“I changed my mind.”
After a second’s hesitation, she came around the desk and stared at him, one hand at her neck as if there was something to hide. “Are you all right? I mean, everything’s okay? The Athland thing and all?”
He looked up at her and smiled. “I think — yes. I think everything’s just fine.”
Her expression doubted it, but he wouldn’t move the stare until at last she nodded and left the room. The door closed quietly, as if on a patient, and he strained for a moment to see if he could hear them out there, whispering, gossiping, maybe even comparing resumes they were, at this very minute, sending around town.
The hell with them, he thought, and watched the trees again. Thinking about miracles and sock hops, the Ponytails and Paul Anka; football games in the rain and an English teacher with blue hair; the dirty jokes he laughed at, though he didn’t understand them; buying his first bowling ball and watching it smack down the gutter the first time he used it; the girls who made him blush, the girls who danced in his dreams — danced and nothing more because he didn’t understand them; the old gang he lost touch with the second the diplomas were handed out.
How in god’s name had she found him?
She said he hadn’t changed a bit, a gracious fiction that made him love her. But she hadn’t changed a bit. She was exactly the way he remembered, and his only memories of her were more than two decades old. Some people aged well, some used surgical help, and those like him weren’t the same at all.
How had she known him?
His hand rested lightly across his mouth, fingers drumming on his cheek. He crossed his legs at the ankles, re-crossed them, and again. He felt a cramp in his left calf and put his feet on the floor, waited for the pain to pass, then swiveled around and stared at his desk. It was empty. Everything neat and in its place, everything dusted, everything clean. It didn’t look right; it wasn’t his.
How? How did she know?
Someone knocked, and the door opened, and Ian poked his head in. “Bruce do you want me to —”
“Goddamnit,” he said loudly, “would you just leave me the hell alone?” His fist hit the desktop. “Damn! God damn!”
The door slammed.
He put his palms over his eyes and tried to find some calm.
It wasn’t as if he hadn’t taught them anything, right? It wasn’t as if they were helpless children, for Christ’s sake. If he died and went to hell tomorrow, all they’d have to do was change the name on the door.
His breathing was shallow and fast.
Why couldn’t they, just once, just leave him alone, pretend he wasn’t here?
His hands curled into fists, knuckles at his temples. Lois opened the door and he leapt up to his feet — “Out! Get the bloody hell out!” — and she gasped and backed away and he looked at his left hand and saw the letter opener in it and looked back at her and wondered what it would be like to drive it home.
Johns reached around her and then closed the door again, and Bruce sagged into his chair, trembling until the silver blade dropped as he pressed his hands against his legs as hard as he could. As long as he could. Until his arms began to quiver, and he relaxed, and he smiled, and he decided to give them the rest of the week off. Under pressure, he would tell them with his best forgive-me smile: I think we all need a vacation, so what the hell, school’s out.
But they were gone when he decided he could walk without stumbling. The outer office was empty, terminals off, copier covered, blinds lowered over the windows that looked out on Centre Street. When he pulled back his cuff to check the time, his eyes widened in surprise. It was after six. They’d left for home an hour ago.
And they hadn’t said good night.
“Well, damn,” he said, and went back to his desk, where he dialed his home and listened to the busy signal. Five minutes later he tried again. Ten minutes after that. He cupped his hands behind his head and closed his eyes, determined to be patient.
And thought about a warm and wet graduation night and the yellow summer dress and the way she held his hand and the way she bumped into him now and then and the way she hugged his arm whenever he tried to tell a joke; sitting in the school’s bleachers during gym class and watching her on the field, thinking nothing of the uniform that showed her legs, hugged her chest; a biology teacher who ate raw hamburger for lunch and slept at her desk until her lunch hour was over; Fats Domino and the Everly Brothers; his best friend telling him that college was a drag and the air force was the way; the math teacher who threw chalk to keep the back row awake.
He dialed again. The line was busy.
He rolled his sleeves above the elbows, left his jacket on the chair, and locked up.
