The Mammoth Book of Terror (34 page)

I went to see Lecia. Our friendship was based on straightforwardness, intellectual discussions, a liking for the same books, an interest in both philosophy and gossip. I felt we were a lot
alike, and I knew I could be straight with her. When we were settled with our cups of decaffeinated
latte
, I asked if there was a man in her life.

She chuckled and gave me a funny, assessing look over her cup. “No one except James.”

James was her cat, purring in her lap. Lecia lived near Washington Square, and the cat had turned up in her life a few years earlier just after she’d embarked on her project of reading or
rereading the entire works of Henry James.

“How long has it been since you split up with . . . ?”

“Three years.”

“And there hasn’t been anybody since?”

She shook her head.

“And it’s all right? You don’t miss . . . all that?”

Her mouth quirked. “Do I look frustrated?”

I gave her a careful inspection and shook my head. “You look great. Really relaxed. Is that the yoga? Hormones?” Lecia, who was a few years older than me, had elected to go for HRT
when the menopause hit.

She chuckled. “I think it’s contentment.”

“You do seem happy, which is hopeful. But – wasn’ t it hard at first?”

“What’s all this about?” she asked. “William? Has William—”

I shook my head. “Notyet. He hasn’t said anything, but . . . I think he’s met someone, or if he hasn’t, he’s looking. He’s tired of me, I can feel
it.”

“Poor baby.”

She sounded so detached, as if she’d never had to worry about being left by a man in her life. It annoyed me, because I remembered when things had been otherwise. Three years ago. What was
the guy’s name? Jim. His marriage had ended, his affair with Lecia continued, and then he’d been offered a job in Albuquerque – and he’d taken it, just like that. Not that
she would have, but he didn’t even ask Lecia if she’d go with him. She had been devastated. Looking at her now, remembering her face distorted with tears and the sympathetic tension in
myself, I could hardly believe it was the same woman.

“How long did it take you to get over Jim?” I asked. “Did you just decide to give up on all men after he left?”

“Something like that. I decided . . . I decided I’d never be at the beck and call of another man. I was going to be in control from then on, and get what I wanted, take what I wanted
– ouch!” James went flying off her lap. Lecia put her hand to her mouth and licked the scratch. She grinned crookedly. “Well, of course, there’s got to be give and take in
any relationship. There’s bound to be conflict sometimes. But why let
him
make all the rules, call the shots, decide to leave you?”

“Are we talking about me or you? I mean, you said – are you seeing someone?”

She wouldn’t meet my eyes. “You see me as I am, a woman alone except for her cat. And her women friends. You’re the one with man-problems.”

“And you’ve solved yours. So what do you advise me to do? Drop him before he drops me?”

“Only if that’s what you want.”

“It’s not. I want
him.
” To my annoyance, tears came to my eyes. “And if I can’t have him, well . . . then I want to be happy without him. The way you seem to
be.” I pressed harder, trying to make her acknowledge me and my right to know. “You and Janet and Hillary . . . you all seem so content to be alone. What’s your secret?”

She looked at me, but there was a reserve, a withholding, in her eyes. “You should get a cat; then you wouldn’t be so lonely.”

“I have a cat.”

“Oh, yes, I was forgetting Posy.” She looked across the room at James, who was sitting in the corner washing his privates. I looked at Lecia’s face, which had gone soft, dreamy
and sensual, and suddenly I saw that face on a woman lying naked on a bed, with the cat between her legs.

The grossness of my imagination shocked me. I felt too embarrassed to stay longer. Lecia’s serene contentment certainly didn’t have its source in bestiality. I was agitated not only
by the unwanted pornographic fantasy, but also by the certainty that there was something which Lecia did not trust me enough to share.

I didn’t go home when I left her, but instead walked down to Tribeca, to the newish high-rise where Janet had her apartment. It was still Saturday morning, and I was betting I’d find
her in. She was, working on one of her intricate black and white illustrations. Although she was trying to make a deadline, she seemed pleased for an excuse to take a break.

