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"She means Jimmy will never go back to Tucson," Gillian hurries to say. "Believe me, if you're after him, he knows it. He's stupid, but he's not an idiot. He's not going to go on selling drugs in the same town where his clientele have been dying."
Gary takes his card out and hands it to Gillian. "I don't want to scare you, but this is a dangerous person we're dealing with. I'd appreciate it if you'd call me if he tries to contact you."
"He won't contact her," Sally says.
She cannot keep her mouth shut. It's simply impossible. What is wrong with her? That's what Gillian's glare is asking, and that's what Sally is asking herself. It's just that this investigator gets such a worried look when he focuses on something. He's a man of concern, she sees that. He's the kind of man you'd never want to lose once you'd finally found him.
"Jimmy knows we're through," Gillian announces. She goes to pour herself a cup of coffee, and while she's at it she sticks an elbow into Sally's ribs. "What's wrong with you?" she whispers. "Will you just shut up?" She turns back to Gary. "I made it perfectly clear to Jimmy that our relationship was finito. That's why he won't contact me. We're history."
"I'm going to have to have the car impounded," Gary says.
"Naturally," Gillian says graciously. If they're lucky, this guy will be gone in under two minutes. "Go right ahead."
Gary stands and runs his hands through his dark hair. He's supposed to leave now. He knows that. But he's dragging his feet. He wants to go on looking into Sally's eyes, and drown a thousand times a day. Instead, he takes his coffee cup to the sink.
"You don't have to bother with that," Gillian tells him warmly, desperate to be rid of him.
Sally smiles when she sees the way he places the cup and the spoon down so carefully.
"If anything does happen to come up, I'll be in town until tomorrow morning."
"Nothing will happen," Gillian assures him. "Trust me."
Gary reaches for the notebook he keeps to remind himself of details and flips it open. "I'll be at the Hide-A-Way Motel." He looks up and sees nothing but Sally's gray eyes. "Someone at the rental car desk recommended it."
Sally knows the place, a dump on the other side of the Turnpike, near a vegetable stand and a fried-chicken franchise known for its excellent onion rings. She could not care less if he's staying in a lousy motel like that. She doesn't give a damn that he's leaving tomorrow. As a matter of fact, she'll be leaving, too. She and her girls will be out of here in no time. If they wake early, and don't stop for coffee, they can make it to Massachusetts by noon. They can be opening the curtains in the aunts' dark rooms to let in some sunlight just after lunch.
"Thanks for the coffee," Gary says. He spies the half-dead cactus on the window ledge. "This is definitely not representative of the species. It's in sad shape, I'll tell you that."
Last winter, Ed Borelli gave each of the secretaries at the high school a cactus for Christmas. "Plop it on your windowsill and forget about it," Sally had advised when complaints were raised about who on earth would want such a thing, and other than slosh some water onto its saucer now and then, that's exactly what she herself has done. But Gary is paying the cactus a good deal of attention. He's got that worried look, and he's fumbling with something stuck between the saucer the cactus rests on and its pot. When he turns back to face Sally and Gillian, he seems so pained that Sally's first thought is that he's pricked his finger.
"Damn it," Gillian whispers.
It's Jimmy's silver ring Gary is holding on to, and that's what's causing him such pain. They're going to lie to him and he knows it. They're going to tell him they've never seen this ring before, or that they bought it in an antique store, or that it must have dropped from the heavens above.
"Nice ring," Gary says. "Real unusual."
Neither Sally nor Gillian can figure how this can be possible; they know for a fact that ring was on Jimmy's finger, it's buried out back, and yet here it is in the investigator's hand. And he's looking at Sally now; he's waiting for an explanation. Why shouldn't he be; he's read a description of this ring in three depositions: A rattler on one side of it, he remembers that. A coiled snake, which is exactly what he's got now.
Sally feels that heart-attack thing again; it's something wrong in the center of her chest, like a red-hot poker, like a piece of glass, and there's nothing she can do about it. She couldn't lie to this man if her life depended on it—and it does—and that's the reason she doesn't say a word.
"Well, look at that." Gillian is all wonder and sugar. It's so easy for her to do this, she doesn't have to think twice. "That old thing's probably been there for a million years."
Sally's still not talking, but she's leaning all her weight against the refrigerator, as though she needed help to stand up.
"Is that so?" Gary says, still drowning.
"Let me take a look." Gillian goes right up to him and takes the ring out of his hands and studies it as if she's never seen it before. "Cool," she says, giving it back. "You should probably keep it." This is such a nice touch she is truly proud of herself. "It's much too big for any of us."
"Well, great." Gary's head is pounding. Fuck it. Fuck it all. "Thanks."
As he slips the ring into his pocket, he's thinking that Sally's sister is really good at this; she's probably well aware of James Hawkins's whereabouts as of this very second. Sally, however, is another story; maybe she doesn't know anything, maybe she's never seen this ring before. Her sister could have her fooled completely, could be siphoning money, groceries, family heirlooms to Hawkins as he watches TV in some basement apartment in Brooklyn, waiting for the heat to die down.
But Sally isn't looking at him, that's the thing. Her beautiful face is turned away because she knows something. Gary has seen it before, countless times.
People who are guilty of something think they can hide it by not looking you in the eye; they presume you can read their shame, that you can see in through their eyes to their very soul, and in a way they're right.
"I guess we're done," Gary says. Unless there's something you've suddenly thought of that I should know."
Nothing. Gillian grins and shrugs. Sally swallows, hard. Gary can practically feel how dry her throat is, how the pulse at the base of her neck is throbbing. He's not certain how far he would go to cover for someone. He's never been in the position before and he doesn't like the feel of it, yet here he is, standing in a stranger's kitchen in New York on a humid summer day, actually wondering if he could look the other way. And then he thinks about his grandfather walking to the courthouse to legally claim him on a day when it was a hundred and twelve in the shade. The air started to sizzle; the mesquite and the Russian thistle burst into flame, but Sonny Hallet had thought to bring a container of cool spring water with him, and he wasn't even tired when he walked inside the courthouse. If you go against what you believe in, you're nothing anyway, so you might as well stick to your guns. Gary's going to fly home tomorrow and hand this case over to Arno. He can't even pretend it will turn out all right: that Hawkins will surrender, and Sally and her sister will be proven innocent of assisting a murder suspect, and Gary himself will start writing to Sally. If he did, perhaps she wouldn't be able to throw away his letters; she'd have to read each one again and again, exactly the way he did when hers was delivered, and before she knew it, she'd be lost, the way he seems to be at this very moment.
Since none of this is going to happen, Gary nods and heads for the door. He has always known when to step aside, and when to sit by the road and just wait for whatever was going to happen next. He saw a mountain lion one afternoon because he decided to sit down on the bumper of his truck and drink some water before changing a blown tire. The mountain lion came padding toward the asphalt, as if it owned the road and everything else, and it took a good took at Gary, who had never before been grateful for a flat tire.
"I'll have the Oldsmobile picked up by Friday," Gary says now, but he doesn't look behind him until he's out on the porch. He doesn't know that Sally might easily have followed him, if her sister hadn't pinched her and whispered for her to stay where she was. He doesn't know how badly this thing inside Sally's chest hurts her, but that's what happens when you're a liar, especially when you're telling the worst of these lies to yourself.
"Thanks a million," Gillian sings out, and by the time Gary turns to look behind him, there's nothing to see but the locked door.
As far as Gillian's concerned, it's all over and done with. "Well, hallelujah," she says when she goes back to the kitchen. "We got rid of him."
Sally is already dealing with the lasagna noodles that have been congealing in the colander. She tries to pry them out with a wooden spoon, but it's too late, they're stuck together. She dumps the whole thing into the trash and then she starts to cry.
"What is your problem?" Gillian asks. It is times like these that provoke perfectly rational people to say what the hell and light up cigarettes. Gillian looks through the junk drawer, hoping to find an old pack, but the best she comes up with is a box of wooden matches. "We got rid of him, didn't we? We seemed totally innocent. In spite of that damn ring. I'll tell you that thing scared the pants off me. That was like looking the devil right in the eye. But honey, we fooled that investigator anyway, and we did a good job of it."
"Oh," Sally says, completely disgusted. "Oh," she cries.
"Well, we did! We pulled it off, and we should be proud of ourselves."
"For lying?" Sally rubs at her leaking eyes and nose. Her cheeks are red and she's snuffling like crazy and she can't get rid of that awful feeling in the dead center of her chest. "Is that what you think we should be proud of?"
"Hey." Gillian shrugs. "You do what you have to." She peers into the trash at the globby noodles. "Now what do we do for dinner?"
That's when Sally throws the colander across the room.
"You are in bad shape," Gillian says. "You'd better call your internist or your gynecologist or somebody and get a tranquilizer."
"I'm not doing this." Sally grabs the pot of tomato sauce, to which she's added onions and mushrooms and sweet red pepper, and pours it into the sink.
"Fine." Gillian is ready to agree to any reasonable plan. "You don't have to cook. We'll get take-out."
"I'm not referring to dinner." Sally has grabbed her car keys and her wallet. "I'm talking about the truth."
"Are you out of your mind?" Gillian goes after Sally, and when Sally keeps heading toward the door, Gillian reaches for her arm.
"Don't you dare pinch me," Sally warns her.
