“Start by turning around. I'll tell you exactly what to do. Keep holding on with your right hand and with your left hand, reach out and grab the bar on your left.”
“I don't think…”
“Good. Don't think. Just do as I say. It's not far. You can do it.”
I groped with my left arm, trying not to look down and afraid to move my head to look for the bar. And at last, my fingers touched the cold metal bar and closed around it.
“Now, reach out with your right leg till you feel it lying on the next bar.”
I did as he directed. The incongruous thought popped into my mind that I must look like someone playing Twister.
Calmly, he directed my movements, until I had completely turned my body around.
I heard footsteps, and the masks appeared on the side of the staircase where the bannister had broken away.
“Now, all you have to do is hold tight and try to wiggle your body slowly toward me,” the man said. “Straddle the bar. That's good. Move one hand, hold tight with it, then move the other.”
I said a quick prayer and tried to do what he had told me, but before I could work up the courage to loosen one hand's grip, the weight of my heavy skirt pulled me off balance. I was suspended beneath the bar then, hanging on with both hands and feet. Someone screamed. It might have been me.
“You're okay,” the man called. “Try sliding one hand, just an inch, then the other. Good! Do it again. One inch at a time.”
The arm I'd broken last month throbbed with pain. “Hurts… don't think I can…” I felt my fingers slip about a millimeter.
Then an angel's voice called out softly, “Tori. Think of your special place. Go there now, Tori. Go to your special place, and you'll be safe.”
I was on a beach, overlooking the turquoise and lavender waters of the China Sea.
“Close your eyes and turn your face to the sun, Tori. It will give you strength.”
I looked up, seeing nothing, feeling the warmth seep through my skin, my shoulders, my hands, my fingers.
“Now slide. One hand. Slide. The other. You are strong, Tori. Slide. Slide. You are getting close to your special place. Slide. Slide. Good. Slide. Slide. Good.”
Encouraged by the voice, I concentrated on my movements. Slide one hand, then the other. Slide one hand, then the other. Over and over, an inch at a time, until someone firmly grasped my left wrist.
“I've got you,” the man said, “but don't let go of the bar.”
“Don't worry,” I gasped. I'd returned to reality from my special place, and I knew I could still fall, that the danger was still there, but the touch of the stranger's hand was reassuring. Two strong hands firmly gripped my other wrist.
“We've got you,” the man said. “On the count of three, let go and we'll pull you up.”
Before I could protest, I heard him count, “One, two, three… and up.”
I was roughly jerked upward, and my chest hit the floor, causing pain to bounce through to my spine. I felt hands reaching for me, tugging on my arms, my waist, my skirt, my legs, and then they dragged me to safety.
Then my ordeal was over, and I lay facedown on the carpet, in a jumbled, quaking heap.
Someone stroked my back, and I whimpered.
“You're safe now,” said the voice of the man who had rescued me.
“Tori, it's me, Moonbeam. Can you sit up?”
Now I knew whose soft voice had sent me to the security of my special place. And still my fingers clutched at the carpet pile. “No. Can't. Don't want to.”
Strong hands helped me to a sitting position. I knew somehow that they were the same strong hands that had kept me from falling, and I clung to them as if I still depended on them for my life. “Thank you,” I murmured. “I can't say it enough. Thank you, thank you, thank…”
The man laughed, and I suddenly realized the circus clown who had saved me was Woody Woodruff, the man who, up till now, I'd thought was the most disgusting scumbag I'd ever met.
Moonbeam, in a pink ballerina costume, touched my face. “You're all right,” she said, and her hypnotic voice calmed me.
“How did this happen?” Helga Van Brackle, quite a sight in a low-cut Scarlett O'Hara gown, stood with arms akimbo glaring down at me.
“I was pushed.”
Murmurs of surprise and disbelief whirled across the landing.
“It's true. I heard someone call my name. I thought it was the girl on the floor below me, so I leaned over to see what she wanted. And that's when I was pushed.”
“Did you see who did it?”
I shook my head. “Not really. But I think I saw something fluttery and white, like a bird… or angel wings.”
Gasps of astonishment. Moans of sympathy. I looked up to see where they came from and felt as if I were surrounded by seagulls. More than half a dozen horrified Sisters of Charity, wearing huge, fluttering cornettes, stared first at me, then at each other. “But we were all in the basement,” one protested. “At least, I think we were.”
CHAPTER 17
DESPITE MY HORRIFYING EXPERIENCE, OR PERHAPS because of it, I slept hard and long. My waking dream was of flying over the ocean with a flock of gulls, no land in sight. My wings grew weary, and I tumbled head over heels into the black water, where I awoke with a start, covered with sweat. My arms throbbed with pain; no wonder my wings hadn't kept up with the other birds. Fred nuzzled my neck as if he'd shared my dream.
Maybe it had all been a dream. Falling dreams are common. So are dreams of flying. Flying made me think of wings, which reminded me of angel wings, and I sat up abruptly. It had not been a dream. Of that I was sure! The crumpled heap of blue and white clothing on the rug beside my bed brought it all back to me in vivid detail. Moonbeam and Woody driving me home. Ethe-lind making a big fuss over me. Moonbeam helping me out of my shredded habit and into a T-shirt. Ethelind bringing me a glass of sherry once Moonbeam had gotten me into bed. Woody wishing me happy dreams. Had he really said, “Don't let the bedbugs bite”? The sherry glass, untouched, sat on the bedside table.
In a few days’ time I'd been shot at, nearly burned to death in my sleep, and been pushed off a balcony. I was Calamity Jane. Hardluck Hannah. Woeful Wanda. Typhoid Tori-no that one didn't apply-at least people hadn't been dying around me, I was the one who was encountering one calamity after another. I knew I could go on forever wallowing in self-pity and browbeating myself with alliteration, or I could get up, get dressed, and go to work. I chose to get up.
The aroma of fresh coffee attracted me like a magnet. I shoved my feet into my sneakers and, without bothering to tie them, shuffled down the back stairs into the kitchen.
Every flat surface was covered with dishes, baskets, and boxes full of food.
“What's happened?” I asked Ethelind.
“The neighbors heard about your accidents. This is the way Lickin Creekers handle disasters, with loads of food.” She poured coffee into a mug and placed it on the table. “Here you go. Like the Brits, I prefer tea, but I know how you like your coffee.”
Without tobacco, I thought, but accepted the offering.
“There's a pretty nice ham from the Hubers, across the lake, and a frozen lasagna from the Younkers. Margaret Umpleby sent a cake. Let's see what else is here. Timmons, pie. Starlipper, spaghetti with beans. Rosenberry, homemade elderberry jam-now, wasn't that nice. It's so hard to make, everything it touches turns slimy. Charlotte Macmillan brought sticky buns on her way to work.” She opened the box from Daywalt's Bakery and put a couple of the buns in the microwave oven. “Nice and fresh-it's today's date on the box. Oretta Clopper, scalloped oysters-I'd better put this in the refrigerator.”
“Here you go,” she said, placing a piping-hot gooey sticky bun in front of me. “Top off your coffee?”