Specter (9780307823403) (8 page)

When she speaks, her voice is a whisper. “Oh, Dina,” she says. “Is it you?”

Dr. Lynn is out of the car now. She has one arm around my shoulders, and she propels me toward Holley Jo. “I’m Dr. Lynn Manning,” she says. “I’m so happy to meet you, Holley Jo, because you’re Dina’s closest friend. She’s told me so many lovely things about you.”

Holley Jo has wiped the shock from her eyes. She reaches out and hugs me, but gently, as though she’s afraid I’m going to crack into little pieces.

“You don’t know how much I’ve missed you,” she tells me.

I answer, “And I’ve missed you.”

“Everyone’s waiting to see you, but I said I wanted to be the first.”

“I’m glad.” I kick at a little brown bug that is trying to crawl on my sandal.

“Carlotta baked a huge cake for you.”

“She sent me a card.”

“Mrs. Pettigrew said to say hello for her. She left this week to live with her daughter.”

“There’s so much I want you to tell me. Everything that’s gone on since I left.”

Up until now our words have politely skirted each other, keeping a distance, moving in self-conscious little circles. But Holley Jo suddenly grins. “Guess what! Daisy’s getting married! To one of the Parker brothers. The gooney one.”

We laugh, and time is back in place.

Dr. Lynn says, “We’ll pick you up about two o’clock, Dina.”

I wave as they leave. A small white face stares at me from the backseat. I refuse to think about Julie right now. This is where I’ve wanted to be for so long, and I’m not going to think of anything or anyone else.

As we enter the main building, Dr. Martin and his wife come to meet me. Her broad, toothy grin hasn’t changed. Nothing has changed, except me.

Everyone swarms into the room, and I’m pulled into the dining room. Someone has fastened balloons and a banner saying “Hi, Dina” around the door to the dining room. There’s pink punch, and a cake, and laughter, and all of them looking at me through glittery glass eyes that hide their feelings. It’s a nice party. I didn’t expect a party. And I’m tired. So tired.

People are drifting into little groups, and talking
about baseball games and how glad they are the semester has ended, and who has to go to summer school. I tug at Holley Jo’s arm and whisper, “Could we go to our room for a little while?”

“Sure,” she says. “I know you’re tired.” So I must show how I feel, and I hate my body even more for not being strong enough to hide its horrible secret.

My feet have become so heavy. One step at a time. That’s the way. Try to keep pace with Holley Jo, who is awkwardly trying to keep pace with me. My whole body is exhausted, so unwilling to move. Here are the stairs. I can make it. I will I will I will. There is a room up there. A room with my bed in it. And I can rest. My mind pulls and pushes and prods this body, and it obeys.

“I’ll get the door,” Holley Jo says.

My bed is nearest the door, and I flop on it gratefully, closing my eyes, feeling the pieces of my body settle into place again.

“I’m sorry,” I murmur. “Sometimes I get so tired.”

“Just lie there as long as you want,” she says. “Ellen won’t mind.”

“Ellen?” My eyelids flip open.

I’m on a yellow-and-green-printed bedspread. I roll on my side and stare at the room. It’s yellow, and there are curtains with a ruffle in this same yellow, trimmed in green.

“Everything’s changed!” I cry.

“The Women’s Gospel Committee decided to
redecorate this wing,” Holley Jo says. “I don’t much like it. I wish they’d picked blue.”

“Ellen?” I ask. “Did they give my bed to Ellen Greeley?”

Holley Jo squirms and twists her feet around the chair at her desk. “They did some shifting. They said you wouldn’t be back.”

“I guess they had to. It’s just that in my mind this has always been my bed and our room.”

She leans forward eagerly. “If—when—you get better and come back, I know they’ll put you in here, if you want.”

I lie on my back and stare at the ceiling.

“Tell me about Rob.”

“He’s a nothing.”

“Who’s he dating?”

She shrugs and gives me a quick look. “Debbie, I guess.”

“It’s okay,” I tell her. “I’m over him.”

“Did he ever write you?”

“Rob held an early funeral for me. It was easier for him that way.”

“Dina!” she says. “Don’t talk like that!”

“Then tell me about Daisy and her wedding. Isn’t the one she’s marrying named Floyd?

