Cole Perriman's Terminal Games (12 page)

It had been a long time since she’d experienced such a feeling of satisfaction and gusto. Why had it been so long? And why had she been so fearful lately?

Maybe I
have
been addicted. Maybe it’s like being hooked on coke or meth—sooner or later you get crazy and fearful and paranoid.

She shuddered a little at the thought of her experiences in Insomnimania—particularly those half-asleep, only partially remembered outings in the Pleasure Dome.

Blackouts, no less! Hope I don’t go through some kind of withdrawal.

Maybe she would—maybe just a little. For instance, she still felt a glimmer of curiosity about Auggie and that hidden Basement of his. What did he keep down there? What did he
do
down there? And
where … ?

Get out of my brain, you little monster!

She slammed a piece of dough down on the table. Then she stared at the splat, surprised at her own vehemence. She was shaking again. She took several deep breaths and began to wipe up the puddle with her fingers, concentrating on the grittiness of the mixture, trying to picture what her home would look like later tonight, full of happy, chattering guests.

She even had a date—that schlock novelist Larry Bricker she had interviewed Friday night for
Sunday Stew.
The interview had proven to be a pleasant surprise. Renee had hit him with tough, even hostile questions, and Larry had fielded them with wit and self-effacement.

“Don’t you have anything better to do with your life than to gross out the American reader?” she had asked.

“Not really,” Larry had replied pleasantly.

At least it was better than some pompous lecture on catharsis, pity and terror, and the therapeutic value of trash fiction.

Besides, in his diminutive, balding, middle-aged sort of way, the writer was really quite good-looking. Renee looked forward to seeing him at the party.

And Marianne. It will be good to see Marianne. We’ve only seen each other once since she’s been in town. How could we let that happen?

The phone rang. Renee padded out of the kitchen, her hands dripping with flour and melted butter. By the time she reached her answering machine it had already delivered its outgoing message. Lucifer prowled softly around the machine, studying it intently.

Holding her messy hands awkwardly in front of her, Renee wondered what to do. If she picked up the phone and shut off the machine, she’d make a mess. She decided to screen the call rather than pick up the phone.

Message left by Marianne Hedison on Renee Gauld’s home answering machine, Sunday, January 23, 3:15
p.m
.:

Hi, Renee, it’s Marianne. Listen, I’m heading back to Santa Barbara. I’ve done about all the business I can do here in town, and it’s really time for me to get home and to work. I’m sorry to miss your party tonight, but I’m sure it will go splendidly.

Let’s not let another year go by. Is there any chance of you getting up
there
sometime? Well, listen. I promise to come back soon. What do you say to another month or so? Then we could actually spend some time together.

When are you going to tell me what happened with Auggie? Give me a call and let’s make plans.

Renee turned, more sad than angry, and started back to the now sickeningly sweet lumps of dough on her kitchen table.

*

Marianne got back to Santa Barbara early Sunday evening. Before leaving Los Angeles, she had made a couple of phone calls to let people know she was headed home. As she walked through the door, she saw her answering machine blinking vigorously. This hefty batch of messages must have accrued in the short time since word got out that she was on her way back.

Marianne played the tape.

Dwayne had called: Needed to know what to do next to coordinate the Abernathy landscaping.

Stephen had called: Would call back later.

Lenora James had called: Wanted to tell her about an upcoming meeting.

Lenora James? Now who is that? Oh sure, that community activist group.

Baxter had called: Wanted to know if she’d found any interesting fabrics at Sherwood Galleries.

Stephen had called again: Wanted to know if Friday was okay for dinner.

Four calls to answer. And all this on a Sunday.

Marianne was definitely home again.

She took off her jacket and listened to the gentle whir of the tape rewinding. It seemed an oddly warm and inviting noise after the glacially cheerful tone of the voices on machine. Why did everybody in Santa Barbara suddenly sound so remote—and so languid?

Easy does it. Just a wave of culture shock. Remember, you just got in from L.A.

Marianne hung up her jacket. She breathed deeply and looked around her living room. She waited for her jangled nerves to begin smoothing out. It didn’t happen. She didn’t quite understand why. Shouldn’t it feel good to be home?

It was no mansion, but her little hillside house was beautifully proportioned and impressively furnished, the walls and woodwork done in three shades of white, the furniture pale, the wall hangings and watercolors understated. The only truly flamboyant touch was an Erté sculpture—a dancer with swirling veils frozen in motion—carefully positioned on a chest.

