Dolores Claiborne - Stephen King [66]
Dolores! she says. Dolores Claiborne! It never occurred to me until a lot later that she'd called me by my maiden name, even though Joe was still alive n well that morning, and she never had before. When it did occur to me I shivered all over, the way you're s'posed to do when a goose walks acrost the place where you'll be buried someday.
Mornin, Vera, I said back. I'm sorry the day's so gray.
She glanced up at the sky, which was hung with low, humid summer clouds, then smiled. The sun will be out by three o'clock, she says.
You make it sound like you put in a work-order for it, I says.
I was only teasin, accourse, but she gave me a serious little nod and said, Yes-that's just what I did. Now run into the kitchen, Dolores, and see why that stupid caterer hasn't brought out a fresh pot of coffee yet.
I set out to do as she ast, but before I got more'n four steps toward the kitchen door, she called after me just like she'd done two days before, when she told me that sometimes a woman has to be a bitch to survive. I turned around with the idear in my head that she was gonna tell me that same thing all over again. She didn't though. She was standin there in her pretty red-n-white tent-dress, with her hands on her hips n that hosstail lyin over one shoulder, lookin not a year over twenty-one in that white mornin light.
Sunshine by three, Dolores! she says. See if I'm not right!
The buffet was over by eleven, and me n the girls had the kitchen to ourselves by noon, the caterer and his people havin moved on down to the Island Princess to start gettin ready for Act Two. Vera herself left fairly late, around twelve-fifteen, drivin the last three or four of her comp'ny down to the dock herself in the old Ford Ranch Wagon she kep on the island. I stuck with the warshin-up until one o'clock or so, then told Gail Lavesque, who was more or less my second in command that day, that I felt a little headachey n sick to my stomach, and I was gonna go on home now that the worst of the mess was ridded up. On my way out, Karen Jolander gave me a hug and thanked me. She was cryin again, too. I swan to goodness, that girl never stopped leakin around the eyes all the years I knew her.
I don't know who's been talkin to you, Karen, I said, but you don't have nothing to thank me for-I didn't do a single solitary thing.
No one's said a word to me, she says, but I know it was you, Missus St George. No one else'd dare speak up to the old dragon.
I gave her a kiss on the cheek n told her I thought she wouldn't have nothing to worry about as long as she didn't drop any more plates. Then I set out for home.
I remember everythin that happened, Andy-everythin-but from the time I stepped off Vera's driveway and onto Center Drive, it's like rememberin things that've happened in the brightest, most real-seemin dream you've ever had in your life. I kep thinkin I'm goin home to kill my husband, I'm goin home to kill my husband, like I could pound it into my head the way you'd pound a nail into some thick wood like teak or mahogany, if I only kept at it long enough. But lookin back on it, I guess it was in my head all the time. It was my heart that couldn't understand.
Although it was only one-fifteen or so when I got to the village and the start of the eclipse still over three hours away, the streets were so empty it was spooky. It made me think of that little town down in the southern part of the state where they say no one lives. Then I looked up at the roof of The Harborside, and that was spookier still. There must've been a hundred people or more up there already, strollin around n checkin the sky like farmers at plantin time. I looked downhill to the dock and seen the Princess there, her gangplank down and the auto deck full of people instead of cars. They was walkin around with drinks in their hands, havin themselves a big open-air cocktail-party. The dock itself was crammed with people, and there musta been five hundred small boats-more'n I'd ever seen out there at one time anyway-on the reach already, anchored and waitin.