Superstition

by David Ambrose

  Pete left with them. Joanna stayed behind while Sam saw them out. She could not take her eyes off those three mysterious, mocking words daubed across the windowpane, their condensation trails suddenly reminding her of trickling blood. Finally, to break their spell, she stepped forward and vigorously wiped out all trace of them, using her hand and the sleeve of her dress. When Sam returned a moment later she was gathering up her things.

  “You're leaving?”

  She nodded briefly, saying nothing. He saw that the window was wiped clean, but he didn't comment.

  “Please stay.”

  “I really need to be on my own.”

  He seemed to think about arguing, then decided against it and stepped aside to let her pass. “By the way,” he said, “your editor called me this afternoon.”

  She stopped. “Taylor Freestone? Why?”

  “To offer funding for the department. Or at least a generous contribution. I wanted to thank you, but I haven't had a chance to until now.”

  “You've got nothing to thank me for. This is the first I've heard of it.”

  “He said you'd told him about Barry and Drew. He wanted to offer his sympathies-and, apparently, make sure we stayed in business. He must really like what you're writing.”

  “I suppose he must.” She started out again.

  “I'm not in denial. You're wrong about that.” He had turned to keep her in view as she moved to the door, but he didn't follow her. “I'm as disturbed by all this as you are.”

  Again she stopped and turned to look back at him. “But you're not afraid, are you? You're cool and detached. That's what I'm finding a little hard to live with.”

  “I'm just refusing to jump to conclusions. I'm sorry if that upsets you.”

  The protest in his voice was matched by the impatience of her reply. “If this ‘thing’ is responsible for those deaths, it's our fault. Why do I feel that doesn't worry you? You just accept it. The only question you ask yourself is how does it work?”

  “The only question I ask is what evidence we have for believing that-”

  “We don't have any evidence for anything!” Her anger boiled up again, but she controlled it with an effort. “You said it yourself the other night! We're not a court of law. We're not repeating some experiment and confirming a result. We're caught up in something that none of us understands, and I'm afraid, Sam. Can't you understand that?”

  “Of course I can,” he said, his tone conciliatory. “I am too. We shouldn't be quarreling like this. There's no reason.” He took a step toward her, but she backed away.

  “No, don't…not now…”

  She saw the hurt in his eyes, but there was nothing she could do about it. In a way that she couldn't change or as yet even get used to, she was coming to see him as the opposite of everything she'd thought he was. From being a lone visionary fighting against prejudice he had become a skeptic, splitting every hair and exploiting every loophole until all certainty dissolved into a cloud of doubt and ambiguity. She was weary of it all.

  “Perhaps Roger's right,” she said. “What we believe doesn't matter. There's no final theory.”

  “It doesn't mean that what we believe is unimportant…”

  “Tell me, Sam, what do you believe?”

  “Believe?” He looked faintly surprised at the question. “You mean about life, death, the universe, and everything?”

  She ignored the faint sarcasm in his voice and waited for an answer.

  “I suppose,” he said after a moment, “I believe, like Socrates, that the unexamined life is not worth living.”

  “What about good and evil? Do you believe in them?”

  “As opposing forces in constant war with one another?” He shook his head. “No.”

  She accepted the reply impassively.

  “You know what I can't get out of my head?” she said. “What Pete said about witches-how it happens.” She paused. “But you'd call that just superstition, wouldn't you?”

  He shrugged and offered another apologetic smile. “Yes.”

  They stood motionless, eyes locked across the space that separated them.

  “Stay with me,” he said.

  It was a plea, touching in its simplicity. But she shook her head.

  “Not tonight. I'm going to take a pill and gamble on eight hours of oblivion making me feel human again.”

  They kissed chastely at the elevator, but she refused to let him ride down with her. The rain had stopped and taxis, she insisted, would be plentiful this time of night. It wasn't so much that she wanted to get away from him, just that the need to be on her own was urgent now. She needed to think her own thoughts-or not think at all. Another presence, any presence, would be painful to her raw nerves.

  “Christ,” she thought, as she counted off the floors through the gate of the descending elevator cage, “what a mess. What an ugly, fucking, total mess.”

  33

  The funeral was three days later. Joanna and Sam went, and Pete with them. Roger was speaking at a conference, an obligation to which he'd been committed for several months. Ward had left a message on Sam's machine the previous day, saying he was in Stockholm, where he had found the man he was looking for, and he would be in touch again soon.

  Over a hundred family and friends turned out. Father Caplan, a short, plump, totally bald man in his sixties, gave an emotional address. There was a reception afterward, but Joanna, Sam, and Pete didn't go. They took a cab back to Manhattan, saying little. Their presence at the ceremony had been accepted without question. No one had wanted to know how they had known Barry and Drew or what their association had been. The three of them had agreed beforehand that if they were questioned they would tell the truth. The fact that it didn't happen only strengthened Joanna's uncomfortable sense of being part of a conspiracy, cut off from the world by secrets she could never share.

