Lisey’s Story (47 page)

And Lisey, who now began to see—vaguely—a course of events ahead of her, called back “Check!” She'd have to begin by returning to the house. But first, before anything else, a drink of water. If she didn't get some more water, and soon, her throat might catch fiah like that house over to Cash Corners.

“I'll be coming by Patel's on my way back, Mrs. Landon, would you like me to pick anything up?”

Yes! A six-pack of ice-cold Coke and a carton of Salem Lights!

“No thanks, Deputy.” If she had to talk much more, her voice would give out. Even if it didn't, he'd hear something wrong in it.

“Not even doughnuts? They have great doughnuts.” A smile in his voice.

“Dieting!” It was all she dared.

“Oh-oh, I heard
that
,” he said. “You have a nice day, Mrs. Landon.”

Please God no more
, she prayed, and called back, “You too, Deputy!”

Clump-clump-clumpety-clump, and away he went.

Lisey listened for the sound of an engine and after awhile thought she heard one starting up, but very faint. He must have parked by her mailbox and then walked the length of the driveway.

Lisey lay where she was a moment longer, gathering herself, then rose to a sitting position. Dooley had sliced diagonally across her breast and up toward the hollow of her armpit. The ragged, wandering gash had stiffened and closed up a little, but her movement tore it open again. The pain was enormous. Lisey cried out and that made matters even worse. She felt fresh blood run down her ribcage. Those dark wings began to steal over her vision again and she willed them away, repeating the same mantra over and over again until the world grew solid:
I have to finish this, I have to get behind the purple. I have to finish this, I have to get behind the purple. I have to finish this and get behind the purple.

Yes, behind the purple. On the hillside it had been lupin; in her mind it was the heavy curtain she had constructed herself—maybe with Scott's help, certainly with his tacit approval.

I've gotten behind it before.

Had she? Yes.

And I can do it again. Get behind it or rip the goddam thing down if I have to.

Question: Had she and Scott ever spoken of Boo'ya Moon again after that night at The Antlers? Lisey thought not. They had their code words, of course, and God knew those words had floated out of the purple on occasion when she'd been unable to find him in malls and grocery stores . . . not to mention the time that nurse misplaced him in his smucking hospital bed . . . and there was the muttering reference to his long boy when he'd been lying in the parking lot after Gerd Allen Cole had shot him . . . and Kentucky . . . Bowling Green, as he lay dying . . .

Stop, Lisey!
the voices chorused.
You mustn't, little Lisey!
they cried. Mein gott,
you don't darenzee!

She had tried to put Boo'ya Moon behind her, even after the winter of '96, when—

“When I went there again.” Her voice was dry but clear in her dead husband's study. “In the winter of 1996 I went again. I went to bring him back.”

There it was, and the world did not end. Men in white coats did not materialize out of the walls to carry her away. In fact she thought she even felt a little better, and maybe that wasn't so surprising. Maybe when you got right down to where the short hairs grew, truth was a bool, and all it wanted was to come out.

“Okay, it's out now—some of it, the Paul part—so can I get a smucking drink of water?”

Nothing told her no, and using the edge of Dumbo's Big Jumbo as a support, Lisey managed to pull herself to her feet. The dark wings came again, but she hung her head over, trying to keep as much blood in her miserable excuse for a brain as possible, and this time the faintness passed more quickly. She set sail for the bar alcove, walking her own backtrail of blood, taking slow steps with her feet wide apart, thinking she must look like an old lady whose walker had been stolen.

She made it, sparing only a brief look for the glass lying on the carpet. She wanted nothing more to do with that one. She got another out of the cabinet, once again using her right hand—the left was still clutching the bloody square of knitting—and drew cold water. Now the water was running again and the pipes barely chugged at all. She swung out the glass mirror over the basin, and inside was what she had been hoping for: a bottle of Scott's Excedrin. No childproof cap to slow her down, either. She winced at the vinegary smell that wafted from the bottle after she popped the cap, and checked the expiration date:
JUL 05.
Oh well
, she thought,
a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do.

“I think Shakespeare said that,” she croaked, and swallowed three of the Excedrin. She didn't know how much good they would do her, but the water was heavenly and she drank until her belly cramped. Lisey stood clutching the lip of her dead husband's bar sink, waiting for the cramp to pass. Finally it did. That left only the pain in her beaten-up face and the much deeper throbbing in her lacerated breast. In the house she had something much stronger than Scott's head-bonkers (although certainly
no fresher), Vicodin from Amanda's previous adventure in self-mutilation. Darla also had some, and Canty had Manda-Bunny's bottle of Percocet. They had all agreed without ever really even discussing it that Amanda herself couldn't be allowed access to the hard stuff; she might get feeling yucky and decide to take everything at once. Call it a Tequila Sunset.

Lisey would try for the house—and the Vicodin—soon, but not quite yet. Walking in the same careful feet-wide-apart way, a half-filled glass of water in one hand and the blood-soaked square of african in the other, Lisey made her way to the dusty booksnake and sat down there, waiting to see what three geriatric Excedrin might do for her pain. And as she waited, her thoughts turned once more to the night she had found him in the guest room—in the guest room but
gone.

I kept thinking we were on our own. That wind, that smucking wind

She's listening to that killer wind scream around the house, listening to snowgrit whip against the windows, knowing they're on their own—that
she
is on her own. And as she listens, her thoughts turn once more to that night in New Hampshire when the hour was none and the moon kept teasing the shadows with its inconstant light. She remembers how she opened her mouth to ask if he could really do it, could really take her, and then closed it again, knowing it to be the kind of question you only ask when you want to play for time . . . and don't you only play for time when you're not on the same side?

We're on the same side
, she remembers thinking.
If we're going to get married, we better be.

