Needful Things (56 page)

She slipped into the Mustang, and as she turned to put her purse on the console, her eye happened on something white sticking out from beneath the passenger seat. It looked like an envelope.

She bent over and plucked it up, thinking how odd it was to find such a thing in the Mustang; Les usually kept his car as scrupulously neat as his person. There was one word on the front of the envelope, but it gave Sally Ratcliffe a nasty little jolt. The word was
Lovey,
written in lightly flowing script.

Feminine
script.

She turned it over. Nothing written on the back, and the envelope was sealed.

“Lovey?” Sally asked doubtfully, and suddenly realized she was sitting in Lester's car with all the windows still rolled up, sweating like mad. She started the engine, rolled down the driver's window, then leaned across the console to roll down the passenger window.

She seemed to catch a faint whiff of perfume as she did it. If so, it wasn't hers; she didn't wear perfume, or make-up either. Her religion taught her that such things were the tools of harlots. (And besides, she didn't need them.)

It wasn't perfume, anyway. Just the last of the honeysuckle growing along the playground fence—that's all you smelled.

“Lovey?” she said again, looking at the envelope.

The envelope said nothing. It just lay there smugly in her hands.

She fluttered her fingers over it, then bent it back and forth. There was a piece of paper in there, she thought—at least one—and something else, too. The something else felt like it might be a photograph.

She held the envelope up to the windshield, but that was no good; the sun was going the other way now. After a moment's debate she got out of the car and held the envelope up in front of the sun. She could only make out a light rectangle—the letter, she thought—and a darker square shape that was probably an enclosed photo from

(Lovey)

whoever had sent Les the letter.

Except, of course, it hadn't been
sent
—not through the mails, anyway. There was no stamp, no address. Just that one troubling word. It hadn't been opened, either, which meant . . . what? That someone had slipped it into Lester's Mustang while Sally had been working on her files?

That might be. It might also mean that someone had slipped it into the car last night—even yesterday—and Lester hadn't seen it. After all, only a corner had been sticking out; it might have slid forward a little from its place under the seat while she had been driving to school this morning.

“Hi, Miss Ratcliffe!” someone called. Sally jerked the
envelope down and hid it in the folds of her skirt. Her heart bumped guiltily.

It was little Billy Marchant, cutting across the playground with his skateboard under his arm. Sally waved to him and then got quickly back into the car. Her face felt hot. She was blushing. It was silly—no,
crazy
—but she was behaving almost as if Billy had caught her doing something she shouldn't.

Well, weren't you? Weren't you trying to peek at a letter that isn't yours?

She felt the first twinges of jealousy then. Maybe it
was
hers; a lot of people in Castle Rock knew she had been driving Lester's car as much as she had been driving her own these past few weeks. And even if it
wasn't
hers, Lester Pratt
was.
Hadn't she just been thinking, with the solid, pleasant complacency which only Christian women who are young and pretty feel so exquisitely, that he would jump through hoops of fire for her?

Lovey.

No one had left that envelope for
her,
she was sure of that much.
She
didn't have any women friends who called her Sweetheart or Darling or Lovey. It had been left for
Lester.
And—

The solution suddenly struck her, and she collapsed against the powder-blue bucket seat with a little sigh of relief. Lester taught Phys Ed at Castle Rock High. He only had the boys, of course, but lots of girls—young girls, impressionable girls—saw him every day. And Les was a good-looking young man.

Some little high school girl with a crush slipped a note into his car. That's all it is. She didn't even dare leave it on the dashboard where he would see it right away.

“He wouldn't mind if I opened it,” Sally said aloud, and tore off the end of the envelope in a neat strip which she put in the ashtray where no cigarette had ever been parked. “We'll have a good laugh about it tonight.”

She tilted the envelope, and a Kodak print fell out into her hand. She saw it, and her heart stuttered to a stop for a moment. Then she gasped. Bright red suffused her cheeks, and her hand covered her mouth, which had pursed itself into a small, shocked O of dismay.

Sally had never been in The Mellow Tiger and so she didn't
know that was the background, but she wasn't a
total
innocent; she had watched enough TV and been to enough movies to know a bar when she saw one. The photo showed a man and a woman sitting at a table in what appeared to be one corner (a
cozy
corner, her mind insisted on calling it) of a large room. There was a pitcher of beer and two Pilsner glasses on the table. Other people were sitting at other tables behind and around them. In the background was a dance-floor.

The man and the woman were kissing.

She was wearing a sparkly sweater top which left her midriff exposed and a skirt of what appeared to be white linen. A very
short
skirt. One of the man's hands pressed familiarly against the skin of her waist. The other was actually
under her skirt,
pushing it up even further. Sally could see the blur of the woman's panties.

That little chippie,
Sally thought with angry dismay.

The man's back was to the photographer; Sally could make out only his chin and one ear. But she could see that he was very muscular, and that his black hair was mown into a rigorously short crewcut. He was wearing a blue tee-shirt—what the schoolkids called a muscle-shirt—and blue sweatpants with a white stripe on the side.

Lester.

Lester exploring the landscape under that chippie's skirt.

No! her mind proclaimed in panicky denial. It
can't
be him! Lester doesn't go out to bars! He doesn't even drink! And he'd never kiss another woman, because he loves me! I know he does, because . . .

“Because he says so.” Her voice, dull and listless, was shocking to her own ears. She wanted to crumple the picture up and throw it out of the car, but she couldn't do that—someone might find it if she did, and what would that someone think?

She bent over the photograph again, studying it with jealous, intent eyes.

The man's face blocked most of the woman's, but Sally could see the line of her brow, the corner of one eye, her left cheek, and the line of her jaw. More important, she could see how the woman's dark hair was cut—in a shag, with bangs feathered across the forehead.

