“Like what?”
“Well... dressed like that?”
“Of course not. I’ll put on shoes.”
“Shoes?” He looked at her feet. They weren’t knobby or pointed or calloused or bony. They were soft and rounded and sexy as hell to Oliver, who until that moment hadn’t considered a foot fetish a creditable fixation.
“I still need to do my hair too.”
Her hair looked fine. Shiny and beautiful.
“I thought I’d wear it up, so it wouldn’t distract attention from my costume,” she said, lifting her arms, her breasts following the motion as she piled her dark hair on the top of her head. “What do you think?”
Oliver wasn’t thinking. His fingers were tingling and his insides felt like so many knots in a shoestring, and the familiar pressure between his legs was growing faster and stronger than he’d ever known it to before. But he wasn’t thinking anything.
“That’s a costume?” he asked, brows lifted, his hands trembling enough to warrant holding them behind him.
He wasn’t stupid or being naive. He knew she was teasing him. She was flaunting herself sexually in a counteraction to his reaction to her. She was getting the better of him, too, and she knew it, and was enjoying herself immensely.
“Don’t you like it?”
What wasn’t to like?
“Sure, I like it, but... what’s it for?”
“I told you. I’m going to a party,” she said, laughing. “A costume party. One of those annual Christmas things for charity. You know, where people dress up and give money?”
“Yes. I’m familiar with the concept.” To the tune of thousands of dollars every year, he thought, wondering why he hadn’t ever gotten an invitation to an underwear event for any of the charities he supported. He was sure they’d be vastly more interesting than the black-tie affairs he usually attended.
“Why don’t you come with me?” she said suddenly. “It’s an amateur art auction and costume party for St. Augustine’s Convalescent Center. You like art. You should come.”
He did like art, but it wouldn’t occur to him until sometime later to wonder how she knew. At present he was far too busy trying to visualize himself at an art auction in his underwear.
“I don’t think so,” he said, with more regret than he imagined for such a ridiculous notion. He was no puritan, but there were some things he simply couldn’t bring himself to do. “Thanks, but I’m not...”
“In a party mood?” she asked sympathetically, the light in her eyes no longer merry and playful but brimming with understanding and compassion. She smiled at him, and for a long instant he was tempted to throw caution to the wind, along with his suit, and spend the night with her at the party. Bring her home afterward. Invite himself in for a nightcap. He pictured himself with a drink in his hand, moving slowly toward her in the dimly lit room...
“Would you like something to drink?” she asked, startling him.
It was becoming too weird, the way she’d make a remark or ask a question about something that was touching his mind; the way she knew his tastes without previous exposure to them. It was beginning to give him the creeps.
“No. Thanks. I don’t want to keep you. I just stopped by to see you. To see how you were.”
“Sit down, Oliver,” she said softly. “I know why you came, and I’m very glad you did.” She pressed him back into a chair, saying, “I’ll get us something hot to drink, and then we’ll talk. How does sweet lemon tea sound?”
He didn’t know what it was, but it sounded wonderful... although watching her walk away was slightly more wonderful.
Holly had the water in the kettle before she decided to act on the impulse to tell Oliver something few people knew about her. She stepped back into the archway and watched as he idly examined the books on her coffee table, smoothed the crease in his pants, and tapped his fingers on the armrest. He sighed. Smiled at her foot-high Christmas tree. Closed his eyes. Then leaned his head back against the chair.
It wasn’t hard for her to imagine what he was thinking about. And it wasn’t her. His sadness was like a tangible thing in the room, another entity that stayed close to his side, a constant companion. It would wander off when Oliver’s mind was diverted, but once he lost interest, it came back to pester and bedevil him.
“It’s not a terrible thing, you know,” she said.
“What?” he asked, nearly jumping out of his skin. And if she said anything about his father, he was going to scream and start running.
“Dying. It’s not a terrible thing.”
She spoke with such candor and sureness that he opted to scream and run later.
“Are you speaking from experience?” he asked warily, a skeptic to most things that couldn’t be seen, heard, or felt in some way.
“Yes.”
He studied her for a moment, then stood and walked toward her, saying, “You’ve died and come back, then. You’ve had one of those out-of-body experiences?”
“No. I mean, yes, I did die. I was clinically dead for almost eight minutes. But I don’t remember tunnels and lights, if that’s what you mean.”
“What happened?”
“How did I die? Or what happened that makes me so sure that dying isn’t a terrible thing?”
“Both.”
When she turned and went back into the tidy kitchen, he followed her, stepping around a ten-speed bicycle, which was a little odd to see in a living room—but no more odd than anything else where she was concerned.
Holly didn’t like talking about the incident. Something about it always made her feel completely vulnerable and out of control. And it was a private thing, a matter of the heart that she didn’t want exposed to question or ridicule. She would tell Oliver this truth as she knew it, to ease his pain. Whether he chose to believe her or not was up to him.
“Three years ago I had an allergic reaction to penicillin. The doctor said it was something like a tolerance overload. I’d taken it all my life for bad colds and infections, and all along I’d been gradually building up these allergens to it. He also said it wasn’t an uncommon thing to happen, but usually the symptoms were as gradual as the overload and they generally detected it sooner. It just didn’t happen that way in my case.”
