Fifty-one
Bud's phone call the following day sparked panic. On
a bright autumn morning, his hesitant tone of voice electrified her with
unspeakable dread.
"I called about you-know-what, that deal we made.
It's been awhile. I thought I should wait until things calmed down."
No!
She had forgotten! How could she possibly follow
through on her promise now? She dared not refuse. He could still dump it
all out into the light of the day for all the town to see and ruin
everything.
Bud chuckled. "Carol said to be sure to call and let
you know she bought out your contract. She said to consider it an early
Christmas present."
Confused, Lori paced in a tight circle with the phone
to her ear. "Carol did what? Bud, I don't understand."
He gave a heavy sigh of sadness over the phone.
"Well, I heard Trent came back and that you two had hit it off again, and
I figured you got your problems resolved and that I'd just get in the
way. I was pretty glum about it, and Carol noticed and started prying. I
never squealed on you. She guessed everything.”
Lori held the phone in a death grip, her heart
beating furiously. “What did she do?”
Bud chuckled again in subdued amusement. "We did
some bartering as usual. I told her you’d be a hard act to beat, but
she’s got this friend she worked with when she stayed in Clayton. You
know. Just before the Robinson fire? Blonde, blue eyes. Eighteen years
old. I mean, you've got to admit, eighteen is a good age for that sort of
thing. She about killed me."
Lori’s knees were trembling. She looked around for a
place to sit down. "Yeah, I remember how it was."
"So, I should have told you that our contract is null
and void a week ago. I forgot. Carol threatened to send Karen over with
a baseball bat if I tried to take advantage of you. I'm not a dishonest
man. You know that, ma'am."
Lori leaned her head against a wall and tried to
decide whether to laugh or burst into tears. Either way, it would be a
fit of hysterics and panic the man. Moment by moment, she held her fit of
nerves at bay. "Thanks for calling, Bud. And thanks for your help."
"Don't mention it. Anytime."
She punched out Carol’s number at the diner with a
shaky finger and informed her that Bud had delivered his good news. "Who
was the eighteen-year-old, may I ask?"
"That was Ginger,” Carol informed her. “Ginger is
actually twenty-six and professional in those matters. Do you know what I
mean by professional?"
Lori was breathless with shock. "A hooker? You
paid
for her?"
"She owed me a favor, and you lucked out. Actually,
Bud lied to you. We passed her off as sixteen, a local high school girl
eager for her first time experience. I don’t know how he could have
fallen for it, but I don’t think he ever caught on. Sixteen, my ass.
That's men for you, don't you think?"
"He just called," Lori said, hoping the quaver in her
tone of voice wasn’t too apparent. "I completely forgot about the
agreement I made with that man. I almost had a nervous breakdown on the
spot. But thanks a million. And while we're at it, thanks for Trent's
note from Robin. I owe you more than anyone has ever owed anyone."
Carol remained ominously silent for a time. "Hon,
I'm sorry, but I never had anything to do with that note."
Lori thought that maybe she had burst a blood vessel
in her brain and lowered her IQ by thirty points. "I don't understand.
It had to be you. Who else could it have been?”
“Who?” Carol was quiet for a moment. “Hon, it was
you. You wrote the note."
Lori found it suddenly very hard to breath. "Carol,
you're frightening me. Janice Winters said that the handwriting belonged
to Robin and that nobody could have known about a reference she made in
the note. I could not have written it. It came from California. I'm
telling you that I absolutely did not."
"We'll, Trent's convinced that Robin wrote the note,"
Carol said cheerfully. "Brown-eyed stud muffin? I should say so."
Lori found herself trembling. She sidestepped to the
kitchen table and sat down. "Please don't do this to me." Her voice came
out a whisper.
"Lori?"
"I didn't write that note! Carol, you conspired with
Janice Winters. She helped you to pull it off. Please don't tease me."
Carol sounded a bit shaken herself. "You really
don't remember?"
Lori pounded the table with her fist. "I couldn't
have! I don't know why you're doing this to me!"
"Lori..."
Lori battled to control her upset. "I'm sorry. I
just don't understand why you're being so cruel. It's not like you at
all."
Carol's voice hardened. "Lori, I’m not being at all
cruel. You’re just very confused. Ask Wendy about the note. Get it
straightened out in your head and call me back. You were under so much
pressure. You just don't remember."
