The Night Strangers - Chris Bohjalian [104]
“Shall we talk here?” she asks.
You consider the other possibilities, including the living room with the wet American Girl dolls. You would love to show her those. But she would presume they are damp for any one of a variety of reasons, none of which begin and end with the water from Lake Champlain and a dead girl named Ashley.
“Here is good,” you agree, and you offer her coffee. Which she declines. She tells you she is tea drinker, though she doesn’t want a cup right now, thank you very much, and you find yourself smiling. Of course she drinks tea. Her name is Valerian. And valerian is a plant or a flower or an herb of some kind. Valerian root. A sedative, maybe. A muscle relaxant. You wonder how much you should trust her, whether your misgivings are grounded in anything tangible. But then you ask yourself whether tangibility really matters. Is Ashley Stearns tangible? Or Ethan? No, not at all. But their pain is as real as yours. Ethan’s anger (and grief) is as profound as any father’s.
Valerian slides onto the deacon’s bench, and you sit in one of the ladder-back chairs.
Despite the reality that Valerian has come to see you for the businesslike purpose of trying to assess your mental health—to offer your wife a second opinion—she has brought with her four chocolate cupcakes. She unveiled them from inside the large shoulder bag that seems to double as both her pocketbook and her attaché case. Your regular psychiatrist here in New Hampshire, Michael Richmond, only offers you coffee and water when you see him. Same with the therapist you saw back in Pennsylvania.
“I was baking for my daughter’s class,” Valerian is saying. “Today’s her seventh birthday, and so I brought the class cupcakes. Still, I think I went a little cupcake crazy. I had extras. But how is it possible to make cupcakes from a box and wind up with extras? I actually needed to find an extra cupcake tin. That’s what I mean by cupcake crazy.”
Given the reason why the two of you are meeting, you have the sense that she wanted to wink when she said cupcake crazy. But she restrained herself. Instead she sighs. “Please, have one. You must. I’m starving, and there is nothing more pathetic than eating cupcakes alone. Now that is sad.”
“Okay. I never had lunch.”
“God, me, too,” she says. “What’s that bumper sticker? ‘Life is short. Eat dessert first.’ ” And then she takes one of the cupcakes and peels off the paper and takes a very healthy bite for a woman who otherwise seems so petite. She licks a bit of chocolate icing off the tip of her index finger. Her nail polish is the red of a maple leaf in early October.
You reach for the one nearest you and take a bite, too. It’s delicious, much tastier than most of Anise’s confections.
“Really, thank you for letting me dive into one,” she says. “I didn’t plan on attacking the cupcakes like this, but I realized when I got here that I was completely, totally famished. And let’s face it: Buttercream frosting is irresistible—if I say so myself.”
Cupcake crazy. Attacking the cupcakes like this. There is something almost taunting about her terminology. As if she knows what you have been asked to do by the dead. But then again, perhaps you are reading more into her remarks than really is there. Maybe she is merely linguistically clumsy. Isn’t it possible you are hearing things in this conversation that she honestly hadn’t meant as gibes? You recall Reseda’s offhand remark about the geese when you were in her office last week. The truth is, Valerian really did attack that cupcake just now. She certainly seemed ravenous.
“I wish I had brought some of the ones I decorated for the kids. Sprinkles and jimmies and faces made out of M&M’s. Trust me: Those bad boys were seriously tricked out.”
“I’ll bet they were. I’ve seen my share of cupcakes at elementary school birthday parties.”
“With twins? I’ll bet you have.”
The two of you then finish your cupcakes in a strangely companionable silence.