Weekend (11 page)

"The stove would have been easier," Angie said.

"Get back!" Shani called, striking the wooden match, tossing it on the lighter-fuel-drenched wood. The flames ignited in a black billow of oily smoke. "But just think of the superior taste."

"Think of the carcinogenics."

"We'll let the lighter fluid burn off before we roast the hot dogs. That won't take long. It'll be like old times."

"We've never done this before," Angie said.

"But in the future, when we do it again, we'll be able to say, gosh, this is like old times!"

Angie fished through the cooler at her feet, pulling out a packet of Farmer John's one-footers. "You're awfully chipper today. Did Flynn visit you last night?"

"Only for sex," Shani said. In reality, she did not feel well. She had tossed until the sun had risen. The label on Insect Death had hung like a billboard in her dreams. When she had awoken, for a moment, the entire party had been clear in her memory. But only for a moment. Then the flashback had clouded, leaving her doubtful and with an upset stomach, which was getting worse as the day progressed. She would probably pass on lunch.

"How about you and Park?" she asked.

"I never kiss and tell."

"Whoever says that, has nothing to tell."

"Look who's talking."

"Really," Shani agreed.

"When do you think the others will start arriving?"

Shani consulted her faithful Timex. "It's close to one. I would think that someone should have showed up by now. That Lena… I don't know, maybe she put down the wrong month along with the wrong day."

She wiped her hands on her shorts. "I'm going to go inside."

"What? You're the one who talked me into this bonfire."

"I just want to see how Robin's doing. I'll be back in a minute." And she wanted to run into Flynn.

Dangerous or not, he was still cute.

"How long should I wait before sticking these wienies in the fire?" Angie impaled a hot dog on a sharp branch.

"Wait until I get back."

On the way to the house, Shani passed the carport. Open bottle in hand, Bert and Sol were climbing into the back of the van. She waved to them but they did not see her.

Climbing up the front porch steps, she stopped and laughed, Angie was cursing venomously. A blackbird had snatched her wienie stick - hot dog and all - and was racing away, trying to get back in the air with the goods. Angie was chasing the poor bird with a fiery branch and face. Shani considered going for her camera when she saw a tan-clad figure approaching along the northern beach.

The dry air rippled with rising ground heat. He flowed in the distorted landscape like a phantom in the wind. Bright orange gleamed at his mid-section. Shani did not know why, but she was certain he was staring at her as she was at him. From Sol's description, she knew this was Robin's sorcerer.

The man stopped and sat down, staring out to sea. Shani shielded her eyes from the glare and watched him for a full five minutes. But he did not move. When she spoke with Robin, she would ask if it was appropriate to simply walk up to him and say hello.

Inside, Shani discovered that she had no idea where the dialysis was done. In this big house, it was a problem. She called but no one answered. The basement was probably the most likely place to stick a lab, she decided. She started down the stairs.

Instead of an infirmary, she found an elaborate recording studio - that made sense, as music was, after all, Mr. Carlton's business, and Robin's voice had been potential platinum. The room was a perfect circle, the top half of its walls ringed with double-glazed glass, undoubtedly separated by a soundproof vacuum.

An elaborate control panel stood outside a solitary entrance door. Shani went inside, stepping onto a heavily padded floor. She was reminded of the room in the ride at Magic Mountain that spun around and around and pressed you against the walls, just before the floor dropped out. That ride had made her sick.

The ventilation must have been out of whack. It was freezing inside the studio. Opposite the door, on the floor, was sprinkled sawdust from recently drilled holes. Red, green and black wires passed through the punctured panelling to a tiny metallic box arrayed with colourless buttons. In the centre of the room was a high stool, supporting, of all things, an inexpensive cassette player. Curious about the small metal box, Shani picked it up, pressing a button. An electric motor hummed, a microphone attached to an aluminium pole descending from the ceiling towards the stool. She released the button, afraid she might break something. The microphone halted.

