completely ridiculous by morninglight - or maybe more than ridiculous; by morninglight the idea would likely seen mad. A smell that came and went like the 'mouldering stench' in a Gothic horror story? Dashboard instruments that turned into eyes? And most of all the insane feeling that the car had actually tried to kill her?
By tomorrow, even the fact that she had almost choked to death would be nothing but a vague ache in her chest and the conviction that it had been nothing, really, not a close call at all.
Except it was all true, and Arnie knew it was - yes, some part of him did - and it had to be said now.
'Yes, I think you do love me,' she said slowly. She looked at him steadily. 'But I won't go anywhere with you again in that car. And if you really love me, you'll get rid of it.' The expression of shock on his face was so large and so sudden that she might have struck him in the face.
'What - what are you talking about, Leigh?'
Was it shock that had caused that slapped expression? Or was some of it guilt?
'You heard what I said. I don't think you'll get rid of it - I don't know if you even can anymore - but if you want to go someplace with me, Arnie, we go on the bus. Or thumb a ride. Or fly. But I'm never going to ride in your car again. It's a death-trap.'
There. She had said it; it was out.
Now the shock on his face was turning to anger - the blind, obdurate sort of anger she had seen on his face so frequently lately. Not just over the big things, but over the little ones as well - a woman going through a traffic light on the yellow, a cop who held up traffic just before it was their turn to go - but it came to her now with all the force of a revelation that his anger, corrosive and so unlike the rest of Arnie's personality, was always associated with the car. With Christine.
"'If you love me you'll get rid of it,"' he repeated. 'You know who you sound like?'
'No, Arnie.'
'My mother, that's who you sound like.'
'I'm sorry.' She would not allow herself to be drawn, neither would she defend herself with words or end it by just going into the house. She might have been able to if she didn't feel anything for him, but she did. Her original impressions - that behind the quiet shyness Arnie Cunningham was good and decent and kind (and maybe sexy as well) - had not changed much. It was the car, that was all. That was the change. It was like watching a strong mind slowly give way under the influence of some evil, corroding, addictive drug.
Arnie ran his hands through his snow-dusted hair, a characteristic gesture of bewilderment and anger. 'You had a bad choking spell in the car, okay, I can understand that you don't feel great about it. But it was the hamburger, Leigh, that's all. Or maybe not even that. Maybe you were trying to talk while you were chewing or inhaled at just the wrong second or something. You might as well blame Ronald McDonald. People choke on their food every now and then I that's all. Sometimes they die. You didn't. Thank God for that. But to blame my car - !'
Yes, it all sounded perfectly plausible. And was. Except that something was going on behind Arnie's grey eyes. A frantic something that was not precisely a lie, but . . . rationalization? A wilful turning away from the truth?
'Arnie,' she said, 'I'm tired and my chest hurts and I've got a headache and I think I've only got the strength to say this once. Will you listen?'
'If it's about Christine, you're wasting your breath, he said, and that stubborn, mulish look was on his face again. 'It's crazy to blame her and you know it is.'
'Yes, I know it's crazy, and I know I'm wasting my breath,' Leigh said. 'But I'm asking you to listen.'
'I'll listen.'
She took a deep breath, ignoring the pull in her chest. She looked at Christine, idling a plume of white vapour into the thickly falling snow, then looked hastily away. Now it was the parking lights that looked like eyes: the yellow eyes of a lynx.
'When I choked . . . when I was choking . . . the instrument