She pulls her arm free. “Your problem is that you never had enough discipline when you were a kid, Dean.”
He explodes with laughter “Looks who’s talking.”
“I think it’s time you got your car taken away from you.”
“Yeah? And who’s going to do it, Al? You?”
“Dad will, when I tell him you’re out every night with your girlfriend.”
“Dad didn’t buy the car I did. He doesn’t pay the insurance. I do. Go back to your life and let us get on with ours, Al.”
With that, he gets into his Trans Am and speeds away.
3
Lia is putting away stock in the storeroom of Mr Barker’s convenience store, where she has been working all summer. It’s cool and quiet back here and she has time to think, to plan, to jot notes in her journal. She and Dean are trying to figure out how they can steal away for a night before he and his family return to Miami. She can tell her parents she’s spending the night with her friend Molly, but if her mother calls Molly’s house to check on her... Well, let her call. Molly’s parents will be gone this weekend and Molly just won’t answer the phone.
Yes, it can work.
She will make it work.
Mr Barker sticks his head into the storeroom, his soft moon face beaded with sweat. He has been outside, unloading a truck of supplies. “Lia, your mom is out front.”
“My mom?”
“Your mom. “He gives her a sympathetic smile. Mr Barker doesn’t like her any better than Lia does. “She looks like she’s on her way elsewhere, “he whispers. “She probably won’t stay long.”
Lia nods, puts her journal into a cabinet, and goes out to see her mother.
She’s all dressed up, her mother is, her plumpness jammed into one of the expensive dresses she wears when she’s off to meet with her Savannah church group. Her hair is puffy and stiff with hair spray, she wears too much jewelry, and a cloud of perfume surrounds her. She’s paging through one of the tabloids Mr Barker sells. It occurs to Lia that her mother’s name, Susan Phoenix, doesn’t fit her. She looks like a Dottie Smith. Or a Greta Jones.
“What is it, Mom? I’m kind of busy, “Lia says.
Her mother quickly drops the tabloid into the rack. “What filth this newspaper contains, “ she says with a small grimace, fingering the large cross around her neck. “Why does Mr. Barker even carry these tabloids?”
“Because they sell.”
“I just wanted to let you know I probably won’t be at home when you get off work. The church group is having a charity sale today and your father won’t be home from work until much later this evening.”
Lia immediately thinks how perfect this is, how it will give her and Dean time together “Okay. I’m going to spend the night at Molly’s.”
“This is the first I’ve heard about it.”
“I just talked to her.”
“You need to clear these plans with me first, young lady.”
Yeah, yeah. “Okay, so can I spend the night with her?”
“I suppose it all right. How will you get over there?”
“The same way I always do. I’ll ride my bike.”
“All right, but I want you home early tomorrow. You’ve got a million chores to do.”
“Fine. Whatever. See you tomorrow.”
Lia turns away, but her mother takes her roughly by the arm. “Now, just a minute, young lady.”
“Hey, you’re hurting my arm, “Lia says loudly, and other customers in the store glance their way.
Her mother releases her arm. A bright pink flush creeps up her neck, into her cheeks, and her eyes shrink to dark Points of light. She’s embarrassed and pissed, Lia thinks, and tomorrow or next week, she’ll make Lia pay for this public display.
“You will not speak to me in that tone, “she hisses.
Lia crosses her arms and glares back at her, her insolence de liberate. “Have a great day, Mom. A nice charity sale. A fine lunch. “Lia pauses. “Is that better?”
Her mother purses her lips, rocks forward onto the balls of her feet, and jabs her finger into Lia’s cheek. “You will not be spending the night out. You will be at home after you leave work. And I’ll be calling the house to make sure you’re there.”
Lia knows that now she is supposed to beg to apologize, that her mother, in fact, is waiting for her to do exactly that. It’s her power game and has been going on between them for as long as Lia can remember “You don’t own me. “Lia spits the words, then turns away and hurries back toward the storeroom.
