Something stirs, p.10
Something Stirs, page 10
If she did not, that would be upsetting, but she had been upset before and she was strong and she would handle it just as she always had.
As she passed through a gap in the wall flanked by stone pillars pigeon-stained and crumbling and made her way slowly down the path toward the pond, she wondered if perhaps Erma might be of some assistance. A good handmaiden she was, never complaining, always smiling, always willing to share her food. It was shame Calvin wasn’t noble born. Had he been, Bonita would have given him a title and permitted Erma to marry him. As it was, Calvin wouldn’t even make a good squire. He yelled too much. He called her names.
He called Erma names. He called the fat serving woman names, who always yelled back like the gutter servant she was. He would never make a proper duke, nor even a decent baron. Once a commoner, always a commoner, she always believed, and Calvin Nobbs was about as common as common got.
The ducks and geese were fine.
A young couple raced across the grass, but Bonita didn’t scold them. It was, after all, coming on winter, soon enough to be cooped up in their huts, huddled around their meager fires, sipping broth and salted meat and waiting for spring. Let them have their fun. She was young once; she remembered.
“Bonita!”
She stopped, held her breath.
“Hey, Bonita!”
A slow turn to her right, frowning slightly when she didn’t see anyone until she looked up the slope, and he came toward her, topcoat casually draped over his shoulder, hair tossed by the breeze, teeth showing in a smile that made her wonder. He stopped when he reached her, so tall she had to look up.
“I haven’t seen you around,” he said quietly.
She said nothing; she could say nothing.
“You’re all right, aren’t you?”
She managed a nod, and swore under her breath when she felt the turban slide over her brow.
He looked beyond her, scanning the park. “I’ve missed you.”
She breathed again. And smiled stiffly.
His hand gently floated to her shoulder; he leaned down; his breath ghosted past her ear. “I’m going to be open late tonight, Friday and all. If you’ve nothing to do …” He shrugged. The hand didn’t move.
In her stomach something lurched, became cold, became warm, became so hot she stepped away and nearly stumbled.
He didn’t help her.
“I may drop in,” she said at last, her voice small and crystal. “I have other things to do first.”
“Of course,” he agreed quickly. “I understand.” The coat snaked from his shoulder into his hands, flipped around like a cape and his arms pierced it, his hands reappeared and he unfolded a lapel. Then, before she could stop him, he checked the park again, leaned over and kissed her cheek.
“Until later” was the whisper that made her shiver as he left, not looking back, fading into the shrubs and the protection of the trees; “Until later” was the echo that followed her as she walked twice and three times around the pond, staring at the water, seeing darts of light that stung her eyes; “Until later” was the promise that made her frown and mutter and forget what she was and who she was until she remembered that she hadn’t counted the windows.
She would tell him, she decided; tonight, this night, she would tell him everything. Perhaps then he would help her.
Her lips almost betrayed the smile she felt.
He was a nice man, was the gallant Lord Tobin, but he didn’t know it all even if he believed he did; and when he did, it would be too late, he’d be deeper in her spell and nothing would save him from becoming her king.
She was, after all, not like the others.
She was, after all, not as crazy as he thought.
On the Boulevard she lifted a hand and the magic light turned to let her pass, the carriages stopped with groans and grumblings, and she crossed, nodding imperiously to those drivers whose faces she could see.
On the other side she paused, suddenly uncertain, feeling the cold that slipped down the sides of the buildings, feeling the wind pull at her turban, feeling something made of ice slide up one leg and stab at her thigh. She gasped. She grabbed a lamppost and lowered her head, humiliated that her subjects should see her this way, hating the tears that smeared her makeup, tasted salty on her lips, fell to the sidewalk and shattered like glass.
A hand touched her shoulder. “Are you all right, lady?”
She nodded without looking up.
“You want me to call a doctor?”
She shook her head.
Go away, she thought; please go away.
The speaker did.
The pain left with him.
She pushed away and began to hurry, not caring now how she looked, only knowing that something terrible had just happened, some magic had struck her helpless, made her vulnerable, made her common; it had attacked her in the open, and she hadn’t even heard the scream.
