Justine shrugged. It was nice here, pleasant and even fun. She had an urge to go up front and talk with Tad, but she also had another, even stronger urge to return to Elysian Fields. She couldn’t help thinking about it, how pleasant and beautiful it was there. All day in school, images of the development had been playing on the back of her mind, reminding her what awaited her once she entered the front gate. She was looking forward to taking a nice walk through the development and getting some afternoon sun at the pool.
“Well, what did you want to talk about?” she asked again, not hiding her impatience.
“Elysian Fields, Dr. Lawrence, you…me. You’re the first new girl who has moved in since…since my…my emancipation,” she said. “You remember what that word means, don’t you?” Justine shook her head. “Freedom.”
“Freedom? What freedom? Freedom from what?”
“From chains, only these are chains you can’t see.” Justine shifted in her seat. Lois Wilson’s eyes grew threateningly small as her face turned angry. The patches of tiny freckles under her eyes and over her cheekbones brightened, as if some light had been turned on inside her head. Her skin was so pale, it was nearly translucent. “I wanted to speak to you alone that day you arrived and warn you then, but Janet was right at my side the whole afternoon. And then, by the time I got back to you, Dr. Lawrence had already arrived with his present.”
“You mean the wonderful vitamins. I do feel better,” Justine began. “I feel more energetic and…”
“It’s an illusion. You don’t feel any better than you did before you took them, believe me. I know, because…” Lois looked up to be sure no one was close enough to eavesdrop. “Because I’ve stopped taking them.”
“I don’t understand,” Justine said, her impatience giving way to irritability. The waitress returned before she or Lois could go on.
“I don’t understand it all, either,” Lois said softly, after the waitress put down their drinks and left. She sipped some of her soda and took the long spoon out of the tall glass. “But something very strange and very frightening is happening in Elysian Fields. I know it, and I’ll tell you exactly how I know it, but you’ve got to try to be a little patient, okay? I know you’re sitting there on pins and needles. All you want to do is go home, right?” “Right?” she repeated when Justine didn’t reply. Justine nodded. “That’s part of it, don’t you see?”
“No, I don’t. I’m beginning to think you’re crazy.” She sipped some of her Coke quickly, her nervousness becoming more intense. Her eyes darted from side to side, and she fidgeted with her napkin. When Lois pushed her soda aside and reached across the table to take Justine’s hand, Justine pulled away. “What is it with you?”
“Listen, just listen. When did you ever want to rush home like this before? Did you want to do it in the city?”
“No, but it wasn’t as beautiful there.”
“A few days ago, you liked it better there, didn’t you? Or can’t you remember that?” Lois asked.
Justine shrugged. “Maybe I did, but I didn’t know what it was like here yet. So what?”
“This is what. I was just like you are now. I didn’t know any better. I did whatever I was told, thought whatever Dr. Lawrence wanted me to think. Just like my stupid parents. Then one day, I didn’t take my vitamin. My parents didn’t know it. I felt a lot different that day, even though I still loved Elysian Fields. I always loved Elysian Fields, just like you. I love it now, only I can think more clearly, and I can resist it when I’m off the grounds. That’s part of it, don’t you see?”
Justine shook her head.
“My parents wanted me to take the vitamin the next day, of course. I took it into my hands and put it under my tongue. When they weren’t looking, I threw it out. I did that every day for a week, and suddenly I began to see things differently. I remembered my parents the way they were before we moved to Elysian Fields. They’re like strangers to me now.
“I realized how weird all the other kids are, just like you thought they were the first day you arrived, right? Try to remember. You’re just starting; you still have a chance to remember something, if you try. Try,” she demanded. Justine winced. “Damn it, you’re my only hope right now,” Lois said with more aggressiveness. “My parents won’t listen to anything, and I’ve learned that if I say one negative thing about the development or his highness, Dr. Lawrence, I reveal my emancipation. Understand?” Justine didn’t respond, but chewed on the straw of her soda.
