But what a smart choice after all! When she was through arranging and rearranging, taking down from the cupboard all the vases she owned, pewter, cut-glass, china, the tulips were a sight to behold. For there on the kitchen table three of them sang out cheerfully; two more on the mantel in the living room, and in the little half-bathroom Isabelle placed the slender pewter vase with one yellow tulip on the back of the commode.
The telephone rang. A sudden fear that Avery would be calling to say Emma wasn’t feeling well—oh, it seemed unbearable.
But it was Amy, who said, “Hi, Mom,” snapping her gum.
“Please, Amy.” Isabelle dropped her eyelids, pressing a finger to the bridge of her nose. “If you’re going to chew gum, do it with your mouth closed.”
“Sorry.” A car honked.
“Where are you?” Isabelle asked.
“Outside the library. With Stacy. How late are the Clarks going to be at our house?”
“Well, I don’t know. Ten o’clock maybe? It’s hard to say.” Isabelle herself had been wondering how long the Clarks would stay. How long did people stay when they went for dessert? Certainly if they left by nine o’clock you could count the evening a failure.
“Anyway,” Amy said, “I’m staying at Stacy’s house tonight. We’re probably going to a movie.”
“What movie.”
“I’m not sure. Some kid movie for her little brothers in Hennecock, I think.”
“But Amy. You didn’t take anything with you. A nightgown, underwear. What about your toothbrush?”
“Mom,” said Amy, with obvious annoyance. “I won’t die, you know. Jesum Crow. Look, I’ll call you in the morning.”
“Please. Please do.” Isabelle turned her head to glance at the tulips on the table. In the warmth of the kitchen they had opened further. “And please don’t snap that gum, Amy, in front of Stacy’s parents.”
She hung up feeling uneasy. Shaking confectionery sugar into a bowl for the frosting, Isabelle pressed her lips together. It would take time, trusting Amy again. That’s what happened when you lied to someone; you forfeited their trust. Amy knew that, and it’s why she was annoyed. Anyway, it would be—to be honest—a relief not having her around when the Clarks showed up.
Chapter
23
AT A DINER in Hennecock Paul Bellows ate a plateful of fried clams and said he hoped they didn’t end up making him shit his brains out later. “It’s happened before,” he said, without elaboration.
Amy sat back while the waitress filled her cup with water. She had finished her hot dog and now ran her fingertip over her plate. With a wave of his hand Paul offered her some of his fried clams, but she shook her head. “Do you mind if I smoke while you’re still eating?” she asked. She had been smoking all afternoon and had gone past the point of enjoying it; still, she felt compelled.
“Nope.” Paul tipped the bottle of ketchup over his plate, whacking it hard. When a mound of ketchup slid onto the edge of his plate he licked the top of the ketchup bottle and screwed the top back on.
Up front the cash register rang. Steam rose from the coffeepots, dishes clattered as a table was cleared. Paul ate his clams, smothering each one in the mound of ketchup before pushing it into his mouth, ketchup remaining on his lips as he chewed. He paused to drink from his Coke, ice cubes clunking as he tipped the cup, then returned to his clams. This steady, indifferent way he attacked his food was almost mesmerizing to Amy. She reached over and took one of the clams, dipping it in the ketchup as he had done.
“I would have married her, you know.”
The clam belly, beneath its fried batter, squished unpleasantly in Amy’s mouth.
“Her parents think I’m dumb.”
Amy spit into her napkin. “Her parents are kind of queer,” she offered, tucking the napkin under her plate.
“Her father’s a rat-fuck, the mother’s just spacey and weird.” Paul finished eating and tapped a cigarette from his pack. “What do you want to do?”
“Drive around I guess.”
Paul nodded. She thought he looked kind of anxious and sad.
ISABELLE LAY ON her bed, showered and powdered, her eyes closed. Outside her window the birds sang. She opened her eyes and closed them again, remembering how when Amy was very small and sometimes had trouble with her afternoon nap, Isabelle would bring her into this room and lie with her on this bed. “Mommy’s going to sleep too,” she would say, but Amy had never been fooled. When Isabelle opened her eyes the little girl would be lying quietly, staring at her. “Close your eyes,” Isabelle would say, and Amy always did, her tender eyelids quivering with the effort of this obedience. In a few moments they would open once more, mother and daughter caught looking at each other in the silent room.
