The Stranger Next Door

by Joy Fielding

  “Okay, guys, I appreciate your coming here, and bringing the champagne, and celebrating New Year’s Eve with us, but I really have to go now. And so do you.”

  “We understand,” K.C. said.

  “We can show ourselves out,” Lance offered, guiding the others to the elevator as the buzzer sounded yet again.

  “Thanks for dropping by,” I heard Beverley say as I headed down the hall. The floor was sliding under my feet, like a moving sidewalk, and I grabbed the wall for support, trying to control the spinning of my head. Was I drunk already, on only two glasses of champagne? The only other time I’d gotten this drunk this fast, I realized, I’d also been with Alison.

  I pushed open the door to Eliot Winchell’s room. He was sitting up in bed, his covers bunched up around his ankles, the front of his pajamas wet with his urine. “Oh, Eliot. Have you had an accident?”

  “I’m sorry,” he said sheepishly.

  “No. Don’t be sorry. It’s not your fault.”

  “Really?” Lance asked, pushing past me into the room, followed by Denise and K.C. Alison hung back in the doorway as the others approached the bed. “Then whose fault is it? Hello, I’m Dr. Palmay,” Lance continued before I had time to react. “And these are my colleagues, Dr. Austin and Dr. Powers.”

  Denise laughed, and Eliot laughed with her, although I doubt he got the joke.

  “He’s so cute,” Denise said. “What’s his problem?”

  “Obviously, he’s wet his pants,” Lance answered. “What kind of doctor are you anyway?”

  “Oh, gross,” Denise said.

  “You have to leave now,” I said when I could find my voice. My mouth was dry. Thoughts swirled helplessly around my brain, as if trapped in an unexpected eddy. I steadied myself against Eliot Winchell’s bed.

  “Yes, we do,” Alison agreed from the doorway. “Come on, Doctors. We have to go now and let Terry do her job.”

  “Looks like Terry could use a bit of help,” K.C. said. “She’s looking a little green around the gills.”

  “I’m sorry, Terry,” Alison said. “I didn’t know they were going to do this.”

  “What are you talking about?” Lance shot back angrily. “This whole thing was your idea.”

  And then they were gone. In the merciful silence that followed, I changed Eliot into another pair of pajamas and settled him back in his bed. I did all this by rote, my head spinning, my vision impaired by a cluster of bright neon bubbles exploding before my eyes. Had my glass contained something more potent than champagne?

  I clung to the walls as I navigated the moving hallway back to the nurses’ station, my concerns swept away in an unexpected fit of adolescent giggles that burst from my throat like kernels of corn from a popper. Seconds later, I collapsed into my chair, wondering at what precise moment I’d lost control of my life, knowing it was exactly the moment Alison had shown up at my door.

  TWENTY

  They were waiting for me in the parking lot at the end of my shift.

  I saw Denise first. She was sitting on the trunk of a car, drinking wine directly from a bottle and kicking her feet into the air, as if she were lounging at the end of a dock on the Intracoastal. A small gold loop flashed at me from the side of her right nostril. I didn’t remember seeing it earlier.

  K.C. was standing beside her, his hands crammed into the pockets of his tight jeans, his eyes on the ground. He looked as if he’d just been sick or was about to be, although when he raised his head in my direction, I saw he was smiling. Surprisingly, I smiled back, as if I were no longer in charge of my own reflexes, as if I’d been reduced to a puppetlike state, and I went wherever my strings pulled me. I’d expected the champagne to have worn off by now, but if anything, I was feeling even more discombobulated than before. Strange images were dancing around my head, refusing to settle long enough for me to identify them. Bright colors continued to float, like loose balloons, across my line of vision. It required all my concentration just to put one foot in front of the other.

  Alison and Lance were sitting, half-in, half-out of the white Lincoln that was parked several empty spaces away, its doors open to the early-morning air. Lance was in the front seat, Alison the back, and when she leaned forward, balancing her elbows on her knees, I saw that her eyes were puffy and wet, as if she’d been crying. Or maybe she was just stoned, I realized, as the unmistakable odor of marijuana wafted toward my nose, and I saw the rich orange glow of a hand-rolled cigarette dangling casually from Lance’s fingers.

