“Lissie?”
“Hell-o, Dad.”
“Are you all right?”
“I’m o-kay, Dad.”
“Then... then why are you talking that way?”
“What, way, Dad?”
It was the voice he had heard people affecting whenever they told the joke about the idiot painting the horse’s legs. It was the voice of a moron.
“Lissie,” he said, “are you drunk?”
“No, I’m o-kay, Dad.”
The same moronic voice, deep and slow, the word “okay” broken in two, with what seemed an interminable pause between the halves.
“What... what took you so long to get to the phone?” he asked.
“Did, it, Dad?”
“Yes, it took very long.”
“Gee, Dad.”
“Lissie...”
“Gee.”
“You’d better put Rusty on.”
“O-kay, Dad.”
“Get Rusty, will you?”
“O-kay.”
He waited.
“What is it?” Joanna asked.
“Hello?” Rusty said.
“Rusty, what’s the matter there?”
“What do you mean, Mr. Croft?”
“What’s the matter with Lissie?”
“Well... I don’t know, Mr. Croft.”
“Where are your parents? Let me talk to one of your parents.”
“They both left for work already.”
“I’ll be right there,” Jamie said. “Tell Lissie I’m on the way over.”
He hung up without waiting for Rusty’s reply. Across the room, Joanna was watching him, alarmed. “What is it?” she asked again.
“I don’t know, honey. She sounded... strange. I want to run over there, I’ll be right back.”
“Drive carefully,” she said, and went to him, and kissed him on the cheek.
He did not drive at all carefully. He screeched the car around every familiar backroad curve, driving the mile and a half to the Klein house in less than three minutes, racing up the gravel driveway, yanking up the hand brake and turning off the ignition in almost the same swift motion, and then walking quickly to the front door and ringing the bell. Rusty answered the door. She was wearing a long granny nightgown and she was barefooted.
“Where’s Lissie?” he said at once.
“In the bedroom,” Rusty said.
“Where?”
“Upstairs.”
He had been in the Klein house before and was fairly familiar with the layout. He took the steps up to the second floor, walking past the Kleins’ treasured collection of clocks ticking on every wall, filling the corridor with a sound that seemed ominous in the otherwise silent house. One of the clocks chimed a single note. He looked at his watch. Nine-thirty. Another clock sounded. And then another. As he glanced through the open doorway to the master bedroom, the bed unmade, Marvin Klein’s pajamas in a heap on the floor beside it, the corridor reverberated with the sound of all the clocks ticking and chiming. The chiming stopped abruptly. Now there was only the ticking. He opened the door at the end of the hall.
Lissie was lying on the bed, on top of the covers, one hand over her eyes. She was wearing a long granny gown, similar to the one Rusty had on. A shaft of morning sunlight angled through the window like a laser beam.
“Lissie?” he said.
“Mm?”
“Lissie? It’s Dad.”
“Mm?”
“Are you all right?”
“Oh, yes, Dad.”
The same slow, deep voice. The moron’s voice.
He took her hand from where it lay covering her eyes. She allowed him to move it. She looked up at him. Her pale blue eyes were glazed. Her face was beaded with perspiration.
“Lissie, what’s the matter with you?” he said.
“I’m o-kay, Dad.”
“What’d you take?” he asked at once.
“Take, Dad?”
“Lissie, damn it, what did you take?”
“Nothing, Dad.”
“Get dressed,” he said. “Can you dress yourself? Rusty!” he shouted. “Damn it,” he said, “what’d you do to yourself? Rusty!” he shouted again.
He heard Rusty running up the corridor. She stopped in the doorframe, as though afraid of entering her own room.
“Help her get dressed,” he said. “Where’s a phone I can use?”
“In the kitchen,” Rusty said. “Or in my parents’ bedroom, if you...”
“Get her dressed,” Jamie said, and went out of the room. As he walked down the corridor, the clocks ticking all around him, he heard Rusty whisper behind him, “Liss? Come on, Liss, we’ve got to get you dressed,” and his daughter answering in her moronic voice, “O-kay, Rust.”
He found the wall phone in the kitchen, looked up the number for the Rutledge Inn, and dialed it at once. He asked for Room 412, and when Joanna came on the line, he said, “Honey, there’s something wrong here, I don’t know what it is, I think she’s taken something.”
“Taken?”
“Some kind of drug. I really don’t know, Joanna, I’m only guessing. I want to run her over to Harry’s.”
“Harry’s?”
“Our doctor. Harry Landau. I’ll call you later, honey. I’m worried about her, I want to get her over to Harry’s right away.”
“All right, darling.”
“Love you,” he said, and hung up. “Rusty?” he yelled. “How’s it going?”
“I need some help,” Rusty called back.
He went up the stairs and through the clock-lined corridor. His daughter was sitting on the edge of the bed, wearing only panties. Rusty was struggling to tug a pair of blue jeans over her knees. “Don’t you have a dress she can wear?” Jamie said. “Something she can just pull over her head?”
“Well, yeah, but I thought...”
“We’ll be here all day with those fucking jeans,” he said.
Rusty looked at him, and then went swiftly to her dresser. She found a tent dress in the middle drawer and carried it back to the bed, where Lissie sat motionless, looking down at her feet. “Liss,” she said, “let’s slip this over your head, okay?”
“O-kay, Rust,” Lissie said.
Rusty dropped the dress over Lissie’s head, and then pulled first one arm and then the other through the armholes. “You want to put on her shoes?” she asked Jamie.
“Where are they?” he asked. “What shoes?”
“The ones she had on at the wedding.”
“Heels?”
“Yes.”
“No, she’ll... haven’t you got something low she can put on? Sandals or...?”
“I’ve got some clogs that should fit her.”
“Yes, good.” Rusty went to the closet. As she rummaged around for the clogs, Jamie said, “What’d she take?”
“I don’t know,” Rusty said.
“But she took something, didn’t she?”
“I don’t know.”
“Was there anything there she could have taken?”
Rusty came back with the clogs. As she stooped to put them on Lissie’s feet, she said, “Well, some of us were smoking, but...”
“I’m not talking about grass, Rusty.”
“Well, there was some other stuff, too, I guess.”
“What kind of stuff?”
“I really don’t know, Mr. Croft. But I saw some pills going around.”
He went to his daughter.
“Liss,” he said, “let’s go now.”
“O-kay, Dad,” she said.
She rose unsteadily, wobbled, pushed out her arms for balance, and then clutched at his arm for support. He suddenly realized why it had taken her so long to get to the phone. Looping her left arm over his shoulder, putting his own right arm around her waist, he struggled down the corridor with her, their shoulders brushing against the ticking clocks, Rusty hurrying along behind them, straightening the clocks. As he went out the front door, all the clocks began chiming again, a sustained chiming this time, clock after clock going off and chiming the hour with deep rumbling bongs and high tinkly dings. It was 10:00 A.M. on the morning after Jamie’s wedding, and his daughter looked and sounded and moved like a fucking vegetable.