I stayed on the floor. “I think I’ll skip the show.”
“What are you talking about?” she demanded. “This is the hottest thing in Boston. We’ve had these tickets for months!”
“I’m, I’m not feeling so great.”
“You were feeling fine a minute ago!” Babs put her hands on her hips and glared at me. “Come on, Lindsey, we had a deal.”
“I know, I’m sorry, but I’m just not up to it. I need to stay home and think all of this through.” I shuffled the papers on my lap. “We’ve got to think this through.”
Babs’s anger disappeared as quickly as it had come; her face reflected a series of rapid-fire emotions: horror, then sadness, then something like guilt, followed—undeniably—by fear. She looked around the room as if searching for a place to hide, then she sank slowly back down on the floor next to me.
“What?” I asked.
She fidgeted with her scarf, tracing its design with her finger. “I’ve, I’ve got something to tell you.” She kept her eyes glued to the scarf. “I, I tried a couple of times, but you wouldn’t let me.”
“What?”
She took a deep breath. “Lindsey, listen to me—there is no Isabel. There never was any Isabel. It was all me.”
“Don’t be absurd. What are you talking about?” I waved a pile of newspaper clippings. “Of course there was an Isabel.”
“No, no, I mean, I know there was an Isabel. What I’m trying to tell you is that there is no Isabel.”
“Make some sense.”
“Lindsey, I, I made it all up!” She put her head in her hands.
“Made what all up?”
She played with her scarf. “I, I found those diaries long before I met you—when Nathan first gave me the boxes.”
“You already knew about the journals?”
She nodded. “And read them.”
“You read Isabel’s journals before I did?”
“Long before you did. Long before I met you, or Edgar, or anyone who lives in this house. It was when the house was still a shambles, and selling condos to actual people wasn’t real.”
“Babs, what are you trying to tell me?”
She sighed and stared out the window. “Well, you know how Nathan promised me I could handle the property? Well, I read the diaries and came up with this idea for the perfect practical joke. I decided it would be great fun to pretend that Isabel Davenport was haunting the house.”
“Great fun.”
“I know, I know, you don’t have to tell me.” She paused and then started speaking slowly, with no affect; she sounded like one of those telephone-information recordings where each number has been taped separately and then put together by a computer. “I planted the idea of a ghost in everyone’s mind. Everyone who bought a unit. No one cared. Except you and Edgar. Edgar loved it. You were so superior. So sure of your rational world.”
“Let me get this straight—because we reacted, you decided we were fair game?”
She nodded miserably.
“You mean you took it upon yourself to teach us a lesson? To prove to Edgar that he really was afraid of ghosts, and to prove to me that I really did believe in them?”
Babs continued to stare out the window. “I know it sounds awful, but it, it seemed like such a great idea at the time …”
“And you had the keys.”
She nodded and began speaking quickly, eager to get it off her chest now that she had started. “It was me who rearranged your books and it was me who moved Edgar’s couch. I took your forks—and I returned them in that jewelry box. I even had your picture repaired and hid lavender sachet in your closet. It, it was just supposed to be a joke—granted, a bad joke, but just a joke …”
I stared at her. If Babs had done all of those things, where did that leave me? “What about the lights?”
“The kid who runs errands for Urban Properties.”
“The microwave?”
She just looked at me. “The dresses, the refrigerator plug—you name it, I did it.” She looked down at her feet. “Even after I knew you were starting to freak out,” she added softly. “Even after I knew I should stop.”
“But but my daymares and nightmares—you, you couldn’t have done those. And if it wasn’t Isabel …” My voice trailed off, but my mind was whirling. If there was no Isabel, who had I been talking to? And having tea with? And who had been coming with me to museums? My stomach twisted.
“Lindsey—”
“No!” I yelled. “No—it just doesn’t work. I know I’m not crazy—Naomi said so, and anyway, crazy people can’t run businesses, or go on dates, or pay their mortgages on time.” I grabbed her shoulders. “Can they?”
Her eyes opened wider; her pupils dilated in fear. She shook head. “My mother was right,” she said with a moan.
