The Deep End (40 page)

There is no memory of having set the burglar alarm. She has forgotten—again. You’d forget your head if it
wasn’t attached, she hears her mother chastise gently. “Way to go, Joanne!” she exclaims loudly, pulling open the front door.

It is lying at her feet, beside the morning paper, large and black and eerily appropriate.

Joanne bends down and gingerly scoops the funeral wreath into her arms. She brings it into the house, slowly extricating the small white envelope that has been wedged between the wreath’s delicate branches. Her fingers curiously calm, she tears open the tiny envelope and pulls out the note inside. Across it is scrawled one word in large black letters: SOON.

J
oanne is putting her house in order.

It is Saturday night. She has spent the day going from room to room, straightening up, deodorizing, reorganizing—spring cleaning, though it will soon be fall. For the last several hours she has been going through her daughters’ rooms, throwing out papers they no longer need, sorting through their closets to see which clothes are too small, too old, or too worn out to be used again. She is careful not to discard old favorites, careful not to impose her own preferences on her daughters. They have their own decisions to make. She is only trying to make things easier for them when they return from camp next week. It will be difficult enough for them to come home to the news that their mother is gone. Not that she intends to go anywhere without a fight.

There is still time, time to pick up the phone and call California, tell her brother that she has changed her mind, that she is flying out on the next plane. But that would only delay the inevitable, she knows, and she is tired of delays, tired of waiting. Waiting will only put her daughters’ lives in jeopardy, and it will not save her own.
She can’t stay in Los Angeles forever. One day she will have to come back and he will be waiting for her when she does. Let’s get on with it, she decides, returning the last of Robin’s freshly dusted books to her bookshelf.

Everything is in order now. The house is clean. There are fresh fall clothes hanging in the closets; the freezer is stacked with food. She is ready for September though she is not sure that she will be around to enjoy it. Instinctively she understands that her tormentor will strike this week. Before her daughters come home. Before neighbors who have gone away for the summer begin filtering back.

Joanne crosses the upstairs hall to her bedroom, heading directly for the bedside phone. She has several calls to make. Balancing herself on the edge of the king-size bed, she picks the receiver off its carriage and dials.

Surprisingly, Paul answers the phone on the first ring. “I was just thinking about you,” he says.

When he doesn’t elaborate, Joanne speaks. “I wanted to make sure about next week,” she begins crisply. “That you’ll pick the girls up at the bus station.”

“A week today,” he confirms. “One o’clock.”

“You have it written down?” she presses. “You won’t forget?”

“Joanne, is everything all right?”

“Everything’s fine,” she tells him, her voice steady. “I just wanted to make sure. Paul …” She stops. How can she tell him to take good care of the girls should something happen to her without alarming him? She can’t. She can only trust that he will. She
knows
that he will.

“Yes?”

“Don’t be late,” she says. “You know how upset they get when they’re kept waiting.”

She says goodbye before he has the chance to add anything further, her fingers returning to the phone, dialing her brother in California.

“Warren?”

“Joanne? Is everything all right?”

“Everything’s fine. I just wanted to say hello, see how you made out with your movie.”

“I was brilliant. A star was born, what can I say? How is everything?”

“Nothing’s changed,” Joanne tells him, sensing that this is the real question he is asking. Nothing’s changed except me, she thinks but doesn’t say. “So what now?”

“Back to the same silicone-filled breasts and tucked-in tushes that I see every day,” he laughs. “Tits and ass. This is California—what can I tell you?”

“I love you, Warren.”

“I love you too.”

Joanne checks her watch as she replaces the receiver. It is almost nine o’clock in the evening. She has one more call to make, but she’ll have to go downstairs to look up the number.

Quickly, she makes her way to the kitchen, flipping through her telephone-address book until she locates the name she is looking for.

“Camp Danbee,” the woman announces minutes later.

“I’d like to speak to my daughters,” Joanne informs her. “I know it’s against camp policy, but this is very important.”

“Your daughters’ names, please?” the woman asks, sensing that it would be pointless to argue.

“Robin and Lulu … Lana … Hunter.”

There is a brief pause, the sound of pages being turned.

“They’re in the recreation center watching a movie.”

“Could you get them please?”

