Gloria's Secret (excerpt)

I The plane skidded to a stop jerkily, throwing me out of my purportedly peaceful sleep. I blinked a few times against the sun rays coming in through the window before I looked out. “Tampa,” I breathed, disappointed. There was nothing special about it to me and for a girl from New York, it seemed very small town. The pilot came on the overhead speaker but his words muddled together in my head. I leaned my head back on the seat and dragged in a breath, preparing myself for whatever lay ahead. I was almost the last person to exit the plane, sitting way back in the last row since the decision to send me to live with my sister in Tampa, Florida was a last minute one. We were ten years apart and she hadn’t been back home to visit once since she kicked off her shoes and darted for the airport runway nine years ago. Dashed away from our family. Sometimes, it didn’t seem to bother my mother that she stayed away; she resigned and said that New York just wasn’t the place for Gloria and she had to let her live her life the way that she wanted. We all knew the truth, however. Our family was perfect to everyone that wasn’t a part of it. We frequently went out together and anytime anyone saw us, we were always laughing and smiling. Many times people told us that we seemed well constructed and happy and that they wished their children were as well-mannered as Gloria, my brother Trent and I. Behind closed doors, only we knew the truth. My father was a good man. My mother always joked and said that he was the kind of model that they stopped making in the sixties. “The seventies brought out the carnal instincts in people,” she would say. “Many of us hit the seventies running and never looked back.” She was one of them. When my father would work nearly eighty-hours a week to support three children and a wife with semi-expensive tastes, my mother would bring home men and women, sometimes both at the same time and lead them past us to her bedroom, leaving behind a waft of gin, cognac, vodka or another unrecognizable sweet smell. Some of them smelled like tobacco and others came in laden with sawdust and concrete. I remember the man that came in with his wife, she relaxed and him nervous. I peeked from the kitchen to see my mother saunter up to him and grab him down low, causing him to howl in what I thought was sheer pain. She and his wife laughed then, he still looking nervous and then they made their way upstairs. Then, when they left she took a shower and fixed her hair, kissed my father when he walked through the door and made sure there was dinner on the table. He always sat at the head, content, looking at my mother with adoring eyes. Those days, the days when I actually saw what was happening, were the days I felt sorry for him the most. However, at the time, I was too young to actually realize why. Then one day, I was sitting in the middle of my third grade classroom when an eighteen year old Gloria walked through the door. We were learning how to write numbers in roman numerals, confusing me because I had always been taught that letters and numbers were dichotomous. Her eyes were darker than usual, livid and a little bit swollen. My teacher then, Mrs. Pickett stopped class and followed Gloria with cautious eyes. Gloria whispered something to her then and Mrs. Pickett’s head dropped

a little, and she nodded. She motioned to me to get up and informed me to pack my stuff and that I was going home. At the time, I was relieved to get out of the assignment and at that moment, felt like the luckiest kid in the third grade. Gloria held one of my shoulders and led me outside. When we reached the car, she squatted in front of me and stared into my eyes for a bit. What I didn’t realize then is that she was trying to decipher a way to avoid having to reveal to me whatever it was that plagued her. It seemed like minutes passed before her gaze broke mine, and hanging her head low she said in an almost inaudible voice, “Daddy died this afternoon.” The words had swirled around my head, mostly in incomprehension because the concept of death was still fairly new to me. I was aware that things could die; I had seen lions pounce on gazelles and birds grasp lizards between their beaks. I was aware that death meant that things stopped breathing, their hearts stopped beating and they were not going to come back. It was never evident to me that anyone that I cared about could die, however. The magnitude of what had transgressed was probably too old for an eight year old to understand then. I remember feeling confused again, just as I had felt with the roman numerals because yet again, at another point in my life, I was forced to believe in the flexibility of concepts. A gray area. I swung my composition book in my right hand and said nothing initially. I only stared at Gloria, her hands placed lightly on both of my shoulders, trembling a little. In my best attempt at being a “grown-up,” I sucked in a deep breath and asked, “Can we go see him?” That was when she started to cry. She stood then and pulled me into her body, nearly crushing me. I heard the sobs escaping from her through her abdomen and rippling their way up to her throat. It dawned on me then that this was a morbid occasion because I had never before seen Gloria cry, even