ON THE TOP floor of an apartment house on Main Street, Lenny Mandel was once again undressing. He had not intended to come here today; it was Saturday, and his mother expected him home to help with her bridge club tonight. He had gone into school to do some work and then stopped here afterward to say a quick hello. But when Linda reached into the refrigerator, the sight of her thighs, pale and bare emerging as her red cotton dress tugged up over her rump, caused him to inwardly moan; seeing the expression on his face when she turned, Linda smiled shyly and walked toward him.
His constant need to insert himself in her—penis, fingers, tongue, it hardly mattered—was baffling to him. (He would have put his fingers down her throat if he could have done so without hurting her.) With his eyes shut now, squeezing her, running his face down over her middle, he wished he could unzip her skin, place his entire self inside her body, make love to her like that, inside out instead of from the outside in. It wasn’t normal, he thought, to desire a person so much; his world felt crazy and dark now, he was in a frenzy all the time.
She moved with him to the bed, spreading her legs wide—such open generosity. He gazed at this magnificent gift on the flowered sheets; he wanted to split her open, crack her up the middle like a lobster claw.
Afterward he apologized. He always did. She shook her head gently. “Lenny,” she said, “you’re just a very passionate guy.”
He wondered why it no longer made him happy, and why he continued to crave it in the face of this.
AT THE SAME time that Lenny Mandel was buttoning his pants and Isabelle Goodrow was descending the stairs to eat a light and early supper so she wouldn’t be dizzy or have a headache by the time the Clarks arrived, Dottie Brown, on the other side of the river, was following her husband mutely from room to room watching as he put things in a duffel bag. In the hallway he stopped and looked at her, a muscle twitching in his cheek. “I’ll wait and go in the morning,” he said, “if you want me to.”
THERE WAS PLENTY of light left in the sky, but already the day was beginning to end. They had been driving without speaking for quite a while, listening to songs on the radio, played loudly, when Paul reached over to turn the radio off and in the sudden silence that followed said, “It gets me how her parents think I’m some dumb-fuck jerk.”
Amy turned her head to look at him.
“My uncle might make me part owner of the business someday,” he said, and then dragged deeply on his cigarette. He glanced over at Amy and she nodded.
“Hey, fuck it.” Paul tossed his cigarette out the window.
The road they were on had become dirt, and they were bumping past fields on one side, woods on the other. “Where are we?” Amy asked.
“I was wondering myself.” Paul squinted past Amy, looking through her open window. “This probably belongs to one of those farms we passed. Doesn’t look like it’s been farmed though.”
“They rotate fields,” Amy said. “The soil gets tired. That’s why farmers need so many acres. Half of them just sit and rest every few years.”
Paul grinned at her. “You do good in school?”
“Okay. Not great.”
“I did okay in school,” Paul said. “I never flunked anything.”
The road
was getting narrow. Branches were scratching the car at times; a rock clunked up against the bottom. Paul drove more slowly, then stopped. “Gotta look for a place to turn around. It’s not like this baby is some jeep, you know.”
Amy nodded, sticking her head out the window. “Can you back up?”
Paul turned to look behind him. “Guess I’ll have to.” He said this tiredly. “Jesus, we’re in the middle of nowhere.” He moved back around and switched the car off, then looked at her, hanging his head. “Want to give me a little kiss, Amy?”
She leaned her face forward, feeling sorry for him, feeling some shared shadow of desolation; she thought of Hansel and Gretel, two kids lost in the woods.
It was his breathing that alerted her, and the way he began twisting his head, turning his mouth back and forth over hers. She didn’t want to be rude.
He pulled back and gave her that disconnected grin. He cocked his head, looking down at her hand. “So, Ame,” he said, “you want to …”
Her heart flipped steadily, quickly. The air from the open car window smelled wet, autumnal. She felt responsible; she was the one who wanted to drive around, wanted to kill the evening until the Clarks went home—then she could walk in late and just tell her mother she wasn’t staying at Stacy’s after all. Or maybe Paul had a couch she could sleep on—she hadn’t really thought it through. But now he wanted … to do stuff … and she felt suddenly that maybe she had been using him. His car might be scratched up right now on account of her too.
