Whispering, Idaho

by Nancy Canyon

  Grabbing his thick sandwich, Stephen took a bite. “Casting stones?” he asked.

  Alice questioned his comment with raised eyebrows.

  “God’s perfect. I wear white tennis shoes with black slacks. Get it?”

  “Dad must be way less than perfect.”

  “Want help with that window?” he asked, wiping his mouth on his paper napkin.

  “That’d be great. Could you install a chain lock too?”

  He nodded. “I’ll stop up later.”

  Alice finished off the milkshake. “You were right. Angie makes a mean milkshake. Like you said in church, I should forgive. Forget the cigarette butts.” She looked around. “I’m worried about Gena not showing up. I better go find her. Thanks for lunch.” Alice slipped from the booth.

  “My good fortune, Miss Sharp.” Stephen held out his hand to shake Alice’s.

  She took it, giggling. “See you later, Pastor.”

  Crossing Main Street, Alice walked into the bustling park where firecrackers popped, children screamed, and people laughed as they set up lavish picnics. It was the third of July, the first night of the celebration beginning with games: gunnysack races, egg tosses, pie and watermelon eating contests. Alice wasn’t interested in playing games—particularly the type her family played. She looked over her shoulder at the hardware store and wondered if her father was back at work yet. She shivered, imagining she might run into him in the park.

  Escaping from the commotion, she took the path through the trees leading to her apartment. Soon, she heard husky voices ahead, talking and laughing. She stopped short just as a group of guys rounded the corner, spying her.

  “Hey, Baby. Dig this,” one said, making a rude gesture.

  Alice wheeled about. She hurried back toward the crowd, biting her cuticle, tasting the sweetness of her own blood spreading through her mouth like fear washed through her veins.

  “What’s your hurry, Chicky?” The sound of quickening feet closed on her.

  Alice started to run. She heard their whoops and catcalls close behind her.

  “Wait up, gorgeous. You dropped something.”

  Alice ran faster, her racing heart, rushing toward the hardware store. She remembered her father and quickly changed directions, circling around to the back alley. Lungs burning, she collapsed against the brick wall, listening for the hoodlums’ catcalls beyond the sound of her pounding heart. The honk of a horn made her jump. Her mother pulled up next to her in the green Chevy. Leaning out the window, she said, “For heaven’s sake, Alice. Why are you lurking around back here?”

  Alice peeked around the corner of the building before answering. “Hoodlums are after me,” she whispered, holding her heaving chest.

  “Not another one of your stories. When will you stop? I’ll call the asylum when I get home.”

  Alice ran around to the passenger side of the car and jumped in. She slouched down low in the seat, almost whispering, “Please take me home.”

  “First, we need to talk,” her mother said, turning right onto Main Street.

  Alice felt her stomach slide into her bowels. “Home’s the other way.”

  “Let’s go to the river. You love the river, right?”

  Alice wiped her sweaty forehead with the edge of her sleeve. “But you don’t. I want to go home.”

  Her mother kept driving, lighting up. “Let me show you something first.”

  Alice left her hiding position, looking past her mother to where she’d last seen the boys. “They’re gone,” she said, relaxing back against the seat, studying her bloody fingertip. “Stephen’s coming by to fix the broken pane. I need to be there.”

  “Since when are you on a first name basis with the

  Pastor?”

  Alice smelled the sharp burn of tobacco. “He asked me to call him Stephen when he invited me to the celebration.”

  “Good heavens. You’d better buy the glass. We don’t want to be indebted to him, you know.”

  Alice didn’t say anything. She didn’t care what her mother thought. She liked Stephen and that was that. Sticking her raw cuticle into her mouth, she sucked on her sore finger. She couldn’t afford a baby. She looked down at her belly. There was no way she’d live in the Wayward Girls’ Home. She’d run away. She’d live with her cousin Rayleen in Best if she had to.

  “You know your father doesn’t like owing anyone anything.”

  “What?”

  “Quit the daydreaming, Alice and listen to me. We’re indebted to him now.”

  “Forget it, will you? I’ll buy the glass.”

  “May I remind you that you quit your job? I don’t know how you expect to pay for rent and repairs?"