Sally walks out onto the porch, but Gillian is still right behind her. She follows Sally down the driveway.
"You're not going to see that investigator. You can't talk to him."
"He knows anyway," Sally says. "Couldn't you tell? Couldn't you see by the way he was looking at us?"
Just thinking about Gary's gaunt face and all the worry that was there makes her chest feel even worse. She's going to find herself suffering from a stroke or angina or something before this day is through.
"You can't go after that guy," Gillian tells Sally. There's not a bit of nonsense in her tone. "We'll both be sitting in jail if you do. I don't know what would make you even consider this."
"I've already decided," Sally says.
"To do what? Go to his motel? Get down on your knees and beg for mercy?"
"If I have to. Yes."
"You're not going," Gillian says.
Sally looks at her sister, considering. Then she opens the car door.
"No way," Gillian says. "You're not going after him."
"Are you threatening me?"
"Maybe I am." She isn't going to let her sister screw up her future just because Sally feels guilty about something she didn't even do.
"Oh really?" Sally says. "How exactly do you plan to get to me? Do you think you could possibly ruin my life any more than you already have?"
Wounded, Gillian takes a step back.
"Try to understand," Sally says. "I have to set this right. I can't live this way."
A storm has been predicted, and the wind has begun to rise; strands of Sally's black hair whip across her face. Her eyes are luminous and much darker than usual; her mouth is as red as a rose. Gillian has never seen her sister look so disheveled, so unlike her usual self. At this moment Sally seems to be someone who would rush headlong into a river, when she hasn't yet learned how to swim. She'd jump from the branches of the tallest tree, convinced all she needed for a safe landing were her outstretched arms and a silk shawl to billow out and catch the air as she fell.
"Maybe you should wait." Gillian is trying her sweetest voice, the one that has talked her out of speeding tickets and bad affairs. "We can discuss it. We can decide together."
But Sally has made her decision. She refuses to listen; she gets into her car, and short of jumping behind the Honda to block it, Gillian can't do anything but stand and watch as Sally drives away. She watches for a long time, too long, because, in the end, all Gillian is watching is the empty road, and she's seen that before. She's seen it much too often.
There's a lot to lose when you have something, when you're foolish enough to let yourself care. Well, Gillian has gone ahead and done it by falling in love with Ben Frye, and her fate is now out of her hands. It's riding along, sitting shotgun in that Honda with Sally, and all Gillian can do is pretend that nothing is wrong. When the girls come home, she says that Sally's out running errands, and she orders from the Chinese take-out place on the Turnpike, then phones Ben and asks him to pick up dinner on his way over.
"I thought we were having lasagna," Kylie says as she and Gideon set the table.
"Well, we're not," Gillian informs her. "And can't you use paper plates and cups so we don't have to mess around with washing dishes?"
When Ben arrives with dinner, Kylie and Antonia suggest they wait for their mom, but Gillian won't hear of it. She starts dishing out shrimp with cashews and pork fried rice, the sort of carnivorous fare Sally would never allow on her table. The food is good, but it's a dreadful dinner anyway. Everyone is out of sorts. Antonia and Kylie are worried, because their mother is never late, especially on a night when there's packing left to do, and they both feel guilty eating shrimp and pork at her table. Gideon isn't helping matters; he's practicing his belching, which is driving everyone but Kylie completely crazy. Scott Morrison is the worst, gloomy as can be at the prospect of a week without Antonia. "What's the point?" is his response to just about everything this evening, including "Would you like an eggroll?" and "Do you want orange soda or Pepsi?" Eventually Antonia bursts into tears and runs from the room when Scott answers the question of whether or not he'll write while she's away with his same old "What's the point?" Kylie and Gideon have to plead Scott's case through Antonia's closed bedroom door, and just when Scott and Antonia have made up and are kissing in the hallway, Gillian decides enough is enough.
By now, Sally has probably spilled her guts to that investigator. For all Gillian knows, Gary Hallet has gone over to the mini-mart on the Turnpike that's open all hours and rented a tape recorder so he can get her confession in her own words. Trapped with no recourse, Gillian has a major migraine, one that Tylenol couldn't begin to cure. Every voice sounds like fingernails against a chalkboard, and she has absolutely no tolerance for even the smallest piece of happiness or joy. She can't stand to see Antonia and Scott kissing, or hear Gideon and Kylie teasing each other. All evening she's been avoiding Ben, because for her Scott Morrison's philosophy really holds true: What is the point? Everything is about to be lost, and she can't stop it; she might as well give up and call it a day. She might as well phone for a taxi and climb out the window, with her most important belongings tossed into a pillowcase. She knows for a fact that Kylie has plenty of money saved in her unicorn bank, and if Gillian borrowed some she could get a bus ticket halfway across the country. The only problem is, she can't do that anymore. She has other considerations now; she has, for better or for worse, Ben Frye.
"It's time for everyone to go home," Gillian declares.
Scott and Gideon are sent away with promises of phone calls and postcards (for Scott) and boxes of saltwater taffy (for Gideon). Antonia cries a little as she watches Scott get into his mother's car. Kylie sticks her tongue out at Gideon when he salutes, and she laughs when he takes off running through the damp evening, clomping along in his army boots, waking the squirrels that nest in the trees. Once those boys are gotten rid of, Gillian turns to Ben.
"Same goes for you," she says. She's throwing paper plates in the trash at breakneck speed. She already has the dirty silverware and the glasses soaking in soapy water, which is so unlike her usual messy self that Ben is starting to get suspicious. "Vamoose," she tells Ben. She hates it when he looks at her that way, as though he knew her better than she knew herself. "These girls have to finish packing and be on the road by seven a.m."
"Something is wrong," Ben says.
"Absolutely not." Gillian's pulse rate must be a good two hundred. "Nothing's wrong."
Gillian turns to the sink and gives her attention to the soaking silverware, but Ben puts his hands on her waist and leans against her. He's not so easily convinced, and Lord knows he's stubborn when he wants something.
"Go on," Gillian says, but her hands are soapy and wet and she's having difficulty pushing him away. When Ben kisses her, she lets him. If he's kissing her, he can't ask any questions. Not that it would do any good to try to explain what her life used to be like. He wouldn't understand, and that may be the reason she's in love with him. He couldn't imagine some of the things she's done. And when she's with him, neither can she.
Out in the yard, twilight is casting purple shadows. The evening has turned even more overcast, and the birds have stopped calling. Gillian should be paying attention to Ben's kisses, since they may well be the last they share, but instead she's looking out the kitchen window. She's thinking about how Sally may be telling the investigator what's in her garden, way in the back, where no one goes anymore, and that's where she's looking while Ben kisses her; that's why she finally sees the hedge of thorns. All the while no one was watching, it has been thriving. It has grown nearly two feet since this morning, and, nurtured by spite, it's growing still, coiling into the night sky.
Gillian abruptly pulls away from Ben. "You have to go," she tells him. "Now."
She kisses him deeply and pledges all sorts of things, love promises she won't even remember until the next time they're in bed and he reminds her. She works hard, and at last she wins.
"You're sure about this?" Ben says, confused by how hot-and-cold she is, but wanting more all the same. "You could spend the night at my place."
"Tomorrow," Gillian vows. "And the next night and the night after that."
When at last Ben leaves, when she's watched out the front window to make certain he's really gone, Gillian goes into the yard and stands motionless beneath the murky sky. It is the hour when the crickets first begin to call out a warning, their song quickened by the humidity of the coming storm. At the rear of the yard the hedge of thorns is twisted and dense. Gillian walks closer and sees that two wasps' nests hang from the branches; a constant buzzing resonates, like a warning issued, or a threat. How is it possible for these brambles to have grown unnoticed? How could they have allowed it to happen? They believed him to be gone, they wished it to be so, but some mistakes come back to haunt you again and again, no matter how certain you are that they've finally been put to rest.
As she stands there, a fine drizzle begins, and that's what makes Kylie come after her, the fact that her aunt is standing out there all alone, getting wet without seeming to notice.
"Oh, no," Kylie says when she sees how tall the hedge of thorns has grown since she and Gideon played chess on the lawn.
"We'll just cut them down again," Gillian says. "That's what we'll do."
But Kylie shakes her head. No clippers could get through those thorns, not even an ax would do. "I wish my mom would get home," she says.
Laundry has been left on the line, and if it stays out it will be soaked, but that's not the only problem. The hedge of thorns is giving off something nasty, a mist you can barely see, and the hems of each sheet and shirt have become blotchy and discolored. Kylie may be the only one who can see it, but every stain on their clean laundry is deep and dark. Now she realizes why she hasn't been able to imagine their vacation, why it's all been a blank inside her head.
"We're not going to the aunts'," she says.
The branches of the hedge are black, but anyone who looks carefully will see that the thorns are as red as blood.
Puddles are collecting on the patio by the time Antonia pushes open the back door. "Are you guys crazy?" she calls. When Gillian and Kylie don't answer, she takes a black umbrella from the coat rack and runs out to join them.
A storm with near-hurricane-force winds has been predicted for late tomorrow. Other people in the neighborhood have heard the news and have gone out to buy rolls of masking tape; when the wind arrives to rattle their windows, the glass will be held together with X's of tape. It's the Owens house that's in danger of being blown off its foundation.
"Great way to start a vacation," Antonia says.
