6:02
A Novel by
Mark A. Clements
Smashwords Edition
Copyright 1988 by Mark A. Clements
Ebook cover art by Mark A. Clements
Originally published in hardcover by Donald I. Fine, Inc.
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, organizations or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of the author.
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To Peggy and Wayne Smith for your unwavering support.
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Foreword
Welcome to the time machine.
When I resolved to release an ebook edition of this, my first published novel, I pondered editing and/or updating it. Although editing one’s early work is certainly tempting—I think it’s fair to say I’ve learned a lot about writing since then—doing so seemed unfair. This book was published in 1988, and this is how I wrote in 1988. So be it.
As for “updating”: impossible. 6:02 is largely about the fear of change, but at the time I had no idea how soon or how much change itself was about to change. For example, I wrote the first draft on an electric typewriter, and the last draft a year later on a Computerland PC with a 40 MB hard drive. Amazing—but cell phones were still over the horizon, as were HD TVs, iPods, GPS, Wikipedia—and for that matter, ebooks. The Internet existed as only an esoteric utility for military masterminds and academic researchers. And I might add that the very last typewriter manufactured on earth left a factory in India the day before I wrote this.
The point is, 6:02 is so deeply rooted in the technology of its day, I’d have to change it utterly if I wanted to “update” it for a modern audience.
But I don’t want to, or need to. Because, you see, the technology of 1988 is not the point of this book, any more than harnessing the power of electricity is the point of Frankenstein. Technological change might be accelerating, but the human heart beats to a separate, slower rhythm. Deeper, more entrenched, evolved over millions of years.
The test pattern on a TV screen, telephones anchored to wall cords—those things might seem quaint now. But the way your heart accelerates when the lights go out…that is never quaint.
Listen to your heart.
It goes:
Tick tick tick.
Mark A. Clements
May 2011
Prologue
November
He had felt restless all day. Now he sat in the kitchen, a cup of hot tea before him, looking down beyond the expensive houses clinging to the hill to the mottled expanse of the Pacific Ocean. The sun had just gone down behind low gray clouds, and the restlessness grew.
All day long, he had had the feeling that she was very near.
A girl clad only in a strip of transparent panty appeared in the doorway behind him. Looked at him with dull resentment. “You’ve been a real winner all day,” she said. “I’m taking a Valium and going to bed. I’ll be watching TV if you’re interested.”
He said nothing, did not so much as nod. The girl disappeared.
Sitting there with his cup of tea, he waited for another girl to step through that door. A younger girl, with pretty red hair. He knew it was impossible, of course; still, why take a chance? All day long, he had expected to walk from one room to the next and find her standing there.
Waiting.
Shadows thickened around him, but he didn’t turn on any lights. Soon he couldn’t even see the dozens of framed portraits covering every surface in the room. It didn’t matter; perhaps the darkness would help. His anticipation was like a second heart, throbbing louder every second. It was almost six o’clock. Of course, that was only Pacific Standard Time. In other zones, it was another time entirely. Still, he felt himself tensing, because deep in his heart there was only one time zone, and in that zone it was always the same hour and the same minute. It was always 6:02 P.M.
Just below him, the swimming pool light came on automatically, flinging sinuous ripples across the ceiling of the room. He stared into the luminous water, mesmerized. For a moment he thought he saw a small white body floating beneath the surface, red hair spread out in a fan. When he blinked and stood up it was gone, but he knew, suddenly, that it had been a sign.
Breathing hard, he looked at the clock. Now it read exactly 6:02. And he realized that there must be places in the universe where there were no time zones at all, and the hour never changed.
6:02.
The phone jangled beside him, or seemed to. He stared at it, trembling, and then he put the receiver to his ear. He listened. “I knew it was you,” he whispered. “I knew it.”
And she told him what to do.
Chapter One
1
It was that sound again, coming softly through the darkness.
plink...plink...plink...Faint, metallic, as insistent as a clock ticking.
Isabelle sat up in bed and looked hesitantly across the room to the door. It was open a crack. All around it swarmed the shadows of pine tree boughs, frantic, strangely silent. There was only one sound:
plink...plink...plink...
Slowly, she pulled the sheets aside and swung her legs over the edge of the mattress. The sound meant something. Something urgent. What was it? She couldn’t remember, and that frightened her. It was important. It had to do with...
“Annette?” she cried. The word died in the shadows.
plink...plink...plink...
She slid slowly onto her bare feet. She had to do something about the sound. The sound was her fault.
As she walked across the room, legs quivering, the tree-limb shadows played over her back and shoulders like delicate fingers.
She opened the door. Beyond was a hallway, a glimmer of light creeping up from the stairwell at the far end. Along the hall were three doors, two closed and one open. The sound came from the open doorway. Louder now.
Plink...Plink...Plink...
She moved slowly into the hallway. She noticed that she wasn’t wearing her nightgown. There was a towel wrapped around her torso, and her hair hung in sodden strings. The carpet was damp under her bare feet. Ahead of her the sound grew louder and harsher with every step. Like her own heartbeat.
Plink...Plink...Plink...
At the open doorway she stopped. The room beyond was lightless. Smells rode out to her on a pulse of warm, wet air: soap, shampoo, toilet bowl freshener. And under that, something else. Something putrid that brought saliva rushing into her mouth.
“Annette?” she whispered. The darkness swallowed her voice.
To her surprise, her feet took two short steps into the room and stopped. She stood there, shivering. She was forty-two years old; too old to be afraid of the dark. And yet she was afraid. Because the dark contained the smell, and the PLINK...PLINK...PLINK...and because Annette would not answer her.
Suddenly she realized that she could see the bathtub before her. It was full of dark water; steam rose from it, giving the air shape and texture. Out of the water curled an electrical cable, which went on to sprawl around the floor in serpentine coils and loops before ending at an electrical outlet on the wall.
From the faucet, droplets fell like dim meteorites: PLINK...PLINK...PLINK…spreading ripples across the surface of the water.
Staring into the tub, she whispered, “I warned you, Annette. I warned you not to.”
PLINK...PLINK...PLINK...
She took a step toward the tub, her foot squishing into the nap of a soaking-wet rug. “I warned you not to. Didn’t I? Didn’t I warn you?”
Another step and suddenly a loop of cable turned under her foot. She slipped, falling clumsily against the edge of the tub.
