Nowhere to Hide Read online

  Nowhere To Hide

  By

  Joan Hall Hovey

  ISBN: 978-0-9867514-5-5

  PUBLISHED BY:

  Books We Love Ltd.

  (Electronic Book Publishers)

  192 Lakeside Greens Drive

  Chestermere, Alberta, T1X 1C2

  Canada

  http://bookswelove.net

  Copyright 2011 by Joan Hall Hovey

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  Copyright Joan Hall Hovey 2009

  Not Alone

  It was nice to be alone. As she brushed her hair, Gail launched into her favorite fantasy—buying her sister a white Ferrari. Ellen’s birthday was coming up in May. She’d have the car delivered right up to the door, a big red bow tied on the antenna. Dream on, girl, she told herself, grinning at her reflection in the mirror.

  Tiger padded into the room just then, winding his sleek, warm body around her bare ankles, purring like an old washing machine.

  "I owe her so much, Tiger," Gail said, reaching down to stroke the cat’s soft, glossy fur. "If it wasn’t for—"

  Suddenly, Tiger’s back arched under her hand and he hissed. Gail’s heart leapt in her breast and her hand drew back as if it had been burned. "What the—?"

  But Tiger, fur standing on end, had already fled the room. Gail turned in the chair just in time to see his electrified, retreating tail.

  Then she caught a movement from the corner of her eye. Turning, she froze at the sight of the closet door slowly opening.

  One

  August 6, 1979

  The closet door was at the top of the stairs at the end of the hall. To get to it he had to pass by two doors, one on either side, both now partly open. He could hear talking, very low. Farther away, the sound of running water. In three quick strides he was past the doors and inside the closet. He knew he was smiling. He felt excited the way he always did when he got past them. Even if anyone had got a glimpse of him, it wouldn’t really matter. He was invisible. The invisible man.

  The secret door was to his right, just behind the wide rack of musty-smelling winter coats in varying sizes. He ducked beneath them, and opening the door, let him into the narrow, cave-like space.

  The space separating the inside and outside walls went nearly the whole way round the third floor, stopping abruptly at the wall of the stairwell where he had to turn around and go back the way he had come. Once, this space had been used for storage - old bed springs, broken chairs, trunks - but the doors, except for the one in the closet which he had come upon quite by luck, and through which he had come again and again, had long since been replaced by sheetrock and papered over with rose-patterned wallpaper.

  It was pitch black in front of him and all around him, like he was all-alone in the world. He had his flashlight, but didn’t turn it on. He knew the way. Besides, it might shine through someplace.

  As he made his way along the darkened corridor, breathing in the stale, hot air, his progress slowed by the long, heavy skirt he wore, he had to stoop. At seventeen, though narrow-shouldered, he was nearly six feet tall.

  Sweat was trickling down between his shoulder blades, and under the wig, his head felt squirmy, so he took the wig off and stuffed it into his pants pocket, under the skirt.

  And then he was there. He could see the thin beam of light shining through, projecting a tiny star on the wall. It was coming through the place where two Sundays ago, when they were all at Chapel, he had made a peephole. He’d made it by simply pounding a nail through, then drawing it cleanly back out so that there would be nothing detectable on the other side—no more than a black dot.

  A giggle floated through to him and the smile froze on his face, his fists clenching involuntarily. No, it can’t be me they’re laughing at. They can’t see me. They don’t know I’m here. You’re invisible, remember?

  Calming himself, he slowly brought his face to the wall.

  Eight narrow, iron-framed beds faced him, each covered by a thin, gray blanket with a faded red stripe across the top and bottom. Twelve beds in all, but the two at either end were cut from his view. A few religious pictures hung above the beds. The one facing him said "Suffer the Little Children to Come Unto Me." It had a picture of a lamb on it. Only three of the beds were occupied. It was still early. Some of the girls were probably downstairs watching their allotted hour of TV. Others would still be doing kitchen duty. At least one troublemaker would be doing "quiet time."

