She knocked again.
She wasn’t sure whether she should be relieved or anxious when her mother called out to her in a fruity theatrical voice: “Pray ye, say who knocketh upon my chamber door.”
On a few occasions, when Sinsemilla had been in one of these playacting moods, Leilani had played along with her, speaking with the fake old-English dialect, using stage gestures and exaggerated expressions, hoping that a minim of mother-daughter bonding might occur. This always proved to be a bad idea. Old Sinsemilla didn’t want you to become a member of the cast; you were expected only to admire and be charmed by her performance, for this was a one-woman show. If you persisted in sharing the spotlight, the larky dialogue took a nasty turn, whereupon you found yourself the target of mean criticism and vicious obscenities delivered in the stupid phony voice of whatever Shakespearean character or figure from Arthurian legend that Sinsemilla imagined herself to be.
So instead of saying, ” ‘Tis I, Princess Leilani, inquiring after m’lady’s welfare,” she said, “It’s me. You okay?”
“Enter, enter, Maiden Leilani, and come thou quickly to thy queen’s side.”
Yuck. This was going to be worse than blood and mutilation.
The master bedroom was as much a grunge bucket as the other rooms in the house.
Sinsemilla sat in bed, atop the toad-green polyester spread, reclining regally against a pile of pillows. She wore the full-length embroidered slip with flounce-trimmed skirt that she had bought last month at a flea market near Albuquerque, New Mexico, on their way to explore the alien enigmas of Roswell.
If whorehouse decor favored red light, as reputed, then this atmosphere was holier suited to a prostitute than to a queen. Though both nightstand lamps were aglow, a scarlet silk blouse draped one lampshade, and a scarlet cotton blouse covered the other. This quality of light flattered Sinsemilla. Bindles, kilos, bales, ounces, pints, and gallons of illegal substances had stolen less of her beauty than seemed either probable or fair, and as good as she looked in daylight, she was even prettier here. Although her bare feet were grass-stained and filthy, though her fine slip was rumpled and streaked with dirt, though her hair had been tossed and tangled by the moon dance, she might pass for a queen.
“What saith thee, young maiden, in the presence of Cleopatra?” Stopping two steps inside the door, Leilani didn’t suggest that an Egyptian queen who had reigned more than two thousand years ago probably had not spoken in a phony accent out of a bad production of Camelot. “I was going to bed, and I just thought I’d see if you were all right.”
Waving Leilani toward her, Sinsemilla said, “Come hither, dour peasant girl, and let thy queen acquaint thee with a work of art fair suitable for the galleries of Eden.”
Leilani had no clue to the meaning of her mother’s words. From experience she knew that purposefully remaining clueless might be the wisest policy.
She advanced one more step, not out of a sense of obligation or curiosity, but because by turning away too quickly, she might invite accusations of rudeness. Her mother imposed no rules or standards on her children, gave them the freedom of her indifference; yet she was sensitive to any indication that her indifference might be repaid in kind, and she wouldn’t tolerate a thankless child.
Regardless of the inconsequential nature or the questionable validity of the triggering offense, an upbraiding from old Sinsemilla could escalate into a long bout of vicious hectoring. Although Mother might not be capable of physical violence, she could do serious damage with words. Because she’d follow you anywhere, push through any door, and insist on your attention, you could find no sanctuary and had to endure her verbal battering — sometimes for hours — until she wound down or went away to get high. During the worst of these harangues, Leilani often wished that her mother would dispense with all the hateful words and throw a few punches instead.
Leaning forward from the pillows, old Sinsemilla Cleopatra spoke with a smiling insistence that Leilani knew to be a cold command: “Come, glowering girl, come, come! Looketh upon this little beauty and wish that thou were as well made as she.”
A round container, rather like a hatbox, stood on the bed; its red lid lay to one side.
Sinsemilla had been shopping earlier, in the afternoon. With her, Preston was generous, providing money for drugs and baubles. Maybe she had in fact bought a hat, for in her more seductive moods, she liked the glamour of berets and billycocks, panamas and turbans, cloches and calashes.
“Don’t tarry, child!” the queen commanded. “Come hither at once and lay thine eyes upon this treasure out of Eden.”
Obviously, this audience with her highness wouldn’t end until the new hat — or whatever — had been properly admired.
With a mental sigh that she dared not voice, Leilani approached the bed.
As she drew closer, she noticed that the hatbox was perforated by two parallel, encircling lines of small holes. For a moment this seemed like mere decoration, and Leilani didn’t deduce the function of the holes until she saw what had come in the container.
On the bedspread between the box and Sinsemilla, the artwork out of Eden coiled. Emerald-green, burnt umber, with a filigree of chrome-yellow. Sinuous body, flat head, glittering black eyes, and a flickering tongue designed for deception.
The snake turned its head to inspect its new admirer, and with no warning, it struck at Leilani as quick as an electrical current would leap across an arc between two charged poles.
Chapter 20
On the highway, bound southwest toward Nevada, Curtis and Old Yeller sit on the bed, in the dark, sharing the frankfurters. Their bonding has progressed sufficiently that even in the gloom, the dog doesn’t once mistake boy fingers for a permissible part of dinner.
This mutt isn’t, as Curtis first thought, his brother-becoming. She is instead his sister-becoming, and that’s okay, too.
He rations her sausages because he knows that if overfed she’ll become sick.
All but incapable of being overfed, he consumes the remaining hot dogs once he senses that Old Yeller is just one furter from an unpleasant flowback. The sausages are cold but delicious. He would eat more if he had them. Being Curtis Hammond requires a remarkable amount of energy.
He can only imagine the daunting quantity of energy required to be Donella, the waitress whose magnificent dimensions are matched by the size of her good heart.
Reminded of Donella, he worries about her welfare. What might have happened to her among all the flying bullets? On the other hand, although she provides a convenient target, her fantastic bulk no doubt makes her more difficult to kill than are ordinary mortals.
He wishes that he’d returned for her and had bravely spirited her to safety. This is a ridiculously romantic and perhaps irrational notion. He’s just a boy of comparatively little experience, and she’s a grand person of great age and immeasurable wisdom. Nevertheless, he wishes he had been brave for her.
Helicopter rotors rattle the night again. Curtis tenses, half expecting gunfire to riddle the motor home, to hear the booted feet of winch-lowered SWAT officers thumping on the roof and demands for his surrender blasted on a loudspeaker. The chudda-chudda-chudda of air-slicing steel grows thunderous… but then diminishes and fades entirely away.
Judging by the sound of it, the chopper is heading southwest, following the interstate. This is not good.
Finished with the hot dogs, Curtis drinks orange juice from the container — and realizes that Old Yeller is thirsty, too.
Drawing upon the messy experience of giving the dog a drink from a bottle of water in the Explorer, he decides to search for a bowl or for something that can serve as one.