Marianne picked up her bags and carried them into her bedroom, opened them, and stuffed most of their contents into a laundry bag. She took off her shoes and stockings, putting the shoes in her closet and the stockings into a fabric-lined basket to rinse out later. She took off her suit and blouse and hung them up carefully, removed her underwear and dropped it into the basket, then put on a long white kimono and walked into the adjoining bathroom. She stepped into the shower.

She lathered a rich shampoo into her hair. Warm water droplets bombarded her body, trying vainly to massage her into relaxation. What was wrong?

Marianne reluctantly shut off the water, stepped out of the shower, dried off with a thick towel, and plucked a fresh kimono out of a cabinet. She turned a blow dryer on her hair for a few minutes. With her hair hanging long and damp, Marianne stared in the mirror. Her face looked tired and strained.

“Home,” she whispered searchingly. “Home again.”

But the words offered no comfort.

01000
OPEN HOUSE

The valets outside were parking the earliest guest’s cars, and a security guard was at the front door—acting more as a doorman, really, but handy in case of trouble. The few people who had arrived had not yet reached Renee’s unit. They would thread through five other units first.

Juan and Mette would offer all arrivals cocktails and then introduce them to Joel, who would treat them to hors d’oeuvres and send them along to the third floor for their main courses. There they would meet Betty and Gilbert with their fine London broil and Sam with his celebrated Cornish game hens. The revelers would then be directed down one floor where they would find Tony and Roland with their Zen vegetarian dishes. Renee was to wrap up the festivities with her elaborate desserts. After sweeping through every apartment once to discover all the goodies, the guests would distribute themselves according to their tastes.

Renee looked in the dining room mirror at the reflection of her wildly coiffed hair, her new silk hostess outfit, the lighted candles, the dessert-laden table. She could hear a low, conversational rumble throughout the condo as the guests came nearer and nearer. She had expected to feel good tonight—glad she’d bought the unit and pleased that her home would soon be filled with lively people having a good time. Instead, she felt empty and sad.

“Marianne won’t be here,” she murmured. Then Renee wondered why she felt so guilty about that. Perhaps it was because she hadn’t even picked up the phone while Marianne was announcing that she was on her way back to Santa Barbara. Surely Renee could have persuaded Marianne to stay for the open house if she had only tried. Even worse, Renee felt more than a little responsible for Marianne’s decision to head back to Santa Barbara in the first place.

If I hadn’t been so pushy the other day when Marianne was here … If I had made room in my schedule for another visit …

“Small wonder Marianne went home,” Renee muttered aloud, still gazing self-critically into the mirror.

She jumped with surprise as she glimpsed a second reflection in the mirror—a short but attractive man dressed in baggy corduroys who had just stepped into her doorway. She spun around, a little embarrassed that somebody had caught her talking to herself.

“I hope I’m not too early,” Larry Bricker said, flashing a charming smile.

“Not at all,” Renee answered, catching her breath. “I can really use your help.”

It was a lie, of course. She had wanted to be alone as long as she could. But she was surprised at the ease with which she returned Larry’s smile. Her own smile was hollow, but it shaped itself neatly and efficiently across her face.

Quite the little media professional. Well, it’ll prove a handy skill this evening.

“I brought something for you,” Larry said, shyly presenting her with a small, gift-wrapped package.

“What is it?” Renee asked.

“A housewarming present.”

“Can I open it?”

“Not till after the party.”

“Oh, come on, Larry. What’s wrong with now?”

“Later, okay? After everybody’s gone.”

Larry leered at Renee gently.

Oh, God, he’s got an agenda. He thinks he’ll get me into bed tonight.

She had just started to like Larry and hoped he wasn’t going to blow it by being prematurely amorous. The truth was, she’d forgotten that he was even going to be here tonight—much less that he was supposed to be her official date. And she certainly didn’t want to face the dismal task of sending him moping away unlaid at the end of the evening. But it was too early to worry about that yet. It was time to play hostess.

“Come on,” she said to Larry, dutifully taking him by the hand. “You can open the first bottle of champagne.”

Renee put Larry to work with the champagne and the espresso machine and deposited the gift package in her office. Then she went to greet other guests.