She and her reflection, a black cutout, nearly met before she pushed herself back onto her knees. The sickly stench of the water made her stomach churn. In front of her, the ripples spread like visible heartbeats: PLINK! PLINK! PLINK! in her ear.
Suddenly she plunged her arms into the hot, fetid water, felt around desperately. “I warned you!” she cried. “Didn’t I? I warned...”
But there was nothing there, just water, and it felt deep, deep. There was no bottom. She staggered to her feet again, the towel she was wearing soaked through, and stood trembling.
Then she turned around.
“Happy Birthday!” cried a shrill, gleeful voice, and the small shape reared up from nowhere, red hair flinging water, small hands reaching out and grabbing, pushing. The tub against the backs of Isabelle’s legs, then over and falling and suddenly the water, deep dark water choking off her scream, sliding into her throat and lungs, pulling her down...
And from somewhere, a giggle...
2
Isabelle sat up with a jerk, gasping frantically for air. The bedroom was dark. The pine tree outside, silhouetted by a streetlight, made a sinister shadow-show on the walls. Rain pattered against the roof and windowsills.
Dream. It had been the dream.
She collapsed back onto the pillow, breathing harshly, her heart fluttering like a bird in a cage.
The rain had triggered it, of course. The sound of dripping water. Nothing to worry about.
She hadn’t had the dream in almost a year.
But she’d had it tonight, hadn’t she? What if she was relapsing? Regressing, that’s probably what Brenda would call it. Regressing.
Gradually, her breathing slowed. She watched the pine tree shadows weaving across the ceiling. Outside, the rain dripped through the tree’s thick November boughs, making a sound. It wasn’t much like water falling into a bathtub, though. Not really.
Regressing. That was a word to mull over in a dark, solitary bedroom at night. Regressing. Going backward. She clutched at the sheets. She didn’t want to go back.
Suddenly the telephone rang. Startled, she blinked to clear her eyes, then looked at the clock. The bright red digital numbers read 3:01 A.M. Who would call her at this hour? She fumbled over objects on the nightstand, found the telephone, brought the receiver to her ear. “Hello?”
There was no answer. Static. Then a voice—no, several voices, far away and speaking so faintly that she couldn’t understand them over the beating of the rain.
“Hello?” she repeated. No answer. The voices went on, oblivious. She didn’t think they could hear her. She listened for a moment longer, then hung up.
Wind and rain brushed the house. The shadows rushed back and forth in bewildering patterns, until it seemed that the walls themselves were squirming. She closed her eyes, but did not try to fall asleep. What if she had the dream again? Just like in the old days. The same dream, over and over, sometimes six or seven times a night.
She felt tears crawling down her cheeks. Please, not that. Please don’t let it start all over again.
3
When she awoke, the rain was falling harder and the room was lighter. The pine tree no longer cast its shadow on the walls. She looked at the clock. Almost nine o’clock. She hadn’t had the dream again. A relief.
She lay in bed awhile, listening to the rain. Today was Saturday. No work, no need to get up, no need to do anything except watch TV or read a book. She felt good, and then her spirits fell. That was too much like her lifestyle of a year and more ago. She threw back the sheets.
The telephone rang. Suddenly she remembered the strange, open-ended call she had gotten last night. Or had that been a dream, too?
She cleared her throat and lifted the receiver. “Hello?”
“Hi, neighbor,” cried a familiar voice. “Hope I didn’t wake you.”
“Oh, hi, Brenda,” Isabelle said, pleased. “No, I was up.”
“Good. I was just sitting here having coffee and looking out the window. I’ll be glad when this crap turns into snow, won’t you?”
Isabelle looked out at the dripping pine tree. “It doesn’t usually snow until after…” she began, then thought of the dream again. “...until after...Christmas.”
“Iz?” Brenda’s voice was not distant at all. “You okay?”
Isabelle shook her head, then swung out of bed and pushed her feet into her slippers. Awkwardly, shifting the phone back and forth, she pulled on her quilted robe. The room was cold. “I’m fine,” she said.
“You sure?” Brenda’s voice turned sharp. “Isabelle, you haven’t heard from him, have you? He hasn’t sent you any more of those horrible cards, has he?”
“No,” Isabelle said tightly, “not yet.” Like snowfall, it was still too early, but they would start coming soon enough. Not Christmas cards-birthday cards. They were Richard’s sick holiday custom, which he had begun the winter he left her, five years ago. Traditionally, they arrived at the rate of one per week from mid-November until December twenty-first, and they were addressed to Annette Collins. Inside, the handwritten messages said things like: “Happy Birthday to my darling Annette—wherever you are.” Or, “Happy Birthday, Sweetheart—wish you were here.” Or, “I’m sorry there will be no happy returns, Angel.”
The horrible truth was that up until last year, Isabelle had not only opened the cards when they arrived, she had kept them to read again and again. Her tears of shame had stained them. But then, last November, the first card of the season had arrived—and it was addressed to Isabelle herself. And inside the card, in Richard’s handwriting, was the message: “Dear Mother, Thank you for the present you gave me on my last birthday. No one but you would have given me that. Sorry I can’t return the favor.” He had signed it, Annette.
Isabelle had sat for a while, trembling, the card on the table in front of her. Suddenly she had leaped to her feet, run upstairs to the bedroom, and pulled the bundle of cards from prior years out of the dresser. Then she’d rushed around the house, gathering up every photograph of Richard that was still there. She’d collected all the old receipts and warranties, everything that had his name on it. Finally she’d gone outside, thrown the entire pile into a metal garbage can, and tossed in a match. The flames had stabbed at the November sky, and she had stood there smiling blankly, with tears running down her face.
After that, everything had begun to change. Brenda’s constant psychological banter, unprofessional but enthusiastic, had begun to make sense. Even the dreams had stopped.
Had...
“If he sends any cards this year,” Isabelle muttered thickly, “I’ll report him to the police.”
“That’s my girl. Don’t take any more of his crap.”
“I won’t.”
Brenda switched tones again, becoming light. “Listen, Isabelle, why I called. This is usually Joe’s and my symphony night, you know? Our weekly escape from the rug rats. Well, tonight Joe made a promise to play poker or something instead, and so here I am with a spare ticket. How would you like to go with me?”
