The Secret Life of Ceecee Wilkes (11 page)

Naomi nodded approvingly. “She’s going to be an easy baby,” she said, as she sat down on the other side of the hearth. She lifted her sweater, did something CeeCee couldn’t see with the front of her bra, then raised Emmanuel to her breast. “Ah,” she said, as all crying ceased. “Peace.” She nearly smiled as she looked at CeeCee. “I trimmed one of Emmanuel’s diapers for her. We can cut some more later.”

“Okay.” CeeCee wished Naomi shared her sense of urgency about calling Tim. “I think we need to try to reach Tim before he and Marty—”

Naomi held up her hand to stop her. “I’ve already spoken to Tim,” she said.

“You
did?
I wanted to talk to him!”

“I know you did, but it’s better this way. There was really no time for that.”

“He’s still in Jacksonville?”

Naomi nodded.

“What did he say? Is he furious with me?”

“One thing at a time,” Naomi said. “He’s still in Jacksonville and he’s had several conversations with Governor Russell, but nothing firm yet. He’s not mad at you. He gets that this was a situation out of your control. He’s going to up the ante and ask that Andie be set free.”

CeeCee was astonished. “He’s going through with this even though Genevieve is dead?” she asked.

“Of course he is,” Naomi said. “But now he has to get Andie’s freedom. If Russell agreed to commute her sentence and then Tim couldn’t produce the goods, Andie’d be in worse trouble than before. So he has to get her out of there.”

“But…” This had gotten so out of hand. “It’s wrong,” she said. “This whole thing is so wrong.”

“You’re finding religion a little late.” The tone of Naomi’s voice was kinder than her words. “He said for you to go underground right away.”

“Underground?” CeeCee was stunned to hear the word applied to herself. “I can’t do that,” she said. “I mean, I don’t know how—”

“We’ll help you.”

“I don’t want to have to—” She stopped herself. She was going to say that she didn’t want to be on the run, but she suddenly realized this could work to her advantage. “If Tim and I are both underground,” she said, “then he and I could be together like you and Forrest.”

Naomi shook her head. “Forrest and I had a completely different situation,” she said. “Yours is too dangerous. You should never see him again.”

“But I want to be
with
him.” Once more, she felt the threat of tears. “We planned to—”

“Grow up, CeeCee.” It was the first truly harsh thing Naomi had said to her. “You’re playing in the big league now. You have to forget about him. You won’t be CeeCee anymore, and he won’t be Tim. You have to start over.”

“What if I…I could just go back to my old life.” Oh, she would give anything to have her old life back! “My roommate thinks I’m visiting a friend. That I broke up with Tim. I could just go—”

“The pigs are going to find out who your boyfriend is. Or was,” Naomi said. “It doesn’t matter which. Then they’re going to find you and interrogate you. First, you’re so green that you’re going to crack, but even if you were…streetwise, how are you going to prove you were with this friend? Who’s the friend who’ll vouch that you were visiting her? Do you get it? You’re up to your eyeballs in this mess and you can’t get out.”

“Where will I go?” CeeCee asked. The baby must have sensed her panic, because she lost the nipple for a moment and started to cry. CeeCee slipped it between her pink lips again. “What will I do?” she asked.

“You can stay here for a couple of days until we can get you some documentation,” Naomi said. “But you have to stay inside. No one can know you’re here.”

“What do you mean, documentation?”

“A new name. A new identity for you and the baby.”

“The
baby?
She needs to go to the governor.”

“CeeCee.” Naomi sighed. “How do you propose to do that?”

“I don’t know, but we have to.”

“No, we don’t. She’s going with you.”

“I can’t take care of a baby!”

“Well, you’d better learn how in the next few days.”

“Can I leave her at a police station?”

“How? Will you walk into a police station, drop her off and skip out, no questions asked? You have to avoid leaving any kind of a trail behind you, CeeCee. You wouldn’t be putting just yourself in jeopardy, but Tim and his brother and sister and Forrest and me and our children. No one knows this baby exists, okay? That’s the one lucky thing you’ve got going for you. No one’s going to be looking for a baby. Just a pregnant woman.”

“But it’s completely wrong for me—”

“Everything you’ve done for the last few days has been completely wrong, even though you did it with the best of intentions. This is the risk you agreed to take. There are always consequences.”

