The Singing Bone (14 page)

“At night, after I've gone up to bed.” She could see the blush on Stover's cheek, the way the clothespins suddenly seemed unwieldy. “Stover,” she said. “I can totally hear you.”

“Oh, right—that.” He smiled but wouldn't look at Alice. “Why aren't you ever there?”

Alice shrugged. “I guess no one ever invited me?”

“Right. Is it weird?” The clothes blew around them. Stover held the edge of a sheet up. “Help me?” Alice set down the laundry basket and plucked a pin from the line.

“It's sort of weird not to be invited. But is Mr. Wyck ever there?” She said it quietly, looking back at the house, but no one was in sight. Mr. Wyck and Lee had driven into town on an errand, and Allegra was showing Molly and Trina how to read tarot cards.

“No.” Stover looked over his shoulder at the house, too, before going on. “It's usually just me and Allegra, and then Lee comes in with either Trina or Molly. If it's Molly, Trina will show up at some point. If it's Trina, Molly usually stays in the living room.”

“You don't care?”

“Care about what?” Stover said, but he wouldn't look at her.

“That you're all together like that? About another boy?”

Stover shrugged. “Allegra says it's healthy. We're creating an energy. We need equal masculine and feminine energy.”

“An energy?”

“Yeah. When you're in bardo, you can influence energy. It's hard to explain, but, like, when it feels really good, you think of the thing you want to happen and then it's supposed to come to you. It's like you call it with all that physical power, and then you get it.”

“What are you calling for?” Alice was genuinely interested. She'd never heard of such a thing.

Stover gave her a sideways look. “Well, I'm supposed to be calling for good things for our family, but that's not what I'm calling for.”

“What then?”

“What do you think I'm calling for—or who?”

“Trina. You've always been calling for Trina. Does it work?”

“Well, she does show up sometimes. I mean, with Lee, but I get to be with her.”

“I don't know if that's what's supposed to happen, Stover.” Alice laughed. “And does Allegra know you're calling for Trina while you're with her?”

“I don't think she'd care. Honest. I don't.”

“Does T. know?”

“I never told her.”

“It's weird,” Alice said. “Allegra always peeks in on me after. I mean, before she goes up to bed.” At night, when Allegra would open the door a crack to check on her, Alice would immediately shut her eyes and feign sleep.

“Really? I wonder what she's doing. Maybe she's making magic on you.”

Alice laughed. “Maybe.” When Allegra left, she could hear her bare feet pad up the wooden steps to the room she shared with Mr. Wyck. A little later, she might hear Trina and Lee feeling their way up the dark stairs to the room they shared. Molly and Stover slept downstairs, Molly on the screened-in porch, and Stover in a first-floor bedroom. Sometimes, Molly crept upstairs and curled up beside Alice in the dark. Alice put her arms around her and they slept like that—like they had when they were children and stayed the night at each other's houses. The ragged tail of Molly's breathing was so familiar that it put Alice to sleep.

They'd finished hanging the clothes, and Alice said they should go to the reservoir for a swim before lunch. They left the sunny yard for the shade of the trees. Stover walked with his head down. “What's up?” Alice asked.

“I don't know. I mean,” he said as he ducked beneath a tree limb, “I think about Trina a lot. She's really cool.”

“You were in love with Trina.”

“Were?” Stover laughed. They stopped. Alice was looking at her shin, which had several mosquito bites on it. Stover pulled leaves from a nearby tree and rolled the plump green stems between his fingers. Alice looked up at him.

“I mean
are
. You
are
in love with Trina.”

For a moment he said nothing, and then he stretched, arching his long back, reaching his hands up as though he was shaking something off. “Yep,” he said. “Guilty. Always will be. Trina is—” But he stopped and let his hands fall to his sides. They started walking again. “Alice,” Stover said.

“Yeah?”

“What would you do if you found out someone was in love with you?”

She looked up at him, trying to see his expression, but his head was down again. “Why?”

“Because someone
is
in love with you.”

Alice put her hand on Stover's arm. “What are you talking about? Who?”