Isabelle looked down at her slippers. God, the symphony.... Memories welled up at her, thick with emotion, things that had happened long before the dream. “I’d love to go,” she said.
“That’s my girl. Who knows, maybe you’ll meet some new people, make new friends—”
“Brenda...” Isabelle broke in, suddenly alerted. “Brenda, you aren’t going to try to fix me up with someone, are you? You wouldn’t—”
“Izzy! I’m not the sort to interfere with a person’s life. Have I ever interfered with your life?”
Isabelle sighed.
“Okay, then. It’ll be just you and me. Tonight all my little monsters can stay home alone—it’ll give them a chance to smoke pot and blast the paint off the walls with their disgusting music.” Brenda’s voice was full of affection. She had four children ranging through their teens, all successful “biological experiments.” as she cheerfully called them. “Anyway, come on over at about seven. We can have a cup of coffee before we leave.”
“I’ll be there,” Isabelle said, feeling a pleasant tremor of excitement mingled with a touch of nervousness.
“Good girl. See you then.”
Brenda hung up. Isabelle started to lower the receiver, then lifted it again and pressed it tight to her ear, wondering if she might be able to hear the chatter of other voices somewhere down the line. There was nothing.
For some reason, in that cold drumming silence, she felt lonely.
4
In the afternoon, she stood at the stove stirring a pan of cream of mushroom soup. From the living room came the low, sedate voice of a PBS commentator describing the sex lives of grunion. Isabelle realized that she seemed to keep the television switched on constantly when she was disturbed about something; its light and volume overwhelmed thoughts she didn’t want to face. Was that healthy? She remembered a time when she was much worse, when she’d worked all-night shifts so that she wouldn’t miss a single afternoon soap opera. Still, was a small crutch any better than a big one?
She glanced at the clock. Twelve-thirty. She always had lunch at twelve-thirty on her days off, she realized, and she always ate cream of mushroom soup. It was as predictable as her television-watching habits. God, she was glad she was going to the symphony with Brenda tonight.
Pouring her soup into a bowl, she started back to the living room. As she passed through the dining area, the BBC commentator’s voice cut off and was replaced by a steady whining tone. Puzzled, she walked into the living room and looked at the TV.
On the screen was a test pattern. Not one of the new spectrum affairs that had appeared with color television, but the old-fashioned, black-and-white kind, shaped like a target surrounded by cryptic symbols and letters. She hadn’t seen such a test pattern in years; not since the days when most television stations signed off at midnight.
That whine was maddening. Sitting down, she picked up the remote control and switched channels. The test pattern and tone disappeared. The other stations worked; they were all showing cartoons of one kind or another. When she got back to PBS, the test pattern was gone.
Fine. She began spooning up her soup, and learned all about grunion.
5
After she ate, she took her dishes into the kitchen and promptly washed them. Dirty dishes never cluttered her kitchen for more than ten minutes; her furniture was whisked clean almost before dust could settle, the carpets were all like well-tended lawns. She spent most of her time in this house. It absorbed the majority of her income and all of the proceeds from her parents’ insurance benefits, and she was determined to keep it nice. Brenda, of course, insisted that she only kept the place because it was safe and familiar.
Isabelle went into the living room and stood in the rainy quiet. Here, despite Brenda’s claims, some things had changed. Once this room had practically been a photographic gallery, every wall and horizontal surface covered with framed portraits. All of them showed the same little girl with long red hair, the darkest of eyes, a bright and intelligent smile.
When he left her five years ago, Richard took the entire gallery with him, down to the last wallet-sized snapshot. Other photographs were disdainfully left behind, and now two of these sat on the desk in the living room. One was Janet’s high-school senior picture, now five years out of date. Janet wasn’t smiling. Next to that was a portrait of Isabelle’s parents, taken in their home in New Jersey shortly before Isabelle had left for Indiana University. Isabelle looked wistfully from one photograph to the other. This was the closest Janet and her grandparents would ever get. Janet had been conceived out of wedlock, and that had been enough to make Mama and Papa turn their backs. We warned you about going to school so far from home, didn’t we, Isabelle? Well, you’ve made your bed, so lie in it!
Suddenly she felt close to tears, and shook her head angrily. Stalking to the coat closet, she pulled out the self-propelled Kirby and began to follow it around the room. It hadn’t been self-propelled when they first bought it, but like everything else they had, Richard had felt compelled to modify it, to make it better.
Upstairs, she vacuumed the master bedroom, then turned and looked down the length of the hallway. Suddenly she was reminded of her dream. There were the three doors; the one to the bathroom on the right, and on the left the two small bedrooms. The bedroom doors were both closed. She looked at the nearer one. Annette’s room, which Richard had insisted on calling the nursery even after Annette entered the first grade. It was one room Isabelle seldom cleaned or even entered.
Now, thinking of the dream, she stood in the hall staring at the door and toying nervously with the handle of the vacuum cleaner.
Then she leaned forward and pushed open the door. Cartoon characters danced cheerfully across the wallpaper: Scooby-Doo, Huckleberry Hound, Yogi Bear, Boo-Boo. Dust bunnies bustled over the barren floor where once had stood a toy box, a bed, a fine oak dresser, all of which Richard had built in his shop in the basement. The room streamed with raindrop shadows.
Isabelle stood in the doorway, clutching the Kirby like an anchor. She didn’t know what she had expected to see. A vague feeling of unease rolled through her, but that was all. She gradually relaxed her grip on the Kirby. Maybe the dream hadn’t been a sign of regression, after all.
She closed the door softly.
The last room along the hall used to Janet’s. Janet had moved out four years ago at the age of nineteen, but Isabelle still vacuumed here as carefully as if she expected Janet to move back in—not that she wanted her to.
I’m sorry, Janet, she sighed in her mind. It’s not your fault that you were born. I know that, and I tried not to resent you. Can’t you see I tried?
Still, it was no wonder that Janet preferred her father, even though she hadn’t seen him in five years, and even though he had all but ignored her during Annette’s years as reigning queen.
Isabelle shut off the vacuum cleaner and shook her head angrily. She was doing it again, filling the air with memories. If she kept this up, she’d be a wreck before she got to the symphony tonight.
