July, July.

by Tim O'Brien

  "Probably so," Paulette said. "I'm not sure."

  "For me it's always. Every time the phone rings, every time a car drives by. Never goes away."

  "A man?" said Paulette.

  "Worse than that."

  Paulette looked up at the vigilant July sky. A secret of her own had just returned to her. "Well, that's bad," she said. "Worse than men. I honestly didn't think it got that ugly."

  "It does."

  "I'm listening. Convince me."

  "I really can't," said Ellie. "That's what a secret is."

  Dorothy Stier lived with her husband and two kids in a fancy section of St. Paul, a half mile south of the Darton Hall campus. Dorothy had arrived home just before sunrise. She had slept fitfully, two hours at most, but she was up by 8 A.M., preparing breakfast for the troops, cheerfully lying to her husband about the reunion, how boring it was, same old faces, the standard gripes and jokes and bragging. She did not mention Billy McMann, nor her own late-night threat to remove her shirt. As a practical matter, Dorothy had no doubt that she'd come to the correct decision many years ago. Ron was thoughtful and kind, a fantastic provider, good with the kids, and Dorothy knew in her bones that she had chosen the only life that could satisfy her. She required comfort. And so what? She would not apologize for sending the boys to good schools. Billy could say what he wanted—call her names, make nasty comments—but there was nothing evil or depraved about a decent home, a decent income, summer excursions to London or Venice or Nassau. Truffles were not immoral. Besides, Dorothy would've rotted away in Winnipeg. She loved her country. Loved her flag. She'd canvassed the neighborhood for Bob Dole. "What gets to me," she told Ron over toast and skim milk, "is that they're still spouting that same wasn't-it-beautiful, wasn't-it-so-pure-and-perfect garbage about the stupid sixties. All of them—Spook, Amy, Paulette, Jan—they're back in the dark ages. I mean, everybody's doing fine, they've got money—God knows Amy Robinson does, our own little Ho Chi Minh—but it's like they all feel guilty about it, they refuse to be happy, they won't grow up. Honestly, what's so terrible about right now? We're adults. We're allowed to be snug."

  Ron looked at her thoughtfully. "Was Billy there?"

  Spook Spinelli peeled off her metallic miniskirt, wrapped herself in a big blue towel, decided against it, removed the towel, slipped on a pair of heels, and made her way down a humid hallway to the women's lavatory on the second floor of Collins Hall. Ordinarily, Spook would've felt some disappointment at the deserted bathroom, no girl talk, no envious stares, no backhanded compliments about her well-preserved ass. What she felt instead was disgust and fear. She kicked off the heels and stepped into a shower stall. The disgust could be washed away, as always, but the fear was beyond soap and water. It had been baked in since she was a girl: afraid of being alone, afraid of not being alone.

  As she scrubbed away Billy McMann, Spook hummed a tune that had once generated truckloads of cash for her ex-keyboardist out in L.A. She thought about giving the man a call, which made her chuckle, and then she thought about drinking from the red fire extinguisher at the end of the hallway. Slip the nozzle down her throat. Squeeze the silver trigger.

  It was almost noon when the July heat finally awakened Amy Robinson and Jan Huebner. Jan had passed out on Amy's bed, and the two of them now lay side by side, roommates again, taking turns complaining about inferior vodka and middle age. Jan confessed she'd gone through menopause a few months earlier. "Dry as the Pecos," she said. "And that creep Richard, the bastard takes one look and leaves me for wetter waters. Gives me this wave. Smiles. Strolls away."

  "Stop, stop, stop," Amy said.

  "You're right, I'm being preposterous." Jan moaned and sat up. Her smudged Midnight Plum lipstick matched the puffiness beneath her eyes. "Important question. Is the Pecos dry?"

  "Got me, honey."

  "The Sahara, how's that?"

  "Better. Don't believe it's a river."

  "Not a river?"

  "Think not."

  "Holy poop." Jan wagged her head. "Anyhow, a bummer. Dripped my last drop. We're talking bone-dry. Parched."

  "Listen, babe," Amy said wearily, "I need a tremendous favor. My head's killing me, plus I didn't get half close to laid last night, plus—and here's the main thing—plus it's way too early for divorce talk. Promise me you won't cry."

