plucked Thanksgiving turkey; every rib cast a shadow; his buttocks were little more than biscuits. Thanks to the stroke, everything slumped to the right when I helped him back to his bed.
I rubbed him down with Voltaren Gel for his aches and pains, then fetched his pills, which were in a plastic case with almost as many compartments as there are keys on a piano. By the time he’d gotten them all down, the Voltaren had had a chance to work, and he could dress himself—except for the sock on his right foot. That I had to put on myself, but I always waited until he’d hauled on his boxers. I had no interest in being eye-to-eye with his elderly schlong.
“All right,” he’d say when the sock was pulled up to his scrawny shin. “I’ll do the rest myself. Thank you, Jamie.”
He always said thank you, and the TV always went on as soon as the door was closed.
Those were long, long days. The resort’s pool had been drained, and it was far too hot to walk the grounds. There was a health club, though, and when I wasn’t reading (there was a shitpoke excuse for a library, mostly stocked with Erle Stanley Gardner, Louis L’Amour, and old Reader’s Digest Condensed Books), I exercised in solitary, air-conditioned splendor. I jogged miles on the treadmill, pedaled miles on the stationary bicycle, stepped on the StairMaster, curled hand weights.
The only station the TV in my quarters got was Channel 8 out of Poland Spring, and the reception was lousy, producing a picture too fuzzy to watch. The same was true of the wall-size job in the Sunset Lounge. I guessed there was a satellite dish somewhere, but only Charlie Jacobs was hooked up to it. I thought of asking if he would share, then didn’t. He might have said yes, and I’d taken everything from him that I intended to. Charlie’s gifts came with a pricetag.
All that exercise, and still I slept like shit. My old nightmare, gone for years, returned: dead family members sitting around the dining room table in the home place, and a moldy birthday cake that gave birth to huge insects.
• • •
I woke shortly after 5 AM on the morning of July 30th, thinking I’d heard something downstairs. I decided it was the remnant of my dream, lay back down, and closed my eyes. I was just drifting off when it came again: a subdued clatter that sounded like kitchen pots.
I got up, stepped into a pair of jeans, and hurried downstairs. The kitchen was empty, but I glimpsed someone through the window, descending the back steps on the side of the loading dock. When I got out there, Jenny Knowlton was slipping behind the wheel of a golf cart with GOAT MOUNTAIN RESORT decaled on the side. On the seat beside her was a bowl with four eggs in it.
“Jenny! Wait!”
She started, then saw it was me and smiled. I was willing to give her an A for effort, but that smile really wasn’t up to much. She looked ten years older than when I’d last seen her, and the dark circles under her eyes suggested I wasn’t the only one having sleep problems. She’d stopped dyeing her hair, and there were at least two inches of gray below the glossy black.
“I woke you, didn’t I? Sorry, but it’s your own fault. The dish drainer’s full of pots and pans, and I hit it with my elbow. Didn’t your mother ever teach you to use the dishwasher?”
The answer to that was no, because we never had one. What my mother taught me was that it’s easier to let stuff air-dry, as long as there’s not too much. But kitchen cleanup wasn’t what I wanted to talk about.
“What are you doing here?”
“I came for eggs.”
“You know that’s not what I mean.”
She looked away. “I can’t tell you. I made a promise. In fact, I signed a contract.” She laughed without humor. “I doubt if it would stand up in court, but I intend to honor it, just the same. I owe a debt, the same as you. Besides, you’ll know soon enough.”
“I want to know now.”
“I have to go, Jamie. He doesn’t want us talking. If he found out, he’d be mad. I just wanted a few eggs. If I ever have to look at another bowl of Cheerios or Frosted Flakes, I’ll scream.”
“Unless your car’s got a dead battery, you could have gone to Food City