Transition

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Transition Page 10

by Henry Charles Mishkoff


  “We seem very strange to you,” he says. It’s not a question, it’s an observation, uttered with calm certainty. And she almost says, reflexively, oh no, you’re not strange at all – but something in his expression tells her that it’s okay, that there’s nothing wrong with her thinking that they’re strange. Then she feels embarrassed that she had almost lied to him, but his eyes tell her that that’s okay too, that he knows, that he understands. That he accepts.

  “I’m very tired,” she says. It occurs to her that this is a complete non sequitur. But somehow, it makes sense. Somehow, it explains the strange notions that are whirling madly through her brain. And she’s certain that he understands.

  “You are very tired,” he agrees. It sounds like a command. For an instant, she has the wild thought that he’s trying to hypnotize her, that in a moment she’ll crumple to the ground in a heap, at the mercy of his mesmeric powers. She’s relieved when nothing happens.

  “You must rest,” he says. He releases her hand and slips his sunglasses back on. At the same time, the window begins its smooth, upward ascent. Soon, all she can see is the shiny top of his bald head. And then the window is closed, and he’s gone.

  Jillian stares at her hand as if it were something foreign to her. She looks quickly around as if she’s been unconscious and has just come to her senses – and, indeed, she does feel a sudden urge to get her bearings.

  She’s standing alone on the sidewalk. She has vague impressions of the sounds of car doors opening and closing. Sunshine is standing on the far side of the car. The front-seat passenger-side door is ajar. The other two loonies, slim Chastity and man-mountain Walker, they must already be in the back seat, concealed by the dark windows.

  “Jill, come with us,” Sunshine implores.

  “I...” Jillian is confused. “Where are you going?”

  “We’re going back to the ashram. It’s not far. Just a couple of hours.” Sunshine is excruciatingly earnest, nearly begging. “Please, Jill.”

  “I can’t, Sunshine, I really can’t.” I don’t want to, she thinks, I really don’t want to. “I’ve got to get back to the hotel. I have an early flight back to Dallas tomorrow.”

  “We could bring you back here in the morning. Or you could catch a later flight out of Hartford.”

  “I don’t think that’s such a good idea, Sunshine.” Why not? She has to give Sunshine a credible reason, the girl is relentless. “My tickets aren’t refundable. If I change my flight, I lose my money.”

  “Where are you staying? We can drive you there, can’t we Nathan?” Sunshine glances into the car – but as far as Jillian can tell, no response is forthcoming.

  “Oh no, thanks, but I’m only a couple of blocks from here.” She wonders how transparent her lies are. Maybe there aren’t even any hotels within walking distance. But the bottom line is that she’s not getting into the car.

  Sunshine seems disappointed, but she seems to have finally resigned herself to the situation. “Good-bye, Jill,” she says, reluctantly, as she disappears into the car. “Till next time. I know we’ll see you again. We’ll see Jill again, won’t we, Nathan?”

  It’s a serious question, Jillian realizes with a start. Sunshine actually believes that Nathan can look into the future, and she’s asking him for a prediction.

  Just then, Sunshine closes the car door, and Jillian can’t be sure that her ears aren’t playing tricks on her, but as the car pulls away into the fog she can swear that she hears Nathan answer, in his eminently pleasant and utterly confident voice: Yes, Sunshine, yes we most certainly will see Jill again.

  Transition

  Book 1: Readiness

  Part 3:

  The Pool

  1.3.1: Dreamscape

  She’s running, but not in a race. She’s moving through the deserted streets of an unrecognizable city, looking for something. Or perhaps trying to escape from something. A sleek, white limousine shadows her silently, radiating an eerie malevolence. She glances down each street that she passes. She’s not surprised to find that none of them is the one she’s looking for.

  The limo pulls up to her left, purring softly, matching her speed. The window begins to slide down, and she knows that Sunshine will be there, sitting in the passenger seat. But it turns out to be Nathan. Or someone like him. Or some thing like him. But with much more hair. In fact, as she looks again, it’s not human at all, it’s some kind of animal, a dog, or perhaps an ape. The only similarity to Nathan is the pair of sunglasses wrapped around its head, resting grotesquely on its pointy snout.