“It’ll take a few minutes. Why don’t I have them call you back?”

“How long?”

The woman is clearly flustered. “Well, it’ll take me a couple of minutes to walk over there and a few more minutes to bring them back. It shouldn’t take longer than five minutes altogether. Is this an emergency, Mrs. Hunter? Something I should prepare the girls for?”

“No,” Joanne tells her. “It’s not that kind of emergency. I just need to speak to them.”

“I’ll have them call you in a few minutes.”

“Thank you.” Joanne hangs up the phone and stands with her hand still on the receiver, waiting for it to ring.

It does.

“Hello, Robin?”

The voice on the other end of the line is shrill and bordering on hysteria. “Joanne,” it manages to spit out, “it’s Eve’s mother.”

“Mrs. Cameron,” Joanne says dully, concerned, yet not wanting to tie up the line. The girls will be trying to call. “What’s the matter? Has something happened to Eve?”

The words that follow proceed in short, staccato bursts, making them difficult for Joanne to follow.

“I don’t know. I called to check on her, and she started shouting, calling me names, screaming that I’m a witch, that I ruined her life, that she wishes I were dead!”

“Mrs. Cameron, please try to calm down. I’m sure that Eve doesn’t mean those things. You
know
she doesn’t mean them.”

“I don’t know anything anymore,” the older woman sobs. “You had to hear her, Joanne. It didn’t even sound
like her. She sounded like something inhuman. It wasn’t her voice. She says she’s my Evie, but Joanne, it isn’t her. It’s someone who’s using her body. It’s not my baby. A baby would never wish its mother dead.”

“What can I do?” Joanne asks helplessly, looking at her watch, already knowing the answer.

“Go to her, Joanne,” Eve’s mother tells her. “Please. Brian isn’t home. She’s all alone. I told her that I’d come over but she said she’d kill me if I tried to come near her. I don’t know what to do. You’re right next door. She’d never hurt you. Please, go to her. Make sure she’s all right.”

Joanne stares out the sliding glass door into the darkness. “Okay,” she says after a slight pause.

“Call me back,” Eve’s mother instructs as Joanne is about to hang up.

“What’s your number?” Joanne frantically searches the small desk for a sharpened pencil, finally locating one with just enough of a point to write and scribbling down the number that Eve’s mother dictates.

“Call me,” she hears again as she is replacing the receiver.

Her hand is still on the phone when it rings again.

“Hello, Robin?” she asks immediately.

“Mom?” Robin’s voice is frightened but clear. “Is everything all right?”

Everyone keeps asking me that, Joanne thinks, relieved to hear her daughter’s voice. “Everything’s fine, darling.”

“Then why are you calling?” Robin is clearly puzzled.

“I miss you,” Joanne shrugs. “I just wanted to speak to you for a couple of minutes.”

Robin’s voice becomes very soft, very low. Joanne can visualize the teenager shifting position, cupping her hand
over the receiver so that no one else in the vicinity can hear what she is going to say. “Mom, you know it’s against the rules to do that,” she says. “Everybody’s looking at me like they expect somebody to be dead or something. What am I going to tell them?”

“Tell them that you’re sorry to disappoint them, but as of this moment anyway, I’m still alive and kicking.”

“Mo-ther!” There is a long pause. Then, “Have you been drinking?”

Joanne laughs out loud. “No. Do I have to be drunk to want to speak to my daughters, whom I love very much?”

“Well,” Robin stumbles, “it
is
against the rules.”

“Tell them that there’s been a change in the arrangements for picking you up and I had to phone because I wasn’t sure that a letter I wrote would reach you in time.”

“Pretty lame, Mom,” Robin comments.

“Well then, you think of something better.”

There is another, longer pause. “How about I tell them that you called to tell us that you and Dad got back together?”

Joanne says nothing.

“Have you, Mom? Is that the reason you’re calling?”

Silence, then, “No.” Another silence.

“I love you, Mom.”

“I love you too, sweetie.”

“Lulu’s standing here griping because she’s missing the movie. You’d better speak to her.”

“Goodbye, doll,” Joanne says as Robin transfers the phone to her younger sister.

“What’s going on?” Lulu whines. Perversely, the sound is reassuring.

