S.W. Tanpepper's GAMELAND: Season Two Omnibus (Episodes 9-11)

by Tanpepper, Saul

  “It was just a coincidence. I didn’t plan this!”

  “I believe you,” Lyssa had snapped in response.

  “Jesus, honey. This is our big break. I really don’t want to blow it. Just let me go over and shake a few hands, do the politic thing. It shouldn’t take more than an hour. It’s the least I can do for the amount of money they’re giving us.”

  “They’re not exactly giving it to us, are they?”

  “You know what I mean, honey.”

  It bothered her even more that he hadn’t offered to bring her along. He’d just assumed that she would be the one to watch Cassie.

  So she and Cassie stayed in the room and watched reality shows and cartoons. Lyssa drifted off at some point, still wrapped only in the robe and her hair dried stiff.

  It was the sound of her phone on the table which woke her— not the tone signaling a call but the obnoxious alert announcing a text message.

  “Cassie?” she called, smacking her dry lips. “Bring me my phone.” She felt too sorry for herself to bother getting up.

  The room was hot. Broiling hot. They’d run the air conditioner all night, but she’d turned it off after Ramon left. A chill had settled over her.

  Now she was covered in sweat.

  “Cassie?” Louder this time. She lifted her head. “Honey?”

  The television was still on, the sound a dull drone interrupted by intermittent squeaks and chirps of some unfamiliar animated kid’s show. She looked to the other bed, but it was empty.

  “Cassie?”

  Heart racing, she pushed herself to a sitting position, her head still swimming from the stupor of her sleep.

  “Cassie!”

  “What?”

  “Jesus Christ, honey. Why didn’t you answer me before? You gave me a scare!”

  “I was going to the bathroom. It hurts to—”

  The phone made that sound again.

  Lyssa scrambled for the device, pulling it up to her face to read the message— two messages, actually. They were both from Ramon. The first apologized for taking so long.

  The second was to inform her that he wasn’t going to make it back for lunch.

  She jabbed the button to call him back, livid to the point of not caring anymore. He answered immediately.

  “What is it, honey? I’m in a meeting.”

  She opened her mouth but her throat closed off. She was too angry to speak. She glanced at the clock on the bedside table and saw that it was past noon, but it didn’t seem right. How could she have slept all this time?

  “Lyssa?”

  “Cassie’s starving,” she mumbled.

  “Yeah, that’s why I texted,” he told her in a low voice. “You two go and do something fun together. Get a manicure or something. It’s looking like I won’t be able to get out of here for another couple hours.”

  She ended up packing their bags and leaving. Let Ramon find his own way home, she thought bitterly. It’s only forty miles. He can take the bus, for all I care.

  Of course, once they were back on Long Island, back across the East River and out of the shadows of the monolithic skyscrapers, she couldn’t help but have second thoughts about abandoning him like that. She knew running away was no way to deal with their problems. On the other hand, it wasn’t running away if there was nothing to run away from.

  “Is Daddy moving out again?” Cassie asked, her voice quivering.

  Lyssa looked up into the mirror. “I don’t— No, I mean. Don’t worry.”

  “Then why isn’t he coming home with us?”

  “He has work to do.”

  She turned back toward the road, the phone on the seat beside her catching her attention. Still nothing from Drew. She was getting worried. She expected him to at least call and let her know how yesterday had gone. This was so unlike him.

  “You know, hon,” she said. “Why don’t we take our own little trip? It’ll be fun.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  “Are we going to the beach?”

  “Not today, honey. I was thinking we’d go out to Laroda Island, to where Daddy and Mommy work. You like it there, don’t you?”

  “Can I see the rabbits?”

  “Maybe. It depends on if we have any in back. And we’re not bringing anymore animals home. We already have too many pets.”

  “Just Ben Nicholas,” she pouted.

  “And Shinji.”

  “Shinji came from the pound. And he’s your dog, not mine. Daddy said so.”