“Yes,” she says with a rush of words, “and they’re going to be married in the Clarewood Baptist Church next month, and Daisy wants daisies in her bridal bouquet, and I think Pamela is going to be her only attendant because Floyd’s mother is picking up the bills, and—”

The wedding is in this room, and the bride wears a dress that matches the bedspread and curtains. “Ugly!” I whisper, and everyone stares. The wedding cake is pink, and around the top is written
Hi
,
Dina. Good-bye
,
Dina
. I don’t like this wedding, and I wish I hadn’t come. All the hollow places inside of me are filled with sadness.

Through a faraway humming I hear Holley Jo saying, “She’s been asleep.”

“But you’ve both missed lunch.”

“I didn’t want to wake her up. She looks so—so—I just had to let her sleep.”

“You’ve been sitting here with her all this time?”

“Of course! I want to be with her!”

I open my eyes. Mrs. Martin is standing at the foot of my bed, watching me. “Your friends have come to pick you up,” she says.

I struggle to a sitting position and cry out, “Oh, no! I didn’t want to sleep!”

“It’s okay,” Holley Jo says. She comes to sit beside me.

“There was so much I wanted to talk about.”

“Next time, when you’re feeling better.”

Mrs. Martin’s face stretches into that toothy smile. “I’ll serve your friends some iced tea, and I’m sure there’s some of the cake left. That will give you and Holley Jo a chance to chat while you pack your things.”

She closes the door as she leaves. I look around the unfamiliar yellow room again. “I had wanted everything to be the same.”

Holley Jo tries to look cheerful, but I can see the traces of red around her eyes. “Nothing stays the same. Each year is different. Next year we’ll be seniors and graduate and—”

“I’m a semester behind you now,” I say.

“Oh. Well, you know, that we’ll probably be going to different colleges—wherever we can get scholarships—and we’ll be moving away from the home, and things won’t be the same. You know that.”

She jumps up and drags a cardboard box from the closet. “I folded up your clothes and put them in here. And there are the things from your desk in a smaller box inside. I was very careful with them. I packed them so neatly you’ll be proud of me.”

“I wish I had something of value to give you,” I tell her. “Something of mine that would last forever, so you’ll never forget me.”

“How could I forget you? We’ve been sisters. We’ll always write to each other and have vacations together. Remember all our plans? We’re going to take a cruise through the Caribbean, and fly to London and visit all the castles that have ghosts in them, and go someplace where they have lots of snow and learn to ski.” She stops, and her voice quavers. “You have to get better, Dina.”

“We’d better go down,” I finally say.

“I’ll carry the box.”

“Maybe Dr. Lynn will bring me back for another
visit.” I try a smile. “Next time I won’t fall asleep.”

“It doesn’t matter. I was glad to be with you, no matter what.”

Down the stairs. It’s easier now. Some of my energy has come back. I follow Holley Jo into the dining room, where Julie stares at me over a mustache of pink frosting.

Dr. Paull leaps up to take the box from Holley Jo. He looks surprised that it isn’t heavier.

“We had hamburgers,” Julie says. “In Fredericksburg.”

Everyone is introduced, and Dr. Lynn says, “We’ll have to leave now, or we’ll get to the city in time to be caught in the rush-hour traffic.”

“Please come again,” Holley Jo says. “Please bring Dina back to us.”

“Maybe in a few weeks,” Dr. Lynn says. “We’ll see how our schedules are set up.”

There are all the little good-bye things to say and thanks for the rest of the cake, which Carlotta has wrapped for me to take and nearly squashes in her pillowed hug.

Holley Jo’s good-bye is the last word I hear as the car swings around the driveway and pulls onto the road. Anger swells through me like the blue norther winds that strip the sky as they rush through winter. It’s not fair. Even my retreat has been taken from me. I think of my room, and all I can see now are the yellow walls, the stiff gauze curtains,
the tidy green and yellow spreads, which have obliterated any part of me that clung to that room.

“Well, well,” Dr. Paull says into the silence. “Dina, you must tell us what you did today. Did you have a good time?”

I am trying to dredge up words through a deep pain, but Dr. Lynn quickly says, “I think we should let Julie tell Dina what we did.”

Julie turns toward me. Whoever wiped off her face forgot a spot of frosting over the left corner of her mouth. It wiggles as she talks. “We went to a park,” she says. “There were swings and slides, but the slides were too hot. And when we got hungry, we bought hamburgers. Mine had pickles and onions on it. And we did a lot of riding around in the car, and I got tired of all that riding.”