  Joanna got out first, on the corner of the block that housed the Around Town offices. She waved briefly but didn't look back as they drove off. She was thinking about the decision she had made that morning, which she now had to carry through. She had made up her mind to tell Taylor Freestone that she couldn't go on with the assignment. If it wasn't for the fact that he had demanded to see and had kept the drafts that she'd already written, she would have destroyed all of them. This was not, she had decided for reasons that she did not fully understand, something that people should read about.

  Taylor's secretary told her on the phone that the editor was in a meeting, but she would pass on the message that Joanna wanted to see him as soon as he was free. Twenty minutes later he walked into her office. It was a habit of his, whenever he wished to be sure of having the last word, to come to people instead of having them come to him. She wondered how he had guessed that this might turn into one of those conversations, and what last words he had carefully prepared to end it.

  “I understand you wanted to see me,” he said, regarding her owlishly over his reading glasses.

  She took a breath. “I'm sorry, Taylor, but I want to drop the story.”

  He looked at her for a while without expression.

  “ You want to drop the story?” he said eventually, injecting a note of mild irony into his voice.

  She corrected herself. “All right- you will decide whether the story is dropped or not. I, however, have decided that I cannot continue with it.”

  “Do you mind telling me why?”

  “I would have thought that was obvious,” she said flatly. “You know what's been happening. Do you mind telling me why you gave Sam that money?”

  He shrugged. “I thought it seemed like a good cause, so I suggested it to the board's charity fund.”

  “I just wondered why you hadn't asked me to convey your interest in Sam's work to him personally, since I'm the one who's been working with him. Or at least why you hadn't told me you were going to call him, instead of letting me find out from him. It made me look as though I hardly work here.”

  He shrugged his shoulders ag
ain, this time apologetically. “You're right. I really didn't think about it. I just wanted him to know that the magazine was behind him.”

  “I suppose you imagine that if you pay him enough, he'll go on with this until we've all been killed? Is that your idea?”

  “Let's just say I know a good story when I smell one. I'll ignore the rest of your question as being in morbidly poor taste.”

  “Three people dead isn't poor taste, Taylor. It's a statistic that points in a depressingly obvious direction. Aren't you just a little afraid that this thing might reach out and touch you if you get too close? Giving money to keep things going like this,” she sucked in a breath through her teeth, “you could be tempting fate.”

  She saw a flash of uncertainty behind his eyes, suppressed at once, but not fast enough. She gave him a broad smile of triumph. “But then you're not superstitious, are you, Taylor?”

  He pursed his mouth and lowered his eyelids to indicate that he was growing bored with the conversation.

  “Look,” he said, “if you want off the story-all right. I'm not impressed by your professionalism-you wanted this assignment, but I can't force you to finish it. But I'll find someone who will.”

  “Who?” It was a prospect that for some reason had not crossed her mind, and she asked the question in spite of every instinct shrieking at her not to, because she knew it gave an opening for Taylor Freestone to start undermining her decision and subverting her will, something for which he had a particular and sinuous gift.

  “I don't know yet, I haven't decided. But whoever it is, I can tell you one thing that they'll have to put right.”

  “What's that?” There was a note of defensive indignation in her voice that told him she had taken the bait.

  “I think it's a mistake,” he said equably, as though discussing nothing more dramatic than some fine point of grammar, “that you don't mention anywhere that you're going to bed with Sam Towne.”

  Although the remark was unexpected, she managed to neither flinch nor blush and blinked only once. “What makes you think I am?”

  “Darling, I know when anybody's having an affair with anybody. It's one of the reasons I am where I am.” He continued to fix her with a languid stare. “I'm not going to say it's unprofessional, exactly. It's not as though you're a doctor or a lawyer, somebody abusing a position of trust, though there are those who might question your judgment under the circumstances. Anyway, whoever takes over the story is going to have to write about that relationship-and speculate on the role it played in your decision to quit.”

  She looked up at him squarely, steeling herself not to be manipulated in this way. “You don't know what it's like, Taylor. I'm too afraid. I can't go any further.”

  He leaned toward her, his hands spread wide on her desk. “I know exactly what it's like-because you're writing about it brilliantly. What I want to know now is how it feels to come through this thing and out the other side, and I won't ever know that if you quit. More importantly, nor will you, Joanna. And I think you should know. I think you need to see this thing through.”

  She gave a brief laugh with a touch of bitterness.

  “What's so funny?”

  “I was just thinking how true it was, Taylor-there really are good reasons why you're where you are. It's a compliment.”

  He nodded thoughtfully. “I'm right about the two of you, you know. It has to be part of the story.”

  He took his hands from her desk and straightened up, folding his arms.

  “I mean, when you've got one of the world's leading physicists offering to stand up and cheer for your team, the least you can do is admit you're humping the coach. Otherwise it'll only come out later and make you look dishonest. And that would damage the story-which would be a pity, because I think it deserves a Pulitzer.”

  He peered down at her solemnly for another calculated moment.

