The phone rang. “It’s no use,” Hilary wailed. “My life is ruined. I might as well be dead!”
“Still grounded?”
“For a month! A whole month! It might as well be my whole life!”
“Maybe I can talk to him and—”
“He won’t listen to you. He won’t listen to anybody. He said that he, like, doesn’t care if he ruins my life. He says I’m too young to be ‘running with that crowd.’ Like he even knows who my friends are!”
“What about my coming to Vermont with you?”
“He said, ‘No way!’ He said you wouldn’t be a good chaperon ‘cause you act like a teenager’ yourself sometimes.”
I sighed. “Maybe I can change his mind.”
“Forget it. He said that since Clay, you’ve been unbalanced—just like when you were a little kid. That’s just what he said. Like who’s the real unbalanced one here?”
“He said I was unbalanced?” The prick.
“Yeah, and he said I had to give you your key back. He said the fact that you gave it to me showed that you didn’t have all your marbles. That’s just what he said. Can you believe the old fart?”
“Is he there now?”
“Nah, if he were here, I couldn’t be talking to you. Grounded means no going out, no rides, no friends, no phone! He’s going to be back soon—I better go.”
“Listen, Hilary, hang in there, pal. I’ll talk to your mom. Maybe we can come up with something. Maybe not in time for foliage weekend, but maybe—” The phone went dead. The old fart must have pulled in the driveway.
I sighed again. Life with Joel wasn’t easy; he’d been a tyrant of an older brother and, in perfect imitation of our mother, was moving beyond tyranny and into fascism as a parent. Poor Hilary. But at least I didn’t have to go on foliage weekend. I had enough problems.
I opened a new spreadsheet and started all over again. I was in the middle of a complicated calculation when suddenly I wasn’t at my desk anymore; I was perched atop the file cabinet in the corner, looking down at a dark-haired woman. The woman was clearly exhausted, her gaze fixed downward on a stack of printouts, her shoulders slumped, her hands motionless. The pitiful thing—me—appeared even more forlorn, more woeful, by contrast to the bright city lights winking through the windows behind the desk. The illusion dissolved in a manner reminiscent of my childhood nightmares. I was back at my desk. I threw my pencil down and left the office.
When I got home, I tossed my jacket on the coat tree and immediately headed toward my room, toward my bed, toward my pillow. I hadn’t moved more than a couple of feet when a terrific racket suddenly filled the apartment. I whirled around, disoriented by the earsplitting clamor of furniture cracking, of glass breaking, of wood splintering. I knew it had to be an earthquake—only an earthquake could be so all-encompassing, so deafening.
“Don’t run into the street, and don’t stand in the center of a room,” Miss Haines had said during disaster drills in third grade. “In the event of an earthquake, stand under a doorway.”
I flew to the wide archway that separated the living room from the entry way and stood, waiting for the world to collapse around me. So this was how it was all to end.
I stepped into the center of the room—dead calm. I stared at the ceiling and wondered if Phyllis’s grandmother’s heavy brocade couch would fall on my head, and how dentil molding would look when it crumbled. Deus ex machina, I thought. Come and get me.
Slowly I became aware that the noise had ceased. There was no movement and nothing was swaying. A smaller crash, from the direction of the kitchen, broke the silence; it sounded as if a ceramic canister had fallen over and shattered. Did this mean there were no gods in the wings? I was truly disappointed. But if there were no gods, and if there was no earthquake, then what was all the racket?
My kitchen cabinets. Nathan’s subcontractors hadn’t hung them properly and they had fallen. I pressed my hand to my forehead and groaned. I pictured my plates and my glasses and my bowls all lying in fragments on the tile floor; flour and sugar and cornflakes covered the broken cookery. I hit my forehead again. Just what I needed. The tinkle of shattering crystal on tile chimed through the apartment, confirming my fears.