“Oh,” she said, faltering, “see, well. I like you and everything. But it’s weird because—”
“It’s not weird,” he said, his grin spreading now, “it’s pretty natural, if you want to know the truth.” He leaned forward and began to kiss her again.
Amy turned her face away. “See,” she said. “I just wouldn’t feel right. I mean, you know, I’m Stacy’s friend and everything. Oh God, I’m really sorry.”
“It’s okay. Hey, don’t worry about it.” He touched her face, spread his fingers through her hair. “You’re a nice person, Amy.” He exhaled loudly, raising his eyebrows. “I’m just dying to … it would’ve been nice, but it’s okay.” He moved back, opening his door. “I gotta piss bad. By the way,” he added, sliding out of the car, then leaning back in through the window. “Didn’t you used to have really long hair?”
Amy nodded.
“Thought so. I’m going to be just a couple of minutes—I gotta go find a place to piss.” He started walking up the narrow road. “Don’t go anywhere,” he called back.
She watched as he stepped through ferns and undergrowth, holding back branches, ducking his head. She lit a cigarette, wondering where Mr. Robertson was, her desire for him rumbling through her as though she were, all of her, nothing more than an empty stomach. She closed her eyes, leaning her head back, thinking of her breasts bare before him that day in the car, her legs bare, the feel of being touched by his slow fingers. He must think about it too. She knew he did. She knew he had come back looking for her.
“Amy!”
She opened her eyes and looked toward the woods. In just these few minutes evening had arrived, the air cool with autumn smells.
“Hey, Amy!”
She got out of the car hurriedly, slamming a stalk of goldenrod in the door behind her.
“Amy!”
Paul came crashing through the branches, his face glistening. “Jesus, Amy.” His tanned arm had small fresh scratches across it as he reached for her wrist. “You gotta see this. Holy shit.”
“What,” she asked, following him. Her legs were being scratched by brambles, a branch of a fir tree snapped in her face.
“Holy shit,” Paul said again, ducking forward, his sneakers flattening two pale Indian pipes that had pressed up through the pine needles, “I found this car—come here, look.”
He pointed. They had reached a clearing, and a small blue car was on the edge of the field near the woods. Paul took her arm again, tugging her toward it. “I figure, abandoned car, you know, maybe tires or parts I can sell, so I pop the trunk and you won’t fucking believe it.”
She thought he had found money, maybe a suitcase of money.
They had almost reached the car when a smell rose up, something gone bad, like passing by a garbage bin that had been sitting for days in the sun. “It stinks,” she said, making a face at Paul.
His face was shiny with sweat as he motioned for her. He raised the trunk. “You won’t believe it, Amy. Look.”
ISABELLE HAD FINISHED washing the fruit. The plates were ready, the teacups out. The Belleek china creamer that had belonged to Isabelle’s mother, and that Isabelle loved so much (she gave it a quick intimate smile right now, as though its delicate shimmering were a whisper of good luck from her mother), sat complacently on a silver tray next to the sugar bowl. The cake was in the center of the table with the bowl of fruit beside it, the tulips nearby.
Lovely. Just lovely.
The Clarks would be here any minute. In the Oyster Point section of Shirley Falls people did not arrive late. At five past seven Isabelle filled the creamer; she had bought real cream for their tea. Or coffee, if they preferred. She was going to offer both.
At seven-fifteen her head ached. She took two aspirin and stood eating a cracker by the kitchen sink. Then she went into the living room and sat on the edge of the couch flipping through a magazine. Twice she thought she heard a car in the driveway and got up to peer cautiously through the kitchen window, not wanting to be seen looking out. But there was nothing.
It was getting dark now. She switched on another lamp in the living room. She thought: I will go upstairs and turn on the lamp by my bed, and when I come back downstairs they will be here.
They were not. Descending the stairs, moving through the living room, the kitchen, she felt that the house itself was watching her like some expectant, well-behaved child waiting for a performance to begin. At quarter to eight Isabelle washed her hands and dried them carefully, then dialed the number of Avery Clark’s house. It rang four times, and in her legs she could feel the relief: they were on their way over, of course.
