Duma Key - Stephen King

She squealed so loudly it hurt my ear, but I didn't take the telephone away. It had been a long time since I'd said or done anything to make Linnie Freemantle squeal like that. "Thank you, Daddy - that's great!"

"It'll be nice to meet Ric. Maybe I'll steal his beret. I'm an artist now, after all."

"I'll tell him you said that." Her voice changed. "Have you talked to Ilse yet?"

"No, why?"

"When you do, don't say anything about Ric coming, okay? Let me do that."

"I hadn't planned to."

"Because she and Carson... she said she told you about him..."

"She did."

"Well, I'm pretty sure there's a problem there. Illy says she's 'thinking things over.' That's a direct quote. Ric's not surprised. He says you should never trust a person who prays in public. All I know is she sounds a lot more grown up than my baby sister used to."

Same goes for you, Lin, I thought. I had a momentary image of how she'd looked at seven, when she'd been so sick Pam and I both thought she might die on us, although we'd never said so aloud. Back then Melinda had been all big dark eyes, pale cheeks, and lank hair. Once I remember thinking Skull on a stick and hating myself for the thought. And hating myself more for knowing, in the deep reaches of my heart, that if one of them had to sicken that way, I was glad it had been her. I always tried to believe that I loved both my daughters with the same weight and intensity, but it wasn't true. Maybe it is for some parents - I think it was for Pam - but it never was for me. And did Melinda know?

Of course she did.

"Are you taking care of yourself?" I asked her.

"Yes, Daddy." I could almost see her rolling her eyes.

"Continue to do so. And get here safe."

"Daddy?" A pause. "I love you."

I smiled. "How many bunches?"

"A million and one for under your pillow," she said, as if humoring a child. That was all right. I sat there for a little while, looking out at the water, rubbing absently at my eyes, then made what I hoped would be the day's last call.

vii

It was noon by then, and I didn't really expect to get her; I thought she'd be out eating lunch with friends. Only like Pam, she answered on the first ring. Her hello was oddly cautious, and I had a sudden clear intuition: she thought I was Carson Jones, calling either to beg for another chance or to explain. To explain yet again. That was a hunch I never verified, but then, I never had to. Some things you simply know are true.

"Hey, If- So-Girl, whatcha doon?"

Her voice brightened immediately. "Daddy!"

"How are you, hon?"

"I'm fine, Daddy, but not as fine as you - did I tell you they were good? I mean, did I tell you, or what?"

"You told me," I said, grinning in spite of myself. She might have sounded older to Lin, but after that first tentative hello, she sounded to me like the same old Illy, bubbling over like a Coke float.

"Mom said you were dragging your feet, but she was going to team up with this friend you made down there and get you cranking. I loved it! She sounded just like the old days!" She paused to draw breath, and when she spoke again, she didn't sound so giddy. "Well... not quite, but it'll do."

"Know what you mean, jellybean."

"Daddy, you're so amazing. This is a comeback and a half."

"How much is all this sugar going to cost me?"

" Millions, " she said, and laughed.

"Still planning to drop in on The Hummingbirds tour?" I tried to sound just interested. Not particularly concerned with my almost-twenty-year-old daughter's love life.

"No," she said, "I think that's off." Only five words, and little ones at that, but in those five words I heard the different, older Illy, one who might in the not-so-distant future be at home in a business suit and pantyhose and pumps with practical three-quarter heels, who might wear her hair tied back at the nape of her neck during the day and perhaps carry a briefcase down airport concourses instead of wearing a Gap-sack on her back. Not an If-So-Girl any longer; you could strike any if from this vision. The girl as well.

"The whole thing, or-"

"That remains to be seen."

"I don't mean to pry, honey. It's just that enquiring Dads-"

" - want to know, of course they do, but I can't help you this time. All I know right now is that I still love him - or at least I think I do - and I miss him, but he's got to make a choice."

At this point, Pam would have asked Between you and the girl he's been singing with? What I asked was, "Are you eating?"

She burst into peals of merry laughter.

"Answer the question, Illy."

"Like a damn pig!"

"Then why aren't you out to lunch now?"

"A bunch of us are going to have a picnic in the park, that's why. Complete with anthro study notes and Frisbee. I'm bringing the cheese and French bread. And I'm late."

"Okay. As long as you're eating and not brooding in your tent."

"Eating well, brooding moderately." Her voice changed again, became the adult one. The abrupt switches back and forth were disconcerting. "Sometimes I lie awake a little, and then I think of you down there. Do you lie awake?"

