Thunderland (2 page)

Mom walked to the door. “Okay, I can accept rejection. I’m a big girl.”

“Yeah, whatever.” Jason rose. “I need to pee.”

“Of course,” Mom said. “It’s time for me to go, anyway. I’m meeting your father at the restaurant.”

His dad owned an upscale soul-food restaurant called The House of Soul. It was the only place like it in Spring Harbor. In fact, it was the only good soul-food joint around until one reached Chicago, forty miles south. For that reason, The House of Soul was always packed with customers—and Dad was always there, running the show. Jason usually saw his father only once a week.

“Well, tell him that his son says hello,” Jason said. “That is, if he remembers his son.” Mom nodded. She usually declined to discuss his father’s constant absence, maybe because it somehow reflected on her. Jason did not know. His parents’ relationship puzzled him mostly because they did not seem to have a relationship.

Mom left the room. He heard the door downstairs slam shut. He stood at the window and watched her roll her blue Nissan Maxima out of the garage, then drive away down the street.

Finally, he was alone. Needing to empty his full bladder, he hurried to the bathroom. He clicked on the light switch.

When he saw what was in there, he stopped. He gaped at the spectacle in front of him, his heart halting in midbeat, his body as motionless as a mannequin.

Slowly, he shut his eyes. Then he opened them.

It was still there.

The back of his neck grew cold and damp.

A large mirror covered the wall above the sink. Upon the glass surface, a word had been scrawled in red, in huge block letters:

REMEMBER

He stared at the word, breathless.

Remember.

Remember what?

As far as he knew, he had not forgotten anything.

With a trembling hand, he reached toward the mirror. He touched one of the letters, rubbed slightly.

The letter smeared. It had been written with a marker. He had half expected blood.

But who had done this? Mom? The idea that she would do it seemed totally unbelievable. If she had wanted him to remember something, she would have told him, not written the word on a mirror. When she was sober, she was the most practical person he knew. And when she was drunk-and Jason knew that she had not drunk anything recently-she was obsessive about cleaning the house. She would have never done this under any circumstances.

The possibility that his father might have done it was even more remote. Dad lived at his job and rarely came home. Jason did not bother to consider him as a suspect.

So who was left? Who else had access to their bathroom?

No one Jason knew.

Then it must have been a stranger.

At the thought, a chill swept through him, sank into his bones.

The recurring nightmare was weird. But on the scale of strangeness, it was nothing like this. He searched for a logical explanation, and he could not find one. It just did not make sense.

Again, he stared at the mirror.

Remember.

Who had done this? When? And why?

Remember.

What was he being told to remember? Something? Or someone?

He gazed at the message longer.

The longer he looked at those blood-red letters, the less it seemed like a message. Instead, it began to seem like something else entirely. A warning.

Linda Brooks sat in a corner booth at The House of Soul, waiting for her husband, Thomas, to take a break from his work and speak to her. Since Thomas rarely planned talks, Linda knew it would be about something important. But she didn’t know whether to look forward to, or dread, the imminent conversation.

Thomas was busy checking on customers. Linda sipped her coffee and looked around, trying not to dwell on what the next few minutes might bring.

At nine-thirty in the morning, the large dining room teemed with people. Diners were eating sausage, bacon, country ham, buttermilk biscuits, eggs, potatoes, pancakes, rice topped with red-eye gravy, grits, and other delicious-smelling yet fattening foods that Linda had to use all of her willpower to resist. Discussion of the latest political scandal dominated the conversation at many tables. An old Temptations song played on the stereo system, loud enough to be appreciated but low enough not to impede talk. Autographed photos of celebrities adorned the walls, alongside quality pieces of contemporary African American art.

In the midst of it all stood Thomas, keeping the restaurant as orderly as a five-star luxury resort. Regardless of her feelings about this place, she admired what he had accomplished. He had built this business into a genuine success.

Finally, he settled opposite her at the table. Even after fifteen years of marriage, he remained the most striking man she had ever seen. He stood six-feet-four and weighed about 220 pounds, every ounce of which seemed to be muscle. His smooth chocolate complexion and his chiseled features would have guaranteed a successful career as a fashion model, if he had so desired. He wore a white silk shirt, hand-painted silk tie, dark-blue slacks, and Italian loafers. His goatee was trimmed, his hair was short and wavy, and his fingernails looked as if they had recently been manicured. He smiled; his teeth sparkled.

Sometimes Linda thought that if Thomas put as much effort into their marriage as he put into looking good on the job, she would be the happiest woman alive.

“Sorry to keep you waiting, but we’re pretty busy this morning,” he said. “If business stays at this pace, in a couple of years, we’ll be able to buy your dream house. And if your book does as well as I think it will, we might get it even sooner.”