"We're not going," Kylie tells her.
"Of course we're going," Antonia insists. "I'm already packed."
In her opinion, it's truly creepy out tonight; it makes no sense to be standing here in the dark. Antonia shivers and considers the overcast sky, but she doesn't look away long enough to miss seeing that her aunt has grabbed Kylie's arm. Gillian holds on tight to Kylie; if she dared to let go she might not be able to stand on her own. Antonia looks to the rear of the yard, and then she understands. There's something under those horrible thorn bushes.
"What is it?" Antonia asks.
Kylie and Gillian are breathing a little too quickly; fear is rising off them in waves. It's possible to smell fear like this; it's a little like smoke and ashes, like flesh that's come too close to a fire.
"What?" Antonia says. As soon as she takes a step toward the bushes, Kylie pulls her back. Antonia squints to see through the shadows. Then she laughs. "It's just a boot. That's all it is."
It's snakeskin, one of a pair that cost nearly three hundred dollars. Jimmy would never go to Western Warehouse or anyplace like that. He liked more expensive shops; he always preferred items that were one-of-a-kind.
"Don't go over there!" Gillian says when Antonia starts to retrieve the boot.
The rain is coming down hard now; there's a curtain of it, gray as a blanket of tears. In the place where they buried him, the earth looks spongy. If you reached your hand in, you might just be able to pluck out a bone. You might be dragged down yourself, if you weren't careful, deep into the mud, and you'd struggle and you'd try to draw a breath, but it wouldn't do the least bit of good.
"Did either of you find a ring back here?" Gillian asks.
The girls are both shivering now, and the sky is black. You'd think it was midnight. You'd think it was impossible for the heavens to have ever been blue, like ink, or robins' eggs; like the ribbons girls thread through their hair for luck.
"A toad brought one into the house," Kylie says. "I forgot all about it."
"It was his." Gillian's voice doesn't even sound like her. This voice is too thick and sad, and much too distant. "Jimmy's."
"Who's Jimmy?" Antonia says. When no one answers her she looks to the hedge of thorns, and then she knows. "He's back there." Antonia leans against her sister.
If it storms as badly as the meteorologists have predicted and the yard should flood, then what? Gillian and Kylie and Antonia are drenched through and through; the umbrella Antonia holds aloft can't protect them. Their hair is plastered to their heads; their clothes will have to be wrung out in the shower.
The ground near the thornbushes looks indented, as if it were already sinking in upon itself or, worse, sinking in on Jimmy. If he rises to the surface, like his silver ring, like some horrid, wicked fish, it will be over for them.
"I want my mother," Antonia says in a very small voice.
When they finally turn and run for the house, the lawn squishes under their feet. They run even faster; they run as though their nightmares were right behind them on the grass. Once they're inside, Gillian locks the door, then drags a chair over and positions it under the doorknob.
That dark June night when Gillian pulled into the driveway under a circle of light may as well have been a hundred years ago. She isn't the same person she was when she arrived. That woman who tiptoed up to the front door with the sort of urgency only desperation can dispense would have already packed her car and been gone. She would never have stuck around to see what that investigator from Tucson would do with everything Sally told him. She wouldn't have remained in the vicinity, and she wouldn't have left a note behind for Ben Frye, even if she cared for him the way she does tonight. She'd be halfway through Pennsylvania by this time, with the radio on, loud, and a full tank of gas. She wouldn't bother to look in her rearview mirror, not for a minute, not once. And that's the difference, it's simple and it's plain: The person that's here now isn't going anywhere, except into the kitchen to fix her nieces some camomile tea to settle their nerves.
"We're perfectly fine," she tells the girls. Her hair is a disaster and her breathing is ragged; mascara is streaked across her pale skin in wavering lines. Still, she's the one who's here, not Sally, and it's up to her to send the girls to bed and to assure them that she can take care of things. No need to worry, that's what she tells them. They're safe and sound tonight. While the rain pours down, while the wind rises in the east, Gillian will think of a plan, she'll have to, because Sally could no more help her figure out what to do than she could leap from a tree and fly.
No longer balanced by logic, Sally is weightless tonight. She, who has always valued the sensible and the useful above all else, lost her way as soon as she drove down the Turnpike. She couldn't find the Hide-A-Way Motel, though she's passed it a thousand times before. She had to stop at a gas station and ask directions, and then she had her heart-attack thing, which forced her to search out the filthy restroom, where she washed her face with cool water. She looked at her reflection in the smudged mirror above the sink and breathed deeply for several minutes until she was steady once more.
But she soon discovered that she wasn't as steady as she'd thought. She didn't see the brake lights of the car ahead of her after she'd pulled back onto the Turnpike, and there was a minor fender-bender, which was completely her fault. The left headlight of her Honda is now barely attached and is in danger of falling off completely every time she steps on the brake.
By the time she finally pulls up to the Hide-A-Way, her family at home is halfway through dinner, and the parking lot of the fried-chicken franchise diagonally across the Turnpike is packed with customers. But food is the last thing Sally wants. Her stomach is jumpy and she's nervous, she's insanely nervous, which is probably why she brushes her hair twice before she gets out of the car and starts for the motel office. Pools of oil shimmer on the asphalt; one lonely crab apple tree, plopped down in the single plot of earth and surrounded by some red geraniums, shudders when the traffic on the Turnpike zooms by. Only four cars are parked in the lot, and three are real bombs. If she were looking for Gary's car, the one farthest from the office would seem the most likely choice—it's a Ford of some sort and it looks like a rental car. But more than that, it's been left there so neatly and carefully, exactly the way Sally would imagine Gary would park his car.
Thinking about him, and his worried look, and those lines on his face, makes Sally even more nervous. Once she's inside the motel office, she rearranges the strap of her purse over her shoulder; she runs her tongue over her lips. She feels like somebody who's stepped outside her life into a stretch of woods she didn't even know existed, and she doesn't know the pathways or the trails. The woman behind the desk is on the phone, and it seems she's in the middle of a conversation that could go on for hours.
"Well, if you didn't tell him, how could he know?" she's saying in a disgusted tone of voice. She reaches for a cigarette and sees Sally.
"I'm looking for Gary Hallet." Once Sally makes this announcement, she thinks she must really be crazy. Why would she be looking for someone whose presence spells calamity? Why would she drive over here on a night when she's so confused? She can't concentrate at all, that much is obvious. She can't even remember the capital of New York State. She no longer recalls which is more caloric, butter or margarine, or whether or not monarch butterflies hibernate in winter.
"He went out," the woman behind the desk tells Sally. "Once a moron, always a moron," she says into the phone. "Of course you know. I know you know. The real question is, Why don't you do something about it?" She stands, pulling the phone behind her, then lifts a key from the rack on the wall, and hands it over. "Room sixteen," she tells Sally.
Sally steps back as if burned. "I'll just wait here."
She takes a seat on the blue plastic couch and reaches for a magazine, but it's Time and the cover story is "Crimes of Passion," which is more than Sally can bear at the moment. She tosses the magazine back on the coffee table. She wishes she had thought to change her clothes and wasn't still wearing this old T-shirt and Kylie's shorts. Not that it matters. Not that anyone cares what she looks like. She gets her brush out of her purse and runs it through her hair one last time. She'll just tell him, and that will be that. Her sister's an idiot—is that a federal offense? She was warped by the circumstances of her childhood, then she went out and screwed things up for herself as an adult to ensure that it would all match. Sally thinks about trying to explain this to Gary Hallet while he's staring at her, and that's when she realizes she's hyperventilating, breathing so quickly that the woman behind the desk is keeping an eye on her in case Sally should pass out and she has to dial 911.
"Let me ask you this," the woman behind the desk is saying into the phone. "Why do you ask me for advice if you're not going to listen to it? Why don't you just go ahead, do whatever you want, and leave me out of it?" She gives Sally a look. This is a private conversation, even if half of it is going on in a public place. "You sure you don't want to hang out in his room?"
"Maybe I'll just wait in my car," Sally says.
"Super," the woman says, shelving her phone conversation until she has her privacy back.
"Let me guess." Sally nods to the phone. "Your sister?"
A baby sister out in Port Jefferson, who has needed constant counsel for the past forty-two years. Otherwise, she'd have every single credit card charged to the max and she'd still be married to her first husband, who was a million times worse than the one she's got now.
"She's so self-centered, she drives me nuts. That's what comes from being the youngest and having everyone fuss over you," the woman behind the desk announces. She's slipped her hand over the mouthpiece of the telephone. "They want you to take care of them and solve all their problems and they never give you the least bit of credit for anything."
"You're right," Sally agrees. "Being the baby does it. They never seem to get over it."
"Don't I know," the other woman says.
And what of being the oldest, Sally wonders as she goes outside, stopping at the vending machine beside the office to get herself a diet Coke. She steps over the rainbow-edged pools of oil on her way back to her car. What if you're forever trapped into telling someone else what to do, into being responsible and saying "I told you so" a dozen times a day? Whether she wants to admit it or not, this is what Sally has been doing, and she's been doing it for as long as she can remember.
Right before Gillian had her hair chopped off, and set every girl in town marching into beauty shops, begging for the very same style, her hair had been as long as Sally's, perhaps a bit longer. It was the color of wheat, blinding to look at under the sun and as fine as silk, at least on those rare occasions when Gillian chose to brush it. Now Sally wonders if she was jealous, and if that was why she teased Gillian about what a mess she always looked, with her hair all bunched up and knotted.
