The Forgotten Hours(32)

Katie runs upstairs and grabs some random dry clothes for them and brings them down to the den after checking that David is tucked in his bed. Turning her back to Katie, Lulu slips off the boxer shorts and T-shirt and puts on a thin cotton dress. She wraps her hair in a towel Katie has brought from the bathroom.

The front door slams. “Girls?” Charlie’s voice rings out. “David?” The thunder has abated, but every now and then a crack as loud as a gunshot makes them jump.

“In here,” Katie calls.

“Christ almighty,” comes John’s voice.

Charlie pokes her head into the room. “Thank heavens you weren’t in the water,” she says. “David here? Do you know?”

“He’s in bed. I checked.”

Her mother yawns. “That Patterson girl refused to get out of the lake. Her father dove back in to get her. What idiots. They could both be dead.”

In the den, a long brown plaid couch is pressed up against one wall, with a comfortable two-seater at right angles to it against the back wall. End tables made of rattan are covered in spent Coke cans and an empty bag of Doritos. Lulu sits down on the bigger couch and rubs her eyes. The rain pelting the roof sounds like the drone of a motor. Katie turns on the TV to drown it out. Sitting next to Lulu, she pulls a fleece blanket over their bare legs. Lulu’s body begins to relax into the cushions.

“I’m going to bed,” Charlie says. “Up bright and early tomorrow, girls. Back to the real world.”

If they stay awake long enough, Katie thinks, maybe Lulu will soften up again. Maybe they can fix things before they have to say goodbye in the morning. They stare blankly at the bald man on the screen, who juices carrot after carrot and then adds eggplant and parsley. Katie yawns enormously. The soft skin of Lulu’s thigh presses against hers.

John comes in. “What’s this crap you’re watching?” he asks. He’s changed out of the green polyester pants into a pair of sweats. He looks wide awake, invigorated, even. He stares at the girls for an extra beat.

“Your car okay?” Lulu asks him.

“Sure, honey,” he says, his voice thick. “A little water won’t do the old girl any harm.”

“I’d think it would be bad,” Lulu says. “Getting water on the leather and stuff.”

“Ah, that car’s been through a lot worse.” They look at each other without saying anything, and then he walks over to the DVD player and starts rooting around in a pile of old discs collected in a basket. Picking one, he unclips the plastic housing and slips it into the machine. Static, followed by jazzy music, and then the title Body Heat scrolls across the screen.

“Oh, my mom loves this movie,” Lulu says, sitting up, alert.

On screen William Hurt smokes a cigarette and gazes out over a hazy skyline. Katie’s eyes are so heavy. If the phone hadn’t rung earlier, she would have stayed with Jack at the Dolans’ all night long. Eventually she and Jack would have fallen asleep, his skinny limbs entangled in hers. She would have woken up in the early morning, stiff and cold, with his skin still touching hers, his eyes ever so slightly open in sleep, his hair a mass of lake-dried curls. She would have started kissing him again, and he would have kissed her back, and neither of them would have cared about morning breath or needing to go to the bathroom or the fact that they had not gone home and were going to be in serious trouble.

“Hey, Lu, move over a bit, will you?” she says, yawning again.

“Sorry, Princess,” Lulu mutters. Absorbed by the movie, she adjusts herself a bit to make room. “You’re too heavy,” she whines when Katie lays her legs on Lulu’s lap.

“Who’s the princess now?” Katie asks, feeling as though a warm blanket is descending over her head. Her yawn threatens to pull apart the muscles in her face.

“Mr. Gregory, tell your gargantuan daughter to make some room for me on this couch, will you please?” Lulu says.

“Mr. Gregory? What’s that about?” John asks. “I think you’re old enough to call me John. Don’t you already call Katie’s mom ‘Charlie’?”

“Yeah, but that’s different.” Lulu doesn’t sound sleepy, nor does she sound angry or sad, like she did back when they were at the boathouse. “John,” she adds.

“There’s plenty of room over here, if you want.”

Lulu moves to the other couch, and Katie pulls the throw over herself. Lulu is acting so weird: hot and cold. Let her go sit with Dad if she wants to; Katie doesn’t care. The movie is clearly supposed to be sultry, but it seems awkward and dated to her. She closes her eyes and sinks into her dream like a swimmer sinking into wet sand. It covers her completely and weighs her down until she is cocooned. In her sleep, her throat is parched, and as the room turns a lighter and lighter shade of gray, she wakes up a few times to take a sip of her Coke. The sound of the movie seems endless until there is silence. Even the rain stops.

Outside the windows, the edges of the night sky burn with the palest mauve and then, later, a fierce orange. At one point, she thinks she sees someone at the window; she is sure it is a face, darkened in shadow, faintly rosy from the dawn light. There is rustling and sighing, and the screen is fuzzy, and before long she falls back into the quicksand of awakened desire.

That is what happens. At least, that’s the way she remembers it.