  Lyssa clenched her jaw. As if a dog could possibly take the place of a baby. As if an animal could help her forget what she’d lost.

  “Are we going to come back and get Daddy?”

  “No, honey.”

  “Then how is he going to get home?”

  Lyssa slowly let out a deep breath and focused on being calm. They passed a sign, NOW LEAVING CROWN HEIGHTS, which meant they were almost halfway home. She could turn around and be back at the hotel in a half hour.

  But the impulse to submit to her guilt over leaving Ramon passed.

  He’s smart enough to figure out why I left.

  He was smart enough then to figure out how to get himself home.

  “Daddy’ll ride the bus home later tonight,” she said. “He’s done it before, back before you were born. We only had the one car then.”

  Of course he’d be angry with her, but that was the point, right? What else did he expect after breaking his promise to them about the weekend?

  They passed the exit which would take them north to LaGuardia. She continued on the 495 heading east. Just twenty short minutes later they were home. Much to Lyssa’s surprise, there hadn’t been any slowdowns, none of the work crews. Even for a Sunday afternoon, traffic had been remarkably light.

  They stopped in the house just long enough for Cassie to check on her rabbit. Lyssa tried Drew’s home phone one last time, but he didn’t answer.

  A thick, gray storm of worry was building inside of her. It was so unlike Drew not to touch base with her, especially after she’d asked him to.

  “Hurry up, Cassie!”

  She was considering stopping by his place, but then was forced to reconsider the plan when she remembered she didn’t know his exact street address. It was filed away inside the cabinet in her office. If there was no note or message for her there, she’d stop on the way back home.

  “Can I bring Ben Nicholas?”

  “I don’t think—”

  “Pleeease, Mama?”

  “You can bring Shinji, okay? But only if he stays in the car while we’re inside the building. That’s the deal, since we’re not supposed to have animals inside.”

  “But you have animals inside.”

  “That’s different. And no arguing. And I’ve told you not to carry your rabbit around like that. You’re choking him. He’ll scratch or bite you.”

  “They don’t hurt.”

  “What doesn’t hurt?”

  “His bites. He bit my finger and I didn’t even cry.” She held up her thumb and showed Lyssa the tiny white mark.

  “Oh, Cassie. You need to be more careful around animals. They carry germs. I won’t always be around to make sure you’re safe.”

  “But I like petting their fur.”

  “Just put him away.”

  Cassie headed out the back door, sulking. The rabbit jounced in her arms, looking altogether too uncomfortable for his own good, yet he made no attempt to get away.

  “I promise you’ll be able to spend time with him when we get home later,” Lyssa called out the door to her. “Get Shinji and let’s go. The sooner we leave, the sooner we’ll get back again.”

  The house phone rang just as Lyssa was locking the front door. Cassie was already belted in her seat in the car, Shinji on the seat beside her.

  It’s Drew.

  She quickly unlocked the door and flung it open. The hallway cradle for the telephone handset was empty. Lyssa cursed under her breath and tried to remember where she’d put it.
/>   It rang a third time. After the fourth, it would go straight to the answering machine.

  “Where the hell—”

  On the coffee table!

  She raced down the hall and answered just as the fourth ring began.

  “Drew?” she said, panting.

  “Lyssa? There you are!”

  It was Ramon. She clenched her jaw.

  “When you didn’t answer your cell phone, I got worried.” He paused, perhaps hoping for her to acknowledge leaving him stranded in the city wasn’t such a good idea. Finally, he said, “Listen, honey, I’m sorry. I know this was supposed to be our weekend and I screwed up.”

  “I have to go.”

  “Look, if it’s any consolation, lunch was terrible and the meetings were boring as hell. Those money guys are a bunch of stuffy pricks. But they’re more on board—”

  “I have to go,” Lyssa repeated. She could feel her face getting hot, her skin prickling. “Cassie’s in the car.”

  This time he heard her. “Where are you going? No, wait. Never mind. Listen, I’ll catch the next bus home. Will you be there when—?”

