Whisper to Me

by Nick Lake

  I reached out for more ice cream.

  “Seriously?” said the voice. “With your ass?”

  I lowered the spoon very slowly. I checked my G-Shock. 8:10 p.m.

  “I’ve missed you,” I said. I chose my words very carefully, knowing they would go for the voice and Dad both.

  Dad smiled. “I’ve missed you too, Cassington.” That was an old nickname he hardly ever used anymore.

  THE VOICE: silence.

  “I’ve been looking forward to speaking to you all day,” I said.

  Dad got all embarrassed then and gruff and alpha male. “Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, me too.”

  THE VOICE: “No more ice cream. You barely fit into your jeans. You could be pretty, if you looked after yourself better. If you weren’t so—”

  “Thank you,” I said.

  THE VOICE: silence.

  DAD: silence.

  I started clearing away the dinner stuff. “Can we watch a movie tonight?” I asked.

  Dad looked puzzled. “I told you I got one, Cass. So, yeah.”

  But of course I wasn’t asking him. I kept listening as I washed the dishes. We didn’t have a dishwasher. Mom used to say, we do have a dishwasher, and it’s me. But it wasn’t her anymore. It was me.

  THE VOICE: silence.

  “Can we have popcorn too?” I asked.

  “Sure, honey.”

  THE VOICE: “No popcorn. Just the movie. And don’t enjoy it too much. I’ll be watching.”

  “I’m okay actually, thanks, Dad. Just realized I’m too full.”

  “Sure.”

  We went into the living room. Dad slotted the DVD into the player. The girl in the store was right; it was pretty good. I curled up on the sofa and Dad put his arm out and I leaned against him.

  It was nice.

  Then, like an hour into it, something happened in the movie that made me laugh.

  “Bite your tongue,” said the voice.

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  Dad peered at me. “You don’t have to apologize for laughing, Cass.”

  “Bite it,” said the voice.

  And I did it; I mean, I was negotiating, I was scheduling and being polite and all that stuff, but the voice still scared me. And it had let me have this time with Dad.

  I bit my tongue.

  “Harder.”

  I tasted salt blood, rushing into my mouth.

  “Enough,” said the voice.

  “Can we watch the rest?” I asked.

  “Of course,” said Dad. “It’s like ten. It’s not late.”

  “No,” said the voice.

  I sighed. “I’m super tired actually, Dad. Tomorrow night?”

  “Sure,” said Dad.

  “Maybe,” said the voice.

  Hell, that was a victory in my book. We got up and turned out the lights and powered down the TV. Dad went into the bug room, and I followed him in. He lifted the first lid and started taking little pots of food from a drawer beneath the wooden workbench. Artificial light glowed all around us; blue UV.

  “Here,” he said, when he saw that I was there too. He handed me a stick insect.

  I held up my hand and looked at the thing. It was trembling, I swear, its long body very stiff. I wanted to stroke it and tell it I wasn’t going to hurt it, but it was an insect; what would the point have been? I turned my hand to get a better look at it.

  The stick insect fell—tumbled to the ground.

  Dad whirled. “For ****’s sake, Cass!” he shouted. He bent down and picked up the stick insect carefully. He examined it and then reached out with his other hand and gripped my arm, tight enough to hurt.

  “How can you be so ******* clumsy?” he said. “How come everything you touch turns to—”

  He stopped himself, like he’d been taken over by some possessing spirit and had just gotten control of his mouth again. That was what Dad’s tempers were always like—like he was under the influence of something that needed to be exorcised.

  He stared at me.

  He saw the tears running down my cheeks.

  “Oh Jesus, Cass, oh, I didn’t mean …”

  I twisted out of his grip and ran for the stairs.

  “Cass, I wasn’t talking about—”

  “Wow,” said the voice as my foot hit the first step. “Your dad really hates you, huh?”

  So.

  A half victory, I guess.

  5. FREEDOM. Challenge the power of the voice and establish dominance over it.

  This did not work very well.

