Passage. Part 38

She forced herself to focus on the road, the lights, the traffic, the rest of the way home. She turned onto her street, past the local Burger King. "X-Men Action Figures," the marquee read.

"Collect All 58." Could he have been trying to tell her a page number? She could see Mr. Briarley, picking up the blue book, opening it. "All right, cla.s.s, open your textbooks to page fifty-eight."

Stop it, Joanna told herself, pulling into her parking s.p.a.ce and getting out of the car. Richard's right. You are turning into Bridey Murphy. Or Mr. Mandrake. You need to go upstairs, take a bath, watch the news, and let your right temporal lobe cool down, because that's what this obsession with Tales and Travels, or whatever it's called, is, a symptom of temporal-lobe stimulation.

She opened the door and flicked on the lights. And if you did call and get her to find Verses and Victorians, it wouldn't solve anything. Because even if there were a story about the t.i.tanic's engines stopping on page fifty-eight, the feeling of significance would just transfer itself to something else.

Besides, it's too late to call. You'd upset Mr. Briarley, and Kit has enough to deal with already.

And the person you need to call is Vielle. You need to thank her for letting you borrow her car and apologize for taking so long to bring it back and ask her what she wants you to rent for Dish Night on Friday. And not The Sixth Sense.

Joanna picked up the phone and punched in the number. "h.e.l.lo, Kit, this is Joanna Lander," she said when Kit answered. "Does your uncle still have the textbooks he used when he taught?"

23.

"Nothing in the world can endure forever."

-Words found scratched on a wall at Pompeii.

Joanna called Kerri Jakes and then went straight to see Maisie as soon as she got to the hospital the next morning. She'd told her ten, but she didn't want to get sidetracked and forget again, and she also wanted to get there before Maisie's mother did.

And Kit said she'd call as soon as she found the textbook, Joanna thought, crossing the walkway and taking the stairs up to Peds, and I might have to go get it. Or go see someone who had English second period. She'd had to leave a message for Kerri-mornings were outpatient surgery's busiest times-and she hadn't wanted to play telephone tag, so she'd asked her about second period and the book, hoping she remembered the t.i.tle. She hoped that when she got back from seeing Maisie, Kerri or Kit would have called. Although I don't know how Kit could be expected to find it with the pathetic description I gave her, Joanna thought.

But Kit had acted like her calling was the most normal thing in the world (and maybe it was, considering what she must be living with) and had immediately asked what year Joanna had been a senior, how big the book was, how thick. "And you think the t.i.tle is Something and Something,"

she'd said. "Beginning with a V."

"I think so," Joanna had said. "I'm sorry I'm giving you so little to go on."

"Are you kidding?" Kit had said. "I'm an expert at figuring out things people can't remember.

This may take a while. Uncle Pat's got a lot of books. They used to be organized, but-"

"You're sure you don't mind doing this?" Joanna had asked.

"I'm delighted I can help," Kit had said and actually sounded like she was."Is that Kevin on the phone?" Mr. Briarley's voice said in the background. "Tell him I'm delighted. And congratulations."

"I'll call you tomorrow," Kit said.

Joanna wasn't sure it would be that soon, considering how many books were in that house and how many of them were blue. If it was blue. This morning she wasn't so sure. It seemed like the book Candy "Rapunzel" Simons had propped her hair-combing mirror against had been red. You're confabulating, she told herself sternly, and ran up the stairs to Peds. The breakfast cart was still in the hall, and a skinny black orderly was loading empty trays onto it. Joanna waved at him and went in to see Maisie.

Her breakfast tray of scrambled eggs and toast and a gla.s.s of juice was still on the bed table pulled across her lap. "Hi, kiddo," Joanna said, coming in. "What's up?"

"I'm eating breakfast," Maisie said, which was an exaggeration. Two mouselike bites had been nibbled out of the piece of toast she was holding, and the eggs and juice looked untouched.

"I see," Joanna said, pulling a chair over to the bed and sitting down. "So, tell me all about Pompeii."

"Well," Maisie said, putting down her toast, "the people tried to run away from the volcano, and some of them almost made it. There was this one mother who had two little girls and a baby that made it almost all the way to the gate. It's in my big blue book."

Joanna obediently went over to the closet and got Catastrophes and Calamities out of the Barbie duffel bag. She handed it to Maisie, who pushed the bed table away and opened the book.

"Here it is," she said, turning to a page with a garish painting of a volcano spewing red and black on one page and a black-and-white photo on the other. Maisie put her finger on the photo and pushed it over toward Joanna.

It wasn't a black-and-white photo. It only looked that way because it was a group of plaster casts that looked as though they were made out of the gray ash themselves. They lay where they had fallen, the mother still clutching the baby in her arms, the two girls still clutching her hem.

