She nibbled on a bread stick as she waited for her order, wondering how her mother was, reminding herself that she had to call her soon before she started to worry.
A metallic squeaking behind her made her look over her shoulder. A well-dressed but frail-looking man was walking into the cafe, slowly pulling a green oxygen tank on a dolly at his side. A thin transparent hose stretched from the tank's nozzle to the man's face where it wrapped around his head just beneath his razor-thin nose. Although he walked slowly, he took short labored breaths. He glanced at her, and she saw the dark gray circles under his shadowy eyes, the blue veins in his skull-thin temples and the gray patches of skin on his sunken cheeks. His blond hair was cropped short and his hairline receded halfway back on the top of his head. He looked at her and smiled, and the taut skin of his face looked ready to split and peel back over his skull; there were dark gaps between all of his upper teeth, which were small white beads.
Caryl jerked her head away so quickly she almost spilled her wine.
The man wound his way around the tables to the far corner of the short wrought-iron fence that surrounded the cafe; he seated himself so that he was facing her. Caryl diverted her gaze by reading the small dessert menu. As she sipped her wine, she tossed a casual glance toward the man's table. He was just sitting there without a menu or a glass of water or any food in front of him. But he was still watching her with a hint of a smile on his cadaverous face. Caryl returned her eyes to the dessert menu and studied it as if it were fascinating until her cobb salad and croissant arrived. As she ate, she tried to cheer herself with the thought of all the wonderful things she'd bought that day — the beautiful clothes and jewelry — and with thoughts of what she might buy for Hawk to surprise him when he came home, but she could not shake the feeling of being watched by that gaunt balding man at the corner table with the oxygen hose under his nose.
Finally, she heard the squeaking again. He's leaving, she thought with relief.
She took a bite of salad.
The squeaking stopped beside her. She could hear his ravaged lungs fighting for air. His voice was soft and tremulous.
"He wouldn't wear a condom, would he?"
Caryl gasped, and a few chunks of lettuce caught in her throat, making her choke. She grabbed her ice water and took a few swallows.
"Have you been tested yet?"
She coughed again and water shot from her nostrils. She dropped the glass, and it shattered her salad plate and knocked the wine over. She coughed and fought for air. A waiter approached her in an instant with another glass of water. She drank, caught her breath and looked up but —
The man with the oxygen tank was gone.
"Where did he go?" she gasped.
"Who?" the waiter asked.
"The man. With the tank. The oxygen tank."
The waiter looked confused. "Oxygen tank?"
"Yes. He was just standing here a few seconds ago talking to me!"
He shook his head and looked at her somewhat suspiciously. "Sorry, lady. I didn't see nobody."
After the waiter had calmed her, Caryl left and went straight home instead of buying Hawk a gift. She decided to fix him dinner instead, but once in the kitchen, she realized her hands were too shaky to cook, so she had another glass of wine and sat in front of the television for a while and watched Oprah and Phil.
When Hawk got home that night, she was still upset; she'd spent the day trying to keep those two thin voices out of her head…
Have you —
He wouldn't use —
— been tested —
— a condom —
— yet?
— would he?
When Hawk came into the bedroom to find her trying to read a magazine, she smiled with relief and sat up to embrace him, but he wandered around the room distractedly, undressing, mumbling to himself. Then he said, "Gonna take a shower," and went to a dresser, opened his bottom drawer, removed something that jingled metallically and left the room.
Caryl thought that was odd. They had their own bathroom adjoining the bedroom; why would he leave the room to take a shower? And what had he taken from the bottom drawer of his dresser?
The wine had made her sleepy and she felt even worse than she'd felt before. She put the magazine aside, turned off the light, rolled over and went to sleep. She dreamed of walking corpses that whispered of tests and condoms…
When she woke the next morning, suddenly, drenched in sweat brought about by the visions in her sleep, Hawk was already gone. He'd left a note on his pillow that read, "See you tonight, babe. Think dirty thoughts and have your legs spread when I get home. We'll fuck till our gums recede."
The note depressed her so much she skipped breakfast. She wanted only to get out of the house. Instead of a limousine with a driver, she took one of Hawk's cars, a Corvette, and drove herself into town with no idea of where she was going. As she drove out the front gate, she saw a woman standing across the street near a patch of bushes. She was very thin, wore a sweater and had her arms folded tightly over her breasts as if she were cold. She stood as still as a mannequin, just staring at Hawk's house with deep-set shadowed eyes.
Caryl tried to fight back the shudder that passed through her and just drove. She found herself in the village of Westwood near UCLA and looked for a restaurant where she could have brunch. When she spotted one that looked good, she parked the car and walked back toward the building, strolling past a police officer who was writing a ticket for an illegally parked car. A woman walked toward her on the sidewalk. She was black and, although Caryl didn't think it was really possible, she looked rather pale. Her hair didn't look real; she was obviously wearing a wig. Just as they were about to pass, the woman stepped in front of Caryl and asked, "He's using you, isn't he?"
Caryl stopped and, suddenly angry, fed up with questions from strangers, she snapped, "Who are you? What do you — " She swallowed her words when she saw the woman's throat. It was bulging with hideous lumps, as if a number of small rocks had been slid beneath the skin. " — want from me?" Caryl finished in a breath.
The woman looked deeply into Caryl's eyes, frowning, and asked quietly, "What does he keep in the room upstairs?"
"What do you want?" Caryl shrieked. "Why are you asking me these things?"
"What do you suppose he keeps up there?" the woman whispered. Then she stepped around Caryl and walked on.
"No!" Caryl shouted. "You wait! You wait just a second, lady! Who are you? Why did you ask me that? What do you want?" She broke into a run and almost fell when —
— a police officer stepped in front of her, a ticket book in one hand, a pen in the other. "Excuse me, lady. Can I help you? Do you have a problem?" His voice was firm.
Caryl fought back tears, closed her eyes and whispered, "Thuh-that woman. That woman I was just talking to."
"What woman?" the officer asked, frowning.
Caryl pointed down the walk. "That wo —»
She was gone.
The officer shook his head, trying not to smirk, and said, "I'm sorry, ma'am. You look sane enough. But I'm afraid you were just, um, talking to yourself."
Caryl felt dizzy for a moment, scrubbed her face with a trembling hand, turned and walked away.
Two hours later, she was still wandering the sidewalks of Westwood, staring blindly into store windows, trembling in the warm sunlight as she rounded the same comer she'd rounded just a little while ago.