Inside the cassette player was a tape labelled may 30 -R.C. Robin must have recently made the recording. Shani pressed PLAY. On this tune, at least, Robin's kidneys had not hurt her voice. If anything, she sounded better. It was a Beatles song.

Blackbird singing in the dead of night,

Take these broken wings and learn to fly.

All your life, you were only waiting for this

moment to arise.

Blackbird singing in the dead of night,

Take these sunken eyes and learn to see.

All your life, you were only waiting for this

moment to be free.

"Blackbird fly, blackbird fly,

Into the light of a dark black night…"

"What are you doing in here?"

Shani jumped, and pushed stop. It was Lena. "Is this a restricted area?" she asked. Lena had frightened her.

Like a lion approaching its prey, Lena moved into the room. She was not smiling. "My father doesn't let anyone, outside the family, down here."

"Sorry, I didn't know."

Lena strolled by, glancing around as if checking to see if anything had been stolen. "Were you looking for something?" she asked.

"Robin."

"She's upstairs."

"I didn't know."

Lena looked at her, suspicious. "You said that already."

Shani was suddenly sick of her tone. "Do you want me to say it a third time, on my knees?"

Lena smiled. "Yeah, then kiss my feet. Then get the hell out of here."

"Lay off, would ya?"

Lena smiled. "Okay, so I was abrupt. But there's a lot of expensive equipment down here. You can play anywhere else in the house." She consulted her watch, whirled, and headed for the door. "I've got to get back to Robin. Follow me."

Lena moved like a racewalker. Shani lagged behind, not enjoying the feeling of being a dog on a leash.

She allowed Lena a substantial lead, and when she came to turn the corner, no one was to be seen. Lena could have gone in one of four directions. Shani didn't care. She would find Robin in a minute. First, she decided, she would call her mother. She went looking for a phone.

"This tube in my arm leads from my radial artery," Robin was saying. "This is where the process starts.

My blood is pumped from the artery to one side of a semipermeable cellophane membrane. That's inside this metal container. I'd let you open it and look, but Ellen would know and she'd throw a fit. Anyway, the other side of the membrane is continually washed with the dialyzing solution, which is in that full beaker there. The other beaker has the used solution. All blood going inside the machine is treated with an anti-coagulant. Only about half a litre of my blood is inside at a time. All the stuff — including the junk

— in the blood can cross back and forth through the membrane, except, of course, the protein molecules and the blood cells. The electrolyte level is controlled—"

"I'm familiar with the process," Park interrupted.

She was surprised. "Are you?"

"I once researched the subject." Two days after her accident. "Two bad they can't compress this all inside you."

"Maybe one day they will be able to." She added, "In the year two thousand and fifty."

He was sitting on a chair three feet from her couch. Through the open window, the ocean was between sets, flat and peaceful. He studied the floor. "I wanted to talk."

"Really? No, you don't. Do you?"

He glanced up, noting the grey circles around her eyes. "Doyou want to, or do you want me to leave?"

She signed, laying her head back. There was a dark red stain on her blue robe where the blood returned via her - he even remembered the name - saphenous vein. "I don't know."

"I'll leave."

She sat up quickly, reaching for his hand. "Please don't. I want to talk, I really do." She smiled. "We used to talk all the time. Remember? Especially late at night. I would turn off the light in my room and make my parents think I was asleep, and be on the phone with you until three in the morning." She chuckled. "The next day I would call in sick to school. But you never did. I used to envy your endurance.

I still can't figure out what we talked about. It must have been interesting."

"Robin, I don't—"

"I'm sorry, I'm being nostalgic. You're probably not in the mood." She squeezed his hand. "Tell me; I will listen."

He stared her straight in the eye. There, it was clear that she was dying. "God, Robin, you look terrible."

Her right cheek twitched once, her eyes moistened. "I feel terrible," she said softly. "It's like someone is tightening a clamp on my head. And my back - everything aches. And I'm so tired."

"This isn't normal for you?"

She shook her head. "It's usually not this bad."

"We should call for a doctor."

"No! I… I'll be okay. I'm just… changing the subject. I know why I feel bad."

"Is it me?"

