The Coffin (Nightmare Hall) (2 page)

Her mother, Gwen Reed (she had dropped the Leo two hours after the divorce, saying she was glad to get rid of it, a statement that had hurt her daughter’s feelings, since
her
last name was still Leo) was fond of take-out Chinese, delivery pizza, paper napkins, loud rock music, and men who called her “Babe” but were kind to Tanner, always. Gwen Reed had a tousle of bright red, naturally curly hair, and wore miniskirts, often in black leather, and thigh-high boots. Her voice was as loud as the printed T-shirts she was fond of wearing. She was noisy, messy, fun, and loving—in a brusque, casual sort of way.

After five hours in her father’s house, Tanner had trouble imagining her parents ever being together for more than five minutes. Her father wore a suit all day long, even in the evening when he was reading his medical magazines, smoking his pipe, his feet up on a leather hassock at the foot of his recliner, listening to classical music. Rock was expressly forbidden, he made that very clear, his upper lip curling when he said the word “rock.” He did
not
watch television, ever, not even the news. There was a small set in the kitchen, but only Silly, the housekeeper, turned it on, watching her beloved soaps in the afternoon when the “perfessor” was out of the house.

Meals in the lovely, ordered house were mostly silent, the cloth napkins folded just so; the tablecloth spotless. At the noisy, haphazard meals in her mother’s house, they used cheap place mats on the scuffed wooden table, if they used anything at all. Tablecloths had to be ironed, and if Gwen Reed owned an iron, she kept it well-hidden. Meals were for talking over the day’s events, arguing, sometimes even shouting at each other, laughing, listening to music played at full volume. Never a dull moment.

Tanner’s father asked her only about her grades, her achievements in her classes, making it clear from the outset that any grade below an A was unacceptable, and then he ate his dinner. Quietly. Not so much as a slurp, a burp, or a hiccough.

And since Tanner had little to say to this man who was virtually a stranger to her, she, too, ate silently.

Their cook and housekeeper, Silly, tried to help, making small, innocuous comments when she brought another dish into the pretty blue and white dining room, asking Tanner if she’d told her father about the date she had coming up on Saturday night, inquiring of Dr. Leo if he’d shared with his daughter the story about “that patient of yours who jumped off the roof of his garage, and it was in all the newspapers?”

But it was hopeless. Any remarks stimulated by her efforts to help never flowered into actual conversation.

Tanner liked Silly. She was not only a great cook and a meticulous housekeeper (of course, or she wouldn’t have lasted a day in that house), she was friendly and funny, providing the lightness and warmth Tanner missed desperately. Without Silly, the house would have been unbearable.

She couldn’t wait for her father to leave for Hawaii and wished he’d stay for the next three years. The thought of living that long with someone who practically went berserk when the trillions of books on the shelves in his library weren’t in alphabetical order according to author made the hairs on the back of her neck rise.

Now, finally, he was gone. And she had the whole, beautiful house to herself. The first thing she was going to do when she got home was scatter the couch pillows every which way and unfold all of the bathroom towels. Then, if lightning didn’t strike her, she’d know he really
was
gone, and she’d relax for the first time since she’d arrived at Salem University.

But she wouldn’t go near the music room. Tanner shuddered. How she hated that room! Maybe she’d lock it the minute she got home, and give Silly the key for safekeeping until her father got back.

The room was very beautiful. A wide, square space with thick turquoise wall-to-wall carpeting, antique furniture, and a huge stone fireplace. It was filled with half a dozen musical instruments: grand piano, saxophone, violin, cello, trumpet, and a xylophone. Her father played every single one of them, and played them well. Tanner had learned only the violin, a casual admission that had horrified Dr. Leo. “What could your mother have been thinking of?” he had cried, clearly displeased.

Her mother had been thinking of money, that’s what her mother had been thinking of, and if he’d been a little more generous with child support, maybe they could have afforded other lessons, other instruments.

Never mind. Tanner wasn’t interested in learning to play any other musical instrument, anyway.
He
knew how, so why did anyone else need to?

Besides the musical instruments, which Tanner guessed were the finest made, the shelves along one wall were filled with rare musical manuscripts, carefully wrapped in plastic and clearly labeled.

