The Other Side of Dark (9 page)

I dump my packages on the sofa in the living room.

“I’ll hang them up for you,” she says.

“I can do that myself.”

“Better do it now, so the dresses won’t get wrinkled. I promised Dennis I’d call him before I started home.”

As she heads toward the kitchen phone I scoop up my packages, take them to my room, and drop them on the bed.

A persistent pat-pat on the window greets me. It’s a loose branch of a scraggly, climbing Queen Elizabeth rose. I open the window, soaking in the pungent-sweet smells of the garden, the sounds of a dog barking down the street, and the laughter of the children in the yard next door. The Cooper children. They don’t see me, so I watch them play.

The two younger girls are playing tag. The older girl—Donna said she was twelve—leans against the solid trunk of their old elm tree, laughing at her sisters, yelling encouragement to the little one, who’s trying so hard to catch her sister. They’re look-alikes, with round, freckled faces and light brown hair.

For an instant I ache to join them. The twelve-year-old—she looks almost thirteen—would be close to my age. She might like to be friends and—

But I’m no longer thirteen. I turn and see myself in the full-length mirror that hangs on the door. I’m seventeen, in a world I don’t want, that I’m not ready for. I bang my fists against the wall.
You, with the gun—whoever you are, I hate you. I hate you!

“Stacy.”

I hurry back to the front hallway to join Donna, who’s fishing in her handbag for her car keys. She has to go, and I have to let her. I fight the fear I know will come with the lonely house.

“Are you sure you’ll be all right by yourself?” she asks as she studies my face.

I take her by the shoulders and laugh, trying to sound braver than I feel. “I’m a big girl now. Remember?”

She smiles and hugs me. As she presses against me the baby moves, so I feel it too. I want to keep holding her, so that I can feel the baby again, sharing it with her. But Donna steps back and says, “If you need me, just call. Oh—there’s a chicken pasta salad in the refrigerator.”

“Thanks for everything, Donna. Thanks for shopping for me.”

“If you decide you really don’t like the dresses—”

“They’re great,” I say. “Go on. You’ve got things to do.” The longer she stays, the harder it will be to let her leave.

“The blue one is especially—”

“I love it! Get going!”

I throw open the front door and shriek at the face that’s staring bug-eyed into mine.

“Oh, dear!” the woman on our front porch says. She brushes back the brown bangs that hang over her eyes and pushes her oversize glasses up on her nose. “I didn’t mean to startle you! I saw you come home a few minutes ago, and I was just going to ring the bell.”

Donna steps up beside me and holds out a hand. “Mrs. Cooper, you must come in and meet Stacy.” She turns to me. “Remember, Stacy? I told you that Mrs. Cooper and her family live next door.”

We say all the right things to each other as Donna moves us into the living room.

“I can’t stay,” Mrs. Cooper says. “I just wanted to greet Stacy and tell her the entire neighborhood is glad she’s back and feeling good again.”

“Thank you,” I say.

“Oh, I know we weren’t here before; but we’re so fond of your family, and that includes you too.”

“Thanks.”

“And I am planning to send over a casserole or something. It’s just that I’ve been so busy with the little girls, and you do understand, I know. It’s just PTA and the church society and dental appointments and one blessed thing after another. You certainly are a pretty girl.”

“Thank you.”

“So much like Donna.”

“Yes. Thanks.”

She hardly pauses for breath. “I was wondering if you’d baby-sit my girls this evening. One of my husband’s clients invited us out to dinner—at the last minute,
wouldn’t you know?—and we’d need you for just a short time. Could you make it seven o’clock? We promise to be home by ten, so you won’t get too tired.”

Donna holds up a hand. “But Stacy is—”

I interrupt her. I don’t want to tell Donna that I’m still feeling jittery about being alone in the house. I’d just as soon Donna didn’t know. “I’ll be glad to babysit,” I tell Mrs. Cooper. “I don’t have anything I have to do tonight. Sure. I’ll be there.”

“Maybe we should ask Dad,” Donna says.

Mrs. Cooper manages to look both puzzled and horribly disappointed at the same time. “But it’s just right next door,” she says. “And the girls are all well behaved.”

“Dad will be at work anyway,” I tell Donna, and I smile reassuringly at Mrs. Cooper. “See you at seven.”