Chapter Eleven
First thing Saturday morning Slap stood on the other side of the Boulevard, skipping left, skipping right, trying to see through the traffic as Pen Tobin stood in the display window of Sunset Books. The girl who worked with him was on the sidewalk, dancing in place with only a sweater tossed over her shoulders to keep herself warm. He could see her breath from all the way over here and felt sorry for her, wished he could help her; she was the one of them, one of the kids who kept the other kids from kicking his pictures away when he displayed them at the wall. He didn’t know her name. He didn’t really care. She was a kid. She had plenty of time to learn his.
C’mon, c’mon, c’mon, he urged; hurry up, all the people gone, done their shopping, no one left to see, c’mon, c’mon, c’mon, hurry up.
He stepped anxiously toward the curb, pulled back, and snarled when someone bumped into him, hard, shoved him away and called him a name.
No, he told himself; no time for mad. Watch the girl and Tobin, make sure they get it right.
The girl raised a palm, gesturing the man higher, lower, higher again and to the left as he held a roll of tape in his mouth and a clumsy cardboard cutout of a reindeer in his right hand.
Doing it, Slap thought gleefully; god damn, they’re really doing it.
A little to the left, the girl signaled once more, not so far, back, the other way, that’s good, that’s perfect.
Tobin set the tape.
Slap mopped his forehead with a sleeve, rested his free hand against his chest where his heart was trying to get out in a hurry. They keep this up, they won’t be done until Easter, what good will it do?
Tobin picked up a wreath-bedecked snowman with a jaunty top hat and they did it again. And with a horse-drawn sleigh, a robin wearing a too-large muffler, a decorated Christmas tree with a silver angel on top, two little kids having a snowball fight, finally fourteen flattened book covers pinned to a large, colorful, and detailed drawing of Foxriver Park after a gentle fall of snow. Slap had been paid twenty dollars for the scene; the cut-outs had been thrown in extra. Give Your Imagination Something For Christmas letters proclaimed across the top. Slap’s letters.
It looked wonderful.
It looked … perfect.
He couldn’t help it; he applauded his delight, set his cap backward, then sprinted across the street as soon as he spotted the room, and hid between two parked cars, rubbing his hands, wishing Bonita and Blade were here, they’d see how soon he was getting out, oh boy.
“Looks nice, Fern.”
He looked around just as a girl with a ponytail passed behind, a tall kid with tons of hair at her side. He knew them too. The boy didn’t like him, once called him a nigger even though he wasn’t, he was just dirty, but the kid didn’t care. Slap didn’t either; Blade was the nigger, what the hell. Blade didn’t care.
“Thanks, Laine. Slap—you know Slap? he has the pictures up at the park?—he did them.”
“He the black guy?” Laine asked.
“No, that’s Blade.”
“Right,” Joey said, clearly not giving a damn. “Scott’s old gimping buddy.”
“Jesus, Costello,” Fern said, “lay off, okay?”
The boy muttered something else and the girl with him yanked his arm hard, making him yelp. Slap grinned, covered his mouth with both hands, and ducked in case they heard him.
The crowds thickened, thinned, packages and bags and boxes and ribbons and the sound of a bell being rung on the corner and from somewhere up the street near the plaza the smell of roasting chestnuts.
“You going to the show tonight?” Laine said.
An impatient rap on the window; Fern shrugged at Tobin, who was glaring at her, shaking a book cover in one hand.
“I don’t know. I guess so.” She pointed, and her boss taped. “Actually, I think maybe Scott just wants to go to the diner.”
Joey groaned and smacked his forehead. “Again? You two guys practically live there, for god’s sake.
What’s the big deal all of a sudden? You afraid to go home or what?”
“Ask Scott,” Fern told him, and directed another cover to its place before hugging herself, then before blowing into her hands and pressing them to her cheeks. “The guy that followed—”
“Oh my god.” Joey shook his head, half in anger, half in disgust. “Look, Bellard, ain’t you two gonna get it through your heads nothing’s going on?” He put an arm around Laine’s shoulders and leaned forward, grinning. “No disappearing monster bugs, no Jack the Ripper, no whatever the hell it is you two numbnuts thought you saw.”
