Ariel

Twenty-four

Roberta’s funeral was held Monday afternoon. Erskine was there, of course, accompanied this time by his parents, but he and Ariel didn’t get a chance to talk. Tuesday he came to the house but there were other people around. Ariel didn’t really talk to anyone else either, although she participated in various conversations. She got through them with her mind turned to another channel.

She didn’t even write anything in her diary. The night of the funeral she read through several earlier entries before putting the book away in a drawer.

Then finally Erskine came over Thursday after school. David was home, reading a book and smoking his pipes, and he didn’t object when she asked if she and Erskine could go upstairs.

When they were in her room with the door closed they were nervous with each other at first. Erskine kept walking around, picking things up and putting them down again, and she wished he would just sit down.

“Well,” he said. “How long’ll you be out of school?”

“I’ll be back Monday.”

“So you wind up missing a week, huh? Listen, don’t sweat it. You didn’t miss anything so far.”

“I wasn’t worried.”

“They never teach anything anyway.”

“I know.”

“Tashman’s giving us a test next week. And I can get your homework assignments tomorrow so you can do them over the weekend if you want.”

“Thanks.”

“If you don’t feel like it they won’t hassle you. Veronica was in school today and they told her don’t worry about making up the work she missed.”

“How is she?”

He shrugged. “She looks all right. I don’t know if she’s really sick or not. I wish I knew one way or the other. It’s hard to have sex fantasies about someone when you think they might be dying.”

“That’s really creepy.”

“Well, I feel creepy today,” he said. “I don’t know what’s wrong. Why don’t you play the flute or something?”

“I can’t.”

“How come?”

“Not until Monday. It was the same thing when Caleb died. David says it’s a way of showing respect. I didn’t understand it about Caleb because I used to play for him all the time, but she hated my flute so I guess it makes sense.”

“I guess.”

“Even if it doesn’t, I don’t want to argue with him. We had this long conversation the other night. I think maybe he was drunk. Does your father get drunk?”

“Never.”

“David was talking louder than usual, plus he would be cheerful one minute and sad the next. It was a little weird. He talked about Roberta and he talked about God’s will, and how maybe everything was for the best. And how it’s just the two of us now and we have to take care of each other.”

“Does that mean you get stuck with all the housework?”

“We’re going to get a cleaning woman. Roberta used to have help with the heavy cleaning once a week but we’ll have someone come in every day. At least that’s what he said. I guess she’ll do the cooking, too. We haven’t had to cook anything so far. People brought tons of stuff to the house after the funeral. Plus there’s all the groceries Roberta bought the day she killed herself.”

“Oh.”

“Anyway, I don’t feel like playing music. I haven’t felt like it since she died.”

“What do you feel like doing?”

“I don’t know.”

“Do you figure they really loved each other?”

“David and Roberta? No.” She reconsidered. “He told me they did. He also said she loved me, and I know she didn’t. Or maybe she did some of the time. When she wasn’t crazy.”

“Why did she kill herself?”

“I don’t know. Why did the Funeral Game man kill his family and himself? Why do people do things like that? Because she was crazy, I guess. It was really weird.”

“What happened exactly?”

“I’ll tell you if you give me a chance. I was up in my room and I heard her come in with the groceries. And then the next thing I knew the teakettle was whistling and I came downstairs because it just went on whistling and didn’t stop. I had the tape recorder going and the teakettle wasn’t blending with it too beautifully, and I thought maybe she put the kettle on and went out again and forgot it.”

“So?”

“So I went to the kitchen and there she is standing like a statue with her back to me. And the teakettle’s screaming away like mad and old Roberta’s standing there as if she’s frozen. I didn’t know what to do. It was crazy.”

“And?”

“And just as I was ready to go turn off the kettle myself, she turned around. Except it was more like a lion or a panther springing... I mean, turning around all in one motion. And here comes the worst part. She had a knife in her hand.”

“Come on.”

“I’m not kidding. A carving knife with a blade this long.”

“Sure, and the next thing you knew she cut your head off with it. Come on, Jardell.”

“That’s what I thought she was going to do. I swear I did. That’s how she was holding it. And you never saw anything in your life like the look on her face. She was completely crazed.”

“Honest?”

“No, I’m making the whole thing up. Of course it’s honest.”

“We always talked about crazy Roberta but I never knew she was really that far gone.”

