by Robert Maxxe
He told her he missed her and couldn't wait until Thursday, and she said, "hurry back"—with a heaviness that he didn't notice—and the call was over.
She sat by the phone, wondering if she was really in love, or if she had only been swept off her feet by the first taste of romance after a long dry spell.
The last-minute crush of shoppers on Wednesday was a merciful distraction from her jitters about Lon—and her planned larceny for tomorrow night. All day in the store Patrick kept up a running patter with her sotto voce about arrangements for "the caper," as he insisted on calling it.
"Found the most divine little outfit to wear for the caper," he'd coo as he nudged up to her at the counter. "Basic black . . . without the pearls."
Or later: "Bette's on Channel Five tonight in All About Eve. This'd be my forty-eighth time, if I can catch it—enough to get me in the Guinness Book of Records. Do you think I can make it home from the caper by three A.M.?"
All to play it down, she knew, help her through it.
At closing time, she decided to invite him to Lon's for Thanksgiving dinner. She couldn't let him be alone.
"It won't work if I'm there, ducks," he replied. "You ought to realize that." He assured her he'd have a perfectly fine time alone, looking forward to their rendezvous in the evening. "See you at the caper," he added jauntily as he walked away.
Nick was out that night, as he had been Monday and Tuesday.
Carrie retreated into cooking for Thanksgiving. As long as she was busy in the kitchen, she could postpone thinking about the arcade, or how she would deal with Lon tomorrow. So she knocked herself out on the menu. Sweet potatoes with a touch of bourbon and a thin coating of caramelized sugar. Wild rice along with chestnut stuffing for the turkey. A cranberry mousse, and zucchini bread. A pecan pie as well as a pumpkin pie. And cookies in the shapes of turkeys and pilgrim hats. She finished some things, and brought others to the point they could be finished at Lon's. She stayed in the kitchen until four-thirty in the morning.
She didn't notice when Nick had come home, but when she went upstairs he was in his bed, sleeping as though he didn't have a care in the world.
31
Pac-Man, the living personification, rode past the hordes of people, the huge slash of a mouth opening and closing to a cavernous blackness. Sometimes the giant yellow ball stopped right in front of a bunch of children, leaned over, its mouth gaping menacingly wide as if on the verge of gobbling them up. The children squealed with a mixture of delight and terror, and the whole crowd behind them would ooh and aah and laugh and clap. The children were never eaten before Pac-Man moved on to repeat his threat farther along the way.
Pausing as she set the table in Lon's dining room, Carrie looked through the portal into the living room where the four children sat in front of the television set watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. They were all laughing with recognition as the floats rolled by the cameras carrying favorite TV stars, comic book heroes and cartoon characters, and people costumed as tap-dancing fast foods.
The first summit meeting of the children appeared to be going beautifully. There had been a remarkable absence of the wariness normal among children, as if they had conspired in advance to demonstrate perfect compatibility and smooth the way for their parents to settle down happily together. Carrie was amazed, too, that Nick and Dana had not paired off, leaving their siblings to drift into a forced alliance. Practically on arrival, Dana had taken Emily up to her room and exhibited her dollhouse, an elaborate affair with two floors and an attic and real working lights in every room.
"Dana says when we all live together, I can play with it anytime I want," Emily announced excitedly to Carrie.
Wally Evans, who was fourteen, tall for his age, and light blond in the way of California surfers, had been equally hospitable to Nick. His passion was for cars, and he disappeared immediately to the garage with Nick to show off the go-cart he was assembling from spare parts.
Even after they had all gathered to view the parade, the coupling did not change. Dana sat holding Emily in her lap; Wally and Nick, side-by-side, cross-legged, nudged each other and exchanged wisecracks about the high school bands that passed the camera led by drum majorettes who were sometimes overweight and twirled batons that they sometimes failed to catch.
"Look good together, don't they?" Lon said, coming up behind Carrie and laying a hand on her shoulder. He had been helping her lay out the meal.
She nodded without looking around and went back to the kitchen.
It had been like this since she walked into the house. She couldn't face him, touch him, permit contact. Lon obviously realized she was tense and closed off. Sweetly, tolerantly, he kept reaching out, making gestures of consideration. He offered to do the final preparations for the meal, told her to go out in the garden and take it easy. The weather had stayed unseasonably warm, the sun was shining. She could refresh herself, he said, with an hour or two away from the kids.
But she knew it wouldn't work. She was nauseous with anxiety. The only thing that helped at all was to keep moving, going through the motions.
At last the parade was over. The turkey was done, the other dishes warmed up. An Aladdin's feast was spread out on the table.
They sat down to eat, the two boys on one side, the girls on the other, Lon and Carrie at either end.
"Hold it a minute, guys," Lon said, as the children tossed napkins into their laps and began to reach for the food. "I don't usually do this—but I'd like to say grace."
A period of grace. Carrie could only think of Peale and his plea for extra time.
Lon bowed his head and spoke the traditional phrases of gratitude for "the bounty of nature" and "our health and companionship." Finally, lifting his eyes to gaze intently at Carrie, he thanked the Powers That Be for bringing her into his life.
