“I miss seeing you around,” Jessica called. “And so does she.”
John paused, digging at the dirt with one foot.
“Listen.” Jessica took a few quick steps to catch up to him. “Carlton’s going to be in town for a couple of weeks; it’s spring break. We’re all getting together.” She waited expectantly, but he didn’t respond.
“He’s dying to show off his new cosmopolitan persona,” Jessica added brightly. “When I talked to him on the phone last week, he was faking a Brooklyn accent to see if I’d notice.” She forced a giggle. John smiled fleetingly.
“Who else is going to be there?” he asked, looking directly at her for the first time since she got out of the car. Jessica’s eyes narrowed.
“John, you have to talk to her sometime.”
“Why is that?” he said brusquely, and started walking again.
“John, wait!” Behind him, John heard her break into a run. She caught up quickly, slowing to jog beside him, matching his pace. “I can do this all day,” she warned, but John didn’t answer.
“You have to talk to her,” Jessica repeated. He gave her a sharp look.
“Charlie’s dead,” he said harshly, the words rasping in his throat. It had been a long time since he spoke the words aloud. Jessica stopped in her tracks; he kept going.
“John, at least talk to me.”
He didn’t answer.
“You’re hurting her,” she added. He stopped walking. “Don’t you understand what you’re doing to her? After what she went through? It’s insane, John. I don’t know what that night did to you, but I know what it did to Charlie. And you know what? I don’t think anything hurt as badly as having you refuse to speak to her. To say she’s dead.”
“I saw her die.” John stared out into the city lights.
“No, you didn’t,” Jessica said, then hesitated. “Look, I’m worried about you.”
“I’m just lost.” John turned to her. “And after what I’ve been through, after what we’ve been through, that’s not an unreasonable reaction.” He waited a moment for her to respond, then looked away.
“I get it. I really do. I thought she was dead, too.” John opened his mouth to speak, but she pressed on. “I thought she was dead until she turned up, alive.” Jessica pulled at John’s shoulder until he met her eyes again. “I’ve seen her,” Jessica said, her voice breaking. “I’ve talked to her. It is her. And this …” She let go of his shoulder and waved her hand over him as though casting a spell. “This thing that you’re doing, that’s what’s killing her.”
“It’s not her,” John whispered.
“Okay,” Jessica snapped, and turned on her heel. She walked back to the car and after a few moments, pulled back out into the road, then made a screeching U-turn. John stayed where he was. Jessica roared past him, then stopped abruptly, her breaks squealing, then backed up to where he stood. “We’re meeting at Clay’s house on Saturday,” she said tiredly. “Please.” He looked at her; she wasn’t crying, but her eyes were shiny, her face red. He nodded.
“Maybe.”
“Good enough for me. I’ll see you there!” Jessica said, then she drove off without another word, the engine roaring in the quiet of the night.
“I said maybe,” John muttered into the darkness.
The pencil squeaked against the paper as the man at the desk carefully filled out the form in front of him. He paused suddenly, a wave of dizziness overtaking him. The letters on the page were fuzzy, and he adjusted his reading glasses, his head swimming. The glasses made no difference, and he took them off and rubbed his eyes. Then, just as suddenly as it had come, the sensation was gone: the room righted itself, and the words on the page were perfectly clear. He scratched his beard, still disconcerted, then began to steadily write again. A ring sounded and the front door opened.
“Yes, sir?” he barked without looking up.
“I wanted to have a look around the yard.” A woman’s voice echoed softly.
“Oh, pardon me, ma’am.” The man looked up and smiled momentarily, then went back to his form, writing as he talked. “Scrap is fifty cents a pound. It might be more if you find a specific part, but we can see when you come back in. Just go have a look around; you have to bring your own tools, but we can help you load it up when you’re ready to leave.”
“I’m looking for something specific.” The woman peered down at him, observing his name tag. “Bob,” she added belatedly.
“Well, I don’t know what to tell you.” He set his pencil down, then reclined and crossed his arms behind his head. “It’s a dump.” He laughed. “We try to at least separate the junk cars from the tin cans, but what you see is what you get.”
“Bob, you received several truckloads of scrap metal on this date, and from this location.” The woman set a piece of paper down on top of the form Bob had been working on. Bob picked it up and adjusted his reading glasses, then looked up at her over them.
“Well, as I said; it’s a dump,” he said slowly, growing more concerned as the moments passed. “I might be able to point you in the right direction; I mean, we don’t catalog the stuff.”
The woman walked around the side of the desk, stepping up beside Bob’s chair, and he straightened nervously in his seat. “I hear you boys had some trouble here last night,” she said casually.
“No trouble.” Bob furrowed his brow. “Some kids snuck in; it happens.”
“That’s not what I heard.” The woman studied a picture on the wall. “Your daughters?” She asked lightly.
“Yes, two and five.”
“They are beautiful.” She paused. “Do you treat them well?” Bob was taken aback.
“Of course, I do,” he said, trying to hide his indignation. There was a long pause; the woman tilted her head, still looking at the picture.
