Full dark,no stars (41 page)

But it wasnt Bob, it was Donnie. Oh, shoot, I really wanted to talk to you guys.

She picked up the phone, leaned back against the counter, and said, So talk. I was coming back from the garage.

Donnie was bubbling over with news. He was living in Cleveland, Ohio, now, and after two years of thankless toiling in an entry-level position with the citys largest ad firm, he and a friend had decided to strike out on their own. Bob had strongly advised against this, telling Donnie that Donnie and his partner would never get the start-up loan they needed to make it through the first year.

Wake up, hed said after Darcy turned the phone over to him. In the early spring this had been, with the last bits of snow still lurking beneath the trees and bushes in the backyard. Youre twenty-four, Donnie, and sos your pal Ken. You two galoots cant even get collision insurance on your cars for another year, just straight liability. No banks going to underwrite a seventy-thousand-dollar start-up, especially with the economy the way it is.

But they had gotten the loan, and now had landed two big clients, both on the same day. One was a car dealership looking for a fresh approach that would attract thirtysomething buyers. The other was the very bank that had issued Anderson amp; Hayward their start-up loan. Darcy shouted with delight, and Donnie yelled right back. They talked for twenty minutes or so. Once during the conversation they were interrupted by the double-beep of an incoming call.

Do you want to get that? Donnie asked.

No, its just your father. Hes in Montpelier, looking at a collection of steel pennies. Hell call back before he turns in.

Hows he doing?

Fine, she thought. Developing new interests.

Upright and sniffin the air, she said. It was one of Bobs favorites, and it made Donnie laugh. She loved to hear him laugh.

And Pets?

Call her yourself and see, Donald.

I will, I will. I always get around to it. In the meantime, thumbnail me.

Shes great. Full of wedding plans.

Youd think it was next week instead of next June.

Donnie, if you dont make an effort to understand women, youll never get married yourself.

Im in no hurry, Im having too much fun.

Just as long as you have fun carefully.

Im very careful and very polite. Ive got to run, Ma. Im meeting Ken for a drink in half an hour. Were going to start brainstorming this car thing.

She almost told him not to drink too much, then restrained herself. He might still look like a high school junior, and in her clearest memory of him he was a five-year-old in a red corduroy jumper, tirelessly pushing his scooter up and down the concrete paths of Joshua Chamberlain Park in Pownal, but he was neither of those boys anymore. He was a young man, and also, as improbable as it seemed, a young entrepreneur beginning to make his way in the world.

Okay, she said. Thanks for calling, Donnie. It was a treat.

Same here. Say hello to the old feller when he calls back, and give him my love.

I will.

Upright and sniffin the air, Donnie said, and snickered. How many Cub Scout packs has he taught that one to?

All of them. Darcy opened the refrigerator to see if there was perchance a Butterfinger in there, chilling and awaiting her amorous intentions. Nope. Its terrifying.

Love you, Mom.

Love you, too.

She hung up, feeling good again. Smiling. But as she stood there, leaning against the counter, the smile faded.

A clunk.

There had been a clunk when she pushed the box of catalogues back under the workbench. Not a clatter, as if the box had struck a dropped tool, but a clunk. Sort of hollow-sounding.

I dont care.

Unfortunately, this was not true. The clunk felt like unfinished business. The carton did, too. Were there other magazines like Bondage Bitches stashed in there?

I dont want to know.

Right, right, but maybe she should find out, just the same. Because if there was just the one, she was right about its being sexual curiosity that had been fully satisfied by a single peek into an unsavory (and unbalanced, she added to herself) world. If there were more, that might still be all right-he was throwing them out, after all-but maybe she should know.

Mostly that clunk. It lingered on her mind more than the question about the magazines.

She snagged a flashlight from the pantry and went back out to the garage. She pinched the lapels of her housecoat shut immediately and wished shed put on her jacket. It was really getting cold. 4 -

Darcy got down on her knees, pushed the box of catalogues to one side, and shone the light under the worktable. For a moment she didnt understand what she was seeing: two lines of darkness interrupting the smooth baseboard, one slightly fatter than the other. Then a thread of disquiet formed in her midsection, stretching from the middle of her breastbone down to the pit of her stomach. It was a hiding place.

