Gingerbread Man

by Maggie Shayne

  “This is amazing. Oh my God.” Please last, please last, please just fucking last this time. “When can I have full blasting sunlight?”

  “In a few days. Here.” She leaned over and slid a pair of tinted glasses on my face. “You need to wear these—these, not your designer ones—until further notice, okay?”

  I pulled them off and looked at them. “Oh, come on, these? Can’t I pick out a nicer pair? You know, something trendy, with spangles or—” I stopped and looked at Sandra, grinning like a loon `cause I could still see her. “For all I know, these are trendy. Are they?”

  “Not in the least,” Sandra said. Then she leaned over and picked up the top of the tray table, revealing a mirror.

  And there I was, staring at myself. At me. Seeing me more clearly than I had in twenty years. It was so surreal my stomach twisted a little. “That’s me?” I pulled off the sunglasses and leaned closer, tipping my head at various angles, touching my hair. “It’s like looking at a stranger.”

  “A beautiful stranger,” Sandra said.

  Amy added, “Yeah, but way more beautiful when you’re not in a hospital bed, post-op, no makeup, kind of pale and tired. Trust me, you look way better on your good days, hon.”

  I couldn’t take my eyes off myself as I searched for the image I used to identify with, which I only now realized was a slightly older, slightly taller twelve-year-old. With boobs.

  “We’ll go shopping for prescription glasses in any style you want the minute you get out of here,” Sandra promised. “But you really need to listen to the doctor and put those back on for now.”

  I nodded but didn’t obey. “When do I get out of here?” I asked. Because I wanted to see everything.

  “Later today,” Doc said.

  I shook my head in amazement. Later today I was going to walk out of this hospital without a cane, without having to count my steps or listen for traffic. “I don’t see how life can get any better than this,” I said, sounding like one of my own books.

  Almost as soon as I said, it, I wanted to snatch the words back. And not just because they made me gag. It didn’t pay to tempt fate like that. I mean, maybe life couldn’t get any better or maybe it could. What I knew for sure was that it could definitely get worse.

  And it was about to.

  ‘Cause really, miracles are just fairy tales. And reality pretty much sucks.

  4

  BEING ABLE TO see was so damn good, I almost started believing my own bull. I mean, really, you’ve gotta give me some leeway here. After being blind for twenty years, getting your sight back is a pretty big deal, and even the bitchiest of skeptical bitches would start to waver a little.

  We had agreed to keep my “miracle” quiet for a while, which was great. I just wanted to bask in seeing for a little while before going public with the whole thing.

  I had never seen my own house, and my first day home from the hospital all I wanted to do was walk through just looking at it, you know?

  I rode home in Sandra’s minivan. Jim had to work, but the twins were in the backseat, chattering all the way about how I would now be able to watch Misty’s soccer games, and Christy’s cheerleading routines, and omygod the school play was next month. It was hard to tune them out so I could gaze out the windows at the scenery, but I managed.

  We took the Whitney Point exit, left at the light and straight through the village, and I was taking it all in. The river, really wide and shallow, and pretty, the mix of nice and junky-looking businesses, the big brick school building that had probably been there for a century or so, minus the various additions. We took a right at the Mobil-slash-McDonald’s, and drove until the pavement ended and became the unpaved track that twined around the lake-sized reservoir. I lived beyond the backside of the dam, surrounded by state forest and the reservoir itself. I realized as Sandra drove just how far I had retreated from the world.

  Made sense, I guess. I was in the public eye in my work. I liked to hide my private life away. I mean, I wasn’t paparazzi-bait famous, but still, I was a total fraud. Privacy was important when you were running a scam as big as mine.

  When we rolled up to the gated driveway I sat there gaping. My house was like a fairy-tale cottage on crack. Steep peaks, curved clay shingles, some sections cobblestone, others rich maple wood. The windows were tall with red-stained shutters, and the front door was a like a slice from a giant redwood tree. My curving walkway was bordered in thick beds of mums…yellow, brown, red, orange. I got out of the minivan and stood there staring at them like a jackass until Sandra put her hand on my shoulder. “You okay?”

