mine.
We were hungry, and started with hot buttermilk biscuits slathered with peach butter. The day was definitely improving. Christine ordered Carolina shrimp and grits. I got the Carolina Perlau-red rice, thick chunks of duck, shrimp, and sausage.
“No one has given me a rose in a long time,” she told me. “I love that you thought to do that.”
“You’re being too nice to me tonight,” I said as we started to eat.
She tilted her head to one side and looked at me from an odd angle. She did that now and again. “Why do you say that I’m being too nice?”
“Well, you can tell I’m not exactly the best company tonight. It’s what you’re afraid of, isn’t it? That I can’t turn off my job.”
She took a sip of wine. Shook her head. Finally she smiled, and the smile was so down-to-earth. “You’re so honest. But you have a good sense of humor about it. Actually, I hadn’t noticed that you weren’t operating at one hundred and ten percent.”
“I’ve been distant and into myself all night,” I said. “The kids say I get twilight zoned.”
She laughed and rolled her eyes. “Stop it, stop it. You are the least into-yourself man I think I’ve ever met. I’m having a very nice time here. I was planning on a bowl of Sugar Puffs for my dinner at home.”
“Sugar Puffs and milk are good. Curl up in bed with a movie or book. Nothing wrong with that.”
“That was my plan. I finally gave in and started The Horse Whisperer. I’m glad you called and spoiled it for me, took me out of my own twilight zone.”
“You must really think I’m crazy,” Christine said and smiled a little later during dinner. “Lawdy, Miss Clawdy, I believe I am crazy.”
I laughed. “For going out with me? Absolutely crazy.”
“No, for telling you I didn’t think we should see each other, and now late dinner at Georgia Brown’s. Forsaking my Sugar Puffs and Horse Whisperer.”
I looked into her eyes, and I wanted to stay right there for a very long time, at least until Georgia Brown’s asked us to leave. “What happened? What changed?” I asked.
“I stopped being afraid,” she said, “Well, almost stopped. But I’m getting there.”
“Yeah, maybe we both are. I was afraid, too.”
“That’s nice to hear. I’m glad you told me. I couldn’t imagine that you get afraid.”
I drove Christine home from Georgia Brown’s around midnight. As we rode on the John Hansen Highway, all I could think about was touching her hair, stroking the side of her cheek, maybe a few other things. Yes, definitely a few other things.
I walked Christine to her front door and I could hardly breathe. Again. My hand was lightly on her elbow. She had her house key clasped in her hand.
I could smell her perfume. She told me it was called Gardenia Passion, and I liked it a lot. Our shoes softly scraped the cement.
Suddenly, Christine turned and put her arms around me. The movement was graceful, but she took me by surprise.
“I have to find something out,” she said.
Christine kissed me, just as we had a few days before. We kissed sweetly at first, then harder. Her lips were soft and moist against mine, then firmer, more urgent. I could feel her breasts press against me; then her stomach, her strong legs.
She opened her eyes, looked at me, and she smiled. I loved that natural smile-loved it. That smile-no other one.
She gently pulled herself away from me. I felt the separation and I didn’t want her to go. I sensed, I knew, I should leave it at that.
Christine opened her front door and slowly backed inside. I didn’t want her to go in just yet. I wanted to know what she was thinking, all her thoughts.
“The first kiss wasn’t an accident,” she whispered.
“No, it wasn’t an accident,” I said.
Chapter 40
GARY SONEJI was in the cellar again.
Whose dank, dark cellar was it, though?
That was the $64,000 question.
He didn’t know what time it was, but it had to be very early in the morning. The house upstairs was as quiet as death. He liked that image, the rub of it inside his mind.
He loved it in the dark. He went back to being a small boy. He could still feel it, as if it had happened only yesterday. His stepmother’s name was Fiona Morrison, and she was pretty, and everybody believed she was a good person, a good friend and neighbor, a good mother. It was all a lie! She had locked him away like a hateful animal-no, worse than an animal! He remembered shivering in the cellar, and peeing in his pants in the beginning, and sitting in his own urine as it turned from warm to icy cold. He remembered the feeling that he wasn’t like the rest of his family. He wasn’t like anybody else. There was nothing about him that anybody could love. There was nothing good about him. He had no inner core.
He sat in the dark cellar now and wondered if he was where he thought he was.
Which reality was he living in?
Which fantasy?
Which horror story?
He reached around on the floor in the dark. Hmmm. He wasn’t in the cellar in the old Princeton house. He could tell he wasn’t. Here the cold cement floor was smooth. And the smell was different. Dusty and musty. Where was he?
He turned on his flashlight. Ahhh!
No one was going to believe this one! No one would guess whose house this was, whose cellar he was hiding in now.
Soneji pushed himself up off the floor. He felt slightly nauseated and achy, but he ignored the feeling. The pain was incidental. He was ready to go upstairs now.
No one would believe what he was going to do next. How outrageous.
He was several steps ahead of everybody else.
He was way ahead.
As always.
Chapter 41
SONEJI ENTERED the living room and saw the correct time on the Sony television’s digital clock. It was 3:24 in the morning. Another witching hour.
Once he reached the upstairs part of the house, he decided to crawl on his hands and knees.
The plan was good. Damn it, he wasn’t worthless and useless. He hadn’t deserved to be locked in the cellar. Tears welled in his eyes and they felt hot and all too familiar. His stepmother always called him a crybaby, a little pansy, a fairy. She never stopped calling him names, until he fried her mouth open in a scream.
The tears burned his cheeks as they ran down under his shirt collar. He was dying, and he didn’t deserve to die. He didn’t deserve any of this. So now someone had to pay.
He was silent and careful as he threaded his way through the house, slithering on his belly like a snake. The floorboards underneath him didn’t even creak as he moved forward. The darkness felt charged with electricity and infinite possibilities.
