A Field of Darkness

by Cornelia Read

  “So I’m coming to your house at eleven tomorrow morning, Archie, and I’m not leaving until you talk to me,” I said, trying to sound like I even half believed the whole line of hooey myself, much less meant any of it.

  But after a while I had him, I could tell, even though I sounded like the lamest-ever guest bad guy from some cheesy Starsky and Hutch episode. Sembles just kept mumbling “Oh God oh God oh God” between every rasping intake of breath.

  Wilt was making hand gestures at me, holding his hands out palms-up and pushing them toward the ceiling . . . ramp it higher.

  “They know me,” I said, looking away from him and trying to sound menacing. “They know my car. And all they need is to see me there, Archie. Even if you don’t say a word to me, even if you’re not home, Archie, you’re fucked. Tell me what you know, and I’m your best friend. Don’t tell me, and you have no protection at all.” Then I couldn’t think of another word to say, so after a minute of silence on my end and whimpering on his, I just laid the phone back in its cradle.

  Ted said, “Attagirl!” and gave me a clap on the back, which was a relief, but threatening Sembles just felt wrong, especially if I was really putting him in danger.

  “And you do that all the time?” I asked Wilt, after Ted went back into his office. “The poor guy’s terrified, and I just lied my ass off. I feel like I should wash my mouth out with Ajax.”

  “You were great,” said Wilt.

  Simon just gave me a shy smile.

  “No, really, Wilt. I mean, I want to be all, like, ‘Madeline Dare, Cub Reporter,’ and do you proud, but that was kind of . . . slimy.”

  “Fight slime with slime,” he said.

  Simon sighed. “I know how you feel, Maddie,” he said quietly. “I’m always more comfortable with a camera in front of me than talking, but I think you’re doing the right thing.”

  “It’ll get easier,” said Wilt. “Don’t worry. And besides, you’re using your powers for the forces of good, here, remember? It’s one of those ends-justifying-the-means things. No big deal.”

  Yeah, sure, I thought—that’s probably just what Kissinger told Nixon after they bombed Cambodia.

  When I got home, the little red light on the answering machine was blinking. I hit Play and heard the mousy hiss of the micro-tape, rewinding on its micro-spools.

  “One . . . new . . . message . . .” said the little lady who lived inside the plastic box.

  I sucked in my breath and willed it to be Mom on the tape. Or Kenny.

  Not Dean.

  “Hi, Bunny!” Dean’s recorded voice was tinny, with waves of static crashing all around like he was standing under a tin awning during a hurricane. In Finland.

  “I’m so sorry I missed you. I wish you were there so I could tell you how much I already miss you in person. I am so sick of bunk beds. I am so sick of steak and eggs. I wish I had some tabouleh, and that you were right here. I’d rather have you than the tabouleh. If I’m anywhere near a phone tomorrow morning, I’ll try again, but it’s pretty—”

  Click.

  I hit Rewind.

  I hit Rewind a few more times after that, just staring into the little speaker grille on the machine’s beige plastic, as if I could see him in there if I really tried hard enough. I’d started pacing, waiting for the phone to ring, so I put a sweater on and wandered out to sit on the porch. I sat out there shivering—arms wrapped tight around my knees, legs still jiggling like crazy—but knew that it might be ten months before I got the chance to be out here again at the rate the evenings were cooling, this late in September.

  The night was clear and still. There was no traffic on Green Street, and I could hear a dog whining from somebody’s backyard up the hill.

  I wondered what my friends from college were doing. Probably attending splendidly witty literary parties in New York where iceberg lettuce was only admitted as performance art.

  Lapthorne would be lounging in his lapidary library. Ellis was probably frolicking in some Berkshire steel-sculptor’s meadow with a rowdy gang of itinerant poets and a gallon of Chianti. And here I was, freezing in the dark, life blowing past me like a limo bombing down the thruway: close enough to whip your hair back, impossible to touch.