I walked slowly toward the kitchen; when I turned the corner, I had to grab the edge of the counter to keep from falling over. I was unable to believe what I saw: there were no fallen cabinets, no broken canisters, and no mess. The kitchen was quiet, its clean blue and white surfaces reflecting calm readiness. I opened a cabinet, peered into the refrigerator, knelt and looked under the sink. All was exactly as I had left it—a little untidy perhaps, but everything was definitely whole.
I dropped to the floor. Was Joel right? Was I unbalanced? Was I coming unglued? No, I was fine. There was another explanation. And it wasn’t Babs’s ghosts. Or was it? I stared up at the ceiling, thoughts of Clay filling me with panic. No, it wasn’t ghosts—it was Phyllis’s cabinets!
Phyllis’s kitchen cabinets were directly over my head! Of course; her cabinets had fallen—that was why the noise was so loud and so all-encompassing. I threw my head back, giddy with relief. “See, Babs,” I said out loud, “there is a logical explanation after all.” My words bounced oddly in the narrow galley.
Still a little bit shaky, I stood up, briskly brushed off my hands, and walked to the bedroom. When I got there, I closed the door and leaned against it for a moment, reminding myself that nothing had happened, that it was Phyllis with the real problems—not me. I thought briefly of going upstairs to help her, then decided it was too late and I was too tired. I closed my eyes in relief: I might be tired, but I wasn’t insane, and Clay was still dead.
When I opened my eyes, I was staring straight at the alarm clock; its innocent little face somehow filled me with dread. I grabbed it and put it on the desk in the study, then I went back into my bedroom and locked the door behind me.
Exhausted, I dropped into bed, sure I would never be able to sleep. And I couldn’t. I stared into the murky darkness. I closed my eyes. They popped open of their own volition. I stared into the murky darkness.
I was soon inside a variation of the mummy dream. This time, rather than pull away from me, Clay pressed his lips and tongue between my legs, and I arched my back and called out as a huge orgasm rolled through my body. The strength of the climax, combined with an overpowering smell of lavender, woke me.
I opened my eyes; I knew I was in my bedroom, I knew it was familiar, but I felt as if I’d never seen it before. The floor was tilting slightly upward, and the waves in my Monet print were in motion. I blinked; the waves stilled and the floor righted itself. But I felt as if I had just ridden an elevator traveling at far too great a speed.
I looked up, and there, hovering over the footboard, was a misty cloud. Unable to take a full breath, I stared, transfixed by the shimmering haze.
Slowly the form of a woman—a form that was wavering and semitransparent but a woman nonetheless—grew out of the mist. A tiny woman, clothed in an old-fashioned rose dress of stiff, silklike material, her face slightly obscured by shadow. The woman turned, and I stared into the not unkind, not unfamiliar eyes of the strange creature.
I tried to speak, but could not; I was frozen by an emotion closer to curiosity than fear, but full of both. The tiny woman nodded, smiled slightly, and receded, growing larger and more transparent as she went. The edges of her dress blurred and she dissolved into nothingness.
I sat bolt upright. The room was empty: no woman, just the lingering aroma of lavender. I jumped from bed, grabbed my bathrobe off the chair, fumbled with the lock, and raced out the door.
I looked up and down the hallway, ran into the study, checked the bathroom, ran into the living room, checked the kitchen. I ran full circle once again.
Confused, a massive headache growing behind my eyes, I sat down on the living room couch and rested my throbbing forehead in my icy cold hands. It was a dream. It was one of those dreams within a dream. That was all. But
nevertheless, I had to get out of the apartment. I had to breathe different air. Knowing it was all a dream was one thing—being alone in the apartment was another. I reached for the phone. “Joel?”
“Huh?” Joel’s voice was thick. “Lindsey? Lindsey, that you? You all right?”
“Yes.” I swallowed. “Yes, but my electricity went out. I need a place to stay. Can I come over?”
“Now?”
“If it’s okay.”
“You’re not in any trouble, are you? This isn’t one of your—”
“Please, Joel—don’t start.”
“I’ll leave the back door open for you.”
“Thanks, I’ll see you in a—” I stopped; Joel had already hung up.
