Gilda Joyce: The Ladies of the Lake (17 page)

D
id I ever tell you the story I heard about this girl who was left home alone while her mom went out drinking with some guy?” Gilda sat on her mother’s bed, watching as her mother got ready for a date with Brad. “When her mom got back home, there was nothing left of her daughter but her little finger with a note attached to it. What do you think the note said?”

“I have no idea, Gilda.” Mrs. Joyce calmly continued to apply brown mascara to her otherwise invisible auburn eyelashes.

“It said, ‘Either give us a million dollars or don’t expect to see your daughter again.’”

Mrs. Joyce shook a can of hairspray in response.

“Luckily, this girl’s mom happened to have a million dollars just lying around the house, so she got her daughter back the next day. I mean, the girl only had nine fingers, so she had to quit her piano lessons, but she was otherwise okay.
Some
people wouldn’t have been that lucky.”

“Gilda, I know you’ve been nervous about staying home by yourself recently,” said Mrs. Joyce, adjusting a stray lock of hair.
“Stephen has to work tonight, so I’ve made arrangements for a babysitter.”

“What?!” Gilda jumped up from the bed, outraged. “I’m old enough to
be
a babysitter. Wendy Choy has been babysitting Terrence for three years now.”

“Is that why you’re telling me stories about girls who have their little fingers cut off when they’re left alone?”

“No. I’m just telling you that to make you feel bad.”

“I don’t need anything else to feel bad about, Gilda.” Mrs. Joyce moved toiletries around on her dressing table, searching for a misplaced earring. “I asked Grandma Joyce if she wouldn’t mind coming over tonight, and she was thrilled.”

This wasn’t exactly good news. Grandma Joyce’s idea of a fun time was, “Let’s surprise your mom and wash the windows!” Or: “I bet if we set out minds to it, we can get this room really, really spic and span!”

“She’ll probably want to clean all the toilets in the neighborhood or something,” Gilda complained.

“That would be wonderful,” said Mrs. Joyce, dabbing off some excess lipstick. “But I’ve already told her that I want her to relax. No housework tonight.”

“I’m ready for the slumber party!” said Grandma Joyce, standing at the front door and holding up a package of microwave popcorn and a video of the movie
Halloween
.

Grandma Joyce was the only woman Gilda knew who not only used sponge rollers, but who wore them outside with a scarf around her head that looked like a lumpy turban.

“Hi, Grandma,” said Gilda, letting her grandmother in. “Haven’t we seen
Halloween
before?”

“You know how I love the scary shows, and it was the only thing I could find in the video shop.”

Grandma Joyce loved horror movies, but she was a frustrating person to watch them with because what she really enjoyed was the failure of the films to evoke any fear. As she watched, she made frequent comments: “Now that’s just silly. Oh, for heaven’s sake, that is just ridiculous!”

“Let’s get this popcorn popping!” said Grandma Joyce, heading toward the kitchen. She tossed the popcorn into the microwave, then started washing some dishes that had been left in the sink.

“Did Mom tell you that she’s going on a
date
?” Gilda wondered what Grandma Joyce knew about Brad Squib. Did she view Mrs. Joyce’s dating life as a betrayal of her dead son?

“I’m not the meddling type,” Grandma Joyce declared. “Not like my friend Layla; she’s always into her kids’ business, and her daughter-in-law’s business, and then she even tells her grandkids what to do. I tell her, ‘Layla, give them some space!’ She doesn’t know when to stop.”

“Mom’s boyfriend’s name is Brad.”

Grandma Joyce scrubbed a pot vigorously, as if it needed a good thrashing as well as cleaning. “Nice name.”

“I think it’s a stupid name.”

Grandma Joyce paused and looked at Gilda. “You know, Gilda, your dad would have wanted your mom to find somebody. He really worried about how hard it was going to be for her on her
own, what with all the bills and college just around the corner and everything you kids were going to need.”

“You’re saying she should marry for the money?”

“I wouldn’t put it that way.”

“How would you put it?”

“I’m just saying that it’s understandable that she wants a companion. Now, I personally don’t need a man around to keep me happy, because I have my friends and grandkids and church and favorite TV shows and everything, but your mom’s still a young person and she doesn’t have many hobbies either, so you can’t really expect her to spend the rest of her life as a single woman.”

“Maybe we can find her a hobby,” Gilda suggested. “Some model airplanes or something.” Gilda always felt very impatient with girls who needed to have a boyfriend at all times, and she wondered if her own mother now fell into that category of weak females.

“I see you’ve still got that smart mouth.”

“It’s not that I don’t want Mom to find someone,” Gilda explained. “It’s just—there’s something about
this
guy that I don’t trust.”

“What don’t you trust?”

“I think he’s hiding something.”

“I see,” said Grandma Joyce, nodding knowingly. “You never can tell with some people. Now, my friend Layla gets a call the other day, and next thing she knows, her daughter is getting married to a man in Vegas. Well, come to find out, the man stole her daughter’s credit cards and every pair of her panty hose, and she has never seen him since.”

“He stole her
panty hose
?”

“There are crazies out there, Gilda. Crazies!”

Grandma Joyce always had a way of bringing every conversation back to the troubles encountered by her friend Layla. It was actually a very good technique for changing the subject.

As Gilda and her grandmother sat down to watch the movie, Mrs. Joyce appeared looking shimmery and polished in a black, knit pantsuit, high heels, and gold jewelry. Her auburn hair was free of stray grays, and she had a new haircut that flattered her face with layers.