  He grinned. He understood now that the laughter he’d heard had come from one of the two girls sitting on the edge of the bed flipping through a teen idol magazine. He’d caught a look at the cover—some weirdo with a green punk hairdo and a guitar slung around his neck. The two sluts, heads together, were still at it, giggling, whispering, low and secretive. He felt a hot surge of hatred course through his veins. He wished SHE would walk in on them right now. He knew what they were doing. They were talking about who they liked, who they thought was "cute," who they would let do it. They were thinking and talking about that.

  Two beds over, a fat girl with short brown hair that looked as if someone (guess who? Ha-ha) had cut it around a bowl, lay on her back with her hands behind her head, staring at the ceiling. A jagged scar traveled from a spot between her eyebrows right up into her hairline. He could tell she’d been crying; her raisin eyes were all red and puffy, practically disappearing in her moon face. They cried a lot in here. Mostly in the middle of the night when they thought no one could hear. It always excited him hearing their soft muffled sobs. Sometimes though, it just made him mad like it did when they laughed. Then he wanted to fix it so they didn’t make any sound at all.

  His gaze wandered back to the girl who had first caught his attention, the one who sat under the lamb picture, and who he’d wanted to save for last. She was sitting cross-legged on the bed, a writing tablet balanced on her knees, her long, pale hair fallen forward, though some damply dark ends curled against her neck. He watched as she scribbled a few lines, then frowning, looked over what she had written. She would chew on her yellow pencil, then write some more, the pencil making whispery sounds on the paper. He watched her for a long time, taking in the flushed, shiny cheeks that made him think, as had the dark damp curls, that she might just have stepped out of the bath. Yes, he remembered hearing the water running. He liked to see them when they just got out of the bath—all that damp flowing hair, pinkly scrubbed skin, soft necks.

  Sometimes they changed into their flannel nightgowns right there on the edge of their beds, right there in front of him—though of course they didn’t know that. That was the best part. Them not knowing. It didn’t matter that they dressed so hurriedly and so fast that he often didn’t get to see much. Though occasionally there was a flash of white shoulder, a curve of breast. I’m watching you, he thought, and had to stifle a giggle of his own. And then she raised her head and those clear blue eyes were staring right at him, stabbing fear into his heart. He couldn’t move.

  She was frowning, not in the way she did when she was thinking of what to write, but with her head cocked to one side, as if she were listening for something. A terrible thought struck him. What if he hadn’t just almost laughed, but actually done it, right out loud? Adrenaline pumping crazily through his body, he backed slowly away from the peephole. Standing perfectly still with his back against the wall, he waited. When after several minutes there were no screams, no sudden cries of alarm to alert the ot
her girls—and HER, especially HER—he began to relax. His heartbeat returned to normal; once more he brought his eye to the hole. She was back to writing.

  Of course she was. He smiled to himself. He hadn’t laughed out loud, after all. And she hadn’t seen him. Of course she hadn’t. His gaze slid down to her breasts, their shapes round and firm as little apples under the flannel nightgown.

  But you will, he thought. You will.

  Two

  1992

  Standing on the top rung of the stepladder, Ellen raised up on her sneaker-clad toes and carefully fitted the silver angel on the top of the tree. Its shadow shivered on the ceiling, then was still.

  "Hand me that blue bulb, Myra, please," she said from her rickety perch.

  Silent Night was playing on the stereo—a new London Philharmonic tape. It was the first Christmas Ellen Harris had celebrated in three years.

  "Christ, will you be careful," Myra said, having returned from laying another log on the fire. "I swear, you had to be a tightrope walker in your last life, you’re so damned sure-footed." She started to set her glass of wine down on the blond coffee table, caught herself, and slid a coaster under it, which brought a faint smile from Ellen. Behind Myra, the fire crackled and leaped to life, the flames lighting the sherry in her glass a lovely ruby red. A twin tree bedecked in colorful bulbs and tinsel was reflected in the window. Beyond the window, fat snowflakes fell softly—just like in the snow-scene painted on the Christmas bulb.

