Maggie Shayne - Sleep with the Lights On

Do it do it do it!

Mason’s heavy steps came to a stop just outside the door. Then the door opened and his brother’s eyes found him sitting there. They went wide with horror as Mason lurched forward, reaching out with both hands, yelling, “No, no, no!”

Eric squeezed the trigger, felt his brain explode in one all-consuming white-hot mixture of deafening noise and blinding pain. And then as blackness descended, he felt the rat squeeze through the hole in the wall and plop onto the floor. Or was that a handful of his brain?

He never did feel the hot barrel burning his hand.

2

A cop came to the hospital to take my statement. It wasn’t Detective Brown, though.

My imagination and sixth sense had joined forces and decided to visualize Mason Brown as gorgeous, buff and sexy as hell. He probably had a wide, strong jaw and a corded neck. No long rock-star hair, though. Not on a cop.

Another cop, a short fat one, I guessed, was sitting in a chair by my bed writing down my answers to his questions. He wore glasses. I could hear him adjusting them over and over, up on his head, then down on his nose again. Up when he was addressing me, down when his pen went scritching across the notepad.

“You should just give in and get bifocals,” I said.

He looked up, or that was what I guessed by the sound: movement, then stillness.

I loved this. Shocking people by showing off. It was almost like I was a magician doing parlor tricks for the crowd. Some of the blind—okay, visually impaired is the PC term, but I’m not visually impaired, I’m fucking blind—hated being underestimated by the sighted. I enjoyed letting them think I was some kind of wonder kid. It was good PR and amused me to boot. And amusing myself was hard when I was in the hospital and therefore in public, and therefore forced to play my Positive Polly role to the hilt. No slips allowed. BW would have my head.

BW, by the way, was my agent. Belinda Waubach, aka Barracuda Woman.

“Those are store-bought glasses, right? You got them off a rack at a Walmart or a CVS, didn’t you?”

“Price Chopper. I only need them for close-up stuff.”

“It’s the corneas. You need a transplant to fix it. Sadly, they save them all for people like me—not me specifically, of course. My body hates foreign corneas. Rejects them almost before the surgery’s over.” I smelled sweet pea and jasmine. “Are we about finished? My sister’s here to see me.”

“You—” He stopped, and I heard him shift positions, probably to look behind him at the doorway where Sandra stood.

“Is she messing with your head, Officer?” she asked.

“She’s amazing,” the cop said, thereby taking off ten pounds in my mental image-maker. Hell, he’d earned it. He still had bad acne scars and a hint of rosacea, though.

“Amazing my ass, she smelled my body wash.” Sandra came close, leaned over, we hugged, yada yada. “One of these days I’ll switch brands and screw you up royally, Rache,” she threatened.

“It’s not bad enough you pick a fragrance worn by a third of the women who shop at Bath & Body Works?”

She straightened, and I pasted a smile on my face and hoped my eyes weren’t doing anything stupid. Sandra and others had assured me that they didn’t, but I didn’t believe them, which is why I am rarely seen without sunglasses. I mean, why tell me, right? It’s not like I could check in the mirror and prove them liars.

“How are you, sis?” she asked softly.

My sister, Sandra, was my only claim to normal. She was a soccer mom in the best sense of the word. She had twin teenage daughters bearing the ridiculous names of Christy and Misty—no, I am not kidding—and a husband named Jim who worshipped at her feet. And why is it every great husband I know is named Jim? Anyway, this particular Jim was a pharmacist. Sandra was a real estate agent. Independent. Office in her basement and doing pretty damn well for herself. She and her family were so perfect, it was amazing I didn’t have to check my blood sugar around them.

“Bruised rib and a concussion,” I said. “Nothing big, but they want me overnight and they took my fu—” Oops. Cop’s still sitting there. “They took my darn glasses.”

“Did you give them hell?”

“Only a little,” I lied.

“We need to get you home before you destroy your career.”

“You’re right. I’m not even gonna argue. I was going to go hunt the glasses down myself as soon as Officer Bob here finishes with me.” I tilted my head his way. “That was your cue,” I whispered.

He laughed a nervous laugh. “Okay, I have all I need. And, uh—here.” He moved again, getting up, and then a plastic bag rattled. “It says personal effects, and I see some sunglasses in the bottom of the bag.”

I took it from him, and felt my glasses in the bottom. “Hey, thanks. I guess I should have asked you to begin with.” I fished them out fast and pushed them onto my face. My relief was so intense I felt like I melted in the bed a little.

“I hope you recover fast, Ms. de Luca.” Sincere and mildly amused. He thought I was cute. I hated being thought of as cute.

“Oh, I know I will,” I told him. “I’ll just raise my vibe until my body has to rise up to match it.” Oh, my agent would have kissed me for that one. Funny how no one ever responded with the obvious question: “Why the hell are you blind, then?” Maybe they did, behind my back. Who knew? I didn’t care, as long as they kept buying the books. And the affirmation cards, and the annual calendar.

The cop should have left then. He really should have.

But instead he said, “If there’s anything you need, don’t hesitate to call.”

“I need my brother found, Officer. I think I’ve told you that already.”

“I know, I know. Look, it’s not my case, but I’ll see who I can nudge, all right?”

“No. It’s nowhere near all right.”

My sister swung her hip sideways, bumping my bed hard enough to shake it.

“But it’ll do for now,” I added. “Thanks, Officer.”

“You’re welcome, Ms. de Luca.”

I waited until I knew he was gone. It’s funny how you can feel a person’s presence or absence. Human beings give off some kind of...I don’t know, energy or force field or something. You can sense it clearly and easily if you aren’t too busy looking for them with your eyes. At least, that was my explanation for it. I didn’t remember noticing it until I’d gone blind. Then again, who remembered details like that prior to age twelve?

“So?” Sandra took the cop’s former chair. “What happened?”

I told her what she already knew from my phone call. “Got run over by a cop. Not that one, though. A much better-looking one, according to my built-in TV. A detective, even.”

“You should sue,” she said. She reached out to take my glasses from my face, then put them back a second later. “Crooked,” she said. “You’d get a zillion.”

“I already have a zillion. You know, give or take. Besides, it was my fault, so—”

“You weren’t in the crosswalk?”

“I speed-walked into the crosswalk without even pausing. The guy couldn’t stop. I was pissed. About Tommy.”

“I know.”

“Besides, how is the ‘make peace with the pain’ guru going to look in a big messy lawsuit? It would cost me more than I’d gain.”

She sighed. “I suppose you’re right.”

“So I’m here for the night.”

“Yeah, well, you’d better stow the attitude, then. People talk.” And then she was leaning over the bed, apparently forgetting the part where I’d mentioned that I had a bruised rib, and hugging me again. “God, when I think what could’ve happened... We don’t know where Tommy is. Mom and Dad have been gone ten years now. I don’t want to lose you, too.”