Читать книгу The Tree Within - Stephen Campana - Страница 15

Jack just stared at her, unable to speak. She looked just like she did in his dreams. Of course, she did. Why wouldn’t she? It was the same person. She had her hair pulled back in a bun, and wore no make-up; beauty, in a place like this, was something you did not want to accentuate. Her features were small, her mouth slightly crooked, and her eyes were big brown limpid pools. He felt enveloped by them. She had a kind of latent grin on her lips, like she was trying to hold back a laugh. She was wearing jeans and a loose fitting grey T shirt.

“So, how do you like it so far?” she asked, taking a small bite out of large potato chip. If she recognized him at all, knew anything of him or of their mission, her voice did not betray that knowledge. It was calm and casual, with no hint of excitement or tension. “It’s not so bad,” he said, his voice not nearly as shaky as he felt. “I’ve had worse.”

And that was the truth; he had. The last two years had been a succession of crappy jobs, one worse than the next.

“Where did you work before?” she asked. “A place in Akron,” he replied, trying not to stare too deeply into those all-consuming eyes. “Kind of like this one, actually. A packing plant.”

She poured the chips onto the table and said, “Have some.”

“Thank you,” he said, popping a chip into his mouth, and hoping he remembered how to chew. “So, how long were you there?” she asked. “About three months,” Jack replied.

“What about before that?” she asked.

Jack was starting to feel like he was under interrogation, with those eyes serving as heat lamps. “Two months at a vending company in Cedar Lake, Indiana” he said. “And before that, I did a stint in Ashford, Alabama.”

“Akron, Cedar Lake, Ashford,” Diane said, furrowing her brow. “Are you a drifter?” Jack just shrugged, and said “Yeah, I guess I am.”

“What about family?” she asked. “Do you have any?”

“I left home two years ago,” Jack said. “That’s when the drifting began.”

“Must get lonely,” she said, her voice still cold and impersonal, in stark contradistinction to her eyes, which bore holes in their target. “Yeah, it does,” Jack said. “But I was lonely with my family, too.”

“How so?”

“Well, my father was a Pentecostal preacher. Always trying to shove the bible down my throat. He thought . . .” Jack stopped. He could not tell her the real reason for the rift that had developed between himself and his father. That’s because it involved the mission, and he wasn’t prepared to mention that just yet. So, he just said “Well, you know how it is with parents sometimes.”

“Sure,” she shrugged, although it was obvious she sensed that he was holding something back.

An awkward silence ensued. It was awkward for him, anyway. He did not think she felt awkward in the least. To fill the silence, he asked “What about you?”

“What about me?” she asked.

“How long have you worked here?”

“About six months,” she said, “But something tells me I’ll be moving on soon.”

“You’re not a drifter like me, are you?” he asked.

She smiled slightly—a crooked, wry, beautiful smile—and said “Actually, I am. Except I’ve been drifting for more than two years. I’ve been drifting all my life.”

“How come?” he asked. He was surprised, yet kind of thrilled, that the conversation had become so personal so fast. Did she talk to everyone this way or did she know him? Recognize him? “I never had a family,” she said, “I bounced around in foster homes all my life. Then, when I was sixteen I ran away. Been on my own since then.”

“And still bouncing around?” Jack added.

“Yeah,” she said.

“Guess we’re just a couple of strays,” Jack noted.

“I guess so,” she replied. Another silence ensued, but this one was not so awkward. He was beginning to relax. She had a calm about her that was rubbing off on him.

“So, where are you staying?” she asked.

“Well, until I get enough money for a room, I’m sleeping on a park bench,” he said, hoping he didn’t sound like he was looking for sympathy; he wasn’t. “Well, we can’t have that,” she said. “You’ll just have to stay with me for a while.”

Jack’s heart almost stopped. Was he hearing her right? Did she just invite him to live with her? The thought so overwhelmed him that for a moment he actually considered declining the offer. But then he came to his senses, and said “Really? You would do that for me, a perfect stranger?” She just shrugged and said, “Us strays have to stick together.”

He looked at her with awe, and suddenly the love he already felt for her magnified itself a thousand-fold. The feeling was so intense that for a moment he thought he might dissolve into tears. Instead he took a deep breath and said “I guess so. Thank you.”

“No sweat,” she said. “There’s just one thing I need to know first.”

“Sure.”

“What’s your name?”

Jack smiled, embarrassed. “Jack,” he said. “Jack Horn. What’s yours.”

“Diane Foster.”