And yet on the day Gillian came home with her hair cut short, Sally was shocked. She hadn't even consulted with Sally before she'd gone through with it. "How could you have done this to yourself?" Sally demanded.
"I have my reasons," Gillian said. She was sitting in front of her mirror, applying blush into the hollows of her cheeks. "And they are all spelled C-A-S-H."
Gillian swore that a woman had been following her for several days, and had finally approached her that afternoon. She had offered Gillian two thousand dollars, there, on the spot, if Gillian would accompany her to a salon and have her hair clipped off to the ears so this woman with short, mousy hair could have a false braid to wear to parties.
"Sure," Sally said. "Like anyone in their right mind would ever do that."
"Really?" Gillian said. "You don't think anyone would?"
She reached into the front pocket of her jeans and pulled out a roll of money. The two thousand, in cash. Gillian had a huge smile on her face, and maybe Sally just wanted to wipe it right off.
"Well, you look awful," she said. "You look like a boy."
She said it even though she could see that Gillian had an incredibly pretty neck, so slim and sweet the mere sight of it would make grown men cry.
"Oh, who cares?" Gillian said. "It'll grow back."
But her hair never grew long again—it wouldn't reach past her shoulders. Gillian washed it with rosemary, with violets and rose petals and even ginseng tea—none of it did any good.
"That's what you get," Sally announced. "That's where greed will take you."
But where has being such a good girl and a prig taken Sally? It's brought her to this parking lot on a damp and dreadful night. It's put her in her place, once and for all. Who is she to be so righteous and certain her way is best? If she'd simply called the police when Gillian first arrived, if she hadn't had to take charge and manage it all, if she hadn't believed that everything—both the cause and the effect—was her responsibility, she and Gillian might not be in the fix they're in right now. It's the smoke emanating from the walls of their parents' bungalow. It's the swans in the park. It's the stop sign no one notices, until it's too late.
Sally has spent her whole life being vigilant, and that takes logic and good common sense. If her parents had had her with them she would have smelled the acrid scent of fire, she knows that she would. She would have seen the blue spark that fell onto the rug, the first of many, where it glittered like a star, and then a river of stars, shiny and blue on the shag carpeting just before it all burst into flame. On that day when the teenagers had had too much to drink before they got into one of their daddies' cars, she would have pulled Michael back to the curb. Didn't she save her baby from the swans when they tried to attack her? Hasn't she taken care of everything since—her children and the house, her lawn and her electricity bill, her laundry, which, when it hangs on the line, is even whiter than snow?
From the very start, Sally has been lying to herself, telling herself she can handle anything, and she doesn't want to lie anymore. One more lie and she'll be truly lost. One more and she'll never find her way back through the woods.
Sally gulps her diet Coke; she's dying of thirst. Her throat actually hurts from those lies she told Gary Hallet. She wants to come clean, she wants to tell all, she wants someone to listen to what she has to say and really hear her, the way no one ever has before. When she sees Gary crossing the Turnpike, carrying a tub of fried chicken, she knows she could start her car and get away before he recognizes her. But she stays where she is. As she watches Gary walk in her direction, a line of heat crisscrosses itself beneath her skin. It's invisible, but it's there. That's the way desire is, it ambushes you in a parking lot, it wins every time. The closer Gary gets, the worse it is, until Sally has to slip one hand under her shirt and press down, just to ensure that her heart won't escape from her body.
The world seems gray, and the roads are slick, but Gary doesn't mind the dim and somber night. There have been nothing but blue skies in Tucson for months, and Gary isn't bothered by a little rain. Maybe rain will cure the way he feels inside, and wash away his worries. Maybe he can get on the plane tomorrow at nine twenty-five, smile at the flight attendant, then catch a couple of hours' sleep before he has to report into the office.
In his line of work, Gary is trained to notice things, but he can't quite believe what he's seeing now. Part of the reason for this is that he's been imagining Sally everywhere he goes. He thought he spied her at a crosswalk on the Turnpike as he was driving here, and again in the fried-chicken place, and now here she is in the parking lot. She's probably another illusion, what he wants to see rather than what's right in front of him. Gary walks closer to the Honda and narrows his eyes. That's Sally's car, it is, and that's her, there behind the wheel, honking the horn at him.
Gary opens the car door, gets into the passenger seat, and slams the door shut. His hair and his clothes are damp, and the bucket of chicken he has with him is steamy hot and smells like oil.
"I thought it was you," he says.
He needs to fold his legs up to fit in this car; he balances the bucket of chicken on his lap.
"It was Jimmy's ring," Sally says.
She didn't plan to spill it immediately, but maybe it's just as well. She's staring at Gary for his reaction, but he's simply looking back at her. God, she wishes she smoked or drank or something. The tension is so bad that it feels as though it were at least a hundred and thirty degrees inside the car. Sally is surprised she doesn't just burst into flame.
"Well?" she says finally. "We were lying to you. That ring in my kitchen belonged to James Hawkins."
"I know." Gary sounds even more worried now than before. She's the one, and he knows it. Under certain circumstances, he might be willing to give up everything for Sally Owens. He might be willing to leap headlong into this ravine he feels coming up, without considering how fast he'd be falling or how brutal the moment of impact might be. Gary combs his wet hair back with his fingers and, for a moment, the whole car smells like rain. "Have you had dinner?" He lifts the bucket of chicken. He's also got onion rings and fries.
"I couldn't eat," Sally tells him.
Gary opens the door and sets the bucket outside in the rain. He has definitely lost his appetite for chicken.
"I might pass out," Sally warns him. "I feel like I'm going to have a stroke."
"Is that because you understand I have to ask if you or your sister know where Hawkins is?"
That is not the reason. Sally is hot right down to her fingertips. She takes her hands off the steering wheel so steam doesn't rise from beneath her cuticles, and places both hands in her lap. "I'll tell you where he is." Gary Hallet is looking at her as if the Hide-A-Way Motel and all the rest of the Turnpike didn't even exist. "Dead," Sally says.
Gary thinks this over while the rain taps against the roof of the car. They can't see out the windshield, and the windows are fogged up.
"It was an accident," Sally says now. "Not that he didn't deserve it. Not that he wasn't the biggest pig alive."
"He went to my high school." Gary speaks slowly, with an ache in his voice. "He was always bad news. People say that he shot twelve ponies at a ranch that refused to hire him for a summer job. Shot them in the head, one by one."
"There you go," Sally says. "There you have it."
"You want me to forget about him? Is that what you're asking me to do?"
"He won't hurt anyone anymore," Sally says. "That's the important thing."
The woman who works in the motel office has run outside, wearing a black rain poncho and carrying a broom she'll use to try to unclog the gutters before tomorrow's predicted storm. Sally herself isn't thinking about her gutters. She's not wondering if her girls thought to close the windows, and at this moment she doesn't care if her roof will make it through gale-force winds.
"The only way he'll hurt someone is if you keep looking for him," Sally adds. "Then my sister will get hurt, and I will, too, and it will all be for nothing."
She's got the sort of logic Gary can't argue with. The sky is getting darker, and when Gary looks at Sally he sees only her eyes. What's right and what's wrong have somehow gotten confused. "I don't know what to do," he admits. "In all of this, I seem to have a problem. I'm not impartial. I can pretend to be, but I'm not."
He's staring at her the way he did when she first answered the door. Sally can feel his intentions and his torment both; she's well aware of what he wants.
Gary Hallet is getting leg cramps sitting in the Honda, but he's not going anywhere yet. His grandfather used to tell him that most folks had it all wrong: The truth of the matter was, you could lead a horse to water, and if the water was cool enough, if it was truly clear and sweet, you wouldn't have to force him to drink. Tonight Gary feels a whole lot more like the horse than the rider. He has stumbled into love, and now he's stuck there. He's fairly used to not getting what he wants, and he's dealt with it, yet he can't help but wonder if that's only because he didn't want anything too badly. Well, he does now. He looks out at the parking lot. By afternoon he'll be back where he belongs; his dogs will go crazy when they see him, his mail will be waiting outside his front door, the milk in his refrigerator will still be fresh enough to use in his coffee. The hitch is, he doesn't want to go. He'd rather be here, crammed into this tiny Honda, his stomach growling with hunger, his desire so bad he doesn't know if he could stand up straight. His eyes are burning hot, and he knows he can never stop himself when he's going to cry. He'd better not even try.
"Oh, don't," Sally says. She moves closer to him, pulled by gravity, pulled by forces she couldn't begin to control.
"I just do this," Gary says in that sad, deep voice. He shakes his head, disgusted with himself. This time he'd prefer to do almost anything but cry. "Pay no attention."
But she does. She can't help herself. She shifts toward him, meaning to wipe at his tears, but instead she loops her arms around his neck, and once she does that, he holds her closer.
"Sally," he says.
It's music, it's a sound that is absurdly beautiful in his mouth, but she won't pay attention. She knows from the time she spent on the back stairs of the aunts' house that most things men say are lies. Don't listen, she tells herself. None of it's true and none of it matters, because he's whispering that he's been looking for her forever. She's halfway onto his lap, facing him, and when he touches her, his hands are so hot on her skin she can't believe it. She can't listen to anything he tells her and she certainly can't think, because if she did she might just think she'd better stop.
