Now, lying here in the house on the shore of Kashwakamak Lake, she wondered what had happened to the tearless, eerily calm blonde girl who had told them about her brother Barry and Barry’s friends-young men who had clearly felt a woman was just a life-support system for a cunt and that branding was a perfectly just punishment for a young woman who felt more or less okay about fucking her brother but not her brother’s goodbuddies. More to the point, Jessie wondered what she had said to Ruth as they sat with their backs against the locked kitchen door and their arms around each other. The only thing she could remember for sure was something like “He never burned me, he never burned me, he never hurt me at all.” But there must have been more to it than that, because the questions Ruth had refused to stop asking had all pointed clearly in just one direction: toward Dark Score Lake and the day the sun had gone out.
She had finally left Ruth rather than tell… just as she had left Nora rather than tell. She had run just as fast as her legs could carry her-Jessie Mahout Burlingame, also known as The Amazing Gingerbread Girl, the last wonder of a dubious age, survivor of the day the sun had gone out, now handcuffed to the bed and able to run no more.
“Help me,” she said to the empty bedroom. Now that she had remembered the blonde girl with the eerily calm face and voice and the stipple of old circular scars on her otherwise lovely breasts, Jessie could not get her out of her mind, nor the knowledge that it hadn’t been calmness, not at all, but some fundamental disconnection from the terrible thing that had happened to her. Somehow the blonde girl’s face became her face, and when Jessie spoke, she did so in the shaking, humbled voice of an atheist who has been stripped of everything but one final longshot prayer. “Please help me.”
It wasn’t God who answered but the part of her which apparently could speak only while masquerading as Ruth Neary. The voice now sounded gentle but not very hopeful. I’ll try, but you have to help me. I know you” re willing to do painful things, but youmay have to think painful thoughts, too. Are you ready for that?
“This isn’t about thinking,” Jessie said shakily, and thought: Sothat’s what Goodwife Burlingame sounds like out loud. “It’s about… well… escaping.”
And you may have to muzzle her, Ruth said. She’s a valid part ofyou, Jessie-of us-and not really a bad person, but she’s been left torun the whole show for far too long, and in a situation like this, herwaydealing with the world is not much good. Do you want to arguethe point?
Jessie didn’t want to argue that point or any other. She was too tired. The light falling through the west window was growing steadily hotter and redder as sunset approached. The wind gusted, sending leaves rattling along the lakeside deck, which was empty now; all the deck furniture had been stacked in the living room. The pines soughed; the back door banged; the dog paused, then resumed its noisome smacking and ripping and chewing.
“I’m so thirsty,” she said mournfully.
Okay, then-that’s where we ought to start.
She turned her head the other way until she felt the last warmth of the sun on the left side of her neck and the damp hair stuck to her cheek, and then she opened her eyes again. She found herself staring directly at Gerald’s glass of water, and her throat immediately sent out a parched, imperative cry.
Let’s begin this phase of operations by forgetting about the dog, Ruth said. The dog is just doing what it has to do to get along, and you’ve got to do the same.
“I don’t know if I can forget it,” Jessie said.
I think you can, toots-I really do. If you could sweep what happenedon the day the sun went out under the rug, I guess you can sweep anything under the rug.
For a moment she almost had it all, and understood she could have it all, if she really wanted to. The secret of that day had never been completely sunk in her subconscious, as such secrets were in the TV soap-operas and the movie melodramas; it had been buried in a shallow grave, at best. There had been some selective amnesia, but of a completely voluntary sort. If she wanted to remember what had happened on the day the sun had gone out, she thought she probably could.
As if this idea had been an invitation, her mind’s eye suddenly saw a vision of heartbreaking clarity: a pane of glass held in a pair of barbecue tongs. A hand wearing an oven-mitt was turning it this way and that in the smoke of a small sod fire.
Jessie stiffened on the bed and willed the image away.
Let’s get one thing straight, she thought. She supposed it was the Ruth-voice she was speaking to, but wasn’t completely sure; she wasn’t really sure of anything anymore. Idon’t want to remember.Got it? The events of that day have nothing to do with the events of thisone, They’re apples and oranges. it’s easy enough to understand theconnections-two lakes, two summer houses, two cases of
(secrets silence hurt harm)
sexual hanky-panky-but remembering what happened in i963 can’tdo a thing for me now except add to my general misery, So let’s just dropthat whole subject, okay? Let’s forget Dark Score Lake.
“What do you say, Ruth?” she asked in a low voice, and her gaze shifted to the batik butterfly across the room. For just a moment there was another image-a little girl, somebody’s sweet little Punkin, smelling the sweet aroma of aftershave and looking up into the sky through a piece of smoked glass-and then it was mercifully gone.
She looked at the butterfly for a few moments longer, wanting to make sure those old memories were going to stay gone, and then she looked back at Gerald’s glass of water. Incredibly, there were still a few slivers of ice floating on top, although the darkening room continued to hold the heat of the afternoon sun and would for awhile longer.
Jessie let her gaze drift down the glass, let it embrace those chilly bubbles of condensation standing on it. She couldn’t actually see the coaster on which the glass stood-the shelf cut it off-but she didn’t have to see it to visualize the dark, spreading ring of moisture forming on it as those cool beads of condensation continued to trickle down the sides of the glass and pool around it at the bottom.
Jessie’s tongue slipped out and swiped across her upper lip, not imparting much moisture.
I want to drink! the scared, demanding voice of the child-of somebody’s sweet little Punkin-yelled. I want it and I want itright…NOW!
But she couldn’t reach the glass. It was a clear-cut case of so near and yet so far.
Ruth: Don’t give up so easy-if you could hit the goddam dog withan ashtray, tootsie, maybe you can get the glass. Maybe you can.
Jessie raised her right hand again, straining as hard as her throbbing shoulder would allow, and still came up at least two and a half inches short. She swallowed, grimacing at the sandpapery jerk and clench of her throat.