Twilight Girl (18 page)

She changed her shirt hurriedly. She tucked a nail file, pencils, other small items she might need, into the pockets of her slacks. And there was still time to pack methodically the charts, the rules, the plans, into a worn, zippered briefcase that had belonged to her father and had been stored away on her closet shelf. Lon studied each sheet with critical, proud eyes before laying it into the case. For a while, it had seemed that none of this was real—that the Island was a distant dream with no hope of being realized, perhaps only a figment of her imagination. She had drifted away, only to return... and this, now, was the true homecoming. Though there remained endless work to be done: lists to arrange in alphabetical order, ceremonies to be worked out (the initiation rite was very sketchy), and names to be added. One to be subtracted. For the most pressing problem now would be to find someone else who knew how to sail a boat...

Later. Later, when her head stopped hurting, she would tackle the most urgent problems.
Someone should have told me she was sick. Drugs must make you sick.

The shuddering thought brought out a pencil, and across the margin of the List of Rules, Laws and Regulations, Lon jotted a pertinent reminder:
Another rule will be no drugs allowed and all drug fiends will have to quit it or be subjected to heavy fines.
She underlined
heavy fines
twice. Fair warning to any Island inhabitants contemplating the outlawed stupidity of sticking themselves with a needle.

There was barely time to replace the penciled sheet before a racing motor and the squeak of abruptly applied brakes sounded outside. Carrying the briefcase, and with the inward exultation of an unseasoned traveler embarking upon a long voyage, she hurried to the front door.

She had not laughed in a long time, Lon reflected. But how could anyone fail to be amused by the delightful coincidence of a doorbell and an alarm clock ringing at exactly the same moment?

CHAPTER 15

The walls of this room in downtown Los Angeles had been painted a cool, restful green. And to shut out those voices she had no particular wish to hear, Lon imagined the taste of those walls. Fresh, minty flavor. The clarity with which she could produce sensations of taste and smell at will buoyed her confidence. Sassy Gregg had not been thinking clearly before something happened to her. As long as you could think straight, everything was under control.

The Island's Crime Control System, which she had devised during the early part of the inquest, was further demonstration of her mind's sharpness. When this exasperating session was over, she would write it all down. That is, if the gray-haired man with the steel-rimmed glasses was finished with her papers. She liked him. What was his name—Doctor Something? He had talked to her for a long time, asking questions that didn't make much sense but were no bother to answer, and he had known Sassy Gregg, except that he kept calling her
Sally,
but he didn't say that he had particularly liked her or disliked her, only that he had been interested in her. But he seemed more interested in the contents of Lon's briefcase—in fact, had been fascinated by the Island.

She had decided, then, that even an elderly male doctor would be better than no doctor at all, and he had sounded grateful and enthusiastic when Lon had suggested that he might work on plans for a hospital. This had been a neglected area in her planning, like the Crime Control System. She was compensating now for her brief infidelity, with new ideas coming thick and fast. Why had she neglected her work lately?

Lon drew back from the suddenly lime walls. They were not minty, she decided, but sour and sharp in the jaws. They had started asking more questions about Sassy and the swimming pool, then, and it seemed that they wanted her to remember details, answering whatever they asked completely and honestly. Which she did, knowing how impressed they must be with her careful explanations.

Mavis was in the room. She hadn't looked up at Lon yet, but she would notice how well Lon answered questions, even the ones that had nothing to do with the matter:
"And after you had parked the car below the Gregg residence, you had Lesbian relations with Mavis Thompson?"
Then Mavis would realize how much simpler it was to get everyone straight on what did happen, because the sooner they did that, the sooner it would be all over. Refusing to tell that other man what her last name was, earlier, had only delayed the whole process. And you see? They knew it, anyway. Even knew Mavis's last name.

Actually, no one was cooperating as well as Lon was. That big guy, the one who told about finding Sassy, interrupted Lon—Mavis—shouting, "That's a damned lie!" And the blonde woman who resembled Sassy, but was much too young to be her mother, stood up every once in a while and cried, "My baby... Why did you kill my baby?" And the man who held his hands over his face most of the time would get the woman to sit down and would pat her shoulders, but all he did when they asked him questions was cry and shake his head.

