The Orphan (14 page)

The old woman’s sudden, disproportionate clarity around this subject unnerved Beth.

‘What’s he look like?’ Raya said.

‘Honey, please,’ Beth interrupted.

‘Just a little itty bitty thing,’ Gremme said. She turned to Darren once more. ‘And you were so mean to him. Shame on you.’

‘Okay, Mom,’ Darren said with a distracted sigh. Beth thought he was being too dismissive. Hiding his own discomfort. ‘Do you need anything else? Do you have enough of the licorice?’

Gremme loved black licorice. Twists, Nibs, ropes. Didn’t matter what kind. She couldn’t get enough black licorice. They should have brought her some more, Beth thought, but there was a bowl full of twists on the kitchen counter.

‘He’ll be back,’ Gremme said to Darren, her eyes shrunken, dark with old resentment. ‘He’ll find you. You’re a bad kid.’

‘I am?’ Darren said.

‘Mom? Mom!’ Raya was on her feet, waving Beth over. Chad looked confused. Beth stayed where she was.

‘Bad kid,’ Gremme repeated, staring at the TV. ‘Rotten little fucker.’

‘Okay,’ Beth said.

‘She knows,’ Raya said.

‘Cool it, Raya,’ Darren said, then to his mother, ‘We’ll come back soon, all right?’

‘Oh, you’re not going to trick me with that one,’ Gremme said. ‘Not this time. You know what you did to him.’

‘No. What did I do to Adam, Mom?’

‘Terrible things. Terrible things.’

Gremme started to laugh, cackling to herself.

Beth felt cold air running itself up along her bare arms, beneath her clothes, as if the unit’s air-conditioning were running on HI.

‘We’re upsetting her,’ she said, taking Darren by the arm. He was red in the face, staring down at his mother, tongue-tied. Beth whispered. ‘Come on, kids.’

A tired glaze fell over Gremme’s features. She leaned back in her chair, head pushing into the cushion, and set the remote control down. They hugged and kissed her goodbye, but she did not respond in kind. Beth held the door while the others filed out, then told Darren she would catch up with them down in the lobby.

‘Leave it, Beth,’ he said. ‘Enough for one day.’

‘Just give me a minute. I won’t upset her.’

Darren shook his head and walked off.

Beth let herself in, shut the door and returned to Gremme’s side. She kneeled and took Gremme by the arm, rubbing her sleeve.

‘Gremme? Eloise? Honey, can you talk to me a second?’

Gremme’s head lolled to the side as if her neck had been turned to rubber. Her eyes were moist, vacant, roaming around Beth without landing on any one point.

‘The others left us alone. Can you tell me?’

Gremme’s lips pursed and rolled against each other.

‘Did he come for a visit?’ Beth said. ‘When was Adam here, Gremme? Do you want to tell me?’

Gremme blinked, nodding almost imperceptibly.

Beth smiled gently, to encourage her. ‘That’s nice. I don’t remember him. Who is he? Can you tell me who he is? How do you know him?’

Gremme’s eyes wandered to the side, then up, high toward the ceiling. She said nothing.

‘When was he here?’ Beth said. ‘Can you tell me the last time you saw him?’

Gremme’s hand lifted from the padded arm of her chair, her frail hand clutching the remote. She aimed the remote over Beth’s shoulder.

‘There,’ Gremme said softly. ‘He’s there, in the corner.’

Beth’s smile disappeared.

Gremme smiled and patted her lap. ‘Come here, little one. He won’t hurt you. Come say hello, Adam.’

Sheila resisted the urge until Saturday evening.

She told herself on the way over that this was not her reason for coming to Dillinger’s, the seedy little oddity of a sports bar in the strip mall less than a mile from her home. She would never hunt so close to the safe haven she had finally established after so many years of sleepless nights on the move. Told herself she was only in the mood for a drink, a place to unwind, somewhere unpretentious and not too crowded, where she would be the best-looking thing in the bar. She had watched the bar’s clientele from time to time, whenever she stopped at the gas station at the other end of the strip mall, and she was confident her wattage would prevail among such an assortment of dim creatures.