  Look into my eyes, the thing says, but not with Nathan’s voice, it has a pronounced Indian accent, and it’s almost singing, something in a mystically minor key. It sounds icily evil. She knows that she shouldn’t look, but she has to prove to the creature that she’s not afraid to look into its eyes. But as it turns out, she can’t see its eyes anyway, they’re obscured by the dark glasses.

  See, she thinks, there isn’t anything to be afraid of after all. There never is.

  But then it pulls its glasses off with a motion that’s too fast for her to follow, and its eyes are not eyes at all, they’re glowing embers that flash with terrible fires. And she knows that if she keeps looking into those eyes, all is lost. But the only alternative is to slow down, to stop running…

  Of course! That’s exactly what the Nathan-creature wants her to do! It’s all a trick to get her to quit. But she’s not a quitter. She’ll never quit. Never.

  But her legs are so heavy, like stone, and it takes an incredible act of will just to lift her feet, just to take one more step. It’s like she’s running through sand, but it’s infinitely more difficult, more painful. In a flash of insight, she realizes that the Nathan-thing is doing this to her. Its eyes do have terrible powers, after all. But she has powers of her own, and no one can stop her.

  And then Sunshine comes running by on the other side of the car, and it’s not fair, it’s not fair at all, because Sunshine isn’t being hindered by the powers of the Nathan-beast.

  Hi, Jill. Sunshine grins foully. Are you having a hard time, poor baby?

  So, in spite of her feigned innocence, Sunshine’s in league with the creature, has been all along. Well, if that’s the way they want to play, they’ll regret the day they tangled with Jill Kendal.

  But the harder she tries, the more tired she gets. And it’s a weariness that not only weighs down her legs but eats through to the depths of her soul.

  And it’s not fair. It’s just not fair.

  On the other side of the car, Sunshine runs a few easy paces ahead, then turns and begins to run backward. C’mon Jill, she taunts. Run faster. Faster! What’s the matter? You’re not going to quit on me, are you? Not Jill Kendal! Not the golden girl!

  And it’s all so frustrating! She has to labor under this enormous strain while Sunshine is as free as a bird. Tell Nathan to let me go, she shouts, and I’ll run rings around you. I’ll run you into the fucking ground, you candy-ass wimp.

  But Sunshine only laughs mockingly. Oh sure, Jill, it’s Nathan’s fault. Blame it all on somebody else. Well I can’t wait for you any longer, my dear; I’ve got a race to run! And she turns and begins to pull away.

  Who the fuck does she think she is? Jillian is suddenly indignant. Does she really think that she can beat me? I’ll make this… this thing let me go, and then I’ll show that bitch who’s in charge…

  She looks back at Nathan, she’s going to insist that he let her go. At first, she’s relieved to see that he’s slipped his sunglasses back on. But his eyes have become so bright that she can see them even through the dark lenses. They’re pulsing strangely, growing alternately bright and dim, bright and dim. And each time they brighten, smoldering in their sockets, they emit a harsh buzz, a persistent, jarring sound that fills her head…

  Make it stop! she demands angrily, covering her ears with her hands. Make it stop!

  And when she opens her eyes, she’s lying in bed with her hands over her ears, s
aying, “Make it stop!” out loud, over and over again, to the empty hotel room. Disoriented, she reaches for her phone, more to silence it than to answer it…

  1.3.2: The Longwharf

  “Kendal? You there?”

  “Hello?” Is that what she’s supposed to say?

  “Kendal! What the fuck are you doing asleep? Wake your ass up, lady!”

  “Who… Scott? Is that you?”

  “Yeah, it’s me, who the fuck did you think it was?” He’s shouting, and it hurts her ear, so she pulls the phone out a few inches away from her head. “Get out of bed and get your ass down to the pool, Kendal! We got a fucking pool party going on!” In the background, she can hear people talking and laughing. There’s a loud whoop, and a splash, followed by cheers, applause, and more laughter.

  “Scott?” She’s still trying to get her bearings from the dream, and this strange phone call isn’t helping. “Scott, I thought y’all were flying out tonight.”