when our dog, Mosey, died and I’d spend my days in the backyard crying over the spot where he had been buried and mourned. I felt stupid remembering my question. My mind took me back to an afternoon when I saw a crow swoop down and scoop up a lizard right off of its rock. “Dinnertime,” my father had joked and I looked up from my homework to see his twinkling expression. “What’s going to happen to him now?” I’d asked, watching the crow’s big black wings fly across the sky. “He’s gonna eat him,” he replied. Then a little more downcast he added, “We can be sure that no one’s ever going to see him again.” “Because when something dies, they never come back, right?” He nodded. “Right.” Stepping back into reality from the memory, I realized that my father was never coming back. I would never see his face at the head of our table again nor anticipate his footsteps when he came up to my room to kiss me goodnight. The sobs seemed to transfer from Gloria’s body to my own as I felt the strain of tears in my throat. My muscles all seized and the black and white notebook fell from my fingers to the concrete parking lot. The tears began before I noticed and the strain in my neck increased, becoming painful. The only way it could be appeased was if I let out a cry, which then turned into several. Gloria returned to a squatting position and pulled me closer to her, my tears staining the shoulder of her pink tee. We stood like that for a few minutes, letting the initial pain drain itself from our bodies. Then, she picked up my book and we got into the car. We didn’t speak for the entire ride; we stayed rigid and distant. The air was too morose for our normal jovial banter and neither of us wanted to speak about the situation at hand. Her eyes remained fixed on the road and my own

outside the window. I noticed a bird flying across the sky with expansive black wings. I envisioned a smaller version of my father in its talons as it flew off into the distance. Daddy was now gone for good; chewed and swallowed. We could be sure that no one was ever going to see him again. That night, ten years ago, Gloria announced that she was leaving. * I waited for the conveyor belt to come around another time before I reached to grab the eggplant colored luggage that my brother had picked up for me last minute at Wal-Mart. Before I had even stuffed my clothes into them, the edges frayed. We laughed about it, trying to make every situation light since he had no plans on coming with me. He was in college at Fordham, a big deal in our neighborhood, and didn’t see himself leaving until he obtained his degree. The laughter that night seemed genuine, but it hadn’t reached his eyes. I knew that he was sad that I was leaving, however, probably happy because I was going to be spending my time with Gloria. A middle aged man noticed that I had been struggling with one of the bags and came over to help me, pulling it off the belt with ease. I thanked him but he still stood there, checking to make sure that I had everything in order. I pretended to be getting everything situated so that he could leave but he remained at my side. “Thanks again, sir,” I repeated and reached for my phone. Before I could begin to dial, he grabbed my wrist. I was already poised to scream in protest until he pulled out his wallet and flipped it open to a picture of him—and my sister. It was a wedding photo. Then, he held out his hand for an introductory shake. “You look so much like your sister, I didn’t even have to refer back to your picture,” he started. “I’m Gloria’s husband, Gerald Davis. But, call me Gerry.” I just stared at his outstretched hand. Gloria’s husband? The picture of the two of them, Gerry in his tuxedo and my sister in a beautiful white strapless chiffon dress with a beaded bodice, a matching veil cascading down either sides of her face to reveal a beautiful, solid white smile. “Hi,” I squeaked out, shaking his hand briefly. He rubbed them together and looked around my feet. “Are you good? You have nothing but the purple luggage, right?” I nodded, still examining his face. He was good looking, a little above six feet with a smooth, flawless complexion. He picked up my bags and threw a glance back at me, smiled and uncontrollably I smiled back. I could see why Gloria probably fell in love with him, in that instant. When he smiled, his face lit up and the twinkle traveled up to his clear brown eyes. Like our father. I followed him out of the terminal, the sun much more noticeable now as it seared down onto my bare shoulder. I noticed a couple rushing towards each other, the woman jumping into her lover’s arms and devouring his face with kisses. His hands encircled her waist perfectly, feverishly running up and down her back and then stopping to curve under her bottom, holding her in place on his hips. The corner of my mouth turned up in a half-smile and my eyes returned to Gerry, following his broad back stretched out in a black linen shirt and dark rinse jeans, to the parking lot. We were quickly approaching a deep wine colored luxury car. As we got closer, I noticed the distinctive Mercedes emblem on the front. I had to stop my mouth from falling open. My father worked nearly eighty hours a week and the best that he could afford was a used 1997 Ford F-150, of which he was insanely proud. When the lights flickered to indicate that he’d disabled the alarm, my suspicions were confirmed. None