  “I have a job. I’m a painter. Someday I’ll study in Italy, you’ll see.”

  Alice’s mother laughed. “Without a job, you’ll be lucky to buy a postcard of the Sistine Chapel at Henry’s Pharmacy.”

  Alice leaned her head out the open window, breathing in the smell of bottom mud and hot pine pitch. She was tired of arguing with her mother, tired of not being believed.

  “We have something in common, you know. I lived on my own when I was your age. Grandma Rose was beside herself when I left home. Didn’t recover until I married your father.” Her mother swung the car onto River Road. “I want you to move back home, Alice. That horrible woman lives next door to you and that awful Sunstar downstairs. It’s not a good environment. We’ll get you help with this lying.”

  Alice gripped the dashboard as she stared hard at her mother. “We’ve already discussed this. I won’t live in the same house with him. And there isn’t a problem with my imagination. Artists are imaginative. I know what I’m talking about.”

  “You’re like my sister. She’s schizophrenic, you know? It’s inherited. She had the shock treatments. Damn, it was awful.” Her mother slowed the car, turning sharply into the brush. “I’d hate for you to go through that.”

  “You’re amazing. I’m not nuts but you may be. There’s no road here.”

  “It’s overgrown, is all. You’ll see. Quick, roll up your window.”

  Alice turned the handle as branches popped and whacked the windshield. After a few minutes of wincing and ducking, they drove out of the brush into a clearing filled with sunlight, near the river. Her mother stopped the car. Coughing, Alice rolled down her window, gasping for fresh air.

  “What now?”

  “Do you have to smoke all the time?”

  “My smoking is none of your business,” her mother said, flicking the ash into the ashtray.

  “It is my business! Everything that hurts me is my business,” Alice shouted.

  “Lower your voice.”

  “No one can hear me but you. You keep saying that. If you don’t want to listen, then get out of my life.” Alice stared out the side window. Just beyond the tangled mass of brambles, she made out the back wall of the broken-down shack she’d sketched. Blue River meandered just beyond. “How do you know about this place?”

  “It’s a long story. Now, tell me what happened the night I was gone?”

  “I already told you,” she said, glaring at her mother, watching her pull a curl from the nape of her neck and twist it around her finger.

  “Your father says you’re lying. Why should I believe you over him?”

  “I’m not lying. He got in bed with me. Touched me in ways he shouldn’t have. I have bruises. And other proof.”

  Her mother snubbed out her cigarette. Narrowing her eyes, she said, “What do you mean?”

  Alice turned away.

  “Talk to me.”

  “He screwed me, okay? How’s that fit in your perfect world of marriage, your Alice-needs-a-shrink-world?

  Her mother gasped. “There’s something you need to know about your father.”

  “You’re not listening to me,” Alice shouted. She shoved open the door, jumped out of the car. Her breath was coming fast now. Too fast. She grabbed her heart, feeling the strength of rapids racing beneath her st
ernum.

  “Alice, get back here. I have something to tell you.”

  Alice staggered over to a log. The heat was unbearable. She collapsed onto the downed tree, her head buzzing. A breeze gusted from the river, bringing with it a foul smell like food-gone-bad. She gagged, remembering her plan to stay the night in the horrible little shack. Anything would have been better than the way things turned out that night.

  “Alice,” her mother said. Her voice was soothing now, speaking quietly as she walked toward her, her jeweled sandals flashing between clumps of dry grass. “Please, Dear. I want to hear what you have to say. Talk to me.”

  Alice couldn’t speak. She kept her knees pinched together, her head bent over, her hands clasped tightly around her legs. The buzzing in her ears sucked her away, tumbling her through the swirling darkness. Fingers brushed her shoulder, causing her to flinch like a beaten dog.

  “Good God. He did hurt you. How could I have ignored the signs? Oh, my poor baby. We’ll go now to Officer Wise,” she said, grabbing Alice by the arm and tugging, trying to pull her to her feet.

  Alice jerked her arm free. “What signs?” She looked up at her mother, forcing herself to focus, forcing her head to clear.

