The Deep End (16 page)

“My God, he’s worse than the alarm,” Robin exclaimed nervously from the doorway. “What set him off?”

“What did you say to him, Mom?” Lulu demanded.

“I just asked him if he was all right.”

The low wail continued building in intensity as, all the while, Sam Hensley lay motionless in his bed, his arms outstretched, his eyes open wide and fierce. In the next instant, the room was filled with nurses. Joanne saw the flash of a syringe. She looked over at her grandfather, his eyes closed in sleep, completely unaware of
the commotion that raged around him. “Let’s go, Mom,” Robin whispered, pulling on her arm.

“Perhaps you could step outside for a few minutes,” one of the nurses suggested, pulling a curtain abruptly around Sam Hensley’s bed. “He gets like this occasionally. It’ll only take a few minutes to calm him down, then you can come back in.”

Joanne nodded wordlessly and led her daughters out of the room, each one understanding the visit was over. They walked silently down the corridor, catching sight of Sam Hensley’s daughter and grandson in the visitor’s lounge across from the elevators. Marg Crosby was smoking a cigarette. Her son was staring at the black-and-white television set against the pale peach wall. Joanne approached the woman and explained gently what had happened.

Marg Crosby shrugged and finished her cigarette. “It’s happened before,” she said, reluctantly getting to her feet. “You coming, Alan?” she called to her son, whose eyes remained riveted on the TV. “Alan?” she repeated.

He turned in his mother’s direction as if surprised she was there, but his eyes quickly continued past her, past Joanne, to somewhere behind them, a small smile gradually creeping into the corners of his mouth. Both Joanne and Marg Crosby turned slowly around curiously, only to find Robin, her eyes shyly downcast, with the same small smile on her overly glossed lips.

“Down, Rover,” the woman chuckled knowingly, and Joanne thought, as she had the previous night with regard to Robin’s friend Scott, he doesn’t even see me.

“Time to go home,” Joanne stated, placing her hands on each of her daughters’ shoulders and maneuvering them in the direction of the elevator.

“Ma’am?” the voice called after her.

Joanne looked around for a woman who suited that form of address, realized it was intended for herself, and stopped.

The boy came to an abrupt halt several paces behind her. “Are these yours?” he asked, referring to a set of keys in his outstretched palm.

Joanne immediately recognized the key chain as her own. She felt the sudden weight of the keys as the boy dropped them into her hand. “Where did I leave them this time?” she asked, a feeling of helplessness surrounding her.

“On a table in the visitor’s lounge,” Alan Crosby said and smiled, again just past her to where Robin stood waiting.

“Thank you,” Joanne told him, and watched him walk away. She turned to face her daughters. “Home, James,” she said.

“I really don’t feel any older than they are,” Joanne was telling Eve, who sat at her kitchen table drinking a large glass of milk and clutching nervously at her blue terrycloth robe. “I look at Robin and Lulu and I can feel what they’re thinking—that we’re worlds apart—and I want to tell them that it’s not people who change,
we
don’t change, it’s
time
that changes.” She paused, not sure whether or not she was making any sense. “I just wish they’d had the chance to see him as I did, to have known what he was like.”

“You expect youth to understand what it’s like to grow old?” Eve chortled. “How can they? Do you? No, if old people can’t understand young people, and they’ve
been
young, how can you expect young people, who have absolutely no basis for comparison, to understand what
growing old is all about. As far as they’re concerned, growing up means falling apart, and as far as I’m concerned, they’re absolutely right.”

Joanne laughed, though underneath the laugh there was concern, concern for her friend’s depressed state, for her almost alarming appearance. Eve had always taken great pains to look, if not spectacular, at least dramatic. The only thing dramatic about the woman sitting across from her at this minute was the fact that she was drinking milk, something Joanne hadn’t seen Eve do in years. She looked like the stereotype of a suburban housewife: feet in slippers, hair unwashed and in need of a strong brushing, tatty old blue bathrobe, inexpressibly weary eyes. Eve had never been one to complain, never one to let sickness get or slow her down. Now she seemed, if not stopped, then stuck. It disturbed Joanne, threatened her already shaky frame of reference, to see her friend, always the stronger of the two, so overwhelmed by her discomfort. She prayed the doctors would discover exactly what Eve’s problem was and fix it quickly. Joanne noticed a strange look suddenly cross Eve’s face. “Eve? Is something wrong? Are you having more pains?”