"Sometimes. Not as much now."

"Daddy, was marrying Mom a mistake you made? That she made? Or was it just an accident?"

"It wasn't an accident and it wasn't a mistake. Twenty-four good years, two fine daughters, and we're still talking. It wasn't a mistake, Illy."

"You wouldn't change it?"

People kept asking me that question. "No."

"If you could go back... would you?"

I paused, but not long. Sometimes there's no time to decide what's the best answer. Sometimes you can only give the true answer. "No, honey."

"Okay. But I miss you, Dad."

"I miss you, too."

"Sometimes I miss the old times, too. When things were less complicated." She paused. I could have spoken - wanted to - but kept silent. Sometimes silence is best. "Dad, do people ever deserve second chances?"

I thought of my own second chance. How I had survived an accident that should have killed me. And I was doing more than just hanging out, it seemed. I felt a rush of gratitude. "All the time."

"Thanks, Daddy. I can't wait to see you."

"Back atcha. You'll get an official invitation soon."

"Okay. I really have to go. Love you."

"Love you, too."

I sat for a moment with the phone at my ear after she hung up, listening to the nothing. "Do the day and let the day do you," I said. Then the dial tone kicked in, and I decided I had one more call to make, after all.

viii

This time when Alice Aucoin came to the phone, she sounded a lot more lively and a lot less cautious. I thought that was a nice change.

"Alice, we never talked about a name for the show," I said.

"I was sort of assuming you meant to call it 'Roses Grow from Shells,'" she said. "That's good. Very evocative."

"It is," I said, looking out to the Florida room and the Gulf beyond. The water was a brilliant blue-white plate; I had to squint against the glare. "But it's not quite right."

"You have one you like better, I take it?"

"Yes, I think so. I want to call it 'The View from Duma.' What do you think?"

Her response was immediate. "I think it sings." So did I.

ix

I had sweat through my LOSE IT IN THE VIRGIN ISLANDS tee-shirt in spite of Big Pink's efficient air conditioning, and I was more exhausted than a brisk walk to El Palacio and back left me these days. My ear felt hot and throbby from the telephone. I felt uneasy about Ilse - the way parents are always uneasy about the problems of their children, I suppose, once they're too old to be called home when it starts to get dark and the baths are being drawn - but I also felt satisfied with the work I'd put in, the way I used to feel after a good day on a hard construction job.

I didn't feel particularly hungry, but I made myself slop a few tablespoons of tuna salad onto a lettuce leaf and washed it down with a glass of milk. Whole milk - bad for the heart, good for the bones. I guess that one's a wash, Pam would have said. I turned on the kitchen TV and learned that Candy Brown's wife was suing the City of Sarasota over her husband's death, claiming negligence. Good luck on that one, sweetheart, I thought. The local meteorologist said the hurricane season might start earlier than ever. And the Devil Rays had gotten their low-rent asses kicked by the Red Sox in an exhibition game - welcome to baseball reality, boys.

I considered dessert (I had Jell-O Pudding, sometimes known as The Last Resort of the Single Man), then just put my plate in the sink and limped off to the bedroom for a nap. I considered setting the alarm, then didn't bother; I'd probably only doze. Even if I actually slept, the light would wake me up in an hour or so, when it got over to the western side of the house and came angling in the bedroom window.

So thinking, I lay down and slept until six o'clock that evening.

x

There was no question of supper; I didn't even consider it. Below me the shells were whispering paint, paint.

I went upstairs to Little Pink like a man in a dream, wearing only my undershorts. I turned on The Bone, set Girl and Ship No. 7 against the wall, and put a fresh canvas - not as big as the one I'd used for Wireman Looks West, but big - on my easel. My missing arm was itching, but this no longer bothered me the way it had at first; the truth was, I'd almost come to look forward to it.

Shark Puppy was on the radio: "Dig." Excellent song. Excellent lyrics. Life is more than love and pleasure.

I remember clearly how the whole world seemed to be waiting for me to begin - that was how much power I felt running through me while the guitars screamed and the shells murmured.

I came here to dig for treasure.

Treasure, yes. Loot.

I painted until the sun was gone and the moon cast its bitter rind of white light over the water and after that was gone, too.

And the next night.

And the next.

And the next.

Girl and Ship No. 8.

If you want to play you gotta pay.