“Red zinger, lemon and ginger, or peppermint tea?” she asked as I followed her back to the kitchen. Grey the cat was sleeping on top of the refrigerator. He opened one eye to check
us out, then shut it again.

“Red zinger, please.” I watched Janet closely as she made the tea. She was slim and strong and she moved lightly as a dancer, humming under her breath. If I hadn’t been there
she would probably have been talking to herself, I decided, but apart from the scattiness which she’d always had, she looked serene and positively bursting with good health.

“Do you mind being celibate?” I asked her.

She looked at me sharply. “Who says I’m celibate?”

“Oh. Well, when was the last time you had sex?”

Spots of red appeared high on her cheekbones. “That’s kind of a personal question.”

“I know. I thought we knew each other well enough after all these years to get kind of personal . . .“Janet was one of the most highly sexed and sexually experienced women I knew,
and she’d never been one to keep quiet about the most intimate details. She’d said nothing to me about sex or even romance for so long that I had assumed that there’d been no men
in her life since the disappearance of Leland.

“Let’s go sit on the couch.”

“Goody.” When we were settled, I said, “So there is somebody? What’s the big secret? Who is he?”

“Do you have some reason for wanting to know? Apart from prurient curiosity?”

I laughed. “Prurient curiosity was good enough in the past. Look, as far as I knew, after Leland dumped you there wasn’t anybody. For, what is it, two years?”

“Not quite.”

“Whatever – in all that time, as far as I know, you haven’t gotten involved with anybody else, and it seems like you haven’t wanted to, either. Same as Lecia. You seem so
calm, so happy. I want to know your secret, because I have this awful feeling that William’s fixing to dump me, and the way I feel now, it’ll just kill me. If I can’t keep him, I
need to know how to survive – more than survive – without him.”

Her eyes searched my face. “You love him?”

“Oh, God. Yes. More than anyone I’ve ever – yes.”

“Could you live with him?”

I hesitated. “I don’t know. It’s never been an option. He’s tired of me, anyway. If I pushed him, now, or tried to make him choose between me and his wife, I’d lose
him for sure. I can put up with sharing, with uncertainty – I’ve done that for years. If I’ve lost him, though – what I really want is to be okay about it. Like you and
Lecia and Hillary. You seem so together, like you know something. You do, don’t you? There is a secret?”

She gave the tiniest nod, then shook her head as if frantically trying to cancel it.

“There is! Oh, God, I can’t believe you know something and you haven’t told me. You and Lecia – I thought we were friends! What did I do to you?” We stared at each
other like two kids on a playground, one the betrayer, one the betrayed, and I saw my anguish get to her. She couldn’t resist the claim of friendship.

“You didn’t come with us,” she said in a low, pleading voice. “I know it wasn’t your fault, but that’s why, that’s the only reason. If you’d been
with us, you’d know, too. We swore we’d never tell anyone else.” She hesitated, convincing herself. “But you’re not just anyone else – you should have been with
us. It was meant for you, too. I’m sure I’m right. Wait, look, I’ll draw you a map.” She got up and went to her drawing table, found a piece of light card which was just the
right size, and began to sketch and write something on it, muttering to herself. Then she presented it to me.

“What’s this?”

“It’s where you have to go.” She leaned close and spoke very low, although we were alone. “Take William. Any excuse, a nice hike in the country, just get him there, find
the fountain, and make him drink.
Not
you. Just him. If you can’t get him to drink there, take a flask and make sure he drinks it later, when you’re alone together.”

I’d known Janet to be loopy sometimes – she was the fey and temperamental artist, she believed in angels, fairies, witchcraft, magic, anything going, really. For a time she had lived
in an occult spiritual commune upstate somewhere.

“And what happens then?” I asked.

“Shh! Just do it. I really shouldn’t be telling you. Now, go.” She pushed me toward the door, and I went without protesting that I hadn’t had my cup of Red Zinger.

