by Ninie Hammon
“There’s somethin’ the matter with yore little girl, with Joy.” Princess’s voice was both soft and deep. It somehow managed to resonate even though it was barely a whisper. No, not resonate. Hum. The buzzing sound around high voltage wires, or a transformer box. “What it is ain’t anythin’ you can see on the outside. Somethin’s wrong. Somethin’s a’hurtin’ her. I can feel it. She needs help. Will you help her?”
She reached out her hand again, but this time she touched him. Just barely. Her fingers felt like a butterfly had lit on his arm. “Promise me. Promise me you will.”
It suddenly hit Mac all in a rush that the rail-thin woman with the haunting eyes and scarred face wasn’t Joan of Arc, wasn’t Rasputin, a gypsy fortune teller, or a witch. The explanation was a whole lot less dramatic. Emily Prentiss was simply insane. If she hadn’t been crazy when she got here, the years of solitary confinement had driven her mad. Either way, the result was the same. He wasn’t talking to a psychic; he was talking to a lunatic. She wasn’t to be feared; she was to be pitied.
“I tell you what I’ll do. I’ll talk to her tonight, ask her if everything’s all right. How’s that?”
She tilted her head to the right and half smiled. “Why, Reverend David Allen McIntosh, I do believe you’re humorin’ me.”
“Guilty as charged.” Bad choice of words. “What did you expect me to do?”
“Just what you’re doin.’ Makin’ nice. It’d be a hard man could tell a dyin’ woman to butt out and shut up. You ain’t a hard man.”
“I’m a whole lot harder than you think.”
“No you ain’t. You ain’t hard a’tall. Hard’s all the way down, and you’re just scabbed over on the outside from gettin’ dragged through the rocks. Scabs fall off, though. When it’s healed up underneath ’em, scabs fall off. Hard that’s all the way to the bone don’t never change.”
A crack of lightening split the sky and thunder rumbled on its coattails. The light in the room flickered briefly. Princess looked up at the bare bulb. “Wiring’s so old here, if there’s a storm at five o’clock on Friday, they might not have enough juice to fry me.”
Mac winced, remembering what Oran had said about the reliability of the electric chair. Then he looked at his watch.
Princess didn’t miss a thing. “’Fore you go runnin’ out of here … you asked if I needed anything and I do—two things.”
“What might they be, Miss…?” He realized he didn’t know how to address her. Emily? Miss Prentiss.
“That’s it. See? That’s the first thing, my name. You don’t know what to call me. So … could you … would you call me Princess?”
“Princess?”
“Yeah. Emily Prentiss … somebody I used to know once, she couldn’t say it right, so it come out Princess.”
“I’d be glad to call you Princess.”
“I do truly thank you, but the next thing’s harder.”
“What’s the next thing … Princess?”
“Would you come back and see me tomorrow?”
That caught him off guard and he started backpedaling quickly. “Well, I don’t know.” He didn’t have time to … and besides, Ralph Beecher was the chaplain! Mac was just a fill-in. Maybe Ralph’s gout would be better tomorrow. “I’d have to check my calendar.”
“And the next day? And the next? Every day I got left!”
“Oh, I couldn’t possibly—!”
“Yes, you can! If you want to, you can. You got choices. You’re a free man and you get to decide what to do with all one thousand, four hundred and forty minutes, all eighty-six thousand, four hundred seconds of every single day!”
Lightning ripped a silver slash across the sky right outside the window and its clap of thunder was a hand grenade tossed into the room. It shook the walls and blinked the light and continued to rumble like the aftershocks of an earthquake.
Her voice was soft in the quiet that followed.
“Just four more days. After that, you get to go on with your life. You can go out and buy a new shirt or climb a tree, or swim in a creek or see a moving picture or watch that television thing I read about in a magazine once. You can do all those things next week ’cause I’ll be dead. And you’ll even get to sit there crunchin’ popcorn in that moving picture and feel good ’bout yourself ’cause you done the right thing.”