of us back home knew exactly what it was that Gloria did for a living. None of us back home even knew that she was married. She had accepted a scholarship to the University of South Florida but no one knew what it was for. She had been very athletic and a straight-A student so the possibilities were endless. Observing Gerry’s clothing and now his car, whatever they both did made them tons of money and she had to be good at it. “Go on, get in,” he coaxed while stuffing my bags into the front. I was suddenly embarrassed by their mediocre appearance against the smooth finish of the car. The piece of thread now noticeably jutted out, making me self conscious. Gloria and Gerry probably had luggage that cost thousands of dollars. I slid onto the cool leather of the front seat, half-expecting it to be hot because it had been sitting in the parking lot but figured that a car this expensive probably had some type of built-in temperature control. It smelled brand new, as if he had bought it just prior to picking me up and drove it straight off the lot to the airport. I gawked at the controls, placing my hands underneath my thighs just so I could fight the urge to touch them. Gerry got in the car then, looked at me then laughed. I could only imagine how ridiculous I looked, eyes wide at the dashboard with my fingers stuffed underneath my thighs. “You can’t be cold,” he stated and I blushed and shook my head slowly. He laughed again, started up the car and drove off. We sat in silence for a while and every now and then I would glance at him. I’d had questions however, since I didn’t know this man, I didn’t know if I should ask. Also, it seemed inappropriate to ask him questions about my sister since I should have already known the answers. Instead, I elected to look out the tinted window at the expanse of the city. We were on the highway so all I could see were the stores down below us and skyscrapers in the distance. Again, compared to New York, this place seemed really small town. “How was the flight?” He broke the silence. “It was fine,” I responded, not sure of what else to say. “There wasn’t any turbulence.” He laughed again. “Since I met Gloria, I’ve been asking her questions about her family members but she never wanted to talk about it. Then, we get a phone call asking if you could stay with us.” “You were upset at first?” I asked, trying to finish his thought. He shook his head swiftly. “No, of course not. I mean, me and Gloria have been married for almost six years. You guys weren’t even at the wedding. I was beginning to think that she was an orphan. So when they told me that she had a younger sister, a seventeen year old sister who needed somewhere to go, I couldn’t say no. I was finally getting to experience that hidden part of her.” I raised an eyebrow. “You didn’t know she had family?” “In college, Gloria told everybody that she was raised by her father,” he answered. There was another period of silence between us as I listened to the wheels on the road. “Do you have any children?” I finally question and he narrowed his eyebrows. “No. Gloria isn’t partial to having children. I mean, she can but she just doesn’t want any right now. And the right now was a compromise.” I found that hard to believe. Growing up, Gloria had always wanted children and they loved her almost instantaneously. Even when she was financially too young to

have them, she would look with longing eyes at our cousins’ babies in hurried anticipation of the day she would hold her first born in her arms. Ten years was more time passed than I had previously fathomed. I was essentially walking into the house of a stranger. We didn’t speak again until I noticed we were turning into a subdivision with a huge brick entrance sign. “Tampa Palms,” I mumbled to myself. He heard. “Yep. We used to have an apartment out here when we were dating in graduate school. We loved the area so much that after graduation, we just went ahead and bought a nice little house. The house we live in now is the third we’ve owned in the area.” I was genuinely impressed. We drove into another subsection of the subdivision and turned into the driveway of a house that my father would have only dreamed to ever have owned. It was a twostory magnificence, nestled in between a few palm trees on a freshly manicured lawn. The house was painted a pale yellow with beautiful double doors and a large window in the front. We pulled into the driveway where a BMW was already parked. “Gloria’s home?” I asked, surprised. For some reason, I figured that she had been too busy to pick me up at the airport so she sent Gerry. It was disappointing to know that she didn’t want to see me as badly as I wanted to see her. “No, that’s my younger sister. I told her that you were coming. She wanted to meet you. Gloria’s not going to be home for a few hours.” We got out and he went to retrieve my bags. I stood at the door leading to the inside, frozen. What would I say when I walked in? I mean, this was going to be my new home until I was ready to go to college and I knew nothing about it. In some ways, I didn’t feel worthy to be staying here. Our house back home wasn’t shabby, but it surely didn’t possess