Some People Talk with God

by John Enright

  Dominick nodded and smiled back. There was a fresh camaraderie between them, co-victims of a shared disorder.

  “Gotta go, lover boy,” Vernon said from the dining room door. “Thanks for supper, Sissy, but it’s getting on bedtime for me and we have to drive back.”

  “Scram, Daddy,” Sissy said laughing then giving Dominick a playful peck on the cheek. “He’s just cute, that’s all.” Vernon left the doorway. “Can you come back tomorrow night without Daddy? I can lock Susan in her room.”

  “I should have my car back. I purposefully forgot to bring your books tonight. That was going to be my excuse for coming back. May I return your books tomorrow night?”

  “There may be overdue fines.”

  “I’ll gladly pay.” The kiss was just a sample, an experiment. Dominick turned to go.

  Sissy dried her hands on a dish towel. “What do you think I should do about Susan?”

  Dominick stopped at the door to think. “You stole her. She’s yours but you can’t keep her. She shouldn’t or won’t go back where you got her. Try contacting her parents, I guess. Meanwhile, if you want her to relax and open up, get her a little weed to smoke. That way you’ll be accused not only of kidnapping and harboring a fugitive but of contributing to the delinquency of a minor.”

  Sissy laughed. Dominick couldn’t think of anything he would rather be doing than making Sissy laugh. “Oh, and hide your car keys.”

  Chapter 16

  What defines a person better than the secrets that he does not share? What is more private than selected silence? What is intimacy if not opening those self-locked rooms, those cherished redoubts? Of course, there were always the deeply personal things that no one ever revealed, that often were kept hidden even from one’s self. And then there were the foretime episodes so embarrassing or painful or revealing that a palisade had been built around them. Like most fortifications those ramparts had been built to defend against past wars and would never be challenged again. As Sissy spoke, Dominick wondered at the counsel he was keeping to himself, at his continued reticence to interrupt to tell her things he knew and she didn’t, to share and not just passively observe.

  They were having lunch at Sissy’s vegetarian place in Hudson again, and she was talking about writing an article on the Van Houten place. “It would make an interesting story,” she said. “There aren’t many of those grand old private estates still standing hereabouts.” He watched her eat. Lunch was in place of dinner. Sissy’s plans had changed as she had to cover a city council meeting that evening. “It’s not my usual beat, but they fired the guy who used to do it.” She had left a message for him at the St. George, changing their date. He had picked up her note just in time to meet her there.

  That morning Vernon had come over to drive Dominick back to Catskill to pick up his car. They stopped at an ATM along the way for Dominick to get more cash. Getting his car cleaned was well worth the sixty bucks Vernon’s friend charged. The interior was spotless, and it even smelled like a new car again. Dominick settled accounts with Vernon as well, giving him $500 and thanks. When they parted, Vernon said, “You be good to my daughter now.” Dominick wasn’t sure how he could be bad to her.

  Perhaps by not filling her in on things he knew? For instance, when Sissy said she had been charmed by how original the old place looked, he said, “Oh, you’ve been there?” although he already knew from Amanda that Sissy had stopped by. And when Sissy said that she would like to take a photographer back there to get some shots but she didn’t think that woman Amanda would let her back on the property, Dominick didn’t tell her that the woman Amanda was his sister. And when Sissy wondered if Amanda was a Wicca witch—“Isn’t that like a witch’s name?”—Dominick said nothing. Sissy did not mention that her great-aunt had a connection to the place, so obviously she hadn’t learned that either. He kept his secrets of the basement rooms and the trunks and their contents. He let her go on. She seemed so sure of herself, it would be a pity to interrupt.

  When Sissy stopped to eat, Dominick asked, “Have you had a chance to talk with Susan?”

  “No, she went to her room when you guys left last night, and she wasn’t up when I left for work this morning.”

  “Is this article going to be about the Wicca thing?”

  “I guess that could be part of it, like at the end, about recent tenants. I gather it started out as a Methodist minister’s house—nice rounded closure there.”

  “I took some photographs of the place,” Dominick said, “but they wouldn’t be of any use to you, black-and-white and undeveloped film, not digital like you folks use these days.”

