Don't Cry Now

by Joy Fielding

  “Yeah, I think so. I can give it a try anyway. She has to be in New York for a couple of days next week, and she gave me her key, said to see how I make out.”

  “Good for you,” Bonnie told him, swallowing another spoonful of soup, taking a small bite of toast, savoring the blackberry jam slathered across the top of it.

  The phone rang.

  “That’s probably your father,” Bonnie told him, as Sam picked up the receiver and extended it toward her without a word. “Hello?” Bonnie said, watching as Sam shifted self-consciously from one foot to the other. “Hello?” she said again when no one answered. There was a strange click, then the line went dead in her hands. “Probably a wrong number.” Bonnie handed the receiver back to Sam, who returned it to its carriage. “What are you up to tonight?” she asked, when he made no move to leave.

  “No real plans,” Sam said. “Haze might drop over later.”

  “Haze?”

  “If that’s all right.”

  “I don’t know…” Bonnie began, when the phone rang again. She glanced at it warily.

  “I’ll get it,” Sam offered, barking hello into the receiver. Don’t mess with me, the growl said. “Oh hi, Dad,” he continued, sheepishly. “How’s Florida? Yeah, she’s right here. Hold on.” He handed the phone to Bonnie. “I’ll give you some privacy,” he mouthed, backing out of the room.

  Bonnie forced some levity into her voice. “Rod? Hi. How was your flight?”

  The flight was good, he told her. Some turbulence at the beginning, then clear sailing, he said, laughing at his mixed metaphor. He asked how she was feeling, and she lied and said much better, she thought the worst was over. He told her to take it easy, not to try to do too much. She told him the same. He said he loved her. She said she loved him more. They said good-bye.

  Bonnie hung up the phone, finished her soup and toast, and fell asleep.

  In her dream, she was carrying a tray of food up the stairs toward her bedroom. As she neared the top of the stairs, she smelled something both familiar and oppressive. The sickeningly sweet odor of too many flowers, she knew at once, reaching the landing, proceeding along the hall to her room, rock music trailing after her from a discreet distance.

  Sam was in the bathroom papering the walls. She recognized the wallpaper immediately—the dark paper she’d grown up with, with its oppressive assortment of flowers threatening to tumble from the walls and bury her alive.

  “What are you doing?” she demanded. “Take that paper down right away.”

  “I can’t do that,” Sam said calmly. “It’s what she wanted.” He pointed toward the bed.

  Slowly, Bonnie’s eyes followed his fingers to the bed. Elsa Langer was propped up against the pillows, staring at Bonnie as she approached. But the closer Bonnie got to the bed, the less distinct Elsa Langer’s features became. They blurred, then faded into nothingness. By the time Bonnie reached the bed, she had no face at all, like the faceless woman in the Dalí lithograph come to life.

  Or was it death? Bonnie wondered, awaking with a start, her heart pounding, the rock music catching up to her, filling the space around her. Sam’s stereo, she realized, reassured by the sound, looking toward the window, noting the full moon. Maybe the moon was the cause of all these strange dreams she’d been having. At least, she hadn’t been walking in her sleep again, she thought, recalling that the last time she’d walked in her sleep, she’d been about Lauren’s age. Her mother had found her asleep at the front door, a packed overnight case in her hands. That was just after her father had left, she remembered.

  Bonnie heard movement, strange voices, some laughter in the hall, the music growing louder. “Sam?” she called out. “Sam, is that you? What’s going on?”

  “It’s not Sam,” the voice said, as a figure stepped into the room. He was tall and slim, his muscular arms stretched out shoulder-height. Haze, Bonnie realized, her breath catching in her throat as she saw the snake extended and twisting between his hands. “How are you feeling, Mrs. Wheeler?” He took several steps toward her.

  “Where’s Sam?” Bonnie asked.

  “Outside having a smoke.”

  Bonnie heard laughter. “What’s going on?”

  “Sam’s just having a few kids over,” Haze said, stretching the snake, as if it were a piece of rope. “He didn’t think you’d mind. We’ve been very good little boys and girls.”

  “I’m not feeling very well,” Bonnie told him. “I’m afraid you’ll have to leave.”