4
The outer office was a cluttered, jumbled affair of puzzles and dinosaurs, Dr. Seuss and Psychology Today, crayon-defaced child-size furniture and tasteful, restful peach-on-beige chairs. Posters of ancient Greece and hand made South American tapestries hung in between the requisite diplomas. I noticed that along with her Ph.D. in clinical psychology and her M.A. from Yale (Russian literature), Naomi Braverman was also certified by the American Association of Marriage and Family Therapy. This was clearly no place for a childless widow. Particularly a childless widow who was sane. Joel and I had both overreacted.
I stood and grabbed my jacket from the coat rack. Ghosts were preferable to being shrunk by a woman who mixed her Freud with Dostoyevski.
“Lindsey Kern?”
I turned, hand on the doorknob; a dark-haired woman leaned comfortably against the frame of the inner-office door. “You can still escape, if you’d like,” she said, holding up her long-fingered hands. “No locks or chains or handcuffs.” Dr. Braverman was in that zone of indeterminate age somewhere between me and my mother, and was dressed for success in beautifully tailored white wool—although she’d forgotten to change from her wellworn running shoes to her heels. Even without the heels, she was taller than I was.
“Might as well stay.” I followed her into her office. “As long as I’m here,” I added unnecessarily.
She nodded and gestured me into a rocking chair across from her own. “As long as you’re here.”
We rocked in stiff silence for a while. I smiled awkwardly and cleared my throat. She rocked and smiled in return. I coughed and cleared my throat again. She rocked and watched me with no apparent impatience.
“You don’t look at all like Herr Doktor Stieglitz,” I finally blurted.
Her laugh was rich and deep. “I assume that’s a compliment?”
“He always reminded me of those trolls who hid under the billy goat’s bridge.”
“And just who might this homely Herr Doktor Stieglitz be?”
“The shrink—the psychiatrist—I saw when I was a kid.”
She nodded.
“I didn’t see him for long.”
She nodded again.
“There wasn’t really much wrong—I’d just had some nightmares and played a few jokes on my younger brother that my mother thought had gotten a bit out of hand …”
“Out of hand?”
I grinned. “I hadn’t meant for the house to almost burn down.” I stopped laughing when I saw her serious expression. “No, no, it’s not what you think—I wasn’t a child arsonist or anything. It’s just that I never guessed Muffy would burn so quickly.”
“Muffy was your brother?”
“No, no—of course not.” I tried again. “You see, it was all a joke on Paul. My older brother Joel was always playing practical jokes on me—David, too, sometimes—so I was playing one on Paul. I just hid his stuffed rabbit in the oven. It was my mother who preheated Muffy, and, well, we had to call the fire department, and my mother cried and said Muffy was the last straw.”
“The last straw?”
I sighed. “She said that between the nightmares and the hair pulling and the sugar in the salt shaker and Mrs. Hamdi’s flowers, it was obvious I needed help.”
“Did you think you needed help?”
“No.” I shook my head. “The jokes were nothing, and the hair pulling was no big deal either—I just pulled my hair out when I got nervous.” I touched a spot on the left side of my head. “I ended up with a sort of bald patch right here—but it grew back.” I shrugged.
“Where’s your mother now?”
“She followed Paul and David out to California. We don’t talk much.”
Like any good shrink following a mother lead, Dr. Braverman leaned closer. “How do you feel about that?”
I shrugged again. “We never got along that well when I was a kid—then we had a big falling out after Clay and I got engaged.” I waved my hands in disgust. “But this stuff has nothing to do with why I called you.”
“Why did you call me?”
I inspected my own shoes. “Things have been kind of weird lately,” I mumbled to my feet. “Strange, actually. Very strange.” I looked up at her kind face. “And I guess maybe I’m a little depressed about it all.”
“Depressed about the strange things?”
“Maybe more upset than depressed. Maybe as much upset about the things that happened before as the things that are happening now.” I studied my shoes again.
“Lindsey,” she said softly, “why don’t you back up a bit? Take it slowly. At your own pace. Tell me what’s been upsetting you.”
