The Dead Zone(80)

After supper they sat in the living room, and the talk turned away from politics. They watched Denny play with the old wooden cars and trucks that a much younger Herb Smith had made for his own son over a quarter of a century ago. A younger Herb Smith who had been married to a tough, good-humored woman who would sometimes drink a bottle of Black Label beer in the evening. A man with no gray in his hair and nothing but the highest hopes for his son.

He does understand, Johnny thought, sipping his coffee. Whether he knows what went on between Sarah and me this afternoon, whether or not he suspects what might have gone on, he understands the basic cheat. You can't change it or rectify it, the best you can do is try to come to terms. This afternoon she and I consummated a marriage that never was. And tonight he's playing with his grandson.

He thought of the Wheel of Fortune, slowing, stopping.

House number. Everyone loses.

Gloom was trying to creep up, a dismal sense of finality, and he pushed it away. This wasn't the time; he wouldn't let it be the time.

By eight-thirty Denny had begun to get scratchy and cross and Sarah said, 'Time for us to go, folks. He can suck a bottle on our way back to Kennebunk. About three miles from here, he'll have corked off. Thanks for having us.' Her eyes, brilliant green, found Johnny's for a moment.

'Our pleasure entirely,' Herb said, standing up. 'Right, Johnny?'

'Right,' he said. 'Let me carry that car-bedout for you, Sarah.'

At the door. Herb kissed the top of Denny's head (and Denny grabbed Herb's nose in his chubby fist and honked it hard enough to make Herb's eyes water) and Sarah's cheek. Johnny carried the car-bed down to the red Pinto and Sarah gave him the keys so he could put everything in the back.

When he finished, she was standing by the driver's door, looking at him. 'It was the best we could do,' she said, and smiled a little. But the brilliance of her eyes told him the tears were close again.

'It wasn't so bad at all,' Johnny said.

'We'll stay in touch?'

'I don't know, Sarah. Will we?'

'No, I suppose not. It would be too easy, wouldn't it?'

'Pretty easy, yes.

She stepped close and stretched to kiss his cheek. He could smell her hair, clean and fragrant.

'Take care,' she whispered. 'I'll think about you.'

'Be good, Sarah,' he said, and touched her nose.

She turned then, got in behind the wheel, a smart young matron whose husband was on the way up. I doubt like hell if they'll be driving a Pinto next year, Johnny thought.

The lights came on, then the little sewing machine motor roared. She raised a hand to him and then she was pulling out of the driveway. Johnny stood by the chopping block, hands in his pockets, and watched her go. Something in his heart seemed to have closed. It was not a major feeling. That was the worst of it - it wasn't a major feeling at all.

He watched until the taillights were out of sight and then he climbed the porch steps and went back into the house. His dad was sitting in the big easy chair in the living room. The TV was off. The few toys he had found in the closet were scattered on the rug and he was looking at them.

'Good to see Sarah,' Herb said. 'Did you and she have ...' there was the briefest, most minute hesitation

- 'a nice visit?'

'Yes,' Johnny said.

'She'll be down again?'

'No, I don't think so.'

He and his father were looking at each other.

'Well now, maybe that's for the best,' Herb said finally.

'Yes. Maybe so.'

'You played with these toys,' Herb said, getting down on his knees and beginning to gather them up. 'I gave a bunch of them to Lottie Gedreau when she had her twins, but I knew I had a few of them left. I saved a few back.'

He put them back in the box one at a time, turning each of them over in his hands, examining them. A race car. A bulldozer. A police car. A small hook-and-ladder truck from which most of the red paint had been worn away where a small hand would grip. He took them back to the entryway closet and put them away.

Johnny didn't see Sarah Hazlett again for three years.

Chapter Sixteen

1.

The snow came early that year. There were six inches on the ground by November 7, and Johnny had taken to lacing on a pair of old green gumrubber boots and wearing his old parka for the trek up to the mailbox. Two weeks before, Dave Pelsen had mailed down a package containing the texts he would be using in January, and Johnny had already begun making tentative lesson plans. He was looking forward to getting back. Dave had also found him an apartment on Howland Street in Cleaves. 24 Howland Street. Johnny kept that on a scrap of paper in his wallet, because the name and number had an irritating way of slipping his mind.

On this day the skies were slatey and lowering, the temperature hovering just below the twenty degree mark. As Johnny tramped up the driveway, the first spats of snow began to drift down. Because he was alone, he didn't feel too self conscious about running his tongue out and trying to catch a flake on it. He was hardly limping at all, and he felt good. There hadn't been a headache in two weeks or more.

The mail consisted of an advertising circular, a Newsweek, and a small manila envelope addressed to John Smith, no return address. Johnny opened it on the way back, the rest of the mail stuffed into his hip pocket. He pulled out a single page of newsprint, saw the words Inside View at the top, and came to a halt halfway back to the house.