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She felt the world trying to go away and leaned her head against the wall for a moment, gasping for breath. She closed her eyes. She saw the giant towering over her, hands in the pockets of his biballs, and opened her eyes again. She dialed the number written in dust on the wall.
She braced herself for an answering machine, or for a bored dispatcher telling her that they had no cars, of course they didn’t, it was Friday night, were you born stupid, lady, or did you just grow that way? But the phone was answered on the second ring by a businesslike woman who identified herself as Andrea. She listened to Tess, and said they would send a car right out, her driver would be Manuel. Yes, she knew exactly where Tess was calling from, because they ran cars out to The Stagger I
“Okay, but I’m not there,” Tess said. “I’m at the intersection about half a mile down from th-”
“Yes, ma’am, I have that,” Andrea said. “The Gas amp; Dash. Sometimes we go there, too. People often walk down and call if they’ve had a little too much to drink. It’ll probably be forty-five minutes, maybe even an hour.”
“That’s fine,” Tess said. The tears were falling again. Tears of gratitude this time, although she told herself not to relax, because in stories like this the heroine’s hopes so often turned out to be false. “That’s absolutely fine. I’ll be around the corner by the pay telephones. And I’ll be watching.”
Now she’ll ask me if I had a little too much to drink. Because I probably sound that way.
But Andrea only wanted to know if she would be paying with cash or credit.
“American Express. I should be in your computer.”
“Yes, ma’am, you are. Thank you for calling Royal Limousine, where every customer is treated like royalty.” Andrea clicked off before Tess could say she was very welcome.
She started to hang up the phone, and then a man-him, it’s him -ran around the corner of the store and right at her. This time there was no chance of screaming; she was paralyzed with terror.
It was one of the teenage boys. He went past without looking at her and hooked a left into the Men’s. The door slammed. A moment later she heard the enthusiastic, horselike sound of a young man voiding an awesomely healthy bladder.
Tess went down the side of the building and around back. There she stood beside a reeking Dumpster (no, she thought, I’m not standing, I’m lurking), waiting for the young man to finish and be gone. When he was, she walked back to the pay phones to watch the road. In spite of all the places where she hurt, her belly was rumbling with hunger. She had missed her di
That reminded her of an old joke she’d heard somewhere: Why are there three hundred thousand battered women each year in America? Because they won’t… fuckin… listen.
“Never mind,” she whispered. “I’ll have something to eat when I get home. Tuna salad, maybe.”
It sounded good, but part of her was convinced that her days of eating tuna salad-or nasty yellow convenience-store peanut butter crackers, for that matter-were all over. The idea of a limo pulling up and driving her out of this nightmare was an insane mirage.
From somewhere to her left, Tess could hear cars rushing by on I-84-the road she would have taken if she hadn’t been so pleased to be offered a shorter way home. Over there on the turnpike, people who had never been raped or stuffed in pipes were going places. Tess thought the sound of their blithe travel was the loneliest she’d ever heard. – 16 -
The limo came. It was a Lincoln Town Car. The man behind the wheel got out and looked around. Tess observed him closely from the corner of the store. He was wearing a dark suit. He was a small, bespectacled fellow who didn’t look like a rapist… but of course not all giants were rapists and not all rapists were giants. She had to trust him, though. If she were to get home and feed Fritzy, there was no other option. So she dropped her filthy makeshift stole beside the pay phone that actually worked and walked slowly and steadily toward the car. The light shining through the store windows seemed blindingly bright after the shadows at the side of the building, and she knew what her face looked like.
He’ll ask what happened to me and then he’ll ask if I want to go to the hospital.
But Manuel (who might have seen worse, it wasn’t impossible) only held the door for her and said, “Welcome to Royal Limousine, ma’am.” He had a soft Hispanic accent to go with his olive skin and dark eyes.
“Where I’m treated like royalty,” Tess said. She tried to smile. It hurt her swollen lips.
“Yes, ma’am.” Nothing else. God bless Manuel, who might have seen worse-perhaps back where he’d come from, perhaps in the back of this very car. Who knew what secrets limo drivers kept? It was a question that might have a good book hidden in it. Not the kind she wrote, of course… only who knew what kind of books she might write after this? Or if she would write any more at all? Tonight’s adventure might have turned that solitary joy out of her for awhile. Maybe even forever. It was impossible to tell.
She got into the back of the car, moving like an old woman with advanced osteoporosis. When she was seated and he had closed the door, she wrapped her fingers around the handle and watched closely, wanting to make sure it was Manuel who got in behind the wheel and not the giant in the bib overalls. In Stagg Road Horror 2 it would have been the giant: one more turn of the screw before the credits. Have some irony, it’s good for your blood.
But it was Manuel who got in. Of course it was. She relaxed.
“The address I have is 19 Primrose Lane, in Stoke Village. Is that correct?”
For a moment she couldn’t remember; she had punched her calling-card number into the pay phone without a pause, but she was blanking on her own address.
Relax, she told herself. It’s over. This isn’t a horror movie, it’s your life. You’ve had a terrible experience, but it’s over. So relax.
“Yes, Manuel, that’s right.”
“Will you want to be making any stops, or are we going right to your home?” It was the closest he came to mentioning what the lights of the Gas amp; Dash must have shown him when she walked to the Town Car.
It was only luck that she was still taking her oral contraceptive pills-luck and perhaps optimism, she hadn’t had so much as a one-night stand for three years, unless you counted tonight-but luck had been in short supply today, and she was grateful for this short stroke of it. She was sure Manuel could find an all-night pharmacy somewhere along the way, limo drivers seem to know all that stuff, but she didn’t think she would have been able to walk into a drugstore and ask for the morning-after pill. Her face would have made it all too obvious why she needed one. And of course there was the money problem.
“No other stops, just take me home, please.”
Soon they were on I-84, which was busy with Friday-night traffic. Stagg Road and the deserted store were behind her. What was ahead of her was her own house, with a security system and a lock for every door. And that was good. – 17 -