Part 12 (2/2)

”What happened?” I cover my mouth and nose with the back of my hand, unable to hold back my nausea. ”Lois, what happened?”

Her eyes light up and she is onstage, the cameras are rolling, something.

”The kind of dance you're lucky to make it out of, toots.” She reaches over to the bedside table and, with a growing jauntiness, pops a cigarette in her swollen lips. ”It just happens. And then happens again. But it's a walk into the lion's den. We've all got our soft spots.”

Taking a puff, she squints at me and says, ”Did you ever feel something in the dark and it gives you tingles, pinp.r.i.c.ks under the skin, like ice on your teeth followed by a warm ... a warm, velvety fist?”

I don't say anything. I feel my stomach and face go suddenly hot. I run the back of my wrist along my forehead.

Lois reaches under the sheets to pull out a silky violet dress. Throwing it over both her head and her sagging cigarette, she wriggles into its wasp waist, then turns to me.

”Honey, don't worry. I've had my insides scooped out clean after four bad turns and the clap. I've seen things and done things, had things done to me, things that...” She slides out of bed, looks down at her legs, scaled a bit on the s.h.i.+ns with dermat.i.tis. ”There's a lot I can get through. You, you'd best deal with your demons just the way you do now.”

I turn sharply, all the way around to face her.

”You know,” she says, through the smoke. And that is all she says. I don't know what she means, but I feel, with a shudder, that whatever she thinks she knows is probably true.

”Where are we going?” Slouched down in the seat, Lois s.h.i.+fts a bit, eyes closed to the glare of pa.s.sing headlights.

”La Cienega. And Manchester. With the donut on the corner.

”Why don't you let me take you to Alice's? I think you really need to see a doctor.”

She fumbles in her ruched pocket, eyes still shut.

”Lois?”

I try again. ”Lois? Can't you let me take you to Alice's at least?”

She plucks a fresh cigarette, partly crumpled, from her pocket and punches in the car's lighter.

”I'll get taken care of where we're headed, honey. Don't worry.”

We drive in silence, listening only to the dull thud of the car over the ridges in the road. Eventually, Lois, now sucking her cigarette with vigor, turns on the radio. As the bra.s.sy music leaps out, she begins to gain energy, sitting up straight and humming along.

Finally, we approach Manchester and the ten-foot-high pink-frosted donut, sprinkles the size of baby legs.

”Turn left. It's the bungalow on the right there. The one with the chair.”

There is an orange velvet armchair on the front lawn, a magazine on its cus.h.i.+on, pages rippling in the evening breeze. A large radio is perched on the bungalow's porch and is billowing out what sounds like old Tin Pan Alley.

Lois is halfway out the door as I turn off the ignition. I begin to step out of the car when she swivels around and looks at me.

”Thanks, kid. Don't think I don't appreciate it.”

”Let me make sure someone's here to take care of you,” I say. As I head toward the porch, I think suddenly, as I see her there bone white and battered, that she is slipping away right in front of my eyes and that n.o.body will take care of her at all.

It seems to me, for no reason I can name, that if she walks up those porch steps and sets her s.h.i.+very foot across the threshold, she'll sink into something even more terrifying than what I found at the motel. The jabbing strains of the radio-was it ”Tiny Bubbles”?- seem to be pulling her in through sheer hypnotic force.

”I'm okay, honey.” She turns and nearly falls up the steps onto the porch. With this, the screen door gapes open with a groan, and a tall woman with a tepee of dark red curls appears. She offers a long glance at Lois.

”Oh, it's you.” Her eyebrows rise. I move a few steps closer to the porch. Lois smiles crookedly at the woman but says nothing.

”And who's that?” She gestures at me imperiously. Closer, I realize she is an older woman, maybe fifty.

”I'm a friend. I think Lois needs a doctor.”

Lois, making her way past the woman and through the doorway, looks back at me without expression.

”I'm fine,” she slurs with a brittle edge, turning back away from me and disappearing into the deep red shadows of the house.

The woman looks down at me with her hard, made-up features.

I return her gaze, unsure what to say.

She appraises me a few seconds longer, then turns, the bustle folds of her dress swinging behind her as she, too, disappears into the house. The screen door sighs back into place.

I stand there for another minute, even lean against my car and pretend to fidget for my keys. I don't know what I think might happen, but nothing does. Nothing I can see.

I settle into my car and, before leaving, jot the address down on a sc.r.a.p of paper, not knowing why.

As I make the long drive home, all the women's faces along the boulevard seem to have the same look as Lois. Every one.

How can it be that, two days later, I'm in my brother's car, feeling ugly with fear, and Bill ... Bill, still numb from Edie's death and Charlie's abrupt exit, wants to talk, inexplicably, about sister-wife relations.

”Sis, I know you love Alice to death.” He turns the wheel delicately, with two fingers. ”But can you try to show it a little more?”

We are driving to our G.o.dparents' for dinner. Alice is in bed, the middle of a new round of daily migraines. It makes it easier. It lets me puzzle things out without the distractions of her sidelong gaze.

”What do you mean,” I say.

”Lately, she feels like you don't want to spend time with her. That you're distant,” he says, eyes on the road, voice soft and coaxing.

The day before, when I ran into her in the teachers' lounge, she stopped me, one spiky hand on my shoulder. ”I hear you helped Lois out.”

”Yes.”

”Thanks. Thanks for that.”

Her face was as static and flat as a photograph. I felt a quiver dancing at the base of my spine.

”For what? I'm sure you would have done the same,” I replied, and as I said it I realized it was filled with meaning for her.

”Oh, yes. But she's my burden, not yours. And thanks for not telling Bill.”

In a flash, anger came over me. I wanted to say, How dare you? ”That's not why I didn't tell him,” I said, voice brittle. ”Not for you.”

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