“Joey.”
“Why don’t you just go to whatshername, the”—he waved his free hand, nearly struck a passerby—“the frigging Queen of Foxriver.” He laughed unpleasantly. “Tell her to look in her crystal ball, maybe she can tell you something.”
“Joey, stop it”
“Well, c’mon, Fern, you guys are acting nuts. That fucking Tobin just made a pass at you, that’s all.”
Slap frowned, checked the traffic, and moved up a car, keeping low, gotta keep low, wondering what that big-mouth son of a bitch has to do with Bonita, why he’s making fun of her like that.
“I didn’t imagine it,” Fern said stiffly, and turned her back to the street.
“Great,” Laine said to the boy. “Just great.”
Joey kicked at the sidewalk. “Christ.” He kicked again, scratched his head vigorously. “It’s just that you guys are acting just like Eddie did y’know? I mean—”
“I know what you mean,” Laine interrupted curtly. “And you know that isn’t fair. Eddie’s—”
“Oh Jesus, spare me,” he said, looking up at the sky.
Slap didn’t get it. First he argues with the one girl, then the other, then talks like he’s arguing with himself.
What a jerk. He’d have to remember all this, tell it to Blade, give his friend a laugh.
“God, it’s freezing out here!” Fern declared loudly.
Tobin held up a hand—hang on, we’re almost done.
“He just wants to see you freeze your nipples,” Joey said, and laughed.
Slap watched both girls roll their eyes, heard the girls say they’d call before tonight, before Fern started for the bookstore entrance.
“Nice pigeon,” Joey called, pointing to the robin. Laine giggled and they merged with the crowd.
Pigeon, Slap thought angrily, watching them leave, looking at the window, tilting his head one way, the other, standing on his toes and staring again; that ain’t no pigeon, you stupid shit, don’t they teach you nothing no more in school?
Bonita lay in her bed.
The basement ceiling was cracked and sagging, flakes of paint and plaster peeling away, poised, just waiting to fall on the bare floor, on her.
Her hands were clasped loosely across her stomach.
Beside her, the furnace coughed and grumbled; above her, she could hear someone stomping hard toward the front door. It sounded like Calvin. He never just walked, he always had to stomp.
On another day long ago she would have climbed the stairs, cornered him, yelled at him, ordered him to be more respectful in the presence of his queen; today she only smiled and closed her eyes.
Last night she had done things to Pen Tobin he had only read about in books. Breasts and lips and hands and legs, and all the time him wanting to know where she lived, why couldn’t he meet her there, how could she be like she was when she lived on the goddamn street for god’s sake, where did she learn all this stuff, and she had only smothered his common questions with her breasts and lips and hands and legs.
Tonight she was seeing him again. Twice in a row. Something they had never done before. Once a month, maybe, sometimes twice when it was summer, that’s all. Not two times in a row, never, ever two times in a row.
By the time she was done with him, he had begged her not to leave. But of course she had to. No queen was ever found in the bed of a lord. It wasn’t done. She had her reputation to think of, and her kingdom.
The smile widened to a grin.
But she had him.
The hell with sitting in the cold and counting train windows.
The secret number wasn’t in glass after all, it was in the Sunset Books cash register, and for the longest time since waking she had scolded herself for not thinking of it before. She must have been crazy to be so stupid, or deliberately led astray by the fat serving women who called her names no real woman would call another, or deluded by a spell cast by the old woman who lived alone on the next block.
It didn’t matter.
She knew now, she knew it all, and she licked her lips in anticipation, shifting, wriggling her hips, feeling for a moment the protective sword she kept under her pillow, the sword she’d taken from the kitchen upstairs.
That had been when Calvin the Commoner had threatened to beat her.
Maybe she would use it before she left the castle, nip, so to speak, the rebellious conspiracy in the bud.