It should have been a pretty, pleasant place where Tanner could go to relax. But it wasn’t.

She wouldn’t go into that room while he was gone. Ever.

Her father’s parting words to her had been, “Don’t forget to practice. You don’t want to lose your touch. The key to the music room is on the table in the hall.”

Tanner loved playing in the orchestra at Salem and didn’t want to lose her touch. But she was
not
going into that room to practice. She never did. Instead, she took her violin up to her lovely, perfectly coordinated bedroom on the second floor and practiced there, knowing it annoyed her father, but not caring.

Vince Kirk strode up to the table, tall, husky, stubborn jaw, sneakers untied, wearing jeans and a gray Salem sweatshirt with tomato sauce slopped down the front in a jagged “Z.” Smiling lazily to show he didn’t give a fig about the tomato sauce, he slid into the booth, elbowing Jodie aside. “So, your old man’s gone, huh?” he said to Tanner. “I thought the air smelled better on campus.”

Tanner didn’t take offense. Vince had never made any secret of his feelings toward her father. Dr. Leo had given Vince his first-ever F in Psych 101 first semester, Vince showed no signs of forgiveness.

Vince’s roommate, Philip Zanuck, arrived right behind him, drinks in hand. Philip was slightly shorter than Vince, but as stocky, with darker hair and a long, serious face. He’d been a big help to Tanner when she first arrived on campus. Philip had taken a summer class at Salem, and knew his way around. She might have dated him eventually, if she hadn’t met Charlie Cochran right away.

Philip grinned at Tanner as he slid into the booth. “So, free at last, free at last, eh?”

“You heard.”

“Everyone has. The buzz on campus is, Tanner’s having a bash. That true?”

Tanner shifted uncomfortably. “Well, sure. Sooner or later.”

Philip laughed. “Man, I’d give a lot to see your old man’s face if he came home and found that house rocking on its foundation.”

“Oh, yeah, me, too,” Tanner said drily. “That’d be a real treat. Of course, I wouldn’t be one of the survivors.”

Philip was no fan of Dr. Leo’s, either. Philip was smart, even brilliant, but her father, who had him in class, told Tanner that Philip’s mind was “out in left-field somewhere. That boy’s never going to amount to anything if he doesn’t get his head out of the clouds and get his act together.”

It was true. Philip often seemed distracted, and was constantly losing his keys, his wallet, a paper he’d written. But he was paying his own way through school, working part-time in a garage in Twin Falls, and Tanner thought that should count for something with her father. It didn’t seem to.

Tanner never lost her wallet or keys, but, like Philip, she did her share of daydreaming, including fantasizing about having her own room on campus.

They were discussing party plans when a good-looking, expensively dressed boy carrying a plastic bag from a record shop at the mall approached their table. Sloane Currier leaned on the table and said heartily, “Invite me, and my newest CD’s are yours for the night.”

Tanner didn’t laugh. Sloane Currier was
not
one of her favorite people. He had far too much money for his own good and made sure that everyone knew he had it, Sloane was a show-off. He had started school a semester late because he’d been “touring Europe,” and loved to brag about it.

Jodie said Sloane was “overcompensating” because he wasn’t that great a student. Tanner said that Jodie had taken Psych 101 far too seriously, and that Sloane wasn’t overcompensating, he was just conceited.

“I don’t even know when I’m having a party,” she said coolly in answer to Sloane’s offer.

“Man, I can’t believe the eminent psychiatrist Dr. Milton Frederick Leo finally blew town,” Sloane said, looking directly at Tanner, who felt his gaze on her but refused to meet his eyes. She focused on the white Formica tabletop instead. “I thought Tyrannosaurus rex would never leave. Everyone hear that big sigh of relief on campus?”

Tanner was quickly wearying of hearing her father put down. It was one thing for her to complain about him. She had to live with him. But she felt disloyal listening to everyone else make fun of him. He
was
her father, after all. “My father’s no tyrant,” she snapped. “He just has high standards.”

Sloane hooted derisively.

“We were just discussing party plans,” Sandy said, smiling at Sloane, “and we’ve been ordered to ease off Tanner by her keeper, Charlie Cochran.”

