“I see,” Deeny said, letting out a dark burp of air. “But... you could pull a trigger. I have seen something in your mind that will make this so much easier. What do you call the thing?” The breeze picked up again, whooshing a bit through the trees.
Paul closed his eyes and tried to not think of the word, but of course it popped into his mind.
Deeny’s grin grew wider, “Yes. A gun. The men in Rockport had those, I think. Not a great way to end a life, it is too impersonal, but there really is no wrong way. It would be a wonderful start. Do you have one?”
Desperately, Paul tried to shut his mind to his new friend—he set his laptop aside and buried his face between his arms and knees—but Deeny was too close to him now to be shut out.
Deeny frowned fiercely, “You do not. But you could get one. You have money.” Money was a stimulating concept to Deeny. He wished he could remember more about his past. He didn’t think he’d ever really dealt with money, but it seemed to have something to do with life and death and all the interesting things he liked. At the same time it seemed totally disconnected from everything that is real. Truly fascinating.
Paul said, “I can get one. I have money.”
Deeny started to get excited despite his attempt at caution. He got closer to Paul. “Who should die, Writer? Who will be first? If you like, you can kill someone who is bad.”
Paul said, “There’s a TV show about that.”
“About what?” Deeny had learned about TV shows and movies from the writer. They definitely had not had those in Rockport.
“A serial killer who only kills serial killers.”
“Weird,” said Deeny. “Thankfully, we will not be limited like that coward. But I do not mind if for your first we choose someone like that, just some regular killer.” Deeny had little patience for killers who were content with three or four or ten. They were better than most people, of course, but just barely. Through the Writer’s mind he had seen men like Stalin and Hitler and cared for them even less, for they defiled the sanctity of murder by hiding behind ideals of motive and purpose.
He and the Writer would dwarf them all. They would make a great team.
“When can you get one?” Deeny said.
“Soon. Tomorrow if you like.”
“Well,” Deeny said, trying to involve his young protégée a bit more, “When would you like to get one?”
“I don’t know,” Paul said, but then—he couldn’t help himself—he started smiling again, really imagining it. “I don’t know,” he said as he laughed.
3
Later that afternoon, once Deeny had left to wherever it was he went when he was gone, Paul sat down to eat reheated pasta. He’d finally fed Cards; the dog was crunching away at her food bowl. Forgoing the dining room table, which was altogether too formal for a bright day like this, he pulled up a stool and started forking noodles into his mouth at the countertop that extended between the kitchen and dining room like a dock. The noodles felt like smooth little jokes in his mouth, hilarious approximations of real-life food. Was any of this real? How could it be?
Oh, some voice inside him thought, this is as real as it gets, buddy.
Paul guessed he looked something like a radio DJ at the end of a thirty-hour charity marathon: rings under the eyes, a vacant, unexpressive look on the face.
His cell rang, and Paul’s lips and nose pulled back in a grimace. He didn’t want to talk to Jen or anybody so soon after chatting with Deeny. He didn’t want to feel that Deeny existed in the same universe as regular people. But he didn’t recognize the number, meaning at least it wasn’t Jen. Without really knowing why he was doing so, he answered.
“Paul Kenner,” he said, hoping it would be a wrong number.
“Paul,” a deep, melodic voice said on the other end of the line, “it’s Tyson.”
Paul couldn’t place the name; fresh images of murder from Deeny’s Adventure filled his mind, making normal thought momentarily impossible.
“Sorry,” he said. “What?”
“Tyson Hills. I helped you with Manpower?” the voice said.
Then Paul remembered, but he still felt confused, as if his brain was wrapped in black cotton. “Oh. Um, hi. Sorry about that, I just woke up from a nap.”
The lie was brilliant. It explained why he sounded so disconcerted. He ran his free hand over the dark galaxies of his black granite countertop.
“You moved to Utah. Four months ago, is that right?”
“Yeah. Sorry I didn’t call you sooner,” Paul said, as if he had called Tyson at all, “We’ve just been getting settled in.”
