The Clairvoyants(16)

7




Del’s visit extended to over two weeks. On the days I had classes I didn’t know what she did or where she went, and when I asked she was always vague. “Here and there,” she’d say. “Out and about.” It was my responsibility to shop for food, to buy shampoo and soap. Del would add things to the list—razor blades, rat poison, clothesline rope.

“What is this?” I said, shaking the list at her.

Del stood at the mirror trying on winter hats from a pile she’d thrown on the bed. I had no idea where she’d gotten them. “I was kidding,” she said. “You don’t joke anymore. You’ve gotten old.”

“I don’t think this is funny,” I said.

Del turned to me wearing a faux fur Russian hat. “Because you’re worried I’m crazy.” She pulled the hat’s flaps over her ears.

“You look it wearing that,” I said.

I crossed out her ridiculous additions to the list, folded it over, and tucked it into my purse.

I came home from Wegmans, lugging the bags up the stairs, and discovered her setting up an old television, fiddling with its connections.

“Does that even work?” I said. “Where did you get it?”

Del explained that she’d found it for free on the side of the road. “And it does work,” she said. “The sign said it did.”

Another day I came home to find her reading in an upholstered chair, its cushioned arms curving to end in the carved heads of ducks.

“How did you get this up here?” I asked.

“Good ol’ Geoff,” she said. “Don’t you love it? It’s a gift for you, from me.”

I didn’t say that it left less space in the apartment or that it seemed a little threadbare. I didn’t ask where she got it—if it had been left out in the rain or was covered in animal hair.

“Don’t worry,” she said, returning to her book. “The stains aren’t blood.”

*

ONE AFTERNOON SOMEONE knocked on my apartment door. Both Del and I were home. It was Halloween, and Del had purchased a bag of candy corn, which we ate in handfuls. The television was on, and I was trying to read poems assigned for class—Wordsworth and Shelley, the print so small on the thin page of the anthology that I kept losing my way. At the sound of the knock we startled and eyed each other warily.

“Maybe it’s Detective Thomson,” Del whispered.

She’d confessed that he had visited her at the manor, “with his shiny shoes and his suit,” she had said, scowling. “I’d almost forgotten all about him.”

He’d asked her the usual questions, and she’d done her best at “dazed and forgetful.”

“I kept asking him to repeat the question,” she’d told me. “Then I would spend at least three minutes thinking it over before I answered.”

She’d stared through me, disconcertingly, imitating her interview behavior with the detective. “You’re good at that,” I’d said. “You didn’t even blink.”

We’d both laughed about Detective Thomson’s growing bulk, his white legs that showed above his socks when his slacks rode up. Neither of us mentioned the sense that he’d sharpened his focus—mentioning Jane Roberts and some of the others we’d hung out with that summer. We didn’t admit to feeling afraid, but there we were, startled by a knock on the apartment door.

Del answered the door with a lavish flourish, her hand filled with candy corn. “It’s a visitor!” she cried. “We’re not alone!”

Geoff stood in the doorway, surprised. He seemed a little cautious around Del. Since she’d been with me, his visits to my bedsit had stopped.

“I’ve been invited to an outdoor party,” he said, clearing his throat. “I wondered if you two would like to join me.”

Del put a piece of candy in her mouth. She held her hand out to Geoff, but he declined.

“What does that mean?” I asked Geoff, rising from the couch where I’d been reading.

“Outdoors? A party?” Del slapped my shoulder, as if I needed waking up.

It had grown quite warm the last day or two—a welcome Indian summer.

“A cookout?” I said. “Or something?”

“Yes, yes,” he said. “You know, to celebrate All Hallows’ Eve. Grilled meat and that sort of thing.”

Del laughed at me. “Are you dense, Martha? Yes, we’ll go with you!” she cried. She put the remaining candy corn in her mouth, wiped her hands on her jeans, and grabbed her backpack. “I look OK, right?” She smoothed down her T-shirt. There was a stain on the front, but she let down her long hair from its clasp, and it fell over her shoulders and covered the spot. “Oh, do we need costumes?” she asked, concerned.

Geoff began to speak, but Del cut him off.

“That might be fun,” she said. “We’d have to stop to pick something up, though.”

“You can just wear your Dr. Zhivago hat,” I said.

Geoff stepped into the room, waving his hands. “Hold on, now. No one mentioned costumes were required.”

Del went to the bureau and began opening drawers. “No costumes at a party on Halloween. That’s a first.”