This was how he expected the conversation to go now, so he was surprised when her tone grew serious. No, something else.
What? he said, and when she didn’t immediately respond, he added, You can tell me.
Then listen.
Of course neither Becka nor anyone else was actually speaking to him. Becka had come down the stairs like a Slinky and was dead. His hair was just stirring in the lovely breeze. When at last he opened his eyes, he saw the truth of this. There was no Becka. He was alone in the dark. Unable to accept this truth, he closed his eyes again, willing her return, because in addition to running her fingers through his hair, she’d whispered something to him, something he hadn’t quite caught but that seemed important.
Whatever she’d wanted him to know, it was gone and so was she. Opening his eyes again, he saw he was being observed by a single red eye, something that, before he could bring it into focus, then closed. Did cobras have red eyes, he wondered. Was it coiled there at the foot of his bed? He realized he should care, but somehow couldn’t rouse any sense of urgency. Had it already bitten him? Was that why he was having so much trouble waking up, its lethal venom already coursing through his veins? Was his death approaching? Was that what Becka had needed him to know? Was that why she’d visited him? If so, fine. All he wanted, really, was to lie here awhile in this delicious breeze. When his hair stirred again, he saw that the snake had reopened its red eye. In fact, a second eye winked open to stare at him until the breeze died and both eyes closed. Then they were open again, glowing a deeper red this time, though when a third eye opened, Raymer came fully awake. He didn’t know much about cobras, but he was pretty sure they didn’t have three eyes.
Then all at once reality returned in a rush of sensory data and memory. In the dream he’d been home in bed, but in reality he was out on Charice’s back porch — it’d been too hot to eat indoors — where he’d fallen asleep when she went inside to fetch dessert. Full of delicious grilled lamb and red wine, he’d meant to just rest his eyes for a minute. God, those lamb chops! How many had he devoured? Seven? Could he really have eaten so many? Why hadn’t he stopped at…Jesus, even four was probably too many. Because they were so delicious. That’s why. There’d been a lovely bottle of red wine as well — no, wait — two bottles. He’d been tipsy even before they’d started to eat.
Dear God, what a day! That afternoon at Gert’s he’d rediscovered beer and now, tonight, red wine. Delicious. As thick and bloody and textured as the lamb. Becka preferred white wine, so they’d drunk that, but red…wow! Why had he stopped drinking red wine? But on this particular evening the better question was, why hadn’t he stopped? Had he swilled an expensive bottle of red wine that was meant to be sipped? How much had the meal cost her? Loin lamb chops, over ten bucks a pound, easy. Why hadn’t he asked Charice to stop at the liquor store on the way so he could contribute something to their feast?
And just that quickly, misgiving morphed into full-blown panic. What had he done? At what point had the whole evening gone south? Idiocy, after the fact, resisted precision. That he’d somehow managed to ruin a perfectly wonderful evening was obvious. Why hadn’t he seen that wreck coming? The overwhelming sense of well-being that had come over him sitting there on a hot summer night in the company of an attractive young woman really should have been a dead giveaway. When in his entire life had such profound contentment ever presaged anything but catastrophe? The very fact that at some point in the evening he’d stopped being scared shitless of Charice should have been a further tip-off. Because Charice was a scary woman. If you weren’t scared of her, you weren’t paying attention.
And speaking of…where was she? What had happened to her? She’d gathered up their greasy plates, his piled high with those little Gothic T-bones — had he actually picked them up with his fingers and gnawed on them? really done that? — and brought them into the kitchen. Had he offered to help, or even stood up to open the screen door? He couldn’t remember, so probably not. No, he’d just sat there like a lump, sated, drunk, beached, his chin glistening. The kitchen phone had rung, he remembered that, and Charice had answered it, taking the receiver on its long cord into the next room. It was her receding voice (No, it’s okay…listen to me…it’s just like I said…as usual, you’re getting all worked up over nothing) that had led him to think that it wouldn’t hurt to close his eyes for just a minute. When she returned to the kitchen and hung up the phone, he’d hear her, surely. He’d fallen asleep to the sound of fat bugs pinging against the screen door, the kitchen lights blazing.
Now that same kitchen was ominously dark.
Off to the south, the sky lit up, briefly illuminating the low clouds, then darkened. Low rumbling followed, a thunderstorm tracking up the Northway. Still a ways off, but Raymer could already feel the electricity in the air. When the breeze came up again, stronger this time, the coals at the bottom of the Weber kettle — what was left of them — glowed red, snake eyes again. Wondering what time it was, he consulted his wrist, which was bare. He could picture the watch he’d hoped to find there on his desk at the station. Why hadn’t he put it back on when they left? Why had he taken it off in the first place? Could he guess at the time by the coals in the Weber? When he’d fallen asleep the briquettes were still pulsing angrily. All that remained now were a few marble-sized embers about to expire. How long did it take for coals to completely burn down? A couple hours? More? The street was pitch dark. Was that because it was three in the morning, or had the downtown power outage spread? For some reason it seemed vital to ascertain how much time had elapsed, as if that would clarify how much trouble he was in.
Why hadn’t Charice come out, jostled him awake and sent him the fuck home? Had she tried and been unable to rouse him? What if he hadn’t just been dozing? What if he’d passed out? Given the day he’d had and the fact that he’d gone nearly twenty-four hours without food, it was possible. He had, he knew, no head for alcohol. Back when he was married and had too much to drink, Becka had complained bitterly that it was impossible to wake him once he’d fallen asleep. Which meant that Charice had to be beyond pissed off, and who could blame her? He’d devoured her lamb chops and guzzled her expensive red wine and passed out before she could bring out dessert. Served him right to wake up alone and befuddled in the dark. Tomorrow, down at the station, Charice would no doubt add tonight’s boorish, unforgivable behavior to her long grievance list.
Rising, he tried the screen door, which didn’t budge. Seriously? He was locked out? The breeze came up again, chilling him this time. He knocked softly. No answer. Louder. “Charice?”
Silence.
Wow. Was she really angry enough to lock the door on him? Why would she do that? Immediately, he had the answer. A man who would behave as he had tonight might just be capable of even worse behavior. When he awoke from his drunken stupor, he might come into her bedroom in the middle of the night, determined to take advantage of her. Which was ridiculous. He’d never do such a thing, but how was she to know that?
“Charice?” he called again, surprised by the desperation that had crept into his voice. “Please?”
More silence. To this point he’d been proceeding under the assumption that she’d gone to bed, but another, even more ghastly possibility now occurred to him. Maybe she was sitting in the dark of the front room, enjoying his suffering. If so, calling her name would do no good. And even if she was asleep, did he really want to wake her? No, but guess what? He didn’t want to be outside during an electrical storm, either. The porch was covered, but the sloping roof had to be twelve feet above him. Wind would drive the rain horizontally, and he’d be drenched to the skin in short order. Lightning would probably locate the metal dome of the Weber grill and then look for other grounding opportunities, which Raymer himself, soaking wet, would provide.