Every Single Secret(8)
“Fish,” Heath said under his breath.
I furrowed my brow at him, but he looked away.
“It’s actually scallops in some kind of cream sauce, if I’m not mistaken. You’re not allergic, are you?”
“He’s not allergic,” I interjected. I glanced at Donna McAdam, smiled, and rolled my eyes. A prim look was all I got in return.
Reggie cleared his throat. “After dinner, the doctor will meet with each couple in his study, so we’d like to get your private tours of the house and grounds in before that. There are a few quirks to the property, and we want everyone to feel comfortable during your stay. The Siefferts have already had theirs. The McAdams are next, and then I’ll take you.”
I looked over at the McAdams. They’d migrated back to the windows, still holding their wine.
In the main hall, Reggie led the way upstairs. “You can drop your things in your room, freshen up if you like, and then we’ll meet back downstairs for your tour. Do either of you know why the house is called Baskens?”
Heath spoke up. “The property and house originally belonged to the Baskens family, from Dr. Cerny’s maternal side—built back during the gold rush. Dr. Cerny inherited the place, lived here a while, and eventually turned it into a counseling retreat.”
“Wow,” I said. It was certainly more than I’d been able to dig up online.
“Very good,” Reggie said.
“Mason, the guy from work, told me that,” Heath said.
“Here we go,” Reggie puffed, and Heath hooked a finger through one of mine.
As I stepped onto the first landing, I happened to look back. I could just see—through one arched opening—a woman standing in the dark dining room. She had silver or blonde hair that shone, even in the shadows, and a long, elegant neck. I thought, at first, that was all I could see, but it wasn’t exactly true. There was something more, something strange. She was staring at us—at me, specifically—with an expression of naked, undisguised curiosity.
Chapter Three
Nine Months Prior
In January, the Atlanta Business Chronicle picked Lenny and me to participate in their annual “Thirty Under Thirty” issue, which was an incredible coup for us—a PR rocket booster that meant our little company, the Silver Sisters, could leapfrog to the front of the line and bid more prestigious jobs.
It also meant we were morally obligated to go out (along with Kevin, our one employee, an assistant-slash-bookkeeper) and blow our expense budget on a three-course dinner and a bottle of real French champagne. The next day, still gloriously hungover, Lenny and I met the reporter for lunch at Farm Burger, where the two of us put on our dog-and-pony show about how we’d started the Silver Sisters.
Well, Lenny put on the show. I sat quietly and snapped the hair band on my wrist so many times the skin on the inside of my wrist burned in the shower later that night.
Lenny explained to the reporter that both of us were only children, each having always longed for a sister. Friends who’d met at Savannah College of Art and Design, a pair of starry-eyed, scrappy girls; we’d dreamed of starting a business together since the day we met in Space Planning our freshmen year. After graduation, we finally did it, me with the design talent and Lenny with the kick-ass business savvy. Through sheer force of will (and a nice pile of startup cash from her father), we created our own business as well as the sisterhood we’d always longed for.
Of course, the story made me sound as if I’d shown up at art school like Athena springing from the head of Zeus, but the real story was different. The truth was I’d gotten there the hard way—seven years at a group foster home southwest of Macon, during which time my absentee mother died of a drug overdose. I made it through those early years mostly unscathed, my only visible scar a secret but mostly controlled obsession with food.
Thanks to a state scholarship program, I attended SCAD, where I met Lenny Silver. Lenny took an instant liking to me and swept me under her motherly wing. My reluctance to talk about the ranch or my mother’s death must’ve frustrated her, but she never let it stop her from deluging me with her friendship. After we graduated and moved to Decatur, just outside Atlanta, her parents absorbed me into their warm, chaotic family like I was a stray pup. At Hap Silver’s insistence, I moved into one of his properties, an adorable updated bungalow on Ansley Street. I paid him a laughably low monthly rent and furnished it with Barbara Silver’s exquisite nineteenth-century castoffs. I walked to Agnes Scott College every morning in the soft dawn and sprinted around the track until any jagged memory from Piney Woods Girls’ Ranch that may have poked through my formidable psychic walls and into my consciousness was safely stuffed away again.
And the food-hoarding thing eased, thanks to the stability provided by the Silver family. I no longer stashed cookies and granola bars under my mattress. Now when I felt anxious, I just silently counted whatever happened to be nearby. My slimmer physique reflected my new calm (and the running I’d taken up), and although I didn’t date much—I hadn’t met anyone I felt a strong connection to—I was content with my life. Work kept me busy enough. It was all the therapy I needed.
The photo shoot for the Chronicle feature was held in midtown, at a drab warehouse on a side street off Ponce de Leon. The thirty anointed ones (Lenny and I counted as one) gathered in the frigid space for a group shot. The wardrobe guy wheeled around us, slapping shirts and blazers and scarves on those deemed underdressed, while two makeup artists scuttled frantically between the women, spackling and dabbing and hair fluffing.