Jane Was Here (35 page)

“Wasn’t it you?”

“On my honor, no.”

“Doesn’t matter. Water under the bridge. Anyway, I thought you could sleep in here on the sofa. Or,” he offers reluctantly, thinking of his stain-speckled sheets, greasy pillows and dented mattress, “if you want more privacy, I could give you my bed.”

“I shall not be sleeping here.” Her voice is cool. “We should embark right away on our climb. The trail begins behind your house. At the end of it, you continue straight up until a stonewall appears. It marks a path to the shelter—”

“You’re not going.”

Her eyes flash indignantly. “You gave your word!”

“Jane.” He folds his arms. “You’re still at risk of infection. I would be derelict in my duty if I left you up there all alone. You can’t clean out your wound by yourself, and then you need someone to drive you back to the hospital to get stitched up. When I know you’re better I will take you uphill and move your stone, whatever you want. Right now you’re going to lie down and rest.”

Jane sits on the couch. Her expression is veiled. “If that is your wish, then please leave me alone to sleep. I am indeed quite tired.”

They are interrupted by Pete exploding through the doggie door, smelling of carrion. Jane cowers; Hoyt grabs the animal’s collar, drags him into the kitchen and thrusts him out the door with a bowl of dog chow to keep him occupied.

Returning to the living room, Hoyt is happy to see Jane lying curled on the couch, shoes off, her head on a cushion. “Atta girl, take a good nap. Pete won’t bother you.” He locks the dog flap on the front door. “I’m going out to fill your prescription at the pharmacy and get us some lunch. There’s orange juice in the fridge if you get thirsty.” Hand on the doorknob, he adds, “I think you know your way around the kitchen.”

“I do.” She doesn’t return his grin.

Driving to the mall, Hoyt congratulates himself on getting the upper hand.
Not as fragile as she looks, my Jane
, he thinks, then scolds himself for using the possessive for a girl he knows nothing about. But there it is: right or wrong, he feels as if she belongs to him now. His mistake, his responsibility, his guest—his.

On the radio, the weather report promises a cold front coming down from Canada—a break in Graynier’s record 56 days of drought. After months of unrelenting sun, the browned trees and leached grasses carry an enamel glaze. But now, overnight, all the humidity has been sucked from the air. The sky blazes azure, as bright as if it has just been invented. The dimpled moon still hovers clearly across from the sun, and the lawns and forests of Graynier wait for rain.

“Can you believe it?” Behind the pharmacy counter, the ponytailed druggist rings up Hoyt’s gauze bandages, adhesive tape, and antibiotics. “Rain, finally. Everybody’s running to the fair today, ‘cause tomorrow’s supposed to be rained out. You been yet?”

“No.” Hoyt’s gaze wanders to a corkboard beside the register, where people post notices for sublets and yoga classes.

“I gave my kids a fifty-dollar limit for the whole two days. They already called, crying poor. They get hooked on those games, just to win some crap prize they don’t even want.”

Hoyt is no longer listening, transfixed by a missing-persons flier on the corkboard: “HAVE YOU SEEN HER?” The kind of poster you see at the post office and liquor store and never really look at.

Unless you recognize the person in the photo.

“What’s this?” He tries to keep his voice calm.

“Some old dude was in about ten days ago and put that up. You recognize her?”

“Can’t say I do,” Hoyt lies.

When the druggist’s back is turned, he snatches the flier off the board and hurries outside. Standing in the parking lot, he scans the description under Jane’s blurry photo.

Height 5’5”, blond hair, gray eyes, age 22.
“Missing since 7/20, last seen at the Winchester Mall in Deer Run, Pennsylvania.”
Then,
“Has a mental development disorder that requires medical care,”
heavily underlined. Below is a telephone number, area code 703.

JANE PEERS OUT
the kitchen door’s stickered pane, looking for the dog.

Pete is asleep on the grass in the noonday sun. The barrel of his ribs swells with each breath. She returns to the living room, fishing her sneakers from under the sofa. A small book slides out with them. Bound in cracked black leather with gilt-edged pages, the volume bears a stamped gold symbol.

Her fingers tremble as she turns to the flyleaf.
The Holy Bible
, King James version, 1851. A thin, threadbare ribbon marks a page.

And in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God unto a city of Galilee, named Nazareth, To a virgin espoused to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David; and the virgin’s name was Mary. And the angel came unto her, and said, Hail, thou that art highly favoured, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women.

The angel Gabriel. The Gabriel Nation Bible.

She can barely breathe for joy. She holds the precious volume, no longer imaginary, but real, in her hands. It is a gift, like the brooch, inviting her:
Come closer, Jane, you are very near to the truth. You have only to climb the hill.

She slips on her sneakers, ignoring the pain in her shoulder. Feeling the breath of angels at her back.

C
HAPTER
T
WENTY
-E
IGHT

T
he first thing Seth Poonchwalla notices when he arrives at the clearing is that the shovel is missing.

Panting from his trek up Rowell Hill, he slips off his backpack. His load isn’t heavy: only hundreds of decongestant cold capsules in zip-lock bags and two empty plastic soda bottles.

The last time he’d been to the shack, a month ago, he left the shovel leaning next to the door. Or did he? Maybe he put it in the crawl space.

He needs it to bury the coffee filters and matchbooks and lye cans—whatever is left over from cooking. He goes down on all fours to look. The shovel isn’t under the cabin.

Someone was here.

Getting to his feet, Seth scans the ground with misgiving. No tracks, human or animal. The ground is baked rock-hard by drought. But the dried grass seems matted in places. Probably from his own footsteps…

A vagrant wind sweeps through the clearing; branches on the surrounding pine trees flail. Seth’s anxiety increases: rumor has it that the Graynier cops have sent for extra detectives to help solve the town’s drug problem. Still, they’re probably looking for meth labs in houses and trailers in town, not in an old hunting blind everyone’s forgotten.