“What will they do when they come home and you’re not there?” Dean asks.
They are lying naked on a double bed in a hotel room on the island one over from Tybee. “I don’t know. I don’t care.”
He lifts up on his elbow and leans over her, caressing her face, her breasts. She rolls onto her side and puts her arms around him, drawing him close. “I can’t stand the thought of your leaving “she whispers.
“Me either, “he whispers back, and tightens his arms around her “But I’ve got the car. I can drive up here on long weekends.”
“My parents watch me like hawks, Dean.”
“We’ll get around it. In March, I’ll be eighteen. We can get married.”
“But I won’t be eighteen for another two and a half years. My parents would never consent to my getting married.”
He runs his fingers through her hair “We’ll work it out. Trust me, “ he says softly. “I’ll call you, we’ll write letters, and I’ll kidnap you if I have to.”
Then he nibbles at her ear and suddenly they are both laughing and rolling around on the bed, hitting each other with pillows.
Suddenly the phone rings, startling them both. Dean bolts upright. “Who could that be?”
“Molly. But don’t answer it. She’ll leave a message.”
A few minutes later, Lia picks up the message. “Hey, Lia, it’s me, Molly. You’d better get your ass home. Your mom called here and left a message. She says if you’re not home in an hour, she’s calling the cops.”
“Will she really do that?” Dean asks, frowning.
“Yes. Shit. I hate her. And my dad lets her get away with it just to keep the peace between them. “She presses her fists into her eyes, struggling to hold back tears.
“We can’t risk this, “ he says, taking her gently by the shoulders. “Not now. I’ll get you home.”
4
Dean drives like a maniac, his fear for Lia so great that even when he pulls up in front of Molly’s house, he doesn’t want to let her out. ‘We can run away tonight, “he says.
She shakes her head, gathers her beautiful blond hair in her hand and pulls it over her shoulder ‘No. No, we can’t start a life together like that. It’ll be okay, Dean. They’ll just rant and rave and leave me alone. Really. “She touches her palm to the side of his face. “Just come by the store tomorrow, okay?”
“I will. What time?”
“I’ll be there at ten.”
“Okay. I’ll be watching your house from the dock. Signal me when it’s all over.”
Then she gets out of the car and he watches as she hops onto her bike and pedals madly up the street, her hair flowing behind her, a pale cascade. He follows her until she turns down her street, then she glances back and lifts her arm, waving.
Minutes later, he’s on the back dock, staring across the marsh at her house. The lights blaze over there. Shadows move against the blinds, the curtains. On still nights sounds travel easily across the marsh. But the windows at the Phoenix house are closed up, the AC is on. He can’t hear a damn thing.
Behind him, a screen door creaks and bangs shut. He knows by the rhythm of the footsteps that it’s Keith. “Hey, man, you okay?” Keith asks, settling next to him on the dock.
“Sure. When did you get in?”
“A while ago and I’m already itching to split.”
Dean laughs. “I know just what you mean.”
“Mom and Dad are at each other�
��s throats, Allie’s bitching about how ‘the Family’isn’t a unit anymore, it’s falling apart. . . you know, all the same shit.”
“Why the hell doesn’t she just leave? All she does is create tension. She supposedly came for four days and she’s been here a week.”
“Listen, I’m thinking about selling the chartering business and buying a boat and getting out of the States. Mom and Dad are always poking around in my life, Allie is constantly in my face.... You want to come to Panama with me?”
Three months ago, Dean would have leaped at an opportunity like this. But now his life is more complicated. He has plans for college, for him and Lia. Keith, who is eight years older, has owned a boat-chartering business in Miami since he graduated from college three years ago and has no personal ties to hold him here.
“I can’t. I got early acceptance at Stetson. I’m starting there in January.”
“You’ve got a girl, that’s why not.”
“That too. “He glances over at Keith. “Did Allie tell you that?”