“No worries,” Tyson said, but Paul noticed he did sound worried. Maybe more than worried. Tyson sounded the way hostages did sometimes on TV, when they were told to act like nothing was wrong. Not that it really mattered to Paul how Tyson was feeling one way or the other.
“Hey, did you ever get around to reading that book I gave you?”
“No,” Paul said, no more brilliant lies popping into his mouth. “I meant to, but you know how it is. Just busy, I guess.” With the streaks his finger left behind he drew a picture of Deeny on the countertop, smiling, holding a knife over his head.
“Did your wife call you? About me, I mean.”
Paul was feeling lightheaded, almost like he was getting a high off something. He was tired from working on Deeny’s Adventure. He wanted to say, “Hey dude, what’s with all the questions? I’ve got a lot on my mind right now, and there’s this big fat guy who’s haunting the trees by my house or something and I just don’t have the energy to deal with this right now, um-kay?”
But instead he said, “No. Why would she?”
He fingered a little trail of blood from the tip of Deeny’s knife out in a great arc.
“She didn’t tell you that I want to buy your place? Your house?”
This actually got Paul’s attention. For the first time since answering his phone he was really listening. “What are you talking about, Tyson?”
“Just what I said. I want to buy your house.”
“Why?” Paul said, not bothering to mention there was no way Tyson could afford it.
Tyson then went on to tell Paul the story of his near-brush with death, and how a prompting had saved him. While listening, Paul wiped the image of Deeny off the countertop with the heel of his hand.
“And I had another prompting like that when I heard from Gayle that you guys moved to Utah.”
Gayle was Paul’s agent. He couldn’t help but smile. She was not a complex person. He saw her plan all at once: in desperation she’d called Tyson, remembering the nice things Paul had said to her about him during his work on Manpower. She’d thought, Maybe they’ll get talking… maybe they’ll get talking and maybe Paul will have an idea.
Idea with a capital “$.”
Tyson went on. “It was strong. Strong strong, you hear me? I need to buy your house.”
“Why do you think that is?”
“I don’t know, and frankly Paul, I don’t need to know. I’ve been dealing with the Holy Ghost like this my whole life. I know that probably sounds stupid to you—”
“No,” Paul interrupted. “No. It doesn’t.” And Paul meant it. Two weeks ago? Sure, it would have sounded quite stupid. But Paul’s worldview about what was stupid or possible or whatever had begun to change as of late.
“…what it takes,” Tyson was saying. “I’ve got good credit, my wife and I own this house, I’m sure we could get a mortgage. Or even sell it if we had to.”
“So,” Paul said, feeling oddly amused, “you want to move to Peoa?”
There was a pause.
“No, Paul. I’ll tell you what I’m going to do if you’ll sell me that house. I don’t know why I’m telling you, it doesn’t make any sense to tell you, but none of this makes sense anyway. Not on a mortal scale. If I can buy your house, I’m going to burn it down.”
And then Paul saw a future. A future without the house. Without the pulling of The Forest. W
ithout Deeny. “Could it really be that simple?” Paul mumbled.
“What was that?”
Is that all it would take? Paul thought, setting his phone down. He stood up slowly, a man in the throes of some great possibility. Tyson’s voice, reduced to a half-inch speaker, squawked on the counter. Paul couldn’t tell what he was saying, nor did he care. Tyson was forgotten. The light streaming in through the big picture windows suddenly seemed even brighter and more beautiful than before.
“Is that all it would take?” Paul said to himself in the kitchen. Cards, mildly excited by the sound of her master’s voice, trotted over to his feet, wondering if perhaps she were going to get pet.
“Is that really all it would take?” he said again, not noticing the dog. The smile on his face didn’t match the dark rings under his eyes.
4
Jen leaned back in her comfortable office chair—the one she had purchased after a week spent trying to get comfy in the relic that had been waiting for her when she’d started working at the U—and marveled at how well things were going for her and Paul. The deaf conference was coming up, each day getting closer, and so her general workload increased. She still spent little time at home, but the quality of their evenings together made up for it.
