Ted was aloof toward him. The day after the party Ted asked him if he had suffered a hangover. When he told him he had, Ted shook his head and said, “You better wait a couple of years before you do that again, Houdini.”
His face flushed and his heart began pounding as he watched Ted walk on to join Westlake and his other friends.
In the days ahead they didn’t ask David to join them; he no longer took rides with them after school. Their amusing themselves with him had ended, and now that it had, he realized how much they had taken advantage of him. He felt abused and even ashamed, especially because of the secret things he had told Ted. He had trusted someone and exposed a very intimate part of himself.
It wasn’t long before Ted shared those things with his friends. One day Westlake asked him if he was afraid of his shadow, and Shatsky told him he saw the shadow of a werewolf in his backyard. David tried to ignore them.
Even Diane seemed standoffish. She still smiled at him when he looked at her, but he read the smile differently. She was no longer looking at him with admiration and respect; she smiled at him the way she would smile at a child. This angered him the most.
He felt even worse when he tried turning back to his old buddies. Having neglected and ignored them in favor of the older students, they were understandably bitter. If he asked them what they were doing, they would respond, “Why? You feel like slumming today?”
For a while he found himself totally alone. He felt like a leper. He watched his old friends ride by on their bikes or go off together, and he wondered what he could do to win back their confidence and friendship.
One thing he stopped doing was performing any mental tricks. He told everyone who asked about it that it had all been a joke, something planned and contrived by the senior boys. The aura that had been built around him quickly dissipated and he was relegated back to the ranks of just another teenager. He accepted that willingly, eagerly. His powers had only brought him unhappiness, despite the money he and Ted had won and the excitement of being with the older boys.
Slowly his friends began to take him back. He suffered his penance. He lost his arrogance and gladly accepted whatever they offered, be it a quick game of against-the-wall or box ball or a bike ride to the nearby hamlet of Mountaindale and back.
The school year was speeding to its end. Final exams were only a week away. There wasn’t much time to waste. He had a New York State Regents exam to take in math and a great deal of studying and catching up to do in all his subjects. He couldn’t prevent his mother from seeing the poor showing he had made in the final quarter while he was romancing the juniors and seniors, but he could make up for it by doing well on his final exams and boosting his final averages in all his subjects.
He had fallen back into an organized pattern of existence, scheduling his time and putting the adventures of the past few weeks behind him.
Then one night, Diane called.
At first he didn’t recognize her voice. He thought it might be one of those senior girls who enjoyed making fun of him. The phone call was just another one of their games. He was about to hang up when she identified herself.
“Diane?”
“Yes, David. Have you forgotten what I sound like so quickly?”
“No, I just thought…no, I haven’t forgotten it.”
“You’re not angry at me, are you? I didn’t have anything to do with those girls who made fun of you at the party.”
“I know,” he said, not wanting her to know how much she had hurt him.
“Because you know I like you, and I still think you have a wonderful talent, despite what some of the other kids might say and think. I know better, don’t I? I know it’s not a trick, even though it is a form of magic.”
“A form of magic?” Funny, he thought. He had never considered it to be magic. He had always felt it to be something spiritual. Magic implied illusions, things that eventually could be explained, like the way Houdini got out of handcuffs.
“Yes, but a wonderful form of magic,” she added. Why was she being so flattering? he wondered. “Anyway, I wanted to know if you had time to help me.”
“Help you? How?”
“I haven’t been doing so well in social studies, and I need it to graduate. Actually, I’m just passing. If I fail this final…and you know, Mr. Kissen…he wouldn’t hesitate to fail me, even if it meant I wouldn’t graduate. He failed Lucy Templeton last year, and she had to go to summer school to graduate in August.”
“Yeah,” he said. She was right about Mr. Kissen. “So what can I do? I haven’t had that subject yet.”
“I remembered what you told me about how you studied for that math test…how you knew exactly what Mr. Rosenfield was going to ask and studied all the right things.”
“Oh?”
“I borrowed Arthur Griff’s mounds of notes. He’s exempt from the test because he has an average over ninety-five, but it’s so much to study. I’ll never get it done, and I’ll probably study all the wrong things.”
“I don’t know what I can do. It’s not the same thing.”
“You could do something, David. I just know you can. Won’t you try?”
“I wouldn’t even know how to try.”
“Come over here and look at the notes and do what you did…you know, put your hand on some of them and…and maybe you’ll know if that’s going to be on the test.”
“But what if I’m wrong?”
“So? What difference will it make? It’s just hit and miss for me right now.” She paused and he didn’t say anything. “I sorta thought you’d want to,” she added in a much softer tone of voice.
The warmer note revived his erotic memories of her. She wanted him over her house; he would be close to her again. Despite all that had happened, for him she remained the quintessential girl, the one against whom he would measure all girls, perhaps even the one he would eventually marry.
