Page 21 of A Hidden Past

She smiles at me and says, “Tonight, Nate, you are old enough to do whatever you want.”

The promise in that sentence is clear. I swallow and say, “Um, thank you. Just one glass, though. I do have to get home eventually. My mom will be waiting for me.”

“How soon do you have to be home?”

I think about that for a moment. Mom will wonder if I don’t come home tonight, but she won’t start wondering until the morning. For her, the morning never begins before nine a.m.

“Um… actually, I can leave whenever. I mean, I can stay whenever. I mean…” God, I am absolutely blowing this.

She laughs, and even though she’s laughing at me, there’s no taunt. I end up chuckling too, and she says, “Then you have time to drink as much as you want.”

She leads me to the kitchen, and I see she’s already set the table, wine included. I’m not really much of a wine guy, but at this point, I’d happily drink transmission fluid if Vivian poured it for me.

I start to sit, then something clicks in my head. I rush to the head of the table and pull out Vivian’s chair. She laughs again and says, “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” I reply like a five-year-old, because I’ve apparently forgotten how to talk to humans.

I take a bite of the lobster to hide my embarrassment. I’m not really a seafood guy either, but the lobster is absolutely delicious. Or maybe it’s just that I know what dessert is going to be.

“How do you like it?”

“It’s delicious,” I say. I remember to swallow my food before I talk, at least.

“Good,” she says, “I’m glad.” Her smile softens a little. “I want you to have a good night.”

I seriously don’t understand how I could possibly have a bad night, but I say, “Thank you. That means a lot.”

Her smile widens again, but it’s the compassionate one from earlier today, not the come-hither smirk of a moment ago. “I’m truly sorry you had to see what happened earlier.” The angels singing in my mind quiet, and it must show on my face, because she follows that up with, “I know you probably don’t want to talk about it, but I think you should. I think we should.”

I'm not sure why it's so important for her to talk about it, but I say, "No, it's okay. Yeah, I, uh… I'm sorry, too. She seemed like a sweet girl."

“She was,” Vivian replies. “She was a very sweet girl, and she didn’t deserve what happened to her.”

I detect something in Vivian’s tone, a slight anger that makes me wonder if she suspects more than she’s letting on. I decide to probe a little. “So you don't think it was an accident or suicide or something?"

She chuckles with more than a touch of bitterness. “No, it was definitely not suicide. I don’t know if it was murder, but it definitely wasn’t suicide.”

“Are you saying it was maybe an accident?”

She meets my eyes, and now her smile is hard. Not like Marco's face is hard, but not entirely different. "Nate, you're adorable, but you're a lot less adorable when you pretend to be stupid."

“Right. So… are you saying that even if she killed herself, someone else is responsible?”

She looks at me for a moment without saying anything. This time, she reminds me of the detective, Ramirez, like she's trying to figure out if I'm hiding something. Finally, she says, "Remember when I told you that the deception here is refreshingly honest?"

“Yes.”

“Well, that wasn’t entirely true. What I meant when I said that was that everyone here wears a mask, but because everyone wears a mask, everyone knows that everyone else is wearing a mask. Do you know what I mean?”

Everyone spies on everyone here. “Yeah. I think I do.”

She took a bite of her lobster. I tried not to focus on her lips parting and her tongue wrapping around the bite, but I failed badly at that.

When she swallowed, she said, “That means that when other people talk to you, you can be reasonably sure that they’re being dishonest towards you. You know that the way they act toward you isn’t real, and with enough time, you can start to figure out what their intentions toward you are. Generally speaking, at least. For example, Mrs. Cho hates Mrs. Fletcher. She knows that Mr. Fletcher is attracted to her. So, whenever they see each other socially, Mrs. Cho will wear a conservative outfit if it’s only Mrs. Fletcher attending the party or gala or get-together, or what have you. If Mr. Fletcher is there by himself, she’ll also dress conservatively. It’s only when both of the Fletchers are there that Mrs. Cho will spend hours making herself look as beautiful as possible and dress in an evening gown even more seductive than this one.”

“So she doesn’t actually want to seduce Mr. Fletcher, she just wants Mrs. Fletcher to think she is.”

“Close. What she wants is for Mrs. Fletcher to know that her husband wishes she was more attractive.”

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