Gary takes his card out and hands it to Gillian. "I don't want to scare you, but this is a dangerous person we're dealing with. I'd appreciate it if you'd call me if he tries to contact you."
"He won't contact her," Sally says.
She cannot keep her mouth shut. It's simply impossible. What is wrong with her? That's what Gillian's glare is asking, and that's what Sally is asking herself. It's just that this investigator gets such a worried look when he focuses on something. He's a man of concern, she sees that. He's the kind of man you'd never want to lose once you'd finally found him.
"Jimmy knows we're through," Gillian announces. She goes to pour herself a cup of coffee, and while she's at it she sticks an elbow into Sally's ribs. "What's wrong with you?" she whispers. "Will you just shut up?" She turns back to Gary. "I made it perfectly clear to Jimmy that our relationship was finito. That's why he won't contact me. We're history."
"I'm going to have to have the car impounded," Gary says.
"Naturally," Gillian says graciously. If they're lucky, this guy will be gone in under two minutes. "Go right ahead."
Gary stands and runs his hands through his dark hair. He's supposed to leave now. He knows that. But he's dragging his feet. He wants to go on looking into Sally's eyes, and drown a thousand times a day. Instead, he takes his coffee cup to the sink.
"You don't have to bother with that," Gillian tells him warmly, desperate to be rid of him.
Sally smiles when she sees the way he places the cup and the spoon down so carefully.
"If anything does happen to come up, I'll be in town until tomorrow morning."
"Nothing will happen," Gillian assures him. "Trust me."
Gary reaches for the notebook he keeps to remind himself of details and flips it open. "I'll be at the Hide-A-Way Motel." He looks up and sees nothing but Sally's gray eyes. "Someone at the rental car desk recommended it."
Sally knows the place, a dump on the other side of the Turnpike, near a vegetable stand and a fried-chicken franchise known for its excellent onion rings. She could not care less if he's staying in a lousy motel like that. She doesn't give a damn that he's leaving tomorrow. As a matter of fact, she'll be leaving, too. She and her girls will be out of here in no time. If they wake early, and don't stop for coffee, they can make it to Massachusetts by noon. They can be opening the curtains in the aunts' dark rooms to let in some sunlight just after lunch.
"Thanks for the coffee," Gary says. He spies the half-dead cactus on the window ledge. "This is definitely not representative of the species. It's in sad shape, I'll tell you that."
Last winter, Ed Borelli gave each of the secretaries at the high school a cactus for Christmas. "Plop it on your windowsill and forget about it," Sally had advised when complaints were raised about who on earth would want such a thing, and other than slosh some water onto its saucer now and then, that's exactly what she herself has done. But Gary is paying the cactus a good deal of attention. He's got that worried look, and he's fumbling with something stuck between the saucer the cactus rests on and its pot. When he turns back to face Sally and Gillian, he seems so pained that Sally's first thought is that he's pricked his finger.
"Damn it," Gillian whispers.
It's Jimmy's silver ring Gary is holding on to, and that's what's causing him such pain. They're going to lie to him and he knows it. They're going to tell him they've never seen this ring before, or that they bought it in an antique store, or that it must have dropped from the heavens above.
"Nice ring," Gary says. "Real unusual."
Neither Sally nor Gillian can figure how this can be possible; they know for a fact that ring was on Jimmy's finger, it's buried out back, and yet here it is in the investigator's hand. And he's looking at Sally now; he's waiting for an explanation. Why shouldn't he be; he's read a description of this ring in three depositions: A rattler on one side of it, he remembers that. A coiled snake, which is exactly what he's got now.
Sally feels that heart-attack thing again; it's something wrong in the center of her chest, like a red-hot poker, like a piece of glass, and there's nothing she can do about it. She couldn't lie to this man if her life depended on it—and it does—and that's the reason she doesn't say a word.
"Well, look at that." Gillian is all wonder and sugar. It's so easy for her to do this, she doesn't have to think twice. "That old thing's probably been there for a million years."
Sally's still not talking, but she's leaning all her weight against the refrigerator, as though she needed help to stand up.
"Is that so?" Gary says, still drowning.
"Let me take a look." Gillian goes right up to him and takes the ring out of his hands and studies it as if she's never seen it before. "Cool," she says, giving it back. "You should probably keep it." This is such a nice touch she is truly proud of herself. "It's much too big for any of us."
"Well, great." Gary's head is pounding. Fuck it. Fuck it all. "Thanks."
As he slips the ring into his pocket, he's thinking that Sally's sister is really good at this; she's probably well aware of James Hawkins's whereabouts as of this very second. Sally, however, is another story; maybe she doesn't know anything, maybe she's never seen this ring before. Her sister could have her fooled completely, could be siphoning money, groceries, family heirlooms to Hawkins as he watches TV in some basement apartment in Brooklyn, waiting for the heat to die down.
But Sally isn't looking at him, that's the thing. Her beautiful face is turned away because she knows something. Gary has seen it before, countless times.
People who are guilty of something think they can hide it by not looking you in the eye; they presume you can read their shame, that you can see in through their eyes to their very soul, and in a way they're right.
"I guess we're done," Gary says. Unless there's something you've suddenly thought of that I should know."
Nothing. Gillian grins and shrugs. Sally swallows, hard. Gary can practically feel how dry her throat is, how the pulse at the base of her neck is throbbing. He's not certain how far he would go to cover for someone. He's never been in the position before and he doesn't like the feel of it, yet here he is, standing in a stranger's kitchen in New York on a humid summer day, actually wondering if he could look the other way. And then he thinks about his grandfather walking to the courthouse to legally claim him on a day when it was a hundred and twelve in the shade. The air started to sizzle; the mesquite and the Russian thistle burst into flame, but Sonny Hallet had thought to bring a container of cool spring water with him, and he wasn't even tired when he walked inside the courthouse. If you go against what you believe in, you're nothing anyway, so you might as well stick to your guns. Gary's going to fly home tomorrow and hand this case over to Arno. He can't even pretend it will turn out all right: that Hawkins will surrender, and Sally and her sister will be proven innocent of assisting a murder suspect, and Gary himself will start writing to Sally. If he did, perhaps she wouldn't be able to throw away his letters; she'd have to read each one again and again, exactly the way he did when hers was delivered, and before she knew it, she'd be lost, the way he seems to be at this very moment.
Since none of this is going to happen, Gary nods and heads for the door. He has always known when to step aside, and when to sit by the road and just wait for whatever was going to happen next. He saw a mountain lion one afternoon because he decided to sit down on the bumper of his truck and drink some water before changing a blown tire. The mountain lion came padding toward the asphalt, as if it owned the road and everything else, and it took a good took at Gary, who had never before been grateful for a flat tire.
"I'll have the Oldsmobile picked up by Friday," Gary says now, but he doesn't look behind him until he's out on the porch. He doesn't know that Sally might easily have followed him, if her sister hadn't pinched her and whispered for her to stay where she was. He doesn't know how badly this thing inside Sally's chest hurts her, but that's what happens when you're a liar, especially when you're telling the worst of these lies to yourself.
"Thanks a million," Gillian sings out, and by the time Gary turns to look behind him, there's nothing to see but the locked door.
As far as Gillian's concerned, it's all over and done with. "Well, hallelujah," she says when she goes back to the kitchen. "We got rid of him."
Sally is already dealing with the lasagna noodles that have been congealing in the colander. She tries to pry them out with a wooden spoon, but it's too late, they're stuck together. She dumps the whole thing into the trash and then she starts to cry.
"What is your problem?" Gillian asks. It is times like these that provoke perfectly rational people to say what the hell and light up cigarettes. Gillian looks through the junk drawer, hoping to find an old pack, but the best she comes up with is a box of wooden matches. "We got rid of him, didn't we? We seemed totally innocent. In spite of that damn ring. I'll tell you that thing scared the pants off me. That was like looking the devil right in the eye. But honey, we fooled that investigator anyway, and we did a good job of it."
"Oh," Sally says, completely disgusted. "Oh," she cries.
"Well, we did! We pulled it off, and we should be proud of ourselves."
"For lying?" Sally rubs at her leaking eyes and nose. Her cheeks are red and she's snuffling like crazy and she can't get rid of that awful feeling in the dead center of her chest. "Is that what you think we should be proud of?"
"Hey." Gillian shrugs. "You do what you have to." She peers into the trash at the globby noodles. "Now what do we do for dinner?"
That's when Sally throws the colander across the room.
"You are in bad shape," Gillian says. "You'd better call your internist or your gynecologist or somebody and get a tranquilizer."
"I'm not doing this." Sally grabs the pot of tomato sauce, to which she's added onions and mushrooms and sweet red pepper, and pours it into the sink.
"Fine." Gillian is ready to agree to any reasonable plan. "You don't have to cook. We'll get take-out."
"I'm not referring to dinner." Sally has grabbed her car keys and her wallet. "I'm talking about the truth."
"Are you out of your mind?" Gillian goes after Sally, and when Sally keeps heading toward the door, Gillian reaches for her arm.
"Don't you dare pinch me," Sally warns her.
Sally walks out onto the porch, but Gillian is still right behind her. She follows Sally down the driveway.
