You Again

by Peggy Nicholson

  The letter from the dean in Grenada. Raye would’ve found it in her briefcase. “You…never went to med school.”

  “Nor college. Didn’t even finish high school. Think of it, Jessica. I lived nine years out in the wide, wide world, while you slaved over your books. Grubbed for your A’s like a good girl. Who’s the stupid one?”

  Me, me. Oh, it was me. All those years when I could have been with Sam. “But how did you—”

  “Manage it? It was easy. Most things are. It’s not having the nerve that stops people.” Raye got to her feet, pocketed the letter, then laced her fingers and stretched luxuriously, arms overhead. “I was in Grenada, staying on a boat in the harbor when the marines landed. We’d been there almost a month—engine trouble. I’d been hanging around with the U.S. med students, boffing two or three of them, bored to tears with all their bragging about the money they’d rake in once they became doctors.” She circled the rocking chair, stood behind it, rocked it restlessly. “When our boys landed and the bullets started flying, everyone stampeding for the hills…It’s times like that, with a world cracking open, you can do whatever you please.

  “I paid a kid. to find the registrar’s office at the university. To bring me back all the transcripts on two or three med students, women. And to burn a bunch of the registrar’s files, so they wouldn’t notice later that papers were missing.”

  “And so you…became Anne Talbot.”

  “She was the nerd with the best grades of the three. And I became Annette, with a little diddling. Because once Anne got her papers dup’ed, and presuming she passed her Foreign Grad exams, she’d be practicing in the U.S. of A. Sooner or later we’d show up on the same computer list. This way, Annette R. comes right after Anne R., on the list, and nobody thinks twice—except you. What made you start wondering, I wonder?”

  Whatever she did, she mustn’t betray Toby. Change the subject. “But…but you still had to pass the Foreign Grad Exam.”

  Raye shook her head. “Somebody, with her hair rinsed black, had to pass my Grad exam. With all the debt-ridden interns back in the States, that wasn’t a problem.”

  “And your residency.”

  Raye shrugged. “Hey, I’m a quick study. And you know yourself, clinical training’s a hands-on apprenticeship. The senior residents and nurses back you up every step of the way. The eight years of book learning before it, I don’t know why more people don’t just skip that.”

  At the first ring of the phone, Raye slid around the chair. As it rang again, her hand came down on the receiver—just as Jessica started to reach. “Don’t even think about it.” She caught the heavy candelabra, raised it with her other hand, held it poised.

  The answering machine clicked, and the message tape rolled.

  This wasn’t happening. Couldn’t be happening. She should do something, but first she’d have to rise from the bed. And if she could manage that, Raye still outweighed her by thirty pounds.

  The machine clicked, then Sam spoke. “No more fun and games, Jess, and don’t you dare touch that dial! We’re talking, if I have to chase you to the ends of the earth.”

  “Masterful!” Raye murmured on a breath of laughter. “Who’s this?”

  “Come midnight, I’m catching the red-eye to New York. I’ll be on your doorstep by nine. Be there, or beware—I’ll track you down at the hospital, have conniptions in your waiting room, howl under your window, whatever it takes. We’re having it out. You owe me, babe. Catch ya tomorrow.”

  “My kind of caveman!” Raye chuckled as he hung up. “Who was that?”

  Jessica simply looked at her. I wouldn’t tell you about Sam, with my dying— Her thoughts shot away. Sam, oh God, Sam…

  “Whoever, he’ll be a day late and a dollar short. Think he’ll need comforting when he finds you committed suicide?”

  Jessica shook her head violently. “I never—”

  “Sure you did.” Raye set the candelabra down. One flame blew out with the movement. “Promising young doctor succumbs to stress from overwork? Everyone at RI Gen knows you work yourself to the bone.” Raye pulled a candle free, relighted its fellow. “Or maybe she killed herself out of depression? It’s clear to anyone who looks that you’re dying of loneliness, Jessica. That you won’t let yourself accept the attentions the men would gladly give you.”

  Raye pressed the first candle back into its socket, then looked up with a musing smile. “Or maybe… this fellow set you off? Who is he, an old flame? Ex-fiance? Whoever, he’s plainly been pestering you, trying to force an unwelcome reunion on you and maybe you just…snapped?”