Taking the vacuum cleaner back downstairs and stowing it in the closet, she went into the kitchen and began cleaning the oven. Thanksgiving was coming soon. Everything should be perfect, because Thanksgiving dinner was one of the few traditions she and Janet still shared.
It was almost five o’clock before she glanced at the clock again, and a tingle of energy shot through her. It was time to get ready for the symphony.
6
Wrapped in her robe, she walked barefoot into the bathroom. It was like entering an undersea grotto. The tiles were blue and green, the fixtures glinting chrome and porcelain. Over the twin sinks hung a large mirror, well lit with indirect fluorescent lights. She stood in front of it, then slowly lowered the robe.
She was forty-two years old. Did she look it? Brenda assured her she did not. Her face was smooth, with clear olive skin, a map from which all roads had faded. Her hair gave the impression of youth, too: long and black, shot with only one or two strands of silver. A straight classical nose and full lips. Her jaw was squarish, softened by a gentle chin, and her neck was firm.
Her body, though, was beginning to show the footprints of time. She was a tall woman, her southern Italian heritage evident in broad shoulders and hips, a tendency toward weight. She really should start an exercise program; she still had a good figure, but it could be firmer. Of course, there was nothing she could do about her breasts, which were large and beginning to sag. And the erosion-marks of childbirth were engraved on them, faint but visible, aiming inevitably at her belly.
Her belly, normal-looking, hiding its genetic legacy within.
Mama’s uterus had also been weak, her pelvis constricted. Mama had had three miscarriages before Isabelle was born.
But never forget, Isabelle: Childbirth is a woman’s God-given duty...
Janet had been born in red agony that ended in transfusions and a caesarian. Never again, Isabelle had sobbed to Richard. Hugging their child, he had not replied.
And she’d almost gotten away with it.
She lies on the couch in the living room, weeping and shivering helplessly, scarlet towels bundled between her legs. The ambulance is on its way, but she feels the blood flow increasing in waves and doesn’t think she will make it. She is thirty now, and she never expected to have to go through this again. She’d taken precautions. Without Richard’s knowledge she’d taken precautions, and how can this possibly be happening?
A tearing pain jolts her half off the couch, and she screams. Blood spurts. Black dots swarm before her eyes. She reaches out for Richard. He has been good to her for the past nine months. Not like with Janet, when he’d accused her of making everything seem worse than it was, but staying at her side every moment, understanding, comforting. Even though she has been helpless from the first month, lying in a hot shivering sweat, convinced that the fetus inside her was tearing its way out.
But now, when she needs him most, Richard does not take her out-flung hand. Although his face is composed, there is a harsh glint in his eye. He says, “Isabelle, look what I found.” He tosses something onto her stomach. She goes cold, so cold that even the vicious scrabbling in her womb seems to pause. It is a package of birth-control pills. She looks back at Richard. “R-Richard…I…”
“1 found those last December, Isabelle. After ten years of thinking you were infertile. Well, you had a secret, so 1 decided to have a secret, too. I made an arrangement with my own doctor. You were taking placebos for about four months before we got lucky.” He looks up at the distant warble of a siren. “You’ll thank me in a few hours, I’m sure,” he says, and smiles a terrible, cold smile. “Mom.”
She looked quickly away from her belly, shutting off the image. Guilt. She had felt guilt, not anger, not betrayal. Guilt for the previous ten years. Guilt enough to last forever.
Resolutely she turned away from the mirror, wrapped a towel around her hair, and stepped into the shower. She used to take baths, but for almost six years now, the thought of lying on her back in still, warm water with steam rising all around had been too much to....
Stop it.
After washing her hair, she climbed out of the shower and wiped off the mirror. From a drawer came her old-fashioned curlers with their wire inserts and profusion of silver clips. At one time she had simply used a blow dryer and curling iron on her hair, but the blow dryer was now a denizen of the same past as long baths.
When the curlers were all in place, she began applying her makeup. It had been a long time since she’d bothered, and she took her time. When she was done and stood back from the mirror, she was surprised at the result. She tried on a smile. Even better.
Going to the bedroom, she slipped on a simple black dress that she had bought at Brenda’s recommendation. A gold chain snaked around her neck, the pendant brushing her breasts. After she tugged the curlers from her hair and brushed it, it hung in overlapping raven’s wings to her shoulders.
She glanced at her watch: 6:11. Outside it was fully dark, the wind flinging rain against the windows.
She was ready.
Chapter Two
1
In the foyer, she pulled on her tan trenchcoat and dug around in the closet for an umbrella. Suddenly the telephone rang, and she ran to the extension by the couch, snatching it up before the third ring. She was afraid it was Brenda calling to cancel.
“Hello?”
No answer. But odd sounds rose from the phone, the musical beeping and twittering of a computer singing to itself, harsh hissing. She listened harder.
There they were. Much dimmer now, almost lost under the other noise: the chattery voices.
Suddenly she recognized the background sound; it was the same sort of long-distance interference that had always colored her calls to her parents in New Jersey when she was in school. And after, too, when she’d spent so much time trying to convince them to come to Indiana to visit their grandchildren. But her parents were both dead, killed in a fire the day of Annette’s sixth birthday. Who would call her long distance now?
“Hello?” she said loudly.
Very faintly, rising above the distant voices, a thin wail came down the line. She blinked. Was that crying? A baby crying? She crunched the receiver painfully against her ear to cut out the slightest outside interference and listened, listened. The wailing faded away completely and then returned, like a siren carried over the miles on a freak gust of wind. It grew louder...
She hung up. Amazing, how a heavy rain could mess up telephone service. Amazing.
By the time she stepped out into the night, she had almost forgotten about it.
On the front porch, she cringed against the harsh wetness of the air. Her umbrella opened with a musty puff, and for a moment she stood shivering beneath its cover.
Fir Street was quiet in the rain. All along the street, mercury-vapor lamps cast their cadaverous sheen on the houses and well-tended lawns. Cars huddled in driveways, water chuckled in the gutters, bright windows shone through the mist. Isabelle’s house, number 17, showed only the porch light.
In the front yard the pine tree reared up, rustling comfortably. It liked this kind of weather. At one time there had been an identical version of it on every lawn on the street (“These are white pines, so naturally they name the street Fir,” Richard had sneered), but as the neighborhood aged and developed, residents had cut theirs down one by one in favor of more traditional maple and tulip trees. Now number 17 had the only pine tree left on the street.
