[Oxrun Station] Dialing The Wind

by Charles L. Grant

  "From what?" Caroline asked, hands already floating over the flowers, already blending colors and scents from chaos. "It looks like you left it all for me."

  It wasn't said angrily, nor even sarcastically. Now that she was here, she didn't mind it at all. The flowers, like the music, took her mind and gave it shape, gave her daydreams something to do while the hours marked their way to dark, and sleep.

  From the street they heard the sharp fist of a jackhammer, both looking at the same time.

  "You know," Adelle said, "I'm sorry they ever started that now. Who wants to go shopping with all that dust flying in the air? We're going to lose millions, mark my words."

  The floor trembled as a pair of grimy dump trucks lumbered past, loaded with blocks and slabs of what remained of Centre Street's old surface; the flowers quivered on the table. And Caroline was grateful that she'd been able to find the house on Thorn Road. It was the southernmost street in the village, all the houses and trees between acting, thus far, as a perfect sponge for the noise.

  "They found another one."

  She paused in reaching for a length of wire to bind some stems. "Huh?"

  Adelle blew smoke at the floor. "Over on Devon. A little girl was discovered yesterday morning in her bedroom. Not a child, you understand. I think she was twenty. God, you can't hear anything else on the street. It's so morbid. I hate listening to that sort of thing. It's ghastly."

  A sliver of stiff leaf lodged under her thumbnail, and Caroline hissed as she worked it out gently. "Maniac, right?" A drop of blood glistened.

  "How should I know? It doesn't interest me. All I know is, that's one here, two in Harley, one in New Haven, all since the beginning of the year. Corbin says no one has a clue, and," she added, her voice lowered, "you'll notice that not a single detail has been in the papers. They must have been chopped up or something."

  Caroline gave Adelle the shudder she knew the woman hoped for, though she didn't turn to show her smile. "I thought you hated that stuff."

  Adelle crushed the cigarette under her heel. "Oh, my dear, I do, of course I do. But one has to keep up, doesn't one? Besides, you and I, darling, are apparently too old for this guy, whoever he is. We're safe in our dotage."

  You and I, Caroline thought as she sucked the blood from her thumb, are twenty-five years apart.

  "My goodness, don't you listen to the radio, child?"

  "Can't. I have two, and they're both busted. Besides, all I could get this morning was some evangelical preacher, talking about healing me or something. Plus, the damned thing gave me a shock. There's a short somewhere, I guess."

  Adelle commiserated, then sighed when the harness bells nailed over the entrance sounded. She added a groan for good measure and hauled herself up, brushed her hands over her spotless white-and-gold apron, and checked herself in a tiny mirror propped on the desk. "Duty calls," she said.

  Caroline only nodded. And scowled five minutes later when her name was called from the front. According to the scribbled orders haphazardly taped to the whitewashed wall above the table, she was going to be here all day, and probably well after supper, too. What she didn't need were interruptions, just because the older woman couldn't tell ragweed from heather.

  "Darling!" Adelle said sweetly when she pushed through the hanging beads.

  Caroline smiled, brushed aside a peacock's feather standing in a brass spittoon, and saw a tall man in a cream linen suit waiting on the other side of the short counter. He was lean, his long face creased and melancholy in spite of the one-sided grin he gave her over Adelle's shoulder, one that told her that interrupting her work wasn't his idea.

  "Darling," Adelle said, standing to one side, "this lovely gentleman is looking for something special. One of your famous displays in wicker, or a vase, would be simply perfect." She nodded once, and left the room, smoke from a fresh cigarette a leash that drew her back in seconds, just long enough to say, "And he needs it by four."

  Caroline couldn't help a grimace.

  "Don't say it," the man said, raising a palm, spreading his grin. "I know. But it's kind of an emergency."

  "Not a funeral or something, I hope," she said politely, pulling the order pad to her.

  "No. Worse-a forgotten anniversary."

  From the uncaring hang of his suit, he definitely didn't shop at Pickett's, and when he put his hands on his hips, slipping the jacket behind them, she saw a shoulder holster nestled against his side. "I hope you're a cop," she said, determined not to seem startled.

