by Dean Koontz
“Thanks, Liz.”
“Are you grounded for the summer?”
“No. I thought there'd be a curfew for a while, but Mama says she doesn't care what I do. She's washed her hands of me.”
“She said that?”
“Yes.”
“My God, that's terrific!”
“Is it?” Amy wondered.
“Of course it is, you silly ass. You make your own rules now. You're free, kid!” Liz put on a phony Southern Negro dialect: Yo' massah have done turned yo' loose, chile!”
Amy didn't laugh. She said, “Right now, all I care about is getting some sleep. I was awake all last night and most of the night before. And with this business today . . . well, I'm dead on my feet.”
“Sure,” Liz said. “I understand. I won't keep you on the phone for an hour. Get some rest. Call me tomorrow. We'll make plans for the summer. It's going to be a blast, kid. We'll make some memories and blow out all the candles for our last summer together. I've already got a couple of guys in mind for you.”
“I don't think a guy is exactly what I need right now,” Amy said.
“Oh, not in the next ten minutes,” Liz agreed. “But after you've had a couple of weeks to recover, you'll be ready to get back in the swing of things.”
“I don't think so, Liz.”
“Sure you will. You're not going to become a nun, for God's sake. You need to get some of that old salami once in a while, kid. You need it the same way I need it. We're two of a kind in that respect. Neither of us can do without a guy for long.”
“We'll see,” Amy said.
“Only this time,” Liz said, “you're going to do what I tell you. You're going to get a prescription for the pill.”
I really don't think I'll need it,” Amy said.
“That's what you thought the last time, dope.”
A few minutes later, in her room, Amy knelt at the side of her bed and started to say her prayers. But after a minute or two she stopped because, for the first time in her life, she had the feeling that God wasn't listening. She wondered if He would ever listen to her again.
In bed she cried herself to sleep, and no one woke her for dinner or for Mass the next morning. When she opened her eyes again, it was eleven o'clock Sunday morning, and scattered, white clouds were racing like great sailing ships across the sea-blue sky beyond her window. She had slept eighteen hours straight through.
As far as she could remember, this was only the second time she had missed Sunday Mass since she was a few months old. The other time had been when she was nine and in the hospital, recovering from an emergency appendectomy. She had been scheduled to be discharged on Monday, and her mother had argued with the doctor about letting her out one day early so she could be taken to church, but the doctor had said that church wasn't the best place for a child recuperating from surgery.
She was relieved that Mama hadn't forced her to go to church this morning. Apparently Mama didn't think that her wicked daughter belonged in a church anymore.
And maybe Mama was right.
* * *
The following day, Monday, May 26, two sign painters went to work on the large billboard at the entrance to the county fairgrounds, just outside the Royal City limits. By midafternoon they were finished.
COMING COMING COMING
** JUNE 30 THROUGH JULY 5 **
THE ANNUAL ROYAL COUNTY FAIR
*HARNESS RACING
*ARTS & CRAFTS SHOW
*LIVESTOCK AUCTIONS
*GAMES, THRILL RIDES
MIDWAY ATTRACTION BY:
BIG AMERICAN MIDWAY SHOWS****
PART TWO
The Carnival Is coming….
9
A MONTH after the abortion, the last week of June, Amy was working at The Dive, nine-to-five Monday through Friday, and noon-to-six on Saturday. The place was jumping every minute with a tanned and energetic crowd of teenagers.
At six o'clock Saturday evening, as Amy was getting ready to go home, Liz Duncan came in, looking like a million bucks in tight red shorts and a white T-shirt, no bra. “I've got a date with Richie tonight. He's going to meet me here at six-thirty. Want to wait with me so I don't get lonely?”
“You wouldn't get lonely,” Amy said. “If you sat down alone, every guy in the place would be hanging on you in two minutes.”
Liz looked speculatively at the kids in The Dive, then shook her head. “Nope. Once I've dated a guy and then dropped him, he knows it's over for good, he knows it isn't worth his time to pitch me for a rematch.”