  “Of course I’m okay. Why wouldn’t I be?” I looked past her at the tall, lean, pair of blonde cover models who were my twin nieces. My mental camera had totally malfunctioned on those two. I’d been picturing a pair of chubby twelve-year-olds with their mother’s dimples, I guess, even though I knew they were sixteen. Everyone looked way too serious and sappy-eyed. So I grinned, going for the kind I’d heard called shit-eating and said, “This is really fuckin’ cool.”

  They laughed. Great. Sappiness averted. We all went inside.

  Family party that first night. Amy, who I considered family, Sandra, the twins—still no Mott. And, of course, no Tommy. Sandra and the kids avoided mentioning his name, and when I did, the subject was gently, firmly changed. Sandra had been in touch with the police again. Still no news. Let’s focus on celebrating tonight. Tommy would want us to. End of subject.

  Eventually everyone went home. Well, everyone but Amy, who hung back, offering to help with the dishes. But I knew that wasn’t what she really wanted.

  So I washed, and she dried, and while I was thinking this china pattern really didn’t suit me at all and imagining how much fun I would have picking out something new, she finally got to the point.

  “So there are a couple of things….”

  I pulled the plug on the sink. “I could tell. What’s wrong, Amy? You never keep quiet for this long. You afraid I won’t need an assistant anymore now that I can see, because honestly—”

  “Pshhhhh. Are you kidding? You couldn’t get along without me if you had four sets of 20/20 eyes.”

  “Oh, you think so, do you?” I looked her up and down for effect. She wore short black boots with killer heels and silver buckles, a pair of black leggings under a skintight miniskirt, an off-the-shoulder top that looked like it had been caught in the gears of the washer and torn up a little, with a white cami underneath, and a silver necklace with a giant skull. “Your job is safe, kid, unless I find out you’ve been dressing me like that, in which case, you are so fired.”

  She smiled so big I got distracted by her teeth. Straight and white except for the incisors, which stuck out in front of the rest a little bit.

  “You could not even hope to pull this off,” she said with a look at her own getup.

  “Why would I want to?”

  She rolled her eyes.

  “So, if you’re not worried about your job, then what’s up?”

  Her demeanor changed. I couldn’t put my finger on it until I stopped looking and started feeling again. Her body had shifted away from mine a little, and I sensed her shrinking into herself, not quite as open as before. She’s hiding something. Or wishing she could. But she knows she has to tell me, whatever it is.

  “Come on, Amy. In case you haven’t noticed, I’m dying to be alone in my house for a while. Just spill it, so you can leave already.”

  She did look at me then, and offered a crooked smile, more on the left than on the right. “I hope you never change,” she said. “You’re such a bitch. I just love you so much. So yeah, there’s one little thing.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “You know how we talked a while back about getting you a service dog?”

  Okay, that was not what I’d expected. “Yeah?” I stretched out the word.

  “Well, we got all the stuff, and then we never got the dog. But we never got rid of the stuff.”

  “The stu
ff,” I repeated.

  She nodded, and now she was hopeful, opening up a little more, I felt it, and heard it in her voice. I could see it, too, in the lift of her dark, perfectly plucked eyebrows. Are my eyebrows that perfect? I have to go check.

  “Yeah, the dog bed, and the leashes, and the feeding bowls and dog toys, and—”

  “But, Amy, I don’t need a service dog now.”

  “I know. But I wanted a dog anyway. I mean, I got into the idea when we were thinking about one for you. And then my friend Nikki told me about this one that really needed a home. Not a service dog, just a…just a dog.”

  I was starting to get a very worried feeling.

  “She’s kind of old, and her owner died, and none of the family wanted her and she was going to get sent to the shelter. I was gonna keep her myself, but my landlord won’t let me, and—”

  “But, Amy, I don’t need a dog.” Hadn’t I said that already?

  “Oh, come on, Rache. You’ve got all this room. The place is already fenced in. You can afford to hire someone to take care of her—hell, I’ll take care of her. For free. And she’s just such a great dog, and she’s so quiet you don’t even know she’s here.”