“It’s not a question of more pains,” Eve admitted, a sense of defeat clinging to each word. “It’s just one, steady ache. I keep expecting it to disappear. I go to bed hoping that when I wake up, everything will be okay. But it never is. If anything, it’s getting worse. It seems to be spreading. You know when you feel on the verge of a sore throat? That’s how my throat feels, kind of constricted, like I’ve got something caught, like I’m going to choke. I was up the whole night. I finally took my temperature at six o’clock this morning.”

“And?”

“Up half a degree.”

“Maybe you’re coming down with the flu.”

“I weighed myself too. I was two pounds lighter than I was at midnight.”

“People usually weigh less in the morning than they do at night,” Joanne said quickly. “Paul once told me,” she continued, feeling the breath tighten in her lungs, “that we all go up and down within a four-pound spread, depending on the time of day and how much water we’re retaining, that sort of thing.”

“And I’m constipated,” Eve continued, as if Joanne hadn’t spoken. “I swear I’m falling apart. It’s like my whole body has decided it doesn’t want anything more to do with me. Look at my stomach—I’m so bloated, I look like I did when I was pregnant.”

“Are you?” Joanne asked hopefully.

“Are you kidding?” Eve asked in return. “I have my period.” Her eyes suddenly shot to Joanne’s. “You don’t think I have toxic shock syndrome, do you?”

“I don’t think your symptoms are anything like the ones you get with toxic shock,” Joanne replied thoughtfully, momentarily sharing her friend’s concern. “But if you’re worried, don’t wear tampons.”

“And do what instead?”

“Wear a pad.”

“Good God,” Eve replied, horrified. “I’d rather have toxic shock!”

Joanne laughed. “That’s more like the Eve I know and love. When’s your next doctor’s appointment?”

“Tuesday morning at the cardiologist, Friday morning at the gynecologist. A few others, I can’t remember when. You don’t have to go with me.”

“Of course I’ll go with you.” There was a moment’s silence. “Maybe you could convince Brian to take you to a horror movie, get your mind off everything.”

“I can’t sit up straight for that long. Besides, when was the last time you saw Brian?”

“He’s still working all that overtime?”

“The man loves his work. What can I tell you?” Eve suddenly caved forward, pressing her chest against the curve of her white kitchen table, her eyes closing as she sucked in her breath.

“Another pain?”

“Let’s call it a spasm,” Eve whispered, reopening her eyes and releasing the air in her lungs. “It doesn’t sound quite so threatening that way.” She straightened her back and tried to smile.

“Let’s play some cards,” Joanne said forcefully, looking toward the shelf against the wall where Eve usually kept such miscellaneous items. “Come on, we’ll play gin rummy.” Joanne found a deck of playing cards and quickly slid them from their package, feeling a rush of childhood exhilaration pushing through her fingers.

“I can never beat you at gin,” Eve grimaced.

“Too late, I’m already shuffling.” Joanne expertly shuffled the cards in the manner her grandfather had taught her when she was barely a decade old, and began dealing. “Ten cards,” she said. “No going down.”

“Please,” Eve teased, “I’m a respectable girl.”

Joanne blushed.

“You dealt … that means I go first,” Eve said after Joanne had lowered the deck to the table. Eve looked at the upturned queen of diamonds. “I don’t need that,” she said, her lips a pout.

“Neither do I,” Joanne agreed.

“Then I pick,” Eve said triumphantly, as if this were a small victory in itself, and pulled the first card from the top of the overturned deck. “Don’t need that one either.” She tossed the unwanted card unceremoniously on top of the upturned queen.

“I can use that one,” Joanne told her, lifting Eve’s discarded ten of spades into her own hand, throwing off a two of hearts.

“Naturally,” Eve said. “What was that you took?”

“The ten of spades.”

“The ten of spades, huh? Okay, I’ll remember that.” She studied the two of hearts for several seconds before lifting it to her hand, then subsequently throwing it back and drawing another card, which she also threw down.

Joanne automatically picked it up.

“What did I give you that time?”

“Six of clubs.”

“Six of clubs, don’t let me forget. Uh huh!” she exclaimed as Joanne discarded a nine of hearts, which she picked up. “Shouldn’t have let me have that one.”

“Gin?”

“Not yet. But close.”