“What I’ve been doing,” Lois said in a voice just above a whisper, “is pretending. I look at the others and do and say whatever they do. So far, they don’t seem to notice, but I can tell that my parents are getting suspicious. Soon they’re going to make an appointment for me to see Dr. Lawrence.”
“So? Maybe he can help you,” Justine said and sipped some more Coke.
“Oh, God,” Lois said, shaking her head. “He won’t help me. He’ll realize I’m not on the vitamins, and then he’ll tell my parents. I don’t think I can hide things from him. He’s too perceptive…he’s like some supernatural monster.
“I need someone else who’s not under his spell. Someone else to stop taking the vitamins. If you do that, you’ll realize what I’m talking about; then maybe, between the two of us, we’ll be able to figure out what to do.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Justine said. “And I’ve got to get home.”
“I know.” Lois thought hard. “Sometimes, don’t you hear a ringing in your ears, a slight, high-pitched ringing?”
Justine stared for a moment. Then she nodded. “So?”
“That’s got something to do with it. I don’t know what, but it has. I still hear it, even though I’m not taking the vitamins. But when I’m off the grounds, like now, I don’t hear it, and I can think clearly and remember everything. Don’t you see?” Justine stared at her. Lois saw that there was some recognition in her eyes. Encouraged, she went on. “Don’t you feel different now? And when you were in school all day, wasn’t there a difference?” She looked frustrated by Justine’s silence. “Did you like the other kids from Elysian Fields as much?” she asked pointedly.
Justine shook her head. “They can be a pain in the ass.”
“Good, good,” Lois said, smiling widely. She sat back and sighed with relief. “Good,” she repeated.
“What’s so damn good?” Justine asked.
“The fact that you said ‘pain in the ass’ and ‘damn’ just now. You’ll never say things like that when you’re home. Not after you’ve been with Dr. Lawrence in one of his sessions. Believe me.”
Justine thought about it, then nodded slowly. Things were coming back to her.
“Brad’s weird, isn’t he?” she asked, her eyes hazy with the memory.
“They are all weird, but it’s not their fault. My parents are weird. Your parents are weird. The whole place is weird, but only you and I realize it. And you’ll be weird, too, unless you stop taking the vitamins. Do you think you can stop?”
“Why not? Only…they’re good. They’re The Good Pill.”
“That’s what Dr. Lawrence wants you to believe.”
“I like him,” Justine said. “Although, I didn’t want to, at first,” she added, vaguely recalling her initial impression.
“I liked him, too. Sometimes, I still do. I can’t help it. He’s handsome and charming and understanding. See. Those words just flow from my mouth. Oh, how I wish you were clean.”
“Clean?”
“Off the vitamin.”
“You make it sound like a drug,” Justine said, growing a little defensive.
“That’s because it is. I don’t understand anything about it, but believe me, there’s more in that pill than just vitamins.”
“I’ve got to go,” Justine said again. She started to rise, but Lois reached across the table and caught her wrist.
“Wait. There’s something else. You know about his son, don’t you?”
“Son? You mean
, Dr. Lawrence’s son?” Justine asked, sitting again.
“Uh-huh.” Lois hesitated, staring hard at her. “I’ve seen him,” she said. “And there’s nothing weirder than him.”
“What do you mean?” Justine’s curiosity was aroused. This she wanted to hear.
“If you promise not to take the vitamin tomorrow, I’ll go up to his house with you and show you. We’ll have to go at night and sneak up to the windows. Will you promise? Will you try—because I’ll know if you took it. First of all, you won’t want to sneak up to Dr. Lawrence’s house.”
Justine thought about it.
“I don’t know.”
“Just one day without the vitamin, and then the next day will be easier. It was for me. You won’t believe what you’ll see up there.”
The image of the dark figure in the window of Dr. Lawrence’s house returned. Justine felt her curiosity piqued even more.
“Just skip it one day,” Lois pleaded.
“All right,” Justine said. “One day.”