“Who do you think? You know, for someone pretty smart, you're kind of dumb sometimes.” Alice didn't say anything. Was he talking about Mr. Wyck? She blushed. Stover threw the green bits of leaf at her. “You should ask Allegra for something,” he said, gesturing to the mosquito bites that Alice had started scratching again. “I had something and she cleared it right up.”

“Something?”

“A rash. Nothing.” They started to walk again. Alice took Stover's hand in hers.

“Are you happy?” she asked. “Do you want to go home?”

“No. I mean, yes, I'm happy. I like Allegra. I like it here. I feel like—” he began, but then he was quiet. Alice looked up at him. “I feel like I have to watch over Trina. Like she's in trouble. She used to be different.”

“I know,” Alice said. “She's really into this stuff.” Alice wouldn't say it, but she thought it had a lot to do with Lee, with wanting him to like her. They stood at the edge of the reservoir and looked out over the water. Stover took off his T-shirt and shorts. Alice watched him and then, hesitantly, she took her own clothes off and stood next to him. Stover looked down at her. She wondered if he'd kiss her, and he seemed to be thinking about it, but then he looked away and said, “No. I better not.”

“Better not what?”

“Kiss you.”

“Why?” Alice said, looking up at him. “Why doesn't anyone kiss me?” She thought she sounded like a baby and was immediately repentant. She frowned. “I don't get it.”

“Don't you, Genie?” he said. “It's Mr. Wyck. He doesn't want you with us.”

“Why?” she asked. Stover began to walk into the water. “Why?” she called again, following him in.

When he was waist deep, he turned to look back at her. She thought vaguely that she would somehow force him to kiss her, to press her down to the ground when they got out. “Like I said, genius. You're stupid for a smart person.”

“What are you talking about?” The lake's bottom fell off beneath her as she stepped off the shelf and treaded water in front of Stover.

“He's saving you for himself,” Stover said simply, and then he swam away. No one but Dan Crew had ever wanted to kiss Alice. And maybe Stuart-Stuart, but that was a joke:
Stuart loves Alice
, Molly always laughed.
One day, you'll get married and be my sister.
But Mr. Wyck. Alice let her body sink into the water. She opened her eyes. The water was cloudy with silt from the base, but she could see her pale arms floating in front of her when she lifted them, and the sunlight that broke the surface just above her head.

Alice wakes from a dream about Abe. It's not so much that the figure in the dream looked like Abe. He didn't. He looked entirely different—like one of the baggers at the grocery store, in fact, but he
felt
like Abe. In the dream, Abe stood in a room with wooden floors and white walls. The walls were covered with writing, and Abe was erasing it, one word at a time. Alice told him he'd never get to the end, but whenever she said that, Abe laughed. “You don't get it,” he said.

Alice lies on her back and wonders what she doesn't get. Since seeing Hans, she's had the sense that nothing is going to be the same, that the earth is shifting, and that she's sliding closer to the edge of something. She thinks of Hans, of the box of macaroons he forgot to give back to her when he walked her to her door. On their way back, they passed the playground and the rocky ledge again, but the teenagers were gone.

“You don't have to do any of this,” he told her. “You don't have to see Jack Wyck. You don't have to be in the film.”

“But if I don't—”

“If anyone bothers you, call the police,” he said simply.

“That, yes, but there's another reason,” she said. “If I don't—” She paused. They stood in the building's vestibule, facing each other. “If I don't—” She looked down at her keys. “I'm tired,” she said, in explanation. She bit her lip. She shook her head. “No one knows who I am—not really.” And when she said it she knew it was true. “All these years I've been hiding.” She looked up at Hans, who stood with his hands folded in front of him, listening.

Alice thinks of her dream, of Abe erasing the room of words.

But I do get it, Abe,
she wants to tell him.
I do.

Hans and Ariel arrive at the prison early, and Hans takes out the letter from Jack Wyck while Ariel organizes her equipment.
Can I call you Hans?
It begins.
We are men of the world and at the same age in life. I find your films of great interest. I am glad we are working together because I have long wanted to share my story with a wider audience. If you don't know, I got shafted. I got railroaded. I always ask whoever comes to visit me here to bring a chocolate bar and a pack of cigarettes. I like dark chocolate. Not the kind they have in vending machines. That is all I ask for. And for your ear. No, cameras don't bother me.

