Perfect Nightmare

by John Saul

  “Hey, Linds.” Dawn D'Angelo opened the locker next to hers, threw her backpack inside, and pulled out her practice clothes. Dawn’s big chestnut eyes—the same color as her long wavy hair—were a perfect contrast to Lindsay’s blue eyes and blond hair. But though the two girls had opposite coloring, that was the end of their differences—they’d been best friends since kindergarten.

  “Hey,” Lindsay sighed, making no attempt to mask her mood from Dawn.

  One of Dawn’s brows lifted. “What’s up with you? You feeling all right?”

  “I’m okay.”

  Dawn looked doubtful. “I hope it isn’t the flu. My brother’s got it. He puked all last night.”

  “Not the flu,” Lindsay said as she finished lacing up her shoes. The coach’s whistle blew from the gym, and she lifted herself off the bench to follow the rest of the cheerleaders out of the locker room, eager to work off some of her anger.

  The varsity squad was just back from Florida, where they’d come in second in the regional championships held at Daytona. Until this morning, Lindsay had dreamed of being on that team next year.

  Now that was simply not going to happen.

  Inside her head, the endlessly repeating chorus of It’ll be fine turned into What’s the use? and her anger dissolved into hopelessness. In another two weeks the graduating cheerleaders would choose next year’s squad and—most important—name the head cheerleader, but what did it matter now? Even if she performed perfectly today, with the entire varsity squad watching, it wouldn’t matter. Her dream of trading in her black JV uniform for the red varsity uniform had been thoroughly crushed at breakfast this morning.

  Her mother had been a cheerleader—she should understand how important this was! How could she have been so casual about it? Like it just didn’t matter?

  Lindsay tried to concentrate on the exercises, but kept losing count and getting off rhythm. Even worse, she was finding it impossible to finish with the grand gesture and big smile that was as important as the stunts themselves. Smile, girls, the coach always said. This isn’t just a cheerleading practice, it’s smile practice, too!

  Keeping the coach’s words firmly in her mind, Lindsay jogged in place, did her best to smile, and tried to find some energy as she waited for her turn to execute the simple flip they always used as a warm-up.

  Then it was time. Lindsay smiled, took a deep breath, skipped a couple of steps to get her footing, took a short run, threw her hands down on the mat and began a perfect flip.

  And the worst possible thing happened. Just as she was upside down, one elbow crumpled and she collapsed, her shoulder and then her bottom smashing hard onto the mat.

  Fire flooded her wrist.

  The coach and Dawn were on her in an instant, helping her up.

  “I’m okay,” Lindsay insisted, horrified that the varsity cheerleaders had seen her screw up a simple flip.

  Then, unable to control her emotions any longer, she started to cry.

  Sharon Spandler, the coach, helped her up and walked her off the mat. “Okay, girls,” she called back as she led Lindsay toward the locker room. “Run through them one more time, then do two sets of backflips. Consuela, you’re in charge.”

  In the locker room, Lindsay took a drink of water and blew her nose. The coach came out of her office with tape and scissors, and they sat facing each other on the bench. The coach gently took hold of her wrist and bent it slightly. “Hurt?”

  Lindsay shook her head.

  “Just a sprain, then.” As she began to wrap the wrist with tape, Sharon eyed Lindsay carefully. “Everything okay with you?”

  Lindsay nodded, but the coach could see the lack of conviction in her eyes and tried again. “Boyfriend troubles? Things okay at home?”

  “Everything’s fine. I’m just not feeling real good. I probably shouldn’t even have come to practice.”

  The coach finished wrapping the wrist, then looked her square in the face. “I’ll tell the girls you’re sick.” Then, thinking she knew what Lindsay was worried about, she said, “A simple fall shouldn’t affect the vote. Don’t worry.”

  Lindsay forced a wan smile. What would it matter if it did affect the vote? She wouldn’t be back next year anyway. Someone else would be living her dream. The thought brought the hot lump up her throat all over again, but she managed to swallow it. “Thanks,” she said.

  “Just take it easy,” Sharon said. “Rest up.”

