CHAPTER 24

“Well, Doug Martin said. He dropped his hands and took a step backward so that their bodies were no longer touching. "Who in hell is this Paul? He must have made quite an impression on you."

She shook her head, staring at him.

"I'm sorry, kid. I didn't mean to scare you. I wasn't going to attack you or anything—what kind of a guy do you think I am, for Christ's sake? Haven't you ever been kissed before?"

"Yes," Kate said. Her lips felt stiff, the words came out in a thin whisper. "It's just—you look like somebody I used to know."

He looked at her, puzzled and worried. Her face was blank, her pupils pinpointed. Trauma, he thought. I don't know what the hell goes on around here, but something has scared the life out of her. He looked around the quiet, brightly lighted kitchen, finding nothing to account for the violence of her reaction.

"Look," he said carefully, "I'm not going to hurt you. You better come in the other room and sit down." Or lie down, he thought, but had enough sense not to say so—she'd think he was trying to rape her for sure. He forced himself to smile, his arms hanging at his sides. "I won't touch you, I promise. Can I get you an aspirin or something?"

She shook her head.

"You want me to go home? I will, only I don't think you're in any shape to be alone."

"Please go away."

"Shall I call a girl friend or somebody to come and sit with you?"

"Just go."

"Okay. But will you call me if there's anything I can do?"

She nodded. Her entire body was filled with a screaming need to get him out of there—to lock the door and shut herself away from everything. She said, "Please go away."

She stood in the doorway and watched him leave; even raised a slack hand to answer his wave when he turned at the bend of the stairs. Oh, go, go, be gone!

She went back into the apartment, locked and chain-bolted the door, and sat down on the edge of the bed with her head bent.

Maybe it's not true, she thought. Maybe it was all a dream. Or maybe I've gone crazy.

But she knew it was true. The details were as sharp and bright as if it had just happened, and now the rest of it was coming back. The part that she never remembered because she always woke too soon.

She had lain awake most of that night, falling into a heavy black sleep near morning but waking early because it hurt so badly when she tried to turn over. She got up and went downstairs for breakfast. What else could she do? Everything in the house looked the same. Things should have changed—it wasn't the same world to which she'd waked the day before. But there was the same old oilcloth on the kitchen table, with faded bunches of blue grapes on it. There was Ma stooped over the stove making pancakes, bent a little to ease the rheumatism in her right hip. How could everything go on looking the same when so much had happened to her?