She smiled. Over the past thirteen years, she had published ten paperback romance novels, most of which had sunk so deeply into obscurity they’d be difficult to find in the world’s biggest used-book store. Her novel-in-progress, however, was her most ambitious project ever, an intricate family saga with bestseller potential. She bubbled whenever she imagined the possibilities.

But her smile really arose from Thomas’s supportive words. She could not remember the last time he had encouraged her. She leaned forward a bit more, playfully tapped his fingers.

“What did you want to talk about, Thomas?”

“Oh, general things.” He scribbled on a napkin with his Mont Blanc pen, his eyes lowered. “Us, Jason, the future ...”

“Well, that’s nice,” she said, frowning a little. “Can you be more specific?”

He shrugged and kept scribbling.

She leaned back in her seat, shaking her head. If Thomas were a book, his covers would be perpetually cracked wide open.

“What did you mess up?”

He dropped the pen, looked at her. “Who said I messed up anything?”

“Don’t play dumb. I know you did something.”

“I was only thinking about our dream house. Is it against the law for a man to think?”

“What did you do?”

“I didn’t do anything. Damn, why are you always trying to read my mind? You know I can’t stand that.”

“Look, let’s cut the crap. If you don’t stop hedging right now, I’m gonna get up and leave.”

“All right, all right.” He leaned back and gazed at the table. He exhaled deeply.

Her stomach tensed.

“I lost the tickets,” he said.

“You what?”

“The tickets to see Luther Van dross next week. Third-row seats, center stage. I lost them.”

She knocked over her coffee.

The steaming coffee spread across the table, but she didn’t clean it up. She stared at him.

“I don’t believe you.”

He avoided her gaze, silent.

“As much as I wanted to go ... I don’t believe you.”

He still looked away from her. Then, finally, he faced her.

When she saw his brown eyes, she didn’t need to hear anything else on this subject. It was the same story. He had lost the tickets because of plain, dumb negligence. He would give a long-winded excuse, then promise that the next time they planned an outing, everything would run perfectly. “Next time, baby”-that was his favorite phrase in these situations. She had been hearing it for ten years, ever since his daddy had given him this restaurant. Next time, baby.

She was tired of waiting for next time.

As a matter of fact, lately, she had been seriously wondering if she wanted to stay around waiting for next time. Their present relationship wasn’t what being married was all about-at least, not
happily married.
They didn’t kiss each other good morning. They didn’t periodically talk on the phone during the day as they worked their jobs. They didn’t sit together at dinner and share their daily experiences. They didn’t snuggle on the couch in front of the TV. Unless you considered once a month a thrilling sex life, they didn’t have much sex, either. About the only thing they did together was argue, and since whatever she told him always went in one ear and out the other, it was almost as if she were arguing with herself anyway.

She admitted that she had not made any major efforts to repair their marriage. Why bother when he lived for his job? He worked from six in the morning until eleven at night, seven days a week, holidays included. How could you get through to someone that fanatically committed to his work?

Answer: You couldn’t.
It
frustrated her endlessly, because she loved Thomas and wanted them to be happy. She had thought the Luther Vandross concert would give them an opportunity to enjoy each other’s company for a little while, but look where that idea had gotten her. Nowhere, where she’d been sitting for ten years.

But a woman could only take so much, and she had taken all she could bear. She was determined not to let him settle this matter with his patented excuses. She was either going to find those tickets herself or discover what the
real
problem was here. Even if the truth was worse than she imagined.

“I’m so sorry.” With a napkin, Thomas mopped up the spilled coffee. “I can’t figure out what I did with those damned tickets. I’d really wanted to go to that concert, too. I promise, next time—”

“Where did you keep them?” she said.

“The tickets?” He finished cleaning the table. “I kept them in different places—”

“Did you ever keep them in your office here?”

“Yeah, but—”

She got up and marched to the back of the dining room.

Before she opened the office door, he touched her shoulder.

“I’ve already looked in there. No luck.”

“I’ll look myself.” She shrugged off his hand.

The room was a model of neatness. A highly polished oak desk devoid of clutter. Built-in bookshelves in which the contents stood ruler-straight. A tall file cabinet. Gleaming beige tile. The scent of pine disinfectant.

She tore open a desk drawer and shuffled through papers.

“Why did I trust you with those things?” she said. “You always pull shit like this. I should have known better than to leave them with you. I should have kept them myself.”

“Woman, you’re making a mess.” He shut the door, nudged her aside, and began reorganizing the desk. “I told you they’re not in here, and I’m not gonna let you wreck my place.”