Chapter 1
The black spider scuttled between two soda glasses, and Maria Wyzerk, who had called herself Sue Belden for five years, watched as it crawled slowly back out at her. Thin hairs trembled menacingly along its obscene body, and Maria's belly contracted. She grabbed a wet rag from the counter and hammered on the spider so hard two glasses fragmented and the thing turned into a shapeless black blob.
"Hi, there!"
The man spoke so casually behind her that she jumped. She wondered how he had gotten in without the screen door slamming. She didn't turn yet, for she felt too much like throwing up. "What do you want?" she asked sharply, still trying to control her stomach.
"Nothing but a cup of coffee and a couple of doughnuts."
She didn't look at him. She dug her left hand in tight over her waist and dropped the spider's death-rag into the plastic waste-container near the sink.
"You sure pulverized it," the man said. His voice vibrated with dry, friendly humor.
She didn't look at him. "I had to kill it," she said, "I hate spiders. They make me nervous when they go crawling all over like that."
"You should use DDT or something."
She didn't answer, but filled his cup automatically and placed it on the counter. She took two doughnuts out of the rack and placed them on the counter. She didn't look at him.
"Hi, Maria!"
She heard the sound of the stranger's voice calling her by her real name, and she couldn't understand that either. She looked at him then fast enough, and it was her ex-husband, Jim White. The shock made her say something she didn't want to say. "Damn you, Jim, it's your fault!"
"Baby, cut it out," he said trying to grab her hand, "You know damn well what happened."
"Yeah, I know. So where's Arlene?"
"Back at the motel."
"I thought so!"
"Look, Maria, if you're going to be a bitch about this!"
"I'm not, but I still love you. Damn you, Jim, don't you know? You want to see something? Look!" She shoved her left hand in front of his face, and he stared at her gold wedding ring. He should stare, for he had placed it on her finger twelve years before.
"You still wearing that?"
"Yeah, funny, ain't it? You want to have a great big old laugh?"
"Look, Maria, I'm sorry. I'm sorry about every damn thing..."
He didn't finish what he was trying to say. Even before she heard it, he caught the soft rasp of the screen door being pushed and opened. His head jerked to the side, and they both listened to those same clicking steps. It seemed to Maria that she was watching a crazy scene from a fantastic movie, as she stared at the one woman who had been the curse of her life.
It was Jim's present wife, Arlene, and Arlene wore a green dress more perfectly fitted to her body than ever. Not even ten years had marked the incredible sleek beauty of her face. Her skin bore no blemish, and her steel-green eyes flashed a smouldering look, first at Maria, then at Jim.
"I was wondering where you were, lover. I didn't know you might bump into our old friend so easily. I hadn't planned on its happening so soon. Hi, Maria. Shall we shake hands like long-lost Englishmen, or shall we kiss warmly like Frenchmen, or shall we...?"
"Shut up, Arlene!"
Maria jumped back. She clasped her right hand to her burning cheek. She had not made a sound. She had not said it. Jim had yelled at Arlene, and now the tight, sweaty tension of her white uniform-dress stifled her. She stared down for a second at her own fluff of pink apron, then surprised a quick gloating look in Arlene's eyes, as Arlene seemed to gaze right through the apron.
"Don't yell at me, Jim!"
Arlene took her eyes from Maria's tiny pink triangle. And though Arlene didn't visibly adjust her dress, Maria sensed how Arlene's body twisted, tight and restless, into that green metallic silk. Briefly, Arlene hesitated, took one last look at Maria's pink wedge, then lowered herself beside Jim. She cupped her hands loosely and rubbed them along his neck as if she were stroking a pet animal, and Maria watched with disbelief as Jim went rigid.
"What's the matter, little old husband? You feeling sick or something?"
Jim didn't answer Arlene, but Maria didn't want to see any more. She didn't want to hear any more, and she turned away from the scene. Filled with sudden, swift-grown agony, she glanced around at the German Coffee Shop's blue-and-white decor, looking desperately for customers, but the place was empty. She watched a fly buzz noisily toward the ceiling, but it no sooner got there than it got stuck in a mysterious twist of cobweb, and hung buzzing its death pains into a sharply reflected ray of morning sun...
Jim felt the soft white flesh of Arlene's hands. They held him as they had always held him. She took him with her hands and refused to take him with her body, and he wondered how he had managed to yell at her. He had walked into the coffee shop thinking about nothing, and Maria had been such a quick, wonderful surprise to him. She looked tired in her waitress uniform, but she was more enticing and sexy than ever.
He sat motionless, and he didn't shove Arlene's hands away. He couldn't. He felt suddenly hot, as if all that July day had suddenly poured itself full of scalding water. His white shirt collar squeezed his neck, and he didn't know why he wore them a half size too small. He didn't go along with Arlene's, "Because they stay up better that way, dear. Much better than that other part of you."
Maria's beauty throbbed through him like slow fire, and he didn't think about Arlene. He didn't dare. But why was it, he wondered, that he had not recognized Maria at once? Why had he pulled that curtain down so hard and violently in his mind? Why had he forced himself to forget?
Even her movements while swatting the spider were distinctive. Only Maria could move like that. He felt a savage, sudden itching in his right eye.
Hollyhock, Wisconsin, was a quiet town. He wondered if they ever had any excitement even on Saturday nights, and he stared out the window to his left across a long low rise of green hill. In the center of town, behind him, was a mammoth white structure surrounded by a jungle of trees and brush. Even from a distance, he had been able to tell it was rotting to pieces. In contrast to that eyesore, most of the houses made neat white building-blocks along the clean streets.