She leaned toward him, her body quivering. “Don’t never underestimate the power of doin’ the right thing, Reverend. Sometimes, it’s the only gift life gives you. You comforted a dying woman in her last days. Ain’t that worth a few hours out of your whole life? You so busy you ain’t got time for that?”
Mac’s response surprised him; he genuinely didn’t know that’s what he was going to say until he heard the words come out of his mouth. “No, Princess, I’m not that busy.” He smiled at her. “I’ll come back.”
“Yes,” she said with the same ahhhh tone as before. Like an amen.
Mac leaned back in the chair and stretched out his legs in front of him. “Okay. Let’s talk. Why don’t you tell me about—” She interrupted him before he could finish and he was glad she did because he had no idea where he was going with the question.
“About my life? You don’t want to hear ’bout my life. But I surely do want to hear ’bout yours! Tell me about … about television.”
And so it went. The storm struck, lashed the building with rain, a centurion wielding a cat-o-nine-tails. Lightning writhed in the sky, thunder hammered their eardrums. At times, it seemed like they were the only survivors of a shipwreck, set adrift in a storm at sea.
Eventually, the tumult blew itself out and gentle rain sighed down the windowpane. The guard whose face had never left the window in the door opened it and stepped inside. He was small and thin, but with a bit of a swagger, didn’t look like he belonged in a prison.
“You done?” he asked and glanced down at his watch. “I’m supposed to get off early today. Got a gig in Tishomingo.”
Princess’s face was instantly stricken.
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” Mac said. “Okay?”
She relaxed.
“Okay by me, Rev. It ain’t like I got plans.”
Chapter 8
The first time she tried, Joy’s hands were shaking so badly she dialed the wrong number. The second time, the phone rang twice and then a man’s voice answered.
“Hello.” Gruff, annoyed.
“May I speak to Phoebe, please?” It was almost a whisper. She couldn’t seem to find enough air to force the words out louder.
The phone clattered in her ear when he dropped the receiver on some hard surface.
“Phone’s for you, Phoeb,” she heard him yell. “And don’t stay on it all day. It’s a party line, ya know.”
A party line! People could pick up the receiver and listen in to what other people said. How on earth could she have the conversation she needed to have when—?
“’Lo.”
“Is this Phoebe?”
“Yeah, who’s … oh, I know who this is.”
“Your father—” Maybe it wasn’t her father. “Or brother said—”
“It was my old man. What’d he say?”
“That this is a party line.”
“Yeah, six people on it, all up and down this road. Only way we could get phone service.”
“Oh. But how …?”
“Party line ain’t no trouble. Most people got better things to do than listen to somebody else’s boring conversations. People just pick up when they want to use the line, and you can hear it when they do.”
“But what if … I mean …”
“Look, you called to ask who made that pretty dress for me, didn’t ya? That prom dress. Right?”
It took Joy a moment to catch on. Then she blurted, “Yes! Yes, the prom dress.”
“Well there’s this woman, see. A seamstress. She lives out by the lake.”
“Boundary Oak Lake? She’s right here, in Durango County?” Joy had assumed she’d have to
go to Oklahoma City, Tulsa at least.
“You go out Route 79 south, then turn right down Harrod’s Creek Road and go about three miles. She lives in a little house on the right that backs up on the water. You can’t see it from the road, but there’s a big black mailbox out front that’s got some kind of bird, a red one, a cardinal, I think, painted on it.”
“Harrod’s Creek Road, three miles, house with a black mailbox with a cardinal on it. Right?”
“Yeah, but there’s a couple of things you need to know. One is, this seamstress, she’s … funny lookin’, scary lookin’. Her face, it got all messed up somehow, like in a wreck or something. And two, she ain’t cheap.”
“How much does she charge?”
“Two hundred dollars.”
Joy gasped. She didn’t have that much money, not even in her savings account.
“You still there?”
“Yes, I just … $200, that’s a lot of money.”
