by Joy Fielding
“You didn’t know that,” he said, resuming his packing. “You hoped there were. You were hoping one would bite you, just as you deliberately made yourself sick with the sun. You’re trying to destroy yourself, Gail. The same as you were doing back home. I was wrong to think I could do anything to stop you.”
“You think I’m crazy?” she asked.
Again he stopped his packing. “No,” he said, shaking his head. “I think you know exactly what you’re doing. I think you’ve made a conscious choice to die, and I don’t think that there’s a damn thing that I, or anyone else for that matter, can do to change your mind. I think that I, not you, am the crazy one. Or at least that I will be crazy if I stay around any longer to watch it happen. I can’t do it. I’d be aiding and abetting a suicide if I did.” He finished throwing the balance of his things into the suitcase and zipped it up. “I’ll see if there’s a plane out of here tonight. If not, I’ll sleep at a hotel and leave in the morning.”
“What about the Sniders?” she asked.
He stared at her in disbelief. “The Sniders?” he repeated incredulously. “I guess I’ll call them from the airport and say goodbye.” He stood still, looking at her. “That’s all you have to say to me?” he asked.
“Tell Jennifer I love her,” Gail whispered and then lay back against her pillow and watched him leave.
Chapter 35
The next day Gail arranged for another rental car and drove to Mother’s. She parked the car around the back in the designated parking lot and walked in through the rear entrance.
At first glance, it didn’t look any different than some of the larger hardware stores at home. It was just bigger. Everything was on a grander scale. The choices seemed limitless. Gail made her way down through the rows of various types of equipment, past the folding pup tents and flashlights, past the fishing tackles and toolboxes, to the front of the store. Here everything changed. The friendly camping gear gave way to the not so friendly world of the hunter. Rifles and guns of every shape and size lined the walls and the front counters and cabinets. Gail stared wide-eyed at the display.
“Can I help you?” a deep and knowing voice drawled from across the counter. “My God, would you just look at you,” the man continued when she lifted her head to meet his eyes. “Somebody got themselves good and charcoal-broiled,” he whistled.
“I fell asleep,” she told him.
“That does look sore,” he said, every word in invisible italics.
“It doesn’t feel too bad,” Gail lied. She had been up half the night throwing up, and every inch of her skin felt as if it had been stretched between two distant poles and scraped with a cheese grater.
The man, whose tag on his floral print Hawaiian shirt announced his name as Irv, winced at the imagined pain. “What can I do for you?” he asked.
“I want to buy a gun,” Gail told him, straining to keep her voice steady.
“Any particular kind?” he asked easily, unaware of her discomfort.
“Well, I don’t know anything about guns,” Gail began, “but I do know what I read in the papers, and I think I need something for protection. My husband is away a lot and I worry . . .”
“With good reason,” he agreed. “There’s lots to worry about these days. So you want something for yourself then?”
Gail nodded. “I don’t know anything about guns,” she repeated, as he reached into the locked cabinet and pulled out a small black weapon that looked like a toy. “It looks like a toy,” she said out loud.
“It isn’t,” he told her. “Here, feel the weight of this one.”
He put the gun into her outstretched palm. Gail was startled by its weight. “It’s heavy,” she announced, looking from the gun in her hand to his eyes.
“It’s no toy,” he repeated.
“What kind is it?”
“It’s an H & R nine-shot .22,” he told her. “I think that’s the best for someone like yourself, for what you want.”
“Will it kill?” Gail asked quietly.
“Oh shit yes,” the man said. “Pardon the language. Oh hell yes,” he substituted. “This thing’ll kill. You aim it at someone’s head or heart and you fire, and you got yourself one dead prowler. I got something bigger, if you want. I can give you a .357 magnum that’s more powerful and everything, but it’s not as easy to handle as this is. Why don’t you try this one,” he offered.
Gail positioned the gun properly in her hand, still astounded by its weight. Irv came around from his side of the counter.
