Babysitter, page 10
The buzzing grew stronger inside Jenny.
The woman stretched her open hand out.
The buzzing—
Jenny accepted the woman’s hand now without hesitation. It was a hard hand, unlike any female hand Jenny had ever touched before, iron strong and leathery. It closed on Jenny’s small fingers like a vise.
They walked back toward the cabin, the ground giving way to a sandy area that proved somewhat difficult to walk in, Jenny twisting her ankle and falling on her injured knee. Roughly, the woman jerked Jenny to her feet and they continued walking. A lone weather-treated pole jutted up from behind the cabin. At the top of the pole were two heavy wires trailing off into the darkness.
The cabin’s odors became more oppressive the closer they got. Made as it was of slabs—the wooden ones nailed together, the metal ones crudely welded together —the cabin had no windows, but through the screen door Jenny saw a single bulb glowing, revealing living conditions far more primitive than those of last summer’s Blue Bird Camp. Two cots lay on the floor. Three folding chairs sat next to a table on which rested a large silver transistor radio. A few clothes hung from a piece of rubber clothesline strung from one wall to the other.
But Jenny saw no she.
The cabin was empty.
The woman stepped under the overhang and pulled the squawking door open for Jenny with a surprising formality. “Come on, kid, go inside.”
Despite the buzzing noise that had now risen to an almost unendurable level—it was no longer a pacifying sound, the way it had been back in her bedroom or while she’d been walking out here—Jenny hesitated.
Seeing this, the woman took one of her hands and put it on Jenny’s shoulder. “Come on, kid.” She sounded almost sad.
She gave Jenny a small but forceful shove.
Inside, Jenny stood on a tiny hooked rug and looked around. Up close, the place looked even worse, at best a shanty. One detail attracted her eye particularly. On the north wall was a painting of the Blessed Virgin, looking soft and beautiful in the faint glow of the candle. Except for one detail, that is. Someone had painted a lurid black mustache on the Virgin’s upper lip.
The woman, seeing Jenny’s displeasure, said, “You musta been raised Catholic, huh?”
Jenny said, “What’s going to happen to me?”
She tapped her skull with the pistol’s barrel. “Is the buzzing good and strong in your head?”
“Yes. It’s very strong.”
“Then you’re gonna be fine. She’ll see to that. Sometimes when the buzzing isn’t strong . . .” The woman shook her head.
Jenny glanced around again. There was no sign of the woman she kept referring to. No she.
Jenny wondered if this woman might not be insane. Perhaps the she was imaginary. When Jenny was smaller, she’d had all kinds of imaginary friends, particularly a Mr. Baubles who comforted her whenever she felt particularly sad. Perhaps for the Indian woman this she was a Mr. Baubles
“I have to warn you about something,” the woman said. “And understand, I’m sayin’ this for your sake. All right?”
“All right,” Jenny said hesitantly.
“Don’t try and resist.”
“What?”
“Some of them, they try to fight it, even with the buzzing and all, and that’s when it gets bad. Just give in right away and things will be easier.”
“What things?”
In the flickering light from that single swinging bulb, the woman’s eyes narrowed. “That’s something you’re gonna have to find out for yourself, kid.”
Jenny decided to ask. “You keep talking about she.”
“Yeah?”
“But there isn’t anybody else here.”
The woman laughed harshly. “So that’s what’s botherin’ you! Because you can’t see her?”
Jenny nodded.
The woman laughed again. “Believe me, if I was you, I wouldn’t be in too much of a hurry to see her.” She glanced down at the floor, at something which only she could see, apparently. Then her eyes turned back to Jenny. “Nope, I wouldn’t be in too much of a hurry at all.”
She leaned over to the table. The remnants of a cooked chicken lay on a piece of foil. The woman’s hand judo-chopped the black circle of flies covering the meat. After the flies were gone, she tore a piece of greasy flesh from the skeleton of the bird and brought it to her mouth.
