by Karen Hall
“Dinner? You mean, at Tillie’s?”
“No. Someplace nice. Someplace with dim lighting and a liquor license.”
He looked out the window. “I don’t know.”
A thought occurred to her. “Is it that you don’t have anything to wear?”
He looked at her. “Did you go through my closet, too?”
“That’s not an answer,” she said, avoiding the accusation.
“Neither is that,” he said with a slight smile. “No, it isn’t because I don’t have anything to wear. You can’t belong to my family without owning a suit; there’s a funeral every other week.”
“Then what is it?”
“You know. I don’t do things like that.”
“Yeah, it seems to work, too. You’re obviously happy.”
He looked out the window and didn’t answer.
Randa tried again. “One night isn’t going to kill you. It’ll be good for you. You might even have fun. Or is ‘fun’ something else you don’t do?”
“All right,” he said. “Uncle. But I’m not drinking, and you’re not getting anything out of me in dim lighting that you wouldn’t get out of me at Tillie’s.”
“We’ll see. I’ll come back at six to pick you up,” she said.
“Whatever,” he said, either resigned or feigning resignation. He held the door open but didn’t make a move to get out.
Uh-oh . . . he’s coming up with an excuse . . .
“Did you go through my closet?” he finally said.
“Don’t worry. I didn’t touch a single skeleton.”
“I don’t understand why I don’t hate you,” he said, and got out of the car.
As she soaked in the antique claw-foot tub in her bathroom at the guesthouse, Randa took stock of her life. She’d been valedictorian of her high school class. Graduated magna cum laude (fifteenth in a class of 929) from a college that prided itself on an impossible curriculum and a high suicide rate. She’d moved to Los Angeles to set the world on fire, win a Pulitzer, and marry some fascinating man who adored her—preferably another writer. They’d buy a Greene & Greene bungalow in Pasadena, just off the parade route, and every year they’d throw a New Year’s Eve party that people would live in terror of not being invited to. She and Mr. Perfect would both have offices at home, on opposite sides of the house, and they’d write all day. At night they would sit in front of a fire and drink brandy and read poetry aloud, or talk about their work. (Mr. Perfect, of course, would be far too secure to be jealous of her accomplishments.) Eventually, they’d have a couple of gorgeous kids and a politically correct dog, and in between carpooling and trips to the vet, she’d write the Great American Novel.
Now here she was, all these years later, without one thing that even resembled the life she’d dreamed of. Instead, she lived alone in a tiny, overpriced apartment with no air-conditioning and lousy plumbing; she was welded to a low-paying, dead-end job, the politics of which were taking years off her life. Mr. Perfect, who wasn’t all that perfect to begin with, had ridden off into the sunset with her best friend and then, just for spite, had invited Randa to his suicide. Now, for reasons unknown to her, she was spending her trust fund on a lovely vacation in Mayberry R.F.D., where she was sitting in a strange tub, in a strange room, in a strange town, thrilled to death because Mr. Perfect’s estranged brother—an antisocial day laborer with a prison record—had grudgingly accepted a dinner invitation that she didn’t know why she had extended.
“I’m insane,” she said to a glass of bad merlot.
At least that was something she and Jack would have in common.
EIGHT
She hadn’t heard it. How was that possible? It had been so close, so clear. He’d tried to figure out where it was coming from, but it seemed to be coming from everywhere.
“Jack . . .”
A man’s voice in a low, whispering moan. At first it had just called his name. After he’d moved away from her, it had said something else . . .
“I know who you are.”
What the hell did that mean? And where had it come from?
Your brain, idiot. Where else could it have come from?
Why couldn’t he shake the feeling that she was somehow responsible?
How could she be responsible?
From the moment he’d first seen her, he’d been torn in two. Half of him was drawn to her as if he’d been waiting for her all his life. The other half wanted to turn and run in the opposite direction, as far and as fast as possible.
She’s dangerous.
That’s ridiculous.
Is it? She could have pushed Cam out that window, for all you know. She could be here for you now.
Oh, for Christ’s sake . . .
Losing his mind was so much more lucid than he ever would have guessed. He would have imagined it as all of reality starting to blur and fade until nothing was recognizable. But it wasn’t like that at all. Reality remained in place, as relentless as ever. He was the only thing blurring and fading, and no one else could see it.
Why did you say you’d go out to dinner? Why didn’t you get rid of her while you had the chance?
What do you mean, get rid of her? I don’t want to be rid of her.
He was standing in the shower, lost in a spray of hot water and steam. He was afraid to turn the water off—the silence was somehow worse than any noise. In the silence, the voice could return. But he couldn’t stay in the shower forever, and he was starting to lose the hot water.
He forced his hand to turn the water off. The spray became a trickle; the last few drops hit the tile in angry little splats, gurgled down the drain, and then the room was quiet. He slid the shower curtain back slowly, wishing he’d brought some kind of weapon into the shower with him.
Do you hear yourself ? What are you going to do, stab disembodied voices with a kitchen knife?