  A perfect dress rehearsal for Christmas Eve, Ellen thought. And what was it they said about a good dress rehearsal? Oh, hell, knock it off, she told herself as Myra’s hand hovered above one of the boxes lined up on the sofa, chose one.

  "No, the steepled one next to it," Ellen said. "Yeah, that’s it—thanks." She gingerly reached for the bulb.

  "Pretty," Myra commented, handing it up to her. "Looks old-fashioned."

  The scenic ornament was electric blue in color. Ellen held it in her upturned hand as if it were a precious jewel. "It is." Her smile was wistful. "Hand-painted. It belonged to my mother, and to her mother before her." She searched for a bare spot on the tree, found just the right one. "Gives me a sense of continuity, I suppose," she said, studying the effect. "And maybe it sounds crazy, but it sort of makes me feel a small part of Mom and Dad will be here, sharing Christmas with me and Gail." It felt so good to be finally able to say that and mean it. Her parents wouldn’t be fighting, of course. They never fought in the ideal scenarios of Ellen’s imagination. Well, at least she didn’t hate them anymore, and that was something.

  "It doesn’t sound crazy at all," Myra said, picking up her glass and taking a sip of wine. "Maybe a little sentimental, but what the hell? Sentiment’s good. Actually, I wish I could say the same about..." Her words trailed off, but not before Ellen heard the old note of bitterness creep into her friend’s voice.

  Ellen said nothing. She knew only too well that for a lot of people, the Christmas season was not a time of good cheer, nor did it necessarily start up visions of sugarplums dancing in their heads. This, in fact, was the clinic’s busiest time. People got depressed, even suicidal during the holidays. She wouldn’t be in the least surprised if the season had more than a little to do with Myra’s recent nightmares. Memories of childhood horrors, more or less successfully held at bay during the rest of the year, strangely seemed to gather strength in December.

  "What time does Gail’s plane get in?" Myra asked, deliberately changing the subject.

  "11:20 in the morning. I can’t wait to see her. Imagine, my little sister signing on with a major record label." Giving a final straightening to the silver angel, Ellen climbed down from the ladder. She stood back to admire her artistry.

  Myra plucked an icicle from the shoulder of her blouse and tossed it among the decorations. "I expect any day now I’ll come over here and be confronted with life-sized standups of Gail all over the house—you know, the kind like the Kodak people put out of Bill Cosby."

  "I wouldn’t do that to you. You’d see them on the lawn first." Ellen grinned and left the tree to begin tidying the sofa, which was strewn with paper and boxes. Myra followed, glass in hand.

  "Seriously, you guys have such a super relationship. I envy you. Most sisters can barely stand to be in the same room with each other. Or so I’ve heard." She finger-combed her hair over the forehead, a habit, to hide the scar that resulted from a childhood sledding accident. "Being an only child, of course, I wouldn’t know."

  Ellen was thoughtfully stacking the empty boxes out of sight on the closet shelf. It was true. She and Gail were close. Closer than any sisters she knew. She suspected it had a lot to do with growing up in a boozed-fertilized battleground. Moving from the closet to the sofa and back again, she said, "Gail and I love each other, of course, but it’s more than that. There’s a kind of desperation at the bottom—an ‘us against the world’ thing." She gave Myra a wry smile.

  "Yeah, I know what you mean." Myra was standing behind her at the open closet door offering the last of the boxes. "Listen, I—I hope I didn’t bring you down with my talk of nightmares."

  Ellen turned, surprised. "No, of course not. Why would you think that?"

  "I don’t know. It’s just that you’ve been acting sort of... preoccupied, I guess. Anyway, enough of the heavy crap, okay? We’re supposed to be celebrating here. Christmas is just five days away and your sister is arriving tomorrow. So lighten up, Ellen."

  "Kiss my ‘you know what’," Ellen said pleasantly, taking the boxes from her.

  "Ass, dear. The word is ‘ass.’ God, but you’re a prude."