  “Anyway, I'm sure you'd rather write about this relationship yourself than have somebody else do it.”

  She didn't say anything, but she must have communicated her acquiescence by body language, or perhaps just by her silence. At any rate, Taylor nodded his approval.

  “I thought so,” he said, and went out-then popped his head back around the door. “You don't have to say how big his cock is, just admit that you've seen it.”

  For a while, alone, she just stared at the screen onto which she'd brought up the text. She didn't want to do this, but Freestone's blackmail left her no option. The trouble was she knew that he was right: hardened skeptics of the paranormal would seize on the revelation of this “concealed relationship” as clear evidence of fraud. If only out of respect for those three members of the group who had died, she was not going to let that happen.

  An hour later she read through the changes she had made, which had proved easier than she had expected. Surprisingly, they made the whole thing more accessible, describing how on a human level she had found herself drawn into a sequence of events that she would have dismissed as impossible if they hadn't actually happened to her. The only thing she found difficult was figuring out what to say about the effect of those events on the relationship. The reason for that, of course, was that she didn't know herself. She was still pondering the question when her phone rang. It was Sam.

  “We didn't get a chance to talk this morning. I need to see you, Joanna. Can we have dinner?”

  “My parents are back from Europe. I'm going up for the weekend.”

  “When are you coming back?”

  “Maybe Sunday.”

  “Meet me Sunday night…?”

  She hesitated. She knew that her anger with him had been irrational the other night, and still was. It was wrong to blame him for what had happened; making him the scapegoat for her fears would solve nothing. Yet she was doing it and didn't know how to stop.

  “Look,” he said, breaking the silence between them, “nothing's changed in the way I feel about you. I love you, Joanna. I'm asking you not to turn your back and just walk away. At least talk to me.”

  The simplicity of his plea touched her. She realized then that she still loved him, but something made it impossible for her to say the words-something impossible to define, which only confused and unnerved her even more.

  “I don't know what time I'll be back,” she said finally. “I may stay till Monday. I'll call you-okay?”

  “Sure, okay. Give my best to your parents, will you? I hope they had a great time.”

  “Thanks, I'll tell them. I'll talk to you. Bye.”

  “Bye, Joanna.”

  She hung up and stared into space. What did she want? What was she looking for?

  Of course she knew what she wanted more than anything: she wanted the nightmare to end and her life to go back to what it had been before all this. But Sam had not been part of that life; he was inextricably part of “all this,” of what was happening now, and that created an incompatibility that she was powerless to resolve.

  She remembered she had used that word the other night in Sam's apartment. Incompatibility. And Roger had agreed with her-that maybe, in some way that remained unclear, Adam's existence had become incompatible with theirs. It was a thought that made just enough sense to be frightening, yet not enough to be taken seriously by a sane person.

  Yet she was a sane person, and she took it seriously. Was that just another incompatibility? Was she crazy, or was it the world? And anyway, where was the line between them, herself and the world? Was there any line at all?

  A sudden and involuntary shudder ran through her, like one of those moments when you've unknowingly fallen asleep and suddenly tip forward in your chair. But she hadn't been asleep, just lost in the vicious circle of her thoughts. She took a deep breath, grateful for the instinct that had shaken her free, and busied herself with what she had to do. She hit a key on her computer that would send the new draft through to Taylor Freestone. Then she looked at her watch. If she left now, she realized, she had time to go to her apartment and change out of her fu
neral clothes and still catch a train before the rush hour started.

  She hurried through the office without a backward glance or a word to anyone.

  34

  Her main preoccupation on the journey was what she was going to tell her parents. Like a teenager with some guilty secret, she knew that the whole truth would be a serious mistake. There would be worry and concern and the weekend would be ruined.

  Already on the phone her mother had asked about Sam: were they still seeing each other, how was the project going that they'd been working on? Joanna had managed to avoid giving any straight answers, thereby creating the impression that the relationship had entered a troubled no-man's-land and was better not talked about for the time being. This had the secondary effect of putting the experiment itself, by association, mercifully off limits, something for which Joanna was profoundly grateful.

  To Joanna, this weekend was something of a lifeline. It represented the essence of what she was trying desperately to cling to, that unquestioned and indefinable sense of belonging that came only from home and family, and which was so much taken for granted until it was no longer there. Now, with the shifting perspectives that had been happening around her, Joanna was beginning to lose that sense of normality, of belonging. More than anything in the world, she wanted it back. She wanted to wrap her old life around her like a warm blanket, and if she had to lie to prevent it from being snatched away, then she would do so.

  Her father met her off the train, driving her mother's station wagon, and with Skip, their crossbreed terrier, in the back. The dog had stayed with neighbors while they were away, and was overjoyed at the prospect of a full family reunion. He sat on Joanna's knee and licked her face during the short drive home through the gathering darkness. She laughed and hugged and scolded him alternately, all the while keeping up a nonstop conversation with her father about places they'd been and people they'd met and meals they'd had.