  "Done deal," Jan said. "No crying. But I'll need a drink."

  "You just woke up."

  "And?"

  Amy nodded.

  She got up, padded over to her dresser, retrieved a bottle of vodka, and carried it back to the bed.

  "Mud in your eye," she said.

  "Mud yourself," said Jan. "Do you think we drink too much?"

  "Without a doubt. Let's stop this instant."

  "This right-now instant?"

  "Down the toilet," said Amy.

  "Well," Jan said. She cast around in her head. "Here's my take on it. We don't necessarily have to go teetotaler insane. There's the whole question of crying."

  "True," Amy said.

  "We wouldn't want that, I assume?"

  "We sure as heck wouldn't," said Amy.

  "You're positive?"

  "I am. Drink."

  Jan reached for the bottle, took a swallow, and lay back in bed. She examined the ceiling for a time. "You know something?"

  "Oh, God."

  "I'm old. I think I'm lonely."

  "Stop."

  "No, I mean really lonely."

  "Please, please don't cry," said Amy.

  In the same dorm, three floors down, a well-known physician stood brushing the snarled gray hair of a mother of three, formerly a basketball star. They had just ordered champagne from a delivery store on Snelling Avenue. They were naked. At that memorable July instant, the mother of three was giggling over a comment she'd just made regarding the physician's bedside manner.

  The physician nodded.

  "Nice to hear," he said. "That'll be three hundred dollars."

  Neither of them had given thought to the future, or to the miraculous happiness they felt.

  "Tell the truth," said the mother of three. "Will I require additional surgery?"

  "You well may," said the physician.

  Two doors away, Minnesota's newly married lieutenant governor was outlining political reality to his ex-fiancée, who had not yet mastered the plain facts.

  A half mile from campus, Dorothy Stier said, "I'm pretty sure he was."

  When Spook returned to her room, she found Marv Bertel waiting on the bed. He wore a blue suit, a maroon tie, buffed black shoes.

  "You're looking naked," he said.

  "Thank you, dear," said Spook. She covered herself with the towel, did a model's spin. "What about the heels?"

  "The heels," he said gravely, "add a dimension."

  "And the towel?"

  Marv shrugged. "I'll be straight with you. The towel I don't care for."

  "I'm exhausted, Marv."

  "No sweat," he said. "I'm fat."

  Spook took off the towel, put on blue jeans and a white shirt, and then sat with him on the bed. "You were right. Billy McMann ... giant mistake, one of my doozies. Very sorry."

  "Oh, well, fat but smart," Marv said. "Patient as a goddamn glacier."

  "You are patient," she said. "You're wonderful. And you make mops."

  "I do indeed. Damn near perfect mops."

  She put her head to his shoulder. "We're spectacular friends, aren't we?"

  "Yes, we are," he said.

  "So if I need you to stick around here while I take a snooze—?"

  "Staying," he said.

  At 12:30 P.M. Marla Dempsey and David Todd left the student union and walked to a florist's shop on Snelling Avenue. They bought a pair of long-stemmed white roses, one for Karen Burns, one for Harmon Osterberg. A memorial service was scheduled for later in the afternoon. On the walk back to campus, David put a hand on Marla's hip and said, "I'm a cripple, slow down," and Marla swatted his hand away and said, " You slow down.
"

  In the wooded park above campus, Paulette Haslo and Ellie Abbott had reached an agreement on how to proceed. A secret, they decided, would still be a secret if everyone involved swore to absolute, on-your-honor secrecy.

  "You go first," Ellie said.

  11. HEARING

  JUST AFTER 11 P.M., in a western suburb of Minneapolis, Mrs. Janice Ketch turned off the Leno show, removed her hearing aid, flung Rudy's pillow from the bed, pulled up the covers, switched off her lamp, and lay muttering to herself in the summer dark. Janice was furious. So angry, in fact, it made her stomach bubble. A trillion times—probably ten trillion—she'd told Rudy to cut out the steaks and whiskey, to stop gallivanting every weekend with his boring, blowhard American Legion buddies.

  Now he was dead and Janice was alone. Stranded, she told herself. High and dry. Sixty-three years old, mostly deaf, no husband, no handyman, no one to prepare her evening tea or mow the lawn or fix that broken lock on the back door.