Gilda felt a conflicted sense of pride and annoyance with her mother. It was true that her mom looked younger than ever and that her fashion sense had greatly improved. On the other hand, the fact that Brad was the inspiration for this makeover was irritating.

“My, don’t we look spiffy!” Grandma Joyce declared.

“Thank you.” Mrs. Joyce grabbed her purse and looked as if she would like to escape the house quickly. “I’ll be on my way now.”

“Get thee to a nunnery,” Gilda mumbled, staring at the television.

“Excuse me?”

Gilda cleared her throat. “I said, ‘Go thy ways to a nunnery.’”

“Why are you telling your mother to go to a nunnery, Gilda?” Grandma Joyce asked.

“It’s from
Hamlet
. Haven’t either of you read Shakespeare?” Gilda had just finished reading
Hamlet
and had been eager to say this line to someone.

“I don’t like your tone one bit, Gilda,” said Mrs. Joyce. “And I think you will apologize right now.”

“What did I say?”

Mrs. Joyce stared at Gilda for a moment, as if trying to decide whether forcing an apology was worth the trouble. She had the feeling the line was a reference to something familiar, but she wasn’t sure what. At any rate, it sounded rude. She walked to the center of the room, picked up the remote, and clicked off the television.

Grandma Joyce sighed. “Gilda, will you please apologize to your mother so we can watch the movie?”

“I’m
sorry
,” said Gilda irritably. “You know, you send me to school to learn literature, and then you punish me when I actually speak like an educated person.”

“That’s right,” said Mrs. Joyce. “I don’t like a smart-mouth.”

Gilda had never understood the logic of the term
smart-mouth
. Shouldn’t someone
want
to have a smart mouth?

Mrs. Joyce sighed. “Well, I can see I’m not wanted around here this evening. I’ll be going now.”

“Have fun, dear, and keep your wits about you,” said Grandma Joyce. “There are crazies out there on the dating scene these days.”

Mrs. Joyce raised an eyebrow at Gilda, as if blaming her for this piece of unsolicited advice.

Gilda and her grandmother sat on opposite ends of the couch with an enormous bowl of popcorn between them. As the movie began, Grandma Joyce began to combat the show’s
attempt to scare her. “Oh, pul-lease! You expect me to believe this nonsense?”

The kitchen telephone rang, and Grandma Joyce shrieked.

“You’re not scared of the movie, but you scream at the
telephone
ringing?”

“Good grief, that startled me!” Grandma Joyce exclaimed. “That ringer you have is way too loud. Maybe you should get that, Gilda, in case it’s your mom or Stephen.”

Keeping one eye on the television while standing in the kitchen, Gilda picked up the phone. “Hello?”

Nobody answered.

“Hello?”

A weighted silence was the only response. Gilda sensed someone on the line, listening.

“Hello?!”

“
You will drown … in the lake
….” a girl’s voice whispered.

Gilda felt both confused and terrified. She also sensed the small thrill she got whenever she encountered something genuinely mysterious. “Who
is
this?”

“
I’m dead
.”

A dial tone followed.

Stay calm
, Gilda told herself.
Don’t panic; think
. She remembered that hitting *69 would give her the phone number of the last incoming call. A robotic voice provided a local number that Gilda quickly dialed. Could a ghost have her own phone number?
You can handle this
, Gilda told herself, listening to the surprisingly ordinary pulsing tone of a phone ringing somewhere.

“Lambert residence.” A woman’s hoarse voice answered.

For a moment, Gilda was speechless.

“This is the Lambert residence. Who’s there, please?”

“Is this
Dolores
Lambert’s house?”

There was a cold silence at the other end of the line. “It
was
her residence. Who is this, please?”

Is that Dolores’s mother
? Gilda wondered. “Mrs. Lambert, someone just called me from your phone number.”

“I don’t think so.”

“But I just hit star sixty-nine, and I got your number.”

“I have no idea how that happened, dear. Nobody called you from our house. Good evening.”

The woman hung up. Gilda placed the phone back on the receiver and felt uncomfortably aware of every detail of her surroundings—the creepiness of the vintage cat clock from the 1970s with its moving tail and eyes that twitched away the seconds, the blackness of the windowpane glazed with frost. Every inanimate object looked ominous.

I just received a phone call from a ghost
, Gilda thought. She suddenly remembered the blithe advice she had given Tiara: “Just ask her what she wants.”

“Okay, Dolores,” said Gilda, standing in the middle of the kitchen with hands on hips. “What do you want?”

A piercing scream from the video playing in the living room was the only response.

G
ilda stood at the front door of Dolores Lambert’s house—an enormous Tudor-style home located within walking distance of Our Lady of Sorrows. It had been easy enough to find Dolores’s address in an old student directory, but now Gilda felt nervous about actually ringing the doorbell.

A woman who exuded weariness opened the door and peered at Gilda quizzically. Her blue eyes and wide, reddish face faintly resembled the picture of Dolores in the school yearbook.

“Mrs. Lambert?”

“Yes?”

“My name is Gilda Joyce, and I go to Our Lady of Sorrows.”

At the mention of Our Lady of Sorrows, Mrs. Lambert’s face softened. “Yes, I thought that pink skirt looked familiar,” she said, opening the door a bit wider.

“I just wondered if I could ask you a couple questions.” Gilda felt awkward. There was simply no tactful way to show up at Mrs. Lambert’s door and ask about a dead daughter who had made a ghostly phone call.