Caroline worried that Darryl was growing addicted to the stronger jolt, the darker thrill, of losing big. She had been trying to identify- the signs. Was she seeing another example tonight? She wasn’t sure. He’d deny it, of course. Could she tell before it was too late? The fragility of their life worried Caroline, but it seemed to excite something in Darryl.
“Lover?” he said. “Didn’t you hear me? I said I’m thinking of making some big changes.”
“When?”
“Well, as soon as I get clear of these problems.”
They looked at each other, and then away, toward the canal, where the Lay-Z-Giri gently chafed at its moorings in the evening breeze.
Courtney and Kyle returned to the patio just as the telephone rang again. Their father went into the television room and returned immediately, shaking his head at their mother.
“So, Daddy,” Kyle said. “What’s the big surprise?”
His remark startled his parents. They stared at him.
“Surprise?” Caroline said, reaching up to finger the button at her throat.
“Daddy,” Courtney said, “you promised us a surprise.”
“Oh, that surprise.” Their father put his face in his hands and choked with laughter, and his neck Hushed bright pink. When he didn’t stop laughing, the children grew uneasy. They looked to their mother for guidance and saw her staring at the top of their father’s balding head, as if there were something wrong with its color or shape. The phone rang and both parents moved, but their father was faster. His absence left everybody on the patio wordless and uneasy.
He was back in a moment. As he came out onto the patio, Darryl breathed out sharply, clapped his hands, and shouted, “Ghost!” That got everybody’s attention. He said, “We’re playing Ghost tonight. That’s the surprise.” He waited for the confusion to subside. They’d played it once before: after their dinner, Mommy and Daddy had turned out all the lights and come searching for Courtney and Kyle.
Caroline said, “Not tonight.”
Courtney said, “I hate that game.”
Kyle said, “What’s the prize?”
“Something really nice,” Darryl said. “Now listen up.” They’d play for only an hour. Kyle giggled and said, “I’ll hide at Brandon’s house.” No, Darryl told him, nobody could leave the house. Whoever remained free, or was the last to get caught, won the game.
“What’s the prize?” Kyle said.
“It’s a su-prize,” Darryl said. The children examined this statement and rejected it as adult nonsense. Kyle gasped, “We’re staying up late,” and his mother said, “Not too late. School tomorrow. Tonight’s special.” Why was it special? the children wanted to know, and their mother directed them to their father for their answer. He winked and said that it was a secret. “Why is everything a surprise or a secret?” Courtney said.
“Is this necessary?” Caroline said. She sensed her evening sliding toward a dark corner. But she knew that marijuana stoked her paranoid tendencies, and she was confused about what she really felt, so she went out of her way to enunciate her doubts in reasonable tones. “Do we really need this tonight, honey?” They were eating on the patio. The children had been banished to the television room. Caroline served the food that Mrs. Hernandez had prepared — pork chops and rice, a salad of crispy greens, and a bottle of Chilean cabernet — and then she brought out the portable television so she could keep an eye on a rerun of Star Trek while she ate.
Darryl had drunk himself into a mood where he found life piquant. “C’mon,” he said. “I need a little lighthearted fun. It’s just a game.” He laughed. “It reminds me of what my daddy said to me at his own daddy’s funeraclass="underline" ‘These are the jokes, so start laughing.’ ”
“Stop.” Caroline put down her fork.
The image of Mr. Spock came on the television screen and said, “Irritation. Ah, yes. One of your earth emotions.”
“Darryl, this just doesn’t sound right.”
He shrugged. “Isn’t it like life? You’re in your house and it feels safe, but suddenly it’s dark as Hades, and out there are people who are coming to get you.”
“I forbid you to talk like that.” Caroline blinked at the pale light coming down over the canal and felt a heavy downward drop in her emotions. “Let’s just take the kids to Dairy Queen, okay?”
They wrangled quietly. “I was joking,” Darryl said. “The kids were bugging me. We’ll play for an hour.”
Caroline, unhappy and distrustful, looked over at the portable television. Mr. Spock, wearing earphones, said, “This must be garbled. The tapes are badly burned. I get the captain giving the order to destroy his own ship.”
Caroline told Darryl that she’d think about it. She busied herself with her dinner, even though she wasn’t hungry now, and pretended to concentrate on Star Trek. Captain Kirk was ordering a twenty-four-hour watch on the sick bay.
And then she thought, Maybe I’m not being fair to him. Maybe I’m not being helpful. He’s so edgy tonight. He needs to play more than the kids do. She wavered and then gave in. “Okay. Okay. But only for an hour.” He brightened immediately. She looked away, feeling slightly creepy.
“Let’s do it right this time,” Darryl said. They discussed ways to turn themselves into ghosts. “We need sheets,” Darryl said. “You’re not cutting my good sheets,” she said. “I’m talking about old sheets.” Darryl said. Caroline said that all their sheets were new. She said, “Everything in this house is new.”
“But what’s a ghost without a sheet?” Darryl said.
From the television, Mr. Spock shouted, “We’re entering a force field of some kind! Sensor beam on!”
“Hold it,” Caroline shouted. “We’re almost ready. But not yet, so you can’t come in.” Courtney and Kyle wouldn’t stop tapping on the locked bedroom door, so their mother, whose hair had suddenly turned white and who was wearing the palest makeup she could find, burst out of the bathroom in her bra and panties, trotted across the bedroom, and shouted through the door for them to knock it off. The telephone rang and she picked up the receiver and said, “Hello?” She waited, and when nobody spoke she muttered, “Oh, fuck you,” and dropped the receiver into the cradle and walked to her dressing table and looked at the image of herself with white hair. She shook her head, closed her eyes, and sighed. She felt exhausted.
She reached into a drawer and retrieved a small vial. She dipped her finger, applied it to each nostril and inhaled, rubbed the finger around her gums, and then replaced the vial and went back into the bathroom, where Darryl waited nude in the shower stall singing an old Pink Floyd number about money, and she finished powdering his hair with flour.
She wiped the flour off his shoulder with a towel, kissed him on the lips, tweaked his nipples, and fondled his penis. She stepped back, her eyes hard and sparkling, and considered her handiwork. From the shower stall, Darryl, smiling, red-faced, and drunk, blew kisses at her. “Hmmmnnn,” she said. “Hmmmnnn what, baby?” he said. She said, “I just wanted to see how you’d look as an old white-haired cracker with a hard-on.”
The children rushed through the doorway and halted just inside the bedroom and almost fell over with fright. In front of them, holding hands side by side on the bed, sat two laughing ghosts with pale, shiny faces, chalky while heads, and bloodshot eyes. They wore flowing white sheets. The ghosts raised their hands in the air, flopped them around and wailed, “Whoooooooo!” and Kyle turned and ran into the door frame.