And as I watch the sky fall in furious sheets across the length of Likewise Terrace, I spot a small shape across the cul-de-sac. It moves low to the ground, not much more than a grey silhouette against the static of the storm. I track the shape through the surging blur as it passes my Jeep Liberty and crosses the lawn. As it strides up the walkway to the porch, the shape resolves into a cat, and it climbs the three steps to my feet.
It shakes off its coat of snow like dandruff. It picks up more immediately, and hardly notices. I watch the cat approach, sniff at my pantleg, then rub the side of its head against my ankle.
I smile down at the stray. The cat rubs the other side of its head against the other side of my ankle, then looks up at me as if surprised to find something connected to this ankle. And when I see the cat's face, my smile falters. That one ear is notched is not surprising; the cat wears no collar or tags. What strikes me now is the cubist constitution of colors that mark its face.
The right side is the color of nor'easter snow, the left side the color of charcoal, and right down the center from ears to nose is a streak of scarlet nearly the color of blood. The eyes are a faded green, and as they look up at me, dispassionate and inquisitive, I feel like they somehow know me. Like this animal has come here to find me. Like it has, perhaps, been sent here.
Sure. At three-thirty in the morning, I can believe that.
I crouch, and offer a hand to the cat. My knees crunch like aluminum cans being crushed; my thirty seconds are about up. The cat sniffs at my fingertips, which have gone numb, then rubs its face against my palm. It looks up at me again, as if to ask if that's enough or if it will have to prove itself some other way.
"Galen?" I ask for no particular reason. The cat meows, except that no sound comes out. As if this cat has talked itself hoarse on more important matters. Electricity sweeps down my back, thrills me, fills me with fantastic terrors never felt before. The hairs down the back of my neck stand on end.
The cat stares at me. I am sure that it senses my reaction. It seems intrigued. I reach for its head. It doesn't flinch away as I scratch the back of its neck and behind its ears. It seems satisfied that I've received whatever message it's come to deliver. I stand, and it heads toward the glass door, glancing back to make sure I'm following. I pull the door open, and the cat strides inside, shaking itself off again in the foyer. I step in after it, starting across the living room toward the hallway again.
The cat follows at my heel. It neither hurries nor lingers, neither afraid nor confused. It waits for me to step out of my Skechers and tuck them back under the couch. Then it strides in after me and begins investigating its new surroundings.
I swear to myself that if I see any Missing Cat flyers, I'll return the animal to its rightful home. Except that I already know that's a lie. So it works out well that I never see any Missing Cat flyers. I start toward the hall as the cat curls up in the papasan chair. By sunrise, I will already think of the cat as Galen, but for now, it is still just an anonymous stray.
I spare the cat one last glance, then head for the bedroom. I round the bed to the desk, shut down my laptop and close the lid. A fine film of ephemeral light slips through the blinds, reflecting off the glass of that framed photograph beside the computer.
I lift the frame and look into the past. I still don't quite believe that we were ever so young. I smile down at the picture as Winnie smiles back up at me, and Ben flashes his rock-horns at me in his best Gene Simmons impersonation, and Helen cocks an eyebrow at me somehow both patronizing and curiously alluring, and Phil glances sidelong at me. Ethan doesn't even bother to look at me as he wears that impossibly knowing grin.
I round my side of the bed and set the framed photograph on the bedside table, between the digital alarm clock and my hardcover copy of Doctor Sleep. Right where it belongs.
Then I slip under the comforter without a sound, and listen to the intermittent ticking of snowflakes dashing themselves against glass. I nestle in behind her, fitting myself against the curve of her back, feeling the syncopation of her steady breathing. She stirs as I wrap my arm around her waist, holding onto her, clinging fiercely to the only truth that matters. My truth.
She murmurs to herself in a dreamgibber that's part Aramaic, part Mandarin, part Quenya. Then she burrows back into her pillow and drifts back into the sea of dreams. I bury my face into the splay of her disheveled hair. Her delicate bouquet of spearmint and lime floods through my lungs, and I smile.
And in the moment before I sink down into sleep, I remember Ethan and a snatch of lyrics from a David Bowie song.
4.
"Ground control to Major Tom."
