Heartstopper (46 page)

“Why not? Divorced couples do it all the time.”

“Oh. I didn’t realize that.”

“We’re obviously still very attracted to each other. And we were always so good together,” he reminded her.

“And Kerri?” Sandy reminded him. “How good together are the two of you?”

Ian lowered his chin, stole a sideward glance toward the front of the restaurant. “Truthfully”—he smiled—“being with Kerri is a bit like being on a trampoline.”

Sandy stared at her husband in slack-jawed amazement. “How do you do that?” she asked when she finally found her voice.

“How do I do what?”

“How do you manage to make a mind-bogglingly stupid statement like that without any obvious shame or embarrassment?”

This time it was Ian who looked surprised. “What—now you’re getting indignant on Kerri’s behalf? Is that what’s happening here?”

Was it? Sandy wondered. Or was she finally realizing just what a piece of work her husband really was? “You are such an asshole,” she marveled, the word escaping her lips before she even realized it was on her tongue.

“There’s no need for name-calling.”

“Au contraire,”
Sandy countered, borrowing Pauline’s earlier expression. “I don’t want to be accused of sending out any mixed messages.” She picked up her martini glass. “To new beginnings,” she toasted again. She took a sip, then tossed the remaining liquid in Ian’s face.

Ian shot to his feet, knocking over his chair. For an instant he looked as if he might retaliate, throw his beer, grab her by the hair, knock her to the floor. But he merely flailed about uselessly for several seconds, the liquid dripping from the tip of his nose to the front of his black shirt. “You’re crazy,” he said, before storming from the restaurant.

Sandy shrugged. “I just wanted to make myself clear.”

M
egan was dreaming.

The dream came at her in fits and starts, a series of blurred, fluctuating images that refused to form a cohesive whole. One minute she was running along the side of a road; the next minute she was sliding headfirst into a large crater. The crater was the result of a recent storm, whose high winds had uprooted all the old banyan trees in the vicinity. One such tree lay on its side, its spindly roots exposed and trailing from its underbelly, like a bunch of severed arteries. Megan tried to grab on to them as she slipped through the giant hole, but her descent was too quick and the roots too fragile to sustain her, and she was rapidly swallowed up by the soft, moist earth, disappearing without a trace. Above her, she heard footsteps and laughter. “Where’s Kate?” someone was asking, and Megan recognized the voice immediately as belonging to her mother.

“She’s at Mr. Lipsman’s,” came the answer.

An orange-and-white tabby cat suddenly jumped into Megan’s lap. “No, I’m not,” she tried to call out as dirt filled her mouth, clinging to her teeth like bits of leftover fillings. “I’m here. Right under your feet.”

And then suddenly she was walking through the perfume counters at Bloomingdale’s, and salesgirls, some of whom wore clinical white smocks over their smart black
suits, were indiscriminately spraying various scents in her direction. She felt her neck grow moist with aromatic mist, her eyes start to water. And then someone shoved a particularly foul-smelling sample right underneath her nose, and she shrank from its poisonous fumes. “I don’t think so,” she told the smiling woman, whose name tag identified her as Fiona Hamilton. “I don’t like that smell at all.”

And then Greg was at her side, lapping up the perfume at her neck, as if it were milk and he one of Mr. Lipsman’s cats. And Ginger and Tanya were dancing around her, and Liana was sitting in a corner, chewing on a piece of candy and watching them.

“What are you doing here?” Megan asked her. “I thought you were dead.”

“I’m not dead,” Liana answered. “I just had a face-lift.”

“You look great,” Megan told her as Delilah Franklin and her mother strolled by arm in arm.

“What are you doing here?” Delilah asked her accusingly. “You should be home in bed.”

The dream ended, yanked from view with the suddenness of a movie projector breaking down.

Slowly Megan opened her eyes and pushed herself up on one elbow, watching the details of the room slowly shift into position. It took a few seconds for the realization to sink in that she wasn’t in her bed, in her room, in her home, that she was, in fact, lying on a narrow cot in dimly lit and unfamiliar surroundings, with no other furniture, no paintings on the four blank walls, and no carpeting on the concrete floor. A thin, blue blanket clung to her shoulders, and a single light fixture, possibly a lantern, sat on a high ledge, far out of her reach. The room smelled dank, the way the unfinished basement of her grandparents’ house in Rochester used to smell before they sold their house and moved to the eighteenth floor of a new condominium, overlooking Lake Ontario.

