Secrecy Read online

  EXCELLENT PRAISE FOR BELVA PLAIN AND HER BESTSELLING NOVEL, SECRECY

  “THE STORY LINE WILL MOVE READERS TO TEARS … Secrecy is a brilliantly written adult fairy tale that charms and enchants its readers. The characters feel so real and the audience will empathize with the angst-ridden heroine, the loving father, the flighty mother, and the sensitive lover.”

  —Affaire de Coeur

  “BELVA PLAIN IS THE QUEEN OF THE FAMILY SAGA WRITERS.”

  —The New York Times

  “A SUPERB STORYTELLER … a talent worth remembering … Mrs. Plain’s novels are good stories well told.”

  —The Star-Ledger (Newark, N.J.)

  “ENGAGING … Plain’s characters are well-drawn. The author connects particularly well with fourteen-year-old Charlotte … the reader feels every tremor of Charlotte’s hands, each wave of shame.”

  —Flint Journal (Mich.)

  “A CONSUMMATE STORYTELLER whose skill at bringing likable characters, turbulent events and moving emotional drama together in a fabulous story has never been better.”

  —Rave Reviews

  “Belva Plain has the ability to bring characters as real as your neighbors into your heart.”

  —St. Clair County Courier (Mo.)

  BOOKS BY BELVA PLAIN

  FORTUNE’S HAND

  LEGACY OF SILENCE

  HOMECOMING

  SECRECY

  PROMISES

  THE CAROUSEL

  DAYBREAK

  WHISPERS

  TREASURES

  HARVEST

  BLESSINGS

  TAPESTRY THE

  GOLDEN CUP

  CRESCENT CITY

  EDEN BURNING

  RANDOM WINDS

  EVERGREEN

  Published by

  Dell Publishing

  a division of

  Random House, Inc.

  1540 Broadway

  New York, New York 10036

  Copyright © 1997 by Bar-Nan Creations, Inc.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the Publisher, except where permitted by law. For information address: Delacorte Press, New York, New York.

  The trademark Dell® is registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

  eISBN: 978-0-307-80537-9

  Reprinted by arrangement with Delacorte Press

  v3.1

  Contents

  Cover

  Other Books by This Author

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Part One

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Part Two

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  PART ONE

  1986

  ONE

  A door slammed so hard that the glass prisms on the hall light clashed in alarm. Someone very angry had either gone into a room or had left it. Then silence, thick and ominous, fell back. When the silence began to ring, Charlotte pulled the pillow around her ears.

  They were arguing again. But they would get over it as they always did. After a while her mother, who was undoubtedly the one who had slammed the door, would quiet down. She wondered whether other people’s parents lived like this.

  “Childish,” said Emmabrown, talking to her nephew the mailman at the front door. “Charlotte’s fourteen, and she has more sense in her little finger than her mother has in her whole body.”

  Emmabrown—that being the name Charlotte herself had bestowed—was proud of her connection with the family; she had kept house for three generations of the Daweses, and liked to talk about their affairs. Dad was her favorite. On the telephone while Charlotte eavesdropped, she grumbled and boasted to her friends.

  “I knew Bill and Cliff when those two boys were learning to talk. Bill was the smart one, good natured, too, a real pleasure. So then he goes to Europe one summer for some studies, Lord knows why you have to go there to study, but anyway he did, and comes home three months later married to this Elena, she just twenty and he twenty-two. Kids, they were. The family wasn’t too happy about it, either, I can tell you. The one good thing was she’s no gold digger. She’s an orphan, left with a pile of money of her own. A real good-looker with a foreign accent—Italian—and a figure like a movie star. Pretty face too. Big eyes and big smile. You can see why he fell for her. She winds him around her little finger.”

  Did she really? Well, maybe. Dad didn’t like to fight with people. Sometimes he didn’t even answer back, which made Mama more angry. Mama. People called their mothers Mom, but she wanted to be called Mama, with the accent on the end. Silly. Stubborn. In her private thoughts Charlotte called her Elena.

  It was cold, even under the quilt. She could feel the October wind coming through the walls. No, she thought then, it’s not coming through the walls; the cold is inside me. It’s because I’m scared, although I should be used to all this, shouldn’t I?

  Now there were voices in the hall, barely loud enough to be heard. Dad’s voice rumbled.

  “What do I do that you don’t like?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Nothing? You like everything I do? I take it you like everything about me, then?”

  Laughter. “No. Oh, no.”

  Pause. “Oh, good God, Elena, will you open your mouth and say specifically what’s wrong today? Specifically?”

  “A lot of things. Nothing. I don’t know.”

  “You really don’t know anything, do you?”

  “That’s true. I don’t know anything.”

  “Well, if you didn’t spend all your days at the country club, you might know something. I joined for your sake, but I didn’t think you were going to make a second home of the place.”

  “And what am I supposed to do with myself? Get elected to the Board of Education? And the Committee for the Environment? I’m not you, Bill. Those aren’t my thing. I wouldn’t fit.”

