like a shot out of nowhere, Grammy Henderson rouses herself. It’s as though all the lights in her head just went on. ‘Inconsiderate, unfaithful bastard, he isn’t worth it,’ she says so clearly that it’s scary. Then she turns to Steffy with tears in her eyes. ‘Tell your mother not to be so frantic, it’s mortifying. Look at her, throwing herself around like a ten-dollar whore.’
‘God, Grammy.’ Steffy reaches out to her oldest living relative, closing her hand on that translucent arm. ‘Are you in there? Oh, Grammy. Please stay!’
But as quickly as Grammy’s lucid flashes come, this one goes and the best part of Grammy is locked up inside again.
She’s been stranded forever when, like one of those visions saints used to have, previews for an upcoming miracle, Carter appears. He’s alone, which is good, never mind that he and not Jen Cashwell has the purple hickey on his neck. If you send your guy on an all-day field trip without you, with a long busride home in the dark, it’s bound to happen. The miracle is, he’s bending close, so his breath is like a kiss. ‘Hey.’ Like she thought he was only here for Mrs B. He’s here for her! Carter doesn’t even notice his great-grandmother which is OK because she doesn’t much notice him, but Grammy Henderson rises to the occasion, lifting that gracious hand to Carter, saying, ‘My my. My my my my my.’
‘Girl,’ he whispers into Steffy’s hair. ‘It took forever to find you in this mess.’
Over his shoulder she sees Dad approaching, all helpless and baffled, so, is Mom still with the tennis pro, or did he escape? No grandparents in sight, just Dad with his hands floating up like party balloons while Carter murmurs, ‘Babe, let’s go get loaded and do stuff to each other.’
Rats. Words pop into her head. They’re all rats.
Ordinarily she’d flow upward into Carter, bod on bod; she’d grab his hand and put it there, but Dad is flailing in plain sight which means that her mother really is lost somewhere, glued to Mr Rivard or Mr Kristofferson, whoever she can get; Steffy caught her hitting on nice Dan Carteret in the Florida room today when it was her he’d come to see, she knows because of the grin he flashed when Mom started on her about the shoes.
She turns Carter slightly, scanning the surface of the party like a pirate with a spyglass until she locates Mom. Her mother and Mr Rivard are dancing close, like Steffy’s awesome friend Dan means nothing to her, so that’s good. Dad’s crazed but hey, he brought it on himself, and meanwhile Carter’s hand is winkling into her dress even though his great-grandmother is swaying and moaning and Grammy’s my-my-my-my-ing because they’re so tired and Steffy, well, she has fucking had enough of Carter Bellinger, she thought she loved him but he is fucking insincere.
Instead of letting him lock her in place with the other arm, she edges away. Carter doesn’t get it, he leans a degree closer for every inch she slides off the gilded chair, breathing, ‘Babe?’
She stands up so fast that she clips his chin with her skull. ‘Go to hell, Carter. I have a new boyfriend,’ she says.
The minute she says so, it’s true.
18
Dan
He picks up takeout at a drive-thru and parks near the Chaplin house, munching on Slim Jims while he processes his material. He has a lot to process, starting with this compulsion to break and enter. He’s fully equipped, waiting – no, praying – for Chaplin to go out so he can search the house. He has no idea what he expects to find. His mother was no stranger to this house, he’s sure, but he can’t start with Chaplin without proof, and this is bad.
He can’t start at all unless Chaplin goes out.
It’s been hours since he left the Archambault house, but weirdness filled up that stifling bedroom, weirdness drove him out of the house and followed him here, and the question is driving him nuts. What was that?
Where did it come from? Product of exhaustion or the heat, hallucination or what? Listen, it was nothing he did. All Dan was was there, laid wide open by her rage. Alone in that house, in the room where she died, he heard it! He heard her voice! My God, the woman’s been dead for thirty years, but all the hatred and humiliation of the night she burst into flames exploded, boiling inside his head.