you got out of the car. Leave. Now. Just go. This is not a good place to be right now.'
There was something in his eyes, something desperately honest, that brought on a recurrence of her earlier chill and that unaccustomed confusion. She had been left all day in her car at the side of the road as she lay in a swoon. What sort of people did that?
Then every bit of her Anne-ness rose up and crushed these little doubts. If she wanted a thing to be, if she meant a thing to be, that thing would be; so it had been, was, and ever would be, alleluia, Amen.
'Okay, Chumly,' she said. 'You gave me yours, I'll give you mine. I'm going inside that shack, and about two minutes later a very large chunk of shit is going to hit the fan. I suggest you go for a walk if you don't want to get splattered. Sit on a rock somewhere and watch the sun go down and jerk off or think up rhymes or do whatever it is Great Poets do when they watch the sunset. But you want to keep out of what goes on in the house, no matter what. It's between Bobbi and me. If you get in my way, I'll rip you up.'
'In Haven, You're more likely to be the rippee than the ripper.'
'Well, that's something I'll have to see for myself, even though I'm not from Missouri,' Anne said, and started for the door.
'Anne ... Sissy ... Bobbi's not the same. She .
'Take a walk, little man,' Anne said, and went inside.
18
The windows were open but for some reason the shades were drawn. Every now and then a puff of faint breeze would stir, sucking the shades into the openings a little way. When it happened, they looked like the sails of a becalmed ship doing their best and failing. Anne sniffed and wrinkled her nose. Bluh. The place smelled like a monkey-house. From the Great Poet she would have expected it, but her sister had been raised better. This place was a pigsty.
'Hello, Sissy.'
She turned. For a moment Bobbi was just a shadow, and Anne felt her heart go into her throat because there was something odd about that shape, something all wrong
Then she saw the white blur of her sister's robe, heard the patter of water, and understood that Bobbi had just come from the shower. She was all but naked. Good. But her pleasure was not as great as it should have been. Her unease remained, her feeling that there was something wrong about the shape in the doorway.
This is not a good place to be right now.
'Daddy's dead,' she said, straining her eyes to see better. For all her straining, Bobbi remained only a dim figure in the door which communicated between living room and - she assumed - bathroom.
'I know. Newt Berringer called and told me.'
Something about her voice. Something even more different in the vague suggestiveness of her shape. Then it came to her. The realization brought a nasty shock and stronger fear. She didn't sound afraid. For the first time in her life, Bobbi didn't sound afraid of her.
'We buried him without you. Your mother died a little when you didn't come home, Bobbi.'
She waited for Bobbi to defend herself. There was only silence.
For Christ's sake, come out where I can see you, you little coward!
Anne ... Bobbi's not the same ...
'She fell downstairs four days ago and broke her hip.'
'Did she?' Bobbi asked indifferently.
'You're coming home with me, Bobbi.' She meant to convey force and was appalled by the weak shrillness of her voice.
'It was your teeth that let you get in,' Bobbi said. 'Of course! I should have thought of that!'
'Bobbi, get out here where I can see you!'
'Do you want me to?' Her voice had taken on a strange, teasing lilt. 'I wonder if you do.'
'Stop fucking with me, Bobbi!' Her voice rose unevenly.
'Oh, listen!' Bobbi said. 'I never thought I'd hear anything like that from you, Anne. After all the years you fucked with me ... with all of us. But okay. If you insist. If you insist, that's fine. Just fine.'
She didn't want to see. Suddenly Anne didn't want anything but to run, and keep running until she was far from this shadowy place and this town where they left you fainting all day at the side of the road. But it was too late. She saw the blurred movement of her