  Haze walked to the foot of the bed, holding the snake by its tail, swinging him lazily back and forth.

  “Be careful,” Bonnie advised. “He hates to be dropped.”

  “That so?” Haze asked, waving the snake from side to side, like a pendulum.

  “Please go away,” Bonnie said, trying to sound strong and in control. “I’m not feeling very well.”

  “What’d you do to your hair?” Haze asked, coming closer.

  Bonnie closed her eyes. Please let this be another dream, she prayed.

  “Haze?” a young girl called from the hallway. “Where are you?”

  “Right here,” Haze said, wrapping the snake around his neck like a shawl, and retreating from the room. “Catch you later, Mrs. Wheeler,” he said.

  Bonnie walked calmly into the bathroom and threw up.

  The phone rang at just after three o’clock in the morning. Bonnie groped for the phone, pushed it to her ear, mumbled hello, waited for an answer. There was nothing. “Hello,” she said again, about to hang up when she heard the same strange click she’d heard earlier. Then, once again, the phone went dead in her ears.

  You’re in danger, Joan shouted at her through the receiver. You and Amanda.

  Immediately, Bonnie was out of bed and running down the hall to Amanda’s room. She pushed open Amanda’s door and rushed to the side of her bed, relaxing only when she saw her daughter comfortably asleep on her back between a stuffed pink teddy bear and Kermit the Frog. She kissed Amanda’s forehead and slowly backed out of the room, trying to will her breathing back to normal. What was the matter with her? She was acting like a crazy person. Had she no control over her emotions at all?

  The house was quiet. Everyone had left. If there’d actually been anyone here, Bonnie thought, no longer able to distinguish between what was real and what wasn’t. Maybe she dreamed the whole unpleasant episode with Haze. I’m dreaming my life away, she thought, the words to the old Everly Brothers song filling her head.

  She checked on Lauren, found the girl stretched diagonally across her bed, her blankets bunched up around her feet. Bonnie brought them gently up to Lauren’s shoulders, then tiptoed from the room.

  Then she looked in on Sam, saw him lying, fully clothed, on top of the sofa, the light from the full moon throwing a spotlight on his face, emphasizing a resemblance to his mother she’d never noticed before. Bonnie turned, was about to leave the room, when her bare feet brushed against something on the floor. It crinkled, scratched at her toes. A piece of paper, she thought, scooping it up. No, not paper, she realized. A photograph. The picture of Amanda taken at Toys “R” Us the previous Christmas, its silver frame lying broken beside it on the floor.

  Bonnie picked up the frame, about to put it on the desk when she froze, the light from the moon throwing interesting shadows across the top of the glass tank. Bonnie stared into the tank, then slowly started to shake. The tank was empty. The snake was gone.

  23

  “You’re early,” Hyacinth Johnson said in greeting as Bonnie entered Dr. Greenspoon’s office the following Wednesday morning. “Am I?” Bonnie looked at her watch, feigned surprise. In truth, she’d been waiting in her car for over an hour at the bottom of the street, having left her house immediately after Amanda had been picked up, and Sam and Lauren had gone off to school. She didn’t want to spend one more minute at home than she had to. God only knew what might be waiting for her around the next corner.

  She’d woken Sam up as soon as she saw L’il
Abner’s empty tank and together they’d searched the house, to no avail. Sam had called Haze first thing Sunday morning, asking whether his friend had absconded with his prized possession. But Haze claimed to know nothing of L’il Abner’s disappearance, although he allowed as to how he might not have secured the lid on the tank properly when he put the snake back. He’d been pretty loaded, he said.

  Once again Bonnie and Sam searched the house from top to bottom, every corner, every closet, every cupboard, every windowsill. Nothing. “He’d go where it’s warm,” Sam told her, so they’d checked, and then rechecked at regular intervals throughout the balance of the day and night, the furnace room and the hot water tank, but still L’il Abner failed to appear.

