The Short Life of Secrets

Pete Smith's '57 Chevy was parked in the shadows of the dance hall and cluttered with kids, drinking, laughing and just hanging out. Inside the dance was nearly over, a few couples lingered on the floor and we could hear Merle Haggard on a scratchy old 45 singing about lost love. Inside the Chevy, Pete was pouring orange juice and vodka into plastic cups and passing it around. He handed me one and I looked at it doubtfully before tasting it. It was my first drink and nearly my last - the orange juice was warm and bitter and the vodka's acid taste burned my throat. I made a face and handed it back and Pete laughed and announced that I must not be my mother's daughter after all. Out of nowhere, Johnny appeared in the darkness, hauled Pete out of the car by his collar and leveled him with one quick and accurate punch. For a moment no one said a word, then Pete got to his feet, checked his jaw, and turned to me saying I was outta line, kid, sorry.

Secrets don't last long on a small island and I had just discovered that my mother's drinking habits were no exception. Johnny put his arm around my shoulders and we left the dance, walking slowly along the Old Road in silence. As we rounded the curve at Gull Rock, the lights of Westport appeared across the passage and I could see the church spire on one end and the lighthouse at the other. The water was calm and dark, unlike the islanders it did not give up its secrets. I shouldn't have hit him, Johnny said, He didn't mean anything. I leaned against him and said nothing. He smelled of aftershave and new leather, a tall good looking boy with defined, rugged features and kind eyes. Everybody drinks too much now and then, he told me gently, It's nothing to do with you.

We walked on til we reached the New Road and then crossed over the strawberry field and down the driveway to my back door. Crickets chirped and the clouds were bright in the night sky as we sat on the side steps with moonlight everywhere. Johnny smoked and talked of his dream to go to the mainland and find work on the tiny newspaper, a dream he would turn into reality for a brief time though we didn't know it then, about fishing with his dad, about being the first in his family to finish grade twelve, about having ambition in a limited world. He was getting around to it in his own way and finally he talked to me about my mother. She and his dad had been friends, drinking buddies, some would have said, for years and Johnny had been through many of the same things I had. Pete Smith, he said,
was a loud mouth and a drunk himself, so I was to pay no mind. Sticks and stones, he reminded me, shake it off.
Her shame, and he said this clearly and slowly, is not your's. And he smiled, kissed me, and said It's our secret.