Lisey's Story Part 4

Before she could answer this completely rhetorical question, Scott's voice came again-the clear one at the top of her mind.

I left you a note, babyluv.

Lisey froze in the act of reaching for a dishtowel to dry her hands. She knew that voice, of course she did. She still heard it three and four times a week, her voice mimicking his, a little bit of harmless company in a big empty house. Only coming so soon after all this s.h.i.+te about the shovel...

What note?

What note?

Lisey wiped her hands and put the towel back to air-dry on its rod. Then she turned around so her back was to the sink and her kitchen lay before her. It was full of lovely summerlight (and the aroma of Hamburger Helper, a lot less yummy now that her low appet.i.te for the stuff had been satisfied). She closed her eyes, counted to ten, then sprang them open again. Lateday summerlight boomed around her. Into her.

"Scott?" she said, feeling absurdly like her big sister Amanda. Half-nuts, in other words. "You haven't gone ghost on me, have you?"

She expected no answer-not little Lisey Debusher, who had cheered on the thunderstorms and sneered at the Late Show werewolf, dismissing him as just bad time-lapse photography. But the sudden rush of wind that poured in through the open window over the sink-belling the curtains, lifting the ends of her still-damp hair, and bringing the heartbreaking aroma of flowers-could almost have been taken for an answer. She closed her eyes again and seemed to hear faint music, not that of the spheres but just an old Hank Williams country tune: Goodbye Joe, me gotta go, me-oh-my-oh...

Her arms p.r.i.c.kled up in gooseb.u.mps.

Then the breeze died away and she was just Lisey again. Not Mandy, not Canty, not Darla; certainly not (one went south) run-off-to-Miami Jodi. She was Thoroughly Modern Lisey, 2006Lisey, the widow Landon. There were no ghosts. She was Lisey Alone.

But she did want to find that silver spade, the one that had saved her husband for another sixteen years and seven novels. Not to mention for the Newsweek cover in '92 that had featured a psychedelic Scott with MAGICAL REALISM AND THE CULT OF LANDON in Peter Max lettering. She wondered how Roger "The Jackrabbit" Dashmiel had liked them apples.

Lisey decided she'd look for the spade right away, while the long light of the early-summer evening still held. Ghosts or no ghosts, she didn't want to be out in the barn-or the study above it-once night had fallen.

3.

The stalls opposite her never-quite-completed office were dark and musty affairs that had once held tools, tack, and spare parts for farm vehicles and machinery back when the Landon home had been Sugar Top Farm. The largest bay had held chickens, and although it had been swamped out by aprofessional cleaning company and then whitewashed (by Scott, who did it with many references to Tom Sawyer), it still held the faint, ammoniac reek of long-gone fowl. It was a smell Lisey remembered from her youngest childhood andhated...probably because her Granny D had keeled over and died while feeding the chickens.

Two of the cubbies were stacked high with boxes-liquor-store cartons, for the most part-but there were no digging implements, silver or otherwise. There was a sheeted double bed in the erstwhile chicken pen, the single leftover from their brief nine-month Germany experiment. They had bought the bed in Bremen and had it s.h.i.+pped back at paralyzing expense- Scott had insisted. She had forgotten all about the Bremen bed until now.

Talk about what fell out of the dog's a.s.s! Lisey thought with a kind of miserable exultation, and then said aloud, "If you think I'd ever sleep in a bed after it sat twenty-some years out in a G.o.ddam chicken pen, Scott-"

-then you're crazy! was how she meant to finish, and couldn't. She burst out laughing instead. Christ, the curse of money! The smucking curse of it! How much had that bed cost? A thousand bucks American? Say a thousand. And how much to s.h.i.+p it back? Another thou? Maybe. And here it sat, rah-cheer, Scott might have said, in the chickens.h.i.+t shadows. And rahcheer it could continue to sit until the world ended in fire or ice, as far as she was concerned. The whole Germany thing had been such a bust, no book for Scott, an argument with the landlord that had come within a hair of degenerating into a fist-fight, even Scott's lectures had gone badly, the audiences either had no sense of humor or didn't get his, and- And behind the door across the way, the one wearing the HIGH VOLTAGE! sign, the telephone began to shout again. Lisey froze where she was, feeling more gooseb.u.mps. And yet there was also a sense of inevitability, as if this was what she'd come out here for, not the silver spade at all but to take a call.

