The woman put a hand on the little boy’s shoulder and said something to him.
My chest hitched.
I didn’t want to remember this; it was easier to just stay angry with her.
“What happened?”
“She looked through all the drawings and...she started to cry. I was still mad as hell at her because of the way she’d been treating me, the way she never hugged me or kissed me or said she loved me, the way she spent all her time drinking...but she sat there with my drawings, shaking her head and crying and I felt so embarrassed. I finally asked her what the big deal was and she looked up at me and said –”
“– said that you had a great talent and were going to be famous for it someday. She knew this from looking at those drawings. She knew you were going to grow up to be what you are today. She told you that she was very proud of you and that she wanted you to keep on drawing, and maybe you could even start making up stories to go with the pictures –”
“– because she used to know someone who did that when she was a little girl,” I said. “She said that would be nice because...oh, Christ!...it would be nice if I’d do that because it would make her feel like someone else besides her was remembering her childhood.”
Old Bet gently lowered me to the ground. My legs gave out and I slammed ass-first into the dirt, shaking. “I remember how much that surprised me, and I just sat there staring at her. She looked so proud. Her smile was one of the greatest things I’d ever seen and I think—no, no, wait—I know I smiled back at her. I remember that very clearly.”
“And that was it,” said Lucy. “That was her moment. Do you have any idea how much it all meant to her? The drawings and your smile? When you smiled at her she knew for certain that you were going to be just what you are. And for that moment, she felt like it was all because of her. The world was new again.” She brushed some hair out of my eyes. “Do you remember what happened next?”
“I went over to give her a hug because it felt like I’d just gotten my mother back, then I smelled the liquor on her breath and got angry and yelled at her and made her leave my room.”
“But that doesn’t matter, don’t you see? What matters is the moment before. That’s what’s waiting for her. That’s what she’s forgotten.”
“Jesus….”
“You have to remember one thing, Andy. It wasn’t your fault. None of it. You were only a child. Promise me that you’ll remember that?”
“I’ll try.”
She smiled. “Good. Everything’s all right then.”
I rose and embraced her, then patted Old Bet. The elephant reached out and lifted Lucy onto its back.
“Are you going back without Mom?” I asked.
She tsk-ed at me and put her hands on her hips, an annoyed little girl. “Dummy! I told you once. We aren’t allowed to take people. Only remind them. Except this time, we had to ask you to help us.”
“Are you...are you her guardian angel?”
She didn’t hear me as Old Bet turned around and the two of them lumbered off, eventually vanishing into the layers of mist that rose from the distant edge of the field.
The chill latched onto my bones and sent me jogging back inside for hot coffee.
Gina was already brewing some as I entered the kitchen. She was wearing my extra bathrobe. Her hair was mussed and her cheeks were flushed and I’d never seen such a beautiful sight. She looked at me, saw something in my face, and smiled. “Look at you. Hmm. I must be better than I thought.”
I laughed and took her hand, pulling her close, feeling the warmth of her body, the electricity of her touch. The world was new again. At least until the phone rang.
A man identifying himself as Chief something-or-other from the Cedar Hill Fire Department asked me if I was the same Andrew Dysart whose mother lived at –
– something in the back of my head whispered Africa.
Good little girls.
Going home.
* * *
My new book, After the Elephant Ballet, was published five weeks ago. The dedication reads: “To my mother and her own private Africa; receive the world prepared for you.” Gina has started a scrapbook for the reviews, which have been the best I’ve ever received.
The other day when Gina and I were cleaning the house (“A new wife has to make sure her husband hasn’t got any little black books stashed around,” she’d said), I came across an old sketch pad: MY DrAWiNG TaLlAnt, bY ANdy DySArT, age 6. It’s filled with pictures of rockets and clowns and baseball players and scary monsters and every last one of them is terrible.
There are no drawings of angels.
ANdY DySArT, age 6 didn’t believe in them because he’d never seen proof of their existence.
In the back there’s a drawing of a woman wearing an apron and washing dishes. She’s got a big smile on her face and underneath are the words: MY mOM, thE nICE lAdy.
The arson investigators told me it was an accident. She had probably been drinking and fallen asleep in bed with a cigarette still burning. One of them asked if Mom had kept any stuffed animals on her bed. When I asked why, he handed me a pair of small, curved, fired-clay tusks.
On the way to Montreal for our honeymoon, Gina took a long detour. “I have a surprise for you.”
We went to Somers, New York.
An elephant named Old Bet actually existed. There really is a shrine there. Circus performers make pilgrimages to visit her grave. We had a picnic at the base of the gorgeous green hill where the grave lies. Afterward I laid back and stared at the clouds and thought about guardian angels and a smiling woman and her smiling little boy who’s holding a drawing pad and I wondered what Bradbury would do with that image.
Then decided it didn’t matter.
The moment waits. Still.
I go along, thud-thud.
In memory (goddammit!) of Rick Hautala, who once told me this was one of his favorite pieces of mine.
