Pretty Please (Nightmare Hall) (2 page)

Maybe. But he couldn’t know the reason. She probably looked perfectly normal from the outside, not at all like someone whose nerves were all tied up in knots and didn’t know why.

He stood up. “Evan Colt. And you are…?”

“Johanna Donahue,” she managed, her voice stiff. “And I’m leaving now.”

But when she turned to go, he reached out and stopped her, his hand on her left elbow. “No,” he said, “I don’t think so.” He smiled fully then, and it seemed to Jo that someone had suddenly ripped all of the heavy draperies from the windows and let in a warm, bright sun. “I told myself while I was relaxing on that couch that if a girl with the good sense to leave that dull crowd walked in here, I’d want to know her. I just didn’t expect her to look like you. Talk to me. Do people call you Johanna or do they corrupt it into something shorter?”

“Jo,” she said shortly. Maybe she should give him a chance. He was, after all, the kind of person who had sought out the peace and quiet of the library, just as she had. That had to mean something.

When he took her hand and led her to a seat on the couch, she didn’t protest. Talking to someone new and interesting might shake her feeling that she really wasn’t present at this party, that she was watching from a distance, and waiting….

It was worth a try.

And, for a little while, it worked. Evan
was
interesting. She liked to watch the expressions on his face change from a lighthearted smile to an annoyed frown, which happened often as he spoke. It was a great face, strong-boned and well-designed, like something chiseled on a mountainside.

She liked the way he moved, light and easy on his feet, when he got up to stir the fireplace embers with a poker.

But when he asked her if she was interested in dancing and they left the library to join other couples dancing in the ballroom, the feeling of anxiety swept over her again like a cold fog.

She didn’t understand it. The music was great, she was surrounded by friends, and she was with a new and interesting person. And as they walked past the glass patio doors, she saw her reflection. The image was that of a very pretty girl with long auburn hair, wearing a green dress, dancing with a tall, good-looking guy.

Perfection.

She should have been having the time of her life, and instead there were tiny little insects of worry crawling up and down her spine. What on earth was
wrong
with her?

I don’t
get
like this, she puzzled as she and Evan danced. I’m not the nervous type and I don’t get anxious in thunderstorms and I’m not the least bit afraid of the dark. So what is my problem tonight?

She
did
think it was funny when Kelly and Reed walked into the ballroom and saw her dancing with Evan. Kelly’s perfect jaw actually dropped, and her elbow made a beeline for Reed’s ribs, alerting him. He, too, looked surprised when he saw Jo with Evan.

Well, for pete’s sake, she thought, you’d think they’d never seen me with a guy! I’ve had plenty of dates since I got to Salem.

And then it occurred to her that what was probably surprising her friends was not that she was with a guy, but how
happy
she looked about being with this particular one. It was a look they hadn’t seen before.

Well, she thought, at least I
look
like I’m relaxed. My sudden attack of unexplained paranoia isn’t showing. That’s a relief.

She noticed then, sitting alone in a chair along one wall, a tall, thin, plain girl with straight blonde hair. It was the look in the girl’s eyes as she watched the dancers that tugged at Jo’s heart. She didn’t know the girl, but she could see how desperately she wanted to be a part of the scene instead of being a spectator.

That’s the way I felt earlier, Jo thought as the song ended, as if I were part of the audience instead of being
in
the play. It wasn’t a good feeling. That girl has probably felt like part of the audience ever since she got to Salem.

What was it like to always be on the outside looking in? Even in high school she hadn’t felt that way.

I don’t ever want to know, Jo thought emphatically.

They were about to go forage for food at one of the long, narrow, white-clothed tables lining the walls when Missy, camera in hand, stopped them.

“You are not taking one more step until I get your picture,” she said archly. “I bought a special album, just for pictures of this party. And you’ve been avoiding me all night long, Johanna.” Then she added snidely, “I suppose posing isn’t as much fun when you’re not getting paid.”

Evan looked surprised. “You’re a model?” he asked.

Jo shook her head, annoyed with Missy, but relieved that Evan hadn’t known about the newspaper ads. For a while after the ads started, they’d all been besieged by phone calls and notes from admirers. She was glad Evan hadn’t been one of them.

