“And you gave me such a big piece that I nearly choked.”
They were quiet for a moment, reliving the memories. Laureen was the first to speak. “We were so young and naive back then. Think we’ve learned anything important over the past twenty-two years?”
“That money and success don’t matter nearly as much as we thought they would. We were just as happy in our first efficiency apartment as we are in this big expensive place. And we’ve learned that love can survive all sorts of obstacles.”
“That’s true.”
Alan started to grin. “Of course, I didn’t mention the most important thing we’ve learned since this picture was taken.”
“What’s that, Alan?”
“We’re much better at feeding ourselves.”
Staggering slightly as he got off the elevator, Hal steadied himself with one hand and tried to fit the key into the hole. It was the right kind of lock, but Alan had been telling the truth. He hadn’t given Vanessa a key because this one didn’t fit Alan and Laureen’s door.
“One down, eight to go.” Hal mumbled. He was almost positive Vanessa’s key wouldn’t open Grace and Moira’s door, but he had to try. Still too drunk to make any sort of assumptions, he was having trouble enough just remembering which floor he was on. When he reached the second floor, he was very quiet. Moira might come out and bean him with a hammer or something if she thought he was a burglar. But the key didn’t fit in Moira and Grace’s door, and he dropped it into his pocket again. Two floors down, seven floors to go.
He was out of the elevator before he realized that the third floor was his floor, and that he’d already compared Vanessa’s key to his key. Hal got back into the elevator and resumed what he thought of as his quest. Heroes of ancient times had searched for the Holy Grail, and Excalibur, and the Golden Fleece. His quest for the Unlockable Door wasn’t quite that romantic, but he didn’t have to encounter fire-breathing dragons and armor-plated knights, either.
Hal leaned against the wall for a long time after trying Johnny Day’s lock, wishing he could stretch out on Johnny’s thick green carpeting and close his eyes. It took great resolve to press the button for the fifth floor. The coffee had worn off and that last snifter of brandy was catching up with him.
By the time Hal stepped off, he was seeing double. He weaved his way down the hallway and braced himself against Clayton’s door. Concentration. Hal blinked hard and the two doors he was seeing merged into one. It took several tries, but he finally managed to get the key in the lock and turn it. What happened next almost made him fall on his face. Clayton’s door swung open on its well-oiled hinges.
“Aha!” Hal let out a whoop of pleasure. Now he could go home to bed. If he could get there.
Hal’s legs refused to carry him any longer, and he sat down on the rug with a thump, staring at the darkness inside. What had Vanessa been doing in Clayton’s apartment?
He ran his hand through the thick pile carpeting and frowned, trying to think of a connection. He shut his eyes to concentrate, but before he could draw any conclusion, he passed out cold.
Betty frowned as she stared at the screen. The moment she’d realized that her secret friend was in this movie, she’d pressed the button to record. And then she’d seen that it was another scary movie, the kind she didn’t like. Why had they typecast him in roles like this? He was handsome enough to play a romantic lead, and he might be able to do comedy, too, if they’d only give him a chance.
Even though she knew it was only make-believe, Betty still felt very afraid. The man who drew the funny animals was dead, and her secret friend had killed him. She wasn’t so sure she wanted him to visit her again, not even if he brought her candy.
She remembered a trick that Charles had taught her when they were young and saw the movie about the vampire. She’d wanted to leave. Charles had told her to cover her eyes with her hand and peek out through her fingers and she’d remember it was only a movie.
Betty put her hand over her eyes and peeked through. It worked. This was only a movie on her television set, all pretend. She watched as her secret friend dragged the body into the elevator and the doors closed behind them. Now she had to take her fingers down so she could use the remote control to find the rest of the movie.
It wasn’t on forbidden channel four. They were running a late-night commercial for a company that sold pianos. These were old pianos and she’d seen this commercial many times before. It must be a very effective sales device because the cowgirl had bought one and moved it up to forbidden channel nine.
Betty smiled as she switched to channel three. She’d found it! It was just like reading a story in the newspaper. When they ran out of space on one page, they continued it on another. Television was like that now. Betty was forever having to switch channels to watch the ends of movies.
Her secret friend had thrown a rope over a beam on the ceiling. Now he was tying a loop in one end and hooking it around the funny animal man’s neck. Betty got her eyes covered just in time. She watched through the space between her fingers as he pulled on the rope and hoisted the funny animal man up in the air to dangle. Then he tipped over a chair and put it underneath and the movie was over at last.
Betty knew that there was something very frightening about all the movies she’d seen lately. It had to do with the forbidden channels and the actors who appeared on the screen. She thought she remembered Jack telling her that they weren’t really actors. Of course they could be part of a neighborhood theater group. Sometimes public access television ran amateur programming and that would explain why the movies weren’t very professional. Once upon a time, Jack had sat right here in this very room and told her all about it, but she’d forgotten most of what he’d said.
Her frown changed to a smile as she pressed the button for forbidden channel eight. The doll-lady was sitting on a couch, paging through a magazine. There were bunnies around her feet again and Betty wished she had some, too. But why didn’t they hop away? She was trying to figure it out, when the doll-lady raised her foot and a word popped right into Betty’s head like magic.
“Slippers!” Betty was so delighted she said the word out loud. The doll-lady was very generous. She’d given Betty the big patchwork doll, so she could have company now that Jack wasn’t here. Maybe, if she could remember the words, the doll-lady would let her wear the fuzzy bunny slippers.
Betty reached for the notepad by the side of her bed and wrote down a B for bunny. That wasn’t enough. B was for bunny, but it was also for ball. She sang the rhyme out loud. A is for apple and B is for ball. C is for cat and D is for doll. She needed more letters for the bunny slippers, but that was as far as she could remember. Perhaps she could draw a picture.
She worked very hard at the drawing and when she’d finished, she had a good picture, almost as good as a photograph. She circled the things, she’d forgotten their names already, and put in the mark that meant question. Now all she had to do was show it to the doll-lady.
She stared at the picture for a moment and then frowned, vaguely recalling that young children wore things like these. Was she too old to have them? She glanced down at her hands. She’d heard Nurse say that her job was like taking care of a big baby, but hers were adult hands. How did people judge age if they couldn’t remember birthdays?
Betty searched her mind for the answer. If she had been a horse, she could have gone to the mirror and looked at her teeth. Horse traders could tell an animal’s age by checking its teeth. Never look a gift horse in the mouth. It was clever if you knew what it meant.
Then a funny thought popped into her head and Betty laughed out loud. If she’d been a tree, somebody could have counted her rings. She had two on her left hand and one on her right. That told her absolutely nothing, but the rings were certainly pretty. She held up her right hand and the big Tiffany-cut stone glittered in the light. It was a diamond and diamonds were forever. Charles had said that when she’d opened the box. It was too bad that Charles hadn’t been as forever as the diamond.