"With all I have to be thankful for, I never knew until now how much I was missing. . . ."
The children made eyes at each other, miming chagrin at the adults' soppy behavior, though clearly they were pleased.
When Carrie didn't answer him, Lon gave her a long puzzled look, then grabbed up the carving set and went to work on the turkey. The children jabbered happily as serving dishes were passed around and they heaped up their plates.
"I can't believe you actually cooked all these things yourself, Mrs. Foster," said Dana. "It's like going to the best restaurant in the world!"
Carrie forced a smile, unable to participate in the pretense that what was happening in the arcade had no meaning, that she wasn't, to an extent, subservient to Dana, Nick, all the spacies.
When a full plate was passed to her she picked up her fork, pushed a bit of food around, then folded her napkin. She had never felt so ill.
"I'm sorry," she said, standing up, "but would you all excuse me? I just . . . have to lie down for a few minutes."
Lon started to rise. "I'll take you up to my room—"
She held her palms up, as if keeping him at bay. "I'll be all right. I just have to be alone."
The children had all turned toward her. Emily looked worried, Wally mystified. Carrie couldn't quite interpret Nick's expression, or Dana's. But for the first time today she caught them trading a glance, quick yet full of secrets.
Clamping down on an urge to denounce them that would only confuse the other children and throw the whole day into chaos, Carrie whirled and rushed away.
Physically and mentally exhausted, she lay down on Lon's bed. From below came the clink of silverware against china, and the voices of Lon and the children, hushed in deference to her. In a little while the sounds brightened, there was laughter.
Twenty or thirty minutes later, she heard the children rush outside into the garden, their shouts and laughter floating up to the window. The meal must be over, or in an intermission before dessert. She got up and went to the window. She saw the four running around, innocently playing tag. Then she heard the stairs creaking as he came up. She kept looking out the window.
"It won't let go of me." She turned. "But, Lon, I've seen things now that—"
She stopped. She was on the verge of spilling out impressions again—the glorious web of light she'd stumbled into, the spacies in the midst of it piloting some vehicle that existed only in the dimensions of their mind on a journey to the outer reaches of the universe. . . .
Confronted by his implacable expression, she saw that it was pointless. Patrick probably didn't believe her either, but he was supporting her because he was in her debt. Would Lon do as much out of love?
"I'm going to do it, Lon," she said. "I'm going to take one of those games, and find out what the hell it's made of."
He opened his mouth as if to protest, then shook his head and gave a little laugh. "You never give up, do you?"
"Not when it counts."
"And of course you want me to help. Because without me you won't know what the hell you're looking at."
"I'd manage somehow. But it would be easier. . . ."
He paused, then started toward her, opening his arms to take her in. "Oh Christ, Carrie . . ."
She had been holding her breath, sure for a moment he was going to relent. But now she recognized his approach as a last attempt to make her give it up, to hold her and subdue her with the force of his feelings.
She sidestepped him and moved back into the room. His arms dropped hopelessly, and he turned from her to stare absently out the window.
"Carrie, did you see how thrilled those kids are at the prospect of having a home again—I mean a whole home, not the kind that everyone calls broken. They need us, both of us. And you and I need each other. Are you really going to put this crusade of yours ahead of that?"
"Believe it or not," she said, "what I'm doing is for you and your kids as much as for me and mine."
There was a long silence. He kept looking out the window.
"How would you do it?" he asked at last.
"Drive my station wagon over to the factory, break in again, load a game into the back of the car, and vamoose!"
"Just like that," he scoffed.
"Just like that," she echoed grimly.
"Each of those things weighs two or three hundred pounds. Alone you won't be able to budge it an inch." He seemed to be crowing that, even if she wanted, she couldn't manage without him.
"Patrick's going with me," she said.
"Great. So the two of you can get shot, or put in the clink."
"Neither of those events is part of my plan."
"And what is? Aside, of course, from thinking you can cart off a two-hundred-pound machine as if it was nothing more than an order of egg-roll-to-go."
Not a lot of thought had gone into it, she was forced to admit. "The main thing is to do it late tonight. Except for Christmas or New Year's Eve, there couldn't be a better time. There's an excellent chance the whole neighborhood will be deserted, so we'll have all the time—"
He spun on her. "You damn sap," he hissed angrily, though she could hear the undertone of concern for her. "We've already seen that the arcade has security hooked up to the computers. Don't you know Peale's got the same invisible warning system rigged on that dump in Bethpage? Break in and he gets an instant warning. Doesn't matter where he is, how far away; he can get an alarm signal by modem—through the phone—and send the cops right over. You think it was a coincidence he showed up so soon after we broke in?"
Lon had been giving it some thought, too, Carrie realized. Certain peculiarities bothered him, even if he couldn't accept that the minds of the children were at stake.
But she was through trying to convince him. "I don't want to lose you, Lon. But whatever the risks, I have to do this. Tonight."
He turned again to the window and stood contemplatively, delaying an answer. As he saw it, either way he was giving her up: if he thought her beliefs irrational, yielding to her would ever after mar their relationship.