  Bonnie now took a seat in the waiting area of Dr. Greenspoon’s office, noting that Hyacinth Johnson and Erica McBain were both dressed in layers of black and white. Did they consult on their wardrobe, plan it out days in advance? she wondered, grabbing a magazine from the coffee table, flipping carelessly through articles on the latest scandals involving the royal family and Michael Jackson, her thoughts unable to settle on anything other than the missing reptile. She remembered once reading about a man who’d discovered a snake in his toilet when he went to the bathroom in the middle of the night. He’d opened the bathroom door, flipped on the light, and there it was, rising from the toilet bowl like a periscope. “Please don’t let that happen to me,” she prayed out loud. “It’s more than I could bear.”

  “I’m sorry. Did you say something?” asked Erica McBain.

  “Just talking to myself,” Bonnie told her. Isn’t that what crazy people do? she wondered.

  “I do that all the time,” Erica said, as if to reassure her.

  When repeated searches had failed to uncover the missing boa constrictor, Bonnie called the exterminators, the plumber, the humane society, even the zoo. There was nothing anyone could do. If the snake had gotten outside, she was told, probably someone would spot him sooner or later and call the police. If he’d somehow managed to get inside the pipes of the house, it could be days, weeks, months, even years, before he resurfaced, if ever.

  “Damn Haze anyway,” Sam muttered, visibly shaken. “I told him to leave Abner alone.”

  Damn Haze is right, Bonnie thought to herself. “He’ll turn up,” she said to Sam. “We’ll find him.”

  “He’ll be getting hungry soon,” Sam fretted. “He can get mean when he’s hungry.”

  Since then, Bonnie hadn’t slept. She was literally frightened of her own shadow. The last few nights, she’d lain awake, jumping at the slightest shift in the light from the moon through her bedroom curtains, repeatedly checking on Amanda and Lauren, and comforting Sam, who’d dropped two small white rats into L’il Abner’s tank in hopes of enticing the snake to come home.

  “Would you like a cup of coffee?” Hyacinth Johnson offered. “I just made a fresh pot.”

  “No, thank you.” Bonnie thought that the last thing she needed was a jolt of caffeine. On the other hand, she needed to keep her strength up. She couldn’t let herself get dehydrated. The only nourishment she’d had all morning was a small glass of orange juice. “On second thought, maybe I will have some coffee, if it’s not too much trouble.”

  “No trouble at all. How do you take it?”

  “Black, thank you.”

  “There you go,” Hyacinth said a few seconds later, depositing the delicate pink-flowered china cup and saucer on the coffee table in front of Bonnie.

  Bonnie thanked her again, lifting the cup of hot coffee to her lips, feeling the steam filling her nostrils, being absorbed into her pores. She’d always loved the smell of fresh coffee.

  She remembered accompanying her mother to the grocery store, as a small child, waiting with eager anticipation while her mother emptied the coffee beans she’d selected into a grinder. Bonnie would inhale deeply as the beans were ground into aromatic dust, their scent swirling around her head, like a soft rain, ultimately settling on her skin, like an expensive perfume. Over the years, the visits to the grocery store had grown less frequent, then stopped altogether. Eventually, her mother did all her grocery shopping over the phone from her bed. The days of freshly ground coffee were gone.

  The door to Dr. Greenspoon’s inner office opened and an attractive older woman stepped out, the doctor right behind her. The woman, who was around sixty, was dressed in a smart brown Armani pantsuit, her blond hair pulled into a fashionable twist at the back. Seeing her, Bonnie felt dowdy, the shapeless ecru-colored dress she was wearing surrounding her like a tent. How much weight had she lost in the last few weeks? she wondered, thinking it substantial.

  “Make a series of appointments for Mrs. King,” Dr. Greenspoon instructed his secretaries, then took the older woman’s hands in his own. “Try not to worry too much, and I’ll see you next week.” He looked over at Bonnie. “If you’d like to wait inside my office,” he told her, “I’ll be there in a moment.”

  Bonnie walked silently into the inner office and took her place on one of the burgundy sofas. The same sofa and the same seat she’d sat in the last time. Was that significant? Would the good doctor notice?

  Her eyes drifted into the corners of the room, circling the potted plants, peeking through the window blinds. Looking for snakes, she realized, feeling foolish, a habit she wondered if she’d ever break. Maybe Dr. Greenspoon could help her.

