"Your night shift is only one?"
"Supposed to be four after the dinner rush is over and then two after everybody's tucked in. But I'm staying the night so we'll be all right. And I've got to admit I enjoy a couple of minutes of visiting with somebody who isn't afraid of me."
He wasn't sure that was true—she was an intimidating person. But not because she wanted to be, or tried to be. Rather she was so direct, so forthright, so clearly uninterested in making a good impression that it gave her the upper hand. Quentin liked this about her. It made him curious. "I've never heard of a nurse being in charge of a rest home. Usually isn't it a salesman type who can sucker people in?"
"This really is a good rest home, so our residents aren't suckers," said Sannazzaro. Before Quentin could protest his innocence, she went on. "But you're right, it used to be a salesman type. Then they caught him with his hands in the till and his fly open in some of the residents' rooms—I don't know which was worse in the owners' minds. Anyway, they needed a fully trained replacement immediately. I was already here as medical officer. So I've been acting superintendent since October of '94."
"Why don't they just make it official?" asked Quentin.
"Because I don't want the job and I keep turning it down."
"So why don't you quit running the place and go back to your nurse duties?"
"Because if I do they'll bring in another salesman type to run the place, and I'd hate going back to that nightmare."
"So you won't take the job, but you won't give it up," said Quentin.
She laughed. "It sounds just as stupid to me, but what can I do? They're paying me at the nurse level plus a bonus, which saves them money, and in the meantime I don't have some cost-cutting moron glad-handing the public and stealing from the patients. Except that I'm tired all the time and don't have a life, things are going great."
Again Quentin found himself speaking on impulse. "It's a good thing we both know that I'm depressed and recovering from a spectacularly failed marriage, or I'd offer to take you away from all this." Quentin wondered at his own words. Was this flirtatious conversation for its own sake? Or did he unconsciously mean something by it?
Fortunately, she took it as a joke rather than a come-on. "Just don't say anything about the Virgin Islands or I'll take you up on it and you'd be stuck with a cast-iron bitch who doesn't look all that good in a bikini."
"Now you've done it. Now I'm thinking of you in a bikini."
They laughed.
Quentin was relieved that it was just a flirtation between two tired people who knew nothing would come of it. But he hadn't had many ventures into the world of flirtation, and most of what he'd seen had been while waiting to meet partners in upscale bars where all the flirters were so drunk that it didn't take much for them to think each other clever. It kind of gave him a thrill to play at it with a sober person whom he liked. But it also made him feel guilty. Even though he knew Madeleine wasn't real, he still felt married and he was a faithful husband.
"You're thinking of your wife," said Sannazzaro.
"Yeah, well, I was thinking that I still feel married."
"I'm glad to hear it. I've known too many men who never felt quite married no matter how many wives they've been through. Their own and otherwise."
Remembering again where they were, Quentin looked at Mrs. Tyler's closed and silent face. "I wonder how Mrs. Tyler felt about her husband."
"Loved him," said Sannazzaro. "But he died young. She told me that she thought the death of their first child, a boy, was too hard on him. He lost heart. Like I said—when people truly despair, they don't live long."
"She seems awfully old to have her oldest grandchild be only ten."
"I think the little girl is eleven. But yes. Mrs. Tyler married late. Maybe that was part of her husband's despair. She was forty before she started having babies."
"What was the delay?"
"What is it ever? She married Mr. Tyler only six months after she met him. He was more than ten years younger than her. She always assumed that he'd outlive her, which was fine, she didn't want to be a widow."
"Bummer," said Quentin.
"And you meant to be a father," said Sannazzaro. "Nobody's life ever goes according to plan."
"So why do we keep on planning?"
She thought for a moment. "Because that's how we know who we are. By what we intend to be. By what we try to become."
"And fail."
"I don't say 'fail,' Mr. Fears. I say we aim and miss. But we still hit something."
"Ouch."
She smiled. But she had been serious, and he could see that his joke disappointed her.
"Sorry," he said. "I think what you said is right. I'm just kind of caught up in the target that I missed. I haven't even looked to see what I might have hit. Maybe the arrow hasn't even landed yet. And please call me Quentin."
"Minus the 'San.' "
"That's what I'll call you."
"Call me Sally," she said.
"Sally, may I call you?" he said. And there it was. He wasn't content for this conversation to amount to nothing.
She looked at him for a while before saying, "When you know what's happening with your marriage, I wouldn't mind a phone call now and then."
He smiled. He liked a woman who knew how to spell out the rules. He also liked it that she had the same rules he did.
She smiled back.
He got up to leave, and so did she. He was reaching for the door when he saw words appear on it.
DON'T GO
His hand hovered over the doorknob.
"Well?" asked Sannazzaro. Sally.
He looked at her. She didn't see the words. Too bad. It would have been nice if he could tell her what was really going on. But without the evidence of her own eyes, like Bolt had had, she would never believe him. And he didn't want her to think he was crazy. He wanted very much for her to like him because he needed a friend who was good and decent and lived in the real world and didn't charge him three hundred bucks an hour.
"Sally," he said. "I want to talk to Mrs. Tyler. Alone. I know she won't hear me, but it would mean a lot to me. I'm not going to hurt her. If you want affidavits about my character, call my lawyer, his number's on my card." He handed her one. "Or call my parents and they'll tell you I was always a good boy."
"Maybe I should call your neighbors," said Sally.
"They'll just tell you I'm a loner who keeps to himself." He grinned.
She shook her head. "Quentin, I don't know why I should trust you. You're such a smooth operator. You're not telling me the truth. And you came here with slime on your shoes."
Apparently she really didn't like Bolt. "The way Bolt acted here tonight, I've never seen him like that. If I'd known the way things stood between you, I never would have brought him. Everything I've told you is true but you're right, I haven't told you everything because I don't want you to think I'm crazy."
"So. Convince me you're not crazy."
"Sally, I saw Mrs. Tyler in a house in Mixinack a few days ago. She slept through breakfast but in the parlor she looked me in the eye and said, 'Find me.' That's why I'm here."
"This isn't helping."
"You can see why I didn't tell you, but it's the truth. Crazy things are happening but I know I'm not crazy because every now and then somebody else sees the same things I see. Earlier today I saw writing magically appear on a door in that house in Mixinack—and Bolt saw it too."
"Better not use Bolt as a witness of your sanity, Quentin."
"And when a limo driver dropped me and my wife off a few days ago, he saw lights on in the house and a servant waiting to meet the car, just as I did. Only the next day I found out that the power hadn't been on in that house ever since Mrs. Tyler came here. And the only footprints in the snow were the driver's and mine."