“That’s right,” he told her. “You been watching television, I see.” He laughed. “The bullets go in here,” he indicated, pointing. “Nine of them.”
“Nine? I always thought six.”
“Depends on the weapon. This is a nine-shot. You get nine chances,” he smiled. “Put your finger on the trigger. That’s right. You don’t have to cock it. You just have to pull it.”
Gail tried, but the trigger didn’t move. “It won’t move,” she said, trying again.
“You gotta pull harder than that, honey,” Irv instructed. “They’re not built to go off with just a slight flick of the finger. You gotta give a good pull.”
Gail pulled on the trigger as hard as she could. It clicked. “Oh,” she gasped.
“Bull’s-eye,” Irv said proudly.
“How much?” Gail asked, as he returned to his side of the counter.
“Well, they’re usually a hundred and twenty-nine dollars, but they’re on sale for the next few weeks for just ninety-nine. The bullets are extra.”
“I’ll take it,” Gail said quickly.
He pushed a yellow piece of paper in her direction. “You gotta fill this out,” he told her.
“What is it?” Gail asked, perusing the yellow sheet.
“Firearms Transaction Record,” he said, the words sounding strange and formal in his mouth. “You have any children?” he asked, catching Gail by surprise.
“Yes,” she answered, “two.”
“How old?”
“Seventeen,” Gail said, then hesitated. “My little one,” she continued softly, “will be seven in three days.”
Irv smiled. “Still a little young,” he said. “I’d wait another year, till he’s eight, and then I’d teach him how to use it.”
“Teach a child to use a gun?” Gail asked, astonished.
“This is a great gun for kids,” the man said earnestly. “Sure, listen, you don’t know what’s liable to happen. Someone could break in when you’re out and the baby-sitter won’t know what to do, and if your kid knows how to operate this thing properly, it just might prevent a tragedy.”
“It could also create one,” Gail argued, though her heart wasn’t in it.
“Not if you’ve taught the little bugger well. But seven’s still too young. They’re not strong enough yet. Give him another year.”
“It’s a her,” Gail said, and immediately wondered why.
“Give her another year,” Irv said without missing a beat. “In the meantime, you can get a piece of string and secure the trigger like this.” He demonstrated. “That way there won’t be any accidents.”
Gail fished in her purse for a pen but couldn’t find one. Irv pushed one in her direction and began wrapping up the gun. Gail read through the yellow piece of paper. “Firearms Transaction Record,” it said at the top, and just underneath, “Part 1—Intra-State Over-the-Counter.” She was asked for her name and address. Gail Walton, she filled in, and gave her parents’ address. They wanted to know her height, her weight, her race, and date and place of birth. She obliged them with the details. The rest of the questions, to which she was to respond with a simple yes or no, were much more interesting: Was she under indictment for an imprisonable offense? Had she ever been convicted of a crime punishable by a prison term of more than one year? Was she a fugitive from justice? Was she an unlawful user of drugs or a drug addict? Had she ever been judged mentally defective or spent time in a mental institution? Had she ever be
en discharged from the Armed Forces under dishonorable conditions? Was she an illegal alien? Was she a U.S. citizen who had renounced that citizenship?
She was warned in print that an untruthful answer might subject her to criminal prosecution. Gail felt duly chastised and wrote no beside all the questions. Did anyone, she wondered with some amusement, ever write yes? All that was required of her now was her signature and the date. The rest of the form was to be filled out by the seller. Gail pushed the paper back in Irv’s direction. She was about to put the pen in her purse, when she realized that it wasn’t hers, and guiltily rolled it over to his waiting fingers.
He read through her list of answers. “You’re forty?” he asked, taking a longer look at her. Gail nodded. “Never would have guessed,” he said. “Of course, it’s kind of hard to tell with that bright orange skin.” He glanced back at the piece of paper. “I’ll need your driver’s license,” he said.
Gail fished in her purse for her wallet, retrieved it and pulled out her license.
“What’s this?” he asked after she’d handed it over.