“It’s going to be hard to do it,” Lois warned. “Do your parents stand over you when you take it? Mine often do.”
“Yes, they do.”
“Then do what I do. Take the vitamin,” Lois said, demonstrating, “and put it under your tongue quickly. Swallow the water, then walk away and get rid of the vitamin. Hide it, throw it out, anything. Will you do it?”
“I said I would. But then, you’ve got to show me Dr. Lawrence’s son.”
“I will. Don’t worry about that. I need you to see him. I need someone else to know.” She released a breath as though she had been holding it for an hour.
“I’ve got to get home,” Justine said. “I’ve got homework to do.”
“Too bad Janet destroyed your tapes. I’d come over and do mine while you were listening to them.”
“I have tapes. My father bought me new ones.”
“Right. Before Dr. Lawrence arrived,” Lois pointed out. “And you still want to listen to them because you haven’t met with Dr. Lawrence,” she concluded. “Can I come over?”
“Sure.”
“But we’re going to have to be very careful about it,” Lois said. “We can’t let the other kids know, because they’ll run right to their parents or to Dr. Lawrence and tell.”
“Tell? Tell what? That’s ridiculous,” Justine said.
“No. It’s not ridiculous. It’s frightening,” Lois said, “only you don’t know how frightening it is yet. But you will. You will,” she repeated and signaled to the waitress for the bill.
As they were headed out, Tad Donald turned to Justine.
“You ain’t followin’ me, are you?” he asked.
The two other boys stared at her with interest. She looked at Lois, who suddenly looked very frightened.
“What if I am?” she replied.
“I might have to report ya to the principal.” The boys laughed.
“If you’re afraid of me, go ahead,” she teased, swaggering past them to join Lois, who was paying their bill at the register.
The boys howled, and Tad caught up with her, tapping her on the arm.
“Why don’tcha hang around a little longer?” He looked back at his friends.
“I can’t,” she said, still seeing the look of fear on Lois’s face.
“Yeah,” he said. “Usually the girls from Elysian Fields got to go right home. Unless they have a sewing club meeting or something,” he added. His eyes twinkled with ridicule, but she surprised him by laughing at the joke.
“Maybe tomorrow I’ll stay longer,” she suggested. “If I don’t join the sewing club.” She teased him with a wink, before turning to Lois, who was practically in flight. Tad stared after her, and Justine cast him a casual glance through the big front window.
Then she had to run to catch up with Lois. “Now who’s rushing to get back?” she said. Lois slowed. “He’s good-looking, isn’t he?” Justine said.
“Yes,” Lois said under her breath. “But if I showed any interest in him, they would know.”
“I might just meet him after school tomorrow,” Justine mused, not really listening to what Lois had said. “I’ve got a friend in the city who would die of jealousy if she saw me with a boy like that.”
Lois stopped walking and spun around toward her. “If you take the vitamin tomorrow, you won’t even remember talking to him today, and you’ll never meet him after school. And another thing, in a few days, you’re not even going to remember your city friend’s name, much less invite her here,” she added.
“That’s ridiculous,” Justine said, looking back at the luncheonette. Lois started walking away again. She was just jealous, Justine thought. Jealous that I made time with Tad, and jealous that I have a friend in the city, she concluded. I could never forget Mindy.
She started walking again and stopped. She remembered now. She had forgotten Mindy’s phone number and had to look it up. Suddenly an icy finger of fear seemed to probe at her insides.
“Wait,” she called, rushing to catch up with Lois, who stopped and turned to her. They stared at each other for a moment. “I’m not going to do it. I’m not going to take the vitamin, no matter what.”
“Good,” Lois said, her eyes filling with tears. “Because I need a friend I can trust.”
“Let’s go listen to some music,” Justine said, and the two of them hurried back to Elysian Fields.
He awoke in a sweat. Although he had been sleeping for hours, he had no concept of time. He saw from the length of the shadows that it was late in the afternoon. One of the shadows looked like a person flattened and smeared over the floor and spread up the wall opposite him. Suddenly, it had independent movement. It shifted to the right, then came off the wall and took three-dimensional form to become his father.