“Look,” Missy said, “I insist on getting a picture of The Beautiful People—at
my
party.”

Jo sighed. “Oh, all right. Wait’ll I grab the others and we’ll pose for
one
picture, Missy, that’s all. Just one, so you’d better do it right.”

She dragged Evan with her as she moved around the ballroom collecting Kelly and Nan, Reed, and Carl.

“What’s our fee?” Carl asked jokingly, and Reed, who had just filled a plate with food, groaned at being interrupted.

“Put the plate down, Reed,” Jo warned, “or Missy will run over and snatch it right out of your hands. She means business.” She grinned as Reed reluctantly put the plate back on the table. “It’s hard being gorgeous, isn’t it, Reed? So many obligations….”

Evan laughed.

In spite of her eagerness, it took Missy an intolerable length of time to decide where they should pose. She finally decided on a long, narrow bench to the left of the glass patio doors. “Females in front, on the bench,” she ordered, “guys in back, standing. That way I can get you all in at the same time.”

Evan, who had refused to pose with them and received no argument from Missy, stood off to one side. “Those candles over their heads are going to cast shadows on their faces,” he pointed out.

Missy barely glanced at the pair of burning candelabra, sitting on shelves above the bench. “It’ll be romantic,” she said, peering into her camera. “A nice, romantic glow. Just the effect I want.”

It hasn’t been a bad night at all, Jo thought, straightening her skirt and obediently sitting up straight on the bench. Not bad at all. I think I have finally relaxed. Whatever that nagging feeling was, it must have come from something I ate.

She wet her lips as she’d been taught to do and prepared to smile when Missy said “Cheese!” Although in Missy’s case, she might well say “petit fours” or “caviar.”

A crowd had gathered to watch them pose. Missy was calling out orders like a drill sergeant—sit this way; move that way; turn in this direction; take a step backward, Reed; cross your legs, Nan—when a couple came in through the patio doors, bringing a sudden gust of wind with them.

The wind circled the bench. The group shivered with the sudden cold.

Missy, annoyed, lowered the camera.

Then the wind danced on, wrapping itself around the candelabra on the wall behind the bench. The wind pulled and tugged at the flames, teasing them, fueling them into two separate, roaring blazes shooting out of the wall.

Someone slammed the glass doors shut;

With a disappointed moan, the wind died.

But before Missy could lift the camera again, a girl in the crowd of onlookers gasped and screamed, “Reed’s jacket’s on fire!”

The three girls on the bench jumped up and whirled around.

There were no flames, only smoke behind Reed’s head, but it was clear that his jacket had been touched by the brief, sudden blaze. It was also clear that the cloth could burst into flames at any moment.

Reed’s eyes were startled, his face as stark-white as the wall behind him. “What should I do?” he whispered.

Everyone began screaming at once. “Throw him on the floor! Back him up against the wall! Someone get a blanket!”

The crowd surged forward, pushing Jo aside.

It was Evan who shouted, “Take the stupid jacket off!”

Too late. The jacket burst into flames. Yellow and orange spires shot up into the air and singed Reed’s hair, causing him to cry out. His eyes were wild with fear.

Jo’s only thought as she watched, horrified, was to get to her friend’s aid and rip the jacket off him before he was seriously injured.

She tried to move forward, to join Carl, struggling to remove the flaming jacket from a fear-paralyzed Reed.

But the crowd, a solid wall of people bordering on hysteria caused by the sight of the flames, surrounded her, imprisoning her.

Jo pushed against them, pushed hard.

Just as she thought she was going to break free, that one more step would do it, something hit the small of her back, hard, knocking her off-balance.

At the same moment, the crowd surged forward. With nothing solid to grasp and no one in front of her to break her fall, Jo was slammed forward as if she’d been hit by a truck.

She was thrown directly into one of the glass doors.

The sound of splintering wood and exploding glass mingled with horrified screams and gasps as Jo crashed into and through the door, head first, falling to the stone patio in a shower of flying glass and fragments of wood.

Face down amid the debris, Jo lay perfectly still.

Icy January air rushed into the ballroom.