Ethan snapped his fingers in front of my face, and my eyes snapped back into focus. I lowered the camera, and saw Winnie and Phil and Helen and Ben staring at me. I don't know how long I had tuned out for, but it was long enough for Ethan to leave his seat and cross the room. He waved a hand in front of my face. "Anybody home?"
I turned to him and smiled, laughing. The sound of it made Ethan laugh, and I saw Phil and Helen grinning as well. Ethan peered into my eyes, and told me, "looked like the screensaver popped on in there for a second."
I laughed again. It was a light, transcendent sound in my own ears, and it made me smile. "Maybe a little."
Ethan clapped me on the arm and headed back to his own seat. I rounded the table again, slipping the camera into the pocket of my jeans. "Fifteen years from now," I said, dropping into my chair beside Helen, "I'm going to be a multiple-Oscar winning screenwriter in Los Angeles, and I'm not going to remember a single one of you."
Ben snorted. Ethan shook his head. "But the $64,000 question is this," I said, leaning over the table toward Winnie. "Who will play Winsome Aconia Donne?"
"And the yellow question is this," Phil said. "Where's Checkpoint Charlie?"
"Hold on a second," Ethan said, turning in his chair to look at Winnie. "Your middle name is Aconia?"
Winnie nodded, that faint smile playing across her lips as she popped a handful of Reese's Pieces into her mouth.
Ethan flashed a disappointed grin. "I feel like I could have done so much with that piece of information."
"Danica McKellar would be perfect," Winnie said to me, "but she's studying math at UCLA at the moment."
Ben laughed. "Well she's certainly got experience."
"Checkpoint Charlie?" Phil repeated, louder.
Ethan glanced across the table at him, shook his head, and said, "Berlin." Phil nodded, dug a blue pie-piece out of the box, tossed it over the gameboard. Ethan caught it on the fly, slid it into his gamepiece, and rolled the die.
He moved his piece clockwise around the gamewheel as Winnie asked him, "Who would you have play you?"
Ethan considered, then said, "Kevin McKidd." Winnie stared at him blankly for a long moment, so he added, "the kid who died of toxoplasmosis in Trainspotting."
"Oh," Winnie said, her voice strangely muted. "Because I could totally see you being portrayed by Fred Savage."
Helen laughed. "Tell me you're not serious," she said. "Can you imagine Fred Savage faking a Scottish brogue?"
"It'd be a fucking travesty," Ben said somberly.
Helen nodded. Ethan glanced to Winnie, offered her a lopsided smirk. Winnie sighed through that faint smile.
"What's a narwhal tusk made of?" Phil asked.
"Adamantium," Ethan said, lobbing the die to Ben. He bent forward over the table onto his elbows, turned to Phil, and asked him, "How about you, Mr. Michener?"
Phil didn't even hesitate. "Ian McKellan in the opening sequence, Charlie Carmichael in the flashbacks."
"That's kind of sweet," Winnie said.
"I can feel the cavities forming already," Ben told her.
"You're just jealous," Helen said. She turned to Phil, leaned in, and said more softly, "He's just jealous."
"Of course I am," Ben said sarcastically, rolling the die and moving his gamepiece. He gave Phil a bored stare and said tonelessly, "Just read the q
uestions, Bassanio."
Phil cocked an eyebrow, and the corner of his mouth turned up as he pulled a fresh card and read, "What blew up at Lakehurst, New Jersey, on May 6, 1937?"
Ben thought for a brief moment before answering, "the Hindenburg." He snatched up the die, rolled again before Phil even got a fresh card back out of the box.
"No doubt Ben envisions himself played by Sylvester Stallone," Helen said, "or Arnold Schwartzenegger."
"Warwick Davis," Ben said, moving his gamepiece four spaces counterclockwise without looking up at her.
Helen went silent at that. Phil glanced over the card in his hand. Winnie looked from Helen to Phil to Ben to me, and shook her head. "Warwick Davis?"
"The eponymous character in Willow," Ethan told her.
"Eponymous, huh?" Ben said. "Seems everyone is taking indecent liberties with their Word-a-Day calendars."
"You're aware that he's half your size, right?" I said. "Almost literally. You have nearly three feet on him."