Smacking her lips, wiping off some of the grease with the back of her hand, the woman said, “You go sit down over there.”
“Where?”
“In that chair.”
Jenny knew better than to argue. She went over and sat on the straight-backed chair. The legs wobbled.
The woman walked past Jenny to where another small hooked rug lay. Her face was slick with sweat. She lifted the hooked rug. Even in the shadowy light of the room, Jenny could see the outline of a door in the wooden floor of the shack.
She pulled up the door and immediately the room was filled with an odor so sickeningly sweet, Jenny had to clamp her hand over her mouth to keep from vomiting.
It was then she heard the wailing sound for the first time. She did not know what else to compare it to except wailing, the way her dog Fritz had sounded when he’d gotten caught in barbed wire.
There was also the coldness, which seemed impossible to Jenny. A coldness that was at least forty degrees less than room temperature.
“You wanted to know where she was?” the woman said. “Well, guess where?”
“My God,” said Jenny.
“Now you get over here.”
“My God,” Jenny said again.
“You hear me, kid, you get over here.”
“You’re not going to make me go down in there, are you?”
The woman looked both surprised and angry.
“Where the hell else do you think I’d have you go? The boudoir?” She beckoned with the pistol. “Now you get over here.”
“No,” Jenny said. “No.”
But now the buzzing became unbearable, and Jenny felt all her ability to fight leave her.
“Come on, kid. Come on.”
Now the woman’s voice was faint, faint.
The coldness from the cellar began to dance around Jenny like wraiths enveloping her. At first she shuddered, and huge goose bumps covered her arms and legs.
But as she moved toward the cellar door—unable to stop herself—the coldness became what the buzzing had been earlier . . . comfortable, reassuring.
Jenny gave herself up, there at the last, to the buzzing.
To the coldness.
To the darkness of the cellar.
The woman took her hand and helped her on to the first step of the ladder leading below.
Then there was just blackness and the wailing.
The wailing.
2
“Iris?”
“Yes.”
“This is Jody again.”
“Hi, Jody.”
“Sorry to bother you so late.”
“That’s all right. We never go to bed till after Johnny Carson, anyway. What’s up?”
“Jenny’s missing.”
Iris’s voice tightened immediately. “What?”
“The police have been here already. They’re looking through the neighborhood.”
“My God.” Beat. “How’re you doing, Jody?”
“Trying to hang in there. That’s about all I can do right now.”
“You want Orn and me to come over and start looking for her, too?”
“No, Iris, that isn’t why I was calling. I need to ask you a question again.”
“Of course. Anything.”
“That number you gave me.”
“For the babysitter?”
“Right. Did you actually call it?”
“Yes. Why?” Then she stopped herself. “Wait a minute. Now that I think about it, I never did call that number.”
“Why not?”
“Well, as soon as she was recommended to me, I heard from her.”
“She called you then?”
Jody thought a moment. “Do you think it would be too late to call Agnes Thorp?”
“Nope. They’re real pro wrestling fans, the Thorps are. She told me this afternoon that tonight’s a special match. The Mambasi Mauler or somebody like that. I’m sure they’re still up.”
“Would you have her number handy?”
“Know it by heart, I call it so often.” Iris gave her the number.
“Thanks, Iris.”
“We’ll be glad to come over and start looking.”
“If we think we need the help, you’ll be the first one I call.”
“In the meantime, I’ll be saying prayers.”
“Thanks again, Iris.”
She dialed Agnes Thorp’s number immediately. A man answered. He sounded irritated that he’d been interrupted. In the background a huge crowd sound poured from a TV set. The Mambasi Mauler must have just pinned somebody. Jody wondered idly—giving her mind a needed momentary respite from Jenny’s disappearance —if the Mauler was the good guy or the bad guy. The name didn’t seem to delineate which.
“Agnes, please.”
“Can I tell her who’s calling?”
The man did not sound happy. She recalled him vividly. Larry Thorp. High school football hero who went into insurance and then into an unsuccessful local political career. Even as a boy, he’d never been happy, and Jody had never known why.
