The Night Parade(74)

“I think you should see a doctor, Burt.”

“The only fellow I’m going to see, David, is the guy who rents those RVs off the beltway. Remember me talking about him?”

“Of course. That’s still the plan?”

That grim smile widened. Burt’s teeth looked gray. “Still the plan, Stan,” he said.

“Maybe I should drive you home.”

“Don’t think so. Thanks, though.”

“Do you even have any work to do? Papers to grade?”

“Not a one,” Burt announced. He turned back to the television. There was a toothpaste commercial on now. “I’m just out here gathering my thoughts. I guess I come out of habit. It makes it easier to pretend that things are still normal by coming in here every day.”

David understood. It was what he was doing, too.

“You said your little girl is all right, David? She acting fine to you?”

“She’s fine, Burt.”

Burt Langstrom’s brow creased. “Yeah, but . . . how do you know?”

“I . . . I don’t know, Burt. But she’s the same. That’s all. She isn’t sick.”

“Well, that’s good, I guess. That’s real good.”

“Are your girls all right, Burt?”

“Oh yeah, David. They’re beautiful. Just goddamn beautiful.”

David left him that way, opting instead to head across campus to the administrative offices. Only one secretary was there, reading a magazine behind a screen of bulletproof glass. She wore a surgical mask over her nose and mouth.

“I need to look up a phone number of someone in my department,” David said, speaking into the microphone box in the glass.

The secretary’s brow creased. “Who are you?” Her voice was barely audible.

He held his faculty ID against the glass.

The secretary got up and approached the glass. Once David gave her the information, she rooted through her computer before supplying him with the telephone number. He entered it into his phone, thanked the woman—she had already gone back to her magazine—then slipped outside into the quad.

It was springtime and the afternoon was alive with the sound of insects of all kinds. Without birds, the world was becoming choked with them, and in such a short amount of time. Long-legged things popped out of the grass, and a variety of flying thingamajigs navigated from flower to flower. It got so you couldn’t open your mouth outdoors without inhaling a few.

He dialed the number, heard it ring several times. He realized he was holding his breath. It kept ringing, and he was about to hang up when a woman’s voice answered.

“Is this Laura?” he said.

“Who’s this?” said the woman. She sounded nervous, on edge. He’d met Laura Langstrom a number of times, at various social events at the college. David and Kathy had also been over to the Langstroms’ for a cookout last summer, a hospitality David kept meaning to repay. Laura Langstrom was what someone might refer to as a hefty woman, with meaty upper arms and thighs that stretched the fabric of her pants. She had always been pleasant enough—the entire Langstrom clan had always been happy and cheerful—but now she sounded like someone who’d been holed up in a cave for half a year and had forgotten how to converse with another human being.

“This is David Arlen, Laura. From the college.”

“Burt’s college?” she said.

“Yes.”

“Is that where he is now?”

“Yes.” He thought it odd she wouldn’t know where her husband was. “He’s—”

“Is he okay?” she said, cutting him off. “Did something happen?”

“Well, nothing happened, but—”

“You wouldn’t be calling me if something hasn’t happened. Just tell me.”

“Burt’s okay. I’ve just been worried about him lately. His . . . his behavior, I guess. His . . .” His what? Attitude? Outlook? Entire persona? He didn’t know how to finish the thought.

“Does he seem sick to you, David?”

“He seems severely depressed. I think he should talk to a doctor.”

“We’ve all been to doctors. We had our quarterly test just last month. We’re all clean here, David. Folly-free, as they say.” She practically sang this last part, as though it was part of some advertising jingle.

“That’s not the kind of doctor I’m talking about. I think he needs to see . . . well, maybe a shrink.”

“We don’t have a shrink.”

“Maybe he should get one. Listen, I know this is coming out of left field, Laura, but I felt I should do something—”

“Tell me,” Laura Langstrom said, and now her voice dropped, as if they were two criminals conspiring over the phone about an upcoming heist. “How is your family, David? How is . . . uh . . .”

“Kathy and Eleanor,” he finished for her.

“Yes!” The word jolted from her. “Yes, that’s right. How are they? Are they healthy? Have you gotten blood tests recently?”

“We’re all clean.”

“Are you sure?” Her words hung there, the emphasis on that final word somehow sounding perverse. As if she was taunting him.

“As sure as we can be.”