Where was she?

Megan looked down at herself. She was wearing a black sweater and blue jeans, the same sweater and jeans, as well as the same tan suede boots, she remembered she’d worn to the cast party. How long ago was that? Tonight? Last night? The night before? Was it daytime or evening? How long had she been here, wherever here was?

Where was she?

She felt a glimmer of panic, like a heartbeat, against the inside of her breast. Relax, a little voice cautioned. Obviously you’re still dreaming. Everything you’re seeing—the room, the cot, the blanket, the lantern, even the dank smell—it’s all part of another series of confusing symbols that don’t add up to anything, and that you probably won’t even remember when you wake up.

Please let that be sooner rather than later, Megan prayed, closing her eyes on her unpleasant quarters, although the dank smell lingered. “I don’t like this dream,” she said out loud, trying to force herself awake, hoping her voice would be powerful enough to jolt her into consciousness, then lying back down when it proved insufficient. She pulled the worn blue blanket up over her shoulders and curled her legs against her chest.

She lay that way for what felt like an eternity, although it was probably only a few minutes. Her watch was missing, Megan realized, feeling the empty space on her left wrist where her watch used to be. The watch had been a present from her parents on her sixteenth birthday. It was thin and gold and had a delicate, heart-shaped face. “Just like yours,” her mother had said.

Where was her mother?

“It’s okay,” Megan tried reassuring herself in her mother’s soothing voice, the one she used whenever Megan wasn’t feeling well. “It’s okay, sweetheart. Everything will be okay. I promise you’ll feel better in the morning.” Would she? Or was it already morning?

Where was she? What time was it?

Megan didn’t remember having removed her watch, but then, she reminded herself again, this was a dream, and so memories couldn’t be counted on. There were no memories in dreams. No conjunctives either. She’d read that somewhere. Dreams carried you from one strange place to the next without so much as an
and, if
, or
but
, replaying the day’s events in a variety of seemingly nonsensical ways, combining voices and faces that didn’t normally belong together, mixing the banal with the bizarre, the everyday with the never-was, the living with the dead, without apology or explanation. Sometimes dreams were soothing and pleasant. More often, at least in Megan’s case, they were the opposite. She’d always had a lot of nightmares, and their numbers had increased since her father had moved out. This was just another bad dream, she told herself.

Although it didn’t feel like any dream she’d ever had before.

Megan reopened her eyes and sat back up, the thin blanket slipping from her shoulders and sliding down her arm.

The room was exactly the same as it had been minutes ago. The same blank walls, the same uncarpeted, concrete floor, the same fusty smell. For the first time, Megan noticed a beige plastic pail at the foot of the cot, and a jumbo roll of toilet paper beside it. Gross, she thought, and laughed out loud, hoping again that the sharp sound would be enough to finally dislodge her from this tiresome ordeal. But the sound bounced off the bare walls and rolled toward her feet, like an abandoned rubber ball.

In the corner stood two plastic bottles of water. Had they always been there, or was this something new?

Megan considered getting up and walking over there—she was thirsty—but to do so meant taking an active role
in this nightmare, and she had no desire to prolong it. So she remained where she was, her back pressed against the hard wall, trying to ignore the increasingly certain feeling that was circulating through her veins, the sinking sensation that was growing in her gut, the cruel, unthinkable understanding that this was not a dream, that she wasn’t going to wake up. Because she was already up, she realized with an intake of breath so sharp it felt as if someone had stabbed her through the heart.

She wasn’t asleep. This wasn’t a dream. She was wide-awake, and she had no idea where she was, except she’d never been here before, of that she was certain. “Hello?” she called out. “Hello? Is somebody there?”

And then she saw the door.

“For God’s sake,” she muttered, propelling her body off the cot toward it. How stupid could she be! What a jerk she was, to get herself all worked up over nothing. The door was right there. How had she missed seeing it before? She was standing right in front of it, and all she had to do was open it.

