The Woman Next Door (11 page)

"I do love her, Mrs. Winter. She's a beautiful little kid. I actually look forward to coming here so I can be near her. That probably sounds kind of silly from a teenager, but it really is true."

Mrs. Winter sighed. "Yes, well, maybe she doesn't like to see us leave; maybe that's it."

"Sure it is. I mean, I'm just the babysitter, but you're her mommy and daddy."

"Uh-huh." Mrs. Winter frowned a little. Something about this girl troubled her; she couldn't pinpoint what it was, exactly. If she were an older girl, a young woman, Mrs. Winter thought, it would be her subtle pretentiousness; but, in a girl so young, it was hard to accept. This girl couldn't possibly possess that sort of sophistication. She was just a teenager, for God's sake —someone concerned with giggling at boys. and with the disasters of acne, and with her just starting menstrual periods. She couldn't possibly have already acquired the guile and the anger and the hostility to be guilty of what, deep in her heart, Mrs. Winter suspected. "Uh-huh. You're probably right." She opened the door. "We'll be back at the usual time."

"Enjoy yourselves," said the babysitter.

T
he child backed up a step, obviously frightened.

"I think you and I had better have a little talk," the babysitter snarled.

The child backed up another step, and another. "Come here!" the babysitter demanded.

The child stayed where she was.

"I
said
come here! Now!"

The child stepped forward.

The babysitter snatched the Raggedy Ann doll from her.

"My doll!" the child protested.

The babysitter grinned. "No, it's mine, for now. And what you're going to do is go to your room and stay there alone until I'm certain. . . ." Her grin softened. "You love your dolly, don't you? But you love your babysitter more, isn't that right? You wouldn't want to see her go away."
Damn!
she thought. If only she didn't so desperately need the lousy dollar fifty this
freakin
' job got her, she'd tell Mrs. Winter to shove it!

The child suddenly started crying—a pleading, desperate cry, and the babysitter realized the precarious position she'd put herself in. She held the doll out to the child. "Take it. You think I'd really keep it from you?"

The child hesitated, confused.

"Take it!" the babysitter repeated.

The child took the doll and smiled as if the babysitter had done her a kindness.

"See, now," said the babysitter, "I do love you, don't I?"

I
t was the first time Marilyn had visited, and Christine felt vaguely self-conscious; her little house couldn't possibly measure up to Marilyn's ideas about what was and what was not acceptable in Cornhill, ideas she'd made quite clear the last time Christine visited her:

"You can see, of course, what we're trying to do here, can't you? It's not that we're trying to recapture the past—that would be stupid, and impossible. We're trying to create . . . I guess you could call it a sanctuary, a place outside what some people refer to as the real world." She laughed derisively—a high-pitched, shrill laugh. It made Christine uncomfortable. "But, of course, the real world
is
what you create for yourself, isn't it? We have created . . . castles out of the decay of the past. And that is our world."

And Christine felt sure the woman had cast a deprecatory glance in the direction of her house.

M
arilyn nodded at the small open closet to the back of the foyer. "Can I put my things there?" she said. She slipped out of her sable coat, bent over, started removing her transparent slip-on boots (
Old lady's boots
, Christine thought).

"Yes," she replied. "It's nice of you to visit, Mrs. Courtney . . . Marilyn."

"Well, I don't get out very often, but it's not very often I get a nice new neighbor, is it? I don't mind admitting"—she hung her coat up, set her boots neatly beneath it—"that my house gets a little wearisome from time to time, almost claustrophobic, if you can believe that. So, occasionally, I like to get away from it."

Christine wheeled her chair into the living room. Marilyn followed, stopped, looked about thoughtfully.

"You know, dear," she began, "for as long as I can recall, this house has been Cornhill's last eyesore, the . . . pimple on the queen's nose, so to speak. And when your husband—what's his name again?"

"When Tim started working on it, I said to myself, and to Brett, 'He'll never do it. He might as well tear it down and start from scratch.'" She paused, looked momentarily ill at ease.

"Marilyn, is something wrong?"

"No." She smiled weakly. "It's just very . . . close in here, isn't it?"

"Yes," Christine answered apologetically. "I'm sorry—"

Marilyn cut in: "Never mind." Strained cheerfulness. "What was I saying? Oh, yes. But he surprised me—your husband, I mean—he really did, and I'm glad."

"Thank you, Marilyn, that's very kind."

Marilyn leaned over and patted Christine's shoulder. "It's not kindness, dear, it's the truth." She straightened, looked around again. Her gaze lingered on Tim's photographs on the living room's west wall. "He's very good, isn't he."

"I think so."

"Very good indeed. A little depressing. . . ."

"It's all in your perception. I think."

"That's true." And with those words, Christine knew, Marilyn had dropped the subject.

"Would you like some coffee, Marilyn, or some tea?"

"Coffee's fine, if you're up to it."

"I'm up to it." She wheeled herself into the kitchen, became aware that Marilyn was making a show of looking the living room over.

"Christine," she called, "have you met the woman on the other side of you? Becky Foster. Tall woman . . . pretty, in a burlesque kind of way."

Christine set the kettle on to boil. She wheeled herself to the kitchen doorway, stopped there. "Yes. She came over a couple days ago. She's nice, very intelligent."

"Intelligent!" Marilyn seemed, not to understand. "I don't know about that. I imagine she's intelligent." She paused, put her forefinger to her pursed lips, as if in reflection. "But I'll tell you this"—her lips still pursed, her forefinger still up—"I'll tell you this"—she put her hand down—"I'd be very, very careful around her if I were you. I mean, you're an awfully pretty girl, aren't you, and, well, let's face it, essentially helpless in that wheelchair. If you were not impaired. . . ."