Turning away from the dark sighing bulk, Isabelle stepped gingerly down the porch steps and splashed across the driveway. When she pressed the doorbell at number 15 she heard the sound of thundering herds, and the door burst open. Hot air gushed out in a wave: drafts and the possibility of illness were forbidden in the Lacey home. Standing in the doorway was a brown-haired girl of thirteen, looking triumphantly over her shoulder at a somewhat older girl who had braces on her teeth.
“Beat ya!” cried the younger of the two. Then she turned back to Isabelle. “Izzy!” she yelled, as if it were the biggest surprise in the world. “Come on in!”
As Isabelle stepped around her, the older girl peered hopefully out into the darkness.
“He isn’t here yet, Diana, you stupid,” yelled the younger girl. “He’s never on time, never. Can’t you take a hint? Why don’t you just give up?”
“Shut your face, Arien,” the older girl said without rancor. Then she sighed. “Hi, Isabelle. Let me take your coat.”
“Hi, Diana.” Isabelle snapped the umbrella closed and shrugged out of her coat. “Waiting for a new boyfriend?”
“He’s an old boyfriend,” piped Arien, dancing from foot to foot. “Two whole weeks, right Diana?”
Diana shot her a coolly dangerous look as she hung Isabelle’s coat in the closet. “Just wait until you start dating, pizza-face,” she crooned. “You’ll get yours then.”
“Mom!” Arien shrieked. “Did you hear that, Mom?”
“Cut it out, girls!” came Brenda’s voice from upstairs. “Is Isabelle here yet?”
Little Arien, just starting to bud into adulthood, made a fearsome face at her older sister, who had already budded. Still, the family resemblance between them was undeniable: both with nondescript brown hair, both short and somewhat bony with brown eyes and sharp noses, both quick as whips.
“Mom’s upstairs, Isabelle,” Diana said, pointlessly. “She’s not quite ready yet.”
“Just like your boyfriend, right, Princess Diana?” cried Arien. Diana feigned a punch at her, and she fled shrieking in mock terror. Diana smiled after her affectionately, then switched this into an expression of disgust when she realized that Isabelle was watching. “I’m glad I was never that young,” she said, and went into the kitchen.
As Isabelle climbed the stairs, she found herself remembering Janet at age thirteen. Budding bust flattened with an Ace bandage, wearing clothes she’d outgrown years before, her hair pulled into long, childish braids. Of course, that had been during Annette’s heyday. Later, after Richard left and took Janet’s heart with him, she had suddenly swung over to torn jeans and flannel shirts, cigarettes hidden in her dresser, friends who horrified Isabelle.
“I’m back here,” Brenda called from her bedroom.
Like her daughters, Brenda Lacey was small and brown. She had bright walnut eyes and the crooked teeth with which she had cursed her daughters. Standing before a full-length mirror in her slip, she was sleek and slender. Her dust-colored hair had been twisted into a knot atop her head, from which strands were already escaping. Poking at them, she sighed, “Damn it, so much for glamor.” She caught Isabelle’s reflection in the mirror, and her eyes moved up and down. “Izzy! My God, you look fabulous!”
Isabelle found herself blushing. “Thanks,” she said. “I’m glad you asked me along tonight, Brenda.”
“I’m glad too. It beats sitting next to someone who will be snoring before the second movement, if you know who I mean.”
“Joe had a card game tonight?”
Brenda snorted, and her eyes went back to her own reflection. “Yeah. It’s some sort of retirement party for one of the engineers at Allison.” Finally she threw down a bobby pin and sighed. “Well, that’s it. I can’t do anything more with my hair. And we’re behind schedule already.” She snatched at a clingy burgundy dress which was draped across the bed and slithered it over her head, springing more brown snakes from her coiffure.
“You look wonderful,” Isabelle said.
“Thanks.” Brenda turned on her smile, which made a plain face crookedly gorgeous. Plopping onto the bed, she began tugging on high-heeled, open-toed shoes. “There won’t be time for coffee before we leave, is that all right with you?”
“Of course.” Isabelle had expected no more. Brenda was always late.
Springing to her feet, Brenda cried, “Well, let’s get down there and have us a hell of a time!”
As they were taking their coats from the closet, a man walked out of the kitchen balancing a plate of crackers and a can of cola in his hands. There was a plastic-wrapped slab of ham in his mouth, over which his blue eyes blinked in startlement.
A beat passed.
“Joe!” Brenda gasped. “What are you still doing here?”
Dropping the ham carefully onto the plate, Joe cleared his throat and said, “The party got postponed. But I didn’t want to upset your plans on such late notice...You should be gone by now,” he added.
“I know. I was late.” Brenda turned her big smile on Isabelle. “Doesn’t Isabelle look great?”
He nodded gravely. “Hi, Isabelle. You’re a knockout. How do you stay looking so young?”
Isabelle smiled and lowered her head.
“Proper diet, for one thing,” Brenda said balefully. “Well, you go ahead and pollute your body with that junk and destroy your mind with televised trashola. Isabelle and I are going to see to it that we come home better people than we were when we left.”
“Amen,” Joe said solemnly, then winked at Isabelle and went down the hall.
Brenda chuckled and glanced out the window. “I don’t think we’ll need your umbrella now, Isabelle. The rain is letting up.” She grinned. “It’s going to be a perfect night.”
2
Brenda’s Audi cruised through Lawrence at a sedate speed, splashing through the puddles. And then, as it climbed the ramp onto 1-70, Brenda calmly put her foot down. In a moment they were flying along at her favorite freeway speed of eighty-five, and Isabelle was crimping the rubber of the armrest with her fingers.
“What’s the symphony performing tonight?” she asked, trying to distract herself. She could almost feel the tires hydroplaning on the slick pavement, breaking free, sliding...
Brenda took both hands off the wheel to gesture exuberantly. “Oh, first there’s the overture to The Barber of Seville, one of my very favorites. Then there’s Andre Watts, the pianist, with Beethoven’s Emperor Concerto. He’s just fabulous...Andre Watts, I mean. At the end of the evening, there’s Bartok. You’ll love it.” She put her hands back on the wheel, and Isabelle breathed easier. She also decided to keep her questions to herself.
“I’m really glad you decided to come along tonight,” Brenda said after a moment, her voice suddenly serious.
