Something She's Not Telling Us - Darcey Bell Page 0,58
just get this feeling about things.”
“A wrong one.”
“It’s like I have a sixth sense,” says Ruth.
It’s important not to react, not to do anything to show that Charlotte’s blood pressure has spiked. Where is Ruth getting this from? How could she possibly know?
No one knows about Daisy. Not even Eli.
No one.
Charlotte should have been an actress. It’s quite a performance, walking the rest of the way to her mother’s with Ruth and not seeming completely crazed.
HOW TASTEFUL AND unpretentious and real Mom’s house looks compared to Chef Basil’s.
“Is Mom back?” Charlotte asks Luz. “Is Daisy still gone?”
“Your mother and Daisy are still at the market.”
Eli and Rocco have also gone out. Luz’s husband, Paco, has driven them to check out a rug-weaving village near Monte Albán.
Charlotte’s anxious because Daisy isn’t back yet. Fear doubles the dose of the fight-or-flight chemical that’s been running through her since Ruth asked if Eli is Daisy’s real father.
She’s glad that Eli’s not here.
She goes into her bedroom and dials her therapist. Ted.
In all her years in therapy, she’s never called him except to make or break an appointment. But she needs to call him now, or she’ll never stop shaking. She doesn’t have to fake the emotions she leaves on Ted’s answering machine.
She’s arranging flowers in the courtyard when Ted returns her call.
Back in her bedroom, she locks the door and goes into the bathroom and runs the water. But now Ted can’t hear her, so she returns to the bedroom and tries to keep her voice steady.
“She knows. Ruth knows the truth about Daisy. No one knows but you and me. And I didn’t tell her.”
Ted is silent for a long time.
“Are you still there?”
“I’m here,” Ted says. “I’m thinking.”
Charlotte has the weirdest thought: Ted told her. But she’s just being paranoid. Ted would never betray a professional confidence. And he doesn’t know Ruth. She trusts Ted more than anyone in the world except Eli and Daisy.
After another silence, Ted says, “Your brother’s girlfriend may have some very serious problems.”
Charlotte’s heart sinks even lower, as if that was possible. “What do you mean?”
“I worked with schizophrenics early in my career. And I still remember the ones—there were several of them, I recall—whose intuition was so strong, they actually seemed to have ESP. Or to be mind readers. Or something.”
“This can’t be that,” says Charlotte. “She can’t be that good. Or that crazy.”
“Maybe she’s not,” says Ted. “Maybe she’s taking a guess.”
Charlotte has learned to recognize those moments when Ted is about to say something she doesn’t want to hear.
“Look . . . I was going to tell you this when you got back . . . I didn’t want to alarm you or spoil your vacation. But . . . a young woman left a long message on my answering machine. She said she was writing a profile on Andrew John for the local paper. She wondered if I knew anything about the family that owned the land before he did. It seemed that the papers had run a story about a fire. She’d found it in the archives—”
Charlotte says, “The local paper up there folded. A couple of years ago. There is no local paper. I’m scared. Really scared.”
“Of what?”
“Of everything.”
“You can’t be scared of everything. So don’t be. Maybe this means nothing. The woman who called me—let’s assume it was Ruth—was fishing. Or stalking you. Or both. My sense is that she knows nothing. Just stay calm. Keep busy. I’ll see you when you get back.”
“Okay,” Charlotte says unsteadily.
“One more thing,” says Ted. “Just on the off chance that this . . . Well! We might want to begin to discuss your finally having that talk with Eli.”
CHARLOTTE CAN’T MOVE for several minutes after her conversation with Ted. Then she goes back to the courtyard. She doesn’t want to think about the implications of what Ruth said, of what Ted said. She doesn’t want to imagine how badly—how really badly—things could go from here on. Her whole life could be upended because Ruth had some weird intuition . . .
Daisy still isn’t back. Time refuses to pass. Charlotte takes a Xanax and lies down on her bed.
She wakes up when Daisy runs into her room and pulls her out onto the patio.
In one hand Daisy holds Our Mexican Adventure. And in the other she clutches her glue stick and a stack of elaborate package wrappings—soap, honey, chocolate—that Grandma got her in the market and removed from the products they’d adorned.