Backcast (16 page)

“Why do you keep saying shit like that?”

“Mavis?” Barb lit up her fresh smoke. “One of the things I like about you is that I never have to worry about you driving me across hell's half-acre to try and make me feel better. Do me a favor and don't start now.”

Mavis didn't reply. They smoked in silence for a minute.

“Don't you have anything to say?” Barb asked her.

“No, ma'am.”

“Why not?”

“Cause it sounds like my job is just to drive the bus.”

Barb rolled her eyes. “Great. So now you're Rosa Parks?”

“White woman? Rosa Parks didn't
drive
the bus. What do they teach you people in those fancy colleges?”

“Fancy colleges? I went to Chico. It was hardly a charm school.”

“Yeah? Well lucky for you, misinformation ain't tied to tuition.”

“You know, you're wasting your time as a bailiff.”

“Now
there's
a news flash. Why don't you get your buddy Barbara Walters on the horn?”

Barb was confused. “You think she could help you?”

“
No.
” Mavis shook her head. “It's just what you people do whenever you trip over something you don't like. Alert the media.”

Barb sighed. “You are one pissed-off woman.”

“Watch it.”

“You know what I mean.”

Quinn had finished docking the boat and was slowly making her way across the lawn toward the inn. Her long shadow lurched along ahead of her like it was racing her back to her room. From their vantage point, it looked like the shadow was winning. Barb thought that was a sad omen. Quinn would always be one step behind.

“She's a lonely figure.”

“What are you talking about?”

Barb pointed at the dark shape, which appeared to have changed
direction and was now headed toward the restaurant. “Quinn. She's like our resident Don Quixote.”

“If you mean crazy, I agree.”

“No.” Barb shook her head. “Not crazy. Delusional, maybe? But where would we all be without our dreamers?”

“Dreamers?”

“Sure. Think about it. She's not afraid to take a chance on something that has not the first chance at succeeding—and not because she cares about the prize money or the notoriety that would come with winning. No. It's the opposite of that. She's chasing a dream.”

“What the fuck kind of dream has anything to do with catching a smelly fish?”

“It's not about the fish.”

Mavis snorted. “You haven't been around when she's been talking about that mean-ass one everyone's creamin' their pants to catch. That Phoebe, or whatever-in-hell her name is.”

“Phoebe?”

Mavis nodded.

“The fish has a name?”

“According to your ‘dreamer,' it has a zip code, too.”

Barb laughed. “To each, his own.”

Mavis ground out the butt of her cigarette and reached for the pack.

“You ought to taper off on those.”

Mavis paused in mid-reach. “Me?”

“Yeah. You smoke too much.”

“
I
smoke too much? Don't you have that backwards?” Mavis snapped up the pack and tapped out another cigarette.

“No. You're young. You could do better.”

“Better than what?”

“Better than this.”

Mavis flipped her Zippo open and snapped its flint wheel. A tiny flame illuminated the broad planes of her face. “Do me a favor and don't start this shit again.”

“What shit?”

“This shit. This same bullshit you launch into whenever we're sitting in the dark.”

“No metaphor in that,” Barb muttered.

“We've had this conversation. I don't
do
metaphors. That's reserved for your crew of wackos back there.” Mavis tossed her head toward the inn.

“At least they're trying to make a difference.”

“How? By inventing two hundred new sex positions?”

“I wasn't talking about Viv.”

Mavis laughed.

“That's it for me.” Barb ground out her half-finished cigarette. “I'm turning in.”

“You go on ahead and I'll catch up with you. I gotta take a piss.”

“Now?” Barb stood up. “You can't make it back to the room?”

Mavis got up, too. “It don't work that way.”

“Ooo-kaay.” Barb collected her smokes and tucked them inside her jacket pocket. “See you in a few.”

Mavis nodded and began making her way toward the cedar trees that lined the cliffs along this end of the property. Barb watched her go until her shape dissolved into the night and the only thing visible was the red-orange glow of her cigarette.

Quinn was rooting around inside the dark kitchen, trying hard to be quiet so Page Archer wouldn't hear her. Even though the innkeeper lived in a house located on the opposite end of the property, she had ears like a bat. She tended to swoop in like a bat, too—out of
no place
. Quinn had learned that one the hard way. If this damn retreat were a movie, Page Archer's theme song would be just like the one that always played before Darth Vader showed up.

She'd been halfway back across the black water tonight when she decided that another one of those funky Canadian bologna sandwiches would taste pretty good. She was hungry from working so hard. People thought fishing was easy. But it wasn't. Not for her, anyway. Fishing was exhausting. You had to pay attention to everything. And in fishing,
everything
meant nothing.

Quinn had spent more time in the last week paying attention to
nothing than she'd ever done in her entire life. That was because fishing was all about what happened in those quick, fleeting moments when nothing became
something
. That's when you knew your luck was going to change.

After she made her sandwich, she was going to try to score some of that aspic to take out with her in the morning. Even if that weird dream was just a result of drinking too many of those pale ales, she had an inkling to try an experiment. Who knew? Maybe those stupid fish really would like that shit?

Stupid.
Phoebe wasn't stupid. Quinn knew that now. How else would she have been able to avoid being caught for two hundred years?