But his intuition persists.
Destroy the lab and go home.
Let the crank addicts of Graynier turn into shrieking psycho insect-hallucinating bales of exposed nerves. Already tweakers like Googie Bains and Graynier’s mayor Sharon Sperakis are texting him every five minutes, getting antsy for delivery.

But…Pearl.

She wants more money. Unlike her soft-brained mother, Pearl gives nothing for free. The funds he kept stashed in the pool robot are gone, spent like his seed inside her luscious cunt. His cock hardens, remembering the squeeze of her sugar walls when he comes, and the full-body trembling that seizes him afterwards. (He’s trembling right now; he will have to beat off before he can manage the volatile chemicals with a steady hand.)

Inside the lean-to, the room is in the same condition he left it. Whoever came to the clearing didn’t go inside the shack. Pulling his footlocker from under the bench, he unlocks it with the key from his backpack. The contents are untouched: ten boxes of matchbooks, rubber gloves, engine starter fluid, lye crystals, Heet, muriatic acid, digital scale, skillet, coffee filters, surgical tubing.

Propping open the cabin’s flip board to give himself some air, he gets down to the tedious work: scraping the red striking strip from each matchbook to make red phosphorous; soaking the cold capsules in Heet to extract the pseudo, wiping the wax coating off each pill with a towel… And then it will be time to cook.

The soft pink hills of Pearl float through his mind. He is a fool to love her. But he is addicted to her extravagant flesh. Like his clients, he will pay anything to feel that happy.

In ten days he’ll have to kick his habit, though, when he leaves for freshman orientation at MIT. This will be his final batch of crank. Then he’ll dump the evidence into Pease Pond, and close up shop for good.

RUPA POONCHWALLA GAZES
around the fairground, feeling a wave of nostalgia. Every year they have the same rides: the Ferris wheel, the Dragon, the Sizzler. So many summers have passed since Gita and Seth were little!

The little ones used to ball up cotton candy and pelt each other, and fish for prizes at the Frog Bog; the two would beseech Rupa and Harish to stay long after sundown, until the tattooed roustabouts pulled the brakes on their rides and the strings of bulbs festooning the concession aisles were switched off.

And the Convoy. Before Gita was born, Seth used to race around on his short chubby legs, finally choosing the best color truck to sit in. So solemnly, he’d pull the rope on the bell that didn’t ring, as the trucks wound slowly around the track. He truly believed he was steering the whole convoy with each masterly turn of his wheel.

But Seth hasn’t even bothered to come today, and Gita looks like she’d rather be anywhere else. Such a strange child, with her moods and whims. And so unfeminine.

What goes on inside that head? It’s been ages since Rupa has been inside Gita’s bedroom, even to vacuum. Her daughter won’t allow it. She says she will clean the room herself, but as far as Rupa knows, the girl has not used so much as a dust cloth. Rupa can’t help worrying that all Gita’s candles dripping wax on the carpet will set the motel on fire.

Rupa was granted no such freedoms when she was a girl—in India, independence did not come with Independence Day! That is an American delusion. What do either of her children know about self-sacrifice? Americans act as if they alone control their fates. But they are strapped to the wheel of karma like everyone else.

Her willful girl sits now on an artist’s stool while Rupa looks on in dismay. Gita has insisted on having her face painted; at her request, the artist layers a military camouflage pattern on her face: olive green and tan smears, black stripes under her eyes, even black lips! Horrifying. Wait until Harish sees her, he will throw a fit. Then Gita will back-talk. And Harish will come unglued. Daughters know all too well how to dismantle their fathers.

Rupa and Gita are to meet Harish at the Daffy Dress-Ups trailer, and have their photographs taken in funny costumes, like cowboys and hippies and harem girls. She hopes Gita won’t put on the G.I. Joe outfit to go with her face paint!

It’s true the girl has been seeing a great deal of the Sampson boy. That she likes a boy is a good sign. But Rupa will feel relieved when Collin goes home. Gita is better off choosing a husband from Mumbai.

Or will her daughter demand to have her way there, too? Will Rupa and Harish then crumble before their child as American parents seem to do? There may be peace and prosperity in this nation, but in families it is a land of war.

THEY’VE DONE THE SCRAMBLER
, followed by the Sizzler and the Howler. But Brett can’t tell if his son is having any fun. Collin seems distracted. At the Quack Attack, when he knocks a duck down on the third beanbag throw, and wins a bright yellow duckbill hat, he doesn’t even crack a smile. Maybe he’s afraid moving his face will ruin his makeup.

The artist hadn’t been surprised when Collin asked him for army camouflage instead of clown paint or cat whiskers; the guy told them he’d already done camo for someone else ten minutes ago.

Seeing his black lipstick in the mirror, Collin smiles for the first time that day. Maybe the kid will be a goth in high school.

On their way to the next amusement, they pass Elsa Graynier running the Historical Society booth, which the crowds seem to be spurning.

Brett imagines what the fairground must have looked like, when the Graynier Glass factory was on this same spot. They might have sponsored an annual company picnic on a day like today.

The lawn would have been dotted with blankets and baskets. Brett can picture women of all ages strolling about in straw bonnets and flounced summer dresses…men in shirtsleeves and vests, their Sunday-best frock coats cast on the grass, hacking watermelon slices for the children…young men dashing by in a foot race, to flaunt their prowess before the girls selling pies and boiled ham at a communal table.

And Jane Pettigrew, in a picture hat with a blue satin bow, laughing on Brett’s arm…

“What about the Rope-A-Dope?”

Collin is pointing to a rope ladder stretched over an inflated cushion. A carny barker motions to a stack of toys: “Get to the top, you get to shop!”