Part 10 (1/2)

She tried to remember the patterns carved into the dead person's back from the photograph the detective had shown her.

She didn't know what to say. She felt like crying but worked to hold back her tears. ”I guess I'm a wreck right now,” she said.

When he spoke again, after nearly a minute had pa.s.sed, his voice was gentler than it had been. ”Poor you. You think I'm like my mother and I'm going to end up going crazy and hurting Livy or something.”

”Matty,” she whispered, touching his arm. ”I don't think that.”

”I'm not stupid,” he said. ”She's where they send crazy people. And I'll end up there, too, because I see things sometimes. I just don't tell you about them. You'll never understand.”

”Do you want to visit your mother?” Julie asked, grasping for something hopeful to say. ”I can drive you down there.”

Then he turned over, facing the wall, drawing the sheet back up to cover himself. ”Turn out the light,” he said, his voice a monotone. ”Go to bed. I'm sorry Dad's dead. I'm sorry you're stuck with me. I wish you weren't falling apart every five minutes. I wish everything was different. But it's not. And no, I don't want to see my mother. Ever.”

She left his bedroom, soon after, and sat on the stairs in the hall, wondering if the pain and the pressure she felt in her head would ever go away.

12.

Some nights, she stared at the wall of her bedroom and began imagining things, thinking that she heard Hut in the hallway. Livy had put the idea in her head-her bad dream about a ghost of a man.

His footsteps, heavy, coming toward her.

The bedroom door, open. Darkness in the hall beyond it.

Darkness seeping in to her room.

His breath upon her face.

Do you want me inside you?

Part Two

Chapter Eight.

1.

In the city: blue sky as far as he could see above the towering buildings. The sound of laughter and shouting and even some cussing from kids getting out of school in the city. The harsh words of others, tromping along, up from the subway steam. The shadows were still cool with the very last breath of spring, the sunlight beyond them, warm and fresh. He felt a little bounce in his step as he bounded up from the subway steps into wonderful daylight.

His name was Terry West, and he'd just gotten out of Harkness' lecture on the underpinnings of Jacobean Tragedy by accepting the fact that he was going to get a ”D” in the survey course, anyway. Terry was feeling d.a.m.n good, and if that a.s.shole Franklin hadn't f.u.c.ked with his head that morning-on the subject of his academic future-it would be the perfect day. He caught a bus uptown to meet Anne for a beer at her little studio apartment. When he arrived, she had on that sweater that was bright yellow that made him just want to pull it off. Beneath it, she wore nothing, and his cold hands trembled as he touched the edge of her nipples-each one, special attention from his fingers while his tongue slipped between her lips, and she giggled when she felt his hardness, and he was thinking: life is better than anyone ever told me it was going to be life is better than anyone ever told me it was going to be.

In the middle of it, when he had just slipped inside her, he whispered to her that he thought he was in love with her, but he wasn't sure if she'd heard him, and that was cool. After they had s.e.x, he showered solo while Anne flicked on cable and watched the old Match Game Match Game show on The Game Show Network. When he got out of the shower, dripping as he went from tiny bathroom to tiny living area, he sat down beside her and stroked her hair. ”I have to meet my mother in thirty minutes,” she said. ”She can't know that we're f.u.c.king.” show on The Game Show Network. When he got out of the shower, dripping as he went from tiny bathroom to tiny living area, he sat down beside her and stroked her hair. ”I have to meet my mother in thirty minutes,” she said. ”She can't know that we're f.u.c.king.”

”I thought she liked me.”

”She thinks I'm still a virgin,” Anne said, and squirmed a bit when he tried nuzzling her neck. ”She's living in the 20th century or something.” century or something.”

”I guess you're going shopping?”

Anne nodded. ”That's all she does. That's all she ever wants to do.”

”Gee, your neck tastes good,” he said, trying to kiss her one more time, but she pulled away, and pawed the ends of the sweater arms over her hands like little mitts.

”s.e.x isn't everything.” She shrugged away from him, got off the bed and sauntered to the bathroom. ”When I get out of the shower, you need to be gone.”

”How about tonight? Maybe later?” he asked.

”Maybe.”

None of this ruined his good mood. He got outside, and sat on the stoop of the brownstone next to her building, and lit up a cigarette. Had a good smoke, watching people walk by, checking out the pretty girls, feeling a little intimidated by some of the men in suits who looked as if they owned the world, wondering if he himself would ever own much. He grabbed a hot dog down at Gray's Papaya around two, and chowed down while calling up his buddy Rick who lived in a cool loft in Soho with four roommates (instead of at home with his mom, like Terry still did), and asked if they wanted to go shoot pool at Fat Cats on Christopher Street in about an hour.

Then, he'd gotten on the subway, and that's when he thought the man had looked at him funny. He was used to gay guys giving him looks-after all, he was athletic and trim and twenty-two-and it didn't offend him in the least. He'd always felt complimented, whether it was a girl or a guy. But this guy was looking at him differently.

It p.i.s.sed him off. He glared at the man. The man grinned, but then turned away. The man opened a newspaper and began reading it.

He wouldn't have thought anything more of this, except when he got off the train and began walking toward the exit, he accidentally dropped his keys, and when he squatted down to pick them up, he glanced back and noticed the guy was practically hovering over him.

Then, the man pa.s.sed by. Terry waited for him to continue up the steps to the outside.

Outside, Terry saw the usual crush of people-and the man he'd seen wasn't anywhere nearby. He called up Anne and left a message on her machine that he was with Rick and some others playing pool and maybe she might want to meet up after her mother left and they could grab pizza at Ray's or something. ”Or maybe we can do something after Bio tomorrow. Okay? Call me ASAP babay-babay,” he finished, their little injoke. When he dropped the cell phone in the pocket of his denim painter's pants, he felt around for cash. He counted up about fourteen bucks in single wadded-up bills, and that'd be enough for a couple of hours of pool and air-hockey, and with a few bucks for the kick-a.s.s jukebox at Fat Cats.

”I'm like four blocks from Fat Cats,” he told Rick via cell phone. ”Are you down there?”

”Yep, me and Joe and Debbie. Deb's kicking my b.u.t.t in air hockey. Want to say hi?”

”f.u.c.k. Anne'll cut off my d.i.c.k if she knows Deb's there. s.h.i.+t. And I just told her to come down if she wanted.”

”Maybe she won't,” Rick said, and then the noise in the background rose as someone was yelling a victory yell and people were laughing. ”A lot of cute girls here, dude.”

”Yeah yeah,” Terry said, and as he turned the corner toward Bleecker-to go get some more cigarettes-there was the man again.

As Terry pa.s.sed by him, the man said, ”Terry? You're Terry West?”