“Well, when a girl’s gotta have a prom dress, she’ll pay whatever she has to pay to get one. And if you’re the only seamstress in town who makes prom dresses, you can charge whatever you want.”
“I don’t have any choice, do I?”
“Nope. But listen, you need to talk to the fella who … your date for the big night. Takes two people to go to the prom!”
Joy hadn’t thought about that. But where would Gary get $200?
“Don’t you get all nicey-nice about it neither. Your guy wants to do the dance, he needs to cough up some of the money to pay for the dress! It sounded to me like he was the one wantin’ to two-step. Caught you at a … weak moment or you’d have sat that dance out. That’s the way it was, am I right?”
He’d been so kind and loving, holding her while she sobbed, rubbing her back and telling her how sorry he was. She didn’t even remember how they’d gotten into the backseat of the car.
“Yes, that’s the way it was.”
“Then he needs to pay! And don’t you let him weasel out of it.”
“I won’t!” There was steel sheathed in the softness of her voice. She drew in a shaky breath. “So how do I get in touch with this wo—”
There was a pronounced click-click on the line.
“Hey, I’m on the phone here, okay?” Phoebe barked. “I’ll be done in five minutes.”
Silence.
“Listen, you don’t hang up and I’m just gonna keep talkin’ and talkin’ and—”
The line went click-click again.
“I need to get off here,” Phoebe said.
“Ok, just tell me how to get in touch with this … seamstress.”
“You can’t call her. I don’t know if she’s got a phone. I don’t have her number if she does. You just have to drive out there. Knock on the door and explain what you want. And take half the money with you as a down payment. She’ll tell you when to come … for the fitting and you bring the rest of the money with you then. Now, I gotta go—”
“Wait! Does it … is it—” She whispered the last word. “Painful?”
“Yeah,” Phoebe said quietly. “I ain’t gonna lie—it hurts like the devil! You know, when you’re there, and she’s doing it. And later, you’re gonna feel like crap for a few days. Like the worst case of the cramps you ever had.”
Phoebe paused.
“And just a little friendly advice. Don’t put it off. Go now, soon’s you can. The longer you wait, the worse it’s gonna be. Even a few days matters.”
“Okay. This week then. I’ll go this week.”
The empty line hummed in the silence that followed.
“I really gotta go.”
“Phoebe! Don’t … I just want to … Thank you. You don’t know how much I—”
“Hey, don’t start! Just ’cause I told you where to get a prom dress don’t make you my new best friend. And don’t you be all nice and friendly like in art class tomorrow.”
“All right. I won’t.”
“You and me, we’re members of the same club now, that’s all. It ain’t like those silly clubs at school, though. This is a life club, and ain’t a single member in it wanted to join.” She laughed mirthlessly. “It’s called the Universal Sisterhood of Girls Who Had to Get Prom Dresses.” Then she paused and added quietly. “Once you’re in, you’re in for life.”
“Thank you, Phoebe.”
There was a click and the phone went dead.
* * * * *
Jonas blamed himself. He’d tried to learn Maggie’s patterns so he could head off trouble before it started, and he should have seen this one coming. It was late Monday afternoon and Maggie’d got where she hated to see the sun go down. He figured maybe she was afraid it wouldn’t come back up again.
He’d helped her shuffle into the living room after lunch. She was so unsteady on her feet he didn’t trust her to take more than a few steps if he wasn’t right there beside her. She’d spent the afternoon in the blue chair by the window that looked out on the fields out back. Rocking. Back and forth, back and forth. Fiddling with her hands, like she was endlessly rubbing lotion on them. She refused to talk to him, or even look at him when he spoke to her, and as the day wore on, her eyes grew more and more unfocused.
He’d gone to the bathroom upstairs, had barely got finished doing his business when he heard a crash in the living room. He dashed down the stairs, trying to button the straps of his overalls as he took the steps two at a time. Maggie was standing in front of her chair in her long, pink nightgown. A pale blue lamp with a matching silk shade lay broken on the floor at her feet. She was holding the black fire iron that rested on the hearth between the ash bin and the wood box. Holding it like a baseball bat.