“So am I,” Isabelle whispered.
“I was afraid you might be getting down in the dumps again. You know, because of the time of year.”
Isabelle licked her lips, wishing that Brenda would keep her attention on the road. It was dangerous here; she could feel the tires hydroplaning again.
“There’s a term for annual depression, even,” Brenda went on. “‘Anniversary Reaction.’ For you, it usually starts about now and peaks on the twenty-first of December.” A pause. “That’s only a few weeks away.”
Isabelle did not respond.
Brenda looked at her. “You’ve done so well in the last year, I’d hate to see you start regressing now.”
Isabelle twitched.
“Listen,” Brenda went on, “nobody expects you to forget Annette’s accident, or even to feel all right about it—but you have to accept it.” She paused. “No more putting up a Christmas stocking for Annette, right?”
Isabelle closed her eyes and nodded. Her fingernails plucked unconsciously at the Audi’s nappy upholstery. “No more.”
“Good girl; that’s what I want to hear. Don’t let Richard’s guilt trips walk all over you just because he walked all over you.”
Isabelle remembered how Richard had followed her around during the course of her pregnancy with Annette. He hadn’t trusted her with the child in her belly.
“Isabelle?” Brenda was looking at her with gimlet eyes, apparently unconcerned that the car was negotiating a slippery off-ramp into town. “You know, you’ve still never said it.”
“Said what?”
“That Annette’s accident was not your fault. You’ve never actually said it.”
Isabelle stared at her.
“Do you think you can?”
“Brenda, come on.”
“It’s important, Isabelle.”
“Annette’s accident was not my fault.”
“Good girl!” Brenda swung the Audi enthusiastically onto Meridian Street, fishtailing slightly, and headed toward the lights downtown. “That’s a sign of real progress, Isabelle. I’m proud of you.”
Isabelle laced her fingers together. “It’s been almost six years.”
Brenda touched her arm softly. “I know,” she said. “And that’s too long to go on mourning for her.”
Isabelle bit her lip.
3
The Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra had recently moved into its new recital hall, a one-time vaudeville palace turned movie theater turned derelict turned historical monument. Like much of the inner city, the Circle Theatre had been converted and renovated in recent years. As Isabelle and Brenda squeezed toward their seats in the front row of the balcony, Isabelle looked out over the auditorium with its elegant pastel colors, mirrored boxes, hundreds of people in fine clothing. On stage, most of the performers were already seated beneath the decorative arch, generating the familiar non-music of tuning their instruments. Isabelle sank into her seat and listened to them, aware that her heart was beating in a way she thought it had forgotten. She smiled.
Suddenly she realized that someone was hovering over her, a dark shadow. Automatically she pulled in her legs to let the person past, but the shadow did not move. She looked up.
A young man was standing there, smiling, neatly dressed in a dark blue suit and striped tie. He had unruly caramel-colored hair and a darker, reddish mustache. “Hi,” he said.
“Hi,” Isabelle replied with a smile, her legs still tucked back.
The bright eyes held hers for a moment longer, then turned toward Brenda, who was trilling on about the acoustics of the auditorium. “Well, hi there,” he said. “Remember me?”
Brenda glanced up, and grinned her bent-toothed grin. “Ken! How nice to see you! I didn’t know you liked classical music.”
The young man dropped into the vacant seat at Isabelle’s left. She caught a whiff of cologne as he leaned across her to talk to Brenda. “Well,” he said, “I don’t get a chance to hear it much, at least not live.”
“You ought to—oh, I’m sorry, I’ve got terrible manners. Ken, this is Isabelle Collins, my next-door neighbor and best friend in the whole world. She’s sitting in for my husband tonight. Isabelle, Ken Sessions. He’s in my psych class at school.”
Dimples bracketing his smile, the young man held out his hand. As Isabelle shook it, she noticed that her first assessment of his age had been wrong. Up close, she could see lines at the corners of his eyes that had undoubtedly not been there when he was in his twenties. He was perhaps thirty-five at most, though.
“Very pleased to meet you,” he said, looking into her eyes. She smiled, but couldn’t match his gaze for long. He leaned across her again and said, “I’m going to enjoy this evening, Brenda. You’re right, I should come here more often.”
As Brenda began to reply, the lights dimmed and the crowd noise died out.
The concertmaster strolled onstage, swinging his violin, and bowed. Everyone applauded.
The conductor came out and bowed. Everyone applauded.
From the comer of her eye Isabelle could see Ken Sessions’s hands clapping together. They were broad and strong. The fingers were bare of rings.
4
At the intermission, Isabelle stood at the inner landing looking down into the lobby, the brilliant performance of Beethoven’s Emperor Concerto by Andre Watts still thundering in her head. Below, the crowd swirled and glittered.
Brenda walked up and leaned on the rail next to her. “Well, what do you think so far?” she asked.
Isabelle turned toward the soft-drink concession, where Ken stood patiently in line. “About the music, or about Ken?” she asked.
Brenda blinked. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“You invited him here, didn’t you?”
“Whatever gave you that idea?”
“Brenda Lacey, it wouldn’t be the first time you arranged a ‘coincidence’ like this.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Brenda said firmly, and pointed into the milling crowd. “See that man in the brown corduroy suit right there? That’s the professor of my psych class. Do you think I invited him, too?”
Before Isabelle could reply, Ken Sessions appeared behind her, precariously balancing three cups of soda. “Grab ‘em quick,” he said. “And don’t drop them. I had to take out a loan to afford these turkeys.”
Isabelle accepted her drink and sipped it, leaning back against the rail and watching her companions over the rim of the cup. Ken stood in an easy slouch, and from the relaxed way he and Brenda talked together she was certain they knew more about one another than their names. Of course, Brenda had probably ferreted out the nature of every problem suffered by every student in the psych class by now. Isabelle noticed that Ken was wearing broken-down, casual loafers that were completely out of place with his natty suit, and she relaxed a little. Brenda had fixed her up with a few social cripples since last December, but none of them had been so young or breezy. She looked at Ken’s face again, the width of his shoulders and the trim curve of his hip, and sighed. Too bad she wasn’t ten years younger.
Suddenly he turned to her. “Isabelle,” he said, “may I ask you a question?”
“Sure.”