But he was afraid of resurrecting his powers. It had been weeks since he had had any terrible visions or dreams. He thought it was possible that all that was past him. It was almost as if he had recuperated from some illness. Yet here she was suggesting he do some of the same things that brought about the early symptoms.
“When do you want me to do this?” he asked. He couldn’t get himself to say no outright, but he hoped to stall until he found the strength to resist.
“What about right now?”
“Right now?”
“It’s not too late and we could get a start. There’s only four more days until the test.”
“Right now?” he repeated. He was trying to drive home the significance of what she was suggesting. “What about Ted?” he asked. There was no obvious reason to ask about him, but he could think of nothing else to say.
“Ted?”
“Yeah, I mean…can’t he help you?”
“No. Don’t you remember? Ted’s not taking sociology; he’s taking economics.”
“Oh?”
“Are you coming or not?” she asked. He heard the impatience slipping into her voice. He looked about the kitchen for a moment as though the spirit of his grandmother was present and could lend him support. His mother was in the living room doing one of her crossword puzzles and listening to the radio. Since he had stopped hanging around with the older kids and had begun to spend more time at home working on his schoolwork, a quiet truce had settled between them.
“All right,” he said, “but I can’t promise anything.”
“I know. Thanks. See you soon,” she added and hung up. He stood there with the receiver in his hand, feeling like he had just made a pact with the devil.
His mother heard him go to the front door.
“David? Are you going somewhere?”
“I’m just going to study with someone.”
“With who?” He heard her get up and turn the radio volume down.
“One of the kids in my class,” he responded quickly. Before she could pursue it any further, he went out the door.
He hadn’t been going out at night for close to a week. Right after supper, he started on his own schoolwork, only taking breaks to listen to an occasional radio show. The studying made him tired early, but he was grateful for that because he fell asleep soon after going to bed. It helped him avoid thinking and remembering.
However, the moment he stepped out, the night welcomed him like an old friend. There was nearly a clear sky and the half moon, tinted somewhat red, and the streetlights so illuminated his surroundings that he felt it was a lot earlier than it really was. He thought the deeper shadows were driven back, kept closer to the buildings and trees.
But when he turned up Diane Jones’s road, he thought the shadows had grown longer and began moving out boldly. He had the feeling he was entering their territory, crossing over dangerous borders again. He looked back. The street behind him did look darker and more narrow. Despite the moonlight and despite the streetlights, the darkness here was enveloping him. It was more powerful. Soon he would be swallowed up completely. He rushed on to her house.
Almost before he took his finger off the button for the doorbell, she was opening the door. She was wearing a pair of tight, light-blue shorts and a dark-blue, short-sleeve blouse made of material so thin that he could clearly see her bosom outlined within it. She had brushed her hair back and pinned it up with pearl-white barrettes. Although she wore no rouge or lipstick, her face was rosy and her lips wet pink. Her little freckles were never brighter.
“Hi,” she said. He saw her sister poke her head out from the doorway of her own room and then retreat disinterested. “Come on in,” she added when he didn’t move.
He looked about, expecting her parents to appear, but he sensed from the silence that they weren’t home. The lights were dim in the living room.
“No one’s home but me and my sister. Come on. I have everything in my room,” she said.
“Your room?”
“Uh-huh.” She smiled.
To be in that room, the room that he had once imagined himself in while she was preparing for a shower, to actually be in it alone with her, intensified his excitement. He thought she could see it in his face because her eyes sparkled with amusement.
“I don’t know what I can do,” he repeated.
“You’ll do something,” she said and as if to encourage him, she took his hand to lead him to her room. “Aren’t you doing this for yourself with your own subjects?” she asked at her doorway.
“No. I kinda stopped doing these things.”
“Why? Oh, because what happened at Marsha’s. Don’t let that stuff bother you. Those kids don’t understand. They’re so immature,” she added. It was on the tip of his tongue to ask her why then did she act so embarrassed when he returned to the house to warn them. Why didn’t she come to his aid? But he couldn’t be that hard, not now, not standing right beside her and looking into those soft blue eyes.
“I thought you were bored with it by now, too,” he said.
“Me? Never, silly. How can I be bored with the wonderful things you’ve done,” she said, widening her eyes for emphasis and encouragement. He felt he was being manipulated, but he couldn’t help being flattered by it. What difference did it make if she were sincere or not when she stroked him like this? And who knew? Maybe he could do something magical for her.
However, the moment he entered her room, he felt dizzy. He closed his eyes to steady himself, but instead, he saw himself walking into and out of mirrors, threading his way about by merging with his image in the glass and then emerging from it, only to enter another reflection. What was real and what was illusion? Was he actually in this room standing beside her? Or was this another one of his vivid dreams? Any moment he’d wake up in his own room.
He opened his eyes and looked at the materials she had laid out on her bed. Then his gaze went to the windows. The shades were up again, but because of the bright lights in the room, the windowpanes were dark. They were turned into mirrors. He seemed to see himself looking in at himself.