OVERNIGHT GUEST
By Craig Shaw Gardner
Did he really look like that?
George stared at himself in the bathroom mirror. It was the lighting in these places, always much too bright. It made you look one step away from rigor mortis. “The Curse of the Hotel Bathroom!” He smiled at the thought despite himself. His teeth looked yellow in the glare.
“George, honey? What’s taking you so long?”
Julie’s voice startled him from his reverie. She was so young, so cheerful, so fresh—so different from his wife.
“Be there in a second, honey.” He allowed himself one last masochistic glance. Those bags under his eyes weren’t always that dark, were they? Those smile lines on the sides of his mouth were long and well defined, like half-circles chiseled in stone. Remember when he had hair all the way across his head?
“I’m coming!” he called, and turned away. He shouldn’t pay any attention to the mirror. What should these little things matter, anyway, now that he had found Julie?
She sat on the edge of the double bed, her pale pink negligee a pleasant contrast to the light blue of the bedspread and the walls. Her dark brown hair framed her pale face, so white it might be made of porcelain. Her eyes, more almond-shaped than oval, gave her features a slight Oriental cast and made her one of the most beautiful women George had ever seen. A perfect picture, he thought as he approached her, my love in pale pastels.
She closed her eyes as he leaned down to kiss her.
“What took you so long?” she whispered when he paused for breath.
“Foolish vanity,” he replied after a moment’s pause.
“But I can’t wait. I need you so much now.” She wrapped her arms around him. “Kiss me,” she whispered. “Free me.”
He did as he was told.
* * *
It was funny, sometimes, how your life could change overnight.
George stared past the red glow of his cigarette, held out against the dark. Shadows fled across the room as cars passed on the road below. A window of light played acros
s the pale wallpaper, flowing by the TV, a dresser with a knob missing, and a picture of the sea. Julie slept beside him. Her soft breathing mixed with the distant voice of crickets. Together they spoke of peace and warmth and love.
George put the cigarette to his lips and breathed deeply. He thought of his wife.
Life with Alice wasn’t really so bad. It was just so ordinary. He realized that, now that he had found Julie.
But he hadn’t told Alice where he was going or how long he would be gone. Thoughts of Julie made it difficult to talk. He hadn’t had time to explain, only to go. How would he explain this weekend to Alice?
Maybe he wouldn’t go back.
The thought sliced through him like a cold wind, disturbing and exciting at the same time. How could he leave his wife, his kids? What would the guys say down at the plant when, day after day, he wouldn’t show up for work?
If he never showed up for work, what did it matter what the guys said?
He held back a laugh. He mustn’t wake Julie. He had heard of this sort of thing before, men who vanished completely and left their entire lives behind. Marriages, mortgages, jobs, obligations: Poof! He’d heard about it, but this was the first time he really thought about the implications.
Right now, the idea rather appealed to him.
Another car rushed by below. He rose from bed with the headlight’s glare, drawn by the pale pattern sweeping across the wall. Somehow, thoughts like this required movement.
He found himself standing in front of the dresser, surrounded by the night. He felt a little foolish now, alone in the darkness. He needed to calm down and get some sleep. Maybe a glass of water would help. He stumbled to the bathroom.
The light hurt his eyes. That damn yellow glare again.
It was those two old light bulbs overhead, the kind with clear glass. You could stare right at the filament and blind yourself. He should have found the faucet in the dark somehow. He squinted into the mirror as he poured the water. He really didn’t look that bad. He wouldn’t call himself old. Distinguished. That was a much better word. It was all a matter of attitude. Having a girl like Julie changed your whole world.
There was a buzzing in his ear as he swallowed the water. It was a low, level sound, something he couldn’t even be sure he heard. Insects, maybe. There could be crickets in the walls. He wouldn’t be surprised at anything in a place as old as this one.
He set the plastic cup by the sink and walked the three steps to the door. The buzzing was fainter here. There was probably something wrong with the light above the mirror. An old bulb, maybe, or something wrong with the circuit. He thought of insects trapped in that garish, glowing bulb, flying frantically, looking for escape that wasn’t there. Serves them right, he thought, for coming to a hotel like this.
The smile stayed on his face all the way back to bed.
* * *
“Good morning, lover!”
George opened his eyes. Julie’s eyes stared back at him, less than a foot away. They were beautiful dark eyes, brown with flecks of green, and he would have been content to look at them for hours if her lips hadn’t been so close as well.
Her kiss aroused him, and they made love in the early morning light. The sheets beneath them glowed yellow with the sun, and Julie’s soft skin seemed to glow as well under his caress. He found himself filled with a vitality he thought he had lost years before. Her touch was magic. He could make love to her a hundred times and never tire. She laughed, bright and warm, when he touched her just so, and her laughter filled him with a joy that could only be contained when they were in each other’s arms. If he could not touch her, could not kiss her, if they could not make love, he would surely shatter into a million pieces.
But her kisses were there, and her love was there, and when it was over, he found his tension was gone, and all it left was peace.
