Cutler 02 - Secrets of the Morning

entertainers, celebrities," she said, spitting the words. "They worship them and then suffer when they discover their gods of stage and screen have feet of clay.
    "Keep your feet on the ground and your head out of the clouds," she preached. "Do you understand?"
    I nodded, my head still bowed. She spoke as if she knew about Michael and me. But how could she? Unless . . . Richard Taylor, I thought, my heart racing with fear.
    "Dismissed," she snapped and pivoted quickly to march out of the music suite. I was left listening to the clicking of her heels as she walked down the corridor, each click feeling like a slap across my face.
    I hurried out of the school and, without lifting my eyes, charged across the campus to the sidewalk. I rushed across streets, not seeing anyone.
    It was a gloomy, overcast late fall day. The sky was a sea of bruised, angry-looking clouds threatening to drop a cold, hard rain over the city. The wind found every opening in my jacket and filled me with a chill that made me walk even faster. When I arrived at the apartment house, I charged up the stairs and through the doorway. I wanted to run up to my room and bury my face in my pillow.
    But a package on the small table in the entryway caught my eye. It was where Agnes left all our mail. This package was very big and covered with stamps. 1 recognized the handwriting immediately: it was a package from Germany, from Jimmy. I scooped it into my arms and hurried down the corridor to the stairway.
    Trisha wasn't back from a late dance practice, so I was alone. I sat on my bed and slowly unwrapped the package. Then I lifted the cover off the box and gazed down at a beautifully embroidered satin pillow with silk tassels. It was bright pink with hearts and forget-me-nots. The letters were in black and spelled out I LOVE YOU in German as well as in English. For a moment I just held it on my lap, unable to move, unable to think.
    I hadn't thought very much about Jimmy these past few weeks. When his letters arrived, they sat for days on my dresser unopened. And then when I finally opened them and read them, I read them quickly, almost as though I was afraid of his words, afraid to read how much he loved me, afraid to hear his voice in my mind and see his face before me.
    He had already noticed something different about my last letter. It was much shorter than any of the others and I hadn't written over and over just how much I missed him. He wondered if I were sick and he hoped his gift from Germany would cheer me up. In the letter with the pillow, he wrote, "Just knowing you're lying back with your head on this pillow makes me feel good. For me it's like you were lying back with your head on my lap."
    I threw the letter down and covered my face with my hands. I didn't want to betray Jimmy, and yet, I couldn't help loving Michael. I knew how it was going to break Jimmy's heart to learn about Michael and me when it finally came out. I couldn't stand the idea that he would hate me for it.
    Twice I sat down and tried to write a letter to Jimmy explaining what had happened and how it was nothing I could have planned on happening. It was just part of my musical life, I wrote, but that didn't sound any better than anything else I had written. In the end, I tore up both letters and decided I would wait to write him.
    I put the satin pillow back in its box and hid it away in my closet. If I kept it on my bed, I would see and feel it every day, and every day I would hate myself for the moment when Jimmy would find out about Michael and me.
     
    "I have a present for you," Michael said as soon as he opened his apartment door to greet me. "It's on my bed. Go put it on," he added, stepping back. He was holding a glass of wine and had soft music playing and the lights low. "I'll pour a glass of wine for you."
    "What is it?" I asked, a little alarmed. He looked like he had already drunk quite a bit of wine himself.
    "Just go and see," he said.
    I moved quickly through the apartment to his bedroom. There was a long, white box on the bed. I opened it and looked down at a sheer, pink silk nightgown, so filmy and transparent I might as well be naked. Did he want me to put this on now? I wondered.
    "Do you like it?" he asked from the doorway.
    "It's very nice," I said.
    "Very nice?" He stepped up behind me and took my shoulders in his hands before kissing me softly on the back of the neck. "It's very expensive, too. Put it on. Nothing else," he added. "I've dreamt all day