She turned as the phone rang a second time, and crossed the barn's dim center aisle. She reached the door as the third ring began. She thumbed the old-fas.h.i.+oned latch and the door opened easily, just screaming a little on its unused hinges, welcome to the crypt, little Lisey, we've been dying to meet you, heh-heh-heh. A draft whooshed in around her, flapping her blouse against the small of her back. She felt for the lightswitch and flicked it, not sure what to expect, but the overhead went on. Of course it did. As far as Central Maine Power was concerned, all of this was The Study, RFD #2, Sugar Top Hill Road. Upstairs or downstairs, to CMP it was a clearcut case of everything the same.

The telephone on the desk rang a fourth time. Before Ring #5 could wake up the answering machine, Lisey snagged the receiver. "h.e.l.lo?"

There was a moment of silence. She was about to say h.e.l.lo again when the voice at the other end did it for her. The tone was perplexed, but Lisey recognized who it was, just the same. That one word had been enough. You knew your own.

"Darla?"

"Lisey-it is you!"

"Sure it's me."

"Where are you?"

"Scott's old study."

"No, you're not. I already tried there."

Lisey only had to consider this briefly. Scott had liked his music loud-in truth he'd liked it at levels normal people would have considered ridiculous-and the telephone up there was located in the soundproofed area he had been amused to call My Padded Cell. It wasn't surprising she hadn't heard it down here. None of this seemed worth explaining to her sister.

"Darla, where did you get this number, and why are you calling?"

There was another pause. Then Darla said, "I'm at Amanda's. I got the number from her book. She's got four for you. I just ran through all of them. This was the last."

Lisey felt a sinking sensation in her chest and stomach. As children, Amanda and Darla had been bitter rivals. They'd gotten into any number of scratching matches-over dolls, library books, clothes. The last and gaudiest confrontation had been over a boy named Richie Stanchfield, and had been serious enough to land Darla in the Central Maine General ER, where six st.i.tches had been needed to close the deep scratch over her left eye. She still wore the scar, a thin white dash. They got on better as adults only to this extent: there had been plenty of arguments but no more spilled blood. They stayed out of each other's way as much as possible. The once- or twice-monthly Sunday dinners (with spouses) or sisterlunches at Olive Garden or Outback could be difficult, even with Manda and Darla sitting apart and Lisey and Canty mediating. For Darla to be calling from Amanda's house was not a good thing.

"Is something wrong with her, Darl?" Dumb question. The only real question was how wrong.

"Mrs. Jones heard her screaming and carrying on and breaking stuff. Doing one of her Big Ts."

One of her Big Tantrums. Check.

"She tried Canty first, but Canty and Rich are in Boston. When Mrs. Jones got that message on their answering machine she called me."

That made sense. Canty and Rich lived a mile or so north of Amanda on Route 19; Darla lived roughly two miles south. In a way, it was like their father's old rhyme: one went north, one went south, one couldn't shut her everlasting mouth. Lisey herself was about five miles away. Mrs. Jones, who lived across the road from Mandy's weather-tight little Cape Cod, would have known well enough to call Canty first, and not just because Canty was closer in terms of distance, either.

Screaming and carrying on and breaking stuff.

"How bad is it this time?" Lisey heard herself asking in a flat, strangely businesslike tone of voice. "Should I come?" Meaning, of course, How fast should I come?

"She's...I think she's okay for now," Darla said. "But she's been doing it again. On her arms, also a couple of places high up on her thighs. The...you know."

