by John Manning
“CAT scan?” Sue suddenly felt defensive. “It was just food poisoning.”
Earlier, with Malika, she’d been opposed to that idea, certain the headache had brought on the sickness, not the other way around. But now…
“There’s nothing wrong with me,” she told the nurse.
She didn’t quite believe it. But some strange sensation inside her didn’t want to know what might exactly have gone on in her head earlier this morning.
It had felt as if her brain was being torn in half.
“It was just a bad headache from eating bad meat, you said so yourself,” said Sue. “And now it’s gone and I puked out all the poison and I’m fine. Having to go to the hospital and have all kinds of tests would just upset my grandparents. No need to get everyone all upset. They’d worry—and would make me go to every specialist under the sun, and I’d rather not get everyone all worked up over a headache.”
“It’s your decision, but still—” The nurse removed an appointment book from the drawer of her desk and opened it. “Do you have class tomorrow at three?”
Sue shook her head. “No,” she admitted.
“I’d like you to see Dr. Bauer then.” She wrote Sue’s name in the book. “Until then, stay away from that restaurant. And if you get another headache, get over to the emergency room. Lebanon General is a very good hospital.”
“An appointment with the doctor is not necessary,” Sue told her.
“I’d be remiss if I didn’t make it.” She narrowed her eyes at Sue. “What are you afraid of finding out, Miss Barlow?”
Sue quickly stood and thanked the nurse. More than anything, she just wanted out of there. She felt absolutely fine now. She hurried through the rain, her untied sneakers sloshing through the mud.
What are you afraid of finding out?
“Nothing,” she said out loud to herself in the elevator. “I’m just afraid of failing Dr. Marshall’s test.”
Back in her room, she called Billy’s cell. He was in school, of course, so she knew she’d get his voice mail. “Hey, it’s Sue,” she said. “Listen, were you sick last night? I had a wicked headache and then hurled all over the place. Maybe it was the food? Hope you’re okay. Talk to you later.”
She flopped down onto her bed. In a way, she hoped Billy had gotten sick, too. They’d had the same lasagna. If he got sick, it would confirm the idea that it was food poisoning. Sue felt awfully mean thinking it, but she hoped right now Billy was puking his guts out.
She needed to study if she was going to pass this test. Sue found her notebooks on the floor and picked them up so she could flip through her notes. She liked Dr. Marshall’s class. Her lectures were interesting, and the subject matter Sue found fascinating. She’d never really given much thought to the things Dr. Marshall brought up about the history of the Church. She’d learned at Stowe about the Reformation and the religious wars that had torn Europe asunder in previous centuries, but it had never occurred to her to question the actual books of the Bible, and to wonder if they actually said today what they originally said two thousand years ago.
Some of the other girls in the class didn’t like the things Dr. Marshall had to say, and there had been some heated discussion. Wilbourne had a lot of fundamentalist Christian girls, and most of them took what Dr. Marshall was saying very personally. “Jesus was the ultimate questioner of authority,” Dr. Marshall would say. “He’d welcome a challenge to orthodox teaching. You might still end up believing exactly what you believe today, but until you actually examine your faith, you can never know for sure.”
Sue didn’t participate in these discussions in class. She just listened, but took it all in. She knew that her grandfather wouldn’t approve of the class—or Dr. Marshall. “Anyone who attacks Christianity attacks the basic foundation of this country,” he’d said once at the dinner table, “and is therefore anti-American.”
But Dr. Marshall wasn’t attacking Christianity. That she’d made clear once after class, when Sue sometimes stopped at her desk to talk about the day’s discussion.
“Challenge—even dissent—should not be construed as an attack,” she told Sue, who’d nodded.
“I think,” Sue had told her teacher, “that those who cry that they are being attacked by such discussions are the ones least secure in their own faith.’
Dr. Marshall had smiled. “Very astute, Sue. I wish you’d share such thoughts in class. You’d add quite a bit to the discussion.”
But Sue preferred not to speak in public. She’d probably stumble over her words or mangle her point. She preferred just to listen to Dr. Marshall—so eloquent, so articulate, so passionate.
