But the bedroom was as empty as the kitchen and living room had been. The sheets and blankets were on the floor, as they almost always were; Lester was one of those fellows so full of energy and the holy spirit that he could not simply sit up and get out of bed in the morning; he bounded up, eager not just to meet the day but to blitz it, knock it to the greensward, and force it to cough up the ball.
Now, however, he walked downstairs with a frown creasing his wide, ingenuous face. The car was here, but Sally wasn't. What did that mean? He didn't know, but he didn't much like it.
He flipped on the porch light and went out to look in the car; maybe she had left him a note. He got as far as the head of the porch steps, then froze. There was a note, all right. It had been written across the Mustang's windshield in hot-pink spray-paint, probably from his own garage. The big capital letters glared at him:
GO TO HELL YOU CHEATING BASTARD
Lester stood on the top porch step for a long time, reading this message from his fiancee over and over and over again. The prayermeeting? Was that it? Did she think he'd gone over to the prayermeeting in Lake Auburn to meet some floozy? In his distress, it was the only idea that made any sense to him at all.
He went inside and called Sally's house. He let the phone ring two dozen times, but no one answered.
Sally knew he would call, and so she had asked Irene Lutjens if she could spend the night at Irene's place. Irene, all but bursting with curiosity, said yes, sure, of course. Sally was so distressed about something that she hardly looked pretty at all. Irene could hardly believe it, but it was true.
For her own part, Sally had no intention of telling Irene or anyone else what had happened. It was too awful, too shameful.
She would carry it with her to the grave. So she refused to answer Irene's questions for over half an hour. Then the whole story came pouring out of her in a hot flood of tears. Irene held her and listened, her eyes growing big and round.
"That's all right," Irene crooned, rocking Sally in her arms.
"That's all right, Sally-Jesus loves you, even if that son of a bitch doesn't. So do 1. So does Reverend Rose. And you certainly gave the musclebound creep something to remember you by, didn't you?"
Sally nodded, sniffling, and the other girl stroked her hair and made soothing sounds. Irene could hardly wait until tomorrow, when she could start calling her other girlfriends. They wouldn't believe it!
Irene felt sorry for Sally, she really did, but she was also sort of glad this had happened. Sally was so pretty, and Sally was so darned holy. It was sort of nice to see her crash and burn, just this once.
And Lester's the best-looking guy in church. If he and Sally really do break up, I wonder if he might not ask me out? He looks at me sometimes like he's wondering what kind of underwear I've got on, so
I guess it's not impossible...
"I feel so horrible!" Sally wept. "So d-d-dirty!"
"Of course you do," Irene said, continuing to rock her and stroke her hair. "You don't still have the letter and that picture, do you?"
"I b-b-burned them!" Sally cried loudly against Irene's damp bosom, and then a fresh storm of grief and loss carried her away.
"Of course you did," Irene murmured. "It's just what you should have done." Still, she thought, you could have waited until I had at least one look, you wimpy thing.
Sally spent the night in Irene's guest-room, but she hardly slept at all. Her weeping passed eventually, and she spent most of that rug ' lit staring dry-eyed into the dark, gripped by those dark and bitterly satisfying fantasies of revenge which only a jilted and previously complacent lover can fully entertain.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
1
Mr. Gaunt's first "by appointment only" customer arrived promptly at eight o'clock on Tuesday morning. This was Lucille Dunham, one of the waitresses at Nan's Luncheonette. Lucille had been struck by a deep, hopeless aching at the sight of the black pearls in one of the display cases of Needful Things. She knew she could never hope to buy such an expensive item, never in a million years. Not on the salary that skinflint Nan Roberts paid her. All the same, when Mr. Gaunt suggested that they talk about it without half the town leaning over their shoulders (so to speak), Lucille had leaped at the offer the way a hungry fish might leap at a sparkling lure.
She left Needful Things at eight-twenty, an expression of dazed, dreaming happiness on her face. She had purchased the black pearls for the unbelievable price of thirty-eight dollars and fifty cents. She had also promised to play a little prank, perfectly harmless, on that stuffed-shirt Baptist minister William Rose. That wouldn't be work, as far as Lucille was concerned; it would be pure pleasure. The Bible-quoting stinker had never once left her a tip, not even so much as one thin dime. Lucille (a good Methodist who didn't in the slightest mind shaking her tail to a hot boogie beat on Saturday night) had heard of storing up your reward in heaven; she wondered if Rev. Rose had heard that it was more blessed to give than to receive.
Well, she would pay him back a little... and it was really quite harmless. Mr. Gaunt had told her so.
That gentleman watched her go with a pleasant smile on his face.