Heather Graham (7 page)

Far down the street, the woman who had poked through the donut-shop garbage had slowed down. She was looking at the bright Christmas lights attached to the handsome residences here by the Common. Looking into windows. At Christmas trees.

The power of suggestion was hers, Cathy had been told. She simply hadn’t been informed how to use it.

She looked down the street, concentrating.
Come back, Maggie. Come back and see this house.

She looked toward the dwelling.
Come out, Mrs. O’Connor. Come and look for your husband.

It didn’t seem to be working. Maggie was still moving away. The O’Connor’s door remained closed.

Come look for your husband!

I don’t have a husband. I left the abusive slug years and years ago!

Cathy muttered a swift curse, realizing as the thought-reply came flying back at her from Maggie that she’d been sending her power of suggestion in the wrong direction that time.

Try again. She was allowed a few screwups, really. She was new at this.

Maggie, come back this way. Come back, Maggie. Come and look into the warmth of this house…

To Cathy’s surprise and relief, Maggie turned at last, shaking her head in confusion as she looked back over the street she had just walked down.

Maggie began to walk toward the O’Connor house. Slowly at first. Then more quickly. She stopped at last beneath the streetlamp just to the side of the front of the O’Connor house.

What was he doing here on Christmas Eve?
Jimmy wondered, stepping into the men’s room of Mulligan’s. Considering the place, the atmosphere and all, the facilities were fairly decent. There was a broad mirror over the three sinks, a line of three urinals, a row of three stalls. He walked straight for the urinals, his kidneys loaded. After absently unzipping his fly, and relieving himself, he closed his eyes, leaning against the wall. He should have had beer, not whiskey. He’d wound up with whiskey and beer chasers.

He should have gone home.

He didn’t know why he hadn’t. Except that he’d wanted a drink. And when he drank at home, even if it was Christmas, everyone stared at him. Like he was doing something wrong. Even Sharon didn’t say a word. She just looked at him.

She never said a word. No matter what he did. When he’d gotten fired, she’d just spent more time in her sewing room. When he stayed out late, she just took the kids with her wherever she went. No matter when he came in, she had dinner ready if he was hungry. He wondered briefly if the way she so unquestioningly loved him was why he had decided to marry her. Or had he just proposed because she was different, a challenge. Sharon Challifour, so solemn, so studious! Seducing the girls who hung around him had been no challenge. Getting Sharon into bed had been a notch in the old belt.

Oh, sweet Jesus, he was thinking about his wife. His pregnant wife. Mother of two already. She’d been lucky to marry an O’Connor of Boston.

Lucky to marry him.

Hell, no! Poor damned Sharon—why the hell hadn’t she left him yet?

Better still, just what the hell was he afraid of, huh? Getting old? Making real commitments? Facing the truth about himself?

You’re not a great O’Connor of Boston, Jimmy. You’re just a drunk. A drunk. If it weren’t for your name and your family, and a wife who picks up your sodden carcass every time you go on a bender, you’d be on the streets, no better than the bums who huddle in the gutters…

Bull. He wasn’t a drunk. That was what his hardworking, long-suffering in-laws wanted him to believe. He just wanted a good time now and then. Angela was a good time, this place was a good time. Just a drink, a few laughs, a little provocation…

He opened his eyes, amazed that, even with all the whiskey and the beer chasers, he could still be peeing.

But he was.

He cried out suddenly, jumping back, urine spraying his shoes. He moved forward again, a scream rising in his throat.

He was peeing green. Then red. Then green. Christmas colors.

Oh, God, what the hell had been in his drinks! Red again. Blood. Maybe he had something. Maybe he was bleeding…

No. Green again. He was peeing Christmas colors. And with each little slosh now…

There seemed to be music. Bells. His balls were ringing. Christmas music to go with the Christmas colors. “Jingle Bells.” Oh, no. God, no.

He jiggled, stepped forward, hopped up and down. He had to stop.

The flow came to an end, brilliant green and magenta red, twirling together like a frozen yogurt cone.

He staggered back.

Another man entered the John. Jimmy grabbed the fellow’s arm. “Have you ever peed in Christmas colors?” Jimmy demanded.

The young fellow didn’t answer.

He didn’t even pee. He broke free of Jimmy’s hold, and hurried out of the John.