  “We’ll talk later, Rame.”

  Another deep breath. “Okay.” He paused, then added, “I truly am sorry about how this turned out. Believe me, I had no idea.”

  “I’m sorry, too.”

  “I’ll make it up to you. To you both.”

  Lyssa nodded and swallowed. “Yes, you will.”

  She hung up and started back out, then stopped and slipped her cell phone out of her pocket and checked her messages. The call log showed nothing— not from Drew, and certainly not from Ramon.

  Liar.

  * * *

  The building was as silent as a tomb. Lyssa locked the front door behind them, then hurried over to the alarm panel and punched in the code to deactivate it.

  “Shinji needs to stay here in the lobby,” she said.

  It had been too hot to leave him in the car. There was shade, but it was outside the perimeter fence, and she didn’t want Cassie wandering around there unsupervised. She could accidentally fall into the water or be swept away by a wave.

  “In there,” she told Cassie, pointing to the inner courtyard where the staff took their lunches on nice days. The enclosed space was mostly paved, but a few raised beds had been planted with flowers which the staff members occasionally remembered to water. A large picnic table sat in the far back corner, shaded beneath a faded umbrella. Around the opposite corner, behind a wooden screen, were the trash bins. “If you get too hot, come inside, but stay here in the lobby. Nowhere else.”

  “Why are you whispering?”

  Lyssa frowned. She hadn’t realized she was talking so quietly. There was no reason for it, really, and yet on some level she must’ve felt something in the quality of the air, sensed something about the silence of the walls and the blank stares of the empty doorways which seemed to demand silence. She cleared her throat and, in a louder, more defiant voice, said, “We’re not supposed to have him inside here is all. So please watch him, okay?”

  Cassie nodded.

  “Good. Now, I’m just going to check in my office for messages and then the lab. I’ll be quick. Five, ten minutes. Sit tight and when I’m done, we’ll go in and say hello to the animals in the back.”

  “Is Daddy your boss?”

  Lyssa turned. “Excuse me?”

  “Is Daddy the boss of you? Because if he’s not, then why do you always follow his rules?”

  Lyssa chuckled and shook her head. “It’s good to follow rules, honey. If we didn’t, then everything would just fall apart.”

  “What if the rules are wrong?”

  She stepped over to her daughter. Kneeling down, she placed her hands on Cassie’s arms. “These rules aren’t wrong. They’re our rules, honey, not just Daddy’s. Mine, too. And if I break my own rules, how can I expect anyone else to follow them?”

  “But aren’t you breaking your own rule by letting me and Shinji be here?”

  “As long as you keep him out here, not in the labs or offices, we’ll be okay.”

  “Is that why you don’t ever bring me here?”

  “I do.” But Lyssa frowned. There had only been that one other time — recently, in fact — though it hadn’t been a very happy day for either of them. And stopping at the site on the way home had only added to the trauma, but she’d had to. She needed to be sure.

  “Listen, honey. It’s not because we don’t want you to be here. It’s just that this is where people work. I wish you could be here with me every day, but you’d just be bored. And the drive is so long.”

  “I don’t mind,” Cassie protested.

  “When Mommy and Daddy come here during the week, we need to be able to concentrate. If you’re with us, we don’t want to work. We want to be with you, and play, and have fun. But if we don’t work, we won’t have money.”

  “Daddy says we already don’t have money.”

  “That’s not exactly true. We have what we need.”

  “For clothes and food?”

  “Yes.”

  “And roads and our house and—”

  “Taxes pay for roads. But, yes, for the rest.” She peered into her daughter’s face to see if she understood.

  Cassie’s eyes narrowed as she tried to think. “Doesn’t the dancing statue want roads?”

  “I don’t understand. What statue?”

  But Shinji was sniffing at the ground and whining. Lyssa stood and opened the door to the inner courtyard. “Take him outside before he piddles on the carpet, Cass. And don’t touch anything! I’m serious. Understand?”