Maybe not.
Not tonight.
Tonight she would grace Lord Tobin right in his shop, tomorrow she would visit the village shops and find out how much gold it would take to take her to the warm place, and the day after that, or the day after that, she would bid her knights farewell and head into the setting sun.
She giggled.
The furnace sighed.
There was no doubt in her mind—unless the magic got her again, today she would be queen, and tomorrow she would be making plans to be gone.
Cap pulled low, Slap sat against the park wall, his wall, and grinned at the traffic, grinned at the pedestrians, grinned at the cat he heard in the brush behind him. Rustling the leaves. Probably stalking a bird. Survival, Blade, he thought; cat’s gotta do it, Hat Trick Boy gonna do it for sure.
His grin widened.
No cat bothered him now, slanty eyes and all that fur. Sneak around all it wants, it don’t bother him anymore.
Gonna get out, man. Gonna get out.
Hat Trick Boy done scored himself a goal.
He closed his eyes to the sun.
Didn’t matter that he hadn’t been able to find Blade, tell him about the boy, what the boy said, what the girl said. It wasn’t important now. His mural was up, he was gonna see the man with the card on Tuesday, he was gonna have new teeth, he was gonna have new clothes, Blade could wait until tomorrow to hear what he had to say.
Tomorrow was Sunday.
The Lord’s day.
The perfect day to tell Blade how it was all gonna turn out.
He shifted.
He might even go to see Bonita, tell her about all his money, maybe she’d do to him like she was doing to Pen Tobin, who didn’t think anybody knew about it. He giggled. Shit, everybody knew it, everybody on the street.
Eyes closed, sun still warm on his face, he clapped his hands softly and sighed.
My, he thought, ain’t it all just damn fine.
Chapter Twelve
The Boulevard was empty, all the lights and noise and pedestrians farther down, on the Strip. Even the shops had minimal illumination, and what traffic there was sped past without slowing because there was nothing to see. Tires crackled as the temperature dropped; steam rose silently in ropes and pyres from manhole covers and vents in the sides of buildings; a crisp touch to the air, the promise of snow.
Slap, his cap pulled down as far as it would go, ragged collar turned up, extra newspaper stuffed into his sneakers to cover the holes, stood alone on the sidewalk outside Sunset Books, hopping excitedly from foot to foot, hands tucked into his armpits and grabbing at his ribs. The blast from a bus passing behind him made him squint, watered his eyes, but he shook his head to clear them and grinned.
It was still there.
The snowy park was still there, just as he’d drawn it.
Gonna get out. Jesus God, hallelujah, I’m gonna get out.
Blade, Bonita, you gotta see this, you gotta know.
He’d awakened from his nap in the dark, suddenly frightened, not knowing where he was. And once his senses returned, he’d nearly been flattened by a truck as he ran across the street to find something to eat behind the diner. Nothing. And nothing anyplace else he could get to before the anxiety finally grabbed him by the shoulders and swung him around and kicked him all the way up to the store.
Just to be sure.
Just to be sure it hadn’t been a dream.
A glance up and down the sidewalk, not liking what he saw, faint lights and shadows, like ghosts were out shopping tonight just beyond the corner of his vision. It was no way to think. Next thing he knew, he’d be spooking himself over cats and that wouldn’t do. This afternoon the cat in the park hadn’t bothered him, and he was proud of himself, damn proud, for not finding his club and beating in its head.
No cats bothered him anymore.
No damn ghosts either.
A deep breath, a sniff, a knuckle across one eye, and he moved closer to the window and giggled, moved back to the curb and shook his head at the robin. Damn thing looked like a mummified pigeon, it sucked, he wished Tobin hadn’t used it, it ruined the whole thing. But since he couldn’t do anything about it, he could only hope the man whose card he now had tucked safely into his cap wouldn’t see it, or think maybe it really was a masked pigeon. Out Christmas shopping, like the sign said. Imagination. Christmas. Vacation. Something he couldn’t remember what it was, though as soon as he got out, got rich, he was gonna take a zillion of them every year.