He makes a disgusted sound. “Let’s talk about something else. Like how about if I drive up to Stetson with you sometime this fall to look over the campus?”
“Would you?”
“Goddamn right. Mom and Dad will be too busy. We both know that. And Allie would drive you nuts.”
Dean looks back at Lia’s house. The lights still blaze, she hasn’t signaled him. How long has it been? Ten minutes? Fifteen ?
“So who’s the girl?”
“I knew her in Greece. And in Ecuador in the sixteen hundreds.”
Keith gives him an odd look. He doesn’t subscribe to Dean beliefs, but he usually listens with an open mind. “How do you know?”
“Dreams, mostly. Then I went to this medium in Cassadaga who confirmed it. He said it’s going to be difficult for us this time around, but. . . “He shrugs. ‘We can overcome whatever happens.”
Keith knows about Cassadaga. Dean has told him about the village of mediums just north of Orlando, a strange and wonderful place where he will take Lia soon.
“Keep the relationship to yourself, man. You know Allie. She’ll do her best to break it up if she finds out.”
He speaks from personal experience. “Why is that, do you think? Why should she give a skit?”
“Misery loves company, I guess. The more miserable we are, the closer we stick to the family roots. At least, I think that’s how she figures it.”
“I think it’s more complicated than that.”
“Hey, she’s a control freak, Dean. She thinks she runs the family. You, me, Mom, Dad, with Allie at the head of the clan. That’s how it’s always been.”
“Even when Ray was alive?”
Keith shrugs and gets up to go inside for another beer. Dean stays where he is, watching Lia house.
5
Lia waits for the explosion she knows will come, waits with her stomach in knots, inside the privacy of her bedroom. Neither of her parents spoke a word to her when she came into the house. They couldn’t very well say anything because neighbors are visiting. They can’t look bad in front of other people.
She has showered, changed clothes, and now she is stretched out on her bed, the TV on, and winces when she hears the neighbors’ car pulling out. Minutes later, banging on her doors her mother shouting; “Lia, open this door immediately.”
Lia hesitates, then goes over to the door, turns the lock. Her mother blows in, her cheeks red from whatever she’s been drinking; and slaps her across the face so hard that Lia stumbles back. “You intentionally disobeyed me, “she yells. “You’re grounded, do you understand me? Grounded for the next two weeks.”
She stands there, puffing with rage, eyes bulging in their sockets. Lia hasn’t moved, hasn’t said a word. Her hand presses against the spot where her mother slapped her. The skin stings and aches.
“I asked you a question, young lady. Now answer me.”
“I speak English. I understand what grounded means.”
“Don’t you get smart with me,” her mother shouts, and moves toward her again, hands balled into fists.
Lia grabs a chair and thrusts it at her mother “Don’t come near me, you hypocritical bitch. You call yourself a Christian? What do you think your little church buddies would think of you if they knew you beat your daughter? Huh?” She doesn’t raise her voice. She doesn’t have to. These words possess such power that her mother stops where she is, fists raised.
“What the hell’s going on in here?” Lia’s father storms into the room, sees his wife’s raised fists, sees Lia holding the chair, and lifts his hands, patting the air. “Time for everyone to calm down here. We’ll talk about this in the morning, Lia. Susan, out. “He stabs his thumb at the door
“Out? She lied, she disobeyed us, she—”
“Out, “he barks, and takes her by the shoulders and marches her out of the room. Then he pokes his head back in. “Lock the door, Lia. She’s had too much to drink and we both know what that means.”
Lia nods, barely able to hold back tears, and the door shuts. She rushes over to it, turns the dead bolt, and collapses against it, sobbing.
Sunday
December 28
Chapter 4
1
Mira stirred awake, sluggishness clinging to her like Velcro. Wood crackled in the stove, the air smelled of sweet smoke. Just the floor lamp was on, casting a pale globe of light against the floor. Shadows pooled in the corners of the room. She wondered how long she’d been asleep.