I took a deep breath. “Well, my husband died sixteen months ago—in this real bizarre way—and, well, that upset me.”
She tilted her head to the side and looked at me with genuine sympathy in her eyes. “That’s tough.”
“Yeah, it was pretty tough. And after a while I just had to get out—I couldn’t handle staying in Lexington, so I sold our house, and moved to Back Bay and started a new business. I wanted to begin again—to put all the awfulness behind me.” I shrugged. “And then all of this started.”
“Tell me about it.”
I smiled awkwardly and cleared my throat.
She rocked and watched me, patient and inscrutable.
“Well, it seems that lately it’s like I’m just not all here—I’ve been forgetting things, and losing things, and misplacing things. I’ve never been like this. I can’t ever seem to find my keys, I don’t remember turning on lights, or locking or unlocking doors, or moving my books …” I coughed and inspected the carved cuckoo clock over her head. It reminded me of the little Hansel and Gretel weather house my mother had in her kitchen when I was growing up—supposedly Hansel would march out in his lederhosen before inclement weather, and Gretel, all cute and smiley in her dirndl skirt, would emerge along with the sun. I didn’t remember it ever working correctly; on overcast days it was just as often Gretel who came through the little arched doorway.
“Anything else?”
“I’ve been having these really bad headaches. And some pretty awful nightmares …”
She nodded.
“And daymares.”
“Daymares?”
“Nightmares in the daytime.” I paused and took another deep breath. “Maybe more like visions or hallucinations than nightmares …”
“How so?”
“They’re not like dreams because I’m not in them. It’s more like I’m the audience, that I’m watching someone else’s dreams, or maybe someone else’s life …”
“Do you know whose life it is?”
I shook my head. “Someone from the past. The ghost, Edgar and Babs would say.”
“Ghost?” she asked as placidly as if she were asking about the weather.
“The house I live in is supposed to be haunted—so maybe I’m seeing the ghost.”
“Is that what you think?”
“No.”
“What do you think?”
“I don’t know what to think—that’s why I came here. What do you think?” I demanded.
“Tell me about the daymares.”
I noticed the cuckoo clock was broken too. It’s pendulums hung motionless, and its little bird, his beak a fa
ded red, was frozen on his perch. “I don’t believe in any of this stuff.”
She nodded.
“I don’t even know what I’m doing here. I have no idea why I even came.”
“Why do you think you came?”
“Probably because I’d rather believe in you than in ghosts.”
She nodded.
I pushed off with both my feet. “The daymares started when I moved to Beacon Street.” I leaned forward and the chair stopped short. “I guess I had the first one—you know, now that I think about it—I had the first one the very first day. I think I saw her before the movers even walked out the door!”
“Her?”
“Oh, you know—” I waved my hand airily “—the people in the daymares.”
“Did you ever have a daymare before moving to Beacon Street?”
“Well, my mother always said I had a ‘vivid imagination’—I used to make up all kinds of stories and elaborate fantasy games. You know, like pretending I lived in an underwater lily-pad kingdom behind the little door inside my closet—you know, normal kid stuff.” I rocked. “But I guess that’s pretty different from my daymares, huh?”
She nodded.
“I guess I used to have these things that were sort of like the daymares—but different.”
“How so?”
“They …” I hesitated, having trouble finding the words I needed. “They were fantasies I made up and watched in my head. But they weren’t as real as these—they were obviously my fabrication. These are so, so vivid. So real,” I finished lamely.
“Nothing else from childhood comes close?”
“Well, there was ‘watch the letters.’”
“Watch the letters?”
“Yeah, before I went to bed, when I was a kid, I used to ‘watch the letters.’ I’d close my eyes and see dancing letters—you know, A’s and B’s and C’s. They were kind of like crystal, they looked like slices of mica—refracting and flashing bright colors everywhere. But—” I paused and shook my head “—even though sometimes I’d see the colors with my eyes open, my daymares aren’t like ‘watch the letters’ either. My daymares are so strong, so convincing, so alive. I can smell them—it’s almost as if I can touch them. Except that I think they’re from another century.”
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