“Nothing, honey, I just missed you and wanted to say hello.”

“You’re not supposed to do that.”

“Yes, I know.”

“I’m missing the movie, Mom. Mrs. Saunders came and got us right at the most exciting part.”

“So, it’s been a good summer?”

“Yeah, it’s been great.” Joanne can see the look of confused impatience in her daughter’s eyes.

“Think you’ll be ready for school in a few weeks?”

“I guess so. Mom, can’t we talk about this when we get home?”

“Of course we can,” Joanne says quickly. “I’m sorry, sweetie. Go back to your movie.”

“Is Daddy okay?”

“He’s fine.”

“Your grandfather?”

Joanne is caught off guard by the question, which she was not expecting. “He died,” she says finally, not knowing how else to answer.

“What? Why didn’t you say so?” Joanne can see Lulu turning toward her sister and whoever else is present beside them. “Mom’s grandfather died,” she is telling them.

“What?” Robin’s voice exclaims in the background. Joanne is aware of a slight shuffle as Robin comes back on the line. “Great-grampa died?” Robin repeats, relating Joanne’s grandfather to herself for the first time. “When?”

“A week … maybe ten days ago. I’m all right,” Joanne adds hastily. “Now you can tell them that somebody died,” she says, and has to fight an urge to giggle.

“Mo-ther!”

“Go back to your movie, darling. Your father will pick you up at the bus station next week. I love you.”

“I love you too,” Robin says clearly.

“I love you,” she hears Lulu shout.

“I love you, angel,” Joanne whispers.

“Mrs. Hunter?” Another, older voice.

“Yes?”

“It’s Mrs. Saunders here. I just wanted to say that I’m very sorry about your grandfather.”

“Thank you,” Joanne replies before hanging up.

She walks to the sliding glass door and stands staring out at the night. Slowly, with no conscious plan in mind, she unfastens both locks and slides the door open, the warm night air immediately surrounding her, pulling her onto the patio, like a lover’s arms leading her into a hidden corner for a furtive kiss.

She stares into the open pit that is most of her backyard. A perfect night for a swim, she thinks, slowly making her way down the stairs, which still await their final coat of varnish. She pictures herself gliding gracefully across the pool. It is long enough for a decent swim, not just adequate for splashing around. Still, splashing around is what she does best. She makes a mental note that if she survives the summer, she will take swimming lessons. Maybe she’ll even resume her tennis, she thinks, approaching the edge of the pool and searching through the darkness for the tennis racquet she threw away, unable to locate it. Hell, she decides suddenly, if she survives the summer, she’ll buy herself that new tennis racquet that Steve Henry suggested.

It’s quiet. She is aware of a warm breeze against her bare arms. She hears the familiar shuffling of leaves in the
trees, returning her momentarily to her grandparents’ cottage. She feels herself snugly tucked into her small bed, staring through the screen of the open window at the trees beyond. She closes her eyes, catching the lowered voices of her parents and grandparents from the next room. In her mind, she hears the distant wail of a passing train. She feels peaceful, even serene.

The sound of the phone ringing in the kitchen pushes Joanne abruptly back into the present. She pivots toward the sound, catching sight of Eve glaring down at her from her bedroom window next door.

Joanne runs quickly up the patio steps and back inside, leaving the sliding door open behind her. “Hello?” she says into the phone, realizing she is out of breath.

“Did you speak to Eve?” the voice asks without further introduction.

“Mrs. Cameron …”

“Did you see her?”

“I haven’t had a chance yet …”

“What do you mean you haven’t had a chance?”

“I’m going to phone her now, Mrs. Cameron. I’ll call you after I speak to her.”

“Don’t phone. Just go over there.”

“I’ll call you later,” Joanne states flatly, and hangs up. Her entire life, it seems lately, revolves around the telephone. Hesitantly, she presses the appropriate numbers to connect her to the house next door. The phone rings five, six times, before it is picked up. Then there is no sound on the other end.

“Eve?” Joanne asks. “Eve, are you there?”

The voice that responds is remote, as if the call were long-distance. “What do you want?” it asks.

“I want to know what’s going on,” Joanne replies. “Your mother called. She was very upset.”