“Well, I just want you to know that that wasn’t the real me.”
“That’s a relief.”
His face blotched as he didn’t quite know how to take her comment. Then he made a flat smile of resignation. “I guess I had too much to drink.”
“I guess.”
“In any case, I’d like to make it up to you—you know, start afresh. I’ve got tickets to the auto show at the Exhibition Center.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea right now. Besides, I’m swamped with work.”
Jordan’s facial muscles tightened, and his left eye twitched slightly. And for a moment she expected him to push his way inside. But instead he nodded. “Okay, fine. I said what I was going to say.”
René watched him walk down the driveway to his car. As Jordan opened the door to get in, René noticed somebody in the passenger seat. A man. She didn’t recognize him at first, but she did register a large fleshy head and sunglasses.
Jordan lowered himself into the driver’s seat and started the car. But before he pulled away, he cast a final glance at René as he rolled by her mailbox. In the next moment the car roared away.
And like the afterimage of an old television set, it came to her that in the passenger seat was Gavin Moy.
69
MOTHER’S DAY FELL ON THE FIRST Sunday in May. And because it was a glorious day, Yesterdays was bustling with celebrants.
It was Jack’s second week of working the reception desk as host, and he was enjoying it. He felt engaged and useful. Several of the patrons were his old neighbors, a few former students, and town acquaintances who knew Jack’s story and who were delighted to see him back and on the mend. Between customers, he grabbed a few moments’ rest on a barstool behind the desk. During a lull that evening, Vince came over to Jack with a soft drink to see how he was doing.
Jack nodded that he was fine. “By the way, anyone you know own a Ford Explorer?”
“What color?”
“Black.”
“Yeah, about thirty guys. Why?”
Maybe it was a grand coincidence, but it was now the fourth or fifth time he had noticed the car—the last on his return from the port at New Bedford. “Not important.”
The evening passed well for Jack until, relieved by one of the waiters, he took a break and stepped into the kitchen for a snack. He stopped by the stove—an eight-burner industrial monster with all gas jets blazing—to watch the chef and three assistants moving from one burner to another, stirring and shaking with choreographic precision. On a butcher-block island, sous-chef Rico was carving a flank of beef, making cuts around the bones, trimming off the fat, and exposing the bright red muscle. Jack watched in amazement at the flourish of Rico’s hands, the blade slicing with surgical deftness, leaving neat red slabs, the white bone glistening in the light. Beside him his assistant Oliver lay the cuts flat and began to hammer them with a heavy cast-metal tenderizing mallet.
From the other side of the kitchen Vince came over with a dish of homemade mango sorbet. “Hey, Jacko, I need a sampler.”
Suddenly something happened.
“Jack?”
Jack did not answer. He was stunned in place—his eyes huge and fixed on Oliver hammering the red meat.
“Hey, man?”
But Jack was mesmerized by Oliver. Then Jack’s mouth started twitching as a low groan pumped up from his lungs.
Vince swooped over to him. “Jack, it’s okay.”
Jack’s body hunched over, his knees collapsing, his face a rictus of horror.
“What the hell’s happening to him?” Rico asked.
“Some kind of seizure,” Vince said. The others in the kitchen clustered around them, and somebody handed Vince a cold cloth. “Jack, snap out of it. Everything’s okay, okay.” He dabbed his face.
Rico found a chair and they lowered Jack onto it. He was still making those small weird grunts.
“What’s that, Jack? What are you saying?”
Jack had folded into the chair with Vince holding him in place, but all the while Jack’s eyes were fixed on the butcher block and the red wet meat and the bright metal hammer.
“Jack! Snap out of it.” And Vince slapped him on the face. That worked, because Jack let out a sigh, his mouth went slack, and his eyes closed. “Jack, come on, man. It’s okay.”
Jack opened his eyes and looked at Vince, then at the circle of people gaping at him. “What?”
“It’s okay. You had a little spell is all.” He handed him a glass of water. Jack’s face was tight and drained of color, his lips gray, his eyes all pupils. His face was slick and cold. “Somebody call an ambulance,” Vince said.
“No, no,” Jack said. “I’m … okay. Outside. Just need some air.”
They helped him to his feet and moved away as Vince took him through the back door. Rico followed with a chair and bottle of water.
The night was warm and clear, the stars hard white points against the black sky. Cicadas chittered in the trees. “Scared the hell out of us, pal.”
“Sorry.”
“Sorry, shit! I want you to call that doctor of yours tomorrow and tell her your damn meds are screwing you up is all. She must have better stuff you can take.”
“I just saw her.”
“Well, see her again, because whatever they gave you isn’t working.”
Jack didn’t say anything but stared off into the sky.
“Are you hearing me?”
“I hear you.”
“Well, I’m telling you, it was freaky, man. First I thought you’d had a stroke, then it was like … I don’t know … like you’d turned into a frightened child or something.”
Jack didn’t say anything.
“Whatever, promise me you’ll call and tell her what happened.”
Jack nodded.
“Promise me. I want to hear the words.”
“I’ll call her.”
What Jack did not tell Vince was that he was off the meds—off the Zyprexa because it was numbing his brain, killing the flashbacks.
And he wanted them back.
JACK STILL FELT SCOOPED OUT BY the time he got home.
He changed and got into bed, thinking about taking a triple hit of lorazepam to slam-dunk his head into oblivion. Thinking about packing up again and moving to a different town, a different state, maybe even Canada—just to get away from Carleton, the restaurant, Massachusetts, all the places with pastlife hooks into his psyche. Someplace where he could reincarnate.
Fat chance, because even if you could afford to move, you’d still be stuck in the padded cell behind your eyes. And there’s only one way out, me boy.
In the dark his hand fell on the little amber vial. He shook it. He could tell in the dark which pills they were from the sound of the rattles—at one end the tiny one-milligram lorazepams, little more than grains of sand to the Zyprexa bombs, and in between enough maracas to rhythm out a salsa band. He undid the cap and fingered out two tabs.
Ten would do it. Okay, maybe twenty, given the tolerance you’ve built up. Thirty tops. A couple of gulps of water and no more Freddy Kruegers.
He stared up at the ceiling. Just enough light leaked from the windows to cut the total black. If he popped the pills, he’d drain away in under five minutes, wake up four hours later. Then, if his legs began to fuss, pop another tab and a pain pill, send himself back to black until dawn—the pattern of the night.
“Thought you’d had a stroke or something.”
A stroke would have been a gift. The something’s the thing.
“A frightened child or something.”