by Sarah Dreher
Ha! Stoner thought. Fooled you.
The canoe moved backward, away from her. She tried to follow, but couldn't make quick or easy progress through the water. And she was being drawn deeper toward the center of the pond. Sherry stood and swung, turning the paddle so the blade was like a knife. It grazed her other shoulder.
Shit!
Reacting to the pain, she lost her air.
Sherry was swinging wildly now, pounding the water with the paddle blade.
Stoner tried to swim out of reach of the canoe.
Sherry followed her.
Going deeper, she moved toward the canoe again.
The canoe floated just out of reach.
She was in serious trouble, and running out of strength. Panic swept over her in waves. If she tried to surface, Sherry would knock her unconscious. If she didn't surface, she'd die. Her only chance was to try again to swim under the canoe and tip it over.
Her lungs had become like rocks. It took ail her concentration not to inhale under water.
She forced herself to go even deeper and move forward. The canoe stayed beyond reach.
She moved backward. The canoe followed.
She let herself sink, hoping to strike the bottom of the pond. There was nothing underfoot.
What do you do in a situation like this? Give up gracefully?
She didn’t know how to give up gracefully.
Panic pushed her to the surface. She caught half a breath before the canoe paddle was flying toward her. She kicked her legs and propelled herself backward. The wooden blade crashed against her knee.
She managed to hold onto the precious bit of air, and sank below the surface again.
It wasn't working. She was weak with exhaustion and lack of oxygen and in pain.
Maybe, if she timed it right, and grabbed the paddle blade just as it hit the water... Maybe she could pull Sherry into the water.
She made herself rise to the surface, slowly. She could see the silhouette of Sherry's head against the light. And the paddle.
Coming toward her.
All her instincts wanted her to dive. She forced herself to stay up.
Wood hit water.
She grabbed.
Pain shot through the knuckles of her right hand.
She managed to touch the throat of the paddle. It slipped out of her hands.
She couldn't hold on.
Her lungs were agony. No oxygen left.
She went under.
Time to let it happen. Time to look for the tunnel and the white lights and the bells. Time to sleep.
She let the poisoned air flow from her lungs, and felt herself drift down, and down...
The water surged like a wave. Aftershocks rippled through her. She forced her eyes open.
Against the fading light, she could see dark shapes. Struggling. Thrashing.
Somebody had come to help.
She struggled to get to the surface one last time. Fresh, cool air flowed into her lungs. Nothing struck at her.
Ahead in the darkness, two bodies churned the water. The canoe, upside down, floated nearby.
Stoner coughed up water and eased her aching body toward the boat. Grabbing the keel, she rested her head against the hard canvas.
"Give me a hand, Stoner” she heard someone call. "This one's a real little squirm."
It was Clara's voice. Clara? In the water? Fighting with Sherry?
She tried to move. Pain stabbed her shoulder. Her knee throbbed. Her left arm was numb. "I... don't think...I can," she gasped.
"Damn it, girl, I can't do it all myself."
Stoner brushed the water from her eyes. The pond boiled as if a school of barracudas were fighting over a morsel of flesh. She had to help. No matter how much it hurt, or how exhausted she was, she had to do what she could.
She didn't want to leave the canoe. It was safe here. If she left, she knew, she'd sink. She couldn't save herself again. If she stayed here...
She was afraid. So afraid. But she had to go.
Aching, sobbing a little, she pushed herself away from safety.
It seemed to take forever to reach them. Every inch of the way was anguish. The fire was dying. There was blackness everywhere. She couldn't tell sky from water. She couldn't move forward. But she was moving forward. Slowly, it seemed.
Horribly slowly.
Suddenly she could make out Clara's face, and Sherry's hands like claws, scratching at Clara's eyes.
"Sink her!" Clara shouted.
With the last of her strength, she drew in air, threw her one good arm around Sherry's neck, and let herself become dead weight. Immediately the water closed over them.
