Circuit Of Heaven (22 page)

“It wasn’t so bad. It was nothing, really.”

“I don’t believe you, Nemo. You just don’t want me to worry.”

He propped himself up on his elbows and looked into her eyes. “Okay. It was pretty awful. But I’ll be fine.”

She took his face in her hands. “What was it like?”

“Headache, nausea, dizziness, impaired motor ability—like the
VIM
warning says. It felt like someone had disconnected all my internal wiring and hooked it back up in the dark.”

She cradled his head in her arms. “I was worried sick about you.”

“Don’t worry about me.”

She laughed at him. “Don’t be silly, Nemo. You worry about me.”

“That’s different.”

“Right. The big, strong man.” She gave him a quick kiss, unwound herself, and went into the bathroom. He rolled over and plumped up a couple of pillows against the headboard, settled himself into them, basking in his pleasure. He loved Justine. Hell, he loved everyone, even himself.

He spotted a copy of
Rebecca
on the bedside table and picked it up. It was like seeing an old friend. He’d read it when he was fifteen. He’d liked it so much, that when he came to the end, he’d immediately read it a second time. He opened it up to the last page, the closing sentences:

The road to Manderley lay ahead. There was no moon.The sky above our heads was inky black. But the sky on the horizon was not dark at all. It was shot with crimson, like a splash of blood. And the ashes blew towards us with the salt wind from the sea
.

Justine came out of the bathroom, drying her face with a towel.

“I read this,” he said, holding up the book. “It was in my grandmother’s stuff. I loved it.”

She sat on the bed beside him. “I quit reading it,” she confessed. “I was afraid she was going to lose her husband because he was still in love with his perfect dead wife, and I couldn’t stand it.”

He had to smile at the way she said
perfect dead wife
, as if she were jealous of Rebecca herself. “If that’s why you stopped, you should definitely keep reading.”

“Tell me how it ends.”

“I can’t do that. I don’t want to spoil it for you.”

“Oh, come on, Nemo. Just a hint.” She ran her fingertips along the inside of his arm.

“Okay, just a hint.” He paused to consider just what he should give away. “I’ll tell you that Rebecca was far from perfect.”

“That’s it? You’re a big help. That doesn’t mean Max knows that. He is a man after all.”

He grinned. “I’ll ignore the implication. You just want a happy ending.”

“Sure, if I can get it.”

He pondered a moment. He didn’t want to give the whole book away. “Okay. I’ll tell you one more thing, and that’s it: The heroine saves her husband’s life.”

This piqued her interest more than he’d bargained for. “Really? How?” She shifted around, so that she was kneeling on the bed.

He laid the book on the table. “You’ll just have to finish reading it.”

She bounced up and down, her hands pushing on his chest. “Tell me, Nemo. Does Mrs. Danvers try to kill him?”

He smiled, enjoying her excitement. “Perhaps.”

She climbed on top of him straddling him. “Tell me, Nemo.”

He drew his thumb and forefinger across his mouth. “My lips are sealed.”

“I’ll tickle you.”

“I’m not ticklish.” She tried in vain to tickle him. She came close, but she missed the spot under his arms, and he managed to maintain a stony composure.

“Creep.” She pinned his arms and leaned over him, her hips undulating. “If you don’t tell me, I’ll make you fuck me again.”

He groaned in mock horror, rolling his head from side to side. “No! Please! No! Anything but that!”

She bounced on his stomach and rolled onto the bed, curling up with her back to him. “Fine, then. See if I care.”

He molded his body to hers, kissing her back, caressing her thigh. She took his hand and wrapped his arm around her.

“Tell me about Rosalind,” she said in a small, quiet voice.

“You remember her name.”

“Of course, I remember her name. Is she pretty?”

“Yes. She tried to hide it, but she was.”

“Were you in love with her?”

Nemo thought carefully before he answered. He wanted to be fair. “We were like two people stranded on a desert island. We helped each other get through it, but we weren’t in love.”

“Do you miss her?”

“I wonder how she’s doing sometimes, hope she’s happier than when I knew her. But no, I don’t miss her.” He propped himself up on one arm and gently turned Justine onto her back. “What about you? There must’ve been other guys.”

She stared at the ceiling and tried to remember. There were lots of them, little more than faces, as if they were all peering in at her through a window. She’d never loved any of them. “There were other guys, but no one like you. My island was more crowded than yours.”