On Centre Street he watched a handful of construction workers cleaning up, the bricks just about laid, the parking meters gone, the trees at the curbs looking somehow better without the cars. A wave to someone who called from across the street, and he hurried up to the corner, turned right, and tried not to rush as he headed for the park.
Where he found her in the same spot.
And he embraced her, and kissed her, and she drew him away from the knoll and into the trees, the two of them shuffling awkwardly to keep the kiss from breaking; kneeling in the shade; working each other’s buttons; and leaning away while he stared at her breasts and held his breath because he couldn’t believe it, and held his breath as he touched them, tracing his fingers from the tops, across the nipples, to the tight space underneath where he felt a line of perspiration before he traced on down to her stomach.
The snug waist stopped him.
She pulled the yellow off, lay back, held out her hands.
“I don’t . . .” He shook his head. “I don’t . . .”
“Yes, you do.”
The shade cold on his back, cold on his buttocks, cold on his soles as he held himself over her and looked down and saw her, and saw her hands move to guide him, and they were cold, like the shade, so cold he almost softened. Until he looked into her face and saw her eyes wide open and her lips parted to show her teeth and tongue and her nostrils flaring slightly and her jaw trembling with tension.
He said, “God, I’ve never —”
“Now you have,” she whispered, and yanked him down, and in.
And when he closed his eyes and kissed her, there was Cora, for just a moment. Staring. Without expression. Until he felt her tongue brush along the underside of his lips. Cora vanished. The shade was cold.
And Nancy Arrow said, “I want you.”
They walked down the slope, angling to the right toward the brush and trees and the path beyond.
No one else was in the park.
Night had fallen under the boughs.
“You’re in trouble,” she said. Quietly. Not looking.
“In more ways than you know,” he answered. Just as softly. Not looking.
She kicked at an acorn. “They won’t arrest you.” His head turned. Her profile a shadow.
“You heard?”
“People talk in this place,” she said. He couldn’t see her lips move.
“I don’t know how you stand it,” she went on. “It’s like living in a dorm.”
“You went to college?”
“Is that so surprising?”
He gestured innocence. “No, of course not, don’t be silly. It’s just that . . . well, you haven’t exactly been feeding me your life story, that’s all.” He poked her arm and grinned. “So, how many kids?”
“None. I never married.”
He slowed. “Now that I don’t believe.”
Her face appeared over her shoulder. “I was waiting.”
He stopped, uneasy. “C’rnon, Nancy, that’s impossible.”
“No, it isn’t. Some people do, some people don’t.” Her hair shifted, her face vanished. “I happen to be one of those who do.”
“Nancy, that’s . . .”
the silliest thing I’ve ever heard of
He hurried to catch up to her, but h
e didn’t take her arm.
No, it’s not. I waited. I loved you.
The trees backed away as they approached the entrance; light stabbed the dark. Several automobiles swept past. A policeman strolled by with a young man chattering at his side. Neither looked around as Bruce stepped between the iron gates and paused when he realized Nancy had stayed behind. When he turned, she was adjusting her skirts while mottles of leaf-shadow, pinpricks of sunlight, drifted her in and out of focus.
She smiled and winked and lay a finger lightly beneath one breast.
He remembered the scar there, so tiny, so hard, hidden away from everyone except him. Her lover.
He waited, but she didn’t move; he beckoned, and she shook her head; he felt confused and he frowned and she mouthed tomorrow night and waved him on with a blown kiss. Which he trapped in a fist and slipped the fist into his pocket and she laughed and shooed him again and he laughed and walked away, and it wasn’t until he’d reached Chancellor Avenue that he realized what he’d done.
A look back.
She stood on the sidewalk, small and dark and watching him and smiling.
He had just committed adultery. The first time. Looking had never counted because being married hadn’t struck him blind; sometimes dreaming didn’t count because dreams weren’t even wishes; and casual flirting didn’t count because Cora was always home.