“Can I leave the baby with you?” she asked. “You’re so good with children.”

“How will we explain a new baby to our friends and neighbors?”

“I’m only
sixteen.
” Panic rose inside her.

“Plenty of sixteen-year-old girls have babies.”

CeeCee looked down at the infant in her arms. The baby’s face was peaceful as she sucked, vacant eyes a dark blue-gray, blinking open and closed. How had her own mother felt, holding her, feeding her for the first time? Had she ever considered getting rid of her?

“My mother had me at sixteen,” CeeCee admitted.

“Well,” Naomi said, “there you go.”

T
here was something seductive about sleeping with a baby.

At first, CeeCee thought it was a terrible idea. “I could roll over and crush her,” she said when Naomi suggested it. “I could suffocate her.”

“You won’t,” Naomi said. “It’ll be good for both of you.”

By the second night, CeeCee wondered if sleeping with the baby was Naomi’s plot to create a bond between her and the infant. If so, it was working. She wasn’t getting much sleep; the baby was hungry more often than not and going through an unbelievable number of Emmanuel’s altered diapers. But as she cuddled the infant while she fed her, brushing her lips over the downy red hair, as she held her floppy little head while she burped her, she felt intoxicated by the soft, delicious baby smell that filled the air around her.

Dahlia was thrilled to find that CeeCee was back, and even more excited that she’d brought a baby with her.

“What’s her name?” Dahlia leaned on the arm of the rocker as CeeCee fed the baby.

“Um…” CeeCee looked at Naomi, who was sitting on the floor with Emmanuel in her lap, trying to get him interested in a ring of large, plastic keys.

“Sweet Pea,” Naomi said.

Dahlia laughed. “That’s a silly name.”

“Not really,” Naomi said. “A sweet pea is a flower, just like a Dahlia is a flower.”

“It is? Which is prettier?”

“Totally different,” Naomi said. “A Dahlia is big and round and explosive, like fireworks. And a sweet pea is delicate and ruffly.”

“Wow.” Dahlia giggled. She gently touched the baby’s back, then looked at CeeCee. “Was she in your tummy?” she asked.

CeeCee looked helplessly at Naomi again.

“Yes, she was,” Naomi said.

Dahlia rested her head on CeeCee’s shoulder so she could get a better look at the baby.

“Now you’ve got your very own wetting doll,” she said.

She had no idea what was happening between Tim and Marty and the governor. Naomi and Forrest had no television, just a small transistor radio that received a Christian music station and that was it. Not one of their vehicles had a working radio.

She pleaded with Naomi to let her talk to Tim on the phone. Was he still in Jacksonville? Had he already gone underground?

“It’s too dangerous to call him from our phone,” Naomi said as she loaded diapers into the old avocado-colored washing machine in the kitchen. “I only called him that one time because I had no choice.”

CeeCee pulled a towel out of the dryer, folded it and set it in the laundry basket. “Give me the number and I can drive to a pay phone somewhere,” she suggested.

“You can’t leave the house,” Naomi reminded her. She set the dial on the washing machine and it chugged to life. “Get over him, CeeCee,” she said. “Let him go. He has enough to deal with, and even though you may not know it yet, so do you.”

“I know it.” CeeCee sobered.

“Then act like it.” Naomi grabbed a bunch of diapers from the dryer and began folding them. “Focus on your future, not your past.”

“
What
future?” CeeCee said. “I don’t feel like I have one. Where am I going to go? To live?”

“Now you sound like a real sixteen-year-old drama queen,” Naomi said. “We’re working on your future, so relax.”

“What does that mean?”

“There are a couple of options and we’re figuring out which is best.” Naomi added a folded diaper to the stack on the dryer. “I’m not going to tell you about them ’til I’ve got one firmed up for you.”

“What do you mean by options?”

“Places to live. A new life for you. A
future.
Don’t worry. You’ll have one.”

Fighting with Naomi was fruitless. It was almost impossible to get her to bend, so she continued folding the laundry in silence.