Jimmy made it over to the sinks. Whoa, that was a mistake, he thought, as he stared at his reflection, rubbing his chin. Who or what had he expected to see? The James Michael O’Connor of the old days, Harvard grad, a man in impeccable physical shape, intelligence gleaming from his eyes? Women found him exciting; men thought that he was full of power and potential…

He needed a shave. Hadn’t he bothered that morning? Christmas Eve, he should have been coming home early, should have played with the kids to give Sharon some time to get ready, should have shaved and showered and dressed for dinner. He needed a haircut, too. Maybe even a girdle or a month at a friggin’ health spa.

Not that bad, not that bad, he told himself.

But, God, yes …

Even as he stared at himself, he was changing.

His cheeks first. They were more than ruddy. “Gin blossoms,” filled with ugly broken capillaries and other blood vessels, spread out across his cheeks.

And then …

His cheeks were spreading, too. Broadening. And sagging. Oh, man. He was starting to look like a bloodhound. And his eyes … the green was brilliant against the red crisscrossing the whites. He was growing more and more haggard looking, his eye sockets deeper.

Then he couldn’t see himself clearly anymore. He was being pushed away from the sink and the mirror.

By the size of his gut.

He blinked. Still there.

“Oh, sweet Jesus…” he breathed out.

He closed his eyes once again. Okay, okay, he was drinking too much.

Opened his eyes.

He still looked like an old sot who’d been on the sauce a good fifty years. He needed to go home. Like this? He couldn’t go anywhere.

Yes, he could. He could always go home. No matter what. No matter how he looked, no matter how he’d aged. Sharon would always be there. Never condemning. How strange. She was so quiet. She was his rock. She always had been.

He opened his eyes. Oh, God, he had been having hallucinations. His face was back. Almost back. Maybe it never would come back completely. Because you could begin to see the strains of alcohol abuse in it. He wasn’t as young as he had been. And there were the faint beginnings of gin blossoms in his cheeks.

He closed his eyes again. His hands started shaking. He needed another drink. That was what he needed. A drink.

He pushed away from the sink. Remembered that red and green stream of Christmas pee and hurried out of the men’s room.

Sharon O’Connor stepped onto the porch of her home. Once, it had been open. Then it had been screened. Two winters ago, they had “winterized” it, adding windows over the screens that could still be slid completely open when the spring came. It was a warm room with a round table on which the kids liked to play cards, two chaises, and two wicker chairs. The upholstery was a rough brocade in burgundy and cream flowers; it seemed to suit in both winter and summer. She loved the room. Tonight, though, she’d slipped out here to look anxiously up and down the street. For Jimmy.

She saw a figure huddled beneath a streetlamp. For a moment, she thought it was her husband—hurt, so drunk he couldn’t stagger into the house. She went running out to him.

“Jimmy!” she whispered, setting her arms around the shoulders of the figure.

She knew instantly that it wasn’t him. These shoulders were frail, the coat was worn—Salvation Army issue.

A face turned to hers. Such an odd face! The eyes so old, so pale a blue, the cheekbones so sunken and narrow.

“My Lord! Are you all right? It’s freezing out here!” Sharon exclaimed.

The woman smiled. It was an oddly beautiful smile. “I manage,” she said. “Thank you for asking. Thank you for caring.”

It was a rough world. Sharon knew it. She also knew that her father would have apoplexy if he knew she was dragging a homeless, possibly infected and infectious stranger into her house.

But she had to do something, and she didn’t think a few dollars from the Christmas piggybank would suffice. “Listen, come in—”

“No!”

“Just for a few minutes!” Sharon whispered. She drew her fingers to her lips. “Shh … We won’t tell anyone. I’ll put you on my porch for a few minutes, get you some soup, and a coat. This thing is threadbare.”

“You’re kind. Extremely kind. But—”

“Oh, I’m chicken, too. I don’t want my father or my husband—if he ever shows up—to know I’m bringing you in.”

“Wait, now. You’re very kind, but I don’t want to cause you trouble—it’s Christmas Eve. I can manage, I’ve been doing so a long time—”

“Come in, just soup and a coat. And yes, it’s Christmas Eve and …” Sharon paused, shrugged, and smiled. “And this may be the only really Christmasy thing I’ve done in a very long time. Please, come in.”