I dropped my arms. “And what about the pickles and Kisha and Richard’s bindings? How did you do those?”
“Oh, Lindsey, even if there was a ghost, how would she get to Vermont?”
“Laws of physics don’t apply here. Isabel can do anything: she can make me see whatever she wants me to see, or feel, or smell—wherever or whenever she wants!” I could hear the hysteria in my voice. “She can make people leave saunas!”
“But—”
“And even if Vermont was a coincidence—what about everything else? If you didn’t do them, and I’m not crazy, how did they happen?”
“I don’t know, but it doesn’t mean—”
“Wait a second,” I said, relief flooding through me. “Wait just one second. We’re looking at this all wrong—these aren’t mutually exclusive things!”
“Lindsey, please, you’re scaring me.”
“No, listen, listen—this makes sense. This is the answer: There is a ghost—Isabel is real. That’s who did all the stuff you couldn’t have done! I’m not crazy—it all makes incredible sense now that we’ve got the two pieces of the puzzle.”
Babs stared at me, her body rigid, biting her cuticle and saying nothing.
“Babs, listen to me. Try and think about it from my perspective. Obviously, the way you’re looking at it, I have to be crazy, because you won’t let go of the idea that ghosts can’t exist. But open your mind. Do what you’re always telling me to do. What if—just for the sake of argument—you accept the possibility of ghosts? What if you do that? Doesn’t my behavior start to make sense? Remember—’there’s more in heaven and earth’!”
She dropped her hand to her lap and leaned forward. “Do you really think that it’s possible?”
I nodded and then started to laugh. “God, Isabel must have loved it! She’s a far better practical joker than you’ll ever be …” I paused. “I wonder if she could have planned the whole thing. Do you think she could have?”
“Please.” Babs held up her hands and slid backwards slightly. “You’re pushing too far.”
“That she could have been the one who put the idea in your head in the first place?”
All of Babs’s tenseness returned; she bit down on her lip. “Don’t do this, Lindsey.”
“I bet she did! Don’t you see, Babs—it doesn’t matter whose hands actually took the forks or who actually rearranged the books. Isabel must have done it all!”
Babs began to cry softly. “It’s all my fault, all my fault that you’re acting like this. If only I had stopped. If only, if only … Oh, Lins, I’m so sorry—so sorry about everything.”
“There’s nothing to be sorry about.”
“I didn’t know it was going to be you,” she wailed.
“It wasn’t your fault. You were just a pawn. And anyway, now that I understand it, I don’t mind it at all. As a matter of fact, if anything, I should thank you—you introduced me to Isabel. You gave me a new person to love.”
Babs stared at me for a moment, tears running down her cheeks, horror in her eyes; she grabbed my hands. “Please, please, listen to what I’m saying! Open up your mind to other possibilities. Lindsey, Lindsey, I’m telling
you the truth!”
“Haven’t you heard a word I’ve been saying? I believe you’re telling the truth.” I pulled my hands away. “I just think it’s irrelevant.”
She fished in her purse for a tissue and swiped at her eyes. “I don’t know what to do. I feel awful—I started this whole thing, I egged you on beyond what any person could possibly take.” She sniffled and blew her nose. “I, I don’t know what to do for you …”
“Forget it; you don’t have to do anything, because you didn’t do anything.”
She looked at her watch and then listlessly wound her scarf around her neck. “It’s time. I don’t suppose you’ll change your mind?”
I shook my head. “I’ve got to think.”
“Well, well, that’s a start,” she said, standing and walking slowly to the entryway. “Think about what I did and how it changes everything.” She wiped her eyes and stuffed the tissue into her purse.
“Babs, I already told you—what you did was irrelevant; it changes nothing. It’s what you said—what you said about Isabel, about her killing Montague, about it all coming from the same anger—that’s what I’ve got to think through.”
She bowed her head and whispered, “I’m sorry.” Then she quietly closed the door behind her.