  “Well, look who’s here,” Denise said.

  “About time.” K.C. straightened up, lifted his arms above his head in a prolonged, catlike stretch, as if he were getting ready to pounce.

  “What are you still doing here?” I looked around, the scenery blurring as I strained to see whether anyone else was in the parking lot, but there was no one. Great security, I thought, wondering who would hear me if I screamed.

  Alison climbed out of the rented Lincoln, swiped at her eyes with the back of her hand. “I didn’t want you driving home alone on New Year’s Eve.”

  Lance took a long drag of his cigarette. “Party’s just beginning.”

  “Party’s over,” I told them, trying to remember where I’d parked my car. “I’m exhausted. I just want to go home and crawl into bed.”

  “Now that’s a plan,” Lance said, as he had said earlier. He extended the marijuana cigarette in my direction. Smoke filled my nostrils, like a too sweet perfume.

  I shook my head no, although I had to admit the sensation was not altogether unpleasant.

  “For strictly medicinal purposes, of course.” Denise slid off the trunk of the car and inhaled deeply from the smoldering joint in Lance’s fingers.

  “K.C., you and Denise take my car,” Lance instructed. “Alison and I’ll go with Terry.” Without asking, he lifted my purse from my hands and extricated the keys to my car. “I’ll drive,” he said, the words crawling around the joint now pressed between his lips.

  “I’m not sure this is such a good idea.”

  “You shouldn’t be driving in your condition.” Lance laughed, as if he knew something I didn’t, and I felt my legs buckle beneath me. They had put something in my champagne. Probably a hallucinogen, I decided, trying to hang on to reality, like a child clinging to the handlebars of a runaway bicycle. Let go, a little voice urged inside my head. Give in and let go.

  I felt a wave of euphoria wash over me as I released my grip on the here and now. I pictured myself flying backward through the air without a helmet, the wind whipping at my hair. Instead I found myself squashed beside Alison in the passenger seat of my car, her arm around me in a protective, almost smothering embrace. The oppressive smell of marijuana circled my head like an errant halo, forcing its way up my sinuses, like wads of cotton batten. “What exactly did you put in my drink?” I heard someone ask, understanding it was me only by the echo bouncing between my ears.

  “You mean aside from the rufies and the LSD?” Lance laughed as we sped out of the parking lot and turned onto Jog Road, the white Lincoln following close behind.

  “Shut up, Lance,” Alison said. “She’ll think you’re serious.”

  “I am serious. I’m a very serious fellow. Come on, Terry.” He waved what was left of the marijauna cigarette in front of my face. “In for a penny, in for a pound. Isn’t that what they say?”

  “She said she doesn’t want any,” Alison said.

  “No, that’s all right,” I surprised us all by saying. What the hell, I remember thinking. My life was no longer my own. Whatever was going to happen was no longer up to me. I’d been excluded from the decision-making process, and instead of feeling threatened and afraid, I felt relieved, even excited. I was walking a tight-rope without a safety net. I was free.

  So I laughed as I accepted the joint from Lance’s waiting fingers, then raised it to my lips and inhaled deeply, holding it in my lungs the way I’d seen Denise do in the parking lot, until my throat burned and my chest thr
eatened to explode.

  “Look at that.” Lance laughed. “She’s an old pro.”

  I took another drag, this one longer than the first, watching dispassionately as the thin paper burned its way down to the tips of my fingers. Unfamiliar stirrings of well-being whooshed through my body, like a fresh transfusion of blood. I’d never smoked marijuana before, although I’d been tempted as a teenager. This had less to do with any great moral integrity on my part than it did with my greater fear of my mother finding out.

  I drew another long drag into my lungs, then sank into a deep well of complete and utter calm, realizing I never wanted to resurface. I clung to the sensation, as a drowning woman clings to a life buoy, pressing the smoke against my lungs like a branding iron, exhaling only the faintest puff, and only when I could no longer hold my breath.

  “Easy does it,” Lance warned as I inhaled again, a small tower of ash replacing the paper in my hand.

  I gasped as the cigarette burned into my fingers.

  “Are you all right?” Alison asked. “Did you burn yourself?”