“What did happen?”
She shrugged. The before part was a matter of record and easy to talk about.
“I let myself get run down and caught a cold, and then I didn’t take care of it,” she said easily. “Before long I was a case of walking pneumonia. The doctor wanted to put me in the hospital, but I didn’t have time for that, so he injected me with a starter dose in the office and sent me home with a fistful of prescriptions for cough syrup and nose stuff and, of course, more penicillin.”
She stirred a homemade tea concoction and the boiling water into a teapot and went on, “When I first had trouble breathing, I didn’t think too much of it. I did have pneumonia, after all, and it wasn’t much worse than before, except that I thought I was getting better. I kept thinking I was having a relapse, that it would pass in a day or two. I even went to work.”
She took two thick mugs from the cupboard and poured equal amounts of tea into each, handing one to Oliver. It smelled like citrus and spices, fresh and cloying at once.
“I took another pill before I went on my dinner break, and an hour later I passed out cold. Then my heart stopped. The paramedics did CPR and defibrillated me a couple of times in the ambulance on the way to the hospital. I still have little scars from where the paddles burned me, but... I was long gone by the time we got there.”
“And then, suddenly, you were back?”
She chuckled because it did sound funny—truth was strange that way.
“That’s pretty much how it happened. Somewhere in the move from the ambulance to the emergency room, I developed a pulse. They took turns guessing at the cause. Hard bumping and jarring of the stretcher. A buildup and sudden release of adrenaline. A muscle contraction. A full moon. A miracle.”
“Maybe they were mistaken. What if your pulse was so weak, they couldn’t feel it? Maybe you weren’t dead after all?”
“Maybe,” she conceded, but in her heart she knew different.
“What did it feel like?” he asked, taken in by her story.
This was the hard part. She slid into a straight-backed chair at the table, cupping the mug with her hands as she sought the proper words. Oliver did the same.
“Physically, I was still sicker than a dog. On top of the pneumonia, I was throwing up and shaking all over. I was miserable, but”—she frowned—“inside, deep down, like in my soul or in the deepest part of my mind, I knew that those eight minutes were something special and wonderful... that I’d spent them with something glorious and good. I woke up with an unshakable belief in God—or at least a higher power of some sort. And I was certain of the existence of a life after death. Something I was never sure of before.”
She went silent for a moment, and when Oliver seemed willing to hear more without comment, she went on.
“Even though I don’t remember any details, like tunnels and lights or floating over my body, I do remember that as wretched as I felt when I woke up, I was as happy and at peace on the other side.”
Oliver remained quiet and contemplative for several minutes, lost in thoughts she could not touch or imagine. She propped her head on her fist and sat with him, open and ready to share the burdens of his heart.
“Do you suppose it’s like that for everyone?” he asked finally.
“Yes. Everyone. Good people. Bad people. We all go to the same place.”
“No hell? No eternal suffering?”
She shook her head, sorry to disappoint him. “Nothing but goodness.”
“Then what’s the point?”
“Beats me,” she said truthfully.
“But you’ve had time to think about it; what do you think?”
“Based on what I know for sure, in my heart”—she placed an open hand over it—“and the explanations available, I’m leaning heavily toward reincarnation. There was nothing bad or evil where I went. Nothing. I didn’t sense that there was more than one direction to go. Whatever it is, is. There is nothing else. And it’s good. So, I think if you’re a hurtful person in this life, you still go to where everyone else goes when you die. But when you come back, you suffer. Likewise, the less hurtful you are this time, the less you’ll be hurt next time.” He shouldn’t have gotten her started. She leaned back in the chair and began her dissertation. “If you think about it, it works for entire nations if you want it to. Like if you’re a conquering nation first, raping, pillaging, taking slaves... then you come back as part of an oppressed nation the next time. Or if you were a nation at war for several generations, then you come back fat and happy and live on farms in Kansas the next time, you see?”
He did, but he wasn’t ready to make any quick decisions on her word alone. And that was fine. She could see that he’d taken her information and stockpiled it with whatever else he knew and believed and was willing to work with it. She was glad she’d told him.
He liked the sound of her voice, he decided. Not high and irritating or low and sultry, but moderate and soothing, with swift, subtle variations of emotions that were both pleasing and delightful.
Perhaps he wasn’t as ready to discuss the mysteries of life as he’d thought he was? Just sitting there with her was enough to dispel the quandary in his mind and the ache in his heart. She’d made him feel good on the plane, and then at the restaurant. Maybe that’s all he’d come for? To be with her and to feel good.
“This is good too,” he said, lifting his cup of tea and draining it, changing the subject conspicuously. “What’s in it?”
“Lemon, orange, cloves, cinnamon... Are you sure you won’t come to the party with me?” she asked, her smile enticing. She stood to rinse and set her cup in the sink. “I have a piece of art on display that you could bid on and pay an incredible amount of money for. There’ll be food and lots of nice people.” She turned to him with a brilliant piece of bribery. “I’ll pay for your ticket.”