That's where the aspic came in. Even if that encounter had just been a beer-induced dream, Quinn knew she wasn't the one who ate that crap. That meant something had happened. It wasn't her style to worry things to death or fracture her brain trying to work out the details. That's what those paranormal types like Darien Black spent their time spinning yarns about—all that woo-woo jazz.
Walking dead.
What a crock of shit. Name one person you passed on any city street at high noon of any day in the week who wasn't walking dead? They
all
were. And they didn't need pancake makeup or fog machines to prove it.

Where did Gwen find those Ziploc bags?

Quinn yanked open a drawer and knocked over a precariously balanced stack of baking pans. She tried to catch them but it was too late. They clattered to the floor like cascading sheets of metal thunder.

Now I'm done for.

The swinging door that led to the service area swung open. She heard the snap of a switch and the overhead lights blazed into life. She stood there blinking stupidly and trying to shield her eyes. It could only be one person.

“What the hell are you doing in here?”

Page Archer.
Her dulcet tones were unmistakable.

“I was hungry.” Quinn began.

“You're always hungry. There's a deli up the road a mile.”

Quinn's eyes were finally adjusting to the light. Her scattered sandwich fixings were strewn across the prep board.

“I know,” she explained. “But they close at eight.”

Page walked closer and
tsk
ed at the mess. “Maybe you should plan ahead.”

“I'm sorry. I'll clean all this up.”

Quinn began to reach for the loaf of bread, but Page stopped her.

“What kind of sandwich did you want?”

“Um. Bologna?”

Page strode around the island and nudged Quinn out of the way. The woman was short, but strong. Quinn danced out of her path. She glared at Quinn. The overhead light reflected off the lenses of her glasses, but Quinn could still see her set of piercing blue eyes.

“Pick up those baking sheets.”

Quinn complied while Page took charge of making her sandwich.

“Mustard?”

Quinn nodded.

“There are some dill pickles in the reach-in fridge.” Page gestured toward the large, stainless steel and glass cooler that ran along the side wall of the kitchen.

Quinn didn't really like dill pickles but she knew better than to look a gift horse in the mouth. She walked over to the massive cooler.

“I don't see them.”

“Bottom shelf on the left. Behind the aspic.”

That gave her an idea.
In for a penny, in for a pound.
Why not ask Page about why they make so much of that crap?

“Can I ask you a question?”

Page was slicing the spiced meat with a knife that could have doubled as a hacksaw. She looked up at Quinn over the rims of her glasses. “As long as it doesn't have anything to do with those sophomoric bondage stories you write.”

“You read some of my books?”

“Against my better judgment. Barb sent me copies of everyone's work.”

“You didn't like them?”

“Yours?”

Quinn nodded.

“I won't deny that there are some good—
descriptions
—in there. But they get lost in the weeds of all that other drivel.”

“Drivel?”

“That's what I call it.”

Quinn started to raise her hands in protest, but thought better of it and let them drop back to her sides.
She really did want that sandwich
.

“My readers don't think I write drivel.” She did her best not to sound defensive.

“That's because your ‘readers' are probably twelve-year-old boys.”

Quinn didn't really feel comfortable trying to refute Page's suggestion. Especially since she had a sneaking suspicion that her assessment was right. She handed Page the jar of pickles.

“Not all of them,” she suggested.

“You're probably right. I'd imagine they'd be popular in prison libraries, too.”

Prison libraries?
Quinn had never considered that. Images of an untapped retail outlet spread out before her.

“You mean like those
Sleeping Beauty
books Anne Rice wrote?”

Page stopped spreading mustard on the bread and stared at her. “I have no idea what you're talking about.”

Quinn was shocked by her response. “They're
classics
.”

“Classics? Classic what?”

Quinn shrugged. “Erotica.”

Page rolled her eyes and went back to spreading mustard. “There's nothing ‘classic' about erotica. It's porn.”

“It's
not
porn.”

“Yes it is.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because any book that is required to begin with a disclaimer attesting that all of the characters depicted are consenting adults over the age of eighteen is porn.”

“Erotic writing can be beautiful.”

“Graphic depictions of sex acts are smut. No matter how beautifully written they are.”

“Do you really believe that?”

“Of course.” Page was cutting Quinn's sandwich in half. The knife made an uneasy shushing sound as it slid across the butcher block. “It's pandering. A cheap, base way to sell more copies of books to people who are stalled in adolescence and can't keep their hands out of their pants.”

“What's wrong with that?”

“Everything. It's part of the same addiction we have to shock value and graphic content in general. Why do you think those videos that show beheadings are always blasted across the Internet?”

“That's different. That's news.”

“It's not
news
. It's merchandizing. And it's an epidemic. The more we see, the more immune we become to the horrors being depicted. So the drive exists to invent new and deeper horrors that will attract even greater viewership—or in your case, readership—all to generate more revenue. What gets lost in the shuffle is any conscious connection or response to the awful realities being depicted. We've created an entire culture that is increasingly desensitized to meaning. And that includes what happens when we share love and intimacy with a partner.”

Quinn blinked.

“Have you ever talked with Phoebe?”

“Phoebe?”

“Yeah.” Quinn made an oblique gesture toward the lake. “Out there. The fish.”

Page narrowed her eyes. “Don't tell me you believe all those ridiculous fairy tales about a two-hundred-year-old bass?”

“Well . . .”

Page sighed. “Is that why you're still doing this whole tournament thing? Because you want to be the one to catch her?”