Judy Libby had dark hair. And Judy Libby had it cut in a shag, with bangs feathered across the forehead.

You're wrong. No, worse than that—you're crazy. Les broke up with Judy when she left the church. And then she went away. To Portland or Boston or someplace like that. This is someone's twisted, mean idea of a joke. You know Les would never—

But
did
she know? Did she really?

All of her former complacency now rose up to mock her, and a voice which she had never heard before today suddenly spoke up from some deep chamber of her heart:
The trust of the innocent is the liar's most useful tool.

It didn't
have
to be Judy, though; it didn't
have
to be Lester, either. After all, you couldn't really tell
who
people were when they were kissing, could you? You couldn't even tell for sure at the movies if you came in late, not even if they were two famous stars. You had to wait until they stopped and looked at the camera again.

This was no movie,
the new voice assured her.
This was real life. And if it isn't them, what was that envelope doing in this car?

Now her eyes fixed upon the woman's right hand, which was pressed lightly against

(Lester's)

her boyfriend's neck. She had long, shaped nails, painted with some dark polish. Judy Libby had had nails like that. Sally remembered that she hadn't been at all surprised when Judy stopped coming to church. A girl with fingernails like that, she remembered thinking, has got a lot more than the Lord of Hosts on her mind.

All right, so it's probably Judy Libby. That doesn't mean it's Lester with her. This could just be her nasty way of getting back at both of us because Lester dropped her when he finally realized she was about as Christian as Judas Iscariot. After all, lots of men have crewcuts, and any man can put on a blue tee-shirt and a pair of pants with white coach-stripes running up the sides.

Then her eye happened upon something else, and her heart suddenly seemed to fill up with lead shot. The man was wearing a wristwatch—the digital kind. She recognized it even though it wasn't in perfect focus. She ought to have
recognized it; hadn't she given it to Lester herself, for his birthday last month?

It could be a coincidence, her mind insisted feebly. It was only a Seiko, that was all I could afford. Anyone could have a watch like that. But the new voice laughed raucously, despairingly. The new voice wanted to know who she thought she was kidding. And there was more. She couldn't see the hand under the girl's skirt (thank God for small favors!), but she could see the arm to which it was attached. There were two large moles on that arm, just below the elbow. They almost touched, making a shape like a figure-eight.

How often had she run her finger lovingly over those very same moles as she and Lester sat on the porch swing? How often had she kissed them lovingly as he caressed her breasts (armored in a heavy J. C. Penney bra carefully selected for just such conflicts of love on the back porch) and panted terms of endearment and promises of unflagging loyalty in her ear?

It was Lester, all right. A watch could be put on and taken off, but moles couldn't be . . . A snatch of an old disco song occurred to her:
“Bad girls . . . toot-toot . . . beep-beep . . .”

“Chippie, chippie,
chippie!”
she hissed at the picture in a sudden vicious undertone. How could he have gone back to her?
How?

Maybe,
the voice said,
because she lets him do what you won't.

Her breast rose sharply; a hissy little gasp of dismay tore over her teeth and down her throat.

But they're in a bar! Lester doesn't—

Then she realized that was very much a secondary consideration. If Lester was seeing Judy, if he was lying about
that,
a lie about whether or not he drank beer wasn't very important, was it?

Sally put the photograph aside with a shaking hand and pawed out of the envelope the folded note which accompanied it. It was on a single sheet of peach-colored stationery with a deckle edge. Some light smell, dusty and sweet, came from it when she took it out. Sally held it to her nose and inhaled deeply.

“Chippie!”
she cried in a hoarse, agonized undertone.

If Judy Libby had appeared in front of her at that moment, Sally would have attacked her with her own nails, sensibly short though they were. She wished Judy were. She wished Lester were, too. It would be awhile before he played any more touch football after
she
got through with him.
Quite
awhile.

She unfolded the note. It was short, the words written in the rolling Palmer Method hand of a schoolgirl.

Darling Les,

Felicia took this when we were at the Tiger the other night. She said she ought to use it to blackmail us! But she was only teasing. She gave it to me, and I am giving it to you as a souvenier of our
BIG NIGHT.
It was
TERRIBLY NAUGHTY
of you to put your hand under my skirt like that “right out in public,” but it got me
SO HOT.
Besides, you are
SO STRONG
. The more I looked at it the more “hot” it started to make me. If you look close, you can see my underwear! It's a good thing Felicia wasn't around later, when I wasn't wearing any!!! I will see you soon. In the meantime, keep this picture “in remembrance of me.” I will be thinking of you and your
BIG THING.
I better stop now before I get any hotter or I'll have to do something naughty. And please stop worrying about
YOU KNOW WHO
. She is two busy going steady with Jesus to worry about us.

Your

Judy

Sally sat behind the wheel of Lester's Mustang for almost half an hour, reading this note again and again, her mind and her emotions in a stew of anger, jealousy, and hurt. There was also an undertone of sexual excitement in her thoughts and feelings—but this was something she would never have admitted to anyone, least of all herself.

The stupid slut doesn't even know how to spell “too,”
she thought.

Her eyes kept finding new phrases to fix upon. Most of them were the ones which had been capitalized.

Our
BIG NIGHT
.

TERRIBLY NAUGHTY.

SO HOT.

SO STRONG.

Your
BIG THING
.

But the phrase she kept returning to, the one which fed her rage most successfully, was that blasphemous perversion of the Communion ritual:

. . . keep this picture “in remembrance of me.”

Obscene images rose in Sally's mind, unbidden. Lester's mouth closing on one of Judy Libby's nipples while she crooned: “Take, drink ye all of this, in remembrance of me.” Lester on his knees between Judy Libby's spread legs while she told him to take, eat this in remembrance of me.