It’s odd, Sue thought, that I can admire both Dr. Marshall and Joyce Davenport. Both so different—but in their passion and conviction, the same.
Her cell rang, startling her out of her reverie.
She glanced at the Caller ID, hoping it would be Billy. But it wasn’t. She flipped open the phone. “Hello, Gran.”
“Sue? We just had a call from the school nurse. Are you all right?”
“Oh, man, I can’t believe she called you,” Sue groaned. “Yes, I’m fine. I had a minor case of food poisoning. I think it was bad meat lasagna.”
“Was it served in the cafeteria?”
Sue couldn’t tell her grandmother about Billy. “No. A friend and I—we went off campus to see a movie and ate at an Italian restaurant.”
“Well, is she sick, too?”
“I don’t know. I called—her. And left a message.”
Gran sighed. “Well, I know what a healthy girl you are, Sue. I just wanted to make sure you were all right.”
“Hey, Gran, is it true I was never sick? Like I never had the flu or anything like that when I was really young and now I can’t remember?”
“Yes, it’s true, Sue. As I said, you’re a very healthy girl.”
“Come on. I’ve had colds…”
“Mere sniffles. Your grandfather and I took very good care of you. We made sure you never got sick. And your healthy constitution meant that you could fight off things that more average girls could not. Don’t you remember Brenda Upton’s birthday party?”
Brenda Upton’s birthday party.
Sue hadn’t thought about that in years.
“Right,” Sue said vaguely as recollection flooded her mind.
“Well, don’t eat at that restaurant again,” Gran was saying. “We want you to stay well. Don’t eat off campus anymore. Who knows what those backwoods restaurants are like?”
Sue made a grunt in response, then thanked her grandmother for calling.
She wished she hadn’t made her remember Brenda Upton’s birthday party.
Sue had been nine years old when Brenda invited her. Brenda’s father was one of Granpa’s junior partners at the firm. She didn’t like Brenda—a stuck-up little girl who was always throwing fits when she didn’t get her way. Sue stayed as far away from Brenda as she possibly could. She certainly didn’t want to go to her party.
But Granpa had insisted. “How would it look if the senior partner’s granddaughter didn’t go? Jim Upton would think I don’t appreciate his work, that’s how it would look, and we can’t have that now, can we?”
So Gran had taken Sue shopping and bought her a beautiful party dress of white satin and red velvet, with new stockings to match. “Your grandfather is senior partner,” Gran told her as she combed Sue’s hair. “You have to make a very good impression on them all, to show them how important your grandfather is.”
As soon as she arrived at the party, Sue knew she was overdressed. None of the other girls were wearing dresses; most of them were in jeans and T-shirts. Most of the girls at Brenda’s party were other little girls Sue didn’t like, so she spent most of the party sitting in a corner, just watching and hoping it would be over soon. She ate cake, drank punch, clapped politely as Brenda opened her presents, and wished fervently for the day to be over. Finally, it was, and when Gran asked her, Sue had lied and made it see
m like she’d had a great time.
But unbeknownst to them all, one of the guests at Brenda’s party had been coming down with the chicken pox. Sue couldn’t remember which girl it was now, but there had been a frantic phone call, and Gran had come into Sue’s bedroom with a terribly pale look on her face. She seemed horribly distraught, as if she had failed Sue in some deep and profound way.
“If we had known, we wouldn’t have let you go,” she said. She stroked Sue’s hair, a rare gesture of affection, one of the few Sue remembered from her childhood. “Your grandfather thinks you’re so strong that you’ll be able to fight it off. But you might get sick, dear. And if so, we will nurse you through it. We’ll see that you get better.” She kept stroking Sue’s hair. She seemed to be reassuring herself as much as Sue. “I told all of them that you’d be fine, that we’d get you through it, that no one needed to worry.”
Remembering that now, Sue wondered whom Gran had meant—who the people were that her grandmother was so desperate to reassure. At the time, however, she had been too frightened to wonder—too scared that her face would soon be covered with the dreaded pox.
Only, she never got sick.
“I told you,” her grandfather had crowed. “I told you she was strong enough.”
Every other girl who’d been at the party got the chicken pox. Every one of them missed school the entire next week.
