“Meaning everybody’s talking about it.” So his waitress hadn’t been stoned, just off-balance. Though of course she might have been stoned too. “Shit,” he said. “Fuck all of this, anyway.” Tourists at the next table turned at his words, and he glared viciously at them until they looked away, embarrassed.
“Fucking busybodies,” he said softly.
Anne didn’t say anything.
“I guess you’d better tell me.”
He propped his head on one hand and listened while she gave him a sketchy but reasonably accurate account of Gretchen’s behavior. She had paced back and forth on Main Street for awhile, talking to herself, obviously disoriented. Then she went to the Lemon Tree and confronted Linda. After Olive McIntyre got her back on the street again, she began accosting passersby and demanding that they help her find her son. Someone finally called one of the local cops, who couldn’t make up his mind whether to take her into custody or leave her alone. While he was still thinking about it, the woman at the candle shop took Gretchen inside, gave her a glass of water, and calmed her down.
“And then she snapped out of it,” Anne said. “She just got herself together and said that she had to get home and take care of Robin. She evidently was completely rational again.”
“They let her go home?”
“A couple of people walked her back to the place. They made sure that the kid was all right and that Gretchen had really settled down.”
“And they left her there?”
“Somebody’s staying with her until you get back. I don’t know who.”
“Whoever it is can stay there forever. I just want to get on a plane and get the hell away from all of this. I wish those clowns would stare at me again. It would be such a pleasure to hit somebody.”
“You okay, Peter?”
“Oh, sure,” he said. He got to his feet, put money on the table, pushed his unfinished Coke over to Anne. “Sure I’m a fucking tower of strength,” he said.
The woman who was keeping Gretchen company was stocky and fiftyish, with something of the look of a jail matron about her. At least they’d had the sense to post someone there who could handle her physically. Not that Gretchen looked hard to handle now. She was sitting on their bed, legs crossed, shoulders slumped, her arms folded over her breasts. She did not look up when Peter entered.
The other woman started to explain the situation, but Peter cut her off, saying he had heard all about it. He was being curt and knew it but didn’t much care. He just wanted the woman to go away.
“Well then. Mrs. Vann is fine now.”
“Is she.”
“She’s been resting, and—”
“And she’s fine. She’s getting ready to be the poster girl for the National Institute for Mental Health.”
“I guess I’ll be going, then.”
Then go, he wanted to scream. But he made himself mumble something vaguely thankful. She left and he closed the door after her.
“They tell you what happened, Petey?”
“Yeah.”
“I’m rational now. I didn’t need that old battle-ax standing guard over me, but the only way to get rid of her would have been to talk to her, and I couldn’t hack it. So I sat here while she put Robin to bed and then she sat over there and I sat here and I pretended I was alone. She talked, but I didn’t listen.”
She had her chin on her chest now. She had not met his eyes since he walked in. Her pose reminded him of photographs of Hindu mystics, and her bony gauntness was consistent with the image.
“I don’t know what happened. It’s all very vague in my mind. I’m completely rational now. I just came out of it all at once and I was standing in the candle shop drinking a glass of water. It was like waking up from a dream, but instead of being in bed I was in the candle shop.”
“Do you remember what happened?”
“The way you remember a dream. I threw a big with your girl. I remember that much.”
“She’s not my girl, Gretchen. But you go ahead and believe whatever you want.”
“No, I’ll believe whatever you tell me. It’s easier that way. Petey, I am a jigsaw puzzle all taken apart again. I’m a box of jumbled pieces but they won’t put the cover back on. I don’t know what happened.”
“Do you know why you flipped out that way?”
“The Devil made me do it.”
“I’m serious.”
“Oh, shit, so am I. I was not behind a fucking thing if that’s what you mean. I’ve been a wreck lately, and I haven’t taken so much as an aspirin in days. You know the Yoga trippers and their big shtick about how you can get high without drugs? They’re absolutely right. You can also freak out without drugs. I’m glad I’m dying because I can’t take much more of this.”
“Oh, come on, Gretchen.”
“‘Come on, Gretchen.’ I am too dying.”
“There’s nothing wrong with you.”
She looked up at him for the first time. “Right,” she said. “Nothing wrong with me. Picture of fucking health. I mean who are we kidding. Who are we kidding.” She plucked at the skin on her thighs. “Glowing pink complexion. Firm muscle tone. Here she is, ladies and gentlemen — Miss Dachau of 19—”
“That’s because you don’t eat.”
“So I’m dying of not eating, Petey.”
“That’s not a disease, for God’s sake. All you have to—”
“All my teeth are going to go. I’m losing my teeth.”
“That’s not what the dentist said.”
“He’s my fucking dentist, I ought to know what he fucking said. He said—”
“He said you have great teeth and sound gums but you have to take care of them or you’ll have problems. That’s not the same as saying you’re going to lose your teeth.”
“It’s exactly the same because I am not going to take the vitamins and have the balanced diet, so what do you mean it’s not the same thing?”
“Whatever you say.”
“Also I think my hair is getting thin.”
“It is not.”
“I really think it is.”
“All right, you’re dying, and your teeth and hair are falling out. Whatever you say.”
“When I’m dead you can marry Linda and adopt Robin and you’ll have everything you ever wanted.”
“You’re completely rational.”
“That’s right.”
“Uh-huh. Whatever you say.” He got out of his clothes, used the bathroom, returned to the bed.
“Are you going to sleep now, Petey?”
“That’s exactly right.”
“You’re tired, huh.”
“Right.”
“Okay. I’ll sleep too.”
He stretched out, closed his eyes. After a few moments he said, “Why don’t you lie down, Gretch?”
“Yeah, in a minute.”
“I mean you can’t sleep in the lotus position.”
“Don’t you think I know that? Just don’t rush me, will you? I’ll lie down in a minute.”
“All right.”
“It’s a question of working up to it.”
He let that one pass, gave up, willed everything out of his mind. She was still sitting with folded arms and legs when he dropped off to sleep, but when he awoke in the morning she was lying at his side, one thin arm draped across his chest.
“It’s actually quite simple,” Warren Ormont told him. “On the one hand, you have to take Robin away from Gretchen. On the other—”
“I don’t see how I can do that.”
“Exactly. That’s precisely what’s on the other hand. On the other hand, you cannot take Robin away from her. Gretchen is the child’s natural mother — and if that isn’t a semantic absurdity I’ve never encountered one. Unnatural mother is rather more like it.” He waved a hand impatiently. “Neither here nor there. Gretchen is Robin’s mother. You are not Robin’s father, whose name seems to be legion. Or God, if Gretchen’s most recent outburst is to be believed.”