Secrecy Read Online Free

I’ve never seen one, but I think it must be like this.”
    “You’ll see a famous one in Capri. Now tell me, do you want to pretend you’re a shy virgin bride and get undressed in the bathroom? Or shall I—”
    “You shall. You shall right now.”
    No, she was hardly a shy virgin bride. Were theresuch anymore? Nevertheless, she had bought for this night the laciest lace that any virginal bride could want. What a pity, she thought, laughing at herself, that I’ll not even get to put it on.

THREE
    “Y our father really could have come down this week,” Elena said, applying sunblock to her nose.
    “He couldn’t. Some people were in town again to look at the plant and maybe buy it.”
    “Nobody’s ever going to buy it. They might as well dynamite the place.”
    “That’s silly.”
    “Well, of course it is. Dynamiting, I mean. But give up—give it to the town or something. Oh, well, come on in for a swim.”
    “I can’t. I’m supposed to finish this whole book over vacation, and I’m going home the day after tomorrow.”
    “You haven’t looked at it for the last ten minutes. What on earth have you been dreaming about?”
    “I’m not dreaming.”
    “Gazing, then.”
    Elena wanted people to be as alert and busy as shewas, even if busyness meant only applying makeup or talking on the telephone. You weren’t supposed to sit and do nothing.
    Charlotte answered patiently, her patience masking impatience, “I was looking at that boat.”
    “What about it? They’re waiting their chance to slide into the lagoon.”
    “I was thinking how sinister it seems. It has a shark’s pointed nose. And the cabin windows up front are like shark’s eyes. I think maybe they run guns or drugs in it.”
    “You’re a funny girl,” Elena said. “Funny and lovable.”
    She sprang up. Other people seemed to struggle up from a beach chair, whereas she got onto her feet in one easy movement. Now she stretched out her arms as if to limber herself and yawned.
    “This sun makes me sleepy. Okay, I’ll be back soon.”
    Charlotte watched her. Other people watched her, too, for Elena was wearing a black string bikini and a red straw cartwheel hat, which she would leave at the water’s edge. She had no objections to a tanned body, but always protected her face. No matter what Charlotte ever thought of her mother, even in those moments when she was filled with love for her, there was always a painful awareness of her mother’s difference. And this went along with her own embarrassment over it. She certainly knew that teenagers like herself are often embarrassed by their parents. So was this normal of her or not? Her mind was always divided. A mother should just
be
there, theway one’s bed is there, or one’s shoes on the closet floor; you didn’t have to
think
about them, did you?
    Elena had already joined a group going into the water, or probably it was they who had joined her. Did she know everybody on this beach, and in the condominium, too, when they all sat around the pool in the late afternoon? It certainly seemed that way. The group was laughing now. Charlotte could even hear one man’s loud whoop. Elena must have said something funny.
    Actually, the week had been a success so far. All Charlotte’s previous vacations had been in western or northern places, and this was the first time she had seen palm trees, the first time she had seen water as blue as this intense, vast blue. Elena had made friends with a family who were cruising on their own boat and had taken them out on it for a day. Yesterday they had been invited to somebody’s enormous house for lunch; it had enormous lawns and white marble floors. Charlotte thought the house was too large and chilly to feel like anybody’s home. But there had been two girls of her age there, and it had turned out to be a rather good day.
    There was only one thing wrong with any of the days this week. That thing was Judd. He was always there.
    Yet he might be a perfectly