  “You did? Oh, please let me use them. I’m sure they are great. There’s an old guy at the paper, Sid, who still shoots film now and then. He’s got his own darkroom. He could develop them.”

  Dominick was thinking that a feature newspaper article about the old house could only help Amanda and Morgan’s real estate efforts, free publicity. He could please Sissy, help his sister out, and get to see his photos all in one—leave town on a triple up note. Sissy was smiling at him again as she chewed, that secret smile. “This Sid knows what he’s doing?” Dominick asked.

  “An old pro.”

  “I’ll get the film to you this afternoon. See what’s on there, if there’s anything you can use.”

  “That means you’ll be around a little longer?” Sissy said. “Will I have to keep making up reasons to keep you here?”

  Dominick didn’t have to answer, as the waitress came to clear their dishes. Out on the sidewalk Sissy gave him a squeeze and a kiss on the cheek before hurrying back to her office. Dominick realized that once again he had forgotten to return her books. Absentmindedly he rubbed his cheek where Sissy had kissed him, then he walked down back streets toward the river, through brick blocks that seemed to go backwards in time as they emptied of people. As far as Dominick could find out, there never had been a fort here.

  ***

  Amanda felt pretty dumb. The evening before, when she had picked Morgan up at the station and they had had dinner together, something had seemed different about her, but just what hadn’t registered. Amanda had been too full of her new car to pay attention. But at breakfast she figured out what was different—Morgan’s hair. The streaks of grey at her temples were gone, and she had also had it cut and styled. The difference was subtle but telling. It had taken years off. Without those telltale badges of maturity, there was no reason to question the youthfulness of the rest of her appearance. She seemed altogether younger.

  That morning they had both stayed in their rooms until after Denise and all the other girls were gone. There had been another scene with Denise the night before, when they got home, and the truce they struck involved a border established not in space but in time—the combatants would time-share the kitchen. The row with Denise had to do with poor Susan, who it would seem had again escaped. High Priest nurse Lloyd had called Denise to say that Susan had gone missing from his funny farm and to ask if she was back with them. Susan had had a visitor earlier in the day—a Negress, Lloyd had said, and Denise repeated the word. Lloyd had made sure the woman left alone, but later he discovered Susan was gone as well.

  When Denise had said Negress, Morgan grinned. “That would be like a tigress or a lioness?” she said. “Amazing how they let them wander free, isn’t it?” At that point Susan’s sister Kathy had started yelling, demanding her sister back. Facts and logic—that Amanda and Morgan hadn’t known where Susan had been taken, that Morgan didn’t drive and in fact had been in Albany, that they had no reason or interest in kidnapping Susan—did not prevail. Denise admitted that Lloyd had said “a large Negress,” which hardly described Morgan, but then she suggested that it was a conspiracy of some sort.

  “Oh, yes, sister, you’ve found us out,” Morgan had said. “Us Negresses have a secret underground cooperation where we kidnap young white girls. We gift them to our menfolk as sex toys.”

  Denise had backed off then. She had caused
her little scene for the benefit of Kathy and the other girls. Amanda figured Denise didn’t really care where Susan was anyway. As long as she was gone it didn’t matter where. Amanda figured who the large black woman was, but she wasn’t about to say so. Wherever Susan was, she was better off there than back here or in that institution. Before Denise and her troop marched off, the agreement to the equal but separate use of the kitchen had been reached.

  In the morning it was peaceful. Amanda noted that the girls had even washed and put away all their breakfast dishes. “I don’t think they even ate here,” Morgan said. “It’s not like them not to leave some sort of mess. They didn’t even make coffee.” It was then, in the morning light, that Amanda noticed Morgan’s new look as she was fixing coffee.

  “You had your hair done in Albany,” Amanda said.

  “You just noticed?”

  “I just thought to mention it. It’s nice. It works.”

  “Thanks. You should do something with yours, now that you got money to burn. Something to go with your new wheels, say highlights in a complimentary color.”

