Moonbog (11 page)

David shuffled his feet nervously. “Well.” He shrugged. “How do you know? Maybe it’ll be OK.”

Allison scowled and then, making a circle with her fingers as though she were daintily lifting a cup to her lips, she said, “More tea, vicar?” And then followed that with a loud, slurping noise.

“Come on Allison.” David walked over to where she had plunked herself on the bed. He smiled, trying to break her down, but her mouth remained rigid. “No way! One hour of religion this morning is
more
than enough for me!” She softened a bit, looking up at him. “Don’t you think,” she said, fluttering her eyelids, “that we could find better things to do?”

David swallowed hard, and tried to look away from her seductive expression. “Just what do you have in mind?” he asked with mocked innocence.

Without a word, Allison stood up, went over to the window, and snapped the Venetian blinds shut. Turning, she walked back over to the bed, sat down, and reached behind her back. The bra fastener snapped audibly, and the bra dropped into her lap.

“Ummm,” David murmured as he stared at her exposed ample breasts. He smiled and cupped both in his hands, gently massaging them. Allison stirred, moaning softly. Slowly, she lay back on the bed, with her feet still touching the floor.

“That’s more like
my
idea of a good time,” she said raspily. David leaned over to kiss her, and he felt her hands working to open his pants. He began to nibble on her ear lobe, and Allison’s hands worked harder to slide the pants down his legs. He let his breath out with a long, wheezy whistle as she rolled him over onto the bed and began kissing a line from his neck to his chest to his stomach and down. He reached down blindly, still massaging her breasts as she began to suck on him gently.

“Oh, baby, you do it
so-o-o
nice,” he whispered. Allison was working on him more vigorously now. David closed his eyes and went with the warm, flowing feeling that spread up from his groin.

Allison paused for a moment and looked up at him with dreamy eyes. “
This
is what you get for being a good boy all week.”

He started to prop himself up on one arm and, as he did, he caught a glimpse of his watch. “Jesus,” he shouted suddenly. He jumped up from the bed and tried to take a step, but his pants were still down around his ankles and he went sprawling onto the floor.

“Wha—what
is
it?” Allison shouted, frightened.

David rolled over onto his knees and hurriedly pulled his pants up. As he hastened to stand, he tapped his watchface impatiently. “Look at the time,” he yelled.

“Huh?”

“We’re gonna’ be late if we don’t get our asses in gear.” He picked Allison’s bra up from off the floor and tossed it to her. It shot over her head and landed on the floor behind the bed.

“Oh, Christ! You shithead!”

“Come on. Come on. Get yourself dressed,” he snapped. “We can’t keep the vicar waiting for tea all afternoon, just because you’ve got hot pants.”

“I will
not!
”

“The hell you won’t,” David said firmly. From the closet he took down the dress Allison had worn to church that morning and threw it onto the bed beside her.

“I—“

“
Dress!
”

Allison fished her bra out from behind the bed. David admired her rump as she did. She started to pull the dress on over her head, and David patted her affectionately on the bottom. “You bastard,” came the muffled response from beneath the dress. “Piss on you.”

“Hey, come on,” David said. He stepped back as Allison pulled the dress down and adjusted it. He shook his head and whistled as he watched her and said, “You look great.”

“I don’t want to go,” Allison said, sounding like a little girl who had been asked to clean her room.

“You can fake it just a little bit longer. You did such a good job this morning, I’d bet Pastor Clement never guessed you’d rather be back here screwing your brains out.” He smiled widely, but that soon faded as he registered the expression on Allison’s face.

“You can fake it,” she said with a snarl, “I’m going to stay right here in the motel.” She folded her arms across her chest and huffed.

“Come on,” David pleaded, “get ready. We can pick up where we left off when we get back.”

Allison took exaggerated strides over to the easy chair beside the window, casually lit a cigarette, and stared blankly out at the early afternoon sunshine.

“Allison, please.”

With her fingers placed delicately on the edge of her chin, she arched her eyebrows and smirked.

“Allison.”

Suddenly she glared at him. “You can find yourself a milk bottle with a tight top, for all I care. I’m not going, and that’s final.” She flicked her ash onto the floor for emphasis.

“You . . . you,” David muttered. He took his jacket, went to the door, opened it and leaned on the edge.

“Have fun,” Allison said, waving the tips of her fingers.

David shook his head slowly from side to side and, stepping outside, gently eased the door shut behind him.

“I may be here when you get back,” she said to him through the door, but he was already halfway down to the car and didn’t hear her.

III

A
s it turned out, David spent less than half an hour at Pastor Clement’s house. Everyone was friendly enough to him—although he sensed that many people there were wondering why Allison wasn’t with him—but he soon tired of defending the reasons he wasn’t planning to return to Holland to live. Making an excuse that Allison had the stomach flu, he left before three-thirty.

But the last thing he wanted to do was go back to the motel and listen to Allison’s bitching. Other than the trip into Portland, she had not found anything nice to say about Holland or Maine in general. Although he might have shared many of her opinions, he didn’t want to hear someone else speak them—especially so often. With a grim set to his jaw, he steered the Rabbit in the direction of the old house. He had the keys in his pocket and had decided that it was about time he went out there and had a look around.

He drove through town and up the Little River Road—automatically stamping his foot on the floorboard when he crossed the little bridge. When the old homestead came into view, David slowed the car to a crawl to avoid the potholes in the long unused driveway, and drove up into the dooryard.

