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"I can do this," one of the girls saidShe...
10:56 PM, Wednesday, May 5, 2010
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"I can do this," one of the girls saidShe spoke
in the voice of the shells
518
"It was red," the other girl saidShe spoke in
the voice of the shellsThey were halfway up now
Their heads were little more than skulls with wet
hair draggling down the sides
"Sit in the char," they said together, like girls
chanting a skip-rope rhymebut they spoke in
the voice of the shells
They reached up for me with terrible fishbelly
fingers
I fainted at the head of the stairs
xx
The telephone was ringingThat was my Telephone
Winter
I opened my eyes and groped for the bedside lamp,
wanting light right away because I'd just had the
worst nightmare of my lifeInstead of finding the
lamp, my fingers struck a wallAt the moment they
did, I became aware that my knock off chanel head was cocked at a
strange, painful angle against that same wall
Thunder rumbled - but faint and sullen; it was
going-away thunder now - and that was enough to
bring everything back with painful, frightening
519
clarityI
had fainted because -
My eyes flew openMy ass was on the landing, my
legs trailing down the stairsI thought of the
two drowned girls - no, it was more, it was an
instant of total, brilliant recall - and shot to
my feet without feeling my bad hip at allMy
concentration was fixed entirely on the three
light-switches at the head of the stairs, but even
as my fingers found them I thought: Won't work,
the storm will have knocked out the power
But they did work, banishing the dark in the
studio and the stairwellI had a nasty watch replicas cartier moment
when I saw sand and water at the foot of the
stairs, but the light reached far enough for me to
see that the front door had blown open
Surely it had just blown open
In the living room, the phone quit and the
answering machine kicked inMy recorded voice
invited the caller to leave a message at the sound
of the beepThe caller was Wireman
"Edgar, where are you?" I was too disoriented to
tell if I was hearing excitement, dismay, or
520
terror in his voice"Call me, you need to call me
right away!" And then a click
I went downstairs one tentative step at a time,
like a man in his eighties, and made the lights my
first priority: living room, kitchen, both
bedrooms, Florida roomI even turned on the
lights in the bathrooms, reaching into chanel shopping bags the
darkness to do it, bracing myself in case
something cold and wet and draped in seaweed
should reach backWith all the
lights on, I relaxed enough to realize I was
hungry againIt was the only time I
felt that way after working on Wireman's
portraitbut of course, that last session had
been a lulu
I stooped to examine the mess that had blown in
through the open doorJust sand and water, the
water already beading atop the wax my housekeeper
used to keep the cypress gleamingThere was some
dampness on the lower stair risers, which were
carpeted, but dampness was all it was
I wouldn't admit to myself that I'd been looking
for footprints
521
I went to the kitchen, made a chicken sandwich,
and gobbled it standing at the counterI grabbed
a beer d
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