The change in their relationship wasn’t just being physically intimate almost every night (not that she was complaining); it was much more than that. Paul was a changed man. The hyper-introverted, often brooding man he had slowly become in the last two years—so slowly she had barely realized it—had transformed into a man who was always happy to see her, to hold her, to listen. The parts of him she had always loved were still there, of course, but it almost seemed that anything she had ever wished was different about him had suddenly morphed to fit her will.
Too good, a mean but knowing voice whispered in her head. She glanced at the door to make sure it was fully closed then opened the drawer containing her talking-to mirror.
“Too good?” she asked her own reflection as it looked up.
“Too good,” she said, in a low, strange voice that opened goose bumps on her arms. It wasn’t a voice she’d heard from herself before. Then she watched her mouth and heard this low voice say something that chilled her far beyond the doling-out of goose bumps: “You don’t see what’s happening when you aren’t home. You don’t know what he’s getting involved with. But you do see it in his blank stare, the moment after glancing at him, the instant before he puts his happy face on for you.”
Her eyes spread open, wide, scared. She couldn’t believe she’d just said that. What could it possibly mean?
She leaned into the image, searching her own face for any sign of deviation or difference. “What?” she said to it, perhaps—if for only a moment—she actually expected it to answer, untethered from her. But she only saw her own mouth, ever-so-lightly wired with the first hints of true wrinkles, her own nose which always rested at the same perfect angle, her own deer eyes, frantic and disturbed. “What…?”
But she knew what she must mean, didn’t she? Isn’t it true that she felt uncomfortable with this change, at least a little? It was just… so sudden, so complete, so… perfect. “Too good,” she said aloud. “That’s really the best way to say it.”
She slid the drawer closed. In the past few years she’d taken to talking to the reflection she’d gotten to the point where “they” could sometimes talk for as long as an hour. She’d found the process extremely therapeutic as well as useful. But for the first time, she found that today she had no interest in what the reflection had to say.
She gathered a stack of papers that had to be sorted, a weekly task. She would throw away what needed to be thrown away, shred what needed to be shredded, and file what needed to be filed.
She didn’t mind ignoring what her subconscious had to tell her because she knew she was being silly. Of course she was afraid to accept this change, even if it was genuine, which (it is it is it is it must be) of course it was. Her subconscious was simply trying to protect her from being hurt.
She shreded one old document, then another.
She was spared from further consideration of the issue by Sean, who came up from his own office so they could go to lunch. They ate out just about every day now. As things got better at home, she noticed Sean’s presence bothered her less and less; eventually she’d just given in and decided there was nothing wrong with having a good friend at work.
He stepped into the room wearing a sport coat and jeans. The department didn’t really have a dress code per se, but no one else dressed as casually as Sean. If it had been anyone else, Jen might have said something, but everyone in their department just seemed to understand he was simply odd and wasn’t going to single-handedly destroy the work environment. The new rumor that he was gay (supported by the multi-color bracelet Sean had taken to wearing) seemed to help as well. For whatever reason, this aspect of his person made him less dangerous.
He said, “Where are we going today?”
“Who says I’m going anywhere with you?” she said, smiling.
“C’mon,” he said, pouting a bit. “I’m hungry.”
“I was thinking Millie’s, in Sugarhouse.” She slung her black leather purse over her shoulder, the strap cushioned by her thin shoulder pad.
“That grease pit?”
She walked past him, bringing him into the hall. “I happen to like it.” She pulled the office door closed behind her.
“Fine,” he said. “But tomorrow we need to get some seafood. And don’t remind me they have fish and chips at Millie’s. I know. I mean something that’s not deep-fried.”
As they passed a few other offices on their way out, Jen waved to some of the workers. If it had been anyone but Sean there might have been talk of a possible affair or at least of an inappropriately close relationship growing between them, but it was Sean, so no one said or thought a thing.