"You're not going to see that investigator. You can't talk to him."
"He knows anyway," Sally says. "Couldn't you tell? Couldn't you see by the way he was looking at us?"
Just thinking about Gary's gaunt face and all the worry that was there makes her chest feel even worse. She's going to find herself suffering from a stroke or angina or something before this day is through.
"You can't go after that guy," Gillian tells Sally. There's not a bit of nonsense in her tone. "We'll both be sitting in jail if you do. I don't know what would make you even consider this."
"I've already decided," Sally says.
"To do what? Go to his motel? Get down on your knees and beg for mercy?"
"If I have to. Yes."
"You're not going," Gillian says.
Sally looks at her sister, considering. Then she opens the car door.
"No way," Gillian says. "You're not going after him."
"Are you threatening me?"
"Maybe I am." She isn't going to let her sister screw up her future just because Sally feels guilty about something she didn't even do.
"Oh really?" Sally says. "How exactly do you plan to get to me? Do you think you could possibly ruin my life any more than you already have?"
Wounded, Gillian takes a step back.
"Try to understand," Sally says. "I have to set this right. I can't live this way."
A storm has been predicted, and the wind has begun to rise; strands of Sally's black hair whip across her face. Her eyes are luminous and much darker than usual; her mouth is as red as a rose. Gillian has never seen her sister look so disheveled, so unlike her usual self. At this moment Sally seems to be someone who would rush headlong into a river, when she hasn't yet learned how to swim. She'd jump from the branches of the tallest tree, convinced all she needed for a safe landing were her outstretched arms and a silk shawl to billow out and catch the air as she fell.
"Maybe you should wait." Gillian is trying her sweetest voice, the one that has talked her out of speeding tickets and bad affairs. "We can discuss it. We can decide together."
But Sally has made her decision. She refuses to listen; she gets into her car, and short of jumping behind the Honda to block it, Gillian can't do anything but stand and watch as Sally drives away. She watches for a long time, too long, because, in the end, all Gillian is watching is the empty road, and she's seen that before. She's seen it much too often.
There's a lot to lose when you have something, when you're foolish enough to let yourself care. Well, Gillian has gone ahead and done it by falling in love with Ben Frye, and her fate is now out of her hands. It's riding along, sitting shotgun in that Honda with Sally, and all Gillian can do is pretend that nothing is wrong. When the girls come home, she says that Sally's out running errands, and she orders from the Chinese take-out place on the Turnpike, then phones Ben and asks him to pick up dinner on his way over.
"I thought we were having lasagna," Kylie says as she and Gideon set the table.
"Well, we're not," Gillian informs her. "And can't you use paper plates and cups so we don't have to mess around with washing dishes?"
When Ben arrives with dinner, Kylie and Antonia suggest they wait for their mom, but Gillian won't hear of it. She starts dishing out shrimp with cashews and pork fried rice, the sort of carnivorous fare Sally would never allow on her table. The food is good, but it's a dreadful dinner anyway. Everyone is out of sorts. Antonia and Kylie are worried, because their mother is never late, especially on a night when there's packing left to do, and they both feel guilty eating shrimp and pork at her table. Gideon isn't helping matters; he's practicing his belching, which is driving everyone but Kylie completely crazy. Scott Morrison is the worst, gloomy as can be at the prospect of a week without Antonia. "What's the point?" is his response to just about everything this evening, including "Would you like an eggroll?" and "Do you want orange soda or Pepsi?" Eventually Antonia bursts into tears and runs from the room when Scott answers the question of whether or not he'll write while she's away with his same old "What's the point?" Kylie and Gideon have to plead Scott's case through Antonia's closed bedroom door, and just when Scott and Antonia have made up and are kissing in the hallway, Gillian decides enough is enough.
By now, Sally has probably spilled her guts to that investigator. For all Gillian knows, Gary Hallet has gone over to the mini-mart on the Turnpike that's open all hours and rented a tape recorder so he can get her confession in her own words. Trapped with no recourse, Gillian has a major migraine, one that Tylenol couldn't begin to cure. Every voice sounds like fingernails against a chalkboard, and she has absolutely no tolerance for even the smallest piece of happiness or joy. She can't stand to see Antonia and Scott kissing, or hear Gideon and Kylie teasing each other. All evening she's been avoiding Ben, because for her Scott Morrison's philosophy really holds true: What is the point? Everything is about to be lost, and she can't stop it; she might as well give up and call it a day. She might as well phone for a taxi and climb out the window, with her most important belongings tossed into a pillowcase. She knows for a fact that Kylie has plenty of money saved in her unicorn bank, and if Gillian borrowed some she could get a bus ticket halfway across the country. The only problem is, she can't do that anymore. She has other considerations now; she has, for better or for worse, Ben Frye.
"It's time for everyone to go home," Gillian declares.
Scott and Gideon are sent away with promises of phone calls and postcards (for Scott) and boxes of saltwater taffy (for Gideon). Antonia cries a little as she watches Scott get into his mother's car. Kylie sticks her tongue out at Gideon when he salutes, and she laughs when he takes off running through the damp evening, clomping along in his army boots, waking the squirrels that nest in the trees. Once those boys are gotten rid of, Gillian turns to Ben.
"Same goes for you," she says. She's throwing paper plates in the trash at breakneck speed. She already has the dirty silverware and the glasses soaking in soapy water, which is so unlike her usual messy self that Ben is starting to get suspicious. "Vamoose," she tells Ben. She hates it when he looks at her that way, as though he knew her better than she knew herself. "These girls have to finish packing and be on the road by seven a.m."
"Something is wrong," Ben says.
"Absolutely not." Gillian's pulse rate must be a good two hundred. "Nothing's wrong."
Gillian turns to the sink and gives her attention to the soaking silverware, but Ben puts his hands on her waist and leans against her. He's not so easily convinced, and Lord knows he's stubborn when he wants something.
"Go on," Gillian says, but her hands are soapy and wet and she's having difficulty pushing him away. When Ben kisses her, she lets him. If he's kissing her, he can't ask any questions. Not that it would do any good to try to explain what her life used to be like. He wouldn't understand, and that may be the reason she's in love with him. He couldn't imagine some of the things she's done. And when she's with him, neither can she.
Out in the yard, twilight is casting purple shadows. The evening has turned even more overcast, and the birds have stopped calling. Gillian should be paying attention to Ben's kisses, since they may well be the last they share, but instead she's looking out the kitchen window. She's thinking about how Sally may be telling the investigator what's in her garden, way in the back, where no one goes anymore, and that's where she's looking while Ben kisses her; that's why she finally sees the hedge of thorns. All the while no one was watching, it has been thriving. It has grown nearly two feet since this morning, and, nurtured by spite, it's growing still, coiling into the night sky.
Gillian abruptly pulls away from Ben. "You have to go," she tells him. "Now."
She kisses him deeply and pledges all sorts of things, love promises she won't even remember until the next time they're in bed and he reminds her. She works hard, and at last she wins.
"You're sure about this?" Ben says, confused by how hot-and-cold she is, but wanting more all the same. "You could spend the night at my place."
"Tomorrow," Gillian vows. "And the next night and the night after that."
When at last Ben leaves, when she's watched out the front window to make certain he's really gone, Gillian goes into the yard and stands motionless beneath the murky sky. It is the hour when the crickets first begin to call out a warning, their song quickened by the humidity of the coming storm. At the rear of the yard the hedge of thorns is twisted and dense. Gillian walks closer and sees that two wasps' nests hang from the branches; a constant buzzing resonates, like a warning issued, or a threat. How is it possible for these brambles to have grown unnoticed? How could they have allowed it to happen? They believed him to be gone, they wished it to be so, but some mistakes come back to haunt you again and again, no matter how certain you are that they've finally been put to rest.
As she stands there, a fine drizzle begins, and that's what makes Kylie come after her, the fact that her aunt is standing out there all alone, getting wet without seeming to notice.
"Oh, no," Kylie says when she sees how tall the hedge of thorns has grown since she and Gideon played chess on the lawn.
"We'll just cut them down again," Gillian says. "That's what we'll do."
But Kylie shakes her head. No clippers could get through those thorns, not even an ax would do. "I wish my mom would get home," she says.
Laundry has been left on the line, and if it stays out it will be soaked, but that's not the only problem. The hedge of thorns is giving off something nasty, a mist you can barely see, and the hems of each sheet and shirt have become blotchy and discolored. Kylie may be the only one who can see it, but every stain on their clean laundry is deep and dark. Now she realizes why she hasn't been able to imagine their vacation, why it's all been a blank inside her head.
"We're not going to the aunts'," she says.
The branches of the hedge are black, but anyone who looks carefully will see that the thorns are as red as blood.
Puddles are collecting on the patio by the time Antonia pushes open the back door. "Are you guys crazy?" she calls. When Gillian and Kylie don't answer, she takes a black umbrella from the coat rack and runs out to join them.
A storm with near-hurricane-force winds has been predicted for late tomorrow. Other people in the neighborhood have heard the news and have gone out to buy rolls of masking tape; when the wind arrives to rattle their windows, the glass will be held together with X's of tape. It's the Owens house that's in danger of being blown off its foundation.
"Great way to start a vacation," Antonia says.
"We're not going," Kylie tells her.
"Of course we're going," Antonia insists. "I'm already packed."