the elaborateness that this one did. “Go in,” he urged, nudging me in the back with one of my bags. I stepped inside and was lead directly into the kitchen. I don’t know why I expected a little less opulence than what I had witnessed outside but I stood immediately corrected. There were marble countertops, dark cherry cupboards and stainless steel appliances, expensive tile floors and a crystal chandelier. In the middle of the kitchen, a girl stood with her fists clenched at her sides in anticipatory delight. When she saw me enter the living room, she smiled—the same smile that Gerry had and sauntered over to us. She moved gracefully, like a model with swimming movements across the tile floor. She stopped a few feet in front of me, childlike excitement rippling through her body as her eyes swept me from head to toe. I was nervous and self-conscious, oblivious to what she could possibly be thinking about my faded jeans and sandals to her more sophisticated two piece ensemble. “Oh my gosh, if you don’t look just like your sister,” she blurted out, scanning my face. “Gerry, doesn’t she look just like Gloria?” He agreed. “So, what your name?” She continued. “Gwendolyn,” I responded shyly, the name sounding a little too traditional compared to Gerald and— “Olivia,” she greeted, her hand also extending. She spoke as I shook, “Gwendolyn is such a pretty name. It’s so, Green Gables.” Instead of ending the handshake, she grabbed my hand and pulled me to sit down in one of the plush leather couches in the living room. She sat facing towards me, both hands clasped in her lap as if she was waiting to hear a long, interesting story. “Can I call you Gwen?” I agreed.

“You have to excuse me and my brother. It’s just that, we want to ask you as many questions as we possibly can before Gloria gets home.” I agreed once more. “So, do you have any other siblings? A mother? A father? Where are you from? Anytime anyone asked, Gloria would say that she was from Mars. I’m surprised that my brother fell in love with such a mystery.” Then she hiccupped a laugh and waited for my responses. I organized her questions in my head. “We have another brother named Trent. Trent’s twenty-one, so he’s four years older than I am. I got my name from our mother, Gwendolyn Hamilton née Olanier. Our father died when I was eight years old and we grew up in the Bronx.” She remained silent as if she was ingesting all of the information. Gerry reappeared, his hands empty. “I put the bags in the room that will be yours, Gwendolyn,” he informed. “You can go upstairs and get situated if you’d like. I left the door open, you’ll see it. There’s also an adjoining bathroom, just in case you need to change or anything.” I glanced at Olivia as if to ask her permission to leave the room since I was positive that she had more questions to ask. “Go get some rest,” she informed sweetly and leaned over to give me a hug. I got up, still feeling like I was surreptitiously on a reality television show and found the room where Gerry had stashed my things. I threw myself onto the massive poster bed, taking in the expanse of the room. The sheets smelled like they were freshly washed in lavender and the walls were painted in a soothing neutral tone. The only photos that I noticed in the house were ones of Gloria and Gerry; wedding photos, trip photos and even silly county fair type photos. I chuckled slightly to myself. Gloria had erased us from her life completely. * There was still no one in our family, even in our old neighborhood who could guess what had prompted Gloria’s decision to leave so abruptly. She’d gathered everyone in the living room, our sullen faces, stained cheeks and mucous-laden sleeves. The livid expression was still there, pooling in the depths of her irises. She spoke to Trent and I, making eye contact with my mother only once in her entire speech. She had simply told us that she was leaving for college in the morning and that her bags were already packed. She had been saving money from her side job working as a cashier at the grocery store down the street five days a week after school. Originally, she’d taken the job to have some money in her pocket and possibly to put away as part of a college fund but with the scholarship in tow, there was no need to reserve it anymore. My mother didn’t object; she didn’t try to meet Gloria’s eyes except for that one time either. I noticed a tension between them, some form of bridled animosity whose origin was oblivious to me alone. I always had a feeling that Trent also knew what was happening but said nothing. To both him and Gloria, I was just a baby. She left in the middle of the night. When I woke up, I went to her room to talk to her, to beg her to stay just a little bit longer because I was going to miss her so much. Our father had just died that day and I was going to ask if I could come into her room and sleep next to her whenever I started to miss him much worse than normal. I had been so confident, trudging to her room in a plain tee and some pink flannel pajama bottoms because I was so sure that she would have said yes. She always did what I wished, being my big sister, and I envisioned myself jumping onto her bed and curling into her while she told me stories about Daddy’s interaction with me as an infant and toddler.