Still, he looked around the small room before stepping out. He felt as if he were seeing his bathroom for the first time. Nothing seemed familiar. Had that crack in the tile been there all along? Why had he never noticed all the rust on the chrome of the medicine cabinet? Why did he feel someone was watching him?
He dried off quickly, twice startled by the sound of the towel hitting the sink. He hung the towel over the shower rod to dry. He was compulsively neat. He’d always been compulsive about anything he could control. (There were so few things in that category, they were almost sacred to him.) He shaved quickly, then replaced the razor and shaving cream in the medicine cabinet. The sound of the magnetic catch made him jump, even though he’d expected it.
“Jesus, get a grip,” he said out loud. The words dissolved into the air, and didn’t prompt any unearthly response.
When they were young, Tallen used to say he could hear a voice.
“What kind of a voice?”
“Just a voice.”
“What does it say?”
“I’m not supposed to tell anybody.”
“You’re so full of shit.”
“It’s the truth! I swear!”
Around the same time, Tallen started to have night terrors. He’d wake the entire house screaming. He’d be hysterical for half an hour, babbling about some kind of winged monster with red eyes that would fly into his room and hover, staring at him. God himself couldn’t have convinced Tallen it was a nightmare. Tallen said the flapping of the wings always woke him up.
This went on for a couple of years, then Tallen had been packed off to reform school, and Jack had no idea what ever became of the red-eyed, wing-flapping monster. After Tallen came home from reform school, he was a different person. When he’d get mad, there would be a look in his eyes that no monster would have messed with.
Jack took a deep breath and headed to the other room to dress. He’d lied about having a suit. He’d given it to Goodwill two days after his mother’s funeral. But he had a nice jacket, slacks, tie, the whole deal. He’d bought it all a couple of years ago, when he’d gone with Cathy to her cousin’s Christmas party. Jack c
ould still feel the stares he’d gotten that night. He’d actually enjoyed it, in a perverse way. (Yeah, I clean up pretty nice, don’t I, you judgmental bastards?) He’d made a lot of people uncomfortable that evening. It’s one thing to have executed the brother of a lowlife misfit, but another to have executed the brother of a guy in a camel-hair jacket and a designer tie.
He liked making them squirm. That was exactly why he’d stayed in Barton all these years, instead of changing his name and vanishing into the anonymity of some distant city. He wanted to be there every time they looked up—a constant reminder, for whatever small degree of discomfort that might cause them.
He could barely remember how to tie the tie, but it gradually came back to him. After half a dozen attempts, he decided it looked good enough for “dim lighting.”
Don’t do it. Call her and cancel.
No. She was right, one night out wasn’t going to kill him.
What about the voice?
There was no voice.
There was, and you know it.
How?
It doesn’t have to make sense to be there.
Like Tallen’s voice on the answering machine. Had he ima-gined that? Had there been something else on the tape? Had he imagined Tallen’s voice because that was what he wanted to hear? And if so, why had he imagined a warning? Was his subconscious trying to tell him something? Then what about Cam? Why had he told people he’d seen Tallen? Why would Cam have imagined Tallen? He’d never wanted anything to do with Tallen. And what about Ryland? They’d always been so close; if Ryland were still alive, why wouldn’t he come to Jack? Why would he be sending messages from three thousand miles away by a total stranger? And why would Ryland have let Jack go years thinking he was dead? But what was the alternative? That Randa really had a conversation with a ghost? Then why wouldn’t the ghost of Ryland come to see him? There was no scenario in any of this that made any sense.
He checked the mirror. Not bad. Not bad for a delusional paranoid schizophrenic. He should tell Randa tonight. About the voice. She deserved to know the extent of his insanity, if she was going to get involved with him.
It’s not “involved.” It’s one dinner. She’s got a life on the other side of the country. She’s going back there any day . . .
There’s something in here.
He looked around. Nothing. Why did the room suddenly feel different? Like the air was heavier?
He looked around again. The room was still.
Is it cold in here? Isn’t it colder, all of a sudden?
The ticking of the alarm clock broke the silence in a steady rhythm.
Usually it was a calming sound. Now it sounded threatening, like something closing in on him.
“Jack.”
The same voice as before. He whirled around, looked in the opposite direction. Nothing.
“Jack.”
It wasn’t in his head. It was outside.
Where? How?
There was another sound. A scratchy sound, like wind against dry leaves. He looked around.
Do I really hear something?
He held his breath. The sound was growing louder. Deliberate. Oh, Jesus . . . The sound formed a word. It took him a moment to make it out.
“Away . . . away . . .”
What does that mean? Why is it always talking nonsense?
What “it”? Why do you keep saying “it”? There is no “it.”
Oh yeah? Then why can’t I move?
Why couldn’t he move? He was straining, but his limbs didn’t seem to be connected to his brain anymore.
“Away . . .”
A woman’s voice. A breathy whisper, meant to terrify him. Working beautifully.
“Leave me alone!” he screamed, at nothing.
Another voice. Male. Laughing; a smug laugh. An evil laugh. The woman’s voice was saying something else. A sentence. He couldn’t make it out, but he could hear his name in it.
Get out of here. Get to the door.