  Lindsay nodded, then wiped her eyes on her soggy tissue.

  A few minutes later Dawn D'Angelo came in from the gym, grabbed some toilet paper from one of the stalls, and sat down in the same place the coach had. Dawn stuffed the wad of paper into Lindsay’s hand. “Okay, enough,” she said. “What’s going on?”

  Lindsay started to cry again. “We’re moving to Manhattan.”

  Dawn stared at her in utter incomprehension. “What?”

  “Mom says we have to move to the city to be closer to Dad’s work.” She took a ragged breath as Dawn’s expression dissolved to disbelief.

  “But we only have one year left,” Dawn whispered. “And you’re supposed to be head cheerleader next year! And we need to do our senior year together. We have to graduate together. If you leave, who’s going to be my best friend? Jeez, Linds—you haven’t even gone out with Zack yet! How can they do this to you?”

  Lindsay looked bleakly into Dawn’s eyes. “They’re my parents,” she said, her voice hollow with despair. “What can I do?”

  Dawn didn’t even try to answer Lindsay’s question; they both already knew the answer.

  There was nothing either of them could do.

  Nothing at all.

  Chapter Two

  Kara Marshall’s stomach knotted as she stared at the listing agreement on her dining room table. She didn’t even try to stop herself from picking at the already torn cuticle on her left forefinger. Why bother? Though her nails were about the last thing she had any control over, she’d already pretty much ruined them. She could barely believe the low figure the agent had suggested their beautiful home was worth. When Steve saw it . . .

  She didn’t want to think about what he would say.

  A blinding flash of light jerked Kara out of her reverie.

  “That should do it.” She looked up at Mark Acton, whose professional smile looked phony even as he tried to make it look sincere. “This house photographs beautifully.”

  She didn’t respond, and instead looked down again at the array of forms and color brochures on the table as the agent put his camera into its case.

  “I’ll just leave the papers with you,” he went on. “I can come back to answer any questions you might have when your husband is home. Do you know when that might be?”

  “That’s part of the problem,” Kara said, looking up, wondering even as she spoke why she was telling this perfect stranger—one she’d already decided she didn’t like—things that were none of his business. “I don’t know when he’ll be home. He commutes to the city and sometimes stays over. In fact, he’s hardly home anymore—that’s the main reason we’re selling. Maybe I’d better just call you after we’ve talked this over.”

  Acton nodded. “I’ll put these pictures up on our Web site as soon as you and your husband sign the listing.” His voice took on the drone of a rehearsed speech. “Our normal procedure is to keep the listing in-house for two or three days. If it doesn’t get sold by one of our people, I’ll put it into the Multiple Listing Service on Monday and we’ll hold a brokers’ open house on Wednesday to show it to all the agents in the area. Then we’ll have a public open house on Sunday. It’s a wonderful house. I think it will sell right away.”

  Though she’d barely heard him, Kara nodded as if following every word. “Good. Okay. I’ll call you.”

  Mark Acton pulled a sheet of blue paper from the pile and set it on top. “This is the schedule I just laid out for you. Please initial it when you sign the listing agreement and I’ll put everything into motion.”


  Once again she nodded. “Yes, fine.”

  Acton picked up his briefcase, and she took that as a cue to usher him to the door. “I’m sure you’ll be more than happy with the marketing our firm will provide,” he said.

  That must sound canned even to him, Kara thought. “I’m sure I will,” she said. “Thanks for coming.”

  As she stood at the door, a car pulled up in front and her daughter got out. Kara watched Lindsay wave to her friend Dawn and to Phyllis D'Angelo, who was driving. “Call me!” Lindsay yelled to Dawn, then passed the agent on her way to the front porch.

  Mark Acton nodded to Lindsay, then turned to watch her as she walked up the porch steps.