"I've seen the entire Leprechaun series," Ben said. "And I own Willow on Laserdisc. I'm well aware of his stature."
"Any particular reason?" I asked.
Ben leaned back in his seat, laying his hands over his stomach as he said, "many." He paused for a handful of seconds, then turned back to Phil. "Next question?"
"What playing card is called 'The Curse of Scotland'?"
"The Nine of Diamonds," Ben said, grabbing the die off the table. "So who will star in The Helen Regan Story?"
Helen glanced past me. "Shohreh Aghdashloo."
I saw a grin flash across Ben's mouth before he rolled the die. "You're aware that she's 46, right?" he told her.
"I don't intend to do my best work until middle-age."
Ben contemplated which direction to move his piece, and nodded. "Fair enough." He slid his piece clockwise to a blue space, looking up at Phil, and crossed his arms.
"Which of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World was alive?" Phil asked, watching Ben across the table.
Ben considered the question as Winnie said to me, "I don't suppose you'd like to be played by Fred Savage."
I laughed, and shook my head. "Owen Wilson."
Ben snapped his fingers. "The Hanging Gardens," he said, grabbing the die and rolling again. He moved his piece, then looked up at me, and asked, "Wasn't Wilson the dude from Bottle Rockets with the fucked-up nose?"
"Uh, yeah," I said, gesturing at my own face. "Did you happen to take notice of my schnozz lately? The damn thing's a rock. It's a peak. It's a frakking cape."
"A cape? Hell," Ethan said. "It's a peninsula."
"Turn sideways," Helen told me, so I did. She nodded. "Just as I suspected. I can't see Ben anymore. I'm gonna need you to sit like that for the rest of the afternoon."
I lifted my soda and finished the drink. "I just don't know if Wilson is going to want to stay in the role when the movie gets adapted into an HBO series."
"Yellow again," Phil said, glanced down at the yellow piece already tucked into Ben's gamepiece. He smirked, and read the question off the card: "What president dismissed Ed Asner's remarks on U.S. foreign policy by asking: 'What does an actor know about politics'?"
"This is the best you've got?" Ben said. "No wonder I'm the reigning champ." He grinned. "That was R– "
The rest of the answer vanished as the door crashed open and slammed into the counter. Winnie jumped in her seat. Ethan spilled a mouthful of Irn-Bru down the front of his t-shirt. Helen couldn't stop herself from laughing.
"Jesus Christ, Gale!" Ben barked at the ample blonde.
She blustered into the room and came to a stop at the lip of the table to Ethan's right. Her eyes swept the group of us before coming to rest on me, and she opened her mouth to speak. Phil beat her to it: "Helen Mirren."
Gale looked away from me, blinked at Phil. Across the table, Winnie shook her head. "I'd have to go with Annette Bening. Haven't you seen The American President?"
Phil shook his head. "Politics gives me hives."
"Fionnula Flanagan," Ethan said, snapping his fingers.
Winnie turned to him. "Who in the world is that?"
Ethan grinned. "Nobody you guys would know."
"Angela Bassett," Ben said, cocking a finger at Gale like a pistol. "Saturn Award for Best Actress. Strange Days."
"Ass-kissers," Helen said to the table at large. "I can't be the only one envisioning Patrick Swayze in drag."
Ben laughed out loud. Phil grinned behind the card in his hand. Winnie coughed to cover up a laugh of her own. I smiled, watching Gale as I told Helen, "Maybe not, but I'd wager that I'm the only one picturing Nina Hartley."
Ethan snorted, and I had to laugh at that as I told him, "That tells me a whole lot about your private life."
"I make no apologies," Ethan insisted, grinning as he tipped back another mouthful of Irn-Bru.
Gale surveyed the group and shook her head. Then she turned to me, and her nostrils flared as her dangerous hazel eyes sizzled. I didn't like it. Not even a little.
"In the hall," she demanded.
I felt a sweltering scarlet veil swirling, churning, rising up in my brain like a bloody thunderhead. The fine hairs at the back of neck stood on end. I sucked in a deep breath, watching her, waiting for her to continue the sentence. She didn't, so I said, "If you left the rest of that thought back in your car, I can wait here while you run and get it."