“I heard you called the police because you thought someone was trapped in the scrap heaps out there,” she said. Bob didn’t answer. “I heard”—the woman continued, leaning in closer to the picture—“that you thought you heard screaming, and sounds of distress and panic. Something was trapped; a child was trapped, you thought. Maybe several.”
“Look, we run a clean business and we have a good reputation.”
“I’m not disputing your reputation. Quite the opposite. I think what you did was honorable, running to the rescue in the middle of the night, cutting your legs on jagged scraps of metal as you ran blindly through the yard.”
“How do you …” Bob’s voice trembled, and he stopped talking. He moved his legs under the desk, hoping to hide the bandages that bulged out visibly under both pant legs.
“What did you find?” the woman asked.
He didn’t answer.
“What was there?” she pressed. “When you got on your hands and knees and crawled through the beams and the wire? What was there?”
“Nothing,” he whispered. “Nothing was there.”
“And the police? They found nothing?”
“No, nothing. There wasn’t anything. I went out again today just to be …” He spread his hands on the desk in front of him, collecting his nerves. “We run a good business,” he said firmly. “I don’t feel comfortable talking about this. If I’m in some kind of trouble, then I think—”
“You’re not in any trouble, Bob, as long as you can do me one little favor.”
“What’s that?”
“Simple.” The woman leaned over Bob, bracing herself on the arms of his chair, so close her face almost touched his. “Take me there.”
* * *
John pulled into the parking lot at the construction site and immediately saw Oliver standing in front of the gate of the chain-link fence. His arms were crossed, and he was chewing on something, his face grim. When it became clear that he wasn’t going to move out of the way, John slowed to a stop and got out.
“What’s going on?” he asked. Oliver continued to chew on whatever was in his mouth.
“I have to let you go,” he said at last. “
You’re late, again.”
“I’m not late,” John protested, then glanced at his watch. “I mean, not by much,” he amended. “Come on, Oliver. It won’t happen again, I’m sorry.”
“Me too,” Oliver said. “Good luck, John.”
“Oliver!” John called. Oliver let himself in through the gate and glanced back one more time before walking away. John leaned against his car for a moment. Several coworkers were staring at him, suddenly turning away as John noticed them. John got in his car and headed back the way he had come.
When he returned to his apartment, John sat down on the edge of his bed and buried his face in his hands. “Now what?” he wondered aloud, and glanced around the room. His eyes lit on his only decoration. “You still look terrible,” he said to Theodore’s disembodied head. “And you’re still in worse shape than me.” The notion of attending the party that night suddenly returned to him. The thought of it set off a nervous fluttering in his stomach, but he wasn’t sure what it was—anxiety, or excitement. I thought she was dead, too, Jessica had said the night before. I’ve seen her. I’ve talked to her. It is her.
John closed his eyes. What if it is her? He saw it again, the moment he always saw: the shuddering suit, Charlie trapped inside as it crunched and jerked—and then her hand, and the blood. She couldn’t have survived that. But another image came to mind, unbidden—Dave, who became Springtrap: he had survived what happened to Charlie. He had worn the yellow rabbit suit like it was a second skin, and had paid for it twice: the scars that covered his torso like a shirt of gruesome lace told the story of one narrow escape, and the second … Charlie had killed him when she tripped the spring locks, or so they all believed. No one could have survived what they saw. And yet, he had returned. For an instant, John pictured Charlie, scarred and broken, yet, miraculously, alive. “But that doesn’t sound like the person Jessica saw,” John spoke clearly to Theodore. “Someone broken and scarred; that’s not who Jessica was describing.” He shook his head. “That’s not the person I saw at the diner.”
The next day—she looked like she’d just stepped out of a fairy tale. John caught himself and shook his head, trying to focus on the present. He really didn’t know what had happened to Charlie. He felt himself edging toward the glimmer of hope. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe she’s all right. It was what he’d wished for—what anyone wishes for in the throes of grief: Let it not have happened. Let everything be all right. The precarious ledge became solid ground, and John felt a weight lifted, his neck and shoulders relaxing from a cramped position he had not been aware of. The fatigue from so many months of misspent sleep caught up to him all at once.
He looked at Theodore; he was clutching the rabbit’s head so tightly that his knuckles had gone white. He slowly released the toy, propping it up on the pillow.
“I’m not going,” he said. “I was never really considering it, I just wanted Jessica to leave me alone.” He held his breath for a moment, then let out a deep sigh. “Right?” He said, his tone becoming more agitated. “What would I even say to these people?” Theodore stared at him blankly.
“Damn.” John sighed.
* * *
The fluttering in John’s stomach grew worse the closer he came to Clay’s house. He checked the dashboard clock—it was only six. Maybe no one will be there yet, he thought, but as he made his way down the winding road toward their house, cars lined both sides of the street for half a block. John wedged his car between a pickup truck and a rusted sedan almost as beat-up as his own, then got out and headed toward the house.
All the windows of the three-story house were illuminated, standing out against the trees like a beacon. John hung back, staying out of the light. He could hear music from inside, and laughter; the sound of it made him balk. He forced himself to walk the rest of the way to the door, but stopped again when he reached it: Going inside felt like an enormous decision, something that would change everything. Then again, so did walking away.