  “You knew, didn’t you? And you didn’t do anything? How could you let him hurt me?” Alice screamed, scrambling to her feet, sidestepping away from her mother like a scrambling animal. “Go to hell! Just go to hell!” She flung her arms at her mother, ready to run.

  “I didn’t know exactly,” her mother said quickly. “It was just the way he looked at you sometimes. Please don’t go, Alice. I want to help you.”

  “You’ve never protected me. It’s always been his word over mine. I’m sick of both of you. You’re the ones who need the shrink, not me.” Alice turned and ran past the shack and across the beach toward the river. The beating sun burned hot on her face. Even so, she’d run day and night if she had to. She was used property. She was stupid to believe that Stephen would ever love her. Her stomach roiled. She heaved her lunch onto the sand. Wiping her mouth on her sleeve, she waited for the nausea to pass.

  “Alice! Alice! Come back.”

  Alice turned to see her mother standing in front of the car, waving her arms. “Don’t go, Sweetheart. I can’t lose you too.”

  CHAPTER 11

  Alice stumbled across the rocks to the river’s edge. She ignored the sound of brush scratching against metal as her mother backed through the overgrowth. She forced herself to focus on the patterns of light sparkling off the rushing, blue water. A little farther west, Blue River grew rapid, ripping past sharp rocks like canine teeth tearing flesh. It was a dangerous stretch for boaters.

  Her mother had known all along what was going on. She crouched at the river’s edge, splashing her face with cold water. Now they would be going to Officer Wise together, telling him the gruesome details of the rape, her mother weeping into a tissue as if it had happened to her instead. Heat flashed through Alice. “Fucking assholes!” She grabbed a rock from the beach, heaving it into the river with all her might. “I hate them both!”

  Caw, caw, caw. She watched a murder of crows flapping into the darkening sky, their black wings making check marks against the clouds, marking her behavior somehow wrong. Their racket cut into her like her knife cut her finger. She started back.

  If she wanted to beat the coming storm, she’d have to hurry. She ran west along the shoreline, heading toward the swimming hole, pushing through patches of thorny brush and ankle-twisting river rock. The heat was intolerable: muggy, humid. Stopping to catch her breath, she heard faint barking coming from beyond the tangled brush. Her heartbeat quickened. She looked around for a place to hide just as an enormous golden retriever crashed through the brush, rushing her. She screamed and froze in place. He reared up, planted huge muddy paws in the middle of her chest and knocked her over onto the rocky beach. Whimpering, she drew her knees into her chest and threw her arms over her head, curling away from the barking, pawing dog.

  “Zeke! What’s the matter with you? Get over here!”

  The dog yelped as he ran off.

  It was Stephen! Relieved and embarrassed, Alice scrambled to sitting, hiccupping as she wiped away tears.

  “You okay, Alice?”

  A hand appeared in front of her face. “Yeah,” she said, remembering the chewed bone on the floor of Stephen’s truck. “It’s humiliating, flopping around on the beach with your dog slobbering over me.” She took his offered hand and climbed to her feet, wincing over a bruised hipbone.

  “You’re hurt.”

  “I’m fine,” Alice said, shifting her focus to her stained T-shirt. “Just some marks on my shirt. They’ll wash out.”

  Zeke woofed and wagged his tail, forcing his hefty shoulders between the two of them, dropping his rump over Alice’s feet. He looked up at her with adoring eyes, but she shoved him away. “I’m afraid of dogs.”

  Stephen yanked Zeke by the collar. “Enough, already. He wouldn’t harm a flea. Sure you’re not hurt?”

  “My hip will probably be bruised,” Alice said, noticing Stephen’s shoes weren’t as white as they had been earlier.

  He lifted her chin, rubbing his thumb across her cheek. “Smudged.”

  She smelled his now familiar scent. Heat came up her neck. Reaching to the neckline of her shirt, she got hold of the cross, and then turned away. Quickly she scanned the beach. No one was around, but the wind was coming up. “Better hurry. We’re in for another downpour.”

  “I’ll walk you home,” he said, taking Alice’s hand. “Check on that broken pane.”