  Kara scowled at him, but if he saw her, he gave no sign. She forced the scowl from her brow, told herself she had to get used to it. Her daughter was seventeen now, and pretty, and men would look at her every day for the next twenty years. Then, seeing the bandage on Lindsay’s wrist, all thoughts of Mark Acton vanished from her mind. “What happened?” she asked. “Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine,” Lindsay said, brushing by her and into the house. She dropped her backpack on the foyer floor, and only then held out her hand for the examination she knew there was no way of escaping. “It’s just a sprain. I goofed up a flip at practice.”

  “Nothing’s broken?” Kara fretted.

  Lindsay pulled her hand away. “No, Mom. I told you, it’s just a sprain.” She tipped her head toward the front door. “Who was that?”

  “Just an agent,” Kara said, shrugging dismissively.

  Lindsay winced as if she’d been struck. “Don’t I have any say in what this family does?” she asked as she wheeled around and started toward the stairs. Though she’d tried to hide it, Kara saw her daughter’s eyes glistening with tears.

  “Lindsay, wait!”

  But of course, she didn’t.

  When Lindsay vanished up the stairs, Kara looked again at the listing agreement on the dining room table, and had to resist the urge to pick up the forms and brochures and rip them to shreds. She didn’t want to move to the city any more than Lindsay did, but what choice did she have? Being away from Steve so much was destroying their marriage. Still, Lindsay only had a year of school left. Maybe they could find some way to work it out.

  But as she unconsciously picked at a different cuticle, she knew there would be no working it out. Not only was the commute killing her marriage, but Steve’s promotion, which required him to be in Manhattan even more, hadn’t been enough to even cover the cost of the tiny apartment he’d rented. In fact, the apartment had turned his raise into just another liability.

  So there wasn’t any choice; they had to move.

  Kara waited long enough for Lindsay to pour out her tears into her pillow, and as she moved up the curving staircase to her daughter’s room, she realized once more just how much she was going to miss this big house. She’d helped design it, and they’d moved in two weeks before Lindsay was born. The entire history of the family was in this house. Whatever they found in Manhattan would not only be much smaller, but an abandonment of their entire past as well. Could they really do it?

  She knocked twice on Lindsay’s door, then opened it a crack. “Linds? Can I come in?”

  She took the silence as assent and went inside. It was a quintessential teenage girl’s room, with its neglected but not forgotten stuffed animals and Barbie dolls, new and often replaced posters of buff young men on the walls, stacks of CDs, a computer, and enough makeup to beautify half the women on Long Island.

  Kara perched uneasily on the edge of the bed. As she’d suspected, Lindsay’s face was turned away, but the emotional storm seemed to have passed. Lindsay was quiet as she lay facing the wall.

  “Honey?” Kara smoothed her daughter’s silky blond hair. “You know we love it here as much as you do. We’d never move if we didn’t have to. I just wish there were another option.”

  “Just one more year.” Lindsay’s voice was muffled by the pillow, but her anger was still audible. “Then it won’t matter so much, because at least I’ll have finished school.”

  “We can’t make it another year like this,” Kara said. “We can’t keep up both places—it’s too expensive. And your father needs us. We need him. You need him.”

  “I know,” Lindsay sighed, rolling over to look at her.

  Seeing the desolation in Lindsay’s eyes, and hearing the hopelessness in her voice, Kara’s heart nearly broke. The sight of those red, swollen, unutterably sad eyes bespoke every wonderful thing her daughter was—caring, dedicated, loyal. But as she eased a strand of blond hair away from Lindsay’s face and put her cool hand on the girl’s forehead, she could see a change in her eyes.

  Abruptly, Lindsay sat up. “What if I move in with Dawn’s family for my last year?” she asked, her expression brightening. “I could come to the city on weekends and for holidays.” Her words tumbled out. “You know, Christmas and stuff.”

  “We can ask your father, honey,” Kara said, knowing that Steve would never agree, “but I know what he’s going to say, and so do you.”

  Lindsay sagged back down on the pillow, her excitement deflating like a collapsing balloon. “Yeah, I know.”

  Kara took her hand. “We’ve talked about this for months—you knew it was coming.”

  “I know,” Lindsay sighed, “but I didn’t think it would be so soon.”