“So?”
“So most of the guys in here wouldn't bother me if I sat down alone because I've already screwed most of them.”
“Gross,” Amy said.
“But almost true,” Liz said.
“You're bad.”
“That's why the boys like me. Listen, are you going to keep me company till Richie gets here?”
“Sure,” Amy said.
She went to the fountain and drew down two Cokes, and she and Liz took the first booth at the front of the room, where they had a view of Main Street. Liz's car was parked out front. It was a yellow Toyota Celica. Her parents had given it to her as a surprise graduation gift.
“No matter how hard I try,” Amy said, “I can't picture you and Richie Atterbury as a couple.”
“Why not? We were both unique in school,” Liz said. “He was the class genius with an IQ of one-eighty, and I was the class slut with a hundred and eighty names on my scorecard.”
“I don't know why you keep putting yourself down like that,” Amy said. “You haven't had anywhere near a hundred and eighty guys, for God's sake.”
“I'm not putting myself down,” Liz said. “Honey, I revel in it. I love what I am. It's the only way to fly.”
“Richie was always so shy.”
“He's not so shy anymore,” Liz said. She winked. Listen, it's been a ball teaching Richie what the game is all about. He was so gangly and clumsy and naive! A real challenge. But he's coming along. He's coming along real nice. He has a real taste for corruption.”
“And you're corrupting him?”
“Exactly.”
Isn't that a bit melodramatic?”
“No. Because that's exactly what I'm doing. I'm corrupting Richie Atterbury, boy genius.”
“Elizabeth Ann Duncan, sultry temptress, the b all-knowing wanton woman of exotic Royal City,” Amy said sarcastically.
Liz grinned. “That's me. You know, just three weeks ago, when I first started going out with him, Richie had never smoked grass? Can you imagine? Now he's a regular pothead.”
That's the only reason you're dating him? Just so you can corrupt him?”
“No,” Liz said. “It's a hell of a lot of fun to open him up to new things, new experiences. But even if he already knew his way around, he'd be fun to be with. He's clever, witty. And he seems to know something interesting about almost everything. I've never dated a genius before. It's different.”
“Sounds like maybe this one will last a little longer than the others,” Amy said.
“No way,” Liz said quickly. “I figure another month, six weeks at the outside. Then bye-bye, Richie. No matter how clever he is, I'll be bored with him by then. Besides, even if I wanted something permanent with someone, which I don't want, but even if for some weird reason I did, I wouldn't want anything permanent with anyone here in this jerkwater town. I don't want anyone holding me back when I'm ready to split for the west.”
“You're still planning on going”
“Hell, yes. I'll work in my father's office until the middle of December, build up a nest egg, and then knock off a couple of weeks before Christmas. After the holiday, I'll pack my clothes into my little yellow car, and I'll be off like a shot to the land of sun and opportunity.”
“California?”
“I've decided on Vegas,” Liz said.
“Las Vegas?”
“That's the only Vegas I know.”
“What will you do there?�
��
“Sell it,” Liz said, grinning again.
“Sell what?”
“Don't be dopey.”
“I'm not being dopey.”
“As dense as a post.”
“I don't understand. What are you going to sell?”
“My ass.”
“Huh?”
“I'm going to do some heavy hooking.”
“Hooking?”
“Jesus! Liz said. “Listen, kid, don't you realize how much money a high-priced call girl can make in Vegas? A six-figure income, that's how much.”
Amy stared at her in disbelief. “You're trying to make me believe that you're going to Vegas to be a whore?”
“I'm not trying to make you believe anything,” Liz said. “I'm merely telling you the facts, kid. Besides, I'm not going to be an ordinary whore. Whore is a low-class word. Whores are cheap. I'm going to be a personal escort, an intimate companion to a new gentleman every evening. Intimate companions are quite expensive, you know. And I'm going to be more expensive than most of them.”
“You aren't serious.”