“What should we do today?” Julie asked after a while.
He wanted to say “make love,” but he suggested breakfast instead.
Julie hummed to herself as she dressed. George went into the bathroom to shave.
The yellow, glaring light was good for this sort of thing. It showed every pockmark and wrinkle, but it showed every chin hair as well. A clean shave every time, you handsome devil, George thought as he pushed on the electric razor. It was no wonder Julie was crazy about him. He was getting better looking every day.
The hum of the razor reminded him of the buzzing he’d heard in here the night before. He flipped the razor off. The buzzing was still there, faint but definite. He could hear it clearly now that he was awake.
Well, he wasn’t going to let a little buzzing noise ruin his weekend. His electric razor swallowed the lesser noise again. He and Julie had been lucky to find this place, getting away at the last minute, and in tourist season, too. This was the first time he’d been this far north, but Julie knew the area a little, and she had remembered this place just out of sight of the main highway.
Julie called from the other room. He followed her downstairs and across the courtyard to the motel’s coffee shop.
A little bell rang as they opened the door. There didn’t seem to be anyone in the place. They walked to a booth with faded green seats. There was a little jukebox over the table, the kind you hardly saw anymore. A hand-written note on the top informed them “Out of order! Don’t waste your money!”
A woman with a bright yellow cap appeared in a doorway behind the counter. “With you in a minute!” she chirped, and then she was gone again.
“I want my eggs sunny side up.” Julie smiled as she rose from her seat. “Be back in a minute.” She grabbed her purse and walked across the room to a door marked “Women.”
George stared after her for a moment, then turned his attention to the old jukebox. It was awfully quiet in this place. It was too bad this old thing didn’t work.
Look at these songs! Apparently, the jukebox had been out of order for some time. He flipped through the selections row-by-row. There wasn’t anything here even close to current. George didn’t pay that much attention to the radio, but he couldn’t remember hearing any of these songs for years.
There were a couple of titles he recognized—old standards, the kind that got recorded over and over again. He remembered, with sudden clarity, listening to one of the songs in the kitchen of his first home. Alice had sat across the table from him. Jane, their youngest, just a baby then, sat in Alice’s lap. It was late afternoon in early autumn, and the sunlight streaming had a golden tinge you only saw at that time of year. It had shone on his wife and child so they looked like they were filled with the sun. It made them more beautiful than anything he had ever seen.
He looked across the table at a neon sign that snapped and buzzed in the window. He wanted to talk to Alice. Maybe there was a phone in here someplace. If he could just hear the sound of Alice’s voice….
He could ask the waitress. What was taking her so long, anyway?
Julie stepped out of the ladies’ room. Even in the harsh fluorescent glare of the coffee shop, she was beautiful.
The waitress appeared right behind her. They both ordered ham and eggs. George wasn’t quite sure when the waitress left. He was too aware of the pressure of Julie’s foot against his ankle and the way her fingers played against his open palm.
This would be their day.
* * *
Julie led him into the room, but he hurried her to the bed. He had to have her now. He felt like he hadn’t made love in half a year rather than half a day. All afternoon, when they walked along the beach into town, when they poked together through the little shops, while they ate lunch in that overcrowded sandwich place, all he could think about was her touch, her laugh, the way her eyes looked into his.
Now at last they were alone. He laid Julie across the bed. She laughed, a warm, welcoming laugh. He laughed in response, a sound that came from deep inside. He used to laugh like that, long ago. When had he forgotten about laughter?
He laughed again as s
he pulled him down to join him, a laughter full and warm and young. Julie has given me this, too, he thought as their lips met. And then they were clutched tight in each other’s arms, and there was no more breath for laughter.
* * *
The buzzing was far worse in here now. He could hear it clearly, even over the noise of the TV Julie so avidly watched in the other room. Oh, well. For a woman as wonderful as that, he supposed he could forgive a weakness for sitcoms. They couldn’t make love all the time, after all.
God, was it noisy here! His ears seemed to become more and more attuned to it every time he turned on the light. At first, he hadn’t been sure anything was there. Now he was listening for nuances of sound.
There were three noises, really, in this bathroom. That buzzing sound was only the most prominent. There was a knocking far off, the kind you always heard in old houses. Or old hotels. And he heard another sound, too, an alternate sighing and whistling, surely the wind finding its way through this not-too-well-made structure.
He flushed the toilet and walked over to the sink. Maybe if he hit the old bulb a couple of times it would stop its racket. Looking at the flickering light, he remembered fifth grade. The florescent tubes had never been very good in that classroom. One had flickered worse than this. He and his classmates, who were very much into outer space at the time, decided it was the Martians trying to contact them. Absently, George wondered who was trying to contact him now.
He forgot about the bulb when he looked into the mirror.
He had all his hair. His receding hairline was gone. And his hair was deep, curly brown, not the wispy gray so prevalent the last couple of years.
So it wasn’t his imagination. He was getting younger.
“Julie!” he cried as he ran from the bathroom. She looked up from the TV.
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