Secrets in the Attic (Secrets 1)

"What? Why?"

"There are thi

ngs I want that I shouldn't have left behind, but I wasn't exactly taking my time about it. There's jewelry and more money."

"But won't that be very dangerous?"

"Not if we do it carefully. I know how to get into the house even if it's all locked up. Harry has a rusted lock on the exterior basement door. It just looks locked, but it's not. My mother doesn't even know. We can get in through the basement and up into the house."

We? I thought.

"Okay," she said, waving away the whole idea. "That's for later. For now, tell me about your day. Did you see Dana?"

"He tried to get my attention in the hallway all morning, but I didn't stop to talk to him. Then he sat at my table again in the cafeteria at lunchtime."

"Brilliant. I couldn't have teased him any better."

"I wasn't teasing him, Karen. I was too nervous."

"If the result is the same, it's all right," she said. "You'll get over that quickly, anyway, as soon as you see he's like any other boy with feet of clay. It's our own fault for romanticizing them so much. The truth is, they're all so predictable."

"What do you mean by predictable?"

"They all want the same thing, to get to the same place. Some take one route, and some take another, that's all. There are those who will talk so much about everything else you'll forget what it is they're after, and, voila, find yourself trapped and wonder how you got there. And then there are those who will tease and torment you like a cat teases and torments a mouse, until you're the one who's pushing toward that moment."

"How do you know all this?" I asked, amazed. Until now, our talk was so much fantasy and so little reality when it came to romance.

"I've had some experiences, and I've read a lot and don't forget. I've been brought up in the shadow of a real pro, my mother." She sat back, smiling. "I remember how she fished in Harry, the little things she would do in the drugstore to get him hooked. I was there, watching her accidentally brush her body past him, pressing her breasts against his arm, his shoulder, bringing her lips so close to his neck he surely felt the warmth of her breath. And those little smiles and movements with her eyes she gave him I think he had orgasms preparing antibiotics for customers."

"Karen!"

"Don't be so thick. And you don't have to be modest with me, Zipporah. We've told each other too much about our own orgasms," she reminded me.

Still, it made me blush and catch my breath to hear her talk about her mother and Harry Pearson that way.

"Besides, you can get a real education about boys if you just read your brother's journal."

"I told you . . ."

"All right, all right. I'm just teasing you. Let's get back to Dana After the phone call and your visit, short visit, with my mother, the coast will be clearer. Pedal your rear into town on Monday night. Tell him to meet you in front of the post office. Your bike will be safe there. He'll pick you up and drive you up the hill, maybe to the lake, ostensibly to talk about me, but he'll really be doing it because he's interested in you, so you don't have to do much more than say you don't want to talk about me. It's too disturbing. Something like that. Even get yourself to cry a few real tears. He'll want to comfort you. Let him, and that's how it will start."

"How can you be so sure of all this? You make it sound as if you've written the script," I said.

She smiled. "In a way, I have, I guess. Look, there's no reason for you to be moping about and suffering forever, is there? Besides, I told you. I'll be sharing your experience, and it will give me something while I'm holed up here."

"How long are you going to do this, Karen? Someday, my parents are bound to find out. My mother will come up here, or you'll make some noise or something."

"I told you. After a while, I'll just leave. I might not even tell you. I'll just be gone. Don't worry."

"I'm not worrying for myself as much as for you," I said. It was true.

"I know. I appreciate it. I need some more time to pass, and there are things I still have to do. I can't leave you behind in such a state of innocence. What kind of a friend would I have been?"

"Jesse's home in two weeks," I reminded her.

She stared at me a moment and then stood up, her arms extended and her hands clenched in fists. She paced a moment and turned on me, her face full of rage.

"You just won't stop. You just won't stop reminding me about how horrible my situation is. No matter what I do to forget for a while, to make things like they were, to keep us happy and birds of a feather, you just harp and harp and harp on my being holed up here!"