Sherry twisted and thrashed, pounding at Stoner's arm. The resistance of the water left her fists ineffectual. She tugged and scratched. Stoner held on.
Damn you, she thought. Damn you for everything.
They floated slowly downward, deeper and deeper.
In her anger, she went beyond fear. Beyond caring about Sherry's life, beyond even caring about her own.
If I have to drown, to drown you, she thought, I'll do it.
Sherry seemed to sense her thoughts, and fought even harder.
She felt Sherry's teeth sink into her arm, breaking the skin, tearing into muscle.
She held on.
Sherry's body began to slacken.
It might be a trick. She kept her own body close to Sherry's, forced her down into deeper darkness, and down, and...
Something grabbed her by the rope belt and jerked her upward.
She let her arm relax, let herself be pulled toward the surface. She wondered idly if she'd make it in time.
Then there were stars overhead, bright diamonds sparkling in a coal black sky. She'd never seen anything so beautiful in her life. She looked for the familiar constellations. There was the Great Bear, the fierce protector of the heavens. And Cassiopeia with her arms spread in welcome. And the Pleiades, her favorites, her friends. There was the Milky Way, highway of the galaxy, the road through the universe.
The moon was rising over the trees. Their own moon, their own Goddess, looking down on their own earth, which circled their own sun. A stepping stone on the pathway made of worlds.
It made her want to cry with awe and pride and gratitude.
She felt herself handed over to someone else.
"Stoner," Gwen said.
She lay on the shore, wrapped in Boneset's robe and flanked by silent women. The embers from the boat house glowed scarlet. Gwen was on her knees beside her.
Something was still happening on the lake. Clara, she thought, and tried to get up.
"Easy," Gwen said, holding her back.
"Clara?"
"Divi Divi has her. She hauled you out first. You were in the worst shape." Gwen laughed a little. "That woman can really swim."
"She was conceived on a beach," Stoner said.
Esther met Divi Divi at the water's edge with the wheel chair. Divi Divi lowered Clara into it. Esther fussed over her. "Oh, for heaven's sake," Clara grumped. "I'm all right."
The women were shining their lights toward the water, where Sherry's body floated face-down. She gave a little twitch, and raised her head weakly to draw breath, then sank below the surface.
“What do you think?" Divi Divi asked. "Should I go get her, or let her drown?"
"Get her," Clara ordered.
Divi Divi turned to the other women. "Douse the lights. With this black face, I can sneak up on her and scare the shit out of her."
The women turned off their lights. She waded back into the water.
"You all right?" It was Clara's voice.
"I think so." She didn't feel all right, really. Her shoulders ached. Her knuckles were raw. Her chest felt pounded and bruised. Her arm burned where Sherry had bitten her. She was cold, and still frightened, and probably going into shock. But she was alive. She was alive.
"I thought... you... couldn't... walk," she said with the last of her energy.
&nb
sp; "Can't," said Clara. "But I sure as hell can swim."
"You sure as hell can," Stoner said. She lost consciousness for a moment.
When she came to, Divi Divi was placing Sherry's body on the ground. "Going to need some CPR here."
"Not me," Rita said loudly. "She even stole the green peridot necklace I gave Jennifer. The only thing she cared enough to take with her when she left me. Douche-bag."
"Come on, ladies," Divi Divi said. "I don't have the training."
Nobody, it seemed, had the training. At least no one volunteered.
"I'll do it," Esther said at last. She pushed her way through the women and knelt beside Sherry. "If it's not one damn thing it's another."
"I think," Rebecca said, "it's time for someone to call the police."
"Excuse me?" huffed Clara in an outraged tone. "I am the police."
Stoner felt Gwen's hands on her face, gently brushing back her hair. She smiled.
"Sleep now," Gwen said softly.
The ambulance was on the way. Someone had built a fire. Sherry was propped in front of it, wrapped in a blanket. Clara sat in front of her, a pistol in her lap, and gave her the evil eye. The other women formed a circle around them, their backs to her in silent, final rejection.