  He looked down, and dropped his arms suddenly. letting the jacket close. "Sorry. Didn't mean to frighten you." His fingers raked nervously through curly brown hair that dropped just below his collar. "I'm not used to it yet."

  "Oh? A new cop then?"

  "Sort of," he said. "New to plainclothes, anyway." His grin snapped on, snapped off. "Glenn. Glenn Rowan."

  She took the offered hand, felt warmth, felt perspiration, and asked him what he wanted. He didn't know. Something to keep his girlfriend from taking off his head when he told her he had to work tonight instead of taking her out to dinner.

  "How about a plane ticket to California?" she suggested, half turning to look at the stock in the cooled, glass-front display case behind her. Rowan bothered her, and she didn't know quite why.

  Liar, she thought; you know damned well why.

  He laughed. "A ticket, huh? For me, or her?"

  "I think ... for you. With that face, you'll never be able to lie to her. I'll bet you're lousy at poker, too."

  Jesus, Caroline, what the hell are you doing?

  Again he laughed, and leaned a hip against the counter. "It's a good idea, but I think it'll have to wait." He pointed. "Those roses. The orangey ones."

  She told him the price.

  He winced. "Ouch. I'll be eating peanut butter for a year."

  She looked at him along her shoulder. "You want to live, I can do something with the roses. You want to eat, you'll have to go for the ticket."

  He considered her for a moment, and for a moment she thought he was going to lean over to kiss her. Irrational. Stupid. And she looked dumbly at his outstretched hand when he offered her several ten-dollar bills. When she finally took them, still trying to shake the feeling and shake herself back to the real world in the shop, he gave her a friendly, two-fingered salute and headed for the door.

  "Four," she called after him.

  He stopped with his hand on the knob. "Are you sure?"

  "Absolutely."

  His smile-oh god that smile!-switched on again, but she had no time to respond. The door swung sharply open, nearly knocking him over, and Stacey Jeffries rushed in ahead of a slam of construction bedlam. Her long black hair was wind-woven, blades of grass clung to her jeans, which in turn clung to legs that looked almost too thin to hold her up. Her white shirt was open three buttons down, her skin deeply tanned across the tops of breasts that seemed too large for a woman so slender.

  "Caroline, wait until you hear-" She stopped when she realized there was someone clinging to the door, rubbing his wrist with his free hand. "Oh my god. Oh . . ." Flustered, she reached out as though to help, but Rowan shook his head quickly and gave her the smile.

  "You'd better go before you get killed," Caroline called over the noise from outside.

  "Right," he said. "Right." He nodded to Stacey and ducked into the street, the door closing with a near slam.

  "Jeez," Stacey said, looking at him through the window. "Boy, I guess I'll hear about that later."

  Caroline stuffed the money into the register, whose drawer never seemed willing to either open or close without scraping off a knuckle. "Hear from who? You know him?"

  "Sure," Stacey said. "That's Glenn. He's a cop. Didn't you know? He found that girl on Devon Street."

  "No," she said. "As a matter of fact. . .no." Then she watched as Stacey fussed around the shop, finger-dusting the shelves that held tall and short vases and hand-painted figurines, adjusting the swivel rack that held gr
eeting and note cards. She was only a few years into her twenties and still managed to seem as if she were only sixteen. Though Caroline like her-no, enjoyed her-her enthusiasm could make a single day seem more like a year.

  Adelle coughed in the back room, loud and hacking, and ended it with a curse before starting again.

  A horn warned a jaywalking pedestrian.

  A chilly draft from the display case tickled her ankles, took hold, chilled her calf. She shifted. And ignored the next cough, which was clearly a signal for her to return to work.

  Something was wrong with Stacey.

  And the moment the thought straightened her, Stacey stopped in the middle of the shop and said, "Caroline, I think I'm in trouble."

  The town's luncheonette was on the next corner, and they were lucky enough to find a booth in back. The place was filled with dusty workers, and the noise they produced made it seem like a Friday-night bar.

  Their orders came quickly-two salads, two coffees -but Stacey only stared at hers, poked at it with a fork, lifting shreds of lettuce as if expecting to find something underneath. Caroline watched her, noting how poorly she'd used dark makeup to cover the red rims of her eyes.