  “Fog, baby,” he yells into her ear. “Fucking airport’s shut down. Fog’s thick enough to fucking swim in. Well…” – he lowers his voice to a conspiratorial whisper – “…well, maybe not thick enough for you to swim in, doll, but the rest of us…”

  She laughs. “Scott, what…” But there’s a click, and he’s gone.

  What time is it? She glances at her phone, which tells her that it’s… not even 11? Is that possible? But she didn’t get back to the hotel until after 8:30 – she thinks – and she puttered around for at least an hour before she crashed. Could she have slept for only an hour or so? It feels like so much longer.

  She considers rolling over and going back to sleep, but the Nathan-creature is still fresh in her mind, and she’s not sure that she wants to risk closing her eyes again just yet. So she takes a deep breath and sits up on the edge of the bed, holding her face in her hands.

  After a few minutes she struggles to her feet and looks down to see what she’s wearing. All she has on is the T-shirt that she bought at a concession stand after the awards ceremony. Upside down, her chest reads, “First Annual Greater New England Endurance Triathlon,” in block letters. Is it really still the same day? The race seems like years ago.

  She rummages through a drawer and finds a pair of cut-offs. She splashes some cold water on her face, slips her room key into her pocket, and heads out into the hall.

  Didn’t she see a sign somewhere that said something about the pool? She walks to the elevator lobby in the central atrium; no, no sign there. Oh well, she thinks, as long as I’m up I might as well go down to the front desk and ask somebody.

  “It is on the second floor, miss.” The man behind the desk, sporting a badge that identifies him as the Night Manager, answers her with a noticeable Indian accent – which, for an instant, makes her wonder if she’s still dreaming. “But I am afraid that it was closed at ten, and it will not be opened until six in the morning.” He smiles pleasantly at her for a moment, then he scurries off to answer the phone.

  But somehow, Jillian doubts that a minor detail like the pool being closed would discourage Scott Marcus and the rest of the gang.

  1.3.3: The Longwharf

  “Kendal!” Scott Marcus bellows a greeting as Jillian walks into the room that houses the pool. “Brewski!” he adds, and he tosses her a can of beer from a handy cooler. He’s sitting in a whirlpool spa, leaning back comfortably in a corner, his arms sprawled over the edge, a can of beer in one hand.

  In another corner of the spa, Carla Kwan sits in a similar position, beer in hand, gazing at Jillian through torpid eyes. She appears to be naked, or at least topless. Her white breasts bob gently on the swirling eddies of steaming water. “Hi, Jill,” she says thickly.

  Oh, great, Jillian thinks. Just what kind of party is this? Is Scott naked too? Thankfully, it’s impossible for her to see through the roiled surface of the foaming water.

  She averts her eyes and surveys the room. A few dozen people are cavorting in and around the pool, where some kind of race appears to be in progress. Walking over to the lip of the pool, she watches as two swimmers go back and forth, back and forth. They seem to be playing more than racing, and the pool isn’t long enough for any kind of real race, anyway.

  She realizes that she’s bored. It all seems so pointless.

  Music is blaring from speakers that seem to be attached to a phone that’s lying at the top of the steps that descend into the pool. That’s too close, she thinks; it’ll get splashed and that’ll be the end of it. Half the people in the room seem to be singing sloppily along with the music: A lu-eye lu-eye, OH, NO, I say-a me gotta go now! A few limp bodies lie sprawled in the lounge chairs that line the perimeter of the pool. Crushed beer cans litter the room like shiny aluminum confetti. She notices that she still has a can of beer in her hand, unopened. She sets it down on the rim of the pool.

  And suddenly, she’s tired again.

  And it’s not her kind of party, anyway.

  She’s been out of bed for no more than a few minutes, but if this brief excursion serves to exorcise that horrible dream, it will have been worth it. But now it’s time to take the elevator back up to her room, hop into bed, and try to get some sleep…

  ֍ ֍ ֍ ֍ ֍ ֍ ֍ ֍ ֍ ֍

  “Don’t go, Jill.”

  She’s already opened the door when the thin voice somehow cuts through the din. She looks back over her shoulder. Carla Kwan sits alone in the spa, still propped up in the corner. Her eyes appear to be closed, and Jillian wonders if she really heard anything at all. But then Carla speaks again: “Come sit with me, Jill. Keep me company.”