  Not you won’t even know she’s here, but you don’t even know….

  “Just meet her, okay?”

  I closed my eyes. “She’s in my house, isn’t she?”

  “Once I saw her, I just couldn’t say no. She’s in the garage.”

  Of course she was. It’s not like I had a fleet of cars taking up space in the attached three-car garage. Hey, there was a notion. I could buy a car now. Of course I’d need a license first, which would mean learning to drive. Who the hell would have the patience to teach me? Fuck them, I’d teach myself. Practice in the driveway.

  Amy took my hand. “Come on.”

  Right. The dog. The invader in my domain. I would nip this little scheme in the bud right now.

  Amy all but dragged me across the huge kitchen, enthusiastic now that she’d broken the news. It was stainless steel and white. In fact most of the rooms on this floor were white, and that was going to have to change. The place needed color. Or maybe I needed it. Splashes of brightness everywhere. Why waste eyesight on white? We stopped at the door that led directly into the garage, Amy opened it up and said, “Myrtle?”

  Myrtle? Is she fucking serious?

  Something moved in the shadows. There was a snuffling, a snorting, and then, I’m pretty sure, a fart. Amy reached around and snapped on a light switch I hadn’t even known was there—note to self, find and memorize locations of light switches. And then it came shuffling and snuffling toward us, and my newborn eyes widened as this short, fat, squish-nose creature that did not really look much like any dog I’d ever seen waddled closer, not stopping until its head bumped my shin. And then it sniffed and looked up.

  “Playing tricks on the formerly blind girl, are you, Amy? Thinking I don’t know a dog from a potbellied pig?”

  “She’s an English bulldog,” Amy said, hunkering down to scratch its fat little head. “Aren’t you, Myrtle? Yeah, you’re just a pretty little boodog, aren’t you?”

  Myrtle closed her eyes, sucking up the affection like a sponge.

  “Did you just say ‘boodog’?” I asked.

  “She needs us, Rache. She’s old.”

  “She smells it.” The dog’s earlier emission was wafting to my nose now, and I waved a hand in front of my face and tried to blink back tears.

  “And she’s blind.”

  I looked down again. I didn’t notice the smell anymore, and I was pretty sure that was because she’d sort of skewered my heart with that last revelation. “That’s not even close to fair, Amy.”

  “Look, if you don’t want her, fine. Just let her stay until I can find someone else to take her. Please? She won’t last a day in the pound.”

  The dog hit me in the shin with one forepaw.

  “I should fucking fire you for this,” I told Amy, struggling to hold on to my bitchiness and not reveal that my insides were melting like ice cream in the sun. “Fine. Fine, one week. You find this dog a home in one week.” No way in hell is anyone else getting this dog in a week. “Got it?”

  She smiled at me, and I realized I hadn’t been close to understanding what a “shit-eating grin” looked like until right then. Bitch knew me too well.

  Amy left. Myrtle did not. Amy had efficiently left a royalty check’s worth of dog supplies in the garage. I had no idea where they’d been before, but they were all over the place now.

  I decided not to let this momentary digression distract me from doing exactly what I had planned to do. I walked through my house, taking it in visually, loving it more than I ever had before but making a mental list of things I wanted to change. To brighten up. To decorate differently, or decorate at all. My bedroom and office were all but barren.

  I did all of this with the tired old dog plodding along beside me. I’d tried doing it alone, but once everyone was gone, and the house silent, and I shut the garage door on the beast, she took to howling like a Halloween soundtrack. So we wound up making the rounds together. She walked with her side touching my leg, so she wouldn’t lose track of me.

  I understood that. Being in a new place without being able to see it, you liked some kind of touch. I usually inspected new places by staying close to the walls to get the layout, so I did that with her, circling each room, letting her feel all the boundaries and locate all the doorways.

  When we finished our tour of the house, which seemed to meet with the dog’s approval, we went outside and walked around the wrought-iron-fenced yard. Five acres of it, with woods, a stream, lush green grass. I knew the dog must be tired, but she never slowed, never complained, just plodded along beside me, tongue lolling.