  Ellen laughed. If Myra could defy the dark, then so could she. Compared to the hell of Myra’s childhood, hers and Gail’s would read like the Walton’s. "Well, what do you think of it?" she asked brightly, gazing up at the tree. "Is that a masterpiece, or is that a masterpiece?" Just for an instant did the old pang of loss hit her. Ed had always been the one to decorate the tree, while she had been perfectly content to sit and watch the transformation, which seemed nothing short of magical, take place.

  But Ed had died of a heart attack three years before at the ripe old age of thirty-six. Just the previous night they had talked about adopting a child. He’d seemed fine. Just fine to her.

  "He said he was cold," the assistant foreman had told her the next afternoon, as he stood shifting his feet in their big boots, his eyes tearing. "Then he sat down on some lumber—and he was gone."

  They called it SCA—"sudden cardiac arrest".

  "It happens," the weary-eyed doctor had told her sadly, apologetically, as Ellen listened in disbelief. "A seemingly healthy young man—no one really knows why. I’m so sorry, Mrs. Harris... so very sorry..."

  "It’s a beautiful tree, Ellen," Myra was saying, bringing her back, fading out the remembered sounds and smells of the hospital. "In fact, the entire house looks fabulous. Especially this room. I love it. It just seems to wrap itself around you."

  Looking around, Ellen couldn’t help feeling a warm glow of pride. The room really did look nice, kind of rustic colonial, if there was such a thing. Most of the furniture was antique, pieces she’d picked up in flea markets and second-hand shops and refinished, working evenings and weekends. The rich, taffy-colored tables and sideboard reflected the fire’s glow.

  New slipcovers in soft floral chintz revived the old sofa and chair. When she and Ed had moved into the old farmhouse, there’d been worn, ratty carpeting on the floor. To her delight, when she’d lifted one corner, she discovered hardwood flooring underneath. A good cleaning and a coat of varnish had restored it to its original beauty.

  The oval braided rug on which she and Myra now stood, she owed to her Sears’s credit card —"owed" being the key word. But she’d wanted everything to be perfect for Gail’s visit. With Gail working in New York, they didn’t get to see one another nearly often enough, and now with the promotional tour coming up after the holidays, it would be even less.

  The anxious feeling was
back. Even with the aromatic scent of spruce permeating the air, and Christmas music playing in the background, Ellen couldn’t shake the sense of something not right. It had been with her from the moment she opened her eyes this morning, and kept coming at her all day, little spasms that made her chest feel suddenly tight and her hands get busier. Mere seasonal anxiety? Had to be. What else?

  "You’ve got a real talent for decorating," Myra said, having wandered over to admire the large print hanging above the redbrick fireplace. Sepia-toned, it was of a gentle-faced woman in a long dress bathing a child in a round metal tub. The blond, curly-haired cherub had a daub of soapsuds on his softly rounded, Victorian chin. This particular treasure she’d come upon at a garage sale one Saturday morning last spring. It had been hard not to appear too eager and weaken her bargaining position.

  "Almost as much as you do for helping the walking wounded," Myra went on. "In my house, you’d be lucky to find a chair to sit down on without having to clear it of old clothes and magazines first."

  "You’ve got three kids to clean up after," Ellen said, putting an arm around her friend’s shoulders. "C’mon, let’s go out to the kitchen. I need a coffee." Catching Myra eyeing her empty glass, Ellen dropped her arm, saying, "But you go ahead and have some more wine; it will help you sleep."

  Myra didn’t need any coaxing. While she poured, Ellen couldn’t resist another admiring look at the tree. Returning the wine decanter to the sideboard, Myra said, "You know, I always feel a little like a parasitic lush drinking your booze while you’re having coffee or a coke."

  "Well, don’t. Some of us can handle an occasional drink and some of us can’t." With that, she headed out to the kitchen, a suddenly silent Myra at her heels.

  At the kitchen counter, Ellen plugged in the kettle, caught a distorted image of herself in the shiny chrome—dark blue eyes, tiny lines fanning out from the corners. Light auburn hair in its unfamiliar chic new cut.