Whatever Lola Wants (42 page)

Bull's-eye. Carney chuckled. “Must be hard, concealing all that work down there. But one hears the stories.” He smiled gently. “In the industry.”

“Of course. Of course.” And what really does this Carney know. Damn! “Underland, you see, is far less advanced. And there won't, you see, be any living units down there, just shops, very light industry, communication hubs. And of course, Terramac's Pleasure Ground.”

“No homes? I'm disappointed. I was eager to live in Underland.”

“And why would that be?” Cochan felt fingers of betrayal squeeze his gut.

“It's an obsession with total security, you see. I need the security of living underground.”

This made sense to John Cochan. “Are you suggesting that Summerclime will not be totally secure?” The other one, the so-called aunt, says nothing, what was she about anyway? He smoothed back his mustache.

•

“I know that man,” said Lola, nodding.

•

“Not as thoroughly
as an underground home would be.”

No, John Cochan would not tell Carney there'd be condominiums in the caverns. That wondrous living space would become public, part of a fully constructed information campaign, once the seeds of demand had sprouted. “Summerclime can offer you the security you need,” said Cochan. “And, in case of a wide-spread emergency, Underland offers all Terramac's citizens the safety of its depths.”

“Safety,” Bobbie repeated the one word.

He glanced at her, and smiled.

“From nuclear attack?” A wry smile now curved her lips.

No, Cochan decided, this woman was not a dummy. He laughed lightly. “No, living underground would provide only a little protection against a megaton blast. But, yes, serious protection against chemical warfare, and biological warfare. Not to mention insect-borne diseases, West Nile Virus, and the ever-evolving strains of influenza. Because Terramac's Underland will be a hidden land, designed precisely to keep out all that's undesirable. Many of my colleagues find it strange in me, that I get pleasure in avoiding pests, especially insect pests. Keeping them out, you see, is a metaphor for all I believe in. If you can keep the bugs out, you can keep anything out. But if you have the ability, you're allowed inside. Safety behind the walls and, one day, under the ground. But not as a place to live, no. A shared space, a collective space.”

“For those,” said Carney, “as Boce explained, who have an upper middle-class income.”

“It goes without saying,” said John Cochan.

“Your mother was my college roommate,” said Bobbie.

Cochan stared at her. Why was this woman here? “What do you mean?”

“Just that. She'd have been fascinated by what you've achieved.”

Johnnie fought away a desire to shrivel to boy-size and ask, Do you really think so? “Did you know her well?”

“Well enough. At Mount Holyoke when she was Libby. And I kept up with her later, in her Beth days. Also when she became ill.”

“Ill.” What had his mother told this ancient hag? Libby? She'd never been Libby. Was she, once? Why was everything out of the past so vulnerable? Let his mother rest in peace.

“I met you, you know, when you were about eleven. I brought you a small birthday present. You didn't want it.”

“No?”

“So you remember me?”

“No,” he said again.

“I liked her,” Bobbie said, “and she was truly smart.”

John had not pondered this in a long while. Many many issues I won't consider now, he thought. But something came clear right then. “You didn't come here to buy a unit in Terramac.”

“No,” said Carney.

“Then why?”

“I want to see your Underland.”

“Impossible,” said Cochan.

“Nothing's impossible,” said Carney. “And I'm deeply impressed with your vision, your skill. I'd like to view this underground world of yours in its infancy.”

“I thank you.” John laughed, his gut now easy again. “So I'm even more sorry to say it's simply impossible.”

“Will you invite me to visit?”

“No,” said Cochan.

“Then,” said Carney, standing, “there's really no further purpose for us to be here. Coming, Bobbie?”

She stood, and nodded to Cochan. “It would be a good idea for you to show Carney this Underland of yours.”

“No, no,” said John, “that's just not viable.”

“A shame,” said Carney. “For both of us.”

They climbed back into the Jag. Bobbie said, “Too bad. Waste of a trip.”

Carney smiled. “A first-rate trip. He confirmed the underground city.”

•

I slowly realized Lola had gone distant, almost absent again. “Is something wrong?”

“Is Theresa going to die?”

