The Deep End (9 page)

Now
whenever she baked, he complained that he was getting too heavy. Rich foods weren’t good for him, he told her, they needed to cut down their fat intake. High fiber, low fat, he informed her. They needed to rethink the way they ate. More chicken, less red meat. More fruit and vegetables, less pastries and fancy sauces. Bran, he repeated often, as if the word itself were sacred.

And so she had stopped baking and started buying chicken and fish instead of lamb chops and steaks, and the fridge was filled to bursting with apples and grapefruits and cauliflowers and squash, and plastic bags of bran from health food stores lined the kitchen counters, and everybody went to the bathroom with alarming regularity and complained that there was never anything in the house to eat.

And still he had left, Joanne thought, conjuring up the look of utter contentment that had flooded across Paul’s features when she had finally produced the perfect lemon meringue pie. It was an image Joanne fought to keep before her eyes when she finally closed them later that night and tried, unsuccessfully, to sleep.

“S
o, how’d it go?”

“Please, let’s just get out of here, then we’ll talk.” Joanne had to walk quickly to catch up to her friend, who was already half a corridor ahead of her. “Can’t we take the elevator this time?” she pleaded as Eve reached the stairway marked Exit.

“You know what hospital elevators are like,” Eve stated, pushing open the stairwell door and starting down the steps. “You wait half an hour for one and then thousands of people appear and you have to wait for another one. Then they stop at every floor. Come on, we’ll be out much faster this way and I’m starving. I haven’t eaten anything since last night, remember. Except for that awful barium they made me drink this morning.”

“So what kind of tests did they give you?”

But Eve was already a full flight ahead and didn’t answer the question. By the time they reached the bottom of the seventh flight, both women were audibly out of breath. “At least it was better going down,” Eve smiled.

“My calves will never forgive me,” Joanne told her.

“In years to come, they’ll thank you. It’s good exercise. I always take the stairs. Elevators are a Communist plot.”

“Are you going to tell me what they did to you in there or not?” Joanne asked again as the two women pushed open the heavy hospital door and emerged into the steady drizzle outside.

“Oh hell, it’s still raining.”

“Where do you feel like eating?” Joanne asked.

“Let’s go to The Ultimate. It’s always nice, and it’s close.”

It was also crowded and they had to wait fifteen minutes for a table. When they were finally seated, Eve ordered a bottle of white wine to go along with their Caesar salads.

“Should you be drinking?” Joanne asked as Eve gulped down one glass as if it were ginger ale and then poured herself another. “What did the doctor say?”

“Nothing that any normal human being can understand. They speak the language of the gods they think they are.”

Joanne laughed. “You used to want to be a doctor,” she reminded her.

“Lucky for all of us I was born a decade too early.” Eve took a stab at her salad. “Aren’t you going to try the wine?”

“I don’t think I should. You know how dizzy wine makes me. Especially in the afternoon.”

“You’re dizzy all the time. Come on, don’t be so timid,” Eve admonished, watching as Joanne gingerly sipped at the top of her glass. “Wine at lunch isn’t nearly as decadent as it used to be. We’re liberated now, you know.”

“Could have fooled me,” Joanne sighed, allowing herself a healthy drink. The wine
was
good, she thought, holding it in her mouth for several seconds before swallowing,
then immediately taking another, longer sip. “So,” she said, reluctantly returning her glass to the table, “do you or don’t you have ulcers or gallstones?”

“After strapping me on this dumb table and turning me virtually on my head, the doctor said he couldn’t see a thing on the X-rays,” Eve answered seriously, “and it’ll be a while before they get the results of the blood tests.”

“Why’d they do blood tests?”

“Why do they do anything? They love sticking little needles into people. It gives them an enormous sense of power. How’s your salad?”

“Not as good as the wine.” Joanne emptied her glass. “So what happens now?”

“Life goes on. We finish our lunch, then play some tennis …”

“It’s raining,” Joanne reminded her.

“Then we sit here and drink,” Eve replied without missing a beat.

Things have a way of working out, Joanne thought.

In the end, they decided to go to a movie.

“I don’t believe I let you talk me into seeing this film,” Joanne giggled. Her head felt as though it were balanced precariously on her shoulders.