"This is the servant," Maisie said, pointing to a curled-up figure lying near them. "He was trying to help them get out." She took the book back. "Lots of little kids got trampled," she said, flipping through the pages. "There was this one-" She looked up sharply, clapped the book shut, and shoved it under the covers. She was just pulling the bed table toward her when Barbara came in.

"Good morning, ladies." Barbara came over to look disapprovingly at Maisie's uneaten breakfast. "Didn't like the eggs, huh? Would you like some cereal?"

"I'm not very hungry," Maisie said.

"You need to eat something," Barbara said. "How about some oatmeal?"

Maisie made a face. "I don't like oatmeal. Can't I eat it later? I have to tell Dr. Lander something important.""Which can wait till after you finish breakfast," Joanna said, immediately standing up and starting for the door.

"No, wait!" Maisie yelped. "I'll eat it." She picked up the triangle of toast and took another mouselike nibble. "I can eat while I'm talking to Dr. Lander, can't I?"

"If you eat," Barbara said firmly. She turned to Joanna. "Half the eggs, a whole piece of toast, and all the juice."

Joanna nodded. "Got it."

"I'll be back to check," Barbara said. "And no hiding things in your napkin." She went out.

Maisie immediately pushed the bed table away and leaned over to open the drawer of the nightstand. "Whoa," Joanna protested. "You heard what Barbara said."

"I know," Maisie said, "but I have to get something." She reached in the drawer and pulled out a folded piece of lined tablet paper like the one she'd written the Hindenburg crewman's name on and handed it to Joanna.

"What's this?" Joanna asked.

"My NDE," Maisie said. "I wrote the rest of it down after you left so I wouldn't forget anything."

Joanna unfolded the sheet. "The fog was gray-colored," Maisie had written in her laboring round cursive, "and dark, like at night or if somebody turns out the lights. I was in this long narrow place with real tall walls."

"I probably forgot some stuff," Maisie said.

"Eat," Joanna said. She pushed the bed table over in front of her and continued to read. Maisie picked up her fork and poked listlessly at her eggs.

"If you're not going to eat, I guess I'll have to come back another time," Joanna said.

Maisie immediately scooped up a forkful of eggs and popped it in her mouth. Joanna watched until she'd chewed, swallowed, and taken a sip of her apple juice, and then sat down on the chair and read through the rest of the NDE. "I don't know if there was a ceiling. It kind of felt like the place I was in was outside, but I don't know for sure. It kind of felt like inside and outside at the same time."

"The walls were tall?" Joanna asked.

Maisie nodded. "They went up really high on both sides." She raised both arms to demonstrate.

"I thought some more about the coming-back part. It was different from the other time. That time it wasn't as fast. I wrote that down."

Joanna nodded. "Can I take this paper with me?"

"Sure," Maisie said, and Joanna folded it up and stuck it in her pocket. "But you can't go yet, Ihave lots more stuff to tell you."

"Then eat," Joanna said, pointing at the eggs.

Maisie picked up her fork. "They're cold."

"Whose fault is that?"

"Did you know they found eggs when they dug up Pompeii?" Maisie said. "They got covered up by the ash and turned into stone."

"Four bites," Joanna said, her arms folded. "And the juice."

"Okay," Maisie said and plodded through four minuscule bites, chewing laboriously.

"And the juice."

"I am. I have to open the straw first."

The Queen of Stallers, Joanna thought. She leaned back in the chair and watched Maisie peel the paper, stick the straw in the juice, sip daintily, waiting her out. Finally, Maisie finished, slurping to prove it was empty. "You know the dog that was chained up, and they don't know its name 'cause it didn't have a dog tag?" she asked. "Well, there was a little girl like that."

"In Pompeii?"

"No," Maisie said indignantly. "In the Hartford circus fire. She was nine years old. Anyway, that's what they think, n.o.body knows, 'cause they don't know who she was. She died from the smoke. She wasn't burned at all, and they put her picture in the paper and on the radio and everything. But n.o.body ever came to get her."

"Ever?" Joanna said. Someone would have had to identify her eventually. A child couldn't just disappear without anyone noticing, but Maisie was shaking her blond head.

"Hunh-unh. They had this big room where they put all the bodies, and the mothers and fathers came and identified them, but n.o.body ever did her. And they didn't know her name, so they had to give her a number."

Joanna was suddenly afraid to ask. Not fifty-eight, she thought. Don't tell me it's fifty-eight.

"1565," Maisie said, " 'cause that was the number of her body. She should have had a name tag or put her name in her clothes or something, like Mr. Astor."

"Who?" Joanna said, sitting up straight.

