Janie drives her new car on her first day back to work. She gives sponge baths and empties a dozen bedpans. For entertainment, she sings a mournful song from Les Misérables, changing the words to
“Empty pans and empty bladders…” Miss Stubin, a schoolteacher who taught for forty-seven years before she retired, laughs for the first time in weeks. Janie makes a mental note to bring in a new book to read to Miss Stubin.
Miss Stubin never has visitors.
And she’s blind.
That just might be why she’s Janie’s favorite.
July 4, 2005, 10:15 p.m.
Three Heather Home residents in their wheelchairs, and Janie, in an orange plastic bucket chair, sit in the dark nursing home parking lot. Waiting. Slapping mosquitoes. The fireworks are about to begin at Selby Park, a few blocks away.
Miss Stubin is one of the residents, her gnarled hands curled in her lap, I.V. drip hanging from a stand next to her wheelchair. All of a sudden, she cocks her head and smiles wistfully. “Here they come,” she says.
A moment later, the sky explodes in color.
Janie describes each one in detail to Miss Stubin.
A green sparkly porcupine, she says.
Sparks rising from a magician’s wand.
A perfect circle of white light, which fades into a puddle and dries up. After a brilliant burst of purple, Janie jumps up. “Don’t go anywhere, you three—I’ll be right back.” She runs inside to the therapy room, grabs a plastic tub, and runs back out.
“Here,” she says breathlessly, taking Miss Stubin’s hand and carefully, gently, stretching out her curled fingers. She puts a Koosh Ball in the old woman’s hands.
“That last one looked just like this.”
Miss Stubin’s face lights up. “I think that’s my favorite,” she says. August 2, 2005, 11:11 p.m.
Janie leaves Heather Home and drives the four miles to her house. It’s wicked hot out, and she chides Ethel mildly for not having air-conditioning. She rolls the windows down, loving the feeling of the hot wind on her face.
11:18 p.m.
She stops at a stop sign on Waverly Road, not far from home, and proceeds through the intersection. 11:19 p.m.
And then she is in a strange house. In a dirty kitchen. A huge, young monster-man with knives for fingers approaches.
Janie, blind to the road, stomps on the brake and flips the gearshift into neutral. She reaches to find the emergency brake and pulls, before she becomes paralyzed. This is a strong one.
He pulls a vinyl-seated chair across the kitchen floor, picks it up, and whirls it around above his head.
But it isn’t the emergency brake. It’s the hood release.
And then he lets go of the chair. It sails toward Janie, clipping the ceiling fan.
Janie doesn’t know it’s the hood.
She looks around frantically to see what it will hit. Or who.
Janie is numb. Her foot slides off the brake pedal.
Her car rolls off the road.
Slowly.
But there is no one else. No one else but the monster-man with finger-knives, and Janie. Until the door opens, and a middle-aged man appears. He walks through Janie. The chair, sailing in slow motion, grows knives from its legs.
The car misses a mailbox.
It strikes the middle-aged man in the chest and head. His head is sliced clean off and it rolls around on the floor in a circle.
The car comes to rest in a shallow drainage ditch in the front yard of a tiny, unkempt house.
Janie stares at the large young man with knives for fingers. He walks to the dead man’s head and kicks it like a soccer ball. It crashes loudly through the window and there is a blinding flash of light—
11:31 p.m.
Janie groans and opens her eyes. Her head is against the steering wheel. She has a cut on her lip that is bleeding. And Ethel is decidedly not level. When she can see clearly, she looks out the windows, and when she can move again, she eases her way out her door. She walks around the car, sees that it is not injured, and that she is not stuck. She shuts the hood gently, gets into the car, and backs up slowly. When she arrives in her driveway, she breathes a sigh of relief, and then memorizes the exact location of the parking brake by feel. She sees the keys dangling from the ignition. Duh, she thinks.
Next time, she will be ready.
Maybe she should have bought an automatic.
She hopes to God it doesn’t happen on a highway.
12:46 a.m.
Janie lies awake in bed. Scared.
In the back of her mind, she hears the distinct sound of knives sharpening. The more she tries not to think about whose dream that might have been, the more she thinks about it. She can never drive that street again.
She wonders if she will end up like her friend Miss Stubin from the nursing home, all alone. Or dead in a car crash, because of this stupid dream curse. August 25, 2005
Carrie brings in the mail to Janie’s. Janie is wearing a T-shirt and boxer shorts. It’s hot and humid.
“Schedules are here,” Carrie says. “Senior year, baby! This is it!”
Excitedly, they open their schedules together. They lay them side-by-side on the coffee table and compare.
Their facial expressions go from excitement, to disappointment, and then excitement again.
“So, first period English and fifth period study hall. That’s not terrible,” Janie says.
“And we have the same lunch,” Carrie says. “Let me see what Melinda has. I’ll be right back.” Carrie gets up to leave.
“You can call her from here, you know,” Janie says, rolling her eyes.