She could see herself, clapping her hands together sharply to get their attention. All right, class! Mrs. Locksley has to protect herself from a psychopathic killer. Everyone bring their favorite materials to the middle, and let’s build a wall so she will be safe!
Ludicrous. This she knew. But she did not know what else to do.
She took a long look down at her right hand gripping the pistol. Maybe I should break my promise to my dead husband, she thought, and turn the gun on myself just before the Big Bad Wolf arrives at the door.
Sarah laughed bitterly. A sudden burst, as if from an unexpected moment of humor. Now, that would be a hilarious sight to see, when the Big Bad Wolf sneaks inside to kill me and discovers that I’ve beaten him to the punch. What the hell could he do? A killer without a target. Joke’s on him.
Except I couldn’t see it because I would already be dead.
Words to a song penetrated her memory: “‘No reason to get excited,’ the thief he kindly spoke. ‘There are many here among us who feel that life is but a joke.’”
She could hear the guitar riff as if it were being played in the distance. She could hear the gravelly voice. It made sense to her. No reason to get excited.
She sighed deeply, but that release nearly turned to scream when she heard a sudden sound at the front door. She first lurched away, as if she could hide, then she stumbled forward, gun outstretched, ready to shoot. She thought she was shouting aloud incomprehensibly, but then realized that all those noises existed only in her head.
There is nothing worse, Karen Jayson thought, than the racket caused by silence.
This held true, she insisted to herself, whether she was on stage, in her office surrounded by work, or alone in her home.
She was driving home after the day’s work. She had quickly adopted a habit that cost her time: After pulling off the main highway onto the quieter rural roads leading to her isolated house, if she spotted someone behind her in the rearview mirror, she would pull to the side and patiently wait for the car or truck or whatever to sweep past her before resuming her drive. No one was going to tail her. This constant stop, go, find another pullover, stop, wait, then resume made the trip tediously slow, but gave her a sense of satisfaction. She was not in any rush to return home. It no longer seemed safe.
The trouble was, at the same time that she felt unsettled about returning, she kept insisting to herself that there was no reason to feel that way.
She approached the turnoff for her gravel driveway. She could just make out the outlines of her house, partially obscured by the foliage even with the leaves all down for winter. Dark pines and deep brown oak trees, lined up like sentinels, were barriers to her sight. She took a quick glance behind her, just to make sure no one was there, and pulled into the driveway. Just as she always did, she stopped at the mailbox.
But now she hesitated. Crazy thinking, she told herself. Get the mail.
She did not want to get out of the car. She did not want to open the mail container. It was almost like she expected a bomb to explode if she did.
There was no reason for her to believe that the Big Bad Wolf would use the mail to contact her a second time. And no reason to believe he wouldn’t.
She tried to impose rationality on her heart. Medical school discipline, she recalled, summoning up memories of long shifts and soul-deadening exhaustion that she had managed to overcome. Get out. Get the mail. Screw him. You can’t let some anonymous joker disrupt your life.
Then she wondered whether this made sense. Maybe what made sense was to let him disrupt her life.
Karen remained frozen behind the wheel. She watched shadows slice through the trees like sword strokes of darkness.
She felt trapped between the ordinary-the mundane task of getting the daily collection of bills, catalogues, and flyers-and the unreasonable. Maybe a second letter.
Karen took her car out of gear and waited. She insisted to herself that she was being silly. If someone were to see her hesitate before doing something as routine as collecting the mail she would be embarrassed.
This did not reassure her.
She very much wanted to talk to someone right at that moment. She suddenly hated being alone, when for so many years that was all she wanted to be.
With a final glance up and down the road, she got out of her car, mumbling to herself that she was being paranoid and stupid and there was nothing to be afraid of. But still, she cautiously opened the box as if she were afraid there was a poisonous snake coiled inside.
The first thing she saw was the white envelope resting on top of a bright J.Crew catalogue.
She pulled her hand back sharply, as if it was indeed a snake. Fangs bared and ready to strike.
“Jordan, I am so very concerned,” the dean said with appropriate sonorous, serious tones. “Every one of your teachers is surprised by the precipitous drop-off in the quality of your work. We all understand the pressure that your home situation creates. But you need to recognize how important this year is for your future. College awaits, and we fear you will cripple your chances at the better universities unless you pull your academic record together rapidly.”
The dean, Jordan believed, could not possibly sound more pompous. But then, a daily dose of pomposity was the natural state of existence for all deans at all prep schools, so he couldn’t really be criticized for acting like he was supposed to.
If a mad dog bites you, is that dog being unreasonable? If a squirrel runs away when you come too close, is it being foolish? If a murderer wants to kill you, is that really a surprise?
Jordan imagined that she was becoming a philosopher. She only half-listened as the dean continued to mix encouragement with criticism, thinking somehow that just the right mix of pep talk and sympathy, colored with dire threats, would combine to make her shape up.
“We need to help you get back on track,” he said, as if this was an important, earth-shattering point he was making.
Back on track was the sort of phrase she’d heard a lot in the past months and which didn’t really mean anything to her anymore. It referred to the old Jordan, the one who was, if not popular, at least accepted, who got good grades, and who was looking forward to her next year. New Jordan wasn’t even sure she was going to live much longer.
She looked around the office. There were books in an oaken case and a large brown desk that matched. There were some framed diplomas on the wall adjacent to framed children’s drawings that splashed color into the room. There were also framed pictures of the smiling dean and his happy family on a rafting trip, another in which they were all arm-in-arm and posed in front of the Grand Canyon, and finally a montage of them all at the peak of some conquered mountain. An active, energetic, unified family. Not at all like hers. Hers was fracturing.
Something he said distracted her. “What can I do to help you, Jordan?” the dean asked.
Jordan realized that she was hunched over slightly in her seat, arms tight to her stomach as if she was in pain. She slowly rearranged herself so she wouldn’t appear so crippled. “I’ll work harder,” she said.
The dean hesitated. “I don’t know that it’s about hard work, Jordan. It’s about trying to regain your focus.”