Dr. Lynn laughs. “We saw quite a bit of the hill country, and I like it.” She rattles on about Texas and what she’s learned about Texas history. Grateful to her, I lean back against the seat and close my eyes. Good-bye, Holley Jo. Good-bye, yellow room.

“The day after tomorrow we go to Mrs. Cardenas’s house,” Julie tells me. She slips her hand into my left hand. “It’s a real house,” she adds. “I’ve never lived in a real house. Have you?”

“No,” I answer.

The car gives a sudden swerve and speeds up. “There’s that fool driver again!” Dr. Paull snaps.
“I recognize the car. I thought we’d seen the last of him near Fredericksburg.”

“Surely he wouldn’t be following us,” Dr. Lynn says.

Julie’s eyes grow too large for her face, and I know what she’s thinking.

I twist around and see a dark green sedan behind us. He’s tailgating, and he’s all over the road.

“Maybe you should slow down and let him get past,” Dr. Lynn says.

Dr. Paull is hunched forward, concentrating on the wheel. “This is a lonely stretch out here,” he says. “I’m not about to give him the chance to force us over.”

“You think he wants to rob us?”

“I don’t know what he has in mind.”

It’s like watching a movie, but we’re suddenly the actors. I’ve seen this before, over and over on television. Two cars, careening down the road, the one behind surging forward, just missing any cars coming up the other side, falling back and trying again.

Our car lurches so violently that Julie and I are thrown across the seat. The car wobbles, slows, and Dr. Paull mutters something under his breath.

Julie starts to cry. “That was Sikes!”

“Did you see him?” I manage to pull myself up and watch the green car speeding out of sight around the next curve.

“I know it was Sikes!”

Dr. Lynn turns around. “How do you know, Julie?”

“Because I know.”

“That idiot tried to force us off the road,” Dr. Paull says.

“Did anyone get the license number?”

“No.”

“Did any of us get a good look at him?” Dr. Lynn asks.

No one answers. We drive in silence.

We’re close to the junction where the road meets the highway into San Antonio when Dr. Paull shouts, “Look!”

Ahead is the dark green car, tilted drunkenly on the shoulder of the road. A highway patrol car has nosed in ahead of it.

Dr. Paull pulls to the side of the road and turns off the ignition. “I’m going to talk to that officer,” he says. “I want to report what happened to us.”

Julie flies forward and grabs him around the neck so tightly that he coughs and gurgles before he can break her hold.

“Don’t go out there!” she says. “Sikes will hurt you!”

He sidles out the door, keeping a firm grip on her hands. “If it is Sikes,” he says, “then we’ll see that the officer keeps him in custody.”

“But—”

“I’m not afraid of Sikes.”

I put an arm around Julie. The three of us watch Dr. Paull approach the patrolman. We can see them
talking. Now the driver of the green car is spread-eagled against the side of his car. His head is down.

In a few moments Dr. Paull walks back to us.

“He’s just a kid,” Dr. Paull says, as he drops into the driver’s seat. “He’s high on something. Isn’t sure where he is or what he’s doing. They think it’s a stolen car.”

We are back on the road again and entering the highway before he adds, “Julie, do you want to tell us more about this man Sikes?”

“No,” Julie says. “I don’t want to talk about him.”

“It would help if you could describe him, tell us why you’re so afraid of him.”

“No!”

She is wedged against me, and I feel the current that stiffens her body. Her fingers in mine are hot. “Calm down,” I tell her. “Don’t be scared. It wasn’t Sikes.”

Dr. Lynn and Dr. Paull begin to talk in low voices, so I tune them out. I keep patting Julie’s hand until I feel her relax.

“It wasn’t Sikes.” She repeats my words to herself.

Who is Sikes? Why does he come wrapped in terror? What does he want from Julie?

I look down at the child beside me and ask myself one more unanswerable question: How much does Julie want from me?

The day has been too much for me, and as we return to the hospital, I try to become vivacious. Sparkle, bubble, put on a false face. Please, may I go again? See, it was good for me. Please, look only into my eyes, where I’m forcing all my energy, and don’t notice the blue shadows under the transparent skin.

Dr. Lynn’s arm is around me. She is damp and warm and smells of stale cologne. “Take it easy, Dina. Get some rest now.”

“I’m not a bit tired.”

But she knows. “Our emotions can sometimes make us more tired than our physical problems. You had a pretty fair amount of stress today. The first time back to see your friends can be difficult in some ways. Next time will be easier for you.”