I pushed the door lightly. The lights were off so I thought she was sleeping. When I flicked them on, her sheets were neatly made and tucked in under the mattress until they were stick straight. Her closet doors were wide open and empty and the drawers were pulled open from her dresser, also empty. I turned on my heels to run to inform my mother but she was already standing at the door, hands folded. She looked at me, shaking her head and softly remarked, “I always knew that she would leave one day.” Then she turned on her heels and disappeared down the hallway. A week later, Gloria hadn’t shown up for the funeral. “What surprise?” I heard a voice break through my thoughts. I was still in the clothes that I flew down in, sprawled across the poster bed in a dazed, dreamlike state. The voices muddled from somewhere behind the closed door and I could make out that one of them was Gerry’s. However, the other voice sounded foreign and familiar at the same time. It wasn’t the same bubbly voice that sprang, unrestrained from Olivia’s larynx. It was a more calm tone, slightly melodic and eerily familiar. Gloria. I jumped up quickly and dashed to the mirror on the wall to straighten my appearance. It had been so long since I’d seen her that I wanted to make sure that my first impression was good. I was ready to answer any questions that she asked with answers that she probably wanted to hear. How are your grades? Straight A’s. How is Trent? Perfect could not even begin to describe his demeanor. How are you? I missed you. Two sets of footsteps were coming up the stairs, one a light shuffle and the other, heavier following behind. My heart started thudding out of my chest. Would she run up to me and hug me excitedly? Or would she feel like me and not know how to react and just stand there, staring at me? The door pushed slightly open and Gerry came in first, his smile stretched from one side of his face to the other. Behind him, I saw her dark hair first, short and cropped to her chin. Then, my eyes traveled down to her face. She had the same dark eyes and high cheekbones. Her skin was flawless, probably because she had the money to buy the best skincare products since acne had plagued her all through her teenage years. She was still slender, like our mother, with tiny curves that were hidden underneath a collared dress shirt and straight leg slacks. But when I finally met her eyes, they squared at me in shock. Her mouth fell open and she looked as if she was looking at my ghost. That’s when I realized what was wrong: she didn’t know that I was going to be here. “What are you doing here?” She rushed out, as if I were a familiar homeless person that had snuck her way in to get a free meal and hot shower. I couldn’t respond. It felt like there was a mound of cotton in my throat. “What are you doing here?” She repeated, louder this time, almost shouting. My eyes darted to Gerry and his smile had faded. “It’s your sister, Gloria,” he informed. “Your mother called from New York and asked if she could come stay with us and I said it was fine.”

“Without consulting me?” Another octave. “Well, I didn’t think you would mind because it’s your sister.” She stomped over to me and grabbed me by the elbow, tugging me past Gerald and out the bedroom door. Her fingers squeezed into my bones, becoming increasingly painful as I attempted to remain stable while being tugged down a flight of stairs. When we reached the front door, she dropped my elbow and stared at me with furious eyes. “Get out.” More cotton piled its way into my throat. I couldn’t believe that this was happening. Tears wanted to spring forth but I restrained them, too embarrassed to even let her see me cry. She hadn’t known I was coming; the entire charade was probably orchestrated by Gerry and Olivia. And now, I was an unwanted guest in my own sister’s house, about to be homeless. I turned to look behind me, unsure of what it was I searching for. Gerry came up behind me quickly and stood between myself and the door. Gloria’s eyes rolled over to him. “You can’t kick her out, she has nowhere to go,” he argued. “You never consulted me,” Gloria repeated. She hung her head and rubbed her temples. “Gerry, we have been married for six years and you have known me for nine. I have never talked about or referred to my family in the entire time that you have known me. So, tell me why it is you thought it would be a good idea for you to bring her to come live with us?” “Because it’s your sister, Gloria,” he repeated through clenched teeth. “And what the hell is wrong with you, grabbing her like that and tossing her out like she’s a piece of garbage?” Her eyes squared on me, standing there with a horrified expression on my face. The tears were still battling with me, burning my eyes but I wouldn’t let them fall. For some reason, the thought was just too embarrassing. “Gerald, my whole family is garbage,” she continued and then disappeared to the kitchen.