“I was . . .” Mrs. Souder said. “I’m sorry if I disturbed you. I knew the woman in the room with you.”
“Yes, I know,” Michelle said. “She was relieved that you did.”
Mrs. Souder turned and walked up the hill toward the house, her cloak stirring up wisps of snow.
“Wait,” Michelle said. “Why did you go through my locker?”
The woman stopped, pausing a moment before spinning toward Michelle. “What are you doing here?” the old woman said, the frustration in her voice giving her an edge of desperation. “Why did you come here tonight?”
“I followed the light down the hill.”
“Followed the light? Weren’t you afraid?”
“Not anymore,” Michelle said. “Everything’s so fucked up I think I’ve forgotten how to be afraid.”
“You should try remembering, dear,” she said, her eyes etching into Michelle’s. “Fear can protect you.”
“I lost my daughter,” Michelle said. “Did you know I lost my daughter and I have no recollection of her dying? My friends and family all remember. My sister remembers. My husband drove me to her grave. It was very convincing, but somehow, I didn’t believe it. They say she’s been dead for over a year, and yet I spoke with her a week ago. Cassie’s her name.” Michelle was rambling but didn’t care.
“She’s fifteen and was voted captain of the swim team. She’s not even a senior. Isn’t that wonderful? She’s an excellent swimmer. Cliff didn’t even know she was voted captain. Before my daughter had a chance to tell him, he headed down this mountain”—Michelle turned to point—“looking for a dusk-to-dawn light and never came back. Isn’t that crazy? Why would anyone go looking for a dusk-to-dawn light in the middle of the woods? But then I did the same thing. Can you believe that? Yeah, I followed the same light and when I found Cliff, he was missing a finger, and he told me our daughter was dead . . . and . . . and I had . . . my . . . life . . .” For a moment Michelle felt like she was lifting from the ground, weightless, floating.
“Are you all right, dear?” the old woman asked. “You don’t look well.”
Michelle closed her eyes, playing back everything she’d said, mortified by how stupid it must have sounded. She felt possessed, as if the words had originated somewhere else.
“I’m sorry,” Michelle said. “I must have sounded insane. So much has happened lately.” When Michelle realized the woman was holding her arm to steady her, Michelle pulled it back slowly. “I’m okay.”
“You look pale,” the old woman said. “Come up to the house. I’ll make tea.”
“No. Thank you. I have to go.”
“No. I think you should stay.”
Michelle was disturbed by Mrs. Souder’s insistence. It had the ring of threat, even though her eyes seemed harmless, loving. Michelle followed her into the house, remembering how upset Pink had become when Michelle wandered into Mrs. Souder’s private room. Michelle felt like a sneak not telling her she’d been in the house before, had actually been in her private altar space.
Michelle sat at the kitchen table, trying to rein in her discomfort, while Mrs. Souder held the teakettle under the faucet. The old woman swiveled toward the stove and slid the kettle onto the burner, then turned up the flame. Michelle couldn’t help picturing her cauldron hanging over the fire, the queer otherworldliness of it, like something from a movie, or a cartoon.
Mrs. Souder sat down, opposite Michelle at the table, folding her hands in front of her. In the warm light of the kitchen, the woman’s face appeared younger than it had outside, even though the lines at the corners of her eyes were creased deep with worry and concern.
“I have a strange story for you, Mrs. Stage,” Mattie said. “One you may find difficult to believe.
Chapter 34
More titty bars and strip joints. That’s what the country needed. Pink followed Paula down a corridor to a red curtain. When she parted the material, Pink walked through. In front of a mirrored wall sat three men in chairs, spaced about five feet apart, each man with his own writhing and nearly naked woman grinding her butt into his lap. Paula walked up beside Pink and took his hand. “This way,” she said, cooing. “Paula has her own private boudoir.”
The room was no bigger than a walk-in closet, all the walls mirrored except for the one behind the single chair, everything cast in red, though Pink could not discern the source of the light. Paula motioned for him to sit. He reached out for Paula’s plump little fanny.
“Paula will take care of those hands for you.”
“Long as you give them back when you’re done,” Pink said.
It was the first time he’d seen a smile from her that hadn’t looked faked. She pulled two red scarves from a shelf behind the chair and tied his hands to the back.
Pink wished he’d rearranged his compass needle before Paula bound his hands. Now he’d have to suffer a southeast pointer instead of a more comfortable northern one. Paula turned her back to Pink and slowly slid the G-string down her thighs, letting it fall to the floor at her feet. She turned to face him, then bent down to check the knots in the scarves. “This way you won’t be a naughty little pumpkin, will you?”
Paula eyed him, dropping her gaze to the lump in his trousers. “Paula can fix that.” She gently maneuvered him upright, toggling him with the deft of a safe cracker. She lowered herself down onto his lap and swayed to the music. Pink leaned his face closer to her breasts and she met him halfway, arching her back. It was Paula who noticed the vibration in his pants.
“Do you need to get that?”
“Get what?” Pink said, burrowing into the swells of her bosom.
“Isn’t that your phone?”
“It’s nothing.” Pink knew it was Isabelle. She would keep calling and leaving messages until the phone exploded in his pants.
“Paula likes,” she said, straddling the device in Pink’s pocket. Each time it vibrated, Paula cooed. Pink hoped Isabelle would stay true to form and keep calling every few minutes.
When it stopped, Paula grasped her breasts and mashed them into Pink’s jowls.
Pink hated having Paula in his lap and Isabelle in his head. What was so goddamn important she had to keep calling? The calls were wrecking his concentration. The phone vibrated again. Paula warbled and Pink sighed. “Hells bells on wheels! Reach in my pocket and grab that dang phone for me, will you?” Pink asked Paula.
She slipped it out slowly, flipped it open. She pressed the talk button and held the phone to Pink’s ear, leaning in close enough for Pink to smell her breasts—funnel cakes, he thought, or cotton candy. “Okay, Isabelle,” Pink said, stretching his tongue toward the tender brown flesh of Paula’s nipple. She arched her back slightly, pulling the prize out of Pink’s reach. “What is so hell-fired important?” he said.