"John Jacob Astor. He was on the t.i.tanic. His face got all smashed in when one of the smokestack things fell on him, so they couldn't tell who he was, but he had his initials inside of his s.h.i.+rt"-she reached around to the back of her hospital gown and grasped the neck of it to demonstrate-"J. J. A., so they were able to figure it out.""You know about the t.i.tanic, Maisie?" Joanna asked.

"Of course," she said. "It's like the best disaster that ever happened. Lots of children died."

"I never heard you talk about it."

"That's 'cause I read about it before, when I was in the other hospital. I wanted to see the movie, but my mother wouldn't let me watch the video because it had..." she leaned forward and dropped her voice to a whisper, "S-E-X in it. But this girl Ashley who had her appendix out said it didn't, just naked people. She said it was really cool, especially when the s.h.i.+p went up in the air and everything started falling down, all the dishes and furniture and pianos and stuff, with this big enormous crash.

Did you know the t.i.tanic had five pianos?"

"Maisie-" Joanna said, sorry she had brought this up.

"I know all about it," Maisie said, oblivious. "They had all these dogs. A Pekingese and an Airedale and a Pomeranian and this really cute little French bulldog, and their owners would take them for walks on the deck, only most of the time they had to be kept in this kennel down in the hold, except for this little tiny dog Frou-Frou, he got to stay in the cabin-"

"Maisie-" Joanna said, but Maisie didn't even hear her.

"-and after it hit the iceberg, this pa.s.senger, I don't know his name, went down to the kennel and-"

"Maisie-"

"-let out all the dogs," Maisie finished. "They all still drowned, though."

"You can't tell me about the t.i.tanic," Joanna said. "I'm doing some research-"

"Do you want me to help you?" Maisie said eagerly. "Ms. Sutterly could bring me some books, and I know lots of stuff already. It didn't really hit the iceberg, it just sort of sc.r.a.ped along the side. It wasn't even a very bad cut, but the watertight compartments-"

She had to put a stop to this. "Dr. Wright told me they found the body of a dog in Pompeii," she said.

"Yeah," Maisie said. She told her about the chain and it trying to climb on top of the ash. "Dr.

Wright told me all the Pompeii dogs were named Fido, but I don't think so. How would they know to come when their master called if they all had the same name?"

"I think Dr. Wright was kidding," Joanna said. "Did you know Fido means 'faithful' in Latin?"

"No," Maisie said, appeased. "That would have been a good name for this one dog they found."

She pulled the book out from under the covers and began flipping through it till she found another of the photos. "It was trying to save this little girl." She showed the picture to Joanna. The plaster casts of the long-muzzled dog and the little girl lay huddled against a wall, their limbs tangled together. "But he couldn't. They both died."She took the book back. "It didn't have any dog tags either," she said and then suddenly lunged for her book again.

Joanna looked toward the door. Maisie raised the blankets to stick the book under them, and then stopped and laid it back on the bed as the black orderly came in. "Hi, Eugene," she said, picking up her tray and handing it to him.

"Hi, Eugene," Joanna said. "You have to leave the tray. Maisie's supposed to finish her eggs."

"He's supposed to take all the trays back at the same time," Maisie said.

"No, that's all right," Eugene said, setting the tray back down. "I can come back for it later." He winked at Joanna.

"Thanks," Joanna said. Eugene went out. Joanna stood up. "I've got to go, too."

"You can't. You promised you'd stay as long as I wanted. I have to show you this one picture."

She showed her at least twenty pictures before she finally let Joanna go-excavated ruins, reconstructed Roman baths, a gold bracelet, a silver mirror, paintings of people in white togas running terrified from a red-and-gold-spewing volcano, of people cowering in ash-darkened colonnades. And if I don't see Vesuvius this time, Joanna thought, going back up to her office, then Richard's theory's got to be wrong.

She unlocked her office, went in, and checked her answering machine. The light was blinking almost hysterically. "You have twenty-three messages," it said when she pressed the b.u.t.ton. And all from Mr. Mandrake and none from Kit or Kerri Jakes, she thought, hitting "play."

Not all. Three were from Maisie, one from Richard, and four from Vielle, all trying to find her yesterday afternoon. "Hi, you remember you've got my car, don't you?" Vielle's last one began. "I'm leaving now. When you get back, just leave my keys with the admitting nurse. I think I'll rent Gone in Sixty Seconds or Grand Theft Auto for our next Dish Night."

There was a pause, and then Vielle gasped, "Oh, my G.o.d, you won't believe who just walked in. Do you remember that cute police officer who came in to tell us about the nail gunner, the one who looks just like Denzel Was.h.i.+ngton? Well, he's here, and it looks like he's going to be at the meeting.