Doing, on the other hand . . .
And as he walked, fist still in his pocket, the ghostly kiss against his palm, he worked honestly hard to find a measure of guilt or shame. And when he failed, he only smiled and cocked his head and stopped on the pavement in front of his house when one of Mrs. Yorr’s terriers charged at him across the lawn.
He heard the woman calling from down the block. He looked down at the dog and said, “Touch me, you little fucker, and I’ll tear your throat out.”
The dog barked.
Without a second thought he kicked it in the chest with the side of his foot. Not hard, but hard enough to send it sprawling to the ground.
“I saw that!” Mrs. Yorr shouted, huffing toward him, hat flopping. “I saw that!”
He watched her for a second, watched the dog stagger to its feet, then walked up the driveway, the walk, and didn’t stop when Cora opened the door to let him in.
“I saw you,” she said in harsh amazement, closing the door on the woman’s shouts. “What the hell made you do it?”
He went into the kitchen, opened the refrigerator, and pulled out a milk container. “Because it bugged me, that’s why.”
“I don’t believe it.”
He drank and wiped his lips. “So? That little son of a bitch had it coming. And if it attacks me again, I’ll do it again.” He replaced the milk, closed the door.
“Attack?” Cora laughed. “You can’t be serious. Bruce, you can’t be serious. It’s only a little dog!”
He took his hand from his pocket and stared at it, opened it and pressed it to his cheek. “That thing and its bastard brothers have dug up our yard, dug up your precious garden, chewed god knows how many —”
Cora wheeled and left him, and when he finally went to bed, he couldn’t help noticing how far away she lay, how still she lay when he slipped under the covers.
Cora, he thought, you’ll never guess what I did today.
And he slept without dreaming, without nightmares, without waking until morning, when he heard his family in the living room, exclaiming outrage over something he couldn’t understand. He stretched and rose and looked out the window to the yard. The sky was faintly overcast, the sun a haze, the heat pressing the leaves down as the air conditioner kicked on.
Nancy stood by Cora’s garden.
He lifted a surprised hand to wave, and she faded into a rosebush that had as yet borne no blossoms.
Then he looked over at the bed and saw her lying there, fitting perfectly beside the space he usually slept in, one hand resting over her head on the pillow, the other slowly, so slowly, drawing the sheet down. He smiled. She returned it. Slowly; so slowly. He moved to sit on the edge of the mattress, his left hand hovering over the flat of her belly, then pressing down gently, until he reached the sheet beneath and she was gone and Lisa was at the foot of the stairs, screaming at him to shake a leg because he was going to be late.
The shower was cool, and he felt hot.
At the breakfast table he said to Betsy, “What were you all arguing about?”
“We weren’t arguing,” she huffed from the sink.
“Sure sounded like it to me.”
“Well, we weren’t.”
“Okay, you weren’t.”
Lisa, in tight white T-shirt and tennis shorts, raced in, a knapsack on her back. “Hey, Dad, did you really kick that dog last night?”
Betsy turned and waited.
He finished his coffee and stood. “Yes,” he said. Lisa made a face.
Betsy said, “That’s disgusting.”
And Bruce took the distance between them in three strides, looked down at his oldest, and said, “Young woman, you are not as old or as wise as you think you are.” A forefinger touched her shoulder, prelude to a push. “And I’m not quite as stupid as you think I am.”
Betsy opened her mouth to protest, but Lisa said, “God, Dad, what’s bugging your ass?”
He whirled as Lisa’s hand snapped up to cover her mouth, and she slipped to one side when he walked to the hall, stopped, and glared. “Before you leave this house, young lady, you will put something else on.” He pinched the neckline of her T-shirt. “And you will bloody well put on a bra.”
He was at the foyer before they came after him, shouting without being loud, and he spun around as he opened the door, silencing them with a look.
My house, he wanted to say; this is my goddamned house and as long as you still live here, you’ll do things my way.
He said nothing.
