Night, Neon

by Joyce Carol Oates

  NIGHT,

  NEON

  Tales of Mystery and Suspense

  JOYCE CAROL OATES

  for Kay Simon

  CONTENTS

  Detour

  Curious

  Miss Golden Dreams 1949

  Wanting

  Parole Hearing, California Institution for Women, Chino, CA

  Intimacy

  The Flagellant

  Vaping: A User’s Manual

  Night, Neon

  Acknowledgments

  DETOUR

  Too early for spring, you couldn’t trust such blinding-white sunshine in mid-March. And the smell of damp earth thawing, reviving—too soon.

  The result was, Abigail was feeling light-headed. Unreal.

  A seismic sensation, as if the very earth were shifting beneath the wheels of her car on the familiar drive home.

  Staring ahead, dismayed—blocking the road was a barrier with a jarring yellow sign: DETOUR.

  “Damn.”

  Rarely elsewhere than in her car did Abigail address herself and usually in an exclamatory/exasperated tone. If anyone had overheard, she’d have been mortified.

  “God damn.”

  Three-quarters of the way home, and now she’d be forced miles out of her way. For these were country roads that intersected infrequently, unlike urban streets laid in a sensible grid. She would return home later than she’d planned and have less time to herself before her husband returned from work.

  That dreamy interlude, preparing a meal with care, for just herself and her husband. A fireside dinner, with lighted candles.

  And she had good news to share with Allan, which she would keep for just the right moment.

  Darling, guess what!

  The lab report—?

  Yes! Negative.

  Not totally unexpected news. Not after months of treatment. But exhilarating nonetheless, for in a year of medical news not invariably good, even mildly good news is welcome.

  One by one, with robotic precision, drivers in vehicles ahead of Abigail were turning onto a smaller road. She wondered at their docility—she was tempted to drive around the damned barricade.

  Her house was less than a mile away. Should she take a chance and try to drive directly to it? No impediments or construction were visible in the road.

  You had to resent the nonnegotiable nature of DETOUR: ask no questions, no one to ask, simply follow the “detour” on trust that it will lead you to your destination.

  Was ignoring a detour illegal? Was it dangerous?

  What a strange thing for Mom to do! Getting a traffic ticket, a summons, the first in her lifetime …

  She was not an impulsive person. No.

  Thirty years she’d lived in the same house in the suburban countryside, five miles west of Stone Ridge, New Jersey, with her husband and, while they’d been young, their several children; thirty years, the unvarying route on North Ridge Road. In all those years she’d driven into the surrounding countryside only rarely and had little knowledge of the network of rural roads. She could not recall encountering a detour, or if she had, how inconvenient the detour had been.

  She’d hoped to have more time to herself in the house, in the kitchen, her favorite room in the house, before her husband returned from work. Though possibly, Allan was already home, for he’d become semiretired the previous year, his schedule varying from week to week as his (legal) services were required at his firm.

  Her husband’s custom was to recount his day to her in detail: what he’d done at the office, how much (or how little) he’d accomplished, with whom he’d had meetings or met for lunch or spoken with on the phone. There were ongoing narratives—names that had become familiar to her over the years, though she’d met only a few of her husband’s colleagues; ongoing themes of rivalry, alliances, sudden rifts, feuds, tragic developments, startling consequences. In these accounts, Allan was invariably the protagonist: the center of the narrative.

  Though Abigail did not always listen closely to these accounts, she took comfort in hearing them. Impossible not to feel a wave of tenderness for the man who, through the years, from the very start of their marriage, solemnly recited to his wife the banalities of his life, as a child might recite the events of his life to his mother, secure in the knowledge that anything he did, anything he said, because it was his, would be prized by his mother if not by others.

  In exchange, Abigail told her husband of her day, more briefly. For she was the wife, she had a dread of boring him.

