Sarah Morgan - How To Keep A Secret

Jenna fingered an overripe tomato, wondering whether the pleasure of pulping it against Sylvia’s perfect white shirt would outweigh the inevitable fallout.

Probably not.

She dropped the tomato into her basket and made a vague comment about being busy.

“I must get home.” She grabbed a bottle of wine. She probably shouldn’t be drinking, but she wasn’t pregnant, so why not? Greg wanted her to relax, didn’t he? She’d rather drink wine than go to yoga, and after her earlier encounter with her mother she needed it.

“My Alice loves those stories you read to them, Adventures with My Sister . Could you tell me the author? Is it a series? I’m going to buy those books for her birthday. Her favorite is the story about them freeing the lobsters.”

“They’re not published,” Jenna said. “I make them up. I used to tell stories to my niece when she was little and somehow I carried on doing it with my class.”

“No way! Really? Well you should be writing books, not teaching. Where do you get all those wonderful ideas? You must have quite the imagination.”

“Thank you.”

That and a colorful childhood to draw on for inspiration.

“If you wrote those stories down, the whole class would buy them, that’s for sure.”

Write the stories down.

Why hadn’t she ever thought of that?

Author: a person who composes a book, article or other written work.

“By the way—” Sylvia’s tone was casual “—I was driving through Edgartown half an hour ago and I happened to see a pickup truck parked outside your mother’s house. Guess who was driving it? Scott Rhodes.” She lowered her voice, as if the mere mention of that name might be enough to get her arrested. “He looked as bad and dangerous as ever. I swear the man never smiles. What is his problem? I didn’t know he knew your mom.”

She hadn’t known that either. Thoughts of a new life as an author flew from her head.

What was he doing calling on her mother? And if Sylvia had seen him half an hour ago then that meant Jenna must have missed him by minutes.

Scott Rhodes?

She remembered the summer she’d first seen him. He’d been stripped to the waist and across the powerful bulk of his shoulders she’d seen the unmistakable mark of a tattoo. That tattoo had fascinated her. Her mother wouldn’t even allow her to have her ears pierced.

Scott didn’t seem to care what other people thought and that, to Jenna, had been the coolest thing of all.

She was aware that she cared far too much. She was a people pleaser, but in a small island community that ran on goodwill, she didn’t know how to be any other way.

Scott Rhodes, on the other hand, answered to no one but himself and she envied that. Even looking at him made her feel as if she was doing something she shouldn’t, as if by stepping into his space you made a statement about yourself and who you were. Danger by association. She expected to feel her mother’s hand close over her shoulder any moment.

Not that she’d been that interested. She was in love with Greg. Greg, who she knew so well he almost seemed like an extension of her. Greg, who smiled almost all the time.

Scott Rhodes rarely smiled. It was as if he and life were on opposing sides.

She’d been studying his muscles and deeply tanned chest with rapt attention when he glanced up and caught her looking. There was no smile, no wink, no suggestive gaze. Nothing. His face was inscrutable.

Scott worked at the boatyard and did the occasional carpentry job for people. He slept on his boat, anchored offshore, as if ready to sail away at a moment’s notice.

Why would Scott Rhodes be visiting her mother?

Hi, Mom, I hear you had the devil on your doorstep…

Aware that Sylvia was waiting for a response, Jenna shrugged. “My mother knows everyone. And she still plays a role in the yachting community. Scott knows boats.”

Sylvia nodded. “That’s probably it.” It was obvious that she didn’t think that was the reason at all, and neither did Jenna.

It nagged at her as she drove the short distance home, enjoying the last of the weak daylight.

The cottage she shared with Greg between Chilmark and the fishing village of Menemsha had a view of the sea from the upstairs windows and a little garden that frothed with blooms in the summer months.

It was, in her opinion, the perfect place to raise a family.

Of course, she didn’t have a family to raise.

Maybe they ought to get a dog.

She pushed that thought aside, along with all the questions she had about Scott Rhodes, and parked her car.

In the summer this part of the island teemed with tourists, but in the winter months you were more likely to see eiders congregating near the jetties, riding the current and sheltering behind fishing boats. The sky was cold and threatening and the wind managed to find any gaps in clothing.

She loved the place whatever the season, whether she was wrapped up in layers in the winter, or eating a warm lobster roll on the beach in the summer watching the sun go down.

Today there was no sun.

Jenna fumbled her way into the house, grateful for the warmth.

She lit the wood-burning stove in the living room, unpacked the shopping and made a casserole. Beef was Greg’s favorite, but she’d read somewhere that red meat reduced fertility, so she used chicken.

While the casserole simmered in the oven, she chopped vegetables.

Then she tidied the cottage, took a shower and changed into a wool dress she’d bought to wear at Christmas two years before. It had looked good on her then. Now, it clung in places it wasn’t supposed to cling. She picked up one of the magazines she’d bought and stared gloomily at the slim, toned blonde dressed in leggings and a crop top.

“You are so airbrushed.” She flung the magazine to one side and picked up the other one.

This one recommended a diet of raw food interspersed with long periods of fasting.

“If I fast, I faint.” What she really needed was the Comfort Eater’s Diet. Or the Stressed While Trying for a Baby Diet.

In the meantime she needed to order control underwear.

She stuffed both magazines under the sofa and noticed the notepad on the coffee table that Greg had been using to make a shopping list.

Maybe she should write down some of her stories. Why not?

She tore out a clean page and sketched two little girls with a goat, but the goat ended up looking like a pig.

She tapped its bloated stomach. “What you need is a bikini diet.”

Throwing down the pen, she slid the paper under the sofa along with the magazines. Maybe she’d think about it another time. Or maybe her stories were better told round a campfire than written down.

Her dress felt uncomfortably tight, so she walked to the bedroom to choose something else.

She pulled on her favorite pair of stretchy jeans and a sweater Greg had bought for her birthday. It was a pretty shade of blue, shot through with silvery thread, and it fell soft and loose to the top of her thighs, concealing all evidence of her dietary transgressions.

She was checking the casserole when she heard the sound of his key in the door.

“Something smells good.” Greg walked into the house and dropped his keys on the table. “How’s my green-eyed mermaid?”

He’d called her that since the summer she turned eight years old when she’d barely left the sea.

“Mermaids don’t have curly hair and freckles.” She smiled as he came up behind her and kissed her on the neck.

“You shouldn’t stereotype mermaids. You look gorgeous. Is that sweater new?”

“You bought it for me.”

“I have great taste. How was your mother? Are you in need of therapy?” He slid his arms round her and she sucked in her stomach to make herself thinner. She liked the fact that he kissed her before he even hung up his coat. Andrea was right—she was lucky to have Greg. So why didn’t that feel like enough?