Sheila had not bantered for many moons. If some man pretending to be a gentleman decided to chat her up, that might make for some harmless fun. It would be a distraction from the dull white noise in her head and the even duller silence that had seeped into every facet of her life these past eighteen months she had gone clean. The white noise had gotten so bad it had even begun to wash out the communications she typically enjoyed with her cats. A break in the routine was good for everybody, even Sheila, who, as one of her teachers once remarked, needed routine like a prisoner needs cell walls.

So, okay, a little harmless flirting. Nothing more.

But after spending only half an hour in Dillinger’s, watching the contractors who’d skipped out on work early, wasting their lives playing air hockey, deer-hunting video games, and swilling shots of Jim Beam along with their cheap draft beers, Sheila knew she was going to have to unlock some sympathy. Sap another pig. She felt neither guilt nor the rush of excitement she had known so long ago. She didn’t feel very much at all, which was the whole point.

She needed a little taste of that old black magic. The Speaking and Listening had been two forms of the black art, the Crawling another. There were a dozen other ways to get there, methods that did not require intimate contact or the threat of weapons, but she’d lost her gifts years ago, thanks to The One Who Disappeared, as they used to refer to him, hating his name so much they had put a ban on speaking it. Now there was only the lonely nights, and the boring days at the department store that made her want to stick a plastic fast-food knife in her own eyes, or the customers’.

Just a little sympathy. I deserve it.
 

She sat with her elbows on the bar, palms cupping her delicate chin. The jukebox was playing a horrendous country rap song about God and the U.S. of A. In her Kate Spade shoulder bag was a short-barreled .38, the one she had taken from the cop, who was also a pig. Sheila had nothing against police per se, but all the men who used to love her had turned into pigs, and he’d proven as much that night when he tried to put it in her Exit Only. Sometimes she wished she could remember his name, but so many of the devoured had stopped speaking to her. Pete Sampson returning the other day, that had been a surprise visit from within the hotel of many rooms. She longed to find another Pete – someone so open and giving – but people had grown cautious in the past fifteen years. She was out of practice.

The bartender was the only other woman in here. Tall, much bigger-boned than Sheila, and not nearly as pretty. She wore a satin bowling jacket with a sports team logo on the back and Shelia noticed the woman hadn’t smiled as widely at her as she did to all the other customers. Probably thought she wasn’t going to get much of a tip from a woman, so why bother being nice? Talk about a self-defeating attitude. Well, the bartender was right about that. Slut would be lucky if Sheila left her two dollars for the five or six Myers Rum and Cokes she intended to drink.

The two young swine playing air hockey were interesting, the way they balanced on their toes, buttocks clenched, legs shivering as they leaned over the table to smash the puck around, jumping up and down and shouting at one another when one of them scored a goal. Sheila could smell the epoxy resin stains on their tattered sweatshirts, the mud caked into the cuffs of their jeans, the wet sock mildew seeping from their construction worker boots. When they finished their game they high-fived their way to the same side of the wobbly little table, inching their stools close to one another, ostensibly to better view the baseball game on the TV across the center parlor, but Sheila knew they were secretly homos who screwed each other in their Exit Onlys.

She would not choose either of them, even if that had been her style, but Sheila never chose. They always chose her, unless fate chose for them both. That was her rule, and part of what made the sapping such a gamble, a little mystery every time out.

Sheila caught herself nibbling on the corner of a bar napkin, mentally reprimanded herself, and put it back under her drink. She was craving a cigarette, but she could wait. If no one chose her by ten, she would go home and smoke a whole pack of Newport 100s while practicing her symbols.

She fingered the inside of the Kate Spade hooked over the back of her stool, caressed the textured grip, tapped a nail on the barrel. Maybe she wouldn’t use the gun tonight. Maybe she would find a way to go old school, like Daddy’d taught her. Rope around the throat. A knife in the kidney. Handcuffs, Drano down the throat, though that one had been extremely messy and prolonged.

One she’d strangled herself –
Can you still hear me in there, Jason? Jonathan? RickTomBrianJamesAlex?
–
with nothing but her own two hands, taking the risk and going for a little more intimacy because he had been small and because her more intuitive tools had been rusty and the sympathy had been reluctant. One of those little Napoleon pigs with stubby little hands and small shoes, the regrettably short man tool between his legs, so small she’d hardly even felt it in her Enter Here. Where was he now? Where had they all gone?