He sat up slowly and looked down into his lap, but his lap wasn’t there. His torso emerged directly out of the couch. Where was the rest of him now? He was already misplacing part of himself. Had he left his body, from the waist down, in his room?
“Where’s the rest of me?” he asked his father.
“On ice,” his father said.
“Oh, so that’s why there was all that ice in my room before,” he replied.
“Keeps it from drying out. Maybe you ought to just lie back again,” he said, gently pressing his right palm against his forehead. The top of his head started to slide off. He reached up quickly to keep that from happening and then, his hands on his head, he lay back.
“When will I be completely whole again?” he asked.
“It takes time. These things can’t be done overnight. I’ve been working for years and years on this project. I’ve got a couple of lifetimes invested in it.”
“I want to help you,” he said. He looked up at the shadowy figure with anticipation. When would the darkness leave his father’s face?
“I heard. That’s good. We’re going to try some new things. You’re going to go out more. Slowly at first, making small circles around the house, and gradually enlarging the circle until you can venture into the project.”
“Am I ready for that?” he asked, not without some trepidation. He wanted to go out, but he was afraid he might float away. “I mean, what’s to bring me back? What’s to keep me from being blown away, carried off in the wind?” In his mind, he weighed less than a pound.
“You won’t be able to see it,” his father explained, “but there will be invisible cords, wires, chains, tying you to the house. When I feel it’s time, I’ll merely reel you in like a hooked fish. You used to go fishing in that pond in the woods. You remember how it worked.”
“Yes. The fish had such accusing eyes, though, that I ended up throwing them back in. She would say, if you’re going to do that, don’t put a hook on the end of the line. Just tie a piece of bread there. So I did. It was enough just to feel them nibble and know that I would have caught them. I began to count how many pieces of bread were eaten so I knew how many fish I would have caught. It worked the same. She wa
s just as proud of me, maybe even prouder.”
“I can’t take the hook off the line,” he said. “You would blow away. No doubt in my mind about that.”
“That’s all right.”
They were both quiet for a long moment as the words took shape in his mind. Letters floated in from all directions and drew closer to one another to form ideas. The idea was the magnet, and the words were metal shavings.
“What will I do out there?” he asked. “I don’t remember what I’m supposed to do.”
“Hopefully, you’ll do exactly what I tell you to do, so don’t worry about it.”
“Good. I’m getting hungry,” he said. “Maybe if I keep eating, my body will grow back,” he said, looking down at his aborted torso.
“That’s possible. Now you’re thinking constructively. See, already there has been an improvement. Mildred,” he said, turning to the wall. Another shadow lifted off and stepped toward him. “Bring him something to eat.”
“Why doesn’t he just come to the kitchen?” she asked with her usual air of indifference.
“Because I have no legs yet,” he said.
“Oh, shit,” she said.
“Just bring the food here,” his father commanded.
“When does it start to get different?” she asked. There wasn’t any anger in her voice, just curiosity. “I thought he was making progress.”
“On and off for a while. I’d say twenty-four to thirty-six hours more. You have to take into account the trauma of revelation. He read one hundred and fifty odd pages. What am I doing explaining all this to you?” his father suddenly asked. “Just bring the food.”
The shadow laughed, only the laugh reverberated, growing in intensity until he had to cover his ears.
“Easy,” his father said. “Just take it easy now. We really are making progress.” He pulled up a chair beside him. When he sat down, some of his head began to emerge out of the shadows so that he could see his father’s forehead now. He was rising from the darkness like Lazarus from the dead. “You want to be my assistant, right?”
“Yes,” he said.
“I’ve always dreamed of my son beside me, assisting me in the project. Lawrence and son astound the world,” he announced, then laughed. “Now we’re going to do it.” More of his father emerged. He could see his eyes and his nose and his ears.
Perfect Little Angels Page 10