“Larry, this is your old classmate, Jody.”
Most people would have greeted her with at least feigned surprise and pleasure. Not Larry. He merely grumped, “Oh, yeah, I heard you were back. Just a minute.” Then he went away and shouted Agnes’s name over the din of the TV.
When she came on, she said, “Hi, Jody.” Her warmth made up for Larry’s indifference.
“Hi, Agnes. Nice to speak to you again.”
“What’s it been? Nine years since our last reunion?”
“Something like that, Agnes. Something like that.”
“Hopefully we’ll get to see each other before you go.”
“I hope so, too.” She needed to get on with it. She said, “My granddaughter’s missing.”
“Oh no.”
“I’d like to ask you a question about that babysitter you recommended to Iris.”
“Oh, sure, her.”
“Did you ever call her phone number?”
“What?”
“Did you contact her or did she contact you?”
Agnes hesitated. “Well . . .” She snapped her fingers. “No, I’ll tell you how I heard about her. On the board at Schreiger’s Market. There’s one of those cork boards where everybody who’s got something to sell puts their card. She had a card up there for babysitting. There was a phone number, but I didn’t need it.”
“Why not?”
“Believe it or not, she saw my girls at the playground one day and followed them home. Asked me if she could babysit for us sometime. She seemed nice and trustworthy, so I said sure.”
“So you never called her number then?”
“No, I guess I didn’t.”
“And you used her only the one time?”
“Right. And not very long that time, either.”
“Why not?”
“Larry got sick. We had some bad bratwurst at this cookout we went to down at the Eagles Club. Had to come home early.”
“I see.”
“You think the babysitter could have anything to do with Jenny?”
“We don’t know. We’re just trying to reconstruct the past couple days of Jenny’s life.”
“Is there anything we can do?”
“Were your kids the same?”
“Pardon me?”
“Did they seem any different after this babysitter was in your home?”
“No. Why?”
“Just curious is all.”
“You’re getting me spooked here, Jody.”
Just then a second huge roar went up from the TV crowd. Larry roared right along with them.
Agnes said, “The Mauler just won.”
“I’m happy for him.”
“I’m sorry about Jenny. But I’m sure she’ll turn up. You know how little kids—”
The conversation quickly turned into the same kind of pep talk Jody had received from the police. Grateful as she was for Agnes’s good intentions, Jody thanked her and said good night as soon as possible.
Just as she hung up the phone, a creaking in the floor startled her, and her mind filled with an image of Jenny having come in the back door while she had been on the phone.
“Jenny!” she cried out.
Her voice in the stillness made her realize how alone she was in this strange house. If it was not Jenny who was prowling the house, then who?
Feeling a fear that she hoped was irrational, she edged her way out of the kitchen and over to the hallway. The only light burning anywhere was in the living room which appeared, from first glance, to be just as she’d left it.
Still, the sense that something was wrong overtook her once more. From a wooden sideboard she picked up a small paring knife she’d used earlier in the day to slice tomatoes with. What a ridiculous weapon, she thought
She moved into the hallway, listening carefully for any untoward sound. “Jenny!” she called again.
Nothing.
On tiptoes now, almost as if she were playing a child’s game of hide-and-seek, she went down the shadowy hallway toward the far end of the house.
And then, blocking her way, the dark shape appeared. The paring knife rose along with Jody’s scream. What startled her even more was that the dark shape also screamed.
“Mother! It’s me!” Samantha shouted. “It’s Sam!”
A ragged laugh of relief escaped Jody as she lowered the knife and fell into her daughter.
Hugging her, Sam glanced at the paring knife and said, “What were you going to do with that?”
“I—I thought I heard something. I just assumed you were asleep and I thought—”
She was incoherent and knew it. Her entire body still trembled from the odd encounter with Sam.