  “Where’s Scott?” Jillian scans the room; the thought of sharing the spa with a drunken – and possibly unclad – Scott Marcus is less than appealing.

  “Scott’s not here.” Carla speaks softly, dreamily. “He left.”

  Jillian walks around to the far side of the spa, pulls a can of beer from the cooler, shakes off the loose bits of ice, pops the top, and sucks down a long gulp. Then she walks back around to the front of the spa, where a few steps and an aluminum railing lead down into the steamy, gurgling water.

  Grasping the railing, she tests the water tentatively with one foot, which she withdraws quickly. “Too hot,” she pronounces, shaking her foot.

  “It’s not bad, once you get used to it.” Carla opens her eyes and smiles. “I wish it was hotter.”

  “Well…” Jillian bravely lowers her entire foot to the first submerged step and lets the water swirl around her ankle. After a few seconds, she gamely decides that the temperature may be tolerable after all. She tiptoes gingerly down the steps and then pushes her way through the waist-deep water to where Carla sits sprawled in the corner. Slowly, carefully, she sinks down beside Carla on an underwater ledge.

  Once her body gets past the shock of the dramatic temperature change, Jillian discovers that the swirling wet heat is incredibly relaxing. She sets down her drink and slouches on the ledge so that only her head sticks out of the water. “That does feel good,” she admits. “I didn’t realize how sore I was.”

  They sit there in silence for a few minutes, eyes closed. Jillian feels as though she could slip under the surface of the water and sink quietly to the bottom of the spa. I’d better not stay in here too long, she thinks. It could be dangerous.

  Slowly opening her eyes, she turns her head and looks at the young woman who sits next to her, seemingly oblivious to her presence. “How can you just sit there with no clothes on, Carla?” Jillian is genuinely curious. “Don’t you feel like all the guys are staring at your boobs?”

  “They’re just tits, Jill,” Carla says, as if that explains everything. “What’s the big deal?” She opens her eyes and takes a sip of beer. “Besides, nobody’s staring at me.”

  Jillian looks around. There’s a huge splash, someone must have just barreled into the pool. Scott Marcus –wearing his Speedo, after all – is throwing a shiny football – no, it’s a can of beer, of course – to yet another guy with an athletic
build, she thinks it might be Jason Stackhouse, but the steam from the spa is clouding her vision. Some people are dancing, some people are singing along with the music, some people are doing both. Lots of people are doing lots of things. Nobody is staring at Carla’s breasts.

  “Well, I sure couldn’t do it,” Jillian says, as she sits up and retrieves her beer. She tries to imagine how she would feel if she pulled off her T-shirt. Just thinking about it causes waves of embarrassment to wash over her, accompanied by visions of leering men. She shudders. “Don’t you feel like you’re just encouraging these guys to hit on you?”

  “Jill, none of these guys are going to hit on me.” Carla laughs softly. “They all know that I’m gay. You didn’t know that?” she adds, as surprise registers on Jillian’s face. “I thought everybody knew,” Carla says with an indifferent shrug. “It’s not like it’s a secret.”

  Well isn’t this a kick in the head, Jillian thinks. I figure that it’s safe to come into the spa because that animal Marcus is gone, and now I’m sitting here talking about boobs with a lesbo.

  “Relax, Kendal,” Carla says, amused. “I’m not going to attack you.” She grins. “Although, I must say, you do look good enough to eat.”

  Jillian turns her gaze downward. The soaked shirt clings to her breasts provocatively. She feels uncomfortable, vulnerable. “Maybe I better go,” she says. But at that very instant, with a loud whoop, Scott Marcus leaps into the spa, sending hot water splashing in every direction, and settles down next to her. She notes, thankfully, that he’s still wearing his Speedo.

  “Well, well, what have we here?” he asks, shifting a lascivious gaze back and forth between Jillian’s eyes and her breasts. “That’s a ravishing outfit you have on, Miss Kendal. Most fetching.” He wiggles his eyebrows and widens his eyes. Jillian laughs, in spite of herself.

 

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