Lon's mother was even worse. (And no one could tell her that wasn't her mother, because Lon knew that gray dress— had seen it hanging in the closet hundreds of times.) She had to nod her head, agreeing with the woman in gray, because it was perfectly true that Lorraine Harris had a good home. And had never lacked for anything and had been taught right from wrong. But no one in the room seemed to be disagreeing, which made it all a complete. waste of time. Repeating that good Christian home part and all that business about Evie and Judith, as though anyone had said there was something wrong with her sisters! And Lon thought, further,
shut up, shut up and let me get back to work!

Her father was there, too, but it was harder to recognize him, because Lon had never seen him without the double-lensed glasses. And had discovered, surprisingly, that his eyelids were puffy and red. All these years she hadn't known that his eyes were puffy and red! Then it seemed, for a moment, that he might not be her father at all, because of the way he kept shaking his head, as though he might be thinking,
no, no, no;
not like her father at all.

Tired of the disorganization—things outside her mind were not crystallized as they were inside it, not seen clearly—Lon thought of how sensible it had been to plan the Island, long ago, when the woman in the gray dress (Mother: it was important to know who was who) had kept repeating things and annoying Lon. And how pleasant it was now to think about the sunny, sandy beach. Because something else was bothering her. Though it was hard to remember exactly what it was. She had been so busy...

Later, when the session had ended, Lon saw beckoning a plump, unsmiling woman in plain dark blue. That was after the flash bulb blinded Lon's eyes and the big light-haired man who had cried so much leaped at some little yelling guy and tried to smash his camera, for no good reason. And after the woman in the gray dress screamed that she would never be able to hold her head up again and how could a child of hers have done all those filthy things. The woman in blue led Lon to another room. It was a room somewhere at the end of a long corridor, and it might be a room painted purple, with a sweet, grape taste.

Halfway down that hallway
(hushed-voice hallway; why didn't they speak out? Was there some reason to be quiet and afraid?)
Lon hesitated. And the woman in blue slipped a plump arm around Lon's waist. Warm pressure, gentle, reassuring, urging her forward. Still Lon did not move, but glanced to the side, to catch sight of that round, jutting bosom; undivided, like a full, firm pillow. And substantial, so that if you suddenly rested your head there, buried your face there, the other arm would rise to fold you in and press you closer. Nothing would be asked or demanded, everything would be known and understood, not mattering, not mattering for some sweet and secret reason that only you and she could know.
Mother-creature, lover-creature—mother!

And it happened then, bursting inside her, crumbling a great, gray flagstone dam behind which the tears had accumulated, slate and cloudy pink in color. Crumbled the retaining wall, washing over the lies, the lies, the hunger, the deceits and the self-deceptions. And a rush of tears reaching further to swell over the rituals, the chants, the shamefully childish plans, washing them clean and stark, unlike the blood-soaked stone, so that now they were revealed in bright, white light. Unreal, unreal—lies, all of these, lies!

"Come along, now. Come along with me." The arm pressing her forward. Firmly, tenderly.

But, oh, the lies! Crude, laughable lie of the Island—crudest of all the deceits! And that inwardly sneering doctor pretending it was all real, laughing at her, laughing because he knew... he knew it wasn't true. The lie of Mavis and the pretty round breasts—all wrong, wrong, and not what Lon had needed and hungered for. Not that at all. But now, at last, here was someone. Someone who touched her gently, wrapped love around her with a firm, warm arm and was real, as nothing Lon had believed in had ever been real.

And Lon heard her voice and the echo of her voice in the whispering corridor. Crying, "What are they going to do to me?" Then heard through a gruff and indifferent tone the crooning softness that only she, Lon, who shared the secret, could hear. "Let's not worry about that now, dear. It's going to be all right."

"I didn't want to kill anybody. I didn't want..."

"I know, I know. Now come along..."

"You're the only one who cares. I don't have anybody else... oh, please, please..."

