asked, and began to giggle. After a moment she joined him in his laughter 'Yes, something like that,' Leigh said, and then snickered again. 'Sorry.'
'Don't be,' Dennis said. 'People have been laughing at me all my life. I'm used to it. They say I'm stuck here until January, but I'm going to fool them. I'm going home for Christmas. I'm working my buns off down in the torture chamber.'
'Torture chamber?'
'Physical therapy. My back's looking good. The other bones are knitting busily - the itch is terrible sometimes. I'm gobbling rosehips by the bushel basket. Dr Arroway says that's nothing but a folk-tale, but Coach Puffer swears by them, and he checks the bottle every time he comes to visit.'
'Does he come often? The Coach?'
'Yeah, he does. Now he's got me half-believing that stuff about rosehips making your broken bones knit faster.' Dennis paused. 'Of course, I'm not going to be playing any more football, not ever. I'm going to be on crutches for a while, and then, with luck, I'll graduate to a cane. Cheerful old Dr Arroway tells me I'm going to limp for maybe a couple of years. Or maybe I'll always limp.'
'I'm so sorry,' she said in a low voice. 'I'm sorry it had to happen to a nice guy like you, Dennis, but part of it's selfish. I just wonder if all the rest of this, all this horrible stuff with Arnie, if it would have happened if you'd been up and around.'
'That's right,' Dennis said, rolling his eyes dramatically, 'blame it on me.'
But she didn't smile. 'I've started to worry about his sanity, did you know that? That's the one thing I haven't told my folks or his folks. But I think his mother . . . that she might . . . I don't know what he said to her that night, after we found the car all smashed up, but . . . I think they must have really put their claws into each other.'
Dennis nodded.
'But it's all so . . . so mad! His parents offered to buy him a good used car to replace Christine, and he said no. Then Mr Cunningham told me on the ride home that he offered to buy Arnie a new car . . . to cash in some bonds he's held ever since 1955. Arnie said no, he couldn't just take a present like that. And Mr Cunningham said he could understand that, and it didn't have to be a present, that Arnie could pay him back, that he'd even take interest if that was what Arnie wanted. . . . Dennis, do you see what I'm saying?'
'Yeah,' Dennis said. 'It can't be just any car. It's got to be that car. Christine.'
'But to me that seems obsessive. He's found one object and fixed on it. Isn't that what an obsession is? I'm scared, and sometimes I feel hateful . . . but it's not him I'm scared of. It's not him I hate. It's that frig - no, it's that fucking car. That bitch Christine.'
High colour bloomed in her cheeks. Her eyes narrowed. The corners of her mouth turned down. Her face was suddenly no longer beautiful, not even pretty; the light on it was pitiless, changing it into something that was ugly but all the same striking, compelling. Dennis realized for the first time why they called it the monster, the green-eyed monster.
I'll tell you what I wish would happen,' Leigh said. 'I wish somebody would take his precious fucking Christine out back some night by mistake, out where they put the junks from Philly Plains.' Her eyes sparkled venomously. 'And the next day I wish that crane with the big round magnet would come and pick it up and put it in the crusher and I wish someone would push the button and what would come out would be a little cube of metal about three by three by three. Then this would be over, wouldn't it?'
Dennis didn't answer, and after a moment he could almost see the monster turn around and wrap its scaly tail around itself and steal out of her face. Her shoulders sagged.
'Guess that sounds pretty horrible, doesn't it? Like saying I wish those hoods had finished the job.'
'I understand how you feel.'
'Do you?' she challenged.
Dennis thought of Arnie's look as he had pounded his fists on the dashboard. The kind of maniacal light that came into his eyes when he was around her. He thought of sitting