Gerald's Game(57)

What just happened, he began, then cleared his throat. We need to talk about what just happened, Punkin, but not right this minute. Dash inside and change your clothes, maybe take a quick shower while you're at it. Hurry up so you don't miss the end of the eclipse.

She had lost all interest in the eclipse, although she would never tell him that in a million years. She nodded instead, then turned back. Daddy, am I all right?

He looked surprised, unsure, wary-a combination which increased the feeling that angry hands were at work inside her, kneading her guts... and she suddenly understood that he felt as bad as she did. Perhaps worse. And in an instant of clarity untouched by any voice save her own, she thought: You ought to! Jeepers, you started it!

Yes, he said... but his tone did not entirely convince her. Right as rain, Jess. Now go on inside and fix yourself up.

All right.

She tried to smile-tried hard-and actually succeeded a little. Her father looked startled for a moment, and then he returned her smile. That relieved her somewhat, and the hands which had been working inside her temporarily loosened their grip. By the time she had reached the big upstairs bedroom she shared with Maddy, however, the feelings had begun to return. The worst by far was the fear that he would feel he had to tell her mother about what had happened. And what would her mother think?

That's our Jessie, isn't it? The squeaky wheel.

The bedroom had been divided off girls-at-camp-style with a clothesline strung down the middle. She and Maddy had hung some old sheets on this line, and then colored bright designs on them with Will's crayolas. Coloring the sheets and dividing the room had been great fun at the time, but it seemed stupid and kiddish to her now, and the way her overblown shadow danced on the center sheet was actually scary; it looked like the shadow of a monster. Even the fragrant smell of pine resin, which she usually liked, seemed heavy and cloying to her, like an air-freshener you sprayed around heavily to cover up some unpleasant stink.

That's our Jessie, never quite satisfied with the arrangements until she gets a chance to put on the finishing touches. Never quite happy with someone else's plans. Never able to let well enough alone.

She hurried into the bathroom, wanting to outrun that voice, rightly guessing she wouldn't be able to. She turned on the light and pulled the sundress over her head in one quick jerk. She threw it into the laundry hamper, glad to be rid of it. She looked at her self in the mirror, wide-eyed, and saw a little girl's face surrounded by a big girl's hairdo... one which was now coming loose from the pins in strands and puffs and locks. It was a little girl's body, too-flat-chested and slim-hipped-but it wouldn't be that way for long. It had already started to change, and it had done something to her father it had no business doing.

I never want boobs and curvy hips, she thought dully. If they make things like this happen, who would?

The thought made her aware of that wet spot on the seat of her underpants again. She slipped out of them-cotton pants from Sears, once green, now so faded they were closer to gray-and held them up curiously, her hands inside the waistband. There was something on the back of them, all right, and it wasn't sweat. Nor did it look like any kind of toothpaste she had ever seen. What it looked like was pearly-gray dish detergent. Jessie lowered her head and sniffed cautiously. She smelled a faint odor which she associated with the lake after a run of hot, still weather, and with their well-water all the time. She once took her father a glass of water which smelled particularly strong to her and asked if be could smell it.

He had shaken his head. Nope, he'd said cheerfully, but that doesn't mean it isn't there. It just means I smoke too damn much. My guess is that it's the smell of the aquifer, Punkin. Trace minerals, that's all. A little smelly, and it means your mother has to spend a fortune on fabric softener, but it won't hurt you. Swear to God.

Trace minerals, she thought now, and sniffed that bland aroma again. She was unable to think why it fascinated her, but it did. The smell of the aquifer, that's all. The smell of-

Then the more assertive voice spoke up. On the afternoon of the eclipse it sounded a bit like her mother's voice (it called her tootsie, for one thing, as Sally sometimes did when she was irritated with Jessie for shirking some chore or forgetting some responsibility), but Jessie had an idea it was really the voice of her own adult self If its combative bray was a little distressing, that was only because it was too early for that voice, strictly speaking. It was here just the same, though. It was here, and it was doing the best it could to put her back together again. She found its brassy loudness oddly comforting.

It's the stuff Cindy Lessard was talking about, that's what it is it's his spunk, tootsie. I suppose you ought to be grateful it ended up on your underwear instead of someplace else, but don't go telling yourself any fairy-tales about how it's the lake you smell, or trace minerals from deep down in the aquifer, or anything else. Karen Aucoin is a dipshit, there was never a woman in the history of the world who grew a baby in her throat and you know it, but Cindy Lessard is no dipshit. I think she's seen this stuff, and now you've seen it, too. Man's-stuff. Spunk.

Suddenly revolted-not so much by what it was as from whom it had originated-Jessie threw the underpants into the hamper on top of the sundress. Then she had a vision of her mother, who emptied the hampers and did the wash in the dank basement laundry room, fishing this particular pair of panties out of this particular hamper and finding this particular deposit. And what would she think? Why, that the family's troublesome squeaky wheel had gotten the grease, of course... what else?