The house sat on a high, grassy rise. There were two gigantic oaks in the front yard, standing like sentinels as they had since David could remember. They still stood, tall and impressive, but David was jolted by the realization that they didn’t seem to be quite as tall as he remembered them.

Behind the screen of these two trees stood the house. It was a large, sprawling affair, looking as though it had started out long ago as a modest house but then had grown as the family living inside had grown. The center section of the house stood tall, with two finished stories and an attic. From the main part of the house, pointing out toward the old barn, was an L that contained the kitchen, bathroom, and a large pantry. Around back, projecting out towards the open field, the living room had been enlarged and a porch added on. At the other end of the house was another addition that had been Grandma Logan’s bedroom.

David drove right up to the barn door and stopped his car. He sat there for a long time, looking up at the old place. Virgil Shaw had been right, he concluded: the place had run down considerably since he had last seen it. The flat gray paint was peeling off the walls in large, potato-chip sized flakes. David counted at least one pane in every window that was broken, either by branches blown down during a storm or, more likely, the well-aimed stones of local kids. David was angry that they had broken so many windows, but, he admitted honestly to himself, when he was a kid he would have done the same thing.

Not one of the window shutters was whole. Of the ones that hadn’t fallen to the ground, several slats were missing, giving them a gap-tooth appearance. The shutter by the window of his old bedroom was hanging at a forty-five degree angle from one rusted hinge. From the fist-sized hole in the glass, a trace of lace curtain fluttered in the breeze.

The house looked
very
dead; David wouldn’t have been surprised if there were rumors around town that the place was haunted. He felt a cool tightness in his chest as he stared at what had been, until now, merely a memory and a carefully worded description in a legal document. Now, the living memory filled him with a numbing nostalgia. He reached into his pocket, felt for the house key, and got out of the car.

The front steps creaked underfoot as he took them slowly, one by one. He paused at the front door, staring at the
No Trespassing
sign nailed to the wall. It was old and torn. He swung the dilapidated door open, then bent to slide the key into the door lock. With effort, the rusted tumblers turned and then clicked open. Putting his hand on the doorknob, David jiggled the door, but it was stuck—the wood had swollen. He put his shoulder against the door and shoved. It opened with a loud complaint.

When he stepped inside, a stale, musty aroma, which fit the “deadness” of the house perfectly, assailed his nostrils. It was almost strong enough to make him want to shut the door and leave the place behind. David knew he should leave, head back to the motel; but his memories and curiosity could not be denied. He swung the door shut softly behind him.

From where he stood in the hallway, he could see into the dining room to his right. The heavy oak table still stood in the center of the room, draped with several sheets. To his left was the kitchen. The dull glow of the late afternoon sun filtered through the dingy lace curtains and glanced off the grimy stove, refrigerator, and table. Someone had left a pale green coffee cup on the counter; David wondered what he would see if he looked inside it. In front of him were the steps that led to the upstairs bedrooms tempting him to run right upstairs and see if his old bed was still there.

Sighing, David twisted around and hung his key ring on the nail that was driven into the door frame. He smiled, aware that the move had been totally unconscious, a habit from growing up in this house. When he was a teenager, he had been notorious for leaving the car keys in his jacket pocket or on his bureau, so his father had suggested he hang the keys near the door so he’d never lose them. Now, many years later, the habit remained. David smiled and, rubbing his hands together, walked slowly into the dining room.

He stood beside the table for a moment, smiling to himself as he remembered the numerous meals he had eaten there with his family;
most
of the memories were pleasant. He went over to the room divider that separated the dining room from the living room and, leaning on his elbows, looked into the living room.

The furniture in this room was also covered with sheets. The couch and two easy chairs looked like the distorted figures of crippled ghosts in the darkening room. The black hole of the fireplace was cold and unforgiving. David briefly considered going outside for some wood and starting a fire, but decided against it. He checked his watch and saw that it was getting late. Allison might be starting to wonder where he was; and, he considered, with what had happened in town, he might not want to be out of town in a deserted building—alone. What if—

What if a black, looming shadow passed in front of the window?

Feeling a racing chill between his shoulder blades, David spun and stared at the living room window, but there was nothing and no one outside. He considered leaving immediately but realized that the impulse was from his foolish fears, not from any real threat. Besides, he convinced himself that he should take the time now and soak in the stale air and the memories it engendered. This might be his last time here for all he knew.

He walked over to the couch that faced the fireplace. He swore softly as he lifted up the edge of the sheet to shake away the dust and saw the familiar print pattern beneath. He swept the yellowed sheet away and dropped it onto the floor. Sitting down with a sigh, he stared for a long time at the empty fireplace.

The fire should be lit, he thought. There should be life and warmth in this house, not the choking, dusty air. The closeness of the air in the room made him start to nod and, for a moment, he imagined he saw flames dancing on the hearth, filling the space with a warm, orange glow. His face began to warm from the imaginary fire, and his vision began to blur. Just before he fell asleep and his head dropped onto the back of the couch he thought—was convinced that he heard voices calling. Soon, he was sound asleep.

IV

L
eah Rankin glared at her husband. With a quick puff of breath, she blew away the strand of hair that had fallen over her left eye.

“Les—” she started to say, but then stopped. Her shoulders dropped and she looked down at her arms, elbow-deep in the sudsy dish water.

“I’m tellin’ you it just ain’t necessary, that’s all,” Les Rankin said emphatically.

Leah opened her mouth to speak but, instead, remained quiet and continued to scrub the dinner plate that had long since come clean.

“There ain’t no problem, that’s all there is to it,” Les said.