  Actually, you were there for part of this one.

  Paris called; she wanted to hang out. We’d spoken on the phone a few times but hadn’t seen much of each other since she took me to meet Dr. Lewis. Dad was going to be home soon so I told her I couldn’t go to her condo, but she could come over to the house.

  When she turned up, I was waiting on the porch. Paris was wearing torn fishnet tights with a fifties flowered summer dress. She looked crazy and beautiful. As she walked across the yard, you were just parking your pickup—she turned and looked at you as you went to the apartment stairs.

  “Who’s the hot guy?” she asked, when she joined me on the porch.

  I glanced at the apartment. “Him?” I had not thought of you as someone who would be conventionally thought of as hot. I also, at this point, was maybe not quite aware of my own interest in you. Although maybe that’s a lie; maybe I was. Because I remember thinking something very strange when Paris asked about you.

  I mean, hearing a voice is extreme. But often, even when we’re supposedly sane, our own thoughts can be foreign to us.

  The alien, strange thought that went through my mind at that moment, and I wish I could say it was the voice but it wasn’t, was:

  He’s mine, bitch. Like … like we were she-lions or something. Weird how quickly we revert to being animals.

  But I waved a hand in what I hoped was a casual manner as we went up the stairs to my room. “He’s one of the summer workers,” I said. “From the piers. Dad rents the apartment over the garage.”

  “Sweet,” said Paris. “So you get to check out Mr. Guns there whenever you like.”

  I shrugged, trying to appear more relaxed than I really was. “They’re usually working.”

  “There’s more than one of them?”

  “Two.”

  She licked her lips. “Hmm. And is the other one hot too?”

  “I guess.”

  “Then I shall be a frequent visitor to this abode, methinks.”

  “******,” said the voice. “Filthy ******.”

  I flushed. “After six p.m.,” I said.

  “I can come after six p.m.?” said Paris.

  I’d been talking to the voice. “Oh. Uh, yeah. Any day.”

  “Cool.”

  I sat down on the bed.

  Paris was a bit freaked out by my room, I think. She gazed around at the shelves and the walls.

  “It’s very … clean,” she said finally.

  “Yeah. The voice makes me do that.”

  “Really?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Tell the voice my condo could use a good housekeeper.”

  “Very funny.”

  She picked up a shell from the chest of drawers; it was one that I’d found with Mom, on one of our walks on the beach. “How’s it going with the Doc?”

  “Good, I think.”

  “You’re reconciling with the voice? Making schedules, all that ****?”

  “Yep.”

  “And what about the source? Any progress there?” she asked.

  “The source?”

  “Yeah. The … What did you call it when you asked me? The trauma?”

  I knew what she was doing. She was reminding me that she’d told, hinting at reciprocity. Basically saying that I should tell her, in turn.

  “No, nothing,” I lied. “There’s nothing.”

  “Hmm,” said Paris.

  We hung out for a while—I played her some music
; we ate some nut-free brownies that Dad had made. “Wow,” said Paris. “These are amazing. Your dad’s single, right?”

  “Don’t even think about it.”

  “Joking, Cass, joking.”

  I showed her Dad’s bug room, and her eyes went wide as she looked at all the brightly colored millipedes and stick insects and beetles. “They’re gross, but they’re kind of beautiful at the same time,” she said.

  “Yeah.”

  “A bit like you,” she said.

  I punched her arm.

  “Come on,” she said. “Let’s have another brownie.”

  Later she looked at her watch. “Your dad gets back at seven, right?”

  “Usually.”

  “Okay, I’d better split.” She walked to the door, and I opened it for her.

  “See you,” I said.

  She smiled. “Not if I see you first.”

  “What does that mean?”

  A frown. “Actually,” she said, “I don’t really know. I just say stuff sometimes.” A pause. “Speaking of. I didn’t see any photos of your mom in the house. What happened to her, Cass?”

  (Why does everything you touch have to turn to—)

  That wasn’t the voice, just to be clear; that was Dad’s voice, in my head.