  Oh, God. “Sam would never believe…” Would he? And if he did, would believing kill the laughter in his voice? Jessica struggled to sit, but this time her arms wouldn’t obey. Cattoo moaned from the closet.

  Raye shrugged. “Hey, I’m easy. So maybe it wasn’t suicide. Maybe you just goofed? Took too much Valium. Everyone knows doctors are prone to drug addiction. That they prescribe for themselves. So you took too much Valium, lit some pretty candles on a whim, lay down. Then, when Sam phoned, you half woke up, reached for the phone and—uh-oh!—you knocked the candelabra over beside the bed.”

  It was believable. So elegantly simple that anyone could believe it. Just Jessica screwing up one last time. Her parents would buy it, even if Sam didn’t.

  Because Sam was the only one who’d ever believed in her, even if that was only for a little while. She supposed that was more than some people got in a lifetime. But it’s not enough. I wanted more. I wanted tomorrow, with Sam at my door.

  “Play it any way you like, kiddo.” Raye knelt beside the bed. “The mattress caught fire, and you and your bitch cat burned to death.” She reached behind the bedside table, then sat up, the phone cord dangling from her fingers. “Oops, what d’you know? Here’s the first thing that burned.” Stretching the wire between her hands, she held it over a flame.

  The stench of burning plastic turned Jessica’s stomach. “You’re crazy!”

  Absorbed in her task, Raye laughed under her breath. “Careful with your terms, kid. You’re talking to a shrink. The correct word is sociopath.”

  The cord parted. She blew on the melted ends, then, cocking her chin toward the ceiling, recited, “The diagnostic criteria for antisocial personality disorder are as follows: patient shows a history as a child of, one, truancy; two, lying; three, running away from home.” She smiled at something only she could see. “Four, forcing someone into sexual activity with him or her. What else? Oh, stealing— with or without confrontation with the victim. And—most common—setting deliberate fires.”

  “You’re nuts, Raye.”

  “Not at all. That’s just what society would have us believe. And, let’s see…The adult patient shows, one, failure to respect the social norms of lawful behavior; two, impulsive behavior; three, recklessness regarding her own or others’ safety. There’s several more, can’t remember ’em all, but I s’pose the last one sums it all up.”

  She leaned in to the wall. There was a tiny click as the stub of the phone cord was pushed back into its jack. Then she straightened with a smile. “The patient shows…no remorse.”

  “You are crazy.”

  “No, kiddo, sociopaths aren’t crazy. We have our place in the world, whether society wants to admit it or not. We’re the wolves. Put here to trim the flock, to pull down the fools and the cripples. Witness you.” She arranged the other end of the phone cord beside the bed.

  “I’m not—”

  “Sure you are. Rich kid with brains, beauty, doting parents, every advantage, every reason in the world to be happy, and you couldn’t even manage that. You had your chance and you blew it, kid. So just—” the venom died abruptly from her voice “—just go to sleep, Jessica.”

  Tears welled. Raye was right, she had blown it. Thrown happiness away with both hands. “I won’t.”

  “You will,” Raye murmured tenderly. “Let’s count some sheep. I see one sheep, heading for sleep—”
r />   “I won’t!” Cattoo moaned hoarsely from the closet.

  “Sure, you will. You want to sleep. It’ll be so much easier… Twooo sheep, sleeping so deep…”

  She could see them—couldn’t help but see them—sheep white as smoke, their fleece soft as smoke…Sam was there, too, herding them all to safety, and Cattoo…

  “Threee sheep, longing to sleep.”

  No, oh, no… The sheep were leaving, white smoke streaming over the crest of a green hill…

  “Foour sheep…” Dying to…

  CHAPTER SIX

  SHE WAS FALLING…through clouds, Cattoo cradled in her arms. And falling, Jessica knew the secret at last. There was nothing to fear, the clouds were lovely and soft. And somewhere far, far below the clouds, Sam waited-with open arms to catch them.

  But Cattoo hated falling. She clung to Jessica’s neck and screamed her fear. “Rrrrrrowwwwrrrr! Yuh-rrrrrowwwwrrrr!”

  “’S’all right, you silly ca—” Her words ended in a cough. Rolling over, Jessica pushed up on her forearms and fought for breath. It’s all—

  “Rrrrrrowwwwwrrrr!” The yowl jumped half an octave to a full-throated feline scream. “RRRRRRRROWWRR!”