He hesitated, glanced at Brenda, then smiled weakly. “Would you mind coming over here first?”
Isabelle looked around, confused.
The young man’s face was turning red. “I’m afraid of heights,” he murmured, staring at his feet.
“Oh.” Isabelle moved away from the guardrail and approached him.
Brenda said, “Isn’t that something, Isabelle, a pilot being afraid of heights?”
“You’re a pilot?” Isabelle asked, surprised.
He smiled sheepishly. “Well, yeah. But as it so happens, a lot of pilots are afraid of heights. Maybe even most of them.”
“Isn’t that something?” piped Brenda.
Ken was still staring down. He reached into his coat pocket, took out a sunflower seed, and cracked it between his teeth.
“Do you fly for a living?” Isabelle asked.
“Oh, no, for a hobby.”
“He built his own plane,” cried Brenda. “He was just telling me about it,” she added hastily.
“Really, Isabelle, that’s what I wanted to ask you about.” said Ken. “Have you ever flown before?”
“Once, a long time ago. When I first came out here to go to school.”
“Really? Where are you from?”
She hesitated. “New Jersey, originally. I came here to go to Indiana University. A long time ago.”
“No kidding? Why IU?”
The lights in the lobby flashed, indicating that the performance was about to resume. “They have one of the finest music departments in the country there,” Isabelle said softly. And suddenly it jumped out: “I studied the piano.”
5
She had never particularly liked Bartok, although she could appreciate the difficulty of executing the atonality and contorted tempos. She wondered what would happen if she tried to play piano again. Could she do it, or would a betrayed talent seize up, blank out her mind? Her fingers twitched in her lap in time to the music.
When the performance was over and they were shuffling away from their seats, she noticed how Ken gripped the railing with one white-knuckled hand and leaned slightly away from the drop.
“How can you fly a plane?” she asked when they were safely down the stairs.
He smiled. “It’s not the same. Then, I’m in a machine and I’m in control. It’s not the same at all.”
“Oh,” she said. It made no sense to her, and she wondered if this phobia had inspired him to take the psychology class.
They had to wait in line to get out the doors. Holding one hand over a nearby trash can, Ken dropped a bunch of empty sunflower seed shells into its maw. “Listen,” he said, slipping a fresh seed into his mouth. “You say you’ve never flown in a small plane before?”
She shook her head. “Never.”
“Would you like to?”
“Huh?”
“Go for a ride in my plane. It would be my pleasure.”
“Well, maybe sometime,” she said, trying to catch Brenda’s eye. Brenda was examining the ceiling.
“How about tomorrow?” Ken asked.
Isabelle shook her head. “No, I have to work.”
“Oh. How long?”
“All day.” She realized how sharp that sounded, and added, “Nine-thirty ‘til six.” She swung her coat off her shoulder, but before she could put it on Ken gently removed it from her hands and held it open for her.
“Well,” he said, “so much for tomorrow, then. I don’t want to take you up at night the first time. When’s your next day off?”
“Well, it’s Wednesday. Bu—”
“Wednesday it is, then. See, I can arrange my schedule to fit.” He winked and helped Brenda slip into her coat, then pulled on his own suede jacket. “May I walk you ladies to your car?”
“No, no, that won’t be necessary,” Brenda said quickly. “We’re parked close by.”
“Okay, then. Brenda, nice to see you again. Isabelle”—he held out his hand—“It was a pleasure meeting you. I’ll get your phone number from Brenda in class and give you a call before Wednesday. All right?”
Isabelle nodded and took the hand.
He smiled at her, his dimples deepening. “‘Bye, then,” he said, and walked swiftly away.
6
They were whizzing along on the freeway again before either of them spoke.
“So what do you think of him?” Brenda asked.
“Brenda, you’re a rat. ‘I would never interfere in your life, Isabelle. Have I ever interfered in your life?’”
Brenda was smiling, and for once keeping her eyes on the road. “Well, somebody’s got to take action in this world, right? I mean, you can’t expect everything to just work itself out, right?”
Isabelle shook her head. “I can’t believe this. Brenda, I’d prefer to pick my own dates, if you don’t mind.”
“Oh, sure.” Brenda’s smile vanished. “And when was your last one?”
Isabelle felt her face get hot. “That’s none of your business, is it?” Then, ashamed, she fell silent. They drove that way for a while, the only sound the swishing of water under the Audi’s tires.
Finally Brenda sighed. “I’m sorry, Isabelle. I keep upsetting you whenever I try to help.”
Isabelle shook her head. “I appreciate the thought, Brenda. But I wouldn’t feel right dating Ken. For one thing, how old is he, thirty-five?”
“He’s thirty-one.”
“Thirty-one! My God, he’s closer to my daughter’s age than mine!”
“So what? He’s not a child. He has a child almost six years old. He’s divorced, he’s alone, and he thinks you’re one hell of an attractive woman.”
Isabelle looked at her. “What makes you say that?”
“I can tell by watching him. Come on, Izzy, don’t pretend you didn’t notice he was interested in you. He liked you right off the bat. What’s wrong with that?”
Isabelle turned away again.
Giving her a severe look, Brenda said, “Don’t tell me. There must be something wrong with him if he’s attracted to you, right?”
“Of course not,” Isabelle said uncomfortably.
“Then what? You don’t like the way he parts his hair? His eyes are the wrong color?” An exasperated sigh. “Isabelle, you have to stop looking for the perfect man. What are you waiting for, the White Knight?”
“I—”
“You’re making a federal case out of a little date. Look, I happened to meet Ken in class, and found out he was as lonely as you. He went through a rough divorce and his ex-wife moved to Florida someplace, so he doesn’t even get to see his son very often. And he doesn’t seem to know how to meet people. Like you. So I thought, why not?”
Isabelle stared into the darkness for a moment. “And what did you tell him about me?”
“Well, he knows you’re divorced.”
Isabelle nodded.
Brenda licked her lips. “And...I told him about Annette.”
“What?”
Brenda spoke hastily. “In class, we were having a discussion on the causes of divorce. I brought you and Richard up—not by name, of course. But later, Ken approached me. We got to talking, and the conversation swung around to you. I ended up telling him about Annette’s accident.”
Isabelle stared at her friend’s profile. “What exactly did you tell him?”
