The Secrets She Keeps by Deb Caletti

Author:Deb Caletti
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2015-07-06T16:00:00+00:00

“Wait ’til you see the dual-speed windshield wipers,” Veronica says.

Nash clears her throat. She tries to sound like she’s in charge. “First thing you should locate is the brake.”

“Look, a heater,” Ellen says.

If her mother knew about this, she’d kill her, Nash thinks. She’d kill her again. The Styleline Deluxe is only two years old, with all the features. Alice makes Danny wash the desert dust off it every few days. Ellen is behind the wheel. Veronica and Hadley are in on this together. Lilly leans against the porch railing, shading her eyes against the afternoon sun to watch.

“My palms are sweating,” Ellen says.

“You cannot keep relying on a man to drive you around,” Veronica says.

“Every divorcée needs a set of these.” Hadley tosses the keys to Ellen, who misses the catch. She hunts around on the floor for them.

“Divorcée,” Ellen says, popping her blond head back up. “I can still barely even say the word.”

“When life gives you lemons…” Hadley says.

“Learn how to drive,” Veronica says.

Somehow, Nash ends up in the backseat, with Veronica in front. Clearly, she’s losing control of the situation. They are having lesson number one right here in the driveway, and Boo looks out from the front window of the house as if he disapproves. Nash hopes that none of the wranglers see her back there, especially Jack. Danny is stuck taking Mrs. Shumley into town to get her hair done, so Nash is safe from him, and who knows where Jack is, anyway. Every time she shuts her eyes, she sees the flash of that camera and him running, half naked, for that photographer.

The engine is on, chuckling as if in a fine, jovial mood. Ellen checks her lipstick in the rearview mirror. Veronica shows her how to shift into reverse, and down the drive they go in a sudden lurch that makes Nash shriek and causes Hadley to give a round of applause.

“Easy, easy,” Veronica says. It’s the same thing Jack says to Zorro.

Ellen shifts again, and they go forward and then stop suddenly in telegraph style—dash, dot, dash, dot. Nash’s head begins to throb. It is due to last night’s lack of sleep, but it is also unexpressed anger, pressing outward against her temples. She is angry at Jack, yes, but she is also angry at her mother for leaving and at her sister for just about everything. When it comes to sisters, it seems that one stays and one goes, one remains bound and the other is set free. She is who she is in good part because of who Gloria isn’t. In order to be herself, in order to be different from her sister, she had to take what was left over, the opposite, unchosen road. She is both glad and furious about this.

“The horse was easier!” Ellen says. There is a trickle of sweat by her temple, brought on by nerves and heat, but her eyes are bright and excited. “I never thought I’d say that.”

“You are doing beautifully. Stay calm.

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