“Film is too good a word,” Eve laughed, “for what we are about to see.” She grabbed for a handful of the popcorn in Joanne’s lap and watched as half the box spilled onto the floor.

“Thanks a lot,” Joanne told her. “I thought you said you never ate popcorn.”

“I thought you said you never go to horror movies.”

“I’m only here because you dragged me.”

“You were in no condition to drive. I probably saved your life.”

“Is there anyone else here?” Joanne looked around slowly, her eyes having difficulty focusing on the few scattered figures she could make out just before the lights dimmed. “Is it getting dark?”

“No dear,” Eve replied seriously, “you’ve got the dreaded Bette Davis
Dark Victory
syndrome. Prepare yourself, you have only thirty seconds to live.”

The two women dissolved into drunken giggles as the theater was plunged into total darkness and the curtains parted.

COMING ATTRACTIONS! the screen blazed. The following sixty seconds consisted entirely of the sound of gunfire and the sight of falling bodies. “They did him wrong,” a disembodied voice narrated professorially. “Now he’s coming back to do them in!”

“My kind of movie,” Eve squealed.

Joanne was aware of a slight movement behind them. She swiveled around in her seat as a young man carrying a motorcycle helmet seated himself directly behind them, despite the fact that most of the other chairs in the theater were vacant. He seemed to be smiling, a row of bright, white teeth cutting through the darkness as he lowered the helmet to his lap, his hands remaining underneath. Joanne turned quickly toward the screen, feeling her head struggling to catch up. “Let’s move,” she whispered to Eve.

“Why? I’m comfortable.”

“I’d rather sit in the middle,” Joanne told her, her body midway between a crouch and a stand.

Eve pulled her back down. “You know I like an aisle seat.”

“Okay.” Joanne pointed to the aisle several rows ahead. “We’ll sit down there.”

“Too close.”

“Eve, there’s this funny guy behind us. I don’t like the looks of him.”

Eve executed an abrupt turnaround to stare at the young man behind them. “He looks okay to me,” she whispered. “Kind of cute from what I could make out.”

“Why does he have to sit so close? Why’s he got that helmet on his lap?”

“Why don’t you stop worrying and watch the picture?” Eve chastised, and Joanne understood that Eve wasn’t about to move anywhere. “Relax, this is going to be great,” Eve continued as a pretty young ingenue with long, straight blond hair ran in obvious terror across the screen. Joanne watched the helpless girl fall straight into the arms of a deformed madman with a knife, who wrenched the girl’s head back violently and proceeded to slit her throat. Her bright red blood assumed an almost three-dimensional quality as it dripped from her neck and gathered in pools at the bottom of the screen, only to rise again seconds later in the form of large, undulating capital letters—SWAMP MONSTER OF DOOM. Joanne felt her stomach turn over. “Great stuff,” Eve muttered.

“You’re a very sick person,” Joanne whispered, staring into her lap, feeling the back of her seat vibrate, trying not to think about what the boy behind them might be doing. Without raising her head, she lifted her eyes to the screen to see another young woman, not noticeably different in appearance from the first, sneaking around an old house in which she clearly did not belong. The music warned her loudly to leave the premises immediately, but since
the girl couldn’t hear the music, Joanne decided, perhaps it was the audience that was being warned to get out. Why do they always snoop where they’re not supposed to? Joanne wondered as the girl neared an old red tasseled curtain and pulled it open. A young man fell forward, a dagger thrust into his chest clean through to his back. The girl shrieked as the boy fell into her arms and burst into howls of insane laughter. Joanne watched in horror as the boy removed the fake dagger from his chest, and the young couple, both blond California-style teenagers with perfect tans, proceeded to make love on the creaking hardwood floor, unaware that they were being watched from the doorway by the deformed monster from the swamp, his knife poised and eager to strike.

What was she doing here? Joanne pondered, turning her eyes resolutely away from the screen. What was she doing in the middle of a Friday afternoon, in the middle of a life that was disintegrating around her, watching a gore-filled horror flick with a friend who might or might not have ulcers and a boy who might or might not be masturbating into his motorcycle helmet in the seat behind her? Did she need this aggravation in her life? Wasn’t it enough that her husband had walked out on her and some lunatic with a phone fetish was threatening to hack her into little pieces? Did she also need the Swamp Monster of Doom in her life at this moment?

