The bus station’s dusty and so is the old man sitting in it. He actually has dust on him. Newsom tries not to stare, looking instead for a place to set his bag.
There’s an inexplicable piano on one wall; it, too, is dusty, but the key cover’s open. After ten minutes of wall-watching, Newsom gives in and plonks a key.
It’s out of tune–he knows that immediately. He draws back, but an old crow-voice says “Play somethin’.”
“I don’t know–”
“It does.”
Newsom hesitantly tries a chord, which is when he realizes it is in tune. With itself.
Wednesday, February 4, 2004
“Do not return the gaze of a man missing a hand.” Darlene hustles down the alley. “Keep fresh holly over door and windows, for protection against those uninvited. If you are pursued, cross running water, and if you hear another curse, touch wood–”
“You said you’d teach me,” grumbles Rob, stepping around broken glass. “If I listen to you, I’ll be afraid of my own shadow!”
“Be afraid of your shadow,” says Darlene sharply. “Whenever possible, watch it, and keep streetlights to your back.”
“What? Why?”
“Because,” says fishy breath in his ear, “you’ll know if there’s someone behind you.”
Tuesday, February 3, 2004
Hawser says something Brie can’t understand. “What?” she asks impatiently, tired of carrying the pack. “Help me up!”
She takes the hand he offers, kicks up the side of the ledge, and as her head comes over the rise she sees splintered light. The sun glitters on a thousand yards of plastic, glass and steel.
“That’s–is that?” she gasps. “It is!”
“The Secret Telephone Booth Burial Ground,” says Hawser gravely. “And we found it, Brie.”
“So many still look intact,” she whispers. “Just think. You could fit twenty-five people in each one…”
“And then,” says Hawser, nodding, “to outer space!”
“Updates?” comes the crisp question. Slatt spots black boots in a reflection and thinks, SWAT. Sure.
“Fifteen minutes until the next scheduled call,” he says without turning. “We’re trying to get a dye pack together, see if they’ll take bag man’s offer–”
“Prediction: dead hostage. Two hours.”
“Well, why don’t you go get them?” He means it ironically.
“Fifteen minutes. Yes.” The voice is dead calm. Slatt, cold in realization, turns at last: not SWAT after all…
The Ad Hoc moves, then, improbably quick, flickering toward the barricade like a bad special effect. Slatt shivers. Those guys freak him out.
The street’s washed out with dead snow, sick and tired of asphalt, salted and dirtied into sullen drifts. They clump down the melting sidewalk with hats on and coats flapping open. All three of them steam like dragons.
“You have no argument!” snaps Diane.
“And you see everything in black and white,” says Rose, affecting Zen.
“That’s still not an argument. Anyway, shades of gray aren’t any better.”
“I know, Diane. That’s why I try to see things in full color.”
“Rose,” says Diane, “that doesn’t even mean anything.”
“You’re both cigarettes,” mutters Holly, and kicks an offending chunk of ice.
Thursday, January 29, 2004
Chyler’s voice is a little raw, a little stuffy, trembling on the edges. Some of her words burst out accidentally when she speaks, as if her throat’s still tight and she hasn’t quite got control of her diaphragm.
“You want to come over later?” Diego asks, keeping it light and easy.
“Yeah,” she says, “I’ll–I’ll get a cab.” There’s a tired giggle in her words. She’s been sobbing. Or laughing. Or both.
“You want to eat? I can put some noodles on.”
“No,” she says, “not hungry.”
She will be, Diego thinks. He picks down garlic, basil, sage and thyme.
Wednesday, January 28, 2004
“No,” says Cassie, “I’m keeping it. I still want to teach–I’d rather not be Professor Stoner.”
They share a laugh, and Clara thinks it’s going fine when she says “Well, you could hyphenate them, then you’d be–”
And freezes. Cassie’s last name. She can’t remember it. Every microsecond she spends panicking makes this more obvious, which makes her panic harder. She desperately wants an out, a blatantly dumb one-liner like you’d hear in a movie directed by Bob Saget. Bob Saget in a canvas chair, wearing glasses, honestly, who’s he think he’s kidding?
“Penrose-Stoner!” she gasps, saved by distraction.
Tuesday, January 27, 2004
Curtis rakes with a sullen determination, enjoying the way his hands blister on the handle. Stupid orthodontist. Stupid Mom. Stupid no money, stupid retainer, stupid deal, what are they trying to teach him? He can’t help losing things.
Doctor Rubin’s house is really too big, and hollow inside. There’s not enough stuff to go around. Curtis knows stories from other braces-bound kids, about how Mrs. Rubin sat down in the bathtub two years ago and dropped the hair dryer in too. He wonders where that bathroom is. He kind of has to pee, but he decides, on balance, to hold it.
Jane shares a coffee with Lucien. Lucien taught the best English class Jake ever took, and Jake used to draw with colored pencils with his father. Jake’s father works in purchasing at the prison where Schultz is serving six years.
Schultz sexually abused Rhiannon when she was eight. Rhiannon shares a cheap basement apartment with Ruth. Ruth sometimes sleeps with Topaz. Topaz never got back the ten dollars she lent Theo, who picked a fight after school one day with Corey, and as we speak Corey is standing alone on a stage, telling a story to
(Okay. Ready?)
(Tag. You’re in.)
“We must be in Scranton,” says Rick urgently, “in half an hour.” It’s a two-hour trip. They all know this.
“Be ready in five minutes,” says Slone, calm through static.
Two minutes later Rick and Carey are out the door; Thom kicks it shut behind him and lunges out into the road, where he barely halts himself in time. A roaring Alpine White Eldorado whiptails a U-turn around him and brakes. Thom stares through the windshield as an expressionless Slone whips off his sunglasses, revealing another pair of sunglasses underneath.
Thom feels a sudden wild hope: they just might make it!
Thursday, January 22, 2004