Leave this alone, Darcy. Its his business, and for your own peace of mind you should let it stay that way.

Good advice, but she had come too far to take it. She crawled under the worktable with the flashlight in her hand, steeling herself for the brush of cobwebs, but there were none. If she was the original out-of-sight, out-of-mind girl, then her balding, coin-collecting, Cub Scouting husband was the original everything-polished, everything-clean boy.

Also, hes crawled under here himself, so no cobwebs would have a chance to form.

Was that true? She didnt actually know, did she?

But she thought she did.

The cracks were at either end of an eight-inch length of baseboard that appeared to have a dowel or something in the middle so it could pivot. She had struck it with the box just hard enough to jar it open, but that didnt explain the clunk. She pushed one end of the board. It swung in on one end and out on the other, revealing a hidey-hole eight inches long, a foot high, and maybe eighteen inches deep. She thought she might discover more magazines, possibly rolled up, but there were no magazines. There was a little wooden box, one she was pretty sure she recognized. It was the box that had made the clunking sound. It had been standing on end, and the pivoting baseboard had knocked it over.

She reached in, grasped it, and-with a sense of misgiving so strong it almost had a texture-brought it out. It was the little oak box she had given to him at Christmas five years ago, maybe more. Or had it been for his birthday? She didnt remember, just that it had been a good buy at the craft shop in Castle Rock. Hand-carved on the top, in bas-relief, was a chain. Below the chain, also in bas-relief, was the boxs stated purpose: LINKS. Bob had a clutter of cufflinks, and although he favored button-style shirts for work, some of his wrist-jewelry was quite nice. She remembered thinking the box would help keep them organized. Darcy knew shed seen it on top of the bureau on his side of the bedroom for awhile after the gift was unwrapped and exclaimed over, but couldnt remember seeing it lately. Of course she hadnt. It was out here, in the hidey-hole under his worktable, and she would have bet the house and lot (another of his sayings) that if she opened it, it wouldnt be cufflinks she found inside.

Dont look, then.

More good advice, but now she had come much too far to take it. Feeling like a woman who has wandered into a casino and for some mad reason staked her entire lifes savings on a single turn of a single card, she opened the box.

Let it be empty. Please God, if you love me let it be empty.

But it wasnt. There were three plastic oblongs inside, bound with an elastic band. She picked the bundle out, using just the tips of her fingers-as a woman might handle a cast-off rag she fears may be germy as well as dirty. Darcy slipped off the elastic.

They werent credit cards, which had been her first idea. The top one was a Red Cross blood donors card belonging to someone named Marjorie Duvall. Her type was A-positive, her region New England. Darcy turned the card over and saw that Marjoriewhoever she was-had last given blood on August sixteenth of 2010. Three months ago.

Who the hell was Marjorie Duvall? How did Bob know her? And why did the name ring a faint but very clear bell?

The next one was Marjorie Duvalls North Conway Library card, and it had an address: 17 Honey Lane, South Gansett, New Hampshire.

The last piece of plastic was Marjorie Duvalls New Hampshire drivers license. She looked like a perfectly ordinary American woman in her mid-thirties, not very pretty (although nobody looked their best in drivers license photographs), but presentable. Darkish blond hair pulled back from her face, either bunned or ponytailed; in the picture you couldnt tell. DOB, January 6, 1974. The address was the same as the one on the library card.

Darcy realized that she was making a desolate mewing sound. It was horrible to hear a sound like that coming from her own throat, but she couldnt stop. And her stomach had been replaced by a ball of lead. It was pulling all of her insides down, stretching them into new and unpleasant shapes. She had seen Marjorie Duvalls face in the newspaper. Also on the six oclock news.