The connection went dead. Lori refused to relinquish
the handset for a time. With nothing but dead silence to argue with, she
put the phone back in place and wandered into the living room in a flurry
of agitation.
And then she sat on the edge of the couch with her
hands folded in her lap and waited for Wendy to come home from school,
outwardly motionless, inwardly fighting to hold her raging imagination at
bay.
Leslie came in first and rushed on by with a bright
smile. Wendy drifted in fifteen minutes later, and Lori followed her to
her room and closed the door behind the both of them. "What do you know
about a note that Carol said I wrote?"
"The night you got hurt?"
"Yes, that night."
Wendy stared at her pale and rigid expression. "Mom,
what’s wrong?”
“Just tell me.”
"Okay, I’ll tell you. It was two notes, really, a
letter and a note. You got up in the middle of the night and you sat at
the dining room table and you wrote them and put them in an envelope
addressed to somewhere in California. I asked you what you were doing and
you looked at me like you didn't even know me. I mean you smiled, but you
wouldn't say anything, and it scared me. Carol was sleeping on the couch,
so I woke her up."
"And then?"
Wendy shrugged nervously. "And then you wouldn't
talk to Carol either, except you asked her to put a stamp on the envelope
and to be sure to mail it the very next day."
Lori fought an urge to deny Wendy's every word.
There had to be a misunderstanding. "What did the letter and the note
say?" she asked in her most reasonable tone of voice.
"I didn't see much. The letter
was to a place in California and it asked a woman named
Darlene to forward the note so her sister wouldn't worry about her. Carol mailed the letter because she said she makes it a point not to
argue with crazy people."
Wendy gave her a strained smiled. "She was just
kidding, but you scared us both. I'm glad you remember now."
Carol called later in the evening. "I wanted to make
sure the kids were asleep. How's it going?"
"Who did the letter go to?"
"Darlene Roman in Los Angeles," Carol said, sounding
uneasy and cautious. “Who is she?”
Lori recalled the name. "Maggie said Darlene Roman
was Laura's best friend, someone like her."
"Like her? Whatever. It was like you were sleepwalking. You
scared me then and you're scaring me now."
"I was in a pretty bad way that night," Lori said in
her own self-defense. "I might have done something and not remembered."
"That's exactly what I'm thinking, too, although I
don't know if I approve of so much deceit."
But there had been no deceit. There was only one
explanation. "It didn't happen that way, Carol. Nobody told any lies.”
“I don't understand."
But Lori was beginning to. Only one person could
have written Robin’s note to her sister and she had done so in her own handwriting.
Only Laura Scarelli would have known Darlene Roman's address in Los
Angeles.
It amazed her that she could accept the scenario at
face value. It had no other explanation regardless. A chill of delicious
excitement ran through her that she had been privileged to see so deeply
into the darkness of the unknown. The light of her dawning understanding
chased away all of the fears that had ever called her life home.
She had always suspected. There was simply more to
life than could be seen. Such a simple thing to believe. So obvious. A
belief worthy of the faith of a skeptic.
She took a deep breath, knowing it would be difficult
to convince others, knowing the insight would isolate her if she failed.
"They wrote their own notes,” she said to Carol. “Laura and Robin, one to
Darlene, and the other to Janice Winters. Nobody else could have.”
Lori had never heard Carol's voice sound so hollow
and empty. "I was afraid you were going to say something that. Lori, they're
dead. You know for a fact that Laura and Robin are dead.”
"Yes, I know. Carol, it's so strange, the things
that have happened to me. You knew that strange things were happening,
but it all ties together if you think about it. We all had the dream of the glass
eye one way or another."
Carol was quiet for a time. "I
don't know what you're talking about, but I want to hear about
it. Will you tell me?"
Lori felt a bit despondent. "You won't believe me.”
Carol's voice was a whisper. “I might. Lori, I saw
your face. It wasn't you. Not the way you looked, not the way you
moved. And I've always believed you about the dream. I knew it
meant something important, something horrible."
A smile twitched at Lori's lips. It would be an
honor to share the incredible world she had discovered with her best
friend. "It's going to be a long night," she warned.
"Put some coffee on,” Carol
said. “I’m on my way."
The End