  Something had changed with Morgan in addition to her hair. It was as if she were moving to an inner soundtrack, and it was a song that she liked, that she could dance to. What else had Amanda been missing? Morgan’s cell phone sounded. She pulled it out of the pocket of her cut-offs as she walked out the back door but didn’t answer it until she was out of earshot in the garden. This was new, too. Was it a man? It must be a man. All her trips to Albany. That new jacket she wore on the train. Amanda’s recent feeling that Morgan wasn’t really here when she was here.

  Amanda sat there and listened to the Mr. Coffee hiss and gurgle as it finished up. She was feeling something, but she wasn’t sure what to call it. Lonesome didn’t quite cover it, and it wasn’t something as blunt as jealousy. Morgan had never been hers, so she could hardly lose her. But now Morgan had secrets, and Morgan wasn’t supposed to have secrets. Having secrets meant that she was hiding something, that she had things to hide from Amanda. Was there such a thing as a trust rating, like a credit rating? A numerical scale? Amanda didn’t want to reduce Morgan’s trust rating. It put too many things at risk. But if it was just a man—and say he was married and so on the sly—then it was none of Amanda’s business after all. She heard Morgan’s laugh from the garden. Maybe it was envy she was feeling, envy that Morgan might actually have something worth keeping private.

  Amanda fixed herself a mug of coffee. She wanted to take it out onto the porch to sit in Nemo’s chair and drink it, but she was afraid that if she did Morgan would think she was trying to eavesdrop. What a funny word. She sat in the big wing chair instead and watched Morgan out in the garden talking into her palm. This house would be their last joint venture. Things always ran out that way, came to a natural ending, and people went their separate ways. It was a fact of life that nothing lasted. The only thing that did not change was the will to change. Morgan laughed again and made a dancer’s gesture toward the sky.

  When Morgan came back into the kitchen she said, “Let’s get your brother back out here one more time to make our pitch. You call him; insist on seeing him before he goes. He can get his shirts back. It’s worth one more try.”

  ***

  “Why didn’t you tell me Amanda was your sister?” Sissy wanted to know. “You just let me go on about her being a witch and all.”

  “It wasn’t important. She’s only my half sister, and I knew she wasn’t a witch,” Dominick said. “I gather you have spoken with Susan then.” Dominick was driving. They were in his car, headed for the Rip Van Winkle Bridge again, over the stretch of road that had become so familiar its distance seemed to have shrunk in half.

  “Oh, yes. Susan opened up last night after I got home from the council meeting, and I didn’t even have to get her stoned. Strange girl. She likes you, for instance, for some reason. She claims she has no past—not that she doesn’t remember anything but that there is nothing to remember. When I asked about her parents, she said she didn’t have any. And when I said bullshit, everyone’s got parents, she said maybe everyone else did but she never had. I have to get her some clothes today. We can stop at Walmart. All she’s got is what she was wearing when she went over the fence. There’s nothing to that girl. She doesn’t weigh a hundred pounds.”

  “So what did Susan have to say?”

  “Oh, that she liked it alright at the house, except for the fact that it was haunted. She liked the garden and the fact that there weren’t any men around. I asked her if she had lived in the country before, and she said she didn’t know, she doubted it.”

  “Did she talk about Denise, the Wicca stuff?”

  “I gather Susan didn’t participate. She called it some sort of church thing that her sister and the other girls did. She seemed scared of Denise. Was Susan like a slave there or something? She didn’t have a life.”

  Dominick had gotten a call that morning from Amanda, inviting him over for a good-bye lunch. He had been about to decline when the idea struck him. “May I bring a guest?” he asked. He didn’t say who it was. So now he was headed out to the Van Houten place for one last visit, bringing Sissy along. She had jumped at the chance. For one thing his photos, while artsy and all, were pretty useless for her purposes. There wasn’t one proper picture of the house itself, just details and shadows. She wanted Dominick to shoot some more and had brought along the office digital camera. Dominick had stashed his stolen papers and ledger in the trunk of the car. He would try one more time to secretly replace them if he got the chance.