  She waited.

  Stacey said nothing.

  "I have a feeling," she finally said, "that I'm going to be working until midnight at least." When Stacey looked up at her, puzzled, she nodded. "In fact, I know I am. It's because I haven't been able to practice my mind reading lately. Otherwise, I'd know what you're talking about, just like that." And she snapped her fingers.

  Stacey almost smiled. "Oh."

  "Yes. Oh," Another wait, turning her gaze now to the T-shirted men lining the long counter, sweat staining their backs, yellow hard hats pushed back on their heads. Though both women had been blatantly looked over when they'd arrived, the men's attention was elsewhere now-on their food, and the two waitresses who didn't seem to mind the attention.

  "Stace," she said, swinging her head back around, "if you're going to tell me you think you're pregnant, I don't think I'm the one to give you advice."

  "Oh god, no!" the younger woman protested. "Jeez, Caroline, that's not it." Her eyes widened. "Did you think it was? God, is that what you thought? That I was ... oh no, god no, never, I'm not that dumb."

  "Good." She took a bite of the salad and decided the rabbits weren't missing a thing. "So what's the trouble?" She determined then to be patient while Stacey fussed again with her own meal, fussed with the silverware, folded and unfolded the napkin in her lap. She pulled her hair over one shoulder and threw it back. She reached for her coffee, and pushed it away with a shudder of distate.

  Finally Caroline reached over and snared her left hand, held it firmly on the table, and said, "Stace, c'mon, give me a break, okay? Are we .. . are we talking men here? Is that why you haven't talked to Marion?"

  Stacey's cheeks flushed, but not prettily, and she grabbed up her knife like a dagger. "I can't talk to her," she answered sullenly, staring at the blade, putting it down. "She's not home. Besides, she thinks I'm still a baby, for god's sake."

  "Ah. Then it is a man, yes?"

  Stacey shrugged. And nodded reluctantly.

  "Okay. Is it Nick, then? You guys having some kind of trouble?" She almost added: again?

  As far as she understood the whirlwind of the girl's life, Stacey had been going with one of Oxrun's patrolmen, Nick Lonrow, for just about a year. Which was why the girl never left town on her days off. Caroline didn't know him. Adelle said he was just a boy.

  She saw the beginning of tears then, saw Stacey jerk her head side to side to keep them from falling. Oh boy, she thought; another romance bites the dust. And she eased her grip on the girl's hand, patting it instead, wanting to tell her that losing a man this way was infinitely better than sitting alone at his bedside, watching the skin grow flaccid as what beneath it dissolved. Shrinking him. Discoloring him. Reducing him to a mockery while nameless men and women in white walked past him without seeing, stopping only long enough to take a pulse, a blood pressure, make a note, and move on.

  Infinitely better.

  While miracles hid, and no god answered prayers.

  Stacey snatched up her napkin and blew her nose loudly, lifted her chin and swallowed tightly. "I'm sorry," she said.

  "Another woman?"

  "I guess. I... he doesn't want to talk anymore, you know? He says he's busy. He wants to be a detective, and ... and he says there's no future for him here." She snapped her head around to stare at the wall. "He wants to go to Hartford. Greenwich. He says ..." She looked back, angry now. "Caroline, am I supposed to give a shit about what he wants when he doesn't want me to go with him?"

  They exchanged the luncheonette for the park and walked along the winding blacktopped path, under heavy branches whose shade on a bright day would have been welcome.

  The overcast had deepened. Strips and slides of cloud dangled over the trees, were twisted by a cool breeze and shredded to ghosts of fog waiting in the leaves. Three girls played quiet tag around two mothers who ignored them. A ball game on the playing field was muffled by the early twilight, the sound of bat meeting ball less a crack than a slap.

  "What I think is," Stacey said, "I don't want him to go.

  A kiosk selling ice cream and snacks was deserted; they walked past it.

  A cyclist rushed past them, his passing the hiss of a late autumn wind.