  Moron, Janice thought.

  And then she said it aloud, bitterly, right to Rudy's dead, waxy, irresponsible face. He had been in his grave almost a full week, but still, in Janice's thoughts, day and night, she remained hostage to that half-wit grin of his, the way he'd chuckle at some foolish thought and wiggle his false teeth and then stare into the dusty, uninhabited regions of his own fatuity.

  "Idiot!" she snarled.

  Janice closed her eyes, scolding him, finally drifting off in a haze of disgust.

  Maybe she slept for a time, maybe not. But very soon, after what seemed only minutes, she found herself coiled up in bed, stiff with terror. She had been startled by a noise at the rear of the house—metal against metal. She lay listening, turning her better ear to the bedroom door, but all she could make out was the sound of her own deafness, a fluid rush at the center of her head. A number of thoughts came to her at once. This was the suburbs. People did not get murdered in their sleep. She had just purchased a new thirty-six-inch television set.

  Janice slipped out of bed, groped in the dark for her robe and slippers, patted her hair, moved to the bedroom door. Again she strained to hear, but there was only that underwater rush in her ears.

  Absurd, she told herself. She had lived in this house for thirty-eight years without the slightest trouble, except of course for the Kepler twins next door, a pair of budding ax murderers who could not seem to understand the function of a sidewalk. How Rudy could've tolerated such brats she would never know—a pitiful excuse for children of his own.

  Janice grunted. Tommy and Eddie Kepler: those two freckled felons were definitely at the bottom of this.

  With an exasperated sigh, emboldening herself, Janice nudged the door open and stepped into the living room. She was an overweight woman, thick in the waist and thighs, and these late-hour exertions brought a wheeze to her breath.

  There now, she thought. Perfectly normal.

  But in the next instant, even without her glasses, Janice registered the silhouette of a tall, slender figure standing in the glow of a flashlight at Rudy's old walnut desk. Almost immediately, she recognized the intruder as her own pastor, Paulette Haslo. The woman was dressed in black bicycle shorts, white sneakers, a skimpy white halter. Janice felt her heart go tight. It was Paulette Haslo who had bungled—positively mutilated, in point of fact—the rites over Rudy's grave; it was Paulette who had been unable to conduct a simple interment without the gush of tears and ostentatious sentiment; and it was Paulette Haslo, an overzealous, overpaid woman of the cloth, who had failed to mention the Lord Jesus Christ or even a saint or two in the course of Rudy's flagrantly expensive funeral. Ultraliberal was one thing, godless was another. But this was burglary. Janice's terror dissolved in a mist of indignation.

  "Well, now," she said sharply. "Moonlighting?"

  Paulette Haslo bowed her head, her face picking up streaks of red and yellow from the flashlight. A few seconds passed before the minister said, "Oh, Janice."

  "Well, yes. I live here. And I'm quite positive you don't."

  "No."

  "Speak up," Janice snapped. "This isn't one of your Sunday sermons."

  "Correct," said Paulette. "I don't live here."

  "Wonderful. That's settled." Janice nodded and crossed the room. An exhilarating surge of power shot through her veins. She had not felt such mastery over the world since the day Rudy died. "If you don't mind," she said, "I suggest we turn on some lights, make ourselves comfortable, and consult with the police." She paused and glared. "You should be ashamed."

  "Oh, I am," Paulette said.

  "Louder. Try to enunciate."

  "I am. I'm ashamed. Very much."

  The minister's voice was muffled, the consonants spongy and slurred. Janice sniffed the air. Bourbon, she decided—the same poison that had dispatched Rudy to an early grave.

  "Well," Janice said.

  She switched on the overhead lights. For a few seconds they stood facing each other, calculating, making adjustments. In Paulette's two years at St. Mark's, there had been substantial friction between them, differences of dogma and temperament that sometimes flared up in open hostility. Not that Janice accepted the slightest blame. She considered herself as broad-minded as the next person, tolerant to a fault, but it didn't seem to be asking too much that one's own pastor should believe in God, or that a Sunday homily be something more than freethinking Democratic propaganda, or that Christian charity should not automatically encompass the indolent, the perverted, or the plain revolting. It was Janice's conviction that a pastor's first quality had to be toughness of spirit, an uncompromising moral stamina. Decorum, too. Some self-restraint. Not the soft-headed, anything-goes radicalism of Paulette Haslo.

