . . ." She looked around. "This perfect world you live in."

  "My world is not perfect," I said defensively, but after hearing what she was telling me, it surely was.

  "Okay. Anyway, don't you see why I'm telling you all this? This makes your idea even better and more possible."

  I wasn't sure now that I liked it to be called my idea. Wasn't it our idea?

  "Hmmm," she said, looking toward the kitchen. "Something smells yummy. I wish I was as good a cook as you are, but Harry wouldn't eat anything I made, even warmed up."

  "He wouldn't?"

  "No. Only mommies can feed Baby Harry.'"`

  I shook my head. "Who would think these things of him? People have no idea what he's like at home. I know you
couldn't meet a more pleasant man when you talk to him in his drugstore. My parents think he's very nice."

  "He smiles at everyone until they smile back. Remember that line Mr. Potter used in English class when he yelled at adorable little Bobby Sandow? 'The devil bath a pleasing face'? Something from a Shakespeare play."

  "Yes."

  "Well, that's Harry." She paused and looked around. "Where's your father, by the way?"

  "He's tied up in some legal matter and won't be here until later."

  "Just the two of us?"

  "Yes."

  "Great. Let's eat soon. I'm starving," she said.

  How she could have an appetite under these circumstances amazed me. I had just lost mine but pushed ahead. She set the table, jabbering away about Alice Bucci and Toby Sacks smoking a cigarette in the girls' room.

  "You'd think they were the first ones ever to do it. They took two puffs each and flushed it down the toilet. Now they think they're big deals. I swear the girls in this school are as lightheaded as foam on an ice cream soda. Did you see what Abby Jacobs was wearing today? That pleated skirt she wore was so short you could see what she had for breakfast when she bent over. I was so embarrassed for her."

  On and on she went, as if we were living in a television show, her voice not revealing any of the deeper tensions or the events she was living through at home. Anyone listening to us would surely think we were typical teenagers. They would never dream we were planning to confront a sexual abuser and save Karen from the horrors that occurred in her own bedroom.

  She paused and looked at me and saw what I was thinking. "Stop worrying so much, Zipporah. If you walk around with that gloomy face all day, someone is going to wonder why, especially your parents. We don't have to dwell on it. It will only make us nervous and afraid, and then we'll fail, and things will be worse."

  I nodded. She was right of course. I had to admire her strength.

  I smiled.

  "I made us some chocolate-drop peanut butter cookies."

  "You did?"

  "It was just a mix. Nothing special."

  "I don't even know how to open the box," she said, and we laughed.

  She rattled on and on, talking more about what life would be like once "the Harry thing," as she called it, was over.

  "I'm always worried about developing a relationship with any boy at school," she said. "It's all because of Harry."

  "I don't understand."

  This was the first I heard she would even consider any of the boys we knew as a boyfriend. It made me think of my recent phone conversation with Jesse.

  "I feel . . . dirty," she said.

  We had eaten our dinner, and I had just put out the cookies. She took one and nibbled on it the way a rabbit would.

  "I feel like they, anyone, would know the moment he touched me, kissed me, even held my hand." "That's silly."

  She looked up quickly. "No, it's not, Zipporah. You have no idea what it's like. Don't say that it's silly."

  "I didn't mean it that way. I meant . . . I meant you shouldn't feel ... that way," I stumbled. "No one could look at you and know anything. I don't know anyone who can hide trouble or worry better than you can. I'm always wishing I was more like you."

  She looked at me and smiled as if she could turn off one emotion and turn on another with the ease of changing channels on a television set.

  "Yes, you're right. It's just a psychological problem right now. It will go away soon, as soon as the Harry thing is over."

  "Whom do you like at school?"

  She shrugged. "Hey, I wouldn't throw Dana Martin out of the house," she said, and laughed.

  Dana Martin was the school's basketball star. At six-foot-two, with a shock of light brown hair and cerulean eyes that practically beamed when he smiled, he was what any girl would call a dreamboat. He had a steady girlfriend, Lois Morris, but he did like to flirt.

  "What about you?" she asked.

  "I don't know."

  "You should know, Zipporah. You would like to go to the junior prom next year, wouldn't you?"

  "I suppose." This was the first time we had talked about it.

  "Well, after the Harry thing, let's you and I start working on it," she said. "It's time we broke out of our little cocoon and invaded the world the zeros think they own. We're just teenagers!"

  To think of our lives as becoming normal after all this was not easy, but I didn't want to say anything or do anything that would upset her. Perhaps this was the way she dealt with her terrible situation.

  After we cleaned up the kitchen, we went to my room to do some homework. Every once in a while, I would pause and think again how we were going along with life as if nothing was unusual, when looming behind every look, in every pause and quiet moment, was the Harry thing.

  My father came home and stopped in to speak to us. "How are you, Karen?" he asked.