  Caroline saw a group of teenage boys lying on the grass, heads turning as Stacey walked by, the girl oblivious to the stir she created. Had she been alone at least one of them would have moved in; they ignored Caroline completely-for them she was much too old.

  "I want him to stay." What she said was: he's mine.

  The tears had withdrawn, the anger remained, and Caroline couldn't help smiling sadly when she remembered her own tears, the wailing, the demands, the swing from rage to self-pity as Harry was sucked away by the machines, drained by the cancers, as if, in some way, he had finally decided to go somewhere else without taking her with him.

  It wasn't fair.

  And justice, for her, had died in a room that smelled of death and cleaning.

  "... preacher," Stacey said. "Jilly told me about him."

  Caroline rubbed her cheek briskly, brought herself back to the park. "I'm sorry? Preacher? Jilly? Your friend Jilly?" She touched the girl's shoulder playfully. "Don't tell me you're getting religion, Stace. No offense, but I don't think that's going to help."

  "No," the girl said with a single shake of her head. "Jilly's ... was telling me about this .. ."A shuddering deep breath and a sigh and toss of her head. "Jilly's the one Glenn found yesterday."

  Caroline didn't know what to say, and so said nothing as Stacey talked on after much clearing of her throat. But it seemed that Jilly Pentworth had had man problems of her own, and had discovered some radio preacher who somehow was able to reach her, who made her believe that nothing was impossible if she only believed hard enough. Clap your hands if you believe in fairies, Caroline thought, though she kept it to herself when she saw the way Stacey looked, the way her eyes brightened in spite of her anger, the animation in her walk as she explained how this guy, whoever he was, never talked about Jesus, or God, or even the Bible. He simply talked, and Stacey was beginning to wonder if maybe he could help her.

  "Forgive me," Caroline said gently, "but it doesn't look like he was much help to Jilly, at the end."

  Stacey only answered, "She didn't believe."

  At the end of the path the land began to rise, a knoll that marked the beginning of a small patch of woodland. They turned around, headed back for the gates, in silence now while Caroline marveled at the gullibility of the innocent.

  Finally, passing the kiosk again, the boys gone, the ball game drawing to a close in an argument with the umpire, she massaged the side of her neck.

  "I think," she said, "if Nick doesn't want you to go, then you aren't going, and no radio pulpit-pounder's going to make any difference."

&
nbsp; "Oh, but he will!" Stacey insisted.

  "Jilly's dead," she reminded her.

  "Yes, but. . ." Stacey quickened her pace, slowed, turned and walked backward. "You see, he talks about the power, y'know?"

  feel the power

  Caroline tried not to smile. "Yeah, but Stacey, he's-"

  hands lay your hands

  Stacey scowled, her face instantly aging, instantly a crone, before softening, sagging, then defiant again. "You don't get it, Caroline. You just don't get it."

  And before Caroline could defend herself, the girl whirled and ran off, vanishing around a turn in the path. She took a quick step after her and changed her mind. It wouldn't do any good to chase after her; she probably wouldn't be able to catch her anyway. But it angered her to see what that boyfriend was doing to her. And what the girl was doing to herself. She was still young, for god's sake, plenty of time to find someone else, to have someone find her. And to resort to a faceless voice on the radio-

  feel

  She raised her eyebrows as she reached the high iron gates at the park entrance. It must be the same guy she'd chanced upon that morning. But she hadn't heard anything special, hadn't noted any extraordinary qualities in the man or the sermon. All the son of a bitch had done was short out her radios.

  Which is exactly what she told Adelle when she returned to the shop, unapologetic for the time lost, swearing on every blossom in the store that she wouldn't leave until all the most vital orders had been filled.

  "But I won't be in tomorrow," she said, sleeves rolled, apron around her waist to protect her skirt. "Monday. Stacey and I will take care of everything else Monday."

  "Darling, if you say so."

  She grinned. Of course she did. And she was briefly ashamed for taking advantage, knowing she was the best thing that had happened to The Florist since Adelle's husband had taken it over. She didn't understand what the affinities were with the flowers, the arrangements; she only knew that her hands knew what to do, her eyes knew what was right, her sense of smell understanding what would work perfectly and what wouldn't.