  “Sorry to keep you,” Dr. Greenspoon was saying a few minutes later, closing the door behind him and taking up his position on the other sofa. He looked natty in his gray seersucker suit and open-necked blue shirt. “How have you been?”

  “Fine,” Bonnie replied automatically.

  “I see you’ve done something different with your hair.”

  “I see you’ve mastered the art of understatement.”

  The doctor laughed.

  “Do you like it?” Bonnie asked, aware she was testing, although she wasn’t sure what.

  “More important,” he said, “do you?”

  “I asked you first.”

  “It has potential.”

  “To do what?”

  Again he laughed, a nice sound, easy, one that was comfortable with itself. “To grow into something a little more flattering,” he answered.

  This time it was Bonnie who laughed. “Thank you for your honesty.”

  “Was there a reason you cut your hair?” he asked.

  “Does there have to be?”

  “There usually is.”

  Bonnie shrugged. “It was looking a little lifeless,” she began, then stopped, the word conjuring up images of Elsa Langer. How strange that she’d died just after Bonnie had discovered she was alive. “I haven’t been feeling quite up to par,” she continued. “It’s why I decided to see you again.”

  “What is it you think I can do for you?”

  “I’m not sure. But somebody has to do something. I don’t think I can stand feeling this way much longer.”

  “How is it you feel exactly?”

  “Rotten,” Bonnie told him simply. “I’m nauseated all the time, I throw up, everything hurts….”

  “Have you seen a doctor?”

  “I’m seeing you.”

  “I meant a medical doctor.”

  “I know what you meant.”

  “I know you did.”

  She smiled. “No, I haven’t.”

  “Why is that?”

  “Because my symptoms are obviously psychosomatic.”

  “Really? What makes you say that?”

  “Doctor Greenspoon,” Bonnie began, “you said it yourself the last time I was here. I’m a woman in torment. I believe those were your exact words, and, much as I hate to admit it, you were right. A lot has happened in my life recently, not much of it pleasant. I’m dealing with a lot of shit, Dr. Greenspoon, if you’ll pardon the vernacular, and obviously I’m not coping very well. This flu, or whatever it is, is just my body’s way of reacting to all the stress.”

  “That may very well
be,” Dr. Greenspoon said. “But I still think you should get it checked out. How long have you been feeling this way?”

  “On and off for about ten days, maybe more,” Bonnie told him.

  “That’s too long. You need to see a doctor, rule out the possibility of infection, or more serious illness….”

  “I’m not running a fever,” Bonnie said, impatiently. “What will a doctor do except tell me to drink lots of fluids and stay in bed?”

  “Why don’t you find out?”

  “Because I don’t have the time or the energy to subject myself to a lot of useless tests. Especially when I know that these symptoms are all in my head.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Because I never get sick.”

  “So you said the last time you were here. Do you interpret getting sick as a sign of weakness?”

  “What? No. Of course not. I just don’t have the time to get sick.”

  “And other people do?”

  “That’s not what I’m saying.”

  “Are you saying that you think sickness is something you can control?”

  “Are you saying it isn’t?”

  “I guess I think it all depends,” the doctor told her. “Some things are a question of mind over matter, and I’m certainly not going to suggest that one’s attitude doesn’t play a role in one’s physical well-being. But that doesn’t mean a good attitude is going to prevent cancer, or that a lousy attitude is going to bring on certain death. My father-in-law is eighty-four years old. Ever since I can remember, he’s been complaining about his back, his neck, his arthritis. He’s been convinced for twenty years now that he’s dying, that he’ll never see another birthday, another new year, another summer. He has the worst attitude I’ve ever seen, and you want to know what? He’ll live forever, long after the rest of us with our unbounding optimism and sunny dispositions have packed it in.

  “People get sick, Bonnie. There are some things that are out of our control. As a society, we don’t like to accept that. It makes us feel insecure. So, as a result, we have a lot of desperately ill people feeling guilty because they think that if only they’d had a more positive outlook, they wouldn’t have gotten sick, and that’s baloney. It’s just another example of society blaming the victim, as far as I’m concerned. We think that as long as what happens is the victim’s fault, then it won’t happen to us.