“Tell me about one of them. It’s only fair.”

She remembered a moon-faced boy sneaking into her room after lights out. “Dick,” she said.

“Dick? You’re joking.”

She giggled. “Afraid not. He was my first. I was fifteen. He climbed up the fire escape and came in through my window. He brought me tulips he’d picked from the yard. I had to throw them out the window after he left. They were Sister Gertrude’s tulips. She would’ve killed me if she’d found them in my room. He was an All Saints boy, a senior.”

“Well, how was Dick?”

“Not so great. He was a virgin, too. He cried after it was over. He was going to be a priest, and he figured I’d ruined everything.”

“Sounds like he was aptly named.” He watched her laugh, her eyes crinkling shut. He wondered who she really was. As she said, her past was impossible. “Did he ever become Father Dick?”

“I don’t think so. He crawled through several other girls’ windows after mine.”

“How did you know that?”

“Girls talk, Nemo.”

“Did he cry every time?”

“No. But I was the only one who got flowers.”

“Lucky you. What about after you left the orphanage—were there any guys then?”

“You said only one.” She tried to make it sound playful, but he could see the question upset her.

“You can’t remember?” he asked gently.

She stared at the ceiling and shook her head. “No.” She closed her eyes and balled up her fists. “God, I hate this.”

“So what do you remember exactly, besides St.Catherine’s?”

“The last three days. Before that I know things, but I don’t really remember them. I know I was at the Ambassador Hotel in Chicago last week, but I couldn’t tell you what the place looks like, or if I talked to anybody on the elevator, or anything. I was playing with another band, but I can’t even remember their faces.

“And then there are these memories I don’t know what to do with. They’re just there, but they don’t fit with anything else. Like there’s this bundle of letters I can see clearly in my mind, tied up in a green yarn. It feels like they’re important somehow. But that’s it. I don’t know who they’re from or when they were written.”

“Maybe they’re a memory from when you were real young. I have memories like that, from when I was three or four.”

She considered this, but it didn’t feel right. They’re from when I was old, she thought, but she didn’t say it. She didn’t even understand what she meant. “That must be it,” she murmured, not wanting to think about it anymore, afraid of what she might find.

He took her hand. “I’m just glad you remember me, that you showed up at my birthday party, and changed my life.”

She looked into his eyes. “You are the sweetest man.”

“I never brought you flowers.”

“You didn’t cry either.”

“You could make me cry,” he said.

“I never will.”

He took her into his arms, so full of love tears came to his eyes and wet her cheeks.

THE
DAY
WAS
WARM
AND
HUMID
,
THE
AIR
HEAVY
WITH
THE
scent of cherry blossoms. A light breeze blew through the trees, and Justine and Nemo were showered with petals. They were headed south on 21st, out for a walk. Like most cities, there’d been no cars in D.C. since before the Bin, so there no cars in here now. The streets had been turned into tree-lined walkways, with flowerbeds and fountains.

“The real D.C. is one giant death wish,” he told her. “I don’t set foot outside Pentagon Station. I could get used to this.”

They could see the Washington Monument off to the left, sticking up above the lane of trees. They were getting close to the reflecting pool. In front of them, more than a dozen kites wove back and forth in the sky.

They emerged from the trees to find a group of people on Constitution Avenue flying kites, while a crowd stood around watching. There were kids and adults, but mostly kids. Justine and Nemo stood arm in arm, watching the kites, pointing out the different shapes and colors. “I’ve never flown a kite,” Nemo said. “It looks fun.”

“You’ve never flown a kite?”

“I suppose you have.”

“Sure. We made them in art class. I hated the getting it up in the air part. But once it’s up there, it’s great. You really have to try. it.” She scanned the kite flyers. Before he knew what was happening, she was leading him toward a boy of about thirteen flying a blue diamond-shaped kite. “Hi,” she said to the boy. “Nice kite.”

“Thanks,” the boy said, without taking his eyes off his kite.

Nemo’s eyes followed the string high into the air to the tiny blue shape. He hadn’t realized how high up it was. “How big is it?”

“Six feet high, four across. I made it myself.”

Justine said, “My friend has never flown a kite. Could he fly yours for just a minute? Just to get the feel of it?”

The boy eyed Nemo. “My name’s Patrick,” he said.

“Mine’s Nemo.”