  As a young woman, indeed as a girl, Abigail had learned to shape herself to fit the expectations of others. If there was a singular narrative of her life, it had the contour of a supple, sinuous snake, ever delighting in its contortions and in the shimmering iridescent camouflage-skin that contained it.

  Even as a mother! Perhaps as a mother most of all.

  Crucial not to let them know. How frightened you are, how little you know. How astonished you are that they have survived.

  For nothing is so flimsy-seeming as a human infant. Soft-skulled, soft-eyed, with such tiny lungs, you fear they might collapse with wailing.

  “Damn!”—her car was bumping, jolting. A fierce winter had left the narrow country road in poor condition, potholed and rutted. Following a line of other vehicles, Abigail was forced to drive unnaturally slowly, gripping the steering wheel in both hands. A throbbing pain had begun at her temples, the sensation of unreality deepened.

  Surely the detour would double back soon. You had to surmise that a detour describes a half rectangle around an impassable road, the object of which is to lead back to that road on the other side of the blockage. But Cold Soil Road seemed to be leading in the opposite direction from North Ridge.

  Oh, where was her cell phone?—she should call Allan to tell him that she’d probably be late. But her handbag was out of reach in the back seat, where she’d carelessly tossed it.

  In late afternoon the sun was unnaturally bright. The sky resembled a watercolor wash of pale oranges, reds—too “pretty” to be real—and of a particularly banal prettiness, like calendar art. Deciduous trees that only the previous week had been skeletal and leafless were now luminous with tight little greeny buds.

  Too soon!—Abigail felt a frisson of alarm, dread.

  Cruel to awaken the dead, in spring. More merciful to let us sleep.

  From Cold Soil Road her car was shunted onto a narrower country road that seemed to have no name, or at least she could not discover any name. No choice but to follow the DETOUR signs, with resentment and mounting unease, though a left turn should have been followed by a right turn to begin to complete the (rectangular) figure of the detour and not this slow curve leftward into the countryside …

  Where am I being taken? This is wrong.

  Traffic was sparse on this unnamed road. No one seemed to be coming in Abigail’s direction, all traffic in the other direction, strung out along the detour like dispirited Bedouins. Worse, after so much jolting, the steering wheel of Abigail’s car seemed to be loosening; each time she turned it, the car responded less immediately, as if she were driving on ice.

  At last, at a curve, she turned the wheel with no effect at all—the car continued forward, off the road and in the direction of a shallow ditch. Panicked, she pumped the brake pedal, but this too had little effect.

  Something struck her forehead, as if in rebuke. She heard a murmur of startled voices at a distance, witnesses to her folly.

  She cried in protest. No! It was not her fault, something had happened to the steering wheel.

  The front wheels of her car were in the ditch, the rear of the car remained on the roadway. The windshield had seemed to fly back toward her, striking her forehead. She was sobbing with frustration, dismay. What had happe
ned to the steering wheel? And the brakes—useless.

  Much effort was required for Abigail to extricate herself from the tilting car. Pushing the driver’s door open, climbing out into the road, panting. Her heartbeat was erratic, like her breath. She’d been so taken by surprise! Her balance had been affected, she walked as if on the listing deck of a boat.

  A vehicle approached, she waved frantically for it to stop, but the driver seemed not to see her, continuing past without slackening his speed. The vehicle’s windshield shone with reflected sunshine, she could not see the driver’s face.

  Calling after in a pleading voice—“No, wait! Please don’t leave me …”

  Her handbag, containing her cell phone, had been left in the car. She could not bring herself to climb back into the car. Fortunately, the ditch was fairly shallow, the car’s front wheels submerged in less than a foot of water, but the water smelled brackish, foul; she did not want to wade in it, still less did she want to grope around in it, where water had begun to seep inside the car with a hoarse, gurgling sound, as of occluded breathing.

  Peering through the side windows, she couldn’t see her handbag, guessing that it had been flung down onto the floor. No, she couldn’t retrieve it, not her cell phone, not her wallet … The car key was still in the ignition, she couldn’t bring herself to retrieve that, either.