Once before, she’d had this feeling of entering a new phase in her life with no choice in the matter. It was a time filled with loss, with a future that stretched ahead of her like unknown territory. It had taken her years after her mother’s death to recapture her sense of well-being and optimism—the optimism Tim had so admired. It was slipping away again, flowing through her hands like water when she tried to grasp it. Her simple life—working at the restaurant with Ronnie, being with Tim, her dream of college nearly a reality—was once again being replaced by something frightening and unknown. The only difference was that her mother’s death had been thrust on her. This she had done to herself.

On Thanksgiving, three days after her arrival at Naomi and Forrest’s, CeeCee fell in love with the baby. She knew the exact moment her feelings shifted from “like” to “love.” Naomi, Forrest and their children were at a friend’s house all afternoon and evening, and she was alone with the infant for the first time since her arrival. She lay on the bed with her, having just fed her, and she studied her face, scrutinizing her features for hints of Genevieve. She stroked her finger over the little arm and wrist, and the baby suddenly circled CeeCee’s finger with her tiny, perfect hand. Her blue-gray eyes looked into CeeCee’s as though she could truly see her and they held her gaze. Held it for a minute. Two minutes. Maybe longer. Long enough for CeeCee’s heart to crack in two.

“Oh, Sweet Pea,” she whispered, lowering her head to kiss the tiny hand wrapped around her finger. Were maternal feelings so innate that a sixteen-year-old who had never even been pregnant could feel them?

Both of them were motherless. Motherless, alone, just trying to survive.

But unlike CeeCee, the baby wasn’t fatherless.

In between nighttime feedings, when CeeCee was both too tired and too troubled to sleep, she tried to come up with ways to get the baby to the governor, something she didn’t dare discuss with Naomi or Forrest. She had a vague idea where the governor’s mansion was in the heart of Raleigh. She’d once been there on a school trip. She could go in the dead of night, leave the baby on the doorstep, ring the bell and leave. Or maybe not ring the bell, because it would take her a while to get back to the car. It was too cold, though, to leave the baby outside for someone to find in the morning. Maybe she could figure out a way to call the mansion to tell them to look on the front step. Her mind reeled with ideas. She might not know until she saw the mansion what would work and what wouldn’t, but one way or another, she was getting this baby to her father.

Then she would think about Tim and Marty and Andie. If she left the baby at the mansion, how would that affect what they were doing? Maybe Andie was free by now. But if Tim was still in the middle of negotiations with the governor, perhaps close to a resolution, would she be creating more problems than she was solving?

Saturday morning, while both babies napped and Naomi gave Dahlia a reading lesson in the living room, CeeCee spoke to Forrest over the dirty breakfast dishes at the kitchen table.

“I’m supposed to come home tomorrow from my trip to Philadelphia,” she said. “I have to let my roommate know I’m not coming back.”

Forrest looked at her over the rim of his coffee mug. “You can’t use our phone,” he said.

“If I don’t let her know, though, she’ll call the police. She’ll report me as a missing person and they’ll be looking for me.”

Forrest tipped his head back and looked at the ceiling, considering her argument. “All right,” he said finally. “I’ll drive you to a pay phone tonight in New Bern. You can call her from there. But you’d better think through what you’re going to tell her. Be very careful.”

The drive to New Bern took a little more than a half hour, and as they drove over the extremely long, two-lane trestle bridge—a truly frightening experience in the dark—the lights of the small town came into view on the other side of the river. CeeCee ached with the realization that help for Genevieve had not been that far away. She must have looked upset, because Forrest suddenly asked her, “What are you thinking?”

“How close help was for the baby’s mother, and I didn’t know it. And I didn’t believe her when she said she was in labor. And I wouldn’t have known how to get here. And—”

“What’s done is done.” Forrest turned into a gas station, pulling up close to the phone booth, and handed her a fistful of change. “Don’t be long,” he said.

She got out of the car and closed herself inside the phone booth, which smelled like urine, and it took her a moment to remember her own phone number. It seemed like months since she’d left Chapel Hill.

“Hello?” Ronnie picked up on the second ring. Thank God she was home.

“Ronnie, it’s CeeCee,” she said.

“Oh, my God, CeeCee! I’ve been dying to talk to you. Isn’t this absolutely unbelievable?”

She was caught off guard. “Isn’t what unbelievable?” She was afraid she knew the answer.

“You haven’t heard?”

“Heard what?”