In her opinion, it's truly creepy out tonight; it makes no sense to be standing here in the dark. Antonia shivers and considers the overcast sky, but she doesn't look away long enough to miss seeing that her aunt has grabbed Kylie's arm. Gillian holds on tight to Kylie; if she dared to let go she might not be able to stand on her own. Antonia looks to the rear of the yard, and then she understands. There's something under those horrible thorn bushes.
"What is it?" Antonia asks.
Kylie and Gillian are breathing a little too quickly; fear is rising off them in waves. It's possible to smell fear like this; it's a little like smoke and ashes, like flesh that's come too close to a fire.
"What?" Antonia says. As soon as she takes a step toward the bushes, Kylie pulls her back. Antonia squints to see through the shadows. Then she laughs. "It's just a boot. That's all it is."
It's snakeskin, one of a pair that cost nearly three hundred dollars. Jimmy would never go to Western Warehouse or anyplace like that. He liked more expensive shops; he always preferred items that were one-of-a-kind.
"Don't go over there!" Gillian says when Antonia starts to retrieve the boot.
The rain is coming down hard now; there's a curtain of it, gray as a blanket of tears. In the place where they buried him, the earth looks spongy. If you reached your hand in, you might just be able to pluck out a bone. You might be dragged down yourself, if you weren't careful, deep into the mud, and you'd struggle and you'd try to draw a breath, but it wouldn't do the least bit of good.
"Did either of you find a ring back here?" Gillian asks.
The girls are both shivering now, and the sky is black. You'd think it was midnight. You'd think it was impossible for the heavens to have ever been blue, like ink, or robins' eggs; like the ribbons girls thread through their hair for luck.
"A toad brought one into the house," Kylie says. "I forgot all about it."
"It was his." Gillian's voice doesn't even sound like her. This voice is too thick and sad, and much too distant. "Jimmy's."
"Who's Jimmy?" Antonia says. When no one answers her she looks to the hedge of thorns, and then she knows. "He's back there." Antonia leans against her sister.
If it storms as badly as the meteorologists have predicted and the yard should flood, then what? Gillian and Kylie and Antonia are drenched through and through; the umbrella Antonia holds aloft can't protect them. Their hair is plastered to their heads; their clothes will have to be wrung out in the shower.
The ground near the thornbushes looks indented, as if it were already sinking in upon itself or, worse, sinking in on Jimmy. If he rises to the surface, like his silver ring, like some horrid, wicked fish, it will be over for them.
"I want my mother," Antonia says in a very small voice.
When they finally turn and run for the house, the lawn squishes under their feet. They run even faster; they run as though their nightmares were right behind them on the grass. Once they're inside, Gillian locks the door, then drags a chair over and positions it under the doorknob.
That dark June night when Gillian pulled into the driveway under a circle of light may as well have been a hundred years ago. She isn't the same person she was when she arrived. That woman who tiptoed up to the front door with the sort of urgency only desperation can dispense would have already packed her car and been gone. She would never have stuck around to see what that investigator from Tucson would do with everything Sally told him. She wouldn't have remained in the vicinity, and she wouldn't have left a note behind for Ben Frye, even if she cared for him the way she does tonight. She'd be halfway through Pennsylvania by this time, with the radio on, loud, and a full tank of gas. She wouldn't bother to look in her rearview mirror, not for a minute, not once. And that's the difference, it's simple and it's plain: The person that's here now isn't going anywhere, except into the kitchen to fix her nieces some camomile tea to settle their nerves.
"We're perfectly fine," she tells the girls. Her hair is a disaster and her breathing is ragged; mascara is streaked across her pale skin in wavering lines. Still, she's the one who's here, not Sally, and it's up to her to send the girls to bed and to assure them that she can take care of things. No need to worry, that's what she tells them. They're safe and sound tonight. While the rain pours down, while the wind rises in the east, Gillian will think of a plan, she'll have to, because Sally could no more help her figure out what to do than she could leap from a tree and fly.
No longer balanced by logic, Sally is weightless tonight. She, who has always valued the sensible and the useful above all else, lost her way as soon as she drove down the Turnpike. She couldn't find the Hide-A-Way Motel, though she's passed it a thousand times before. She had to stop at a gas station and ask directions, and then she had her heart-attack thing, which forced her to search out the filthy restroom, where she washed her face with cool water. She looked at her reflection in the smudged mirror above the sink and breathed deeply for several minutes until she was steady once more.
But she soon discovered that she wasn't as steady as she'd thought. She didn't see the brake lights of the car ahead of her after she'd pulled back onto the Turnpike, and there was a minor fender-bender, which was completely her fault. The left headlight of her Honda is now barely attached and is in danger of falling off completely every time she steps on the brake.
By the time she finally pulls up to the Hide-A-Way, her family at home is halfway through dinner, and the parking lot of the fried-chicken franchise diagonally across the Turnpike is packed with customers. But food is the last thing Sally wants. Her stomach is jumpy and she's nervous, she's insanely nervous, which is probably why she brushes her hair twice before she gets out of the car and starts for the motel office. Pools of oil shimmer on the asphalt; one lonely crab apple tree, plopped down in the single plot of earth and surrounded by some red geraniums, shudders when the traffic on the Turnpike zooms by. Only four cars are parked in the lot, and three are real bombs. If she were looking for Gary's car, the one farthest from the office would seem the most likely choice—it's a Ford of some sort and it looks like a rental car. But more than that, it's been left there so neatly and carefully, exactly the way Sally would imagine Gary would park his car.
Thinking about him, and his worried look, and those lines on his face, makes Sally even more nervous. Once she's inside the motel office, she rearranges the strap of her purse over her shoulder; she runs her tongue over her lips. She feels like somebody who's stepped outside her life into a stretch of woods she didn't even know existed, and she doesn't know the pathways or the trails. The woman behind the desk is on the phone, and it seems she's in the middle of a conversation that could go on for hours.
"Well, if you didn't tell him, how could he know?" she's saying in a disgusted tone of voice. She reaches for a cigarette and sees Sally.
"I'm looking for Gary Hallet." Once Sally makes this announcement, she thinks she must really be crazy. Why would she be looking for someone whose presence spells calamity? Why would she drive over here on a night when she's so confused? She can't concentrate at all, that much is obvious. She can't even remember the capital of New York State. She no longer recalls which is more caloric, butter or margarine, or whether or not monarch butterflies hibernate in winter.
"He went out," the woman behind the desk tells Sally. "Once a moron, always a moron," she says into the phone. "Of course you know. I know you know. The real question is, Why don't you do something about it?" She stands, pulling the phone behind her, then lifts a key from the rack on the wall, and hands it over. "Room sixteen," she tells Sally.
Sally steps back as if burned. "I'll just wait here."
She takes a seat on the blue plastic couch and reaches for a magazine, but it's Time and the cover story is "Crimes of Passion," which is more than Sally can bear at the moment. She tosses the magazine back on the coffee table. She wishes she had thought to change her clothes and wasn't still wearing this old T-shirt and Kylie's shorts. Not that it matters. Not that anyone cares what she looks like. She gets her brush out of her purse and runs it through her hair one last time. She'll just tell him, and that will be that. Her sister's an idiot—is that a federal offense? She was warped by the circumstances of her childhood, then she went out and screwed things up for herself as an adult to ensure that it would all match. Sally thinks about trying to explain this to Gary Hallet while he's staring at her, and that's when she realizes she's hyperventilating, breathing so quickly that the woman behind the desk is keeping an eye on her in case Sally should pass out and she has to dial 911.
"Let me ask you this," the woman behind the desk is saying into the phone. "Why do you ask me for advice if you're not going to listen to it? Why don't you just go ahead, do whatever you want, and leave me out of it?" She gives Sally a look. This is a private conversation, even if half of it is going on in a public place. "You sure you don't want to hang out in his room?"
"Maybe I'll just wait in my car," Sally says.
"Super," the woman says, shelving her phone conversation until she has her privacy back.
"Let me guess." Sally nods to the phone. "Your sister?"
A baby sister out in Port Jefferson, who has needed constant counsel for the past forty-two years. Otherwise, she'd have every single credit card charged to the max and she'd still be married to her first husband, who was a million times worse than the one she's got now.
"She's so self-centered, she drives me nuts. That's what comes from being the youngest and having everyone fuss over you," the woman behind the desk announces. She's slipped her hand over the mouthpiece of the telephone. "They want you to take care of them and solve all their problems and they never give you the least bit of credit for anything."
"You're right," Sally agrees. "Being the baby does it. They never seem to get over it."
"Don't I know," the other woman says.
And what of being the oldest, Sally wonders as she goes outside, stopping at the vending machine beside the office to get herself a diet Coke. She steps over the rainbow-edged pools of oil on her way back to her car. What if you're forever trapped into telling someone else what to do, into being responsible and saying "I told you so" a dozen times a day? Whether she wants to admit it or not, this is what Sally has been doing, and she's been doing it for as long as she can remember.
Right before Gillian had her hair chopped off, and set every girl in town marching into beauty shops, begging for the very same style, her hair had been as long as Sally's, perhaps a bit longer. It was the color of wheat, blinding to look at under the sun and as fine as silk, at least on those rare occasions when Gillian chose to brush it. Now Sally wonders if she was jealous, and if that was why she teased Gillian about what a mess she always looked, with her hair all bunched up and knotted.