Lisey knew, all right. On three previous occasions, Amanda had lapsed into what Jane Whitlow, her shrink, called "pa.s.sive semi-catatonia." It was different from what had happened (hush about that) (I won't) from what had happened to Scott in 1996, but pretty d.a.m.ned scary, all the same. And each time, the state had been preceded by bouts of excitability-the sort of excitability Manda had been exhibiting up in Scott's study, Lisey realized- followed by hysteria, then brief spasms of self-mutilation. During one of these, Manda had apparently tried to excise her navel. She had been left with a ghostly fairy-ring of scartissue around it. Lisey had once broached the possibility of cosmetic surgery, not knowing if it would be possible but wanting Manda to know she, Lisey, would be willing to pay if Amanda wanted at least to explore the possibility. Amanda had declined with a harsh caw of amus.e.m.e.nt. "I like that ring," she'd said. "If I'm ever tempted to start cutting myself again, maybe I'll look at that and stop."

Maybe, it seemed, had been the operant word.

"How bad is it, Darl? Really?"

"Lisey...hon..."

Lisey realized with alarm (and a further sinking in her vital parts) that her older sister was struggling with tears. "Darla! Take a deep breath and tell me."

"I'm okay. I just...it's been a long day."

"When does Matt get back from Montreal?"

"Week after next. Don't even think about asking me to call him, either-he's earning our trip to St. Bart's next winter, and he's not to be disturbed. We can handle this ourselves."

"Can we?"

"Definitely."

"Then tell me what it is we're supposed to be handling."

"Okay. Right." Lisey heard Darla take a breath. "The cuts on her upper arms were shallow. Band-Aid stuff. The ones on her thighs were deeper and they'll scar, but they clotted over, thank G.o.d. No arterial s.h.i.+t. Uh, Lisey?"

"What? Just str...just spit it out."

She'd almost told Darla to just strap it on, which would have meant zip to her big sister. Whatever Darla had to tell her next, it was going to be something rotten. She could tell that by Darla's voice, which had been in and out of Lisey's ears from the cradle on. She tried to brace herself for it. She leaned back against the desk, her gaze s.h.i.+fted...and holy Mother of G.o.d, there it was in the corner, leaning nonchalantly next to another stack of liquor-store boxes (which were indeed labeled SCOTT! THE EARLY YEARS!). In the angle where the north wall met the east one was the silver spade from Nashville, big as Billy-be-d.a.m.ned. It was a blue-eyed wonder she hadn't seen it when she came in, surely would have if she hadn't been in a lather to grab the phone before the answering machine kicked in. She could read the words incised into the silver bowl from here: COMMENCEMENT, s.h.i.+PMAN LIBRARY. She could almost hear the southern-fried chickens.h.i.+t telling her husband that Toneh would be rahtin it up for the year-end review, and would he like a copeh. And Scott replying- "Lisey?" Darla sounding really distressed for the first time, and Lisey returned to the present in a hurry. Of course Darla sounded distressed. Canty was in Boston for a week or maybe more, shopping while her husband took care of his wholesale auto business-buying program cars, auction cars, and off-lease rental cars in places like Malden and Lynn, Lynn, the City of Sin. Darla's Matt, meanwhile, was in Canada, lecturing on the migration patterns of various North American Indian tribes. This, Darla had once told Lisey, was a surprisingly profitable venture. Not that money would help them now. Now it was down to just the two of them. To sister-power. "Lise, did you hear me? Are you still th-"

"I'm here," Lisey said. "I just lost you for a few seconds, sorry. Maybe it's the phone-no one's used this one for a long time. It's downstairs in the barn. What was going to be my office, before Scott died?"

"Oh, yeah. Sure." Darla sounded completely mystified. Has no smucking idea what I'm talking about, Lisey thought. "Can you hear me now?"

"Clear as a bell." Looking at the silver spade as she spoke. Thinking of Gerd Allen Cole. Thinking I got to end all this ding-dong for the freesias.

Darla took a deep breath. Lisey heard it, like a wind blowing down the telephone line. "She won't exactly admit it, but I think she...well...drank her own blood this time, Lise-her lips and chin were all b.l.o.o.d.y when I got here, but nothing inside her mouth's cut. She looked the way we used to when Good Ma'd give us one of her lipsticks to play with."

