No. Wait. Be cool.
Maybe it wouldn't happen. Maybe the horror had finally let go. Maybe it was over. He hadn't allowed himself near a phone for so long, how did he know it would happen again? Nothing had happened yet. Maybe nothing would. If he just stayed calm and stayed put, maybe—
The phone in the booth began to ring.
Will closed his eyes, set his jaw, and gripped the steering wheel with all his strength.
Damn!
The phone rang only once. Not the usual two-second burst, but a long, continuous ring that went on and on.
Will opened his eyes to see who would answer it. Someone always did. Who'd be the unlucky one?
He watched the commuters at the bus stop ignore it for a while. They looked at each other, then at the phone, then back down the street where their bus was stuck in traffic somewhere out of sight. Will knew that wouldn't last. No one could ignore a phone that rang like that.
Finally, a woman started for the booth.
Don't, lady!
She continued forward, oblivious to his silent warning. When she reached the booth she hesitated. It was that ring, Will knew, that endless continuous ring that so jangled the nerves with its alienness. You couldn't help but sense that something was very wrong here.
She looked around at her fellow commuters, who were all staring at her, urging her on with their eyes.
Answer it, they seemed to say. If nothing else you'll stop that damned incessant ring!
She lifted the receiver and put it to her ear. Will watched her face, watched her expression change from one of mild curiosity to concern, and then to horror. She pulled the receiver away from her head and stared at it as if the earpiece had turned to slime. She dropped it and backed away. Another of the commuters—a man this time—began to approach the booth. Then Will noticed the car in front of him begin to move ahead. He gunned the Chevy and stayed on the other car's bumper as it pulled away.
Will kept his sweaty hands tight on the wheel and fought the sick chills and nausea that swept through him.
And he didn't look back.
Lisl Whitman sat in her office in the math department at Darnell University and stared at her computer screen while trying to ignore the insistent beeping of her watch.
Lunchtime.
She was only a little hungry now, and she was really rolling on these calculations. A very productive morning. She didn't want to see it end just yet. This was good work. She had a feeling that it was going to make people sit up and take notice.
But that one o'clock advanced calculus class wouldn't wait, and a couple of those eager Darnell undergrads wouldn't let her get away for at least another fifteen minutes after class, which meant she wouldn't get free until well after two. She'd be famished by then and maybe even a little shaky. And when she got that hungry, she always ran the risk of going into a feeding frenzy.
And so what if I do?
One more binge wasn't going to matter. She was already at least twenty pounds overweight. Who'd notice a few more? Will Ryerson might, but her weight didn't seem to matter to him. He accepted her for who she was, not how she looked.
Lisl had never had a weight problem until her late twenties. Until after the divorce. She was thirty-two now and knew she'd let herself go in a big way. She'd been lonely and depressed, so she immersed herself in her doctoral thesis. And food. Food had been her only pleasure. And somewhere along the line she became a compulsive eater. She'd binge, hate herself for it, and then binge again.
Why not? She'd been considered a math nerd all her life, and nerds were supposed to look rumpled and slovenly. It came with the territory, didn't it? She'd never allow herself to look slovenly, but the loose clothes she tended to wear did lend her a rumpled look. She rarely wore makeup—her high coloring didn't require it—but she took scrupulous care of her naturally blond hair.
Eat now, she told herself. Now!
Maybe her weight didn't matter, but she had to draw the line somewhere.
She hit the save button and watched the monitor return to the READY screen. Satisfied that her work was now safely stored away in the memory banks of the university's Cray II, she shut off the monitor and looked out the window. Another bright, warm, glorious September day in North Carolina.
Now. Where to eat? Four choices. Here in the math department—either alone in her own office or joining Everett in his—or in the caf or al fresco. Actually, there were only three choices. Alone could be more company than Ev. Still, he was the only member of the department still on the floor and she guessed she owed him the courtesy of asking him to join her. It was a gesture that risked nothing, and she sensed that Ev genuinely appreciated it whenever she asked.
She stepped across the hall to his open door, everett Sanders, ph. D. ran in black across the opaque glass. He was hunched over his computer keyboard, his narrow back to her. His shiny pink scalp gleamed through his thinning light brown hair. He was dressed in the Ev Sanders uniform: short-sleeved white shirt and brown polyester slacks. Lisl didn't need to see his front to know that a nondescript brown tie was tightly knotted around his neck.
Lisl tapped on the door glass.
"Come," he said without looking around.
"It's me, Ev."
He turned and rose from his seat to face her. Always the gentleman. Only in his mid-forties but he looked older. And yes, another of his muddy brown ties was cinched up high under his Adam's apple.
"Hello, Lisl," he said, his watery brown eyes peering at her through his wire-rimmed glasses. He smiled, showing slightly yellowed teeth. "Isn't it wonderful?"
"What?"
"The article."
"Oh, yes! The article. I think it's super, don't you?"
U.S. News & World Report's annual college issue had given Darnell University a top rating, even going so far as to call it "the new Harvard of the South."
"I'll bet John Manning's sorry now that he left for Duke. All we need to complete the picture is a Division I basketball team."
"And you can coach it," Lisl said.
Ev gave one of his rare, heh-heh-heh laughs, then rubbed his palms together.
"Well, what can I do for you?"
"I'm going to lunch now. You want to come?"
"No, I don't think so." He glanced at his watch. "I'll be stopping work in two minutes. After that, I'll be eating lunch here and catching up on some reading. You're welcome to join me."
"That's okay. I didn't bring anything today. See you later."
"Very well." He smiled, nodded, and reseated himself at his computer console.
Relieved, Lisl turned away. Asking Ev to lunch was a private game she played. He always brown-bagged it, always ate in his office. It was a safe courtesy to ask him to join her. He never accepted. Ev Sanders was nothing if not predictable. She wondered what she'd do with him if he ever did accept.
She grabbed the vinyl-covered cushion from behind her office door and headed for the caf.
The caf's lasagna was good as a rule, but the weather was a little too warm for a hot lunch. She picked out a fruit cocktail and a turkey on white.
There. That looked sensible.
Then she came to the dessert counter and snatched a piece of coconut cream pie before she could stop herself.
Who'll notice?
She scanned the tables in the faculty room and saw no one she cared to sit with, so she headed outdoors to the grassy knoll behind the caf. She hoped Will would be there.
He was. She spotted Will Ryerson's familiar figure leaning against the wide trunk of the knoll's only tree, a battered old elm. He was sipping a can of pop and reading, as usual.
Her mood buoyed at the sight of him. Will was a tonic for her. Ever since she had started dabbling with this idea of submitting a math paper, Lisl had found that her insides tended to twist into tight little knots of tension when she was working on it. Her underarms would dampen from the intense concentration, like someone doing hard physical labor. All that tension uncoiled within her now as Will looked up and saw her. A welcoming smile lit through his graying beard. He closed the little book in his hand and slipped it into his lunch box.