Then, as Carrie looked on, Lon's body stiffened suddenly. She could see the tension shooting up his spine into his neck, raising his head in the way of a wild animal instinctively sensing the hunter.
"Holy Mother . . ." he whispered to himself.
He'd seen something in the garden, Carrie realized, something terrible. She rushed to the window.
The view was sunny and serene. No monsters to be seen on the green expanse of lawn. The only movement came from Wally and Emily. A softball and bat had been brought out, and the teenager was patiently indulging the younger girl by pitching to her.
But Nick and Dana, where were they? Carrie scanned the perimeters of the garden—
—until her eye picked up a flash of pink in a far corner behind a cluster of rhododendron bushes. There were no blossoms; the color came from the blouse that Dana was wearing. Through the tattered curtain of shrubbery, the picture emerged.
Confident of concealment—at ground level they were thoroughly screened, though not from the raised vantage point of the bedroom window—Nick and Dana stood facing each other, her blouse open and pulled loose from her skirt, his hands slowly caressing her breasts. She had one hand lightly placed against his cheek, the other arm was down at her side, the hand reaching into his slacks. It wasn't the degree of intimacy, however, that was the most appalling aspect of their sex-play. It was the amount of adult self-possession evident in the way they were looking at each other, touching each other. There was none of the embarrassed overheated fumbling that would have been natural for adolescents—certainly for Nick, who, as far as Carrie knew, had never so much as walked a girl home from school before meeting Dana. Their eyes held steadily on each other while they exchanged caresses, their bodies undulating now and then in response to spasms of pleasure. They were like two very experienced lovers, confident of their ability to give pleasure, knowing all the shades of passion, all the secrets.
Their movements quickened and they drew closer, her head arching back as Nick's mouth moved to her neck, laid a path of kisses to her mouth.
Paralyzed with shock, Carrie and Lon kept looking on as voyeurs.
Then the children, their eyes closed now, their embrace tighter, began to slip down lower behind the greenery.
"Christ," Lon exploded, and started to bolt from the window.
Carrie grabbed him by the arm. "It doesn't make any difference now," she said. "It's not the first time."
He shook his head. "But it's . . . I don't understand why she . . ." The questions overwhelmed him.
"This is part of it," Carrie said. "I think the game wants this, too." He stared at her wide-eyed, no longer stupefied by her outlandish assertions, only by what he had witnessed and its portents. Carrie went on. "I think it's pairing them off—certain spacies, probably one couple in each zal. There's a girl in every one. . . ."
"For God's sakes, why?"
She told him her guess. "It wants them to mate."
"But . . ." He threw up his arms, and they waffled in the air, as his mouth worked soundlessly.
She could hear the question, though. It kept coming at both of them in waves. But this time she had no answer, she could only shake her head.
He turned back to the window and for a few minutes stood still as a rock, Carrie beside him. Then Nick and Dana came into sight again, standing up, straightening themselves, preparing to walk out across the lawn.
At last he spoke, quietly but with all the force of an oath.
"Tonight."
32
Patrick was waiting on the corner near his rooming house when Carrie drove up in her station wagon at half an hour before midnight. He hadn't actually worn all black, though his jeans and windbreaker were dark colors, and they were topped off with a knitted cap of navy wool. He got in and immediately raised an eyebrow at the rear area, where various paraphernalia was piled: a small freight dolly they used in the shop for moving heavy crates, a spool of chain, a toolbox, som
e lengths of rope, a couple of sturdy planks, and a Coleman lantern left over from the days of sailing cruises with Mike.
"Now this looks like a professional operation," Patrick clucked approvingly.
When she had called earlier to arrange the pickup, Carrie had told him that Lon was coming with them. It was Lon who had galvanized Carrie to do some hard thinking about the night ahead, and had insisted they stop at both the store and her garage to gather up any equipment that might be helpful. They took nothing from his house because they had left all the children there—quite a close troupe after a day of games, they had asked to stay together—and Lon thought that hauling out the equipment within sight of Nick and Dana might arouse their suspicion.
At seven o'clock, Lon and Carrie had set out from his house as if going off to see a movie. Nick and Dana had previously announced, too, that they would be "going out," and Wally had willingly contracted to babysit for Emily at an agreed rate of $1.50 per hour. Now that he understood the implications of allowing Nick and Dana free access to the arcade, Lon was reluctant to leave them. But staying, Carrie pointed out, was not the way to regain control over them: only tonight's mission could begin to accomplish that. So they left, went to The Westwind, a local cocktail lounge, and over a few drinks talked about the best way of pulling off their robbery. By the time they left the bar they had consumed just enough alcohol to numb any timidity or moral aversion that might stand in the way. They spent a while rummaging through the back of Carrie's store and her garage, and then it was time to rendezvous with Patrick.
To leave enough carrying room for the machine, Lon did not ride along in the station wagon, but followed in his own car.
As Carrie gunned the car and headed out of town, Patrick asked how she had managed to overcome Lon's resistance.
"I didn't change his mind," Carrie said. "The game did it for me." It was disturbing enough to recall the scene between Nick and Dana without attempting to describe it.