  She gave him one of her best Karen Stoker smiles, looking as if she might just get up and do a little dance of joy.

  "I'm fine, Mr. Stein. How are you?"

  "I'm overworked," he complained, and then laughed. "How I wish I was a teenager again," he sang.

  "Jesse called and said he'd call on Sunday," I told him.

  "Oh. Great. How's he doing?"

  "Starting at third base."

  "Really? I guess we'll have to attend a game or two. Maybe you can come along, Karen."

  "I'd like that, Mr. Stein," she said.

  "Okay, I'll leave you guys to your plotting and scheming," he said.

  I felt myself blush. If he only knew how true that was, I thought.

  Karen didn't even blink. She smiled back at him and looked at the science text again.

  "I just love your father," she said, her eyes on the textbook page. "My real dad was a good guy, too." She rarely talked about him, so I didn't breathe. "If he knew what was happening to me now . . ." She looked up at me, her eyes glassy with tears. "There is nothing better than having someone to protect you, Zipporah."

  I nodded, tears coming to my eyes as well.

  Then she smiled. "We're going to do it, though, aren't we? We're going to make it all right. We're going to protect ourselves."

  "Yes," I said. "Bird Oath."

  She reached for my hand, and we held each other's hand for a long moment. Then she sucked back her tears, took a deep breath, and said, "Mrs. Lotha is absolutely sadistic to give us this much homework. Let's start calling her Mrs. Loathing."

  I laughed. Karen was really the wittiest girl I knew.

  Afterward, I stood outside in the dark and watched her get on her bike to ride back to the village. When she had gone to say good-bye to my father in the living room, he had offered to drive her and put her bike in the car trunk, but she said she wanted to ride through the darkness.

  "It's kind of exciting in a way, Mr. Stein," she said. "It's not pitch dark. I can see where I'm going all right, but with the stars and all, it's just nice."

  My father smiled at her and nodded. "Yes, sir," he said, "I wish I was a teenager again."

  The way he said it and continued to look at Karen made me think he wished he was a teenager just so he could pursue her. It put a cold and then hot surge through my heart, and I looked at her with a new sense of envy. I was even a little angry. First Jesse expressed admiration for her, and now my father looked as if he was doing the same thing. Of course, I couldn't imagine him lusting after any woman other than my mother. I didn't want to hear even a reference to any of his former girlfriends.

  "You must have been quite a teenager in your day, Mr. Stein," she told him, and he beamed.

  "I had my fun," he admitted.

  "You'd better get going," I told Karen, "before your mother starts worrying about you."

  She looked at me and nodded.

  "Night, Mr. Stein. Say hello to Mrs. Stein." "Will do," Daddy called to her.

  I followed her out. We stood on the stoop for a few moments. Neither of us said anything. She looked as if she had frozen. Her ey
es didn't move, and her jaw was taut.

  "Karen?" I said.

  "I hate him," she said suddenly, with such vehemence I felt chilled. She looked at me. "I hate what he's done to me. I hate going back there."

  She got on her bike.

  "Maybe you should talk to your mother, Karen." She spun on me and glared. Then she shook her head and started to pedal away.

  "Karen. I'm just worried about it. Karen,' I called, "I'm still going to help you. Karen!" I screamed, but she didn't stop, and a few moments later, she was lost in the darkness.

  That darkness was thicker than I could ever imagine. Later, I would think it was as if it had actually absorbed her, sucked her into it, until she had become part of it and would never escape from it.

  "Everything all right?" my father asked when I reentered the house.

  "Yes," I said. "I'm tired," I added quickly, and ran up to my room.

  I sat there for a while, thinking about

  everything, and then I got ready for bed, said a prayer, and put out the lights. I was asleep faster than I imagined I could be, but I was grateful for that and for the sound of my alarm clock telling me I had slept through the night and had somehow dodged all the nightmares floating about and looking for a way into my dreamland.

  My mother was up and preparing some breakfast for herself and for me.

  "How are you, honey?" she asked. "I hate not seeing you for a few days like that."

  "I'm okay."

  "Daddy told me what a great job you did on his dinner the other night. You and Karen had a nice dinner last night?"

  "Yes."

  "Everything all right with her? Those headaches gone?"

  "Yes, Mama," I lied.

  "Good," she said, and started to talk about the hospital, how busy they were, and what some of the nurses were complaining about. I listened as attentively as I could. She was so absorbed in what she was saying that she didn't notice how nervous I was. For once, I was happy to be ignored or to be second to her work-related problems.

  My father came down and called to me as I was heading out to meet the school bus. "I'm having breakfast with Jeffery Zimmer in Centerville this morning, Zipporah. I'll drop you off at school."

  What student wouldn't want to be driven to school rather than ride the bus? But I was looking forward to meeting and talking to Karen this morning. How could I tell my father that?