  I had to admit that the worst of it was how whiny I’d become. Maybe Dean was right—the city of Sore Excuse was perfectly fine and all the trouble with it resided in me, in the weak and raddled Swiss cheese of my soul. I’d practiced fear and self-loathing in some of the world’s most renowned locations: been crestfallen in Carmel, morose in Manhattan, a “Nattering Nabob of Negativity” in Nepal. The only place I’d ever really been happy was boarding school, probably only because everyone around me was so miserable that my usual state seemed, for the first time, normal. Maybe I was deluding myself when I thought that leaving this town would make things any different.

  Then I thought, no—it was really different out there. Lapthorne’s house . . .

  The phone rang.

  I raced into the kitchen, my “Dean?” into the phone breathless.

  The response was Lapthorne’s deep voice saying “Chère cousine?”

  I was disappointed. Relieved. Fucked in the head.

  “Oh,” I said, “hey there. I’m just sitting here bemoaning the lack of civilization in my general vicinity.”

  “Well, how about that marvelous husband of yours? He sounds more than civilized.”

  “He is,” I said, looking out toward the sofa, “but sadly he’s still in Canada, busy inventing . . .” I glanced at the stove clock—just after ten.

  “More power to him,” he said.

  “Yeah, well,” I said, and proceeded to tell him the story of the shadows and photographs. When I moved on to the proposed meeting with Sembles, however, he seemed alarmed.

  “Madeline, I don’t want you to think that I doubt your abilities, but please understand that I’m leery of putting another young woman in danger, in light of my past failings to safeguard my friends,” he said. “Are you sure you wouldn’t like to postpone that meeting? Let me go with you. . . .”

  “I think this is a limited-time offer,” I said. “We’ve got Sembles believing he’s over a barrel, and if we told him to get up so we could move it, I’m not sure he’d still believe us when we told him to lie back down across the damn thing.”

  “Point taken, my dear. But I want to know when you expect to be done.”

  “An hour? Not long.”

  “Will you go back to your office?”

  “Yeah, tons of stuff to do.”

  “Ellis has the number? We’ll be out and around, so I’m going to call you there. Make sure you’re all right. I’m not prepared to lose my favorite cousin, just when I’m really getting to know her.”

  So Ellis had gotten lucky. Maybe I should have been surprised—even happy, but all I felt was tired.

  “I’m flattered,” I said. “Aside from all the drama of this past weekend, I greatly enjoyed your company. And Ellis . . .”

  “She’s right here. Would you like to exchange confidences?” he asked with a rumbling laugh.

  “No,” I said. I was too lonely to listen to her being all happy about a new guy. “I’m . . . hoping Dean will phone, actually. I missed him earlier, but his message said he’d try again. . . .”

  “Let you go then,” said Lapthorne. “Don’t forget I’ll be calling tomorrow.”

  “Promise,” I said.

  I replaced the receiver. By one o’clock, I had to admit the phone wasn’t going to ring again.

  CHAPTER 33

  Dean called the next morning. I croaked a hello into the receiver while trying to undo the jammed espresso handle, almost dropping it and the phone into the sink.

  “Bunny . . .”

  “Oh, it’s good to hear your voice. . . .”

  Forget the coffee, I thought. I just wanted to soak him up through the phone line.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t get you last night.”

  “It’s fine,” I said. “I
was thinking about you, but you probably couldn’t find a town again?”

  There was a burst of static on his end, then “. . . tried to . . . but we were . . . freaking Yukon . . .” then silence for a moment too long.

  “Dean?”

  “. . . nothing but trees . . . did you?”

  “Did I what?”

  Static again. A burst of it like big surf.

  “—chance? . . .” his voice burst through, then another crush of static.

  “Chance? What?”

  “. . . find you? . . .” said Dean. “. . . goddamn get on a plane for home right . . . I can’t believe I left, because if anything happens to you, Bunny . . .”

  “It’s okay . . .”

  “I mean, I’m up here and you can’t call me if you need help, and the whole thing’s scaring the goddamn pants off me. I have to know you’re okay. Nothing else matters. Say the word, I’ll commandeer a pickup and get my ass to an airport, soon as I hang up the phone.”