Diane Foster, Jack thought. He knew that wasn’t her real name any more than his real name was Jack. Her real name was Eve. He wondered if she knew that. “Now I have to ask you something,” Jack said.

“Shoot.”

“How do you feel about cats?”

“You got a cat? You don’t even have a home.”

“It sort of adopted me. We sleep together on the park bench.”

She crinkled her nose and said “Sure, bring it along.”

•

The rest of the day flew by fast. Faster than any day Jack could remember. All day he had that light-as-a-feather feeling he had gotten the first time he had seen her. Only there were concerns, too. In the space of a day this girl had gone from a glorious phantom in his dreams to someone he worked with to someone he was going to live with. Exactly how was he supposed to pull this off? How could he act normally around her? How much should he tell her about what he knew? And how soon? And what did she know, if anything? What if he told her, and she thought he was crazy, and never wanted to see him again? He didn’t know the answers to any of those questions. He decided to simply take it slow, letting things play out one day at a time. For the first few days, he would say nothing.

When quitting time rolled around, he punched out and waited for Diane down in the lobby. He did not have to wait long. She got off the elevator, along with three others, and they made their way into the parking lot, to her car. She pulled out, made a quick left onto Old Hook, then a quick right onto Main, which she took to the park, where they got out together and made their way to the picnic area.

“Here kitty kitty kitty,” Jack cooed, snapping his fingers, and looking around for signs of feline life. Nothing. Jack and Diane exchanged a kind of puzzled stare, then Jack started in again with the here kittys. This time Diane joined in. Within moments the cat appeared, looking cautiously at the new party, then walking briskly over to Jack and rubbing up against his leg. Jack scooped it up in his arms, nuzzling its head with his chin, and brought it back to the car.

Diane retraced her path, back to Old Hook, and took it all the way to the end. Then she made a few more rights and lefts, each one taking them deeper into the outskirts of town, where there were less homes and more trees, trailers, and dirt roads, until they arrived at her place—a basement apartment beneath a large colonial that was only one of a few homes on a mostly deserted street.

Diane parked right in front of the house. Jack followed her out, down a flight of stairs that ran along the side of the house, to her door. She unlocked the door, and held it open for her new guests. Jack wanted to say “Nice place you’ve got here” just to be polite, but it would have been too big of a lie, and Diane would have surely called him on it. Instead he just went “Hmmm . . . interesting,” to which Diane replied “Yeah, I know . . . it’s a wreck.”

“But a very cozy one,” Jack said, putting down the cat and taking a stroll around. “Come one, I’ll give you the grand tour,” she said, pointing out the highlights and lowlights of her humble basement abode. On one wall was a black couch with badly beaten cushions, and an equally beaten up accent chair beside it. Opposite the couch was a TV on an entertainment center. Just past the couch was a table with two chairs, and past that, a kitchen with no room for a table. Opposite the table in the living room was a hallway, leading to a bedroom on one side and another bedroom and a bathroom on the other. All of the rooms were very small.

“I hope your landlord won’t mind my being here,” Jack said, “not to mention my furry friend.” He pointed at the cat, who was on top of the couch, stretching itself. “I don’t think she’ll mind,” Diane said. “The owner is very old, barely even aware of what’s going on. I think she should probably be in a nursing home by now.”

“I see,” Jack said. “That’s too bad.”

“Yeah, well . . . It is what it is.” She paused for a few moments, staring at him with those big eyes, then said, “Well, you can get settled in now if you want. I’m going to take a shower. I’ll bring you some sheets for the bed later on. And after that . . . I’m going to cook us a big dinner.”

“That sounds great,” he said, taken aback by her hospitality. With that, she turned and went off to her bedroom. He did the same. He tossed his back pack on the bed and unpacked. It was going to feel great eating real food tonight, not to mention sleeping in a real bed. The fact that he would be doing it with her . . . well, that just made it a million times better.

He settled in quickly; there wasn’t much to unpack—just a few toiletries and some cloths. And of course, his glock, which he put in a dresser under some pants.

And that was that. He had a new home.

He heard the shower running in the next room. He waited for it to stop, waited for her to finish up, and then he took his turn. After showering and getting dressed, he went back into the living room. Diane was already in the kitchen working on dinner. “Is there anything I can do to help?” he asked, feeling guilty about being the beneficiary of so much hospitality. “No, I’m good,” she said. “Besides, there’s only room for one person at a time in here.”

“I get it,” Jack said, plopping himself on the couch as the cat curled up in his lap. He stroked it behind the ears. It purred deeply. “So, what about a name for this cat?” he called out. “Oh, I don’t know,” she said, “Is it a male or a female?”