“My license,” Gail said, confused.
“This is from New Jersey,” he told her, as if she might not have known.
“That’s right,” Gail agreed. “I’m from New Jersey. We just moved down a few months ago.”
“You need a Florida license.”
Gail was silent. She didn’t know what to say. He sensed her confusion.
“Nothin’ to get yourself upset about,” he said gently, looking at his watch. “It’s kind of late now. I don’t think you’d have time to get there before the office closes, it being a Friday and all, but, look, there’s no problem. I’ll just put the gun away for you, and I’ll keep this here sheet until Monday, and first thing on Monday morning, you go on over to the city hall in Lake Worth,” he continued, rechecking the information on her sheet. “That’s the closest one to where you live, and you take your little driving test and you get your Florida license.”
“I have to take a test?”
“It’s just a formality. We already know you can drive. All you gotta do is take a written test, and ten minutes later you’ll have your license. You bring it on down here and you’ll have your gun.”
“I have to wait till Monday,” she repeated.
“Husband gone for the weekend?” he asked. Gail nodded. “Wish I could help you,” he said sincerely. He raised his hands in a gesture that asked, What can I do?
Gail folded her license back into her wallet. “I’ll be back on Monday,” she told him, realizing as she spoke that Monday was Cindy’s birthday. Somehow, it seemed appropriate.
*
She spent the weekend in the apartment. Her mother called. New York was glorious, if cold. Carol looked wonderful. Stephen was an absolute dream. They had gotten them tickets to two Broadway shows, and each one had been exhilarating. They had eaten dinner at the Four Seasons, where the menus didn’t have prices, and where they spotted David Susskind with a pretty blonde. The bill for the four of them—Steve had insisted on picking up the tab—was over three hundred dollars. Lila asked how Jack was doing, what the weather was like, and if she was still having a good time. Gail answered that Jack was fine, the weather was great, and that she couldn’t be enjoying herself more.
Gail’s father came on the line to repeat the same information from a different perspective. The weather in New York was miserable; Carol looked tired; Stephen was a pompous bore; the plays they had been subjected to were tuneless and drab—he had barely managed to stay awake. Dinner, he concluded, had been overpriced.
The last speaker was Carol. Their parents, she confided, were driving her crazy and she didn’t know how much more of them she’d be able to take. What was the matter with them? Steve didn’t know what to make of their behavior. They’d tried to make their visit pleasant, she admitted in defeat at the end of the conversation, but nothing seemed to make them happy. Regrettably, she would be glad to see them leave.
The only other people who called were the Sniders. Jack had phoned them from the airport to explain that an emergency had come up at the office with which his temporary girl was not equipped to deal, and he had to return that night. Gail, he had explained, was staying on for a few more days. How was she feeling? they inquired. Did she want to go out for dinner one night before she left? She declined with thanks and told them she would be leaving Monday. Wasn’t it a shame how you couldn’t depend on anybody these days? Sandra asked, and Gail agreed, forgetting to say goodbye before she hung up the phone. She spent the rest of the weekend in bed.
*
Irv was right—it was a joke.
Gail stared down at the list of questions on the test in front of her. She had as long as necessary to answer twenty elementary questions on driving. What’s more, the questions were multiple choice, and she had been allowed to bring the information booklet in with her. If she didn’t know an answer, all she had to do was look it up. Furthermore, she had been informed when she arrived to take the driving test, she was free to bring someone in with her who could assist her. Gail looked around the room. There were half a dozen other people taking the test, leaning forward in the old wooden chairs, giving all their attention to the project at hand. One young Cuban was having noticeable problems, probably with the language, Gail thought, looking past him to a teenage girl who had brought her father along as adviser.