  Sissy liked his car—“It smells brand new,” she said—but was surprised he had no CDs to play on his fancy sound system. Dominick confessed that he wasn’t sure how to use it. He had never even turned on the radio. Along the way he explained that Amanda and her partner had plans to renovate the old place and give it a new life. He would let Amanda explain it; it was their project after all, not his. Sissy asked if he knew anything about the place being haunted, which he didn’t, but that gave him the opening to tell her a couple of stories about houses where he had previously been a guest that were supposedly haunted. He got her laughing again, that pleasure.

  “You’ve stayed in a lot of old houses,” Sissy said.

  “It’s a hobby. No, more of a pastime. I have become a sort of professional houseguest to rich people. Rich people tend to live in either very modern or very old, big places. The old places come with stories.”

  “A professional houseguest to rich people? How does that work?”

  “The big houses of the idle rich are chronically empty. I relieve my hosts’ anxiety about that by moving in for a while. It’s not so much my company they crave as just company. Especially if they have servants, whom the rich feel are always underemployed. I’m clean and I’m quiet; I wear the right clothes to dinner. It’s instructive how lonesome people with a lot of money often are.”

  “You like doing that?”

  “I much prefer it to living in hotels, and of course it means I have no bills to pay.”

  “You have no home address?”

  “No,” Dominick said. They were on the high bridge over the river now. “No, not any more.” His mother’s address in Alexandria had always been his fictional official residence. Now he would have to find another. The big bright river, as placid as a lake, spread out on either side of them. Sissy was silent, looking out over the water.

  Where it had washed out, the road to the house was still only one temporary lane. At the house there was a brand new tan sedan parked in the driveway, but Amanda’s old Chevy wasn’t there.

  “How are we going to manage this?” Sissy asked.

  “Well, you’ve already met Amanda, so no introductions will be needed. I’ll just point out that an article about the place could only help their venture, and we’ll take it from there. We will all act like adults and make nice.”

  “That sounds doable. Wait.” Sissy leaned across the front seat and gave Dominick a kiss on the lips
. “You can say I’m your girlfriend, if you want to.”

  “I think I’ll let Amanda draw what conclusions she wishes. Oh, and I don’t think we should mention Susan at all.”

  They went up the steps to the front porch, but there was a large swatch of what looked like dried blood between them and the front door that stopped them. Dominick led the way around the side of the house toward the kitchen porch. Sissy went to take his arm, but he shrugged her off. “You behave yourself now,” he said, but she just smiled.

  That big chair was still on the kitchen porch where he had moved it, and Morgan was sitting in it reading a magazine, her legs tucked up beneath her. Amanda hadn’t mentioned Morgan. Dominick hadn’t factored her in.

  “Hi!” Sissy called out, like family just stopping by.

  Morgan looked up, a curious smile on her face. She said “Hello” slowly, a question, then, “Hello, Dominick, how brave of you to come.”

  “Hello, Morgan. Brave?”

  “This place hasn’t been exactly good luck for you. Your friend?”

  “I’m Sissy,” Sissy said, going up to lean forward from the garden path and shake Morgan’s hand.

  “Well, welcome, Sissy. My name is Morgan, and this here is Amanda.” Amanda had come out through the kitchen screen door carrying a tray with glasses and a pitcher of iced tea.

  “Actually, we’ve already met. Hi, Amanda.”

  “Oh, yes. Sissy, isn’t it?” Amanda said. She was not pleased.

  “You know each other?” Morgan asked, giving Amanda a queer look.

  “My guest,” Dominick said. Sissy’s smile had a hard edge to it. They made quite a tableau, like something from a Chekhov play, three women like three cats sizing each other up. What had he done? What had he been thinking?

  ***

  Amanda couldn’t imagine what message Nemo thought he was sending by showing up with that woman. Was he just playing games with them? Mixing things up for his personal entertainment? He claimed he just thought that an article in the local press about the house would improve their real estate prospects. Did that mean he was still considering buying in? He never explained how he and the Sissy woman had come to meet or what their connection was. She acted as if they were more than just casual acquaintances. She laughed at all his lame little jokes. She was young enough to be his daughter, for Pete’s sake. She still had that perfect youthful skin. They were of a size together—XL.