She peeled the blanket away from her legs and went into the kitchen for a bottle of water. The stove light was on, a bulb so dim it belonged in some Third World country where every hotel room was lit by no more than forty watts. The Advil she’d taken earlier seemed to have kicked in. She didn’t feel as sick now, but she felt strangely uneasy, disturbed, and didn’t know why. She helped herself to a bottle of water from the fridge, spun the cap, and stared at the blackness that swam in the kitchen window. It deepened her unease.
The wind pushed branches up against the window and they scratched at the glass like tiny mice clawing to get in from the cold. Where did the goats and the chickens and the cats go when it snowed? Even though Ramona obviously loved the horses, she hadn’t impressed Mira as the kind of woman who would bring farm animals into the house.
It bothered her that she hadn’t picked up anything at all on the Stevenses. It wasn’t as if she could read everyone she met, of course, but in a situation like this, she should have picked up something.
In fact, the longer she stood here, the more wrong everything felt.
The clock on the wall told her it was nine o’clock. Sheppard and the girls should be arriving shortly, she thought, and hoped it would be very soon. She didn’t like being in the cabin alone, another oddity. Usually she enjoyed solitude regardless of where she was. As she plucked Annie’s cell phone off the kitchen table to call him, a powerful déjà vu swept through her, a sensation so strange and unsettling that she went utterly still, struggling to make her way back to the source of it.
A dream? Was that it? Had she dreamed being alone in this cabin at some point in the past? Or was it the act of picking up Annie’s phone that she had dreamed? Suddenly she flashed on herself racing down the hill outside, headed toward—what? Mira squeezed her eyes shut, trying to pick up more, to see more, but it was as if a door had slammed shut in her head.
She opened her eyes. The clock’s hands hadn’t moved. How could that be? Even the second hand wasn’t moving. She went over to it, plucked it off the wall, turned it over. It had a battery, it was even ticking, but the hands didn’t move. She shook it, figuring the hands had rusted or gotten stuck to something. But the hands still stood at 9:02. Her unease bit more deeply and she turned slowly in place, taking in the cabin’s front room, the chair where she’d been sitting, the wood-burning stove. Shadows oozed around the furniture. She had been sitting in the recliner when Sheppard and Annie had left and had awakened there. Then she’d
come into the kitchen, where she stood now.
Wrong, something’s very wrong with this picture.
She turned her attention to the cell phone, punched out Sheppard’s cell number, but nothing happened. No ringing, no signal, no light. The phone was as dead as the clock. She picked up the receiver on the cabin phone and got a busy signal—and another wave of déjà vu crashed over her. ‘Jesus,” she whispered. “What’s going on?”
Mira pressed her palm to her forehead. The skin felt warm, but not raging hot. A low-grade fever. So it wasn’t as if she were delirious and locked up in some weird fever vision. She pinched her arm, felt it. Okay, she wasn’t delirious and she was definitely awake.
Then why didn’t anything feel right?
She decided to walk up to the house to talk to Ramona and Jerry. She would use their phone, too, to find out when Sheppard would be back. She needed some company, that was all. Maybe Ramona would have green tea. Hell, maybe Ramona had beer or wine. A cold beer would hit the spot right now.
She went over to the chair and put on her shoes. Her Florida running shoes. Tomorrow she would have to go into Asheville to get some shoes better suited to the weather. And while she was at it, she would buy a heavier jacket and socks, too.
Just then, there was a knock at the door. It startled her, her head snapped up—and a sense of familiarity coursed through her again. She shook off her apprehension, certain that it was Ramona or Jerry at the door. Ramona knew she hadn’t been feeling well and probably had brought over homemade chicken soup.
Mira went over to the door, unlocked it. As she opened it, the logs in the stove hissed and crackled and snow blew into the cabin, a wind-driven snow that prevented her from seeing more than six inches in front of her. No one was at the door. Either she’d imagined the knock or the wind had hurled something against the door.
Total Silence Page 5