After Stu had gone over to Larry's, Frannie rushed upstairs to the bedroom. In the corner of the closet was the sleeping bag she had carried across the country strapped to the back of her motorcycle. She had kept her personal belongings in a small zipper bag. Most of these belongings were now distributed through the apartment she and Stu shared, but a few still hadn't found a home and rested at the foot of the sleeping bag. There were several bottles of cleansing cream - she had suffered a sudden rash of skin outbreaks after the deaths of her mother and father, but that had now subsided - a box of Stayfree Mini Pads in case she started spotting (she had heard that pregnant women sometimes did), two boxes of cheap cigars, one marked IT'S A BOY! and the other marked IT'S A GIRL! The last item was her diary.
She drew it out and looked at it speculatively. She had entered in it only eight or nine times since their arrival in Boulder, and most of the entries had been short, almost elliptical. The great outpouring had come and gone while they were still on the road... like afterbirth, she thought a little ruefully. She hadn't entered at all in the last four days, and suspected that the diary might eventually have slipped her mind altogether, although she had firmly intended to keep it more fully when things settled down a little. For the baby. Now, however, it was very much on her mind once more.
The way people get when they convert to religion... or read something that changes their lives... like intercepted love letters...
Suddenly it seemed to her that the book had gained weight, and that the very act of turning back the pasteboard cover would cause sweat to pop out on her brow and... and...
She suddenly looked back over her shoulder, her heart beating wildly. Had something moved in here?
A mouse, scuttering behind the wall, maybe. Surely no more than that. More likely just her imagination. There was no reason, no reason at all, for her to suddenly be thinking of the man in the black robe, the man with the coathanger. Her baby was alive and safe and this was just a book and anyhow there was no way to tell if a book had been read, and even if there was a way, there would be no way to tell if the person who had read it had been Harold Lauder.
Still, she opened the book and began to turn slowly through its pages, getting shutterclicks of the recent past like black-and-white photographs taken by an amateur. Home movie of the mind.
Tonight we were admiring them and Harold was going on about color & texture & tone and Stu gave me a very sober wink. Evil me, I winked back...
Harold will object on general principles, of course. Damn you, Harold, grow up!
... and I could see him getting ready with one of his Patented Harold Lauder Smartass Comments...
(my God, Fran, why did you ever say all those things about him? to what purpose?)
Well, you know Harold... his swagger... all those pompous words & pronouncements... an insecure little boy...
That was July 12. Wincing, she turned past it rapidly, fluttering through the pages now, in a hurry to get to the end. Phrases still leaped up, seeming to slap at her: Anyway, Harold smelled pretty clean for a change... Harold's breath would have driven away a dragon tonight... And another, seeming almost prophetic: He stores up rebuffs like pirate treasure. But to what purpose? To feed his own feelings of secret superiority and persecution? Or was it a matter of retribution?
Oh, he's making a list... and checking it twice... he's gonna find out... who's naughty and nice...
Then, on August 1, only two weeks ago. The entry started at the bottom of a page. No entry last night, I was too happy. Have I ever been this happy? I don't think so. Stu and I are together. We
End of the page. She turned to the next one. The first words at the top of the page were made love twice. But they barely caught her eye before her glance dropped halfway down the page. There, beside some blathering about the maternal instinct, was something that caught her eyes and froze her almost solid.
It was a dark, smeary thumbprint.
She thought wildly: I was riding on a motorcycle all day long, every day. Sure, I took care to clean up every chance I got, but your hands get dirty and...
She put out her hand, not at all surprised to see that it was shaking badly. She put her thumb on the smudge. The smudge was a lot bigger.
Well, of course it is, she told herself. When you smear something around, it naturally gets bigger. That's why, that's all that is...
But this thumbprint wasn't that smeared. The little lines and loops and whorls were still clear, for the most part.
And it wasn't grease or oil, there was no use even kidding herself that it was.
It was dried chocolate.
Paydays, Fran thought sickly. Chocolate-covered Payday candy bars.
For a moment she was afraid to do so much as turn around - afraid that she might see Harold's grin hanging over her shoulder like the grin of the Cheshire cat in Alice. Harold's thick lips moving as he said solemnly: Every dog has his day, Frannie. Every dog has his day.
But even if Harold had sneaked a glance into her diary, did it have to mean he was contemplating some secret vendetta against her or Stu or any of the others? Of course not.
But Harold's changed, an interior voice whispered.
"Goddammit, he hasn't changed that much!" she cried to the empty room. She flinched a little at the sound of her own voice, then laughed shakily. She went downstairs and began to get supper. They would be eating early because of the meeting... but suddenly the meeting didn't seem as important as it had earlier.
Excerpts from the Minutes of the Ad Hoc Committee Meeting