  Now, as Janice surveyed her new opportunities, the notion of revenge began to form. Also, the words "sitting duck." Already she was imagining how she would report this incident to the board of deacons, the outfit she would wear, the new white gloves she would purchase for the occasion. The prospect tickled her. For an instant Janice felt a joyful fizzing in her heart. True, dress gloves were hard to find these days, but with perseverance it could almost certainly be done. Perhaps that snooty antique store down on Seventh Street.

  A crease came to her forehead. She had nearly forgotten the minister.

  "I don't suppose," Janice said, "that you'd care to explain yourself? Unless, of course, you plan to tie me up and gag me. Slash my throat? Chop up my bones, make a nice pot of soup? Is that the idea?"

  "No, I hadn't considered that," the minister said. She seemed calm—far too calm—and looked at Janice with a steady, un-chastened gaze. "I suppose we should talk."

  "Talk? I can barely hear you."

  "I said—"

  "I know exactly what you said, I'm not handicapped. And I'm not some liberal do-gooder ignoramus." Janice made a brusque click with her tongue. The new power was thrilling. "If there's talking to be done, we'll do it in front of the police. Honestly, look at yourself. A flashlight, for God's sake. The dead of night, skulking through people's houses. In a halter, I might add. A so-called woman of God." Janice punctuated the moment with a pause. "Let's be frank. You've been drinking?"

  The minister shrugged. "A few, yes. To work up the courage."

  "Courage?"

  "I was desperate, Janice."

  "Oh, I'm sure you were."

  Her own tone of voice, Janice realized, was a trifle smug, yet it felt good to have rectitude on her side. Here at last was a moral edge, no room for theological double talk. Out of good breeding, and to retain the high ground, Janice offered a thin smile.

  "I'll be back in one moment," she said. "If you remember the words, now might be an excellent time for the Lord's Prayer."

  Then she marched across the living room toward the telephone.

  "Janice, don't. Please."

  "Too late for please. You should've thought of that before—"

  "Put down the phone. Now. I mean it."

  The minister's voice was suddenly quite audible. Jani
ce pulled her hand from the telephone.

  "What I want you to do," said Paulette, "is go find your hearing aid. No moaning. Just do it. And then I want you to sit down and listen to me. Ears open, mouth shut. Understand?"

  "Well, if this isn't Satan talking..."Janice blinked and wrinkled her forehead; she'd lost her train of thought.

  "Where's the hearing aid?" said Paulette.

  "The bedroom. My nightstand."

  "Make it fast."

  Janice glared at the woman. "Now listen, Miss Halter Top, you can't order me around like ... My God, you do plan to murder me, don't you?"

  "We'll see," Paulette said.

  "What?"

  "You're a Presbyterian, Janice. Good behavior, good deeds. Everything depends on it." The woman smiled dangerously. "Go get the hearing aid."

  Janice edged away. She was now genuinely afraid for her life. In the bedroom, to buy time, she stood fiddling with her hearing aid. It occurred to her that no fewer than five members of the congregation had passed away over the last year or two. All of them had been elderly, all in ill health, but even so their deaths had come out of the blue. And now Rudy. Instantly, a combination of dreadful thoughts arose. Over the past month, as her husband deteriorated, Janice had twice found the minister sitting alone at his hospital bedside. No nurses, not a doctor in sight, just the fragile hum of a respirator. On both occasions the woman had seemed jumpy, quick to rise, quick to depart. And it was Paulette herself who had eventually called with the news of Rudy's passing.

  The facts seemed indisputable. Janice was in the hands of a serial killer, a ruthless preacher in bicycle shorts.

  The realization caused Janice to glance up at a window over her bed. Swifitly, she ran the numbers. A good five-foot drop to the lawn. Sixty-three years old. One hundred and eighty-two pounds. An unpleasant equation, but better than dismemberment.

  Janice climbed up on her bed, unlatched the window, pulled it open, tightened her robe, and prepared herself for the plunge.