But there
was
one question that needed asking, maybe because that night at The Antlers it was
her
turn to jump off the bench. “What if it's night over there? You said there are bad things over there at night.”

He smiled at her. “It's not, honey.”

“How do you know?”

He shook his head, still smiling. “I just do. The way a kid's dog knows it's time to go sit by the mailbox because the schoolbus will be right along. It's almost sunset over there. It often is.”

She didn't understand that, but didn't ask—one question always led on to another, that had been her experience, and the time for questions was done. If she meant to trust him, the time for questions was done. So she had taken a deep breath and said, “All right. It's our frontloaded honeymoon. Take me someplace that isn't New Hampshire. This time I want a good look.”

He crushed his half-smoked cigarette in the ashtray and took her lightly by her upper arms, his eyes dancing with excitement and good humor—how well she remembers the feel of his fingers on her flesh that night. “You've got a yard of guts, little Lisey—I'll tell the world that. Hold on and let's see what happens.”

And he took me
, Lisey thinks as she sits in the guest room, now holding the waxy-cool hand of the breathing man-doll in the rocker. But she feels the smile on her face—little Lisey, big smile—and wonders how long it's been there.
He took me, I know he did. But that was seventeen years ago, when we were both young and brave and he was all present and accounted for. Now he's
gone.

Except his
body
is still here. Does that mean he can no longer go physically, as he did when he was a child? As she knows he has from time to time since she herself has known him? As he did from the hospital in Nashville, for example, when the nurse couldn't find him?

It is then that Lisey feels the faint tightening of his hand on hers. It's almost imperceptible, but he is her love and she feels it. His eyes still stare off toward the blank face of the TV from above the folds of the yellow african, but yes, his hand is squeezing hers. It is a kind of
long-distance
squeeze, and why not? He's plenty far away, even if his body
is
here, and where he is, he might be squeezing with all his might.

Lisey has a sudden brilliant intuition: Scott is holding a conduit open for her. God knows what it's costing him to do it, or how long he can keep it up, but that's what he's doing. Lisey lets go of his hand and gets up on her knees, ignoring the tingling burst of pins and needles in her legs, which have almost gone to sleep, likewise ignoring another great
cold gust of wind that shakes the house. She tears away enough of the african so she can slide her arms between Scott's sides and his unresisting arms, so she can clasp her hands at the middle of his back and hug him. She puts her urgent face in the path of his blank stare.

“Pull me,” she whispers to him, and gives his limp body a shake. “Pull me to where you are, Scott.”

There's nothing, and she raises her voice to a shout.

“
Pull me, goddam you! Pull me to where you are so I can bring you home! Do it! IF YOU WANT TO COME HOME, TAKE ME TO WHERE YOU ARE!”

“And you did,” Lisey muttered. “
You
did and
I
did. I'll be smucked if I know how this thing is supposed to work now that you're dead and gone instead of just gomered out in the guest room, but that's what it's all been about, hasn't it?
All
of this.”

And she
did
have an idea of how it was supposed to work. It was far back in her mind, just a shape behind that curtain of hers, but it was there.

Meantime, the Excedrin had kicked in. Not a lot, but maybe enough so she could get down to the floor of the barn without passing out and breaking her neck. If she could get there, she could get into the house where the really
good
dope was stashed . . . assuming it still worked. It
better
work, because she had things to do and places to go. Some of them far places, indeed.

“Journey of a thousand miles begin with single step, Lisey-san,” she said, and got up from the booksnake.

Once more walking in slow, shuffling steps, Lisey set sail for the stairs. It took her almost three minutes to negotiate them, clinging to the banister every step of the way and pausing twice when she felt faint, but she made it without falling, sat for a little while on the sheeted
mein gott
bed to catch her breath, and then began the long expedition to the back door of her house.

Lisey's greatest fear, that the late-morning heat would overcome her and she'd pass out halfway between the barn and the house, came to nothing. The sun obliged her by ducking behind a cloud, and a cap of cool breeze materialized to briefly soothe her overheated skin and flushed, swollen face. By the time she got to the back stoop, the deep laceration in her breast was pounding again, but the dark wings stayed away. There was a bad moment when she couldn't find her housekey, but eventually her fumbling fingers touched the fob—a little silver elf—beneath the wad of Kleenex she usually carried in her right front pocket, so
that
was all right. And the house was cool. Cool and silent and blessedly
hers.
Now if it would only remain hers while she tended herself. No calls, no visitors, no six-foot deputies lumbering up to the back door to check on her. Also, please God (
pretty
please) no return visit from the Black Prince of the Incunks.

She crossed the kitchen and got the white plastic basin out from under the sink. It hurt to bend, hurt a
lot
, and once more she felt the warmth of flowing blood on her skin and soaking the remains of her shredded top.

He got off on doing it—you know that, don't you?

Of course she did.

And he'll be back. No matter what you promise—no matter what you
deliver—
he'll be back. Do you know that, too?

Yes, she knew that, too.

Because to Jim Dooley, his deal with Woodbody and Scott's manuscripts are all just so much ding-dong for the freesias. There's a reason why he went for your boob instead of your earlobe or maybe a finger.

“Sure,” she told her empty kitchen—shady, then suddenly bright as the sun sailed out from behind a cloud. “It's the Jim Dooley version of great sex. And next time it
will
be my pussy, if the cops don't stop him.”

You stop him, Lisey. You.

“Don't be silly, dollink,” she told the empty kitchen in her best Zsa Zsa Gabor voice. Once again using her right hand, she opened the cupboard over the toaster, took out a box of Lipton teabags, and put them into the white basin. She added the bloody square of the african from Good Ma's cedar box, although she had absolutely no idea why she was still carrying it. Then she began trudging toward the stairs.