“Girls are different.”
“No shit, Sherlock.”
Rory put the shovel back in the garage, then went to an outside faucet and began washing off his hands.
Sherri was back outside now, and stood close to him. “Take one of these, why don’t you?”
He saw that she was holding three small white pills in her pink palm.
“I thought you were so against drugs.”
“These are prescription. They’re different.”
“So what are they?”
“Loraza-something or other. My mom takes them to help her sleep. If you take them, they’ll make you feel better. Not so sad.”
“Have you taken any?”
“Yeah. Two. I brought you three because you’re bigger.”
Rory didn’t want to admit he wasn’t terribly broken up about Duffy’s passing, so he accepted the pills and put them in his mouth, then ran faucet water into his hand and scooped water into his mouth and swallowed.
“You got water all over your shirt,” Sherri said. Her dark eyes were red and swollen.
“You gonna be okay?” he asked, turning off the spigot.
“I think so.”
“Your mom home?”
“No, but Clyde is. We can’t mess around.”
“Guess not.”
“I’ll thank you later for doing this for me,” she said. “Thank you properly.”
She kissed him on the lips and he felt an immediate erection.
Sherri must have felt it, too. “I better not do that,” she said, smiling up at him. “And you better get the car back to your mother.”
Rory waved good-bye to Clyde, who’d been standing watching them, then got into the Chevy and backed it down the driveway and into the street. So far he didn’t feel any different from taking the pills. He ran a stop sign near his house, but managed to get the Chevy parked back in the garage.
When he went in through the kitchen he saw a note from his mother beneath the salt shaker on the table. She’d gone shopping with a neighbor in the woman’s car and would be back soon.
Rory got a soda from the refrigerator, went into the living room, and slumped down on the sofa. He used his cell phone to call Sherri and they talked for a while. Sherri was the one who started giggling and talking crazy, then they both started making less and less sense so they each kissed their phones and then broke the connection.
Leaning back in the sofa, Rory sighed happily. It had been a hell of a day, but looking back on it, not such a bad one. He and Sherri were closer now, that was for sure. All in all, his world seemed pretty good, its pieces all in place.
He rested the back of his head against the sofa cushion and wondered…
It seemed like five seconds later when Rory woke up. It was dark outside. He struggled to an upright position and took a sip of soda. It was warm and fizzy and some spilled down onto his shirt.
He looked around for a clock, then remembered that there was none in the living room. That was where he was, in the living room of his house.
Reassuring, familiar territory.
After unremembered dreams?
He took a few deep breaths and decided he felt pretty good. Maybe a little confused, and sort of… heavy.
Light played over the living room walls. Headlights. Tires scrunching gravel. A car in the driveway.
Voices. A car door slamming. High heels clacking on the concrete porch. Paper sacks crackling. A soft jingling and then the ratcheting sound of a key being inserted in a lock.
The light came on, causing his eyes to ache.
“Why on earth are you sitting there in the dark?” Rory’s mother asked. She was standing near the door, clutching several large Antoine’s bags.
“I was watching TV. Musta fell asleep.”
“I hope you didn’t spill any of that soda on the couch.”
“Nope. I was careful.”
He suddenly realized he had to piss, and urgently, so he stood up, swaying gently. He couldn’t get his legs to work for a moment; then he trudged heavily toward the hall and the bathroom.
“You’re still half asleep,” his mother said.
“I guess I am. TV does that sometimes.” He plodded on toward the bathroom. How did it get so far away?
He still felt heavy. More like three-fourths asleep. Drugged.
Sherri and her little white pills.
But they had worked. He remembered feeling much better not long after taking them. The tension, his fear that he might say something wrong, or that in some other way Sherri would find out what really happened to Duffy, had seemed suddenly unimportant and then left him.
If the pills worked this time, they’d work again. People expected so much from him. It wasn’t as if he lived a life without pressure.
He bumped into the small table in the hall, causing it to scrape against the wooden baseboard.
“For God’s sake, turn on a light,” his mother said behind him. “I hope you don’t drive that way at night. You’re liable to kill somebody.”
55
New York, the present
D r. Grace Moore’s office was on West Forty-fourth Street, in a building attached to The Lumineux, a swank hotel with European decor. The idea was that some of the tasteful mood and environment might rub off.
Her office was furnished much in the manner of the hotel, with minimalist style and obviously expensive furniture. Matching taupe carpet and drapes set off-but barely-mauve furniture and throw rugs over a hardwood floor. Deep blue was, here and there, an accent color. The tan leather sofa where her patients sat was incredibly comfortable. She thought that in sum the office gave her patients confidence in her, and engendered a heightened tendency to share secrets.
Linda Brooks, a twenty-nine-year-old woman Dr. Moore had been treating for two years, had seemed exceptionally upset when she’d arrived for her appointment today, but now, sitting back on the sofa with her head resting against the cushions, her eyes half closed, she’d obviously calmed down.
Linda was an attractive dark-haired girl with well-defined features and a cleft chin that helped to lend her a habitual sincere and determined expression. Her teeth seemed always clenched, her jaw muscles almost constantly flexing. Linda had been diagnosed five years ago as mildly schizophrenic with episodes of paranoia. Lately, the paranoia had been increasing in frequency and seriousness.
“Have you been taking your meds as required?” Grace asked, seated in a soft swivel chair with her legs crossed. As usual, she was composed and calm.
“Of course I have,” Linda said. “That’s what they’re for, aren’t they?
“Do I sense hostility?”
“Toward you, no,” Linda said.
“Toward yourself?”
“God, let’s not get into that.”
“Isn’t that why you’re here?”
“I knew you were going to ask that.”