And yet on the day Gillian came home with her hair cut short, Sally was shocked. She hadn't even consulted with Sally before she'd gone through with it. "How could you have done this to yourself?" Sally demanded.
"I have my reasons," Gillian said. She was sitting in front of her mirror, applying blush into the hollows of her cheeks. "And they are all spelled C-A-S-H."
Gillian swore that a woman had been following her for several days, and had finally approached her that afternoon. She had offered Gillian two thousand dollars, there, on the spot, if Gillian would accompany her to a salon and have her hair clipped off to the ears so this woman with short, mousy hair could have a false braid to wear to parties.
"Sure," Sally said. "Like anyone in their right mind would ever do that."
"Really?" Gillian said. "You don't think anyone would?"
She reached into the front pocket of her jeans and pulled out a roll of money. The two thousand, in cash. Gillian had a huge smile on her face, and maybe Sally just wanted to wipe it right off.
"Well, you look awful," she said. "You look like a boy."
She said it even though she could see that Gillian had an incredibly pretty neck, so slim and sweet the mere sight of it would make grown men cry.
"Oh, who cares?" Gillian said. "It'll grow back."
But her hair never grew long again—it wouldn't reach past her shoulders. Gillian washed it with rosemary, with violets and rose petals and even ginseng tea—none of it did any good.
"That's what you get," Sally announced. "That's where greed will take you."
But where has being such a good girl and a prig taken Sally? It's brought her to this parking lot on a damp and dreadful night. It's put her in her place, once and for all. Who is she to be so righteous and certain her way is best? If she'd simply called the police when Gillian first arrived, if she hadn't had to take charge and manage it all, if she hadn't believed that everything—both the cause and the effect—was her responsibility, she and Gillian might not be in the fix they're in right now. It's the smoke emanating from the walls of their parents' bungalow. It's the swans in the park. It's the stop sign no one notices, until it's too late.
Sally has spent her whole life being vigilant, and that takes logic and good common sense. If her parents had had her with them she would have smelled the acrid scent of fire, she knows that she would. She would have seen the blue spark that fell onto the rug, the first of many, where it glittered like a star, and then a river of stars, shiny and blue on the shag carpeting just before it all burst into flame. On that day when the teenagers had had too much to drink before they got into one of their daddies' cars, she would have pulled Michael back to the curb. Didn't she save her baby from the swans when they tried to attack her? Hasn't she taken care of everything since—her children and the house, her lawn and her electricity bill, her laundry, which, when it hangs on the line, is even whiter than snow?
From the very start, Sally has been lying to herself, telling herself she can handle anything, and she doesn't want to lie anymore. One more lie and she'll be truly lost. One more and she'll never find her way back through the woods.
Sally gulps her diet Coke; she's dying of thirst. Her throat actually hurts from those lies she told Gary Hallet. She wants to come clean, she wants to tell all, she wants someone to listen to what she has to say and really hear her, the way no one ever has before. When she sees Gary crossing the Turnpike, carrying a tub of fried chicken, she knows she could start her car and get away before he recognizes her. But she stays where she is. As she watches Gary walk in her direction, a line of heat crisscrosses itself beneath her skin. It's invisible, but it's there. That's the way desire is, it ambushes you in a parking lot, it wins every time. The closer Gary gets, the worse it is, until Sally has to slip one hand under her shirt and press down, just to ensure that her heart won't escape from her body.
The world seems gray, and the roads are slick, but Gary doesn't mind the dim and somber night. There have been nothing but blue skies in Tucson for months, and Gary isn't bothered by a little rain. Maybe rain will cure the way he feels inside, and wash away his worries. Maybe he can get on the plane tomorrow at nine twenty-five, smile at the flight attendant, then catch a couple of hours' sleep before he has to report into the office.
In his line of work, Gary is trained to notice things, but he can't quite believe what he's seeing now. Part of the reason for this is that he's been imagining Sally everywhere he goes. He thought he spied her at a crosswalk on the Turnpike as he was driving here, and again in the fried-chicken place, and now here she is in the parking lot. She's probably another illusion, what he wants to see rather than what's right in front of him. Gary walks closer to the Honda and narrows his eyes. That's Sally's car, it is, and that's her, there behind the wheel, honking the horn at him.
Gary opens the car door, gets into the passenger seat, and slams the door shut. His hair and his clothes are damp, and the bucket of chicken he has with him is steamy hot and smells like oil.
"I thought it was you," he says.
He needs to fold his legs up to fit in this car; he balances the bucket of chicken on his lap.
"It was Jimmy's ring," Sally says.
She didn't plan to spill it immediately, but maybe it's just as well. She's staring at Gary for his reaction, but he's simply looking back at her. God, she wishes she smoked or drank or something. The tension is so bad that it feels as though it were at least a hundred and thirty degrees inside the car. Sally is surprised she doesn't just burst into flame.
"Well?" she says finally. "We were lying to you. That ring in my kitchen belonged to James Hawkins."
"I know." Gary sounds even more worried now than before. She's the one, and he knows it. Under certain circumstances, he might be willing to give up everything for Sally Owens. He might be willing to leap headlong into this ravine he feels coming up, without considering how fast he'd be falling or how brutal the moment of impact might be. Gary combs his wet hair back with his fingers and, for a moment, the whole car smells like rain. "Have you had dinner?" He lifts the bucket of chicken. He's also got onion rings and fries.
"I couldn't eat," Sally tells him.
Gary opens the door and sets the bucket outside in the rain. He has definitely lost his appetite for chicken.
"I might pass out," Sally warns him. "I feel like I'm going to have a stroke."
"Is that because you understand I have to ask if you or your sister know where Hawkins is?"
That is not the reason. Sally is hot right down to her fingertips. She takes her hands off the steering wheel so steam doesn't rise from beneath her cuticles, and places both hands in her lap. "I'll tell you where he is." Gary Hallet is looking at her as if the Hide-A-Way Motel and all the rest of the Turnpike didn't even exist. "Dead," Sally says.
Gary thinks this over while the rain taps against the roof of the car. They can't see out the windshield, and the windows are fogged up.
"It was an accident," Sally says now. "Not that he didn't deserve it. Not that he wasn't the biggest pig alive."
"He went to my high school." Gary speaks slowly, with an ache in his voice. "He was always bad news. People say that he shot twelve ponies at a ranch that refused to hire him for a summer job. Shot them in the head, one by one."
"There you go," Sally says. "There you have it."
"You want me to forget about him? Is that what you're asking me to do?"
"He won't hurt anyone anymore," Sally says. "That's the important thing."
The woman who works in the motel office has run outside, wearing a black rain poncho and carrying a broom she'll use to try to unclog the gutters before tomorrow's predicted storm. Sally herself isn't thinking about her gutters. She's not wondering if her girls thought to close the windows, and at this moment she doesn't care if her roof will make it through gale-force winds.
"The only way he'll hurt someone is if you keep looking for him," Sally adds. "Then my sister will get hurt, and I will, too, and it will all be for nothing."
She's got the sort of logic Gary can't argue with. The sky is getting darker, and when Gary looks at Sally he sees only her eyes. What's right and what's wrong have somehow gotten confused. "I don't know what to do," he admits. "In all of this, I seem to have a problem. I'm not impartial. I can pretend to be, but I'm not."
He's staring at her the way he did when she first answered the door. Sally can feel his intentions and his torment both; she's well aware of what he wants.
Gary Hallet is getting leg cramps sitting in the Honda, but he's not going anywhere yet. His grandfather used to tell him that most folks had it all wrong: The truth of the matter was, you could lead a horse to water, and if the water was cool enough, if it was truly clear and sweet, you wouldn't have to force him to drink. Tonight Gary feels a whole lot more like the horse than the rider. He has stumbled into love, and now he's stuck there. He's fairly used to not getting what he wants, and he's dealt with it, yet he can't help but wonder if that's only because he didn't want anything too badly. Well, he does now. He looks out at the parking lot. By afternoon he'll be back where he belongs; his dogs will go crazy when they see him, his mail will be waiting outside his front door, the milk in his refrigerator will still be fresh enough to use in his coffee. The hitch is, he doesn't want to go. He'd rather be here, crammed into this tiny Honda, his stomach growling with hunger, his desire so bad he doesn't know if he could stand up straight. His eyes are burning hot, and he knows he can never stop himself when he's going to cry. He'd better not even try.
"Oh, don't," Sally says. She moves closer to him, pulled by gravity, pulled by forces she couldn't begin to control.
"I just do this," Gary says in that sad, deep voice. He shakes his head, disgusted with himself. This time he'd prefer to do almost anything but cry. "Pay no attention."
But she does. She can't help herself. She shifts toward him, meaning to wipe at his tears, but instead she loops her arms around his neck, and once she does that, he holds her closer.
"Sally," he says.
It's music, it's a sound that is absurdly beautiful in his mouth, but she won't pay attention. She knows from the time she spent on the back stairs of the aunts' house that most things men say are lies. Don't listen, she tells herself. None of it's true and none of it matters, because he's whispering that he's been looking for her forever. She's halfway onto his lap, facing him, and when he touches her, his hands are so hot on her skin she can't believe it. She can't listen to anything he tells her and she certainly can't think, because if she did she might just think she'd better stop.