Part 17 (2/2)
”Five minutes,” Andrew says.
Mouse stares at him.
”We left the diner parking lot about five minutes ago,” he tells her. ”This is Maynard Park, four blocks south of Bridge Street. You were walking very fast.” He stops to take a breath, and turns his head very slowly to face her. ”Penny?”
Mouse gets it now: why he says her name as if it were a question: he knows. He knows about her blackouts, and he knows about her lists. What else does he know?
”I'm sorry if I spooked you back there,” he continues, looking away again. ”My father told me to be blunt. I hope that's right -- I've never actually done this before.”
How do you know about the lists? Mouse thinks, but doesn't say.
”You're wondering how I know about your lists,” Andrew tells her. ”And your b --”
Mouse is standing with her back up against a tree, and she is very out of breath now, hyperventilating. Her eyes are shut tight; she forces herself to open them, and sees more trees, all around her. She's in the woods, alone.
No, not alone: ”Penny?” His voice, quiet but close, nearly frightens her away again. Mouse begins to fade but then rebounds, ejected from the darkness by the mental equivalent of a shove in the back.
”Penny, please don't be afraid of me,” Andrew says. ”I'm not trying to scare you; I just want to help. I know what you've been going through, and I need you to know that I know, so that we can talk about it. . .”
Mouse turns her head and he is there, about ten paces off to her left. He shuffles sideways into her field of view, keeping his hands in the air, like a bank robber trying to surrender. ”I just want to help,”
he says again. He doesn't try to get any closer to her; instead he drops down where he is, and sits on the ground. ”I'll just stay over here, OK?”
This act -- plopping down casually in the dirt, like it's no big deal if his pants get muddy -- makes Mouse think of her father again, her grandmother's version of her father. The thought doesn't completely calm her down, but it does distract her, momentarily, from the fact that she's frightened. She comes off the tree, and turns fully to face him.
”I'm sorry if this is upsetting to you, Penny,” Andrew says. ”But I do know about your blackouts, and about --”
”How?” The word comes out as a high squeak, but he understands.
”You aren't the only person in the world this has ever happened to. There are others.”
Mouse raises a shaky hand, and points. ”You?”
It's a yes-or-no question, but he frowns and says, ”Not exactly.” Then: ”It's complicated. . . My father had blackouts like you do. He lost time -- sometimes minutes, sometimes days -- and he had to keep lists of things to do to keep himself oriented. Even with the lists, he was always getting in trouble, getting blamed for things he didn't remember doing. He couldn't keep his checkbook balanced. He was constantly losing things that belonged to him, and finding things that didn't belong to him -- like clothes, for instance, not just individual pieces but whole wardrobes, clothes that fit him but that he hadn't bought, that he wouldn't have bought. . .”
Mouse, feeling faint, puts out a hand to the tree to steady herself.
”And the messages. He got anonymous notes, sometimes, or messages on his answering machine. Sometimes it was useful advice, but other times it was just meanness -- insults, or even threats.
Sometimes it was both at once, in the same message, like whoever was trying to help him was really fed up with him, too.”
”The Society,” says Mouse.
”What?” Andrew says.
”Oh,” Andrew says. ”Penny?”
”Yes,” says Mouse, not standing by the tree anymore but squatting on her heels in front of him, with her arms wrapped around her s.h.i.+ns and her chin on her knee. She's caught her breath now, and she feels at least a little calmer.
”The souls -- the people -- who sent messages to my father didn't have a special name for themselves,” Andrew continues. ”They weren't trying to fool anybody. I'm sure my father would have preferred it if they had been a little secretive -- he couldn't afford to live alone, and when his apartment mates overheard some of the answering-machine messages he got. . . well, sometimes it was pretty embarra.s.sing.”
Was. Mouse hasn't overlooked Andrew's use of the past tense. She doesn't want to ask this next question, but she needs to know: ”What happened to your father?” Then, before Andrew can answer, she answers for him: ”He got locked up, didn't he? For being crazy?”
”What?” says Andrew, looking surprised. ”No. . . I mean, no, he wasn't crazy. He did have some trouble with a few people thinking he was crazy, but. . .”
”He got locked up,” Mouse says, nodding to herself.
”Not permanently,” Andrew says. ”For a little while, once -- OK, twice. But he got out again, both times, because he wasn't really crazy. And eventually he got help: he found a way to stop the blackouts. Penny? There's a way to stop the blackouts.”
He is lying to her; he must be. It is a cruel trick, to get the Society to order her out here just so he can frighten her with his knowledge of her insanity, and then lie to her.
Mouse sighs deeply, to keep from crying. ”How?” she asks. ”How did he stop the blackouts?”
”He built a house,” says Andrew.
This time she's sure she's misheard. ”He. . .”
”He built a house,” repeats Andrew. He frowns again. ”Look, this is hard. . . I want to be totally straight with you, but I'm worried that if I don't explain this just right you're going to end up thinking I'm crazy. Either that, or you'll get scared and start running again. So will you do me a favor? Will you come with me right now and let me show you something? I don't know if it'll really help, but. . . it might. At least it might help me find the right words to say.”
”Come with you where?” Mouse says guardedly.
”To where I live. It's not far -- just a few blocks up, on the other side of Bridge Street.”
”OK,” Mouse says, thinking: Maybe he is crazy.
They stand up -- Mouse's knees are sore from squatting -- and he leads her out of the woods, which turn out to be a part of Maynard Park. As they leave the park and walk north, Mouse notices that Andrew is talking to himself again. It's mostly indistinct muttering, but Mouse catches her given name at least twice, and at one point Andrew exclaims ”Cut it out!” loud enough to make her jump. Mouse is disturbed, not so much by the one-sided conversation itself as by the fear that, if it goes on much longer, she may start hearing a second voice.
Mouse thinks: I'm not going to keep following him. When we get to Bridge Street, I'm going to turn off, go back to the diner, get in my car, and drive home. He can't stop me.
She resolves herself to this, and takes another step, and then her hand is in her pocket, clenched around the Society's list. In her mind's eye, Mouse sees the last item, underscored: 4. LISTEN TO HIM.
They come to Bridge Street. Mouse does not turn off in the direction of the diner. Andrew crosses the street, and she follows him.
As they step onto the far curb, a voice calls to them: ”Hey! Hey, Andrew! Mouse!”
It is Julie, waving frantically from down the block. When Andrew sees her he lets out a small hiss of annoyance. ”Ah, Julie, not now,” he mutters.
”-- means well. And I, I really do care about her. A lot. But sometimes. . .”
Julie Sivik and Bridge Street are gone. Andrew and Mouse are walking along a quiet residential avenue.
”Anyway,” Andrew concludes, as if winding up a lengthy oration. He gestures to a big house up ahead on the left. ”It's this one.”
A woman with white hair opens the front door of the house as they approach. ”h.e.l.lo, Mrs.
<script>