  When the sun started to set over the reservoir I sat down in the grass and just watched it. Myrtle plopped down, too, and without even asking first, she lowered her big head onto my lap, her sightless brown eyes falling closed.

  The sun was a giant orange-yellow ball, and as it sank, I saw a bald eagle soar right in front of it. “Wow,” I whispered.

  I realized I was stroking the dog’s head when she released an enormous sigh. I think she was smiling. It was a perfectly serene moment. It was my last serene moment, now that I think back on it.

  * * *

  FIVE HOURS LATER, give or take, the first nightmare came. I was standing in a dark room, and there was something sticky all over my face, and I felt…alive. More alive than I had ever felt. My pulse was pounding, and every cell, every nerve ending, seemed to tingle with delicious sensations of arousal and pleasure. Like a full body orgasm. I was breathing fast and couldn’t seem to stop smiling.

  But that stickiness…

  I wiped at my cheek with one hand, pulled it away to look. Red. Blood.

  The pleasure tingles started to change into shivers of fear as I looked down at my body and saw more of it. I was covered in it.

  I staggered backwards, trying to wipe the stuff off and realizing there was a hammer in my other hand. And it, too, wore a sticky red coating. I dropped it, but it took its time pulling free from my palm, then landing on the floor with a clear, heavy thud.

  Turning in a slow circle, I tried to figure out where I was, what was happening to me. There was just enough light in the room to let me see the dead man on the floor. His head was broken like a melon dropped from a roof, his hair so matted with blood and bone and brain that I couldn’t even tell what color it was. His face was more hamburger than human.

  I opened my mouth to scream, but instead of screaming I spoke, and I don’t even know who I was talking to. “I don’t want to see this, I don’t want to. Make it go away, make it go, make it go! I’d rather be blind!”

  And then I was awake.

  I sat up in bed, blinking, but everything was dark. For one horrifying moment I thought my terrified wish had been granted and I’d gone blind again.

  No. I didn’t mean it. With all my
heart, I didn’t mean it!

  A sob got stuck in my throat, and I pressed a hand to my chest to try to catch the panic that was trying to gallop away with me.

  And then a wet nose touched my cheek. It had the same effect as when the hero slapped the hysterical heroine in one those old movies from back when that was a good enough excuse to hit a woman. I snapped out of it.

  I wasn’t blind.

  I could sort of see Myrtle, standing beside the bed, hind legs on the floor, front ones on the mattress as she stretched to reach me. The gleam of her eyes and the shape of her head were clear in my darkened bedroom. I stroked her and leaned over to fumble for the lamp, snapped it on and went limp with relief when light filled the room and the room filled my eyes.

  “Okay, good. Good. It’s all good. It was just a dream.”

  My bedroom was just the way I’d left it. Soothing green walls—keep. Ivory curtains and woodwork—keep. Not a single picture on a single wall—big change needed. The circular dog bed lay on the plush green carpet to my left. One of Myrtle’s toys, a yellow teddy bear with one arm missing and white fluff sticking out of its shoulder socket, was lying in it.

  But Myrtle was still standing with her paws on my mattress.

  “Yeah, okay. Why not?” I got up, moved around behind her, linked my arms around her middle and picked her up, grunting as I did. “Not a lightweight, are you, Myrt?”

  Snarf, said Myrtle.

  I got her into the bed, then climbed back in myself. She padded around until she found a spot she liked—as close to me as possible—and dropped. Myrtle didn’t lay down. Myrtle collapsed.

  I sighed. “So what the hell was that about, do you think?” I asked her.

  She opened her sightless eyes and looked back at me as if to say, You’re asking me? I’m just a dog.

  I’d never had a nightmare like that in my life. It had been vivid. Real. And the feelings running through me in that dream had been majorly fucked up. Way out of line with anything I would ever have felt. I had never equated blood and sex. Not even in fantasy. Sadism was not my thing. I didn’t have a dominatrix bone in my body. So what the hell was up with the sensations of sexual pleasure and all that blood?