Stoner pushed herself to her feet.
"Don't," Gwen said, and put a restraining hand on her wrist. "You need to rest."
"I have to know," she mumbled, and made her way to Sherry's side.
Sherry looked at her and smiled as if they were old friends.
It was the most chilling gesture Stoner had ever seen. She forced herself to speak. "Sherry, what was this all about?"
"About?" The woman seemed genuinely bewildered by the question.
"I mean, did someone in the company do something to hurt you? Was that it?"
"Of course."
“What was it?"
"They went collective."
And Sherry went from a producer with power to a producer with no power.
Stoner nodded. "You lost control of the company."
"That's right," Sherry said calmly, as if setting people against one another, destroying the group, and attempted murder were perfectly understandable, logical reactions to losing control of the company.
"But you've lost everything now."
Sherry shrugged as if tomorrow were another day.
"If you'd gotten away, what would you have done?"
"I'd have come back."
Stoner was stunned into silence.
"I'd have found a way," Sherry said. “Within four months, max, I'd have convinced them it was someone else's fault."
She was inclined to believe her. Sherry Dodder was very, very good at what she did. "But why did you ask me to help? Didn't you realize it might make it harder?"
Sherry looked directly at her. "That was the point. It sweetened the pot."
"I don't get it," Stoner said.
"I could have destroyed this company with my eyes closed," she explained patiently. "Where's the thrill in that?"
"You mean this was all a game to you?"
Sherry's eyes glittered. "It was The Game."
Stoner sat for a moment and listened to the crackle of burning wood. Sherry closed her eyes and seemed to drift off to sleep.
"If it was a game," Stoner said at last, "why did it feel as if you were trying to kill me?"
"Because I was," Sherry said without opening her eyes. "You have to play to win, Stoner. Otherwise, what's the point of playing."
Stoner got to her feet. "Well," she said, "I guess I'll go rejoin the human beings. It's been swell talking to you."
Sherry gave a little wave. "See you around."
"What I still don't understand," said Marylou, "is why she decided to do it when she did, instead of when the company was reorganizing. What was the final trigger? There must have been a last straw."
Stoner looked around the empty room that had been the Boston offices of Kesselbaum and McTavish. The walls were bare of travel posters, the desks emptied and already loaded onto the Mayflower truck. The carpet had been rolled up and taken out back to the dumpster. Even the computers were gone. There was a sad, hollow echo to the place.
"I asked her," she said.
Marylou leaned forward on her heavy cardboard box mysteriously labeled "file things." "And?"
She remembered the conversation only too well. It had happened as they were being taken away, Sherry to the Maine Women's Detention Center, Stoner into an ambulance for the most humiliating ride of her life—lights flashing and sirens blaring all the way to Bangor. She'd turned to Sherry at the last possible moment and said, "How could you hate these women so much?"
Sherry had shrugged and looked at her with those round eyes peering out of that round face and said, "They laughed at me."
The EMTs had descended then, hauling her away on the wheeled stretcher, to be poked and prodded and tested for breakage, and stuck with needles loaded with tetanus anti-toxin.
"That's it?" Marylou said. "That's all?”
“That's all Sherry said. Later, Rebecca remembered telling Barb about the 'auditions for the show. They were in the bathroom and Rebecca thought they were alone. She said Sherry's performance was 'flaccid', I think was the word she used. She said she'd offered her one of the minor parts, but Sherry wanted the lead or nothing. They laughed about it a little. Then they thought they heard someone outside scurrying away from the window, but when they went to look there was no one there."
"Humph." Marylou settled into a thoughtful pout, twisting one of the silver bracelets on her wrist. "I've always said, don't eavesdrop unless you're prepared to live with what you hear. The same goes for opening other people's mail.”
"Remember, she'd been making trouble for more than a year, even before they went collective. She caused that mess between Rita and Marcy. That must have been just for the fun of it.