I sat staring at the piles of newspaper clippings. “They come from the same anger,” Babs had said. “They come from the same anger.” I wasn’t aware that I was pulling my hair out until I looked down and saw a dozen or so long, sort of wavy, brown hairs lined up on my knee. I made them into a crisscross pattern. I rearranged them into parallel lines.
I canceled my date with Richard—I lied and told him I had the flu—and spent the rest of the afternoon and evening thinking about Isabel and Montague and about what people will do when they’re backed into corners. There was something about the whole thing that made me nervous and agitated; I paced the apartment and then went out and paced the streets. I had to take some of Joel’s Valium to fall asleep.
I dreamt I was a porcelain figurine sitting on the shelf in Mrs. Putnam’s dining room. I wore a purple dress with a long and billowing skirt; I could feel the tight-laced stays digging into my ribs and the rough petticoats scratching my legs. But I couldn’t move; I couldn’t touch the seed pearls around my neck, nor wave the eagle-feather fan I held in my hand. The high singsong of children’s voices called out, “Nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, Der-by bisque figures, Low-en-stoft china, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah.” The sound was eerie and evil.
Suddenly huge fingers surrounded me; they yanked me from my perch, flung me through the air. I arched gracefully toward the large window, toward the shimmering river—but I never reached the window, never reached the beautiful water; I hit the parquet floor hard and shattered into millions of tiny slivers of china. “Nan, nan, nah, nah, nah, Der-by bisque figures, Low-en-stoft china, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah,” sang the hateful children.
21
“It’s me, Richard,” I said into the intercom. “Let me in.” I pushed the heavy oak door when the buzzer sounded and walked slowly toward the stairs. Richard lived in a fourth-floor walk-up, and it was one long haul to his apartment.
“Are you all right?” he called down.
I leaned into the center of the stairwell; his large frame and head appeared tiny from my vantage point four stories below him. “Sort of.” My voice sounded dead as it bounced off the plaster walls and tile floor.
I heard his steps coming down toward me, moving much faster than mine; we met at the second-floor landing. He hugged me, then held me at arm’s length. “I’m glad to see you, Lins,” he said. “But you look terrible.”
“Thanks.” I smiled weakly. “I walked all the way over here just to hear those encouraging words.”
“What are you doing out with the flu?” he demanded, touching his lips to my forehead. “You’re all flushed. Sometimes you’re such a child, Lindsey.” He put his arm around me and led me up the stairs. “Come on, little one. I’ll make you some chicken soup and you can try to explain why you chose to walk all this way when you know a simple phone call would have brought me to you.”
“I wanted to get out.”
“As all grown-ups—and most children—know, you don’t ‘get out’ when you’ve got the flu. That’s why you didn’t go to the Monet show yesterday, that’s why you canceled our date last night, and that’s why you shouldn’t be here now.”
“I had to get out.”
“What does that mean?” He held open the door and ushered me into his apartment.
“I was scared.”
“Of what?”
“Don’t know.” I shrugged. “I had all these awful nightmares and terrors and cold sweats. I couldn’t sleep, and I couldn’t not sleep, and there was this terrible smell, and, and, well, I guess I, ah, I just sort of got spooked, and, and, oh, I don’t know …”
“Come.” He threw my coat on the couch and led me to his bed. He knelt down and took off my sneakers, then gently pushed me to the pillow. “Lie down.” He gathered the crumpled linens from the bottom of the bed and neatly spread them over me. “I’ll be right back.”
I closed my eyes in relief. I was exhausted. As exhausted as I’d ever been. And scared. I felt a cool hand on my cheek and looked up into Richard’s concerned eyes. “Do I really look that bad?” I asked.
“Let’s just say, you don’t look good.”
“Such tact …”
“Sit up and drink a bit of this.” He handed me a glass and two pills. “Tylenol and ginger ale,” he said in response to my questioning look. “I assume you haven’t taken any medicine.”
“Thanks.” I drank the soda and lay back down.