They soon started arriving in droves, some already quite tipsy from Juan’s strong libations. Renee was surprised by how many of them she did not know—friends of the other hosts, apparently. Oh, here was Renee’s ubiquitous boss, slobbering lecherously all over a disgusted station receptionist. A few other people from work were also present. And she recognized some faces from the media, like the TV actress whose current sitcom was about to get cancelled and the local politician with the abominable toupee. But Renee knew only a handful of others.

She needed to get out and mix. Being garrulous and outgoing was more than her duty as hostess—it was a
professional
thing, it was what she
did.
But for some reason, she couldn’t face it right now. She stood woodenly in one corner of her living room watching, feeling strangely defiled, as if her home were full of looters, not party guests—except that these looters added insult to larceny by smiling and introducing themselves before eating and plundering and generally behaving like savages.

What’s wrong with this picture?

It had something to do with the furnishings. Even though she had recently added a new couch upholstered with soft, dull purple leather, a glass-top table supported by a scrap-metal frame, and a bevy of woven-wool throw rugs scattered all over the carpet, the room was still dominated by the relics of Renee’s past.

It’s the people who are out of place.

What right had that strange woman to browse through Renee’s book collection, and worse yet, to show off to
another
total stranger Renee’s big book of Manet paintings? What right had that amorous young couple to entwine themselves obscenely on Renee’s telephone-cable spool? And what right had that drunken fellow to lean on Renee’s shabby old carousel horse for support? The poor, dappled creature’s massive metal pole strained against its ceiling hook. Renee was afraid both horse and man would wind up on the floor.

Where were the people who understood the value of these objects, who had been there when Renee had gotten them? Those people were nowhere to be found.

A voice beside her said, “A penny for your thoughts.”

She turned. Larry was standing there, taking a big, appreciative bite out of one of her prize cream horns.

“God,” Renee said. “I haven’t heard that line since junior high.” She reached over and wiped a few crumbs off Larry’s chin. “Have you been in my unit this whole time?”

“Yeah.”

“Don’t you think you should check out some of the others?”

“Are you getting tired of my company?”

“I didn’t say that. It’s just that you’re only getting one course to eat—and the least healthy course, at that. Nothing but sweets. I’d hate to ruin your arteries in one night.”

“Let me die
this
way,” said Larry, grinning and waving the remainder of the cream horn. “You didn’t reply to my original query,” he added.

“Give me a penny first.”

“No payments in advance. Do you think I was born yesterday? Come on, I’ve been watching you all evening. What’s the matter? You look like you lost your best friend.”

“I didn’t exactly lose my best friend. Let’s say I just sort of filed her away in a box up in the attic.”

“There’s an attic in this place?”

“I was speaking figuratively. You ought to know that. What kind of writer are you, anyway?”

“I’m a talentless hack. I wouldn’t know a metaphor if one bit me on the ass.” He paused for a moment and then said quietly, “Do you want to talk about it?”

Renee crossed her arms and was silent for a moment. Did she really want to say what she was about to say?

“I’m lonely,” she said.

“Me, too,” Larry replied simply.

Renee sighed. “Guess there’s a lot of that going around,” she said. “Do you want to talk about it?”

Larry stared ahead intently. “I don’t know what it is, exactly,” he said. “I guess I’m starting to feel like I’m nothing but print on paper. Of course, when my publisher sends me out on a book tour, I get to be a different sort of illusion—like that mechanical Lincoln at Disneyland, a celebrated clockwork without any guts or soul. Do you feel that, too?”

“Oh, yes,” Renee said, feeling a strange flood of relief. “For me it’s like being … I don’t know, just a
signal.
A disembodied signal on the airwaves.” Renee felt her throat catch slightly. “If you make me cry, I’ll break your face,” she said.

“Same to you.”

They both watched the party crowd silently. Renee was surprised at how she felt. She had just told Larry she was lonely, and now she didn’t feel lonely at all. What was happening?

“Did you have a fight with this friend of yours?” Larry said, breaking the silence. “You know, the one filed away in the attic?”

Renee frowned. “No,” she said. “It wasn’t anything that—
authentic.”

“Yeah, that’s the way it always works. Nobody really fights anymore. They send memos or faxes. Or they leave taped messages—”

“Bingo.”

“That’s you, huh?”