  In the interim, another vehicle had passed in the roadway. If the driver had seen her, and her car partway in the ditch, the driver gave no sign, but drove imperturbably on.

  She climbed back onto the roadway, trying to hold herself erect, unswaying. She understood: it was crucial not to give an impression of drunkenness or injury. (Was her face bleeding? A stranger would not wish to bloody the interior of his car.)

  Her fingers, gingerly touching her throbbing forehead, came away unbloodied, but her nostrils felt loose and runny—was her nose bleeding? She hoped it wasn’t broken, she dared not touch it for fear of injuring herself further.

  But what had happened to her left shoe? She was standing in just one shoe; on her left foot was a light woolen sock, soaked from the ditch.

  Miserably she looked around on the roadway to see if the shoe was there—but no, of course the shoe was inside the car, no doubt on the floor in the front, where brackish water was seeping in.

  No choice but to make her way, limping, half sobbing, along the road in the direction of a house nearby; she would ask to use a telephone. This was not an unreasonable request, though she was looking disheveled and her damned nose was leaking blood.

  Now! You must prove yourself.

  A curious sort of anticipation overcame her. Almost euphoria.

  Most of her life she’d been waiting—for what, she hadn’t known.

  As a bright and curious girl-child, waiting for her true life to begin. As a restless but shy adolescent, waiting for her true life to begin. Before she’d met the man she would marry, waiting for her true life to begin. And then, in the months before she’d married this man, waiting for her true life to begin.

  Before she’d had her first pregnancy and her first baby—waiting for her true life to begin.

  And since the children had grown and gone away—waiting for her true life to begin.

  Something meant for me alone. Just—for me.

  That has been waiting for me to arrive.

  Because I have not been in the right place until now.

  But now—am I in the right place?

  It was comforting to see that the house she approached wasn’t a derelict farmhouse like others in the area, but a house that resembled her own: a dignified Colonial of wood, brick, and fieldstone; not new, in fact probably at least one hundred years old, but beautifully restored and renovated: roof, shutters, and windows replaced and the clapboards freshly painted creamy white, which suggested that the property owners were affluent, like Abigail and her husband, who lived, Abigail calculated, about three miles away—if you took not the circuitous detour but a straight line.

  Gravel horseshoe driveway, spacious front lawn with evergreen shrubs, several acres bordered by tall oaks, at the rear a barn converted into a three-car garage.

  Abigail’s heart lifted! Whoever lived in this house would not be suspicious of her but would recognize her as a neighbor.

  Possibly, whoever lived in this house knew her and, yet more possibly, knew her husband.

  Possibly, these homeowners had been guests in the R__’s house and would be grateful to return their hospitality.

  Before ringing the bell beside the front door, Abigail dabbed at her face with a tissue, which came away stained with blood; she used another tissue to wipe her damp eyes and to blow her nose, cautiously. With a stab of guilt she recalled having heard the front doorbell in her house ring not long ago, and standing very still, waiting for the ringing to cease and whoever it was to go away from the door; for no one of her or Allan’s acquaintance would have rung the doorbell without first notifying her that they were coming, and no one who rang the doorbell without first notifying her was anyone she’d have wished to see.

  A second time she pressed the bell buzzer, politely. She would not press insistently on the buzzer, for such an act would signal aggression, a kind of threat. Nor would she knock loudly on the door and frighten or antagonize whoever might be inside, listening somewhere in the interior of the house.

  Rehearsing what she might say, with an apologetic smile—Excuse me! I am so, so sorry to bother you, but I was following the detour and I’ve had a little accident, my car is in a ditch! If I could use your phone to call my husband …

  Though she might have said call AAA or call a garage, she preferred call my husband, as this phrase indicated not only the likelihood of a nearby household but the stability of a lengthy marriage.