“Male.”

“I had a cat named Tabby as a kid. How about that?”

“I don’t think she looks like a Tabby,” Jack said.

“Probably not,” Diane agreed.

“What are some good cat names?”

“I don’t know. Mittens. Buttons. Fluffy.”

“Maybe we should work on it later,” Jack said.

“I can’t cook and think at the same time,” Diane explained.

“I understand. I can’t cook at all.”

“As long as you can eat, that’s enough for tonight.”

“I can,” Jack said, falling deeper in love with her with every word she spoke.

•

“Dinner’s served,” Diane announced a short time later, placing a large platter of roasted chicken on the table. Sharing the platter with the chicken was a large serving of carrots, rice, and red potatoes. “God, that looks good,” Jack observed, his mouth watering. “I hope it tastes good,” Diane replied. “I wouldn’t worry about that,” Jack said, picking up the carving knife, and slicing the chicken into thin pieces, placing some on her plate, and some on his own. He took a mouthful. “It’s delicious,” he said. “Where’d you learn to cook like this?”

“When you grow up in foster homes,” she answered, “you learn to do a lot of things.”

“I see,” Jack said. He could sense the hurt in those words. A lot of hurt. The cat sidled up to him, looking up, hoping to share in the feast. He dangled a thin piece of meat over its head and let it nibble away. “Have you thought of a name for him yet?” Diane asked. “Not yet,” Jack said, furrowing his brow in thought. “How about . . . Eve?”

Diane looked down at her lap, saying nothing. It was the first time since he met her that she displayed any trace of discomfort. The two sat in awkward silence for several moments. Then she looked up, fixed her eyes on him, and said “I know about our mission.”

Jack just looked at her disbelievingly, his fork frozen midway between his plate and his mouth. “Yeah,” she repeated, “I know about the mission.”

“I can’t tell you how relieved I am to hear that,” Jack said.

“I can imagine,” Diane replied, “Wouldn’t be much fun saving the world alone, right?”

“Is that what we’re supposed to be doing?” Jack asked. “Saving the world?”

“Well, what else could it be?” she asked. “Leading mankind to the Garden of Eden. Isn’t that the same as saving the world?”

“I don’t know, maybe the whole thing is just a wild goose chase,” Jack said.

“That’s a terrible thing to say,” she snarled, and suddenly those two big brown orbs locked on him in a harsh, withering glare; he felt, quite literally, like a deer in the headlights. “I’m just saying,” he replied, floundering for words “that we really don’t know anything yet. I can’t speak for you, but the messages I’ve gotten are long on drama and short on detail. What about you?”

“Well,” she said, gritting her teeth “I haven’t received any specific instructions yet, but . . .”

“But what?” Jack pressed.

“But that doesn’t mean they’re not forthcoming!” she said, her voice rising about two octaves, to just a hair beneath a shout. Jack was taken aback; he did not take her for the emotional type. “Well, to be honest,” Jack said, suspecting he was on the wrong course, but plodding ahead anyway: “I’m not sure I even want any instructions!”

“What do you mean?” she asked accusingly. “I mean,” Jack said, a note of annoyance creeping into his own voice, “this mission has ruined my life. I never asked for any of this, and I don’t even want it.”

“Well, I never asked for it either, but it is what it is. I mean . . . we were divinely appointed to provide a great service to mankind. Doesn’t that mean anything to you?”

Jack did not know how to answer. In truth, he had never actually looked at it that way. He had only considered how it affected him; he had never thought about how it might affect others. “I guess I never thought about it that way,” Jack said sheepishly. “Well, you should,” Diane said, her tone of angry indignation replaced by one of gentle admonishment. “The burden to yourself won’t seem as bad if you think about others. I mean, just look at Christ as an example.”

Oh God, no, Jack thought. Please don’t let her be a born again evangelical nut job. “You’re not . . . religious?” he asked, pronouncing the word as if it represented the worse disease one could imagine.

Sighing, Diane said “No, I’m not religious, but I have prepared myself for this mission. I have studied the bible extensively, along with Greek and Hebrew, and anything else that I thought might be of relevance to this task.”

Jack was dumbfounded. Here he had spent his whole life resenting his calling while she had spent hers preparing for it. He was more interested in her than in their mission; for her it was just the opposite. He wondered if she had any interest in him at all. “Well, he said,” trying to make light of it, “at least one of us is ready for what’s to come.”

She just gave him a sneer and said, “I hope so.” For a moment they just sat there, frozen, then, as if by mutual decision, they resumed their dinner without speaking about their mission again for the rest of the evening.