He only stared until they stomped into the living room, calling for their mother’s support. Then he went outside, and in spite of the early heat and the promise of worse later, he walked to work briskly, grinning at the sweat running down his sides, ignoring the sweat he felt on his brow. As he crossed over Poplar he was tempted to make a detour, to knock on Mrs. Yorr’s door and explain as best he could that the next time her beasts even shit in his direction, he was going to call the police and have them shot. The temptation made him laugh aloud. He walked on. Finally crossed Chancellor Avenue and turned right, arms swinging, sweat dripping, not slowing until he came abreast of the police station.
Glenn Rowan was getting out of his car at the curb.
“Mr. Kanfield!”
Bruce gave him no expression. “Detective Rowan.” Rowan, wearing the same suit and tie, squinted up at the pseudo-Grecian facade. “Mr. Kanfield, I don’t mean to bother you or anything, but I can’t seem to find that friend of yours. “Miss Arrow?”
“So?”
“You said she’d be able to vouch for your time.”
Finally he frowned. “Is this an accusation?”
“No, Mr. Kanfield,” Rowan said, his voice abruptly deep, his lean face abruptly hard. “But you know how it is with something like this.”
“No,” he said. “No, I don’t. And if you want to spring another interrogation on me, you’d better give me time to call my lawyer. This is, I believe, what’s called harassment.”
Rowan’s smile was brief. “Come on, Mr. Kanfield, you don’t really believe that.”
Bruce’s smile was just as brief, and colder, and he walked up to the corner and turned it sharply, neatly dodging a wheelbarrow loaded with new bricks, ducking between two trucks and cutting across Centre Street to his office door. The staircase was cool, and he sighed at the chilling touch, paused for a moment on the landing before going inside.
Lois was the only one at her desk.
“Holiday?” he said, looking around in annoyance. Lois seemed puzzled. “Bruce,” she said at last, “you told us yesterday to take the rest of the week off.”<
br />
“Ah.” Did he? He must have; they certainly couldn’t read his thoughts. “Then why are you here?”
She held up a folder. “The Vanders thing. As soon as I’m done, I’ll leave.”
“With a gold star on your paycheck,” he answered, ignored the fact that she didn’t laugh, and walked into his office, shut the door, and saw Nancy in his chair.
The yellow dress was unbuttoned all the way to her waist.
“There was no one home,” she said, raising her arms over her head, “so I just walked in. Is that okay?” Then she stood, and with a sweep of her hands, knocked everything to the floor.
“Bruce, come here.” She sat on the edge and pushed herself back until her legs were out straight, her shoes kicked off. “Come on.” She hiked up her dress. “Come on.”
There was a lifetime’s worth of panic before he whirled and locked the door; a lifetime’s worth of daydreams as he crossed the carpet to the desk; a lifetime of sighing as her right hand unzipped him and her left hand reached over to take his arm.
“Do you remember,” she said, “the first time we kissed?”
He climbed onto the desk and straddled her. “Like it was yesterday.”
“It was the sweetest kiss I ever had,” she told him.
“And me,” he whispered. “Dear Jesus, and me.”
“Then do something about it,” she said as he entered her, and cried out when he kissed her neck, whimpered when he kissed her cheek, wept when he said, “I love you,” and laughed as she said, “You’re mine.”
He dressed slowly. She didn’t dress at all.
He unlocked the door and poked his head out; Lois was gone, the light through the front windows giving a brief impression that the whole room was covered with dust. He shook his head. The dust cleared.
He turned around.
Nancy was sitting on the edge of the desk, dress covering her lap. “They won’t arrest you,” she said. Her eyes were bright.
“I know. But I have to admit it’s getting a little scary. You’re going to have to talk to the police, Nancy. They need to know where I was.”
The telephone rang on the floor.
“If I have to,” she said, and slipped her arms into the sleeves.
The Complete Short Fiction of Charles L. Grant Volume 3: Dialing the Wind (Neccon Classic Horror) Page 9