“Of course I am. I've got a good personality, a damned nice face, long legs, a cute little butt, almost no waist at all, and these.” She thrust her chest out, and her large, uptilted breasts strained against the thin T-shirt. “If I can learn not to spend every dime I make, and if I can find a few good investments, I'll be worth at least a million by the time I'm twenty-five.”
“You won't do it.”
“Yep.”
“You're putting me on.”
: “Nope. Listen, I'm a regular nympho. I know that. You know that. Practically everyone knows that. I can't keep my hands off the guys, and I like variety. So if I'm going to be screwing around every day of the week, I might as well get paid for it.”
Amy stared at her searchingly, and Liz met her eyes, and at last Amy said, “My God, you really mean it.”
“Why not?”
“Liz, a prostitute's life isn't pleasant. It isn't fun and games. It's lonely and grim.”
“Who says?”
“Well . . . everyone says.”
“Everyone is full of shit.”
“If you go away and do something like this . . . Liz, it'll be such a . . . such a tragedy. That's what it'll be. You'll be throwing your whole life away, ruining everything.”
“You sound like your mother,” Liz said scornfully.
“I don't, either.”
“Oh, yes you do,” Liz said. “You sound exactly like her.”
Amy frowned. “I do?”
“Smug, moralistic, self-righteous.”
“I'm just worried about you.”
“I know what I'm doing,” Liz said. “Listen, when you're a high-priced call girl, you party all the time. What's so lonely and grim about that? It is fun and games. Especially in Vegas, where there's never a dull minute.”
Amy was stunned. She had never imagined that she would one day have a friend who was a prostitute. For a while they sat in silence, sipping their Cokes and listening to a Bob Seger number that was blasting out of the jukebox with the force of a jackhammer.
When the music stopped, Liz said, “You know what would be great?”
“What?”
“If you came along with me to Vegas.”
“Me?”
“Sure. Why not?”
“My God,” Amy said, shocked by the idea.
“Listen, I know I'm a damned desirable little package,” Liz said. “But I'm not one bit sexier than you are. You've got just what it takes to be a huge success in Vegas.”
Amy laughed with embarrassment.
“You really do,” Liz insisted.
“Not me.”
“They'd be standing in line for a chance to get in your pants. Listen, kid, in that town you'd outdraw Liberace and Frank Sinatra combined.”
“Oh, Liz, I couldn't do that sort of thing. Not in a million years.”
“You did it with Jerry.”
“Not for money.”
Which is foolish.”
“Anyway, that was different. Jerry was my steady boyfriend.”
“What's so great about steady?” Liz demanded. “Did going steady mean anything to Jerry? He dumped you the second he heard you were knocked up. He wasn't considerate or sympathetic or loyal or anything else a steady is supposed to be. I guarantee you, none of the men you'd be escorting in Vegas would treat you that shabbily.”
“With my luck,” Amy said, “my first client would turn out to be a homicidal maniac with a butcher knife.”
“No, no, no,” Liz said. “Your clients would all come with seals of approval from hotel pit bosses and other casino executives. They'd send you only the high rollers—doctors, lawyers, famous entertainers, millionaire businessmen . . .You'd only take on the best people.”
“This may come as a surprise to you,” Amy said, abut even a millionaire businessman can turn out to be a homicidal maniac with a butcher knife. It's rare. I'll grant you that. But it's not impossible.”
“So you carry your own knife in your purse,” Liz said. “If he starts acting creepy, you make the first cut.”
“You have an answer for everything, don't you?”
“I'm just a girl from little old Royal City, Ohio,” Liz said, abut I'm not a hick.”
“Well, I don't think I'll be going to Vegas with you at the end of the year,” Amy said. “It's going to be a long, long time before I'm even ready to go on a nice, quiet, no-sex date. I've sworn off men for a while.”
“Bullshit,” Liz said.
“It's true.”
“You have been a stick-in-the-mud so far this summer,” Liz said. “But that'll pass.”
“No. I mean it.”
“Last week you went to the doctor I recommended,” Liz said smugly.
“So?”