They had stopped in Hollyhock the previous night, on their way to upper Michigan. Arlene had seen the Red Robin Motel. She had told him to stop, and though it was evening, and they both still felt relaxed and refreshed, she had not said one word about going out and looking for young stuff. He was glad about that, for he knew it would have been risky trying anything in a strange new place.
He had crawled into his usual twin bed, and he had felt her white hands stroking him, and then he had fallen almost violently asleep. On the counter, right in front of him, placed there by his first wife, his coffee had now taken on the color of liquid mud. He stared carefully into the long H-design on the stainless steel spoon. He had never seen a design like that before, and as an experienced hardware man, he knew most things about metals, paints, gadgets of all kinds.
He didn't want to recognize Arlene, didn't want to look at her.
"Jim, darling!"
"Don't touch me!"
"Maria, what did you do to him? You didn't have time to knock off a quick piece, did you? So what's the story?"
Jim went suddenly tense and sick. Once, when he was eleven, back in Vermont, his mother had caught him looking at nude lingerie models in a mail-order catalogue and doing something he shouldn't. She had yelled at him horribly. He reacted now as he had then. An enormous pressure pushed down on his head, and he turned to look out of the black night into the green day.
"Maria, can't you talk? We're all old friends, old buddies, old sleeping buddies, so come off it."
Maria stood silent, and her hands hung loosely at her sides. Only her fingers moved convulsively like the legs of the spider she had just killed. They seemed to move by themselves, without her conscious control.
Jim felt Arlene turn towards him, and she tweaked the tender lobe of his right ear.
"Don't!"
"Why not, lover? Shall I tweak something else? Show Maria how big you've grown?"
He tried to twist around and move away from the counter stool, but Arlene swung his stool quickly back into place. He felt properly punished, and he heard her husky voice ringing in his ears.
"Whoa, lover, not so fast! We're going to be here for a long time, and we're going to have a lot of talking to do... aren't we, Maria?"
Jim watched pure agony. He saw it drawn on Maria's face, and it seemed to drain like some strong festering venom out of Maria's whole wounded body, and then it centered into twin pockets of caged poison in her blue eyes. He wanted to help her, but he couldn't. He wanted to fight for her, and searched for strength, but found none. He heard the soft swift movements of Arlene's lips coating words with slime, and he listened to the dying fly, dangling and buzzing, dangling and buzzing...
Maria stared at them and felt only one thing. She had to get rid of Arlene before Arlene destroyed her whole universe. She wished she could pick up a wet rag, and somehow squash that deadly steel female into a shapeless blob. She couldn't. She could only face her one-time friend.
"Arlene," she said, "Get out! I didn't want to see you. I didn't ask you to come here."
"Why not? Are Jim and I too much for you?"
Arlene smiled a quick, meaningful smile, and her lips looked as if they had been brushed with quick bright strokes of blood. She rubbed back a wisp of hair from her white, unwrinkled forehead, and Maria was struck by the familiar contrast of black against white.
"Please go."
"Why should I, my dear. Why? Jim likes it here. I like it here. Couldn't you please give me a cup of coffee... and try not to put any arsenic in it?"
Maria stared at her, felt her itching palms begging her to slap the woman, but Arlene's lips only turned up further, more provokingly.
"You can poison me later. Maybe when we have cocktails. Maybe when we go dancing. Would you like to go dancing? Maria, dear, I don't think you have been dancing in a long time. You have wrinkles of loneliness under your eyes. Have you been well, dear? Do you sleep nights? No man? Too many men? What's the matter, dear, you wouldn't splash my cup of coffee, would you?"
Maria listened silently and lowered the cup to the counter. She felt something like an earth tremor running up and down her spine, but she didn't let the coffee splash over. Somehow, she managed to keep the saucer clean. She jerked her eyes away from Arlene's face and looked desperately at the silent jukebox and wished she could remember some happy, once-heard song.
"Maria, dear, what's the matter, don't you love me any more?"
"Get out!"
She yelled the words at Arlene. She felt her bra cutting hard savage lines into her ribs, and cold sweat running down under her tight panty band. She had to get rid of that woman. She couldn't stand it any longer. She was being destroyed.
"Please, get out!"
Arlene leaned over slightly, then pushed back from the counter, as if she were trying to stand up, but Jim grabbed her and held her down. Maria watched green iridescent silk sparkle and tense along Arlene's hips as if the material would burst.
"Maria, please, I want to talk to you-real quiet-like."
"No, damn you! You destroyed everything I ever wanted, ever loved, ever had. Get out of here... please, get out of here."
Maria couldn't stand watching Arlene let herself down so slowly. It hurt, especially when Arlene picked up her coffee cup and rubbed its white clean edge as she had always done. She did it deliberately, as if she meant her act to be another slap in Maria's face, and then took quick small sips.
"Good coffee, Maria. But not like we used to make the stuff, is it? Remember our private special, secret recipe for long nights? Remember?"
Maria wanted to say she remembered nothing, that she had forgotten everything, but she couldn't. She remembered too much. There was nothing about Arlene Harte that she had ever forgotten. How could she forget? How?
"Remember, once, how we gave some to old John Arthur, back in Vermont?"
"Please, go now - please!"
"But Maria, it was such a joke, wasn't it?" Then, as if machining steel parts on a very expensive lathe, Arlene lowered her cup, settled it slowly into her saucer. The cup made no sound. "Come on, Maria, come on, take my hand!"
"Maria, don't do it!"