  “Let me see that.” Lance grabbed my right hand, forced my index and middle fingers into his mouth, sucked greedily on their tips.

  “Oh, for God’s sake.” Alison slapped her brother’s hand with such force, his teeth scraped my knuckles. “Terry, are you okay?”

  I stared at my tingling fingers.

  “That’s first-rate weed, isn’t it?” Lance asked proudly.

  “Where’d you get it?” I asked in return.

  “Trust me. The drug trade still thrives in Delray Beach.”

  I looked around, trying to make sense of what was once familiar territory. “Where are we?” I asked as we turned onto Linton Boulevard.

  “Lakeview Golf Course,” Lance announced, reading the large sign on our left. “You ever play golf, Terry?”

  I shook my head, not sure whether I’d answered him out loud.

  “I tried it once,” Lance said, “but it was a disaster. Balls splaying all over the damn place. It’s not as easy as it looks on TV, I’ll tell you that.”

  “I think it’s the sort of thing you need lessons for,” I heard myself say, remarkably self-assured for someone who had no idea what she was talking about.

  “I have no patience for lessons.”

  “Lance has no patience for anything.” Alison turned toward the window. Were there tears in her eyes?

  “Are you okay?” I wondered if Lance had another of his magic cigarettes to give to his sister, get her to relax. Why was she so uptight?

  Alison nodded without looking back. “You?”

  “Fine.” I lay my head against her shoulder, snuggled into the crook of her arm, closed my eyes.

  “Terry?” Lance said. “Terry, are you asleep? Is she asleep?” he asked Alison before I could formulate a response.

  I felt Alison swivel toward me, her breath warm on my face as she spoke. “I hope you’re proud of yourself,” she said in my mother’s voice, and I jumped up, startled, sure she was speaking to me.

  “So, you’re not asleep,” Lance said. “Trying to trick us, were you?”

  “Where are we?” I asked again. How many times had I asked that already? “Where are we going?”

  “Thought we’d go for a little New Year’s dip in the ocean,” Lance answered.

  “Are you crazy?” Alison asked. “It’s the middle of the night. It’s pitch-black out there.”

  A sudden disquiet gnawed at my newfound serenity, like a mouse on a piece of rope. I pushed myself up in my seat and rubbed my forehead, as if trying to clear it. Maybe a dip in the ocean was exactly what I needed. Just what the doctor ordered, I thought, then laughed.

  “What’s so funny?” Lance asked, laughing with me.

  Alison was the only one who didn’t laugh. Worry clung to her eyes like wraparound shades. What’s her problem? I thought with growing irritation.

  I looked out the car window at the largely deserted thoroughfare. Where was everybody? It was New Year’s Eve, for God’s sake. Where were all the drunken revelers, not to mention all the extra police cars supposedly trolling the streets? Here we were, three plastered partiers crowded into the front seat of a car heading for the Atlantic Ocean. Surely we deserved a citation for that, I thought, giggling at the convoluted absurdity of my reasoning.

  “Maybe we should just go home,” Alison said. “I think Terry’s had enough excitement for one night.”

  “Every party needs a pooper,” Lance began singing. “That’s why we invited you.”

  “Party pooper,” I joined in, laughing so hard now I could barely catch my breath. Whatever twinge of trepidation I might have felt earlier had vanished as quickly as it had appeared, carried away by wave after wave of intense euphoria. I would ride those waves right into the middle of the sea, I thought as the ocean miraculously appeared before us, and Lance pulled to a stop at the side of the road, the white Lincoln stopping right behind.

  In the next instant, four doors opened as one and both cars emptied. We raced each other toward the deserted beach, so dark it was almost impossible to see where the sand ended and the water began. In the distance, several lonely firecrackers exploded, and I looked up to see a spray of brilliant pink and green burst briefly across the sky. Aside from that, and the low growl of a passing motorcycle, it was quiet. I suppressed a shudder as the cool night air blew through my hair, then wrapped itself tightly around my neck, like a tourniquet.

  “This is so great,” Denise exclaimed, throwing her arm over my shoulder and dragging me across the sand. “Isn’t this so great, Terry?”

  “Let’s get naked.” Lance was already kicking off his shoes and pulling his shirt over his head.