What Lisey flashed on wasn't those old dress-up and makeup days, those clunk-around-in-Good-Ma's-high-heels days, but that hot afternoon in Nashville, Scott lying on the pavement s.h.i.+vering, his lips smeared with candy-colored blood. n.o.body loves a clown at midnight.

Listen, little Lisey. I'll make how it sounds when it looks around.

But in the corner the silver spade gleamed...and was it dented? She believed it was. If she ever doubted that she'd been in time...if she ever woke in the dark, sweating, sure she'd been just a second too late and the remaining years of her marriage had consequently been lost...

"Lisey, will you come? When she's in the clear, she's asking for you."

Alarm bells went off in Lisey's head. "What do you mean, when she's in the clear? I thought you said she was okay."

"She is...I think she is." A pause. "She asked for you, and she asked for tea. I made her some, and she drank it. That was good, wasn't it?"

"Yes," Lisey said. "Darl, do you know what brought this on?"

"Oh, you bet. I guess it's common chat around town, although I didn't know until Mrs. Jones told me over the phone."

"What?" But Lisey had a pretty good idea.

"Charlie Corriveau's back in town," Darla said. Then, lowering her voice: "Good old Shootin' Beans. Everyone's favorite banker. He brought a girl with him. A little French postcard from up in the St. John Valley." She gave this the Maine p.r.o.nunciation, so it came out slurry-lyrical, almost Senjun. Lisey stood looking at the silver spade, waiting for the other shoe to drop. That there was another she had no doubt.

"They're married, Lisey," Darla said, and through the phone came a series of choked gurgles Lisey at first took for smothered sobs. A moment later she realized her sister was trying to laugh without being overheard by Amanda, who was G.o.d knew where in the house.

"I'll be there as quick as I can," she said. "And Darl?"

No answer, just more of those choking noises-whig, whig, whig was what they sounded like over the phone.

"If she hears you laughing, the next one she takes the knife to is apt to be you."

At that the laughing sounds stopped. Lisey heard Darla take a long, steadying breath. "Her shrink isn't around anymore, you know," Darla said at last. "The Whitlow woman? The one who always wore the beads? She moved to Alaska, I think it was."

Lisey thought Montana, but it hardly mattered. "Well, we'll see how bad she is. There's the place Scott looked into...Greenlawn, up in the Twin Cities-"

"Oh, Lisey!" The voice of Good Ma, the very voice.

"Lisey-what?" she asked sharply. "Lisey-what? Are you going to move in with her and keep her from carving Charlie Corriveau's initials on her b.o.o.bs the next time she goes Freak City? Or maybe you've got Canty tapped for the job."

"Lisey, I didn't mean-"

"Or maybe Billy can come home from Tufts and take care of her. What's one more Dean's List student, more or less?"

"Lisey-"

"Well what are you proposing?" She heard the hectoring tone in her voice and hated it. This was another thing money did to you after ten or twenty years-made you think you had the right to kick your way out of any tight corner you found yourself in. She remembered Scott saying that people shouldn't be allowed houses with more than two toilets to s.h.i.+t in, it gave them delusions of grandeur. She glanced at the shovel again. It gleamed at her. Calmed her. You saved him, it said. Not on your watch, it said. Was that true? She couldn't remember. Was it another of the things she'd forgotten on purpose? She couldn't remember that, either. What a hoot. What a bitter hoot.

"Lisey, I'm sorry...I just-"

"I know." What she knew was that she was tired and confused and ashamed of her outburst. "We'll work it out. I'll come right now. Okay?"

"Yes." Relief in Darla's voice. "Okay."

"That Frenchman," Lisey said. "What a jerk. Good riddance to bad trash."

"Get here as soon as you can."

"I will. G'bye."

Lisey hung up. She walked over to the northeast corner of the room and grasped the shaft of the silver spade. It was as if she were doing it for the first time, and was that so strange? When Scott pa.s.sed it to her, she'd only been interested in the glittering silver scoop with its engraved message, and by the time she got ready to swing the darn thing, her hands had been moving on their own...or so it had seemed; she supposed some primitive, survival-oriented part of her brain had actually been moving them for the rest of her, for Thoroughly Modern Lisey.