She nodded, turning away, letting go of his hand. "You and Angie."

"I wanted to say that I'm sorry."

"For what? You're young, full of energy, full of life. You should have a girlfriend that you can have fun with. And no, I'm not playing the martyr. I'm being practical, as you have chosen to be. I can't have a boyfriend. How? I'm either hooked up to this gizmo or taking a nap."

"You can still talk on the phone."

She brightened, for a moment. "I'd have nothing to talk about. I don't do anything. I read, watch TV, listen to records. Occasionally, I try to sing, but I'm even beginning to lose my voice. My life's pretty dull." She paused, searching the sea. Her left hand clenched. She whispered, "This last couple of months, I waited foryou to call."

"I wanted to."

"Did you lose the number?" She grimaced. "Forgive me, I didn't mean that."

The bitterness actually helped. "I deserve it. I wish you hated me."

"I did, I think, for an hour here, a day there." She had closed her eyes, wearing a dreamy expression.

"But it was never for long. You want to hear something silly, a line from a soap? I think if I had known at the beginning when I drank that poison that you would leave me, I think I would have died that night. I don't think I could have seen such a dark future, and known that there would be no outside light, and have lived." She found his hand. "That must make you feel pretty rotten, but that's not why I told you. I told you to let you know how much you meant to me, and still mean to me." She looked at him, wrinkled her nose. "Pretty silly, huh?"

"Totally irrational." He paused. "I don't love Angie."

"You should; she's a nice girl. I hate her."

"Do you really?"

"I wanted to poison her drink last night."

"Why didn't you?"

"I didn't think she would be dumb enough to swallow a glass spiked with hemlock."

"You weren't dumb. It wasn't your fault."

"Whose was it then?"

There was an edge to her question. "It was an accident."

"Lena doesn't think so."

"What do you think?"

"How could—" she began, stopping herself, shrugging. "I think beer tastes awful. But here I go again, changing the subject. I told you I would listen. What did you want to tell me?"

She asked casually, but not without hope. He wanted to give her the world. Why couldn't he give her his own self?

"I stayed away because I was afraid. What happened to you scares me. I guess I worry that it could happen to me. That's irrational, too, but that's the way I feel. But seeing you again, I'm not so scared now."

She waited. He was torturing her. "And?" she asked.

"And I was wondering if we could start talking on the phone again?"

"Are you going to call collect?"

"Of course."

"What will we talk about?"

He leaned over, kissing her lips lightly. "Right now, everything isn't clear to me. But if we talk, maybe things will get clearer. Is that enough, for now?"

She smiled, clasping his neck with her free right arm, pulling him within inches. "We can plot a way to kill Angie."

"Should it be slow and painful?"

Robin nodded. "In payment for her sins."

Park chuckled, yet such talk made him uneasy. Robin was only joking, but shehad suffered grievously.

He stood and walked to the south window. A flock of blackbirds was circling the house. He pinpointed the source of his disquiet. "What were you talking to that bird about?"

"I didn't know you were listening."

"Only for a moment. He seemed to like you."

"She. Her name is Rita."

"Lovely Rita."

"I was telling her about my mother." She saw his confusion. "Myreal mother. I think about her a lot, nowadays. Must be the little girl in me. I'm sick and I want my mommy." She took a deep breath and scratched her short hair, her melancholy returning. "I wish I could find her. She gave me my body to begin with, I guess I feel she could somehow help me with getting a part fixed." She wiped at her eyes.

"What am I saying? For all I know, she's dead."

An idea, bright with unlooked-for hope, blazed in his mind. "Robin, is it possible that… ?"

He didn't finish. An explosion, powerful enough to shatter every window in the room, drowned out his voice.

Shani picked up the phone. There was no dial tone. This was the third phone she had tried, all dead. She would have to tell Lena, or Robin.

But restarting her search for the dialysis room, she was troubled. They were isolated in a foreign country.

No one else from their class, not one single one of them, had arrived. And now the phones were out.

Was she being paranoid, or was there a pattern to all this?