Stephen King - Gerald’s Game

I should have known it came down to Dick Sleefort! Her mother sounded angrily amused, a combination that made Jessie’s head spin. It seemed to her that only adults could combine emotions in so many daffy ways-if feelings were food, adult feelings would be things like chocolate-covered steak, mashed potatoes with pineapple bits, Special K with chili powder sprinkled on it instead of sugar. Jessie thought that being an adult seemed more like a punishment than a reward.

This is really exasperating, Tom-the man made a pass at me six years ago. He was drunk. Back in those days he was always drunk, hut he’s cleaned up his act. Polly Bergeron told me be goes to AA, and-

Bully for him, her father said dryly. Do we send him a get-well card or a merit-badge, Sally?

Don’t be flip. You almost broke the man’s nose-

Yes, indeed. When a fellow comes into the kitchen to freshen his drink and finds the rumdum from up the road with one hand on his wife’s behind and the other down the front of her-

Never mind, she said primly, but Jessie thought that for some reason her mother sounded almost pleased. Curiouser and curiouser. The point is, it’s time you discovered that Dick Sleefort isn’t a demon from the deeps and it’s time Jessie discovered Adrienne Gilette is just a lonely old woman who once slapped her hand at a lawn-party as a little joke. Now please don’t get all crazy on me, Tom; I’m not claiming it was a good joke; it wasn’t. I’m just saying that Adrienne didn’t know that. There was no had intent.

Jessie looked down and saw her paperback novel was bent almost double in her right hand. How could her mother, a woman who’d graduated cum laude (whatever that meant) from Vassar, possibly be so stupid? The answer seemed clear enough to Jessie: she couldn’t be. Either she knew better or she refused to see the truth, and you arrived at the same conclusion no matter which answer you decided was the right one: when forced to choose between believing the ugly old woman who lived up the road from them in the summertime and her own daughter, Sally Mahout had chosen Pooh-Pooh Breath. Good deal, huh?

If I’m a Daddy’s girl, that’s why. That and all the other stuff she says that’s like that. That’s why, but I could never tell her and she’ll never see it on her own, Never in a billion years.

Jessie forced herself to relax her grip on the paperback. Mrs Gilette had meant it, there had been bad intent, but her father’s suspicion that she had ceased being afraid of the old crow had probably been more right than wrong, just the same. Also, she was going to get her way about staying with her father, so none of her mother’s ess-aitch-eye-tee really mattered, did it? She was going to be here with her Daddy, she wouldn’t have to deal with old Pooh-Pooh Breath, and these good things were going to happen because…

“Because he sticks up for me,” she murmured.

Yes; that was the bottom line. Her father stuck up for her, and her mother stuck it to her.

Jessie saw the evening star glowing mildly in the darkening sky and suddenly realized she had been out on the deck, listening to them circle the subject of the eclipse-and the subject of her -for almost three-quarters of an hour. She discovered a minor but interesting fact of life that night: time speeds by fastest when you are eavesdropping on conversations about yourself.

With hardly a thought, she raised her hand and curled it into a tube, simultaneously catching the star and sending it the old formula: wish I may, wish I might. Her wish, already well on the way to being granted, was that she be allowed to stay here tomorrow with her Daddy. To stay with him no matter what. just two folks who knew how to stick up for each other, sitting out on the deck and eating Eclipse Burgers a deux… like an old married couple.

As for Dick Sleefort, he apologized to me later, Tom. I don’t remember if I ever told you that or not-

You did, but I don’t remember him ever apologizing to me.

He was probably afraid you’d knock his block off, or at least try to, Sally replied, speaking again in that tone of voice Jessie found so peculiar-it seemed to be an uneasy mixture of happiness, good humor, and anger. Jessie wondered for just a moment if it was possible to sound that way and be completely sane, and then she squashed the thought quickly and completely. Also, I want to say one more thing about Adrienne Gilette before we leave the subject entirely…

Be my guest.

She told me-in 1959, this was, two whole summers later-that she went through the change that year. She never specifically mentioned Jessie and the cookie incident, but I think she was trying to apologize.

Oh. It was her father’s coolest, most lawyerly “Oh.” And did either of you ladies think to pass that information on to Jessie… and explain to her what it meant?

Silence from her mother. Jessie, who still had only the vaguest notion of what “going through the change” meant, looked down and saw she had once again gripped the book tight enough to bend it and once again forced herself to relax her hands.

Or to apologize? His tone was gentle… caressing… deadly.

Stop cross-examining me! Sally burst out after another long, considering silence. This is your home, not Part Two of Superior Court, in case you hadn’t noticed!

You brought the subject up, not me, he said. I just asked-

Oh, I get so tired of the way you twist everything around, Sally said. Jessie knew from her tone of voice that she was either crying or getting ready to. For the first time that she could remember, the sound of her mother’s tears called up no sympathy in her own heart, no urge to run and comfort (probably bursting into tears herself in the process). Instead she felt a queer, stony satisfaction.

Sally, you’re upset. Why don’t we just-

You’re damned tooting I am. Arguments with my husband have a way o f doing that, isn’t that strange? Isn’t that just the weirdest thing you ever heard? And do you know what we’re arguing about? I’ll give you a hint, Tom-it’s not Adrienne Gilette and it’s not Dick Sleefort and it’s not the eclipse tomorrow. We’re arguing about Jessie , about our daughter, and what else is new?

She laughed through her tears. There was a dry hiss as she scratched a match and fit a cigarette.

Don’t they say it’s the squeaky wheel that always gets the grease? And that’s our Jessie, isn’t it? The squeaky wheel. Never quite satisfied with the arrangements until she gets a chance to put on the finishing touches. Never quite happy with someone else’s plans. Never able to let well enough alone.

Jessie was appalled to hear something very close to hate in her mother’s voice.

Sally-

Never mind, Tom. She wants to stay here with you? Fine. She wouldn’t be pleasant to have along, anyway; all she’d do is pick fights with her sister and whine about having to watch out for Will. All she’d do is squeak, in other words.

Sally, Jessie hardly ever whines, and she’s very good about-

Oh, you don’t see her! Sally Mahout cried, and the spite in her voice made Jessie cringe back in her chair. I swear to God, sometimes you behave as if she were your girlfriend instead of your daughter!