  “Dean,” I said, “fuck that. I would never forgive myself. Your grinder . . . all the work —”

  Another rattling scrimmage of electrons blotted him out for a second. I pressed a hip against the kitchen sink, twisting my fingers hard into the phone cord so I wouldn’t start bashing the receiver against the countertop.

  “. . . here in the bunks at night,” he continued, “and over every meal, and the whole . . . guys are bitching about women. Ex-wives who screwed them over. Girlfriends who constantly whine and pout because they want more . . . someplace fancy. Custody . . . and I don’t . . . so goddamn lucky I can’t let on, because they’d pitch me out the . . .”

  Silence.

  “Dean?” I turned sideways and braced my back against the counter’s edge, like that might change the reception.

  “Can you . . . ?” he said.

  “What?”

  “Promise me you’re . . . if I know . . . safe.”

  “I promise,” I said, scrunching my toes. “I promise I’m safe.”

  Another ping. “. . . you, Bunny, so much . . .”

  The tone of his voice filled in the blanks enough so my knees gave and I slid down the base cabinet. When my butt reached the floor, I clenched my eyes shut and said, “Oh, man, I miss you like hell. . . .”

  The phone spat some Emergency Broadcast System sound effects, and then Dean’s voice came through perfectly again, just for a second.

  “. . . clothes off,” he was whispering, “soon as . . .”

  One more crackle, two gargling pops, and then it was nothing but dial tone.

  I sat there holding the phone to my ear for so long that even the woman who comes on and says “moo Mee MEEEEEE . . . please hang up and try your call again” finally packed it in.

  Of course like three seconds after I’d managed to go back to sleep, the phone rang again. I peeled an eye and checked the alarm clock. Five of nine.

  It wouldn’t be Dean again, so I didn’t hurry. Picked up on the fifth ring, right before the machine would’ve taken it.

  “Madwoman!” said Ellis, sounding entirely too perky.

  “Don’t tell me, you just had to wake me up to tell me how magnificent my cousin is in the sack,” I said, yawning.

  “Well, he’s finally in the kitchen, making breakfast, so I have a minute to gush detail. He’s taking another day off work, which must be a good sign. Anyway, it’s not like I could tell you last night . . .”

  I growled while yanking on the still-jammed espresso thing.

  “Hell is that?” she said. “You have a dog there?”

  “Sorry,” I said, just as the handle gave way. The puck of grounds flew out, bouncing once before it smashed into powder and chunks by the pantry door.

  “Fucking piece of goddamn fascistic garbage crap,” I said to the implement in my hand.

  “Have your hideous coffee yet?” she asked.

  “Trying,” I said. “Damn machine . . .”

  “All right, don’t try talking yet. Just sit back and let me overwhelm you with endless detail before he gets back.”

  “I have to?” I said, trying to smash a kilo of French Market into the wimpy-ass strainer thing.

  “Oh, come on, when was the last time I subjected you to endlessly annoying new-crush babble?”

  “Memorial Day weekend . . .” I said, measuring water into the wretched machine. “Most of July . . . That entire Tuesday afternoon about six weeks ago, which was during work . . .”

  “Rot in hell,” she said.

  “Ungrateful bitch.”

  “Rot in hell double.”

  “Slut.”

  “Slut.”

  “Really?” I said. “I can still be a slut?”

  “What, get married and suddenly your legs fuse?”

  “Minute you finish the vows,” I said. “Swock! Virtual mermaid.”

  “Drink your goddamn coffee.”

  I pushed the On button. Wondered if I could cram my head in there far enough to get my mouth right under the little spout. Cut out the middleman.

  “Can I talk about all the astonishing sex now?” she said.

  “Like I could stem the tide.”

  “Okay, so he’s amazing, and thank you very, very, very much for being related to him, and for believing he didn’t do it, because believe me there’s no way he could have done it. I mean, how could he have done it and be so amazing? It’s just not possible. Really.”

  “Got it bad,” I said.