His legs began to move, slowly. There was something bearing down on him, trying to stop him. Pressure, like the centrifugal force of a carnival ride.
Do I really feel it? Is any of this happening?
Under the man’s laughter, the woman’s voice became more distinct. By the time he made it to the door, it was chillingly clear.
“This is the house they built for Jack . . .”
A mocking cadence, like a nursery rhyme.
“Away . . . away . . .”
With a desperate burst of energy, he grabbed the doorknob and flung the door open. Randa was standing there, about to knock. She jumped back and they both gasped.
“Jesus!” Jack said, breathlessly. “Give me some warning.”
“That I’m about to knock? How would that work?”
“Oh” was all he could say. He gasped for breath.
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” he lied. “You just scared me.”
He turned and looked back at his apartment. The sounds were gone. Whatever had been there was gone.
“Did you need something?” she asked.
“No,” he said, turning back to her quickly.
This is not in my mind. Something is really happening.
“Look . . .” he said.
Maybe dinner’s a bad idea. Maybe you should just drive me straight to the psych ward . . .
“What?”
“Nothing.” He closed the door. “Let’s go.”
They sat at a table in the dining room of the Ritz-Carlton Buckhead, where she had made a reservation.
“You’re kidding. I used to work there.”
“I know. That’s one of the few things Cam ever told me about you.”
“He told you that? In what context?”
“The context that you’re a classic underachiever.”
“Yeah, well. He’s a classic asshole.”
“Not anymore.”
“Sorry.”
He didn’t like being reminded that he’d inherited her from Cam. He couldn’t help wondering what would have happened if he’d met her while Cam was still alive. Would she have even looked at him twice, or would she have written him off as Cam’s weird hermit underachieving brother? She could have done that anyway. What could she possibly see in him? Like everything else in his life right now, it made no sense.
He was grateful she’d brought him here, of all the places they could have gone. The hotel had hardly changed in the ten years he’d been away, and he felt perfectly at home. He’d served enough people dinner here to know how it worked. (He could even order a martini—“Bombay gin, dry, straight up with an olive”—with the right attitude: I do this so often I get tired of hearing myself say it.) He wished there were still people working here that he knew, so he could have the pleasure of introducing Randa, but no such luck. He’d have to settle for the envy of strangers.
Her face was bathed in the flickering light of the candle in the center of the table. It gave her a soft golden glow. She was talking about her father and his political ambitions, how they had superseded any code of ethics he might have possessed, although she’d never seen any sign that he’d possessed one. And something about him intentionally losing a court-appointed capital case when he was in private practice—in return for which he’d been awarded a well-positioned job in the DA’s office. Jack had nodded in all the right places and let her do most of the talking, because it gave him an excuse to stare at her without being obvious.
Dinner was over and they were waiting for coffee. He was amazed at how smoothly it had gone—no awkward moments, no searching for topics of conversation. On the surface, they had absolutely nothing in common, and yet he’d never felt so comfortable around another person. Talking to her was like dancing with a partner whose steps he already knew.
The waiter appeared with their coffees and then was gone.
“Okay,” Randa said, “here’s something I’ve always wondered.”
“What?”
“Coffee. How d
id anyone ever come up with the idea for coffee? Who said, ‘I know what! Let’s take these little beans and dry them in the sun. Then we’ll grind them up and pour hot water over them and make a drink. But it’ll taste like hell, so we’ll mix it with cream and sugar until we can stand to drink it . . . Of course, we’ll have to wait for it to cool off first.’ ”
Jack laughed.
“You like that? I’ve got a million. Who looked at an artichoke and decided there was anything inside worth the trouble it would take to get to it? And why is it that we put a man on the moon before anyone ever thought of squeeze-bottle ketchup?”
“Are all your existential dilemmas food related?”
“No. I’d like to know what God has against famous musicians in small airplanes. And why people think pushing the elevator button again will make the elevator show up faster.”
“You mean it doesn’t?” he said, still laughing. He could tell she was enjoying his laughter and didn’t want it to stop. Neither did he. It had been a long time since he’d really laughed. It felt good.
“Here’s my personal favorite,” she said. “Why will people only elect a president who’s never had therapy? ‘We’re sorry, you’ve explored your emotions, you’re disqualified. We only allow a repressed individual with a lot of internalized rage to have his finger on the button.’ ”
“Okay,” he said, surrendering to the urge to chime in. “Here’s one I’ve always wondered about: ‘Four out of five dentists surveyed recommend sugarless gum . . .’ What did that fifth guy say? ‘Rot your teeth out, what the hell do I care?’ ”
She laughed. Her entire face lit up, and the light in her eyes danced mischievously. On impulse, he reached down and took her hand. It startled her so much, she stopped laughing. She let her eyes meet his, and they sat like that for a moment without speaking.
“Will you tell me now?” she asked, suddenly serious.
“Tell you what?”
“About the armed robbery.” Reality came crashing down on him.
“Why?” he asked. “Were we having too much fun?”
“I just can’t imagine it, that’s all. You just don’t seem . . .”
“What?”
“I don’t know. Like the armed-robbery type.”