Except it didn’t open, didn’t even budge, no matter how hard she twisted and pulled and ultimately banged and punched and kicked at it with her new boots, until the delicate suede was scratched and scuffed. “What the hell is going on here?” she cried out, beads of sweat breaking out across her forehead. For the first time she realized how warm it was, how still was the air in the windowless room. “Open the door,” she screamed. “Somebody. Open the damn door this minute.”

Where was she?

“Where am I?” she asked out loud, pacing from one side of the room to the other. Think, she thought. “Think,” she shouted, banging her fists repeatedly against her sides. “What’s the last thing you remember?”

She remembered being onstage. She remembered singing and dancing. She remembered basking in the
applause. She remembered Greg’s hand proudly clutching hers as they took their final bows.

Greg, she thought.

Of course.

“Greg?” she cried. “Greg, are you there? Greg, let me out of here. This isn’t funny.”

No answer.

“Greg! Listen to me. The joke’s gone on long enough. You’re not Petruchio. I’m not your stupid Kate. And I really don’t appreciate being locked up like this. Let me out.
Now.”

This had to be Joey’s idea, Megan decided, finally giving in to her thirst and opening one of the bottles of water. Joey’s idea of a joke. A damn sick one.
The Taming of the Shrew
indeed. She lifted the bottle to her lips, her head falling back across the top of her spine as she drank, her eyes slowly panning the ceiling. She felt the water trickle down her throat, felt it turn to a block of ice in her stomach. Was someone watching her?

“Is somebody there?” she whispered, then again, louder this time. “Is somebody there?” Her eyes scanned the walls, searching for holes or hidden cameras. But the light was too dim to make anything out, and the walls were too high for her to check every nook and cranny. She could turn the cot on its side, she realized, use it as a ladder, make a grab for the lantern, but what good would that do? She’d just expend a lot of energy she might need later.

Need for what?

“Greg! Joey! Open the door. Damn you! This is so not funny.”

Megan spun around. What was that sound? Had she heard laughter, or was that just her imagination getting the better of her? She stood absolutely still, waiting to hear it again, but the only sound she heard was the ragged rhythm of her own breathing. Okay, she told herself. You have to calm down. You’re giving them exactly what they
want. It’s just a bunch of stupid kids playing a stupid joke, trying to teach me some sort of lesson. Tanya and Ginger were probably involved, getting back at her for her stealing the part of Kate right out from under their stuck-up noses. And for sure, Joey had something to do with it. But Greg—could he really be involved?

This is our night
, he’d told her as the curtain came down.

Ssh
, he’d told her later.

When was that? When had he told her to be quiet?

At the cast party, Megan remembered, the scene suddenly taking shape around her: Lonny Reynolds’s living room, the music, the dancing, the drinking. The angry exchange with Joey. Going upstairs with Greg. The master bedroom with its king-size bed and satin pillows. The feel of Greg’s lips on hers, the taste of his beer on the tip of her tongue, his hands on her bare breasts. Her inane chatter. His telling her to
ssh.
Her walking to the door. The click of the lock as the door opened and she’d left him sitting there alone.

Just as she was now.

Was this his way of getting even?

Yes, he’d been angry. There was no doubt about that. He’d obviously had big plans for tonight,
our
night, he’d said—was it still tonight?—and she’d put a damper on them. More than a damper. She’d blown them away. She’d talked about her aunt’s termites, for God’s sake. No wonder he’d told her to ssh. She’d tried to tell him she just wasn’t ready. But his response had been to call her a cock-teaser and tell her to send in the next girl in line.

She’d fled the room, the house, the block.

And then what?

What happened next?

One street had quickly become another. She’d run, all the while listening for the sound of Greg’s footsteps behind her, the touch of his hand on her shoulder, his plaintive
voice telling her to stop, wait, slow down.
I’m sorry
, she could hear him say.
I didn’t mean any of it.

And then someone
was
behind her, whispering her name, and she was turning around, so relieved because he was there and she didn’t have to run anymore, and then …