“Hello?” said Avery. In the background was the unmistakable sound of people talking.
“Oh,” said Isabelle. “Yes, hello. Ah, this is Isabelle.”
“Isabelle,” said Avery. “Hello.”
“I wondered if there might be a problem.” Isabelle looked around the kitchen, the teacups ready, the tray laid out, the tulips rising up behind the bowl of fruit.
“A problem?” Avery said.
“Perhaps I made a mistake.” Isabelle squeezed her eyes shut. “I thought you and Emma were going to drop by …”
“Tonight?” said Avery. “Oh, gosh, was that tonight?”
“I thought so,” Isabelle said, apologetically. “Perhaps I got mixed up.”
“Oh my goodness,” said Avery, “this is my fault. I’m afraid I clean forgot. We have some friends in tonight.”
Isabelle opened her eyes. “Well, another night,” she said. “That’s quite all right.”
“I apologize,” Avery said. “Boy, I’m awful sorry. There’s been so much going on. Church get-togethers and whatnot.”
“That’s quite all right,” Isabelle repeated. She had not heard of any church get-togethers. “Really. No problem at all. We’ll try some other time.”
“Some other time,” said Avery. “Absolutely. And Isabelle, I’m very sorry.”
“That’s all right,” she said. “Please don’t even think about it. It was hardly anything. Hardly a big event.” She tried to make a sound like laughter, but she felt disoriented. “Good night.”
She put the teacups away, the plates, the silverware, feeling as though her eyesight had been affected by the moisture that was springing out over her face.
The tulips mocked her.
Everything did; the cake seemed to sag in its heavy roundness, the fruit bowl gazed with dry superiority. She took a brown grocery bag from beneath the sink
and into this she dumped the cake, its frosting smearing down the side, and then the contents of the fruit bowl. Quickly she twisted the tulips, hearing their stems snap, and the sugar cubes from the sugar bowl as well, because they had been bought specially.
Everything had to be put away, put out of sight. She poured the cream down the sink and washed the Belleek creamer and sugar bowl. She was drying the creamer—her gestures were jerky and quick—when she heard a car pull into the driveway, its headlights momentarily lighting up the front porch.
“Oh no,” she said out loud, thinking Emma and Avery, in their embarrassment, had decided to arrive after all, and here every single thing had been thrown out. How could she explain this? How could she possibly say, “Oh, I’m sorry. I just threw the cake away”?
Two car doors slammed, one right after the other, and she realized immediately that it was not Emma Clark out there slamming her door with such heftiness. Then Isabelle’s heart pounded even faster, for this was some nightmare coming true: she was to be attacked in her own home, in the dark, with no neighbors in sight.
Moving quickly to push a chair against the door, her elbow swept the Belleek creamer to the floor, where it shattered with one quick, light sound. It lay like little broken seashells on the linoleum floor.
A strong knock on the door actually caused the blind that was drawn over its window to move, and Isabelle called out shrilly, “Who is it? Go away! I’m going to call the police!”
“We are the police, ma’am,” came a deep, steady voice from behind the door, sounding both authoritative and slightly bored. “The state police, ma’am. We’re looking for a girl named Amy Goodrow.”
FOR AMY, WHAT happened that evening remained for a long time a dark compression of scattered images and sensations: the acrid, salty taste in her mouth, for example, which she could not get rid of; even stepping into the alley behind the Laundromat to thrust her head forward and spit, to gather saliva and spit again. No, the peculiar saltiness of what (emptying her mouth in a fist of toilet paper in Paul’s tiny dark bathroom) had appeared as some kind of globular pus had seemed to find its way into the tiniest, farthest-back crevices of the soft membranes of her mouth. She had not been prepared for that, for that especially, and later, spitting behind the Laundromat, smoking a cigarette there, she could not rid herself of this taste, or how it mingled in her mind with the image (much of it immediately forgotten except for the kneesock, and the teeth, and one gold earring) of a small dead person in the trunk of a car, only not a person anymore—she wouldn’t have known, right away, what it was if Paul hadn’t pointed to the teeth lined up that way; and then the oddness that followed, the silent escalation of—of what?