Then she got a break. Lyle’s capacity for human emotion had, somehow, been tapped by her crying. He stood at her bedside and touched her arm, gently, and said, “Don’t cry.”
She nodded. Rubbed the tears and snot away from her face with her uncuffed hand.
He raised a finger. “Kleenex,” he said, and went into the bathroom and got her some.
“Thank you,” she said, using the tissues.
He smiled at her, a tight upturned line in his face, and sat back on his bed and reached for his Walkman ’phones.
“No, Lyle,” she said, “please. I’d like to talk.”
He withdrew his hand from the Walkman and looked at her, blankly, innocently.
“I like you, Lyle.”
“I like you, too.” But there was no humanity in it. Nice day. Looks like rain. Have a happy.
“Lyle, you’re too nice a guy to do a thing like this.”
“Pa told me to.”
“I understand that. I understand your loyalty to your father. That’s good, Lyle. That’s admirable.”
“Thanks.”
“But sometimes, Lyle, you have to question.”
“Question what?”
She shrugged, shook her head, searched for the words that could penetrate his fog. “Authority. The things older people say. Your father.”
“I don’t question Pa. He’s family.”
“Lyle, does he like David Bowie?”
“No.”
“Does he like Billy Idol?”
“No. He hates him.”
“Does he like any of your music?”
“No. He really hates it when I listen to funk. He says it’s nigger shit.”
“Is it, Lyle? Is it nigger shit?”
“No. It’s music.”
“It’s good music, isn’t it?”
He nodded. “I think so.”
“So your father’s wrong, isn’t he?”
“About music?”
“About music.”
“I guess.”
“So he could be wrong about other things.”
Logic Lessons with Lyle; a new PBS series.
“I guess,” he said.
“Well, it’s wrong to kidnap somebody. It’s wrong to keep them against their will.”
“I don’t see what that has to do with music.”
Score one for the imbecile.
“Lyle, it shows your father’s fallible.”
“Huh?”
“Not perfect. That he can be wrong.”
“He told me to keep you here. We’re not hurting you. We’ll probably let you go.”
Probably. Oh Jesus Christ; her life was hanging by probably.
“Lyle...” And she didn’t know what to say. She was lost. She was lost if she thought she could talk her way out.
That afternoon, Monday afternoon, she had tried sex. She decided she’d fuck this moron, if she had to, to get out of here; or at least start to fuck him: she might be able to knock him out with his Walkman, if she got ahold of it and smacked him hard enough (the phone was out of her reach, no matter what she tried). Also, he carried a .38 with a wood stock, stuck down in his belt, which would neuter him if it went off, which seemed a good idea to her. He was thick enough, maybe, to take it out and put it on the nightstand, while they made it. If she could interest him in that.
“I’m lonely,” she said.
He was just starting to watch Gilligan’s Island; it was half past four. That was one of the shows where he listened to the original soundtrack, as opposed to substituting his own Walkman rock ’n’ roll version.
“I don’t understand,” he said.
“I’m lonely.”
“I’m keeping you company.”
“You’re a good-looking boy, Lyle. Why don’t you come sit by me.”
He did.
“Wouldn’t you like to kiss me, Lyle?” Gag me with a spoon.
“Sure,” he said. “You’re real pretty.”
“Then why don’t you?”
“Pa said don’t fool with you.”
“Do you always listen to your pa?”
“Yes,” he said.
She grabbed the stock of the .38 in his belt, wedging her hand between his belly and the gun, trying to find the trigger, trying to get her finger on the trigger to shoot his fucking nuts off, and he smacked her.
He stood there; he was quavering a little. “That wasn’t nice,” he said.
“Fuck you,” she said, face stinging.
“You can’t be trusted,” he said, shaking his head, turning to his bed and flopping onto it and watching Gilligan’s Island.
She was trembling. With rage. With fear. With disgust at herself, for trying to seduce this retard; with astonishment that he had spurned her so readily. She had gotten everything she ever had with her looks, with her sexual attractiveness, and her cleverness in knowing how to use same, how to mate her intelligence with her good looks. It had landed her Nolan, and a sweet life. It had inadvertently landed her here, as well — in the clutches of a cluck against whom all her feminine wiles, her brain, her body, her manipulative powers, were useless. She was impotent.
He let her bathe, once a day. He let her wash out her clothes, her underwear, and the father had provided some Jordache jeans and a frilly blouse (was there a girl in this god-awful family?) for her to wear while her clothes dried. So at least she didn’t have to feel scuzzy. At least she could be clean, relatively, at least her hair wouldn’t be a greasy mess; it was a clean mess, but that was better than greasy. It helped her keep her spirits up, just enough to be thinking of ways out of this.
She went to the bathroom as often as she could get away with it. It was necessary, because she went through the countless cans of Diet Coke Lyle thoughtfully fetched for her upon command. And she was working on a project: the window.
The bathroom window, which looked out upon snowy ground and evergreens mingling with gray skeletal trees, was painted shut. She was working it loose. Paint chips fell, which she dutifully gathered and flushed down the toilet. She didn’t work on it long or hard at any given time, except during her bath, while the water ran, covering the noise of her upward thrusts at the stuck window.
Wednesday morning, as her bath was drawing itself, she broke it loose. She slid it open, carefully, but the wood against wood made an awful screech.
And Lyle was right there, on the other side of the unlocked door: “Are you okay in there?”
Cold air was rushing in on her; goose pimples took control.
“I’m fine,” she said, trying to keep her voice light, squeezing the words past her heart, which was in her throat, in her fucking throat.
He was saying, “What was that noise?”
“The water pipes, I guess. Cold today.”
“Well. Hurry up in there.”
She waited a few beats; the water was still running, so she couldn’t hear whether his footsteps made their way across the room, back to the bed and TV. Maybe he was still on the other side of that door, 38 in his belt. Maybe he was watching Jeopardy! while Billy Idol sang. Who the fuck knew.
She put the stool down, and stood on it, and crawled over and out of the window and dropped to the snow, on her knees and hands, in the borrowed jeans and frilly blouse, and she began to run, at first toward the trees — then looking around, she saw down the slope, the top of a building; she curved and ran toward there, her feet crunching in snow-covered leaves, and it was a motel, a small one, just a handful of rooms, and down the hill, goddamn! Highway. Beyond that, the river, the Mississippi.
She knew where she was, vaguely; this was the Illinois side. Probably near Andalusia. She tumbled, ankle giving. Damn! Fuck!