“Soon? I don't know, Lola. After a while everyone does, you know.”

“I won't stay for the end.” She stood. “Thank you.” She turned and walked away, her step quickening.

I leapt to my feet, dropped my papers, and ran after her. Her back was to me when she stopped to stretch her arms wide. Her fingers flared, she threw her head back. Her laughter broke the air, a trill, and filled the patch of cirrus where we stood with silver waves. Delight rushed through my belly. And a flash of fear. “You all right?”

She turned. On her lips the grandest smile I've ever seen amidst the clouds. She lay her hands on my shoulders, her eyes settled on my forehead. I'd have sworn she'd grown a foot. She murmured, “Never better.” She turned and walked away.

“Stop.” I caught up again. “Where're you going?”

“To the edge.”

“What for?”

“‘Cause that's the closest point to down.”

“No!”

“I have to.”

“You can't!”

“Of course I can.”

“But you're a God!”

“Yeah, and that's the trouble.”

“Trouble?”

“It's kinda boring, you know? All I get allowed to feel is pleasure, and that doesn't work any more.”

“But you're at the greatest pinnacle—”

“But Theresa's way more interesting. Except I don't understand her. Yet. My mind—heck, Ted, my imagination—can't grasp her from here. So I've got to go down there to find out. And besides, I think she's calling for me.”

“For that ethical being on her ceiling!”

“Maybe that's me.”

“Lola!” What a crazy thought. “Anyway, Theresa's mostly dead.”

“Then I should get there before she's all dead.”

“But you can't!”

“Why not?”

“No one ever has.”

On the right of her face, a tiny smile. But from the saddest little mouth. “Imagine. You. Saying that.”

“You'll never get back up!”

She took my hand. “Walk with me.” She stopped. “Or better, come down too. See your son again, up close.”

I squeezed her fingers tight. My eyes tried to hold hers. “That's impossible.”

“Lots of things are possible.”

“Not this.”

She nodded slowly. “Maybe.” She turned and walked away. I knew I couldn't stop her. But I followed. Three steps ahead, the edge—

She stood. She faced me. “Thank you for your story.” Her fingers touched my temples.

I tried to speak. Her lips stayed my words, and my breath. Her kiss was that much sweeter, for in moments she'd be lost to me forever. My cursed story! “What will Edsel say?! The Distant Nimbus crowd?”

She smiled. “Who's Edsel?” She drew away.

I grasped her forearms tight. “I can't let you.”

She shook her head. “Yes.”

I felt my fingers loosen. I had to speak, to make her change her mind. But no words came.

She smiled, turned, glided to the edge.

I stood with her. A half step back. My heart approached exploding.

She pointed. “Just there?”

I moved her arm. “A bit more to the west.” My voice held steady.

“I see.” And she stepped off.

Ten

Do I go on? I think I have to.

•

1.

Theresa's right arm, punctured with
needles attached to tubes, lay on top of the sheet. From under it less dignified piping drooped to a low platform under the bed. “Hello, Theresa.” No reaction. “How goes it?” Not a flicker. “Good to see you.” How does one talk to someone who may not be there?

Carney sat. Bobbie had asked him why he was going to the hospital again. Carney said it felt like he owed Theresa something. What? He couldn't make this clear. And wouldn't make himself say, I feel drawn by her, and by Milton, even by Feasie. Bobbie would find this silly.

The skin of Theresa's cheeks was pulled smooth as by some force inside sucking at her underskin, temples to chin. Her eyelids, open wide, pupils thrusting through irises, focused on the ceiling as if the meaning of the world were printed up there, no glance away till she'd grappled with it all.

What to talk about with her? Anything but Terramac. What worked best in
A Ton of Cure
were the perversely funny disaster stories. Stories are able to convince people of many things, Carney believed, and the best stories make you laugh—a certain cynic's view of laughter notwithstanding. He'd read how someone had been cured of ankylosing spondylitis, a cell disease, in large part by the act of laughter. No, you don't laugh yourself all the way back from a stroke, not one as huge as Theresa's. But a little bit back?