“So you got a prescription for the pill. Would you get a prescription for the pill if you really intended to be a wallflower?”
“You talked me into that,” Amy said.
“For your own good.”
“I wish I hadn't gone to that doctor. I won't be needing the pill or anything else until I'm out of college. I'm going to sit back, with my knees together, and be virginal.”
“Like hell you are,” Liz said. “Two weeks from now, you'll be flat on your back, pinned under one stud or another. Two weeks at most. I know it. I know you backwards and forwards, up and down, inside and out. You know how it is that I'm able to read you so clearly? It's because you're exactly like me. We're two of a kind. Peas in a pod. Oh, not on the surface, necessarily. But deep down, deep in your heart where it counts, you're exactly like me, honey. That's why we'd be great together in Vegas. We'd have a ball.”
Richie Atterbury walked up to the table. He was a tall, thin boy, not handsome but not unattractive, either. He had thick, dark hair, and he wore horn-rimmed glasses that made him look a little bit like Clark Kent. “Hi, Liz. Hi, Amy.”
Amy said, “Hello, Richie. That's a pretty shirt you're wearing.”
“You really think so?” he asked.
“Yes. I like it a lot.”
“Thanks,” Richie said awkwardly. He looked at Liz with his big, lovesick, puppy eyes, and he said, “Ready for the movie?”
Can't wait,” Liz said. She stood up. To Amy, she said, “We're going to the drive-in. That's really fitting, too.” She grinned wickedly. “Because Richie sure knows how to drive it in.”
Richie blushed.
Liz laughed and said, “The only way I'm going to see much of this movie is if we set up a series of mirrors to reflect it onto the ceiling of the car.”
“Liz, you're terrible,” Amy said.
“Do you think I'm terrible?” Liz asked Richie.
“I think you're terrific,” Richie said, daring to put an arm around her waist. He still seemed somewhat bashful, even if Liz had made him more than passingly familiar with sex and drugs.
Liz looked at Amy. “See? He thinks I'm terrific, and he was the cl
ass genius, so what do you know about it?” Amy smiled in spite of herself.
“Listen,” Liz said, “when you're ready to start living again, when you're sick and tired of playing Sister Purity, give me a call. I'll line someone up for you. We'll double-date.”
Amy watched Liz and Richie as they walked outside and got into the yellow Celica. Liz drove. She pulled away from the curb with a torturous squeal of tires that made everyone in The Dive look toward the front windows.
After Amy left The Dive at twenty minutes till seven, she didn't go straight home. She walked aimlessly for more than an hour, not really window-shopping in the stores she passed, not really noticing the houses she passed, not really enjoying the clean spring evening, just walking and thinking about the future.
When she got home at eight o'clock, her father was in his workshop. Her mother was sitting at the kitchen table, leafing through a magazine, listening to a radio call-in program, and sucking on vodka and orange juice.
“If you didn't have dinner at work,” Mama said, “there's some cold roast beef in the refrigerator.”
“Thank you,” Amy said, abut I'm not hungry. I ate a big lunch.” 1-15
“Suit yourself,” Mama said. She turned up the volume on the radio.
Amy interpreted that as a sign of dismissal. She went upstairs.
She spent an hour with Joey, playing fivehundred rummy, his favorite card game. The boy didn't seem himself. He hadn't been the old, effervescent Joey since Mama had made him get rid of his monster models and posters. Amy worked hard at making him laugh, and he did laugh, but his good humor seemed like a facade to her. He was tense underneath, and she hated to see him that way, but she couldn't figure out how to reach him and cheer him up.
Later, in her room, she stood nude again in front of the full-length mirror. She appraised her body with a critical eye, trying to decide if she did, indeed, measure up to Liz. Her legs were long and quite well shaped. Her thighs were taut, the muscle tone in her whole body was very good. Her bottom was round and sort of perky, very firm. Her belly was not just flat but slightly concave. Her breasts weren't as large as Liz's, but they weren't small by any definition, and they were extremely well shaped, up-thrust, with large, dark nipples.
