Better than good, Jessie thinks. Absolutely great and totally monster,if you want to know the truth. Even that isn’t what she really means, really thinks, but it would be dangerous to say the rest out loud; it would tempt the gods. What she really thinks is that the day is flawless-a sweet and perfect peach of a day. Even the song blasting out of Maddy’s portable record player (which jessie’s big sister has cheerfully carted out to the patio for this occasion, although it is ordinarily the Great Untouchable Icon) is okay. Jessie is never really going to like Marvin Gaye-no more than she is ever going to like that faint mineral smell which rises from the take on hot summer afternoons-but this song is okay. I’ll be doggone if you ain’t a pretty thing… bay-bee: silly, but not dangerous.
It is August 14th, 1965, a day that was, a day that still is in the mind of a dreaming woman handcuffed to a bed in a house on the shore of a lake forty miles south of Dark Score (but with the same mineral smell, that nasty, evocative smell, on hot, still summer days), and although the twelve-year-old girl she was doesn’t see Will creeping up behind her as she bends over to address her croquet ball, turning her bottom into a target simply too tempting for a boy who has only lived one year for each inning in a baseball game to ignore, part of her mind knows he is there, and that this is the seam where the dream has been basted to the nightmare.
She lines up her shot, concentrating on the wicket six feet away. A hard shot but not an impossible one, and if she drives the ball through, she may well catch Caroline after all. That would be nice, because Caroline almost always wins at croquet. Then, just as she draws her mallet back, the music coming from-the record-player changes.
“Oww, listen everybody,” Marvin Gaye sings, sounding a lot more than just mock-threatening to Jessie this time, “especially you girls…”
Chills of gooseflesh run up Jessie’s tanned arms.
“… is it right to be left alone when the one you love is never home?… I love too hard, my friends sometimes say…”
Her fingers go numb and she loses any sense of the mallet in her hands. Her wrists are tingling, as if bound by
(stocks Goody’s in the stocks come and see Goody in the stocks come andlaugh at Goody in the stocks)
unseen clamps, and her heart is suddenly full of dismay. It is the other song, the wrong song, the bad song.
“… but I believe… I believe… that a woman should be loved that way…”
She looks up at the little group of girls waiting for her to make her shot and sees that Caroline is gone. Standing there in her place is Nora Callighan. Her hair is in braids, there’s a dab of white zinc on the tip of her nose, she’s wearing Caroline’s yellow sneakers and Caroline’s locket-the one with the tiny picture of Paul McCartney inside it-but those are Nora’s green eyes, and they are looking at her with a deep adult compassion. Jessie suddenly remembers that Will-undoubtedly egged on by his buddies, who are as jazzed up on Cokes and German chocolate cake as Will himself-is creeping up behind her, that he is preparing to goose her. She will overreact wildly when he does, swinging around and punching him in the mouth, perhaps not spoiling the party completely but certainly putting a ding in its sweet perfection. She tries to let go of the mallet, wanting to straighten and turn around before any of this can happen. She wants to change the past, but the past is heavy-trying to do that, she discovers, is like trying to pick up the house by one corner so you can look under it for things that have been lost, or forgotten, or hidden.
Behind her, someone has cranked the volume on Maddy’s little record-player and that terrible song blares louder than ever, triumphant and glittery and sadistic: “IT HURTS ME SO INSIDE… TOBE TREATED SO UNKIND…SOMEBODY, SOMEWHERE…TELLHER IT AIN’T FAIR…”
She tries again to get rid of the mallet-to throw it away but she can’t do it; it’s as if someone has handcuffed her to it.
Nora! she cries. Nora, you have to help me! Stop him!
(It was at this point in the dream that Jessie moaned for the first time, momentarily startling the dog back from Gerald’s body.)
Nora shakes her head, slowly and gravely. I can’t help you, Jessie.You’re on your own-we all are. I generally don’t tell my patients that,hut I think in your case it’s best to be honest.
You don’t understand! I can’t go through this again! I CAN’T!
Oh, don’t he so silly, Nora says, suddenly impatient. She begins to turn away, as if she can no longer bear the sight of Jessie’s upturned, frantic face. You will not die; it’s not poison.
Jessie looks around wildly (although she remains unable to straighten up, to stop presenting that tempting target to her impending brother) and sees that her friend Tammy Hough is gone; standing there in Tammy’s white shorts and yellow halter is Ruth Neary. She’s holding Tammy’s red-striped croquet mallet in one hand and a Marlboro in the other. Her mouth is hooked up at the corners in her usual sardonic grin, but her eyes are grave and full of sorrow.
Ruth, help me! Jessie shouts. You have to help me!
Ruth takes a big drag on her cigarette, then grinds it into the grass with one of Tammy Hough’s cork-soled sandals. Jeepers-creepers, tootsie-he’s going to goose you, not stick a cattle-prod up yourass. You know that as well as I do; you’ve been through all this before.So what’s the big deal?
It isn’t just a goose! It isn’t, and you know it!
The old hooty-owl hooty-hoos to the goose, Ruth says.
What? What does that m-
It means how can I know anything about ANYTHING? Ruth shoots back. There is anger on the surface of her voice, deep hurt beneath. You wouldn’t tell me-you wouldn’t tell anybody. You ran away. Youran like a rabbit that sees the shadow of some old hooty-owl on the grass.
I COULDN’T TELL! Jessie shrieks. Now she can see a shadow on the grass beside her, as if Ruth’s words have conjured it up. It is not the shadow of an owl, however; it is the shadow of her brother. She can hear the stifled giggles of his friends, knows he is reaching out to do it, and still she cannot even straighten up, let alone move away. She is helpless to change what is going to happen, and she understands that this is the very essence of both nightmare and tragedy.
I COULDN’T! she shrieks at Ruth again. I couldn’t, not ever! Itwould have killed my Mom…or destroyed the familyor both! He said! Daddy said!
I hate to be the one to send you this particular newsflash, tootsie-wootsie,but your dear old Dad will have been dead twelve years come December.Also, can’t we dispense with at least a little of this melodrama? It’s notas if he hung you from the clothesline by the nipples and then set youon fire, you know.
But she doesn’t want to hear this, doesn’t want to consider-even in a dream-any reappraisal of her buried past; once the dominos start to fall, who knows where it will all end? So she blocks her ears to what Ruth is saying and continues to fix her old college roommate with that deep, pleading stare that so often caused Ruth (whose tough-cookie veneer was never more than frosting-deep, anyway) to laugh and give in, to do whatever it was Jessie wanted her to do.
Ruth, you have to help me! You have to!
But this time the pleading stare doesn’t work. I don’t think so,toots. The Sorority Susies are all gone, the time for shutting up is over,running away is out of the question, and waking up is not an option.This is the mystery train, Jessie. You’re the pussycat; I’m the owl. Herewe go-all aboard. Fasten your seatbelt, and fasten it tight. This is anE-ticket ride.