attacks, fear of accidentally encountering a mask still ruled her daily comings and goings, and mask dreams still haunted her nights.
And sometimes her afternoon naps as well-she had fallen asleep on the couch in her studio while waiting for Wayne Summers, who was supposed to be driving down from San Francisco that afternoon. They had met the previous spring, in Las Vegas, of all places, where nearly a hundred phobics (or, as they preferred to be called, Persons with Specific Phobia Disorder) had gathered for the PWSPD convention, and the two had become fast friends despite some rather striking differences between them, including age, race, religion, and sexual orientation.
Still struggling to shake off the psychic tatters of the dream, Dorie left the studio and went into the kitchen to make herself a cup of tea and check the time-there was no clock in the studio, intentionally. She was surprised to discover that it was nearly four in the afternoon, which left her in a minor dilemma, as she was anxiously awaiting a response to her letter to Agent Pender and hadn’t yet dropped by the post office today. (There was no home mail delivery in Carmel, largely because there were no street numbers on the houses; Carmel-by-the-Sea was a town that worked at being quaint.)
On the other hand, Wayne might be arriving any minute-he was already several hours overdue-and he would absolutely pitch a syncope if he had to wait outside with the jays, crows, thrushes, juncos, and warblers that inhabited the live oak in Dorie’s front yard.
Black guy passed out on the front lawn: wouldn’t that give the neighbors something to talk about, thought Dorie, hurriedly scrawling a note that read,
There were, as of October of 1999, ninety-six art galleries and forty-one gift shops in Carmel; of necessity, Dorie had memorized the location of all the ones that displayed, or might display, masks visible from the street, so that she could detour around them. A relatively minor inconvenience, she knew, especially compared to the lengths an ornithophobe like Wayne had to go to avoid his betes-as specific phobia disorders go, prosoponophobia wasn’t the worst one to have. Except around Halloween, which, as Dorie was about to learn, had come two weeks early to Carmel that year.
No one watching Dorie Bell stride confidently down the hill toward the post office would have suspected her of being a phobic. She was a tall woman, broad-shouldered and full-figured, and she walked the walk in her Birkenstocks, paint-spattered overalls, and brown serape-head up, long strides, arms swinging, colorful straw Guatemalan bag swinging, waist-length brown braid swinging, too.
But as she turned west onto Fifth Avenue, having detoured down San Carlos to avoid the Ethnic and Folk Arts Gallery, she was ambushed. Overnight a faceless white mannequin wearing the medieval costume known as a domino (hooded robe and eye-mask, all the more dreadful to Dorie for its simplicity: black and white, the mask stripped to its essence) had appeared in the window of Verbena, the upscale women’s clothing shop on the corner of Fifth and Dolores.
Frozen in front of the window, unable to avert her eyes, just as in the dream, Dorie could feel her scalp tingling; bright pin-pricks of color dotted her vision as the blood began to drain from her head. She knew what was happening-her sinoaortic barore-flex arc, the mechanism responsible for the vasovagal syncope, was overcompensating for the sudden increase in blood pressure by dropping the pressure just as suddenly. But she also knew, after all these years, how to take charge, how to reverse the process.
Breathe, she ordered herself, closing her eyes to the m-to the object that had triggered the attack. Deeeep and sloooow, deeeep and sloooow. Then up on your toes, back down, up and down, breathe deep; long, slow shoulder-rolls, get the blood circulating, never mind about making a public spectacle, you’d make more of a spectacle passing out on the sidewalk, and breaking your nose again for good measure.
Attagirl, can’t be fearless until you’ve been afraid. Now turn away from the object, nice and slow, don’t hyperventilate; now you can open your eyes…now you can take a step…now you can take another….
And the danger was behind her, both physically and temporally. Nor did she abandon her errand, instead detouring another three blocks out of her way, only to return home empty-handed-no letters in her box, from Pender or anybody else-to an empty driveway and empty house: no Wayne, either.
By six o’clock, Dorie was concerned; by eight, she was worried; by ten she had already left three messages on Wayne’s machine and another two on his mother’s.
A few minutes after eleven the phone rang; Dorie snatched the receiver off the cradle, barked “Where the hell are you?” and was told, in no uncertain terms, to watch her language. Vera Summers, who double-shifted as a private nurse, was Dorie’s age, a praise-shoutin’, hymn-singin’, tee-totalin’, no-cussin’ Baptist, and not to be trifled with. Dorie apologized. “Sorry, Vera, I thought it was Wayne.”
“Apologize to Jesus, not me. But listen, sugar, I ain’t seen Wayne since church yesterday morning. Didn’t come home last night, didn’t call, nothing. You do see him first, you warn him he better duck next time he see his mama. He show up there, you have him call me. Meantime I’m ’onna see if I can get hold of my brother Al, on the police, grease some wheels.”
“Okay, stay in touch.”
“I will. I wouldn’t worry too much, though-it wouldn’t be the first time that boy stayed out all night, tomcattin’ around.”
But Dorie did worry, because she knew something Vera did not know. God
“Hello?” The man on the other end of the line sounded peeved.
“Hi, it’s Dorie. Did I wake you?”
The voice softened. “Oh, hi. No, no problem-I’m a night owl. What’s up?”
“Remember Wayne Summers?”
“Refresh me.”
“He was the only black guy at the convention.”
“Right, right, the ornithophobe. What about him?”
“He’s missing,” said Dorie. “He was supposed to be coming down today, but he never showed up.”
“Maybe it slipped his mind. From what I recall of the boy, he did strike me as being just a tad flaky.”
“No, I talked to his mother. She doesn’t know where he is either-she said he didn’t come home last night.”
“Has she filed a missing persons?”
“Not yet-but her brother, Wayne’s uncle, he’s a cop, he’s gonna look into it.”
Attenuated silence, then the snick of a lighter and a hissing inhalation (the unmistakable sound of somebody toking up), followed by a spluttering cough (the unmistakable sound of somebody blowing a toke).
“You okay?” Dorie asked.
“Yes, yes,” he snapped. “Just calming my nerves.” It didn’t sound to Dorie as if he’d had much success. “Listen, Dorito, I’m sorry to hear about Wayne-I’m sure he’ll turn up-but I have to ask: why on earth are you calling
Up until now-up until Wayne-Dorie had restrained herself from taking her suspicions to any of her new friends from the PWSPD convention. The phobic community was the last place you wanted to start a panic. And her theory-that somebody was going around the country murdering phobics and trying to make it look like suicide-did sound a little paranoid, if not downright fantastic, not just to the authorities she’d contacted, but to her own ears as well. The letter she’d sent Pender was an umpteenth draft, and the only way she’d managed to get that one off was to seal the envelope and drop it into the corner mailbox without reading it first.
But what had seemed like caution this morning felt more like denial this evening. Dorie took a here-goes- nothing breath and let ’er rip. She told him about the deaths of Carl, Mara, and Kim, about her correspondence with the Las Vegas, Fresno, and Chicago police, about the letter to Pender-she laid it all out, and when she had finished, the silence on the other end of the line was so complete she thought at first the connection had been broken.
“Hello? Hello, are you still there?”
“Yes, yes-just trying to find my Valium.”
“Hey, take it easy on the meds,” Dorie cautioned him. “I can’t afford to lose any more friends.”