With hands that had absolutely no feeling, she put the rubber band back around the ID cards, put them back in the box, then put the box back in his hidey-hole. She was getting ready to close it up again when she heard herself saying, No, no, no, that isnt right. It cant be.

Was that the voice of Smart Darcy or Stupid Darcy? It was hard to tell. All she knew for sure was that Stupid Darcy had been the one to open the box. And thanks to Stupid Darcy, she was falling.

Taking the box back out. Thinking, Its a mistake, it has to be, weve been married over half our lives, Id know, I would know. Opening the box. Thinking, Does anybody really know anybody?

Before tonight she certainly would have thought so.

Marjorie Duvalls drivers license was now on the top of the stack. Before, it had been on the bottom. Darcy put it there. But which of the others had been on top, the Red Cross card or the library card? It was simple, it had to be simple when there were only two choices, but she was too upset to remember. She put the library card on top and knew at once that was wrong, because the first thing shed seen when she opened the box was a flash of red, red like blood, of course a blood donor card would be red, and that had been the one on top.

She put it there, and as she was putting the elastic back around the little collection of plastic, the phone in the house started to ring again. It was him. It was Bob, calling from Vermont, and were she in the kitchen to take the call, shed hear his cheery voice (a voice she knew as well as her own) asking, Hey, honey, how are you?

Her fingers jerked and the rubber band snapped. It flew away, and she cried out, whether in frustration or fear she didnt know. But really, why would she be afraid? Twenty-seven years of marriage and he had never laid a hand on her, except to caress. On only a few occasions had he raised his voice to her.

The phone rang again again and then cut off in mid-ring. Now he would be leaving a message. Missed you again! Damn! Give me a call so I wont worry, okay? The number is

Hed add the number of his room, too. He left nothing to chance, took nothing for granted.

What she was thinking absolutely couldnt be true. It was like one of those monster delusions that sometimes reared up from the mud at the bottom of a persons mind, sparkling with hideous plausibility: that the acid indigestion was the onset of a heart attack, the headache a brain tumor, and Petras failure to call on Sunday night meant she had been in a car accident and was lying comatose in some hospital. But those delusions usually came at four in the morning, when the insomnia was in charge. Not at eight oclock in the evening and where was that damned rubber band?

She found it at last, lying behind the carton of catalogues she never wanted to look in again. She put it in her pocket, started to get up to look for another one without remembering where she was, and thumped her head on the bottom of the table. Darcy began to cry.

There were no rubber bands in any of the worktables drawers, and that made her cry even harder. She went back through the breezeway, the terrible, inexplicable identity cards in her housecoat pocket, and got an elastic out of the kitchen drawer where she kept all sorts of semi-useful crap: paper clips, bread ties, fridge magnets that had lost most of their pull. One of these latter said DARCY RULES, and had been a stocking-stuffer present from Bob.

On the counter, the light on top of the phone blinked steadily, saying message, message, message.

She hurried back to the garage without holding the lapels of her housecoat. She no longer felt the outer chill, because the one inside was greater. And then there was the lead ball pulling down her guts. Elongating them. She was vaguely aware that she needed to move her bowels, and badly.

Never mind. Hold it. Pretend youre on the turnpike and the next rest areas twenty miles ahead. Get this done. Put everything back the way it was. Then you can-

Then she could what? Forget it?

Fat chance of that.

She bound the ID cards with the elastic, realized the drivers license had somehow gotten back on top, and called herself a stupid bitch a pejorative for which she would have slapped Bobs face, had he ever tried to hang it on her. Not that he ever had.

A stupid bitch but not a bondage bitch, she muttered, and a cramp knifed her belly. She dropped to her knees and froze that way, waiting for it to pass. If there had been a bathroom out here she would have dashed for it, but there wasnt. When the cramp let go-reluctantly-she rearranged the cards in what she was pretty sure was the right order (blood donor, library, drivers license), then put them back in the LINKS box. Box back in hole. Pivoting piece of baseboard closed up tight. Carton of catalogues back where it had been when she tripped on it: sticking out slightly. He would never know the difference.