Gail picked up the pen beside her and quickly ticked off the correct answers to the questions: An octagonal-shaped red sign meant (a) yield, (b) stop, (c) danger, (d) curves ahead. An arrow which pointed right indicated (a) the road continued straight ahead, (b) the road turned to the left, (c) the road turned to the right, (d) a dead end. Eighteen more of the same. Gail finished and handed her test paper to the woman in charge, who took more time to mark it than Gail had needed to complete it. They must take lessons in slowness, Gail thought, waiting for the woman to finish marking. “You got them all right,” she smiled. “Take this to Mrs. Hartly in the other room. She’ll give you your license.”
Gail thanked her, took her results firmly in her hand and left the room. Just as Irv had predicted, ten minutes later she had her license.
*
“Here it is, brand spanking new,” Gail said, producing her newly acquired driver’s license and handing it across the counter to Irv. He was wearing another one of those bright Hawaiian numbers, this one filled with pictures of women in grass skirts and bikinis. “I got perfect marks,” she said with some pride, and laughed.
“Good for you,” he said, retrieving her yellow form from the drawer where he had placed it and copying her license number into the appropriate box. “You’re looking better too. Not so sore.”
“I’m peeling like crazy,” Gail informed him. “My legs look like snake scales.”
“Always liked snakes,” the man confided, with a wink at her legs. She was wearing slacks to hide them.
“I’ve never liked them,” Gail shuddered. “I’m afraid of them. I always have been.”
“It’s been my experience,” Irv said, “that the only snakes you have to be afraid of are the ones that walk on two legs.” He pulled the H & R nine-shot .22 out of its box and marked down its serial number and the other required information in the appropriate squares. Then he signed and dated the form.
“You survived the weekend, I see,” he said, returning the gun to its box.
“Barely,” Gail told him. “I was kind of nervous about that stupid test.” It was true. She had always gotten very nervous over tests. In her several years at college, she had often lost as much as eight pounds over a set of exams, and even term tests in high school had thrown her into a panic. She was always prepared, and she always did well, but every year her anxiety increased. Leaving school to marry Mark had been something of a relief.
“Better not forget the bullets,” Gail reminded him.
Irv secured the box, located the proper bullets, and put the whole package in a plastic bag before handi
ng it over. “Don’t shoot till you see the whites of their eyes,” he smiled.
Chapter 36
On impulse, Gail stopped at a bakery on the way home and purchased a small birthday cake. “‘Happy Birthday’ will be fine,” Gail told the saleslady when she asked if there was a name Gail wanted added. The cake was round and covered with white icing and pink flowers. Gail also bought a small box of birthday candles. She drove back to her parents’ condominium with the cake and the gun sitting in the seat beside her.
When she got inside the apartment, she set the cake on the kitchen table and unwrapped the box containing the gun. She laid it on the table beside the cake and then changed into her bathing suit and went for a walk on the beach.
It seemed there were fewer people out today, although the sky was as relentlessly blue as ever. There was only a handful of people out by the pool. Ronnie and his friends had departed over the weekend. The season had another month or so to run, then most of the tourists would disappear, leaving behind the locals. Half the stores and a good number of the restaurants would close their doors until next October. The houses would be boarded up. Hurricane shutters would be firmly in place. Like a cottage closed for the winter, Palm Beach would effectively shut itself up for the summer.
Gail walked along the wide expanse of beach. The sand was hard and good for walking. She had always loved this stretch of beach. Even at its most crowded, its numbers never approximated the hordes of people who flocked to Fort Lauderdale or Miami. Gail moved her eyes from the ocean to the line of low white buildings. The newer condominiums displayed interesting curves and angles, with a maximum exposure to the ocean view, and as much window frontage as the rules allowed. Balcony railings curved around corners; people sat sunning themselves on their private deck chairs, a bottle of expensive wine at their feet. Could life be more perfect than this? they seemed to ask.
Gail continued walking until she reached the bridge at Boynton Beach, marching past the men fishing off its sides, to its tip. The ocean was calm, its waves scarcely more than ripples. Gail watched it, thinking of how calm it had always made her feel, and realized that even now, it was having that effect. Nothing was that important, it said to her. Life was never meant to be taken this seriously.