He raised his hand to ring the bell, then hesitated; before he could decide, the door swung open in front of him. John blinked at the sudden light and found himself face-to-face with Clay Burke, who looked as startled as he was.
“John!” Clay reached out and gripped John with both arms, pulled him in and gave him a hug, then quickly pushed him back to where he started and firmly patted his shoulders. “Right, come in!” Clay stepped back to clear the way, and John followed him in, looking around the room cautiously. The last time he was here, the whole house had been a wreck, strewn with signs of a man falling to pieces. Now, the piles of laundry and evidence files were gone; the couches and the floor were clean, and Clay himself was beaming with a genuine smile. He caught John’s eye, and his grin faded.
“A lot has changed.” He smiled as though reading John’s mind.
“Is Betty—” John broke off too late. He shook his head. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to—”
“No, she’s still gone,” Clay said evenly. “I wish she’d come back; maybe she will someday, but life goes on,” he added with a brief smile. John nodded, uncertain what to say.
“John!” Marla waved from the stairs, and immediately came bounding down with her usual eagerness, wrapping him in a hug before he could so much as say hello. Jessica appeared, coming in from the kitchen.
“Hey, John,” Jessica said more calmly, but with a glowing smile.
“I’m so glad to see you again, it’s been a long time,” Marla said, releasing him at last.
“Yeah,” he said. “Too long.” He tried to think of something else to say, and Marla and Jessica exchanged a glance. Jessica opened her mouth, about to speak, but was interrupted as Carlton ran excitedly down the staircase.
“Carlton!” John called with his first genuine smile of the evening. Carlton raised his hand in an answering wave, and came to join the group.
“Hey,” he said.
“Hey,” John echoed as Carlton tousled John’s hair.
“What, are you my granddad now?” John made a halfhearted effort to straighten his hair while searching the crowd with his eyes.
“I’m surprised you came.” Marla slapped him across the shoulder.
“I mean of course you were going to come!” Carlton corrected. “I just know you’ve been busy! Too many girlfriends, am I right?”
“How’s New York?” John asked, fishing for something to talk about as he straightened his clothes.
“Great! College, city—learning—friends. I was in a play about a horse. It’s great.” He bobbed his head in a rapid nod. “Marla’s in school, too.”
“In Ohio,” Marla jumped in. “I’m premed.”
“That’s great.” John grinned.
“Yeah, it’s been a lot of hard work but it’s worth it,” she said cheerfully, and John began to relax, falling back into the familiar pattern of their friendships. Marla was still Marla; Carlton was still inscrutable.
“Is Lamar around?” Carlton asked, looking from face to face. Marla shook her head.
“I called him when … a few months ago,” she said. “He’s on track to graduate early.”
“But he’s not coming?” Carlton persisted. Marla smiled slightly.
“He said, ‘I’m never, ever, ever setting foot in that town again, not ever, never for as long as I live, and you shouldn’t, either.’ But he said we’re all welcome to visit him.”
“In New Jersey?” Carlton made a skeptical face, then turned his attention to Jessica. “Jessica, what’s up with you these days, anyway? I heard you’ve got the dorm room to yourself now.”
John stiffened, suddenly aware of what Carlton was really asking; the lights seemed blinding, the noise louder. Jessica glanced at John, but he didn’t acknowledge her.
“Yeah,” she said, turning back to the others. “I don’t know what happened, but I came home one day right after … about six months ago, and, she was packing what she could carry. She left me and John to clean up the rest. If we hadn’t happened to walk in, I don’t think she was eve
n going to tell me she was leaving.”
“Did she say where she was going?” Marla asked, her brow furrowing. Jessica shook her head.
“She hugged me and said she’d miss me, but all she’d say was she had to leave. She wouldn’t tell me where.”
“Well, we can always ask her,” Carlton said. John looked at him, startled.
“You’ve seen her?”
Carlton shook his head. “Not yet, my plane just got in today, but she’ll be here tonight. Jessica says she looks good.”
“Right,” John said. They all looked at him as if they could see what he was thinking: She looks good, but she doesn’t look like Charlie.
“John, come help me in the kitchen!” Clay called, and John broke away from the group relieved, but also fully aware he couldn’t possibly provide any help in the kitchen.
“What’s up?” he asked. Clay leaned back against the sink and looked him up and down. “Need me to open the ketchup bottle?” John asked, growing nervous. “High shelf?”
Clay sighed. “I just want to make sure you’re all right out there.”
“What do you mean?”
“I thought you might be nervous; I know it’s been a while since you and Charlie talked.”
“It’s been a while since you and I have talked, too,” John said, unable to keep the edge out of his voice.
“Well, that’s different, and you know it,” Clay said drily. “I thought you might need a pep talk.”
“A pep talk?” John retorted.
Clay shrugged. “Well, do you?” Clay stared at him firmly, but with kindness in his eyes, and John’s nerves calmed.
“Jessica told you?” he asked, and Clay tilted his head to the side.
“Some. Probably not all. Here.” Clay opened the refrigerator door he had been leaning against and handed John a soda. “Try to relax, you’re here with friends. Those people out there love you.” Clay smiled.
The Fourth Closet Page 2