“Nobody knew. I couldn’t believe it when I saw her like that. I thought she was going to kill me.”

“What did she do?”

“She just started screaming. That’s all. Just opened her mouth and screamed her head off.”

“What did you do?”

“What do you think? I got out of there. I just grabbed my coat and ran.”

“Out of the house.”

“I would have run out of the state if I knew the way. I just took off like a maniac. I got all the way over to your house before I remembered you weren’t home.”

“Where was I? Oh, right. Visiting Aunt Claire.”

“Then I didn’t know what to do. I wanted to go to the movies but I didn’t have any money with me so I couldn’t. I wound up at the library. I couldn’t find anything very interesting but each time I started to go home I thought of Roberta and went looking for another book.”

“And while you were at the library—”

“She was killing herself.”

“How did she do it, exactly?”

“She had these tranquilizers and I guess she took a lot of them first. Then she closed herself up in the kitchen and shut the door and everything and turned the gas on.”

“You mean the stove?”

She nodded. “She shut off all the pilot lights and then turned on the stove and the oven. And I think she put her head in the oven, or maybe I’m mixing it up with Sylvia Plath.”

“The one who wrote those poems named Ariel? I’ll have to get that book one of these days.”

“Don’t bother.”

“Well, just to see what it’s like. I thought she killed herself in her car.”

“No, she put her head in the oven.”

“Are you sure? I read something about her. I thought she sat in her car in the garage with the motor running.”

Ariel looked at him, then at the portrait on the wall. “I’m pretty sure it was the oven,” she said. “Anyway, we don’t have a garage.”

He stared hard at her, his eyes protruding behind his glasses. Then he said, “Who found her? David?”

“Uh-huh. They’d taken her away by the time I got home.”

“Jesus. Ariel? How do you feel about it?”

“Weird.”

“Yeah.”

“I don’t know how I feel about it, if you want to know. I suppose it’ll take me a week or so before I figure out how I really feel.”

“I know what you mean.”

“I mean, will I miss her? We didn’t get along very well but maybe I’ll wind up missing her all the same. How can I tell for sure?”

“You’ll have to wait and see.”

“That’s right.”

He studied her. “You’ve changed,” he said.

“How?”

“I don’t know exactly. You seem older.”

“Really?”

“You even look different. Your face.” He nodded at the portrait. “More like her.”

“You really think so?”

“Yeah... Ariel?”

“What?”

“You didn’t do it, did you?”

“Didn’t do what?”

His eyes drew away from hers. “You didn’t just happen to kill her, did you? Like in a dream?”

She stared at him.

“Just kidding,” he said.

“Oh, sure,” she said. “Sure, that’s just what I did. First I smothered Caleb in his sleep, never mind that I happened to love him, and then I took a car and ran over Graham, and then I fixed it so Veronica got leukemia—”

“Is that what she’s got?”

Her eyes flared. “I don’t know what she’s got. But whatever it is I gave it to her, right? And then I shot Debbie Channing and Greta Channing and his wife, I don’t remember her name—”

“Elaine.”

“I don’t care what her name was. Then I shot her, and then I put him in his car and shot him, and then I made Roberta take pills and put her head in the oven. What kind of a person do you think I am?”

“Ariel, I was kidding!”

“You’re supposed to be my friend. How could you say a thing like that?”

“I said I was kidding.”

“That’s no way to kid.”

“I’m sorry. Ariel? Don’t be mad.”

“I’m not mad.”

“Yes you are.”

“Only dogs get mad.”

“Well, don’t be angry.”

She didn’t say anything.

“Ariel?”

“I’m not angry,” she said. “It’s okay.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure.”

He reached for her hand. At first it lay lifeless in his. Then she returned his squeeze and both of them relaxed.

“Hey, Ariel?”

“What?”

“How do you make a dead baby float?”

“What?”

“I said, how do you make a dead baby float?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“It’s a riddle. How do you make—”

“A dead baby float. I don’t know.”

“You give up?”

“All right, I give up.”

“Well, it’s easy,” he said. “You take one dead baby, two scoops of vanilla ice cream, some chocolate syrup—”

“Gross,” she said.

“—and some soda water, and a maraschino cherry—”

“Utterly gross and disgusting,” she said, but then she started to giggle, and for the life of her she couldn’t stop.