  “Nothing,” I said.

  Paris looked at me. “Nothing happened to her.”

  “No,” I said.

  She raised her hands. “Okay. Okay. Leaving it.” She turned and started across the yard. “Oh, Cass!” she exclaimed. “You lucky girl.”

  “Huh?”

  “Bare abs. Just lying around.”

  I followed her out. She strode to the street, still giggling. Asleep on the lawn, next to a couple of open cans of Bud, was Shane. He had taken his top off—I guess because it was hot and he wanted to sunbathe a little. Then he’d obviously fallen asleep. He was wearing loose red lifeguard shorts. I could see the ridges of his stomach muscles.

  Paris was gone; there was just me standing there, and Shane lying on the ground like a Greek statue lain out in the grass.

  “Look away,” said the voice.

  But I kept looking. I was fascinated—I’d seen boys’ bodies on the beach, but never one this close. I mean, apart from my dad, and he didn’t count. I couldn’t turn away from that hard chest, the V that ran down from his—

  “You’re enjoying this,” said the voice. “Stop it, or I will punish you.”

  “After six p.m.,” I said automatically. “No talking before six p.m.”

  “Look away, now. Or you will pay.”

  I didn’t look away. I know I should have. Aside from anything else, it felt like a betrayal, of you. That sounds stupid. I mean all we had done was drive on the beach and talk a couple of times. But that’s how it felt. Sometimes the things we feel are not rational.

  Often, in fact.

  Then Shane stirred. He kind of snuffled and said a name—Linda—I still don’t know why—and rolled to the side a little. I thought, Oh no, he’s going to wake up and see me looking. I couldn’t move; I was stuck there like a woman turned to stone.

  But then something worse happened.

  As Shane turned, his hand went down and … well … scratched his crotch. Not in any sexual way, just a guy, asleep, shifting stuff around or whatever. And because he was wearing those baggy lifeguard shorts I saw his … junk.

  I literally could not look away. I wasn’t titillated or anything, I was horrified.

  Oh my God, I thought. I felt sick.

  I guess I should have found it funny. But I didn’t find it funny at all. I just felt nauseous and appalled, and one thought went through my mind, the one that didn’t help at all with challenging the voice’s power:

  The voice did this. It told me to look away or it would punish me, and then when I didn’t look away it made me see … this.

  Finally I managed to make my legs work, and I turned and went back into the house. I knew the Doc would say that the voice had nothing to do with it, that it was just coincidence, but I didn’t really believe it. I was remembering how it had made me stab my finger on the compasses at school.

  I was still afraid.

  But I’m not afraid anymore, I’m not afraid of anything. Not of the voice, not of my dad, nothing.

  Come to the pier on Friday, and I’ll show you.

  Things were so much better with the voice, but it still had power. It was still the one in control.

  I was leaving the house to go hang with Paris at her condo. I went to grab my keys from the monkey butler. He was a wooden monkey in a red jacket with a fez, balancing a platter that would hold my keys, Dad’s, his car keys too. I don’t know why we had a monkey. Mom and Dad got him from an antique store in Cape May when I was little, or something.

  Anyway, I reached out for the keys and the voice said:

  “No.”

  “Hi!” I said. “How are you?”

  “Leave the keys.”

  “I’d really prefer if you only spoke to me aft—”

  “It’s six fifteen p.m.,” said the voice.

  I looked at my watch. Oh.

  “Leave the keys,” the voice repeated.

  “It’s a latch bolt,” I said. “It automatically locks when the door closes. I won’t be able to get back in.”

  “That’s the point, yes,” said the voice.

  “But why?” Something about the voice made me sound like a whining teenager. I hated that.

  “You only brushed your teeth once this morning. And you didn’t wash your face. What is it, do you want to be revolting?”

  “No.”

  “Good. Maybe being locked out will make you think about these things.”