Helen snickered, and Gale glared at her.
"We need to talk," she snapped.
I nodded, leaned back in my seat. "Until either of us masters the art of telepathy, I'm afraid you're right."
"Now," she said, seething.
"Hey Mike," Ethan said. "I think you need to talk."
"So it seems," I told him.
"In the hall," Ben added, leaning forward over the table on his elbows. He flashed a toothy grin. "N– "
I stood, jamming my seat back across the carpet. The chair crashed into the easels behind me, knocking one of them over into the bay of lockers against the wall. Gale jumped at the noise, and the anger in her eyes sputtered briefly, just a bit and just for a moment. I nearly smirked as I rounded the table, passing behind Ben to reach Gale. I leaned toward her, said in a quiet voice, "Let's talk."
Her dangerous hazel eyes flicked to my face. I crossed to the door in one long stride, held it open, and watched Gale until she passed through. As I turned to follow her, I heard Ben tell Phil, "The answer was Ronald Reagan."
Then I stepped out into the barren hallway as the door to the newsroom clicked shut behind me.
"What's so goddamn important – " I started, but I didn't get past the first four words before Gale cut me off.
"What the fuck were you thinking?" She hissed.
I shook my head at her, and demanded, "When?"
"When you called the fucking police on Roy!"
"Could you keep your voice down?" I said, straining for civility. I glanced around the corridor, found no one within earshot, and turned back to Gale. "First of all, I had no idea that was Roy. And second of all, I don't fucking care."
I turned my back on her then, reaching for the door to the newsroom. I got my hand on the handle just as I felt her fingers wrap around my bicep. I spun back suddenly, looked down at her hand and then back to her face. My nostrils flared. The taste of brimstone and cordite burned the back of my throat, and I felt that sweltering scarlet veil churning around me. I stared at her without blinking.
Gale's hand slipped quickly back to her side. "Roy's got enough problems right now without piling this on top."
"You see this?" I said, holding out my hand to her. She looked down at my empty palm, and then back to my face. I flashed a vicious grin. "This hand is full of all the fucks I give about Roy McCleary and his fuckin problems."
I lifted my hand up until it hovered at Gale's eye level, palm still facing up. She glared at me. I grinned wider, tilting my hand as if pouring out all of my concerns onto the floor. I brushed my palms together, and
sighed.
"I'm so very glad that we had this talk," I told her.
I turned my back again. This time, I didn't even get my hand on the handle before I heard Gale behind me. "Roy's dad has been writing about the corrupt cops in this fucking town. The Chief of the Police Department has been trying to stop him, because he's as dirty as the rest of them."
I sighed. "What's any of that got to do with Roy?"
"Nothing," Gale said. "Until last night. Now Roy is in a spot where the Chief can use him against his dad. Because you decided to call the police on him for no reason."
I shook my head. "Sorry. What I meant to ask," I said, turning back toward Gale, "was what any of that has to do with why Roy was out there trying to steal a Porsche."
"That's not the fucking point!" she barked.
"Oh, of course not." I smirked at her. "It's politics."
Gale glared at me, nostrils flaring, her dangerous hazel eyes sizzling. I waited as she bristled for a long moment, then sighed. "I don't know what you expect from me."
She watched me without blinking, considering for a few seconds. Her voice had lost some of its edge by the time she said, "I think you need to apologize to him."
I laughed out loud. I couldn't help myself. It took me a good ten seconds to regain my composure, and when I did, I saw that Gale was sincere. I laughed again, harder. "Are you fucking stoned? There's no way in the nine circles of Hell that I'm apologizing to that fucking degenerate."
"He could lose his scholarship to the Carter Medical School because of this!" Gale hissed. "Because of you!"
I felt the corners of my mouth tugging into a smile, and straightened my expression. "That's a damn shame," I said somberly. "But how would an apology from me help?"
Gale's glare hardened. "You know what?" she said, her voice tight as she jabbed a finger in my direction. "Don't worry about it. Roy doesn't need anything from someone like you." Her throat bobbed like she had more to say, but she thought better of it. She turned on her heel and stalked away down the barren hallway toward the cafeteria.
The Danger of Being Me Page 8
