Frank De Felitta - Audrey Rose

“I think Carole needs you,” she said wanly.

“Oh, yeah? What’s up?”

“There was some trouble with Ivy—She’ll tell you.”

Russ nodded and picked up his recorder. “I’ll go right down.”

At the door he turned to Janice with a parting shot. “By the way”—he grinned, placing the reel of tape down on the bureau—“this guy’s bananas!”

“I’m sorry, Janice, I just don’t buy it.”

“Okay.”

“I mean it, I don’t buy it.”

“Okay.” Her voice was soft, bereft of passion, past caring any longer what he bought or didn’t buy.

The darkness of the room seemed darker than Janice ever remembered it. Each lay awake, their bodies separated, hands disconnected, dwelling on their own private islands of despair.

“Suggestive hypnosis? Isn’t that what Dr. Vassar called it?”

“I don’t remember,” she said.

“well, that’s what it was. It worked for her, it’s worked for him. Suggestive hypnosis.”

“You mean he’s a psychiatrist?’

“Or a hypnotist.”

Janice suddenly felt sorry for Bill. He had been through a bitter, emasculating experience and was desperately trying to regain some semblance of mastery over the situation.

“You don’t believe it’s possible?” he asked.

“That he’s a hypnotist? No.”

“All right, then, what do you believe?”

He was forcing her to think.

“All right,” she said quietly. “I do not think he’s a hypnotist. I do not think he’s a nut. I do not believe in reincarnation. I believe that Elliot Hoover is a dedicated, persuasive man with a single purpose in his life. For some reason, he wants our child. With all his sweet, poetic, religious talk, he’s got a fire burning inside him that won’t let him quit till he gets what he wants.” She heard her voice quiver and felt tears sting at her eyes. “So you’d better stop him … before he destroys us all.…”

Janice turned her head into the pillow and let it all come out. Bill was there at once, holding her, caressing her body, kissing the tears from her face.

“It’s a hell of a thing, isn’t it?” he whispered huskily. “But don’t worry, he’s not about to get what he wants … I promise you that!”

His hand moved to her breast, kneading its soft and pliant goodness, finger tracing the corona of her nipple, feeling the gravel begin to ripple and rise along with his own passion. Her sobs were stifled by the depth of his lingering kisses. They made love. Afterward they both slept.

Janice awoke abruptly at three ten, having heard a sound from Ivy’s room. But when she looked in, Ivy was sleeping peacefully in the arms of her stuffed panda. Janice felt her head. It was hot. If the pattern of seven years ago persisted, her fever would grow by morning.

She tiptoed from the room and returned to bed. Neither she nor Bill slept the rest of the night.

Even after a long shower and a lingering shave, Bill looked haggard and spent, and he spoke in a voice that was gritty with weariness. He told Janice about the trip to Hawaii as he stood in the kitchen doorway sipping coffee.

“Goody for you,” Janice replied. The flippancy of her remark failed to camouflage fear and accusation.

“I’m planning to take you and Ivy with me.”

“Really? How will we manage that, rent a hospital plane?”

“She’s not that sick, Janice.”

“She will be. Give her time.”

“Maybe Dr. Kaplan can give her something.”

“For God’s sake, Bill,” Janice said, with a sort of wild fatigue, “you know what course these things take! By afternoon she’ll be burning with fever … and there’s not a damn thing Kaplan will be able to do about it beyond aspirin and bed rest.”

Bill drew a deep breath and said, “Well, we’ll see,” then told her about Jack Belaver’s heart attack, why he couldn’t turn down the assignment, and how it would be pure hell going without them. But Janice scarcely heard him through the noise of the water tap whipping up a from of suds on the breakfast dishes, forcing him to raise his voice in competition.

“I don’t know why you’re acting like this—”

Janice turned off the water and looked at him with quiet intentness. “You really don’t?”

His answer was to stride purposefully away from her into the living room and pick up the telephone. She heard him dial a number, then say in a voice loud enough for her to hear, “Extension 7281.” A pause. “Don Goetz, please, this is Mr. Templeton.” Another pause. “Hi, guy. Listen, Don, I pulled something in my back and gotta go to the bone man. Cover for me today, will you?… Yeah? What else is cooking?… Well, you can handle that.… Get hold of Charlie Wing if you get into trouble.… And, oh, Don, tell that girl of mine to get me three good seats on tomorrow’s flight to Hawaii.… Yes, three. Janice and Ivy are going with me.… And Don, tell her to make it the last flight of the day that gets there before midnight.” A chuckle. “Pel said Thursday, and Thursday, it’ll be.…”

Bill didn’t return to the kitchen. Janice heard him go upstairs, where he spent several minutes before presenting himself at the kitchen door, dressed for the street and carrying Russ’ tape recorder.

“You really believe she’ll be well enough to travel?” Janice said with gloomy skepticism.

“I’m not ready to predict anything, Janice. If she’s okay, your tickets are there; if not, I’ll cancel them.” His voice shifted to a more lethal register. “One thing I will predict, though, it’s the end of the line for Mr. Hoover—we won’t be bothered by him again.” He held up the tape recorder for emphasis. “If you need me, I’ll be with Harold Yates.”

He left without kissing her.

Janice puttered in the kitchen another ten minutes, then fixed Ivy a large glass of orange juice and carried it upstaits.

Ivy was sitting up in bed, alert and active, cutting figures out of an old Vogue with Janice’s sewing scissors. Except for a slight headache, she was gay, buoyant, talkative, and, as in the past, seemed to have no memory whatever of her nightmare.

“I’m making a family,” she said with a lovely smile as Janice reached out and felt her head. It seemed a bit cooler. Perhaps Bill was right after all. Perhaps they would be able to make the trip.

Thoughts of the warm, clear, multicolored waters, the soft rain showers with their incredible rainbows, the balmy, sensuous nights beneath an impossibly yellow moon gradually quieted Janice’s restless spirit.

Ivy had to tell her, “The doorbell’s ringing.”

Janice descended the steps with a racing heart. The mail had been delivered earlier. No one came to the front door without first being announced—unless it was Carole.

“Who is it?’ Janice asked through the bolted door.

“It’s Dominick, Miz Templeton,” came the muffled reply. “I got a delivery.”

It was a potted plant, a hothouse chrysanthemum with tow large white blooms. The pot, a Mexican ceramic, was encircled by a red ribbon with a small envelope bearing the florist’s name attached to it. Janice thanked Dominick and brought the plant into the kitchen. She paused a moment, gazing grimly at the gift, before opening the envelope and extracting the card.

Tiny, precise handwriting covered both sides of the stiff cardboard, forcing Janice to seek a patch of sunlight in order to read it. The message was in quotes, and said:

Take the flowers. The blossom perishes as completely as if it had never existed; but the roots and bulb hold in subjective embrace the most minute details of that flower. When the cycle, the basic law, is fulfilled, the subjective entity thrills, expands, clothes itself again with the specimens of cells and reproduces the plant in all its former perfection and beauty. Thus do flowers reincarnate and express the same elemental soul of the plant. How much more reasonable is it that the intense individualization in man should also be conserved by subjective periods in his life history?