Poor Pete. I miss you
…
 

The bar’s front door clattered. He came in wiping his blond hair forward to minimize his baldness, tugging the knot of tie loose from his throat. She saw him in the bar mirror and resisted the urge to turn. A lady never turns or makes first eye contact. He was in a dull gray suit not of department-store quality, but he was handsome, or had been once, even though his cheeks were flushed in a way that did not bespeak plumb health. Sheila had read that phrase in a book once and it stuck with her. Bespoke plumb health. And he looked clean. A Bob or a Jeff or a Tim, something safe.

He sat two stools away from her, shrugging off his jacket, eyes sporting around as he waited for the bartender. Nice; he thought he was being subtle, taking a stool close to her when there were nine or ten empty ones further along the square bar, but leaving one between them so as not to come off aggressive.

‘Hey, Nancy,’ he said when the bartender slopped her way over to him. ‘Bud Light, when you feel generous.’

Nancy the bartender smiled warmly. ‘You got it, Steven. Good week?’

Steven inched a twenty from his leather wallet and set it on the rubber gutter mat. ‘Hell, no. Still in the slump. Friday sales meeting from two to five to motivate the pimps. I said, Thanks but no thanks.’

‘Good for you.’ Nancy set the beer before him, broke the twenty, left the change on the gripper. She glanced at Sheila. ‘How you doin’ there, hon? Another rum and Coke for ya?’

‘In a moment,’ Shelia demurred. ‘It’s still a little early.’

‘Take your time.’ Nancy winked and went back to the kitchen counter to ferry two cheeseburgers and a basket of fried mushrooms to the Village People.

I’ll break him in ten minutes, Sheila thought. No more than fifteen.

But ten minutes passed, twenty, and nearly half an hour later – though Steven had checked her out once or twice, his eyes never lingering – he hadn’t said a thing to her. Sheila was intrigued, a little confused, but definitely not offended. This did not mean her talent had abandoned her. He looked like he had something on his mind. He kept frowning at his phone, which he’d set on the bar and spun like a top from time to time. He wasn’t wearing a wedding band. He was probably checking his email on the phone to make sure his boss hadn’t ordered him back to the office.

Sheila signaled Nancy for another Myers and headed for the bathroom, wanting him to get a look at the goods coming and going. She passed a couple of inches behind his back and had a good sniff. No cologne. Maybe a hint of something athletic, probably too much of one of those action hero deodorant bars they used now, with a scent named Recharge or Power Blast or Clean Energy. She could live with that.

In the disgusting grimy potty she layered a four-ply of toilet paper around the seat, urinated ferociously, wiped three times, used the arch of her high heel to pump the flush lever, and washed her hands. Her eyeliner should have been a little thicker for the lighting in this dump, but her make-up was nice, softening her sharp nose and bringing some color into her flat pale cheeks. She shook out her hair, ratting it up a little, so it would look like she might have just come in here and masturbated for a few minutes, then applied a thick coat of the red lipstick she had debated using before she left her apartment but had saved for that extra push to put her over the top.

Her lips peeled back and she imagined biting his ear off while she inspected her teeth. Very nice. The whitening strips were finally working.

All she needed was an opening to penetrate, loosing the charm within him so that sympathy would bloom.

‘Eleven even, hon,’ Nancy said, sliding her new drink into place as she returned.

‘Oh, I thought I paid for the first one,’ Sheila said.

‘Nope. I can run a tab if you want?’

‘I’m sorry.’ Sheila reached for her Kate Spade, clunking it onto the bar. She fidgeted in its depths, rubbing the gun, the pepper spray. How funny would it be if I took those out instead of my wallet and sprayed everything all over Nancy and Steven at the same time? ‘Sorry, it’s in here somewhere, I promise.’

‘I’ll take care of that,’ Steven said, nudging some of his bills at Nancy.

Nancy looked to Sheila for approval. ‘Nice fella, here.’

‘Hm? Oh, wow. Thank you,’ Sheila said, convincingly surprised and mildly flattered. ‘You dih’n’t have to do that.’

‘Sure. What’s that dark rum all about, anyway? It looks rich.’

‘It is,’ Sheila said. ‘I call it my vacation.’

Steven snorted. ‘I could use a vacation.’

