Part 46 (1/2)

Losing the bandages hadn't seemed to do Andy any harm.

He'd looked sort of raw just after his shower. This morning, though, she'd seen everything above his waist and hadn't noticed any leaky wounds. She hadn't seen any blood on his sheets, either.

”We'll see how it goes,” she muttered.

In her travel bag, she found her shampoo.

Then she went into the bathroom and shut the door. She set her bottle of shampoo on the edge of the tub, spotted a small wrapped bar of Ivory in the soap dish, plucked a washcloth from its wire rack and made sure that one of the towels trapped in the same rack could be reached from the tub. After draping the washcloth over the faucet spout, she spread the bath mat on the floor.

She sat on the toilet. While she peed, she slipped her moccasins off and checked the bottom of each foot. The bandages had come unstuck last night, and she'd found them loose inside her socks when she'd gotten ready for bed. She hadn't bothered to put new ones on. Her feet looked as if they'd done just fine. None of the cuts or scratches seemed to be open. She prodded most of them with a fingertip. They felt tender, just slightly sore.

Which seemed to bode well for the rest of her injuries.

She slipped her feet back into the moccasins, returned to the tub, crouched and turned on the water. She adjusted the temperature, pulled the plastic curtain, and finally activated the shower. When water started splas.h.i.+ng down, she left her moccasins on the bath mat and stepped in.

The hot spray felt wonderful.

Mostly.

On some of her injuries, it stung.

On the bullet wound just below her groin, it felt like acid.

She stiffened and grimaced, but after a few seconds the pain faded to where the ”scratch” beneath her soaked bandage felt no worse than a very bad sunburn.

She let out a long sigh.

That has to be the worst of it, anyway.

What's it like, she wondered, if you really get hurt?

Dad would know.

Dad would be an expert in that particular field.

Not to mention Mom.

Jody groaned.

I don't want to think about ...

Or Evelyn, for that matter. Ask her how it feels to get a spear rammed smack through your middle.

”Oh, Jesus,” she muttered.

I've got to think about something nice, she told herself.

She picked up the soap and started to tear off its wrapper.

Think about something nice that doesn't have anything to do with all this.

Rob.

She pictured him in the driveway the first weekend after school ended. She'd been there by herself, was.h.i.+ng Dad's car, and Rob had come along, surprising her. ”Could you use some help?” he'd asked. ”Sure. But you might get wet.” He'd smiled. A wonderful smile. Carefree, with maybe some mischief in it. ”A little water never hurt anyone.” After saying that, he'd taken off his s.h.i.+rt and joined in. Jody had never seen him without a s.h.i.+rt on. He looked so tanned and strong and smooth. She'd shot him with the hose. The water had turned his skin s.h.i.+ny.

Jody shaped the sodden soap wrapper into a ball and hooked it over the shower rod.

We're feeling better now, aren't we!

She turned her back to the spray and began sliding the bar of soap over her skin.

She smiled, remembering how Rob had flinched and yelped. The hose water had been awfully cold. She hadn't realized just how cold until he grabbed the hose away from her and she tried to run away and he caught her in the back.

She'd been wearing a big old loose s.h.i.+rt of Dad's over her white bikini. The icy spray from the hose had plastered the s.h.i.+rt to her back. Her squeal had started dogs barking all over the neighborhood. Then she'd made the mistake of turning around. She'd reached out with both hands, hoping to block the cold gush, but Rob had sent it in under her hands. As if by magic, it found the open s.p.a.ce beneath the s.h.i.+rt's single fastened b.u.t.ton and blasted the bare skin of her belly.

Right where the spear got me.

While her right hand glided the soap over her b.u.t.tocks, her left hand moved toward the spear wound. The skin of her belly was slick and sudsy. She touched her navel, found the bandage down lower. The bandage felt like a small, wet rag.

She looked at it, then set down the bar of soap, rinsed her right hand and picked at the adhesive tape. The tape peeled easily off her skin. The underside of the gauze pad had a brown stain in the middle.

The wound itself was a dark slot that fit neatly inside a dime-size red area.

Not very red, she told herself.

And the little wound certainly wasn't bleeding.

She wadded the bandage and hooked it over the shower rod.

She liked having it gone.

They're no good wet, anyway.

So she searched out and removed every bandage until only one remained-the patch of gauze covering the bullet wound on her thigh. She decided to leave that one alone for the time being.

The tape from all those bandages had left tacky places on her skin. With soap on her washcloth, she carefully scrubbed the sticky areas. Then she soaped her whole body one more time, lathered up her hair with shampoo, and rinsed until her hair squeaked and she couldn't find any slippery patches on her skin.

Finally, she turned off the water. She skidded the shower curtain to the end of the tub and stepped out. Dripping on the bath mat, she plucked a towel from the wire rack.

It was bigger than the washcloth, but not by much.

Threadbare, too.

Andy's must've been newer, she thought. The same size, but at least you couldn't see through it.

By the time she'd finished drying her head, the whole towel was moist. One more bath towel remained on the rack, but she needed to leave it for Sharon.

The towel wasn't really big enough to hold with both hands, so she draped it over one hand and wore it like a flimsy glove. Rubbing herself with it reminded Jody of drying Dad's car with his old chamois cloth. The day Rob had shown up.

It felt good to be thinking about that day again. A comfortable, safe place for her mind to be.