by Peter Ponzo
Chapter 18
William Boone and BB had left and Charles and I were having tea. I was humming, staring at the ceiling.
"Miss Fleetsmith?" Charles said, hesitant to interrupt my rumination.
"Everything is bigger in Texas, isn't that what they say?"
"That is what they say," he said.
"Billy Boone. He's kinda cute," I said. "Don't you think? And whatta name. And tall. I like tall men. Usually they're just squirts. I remember having lunch with Harry Fenster. Remember him, Charlie? Short, plump ... worked in real estate. Anyway, we were having lunch and he'd ordered the shrimp with cashews, I ordered minestrone. The waitress brought the food, looked at each of us in turn and said You're the soup and you're the shrimp. Harry, like many men, was a shrimp."
"Billy Boone," Charles said slowly. "Billy Boone. Another BB." He paused, then grinned. "Have you not noticed?" he said.
"What?"
"BB, BB, CC?"
"What?"
"Barney Bernside, Billy Boone, Clayton Curran."
"And the F-words," I added, smiling.
"I beg your pardon, Miss Fleetsmith?"
"Fran Fleetsmith," I said. "How could you have missed that, Charlie boy?"
"Um … yes, but cute." Charles said. "Cute? I cannot truthfully say that Mr. Boone is cute."
There was a noise in the hallway. Josey was standing at the door. She looked worried.
"Come on in, kid," I said, in honey tones. Josey walked forward slowly, collapsed into a chair and began to cry, softly, her face in her hands. "Tell us about it," I said. "Worried about something?"
And she tells us a story that I can only say kept Charles and I quiet for the duration.
Earlier, just after we arrived from Unger's office and met Boone and Bernside in the driveway, I had sent Charles inside to make coffee and warn Josey. He had insisted that Josey go to her bedroom (while Boone, Bernside and I were admiring the rose bed, killing time), then he left to make the coffee. Instead of going to her room, she had hidden behind the drapes. It was important. She needed to know what had happened to her, so she listened as best she could to our conversation, and the reading of the letters. What had happened? A film covered her body, right? Not quite. There was something else, more recently.
I had asked her several times about how she had come to be covered in the Dermafix cocoon, but she didn't want to say anything; the memory was too recent, too painful. Now she needed to tell us. Her story went like this:
That day in September, when Hans suggested I visit him in his apartment, I had no idea what he had in mind. I'd worked late at his apartment many times before, whenever he was in need of my ... uh, computer skills. He paid me good to do what little secretary-type work was necessary at the office, and to work late at his apartment. But that night was different.
I arrived about seven o'clock in the evening and he was already in his silk robe. I know that robe ... uh, he usually wore it while I was working on his ... uh, computer. He takes my hand and leads me into the bedroom. Big it was, that bedroom. He gave me a little saucer and he pours some thick stuff from some glass tube.
"That's my magic potion," he says. "Dermafix. It will make us young. Rub it in, real good."
Then he drops his robe and lies naked on the bed. I never seen him before, in the buff. Really, never. I done him good ... a real good rub down. When the stuff was gone he puts on his robe and walks me to the door. That was one big surprise.
"That's it?" I says. "No overtime?"
He shakes his head and opens the door to let me out.
"What about me? What about making me young?" I says.
Hans takes my hands in his hands, kinda gentle like.
"It's on your hands, see? Don't wash it off. Go home. Rub it on."
Then he pushes me out, just like that.
When I get home I does as he says, starting with my face, rubbin' the wrinkles round my eyes, my neck. Not that I really needed the stuff, you know, but what the hell. Young again? Why not? I drove home, most of the way, with my wrists on the steering wheel so I'd keep the stuff on my hands. My hands were slippery, and I rubbed and rubbed until my hands were dry.
Each morning I gaze into the mirror, hopin' for some miracle. Nothing. Then Hans doesn't show up for work and I get worried. I phone, but there ain't no answer. I go to his apartment, but he ain't there. So, I just show up for work each day, sitting at my desk, doin' nothin'.
Then, one morning, a Monday I remember, Miss Fleetsmith comes to my office and says the stuff is dangerous. Remember? "One whiff and you're dead", you say. That's when I get scared. I couldn't stop sweating. What if Hans was lying? What if it didn't make you young? What if it killed you instead? What if it killed Hans?
When his body was found, he was white. Covered with the stuff. Then it started on me. Slowly, just a funny looking patch of skin on my neck, but it grew and grew. I was really scared now. My shoulders, my chin. I stayed home and didn't go to work. Screw the company. This is important. Lordy, I could really die, right?
Then, one morning, I could hardly breath. I fall outta bed and run to the washroom. I could hardly stop from screaming. My face! Covered with fuzzy crap! I let my nightie drop and run to the full length mirror in the hall. My whole body, covered in raggedy-looking, milky-looking strips of some God-awful shit. Underneath the foamy crap, smooth skin, the Dermafix I guess. I pull it away from my nose, breath deep. It ain't easy to breath, you know. I run to the shower and stand there, crying, shaking, underneath the shower head, pulling and scraping the foamy crap from my body. I grab a big, thick towel and drag it across my face. I can breath again, a little. The foam washes away, but the skin seems to stick, everywhere. I was, like, hysterical. I wouldn't leave the shower stall. Again and again I peeled the skin from my face.
Who would help me? Who could help me?
I phone Miss Fleetsmith. Your machine answers: "You have reached the residence of Miss Francis Fleetsmith," it says. You wasn't home; you was at the lab. I pull a coat over my body and drive to the lab, crying. I leave the note on the window of your lab, wait in your car so nobody can see me.
When you took me home, you and Charles got the crap off, but I was differen … my body. The wrinkles about my eyes, gone, just like Hans promised. My skin was smooth, like a young girl. I felt good. A new woman.
Then, a few days ago, I leaned over the sink and stared into the mirror. Cripes! Hair, definitely. That dark streak across my upper lip was hair. Not Charles' special dressing. It was hair and it had something to do with that damned Dermafix. I listened to you explain it to the police. Lordy, I had to know what's happening.
But now the hair on my upper lip is growing, more each day.
Josey stopped talking and began to cry again. Looking closely, I noticed a definite dark strip on her upper lip. I leaned forward and looked again; it was hair. I really didn't know what to say—so I said nothing.