  That was true. She wouldn’t fit. She not only looked different from most other girls’ mothers with their sweaters and moccasins and Jeeps, but she was different. That’s probably why she had no friends among the PTA ladies; they didn’t like her.

  But their husbands do, Charlotte thought, thinking, too, how people would be surprised if they knew how much their children noticed: glances, little greetings on a Saturday morning at the post office or at the school play.

  They had gone into their room now, which was just across the hall, yet she was still able to hear. They were assuming that she was asleep.

  “Get busy with worthwhile things, Elena, and you’ll be happier.”

  “I’ll be happier when I get away from this town, this city, whatever you call it. Of all the places in America, I have to end up in New England in a dying factory town. Fifteen years in this town. ‘A country town,’ you said, and I imagined something with charm, something like Tuscany, with vineyards and old stone houses. Fifteen years in this place.”

  “You’ve been living pretty darn well in this place.
”

  “The winter hasn’t even begun and I’m already freezing.”

  Dad sighed. “Oh, what the hell do you want, Elena?”

  “I want to go to Florida, to rent a place for a few months.”

  “That’s ridiculous. Charlotte has school.”

  “We can get tutors for her there. She’d learn more than she would here in school.”

  “Ridiculous!”

  “We’ll leave her here with Emmabrown. We could shorten our time to six weeks.”

  “You know all the trouble we’ve been having with the business. Anyway, I wouldn’t leave her for six weeks, no matter what.”

  “All right, Bill, I may just go by myself.”

  “You do that.”

  Dad’s anger had petered out, and he was tired. The door closed.

  Maybe now I can sleep, Charlotte thought. Suddenly she remembered to put her hand on her heart and feel whether it was beating faster. It was. It always did, whenever they fought.

  Even the night before Uncle Cliff’s wedding, they had to fight. Even that day they had to spoil.

  TWO

  The chairs were set in rows, and there were flowers in tall holders where the bride and groom were to stand, so that it felt like being in church, or would have felt like it, if the two collies, Rob and Roy, hadn’t been there too. Somehow, Charlotte had known that Uncle Cliff would not want a solemn atmosphere, nor would Claudia, whom he was marrying. They were not what Charlotte called “fancy” people.

  They suited this house, where Dad had grown up and had lived until he married and had built a new house for Elena, a modern one where things were orderly and shining. Here there were unexpected nooks, back stairs, porches, dog beds, untidy flowering plants on the windowsills, and raincoats on the clothes tree in the hall.

  “The best house in town,” Emmabrown scoffed, “and he had to move out of it because she wanted something modern.”

  Emmabrown, in black silk, sat now in the front row next to Charlotte. Elena was on Charlotte’s other side, while Dad, as best man, stood with the minister and Uncle Cliff, waiting for Claudia.

  Elena’s neighbor inquired, “Who’s to be maid of honor?”

  “No maid. Her son Ted.”

  “Her son? That’s unusual.”

  “Claudia is unconventional. But she’s very nice, and just right for Cliff.”

  “She’s had a hard life, I hear.”

  “Oh, terribly. Her husband was shot to death at his office. She came here from Chicago to make a fresh start. Change of scene, you know.”

  Elena was in a satisfied mood this morning. She liked being at places when you dressed up and were admired. She liked big, sociable occasions. Her hands, with their beautiful rings, rested quietly on her dark green velvet skirt. Emmabrown was looking at the skirt, which ended several inches above Elena’s knees.

  “Posture,” Elena whispered. “Do sit up straight, Charlotte. And when the ceremony is over, go into the guest bathroom and comb the back of your hair.” She smiled. “I know I’m nagging you, but it’s for your own good, so don’t be angry at me, darling.”

  The smile and the darling gave Charlotte a soft feeling in her chest. Dad always told her she was soft, and she knew she was, soft like him. Affection sometimes brought tears to her eyes. Elena’s little nagging could be affectionate, so this morning she didn’t mind it so much. She was even grateful for it.

  Now somebody at the back of the room began the bridal march on the piano, and there on the arm of her tall, dark-haired son came Claudia, blond and a little overweight in baby blue. Her face is all upturned, Charlotte thought, a lovely face, with lips curved up at the corners; even her eyes seemed to tilt a bit in the corners, as though they could either laugh or cry at any moment.

  Uncle Cliff looked very serious, the minister smiled, and Dad winked at Charlotte.

  “Isn’t he handsome,” Charlotte whispered.

  “Who is?” Elena whispered back.

  “Ted, her son.”

  “I thought you meant your father.”

  She can’t be still angry at him, Charlotte thought, or she wouldn’t have said that.

  Then all whispering and rustling stopped as the minister began. “Dearly Beloved …”

  Charlotte was feeling awe, as when music went shivering through her body. She sought a word: profound. Deep. Yes, that was it. The serious words and the serious expressions on all the faces made her wonder whether everyone was feeling what she was feeling. Were they remembering something? Or wanting something?