“Maggie?”
Then she swung, raked the iron across the curio cabinet on the wall. The glass and knick-knacks—the Maid of the Mists replica from their Niagara Falls honeymoon, blown glass that looked like the white oak steamboat; and her porcelain angel collection—exploded in a colorful cloud of glass shards as she continued the swing, through a crystal lamp and the family pictures on the end table and into hand-painted plates displayed on a shelf by the fireplace. In one, sweeping arc of destruction, she’d shattered thirty years of memories. Jonas was rooted to the spot in surprise and horror. Then she started for the television screen.
“Maggie, no!”
She turned on him. Swung the pointed end of the iron at his head, a look of such hatred and rage contorting her face he was almost too shocked to duck.
The iron caught the very top of his head, tore a fiery scrape across his scalp before his feet finally came unglued from the floor and he dashed across the room. When he snatched the metal club out of her hand, she turned on him, attacked him with her fists, pummeled his chest as he tried to grab her hands. She managed to claw his left arm, five deep gouging wounds down the length of it. Maggie had fingernails thick as a tiger’s claws. And when he got hold of her wrists, she tried to bite him!
Through it all, she was making this sound in her throat, almost a growl, and then she began to scream. She yelled horrible things, accused him of trying to kill her, of infidelities, specific acts with women they knew: awful, awful things.
He finally got behind her, wrapped his arms around her, and held her so tight she couldn’t move. She struggled, kicked, hollered, and wrenched her head from side to side. That part didn’t last but a couple of minutes, though. She didn’t have much strength at all.
Slowly she stopped wiggling and relaxed in his arms, limp. All the air’d drained out of her and her head lolled on her neck. He reached down and picked her up then—she weighed next to nothing—carried her into the bedroom and lay her gently on the bed. She just rolled over and sighed, like a little kid you carry into the house and put to bed after they fell asleep in the car on the way home.
His heart was slugging away in his chest so hard he could see it moving his shirt. He wanted to examine her, to make sure she wasn’t hurt somewhere. But he was afraid to touch her, to wake her up, afraid she’d go cr
azy again.
In the end, he backed quietly out of the room and staggered back into the bomb zone that a few minutes ago had been a living room. He caught sight of his reflection in the mirror above the mantle and almost jumped back in fright. Blood was dripping down onto his forehead from the cut on the top of his head. And his arm!
He rushed into the kitchen and ran water over the wounds on his arm to wash the blood away. She’d got him good! A couple of gouges were so deep he’d need stitches to close them. He wrapped a clean dish towel around his arm, then another dish towel around the first one. That’d hold him for a little while. With a third dish towel, he dabbed at the scrape on the top of his head, but it had already stopped bleeding.
He went back into the living room, but couldn’t face it, turned, went out the front door instead and sat down in the porch swing. His hands were shaking.
He sat for a long time trying not to think of anything. He tried to banish the image of her face, how she’d looked when she swung that thing at him. She could have killed him. Certainly tried hard enough. If he’d been a second slower …
Back and forth. Just swinging back and forth, listening to the comforting eech-eech, eech-eech sound the swing made. The sun slowly sank below the western horizon. The symphony orchestra of crickets under the porch began to tune up for their nightly concert and the frogs started hollering at each other—rhubbub, rhubbub. Then he heard Maggie from inside the house chattering about something. He could tell from the tone of her voice that it was over, that whatever had possessed her had passed.
He stood and used the back of his uninjured hand to wipe his cheeks; they’d got all wet somehow. Then he went inside to tend to Maggie and to clean up the mess.
* * * * *
Mac heard Joy’s voice in the living room talking on the phone as he came in the front door. He walked into the room as she was hanging the receiver back on the hook.
“Who was that?” he asked.
“Nobody.”
“It was obviously somebody. Who?”
The words came out harsher than he intended. Seems like every time he talked to Joy lately, he ended up saying the wrong thing, or saying the right thing the wrong way.