I looked at the card when I was in the elevator. The directions were to the Adirondacks, to the middle of nowhere, halfway up the side of a mountain where there was a magical fountain . . .

Then I remembered. The fountain. Three years ago, the others had gone on a camping trip, to a “magical place” with a “special fountain” that Janet had learned about in
her commune days. It was meant to be a spiritual retreat and a bonding experience for us four friends. Only the night before we were to leave I ate a bad shrimp, and so while my friends were hiking
through the woods I was laid up at home with a case of food poisoning.

Something had happened to them, something they had never told me about, but which explained their solitary contentment.

Outside, I crossed the street and walked past a couple of still unconverted warehouses with trucks in front and big, sweaty men unloading boxes and shouting at each other. I walked past, around,
through them like a ghost. I can’t say I missed the whistles and sexual commentary my presence would once have inspired, but just then I could have done without the reminder that I was an
aging, invisible woman.

A garish green poster, plastered on a wall, caught my eye. It had a spiral pattern and the only words I could read at a distance were TIR NAN OG. That was what the Celts called the Land of the
Ever Young, but probably it was the name of a band or a club – my not knowing, my recognizing it only as a reference from an ancient culture, was just another proof of how out of it, how past
it, I was.

This was not my city anymore, I thought. This was not my country. The problem was, I didn’t know where else I could go, or what else I could be, now that I was no longer a young and
beautiful immortal.

I looked at the card again. If it was the fountain of youth, why shouldn’t I drink it? Why should I give it to my lover? Janet had been so definite. But what did it do? If it was supposed
to make your man love you again, why had Leland and Jim disappeared?

Well, I had asked a question. Now I must make what I could of the answer.

At first it was like old times. The strain that had been between us disappeared, and we laughed a lot and touched each other as you drove us out of the city in the freshness of early morning.
But the farther I got from the city and the world I knew, the more uneasy I felt. What was I doing? I’m a good walker, but only in the city, when there is some point to it, things to look at,
places worth going to. I don’t like the country. It bores me and it makes me nervous; okay, there have to be farms, and places for wild animals and plants, but I don’t see the point of
it for
me.
As for this magic fountain – did it follow that because I believed in romantic love I’d also believe in magic? I wasn’t Janet-what sort of desperation had made
me believe in her magical fountain?

Naturally, I took it out on you. Your enthusiasm began to irritate me. What were you getting so excited about? A walk in the country? I didn’t like hiking, why didn’t you know that?
You wanted me to be something I wasn’t; you would have preferred someone else. Before long and I’m sure to your complete mystification we were arguing.

By the time we reached the place where Janet had indicated we should leave the car, we were barely speaking to each other. You cheered up a little once you were out of the car, lacing on your
new Danish hiking boots and inhaling the clean, cool air, but I felt an undissolved lump of dread sitting heavily in my stomach. But I was determined to go through with it now. I couldn’t
imagine how getting you to drink some water would result in my feeling better, but I would try.

I am a good walker in the city, but I wasn’t used to hills, or to pathways slippery with pine needles, damp leaves, loose rocks. Nor could I keep up the pace you set. I had to keep
stopping to catch my breath; I had to keep calling you back. At first solicitous, you quickly became impatient.

“If we don’t get a move on we won’t even make the summit before dark, let alone get back down to the car again.”

“We don’t need to go to the summit,” I pointed out. The idea filled me with exhausted horror. “Just to the fountain, and that shouldn’t be much farther, as far as I
can make out from this map . . .” Squinting at it, it occurred to me that scale was not Janet’s strong point.

You were as baffled by me as I was by you. What was the point of going only halfway up a mountain? “Come on, it’s not that hard a climb.”

“But I don’t want to go to the top.” I couldn’t keep the irritating whine out of my voice. “Will, I’m worn out already. I want to stop at the fountain and
have a picnic and a rest before we go back.”