“Everything’s there,” she said, pointing to the pile of notes and the books on her bed. “It’s chronologically arranged, too. Arthur kept great notes.”
“Then why don’t you just study them?”
“All that?” She grimaced. “I haven’t been keeping up. Half of it is like new stuff to me.”
He smiled and shook his head. Then he walked over to the bed and gingerly sat down on it. When the palm of his right hand touched the bedspread, he envisioned her under the covers, sleeping only in her panties. She touched his shoulder.
“Try something. Anything,” she said and went to close her door.
“All right.” He reached for the first pile of notes and brought it to him, setting it on his lap. She stood back as though there could be some kind of danger when he first began. He saw the look of hope and wonder in her face. It made her appear younger, more like a little girl dazzled by a magician who could pull a rabbit out of his hat. However, he really had no idea what to do.
What he did do was put both his hands, palm down, on the small pile of papers and close his eyes. He thought about the material and her test. He even thought about Mr. Kissen, but nothing came to him; nothing replaced the image of her face. It was as if he could see through his closed eyelids. He couldn’t get her eyes out of his.
He wanted to pretend. He wanted to please her in some way, but, not being that familiar with the subject, he didn’t even know what to make up. He couldn’t tell her what chapters to avoid, what subject headings on which to concentrate. He didn’t know vocabulary, identifications, concepts. There was no way to lie.
“Well?” she asked when he opened his eyes. He shook his head.
“I didn’t get anything.”
“Try again. Are you doing everything you did when you helped yourself?”
“Yeah, but…I knew something about the subject.”
She smirked and folded her arms just under her breasts.
“Are you sure you weren’t just telling us a story?”
“No,” he said. “I wasn’t lying about it. But this is different. I’ll try again,” he added. He didn’t want to displease her.
He spread the sheets out more and touched individual pages. Then he held one or two up against his face. He put one up against his forehead. He tried to concentrate on Mr. Kissen, but again, all he could really see was her face, her eyes, her lips. He looked at her and shrugged.
“Oh dammit,” she said. She gathered the pile he had been touching and threw it on top of the rest of the material.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “It’s not something I can control all the time.”
“Yeah,” she said, her voice dripping with cold skepticism. “Shit,” she added. “I guess I gotta go through all this.”
“I’ll help do that if you want.”
“What good is that? I can read myself.”
The anger and frustration brightened the redness that had been in her cheeks and neck. So excited, she looked even more beautiful to him. He wanted to trace the lines of her neck down to the base of her throat where the warm, soft-looking skin disappeared beneath the thin cotton blouse. He recalled that first night when he had stumbled upon her dressing in front of her vanity mirror.
He looked at that mirror quickly and wondered fleetingly if images are captured by mirrors, just the way a camera captures an image on film. If he looked at the mirror hard enough, could he bring out the image of her naked before the glass again? Indeed it seemed he could, for that was what he now saw.
However, the revived picture took him out of the room. He saw it from the perspective of a Peeping Tom. He was out there again, spying on her, delighting in the vision. The windows that had first looked like mirrors when he entered her room were turned back to mere glass.
Suddenly, he wasn’t seeing just her in the room. He saw himself with her. There was something cold about the sight. It wasn’t coming from his perspective, yet it wasn’t like looking through a camera or at a movie screen on w
hich were projected images taken by someone else; it was as if he had become someone else. The realization hit him like a sharp blow to the face. She saw the radical change in his expression.
“What’s the matter?”
He spun around quickly on the bed.
“Put out the lights,” he whispered.
“Huh?”
“Quick. Just put out the lights.”
“David?”
“Do it,” he demanded. She went to the switch and snapped it. The moment she did so, he got up and went to the window. For a long moment, he said nothing. He simply stared out at the darkness.
“What the hell is going on?”
“He’s out there,” he said, still whispering.
“What?” She came up behind him and looked over his shoulder. “I don’t see anything.”
“He’s out there, again.”
“Who’s out there?”
There was a darker, thicker shadow, but she couldn’t distinguish it.
“I don’t see anything,” she repeated.
“He’s there,” David insisted.
“Sure.”
She went back to the light switch and turned the lights back on, converting the windows into mirrors. He continued to press his face to the glass. Then he stepped back to pull the shades all the way down.
“Just leave it,” she said. “There’s no one there.”
“He’s out there,” David said.
She shook her head. “Who? Who’s out there?”
“I’m not sure exactly who it is, but he’s dangerous. Really dangerous.”
She brought her hands to her hips, took on a knowing expression and nodded her head slowly.
“I know what you’re doing. You’re doing what you did to Pamela Sue when you disappointed her at Marsha’s house, aren’t you?”
“What?”
“You’re making something up just to frighten me and get me to think you’re doing something for me.”
Sight Unseen Page 14