  Something wasn’t all right. Jessica opened her stinging eyes. Saw flames and billowing smoke.

  “Meeeerrrrr-rrrrrrrow!”

  “Cattoo!” In the closet. Jessica rolled off the bed, started crawling. Raye. Raye had shut the cat in the closet. Or had she dreamed that?

  Her eyes watered and burned. She closed them, found the wall with a sweep of her hands. Oh, God, it was hot! She crawled to the right, found the closet door. Cattoo screamed.

  Coughing, Jessica hung on the doorknob for a moment. If I can’t catch her…Let Cattoo slip past her and she’d be lost in the smoke. And would die. We’ll both die.

  And Sam comes in the morning. Or was that part of the dream?

  “Meeeerrr-roowwwrrrr!”

  Jessica cracked the closet door. A soft, frantic shape butted at her fingers. She slid her hand through the gap, caught Cattoo by the scruff. “It’s all—” Her words turned to coughing.

  She hugged the flailing cat to her chest—cried out as claws bit into her shoulders. Frantic furry paws clinging to her neck. Pain like a head-clearing shock—galvanizing her. Cattoo mustn’t die for her stupidity. On knees and one hand, she hitched toward the door. The flames and smoke came from one side—from her burning bed and the wall behind it. There was still time, if they could breathe for just a minute more.

  The door was locked.

  But that couldn’t be true. She turned the knob back and forth, back and forth, ten times, twenty, refusing to believe.

  “Merrr-rrrowwwrrrr!” Cattoo yelled at her ear. Believe it!

  She had rented this house because the old-fashioned hardware had charmed her so. The brass dolphin knocker on the front door. The antique brass door locks with their old-fashioned keys. The key should be right here in its lock where it always stayed.

  But it wasn’t.

  “Rrrrrrowwwwrrrrr!” Cattoo’s voice was failing. She coughed, her ribs heaving against Jessica’s supporting forearm.

  Air. They had to have air. There was nothing left but the windows.

  When she opened her eyes, the room had grown lighter, brighter—white cloud cover of smoke, undershot by lurid flames. Sundown.

  The windows were somewhere above those clouds…and she was growing dizzy. So tired…

  “Yowrrrh!” It was more croak than yowl.

  Hang on, baby. Jessica shook her head to clear it, closed her eyes and started crawling. The window beside the bed wasn’t possible. The other one, then, the one nearest the tree.

  Her head bumped the wall—a small pain compared to the claws digging at her shoulders, the smoke clawing at eyes and lungs. She groped up the oven-hot wall with one hand. If I can’t find it—

  Her fingers touched a hard ledge—the windowsill. And if I can’t stand…

  But if she couldn’t, Cattoo would die, and that wasn’t fair. Cattoo had known not to trust Raye from the start. Fingers clutching the sill, she dragged herself up into the smoke.

  She would fall to the floor any second—couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t open the window one-handed. Trust me. She let go the cat, pressed frantically upward with both hands against the sash.

  A draft of cool air hit her face. Sobbing, Jessica threw the window all the way up and caught the cat with both hands. She leaned out into the blessed night. Air!

  Cattoo found her breath, found that they leaned over a sixty-foot drop in the same instant. Keening her terror, she clung like a burr.

  “It’s all right!” Jessica tried to tell her, but her voice was gone. Far down the hill, a mile or more away, she could see whirling red lights. Hear the sirens. The firetrucks were coming.

  They would come too late. A wave of rolling white belched out the window, wiping out the world. The fire needed oxygen as much as Jessica and Cattoo did. It dragged air from their lungs, offered them smoke to breathe instead.

  Cattoo moaning in her ear, Jessica peered down through watering eyes. Sixty feet below those clouds lay a stony slope, and the spiked, wrought-iron fence that closed off her property. She’d always feared falling. Somehow she’d always known. There’s no way down.

  And no time left. Her back, the backs of her legs, were burning hot. Her lungs burned. Cattoo wriggled desperately.

  Smoke billowed, then parted, as a breath of wind stirred. Gulping at the life-giving coolness, Jessica saw the tree— the big elm whose highest limbs always blocked her view to the south. Ten feet from the window, one branch beckoned like a friendly arm. Jump. Jump to me and live.

