She peeled the sheet off her chest. She was dressed in a baby-poop-green gown tied loosely behind her back. Her clothes were folded in a chair at the foot of the steel-railed bed. So somebody had seen her naked, something that hadn't happened in at least twenty years. Served them right. They had no business poking around in her innards anyway.
She lay there, calculating yesterday's lost profits. She should have called in one of the Hancocks, or the boy who swept up after school. Even paying somebody a full day's wages, she would have netted fifty bucks at the least. And you never knew when a tourist bus was going to pull up, or a pack of Christian Harley riders. This time of year, with the fall colors starting to come on, the general store needed to bank enough to get her through the winter. Which meant she couldn't lie there another day, not while customers turned away with full pockets.
A new doctor came in, a man with a mustache that looked penciled over his lip, who looked more like a game-show host than somebody in the medical field. It was getting so you couldn't peg people anymore.
"Morning, Miss Jeffers. I'm Dr. Vincent." The doctor put a wrist to her forehead and checked the tension on the clip attached to her finger. Apparently that little clip fed a lot of information to the video monitor on the wall. All the signs appeared to be jagging up and down in some kind of steady pattern.
"Am I fit to go?" Sarah was going to ask for a cup of orange juice, but figured that would probably run her five bucks. She was on Medicare but she'd still be stuck with her 20 percent of the bill, meaning the juice would cost her a buck out-of-pocket. She wasn't that thirsty.
"Everything looks good," the doctor said. "You had a rough patch for a little bit, but all your signs are stable. We've diagnosed exhaustion."
"I took on a spell," Sarah said. "I'm all better now, like you said."
"I'll sign your discharge papers, but I urge you to get some extra rest in the next few weeks. I wouldn't want you coming back in with something more serious."
"Don't you worry. I haven't spent so much time in bed since my honeymoon, and that was before you were born."
The doctor almost grinned. "One thing… while you were out, you were muttering 'Harm me,' over and over again. Did you think somebody was going to hurt you?"
Sarah let her face slip into a mask of cool stone. "Nobody's going to hurt me. I can take care of myself."
"Of that, I have no doubt." He patted her hand. "I'll have the nurse help you get your things together. Do you have someone to drive you home?"
"I'll call somebody."
"Good. Extra sleep for a while. Promise?"
"Sure, Doc."
He left the room, and Sarah lay there in the stink of antiseptic. The beeping of the monitor accelerated and the jaggedy lines on the screen became erratic. Sarah removed the clip from her trembling finger. She must have been dreaming of him, to have called out his name like that.
Not "harm me."
Harmon.
Harmon Smith, the man in the black hat.
When the bus picked Jett up, she walked straight down the aisle, her gaze fixed on the emergency release latch for the back door. Tommy Williamson let out a wolf whistle, and one of the third graders was opening his lunch box, filling the air with peanut butter smell. She bit her lip and slid into the empty seat on the second row from the rear. Right in front of Tommy and Grady. She expected Tommy to make a grab as she sat, but he must have been too shocked by her abrupt approach.
Tommy said, "Hey, Grady, I think she likes me."
"In your dreams, man."
"No, really. She knows when she's licked… all over.'' Tommy snickered. Jett could smell it on them, the reason she had ventured into the goonie zone.
"Why don't you ask her, then?" Grady taunted. "If you're so hot, why ain't she sitting in your lap?"
Jett didn't turn. Compared to the inner-city school she had once attended, where fourth graders sometimes carried switchblades, a Cross Valley Elementary bus offered little to fear. Tommy in his Carhartt jacket with the scuffed elbows was about as threatening as Fonzie from Happy Days, in that warm-and-fuzzy era after the likeable hoodlum had jumped the shark.
"Yeah? Just watch a stud in action." Tommy leaned over the seat. Jett could feel his breath on her neck, and the smell of pot was thick and potent. "Hey, sweet thing. I dig chicks in black."
She waited. Maybe he had been practicing his lines on his sister or something, because they sure were lame. He could have done better reading books like How to Talk to Girls (And Don't Call Them "Chicks ") or hanging out in Internet chat rooms.
"What do you say?" Tommy's voice fell into a low, murmuring rhythm. "You know you want it. Can't keep away, can you?"
"I'm fine, thanks," she said without turning.
"She talked to you, dude," Grady said.
"Shut up." Tommy moved closer, and now his breath was on her ear. "Want some of what I got?"
"As a matter of fact, I do."
Tommy was silent, though he was panting audibly now.
"Seven grams will do," she said. Her father had mailed her fifty dollars, telling her it was for her personal use. This was about as personal as she could get.
"Grams? Do what?"
"Or do you sell it by the quarter ounce up here? I don't know if the metric system has hit the sticks yet."
"You ain't right, girl."
"Come on, let's not play games. You've reeked of marijuana since the first day I walked into school. The only reason the teachers can't smell it is because they're probably smoking it themselves."
"Hey, big-city bitch, don't get so high and mighty. Just because you talk all fancy and got black stockings don't mean you can-"
Jett turned and put her face close to his, their noses almost touching. "Listen, redneck. Next time you lay a hand on me, I'll take your fingers and shove them one by one up your asshole until you're tickling your own tonsils."
Grady shrank into the corner, shooting a glance at the driver twenty rows up. Tommy blinked but didn't back away. A kinder-gartner was crying in the front of the bus. Trees whizzed by beyond the windows, and leaves skirled along the gravel road in the draft of the bus's wake.
"I've got money and I need grass," she said. "You've got grass and you need money."
"I don't mess with that shit."
"Like hell. What's that you were smoking this morning, goat turds?"
Grady giggled and Tommy elbowed him in the ribs. "What if I could get some? I want something more than money."
"Like what?"
Tommy ran his tongue over his lips like a poisoned rat at a water puddle. "Some of your sweet stuff."
Jett tucked a strand of dyed hair behind her ear. "Fine. Bring it on. But there's something you ought to know."
Tommy's eyes widened, and Grady leaned toward her, too, not believing his good buddy was going to score. "What's that?" Tommy said, in a dry croak.
"I've got AIDS. So any time."
Tommy went pale. Jett faced the front, smiling to herself. The rumor would make the rounds, and by Christmas break some teacher or other would probably call her mom. It might even get as far as the school board. She'd probably be asked to take a blood test by next semester. With any luck, it would lead to an indefinite suspension until the matter was cleared up.
But by tomorrow, she would have a bag of pot, even if Tommy delivered it wearing rubber gloves and a surgical mask. The good times would roll, and all her problems would go up in smoke.
Katy had gone back to bed after seeing off Jett. She lay under the covers, half asleep, trying to free the stolen sheet from Gordon's clutches. This was Friday, and Gordon's only class was in the afternoon. They had taken to sleeping late that day, especially as the mornings had grown chillier. Katy felt a bit decadent, having been a chronic early riser during her banking career. She still wasn't sure if she missed working or not.