“My name is Sharon O’Connor.”

“Margaret. Er, Maggie. Maggie St. Johns.”

“Well, Maggie St. Johns, please do come in, warm up for a bit!” Sharon offered what she hoped was her best, warmest smile. Very uncertain, Maggie allowed her to propel her toward the house.

“Where the hell have you been?” Don demanded as Cathy slid back onto her bar stool at Mulligan’s.

She arched her brow to her husband. “Don, I keep warning you, under the circumstances, you’ve really got to watch the language.”

He lifted a hand, frowning, ready to argue with her, then exhaled, a long breath. “Old habits die hard, what can I say?”

“How did you do?” Cathy asked anxiously.

“I thought I had him,” Don said glumly. He pointed across the bar. “I lost him. I was very close. And clever and imaginative, so I thought.”

“But …?”

Don lifted his shoulders. “He was ready to run home and sober up—but he decided he needed another drink instead. Where were you?”

“Out finding Maggie St. Johns.”

“Oh?”

“I think my first miracle is in process.”

“Really?”

“I left Maggie in front of O’Connor’s home. With O’Connor’s wife.”

Don nodded. “If we reappear, do you think I could drink a dark ale? I’d really like to have some one last time.”

“Don, we’re working on eternity here …” Cathy stopped, shrugging. “Let’s try it.”

They reappeared. It was simple, a thought process. The amount of Christmas cheer in the place was evident when no more than three of the customers even blinked to suddenly see the two of them sitting there.

As Don ordered two dark ales, Cathy realized he was staring at O’Connor all the while.

O’Connor looked at the two of them as he talked to a chum who’d stood by him. He offered Cathy a strange kind of half-smile she had seen before. It was an acknowledgment that she might be intriguing, but she was with someone else. It wasn’t a smile she had ever minded—sometimes it meant that the guy smiling was taken as well. She had the feeling O’Connor might be the kind of flirt who enjoyed attention and didn’t mind a bit of talk, but who withdrew if the going got serious.

He loved his wife. He just didn’t realize how much.

She smiled back at him. And then began playing with the power of suggestion.

She was acquiring a knack for it, she thought.

The woman was pretty. More than that. She was exotic. With a great, come-hither smile. But she was with a guy, one she seemed to know really well. Strange that she should keep looking at him that way, Jimmy thought, when it seemed she was with her old man.

Angela dipped and danced. He looked from the woman down the bar to her.

And almost fell off his bar stool.

It was the woman. Her face. The dark hair, falling around her shoulders as she shimmied and shook and dipped…

His eyes flew back across the bar. She was still sitting there with her husband.

The dancer dipped down beside him. Angela. It would be Angela when he looked up…

No. The dark-haired beauty.

He closed his eyes. Blinked hard. Oh, God. It was still her. Close to him, smiling. Whispering. “Come out back. Jimmy O’Connor. Come out back now.”

“J
UST WHAT ARE YOU
doing?” Don demanded.

“Sipping brown ale. I think I’ve figured this out. When we’re invisible, we can’t possibly do such things. The beer would just pour onto the table. When we are visible, we’re subject to earthly laws—”

“Cathy, that is not at all what I’m talking about. What are you making him see?”

She grinned. “An Angel.”

“A Cathy Angel by any chance? Cathy, just what is it you’re doing? Oh-my-God! You’ve put yourself up there, dancing! Cathy—”

“It’s just the power of suggestion!”

“And whose body are you suggesting up there?”

“I’m just trying to get him out of here. And look, he’s going. Come on, we have to follow him.”

They both stood quickly in the crowded pub. Cathy caught Don’s hand, and they weaved through the place together, trying to follow closely behind Jimmy O’Connor.

O’Connor reached the narrow back alleyway of Mulligan’s. He stood there baffled, scratching his head. Cathy let go of Don’s hand, disappeared and reappeared directly behind Jimmy. She tapped on his shoulder. He let out a startled cry, spinning around. Then he jumped away from her, stared from her to Don.

“Cathy, come on, now, what the hell kind of miracle is it going to be if we give him a heart attack and he dies?”

“What did you say?” Jimmy asked Don. “Who are you people? What do you… want?” He stared at Cathy again, swallowed hard.