I unbottled.

xi

The sight of Dario in a suit and a tie, with his lush hair tamed and combed straight back from his forehead, scared me even more than the murmuring audience that filled Geldbart Auditorium, where the lights had just been turned down to half... except for the spotlight shining down on the lectern standing at center stage, that was. The fact that Dario himself was nervous - going to the podium he had nearly dropped his note-cards - scared me even worse.

"Good evening, my name is Dario Nannuzzi," he said. "I am cocurator, and chief buyer at the Scoto Gallery on Palm Avenue. More importantly, I have been a part of the Sarasota art community for thirty years, and I hope you will excuse my brief descent into what some might call Bobbittry when I say there is no finer art community in America."

This brought enthusiastic applause from an audience which - as Wireman said later - might know the difference between Monet and Manet, but apparently didn't have a clue that there was a difference between George Babbitt and John Bobbitt. Standing in the wings, suffering through that purgatory only frightened main speakers experience as their introducers wind their slow and peristaltic courses, I hardly noticed.

Dario shifted his top file-card to the bottom, once again nearly dropped the whole stack, recovered, and looked out at his audience again. "I hardly know where to begin, but to my relief I need say very little, for true talent seems to blaze up from nowhere, and serves as its own introduction."

That said, he proceeded to introduce me for the next ten minutes as I stood in the wings with my one lousy page of notes clutched in my remaining hand. Names went past like floats in a parade. A few, like Edward Hopper and Salvador Dal , I knew. Others, like Yves Tanguy and Kay Sage, I didn't. Each unknown name made me feel more of an impostor. The fear I felt was no longer mental; it clamped a deep and stinking hold in my bowels. I felt like I needed to pass gas, but I was afraid I might load my pants instead. And that wasn't the worst. Every word I had prepared had gone out of my mind except for the very first line, which was hideously appropriate: My name is Edgar Freemantle, and I have no idea how I wound up here. It was supposed to elicit a chuckle. It wouldn't, I knew that now, but at least it was true.

While Dario droned on - Joan Mir this, Breton's Surrealist Manifesto that - a terrified ex-contractor stood with his pathetic page of notes clutched in his cold fist. My tongue was a dead slug that might croak but would speak no coherent word, not to two hundred art mavens, many of whom held advanced degrees, some of whom were motherfucking professors. Worst of all was my brain. It was a dry socket waiting to be filled with pointless, flailing anger: the words might not come, but the rage was always on tap.

"Enough!" Dario cried cheerily, striking fresh terror into my pounding heart and sending a cramp rolling through my miserable basement regions - terror above, barely held-in shit below. What a lovely combination. "It has been fifteen years since the Scoto added a new artist to its crowded spring calendar, and we have never introduced one in whom there has been greater interest. I think the slides you are about to see and the talk you are about to hear will explain our interest and excitement."

He paused dramatically. I felt a poison dew of sweat spring out on my brow and wiped it off. The arm that I lifted seemed to weigh fifty pounds.

"Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Edgar Freemantle, lately of Minneapolis-St. Paul, now of Duma Key."

They applauded. It sounded like an artillery barrage going off. I commanded myself to run away. I commanded myself to faint. I did neither. Like a man in a dream - but not a good one - I walked onstage. Everything seemed to be happening slowly. I saw that every seat was taken but no seat was taken because they were on their feet, they were giving me a standing O. High above me, on the domed ceiling, angels flew in airy disregard of the earthly matters below, and how I wished I was one of them. Dario stood beside the podium, hand outstretched. It was the wrong one; in his own nervousness he had extended his right, and so my return handshake was awkward and bass-ackwards. My notes were crumpled briefly between our palms, then tore. Look what you did, you asshole, I thought - and for one terrible moment I was afraid I'd said it aloud for the mike to pick up and broadcast all over the room. I was aware of how bright the spotlight was as Dario left me there on my lonely perch. I was aware of the microphone on its flexible chrome rod, and thinking it looked like a cobra rising out of a snake-charmer's basket. I was aware of bright points of light shining on that chrome, and on the rim of the water glass, and on the neck of the Evian bottle next to the water glass. I was aware that the applause was starting to taper off; some of the people were resuming their seats. Soon an expectant silence would replace the applause. They would wait for me to begin. Only I had nothing to say. Even my opening line had left my head. They would wait and the silence would stretch out. There would be a few nervous coughs, and then the murmuring would start. Because they were assholes. Just a bunch of lookie-loo assholes with rubber necks. And if I managed anything, it would be an angry torrent of words that would sound like the outburst of a man suffering from Tourette's.