Well, actually, really, considering all the ramifications and what constituted wise business, he could be honest saying … “I’m not interested.”
He could hear the click of a door latch and the groan of hinges, and through the window he could see her getting out of the car and standing beside it. What was she … ? He grabbed some binoculars from his desk.
There she was, in blue, untucked shirt and blue jeans, juggling four tennis balls … in slow motion, and looking toward the house with a big, showbiz smile on her face. “Can we talk?”
He watched her juggle, the balls floating in a high, graceful arc from one hand to the other. She made it look effortless and didn’t even have to watch the balls but looked toward the window with that teasing smile. How did she do that, standing outside? Did she have some kind of device in the VW? If so, she’d gone to a lot of trouble to impress him.
He set down the binoculars. Feelings. Nothing more than feelings. What to do?
He could have refused a million-dollar check because he didn’t like the color of the ink; he could have been drowning and refused to grab a rope tossed to him because the rope was nylon instead of hemp; he could have jumped out of a plane without a parachute because the chute didn’t match his socks. But no, he did worse: “Go away!”
“Just a few minutes?”
“I said, ‘Go away!’”
He hung up.
And then he watched her sadly catch the balls, one after the other, toss them in the backseat of her Bug, get in, start up the engine, and drive off.
Feelings. Oh, they were so very powerful! His insides hurt to the point of nausea.
He looked at the drawing on his drafting table and sighed. Just when he was starting to think about other things and get back to some projects.
Well, here was another day shot.
chapter
19
She drove back the way she came, kicking herself for getting all wound up and full of hope like a believer in fairy tales until she put her foot deep in poop and lost her shoe.
She felt sick. Stupid. Juvenile. She should have known better.
She heard a hiss-hiss-hiss from her right front tire and then it started flopping and shaking the whole car.
She pulled over, moaning, whining, pounding the steering wheel, and trying to think of words that weren’t too dirty, the little car growling and wobbling to a halt on the gravel shoulder. She pushed her door open and struggled from the car as if she were tangled up in it. Getting out was very uphill because the car was leaning forlornly toward the right.
She opened the trunk—in front of the car, she always loved that—and pulled out the spare and the jack.
She jacked up the car to take the weight off the wheel but keep the tire touching the ground so it wouldn’t spin when she twisted off the lug nuts. The spare lay on the ground beside her, ready to go. Good enough. It wouldn’t be the first time she’d changed a tire. Things could have been worse. It could have been raining.
A big SUV came by, slowed down, then pulled over just ahead of her.
She wilted a little. Not that she didn’t appreciate the help, but right now she wasn’t in the mood. “Oh, got a flat tire, huh?” she mimicked to herself. “Yeah, sure is flat, all right. Hey, but it’s only flat on one side! You live around here?”
A nice-looking guy got out the passenger side. Young and studly. Olive complexion, black, wavy hair. “Hello,” he said. “Looks like you have a problem.”
“Oh, guess it happens.”
“Can I give you a hand?”
Well … “Okay. Sure. I appreciate it.”
The man extended his hand. “Lemuel.”
She shook it. “Eloise.”
He squatted by the lame tire. “Oh, you need to jack it up more.”
So she had to tell him, “You need to get the lug nuts off while the tire’s touching or the tire will spin.”
He went for the jack handle. She decided to let him find out for himself. Klinka klinka klinka, he pumped the jack up farther and the wheel came off the ground.
The first lug nut he went for, the tire spun.
She would have had the spare on by now.
Lemuel pointed. “What kind of lugs are these?”
Eloise squatted down beside him. “What do you mean?”
Lemuel had a friend, the driver of the truck. She heard him get out and walk along the street side of the Bug to circle around the end.
“They metric?”
“That’s right.”
“Right- or left-hand threads?”
“Rightsy-tightsy, lefty-loosie.”
He broke into a grin. “I like that.” He tried turning the wrench again. The tire spun again.
“You gonna lower the tire?”
“Well, I guess I’d better.”
The friend came alongside them. Quiet, wasn’t he?
Lemuel lowered the tire so it touched the ground. The first nut twisted off easily. He had the concept now. She looked up at the friend.
The man was blond and must have had terrible pimples growing up.
“Hey! You’re, um …”
He crouched down beside her and smiled.
“Clarence! You were at—”
She didn’t see what was in his right hand. She felt only a bolt of lightning enter her neck and shoot out her fingers and toes and she couldn’t stop trembling, as if her whole body was a funny bone that got whacked. He met her eyes. Misdirection, and she fell for it.
She teetered and slumped to her side on the ground and couldn’t help it, couldn’t do a thing about it. They were on her, taking hold of her and she couldn’t kick, couldn’t hit. She could scream—Lemuel, or whatever his name was, clamped his hand over her mouth.
A hornet stung her neck, hurting and hurting more! She twisted her head in time to see Clarence withdrawing a needle. She screamed into Lemuel’s hand.
Dane’s pencil sketched and scribbled, expanding the drawing, trying out ideas. Seal the cocoon with rigged bolts? A little obvious, but how else would we—
His mind switched so suddenly it jarred him. Mandy. He could think of only Mandy.
Mandy … what? What about her?
His eyes went to the photos and posters. She was smiling in her pictures, looking great, but he felt troubled when he looked at her, as if, behind those great looks, she wasn’t doing great; behind that beaming smile, she wasn’t happy but afraid.
I’m losing it.
He looked out the windows, at the floor, the ceiling, anywhere but those images. What was this, some kind of seizure? Was he having a flashback? A drug reaction?
He gripped the edges of the table and tried breathing, just breathing.
Dr. Kessler? Maybe you should call …
I can handle this.
What was that? He held still and listened. Somebody was in the house. Shirley? But Shirley wasn’t working today, and she never came in without announcing herself.
Maybe he didn’t hear anything. Maybe he feltit.
They were strong, holding her down and patiently, ruthlessly waiting for her strength, her fear, her mind to slip into chemical-induced surrender. Only her mind was still free, her terror keeping her alert for so very few, extra, precious moments. She concentrated even as she whimpered in fear, reaching, reaching for the other arms, the other hands, the other Eloises that could still grab, kick, hit, run.
She couldn’t see the lug wrench with her own eyes, but somehow, through time and tea-stained, wavering space she knew where it was, propped against the spare tire, glinting in the sun. She could feel the cold steel in a hand she didn’t have. With anger, with animal viciousness, she yanked the wrench aloft and toward him.Maybe she was only dreaming …
CLANG! She didn’t see the wrench hit the back of Lemuel’s head but she heard it and some distant, separate part of herself felt the shock ring through the metal. His grip loosened. He teetered, his eyes rolling, going blank. She kicked her legs loose—all six or eight of them, she couldn’t count—while someone somewhere named Eloise took the wrench to Clarence. He saw it coming at him like an angry insect and held up his arms, trying to block the blows, trying to grab it, but she was in a different realm of time, could move faster, and fully intended to work through those arms to reach his head and body. The steel rang and she could feel the shock of the blows, but her grip never tired.