He smiled and was severely tempted.
“I couldn’t.”
“Why not?”
“Well, look at you. I couldn’t go out in public dressed like that.”
“Of course you couldn’t. This is my costume. We’d have to think up something else for you.”
“What exactly is your costume?” he asked at last. She kept calling it a costume, but it still looked like lingerie to him.
“Guess,” she said, her arms out as she turned slowly around before him. “I’ll give you a hint. The theme this year is catchwords and phrases. I think I’m a phrase.”
“A phrase.”
“Go ahead, guess. What am I?”
What was she? Good question. His gaze shifted downward from the soft, gentle contours of her Mother Earth face, lingered briefly on her Venus de Milo breasts and her slim Cleopatra hips, slid down long, slender Amazonian legs to bare Pocahontas feet. Those were all famous women... wrong theme. He was beginning to enjoy the game as he started over from the top.
“Here’s another clue,” she said, pretending censure, her heart fluttering like the wings of a hummingbird. “Look at my costume, not my body.”
“But I like looking at your body.”
“So I’ve noticed,” she said.
He grinned at her.
“Okay. Last clue,” she said with a cheeky smile of her own, her eyes sparkling. “The key here is the words on the dress.”
“That’s a dress?”
“The words, Oliver. Concentrate on the words.”
Father. Mother. Toilet. Thumb. Dreams. He wanted to concentrate on the words, but they dipped and curved over such nice hills and valleys...
“It’s a Freudian slip, Oliver,” she said, trying to sound impatient as her nerves skittered and danced with excitement and her pulses tapped lively with anticipation. “I’m a Freudian slip. Get it?”
His grin stretched across his face. Merriment bubbled in his chest. And for the first time since the last time they’d laughed together there in the aftermath of an earthquake, he let loose a bellyful of guffaws that bounced off the walls and shook the windowpanes.
“Oh, Holly,” he said, weak with laughter. “You are priceless. I never would have guessed it.”
“Really?” She looked concerned. “I don’t want to be a phrase no one will get.”
“No. It’s perfect. Great. Very clever. Lots of people will get it, and those that don’t... well...” He made a vague gesture with his hands and went silent and sheepish.
“Those that don’t, what?” she asked, suspicious.
“Well, those that don’t get it aren’t really looking at the costume. They’re seeing other things.”
“The way you were?”
Hmmm. He didn’t like that thought one little bit. People looking at anything other than her costume. Come on. Be reasonable. Hell, she wasn’t any of his business. What did he care if other men looked at her? Looked at... other things?
On the other hand, and if he cared to be truthful, there was a part of him that wanted her to be his business. All right. There was something about her that already was his business, though he wasn’t sure what. And there was a lot more of her to see than a costume. Okay. So he cared.
“Come with me, Oliver,” she coaxed.
“As what? What do Freudian slips take to parties?”
She beamed her happiness at his acceptance, then started looking around the room for his costume. She had it almost instantly.
“Here,” she said, thrusting a box of breakfast cereal and a table knife at him. “It’s you. Dark. Brooding. Mysterious.”
“Come on, Holly. There’s nothing dark, brooding, or mysterious about this.” He looked down at the box in utter disgust. “I’m a flake.”
“No you’re not.”
“I am. Look at me.” He held out his arms with the cereal box in one hand and the knif
e in the other. “Everyone’s going to know that I’m the flake with the Freudian slip.”
“Not if you show them your knife. Then,” she said, her eyes growing wide with fear, “everyone will know you’re a serial killer.”
Four
OLIVER LOVED BEING A serial killer. It was the easiest disguise he’d ever worn. No plumes or fake mustaches. No tights or hot masks. He’d found his alter ego.
He would become darker, more brooding, and a whole lot less mysterious if someone had the nerve to suggest he was a flake, of course. But for the most part he played his role as the quiet, pleasant, next-door neighbor who was the last person anyone would have suspected of plotting the horrible demise of the next male he chanced to catch gazing a little too long at the Freudian slip.
Holly, as he might have guessed, was the center of attention. But it wasn’t because of her costume.
He was quick to learn that Holly had instigated the annual amateur art auction and theme costume benefit five years earlier, when she’d first come to St. Augustine’s. She’d coordinated it every year since, gradually increasing the accommodations to fit the ever-growing and remarkably distinguished guest list until it had become an event of some notoriety in the Oakland community.
“I had no idea Holly was importing her patrons from across the Bay already,” commented a man at Oliver’s back. “She works fast.”
Oliver turned. Immediately he extended his hand in friendship to the long, lanky man wearing both a belt and suspenders to hold his pants up.
“Phil! How are you? I haven’t seen you since... when? Last year?”
“At your aunt’s do for some charity or another,” he said, nodding. “In the spring. Great flower arrangements, as I recall.”
It was an old joke, one they’d cultivated early in their relationship after having met in the shrubbery at a garden party. Since then they had shared other favorite hiding places at parties they hadn’t particularly wanted to attend, such as the wall side of large potted plants, on the wrong side of vine-covered lattices, under the fall of a weeping willow, or behind any piece of furniture on which was set a prominent floral display.
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