No one—especially not Jen—ever wondered if Sean, perhaps, did not exist.
5
At lunch she ate her cheeseburger, and Sean spooned up the last of his shake. Whenever he ordered desserts, he ate them before his food. They sat at one of the outside tables despite the coolness of the season, as droves of people shuffled in and out of the tiny restaurant.
Amid the great excitement of food and people that always seemed to pervade Millie’s, Jen again poured everything into Sean. He was an inexhaustible bucket for her emotional run-off. She found she could tell him anything without fear of unfair judgment or reproach. He never tired of hearing about her home life. She used to complain to him about everything that was wrong about her marriage, but now he seemed equally content to hear about how things had turned around for them.
Sean said, “Things really seem to have changed for you guys, huh?”
“Yes.” Her eyes were shining, “I can’t believe it. Since that argument in the car, everything has been better. Do you know, last night…” she bit her lip, feeling like a much younger woman, “I can’t believe I’m telling you this…”
Sean only laughed politely; he did not interrupt. With the watchful, pleasant look on his face, his crooked nose gave him a certain hearty charm; he reminded her briefly of Owen Wilson.
“Last night I came home and he was in the kitchen,” she laughed a bit herself, happier than she’d been in the middle of a workday in a long, long time, “Wearing nothing—and I mean nothing—except a striped apron I didn’t even know we had. Probably a wedding gift or something that’s spent the last half-decade in a cardboard box.”
“Mmm,” Sean said. “I wouldn’t mind coming home to something like that, haha.”
He looked at Jen in just the right way, at just the right time, clearly listening, not bored in the least. But then his eyes faltered just the slightest bit, and Jen had a fleeting feeling that one of them had… had fallen. Not as if the eyeball had fallen out, but that the whole socket of the skull had… had what? She didn’t know. Dropped. About an inch. Then she blinked and everything was n
ormal again. She wrote it off as the strangeness of discussing such an intimate moment with a man.
“So,” he said, perhaps noticing the odd look she was giving him, “what was he doing? Was he cooking, or what?” He smiled like a valley girl who couldn’t wait to hear the next little tidbit, but Jen sensed—for the first time ever—some real annoyance on his side of the table.
“Oh yes,” she said, pretending there had been no lull, hoping Sean would do the same. “He was cooking something he called Sex Lasagna.” She felt she had accidentally breached some wall of etiquette she didn’t even know existed. “I know, pretty cheesy.”
Sean laughed at that, perhaps a bit too loud, “Cheesy! In more ways than one!” When she didn’t respond right off, he cocked his head to one side. “Get it?”
“Haha, yeah,” she said. “But I didn’t really mind. I’ll take cheesy over nothing. Needless to say, it was a good meal.” She raised her eyebrows, hoping that this intimate secret between her and Sean would make up for her earlier rudeness.
“Do you think he’s sincere?” Sean tossed his drink cup into a nearby trashcan, and Jen felt some relief at the sensation of his eyes leaving her face. But then he was back. “He’s not just doing what he thinks you want? Just telling you what you want to hear?”
She reflected on this, and the answer seemed clear to her; a package at the front door, waiting for the question to be asked. “Yes. I know he’s sincere.” She felt as if she were reading off a script. A wonderful script. Perhaps one she had written herself in a perfect state of mind, and then forgotten about. “He wants a baby. I can feel it.”
Sean smiled a dazzling smile, and Jen wondered why she had ever found him so annoying and repulsive. He really was a good friend. He said, “I’m glad to hear it.”
They finished their food and returned to work. She was satisfied by the grease and by telling Sean everything.
She could not, however, fully shake the dirty feeling she had that she’d perhaps shared something she should not have shared. Nor could she entirely seem to forget the way his eye had seemed to drop. It was surely a play of light or some other kind of illusion, but it was as if his face were made of parts that would shatter at the slightest tremor, as if a too-strong thought could break Sean apart like a cheap vase.
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