Behind her, Reed’s jacket, safely off him, lay smoldering on the floor.

A stunned silence fell over the crowd. They stood frozen, staring in renewed shock at the patio.

Evan was the first to reach Jo’s side. Gently, very gently, he reached down and turned her over.

Someone screamed.

Johanna Donahue’s beautiful face was smeared from forehead to chin with bright red blood.

W
HEN JO WOKE UP,
she was surrounded by white. It took her several dazed moments to realize she was lying in one of the small white cubicles in the infirmary. She had been there once before, when she’d been struck in the head by a softball early in the first semester.

A tall, blonde woman in a white jacket, clipboard in hand, was standing at the foot of her bed. Her name, Jo remembered, was Dr. Trent.

“Well, you’re awake! Good.” The doctor moved around to stand beside Jo. “I have good news for you. No serious harm done.”

Jo worked at sorting things out. The party…Reed’s jacket on fire…the glass doors…she had fallen…Jo gasped. She’d gone through those doors headfirst. The glass had exploded…her hands flew to her face. Had it been sliced to ribbons by that flying glass?

She felt bandages—lots of tape and a thick pad of gauze under one eye. “Oh, no!” she cried. “What’s happened to my face?”

“You’re fine,” Dr. Trent said. “Don’t let the bandages scare you. You’ve only got one serious cut on the side of your neck, where a scar won’t show, and another less serious one on your right cheek, just under your eye. You were very lucky.”

Lucky? Fighting tears, Jo gingerly explored the patchwork of tiny pieces of tape and the larger squares of gauze, one on her neck, one on her cheek. She felt like a mummy. Her heart sank and she struggled against panic. No one would be asking her to model for newspaper ads any time soon.

“I notified your mother,” the doctor said. “I explained that you’re not in any danger, and I think she’s okay with it. But I’m sure she’d like to hear from you. Give her a call as soon as you’re fully awake, okay? There’s a phone on the wall over there.”

When Jo had pulled herself together, she made the call, assuring her mother that there was no need for a visit to campus. She sounded much more certain than she felt. Her face felt stiff and sore. How could she be sure the doctor was telling the truth about no serious damage? Couldn’t she just be saying that so Jo wouldn’t get hysterical?

She wanted to find a mirror and check for herself.

Then, just as quickly, she decided she
didn’t
want to find a mirror. Not yet.

She decided that she would believe the doctor. “No serious harm done.” She would believe it because she couldn’t stand not to.

Her friends were allowed to see her, and they all breathed a heavy sigh of relief when the doctor informed them that “It’s not as bad as it looks, I promise.” She smiled at the white-faced group anxiously gathered around Jo’s bed. “I know all that blood must have been scary,” she said, “but most of the cuts were surface lacerations. I only had to stitch two, and one of those was on the side of her neck. It will hardly show at all.”

“She’s going to look,” the doctor continued, “like she tangled with a tiger, for a couple of weeks. After that, she should be good as new. I’m going to keep her here overnight to watch for any signs of a head injury. But my take on it is that she’ll be free to go in the morning. Stop by then.”

They wanted to believe the doctor. But Jo could see that they were skeptical. She didn’t blame them. Even without a mirror, she could imagine what she looked like.

“Is Reed okay?” she asked anxiously.

Evan nodded. “The hair on the back of his neck was singed, but that’s about it. I think he’s still shaking, though. We took him home and put him to bed.”

They had all had a terrible scare. And Jo could see that they hadn’t quite recovered from it yet. Nan and Kelly were white as sheets, and Carl was staring at her as if he expected her to burst into tears at any moment.

What good would that do? She’d just get her bandages wet.

Although she was given something to help her sleep, she spent a long, restless night, tossing and turning and trying to tell herself that her face wasn’t her most important asset. There were other things, good things, that had nothing to do with her appearance.

But…her face was what people saw
first
. So it mattered, no matter how hard she tried to pretend it didn’t.

She fell asleep and dreamed of the newspaper ads they’d posed for. But in her dream, there were only four people in all of the photos. She was missing. And when she complained to the editor, he smiled at her and said, “Well, of course you’re not in them. You’re no longer one of The Beautiful People, not with
that
face.”