Mission accomplished, she’s off and away, and Donna leaves after one more reassuring hug.

I start puttering around in the kitchen, reading cookbooks as though they were messages from a secret power and I were a decoder with the CIA. Why didn’t I ever learn to cook anything besides fudge? I peek inside the bowl of chicken pasta salad that Donna made. What’s a pasta salad? It sounds terrible.

To my surprise I find a recipe for a casserole that seems to match up with the carrots and onions and ground beef I pull out of the refrigerator. That’s such a good start I tackle the putting-together part with real enthusiasm. After it’s been in the oven awhile, it starts to bubble and actually smells good. I’m really proud of myself.

I carry the little TV set to the kitchen and listen
while I’m setting the table. It’s the local news, and the newscasters talk about a rapid transit system and things I don’t know anything about. Then I hear my name and look up to see that scene outside the clinic. Did I really feel as scared as I look? Yes. I guess so. But they’re off now on a story about a convenience store shooting. A couple of times I glance at the telephone. I wish it would ring. I wish it would be Jeff. But the telephone is silent.

Dad comes home, kisses me, and says, “I think I’ll just settle down with the newspaper for a few minutes before dinner’s ready.”

I make a lettuce salad, but according to the timer, we have fifteen minutes to wait for the casserole. So I join Dad in the den. He’s asleep in his chair, the newspaper spilling from his lap. Carefully I pick up the classified section. It gives me an idea.

As I turn the pages they rustle. Dad’s eyelids flicker, then open. He smiles at me. “Guess I had a little nap.” He sits up, stretches, then notices what I’ve been reading. Before he can say a word, I speak up.

“I want to get a job.”

“Stacy, we talked about your catching up on your schoolwork.”

“I can do both. I’ll study hard, Dad. I know how much work I’ve got to make up. But there’s no reason I can’t get a job too. I want to help.”

“It will be too much for you. We won’t discuss it.”

“We have to discuss it!”

He sighs. “Stacy, I’m afraid you got your stubbornness from my side of the family, but maybe that’s good because I can be as stubborn as you can.” Dad smiles,
and I know he’s trying to ease things between us as he says, “I remember once when we met head-on about whether or not you were old enough at twelve to go on a date, and your mother said the two of us were like that pair of rams in the Disney movie, banging their heads to the tune of the ‘Anvil Chorus.’ ”

“You won that argument,” I say.

“I’m going to win this one too.”

“I just want to help. You work at the bank in the daytime and do bookkeeping at night, and it’s too much.”

“We won’t discuss it.”

“You already said that. You make me so mad, Daddy! All I want to do is talk to you!”

He sits up and leans toward me. The lamplight in the room casts shadows that deepen the hollows under his eyes. “Honey, I want to talk to you too,” he says. “I want to talk to you about your mother.”

My shoulders are stiff, and there’s a tight place at the back of my neck that begins to throb. “There’s nothing to talk about.”

“Yes, there is. I’m worried about you because you haven’t mourned her.”

“Yes, I have.”

“I think you’re holding your feelings in, afraid to let go and face what happened. That’s not good, Stacy.”

I can’t tell him about my feelings. How can I explain about the burning fingers of hatred that claw at my mind?

The oven timer buzzes, so I scramble to my feet. “Dinner’s ready!”

He studies me for a moment, then says, “Okay,
Stacy. Just remember, when you’re ready to talk, I’m ready to listen.”

There isn’t anything I want to say now. There’s too much to think about to wonder about my feelings. That will come later.

Dad praises me over and over for the wonderful casserole. I think it tastes a little flat, but he has second helpings, so I suppose he really likes it. I tell him I’m going to baby-sit the Cooper kids. He starts to frown but changes it to a smile and says it’s all right. Maybe he’s got a limit of one argument going at a time. Maybe he thinks he’ll have his say about the big things and let the little things go by. Who knows what parents think?

After the dishes are finished and Dad has left, I make sure I’ve got Detective Markowitz’s card in my pocket. I leave the lights on in the den, lock the house carefully, and cross the lawn to the Cooper house.