  It was a jump no human could make.

  She should try to straddle the window, pray the firemen found her there. But she had only one effort left, and still the branch beckoned. Jump. Jump to me.

  Sam laughing at her, his arms spread wide. He’d taken her on a rock climb, she couldn’t think when or where. C’mon, chicken! Jump, I’ll catch you.

  She’d been too afraid to jump. He’d had to peel her off her rock, lift her down to safety.

  Cattoo could be safe. Didn’t deserve to die. Downhill the sirens wailed, too late, too late!

  Jessica peeled the crying cat from her shoulder. Held her struggling over the chasm, then cupped her ribs with one hand, her rear with the other.

  One effort left, one breath left, only one chance. The branch beckoned, faded before her tearing eyes, came clear again as the smoke lifted and the air swirled in. Jessica drew the cat in against her face. Softest fur. She pressed her lips to the nape of the cat’s neck.

  Then, sighting between those flattened ears, sucking in her last breath, she heaved the cat with all her might. Cattoo, go live for both of us!

  Black cat, flying out into the night. Then falling.

  Falling…

  Falling through the cool dark, through twigs and rushing leaves. Claws snatching. Stars and city lights wheeling as she fell.

  Go live for both of us.

  SHIVERING, HER BODY flattened to a branch, Jessica watched the trucks arrive, two on the street at the front of the house, a truck and ladder on the road below the ridge. Shouts and booted men in black raincoats rushing around. Ruby, whirling lights. Sounds of smashing wood from the front, a ladder elongating till it reached the rear bedroom window, where a column of smoke gushed out past a motionless, sagging form.

  Two men stormed up the ladder. The awkward bundle was dragged across the windowsill and draped over a broad shoulder. Jessica watched them carry her down, lay her on a litter…

  She narrowed her stinging eyes. Lay who?

  They lifted the litter into the back of an ambulance. Doors slammed. The vehicle raced away, its departing siren so loud it was a physical pain.

  That was me, they took away.

  But if that was me, then who… am I?

  More men rushed up the ladder. A hose pumped shafts of looping, silvery water. Flames broke t
hrough the walls, then the roof. The men yelled and retreated.

  There could be only one answer. That was her body they’d taken away. While Jessica’s abandoned soul clung, shivering, to the branch of a tree.

  With not a clue what to do next. Or where to go.

  It was an enormity beyond comprehension. Beyond sorrow. Looking up, she could see the shape of every leaf and twig against the dome of the night sky. A bat flitted overhead squeaking like a lost soul. Jessica shuddered. Maybe if she waited, something…someone…would come along, tell her what happened next?

  Meanwhile, she might be a soul, but she was an aching and exhausted one. Were the dead allowed to sleep? And if she could sleep, should she? Or might she miss something vital?

  Didn’t matter…Sleep—or maybe this was the final obliteration—reared over her in a curling black wave. If somebody comes, will you please, please wake me? she petitioned, and let the darkness take her.

  So it wasn’t till dawn that she noticed the paws.

  SOMEWHERE, SOMEONE was frying bacon. Off toward the bay, a sea gull cried, its voice echoing over the rooftops. Blocks away, a bus labored uphill from downtown—Jessica wrinkled her nose at the diesel fumes. The wind caressed the right side of her face, then eddied, bringing with it the stench of smoldering wood. And remembrance. The fire…

  And I’m dead. She smiled—it felt odd when she did so— and lifted her head. Death wasn’t possible in the same world with bacon and sea gulls. It had all been a dream…a nightmare of astounding vividness.

  She opened her eyes to see two long, slim, black forearms stretched out along a branch. Pale claws curved into brown bark. Oops! Jessica closed her eyes. Still dreaming.

  The wind swirled, returning to the south. She smelled the bacon again, and with it—You’re burning your toast, she warned the breakfast maker, wherever he was. Chook! Her ears swiveled as the toaster ejected the—Her ears… swiveled?

  Jessica opened her eyes. Slim, black-furred forearms, sexy as those of a woman in elbow-length gloves, stretched before her face. Their grace ended at the wrists—in two black, fuzzy catcher’s mitts, tipped with razor sharp nails. Cattoo’s double paws.