She slid one palm down the smooth wood, relis.h.i.+ng the smooth slide, and as she bent, her eyes once more fell on the three stacked boxes with their exuberant message slashed across the side of each one in black Magic Marker: SCOTT! THE EARLY YEARS! The box on top had once contained Gilbey's Gin, and the flaps had been folded together rather than taped. Lisey brushed away the dust, marveling at how thick it was, marveling at the realization that the last hands to touch this box-to fill it and fold the flaps and place it atop the others-now lay folded themselves, and under the ground.

The box was full of paper. Ma.n.u.scripts, she presumed. The slightly yellowed t.i.tle sheet on top was capitalized, underlined, and centered. Scott's name neatly typed beneath, also centered. All this she recognized as she would have recognized his smile-it had been his style of presentation when she met him as a young man, and had never changed. What she didn't recognize was the t.i.tle of this one: IKE COMES HOME.

By Scott Landon Was it a novel? A short story? Just looking into the box, it was impossible to tell. But there had to be a thousand or more pages in there, most of them in a single high stack under that t.i.tle-page but still more crammed in sideways in two directions, like packing. If it was a novel, and this box contained all of it, it had to be longer than Gone With the Wind. Was that possible? Lisey supposed it might be. Scott always showed her his work when it was done, and he was happy to show her work in progress if she asked about it (a privilege he accorded no one else, not even his longtime editor, Carson Foray), but if she didn't ask, he usually kept it to himself. And he'd been prolific right up until the day he died. On the road or at home, Scott Landon wrote.

But a thousand-pager? Surely he would have mentioned that. I bet it's only a short story, and one he didn't like, at that. And the rest of the stuff in this box, the stuff underneath and crammed in at the side? Copies of his first couple of novels, probably. Or galley-pages. What he used to call "foul matter."

But hadn't he s.h.i.+pped all the foul matter back to Pitt when he was done with it, for the Scott Landon Collection in their library? For the Incunks to drool over, in other words? And if there were copies of his early ma.n.u.scripts in these boxes, how come there were more copies (carbons from the dark ages, mostly) in the closets marked STORAGE upstairs? And now that she thought about it, what about the cubbies on either side of the erstwhile chicken pen? What was stored in those?

She looked upward, almost as if she were Supergirl and could see the answer with her X-ray vision, and that was when the telephone on her desk once more began to ring.

4.

She crossed to the desk and snared the handset with a mixture of dread and irritation...but quite a bit heavier on the irritation. It was possible-just-that Amanda had decided to whack off an ear a la Van Gogh or maybe slit her throat instead of just a thigh or a forearm, but Lisey doubted it. All her life Darla had been the sister most apt to call back three minutes later, starting off with I just remembered or I forgot to tell you.

"What is it, Darl?"

There was a moment or two of silence, and then a male voice- one she thought she knew-said: "Mrs. Landon?"

It was Lisey's turn to pause as she ran through a list of male names. Pretty short list these days; it was amazing how your husband's death pruned your catalogue of acquaintances. There was Jacob Montano, their lawyer in Portland; Arthur Williams, the accountant in New York who wouldn't let go of a dollar until the eagle shrieked for mercy (or died of asphyxiation); Deke Williams-no relation to Arthur-the contractor from Bridgton who'd turned the empty haylofts over the barn into Scott's study and who'd also remodeled the second floor of their house, transforming previously dim rooms intowonderlands of light; Smiley Flanders, the plumber from over in Motton with the endless supply of jokes both clean and dirty; Charlie Haddonfield, Scott's agent, who called on business from time to time (foreign rights and short-story anthologies, mostly); plus the handful of Scott's friends who still kept in touch. But none of those people would call on this number, surely, even if it were listed. Was it? She couldn't remember. In any case, none of the names seemed to fit how she knew (or thought she knew) the voice. But, d.a.m.n it- "Mrs. Landon?"