  “It’ll be fine,” Kara said, squeezing her daughter’s hand. “You’ll see—it’ll be just fine.”

  But even as she spoke the words, Kara wondered how true they would turn out to be.

  Chapter Three

  Steve Marshall squinted at the deposition on his desk, but it did no good—he could feel his eyes closing, despite his best intentions. Outside his office window the lights of the city were coming on and the sky had darkened; all that was left of the day was a pale streak at the horizon.

  But half the day’s work still lay on the desk in front of him.

  He reached over to turn on his desk lamp, hoping the bright light would wash away the exhaustion the onset of dusk had brought. Rubbing his eyes, he turned his gaze from the window to the open door of his office. He could see a few lights still on down the hall, but the overheads had long since been turned off, and not even an echo remained of the hum of the departed staff.

  Steve sat back in his chair and stretched—no point leaving until he’d at least finished the deposition he was working on. It looked like he’d have to stay in the city again tonight, even though he promised Kara that he’d be home. He dragged his fingers through his hair, ruefully reflecting that right now he far preferred the pressure on his scalp to that of either his job or his family. Still, tomorrow was Friday, and if he got enough done tonight, he’d knock off at noon and go home for the weekend. Maybe there was something the three of them could do together. Go to a crafts fair or something. He knew Kara would love it, and so would Lindsay, and making them happy had always made him happy, too.

  Rubbing his eyes again, he turned his attention back to the deposition. There were at least another fifty pages to slog through, either here or in the cramped joke of an apartment that served as home on the nights when he couldn’t make it back to Long Island.

  Might as well be here.

  Just as he was getting back into the dry prose of the blandly worded document, the harsh overhead office light went on. He looked up at the janitor who stood in the doorway, his hand on the light switch. “Sorry, sir, didn’t mean to bother you.”

  Jesus Christ, can’t he see I’m working? But when he spoke, Steve did his best not to betray his annoyance. “Can you come back a little later, maybe?”

  The janitor shook his head. “This is my last office. I’ll just dump your trash and be gone.”

  Steve nodded toward the wastebasket. This guy didn’t look familiar. “You new?”

  The man nodded. “Just started today. Didn’t mean to get in your way.” He gathered the plastic bag full of trash, dumped it in th
e large bin he’d left just outside the door, then replaced the plastic liner in the wastebasket. As he straightened up, his eyes fell on the framed photograph of Steve, Kara, and Lindsay at the beach that had been sitting on Steve’s desk since last summer. “This your family?”

  Steve nodded, not even looking up, wishing the man would just go away.

  “Nice. Very nice,” the janitor said. “Looks like Long Island.”

  “It is,” Steve mumbled.

  “Pretty girl,” the janitor said.

  Leaning back in his chair, Steve saw that the man’s eyes were now fixed on another of the photos on his desk, this one of Lindsay in her cheerleader’s uniform.

  “Very nice,” he said, so softly that Steve wasn’t sure he was even aware he’d spoken out loud. “Beautiful.”

  He was about to reply when the phone rang, startling both of them. Nodding almost curtly, the janitor disappeared out the door as Steve picked up the receiver.

  “Hello?”

  “Hi, honey,” he heard Kara say, and there was something in her voice that belied her cheerful tone.

  “Hi.”

  “Are you coming home?”

  He sighed. “I don’t see how—I’ve got too much work.”

  “You promised.”

  He could almost see her struggling not to sound plaintive. “I know,” he sighed. “I tried, but I’ll get out of here early tomorrow and we’ll have the whole weekend. We’ll do something—just the three of us.”

  Kara was silent for a second, then: “I was hoping you could be home before Lindsay went to sleep tonight. She’s kind of upset.”

  Steve sat up straight in his chair. “Upset? Why? What’s up?”

  “She hurt her wrist at cheerleading practice, and then the real-estate agent was here when she got home. I think we all ought to sit down and talk. You know, like a real family?” Kara quickly added, perhaps at hearing the sarcasm in her voice, “I’m sorry—that wasn’t fair. I’m just—well, I just really wish you’d come home tonight.”