Needful Things - Stephen King [263]
There had been one car in the parking lot of the little church complex when Myrtle, who was on foot, arrived. The parish hall itself had been empty, though. She peeked over the sign taped to the window set in the top half of the door to make sure, then read the sign.
DAUGHTERS OF ISABELLA MEET TUESDAY AT 7 P.M.
HELP US PLAN "CASINO NITE"!
Myrtle slipped inside. To her left was a stack of brightly painted compartments standing against the wall-this was where the daycare children kept their lunches and where the Sunday School children kept their various drawings and work projects. Myrtle had been told to put her item into one of these compartments, and she did so. It just fit. At the front of the room was the Chairwoman's table, with an American flag on the left and a banner depicting the Infant of Prague on the right. The table was already set up for the evening meeting, with pens, pencils, Casino Nite sign-up sheets, and, in the middle, the Chairwoman's agenda. Myrtle had put the envelope Mr.
Gaunt had given her under this sheet so Betsy Vigue, this year's Daughters of Isabella Activities Chairwoman, would see it as soon as she picked up her agenda.
READ THIS RIGHT AWAY YOU POPE WHORE
was typed across the front of the envelope in capital letters.
Heart bumping rapidly in her chest, her blood-pressure somewhere over the moon, Myrtle had tiptoed out of the Daughters of Isabella Hall. She paused for a moment outside, hand pressed above her ample bosom, trying to catch her breath.
And saw someone hurrying out of the Knights of Columbus Hall beyond the church.
It wasjune Gavineaux. She looked as scared and guilty as Myrtle felt. She raced down the wooden steps to the parking lot so fast she almost fell and then walked rapidly toward that single parked car, low heels tip-tapping briskly on the hot-top.
She looked up, saw Myrtle, and paled. Then she looked more closely at Myrtle's face and understood.
"You too?" she asked in a low voice. A strange grin, both jolly and nauseated, rose on her face. It was the expression of a normally well-behaved child who has, for reasons she does not understand herself, put a mouse in her favorite teacher's desk drawer.
Myrtle felt an answering grin of exactly the same type rise on her own face. Yet she tried to dissemble. "Mercy's sake! I don't know what you're talking about!"
"Yes you do." June had looked around quickly, but the two women had this corner of that strange afternoon to themselves.
"Mr. Gaunt."
Myrtle nodded and felt her cheeks heat in a fierce, unaccustomed blush.
"What did you get?" June asked.
"A doll. What did you get?"
"A vase. The most beautiful cloisonne vase you ever saw."
"What did you do?"
Smiling slyly, June countered: "What did you do?"
"Never mind." Myrtle looked back toward the Daughters of Isabella Hall and then sniffed. "It doesn't matter anyway. They're only Catholics."
"That's right," June (who was a lapsed Catholic herself) replied.
Then she had gone to her car. Myrtle had not asked for a ride and June Gavineaux did not offer one. Myrtle had walked rapidly out of the parking lot. She had not looked up when June shot by her in her white Saturn. All Myrtle had wanted was to go home, take a nap while she cuddled her lovely doll, and forget what she had done.
That, she was now discovering, was not going to be as easy as she had hoped.
7
WHHHHHHOOOOOOO Buster planted his palm on the horn and held it down. The blare rang and blasted in his ears. Where in hell's name was that bitch?
At last the door between the garage and the kitchen opened.
Myrtle poked her head through. Her eyes were large and frightened.
"Well, finally," Buster said, letting go of the horn. "I thought you'd died on the john."
"Danforth? What's wrong?"
"Nothing. Things are better than they've been for two years. I just need a little help, that's all."
Myrtle didn't move.
"Woman, get your fat ass over here!"
She didn't want to go-he scared her-but the habit was old and deep and hard to break. She came around to where he stood in the wedge of space