  Cassie nodded.

  “I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

  She hurried down the unlit hallway to her office. All she needed was some sort of confirmation that Drew had come in and taken care of the animals. But when she checked her desk phone, there were no blinking lights, no waiting messages. No handwritten notes on her desk, either.

  Turning to her filing cabinet, she frowned. The drawer with the personnel files was unlocked and slightly open, but she couldn’t remember leaving it that way. Only she and Ramon had keys, and the lock didn’t appear to have been forced. She found Drew’s address and hastily copied it onto a piece of scratch paper and stuffed it into her pocket. Then she made sure the drawer was shut tight and locked.

  On her way out, she noticed that the light on her printer was blinking that it was out of toner, but she didn’t bother to fix it. Whatever it was trying to print could wait till the morrow to finish. It was always such a hassle trying to figure out which ink cartridge in the supply closet went with which printer. The document would hold in memory until then. She shut the door to her office behind her and turned toward the laboratory at the opposite end of the hallway.

  But before she could get there, the silence was shattered by Cassie’s scream, sending Lyssa racing back to the lobby.

  “Cass!”

  “It’s not my fault,” the girl yelped, as soon as Lyssa stepped into the courtyard. She was nearly in tears. “I only blinked for a second!”

  “Shinji!” Lyssa growled, seeing the mess. “Come here! Bad dog!”

  The puppy padded over and sat behind Cassie. He actually managed to look guilty.

  “Please don’t make him go away, Mama,” Cassie begged. She clutched to Lyssa’s leg. “Not like Daddy.”

  “Go away?” Lyssa snapped. She was livid. “Look at this! Who’s going to clean this up?”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Lyssa stepped out of the downstairs bathroom and into the hallway, where she was promptly attacked and almost knocked to the ground by a large brown furry object.

  “Hey!” she shouted at Shinji. Her patience was already worn thin from the near disaster he’d caused the previous afternoon at the lab. “Bad dog! Cassie, come get him!”

  She reminded herself to calm down, to keep things in perspective. Yesterday’s scare was a good reminder not to get upset over every little thing. The
mess could have been much worse. And Lyssa had handled it poorly.

  She chuckled to herself. No wonder Ramon was walking on eggshells around her today, the way she was overreacting lately. It was almost sweet, the way he’d been so apologetic after getting home, sweaty from the mile-long hike from where the bus dropped him off in town. He looked absolutely miserable.

  After a halting start to dinner, they finally managed to talk things over to their mutual satisfaction. They agreed to try and start over with a fresh slate.

  But the new day was conspiring against her, wearing on her patience, which was still too fragile to suffer so many challenges so soon. First was the shattered cereal bowl and the soggy mess she was left to clean up in the kitchen. Shinji kept trying to get to it before she could finish. And Ramon was no help.

  Then, while she was dealing with that, suddenly there was blood all over the place, and she’d realized Shinji had sliced his tongue on a sharp piece of the bowl. He obviously didn’t mind, but he was smearing it everywhere lapping up spilt milk.

  And then, halfway through Lyssa’s shower, the electricity went out again. How the hell was she supposed to shave her legs in the dark?

  “They’re supposed to hook up the panels today, hon,” Ramon assured her when she complained from the other side of the shower curtain. He stuck his head around the end and tried to look sympathetic, though he just ended up looking even more pitiful than Shinji had the day before.

  Shampoo was getting in Lyssa’s eyes. She wasn’t in the mood to be sympathetic.

  He leaned in and kissed her between the breasts. His hand brushed her nipple, sending waves of electricity through her body, and suddenly she wanted to pull him in with her. She needed him. But then he was gone, and she was left with rinsing her hair with the trickle from the faucet.

  Now it was rabbit droppings smooshed into the hallway’s white carpet.

  “Cassie!”

  Ramon appeared at the bottom of the stairs, the ends of his tie dangling from his fingers. “I think she’s outside in back.”