  And she would give her address, to establish her identity as a fellow property owner, with all that that entailed of prohibitively high property taxes in Bergen County, which was, of all counties in the state, one of the most affluent, thus one in which the subject of taxes provided homeowners with an immediate subject with which to bond in sympathy—We live over on …

  For a confused moment, not remembering: Was it Ridge Road? North Ridge?

  Ringing the doorbell again, listening for a response. None.

  Her forehead throbbed, her nose was leaking blood. If only she’d remembered to bring that damned cell phone with her!

  Despite the prematurely balmy air, she was shivering. The sole of her left foot ached; she’d stepped on sharp stones.

  Then recalling: there was surely a side entrance to the staid old Colonial, a door that led into a small vestibule and then into the kitchen.

  Limping, favoring her shoeless foot, she followed a flagstone path around the side of the house, and there indeed was an entrance, as in her house. And here too was a doorbell, which she pressed with more confidence—in her own home she understood that whoever pressed the buzzer beside the kitchen door was likely to be someone familiar with her household, the FedEx deliveryman or the gas meter man or a friend; those who rang the front door were likely to be strangers, about whom a homeowner would naturally feel wary.

  Are you hiding in there? Please—if you are hiding—I only need to make a phone call, you are under no obligation to help me further …

  I am not injured. I am not bleeding! I promise.

  I am your neighbor.

  But no one came to answer this door, either. Abigail shaded her eyes to peer through the window: there was the vestibule, with coats, jackets, and sweaters on hooks, boots on the floor, exactly as in her house, and a doorway opening into a kitchen. Bars of sunshine fell slantwise on a tile floor not unlike her own, a deep russet brown. And hanging on an overhead rack, shining copper utensils.

  “Hello? Hello? I—I’m in need of—help …”

  It seemed to her that she was being observed. A surveillance camera eye, somewhere overhead. On the doorframe, a discreet notice, like one beside the kitchen door of her house: THESE PREMISES PROT
ECTED BY ACHILLES HOME SECURITY, INC.

  Then she realized: whoever lived here surely kept a spare key outside somewhere, beneath the welcome mat or beneath a flowerpot or urn, as she did.

  The key to this house wasn’t beneath the welcome mat, Abigail discovered, which was reasonable: keeping an outdoor key in such an obvious place was an invitation to a break-in, as her husband had warned. Better beneath a flowerpot, an urn, or a wrought iron chair or table in a nearby courtyard, which was a little distance from the door and not so likely to be discovered by an intruder, though in this case Abigail was thrilled to discover the key within minutes, beneath an ornamental urn a few feet from the door.

  Managing then to unlock the kitchen door and stepping inside into a warm, yeasty-smelling interior that felt welcoming to her, she had no fear that an alarm would ring, as indeed no alarm rang. Though certainly she was ill at ease, and would stay in the house only long enough to make a telephone call; she would then return to her incapacitated car and wait for help from AAA, and would not inconvenience anyone if she could avoid it.

  “Excuse me? Hello? Is anyone here? I—I only just need to make a phone call …”

  Her voice trailed off, uncertainly. She stood very still, listening. (Was the floor creaking overhead? Was someone upstairs, also very still, listening?) After a moment she decided no, just a distant sound of wind in trees, an airplane passing overhead.

  Her mouth had gone dry with anticipation, excitement. Her heartbeat, triggered by the accident with the car, continued rapidly, with a kind of exhilaration.

  So long waiting—for what?

  But where was the telephone? Abigail expected to see a wall phone in the kitchen, in the approximate place where there was a wall phone in her kitchen, but the design of this kitchen did not precisely resemble hers. And the counters were olive, while her counters were, less practicably, white; the deep-sunken aluminum sink was in a different location from where hers was, as was the Sub-Zero refrigerator and the ovens set in a wall—(as in her kitchen, there were two ovens, one above the other). Close up, the tile floor did not so closely resemble the tile floor in her house but was of a darker hue.