After a long moment of silence, the woman said, “Who’s that out there?”
“Shannon Boner. I’m a friend of Jaime’s.”
“Jaime who?”
“Jaime Tales.”
She groaned and muttered. “Hold on ’til I get outta the tub.”
Dewey felt something bump his ankle and turned to find it was the dog, who apparently was trying to bite him, but lacked the jaw strength to do so, or perhaps the teeth, or both. He woofed again.
“Dammit, Baby, you ain’t s’posed to be in this house,” said the fat woman as she stepped out of the bathroom in a badly stained, too-small robe that had once been white and a bath towel over her hair. Dewey, avoiding a close look at her blubbery exposed bosoms, belly and thighs, focused on her face, and felt a glimmer of recognition. Could this be Cheryl Sue Tales, whom he’d been in high school with? She was fat back then, but nothing like this. He’d heard about her over the years, but hadn’t seen her in all that time.
“Hey, Cheryl, you remember me, right?” said Shannon. “Shannon Boner.”
“Yeah, unfortunately I do. Just walk into people’s houses, huh?” Baby woofed again, twice, louder, and then whimpered as if frustrated at not getting attention. “It’s okay, Baby. Shut up.” Cheryl waddled forward into the living room and collapsed onto a red vinyl lounger. “Who you lookin’ for? Jaime? He don’t live here.”
“We thought you might know where he is.”
“I ain’t seen Jaime in six months. You say you’re his friend? When you get to be friends?”
“Well, I’ve known him a long time and all.”
“If you’re his friend, how come you don’t know where he is?”
“Just don’t.”
“What you wanna see ’im about?”
“I owe him some money. I want to pay him back.”
Cheryl Sue laughed at that, and Shannon joined in, but Cheryl quit laughing and looked mean again after a couple moments. She rubbed her hair with the towel, kicking up an odor of shampoo and sweat.
“Well, I’ll tell ya for sure, I don’t know where he is an’ I don’t give a shit. If you find him, tell him his goddamn mother’s in the hospital dyin’, probably gonna have to go on kidney dialysis.”
Frustrated, Baby began barking viciously as Cheryl was speaking, but she ignored him. It sounded convincing, like he was about to rip someone’s leg off, but he was wobbling in place as he did so. He nipped weakly at Shannon’s calf, enough that Shannon said, “Dog, goddammit,” and kicked his leg backward, shoving him aside.
Baby fell over flat on his side, whimpering, hyperventilating and trembling violently, his entire abdomen inflating and deflating like a bagpipe.
“What’d you do?” screamed Cheryl. “You hurt Baby! You kicked him!”
“No, I didn’t,” said Shannon. “I just moved him with my foot.”
“He’s havin’ a stroke! You sonovabitch!” She jumped up and thumped into the bedroom. They heard a scraping sound from there, and Cheryl emerged with a rifle in hand. Shannon and Dewey took off fast as she fired, once and again, though the blasts came nowhere near them, seemed to go into the ceiling.
They heard something falling to the floor and Cheryl Sue yelling, “Hell, shit!” as they bounded across the lawn, climbed into the Chevy and skidded away.
CHAPTER 21
RONI AT THE MIRROR
“The same admission on Saturday as on Friday night?” The kid stared at Roni, trying to be intimidating. He had a large knapsack, one you might take to climb a mountain, and had set it on the floor in front of the ticket booth. She wondered for a moment if he might have a gun in it.
“Yes, that’s correct.” She was trying to see people’s hands as they strode by, looking for those hand stamps.
“I’m sorry, but that doesn’t make any sense. Could I speak to someone who knows what they’re doing?”
“This is the setup. The manager made it very clear.” Roni pointed to the sign. She thought it was stupid and unfair herself, but it wouldn’t help to say so.
“I doubt that. Where is the manager?” The guy eyed her oddly. She was pretty sure he was looking at her stain.
“He’s not available.”
“This is completely ridiculous. The full admission is for eleven movies. Four of those movies have already been shown.” People were walking by to the concession stand and the auditorium beyond it, not showing their hand stamps. A lot of them might have paid already and were coming back, but somebody needed to check those as people came in. That was the security guard’s job, but the guy they’d hired, Glenn, was not at the table by the inner entrance as he was supposed to be. She’d noticed he was gone at least twenty minutes before.
“I’m sorry you don’t like the policy, but I can’t change it and the manager won’t change it. That’s it.”
“It really is so unfair,” came a familiar voice. Standing beside him was Benny, looking at her as if offended, taking the side of the guy complaining, who ignored him. Didn’t look like they knew each other. Benny probably thought he was cute. Benny wore a one-piece, black, form-fitting Danskin outfit—it wasn’t supposed to be a costume, he’d aspired to be a professional dancer, never got anywhere but never got over it, Hobie had said—and had a new hairstyle, a kind of jheri-curl. It looked ridiculous.
“Why isn’t the manager here?” said the knapsack guy.
“Because,” sighed Roni, “he isn’t here.”
“It’ll be a cold day in hell when I come back to this theater.” He picked up his heavy knapsack and put it on his back.
“I, for one, don’t blame you,” said Benny as the guy walked off without responding.
Benny came forward and leaned on the ledge of the ticket booth. “You were just saying that, weren’t you? About Hobie?” He too seemed to be looking right at the side of her eye.
“Thanks a lot for making my job easier.”
“I’m—what? Are you being sarcastic?” He seemed surprised. “I felt the situation called for someone to show a little sympathy for what he was saying. You noticed, I’m sure, he calmed down as soon as I spoke. You know, you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.”
“Thanks, I’ll try to remember that one.” She looked over at the people standing in long lines to the restrooms, some of them looking quite uncomfortable, like they had to go pretty bad. There was only one toilet in each room, plus a urinal in the men’s room. People were still going past the ticket booth, still no Glenn.
“But he is here, isn’t he? He wouldn’t leave with his marathon going on. He’s put his whole heart and soul into it. Is he in his office?”
“No, I was just up there. No.” In fact, that was probably where he was. “I don’t know where he is, haven’t seen him in the last hour. He might be in the projection booth with Larry.” Larry was their quiet, very competent projectionist. “Or he may have gone home.”
“Please be honest with me. I need to see him one more time, even if from a distance. I don’t even want to speak to him. You can understand that, can’t you? You’ve been in a heartbreaking relationship yourself. I want to see him once more, to say my private farewell just to myself. Then I’m going away, forever.”
“Well, if you hang around here long enough, you’ll probably see him eventually. Right now, you’re holding up the line, okay?”
“You know, I didn’t want to be the one to tell you about your husband. He’s involved in this thing, too. He shares responsibility for what’s going on here in the theater, with Hobie and with many, many other people.”
“What are you talking about now?” she said, but Benny stalked away.