“You must not be watching the news. It’s—God, you are going to freak out.”

“What?”

“It’s about Tim. He
kidnapped
Governor Russell’s wife.”

“
What?
You’ve got to be kidding.”

“You are so lucky he broke up with you,” Ronnie said.

“Oh, my God, that’s…why? I can’t believe he’d do something like that. Are you sure you’re talking about Tim Gleason?”

“And his brother Marty. You said Marty was crazy. I think Tim is, too. They have a sister who’s in jail for murder. Did you know about her? They kidnapped Russell’s wife to get him to set their sister free. Isn’t that
insane?
”

It
was
insane. Why hadn’t she realized that before it was too late?

“So…” CeeCee said. “What happened? Did the governor set her free or what?”

“The last I heard on the news this morning was that he wasn’t giving in to them and that a search was on for them and his wife. And CeeCee! A cop came to the restaurant this morning asking to talk to you. Somehow they found out you’d been his girlfriend. I told them you’d broken up with him and you were in Philadelphia visiting a friend. They want to talk to you. They’ll call when you get back.”

Her heart skipped a beat, and she leaned against the glass of the phone booth, her head spinning. They were looking for her, as Naomi had predicted. It was happening already. “Listen, Ronnie, I’m calling to tell you I’ve decided to stay in Philadelphia.”

Ronnie hesitated. “Because of this?” she asked.

“No, no. I decided a couple of days ago. I really like it here and I—”

“You’re staying…you mean like permanently?”

“Well, I don’t know if it’s for the rest of my life, but my friend found me a job here at a really good restaurant and…I needed to get away from the memories of Tim and everything.”

Ronnie said nothing, and CeeCee wondered if she believed her.

“I can’t afford the room on my own, CeeCee,” she said finally.

CeeCee had not even thought of that. “I know, and I’m going to send you money from my first few paychecks until you can find someone to take my place.” She winced at the lie. She hated leaving Ronnie in the lurch. She
would
send her money if she ever got any. Her bank account had five thousand dollars in it, but she would have to kiss that money goodbye if the cops were looking for her. If only she could simply hand it over to Ronnie.

Ronnie was thinking the same thing. “You’ve got that money in the bank,” she said. “Couldn’t you at least send me enough for next month’s rent?”

“Oh, right!” CeeCee said as if she’d forgotten. “Of course. The money’s in a savings account so I don’t have checks or anything, but as soon as I get an account there…I mean here, in Philadelphia, I’ll send you some. And you can just keep all my stuff,” she added.

Ronnie hesitated again. “You’re not even coming back to get your clothes and things?” she asked.

God, this had to sound suspicious! She hoped the police didn’t question Ronnie again.

“I just…I’m going to start fresh here. I’d have to take the bus and everything, and lug my stuff back and it would just be a hassle.”

“What about your mother’s letters?”

It was CeeCee’s turn to fall silent.
The letters.
She didn’t care about her clothes or her records or her two beaded necklaces. But the letters! Her heart felt empty at the thought of leaving them behind.

“I don’t have my friend’s address right now, but I’ll send it to you and then you could mail the letters to me, okay?”

“Okay. What’s your friend’s name?”

She’d been prepared for that question. “Susan,” she lied.

“How come I never heard of her?”

“She wasn’t like a close friend or anything, but her invitation to visit came at the perfect time. And we’re really getting along. She’s cool. Not as cool as you, of course.”

“You have to turn on the news, CeeCee,” Ronnie said. “It’s all over the place about Tim. And you should call the police. Maybe you know something that would help them find Tim and Governor Russell’s wife.”

“I can’t imagine what I’d know that could help.”

“Did they have a secret hideaway kind of place or anything?”

“Not that they ever told me about.”

“What should I tell the police if they come around again?”

“Just the truth. I called you from Philadelphia and wasn’t able to give you an address or phone number yet.”

“But you’re going to send me an address for the letters, right?”

“Sure,” CeeCee said, but she knew she would never be able to let Ronnie know where she was. The cops might talk to her again. When Ronnie told them about her abrupt move to Philadelphia, they’d put two and two together and realize CeeCee was part of the Gleason brothers’ diabolical scheme.

For the first time, she realized how essential it was that CeeCee Wilkes disappear.