Lisey's Story(136)

Lisey only nodded. She didn't trust herself to say anything.

"When? After the last time I tuned up on myself? After the last time I saw him in Southwind? What he called Boonya Moon?"

Lisey didn't bother to correct her. "He schmoozed a doc named Hugh Alberness. Alberness agreed you were headed for trouble after looking at your records, and when you freaked this time, he examined you and admitted you. You have no memory of that?

Any of it?"

"No."

Lisey took the cell phone and looked at the number on the partially fogged windshield.

"I don't have a clue what to tell him, Manda."

"What would Scott have told him, Little?"

Little. There it was again. Another shower, furious but of no more than twenty seconds'

duration, beat on the roof of the car, and while it drummed, Lisey found herself thinking of all the speaking engagements she'd gone to with Scott - what he called gigs. With the notable exception of Nashville in 1988, it seemed to her that she always had a good time, and why not? He told them what they wanted to hear; her job was only to smile and clap in the right places. Oh, and sometimes she had to mouth Thank you when acknowledged. Sometimes they gave him things - souvenirs, mementos - and he gave them to her and she had to hold them. Sometimes people took pictures and sometimes there were people like Tony Eddington - Toneh - whose job was to write it up and sometimes they mentioned her and sometimes they didn't and sometimes they spelled her name right and sometimes they didn't and once she had been identified as Scott Landon's Gal Pal and that was okay, it was all okay because she didn't make a fuss, she was good at quiet, but she was not like the little girl in the Saki story, invention at short notice was most assuredly not her specialty, and -

"Listen, Amanda, if channeling Scott is what you had in mind, it's not working, I'm really clueless here. Why don't you just call Dr. Alberness and tell him you're all right..." As she was saying this, Lisey tried to pass the cell phone back. Amanda raised her mutilated hands to her chest in refusal. "It wouldn't work no matter what I said. I'm crazy. You, on the other hand, are not only sane, you're the famous writer's widow. So make the call, Lisey. Get Dr. Alberness out of our road. And do it now."

9

Lisey dialed, and what followed was, to begin with, almost too similar to the call she'd made on her long, long Thursday - the day she had started following the stations of the bool. It was once more Cassandra on the other end, and Lisey once more recognized the soporific music when she was put on hold, but this time Cassandra sounded both excited and relieved to hear from her. She said she was going to connect Lisey with Dr. Alberness at his home.

"Don't go away, now," she instructed Lisey before disappearing into what might have been the old Donna Summer disco tune "Love to Love You, Baby," before undergoing a musical lobotomy. Don't go away had an ominous ring, but the fact that Hugh Alberness was at home...surely that was hopeful, wasn't it?

He could have called the cops from home as easily as from his office, you know. Or the on-call doc at Greenlawn could have done it. And what are you going to tell him when he comes on? Just what the hell are you going to tell him?

What would Scott have told him?

Scott would have told him that reality is Ralph.

And yes, that was undoubtedly true.

Lisey smiled a little at the thought, and at the memory of Scott pacing around a hotel room in...Lincoln? Lincoln, Nebraska? More likely Omaha, because this had been a hotel room, a nice one, maybe even part of a suite. He'd been reading the newspaper when a fax from his editor had come sliding under the door. The editor, Carson Foray, wanted further changes in the third draft of Scott's new novel. Lisey couldn't remember which novel, just that it had been one of the later ones, which he sometimes referred to as

"Landon's Throbbing Love Stories." In any case, Carson - who had been with Scott for what old Dandy would have called a dead coon's age - felt that a chance meeting between two characters after twenty years or so was poorly managed. "Plot creaks a bit here, old boy," he'd written.

"Creak on this, old boy," Scott had grumbled, grabbing his crotch with one hand (and had that sweetly troublesome lock of hair tumbled across his brow when he did it? of course it did). And then, before she could say anything of an ameliorative nature, he had snatched up the newspaper, rattled it to the back page, and shown her an item in a feature called This Odd World. It was headlined DOG FINDS HIS WAY HOME - AFTER 3 YEARS. It told the story of a Border Collie named Ralph, who had been lost while on vacation with his family in Port Charlotte, Florida. Three years later Ralph had shown up at the family manse in Eugene, Oregon. He was thin, collarless, and a little footsore, but otherwise none the worse for wear. Just came walking up the driveway, sat down on the stoop, and barked to be let in.

"What do you think Monsieur Carson Foray would make of that if it turned up in a book of mine?" Scott had demanded, brushing the hair off his forehead (it flopped right back, of course). "Do you think he'd shoot me a fax telling me it creaked a bit, old boy? "

Lisey, both amused by his pique and almost absurdly touched by the thought of Ralph coming back after all those years (and God knew what adventures), agreed that Carson probably would.

Scott had snatched back the paper, peered balefully for a moment at the photo of Ralph looking sporty in a new collar and a paisley bandanna, then tossed it aside. "I'll tell you something, Lisey," he'd said, "novelists labor under tremendous handicaps. Reality is Ralph, showing up after three years, and no one knows why. But a novelist can't tell that story! Because it creaks a bit, old boy!"