Mrs. Cooper opens the door. She reminds me of one of those dust devils that whirl across the open lands in Texas as she darts and swoops into the den, introducing me to Keri, Meri, Teri, and Mr. Cooper. She points out the emergency numbers in the kitchen and the phone number where they can be reached. Then she disappears for a moment into a closet, emerges with a handbag, bobs over her daughters with a good night kiss, and is out the door, carrying her balding and bemused husband with her.

The girls stare at me.

“Help me get your names straight,” I tell them, knowing that it had to be their mother who had named them.

“Think of it as alphabetical,” the oldest one says. “
K
before
M
and
M
before
T
. I’m Keri. I’m twelve.”

Teri, who looks as though she were about six, pipes up. “Mom said you’re the Sleeping Beauty. Are you the real Sleeping Beauty?”

“No,” I say. “That’s just a make-believe story.” I glance around the room. It doesn’t look a thing like it did when the Hadleys lived here. Everything is flowered chintz with red poppies and ruffles. A big bouquet of matching artificial flowers is on an end table, and dozens of photographs of the girls are on the wall over the sofa. The wall has been paneled in a light birch wood. How can this house look so different when our house looks so much the same?

On the floor, nearly covering a round scatter rug, are Barbie dolls, dresses, houses, cars—the whole works. I wonder where Daddy put my Barbie dolls. Maybe they’re packed away.

“You’ve got a lot of clothes for your dolls,” I tell the girls. “Do you care if I look at them?”

“Wanna play?” Meri asks.

I shrug. “Why not?”

We sit near the edges of the rug, and in a few minutes I’m putting a red net ball gown on one of the dolls, and Keri’s doll is driving over to visit mine.

“Three movie stars are going to be at the dance,” Keri’s doll says.

“Who cares about movie stars?” my doll says. “Have you heard? The duke of York is going to be there.”

“And I’m going to sing with the band,” Meri’s doll says. “I’m a famous singer.”

“You sing like a frog,” Keri says, and we all giggle.

The game goes on until Teri steps in the middle of the rug and stamps her foot. “Nobody listens to me! I tried to tell you what I saw upstairs!”

“You were upstairs?” I’m startled and worried, because I didn’t realize she had left the game.

“I told you I was going to the bathroom!”

“I’m sorry, Teri. Sit down. Our dolls are going to the beach. Do you want the purple bathing suit for your doll?”

“No! If you’re not going to listen to me, then I won’t tell you.”

I put out my arms to her and pull her down on my lap. “Hey, I’m sorry. I’ll listen. What do you want to tell us?”

“About somebody who’s in your yard. I looked out the window upstairs, and I saw somebody trying to look in your windows.”

We all jump up. Meri screeches, and I shush her. “We don’t want him to hear us. We’ll have to be quiet.”

But we race upstairs, ahead of Teri, who’s now filled with her own importance. She joins us in the dark room and leads the way to the wide bedroom window that overlooks our house and yard.

“Look,” she whispers.

I lean over the heads of the three girls, straining to differentiate between the shapes and shadows. One shape moves, and I see it step back from the side of our house, where it has apparently been trying to see into my bedroom window. In an instant it has slid through
the darkness and disappeared around the back of the house.

Keri clutches my arm, and I feel her tremble as she whispers, “He’s in your backyard! Stacy, what if he gets inside your house?”

I step back from the window, pulling the children with me, and try to sound calm. “We’ll call the police. They’ll take care of it.”

“I want my daddy!” Meri is so terrified that Teri puckers up and begins to wail. That sets Meri off, and it takes me a few minutes to quiet them down, so that I can make the telephone call to Detective Markowitz.

The woman who answers my call tells me that Detective Markowitz is not there, but she’ll get in touch with him, so I explain why I’m calling. She says that she’ll send a squad car out to investigate, then try to reach Markowitz.

The Cooper children and I huddle together in the living room, where we can press our noses against the picture window and watch for the police car to arrive. Maybe one of us should stay at the upstairs window and watch for the shadow to appear again, but we’re all too frightened. We want to stick together.

“Let’s call Mama,” Teri says. Her lower lip wobbles, and I hug her tightly.

“In a few minutes,” I tell her. “It will be safer if the
police check things out before your mother and daddy get home.”

“They said they’d be home by ten,” Keri answers, “and it’s almost ten.”

“You were supposed to put us to bed at our bedtime,” Meri accuses. “Mama’s going to be mad at you.”