“Cool name,” he said. He handed Nemo the stick with the kite string wrapped around it. “You can fly it while I go get a hot dog.”

Nemo laughed as he felt the tug of the kite in his hands. “I’ll be careful,” he said, but Patrick had already disappeared in the crowd. Nemo watched the other kite flyers, trying to pick up some pointers. “You know any tricks?” he asked Justine.

“Take up a little slack and let it go.”

Nemo did as he told her, and the kite swooped down and shot back up.

“Sister Sarah was the one who made kites with us.” She remembered Sarah running alongside her in her habit, shouting her encouragement. Justine had painted her kite to look like an angel. “I called up an old friend from the orphanage,” she said. “Stephanie Boyd. She was one of my best friends. She didn’t remember me at all.”

“Are you sure you got the right person?”

“I recognized her. She said she
was
at St. Catherine’s—only it was eighty years ago.”

He wasn’t sure what to say. He remembered she’d been pretty upset the last time he’d suggested she might be older than she thought. “Do you think maybe you were there then, too?”

“She didn’t remember me. She said she didn’t know anyone named Justine at all.”

“Maybe she’s just forgotten.”

“Maybe I wasn’t Justine then.”

“What do you mean?”

She shook her head and gave a resigned laugh. “I don’t know
what
I mean. I can’t make any sense of it. I think I should just quit trying.”

He put an arm around her shoulders and gave her a hug, confident enough now to fly the kite with one hand. “I’m just glad you’re Justine now.”

She laid her head on his shoulder. “Me too.”

The wind gusted, and the kite climbed higher into the air. Nemo thought he was going to lose it. “Whoa. It feels like if I let it go, it’ll go into orbit.”

Patrick spoke up beside them. They had no idea how long he’d been standing there. “Actually, if you let go, it will fall down. The tension on the string is what allows the kite to act as an air foil and remain aloft. The Chinese invented kites thousands of years ago. It was a spiritual discipline for them and not mere entertainment.”

Nemo smiled, reminded of himself at that age. “You don’t say. Is that what it is for you—a spiritual discipline?”

The boy was perfectly serious as he finished off his hot dog. “Yes,” he said.

Nemo looked back up at the kite. He could feel each gust and eddy of the wind in his hands. It didn’t matter at all to this boy that the kite and the wind weren’t real. Maybe he was right.

“Thanks, Patrick.” He handed the kite string back to him.

“You can make yourself one,” Patrick told him.

“They’re easy to make. You can start with a smaller one. They’re easier to get up.”

Justine smiled and winked at Nemo over the boy’s head. “Nemo won’t have a problem with that,” she assured Patrick.

They thanked Patrick and moved on toward the reflecting pool. Nemo said, “You’ll say anything, won’t you?”

“That’s one of the things you love about me, isn’t it?”

He laughed. “It is indeed.”

THEY
LAY
ON
THE
GRASS
BY
THE
REFLECTING
POOL
UNTIL
IT was 4:30, and Nemo explained that he had to catch a train back to Richmond. He begrudgingly told her of Victor’s warning.

“I’m afraid you haven’t gotten to see much of D.C.”

“I came to see you anyway. Besides, I’ll come again.”

At the station, he started to tell her good-bye, but she insisted on riding with him. “I want to spend as much time with you as I possibly can,” she said.

On the train, Justine rested her head on Nemo’s shoulder and closed her eyes. Nemo rested his head on hers. “I almost forgot to tell you,” he said. “Lawrence says ‘hey.’”

“I like Lawrence. Tell him I said ‘hey’ back.”

“I told him I’m in love with you. I told him I was thinking about coming in.”

He could feel a subtle change in the pressure of her head on his shoulder. “What did he say?”

“He said I should be sure.”

He looked down the long line of cars, swaying slightly as the train rounded a curve, pressing her against him, and was jolted by the sight of the crematorium on the horizon. The smoke rose straight up into the sky in a broad plume bathed in golden light from the setting sun. Then he realized it was only clouds. They were in the Bin. Safe from death. But he could still see it in his mind’s eye—the endless smoke, just above the stacks the sparks rising into the light. He pointed at the spot as they swept past it. “Do you know what’s out there in the real world?” he asked. She raised her head and looked out the window where he’d pointed. “One of the crematoriums—where they burn up the bodies of everyone who comes in.”