“Yup. The answering machine school of interpersonal relations.” Then Renee laughed. “Hey, how did you get to be so empathic? It surely doesn’t come from writing blood and gore.”

Larry smiled. “I have an unusually large corpus callosum for a man,” he said.

“I thought size wasn’t supposed to count.”

Larry chuckled with mock lechery. “It depends on what organ you’re talking about,” he said.

Renee felt a smile form across her own face—an utterly unsocial, unpremeditated, and unprofessional smile. It was simply real.

Things are looking up.

*

Marianne saved the just-completed rendering for the Abernathy project and quit her program. Tomorrow, she would check it over once more and modem it to the office. There was something pleasingly immaculate and final about zapping a finished product into electronic space without making any human contact—even when it was sent a mere mile and a half.

She had carried out an entirely satisfactory amount of business on the computer this evening, including faxing orders for a Chinese meal to be delivered tonight and a batch of groceries to be delivered tomorrow. It beat standing in lines.

The screen-saving marbleized patterns appeared on the monitor. Marianne stretched, yawned, and walked barefoot on the plush carpet to her spotless high-tech kitchen. She poured a glass of white wine and took it back to her office.

She huddled up in a big, soft chair and looked around the room. She was surrounded by drawing tables, art supplies, the computer, a scanner, a printer, a video camera, and other tools of her trade. But the room was not cluttered. Everything was in its precisely allocated place. On the wall hung design awards and framed watercolors of interiors. An expensive, heavy crystal paperweight was next to the computer.

The mixture of professional tools and eye-appealing details in her office was normally quite gratifying. But now the room merely seemed empty.

Why?

She picked up the paperweight and fingered it, trying unsuccessfully to find some pleasure in its smoothness. For the hundredth time this evening, she felt an inexplicable urge to scream, to cry, to break something.

Why don’t you, then? Why don’t you just go ahead and cry? Why don’t you throw this damned thing and let it break whatever it hits?

But she couldn’t. The well of tears, of passions, was dried up.

What was she feeling, then? Why was she in pain?

Was
it pain?

Did she feel anything at all?

She looked out the window at the lights in other houses straggling down the hillside toward the ocean. She wrapped her arms tightly around herself.

Why is it so cold?

She wandered down the hall and checked the thermostat. It was set at seventy-two degrees.

Plenty warm.

She looked down the darkened hallway that seemed to yawn before her like an endless void. She had the sudden feeling that her entire house was empty and cold, that no one at all was there—not even herself.

Marianne felt dizzy and nauseous.

She leaned against the hallway wall.

She closed her eyes.

Now, in the darkness behind her eyelids, she saw a winter landscape. The imagined chill of the house became a howling wind, and Marianne became the burden-laden figure trudging across the icy lake. But this time, she saw a red beacon flashing in the distance.

A sign from the shore.

Then she recognized the shape of the beacon—it was the bloodstain from the corridor wall. It flashed before her, red and blazing and as vivid as when she had seen it that first time. It was an ambiguous and terrifying sign—at once a promise of warmth and safety and a warning that the rest of the journey could be dangerous and dark and violent. And yet, Marianne felt that she now had the indication of a direction, if she could decipher the images of her imagination. She felt that she had once again embarked on a journey that had been stalled—that she was now rushing toward her own identity and her own life.

She opened her eyes. The stain and the landscape disappeared.

“Renee,” she whispered, not knowing why.

“I’ve got to call Renee.”

*

“These really are mind altering,” said Larry slyly. “I hope you like them.”

Renee unwrapped Larry’s present and laughed. It was a clear plastic box containing a dozen tiny bottles of herbal bath oils. They all had New Age-sounding names like “Out Of Body,” “Ancient Lives,” “Millennial Dreams,” and “Inward Journey.” The liquids were all brightly colored.

It was late, and all the other guests were gone. The party had turned out to be marvelous, purely because Renee had settled happily into ignoring her guests and chatting with Larry the whole time. She had found it refreshing and wonderful to drop being a performer, and she could tell that Larry had felt the same way.

Now Larry stood in the doorway, studying Renee with an expectant look. He obviously hoped to stay and to help her try out one of the oils.

“Thank you,” said Renee. “They’re lovely.”

“Do you want help cleaning up?”

“No. It can wait till tomorrow.”

Then came a slight pause. It was one of those rare moments of sexual awkwardness that made Renee feel like she was fifteen again.