Nevada Barr - The Rope

“Maybe somebody saw a mouse,” Anna said in a more normal voice.

“Maybe Heckle and Jeckle are watching old horror movies,” Jenny suggested.

The faint ticking of insects and the hush of dry wind over arid soil went uninterrupted. Jenny’s stomach began to unclench. “Cougars sometimes scream. They can sound just like a woman,” she said to Anna, still and alert at her side.

Anna shook her head, a movement that caught the trickle of light from her bedroom window. It occurred to Jenny that Anna might have heard a lot of screams in her life, screams produced by actors and, in the dense hive of apartments that made up New York City, the screams of whichever of a multitude of neighbors happened to be feuding at any given moment.

The barely audible sound track of the desert night ticked away another minute, then two. “I guess whatever it was is either all the way dead or gone,” Jenny said. Then a short sharp cry, followed by the sound of a heavy object striking a solid surface, shattered the calm.

“The Candors,” Anna said and ran down the two steps of their porch, over and up the two to their duplex.

“Wait,” Jenny called, but Anna was already banging on the screen door. As Jenny ran the short distance in her bare feet to stand by her diminutive noisy housemate, she wondered where Jim was. Probably with Libby. Even in the national parks you could never find a cop when you needed one.

“Regis! Bethy! Are you all right?” Anna called, pounded again. Silence seeped from behind the closed door. The desert music had ceased.

Trying not to be obvious, Jenny insinuated herself between Anna and the door. “Let me,” she said and raised her fist to knock.

The porch light came on, blinding in its sudden assault on their eyes. From the door came the unmistakable sound of a dead bolt being thrown. Jenny’s duplex had only the key lock in the doorknob. The dead bolt must have been either Regis’s or Bethy’s innovation.

Behind the screen the door opened halfway. Regis, shirtless but wearing shorts with cargo pockets, stared out at them.

“Hey, Regis,” Jenny said, feeling both foolish and righteous. “We thought we heard something.”

Regis said nothing. His face was devoid of emotion. In Jenny’s psyche, foolishness was beginning to get the upper hand. It easily could have been a cougar or the death throes of an unfortunate rabbit in a fortunate fox’s jaws.

Anna stepped up next to her. A show of solidarity. Though she didn’t think it necessary, Jenny was honored. “Regis, we heard two screams. They came from your place,” Anna said. “Are you both okay?”

There wasn’t a tremor in her voice. It was as solid as granite and as implacable. Given that voice, Anna Pigeon organizing groups of artists—a skill Jenny equated with herding cats—seemed suddenly plausible.

“We’re fine,” Regis said coldly. “Thanks for checking.” He started to close the door.

“Is Bethy okay?” Anna demanded.

“Bethy is fine. Good night.”

Before he could make his escape Anna said, “Let me see her.”

Regis went very still. “She slipped on the rug by the kitchen sink and hit her head on the corner of the table. She’s embarrassed because she’s such a klutz, but she’s fine.” His voice had warmed significantly. He smiled ruefully and shrugged. The understanding husband.

“I want to see her,” Anna insisted.

Discomfort boiled inside Jenny, acute, but hard to define, containing as it did elements of insecurity, bad manners, guilt, and genuine concern for both Anna and Bethy. The curse of girls who’ve been raised right. For a second Jenny thought Regis was going to slam the door in their faces. Then what would they do?

Try to track down Jim Levitt.

Blowing out a gust of air so vehemently Jenny felt it through the wire mesh, Regis gave in. “Bethy!” he called over his shoulder. “Get out here so the Misses Marple can see I haven’t murdered you.”

Snuffling and shuffling heralded the woman’s arrival. Regis stepped away from the door and guided Bethy into the place he’d been standing. Light from the porch did more to illuminate Anna and Jenny than the person behind the screen, but Bethy was moving easily and on her own; that was to the good.

“Bethy,” Anna said. “What happened?”

“I’m such a klutz,” Bethy apologized. “I slipped on the bathroom rug and hit my head.” She smiled and raised two fingers to her right cheekbone. “Smack in the eye. I’m gonna have a big ol’ shiner for sure.”

“We’ll be twins,” Anna said. Jenny was startled at the depth of kindness in her voice, especially considering Anna’s black eye had been given her by Bethy’s aborted pass on Lover’s Leap.

“Do you want to come over? Have a glass of wine and a bag of ice?” Anna had taken on a coaxing tone Jenny’d never heard before. How Bethy resisted it was a mystery.

“Regis will get me some ice,” Bethy said. Awkwardly, she smiled. “I’m okay. Really. I’m just such a klutz.”

It was clear she wasn’t coming out.

“Holler if you need anything,” Anna said. “We’ll be listening for you.”

Jenny expected this last was said as much for Regis’s benefit as Bethy’s.

The door snicked shut. The porch light winked out. “Well,” Anna said after a moment of standing in the dark.

“Yeah,” Jenny agreed. “I guess that’s that.” Together they turned and trailed back to their own duplex.

Without turning on a light or speaking a word, they flopped on their respective ends of the couch, feet up on the coffee table.

“Slipped on the kitchen rug,” Anna said flatly.

“Slipped on the bathroom rug,” Jenny said. Deeply disappointed in Regis, she added, “I can’t believe it. He was smacking her around!”

“Is this the first time?” Anna asked doubtfully.

“First time I’ve ever gotten wind of it,” Jenny said. “I’ll tell Jim, of course. I have to, but I doubt it will do any good. It’s not like Bethy called for help or we saw anything.”

“Bethy the klutz slipped on a rug and hit her head on the way down,” Anna said in the tone one might use reading a headstone.

“I’m afraid so.”

“Do you think she told him about trying to kiss me?”

“Maybe she did. Maybe she wanted to make him jealous. Or turn him on,” Jenny added acidly.

“I guess we should try to be nicer to her.”

“I think we are plenty nice to her already,” Jenny said.

Anna and Jenny spent the next three days and nights on the lake, where they neither saw nor heard from their neighbors. For that, Anna was glad. The Candors exuded what, in her college days, had been referred to as bad vibes, an underlying sickness or misery that oozed out around the edges of conversations and interactions.

Apart, they were less toxic than they were together. When Anna and Bethy exercised, and the times they had gone canyoneering with Jim and then Jenny, Bethy seemed almost free of whatever darkness the two of them spawned at home. Since finding out Regis beat Bethy at least once—and battered wives were seldom beaten but once—Anna had made the decision to be available to Bethy Candor. Not to befriend her. Friendship built on pity had a tendency to go sour. The balance of power was too out of whack.

Being available sidestepped that pitfall. Being available was simply a matter of putting aside one’s own considerations for a time. When her lieu days came around, and Jenny headed out with Jim to potty-train the masses, Anna decided if Bethy approached her to work out she would be open-minded, if not open-hearted.

Anna didn’t have to make good on her best intentions. Bethy and Regis evidently decided Dangling Rope wasn’t the heaven it had once been. They stayed at their house in Page, not only on their weekends but during the week as well, Bethy making the long commute to Rainbow Bridge from the Wahweap Marina, Anna assumed.