No, she should have run when she saw the marquee: “This movie will give you nightmares for the rest of your life!” Who needs nightmares for the rest of their lives? she had been about to ask, but Eve was already at the wicket buying their tickets. Recognizing that it was Eve’s way of dealing with the morning’s frustrations and sensing that
she was too tipsy to drive, Joanne had gone along with her. Who was she kidding? She’d made going along a lifelong occupation. Whatever anybody wanted to do, wherever anyone wanted to go, Joanne Hunter was always ready to oblige.

“Are you crying?” Eve asked her suddenly.

“I don’t think so,” Joanne replied honestly.

“Are you going to be sick?”

“Not that I know of.”

“Then why is your head in your lap? Why aren’t you watching the movie?”

Joanne lifted her head just in time to see another young woman, this one with a long, angular face and no visible bosom, glancing with a mixture of envy and disdain at yet another California-style couple grappling with each other’s clothing on the same creaking hardwood floor. The phone rang. “I’ll get it,” the flat-chested rectangle declared, unaware of the danger lurking just out of the camera’s range. No one paid her any attention, and the girl left the room to the strident accompaniment of the musical score. The camera followed her into the kitchen, where she picked up the phone. “Hello?” she said, eyes wide, voice soft, and then repeated it when she received no response.

Joanne squirmed uneasily in her seat, glancing over at her friend, whose eyes were riveted to the screen. Why had Eve brought her here?

“Don’t be so nervous,” Eve reassured her. “She’s the survivor. You can tell because she has no boobs and no boyfriend. The only ones that get killed are the ones who are always making out. The minute you see sex, you know they’re as good as dead. The wages of sin and all that. Don’t worry about this one; she’ll be fine.”

“Hello?” the girl on the screen repeated into the telephone.

“Mrs. Hunter,” the voice whispered menacingly in Joanne’s ear.

“What!” Joanne gasped, feeling the warm breath on the back of her neck and jumping from her seat as she spun around.

There was no one there. Even the boy with the motorcycle helmet had disappeared.

“What the hell are you doing?” Eve cried. “You scared me half to death, for heaven’s sake!”

“I thought I heard something. Did you hear someone call my name?” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “Mrs. Hunter,” she repeated, trying to catch the exact intonation.

“I know what your name is,” Eve replied testily, “and no, I didn’t hear anybody call you. Never scare a woman who’s had too much to drink. Now I have to go to the bathroom.” She stood up, about to make her way up the aisle.

“Wait, I’ll come with you.”

“You certainly will not. Somebody has to stay and fill me in on what I miss.”

Joanne watched Eve disappear up the aisle, catching sight of a young man sitting alone near the back of the theater. The boy with the helmet? she wondered, straining through the darkness for a better look. But the young man raised his hand to his face—to scratch? to block out the screen? to hide?—and Joanne could discern nothing. She turned back toward the front of the theater.

The young couple were still rolling on the floor, but this time in the throes of agony, not passion. Above them, the hideously deformed creature was slicing the unhappy duo into new tassels for his curtains with a butcher knife
the size of Long Island. What was she doing here? Joanne thought again, stealing another surreptitious look around the dark theater. The boy in the back row was gone. Had he been there at all? She looked toward the ceiling. When do we start acting like grown-ups? she questioned silently as Eve bounced back down into the seat beside her. They watched the remainder of the movie in uneasy silence.

“At least it’s stopped raining,” Eve said as they emerged from the movie theater and began walking down the street toward Joanne’s car.

“Don’t ever do that to me again,” Joanne warned. “Getting me drunk and then dragging me to a movie like that. My head is pounding.”

“Go home and take a nap.”

“Maybe I will,” Joanne agreed, trying to shake the heaviness out of her head. “I don’t understand why they make films like that.”

“Because people like you and me pay good money to see them,” Eve told her.

“And why do we do that?” Joanne asked, genuinely interested in Eve’s response.

“Because we know we’re not in any real danger,” Eve explained as they crossed the street. “I think we’re going the wrong way,” she announced after they had walked for several blocks.