“That Annette was electrocuted when she was six years old. That Richard blames you for it. That he spent a year tormenting you about it, and then left you. That you’re better off now.”
Isabelle leaned back wearily. “And what did Ken say?”
“Nothing. He was sympathetic, of course, but that’s all. Why should he care?” Brenda hesitated. “And why should you care what he thinks of you, anyway? If you don’t plan on going out with him, I mean.”
“Wait a minute. Don’t—”
“No, really. We’ve been friends for twenty years, and you never told me you’d studied piano.”
Isabelle sighed. “I didn’t get very far before I gave it up to marry Richard. It hurts to remember it, I guess.” She hesitated. “At least, it hurt until tonight.”
“You didn’t mind telling Ken about it, though.”
“Oh, come on, Brenda.”
“Okay, okay. Listen, if it’s any consolation, he wasn’t too thrilled about a blind date, either. But I thought you might like each other. It was worth a try.”
“Thanks, Brenda. Really. But I’d feel uncomfortable with such a young man. What would we have in common?”
“I can think of a few things.”
Isabelle gave her neighbor a close look, but Brenda’s face was as bland as oatmeal.
Brenda went on, “Besides, what matters is that seeing Ken would get you out of the house. Who says you and he have to be anything but friends? Who says this has to be anything serious?”
Isabelle could think of no rebuttal.
At last Brenda looked at her. “So, do you want me to give him your phone number or not?”
Isabelle sighed, then shrugged wearily. “Go ahead.” Dealing with Ken would have to be easier than dealing with Brenda, she thought.
Chapter Three
1
In the darkness of the bedroom Isabelle thrashed wildly, as if the sheets were swallowing her. “I warned you not to,” she choked. “Didn’t I? Didn’t I war—” She sat up so quickly she almost fell off the bed, and clung to the sheets, gasping.
The dream. The—
Briiiiiiiiing.
She stared dumbly at the telephone. It glowed faintly pink in the wash of light from her alarm clock.
Briiiiiiiiing.
Who? Brenda? She groped clumsily for the receiver. As she brought it to her ear she squinted at the clock.
6:02.
Suddenly, from the receiver came a baby’s raucous screaming. Loud, angry. Familiar.
She froze, her eyes widening like twin moons in the darkness. The clock glared at her:
6:02.
And the screaming grew louder.
“Annette?” she whispered, then snapped her mouth shut. Quite suddenly, the screaming stopped. A long pause filled with gentle static, then a click.
Dial tone.
On the nightstand, the alarm clock clearly read 3:01.
She hung up slowly. Leaning back against the headboard, she glanced around the shadows of the room, and suddenly began shivering.
Remember how you used to think Annette was somewhere in the house, waiting for you? Remember how you used to call for her...?
2
Suddenly awake, she jerked up from her contorted position against the headboard. Daylight had invaded the room, a dull gray glimmer. Blinking, she looked at the clock. God, it was nine-thirty! She was supposed to be at work now.
Gasping, she swung her legs off the bed and picked up the clock. The alarm indicator was set at eight-thirty where she always kept it, but the alarm had not gone off. Quickly she picked up the telephone and dialed for the time.
“At the tone.” droned the voice, “the correct time will be nine-thirty A.M.”
She dialed again hurriedly. A woman said, “Valu-U Town. May I help you?”
“Dorothy? This is Isabelle. My alarm didn’t go off; I just got up. I’ll be in as soon as I can.”
“Okay, I’ll tell Mr. Tynan. But hurry your buns.”
“I will.”
She rushed around frantically, throwing on whatever clothing came to hand, brushing her teeth and washing her face, then dashing to the front door without bothering with breakfast. She had never been late before, not once in the almost five years she had worked at Val-U Town.
As she closed the door behind her, she thought she heard the telephone ring. She hesitated, but when she pushed the door open again, the house was silent.
3
Val-U Town was located in Lawrence Thrift Center, on the outskirts of Lawrence. The Center also boasted a Guarantee Auto, The Pet Place, a bookstore, the Hungry Rancher Steak House, a do-it-yourself frame shop, and a pharmacy. In the cold light of morning, clouds low overhead, the parking lot was occupied by only a few scattered cars.
Val-U Town itself was a discount department store, one in a small regional chain. It catered to a low-budget clientele: newlyweds and singles, welfare recipients, and college students. Five years ago, Isabelle had felt lucky to be hired.
Up to the day Richard left her, she had never had a job. She’d gone straight from help-your-mother-like-a-good-girl, to college on a scholarship, to marriage. There, she’d found that Richard’s views on a woman’s duties were almost identical to Papa’s, minus the religious overtones. Children, cleaning, cooking. Running the house. Not the best references for going out and finding a paying job.
She’d worked in a McDonald’s first, but couldn’t make it on the pay and felt completely out of place among the high school students who were her fellow employees.
But Val-U Town was better. The first four years she’d worked there, she’d found it an appropriate place to keep her income at a survivable level, without the work making too many demands on her. She’d been hired as a cash register operator and then made her way to ladies’ wear, where she’d worked the floor as a clerk and clothes-straightener, without distinction but also without criticism. She’d dreamed through her shift, wanting to get home where there were no demands at all.
But then, last winter when so much about her had begun to change, she’d looked at her coworkers, and then at herself, and realized that she could very well be right here, putting dresses on hangers and talking about soap operas all day long, for the rest of her life. And worse than that, not caring.
Val-U Town’s manager of the time had been amazed at the sudden change in her working habits. Last July he had put her in charge of ladies’ wear, her duties including ordering and merchandising as well as controlling stock. When that manager left for a higher position, he had told her she ought to look into management classes at IUPUI, the downtown university extension.
And then came Mr. Tynan.
Mr. Tynan was in his midforties, an ex-insurance salesman. He was whippet thin, wore double-knit suits and suede oxfords, and his first act as store manager was to fire a woman who had been working at Val-U Town for seven years, because he caught her making a telephone call on company time. “Things are going to change around here,” he’d informed the rest of them. “I know what you women are like.”
As Isabelle scurried through the candy department, Mr. Tynan’s head suddenly reared over a counter, and she stumbled to a halt. “I’m sorry” she said. “I—”
He held up a silencing hand. “You are in charge of a department of this store, aren’t you, Mrs. Collins?”
Isabelle took a deep breath. “Yes.”