  “Let’s not,” Alison quickly countered. “What are you trying to do, Lance?” she asked above the roar of the ocean. “Draw as much attention to us as possible?”

  “Not a good idea,” Lance agreed quickly. “Okay, everybody. Clothes back on.” He tried dragging his shirt back over his head, but his head got caught in one of the sleeves, and he gave up, throwing the shirt to the ground in frustration, then laughing as he stomped it into the sand with his bare feet. “Never did like that stupid shirt,” he said, and we all laughed, as if he’d just told the funniest joke in the world.

  Except Alison. She wasn’t laughing.

  I pulled off my clumsy nurse’s shoes and surveyed the ocean stretched out before me—cold, dark, hypnotic. It beckoned me forward, pulling me like a giant magnet, and I rushed toward its angry waves as if possessed, the sand cold against my stockinged feet, the icy water rushing over my toes.

  “Way to go, Terry!” Lance yelled from the darkness.

  “Wait for us,” Denise called out as a wave, like an oversize boxer’s glove, pummeled my back.

  I looked toward the shore, saw several vague shapes lumbering toward me, hands waving in the air, like delicate tree branches swaying in the wind. I waved back, lost my balance, and stumbled over a rock. Struggling to maintain my footing, I saw the darkness swirling around me and wondered briefly what in God’s name I was doing. Hadn’t I pulled this stunt once before? Hadn’t I almost drowned?

  “Terry, be careful,” Alison cried out, fighting her way through the surf. “You’re out too deep. Come back.”

  “Happy New Year,” I shouted, splashing at the water with my hands.

  “Somebody’s stoned,” Lance said, drawing closer, his voice a singsong.

  I pushed myself to my feet, only to be slapped down on all fours by another wave. The taste of salt filled my mouth and I laughed, remembering the time I’d mistakenly sprinkled salt, instead of sugar, on my breakfast cereal, and my mother had insisted I eat it anyway. A lesson, she’d said, so I wouldn’t make the same mistake again. But I was always making the same mistakes again, I realized, laughing even louder.

  Once again, I tried to stand up, but my feet could no longer find the ocean floor, and I was drifting farther and farther away from the others. “Help!” I cri
ed as the water crept above my head, and unseen hands reached for me in the dark.

  Strong hands pulled at my clothing. “Stop strug gling,” Lance ordered, his voice as cold as the ocean. “You only make things worse by struggling.”

  I lunged into Lance’s arms, the wet hairs of his bare chest rough against my cheek, his heartbeat resonating against my ears. I gasped for breath, my hands flailing wildly in the air as another wave tore us apart, then crashed over my head like a collapsing tent. I screamed, my mouth filling with water, as my fingers reached across the darkness for something solid to grab on to. I felt a large fish slap against my calves and I kicked it away.

  “What are you doing?” Lance yelled above the sound of the angry surf. “Stay still.”

  “Help me!” The cold water swirled around my legs, tugging at my feet like heavy weights, pulling me under. I felt Lance close beside me and struggled through the darkness toward him.

  It was then that I felt a weight on the top of my head, pushing me back under, holding me down. “No,” I cried, although no sound emerged. I opened my eyes underwater, saw Lance beside me, his hands somewhere above my head.

  Was he trying to save me or kill me?

  “Stop fighting me,” Lance ordered gruffly.

  I reached frantically for the water’s surface, but my body was growing weak, and my legs were constrained by the tightness of my uniform. My lungs felt as if they were about to burst, the sensation eerily similar to the one I’d enjoyed earlier with my first marijuana cigarette. So this is what it feels like to drown, I thought, remembering the fate of those unfortunate kittens at my mother’s cruel hands. Had they been scared? I wondered. Had they fought back, clawed at her murderous fingers? Or had they quietly accepted their fate, as Lance was urging me to do now. “Damn it! Stop struggling,” he bellowed as my head finally shattered the surface of the water, like a fist through glass.

  And suddenly a bright light was shining toward me, and for one insane second, I wondered if I was already dead, if this was the white light patients who’d suffered near-death experiences sometimes talked about. And then I heard the distant voice—”Police,” the voice announced. “What’s going on out there?”