“Charlie is not my keeper,” Tanner said stiffly. She disengaged her fingers from Charlie’s. “I don’t
have
a keeper. And
I
make all my decisions, thank you very much. I’ll party when I’m good and ready.” She grinned as she stood up and slid out of the booth. “Could be any minute now. But first, I have to run over to the library for some quick research and then I have to get home and do some minor rearranging.”

“Don’t make us wait too long,” Sloane said, sliding into the place she’d vacated. “It’s been at least a week since my last party and I’m beginning to suffer party withdrawal pangs. So hurry it up, okay, Tanner?”

Tanner dismissed him with a wave of her hand. If she had a party, it would be because
she
wanted to, not because Sloane Currier demanded it.

Charlie walked her to the library. Campus was beautiful at night, Tanner decided, especially in early spring when the trees were bearing newborn leaves of bright green lace. The old-fashioned round globes topping the black iron lamp posts cast a lemon-yellow glow over the rolling lawns, thick and lush now with new growth.

Tanner loved Salem. She loved its wide brick and stone buildings, the carillon at the top of the Tower, the music building, and the library, its shelves overflowing with books. She loved her classes, the parties, the clubs, the dances, the football and basketball games, and the track meets. She loved all of it.

But she never walked across campus without yearning to live in one of the dorms, although none of them was half as impressive-looking as her father’s house on Faculty Row. She’d been in some of the dorms. They were noisy and messy and some were very worn, their walls faded, their hardwood floors scuffed. They smelled of basement cafeterias or dining halls, of laundry soap and bleach, of varnish and floor wax. Tanner loved them. They were wonderfully chaotic, with people racing into and out of doors, rushing for the elevator, shouting to one another, playing rock or rap at full volume, borrowing hair dryers and shampoo and towels and sweaters from one another. Messy, noisy, just like her life with her mother. She missed that.

Living with her father was calm and well-ordered and … the word that came to mind was “chilly.” It was chilly in that house, no matter what the temperature. But it was free, and the dorms weren’t, not even for children of faculty. So, no choice there.

Charlie had a fraternity meeting to attend, so he left her on the steps of the library, saying he’d call her later. He kissed her good-bye, although people were running up and down the steps. Shouts of “All right, go to it!” filled the air around them. Charlie and Tanner ignored them and made the kiss a long, meaningful one.

When Charlie turned and loped away, Tanner watched him go. He was one of the good guys. She had dated in high school, including one semi-serious romance, but she’d never met anyone like Charlie. He was funny and sweet, doing old-fashioned things like opening the car door for her and sometimes bringing her a flower when they weren’t even going to a dance, just a movie on campus, and calling her every night to tell her to sleep tight. Once, shortly after they’d met, he’d whipped off his windbreaker and tossed it across a puddle at her feet, outside the science building, so she could walk across it without getting wet. People passing by had hooted in derision, and Tanner, laughing, had quickly scooped up the jacket before it was ruined. “It’s the thought that counts,” she’d said, kissing him on the cheek. “Nice to know that chivalry isn’t completely dead.”

In spite of his old-fashioned way of treating her, which Charlie said his mother had hammered into him from the time he was born and lay in a crib next to a baby girl, he gave her all the space and freedom she needed. Charlie never tried to make decisions for her, never interfered with her very busy schedule at school, never talked down to her like some guys did to girls. He gave his mother credit for that, too. “Treat a woman well,” Charlie quoted, “but if you have to baby her, she’s not intelligent enough for you.”

Tanner couldn’t wait to meet Charlie’s mother.

When she had finished at the library, she headed for home. She loved walking alone on campus, and was never nervous. Things happened on campus, she knew that. She’d heard stories. The most frightening had to do with Nightingale Hall, a huge, gloomy, old off-campus dorm down the highway a short distance. Everyone called it
“Nightmare
Hall.” It sat atop a hill overlooking the road, surrounded by creepy-looking giant trees that cast dark shadows over the worn brick house. Tanner and Jodie couldn’t understand why anyone would want to live there, and had decided the cost must be practically nil.

Still, she thought as she approached her father’s house on Faculty Row, which was worse? Living in an ugly house like Nightmare Hall with noise and friends and probably a lot of chaos, or living in a beautiful house in chilly silence?