“This kind of weather makes people feel real peculiar,” she went on.
Earl could predict what subject was hovering behind Laura May’s lips. He’d already heard the bones of the story on the way across, and knew Virginia was in no mood to hear such a tale.
“Thank you for the water-” he said, putting a hand on Laura May’s arm to usher her through the door. But Gyer cut
in.
“My wife’s been suffering from heat exhaustion,” he said. “You should be careful, ma’am,” Laura May advised Virginia, “people do some mighty weird things-”
“Like what?” Virginia asked.
“1 don’t think we-” Earl began, but before he could say “want to hear,” Laura May casually replied:
“Oh, murder mostly.”
Virginia looked up from the glass of ice water in which her focus had been immersed.
“Murder?” she said.
“Hear that?” said Sadie, proudly. “She remembers.”
“In this very room,” Laura May managed to blurt before Earl forcibly escorted her out.
“Wait,” Virginia said as the two figures disappeared through the door. “Earl! I want to hear what happened.”
“No you don’t,” Gyer told her.
“Oh yes she does,” said Sadie very quietly, studying the look on Virginia’s face. “You’d really like to know, wouldn’t you, Ginnie?”
For a moment pregnant with possibilities, Virginia looked away from the outside door and stared straight through into Room Eight, her eyes seeming to rest on Sadie. The look was so direct it could almost have been one of recognition. The ice in her glass tinkled. She frowned.
“What’s wrong?” Gyer asked her.
Virginia shook her head.
“I asked you what was wrong,” Gyer insisted.
Virginia put down her glass on the bedside table. After a moment she said very simply: “There’s somebody here, John.”
“What do you mean?”
“There’s somebody in the room with us. I heard voices before. Raised voices.”
“Next door,” Gyer said.
“No, from Earl’s room.
“It’s empty. It must have been next door.”
Virginia was not to be silenced with logic. “I heard voices, I tell you. And I saw something at the end of the bed. Something in the air.”
“Oh my Jesus,” said Sadie, under her breath. “The goddamn woman’s psychic.”
Buck stood up. He was naked now but for his shorts. He wandered over to the interconnecting door to look at Virginia with new appreciation.
“Are you sure?” he said.
“Hush,” Sadie told him, moving out of Virginia’s line of vision. She said she could see us.
“You’re not well, Virginia,” Gyer was saying in the next room. “It’s those pills he fed you..
“No,” Virginia replied, her voice rising. “When will you stop talking about the pills? They were just to calm me down, help me sleep.”
She certainly wasn’t calm now, thought Buck. He liked the way she trembled as she tried to hold back her tears. She looked in need of some of the old jazz, did poor Virginia. Now that would help her sleep.
“I tell you I can see things,” she was telling her husband.
“That I can’t?” Gyer replied incredulously. “Is that what you’re saying? That you can see visions the rest of us are blind to?”
“I’m not proud of it, damn you,” she yelled at him, incensed by this inversion.
“Come away, Buck,” Sadie said. “We’re upsetting her. She knows we’re here.”
“So what?” Buck responded. “Her prick of a husband doesn’t believe her. Look at him. He thinks she’s crazy.”
“Well we’ll make her crazy if we parade around,” said Sadie. “At least let’s keep our voices down, huh?”
Buck looked around at Sadie and offered up a dirty rag of a smile. “Want to make it worth my while?” he said sleazily. “I’ll keep out of the way if you and me can have some fun.”
Sadie hesitated a moment before replying. It was probably perverse to reject Buck’s advances. The man was an emotional infant and always had been. Sex was one of the few ways he could express himself. “All right, Buck,” she said, “just let me freshen up and fix my hair.”
An uneasy truce had apparently been declared in Room Seven.
“I’m going to take a shower, Virginia,” Gyer said. “I suggest you lie down and stop making a fool of yourself. You go talking like that in front of people and you’ll jeopardize the crusade, you hear me?”