They continued their ritual for several seconds without speaking. “Has Brian said anything recently about …” Joanne began, then broke off.

“About what?” Eve looked up from her hand, her eyebrows lifting.

“About the guy who murdered those women,” Joanne muttered, trying to sound casual, as if the thought were unimportant.

“Your secret admirer?”

“Thanks.”

“Sorry, didn’t mean to upset you.” She laughed and threw off the jack of spades, which Joanne picked up. “What was that?” Joanne showed her. “No, nothing new. Did you tell the police about last night’s phone call?”

Joanne nodded. “They said there was nothing they could do. I told them that he knew about my new phone number, my new locks. They said there was still nothing they could do. I said, all right then, what can
I
do? They said to change my phone number again and keep turning on my alarm every night. But to
please
remember to turn it off the next time.” She smiled. “It was almost like they were put out that I was still alive. Gin,” she added, laying down her cards, trying to disguise the trembling in her hands.

“Shit! You caught me with a mittful.” Eve laid down her cards. “Don’t look so scared, Joanne. It’s just some dumb kid playing a sick prank. Come on, deal! You won’t beat me again.” Joanne reshuffled the cards and dealt them out. “It’s probably one of Lulu’s or Robin’s friends. You know how dumb teenagers are.”

“I don’t think any of the girls’ friends are
that
dumb.” Joanne picked up a five of clubs and threw off the queen of spades, hesitant to let go of the card, seeing Scott Peterson’s smile on the lips of the discarded queen.

“You putting down that card or not?”

Joanne released her fingers from the queen’s throat.

“It could be anybody,” Eve continued. “That truck was parked in your driveway for days. Anybody passing by would have seen it. Does he sound like anybody you know?”

“That’s the problem—he sounds like
everybody
I know.”

“Wait a minute, what’s that card? I’ll take that card.”

Eve pulled the card from the top of the deck and triumphantly tucked it into her hand.

“So, are you going to do it?” Eve asked.

“Do what?”

“Change your phone number again.”

“I don’t know,” Joanne admitted. “It’s such a nuisance. Think of all the people I’d have to call again. Whoever it is found out the first time. He’ll probably find out whatever number I change it to this time too, and we’ll be back where we started.”

“Or he’ll get tired and that’ll be the end of it. Unless that’s not what you want …”

“What do you mean?”

“Nothing,” Eve stated, tossing her head. “Play a card. You have nothing to worry about except my superior playing.”

Joanne threw off a king of diamonds, which Eve appropriated, discarding a three of clubs. “That’s gin,” Joanne said, nervously spreading her cards across the table, unconvinced she had nothing to worry about and puzzling over Eve’s earlier remark.

“I give up. Your granddaddy taught you too well. I’d better stick to solitaire.” She took the deck and began laying the cards down flat across the table in the proper fashion for solitaire, stopping when she had seven neat little piles. “At least this way I can cheat.”

“People who cheat at solitaire are insecure,” Joanne said, smiling as she recalled her grandfather’s words.

“You know I’m a sore loser,” Eve pronounced truthfully. “Give me victory or give me death,” she declared, then doubled over in pain, sending the cards flying and knocking over the glass in front of her, spilling what was left of the milk to the floor. “Shit!”

“I’ll get it.” Joanne grabbed a dishcloth from the sink and quickly mopped up the spilled milk, then returned to the sink, rinsed out the cloth and rewiped the floor with fresh water so that it wouldn’t be sticky. She deposited the now empty glass in the sink. “Are you all right? Maybe I should take you to the hospital.”

Eve waved away the suggestion with an impatient hand. “I’ve been that route, remember? It’s okay. I’m sure I’ll survive till Tuesday morning.”

“Why don’t you go lie down for a while?”

Eve agreed to the suggestion with surprisingly little argument. “I just thought of that accident we were in when your grandfather was driving us to school one afternoon. Remember?” she asked as Joanne was guiding her up the stairs to her bedroom. “Your grandfather was straddling the middle line and some guy wanted to pass him and he ended up smashing into the side of our car, and they started fighting in the street, until your grandfather said he couldn’t waste any more time arguing with an idiot because his granddaughter would be late for school! And he drove off, leaving that guy screaming in the middle of the road, and the police came later and charged your grandfather with leaving the scene of an accident. Do you remember that?” She smiled. “Nothing was more important than his granddaughter.”