from occasionally teasing her, especially when Zoe was complaining about man troubles.
Such troubles were usually far simpler than the one currently in hand.
“What do you think he meant by small deaths?” Zoe asked. “The more I think of it, the more it gives me the creeps.”
Hilary nodded. “Isn’t sleep sometimes referred to as the little death?”
Zoe could hear Wolfe’s voice in her head.
“I don’t think that’s what he was talking about,” she said.
“Maybe it’s just his way of saying you’re going to have bad dreams. You know, he freaks you out a little, makes you nervous, then bingo—he’s a success.”
“But why?”
“Creeps don’t need reasons for what they do; that’s why they’re creeps.”
Zoe was back to shivering again.
“Maybe I will stay here,” she said, “if you’re sure I won’t be in your way.”
“Be in my way?” Hilary glanced at her watch. “I’m supposed to be at work right now—I’ve got a meeting in an hour—so you’ll have the place to yourself.”
“I just hope I can get to sleep.”
“Do you want something to help you relax?”
“What, like a sleeping pill?”
Hilary shook her head. “I was thinking more along the lines of some hot milk.”
“That’d be lovely.”
Zoe didn’t sleep well. It wasn’t her own bed and the daytime street noises were different from the ones outside her own apartment, but it was mostly the constant replay of last night’s two conversations that kept her turning restlessly from one side of the bed to the other. Finally, she just gave up and decided to face the day on less sleep than she normally needed.
She knew she’d been having bad dreams during the few times when she had managed to sleep, but couldn’t remember one of them. Padding through the apartment in an oversize Tshirt, she found herself drawn to the front window. She peeked out through the curtains, gaze traveling up and down the length of Stanton Street. When she realized what she was doing—looking for a shock of red hair, dark eyes watching the house—she felt more irritable than ever.
She was not going to let it get to her, she decided. At least not anymore.
A shower woke her up, while breakfast and a long afternoon ramble with Rupert through the grounds of Butler University made her feel a little better, but by the time she got to work at a quarter to twelve that night and started to go through the station’s library to collect the music she needed for the show, she was back to being tense and irritable. Halfway through the first hour of the show, she interrupted a Bobby Brown/Ice T/Living Colour set and brought up her voice mike.
“Here’s a song for Gordon Wolfe,” she said as she cued up an album cut by the local band No Nuns Here. “Memories are made of this, Wolfe.”
The long wail of an electric guitar went out over the air waves, a primal screech as the high E string was fingered down around the fourteenth fret and pushed up past the G string, then the bass and drums caught and settled into a driving back beat. The wailing guitar broke into chunky bar chords as Lorio Munn’s voice cut across the music like the punch of a fist.
Which one was it going to be? she thought as she spoke into the phone.
“Nightnoise. Zoe B. here.”
She kept the call off the air, just in case.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
Bingo. It was Bob.
“Tell me about small deaths,” she said.
“I
“You’ll get your chance to natter on,” Zoe interrupted, “but first I want to know about these small deaths.”
Silence on the line was the only reply.
“I don’t hear a dial tone,” she said, “so I know you’re still there. Talk to me.”
“I ... Jesus,” Bob said finally.
“Small deaths,” Zoe repeated.
After another long hesitation, she heard Bob sigh. “They’re those pivotal moments in a person’s life that change it forever: a love affair gone wrong, not getting into the right postgraduate program, stealing a car on a dare and getting caught, that kind of thing. They’re the moments that some people brood on forever; right now they could have the most successful marriage or career, but they can’t stop thinking about the past, about what might have happened if things had gone differently.
“It sours their success, makes them bitter. And usually it leads to more small deaths: depression, stress, heavy drinking or drug use, abusing their spouse or children.”
“What are you saying?” Zoe asked. “That a small death’s like disappointment?”
“More like a pain, a sorrow, an anger. It doesn’t have to be something you do to yourself. Maybe one of your parents died when you were just a kid, or you were abused as a child; that kind of trauma changes a person forever. You can’t go through such an experience and grow up to be the same person you would have been without it.”
“It sounds like you’re just talking about life,” Zoe said. “It’s got its ups and its downs; to stay sane, you’ve got to take what it hands you. Ride the punches and maybe try to leave the place in a little better shape than it was before you got there.”
What was
As the No Nuns Here cut came to an end, she cued in a version of Carly Simon’s “You’re So Vain”
by Faster Pussycat.
“Jesus,” Bob said as the song went out over the air. “You really have a death wish, don’t you?”
“Tell me about Gordon Wolfe.”
The man’s voice echoed in her mind as she spoke his name.
“What’s he got to do with all of this?” she added.
“He’s a catalyst for bad luck,” Bob said. “It’s like, being in his company—just being in proximity to him—can bring on a small death. It’s like ... do you remember that character in the L’il
“I can’t remember.”
“Everywhere he went he brought bad luck.”
“What about him?” Zoe asked.
“Gordon Wolfe’s like that, except you don’t see the cloud. You don’t get any warning at all. I guess the worst thing is that his effects are completely random—unless he happens to take a dislike to you.
Then it’s personal.”
“A serial killer of people’s hopes,” Zoe said, half jokingly. “Exactly.”
“Oh, give me a break.”
“I’m trying to.”
“Yeah, right,” Zoe said. “You feed me a crock of shit and then expect me to—”