‘Wanna try it?’ She offered the glass, but he was too far away to lean over. He would have to come to her.

He gazed at the glass of dark fluid and ice chips, calculating.

‘It’s all right,’ Sheila said. ‘I don’t put the roofie in until the third around.’

The Steven pig tittered. ‘Yeah? Okay.’

He stood, shuffled a few steps, and she raised the glass for him, letting him know it was okay to let her nurse him with it. He stiffened, bobbed for it, missed.

‘Here,’ he said, taking it from her hand. He gave it a swirl, sipped, and handed it back, avoiding hand contact. ‘A little strong for me, but I can see the appeal. Thanks.’

He returned to his seat. Looked up at the TV. Spun his phone nervously.

Sheila stared at him. What was wrong with this goddamn dork? Was it the gray in her hair? Maybe she should have used another box of the Clairol this morning to deepen the auburn cover. But he couldn’t have seen that. Or her smoking wrinkles. Not in this light. He was just shy, that was all. She was going to have to lead him to it, like yanking the dog’s leash to let him know where it was OK to piss.

If you still had the power, he’d already be sapped by now. Resorting to guns and knives? You’re an amateur. Give it up, you sad delusional brat. You’re not up for this. You’ll get sloppy, like you did that time in Glenwood Springs, at the pool. The lifeguard saw what you were trying to do to that boy, the one who looked like Adam. You want to wind up in prison?
 

Shut up!
Sheila hissed to herself. She willed him to look at her, pushing with all she had, but he only stared up at the TV.

I’m only forty-six, Steven, and pretty sure I could suck your cock until you cried.
 

‘Sorry, what?’ he said, turning to her with alarm.

‘What?’

He looked at her. ‘Did you say something?’

Oh. Had she said that aloud?

‘I don’t think so.’ She giggled, smiled at him.

‘No, you said my name. And maybe something else that wasn’t too nice.’

‘I’m sorry. I forget that I mumble. People tell me that all the time.’

He glared at her, took a hurried sip of his beer.

She leaned toward him. ‘All right, you busted me. What I said was, “What line of work are you in, Steven? I’m pretty sure we’re off the clock now that it’s five.’’’

He relaxed somewhat. ‘Ha. All right. I sell corporate cleaning services. But where’d you get my name?’

Sheila nodded toward the bartender. ‘Nancy said it. Sorry, I didn’t mean to pry.’ She made a sad face and stared down at her drink. ‘Or bother you.’

Steven finished his Bud Light. ‘No, that’s OK. Hey, my bad. I misunderstood you, guess I’m just a little wound up. Hard week, you know?’

Sheila brightened. Let him see her eyes go from his face down to his lap, up again. ‘Everyone’s wound up these days. Maybe we need to find a better way to unwind.’

His smile was warm, kind, and she could see some of the boy in him, before he had lost his sympathy and become a true pig. Oh, damn it, now she wanted him. Really wanted him. She didn’t have to sap anyone today. There would be other pigs. There always were.

Suddenly she saw herself and Steven stumbling tipsy and laughing gaily to his beige Ford Taurus, a safe car. He would open the door for her, and he’d place his hand on her leg as they drove to her apartment. Once inside, she would insist on making him a snack while he waltzed around her living room looking at her beautiful paintings, asking if she had really done all these herself. She would say yes, not having to act shy, because she really was shy and modest, especially about her artwork, and he would say, these are really something, truly original, while she defrosted his lasagne that she made back in February. She would let him open the wine. They would share the lasagne on the couch and he would kiss her, getting her homemade red sauce on her lips and nose, and she would scold him playfully and make him lick it off. She would invite him into her bedroom, where no one except her cats, Teddy and Alanis, was allowed. Steven would undress her slowly and she would undress him and they would make love. He would be sensitive and patient and not try to put it in her Exit Only. After, Steven would ask permission to stay the night and she would consent. They would dream together and in the morning he would take her to breakfast at that little cafe in Louisville and she would have whipped cream on her latte. It could be this way. She could control herself, she didn’t have to be the way they made her, the way her little brat shit brother made her, and her dearly departed zoo animal parents, the drugs and the séances and her ape father grubbing in her child loins all those years, all that could be over, she could love this man and feel loved and it would all get better. She would never have to sap again, for their new love would be a balm upon her soul.