Except for Sue—the only one who didn’t come down with it.
That doesn’t prove anything is weird about me. Sue shivered, rolling over onto her back to look up at the ceiling. It just means I’m immune somehow to that, and to all the other stuff kids get. It’s not a big deal.
But it’s not normal.
She’d never missed a day of school. At the end of the year, she always got a prize for perfect attendance. The only other times she’d ever thrown up, in fact, were a couple of episodes of motion sickness on Granpa’s boat out on Long Island Sound.
She felt like a freak.
“Hey!”
Sue looked up. Malika had come back. She came through the door with a large paper cup sealed tight with a lid.
“I brought you some chamomile tea,” she said. “How you feeling, girl?”
“Much better, thanks,” Sue told her, accepting the tea. She took a sip. It was too hot to drink, so she set it on her bedside table.
“I thought I’d pop back between classes to check on you,” her roommate said. “What did the nurse say?”
“She agreed it was food poisoning.” Sue decided not to tell her about the appointment with Dr. Bauer. “But I’m fine now.”
“Will you be able to make it to Marshall’s class for the test?”
“Oh, sure. I was just doing some last-minute cramming for it now.”
“We should probably call that restaurant—”
Malika was interrupted by a rap at the door. “Miss Barlow?” said a voice from the other side. A male voice.
Sue and Malika exchanged a curious glance. Sue nodded to her roommate that she should open the door. Malika peered out through the peephole and then quickly pulled the door open.
It was Dean Gregory.
“May I see Miss Barlow?” he was asking Malika.
“Here I am,” Sue said, standing.
The dean rushed into the room, followed by Mrs. Oosterhouse. He was a tall man with a small, pinched face. He seemed to have been in a hurry to get to Bentley Hall, as he wore no jacket and his white shirt and blue tie were speckled with raindrops. Mud covered his Bass Weejuns and had splashed up on his wool pants. Oostie waddled close behind him, a little out of breath. Had no one answered the door, Sue assumed Oostie would have used her master key to let the dean inside.
“What’s wrong?” Sue asked.
“Nothing, we hope,” Gregory said, smiling at her. “I heard you weren’t feeling well today, Miss Barlow.”
Sue and Malika exchanged quizzical looks. “I had a headache,” Sue said.
“Bad enough that you went to the infirmary.”
Sue was astounded. “Do you check up on every girl who goes to see the nurse?”
Gregory’s smile stretched across his small, weasely face. “Your grandfather called me,” he explained. “I was just making sure you were all right.”
“My grandfather? You know my grandfather?”
“Well, of course,” Gregory told her. “He’s one of Wilbourne’s best supporters.”
Sue gave a little laugh. “By supporter, you mean benefactor?”
Gregory nodded. “Mr. Barlow has always been extremely generous to Wilbourne.”
“So that explains it,” Sue said, turning to Malika. “Why they sent me here. They were so clever, pretending they wished I was attending a school closer to home. They wanted me to come here all along.”
“And we’re glad you did,” Gregory said. He laughed. “Excuse me, but we haven’t officially met.” He extended his hand to Sue, who reluctantly shook it. “Let me welcome you to Wilbourne, Miss Barlow. I would have gotten around to meet you sooner—I was looking forward to it, in fact—but when I got the news that you might be ill, I knew it was long past time to come by and see you.”
“Thanks,” Sue said, terribly uncomfortable.
“Nurse Cochrane said you have an appointment with Dr. Bauer,” the dean said. “Please let me know what he says. And if you need anything from us, please don’t hesitate to call on me or Mrs. Oosterhouse.”
Oostie gave Sue a cheeky grin.
“I’m sure I’m going to be fine,” Sue said.
Gregory beamed. When he smiled, he looked less like a weasel and more like a bat—beady little eyes and a mouthful of teeth. There was a faint cheeselike odor hovering around him—perspiration meets wool and rain. Sue found him utterly repulsive.
“Well, you rest up today,” Gregory told her. “Don’t exert yourself.”
“I have a test today I need to study for,” Sue said. “Dr. Marshall’s class.”
Gregory shook his head. “I’ve already spoken to Dr. Marshall, and asked her to excuse you from the test. You can make it up later.”