He picked up a quilt from the floor and placed it over me, then he neatly folded the sheet over the quilt’s edge and tucked me inside it all. “You get some sleep, and when you wake up, I’ll have a big pot of chicken soup ready for you. You’ll think you’re back at your Grandma Clara’s when you taste my famous southern chicken soup.”
“Grandma was from Odessa, not Atlanta.”
“You sleep, little one.” He kissed my brow and turned to go.
“Richard!” I grabbed his hand. “I, I can’t sleep.”
He sat down on the edge of the bed and put both of his hands around mine. “Of course you can.”
I raised myself up on my elbows. “No, I can’t. I’m, I’m afraid. The dreams, the dreams have been so terrible. If I fall asleep, they’ll come back, and if they come back, I won’t be able to stand it …” The words caught in my throat and I began to cry softly.
“Hush, hush, it’s all right, it’s all right. It’s just the fever; the fever’s what causes the nightmares. The Tylenol’ll take care of it.” He gently brushed the hair from my forehead. “Just you lie back now.”
“And the smell,” I wailed. “I can’t stand the smell. It, it was the worst smell I’ve ever smelled. It—”
“Hush, Lindsey, relax. Just relax.” He put his hands on my shoulders and gently tried to push me back down.
“I can’t, I can’t,” I said, straining against him. “I’m afraid of the dreams and the smell. They’ll come back. That smell—like rubber tires and horse manure and rancid wine all mixed up. But worse, so much worse, than either one of them alone! They’ll come back if I sleep! They will, they will!”
“It’s the fever, it’s the fever that’s causing both the smell and the dreams. Just relax.”
“But what if it’s not the fever?” I pushed his hands away and sat up in his bed. “What if it’s Isabel? And, and she’s punishing me because I don’t believe anymore? Because I’m questioning her? Because I think that maybe she did do it?”
He gripped my shoulders tightly. “Lindsey, lie back down right now! You’re sick and you’re exhausted and you’re not making any sense.”
I did as he said.
“Good girl.” He clumsily blotted at my tears with the edge of the quilt. “You sleep and I’ll be right here. I’ll be right here if you need me.
” He kissed my forehead again. “Right here.”
I closed my eyes and slept. When I woke, it did smell like Grandma Clara’s. I was flung back to her small, cluttered apartment on Sissen Avenue with its crocheted antimacassars covering every back and every arm of every overstuffed piece of furniture. It was Friday night and there were candles and tzimmes and lots of aunts and uncles and cousins. It was warm and safe and full of love.
I opened my eyes. It didn’t look like Friday night at Grandma Clara’s: no doilies, no tasseled lampshades, no family pictures, and the place was a mess. But somehow, amidst the dishes piled in the sink, the dirty clothes strewn on the floor, and the messiest desk I’d ever seen, I felt the same warmth, the same safety. Richard was bent over a pad of legal paper and surrounded by books and files and more pads of legal paper.
“Why is legal paper always yellow?” I asked.
He whirled around. “You’re up.”
“An unnecessary statement of the obvious, Counselor.”
“And feeling better, I see.” He came over and kissed my forehead. “Cool as a cucumber. No nightmares?”
I shook my head. “What time is it?”
“Almost five; you slept the whole day away. But it looks like it did you a world of good. Feel up to some of my famous southern chicken soup?”
“I’m famished,” I said, swinging my legs off the bed. “Hope you made a big pot.”
“Whoa—as you would say: ‘Not so fast, Gonzales!’” He swung my legs back onto the bed. “You stay put and I’ll bring you the soup.”
I swung my legs back down again. “First you impersonate a Jewish grandmother, and now a Jewish mother. Believe me, Richard, I’m fine, really I am.” I stood up to prove it to him.
“Okay,” he said, although it was obvious he was skeptical. “Come on over to the table and I’ll join you in a bowl.”
It really was incredible soup, almost as good as Grandma Clara’s—and that’s no small compliment. I downed two bowls in no time.
“Who’s Isabel?” Richard asked as I put my spoon on the table. His face was serious, almost troubled.
“Isabel?” I repeated, turning away from him as I got up to refill my bowl. “I don’t know any Isabel. Why?”
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