  Elena was remembering. So little, he had said. So light, lifting her from her feet into the air, as though the contrast between her smallness and his own tall bulk was a marvel. Yet his size and strength had been an immediate attraction to her. At home they call me Big Bill, he had told her, laughing. Then there had been his calm good nature, so mature, so manly. Of course, there had also been the excitement, the adventure, of going with him to America.

  She watched him now with his courteous stance and eyes directed toward the clergyman. His eyes were large, opalescent, and rather beautiful, giving an impression of vagueness or inattention, so that you were often surprised to find that he had been listening, observing, and had missed nothing. He was a man of great intelligence; of that there could be no doubt. And yet he bored her. So many things bored her.

  “… forsaking all others until death do you part?”

  Yes, Bill thought, that’s certainly how it was. And then great changes take place. He knew she was looking at him now, contemplating—what? So he kept himself turned toward the minister. Still, he could see her in his mind’s eye: exquisite, doll-like, with black curls thickly massed, a too-heavy frame for the delicate, witty face.

  They would have to control their war of words, have to keep firm hold for Charlotte’s sake. Moving his head just an unnoticeable part of an inch, she entered his vision, this ponytailed, awkward product of two opposites. Tall and large-boned like himself, she had nothing of her mother in her that anyone could recognize. Listening, rapt, she displayed all her gentleness upon her face. So fragile, he thought, so trusting, so innocent! And then he withdrew the last, for who was ever really innocent at fourteen? Nevertheless, she must be guarded, shielded from all unnecessary pain.

  “I pronounce you man and wife.…”

  It was over. Then would come the greeting and kissing, the customary humorless jokes, and the aimless mingling until it was time to move into the dining room for lunch. Charlotte had been at a wedding once before, so she knew how it would be, and knew, too, that since there was no one of her age here, she had best take care of herself.

  As soon as she was past the receiving line, she made her way to the hors d’oeuvres table, where immediately she spotted some of her favorites: shrimp, tiny hot dogs, and those delicious little mushroom things. There, from a lookout station between the bar and the food, she stood with her heaped plate in hand, observing the room. It was fun to watch people and speculate about them when they didn’t know they were being watched. Not that her opinions would bother anyone! She was as much removed from the adults’ world as if she were three years old. So she surveyed the moving scene, expecting no attention and receiving none except once when Patsy Jersey’s mother congratulated her for being on the high honor roll. Mrs. Jersey was clearly a loner; shy and uncertain, she was a little brown hen on the edge of the crowd. Mr. Jersey had been talking to Elena for the last ten minutes, and they were laughing. Elena sparkled, with diamonds in her ears and on her wrists. Charlotte felt sorry for Mrs. Jersey.

  All around her people came, clustered, and went away, leaving their remarks hanging in the air.

  “Yes, it’s nice to see Cliff married at last. It’s time, though. He must be near forty.”

  “… a lovely woman. She had that bookstore over in Ridgedale, you know. That’s how he met her.”

  “The son’s a good-looking kid, isn’t he?”

  “Oh, my goodness, he’s probably the most popular boy in th
e school. Not much of a student, but a football star and the idol of the girls.”

  “Not very friendly, I thought.”

  “Oh, well, at seventeen or eighteen—”

  “Goodness,” Elena exclaimed, “you’re really not eating all that before the luncheon, Charlotte?”

  “I’m hungry, Mama.”

  “Yes, but before you know it, you’ll be way overweight, and with your build you can’t afford an extra ounce of fat. Again, dear, go in and redo your ponytail before we sit down to lunch. It’s coming loose. Are you having a good time?”

  “Not especially.”

  “Well, of course not, standing here all by yourself. You need to learn to mingle.”

  Mingle, said Charlotte in scorn and silence. In front of the mirror in the bathroom she glimpsed herself: dirty blond, with pale skin and light eyes, Dad’s eyes, of no particular color. At least the braces were off her teeth, thank God. Otherwise, there was little to be said about her. Stuffed with food now, she wished she could go home.

  She was seated, naturally, at the family table among a handful of middle-aged cousins and some of Uncle Cliff’s close friends. Also quite naturally, they had put her next to Ted.

  “You two are related now,” Claudia said happily, “so you need to get acquainted.”

  You could tell how happy she was and that she wanted everybody else to be the same. Charlotte could not have said how she knew this. It was simply that she felt a warmth in Claudia; maybe it came from her voice or her gestures, which were unhurried and peaceful. But she ought to have known that Ted would have no interest in Charlotte.

  With obvious reluctance he asked her what grade she was in.

  “Ninth.”

  His bright eyes, black olives, swept over Charlotte and dismissed her. Yet, since he still had to say something more, he inquired who her homeroom teacher was. “I hope not Mr. Hudson. He stinks.”

  “I don’t go to public school.”

  She shouldn’t have said that. The words had come out as if she felt superior because of going to private school, and of course she hadn’t meant that at all. Why did her words so often get tangled up this way? And she felt a hot flush on her cheeks.