The arm tightened, comforting. "It's all right, dear. You cry if you want to, but we can't stand out here in the hall…"

"Oh, please!" And the breast was a cushion against Lon's face, warm-smelling and generous. Loving... loving. "Please!"

"All right, all right...!"

"Don't let them hurt me, Mom! Tell them I didn't want to kill her! Tell them you won't let them hurt me, stay with me, tell them you love me... Will you do that, Mom? Will you tell them?"

There was a silence to be filled with tears. And then the caressing voice, so gentle now that it was no longer a secret; the love between them could be heard by anyone who might listen. "I'll tell them, honey."

The heavy blue fabric was limp and wet now. But it had been meant to hold her tears and there would be times when Lon would press her laughter against that warmth, with the strong arms always there to hold her, protect her from all the others.

Protect her even from the gray-haired man who had made fun of her, lying and pretending that he wanted to run a hospital on an island that never had been and never would be, apologizing that he wasn't really that kind of doctor, but looking into her eyes and nodding, yes, yes, he would work with her on the plans—she would tell him all about her island and they would work on the plans together. Even when he came, she was safe, and when the kindly voice near her ear whispered, "What do you want me to do, Dr. Friedman?" the arms tightened, so she knew the arms would not let her go.

So she circled the beloved softness with her own arms, clinging there, and turning to look at the man through her tears, but confident and joyful now in her defiance. "My mother loves me no matter what I do. She loves me just the way I am. My mom won't let you do anything to me."

And whatever the man had been planning, he at least had sense enough to know that this was true.

"Of course she won't, Lon," he said. He looked at her mother then, to nod slowly, to let them both know he realized this was true.

He was a pretty smart doctor, at that, Lon decided. He could probably do smart things with the kids in this place.

~~~

AFTERWORD

A new revolution was underway at the start of the 1940s in America—a paperback revolution that would change the way publishers would produce and distribute books and how people would purchase and read them.

In 1939 a new publishing company—Pocket Books—stormed onto the scene with the publication of its first paperbound book. These books were cheaply produced and, with a price of twenty-five cents on their light cardboard covers, affordable for the average American.

Prior to the introduction of the mass-market paperback, as it would come to be known, the literary landscape in America was quite different than what it is today. Reading was primarily a leisure-time pursuit of the wealthy and educated. Hardcover books were expensive and hard to find, so purchasing books was a luxury only the rich living in major metropolitan areas could afford. There simply weren’t many bookstores across the country, and only gift shops and stationary stores carried a few popular novels at a time.

The Pocket Books were priced to sell, however, and sell is what they did… in numbers never before seen. Availability also had a great effect on sales, in large part due to a bold and innovative distribution model that made Pocket Books available in drugstores, newsstands, bus and train stations, and cigar shops. The American public could not get enough of them, and before long the publishing industry began to take notice of Pocket Book’s astonishing success.

Traditional publishers, salivating at the opportunity to cash in on the phenomenal success of the new paperback revolution, soon launched their own paperback ventures. Pocket Books was joined by Avon in 1941, Popular Library in 1942, and Dell in 1943. The popular genres reflected the tastes of Americans during World War II—mysteries, thrillers, and “hardboiled detective” stories were all the rage.

Like many of the early paperback publishers, Dell relied on previously published material for its early books, releasing “complete and unabridged” reprints under different titles by established authors. Within a couple of years it was focused exclusively on mysteries, identifiable by the Dell logo on the cover—a small keyhole with an eye looking through it. Many of the Dell mysteries also featured a colored map on the back cover representing the various locations pertaining to the story’s crime. These “mapback” editions became extremely popular and by 1945, Dell was publishing four new books a month.

The new paperback industry was faced with some difficult challenges during World War II. In particular, the War Board’s Paper Limitation order placed serious restrictions and rations on the use of paper. Publishers began to worry whether they would have enough paper to satisfy both the civilian and military appetite for paperbacks. Manpower shortages and transportation difficulties were also proving to be difficult challenges. In response, some publishers—Pocket Books, for instance—reduced their publication schedules and reset their books in smaller type thereby reducing the number of pages per book. Others simply rejected longer books in favor of shorter ones.