  The heat of Stephen’s hand drained away her tension. She relaxed into a comfortable stride next to him. “Just keep your dog over there, okay?”

  “Sure,” Stephen said, pulling Zeke around to his right. “You bad dog, you scared my girl.”

  Alice’s heart flipped. He thinks of her as his girl? For the moment the bad thing disappeared into the back of her mind. She felt flushed with happiness.

  “Dogs can smell fear, you know?”

  Alice looked at him sideways. “I’ve a right to be scared. I’ve been bit, you know,” she said, the warmth leaving just as quickly as it had come.

  “Sorry. Didn’t mean anything by it.”

  Alice remembered the dream—Stephen washing away in the river rapids, and her heart softened. “It’s okay.”

  “Zeke seems to like you. He won’t hurt you, you know.”

  “I’ll have to get to know him better before I trust him.”

  They walked in silence, picking their way across the rocks and sand to the trailhead. The wind came steady now. The smell of rain, like clean sheets, carried on each gust. Alice squinted for the trailhead, spotting it just as fat drops started to fall. She yelled, “This way,” and raced up the hill through the torrent of rain.

  Zeke dashed past Alice, nearly knocking her off the slippery trail. Startled but not afraid, Alice squealed and sprinted, reaching the weathered porch before Stephen. Water streamed from her hair, ran down the neck of her shirt, soaking her inside and out. Leaning against the railing, she caught her breath while watching Zeke romp across the brown grass. He barked at Stephen, then raced to where Alice stood, dancing and woofing for her. By the time Stephen clambered up the porch steps, Alice was laughing like a new person.

  “Like stepping out of the shower,” he said, running his hands along his tanned arms, stripping them of rain. Stepping past Alice, he pulled open the apartment-house door. Zeke scrambled between them, stopped and shook dry.

  Alice shrieked. “Didn’t think I could get any wetter. Phew! Wet dog smell.”

  “Sorry,” he said, ushering them into the foyer in a scrambling racket.

  Once the door was closed and the dim hall embraced them in its stale breath, Stephen, catching his own, stepped closer to Alice, pushing aside a dripping red curl. “I smell lilies.”

  Alice met his blue eyes and waited, her heart thrumming in her ears. Miss Green burst out of h
er apartment, yelling, “What’s going on here? Who’s that?”

  Alice stumbled backwards. She wasn’t sure which shocked her more, the near kiss or Miss Green’s crazed eyes glaring down from above. She caught her breath and blinked away the rain. “Mind your own business.”

  “All soaked like that, reminds me of your father, Carl.”

  “You mean Jim. I’m Jim Sharp’s daughter.”

  “Carl was mine. You could have been too.”

  Heart pounding, Alice started up the stairs. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “You calling the police saved me the trouble.”

  Alice looked up at the old woman, remembering Sunstar’s assessment that the woman was nuts. “Go back inside, Miss Green.”

  The lady’s eyes turned stony. She took a step backwards. “No accident,” Miss Green hollered as she closed her door.

  Shivering, Alice called to Stephen. “Come on. Let’s get dried off. I’m freezing.”

  Stephen wandered into the living room of the stuffy apartment while Zeke circled, then curled into a ball outside the bathroom door and began licking his fur dry.

  “Great oil painting,” Stephen said.

  “Thanks. It’s called Freedom,” Alice said, trembling. “I’m going to change. Back in a sec.” She stepped over the dog, shutting herself into the bathroom.

  “He was going to kiss me. What am I going to do?” she whispered, stripping off her wet clothing. She pulled on a pair of dry blue jeans and a green sweater and combed out her wet hair. As she washed the smudges off her face, she studied her reflection in the mirror. Even with dark circles beneath her eyes, she looked happier than she’d been in a long time. She lined her lips with pink lip gloss. “Here goes nothing.”

  When she opened the door, Stephen looked up.

  “Want something dry to wear?”

  “Wouldn’t fit me.”

  “My paint shirt’s one of Dad’s old dress shirts.”

  The corners of his slim mouth turned up. “Think I’ll pass,” he said, brushing aside his wet hair.

  Shrugging, she stepped past Zeke into the kitchen. “Would you like hot tea, then?”