“Let’s grab some soda and go into the living room.” Then Sam put a hand on her mother’s arm and said, “You’re not going to give me a speech if I smoke a cigarette, are you?”
Jody smiled. “Not this time.”
“I’ll get the soda.”
When they were seated—tinkling glasses of diet Pepsi in their hands—in the soft light of the living room, mother and daughter simply stared at each other.
Sam said, “They haven’t found anything out yet?”
“No. But I wanted you to be sleeping. I—”
Sam shook her head. She looked groggy and hung-over from the pills. “You know sleeping pills have never worked particularly well for me.”
Jody sighed. “I guess that’s true.”
“Even when I was in de-tox that time. They’d give me sedatives and I’d wake up in an hour and a half. I always envied the people who slept through the night.” She ran a hand through her hair. Even mussed, she was stylish and beautiful. Then a line of bitterness showed on her mouth. “I’ve been such a lousy mother. So goddamn selfish.”
Jody knew there was no sense in trying to dissuade Sam from her self-loathing. Not now, anyway. It was a ritual she needed to perform. Jody said, “Honey, how do you think I feel?”
“What?”
“I’ve been a lousy mother, too. All those years drinking. Concentrating on my stupid little career—”
Sam lit a cigarette. In the stillness, the paper match sounded like an explosion. She took the blue-white smoke deep into her lungs and held it there for a long time, as if she were smoking marijuana. She exhaled in a burst and then offered a lopsided grin. “How can anything so bad taste so good?”
“That’s a terrible thing, isn’t it? The way our pleasures are usually bad for us.” She knew they were just small-talking. Each took turns watching the front door for signs of Jenny or the police.
Sam said, “When we find her, I’m going to stay here.”
“In Winthrop?”
“Yea.”
“How come?”
“I want to start all over. If I go back to New York—” She shook her head. She had another drag of her cigarette. The expression of bitterness returned to her face. “This is my fault.”
“Honey, you know better than—”
“She probably got sick of it all. My behavior, I mean. That’s why she got so crazy at Dr. Peary’s this afternoon and that’s why she ran away.”
Jody wanted to say something wise about the burden of guilt and shame. But they were feelings she knew too well herself. And knew that there were no verbal antidotes for those feelings. You lived through them, accepted them sometimes, fought them other times, until one sober day you realized that remorse got you nowhere, that whatever time was left would be better spent in looking forward rather than backward.
Sam said, “I should have known the other night.”
“Known what?”
“How upset she was.”
“Why?”
Sam shrugged. “She told me about this dream.”
“What was it?”
Sam smiled. “Stupid. You know how children’s dreams can be. Something she probably picked up from a cartoon or something.”
Jody said, preparing herself, “Was it a woman being stabbed to death?”
Sam’s head snapped up. “Did she tell you about it? That she was the one doing the stabbing and that the woman was me?” But it was obvious by her tone that she knew the answer would be no.
Jody shook her head. “There’s something I need to tell you. About when I was a teenager.”
Sam said, “You’re starting to scare me, Mother.”
“I don’t mean to. But I think I’d better tell you. For some reason, I think it’s got something to do with Jenny’s disappearance.”
“You mean you don’t think she just ran away?”
“No, honey, I don’t think so.”
Sam stubbed out her cigarette. “Let me go to the bathroom first, okay? I’ll be right back.”
Jody nodded, remaining on the couch while Sam left the room. Mentally, she was back in 1978, the era of disco and Saturday Night Fever and Mom and Uncle Bob, both of whom had been killed in a car accident when Jody was a senior in high school—an accident that started her down the long road to alcoholism she later discovered in therapy. She thought of a particular night, the night she followed David Fairbain to Lorna Daily’s house, a night that returned to her in dreams almost weekly. She saw the silhouetted figure of Lorna stabbing her mother, the look on Gramps’ face as she turned to him for reassurance . . . And then she thought of all the crazed things Lorna did afterward, particularly eating the dog, a story that seemed to live on long years after she’d been taken away by her father.