Hans takes the cigarettes and chocolate out of his bag and places them in his coat pocket. He doesn't know what he'll be able to bring into the prison. He's signed permit after permit, sat for an interview with the prison's superintendent, who called Jack Wyck “one of our more famous inmates” and stared at Hans without blinking. When they were finished, the superintendent rapped his knuckles against the desk and got up, straight, a military man. “So you did a movie called
Death Christ
?” he asked.

“Yes.” Hans nods.

“Didn't see it.”

Hans thinks of cigarettes and chocolate as wartime rations. He must have read it—or his mother told him a story. He couldn't possibly remember.

“Ready, Hans,” Ariel says, coming around the car.

  •  •  •  

Inside, the air is dense, still. They pass through one security check after the next, a series of metal doors clanging behind them as they go. The painted cinder-block walls are flaking. Hans has been in prisons before. He always assumed they would be cleaner than they are.

As he waits for the guards to bring Jack Wyck out, Hans reads the letter once more. The last line doesn't surprise Hans. Cameras generally don't bother narcissists.

When the prisoner is brought out, his feet and wrists shackled, Hans stands. “Good afternoon,” he says.

Jack Wyck shakes his head, his expression flat. “Nope.” He sits down across from Hans, at the table that is bolted to the ground. Jack holds his wrists up for the guard, who unlocks his hands. “It won't be a good afternoon for me until I'm free. I'd like to move my legs around a little, Lenny,” he says to the guard. “You think?” Lenny nods and unlocks his feet. A brief smile. “Thank you.”

Lenny goes to the door and stands, a sentinel, his eyes trained on some imaginary, distant horizon. Jack Wyck turns to Hans. “Nice guy. He's got family problems, though.”

“How do you know that?”

“People tell me things. His wife's fucking the mailman—or someone—some civil servant. I forget.” Jack rubs his head. He looks at Hans. In the camera's glare, his light eyes are even brighter, translucent, like one of the old glass marbles Hans remembers from childhood. “Who's this?” He nods at Ariel, who's holding the camera.

“This is Ariel. She works the camera.” Hans has already asked that Ariel ignore everything that Jack said. “Don't even tell him hello,” Hans had instructed. “He'll feel intimidated by another adult—by a woman—who won't speak to him, so say nothing. He'll play to the camera then, trying to get your attention.”

“I thought you did the camera.” Jack leans forward but keeps looking up at Ariel. He puts his elbows on the table. “But what do I know about filmmaking? Hey,” he says to Ariel. “Are you alive?” But still, Ariel ignores him.

Hans doesn't acknowledge it, either. Instead he says, “Ariel is better at it than I am.”

“I get tired of all these men. All this hardness. I like to see a woman.”

Hans was worried about this, about Ariel coming. He thought it might skew things. Jack might be too busy trying to impress her to say anything honest—but
honest
is too strong a word for Jack Wyck.
Anything
will do. Anything average. Anything ordinary.

But Jack isn't looking at Ariel. He's staring at Hans, and Hans wonders what he is trying to see. “What about the camera light? Is it too bright?” Hans asks.

“I'll adjust. I've adjusted to worse.” Jack nods around him. He sits back, drops his hands into his lap. “You know they don't turn the lights off at night.” The sleeves of his shirt are rolled up, and tattoos of black snakes course and coil up his arms.

“Thank you for agreeing to meet with me.” Hans passes Jack the dark chocolate—an organic brand—and a pack of Marlboros. “Would you like me to get you a coffee?” Hans gestures at a set of vending machines that stand against the wall.

“Sure.”

He rises and puts two quarters in a vending machine. “Milk, sugar?”

“Black.”

The Styrofoam cup slips into the machine's metal levers. It hisses as a thick brown liquid spills out. Hans stoops a little to retrieve the cup and carries it lightly back to Jack Wyck. Hans sits, smiling at Jack. “Before we begin—” he starts.