Part 11 (1/2)

'Do come in,' says the director, and as she brushes past him with the cake box in her hands he pops his balding head out into the hall to make sure the coast is clear, and seeing that indeed it is he shuts his office door again and locks it from the inside.

'To what do I owe this pleasure?' he says and sits down and leans back in his black swivel chair, fingers laced in his lap. The paneling on the walls looks like wood but of course it's not. It might be that this man has spent so many stale hours here that he's taken on the same diminished look as the s.h.a.g carpet at his feet, the big telephone on the desk, the kinky paperweight, the grim roll of flypaper dangling from the ceiling. All his diplomas are perfectly straight where they hang. His audio books are all in a row. This is a very neat man. Everything in its right place. Then why does it feel so wrong?

Our heroine wastes no time. Deftly she sheds the fake rabbit and lets it fall to the floor in a heap to unveil the scant lingerie she chose, the skin beyond, the dark haunted patch below her pale belly.

'You must have done something really magnanimous in a past life,' she purrs, praying magnanimous was the right word to use.

'I don't doubt it,' admits Director Steve, his eyes wide.

'I think we need a little privacy,' she whispers. 'Why don't you send the staff on an errand for a few hours?'

'Touche. Great idea,' he whispers back, hard in his JC Penney business slacks. Picking up the phone on his desk he dials zero and waits for a voice and says, 'Janet? No I'm fine, she's an old friend of my sister. I was calling 'cause after seeing my friend here all dressed up like this I remembered Halloween is coming right up. Why don't you and Julio and Keith take the van down to Wal-Mart and pick out some costumes for yourselves and for the oldies but goodies in our charge. What? I don't care, you can be anything you want. No, it's okay, you can use the church donation box. No, don't worry, I've cleared it with the pastor.'

So let it be done. Not one of his underpaid peons will argue with that. All three of them abandon their posts and make for the Wal-Mart, ten miles east, where all things are found.

'I think we're alone now,' sings Gloria, and climbs on his lap and straddles the chair. 'There doesn't seem to be anyone around.'

'I think we're alone now,' sings back the director in a shockingly pleasant alto. 'The beating of our hearts is the only sound.'

Now the callgirl bends and reaches her hand down into the top of her tall boot and pulls out two thin candles and a plastic lighter. The 99-cent affair she stole in a different life, under a different sun, different name, when there where two kinds of deserts, the one she rode through, the one inside.

At least now she's got a use for it.

'Turn the lights out,' she demands.

'Lucky thing I've got the clapper,' he boasts and slaps his palms together twice and the room goes black. She can smell him. Their bodies this close. 'Lucky it's the clapper I've got,' he adds. 'And not the clap.' And his laugh in the dark is like a dead cat in a bag.

Sparking the lighter, she looks around in the soft glow and takes the cake from the box and sets it between them and plants the candles in the top and lights them both.

'One for beauty, one for the beast. Now open sesame,' says the stripper to the creep, and parting his mouth like a nurse might a fluey child's she stuffs his face full of angel food. He chews and s...o...b..rs and grabs at her t.i.ts and she jerks back and raises a finger and warns, 'No, no, no. Not till you've finished your treat. Then you can have your cake and eat me too.'

Once she's gotten all the icing down his throat she eases up off his crumby lap and climbs onto the desk.

And dances in the wavering light.

Then off with her hat.

And each sharp boot in turn.

Her crimson teddy to the floor like a soul falling.

Wet mouth.

Slow zipper.

Just like riding a bike.

Till the room starts to spin.

Till all movements lose their meaning.

And hanging by a string above, the flypaper turns immeasurably slow in the dark.

Bea stares out her open window, smoking one of her famous cigarettes, an elbow perched on the brown sill, a withered breast bent out of shape inside her nightgown. The setting sun throws a faint rosy haze on the lawn, and up among the branches of the dogwood tree, and past it, there where the woods meet the sky.

Wow, the days are getting shorter, thinks the prisoner. And mine are numbered. Are you finis.h.i.+ng your crosswords? Are you snipping the good coupons? Are you afraid to die? Don't let it get to you. Don't let it bring you down. Maybe death is just a new dress.

Then a knock at the door. But today Bea Two-Feathers is in no rush to answer it. She smokes and watches the fine sunlight where it plays, birds in the fall air. Then she turns from the window and looks at the door. Another few quick knocks in a row, louder this time. The days of hiding her b.u.t.ts and spraying the peach aerosol can are done. How much more trouble can she get into? Walking across the tiny room with the cigarette burned low between her fingers, Bea twists the k.n.o.b to find whoever she will.

'Oh good, it's you. I thought it mighta been that n.a.z.i again.'

'I wouldn't worry about him,' says Gloria, breathing heavy from her run up the stairs, the bad air in the hall, the whole seedy escapade unfolding.

'I hoped you might come back. But what are you doing all done up like a floozy? Is it Halloween already? You know I used to have that same hat.'

'Bea?'

'What?'

'I've come to break you out.'

Hearing this the old woman smiles and slowly nods her head and pulls a final hit off her smoke and blows it out and says, 'Just like Papillon.'

'Bea?' says Gloria, standing here in her big white coat and heels.

'Yes, angel?'

'We really gotta go.'

'I get it. Just let me doll myself up a bit. It's not every day of your life you get sprung.'

'Okay, just hurry up.'

'I knew it the first time I laid eyes on you,' says Bea, rummaging through her dresser drawer now, tossing a yellow blouse over her shoulder and onto the floor, hunting deeper. 'When you left holding that poor soldier's hand I said to myself, that girl is something special.'

Deb's tan Chrysler wagon is idling at the big gla.s.s doors in front when Gloria pushes her way through them holding Bea by the arm. Falling leaves. Last light of day. The old woman's face shows a wonderful calm, her white hair blown by the wind.

Wide-eyed in the pa.s.senger seat with the window rolled down, Joe the Deputy smiles, his eyes moist, hard to believe what he's seeing.

'Gloria! How in G.o.d's name did you manage to-'

'No time to explain,' she pants, climbing with her fugitive into the back seat where Lionel waits in a hooded sweats.h.i.+rt, his black gla.s.ses clinging, joy on his mouth at the sound of her voice. 'Debbie, get us the f.u.c.k out of here before all h.e.l.l breaks loose.'

Twilight on the narrow mountain road. Geese in a pink sky. Green metal sign that reads 'Town of Hunter'. Tall pines. Steel-deck bridge across the winding creek. Another sign that warns 'Landslide Zone, Next Mile'.

'Let's turn on the radio,' says Gloria.

'You don't have to twist my arm,' says Debbie White as she twists the k.n.o.b. 'Phil Collins!' She declares and begins to sing, one hand on the steering-wheel, one on Joe's thigh, 'I can feel it coming in the air tonight.'

Joe Two-Feathers can't help but join in, and Gloria too, even Bea knows the words, and now a whispery Lionel to everyone's delight, their voices like a broken prayer in the laboring Chrysler. 'I've been waiting for this moment for all my life.'