Part 39 (1/2)
”Yeah,” he said. ”The library.”
”No!”
”Yes, ma'am. The library's on fire.”
314.
On the day of his sister's funeral, Forney moved into the Majestic Hotel, a decrepit 1920s brick with sagging floors and stained ceilings.
Whatever majesty it had enjoyed sixty years earlier was buried now beneath layers of chipped paint and the smell of cooked onions.
The pensioners who lived there, old men with milky eyes and clotted voices, looked up when Novalee opened the front door. They smiled at the sunlight s.h.i.+ning through her white cotton dress as they recalled other summer days, other dresses. They sighed at the sound of her voice when she asked for the room of the librarian, and they remembered the smell of gardenias as she pa.s.sed through the high-ceilinged lobby and hurried up the stairs.
She knocked three times before she opened the door. At first, she didn't see him. The room was dark and he was wearing a slate-colored suit.
”Forney?”
He was sitting up straight on the side of the bed, his hands folded in his lap.
”I was worried about you,” Novalee said.
”I'm sorry.”
”No, don't be sorry. I don't want you to feel sorry. I just wanted to see you.”
”Oh.”
”Forney, can I come in?”
”You want to come in?”
”If that's okay.”
”Yes.”
When Novalee closed the door, the room was so dark she could barely make out Forney's shape.
”You want to turn on the light?” he asked. ”We can turn on the light.”
315.
”No. This is fine.”
”I used to be afraid of the dark,” he said. ”But sometimes, it's the best place to be. Sometimes you can see things in the dark that you can't see in the light.”
”What do you see here in the dark, Forney?”
From somewhere down the hall, Novalee heard canned laughter, then the voice of Fred Flintstone.
”When I was six,” Forney said, ”in the first grade, my father always picked me up at school.”
As Novalee's eyes adjusted to the dark, she could see a wedge of reflected light s.h.i.+mmering on the ceiling.
”But one day, he didn't come. It was raining, so lots of parents came for their children, but my father didn't come.”
Forney s.h.i.+fted his weight and the bedframe creaked beneath him.
”I watched everyone else leave, even the janitor . . . and then I was the only one left. I started crying because I thought I'd have to stay in the school all night by myself.
”Anyway, it was getting dark when I heard footsteps in the hall. It was Mary Elizabeth. She smoothed my hair and wiped my face, but I couldn't quit crying.
”She took my hand and we started to leave, but when we pa.s.sed the auditorium, she stopped. I knew she wanted me to stop crying, but she didn't say anything, just looked at me for a moment, then led me inside.”
Someone shuffling past Forney's door coughed, the thick, phlegmy cough of an old man.
”Mary Elizabeth took me to a seat on the front row, then walked up the steps to the stage. She looked out at me and began to hum a song, some tune I didn't know. And then she started to dance.
316.
”She lifted her arms, turned her body slowly and began to glide.
Moving to the sound of her song, she danced. She danced just for me.
”I sat very still and watched her. Never took my eyes away from her. She was so beautiful. And when she finished, she smiled at me.”
The TV was shut off down the hall and a door closed somewhere nearby.
”You know what, Novalee? I don't think I ever saw her smile again.”
The room was so still that Novalee felt suddenly afraid.
”Forney . . .”
”I want to tell you about this morning, Novalee, and why I couldn't go.”
”You don't have to.”
”I tried. Walked right up to the church, right to the door, but I couldn't walk in.”
”Forney . . .”
”I had four white roses . . . for her. But when I got to the church, they'd turned brown.” Forney wiped his face with the back of his hand, then he looked up at Novalee. ”I couldn't take her brown roses.”
Novalee would barely remember crossing the room and wrapping him in her arms . . . but she would never forget his breath against her throat as he murmured her name again and again. And when his lips found the silver scar at the corner of her mouth, she didn't know that the voice whispering ”yes” was her own.
Chapter Thirty-Four.