  “Worst ever,” she agreed. “I’m eternally in your debt. I mean, the man is a genius with an ice cube—”

  “Ewwww.”

  “Drink your damn coffee so you can actually converse. I hate it when you just grunt at me in the morning, especially when I can’t throw stuff at your head, in person.”

  “I’m not grunting,” I said, pouring the now-finished atomic caffeine splendor into my habitual glass. “That was an ‘ewwwww.’”

  “Why didn’t you and Lapthorne ever . . .”

  I reached for the sugar. “We just didn’t.”

  “Should’ve.”

  “Would’ve,” I said. “Probably. Not like an invitation was forthcoming.”

  “Through no fault of yours . . .”

  “I guess. Sure.” Soon as I poured in the milk, I drank half the Crude right down.

  “No, I mean I think he feels too . . . protective? Not like the guy doesn’t dig you.”

  “Whatever.”

  “Serious,” she said. “How he checks you out when he thinks nobody’s looking? Covetous as hell. Pissed me right off.”

  “Really?” I said.

  “Oh please, he so wants to nail you. . . .”

  “Thanks. Means a lot.”

  “I’m sorry I . . . well, since you didn’t ever get to.”

  “Don’t be. Live it up. Mi cousin es su cousin. I’m overjoyed for you both.”

  “Yeah. You’re just dripping with overjoyed.”

  “Not about this—you guys—really really really,” I said.

  She waited.

  “Dean called earlier,” I said. “First time in forever, and it’s hard, you know? We had this huge fight before he left, but on the phone this morning he was so great and that’s even worse. Because he’s still away and now I’m not pissed at him or worried he’s pissed at me . . . so . . .”

  That made her fidget. Too real and private, or maybe coming off like an attempt to trump her new guy with a spouse card.

  I could practically hear her plucking at Lapthorne’s Porthault sheets. Which I didn’t envy. At all. Not for a second.

  Because I would have done things exactly the same, even if I’d known Lapthorne was still single, all this time. Even if I’d known he was interested in me the tiniest bit, that I could have invited him to a party years ago, and that he’d have picked up the phone all happy to hear from me, there in his perfect house in the real city, with all that beautiful silver and the stupid library, not to mention the fucking boat with the fucking Winslow Homer watercolor—not
a print but the genuine goddamn article—hanging in it as an afterthought, for chrissake, since there was so much more to go around.

  I would have done things exactly the same.

  I would have married Dean, who was worth more than all the world’s sublime boats and magnificent sheets and chilled salad forks and heartbreakingly beautiful loafers and exquisitely delicious cousins put together, damn it.

  “I love Dean,” I said. “Just the sound of his voice is . . . I’m so happy. It’s only when I look out the window and it’s still . . . Syracuse, you know? Being here alone? I mean, Dean’s my whole raison d’upstate . . . I miss him.”

  “Cha,” she said. “I guess so.”

  “Sorry, I’m totally boring you.”

  “No!” she protested too much. “You just sound really, um . . . Maybe you should go to bed earlier? Makes such a huge difference. I slept like the proverbial baby last night, can’t recommend it highly enough.”

  Then she sighed, grotesquely content and happy.

  “You slept? Talk about letting down the side,” I said.

  “Well, not at first . . .”

  “Okay. Start with the ice cube, go from there,” I said. “Inquiring matrons want to know.”

  I finished my coffee while she babbled on. God knows I owed her a patient ear—she’d had to hear me talk my way through the first flushes of lust often enough, most egregiously when I first met Dean, and besides, listening allowed me to think about what the hell I should say to Sembles.

  I knew the only hope on that score was to just show up there, open my mouth, and hope for the best. So as a palliative measure I egged Ellis on until it was about five minutes before I had to leave, having pulled on my clothes while she yammered happily away. Thank God for long phone cords.

  CHAPTER 34

  There was a note thumbtacked to Sembles’s front door: “Madeline come on in back in a few minutes.”

  I was late. It’d taken me a while to find his house amidst the warren of tiny bungalows near the train yard.