Lisey's Story(40)

He shakes his head, slowly but firmly.

"Scott - "

"If you weren't mad, why did you shout and call me all the bad-gunky?"

All the bad-gunky. Surely another postcard from his childhood. She notes it, puts it away for later examination.

"Because I couldn't shout at my sister anymore," she says. This hits her funny and she begins to laugh. She laughs hard, and the sound so shocks her that she begins to cry. Then she feels light-headed. She sits down on the porch steps, thinking she may faint. Scott sits beside her. He's twenty-four, his hair falls almost to his shoulders, his face is scruffy with two days' growth, and he's as slim as a rule. On his left hand he wears her blouse, one sleeve now unwrapped and hanging down. He kisses the throbbing hollow of her temple, then looks at her with perfect fond understanding. When he speaks, he sounds almost like himself again.

"I understand," he says. "Families suck."

"Yeah they do," she whispers.

He puts his arm around her - the left one, which she is already thinking of as the bloodbool arm, his gift to her, his crazy smucked-up Friday-night gift.

"They don't have to matter," he says. His voice is weirdly serene. It's as if he hasn't just turned his left hand into so much raw and bleeding meat. "Listen, Lisey: people can forget anything."

She looked at him doubtfully. "Can they?"

"Yes. This is our time now. You and me. That's what matters."

You and me. But does she want that? Now that she sees how narrowly he's balanced?

Now that she has a picture of what life with him may be like? Then she thinks of how his lips felt in the hollow of her temple, touching that special secret place, and she thinks, Maybe I do. Doesn't every hurricane have an eye?

"Is it?" she asks.

For several seconds he says nothing. Only holds her. From Cleaves's paltry downtown come the sounds of engines and yells and wild, whooping laughter. It's Friday night and the Lost Boys are at play. But that is not here. Here is all the smell of her long, sloping backyard sleeping toward summer, the sound of Pluto barking under the pole-light next door, and the feel of his arm around her. Even the warm damp press of his wounded hand is comforting, marking the bare skin of her midriff like a brand.

"Baby," he says at last.

Pauses.

Then: "Babyluv."

For Lisey Debusher, twenty-two, weary of her family and equally tired of being on her own, it is enough. Finally enough. He has hollered her home, and in the dark she gives in to the Scott of him. From then until the end she will never look back. 18

When they're in the kitchen again, she unwinds her blouse and sees the damage. Looking at it, she feels another wave of faintness first lift her up toward the bright overhead light and then drop her toward darkness; she has to struggle to stay conscious, and manages to do it by telling herself He needs me. He needs me to drive him to the ER

at Derry Home.

He has somehow missed slicing into the veins which lie so close under the wrist - a blue-eyed miracle - but the palm is cut in at least four different places, some of the skin is hanging like wallpaper, and three of what her Dad called "the fat fingers" are also cut. The pièce de resistance is a horrible gash on his forearm with a triangle of thick green glass sticking up from it like a sharkfin. She hears herself make a helpless ouck! sound as he pulls it out - almost casually - and tosses it into the trash. He holds her blood-soaked blouse under his hand and arm as he does this, considerately trying to keep blood off her kitchen floor. He does get a few drops on the lino, but there's surprisingly little to clean up later. There's a high counter-stool that she sometimes sits on when she's peeling veggies, or even when she's washing dishes (when you're on your feet eight hours a day, you take your sitdowns where you can get em), and Scott hooks it over with one foot so he can sit with his hand dripping into the sink. He says he's going to tell her what to do.

"You have to go to the ER," she tells him. "Scott, be sensible! Hands are full of tendons and things! Do you want to lose the use of it? Because you could! You really could! If you're worried about what they'll say, you can cook up some story, cooking up stories is what you do, and I'll back y - "

"If you still want me to go tomorrow, we'll go," he tells her. Now he's entirely his normal self, rational and charming and almost hypnotically persuasive. "I'm not going to die of this tonight, the bleeding's almost stopped already, and besides - do you know what ERs are like on Friday night? Drunks On Parade! First thing Saturday morning would be lots better." He's grinning at her now, that delighted honey, I'm hip grin that almost demands you grin back, and she tries not to, but this is a battle she's losing.

"Besides, all the Landons are fast healers. We had to be. I'm going to show you just what to do."

"You act like you've put your hand through a dozen greenhouse windows."

"No," he says, the grin faltering a little. "Never poked a greenhouse until tonight. But I learned some stuff about being hurt. Paul and I both did."

"He was your brother?"

"Yeah. He's dead. Draw a basin of warm water, Lisey, okay? Warm but not quite hot."

She wants to ask him all kinds of questions about this brother

( Daddy tole Paul n me over n over)