  I withdrew my hand, leaving the keys where they were. I would have to hope Dad was home not too late, though he’d said he wouldn’t be back for dinner—that was why I was going to Paris’s place to begin with. He’d be pissed with me for staying out at night—not that I had a formal curfew, but he didn’t like me being out in the dark with the killer around—but what could I do?

  I opened the door.

  “Wait,” said the voice. “Put on a jacket. You look like ****.”

  I went to the closet.

  “No! Not that one! What are you, color blind?”

  “Better?” I asked.

  “Satisfactory,” said the voice.

  As I passed the monkey, I pushed my luck—I reached out my hand, thinking the voice might not be paying attention.

  “You want to bleed tonight?” asked the voice.

  I went out without my keys.

  When I got to Paris’s apartment building, I pressed the bell and heard the buzz that said the door was unlocked. I went in and rode up in the elevator to the second floor. As I neared her door, a guy in a dark suit came out—he was in his forties maybe? I glanced at his hand—there was a gold wedding ring on his ring finger.

  He lowered his eyes as he passed me and hurried into the elevator. He had a belly that was stretching his white shirt, although the rest of him was skinny.

  Paris was holding the door open and she looked—and if you’d told me I’d ever see this I wouldn’t have believed you—she looked embarrassed. Or more than that, ashamed.

  I didn’t say anything—what could I say? I just smiled at her and she smiled back, and we went inside.

  “Let’s go to the piers,” said Paris.

  “What?”

  “Let’s do it. Ride the Ferris wheel.”

  “You’re kidding?”

  “No. Why?”

  “I’m town. People from the town don’t go to the piers.”

  “Oh please,” said Paris. “Like you didn’t go when you were a kid.”

  “That was different. I was a kid.”

  She shook her head sadly. She had eyeliner ticking up from the corner of each eye, bright blue; it made her look like a cat. Pin-striped pants, high heels, a shirt. Big bangles on her wrists, in all colors. She grabbed a half-full bottle of Smirnoff from the coun
ter. “Anyway, I’m not town,” she said. “I’m from New York. I’m a tourist basically. A student tourist. I’m everything you town people hate. So we’re going,” she said. “There’s nothing you can do about it.”

  Story of my life.

  I’ve just noticed that I called the bottle of vodka “half full.” Whereas I told you that my dad is a glass-half-empty kind of guy.

  That must make me an optimist.

  Well, I guess I wouldn’t be writing this otherwise.

  Paris, of course, was right; we had fun.

  The sun was setting over the town as we got to the end of the street by her building. We climbed up the steps onto the boardwalk, joining it just between the SLOT MACHINE ARCADIA, which is decorated with spray-painted murals of satyrs and nymphs frolicking in a dell by a stream, and VINNIE’S TATTOO STUDIO.

  “You want?” said Paris, holding out the bottle of vodka.

  I shook my head.

  “Killjoy,” said Paris.

  “My allergy,” I said.

  “There are no peanuts in vodka, Cass.”

  “No.”

  “So have some.”

  “I can’t.”

  She stopped, took another swig, and looked at the bottle, then at me. “You did before we went to the group.”

  “Yeah, because I was nervous. But it was only that one time. I don’t drink.”

  Paris puzzled was a beautiful thing to see. It was not something that happened a lot. Her eyebrows stayed knitted. “Why not?” she asked.

  “It’s if I do eat peanuts. Or something with peanuts in it. Alcohol makes an anaphylaxis much worse.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah. Seventeen to twenty-seven. That’s the danger zone. When most allergic people die. Because they drink and get sloppy, and then they get a reaction and their bodies are already weak from the booze.”

  “Huh. Who’d have thought it.” She took a swig of vodka and threw the bottle, still nearly half full, into a trash can—laid it up like a basketball player, hand curled over, the bottle flying in a perfect parabola before landing with a chink. Then we crossed the wide wooden walkway, skirting kids carrying cotton candy, and laughing groups of teenagers. Balloons in a hundred colors rose from the wrists of toddlers, like sky-jellyfish.