"I prefer the word
handicapped
, Marilyn." Christine hoped her tone had been instructive, not severe.

"I'm sorry; handicapped, then. . . . If you weren't handicapped, I wouldn't mention it. Well, yes, I'd mention it, but only as a matter of
fact
, as something you should know. I wouldn't put it in the form of a warning."

"A warning? I don't understand."

Marilyn looked surprised. "A girl of your obvious sensitivity and you don't understand?" She paused as if gathering energy, as if Christine had suddenly taken her aback. "Well, then, let me explain myself." She gestured toward a brown wicker chair near a window that overlooked her house. "May I?"

Christine nodded. "Of course."

Marilyn sat in the chair, prepared to cross her legs, decided against it. She fingered the arm of the chair. "Very rustic," she said, more to herself than to Christine. She looked up, nodded at the window. "I prefer being near a window, you know. I always have." Christine nodded again.

Marilyn went on: "Yes, about our mutual neighbor —Becky Foster." She paused dramatically. "She's a lesbian, Christine. Everyone knows it."

The kettle started whistling.

"Excuse me," Christine said, and went back into the kitchen. Marilyn followed.

"My," she said, "this is all very ingenious, isn't it?"

"I have special needs," Christine said.

"Of course you do. And your husband has done a marvelous job. Perhaps he missed his calling. Carpentry seems very much his realm, don't you think?"

"His father was a carpenter, and his grandfather."

"Well, that explains it, doesn't it." She saw that Christine had prepared the coffee. "I'll take my cup, dear." Christine gave it to her. "Thank you."

G
reg Courtney struggled out of sleep. Someone was talking to him, or someone
wanted
to talk to him. Or someone was watching him.

He opened his eyes, stared for a moment at the ceiling, then turned his gaze toward the window. He saw something small and dark—darker than the night sky—hit it, heard a tiny pinging noise. Someone had thrown a pebble at the window.

Still groggy with sleep, he got out of bed, faced the window, started toward it. A larger pebble hit it. He stopped, felt the need to say something—"Who's there?" or "Stop throwing things at my window." But he said nothing.

He moved closer to the window. He could see a streetlamp now. The sight of it comforted him a little, and he wondered offhandedly why he needed comforting.

The night looked cold, cold enough to hurt, the kind of cold that would make him stick to anything metal (the way, he thought, his tongue once stuck to a
Fudgesicle
). He could not imagine anyone wanting to be outside on this night. No coat or hat or boots would keep the cold out.

Out of the corner of his eye he caught the suggestion of quick, stiff movement. He turned his head, looked. The night remained still. No traffic moved. There was not even a breeze. Across the way, smoke from the chimney of the small brick house next door moved straight up, like a thick gray string standing on end. Greg stared at the string a long while, trying to find the point where the breezes high up caught it and scattered it and made it into smoke again.

At last he gave up the game. He wondered why he'd gotten up in the first place. He went back to bed. He was asleep quickly.

B
ecky Foster laughed. It was a nice laugh, Christine thought—a warm and subtly sensuous laugh. Somehow it indicated a woman very much in touch with herself, an intelligent and sensitive woman. But these were virtues Christine had already noted, during their first short talk a week before.

"No," Becky answered, "I can't say I feel a part of the 'new elite.'" (It was a phrase Christine had used in an offhanded reference to the residents of Cornhill. "I feel like I'm part of the new elite here, don't you?" she'd said, in a joking tone.) Becky continued: "And that makes me kind of an outcast. You're just about the only friend I've got in Cornhill, Christine." She paused briefly. "Which do you prefer, 'Chris' or 'Christine'?"

"Believe it or not, 'Christine.' I know it sounds awfully stolid and formal, but 'Chris,' I don't know, it's not me."

"'Becky' is me, Christine. 'Rebecca' is a name some nurse scrawled on a wrist tag twenty-five years ago; or maybe it just read 'Baby Girl Holmes.' 'Holmes' is my maiden name." Christine nodded. "And ever since they took that name tag off . . . well, ever since I had a say in the matter, I've been called Becky. Do you think I look like a 'Becky'?"

"You don't look like a 'Rebecca."' Christine studied her with mock seriousness. "Nor do you look like a 'Becky,' if you want to know the truth.
Do
you want to know the truth?"

Becky grinned; she was growing to like this Christine
Bennet
quite a lot. "I don't know; can I handle it?"

"Oh, sure. It's not the truth, anyway."

"Then, let's have it."

"You are definitely," Christine told her, "a 'Marietta.'" She nodded solemnly. "'Marietta Munson'—that's your cosmic name."

"My cosmic name?"

"Uh-huh."

"Should I change my driver's license and credit cards?"

"Only if you're going to be pulled over by cosmic cops or shop in cosmic stores; otherwise you'll confuse everyone and we'll have chaos. You don't want chaos, do you?"

They both laughed suddenly, more because of the friendship they realized was forming between them—laughter was as good a cement for it as anything—than of Christine's joking.

M
arilyn Courtney turned the knob on her bedroom door and pulled. The door wouldn't open. She pulled harder. Her hands, damp from sudden sweat, slipped from the knob and she stumbled backward. Her foot connected with something soft but rigid. She looked; it was the edge of the oriental rug, "Shit!" she muttered, aware that she was falling.

A moment later she was on her back on the floor. She lay still. Had she broken anything? It hadn't been much of a fall, she told herself.

Why is the door stuck? Did someone lock it? Who would lock it?

She stood shakily, stared at the door.

The room began to change.