So Carney, medical experimenter, jumped in where neurologists feared to make waves—Feasie might have said it better—and told Theresa a fishing story. “Want to hear one of my favorite fishing stories?” and chose to think the empty look slipped for an instant from Theresa's eyes. “Okay, this is about the time my friend Charlie swamped me, ready?” He smiled. “Well we'd been out on the water all afternoon, a hot summer day, we'd found a couple of schools of bass, taken and released maybe a dozen apiece, all around two pounds. Charlie was using a Mepps, me an old Wob-L-Rite. Something heavy struck my line. I said to Charlie, ‘Hey, this one's bigger, get your line out of the water.'

“He said, ‘Nothing here but babies.' Charlie figured I'd located another school and he cast toward my fish. He got a strike right away. ‘Hey, maybe you're right, these fellows are bigger.'”

Theresa's mouth, yes, quivered.

“It was tricky keeping our lines from tangling so Charlie led his fish around the bow to take him on the other side. And by now my fish was close but still deep. Then it swam under the boat, pulling still harder. I muttered this to Charlie and heard him say, ‘Yeah.'

“I leaned over the side, what the hell was going on? The fish gave such a yank I lost my balance, lunged forward, dropped my rod, hit the water. Lucky it was warm, I grabbed onto the boat and shouted, ‘Charlie, for godsake give me a hand!'

“All I heard was, ‘Innnn—credible.' I pulled myself up the gunwale and looked. He had the bass netted and was staring at its mouth. And in its lip, his Mepps and my Wob-L-Rite.”

Now, was it there or had his imagination set it on her lips? At the far corner, a twitch? He stared. Nothing. Another story? “When I was fifteen I was fishing with my father for pickerel. We had shiners for bait, little ones. We used bobbers, those red and white ones, and hooked the shiners just under the dorsal fin. On maybe my fourth or fifth cast, over by some lily pads, my bobber went under. I waited, let the fish turn my shiner around, and struck. I started to reel in when suddenly the bobber came back to the surface. Damn, I'd lost it. But then the bobber dove and my fish ran with the bait, screaming line from my reel.”

Was that a new kind of attention around Theresa's mouth?

“Suddenly from deep in the water the fish took to the air, red gills flashing. A pickerel that would be at least twenty inches if I got it in—where had he come from? I worked the fish away from the weeds, but he had a mind of his own, he had to get away. He tried to jump two more times, the second much more wearily, nose just out of the water, but my rod, bent into a U, was in control. I brought him to the boat and he made another run, shorter, and I knew I had him. Back to the boat and my father passed the net under him and hoisted him into the boat. Five pounds easy, I saw, as he thrashed around. And then I realized: I'd caught not one but two fish. There, in his mouth, my original catch, a perch about seven inches long. With the hook in its mouth. I'd never hooked the pickerel—he'd been so greedy he'd never released the perch.”

A new movement from Theresa: her lips flicked, her chest shook, huunhh—hunnhh— Like laughing without muscles. Like tiny dry heaves. A body fighting for the power to laugh. In her right eye, at the temple corner, was that a shine of water?

She lay still now. An excellent large idea came to him. He stood, touched Theresa's shoulder. “I'll be back, Theresa.”

2.

Into his case John Cochan
slid the three files he'd need for his meetings in Lexington. He left the old church building, walked briskly, greeted neighbors with a wave. Soon Benjie would be in his proper place in Terramac. In minutes Priscilla would mix the martinis again, like she— Like that. It'd be okay.

Okay like in the memories? Of a wife, her beauty fine as fire, who brings to you an essential life? Yes. The memory of a boy, tan arms, long legs? Of course. Yes. But later, later—

He reached his driveway. Deirdre came running, jumped up, arms around his neck, “Daddy! I learned to sew, Diana's teaching me. I'm making clothes for all my dolls!”

“Hey, Dee, terrific.” He carried her into the house. Yes it was pretty good. She didn't feel as Benjie had, a different heft here. Which was as it should be.

Priscilla did make him a martini. Two. They all had dinner together. A soft peaceful evening and they spoke of good things. Diana took Lissa to bed, then Dee off for a story. Once it had been, yes, more complicated. Better.