Public Secrets

him for very long.
There were still times when she fantasized about him coming to his senses, coming back to her and begging her forgiveness. In those fantasies she saw them making love in the red velvet bed, the hot, frantic sex they had shared so many years before. Her body was curvy and smooth, a young girl’s. Jane always imagined herself that way.
She’d grown grotesquely fat. Her breasts, like soggy balloons, hung down to what had been her waist. Fish-white, her belly drooped low and was ringed with row after row of loose flesh. Her arms and thighs were massive and shook like jelly with flab whenever she stirred herself to move them. It had become so difficult to find a vein through the layers of fat that she had taken up freebasing. She could still skin pop, slide the needle under the skin, but mainlining was rare.
She missed it, mourned it like a mother mourns a lost child.

Rising, she turned on the bedside lamp. She didn’t like the light, but she needed it to get to her pipe. Her hair hung limply and was blond only on the last few inches. She had wanted to bleach it with Clairol’s Bombshell Beige, but had lost the box somewhere in her cluttered bedroom. She wore a black lace nightie the size of a two-man pup tent. When she lit the torch, she looked like some mad, pornographic welder.
The smoke calmed her. She’d been lying in bed planning. She was shrewd enough to know she needed money, a great deal of money if she wanted to pay her supplier. And she wanted pretty clothes again, pretty clothes and pretty boys to come and sink into her. She wanted to go to parties. To have people pay attention.
She smoked, and smiled.
She knew how to get the money, but she’d have to be clever, very clever. The drug made her feel smart. It was time to pull out her ace in the hole.
Scrounging through her dresser, she found a box of stationery. It was pretty, rainbow-colored paper with her name across the top. She admired it for a time, then took another hit from the pipe before searching for a pen, muttering to herself. A little insurance, she thought as she began to write. Of course, she’d have to tear her name off the top. She wasn’t a fool.
She wrote like a child, slowly, her tongue caught between her teeth as she formed the letters. When she’d finished she was so pleased with her neatness, she forgot about the letterhead. There were stamps inside the box. She hummed as she attached three of them. They looked so pretty, she added another, then studied her craftsmanship. For a time she puzzled over the address, then began to write again.
Kesselring, Police Detective
Los Angeles, California
U.S.A.
After some thought, she added “Urgent!” in the corner and underlined it.
She took it downstairs with her, thinking she would find some clever hiding place. On a detour into the kitchen, she ate an entire carton of ice cream, shoveling it into her mouth with a serving spoon. Spotting the envelope, she began to mutter.
“Stupid girl,” she mumbled, thinking of her last maid. “Can’t even post a damn letter. Going to sack her.” Indignant, she waddled out, and with considerable effort, bent to push the envelope under the front door. She went back upstairs and smoked herself into oblivion.

It was a week before she remembered her plan. In her mind she remembered writing the letter. The insurance. She’d hidden it. Though she couldn’t quite remember where, that didn’t worry her. What worried her was that she was nearly out of food, and drugs. Her last bottle of gin had been drained. Jane picked up the phone. After a few hours, she thought, she’d never have to worry about money again.
It was answered on the third ring. “Hello, dear. It’s Jane.”
“What do you want?”
“Ooh, that’s a nice way to speak to an old friend.”
There was a sigh, bitten off. “I said, what do you want?”
“Just a chat, luv, just a chat.” She giggled. Blackmail was so much fun. “I’m running a bit low on funds.”
“That’s not my problem.”
“Oh, I think it is. You see, when I run low on funds, my conscience starts acting up. Just lately, I’ve been feeling bad about what happened to Brian’s poor little boy. I’ve been feeling real bad about it.”
“You never gave a damn about that boy.”
“That’s a hard thing to say, dear. After all, I’m a mother. Thinking of my own sweet Emma, a grown-up married lady now, makes me think about that boy. Why, he’d be grown-up himself, if he’d lived.”
“I