Sue felt herself getting angry. “That’s not necessary! I’ll take the test today!”
“Tut, tut, Miss Barlow. The most important thing is that you get better.” He turned to Malika. “Please see to it that she does nothing but rest today.”
“This is ridiculous and totally unnecessary,” Sue objected.
“Please take my card, Miss Barlow,” the dean was saying. “If, in the future, you should need anything, please don’t hesitate to call. It’s my private number.”
He placed the card on Sue’s desk, then turned to head out the door, Oostie following obediently behind. “Rest, Miss Barlow,” he ordered her. “I assured your grandfather you’d get nothing but rest.”
He shook his finger at her and smiled. Then he was gone.
“God damn,” Malika said.
Sue sat down hard on her bed. “What the fuck was that?”
“I’ve never once had Dean Gregory come looking for me,” Malika said. “I don’t even think he knows my name.”
“My grandmother was so smooth on the phone. She knew my grandfather was calling the dean.”
“You had no idea that Granddaddy was bankrolling Wilbourne?”
Sue shook her head. “None.”
Malika sat down beside her on the bed. “Hey, there are worse things than having the dean of students on your side.”
“But I don’t want to be treated any differently than anyone else. I want to take that test today!”
Malika sighed. “You didn’t tell me about that doctor’s appointment. Maybe it is better for you to just rest up today. Why stress yourself?”
“Dr. Marshall probably thinks I’m some snotty rich girl now, getting the dean to do me favors.” Sue flopped back down on the bed. “I’m really fine. It was just a headache.”
But she couldn’t lie to herself. It had been more than that. Something had happened in her head this morning—s
omething she didn’t want to think about.
Nor did she want to think about her grandfather’s involvement in Wilbourne. Why did it trouble her so?
When Billy called a half hour later to say that no, he hadn’t gotten sick, Sue felt even worse. She gave in to Malika’s insistence that she get back in bed and watch reruns of The Golden Girls. But her mind was far, far away from the antics of Dorothy, Blanche, and Rose.
She was thinking again about her dream…and about all the dead girls she had seen.
26
Every small town has its secrets.
People in Lebanon liked to joke that there were no secrets in their town—that everyone knew everyone else’s business. Gossip could be mined pretty much anywhere in town. People talked at the Yellow Bird, at Earl’s Tavern, at the A&P. They shook their heads over tragedies, clapped their hands when beaming moms revealed their studious offspring had made the honor roll. They’d never admit, however, to being secretly gleeful when someone flew a little too close to the sun and fell to earth—the people of Lebanon were good people, above all else.
Yet despite all the talk, there were still secrets in Lebanon, dark things people definitely didn’t want their neighbors to know.
Everyone in town knew that brawny Bud Tomlin, who owned Bud’s Shell, was catcher on his slow-pitch softball team and led the county league in home runs. But no one knew—least of all his wife Bettie—that Bud’s real reason for staying up late some nights after Bettie and the kids were sound asleep was to cruise Web sites for pictures of naked girls under the age of thirteen, masturbating two or three times before erasing all traces of where he’d been. No one knew that sometimes, when he was finished, Bud wept with guilt—and that some nights he would put a gun to his head and consider pulling the trigger.
Everyone knew that Barbara Schoenfeld was a great cook and that her cakes and pies always brought the highest dollar amount at the Methodist Church’s bake sales. Everyone knew she spent three or four hours a week in aerobics classes at Lebanon Fitness Center trying to keep her trim figure—and most thought her husband Nate was one lucky man. What no one knew was that every Sunday after church, while her husband was off haunting garage sales and flea markets for things to sell in their secondhand shop, Barbara would meet nineteen-year-old Tim Westlake in the back room at Schoenfeld Antiques. No one knew that Barbara would undress him and have sex with him on her husband’s desk—sometimes on top of unpaid bills and invoices. No one knew she kept Tim’s underwear every time as a trophy, locking the briefs away in a drawer in her kitchen. No one knew that sometimes when she was baking, Barbara would take out the most recent pair and hold them up to her face, inhaling the boy’s scent deeply as she thought about what she’d do with him the next Sunday afternoon.
