Christine - Stephen King [134]
Another slash of pain up his back like cat's claws.
'I think we just talked about it,' he said.
'Oh.' A slight, warm pause. 'Good.'
'Leigh?'
'Umm.'
'There'll be more time now. I promise. All the time you want.' And thought: Because now, with Dennis in the hospital, you're all that's left, all that's left between me me and
'That's good,' Leigh said.
'I love you.'
'Goodbye, Arnie.'
Say it back! he wanted to shout suddenly. Say it back, I need you to say it back!
But there was only the click of the phone in his ear.
He sat behind Will's desk for a long time, head lowered, getting hold of himself. She didn't need to say it back every time he said it to her, did she? He didn't need reassurance that badly, did he? Did he?
Arnie got up and went to the door. She was coming out with him tomorrow, that was the important thing. They would do the Christmas shopping they had been planning on the day those shitters trashed Christine; they would walk and talk; they would have a good time. She would say she loved him.
'She'll say it,' he whispered, standing in the doorway, but halfway down the left-hand side of the garage Christine sat like a mute and stupid denial, her grille poking forward as if hunting something.
And the voice whispered out of his lower consciousness, the dark questioning voice: How did you hurt your back? How did you hurt your back? How did you hurt your back, Arnie?
It was a question he shrank from. He was afraid of the answer.
34 LEIGH AND CHRISTINE
My baby drove up in a brand-new Cadillac,
She said, 'Hey, come here, Daddy,
I ain't never comin back!'
Baby, baby, won't you hear my plea?
Come on, sugar, come on back to me!
She said, 'Balls to you, big daddy,
I ain't never comin back!'
- The Clash
It was a grey day, threatening snow, but Arnie was right on both counts - they had a good time and he wasn't weird. Mrs Cabot had been at home when Arnie got there, and her initial reception was cool. But it was a long time - perhaps twenty minutes - before Leigh came downstairs, wearing a caramel-coloured sweater that clung lovingly to her breasts and a new pair of cranberry-coloured slacks that clung lovingly to her hips. This inexplicable lateness in a girl who was almost always perfectly on time might have been on purpose. Arnie asked her later and Leigh denied it with an innocence that was perhaps just a little too wide-eyed, but in any case it served its purpose.
Arnie could be charming when he had to be, and he went to work on Mrs Cabot with a will. Before Leigh finally came bouncing downstairs, twisting her hair into a ponytail, Mrs Cabot had thawed. She had gotten Arnie a Pepsi-Cola and was listening raptly as he regaled her with tales of the chess club.
'It's the only civilized extra-curricular activity I've ever heard of,' she told Leigh, and smiled approvingly at Arnie.
'BORRRRR-ing,' Leigh trumpeted. She put an arm around Arnie's waist and smacked him loudly on the cheek.
'Leigh Cabot!'
'Sorry, Mums, but he looks cute in lipstick, doesn't he? Wait a minute, Arnie, I've got a Kleenex. Don't claw at it.' She dug in her purse for a tissue. Arnie looked at Mrs Cabot and rolled his eyes. Natalie Cabot put a hand to her mouth and giggled. The rapprochement between her and Arnie was complete.
Arnie and Leigh went to Baskin-Robbins, where an initial awkwardness, left over from the phone conversation of the night before, finally melted away. Arnie had had a vague fear that Christine would not run well, or that Leigh would find something nasty to say about her; she had never liked riding in his car. Both were needless worries. Christine ran like a fine Swiss watch, and the only things Leigh had to say about her rang of pleasure and amazement.
'I never would have believed it,' she said as they drove out of the ice-cream parlour's small parking lot and joined the flow of traffic beaded toward the Monroeville Mall. 'You must have worked like