"And she hurt them in smaller, more subtle ways, too. She'd confide things about herself—the eating disturbance, the suicide attempt—and swear the other person to secrecy. They'd be flattered that she trusted them, and being decent people would go out of their way not to betray her trust. The trouble was, all these women were carrying around secrets from one another, which created walls between them. And in the end it turned out she'd told everything to everyone, anyway."
"Trash," Marylou opined. "As my mother is fond of saying, 'The minute someone tells you you're the only person they can talk to, run like hell for the nearest exit.' "
Stoner laughed.
"Unless they're paying you for the privilege, of course."
"To be perfectly honest," Stoner said with a sigh, "with all the things I've seen lately, I'm coming to the conclusion that some people are just naturally nasty."
"Exactly what Edith claims."
That surprised her. "She does?"
"Despite all her psychiatric training and good intentions. I think my mother's slipping. On the other hand, it might have something to do with the things people have done to you. She's run out of compassion."
"That's very sweet."
"True," said Marylou, "but a mixed blessing. The eminent Dr. Kesselbaum has taken an increasingly less therapeutic and more maternal interest in you over the years. Speaking as one who knows, it can be a living hell."
Stoner smiled and shifted her position on the only remaining office chair. It set off a series of aches and tingles and sharp twinges. She really had to stop this craziness, all this running around trying to save the world, all this relentless taking of responsibility for other people's problems, all this reckless self-endangerment.
"By the way," Marylou went on, "since the wretched woman bit you— requiring multitudinous stitches, I hear—"
"Yeah. It wasn't much fun."
"I presume the authorities tested her for the HIV virus."
"We requested it," Stoner said. "She refused. Under Maine law, she can't be forced. Naturally, the first thing she did was hire the best lawyer she could find."
She ran her hand through her hair. "Taking her case is the biggest mistake he ever made. You know she'll screw him somehow."
Marylou got up and came over to her. "But this is outrageous. You could be infected and not know it. Or not infected and not know it, which is almost as bad. You don't want to spend the next six months waiting for something that might not happen. That's like being punished for something you didn't even do."
"Edith took care of it. She breezed into the Detention Center with her little black bag, claiming she was Sherry's physician and saying Sherry'd had a recent liver disease and had to have her blood checked. Before they ever knew what hit them, she had her blood sample."
Marylou winced. "Edith can be brutal with a needle."
"Yeah," Stoner said with a grin. "Anyway, she tested negative."
"So what happens next?"
"I guess she'll have to sell the Cottage. By the time she's tried for assault, attempted murder, attempted murder with a dangerous weapon—the fire and the canoe paddle—growing an illegal substance with intent to distribute, mandatory one-year sentence, and anything else Clara can think up, she's going to have attorney's fees that would bankrupt the U.S. Treasury."
“Well," said Marylou, "that wouldn't be hard."
"You should have seen Clara's report. She accounted for everything. All the times Sherry was supposedly 'consulting with the kitchen crew,' she was doing something else. She'd breeze through the dining room so everyone would see her, then go to the kitchen and sneak up the back stairs. It was risky, of course. If anyone had left the dining room early, she might have been caught. But that was part of the thrill, I guess."
Marylou perked up. "I just thought of something. Maybe the trial will be on Court TV. Do you think they have Court TV in Shelburne Falls?"
"Probably not."
“Well, we'll get Edith to tape it for us. You'd be great on TV."
"I would not. I would be stupid and ridiculous."
"Nonsense." Marylou dismissed her objections with a wave. "We'll get you a coach. What's going to happen with the inn?"
"I talked to Marge, Sherry's previous partner, the one Sherry accused of assaulting her. She claims she never did a thing to her, which I'm inclined to believe. Though I wouldn't exactly blame her if she had. Sherry Dodder has a way of bringing out the worst in people. Anyway, it seems the way Sherry got hold of the inn wasn't quite as on the up-and-up as she'd like us to believe. Marge expressed an interest in buying the property back. But it'll be tied up in red tape for a long time."