That isn’t funny but Billy can’t help smiling. ‘If I did, I think I’d know.’
‘How did I get here? What happened?’
He sips his own coffee. ‘That would be the middle of the story. Let’s start at the beginning. Tell me what happened to you.’
‘I don’t remember. Last night is your basic black hole. All I know is I woke up here, hungover and feeling like somebody stuck a fencepost up my … you know.’ She sips her coffee and this time she gets it down without having to repress a gag reflex.
‘What about before that?’
She looks at him, blue eyes wide, mouth moving. Then her head droops. ‘Was it Tripp? Did he put something in my beer? My g-and-t? Both? Is that what you’re telling me?’
Billy restrains an impulse to reach across the table and put his hand over hers. He’s gained a little ground but if he touches her he’ll almost certainly lose it. She’s not ready to be touched by a man, especially one with nothing on but worn workout shorts.
‘I don’t know. I wasn’t there. You were. So tell me what happened, Alice. Right up to when your memory drops out.’
So she does. And as she does, he can see the question in her eyes: if you didn’t rape me, why did I wake up in your bed instead of a hospital bed?
4
It’s not a long story, even with some background added in. Billy thinks he could tell it himself once she gets started, because it’s an old story. Halfway through it she stops, her eyes widening. She begins to hyperventilate, her hand clutching her throat while the air goes whooping in and out.
‘Is it asthma?’
He didn’t find an inhaler, but it might have been in her purse. If she was carrying one, it’s gone now.
She shakes her head. ‘Panic …’ Whoop ‘… attack.’ Whoop.
Billy goes into the bathroom and wets a washcloth as soon as the tap runs warm. He wrings it out loosely and brings it back. ‘Tip your head up and put this over your face.’
He would have thought it impossible for her eyes to get any wider but somehow they do. ‘I’ll …’ Whoop ‘… choke!’
‘No. It’ll open you up.’
He tips her head back himself – gently – and drapes the washcloth over her eyes, nose, and mouth. Then he waits. After fifteen seconds or so, her breathing starts to ease. She takes the washcloth off her face. ‘It worked!’
‘Breathing the moisture makes it work,’ Billy says.
There might be some truth in that, but probably not much. It’s breathing the idea that makes it work. He saw Clay Briggs – Pillroller, their corpsman – use it several times on newbies (and a few vets, like Bigfoot Lopez) before they went back for another bite of the rotten apple named Phantom Fury. Sometimes there was another trick he used if the wet washcloth didn’t work. Billy listened carefully when Pill explained both of these tricks to soothe the mental monkey. He’s always been a good listener, storing up information like a squirrel storing up nuts.
‘Can you finish now?’
‘Can I have some toast?’ She asks almost shyly. ‘And is there any juice?’
‘No juice, but I’ve got some ginger ale. Want that?’
‘Yes, please.’
He makes toast. He pours ginger ale into a glass and adds an ice cube. He sits down across from her. Alice Maxwell tells her timeworn story. It’s one Billy has heard before and read before, most recently in the works of Émile Zola.
She spent a year after high school waitressing in her hometown, saving up money for business school. She could have gone in Kingston, there were two there that were supposed to be good, but she wanted to see a little more of the world. And get away from Mom, Billy thinks. He might be starting to understand why she’s not demanding he call the police immediately. But the question of why ‘seeing a little more of the world’ meant coming to this nondescript city … about that he has no idea.
She works part time as a barista at a coffee shop on Emery Plaza, not three blocks from Billy’s writing nest in Gerard Tower, and that was where she met Tripp Donovan. He struck up casual conversations with her over a week or two. He made her laugh. He was charming. So of course when he invited her out for a bite after work one day, she said yes. A movie date followed, and then – fast worker, that Tripp – he asked if she’d like to go dancing at a side-of-the-road place he knew out on Route 13. She told him she wasn’t much of a dancer. He of course said neither was he, they didn’t have to dance, they could just buy a pitcher of beer and stretch it out while they listened to the music. He told her it was a Foghat cover band, did she like Foghat? Alice said she did. She had never heard of Foghat, but she downloaded some of their music that very night. It was good. A little bluesy, but mostly straight-ahead rock and roll.
The Tripp Donovans of the world have a nose for a certain kind of girl, Billy thinks. They are shy girls who make friends slowly because they aren’t very good at making the first move. They are mildly pretty girls who have been bludgeoned by beauty on TV, in the movies, on the Internet, and in the celebrity magazines so that they see themselves not as mildly pretty but as plain, or even sort of ugly. They see their bad features – the too-wide mouth, the too-close-set eyes – and ignore the good ones. These are girls who have been told by the fashion mags in the beauty shops, and often by their own mothers, that they need to lose twenty pounds. They despair over the size of their boobs, butts, and feet. To be asked out is a wonder, but then there is the agony of what to wear. This certain kind of girl can call girlfriends to discuss that, but only if she has them. Alice, new in the city, does not. But on their movie date, Tripp doesn’t seem to mind her clothes or her too-wide mouth. Tripp is funny. Tripp is charming. Tripp is complimentary. And he’s a perfect gentleman. He kisses her after the movie date, but it’s a wanted kiss, a desired kiss, and he doesn’t spoil it by sticking his tongue in her mouth or grabbing at her breasts.
Tripp is a student at one of the local colleges. Billy asks how old he is, thinking she probably won’t know, but thanks to the wonders of Facebook, she does. Tripp Donovan is twenty-four.
‘Little old to still be going to college.’
‘I think he’s a grad student. He’s doing advanced studies.’
Advanced studies, Billy thinks. Right.
Of course Tripp suggested Alice come by his crib for a drink before heading out to the Bucket, and of course she agreed. The aforementioned crib was in one of those Sherwood Heights condos near the Interstate. Alice took the bus because she doesn’t have a car. Tripp was waiting for her outside, the perfect gentleman. He kissed her on the cheek and took her up to the third floor in the elevator. It was a big apartment. He could only afford it, Tripp said, because he and his roommates split the rent. The roommates were Hank and Jack. Alice doesn’t know their last names. She tells Billy that they seemed perfectly nice, came out to the living room to meet her, then went back into one of the bedrooms where some sports show was playing on TV. Or maybe it was a video game, she’s not sure which.
‘So that’s where your memory starts to get foggy?’
‘No, they just shut the door when they went back in.’ Alice is using the washcloth to dab at her cheeks and forehead.
Tripp asked if she wanted a beer. Alice tells Billy she doesn’t care for beer but took one to be polite. Then, when Tripp saw she was going slow on the Heinie, he asked if she wanted a gin and tonic. The door to Jack’s room opened and the sound from the TV went off and Jack said, ‘Did I hear someone mention gin and tonic?’
So they all have g-and-t’s, and that’s when Alice says things started to get fogged-in. She thought it was because she’s not used to alcohol. Tripp suggested she have another. Because, he said, the second drink will fight the first. He said it’s a known fact. One of the roommates put on some music and she thinks she remembers dancing in the living room with Tripp, and that’s where her memory pretty much runs out.