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Authors: Dean Koontz
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farther side of the lint trap.”
“Wally,” Imogene said with some exasperation. “The man’s about to sit down to his dinner.”
“Sorry, Mr. C.”
“No problem. Nothing could turn me off carbonata.”
“It’s just curious,” Walter said, “how the smell came on so suddenly. One minute the laundry room is fine, and a minute later, it reeks.”
11
JOHN SAT AT THE HEAD OF THE DINING-ROOM TABLE, NICOLETTE to his right, Minnie to his left and boosted on a pillow. Naomi sat beside her little sister, Zachary across from Naomi.
For the first time, the sight of his family gathered in one place didn’t at once warm John but instead inspired a cold tightness in his chest, a greasy sliding sensation in his stomach. The dining room seemed too bright, although the lighting was the same as ever at dinner, and every window invited hostile observation. The stainless-steel flatware flanking his plate had the sinister gleam of surgical instruments. His wineglass was indeed glass, a potential source of jagged shards.
For a moment, this curious uneasiness threatened to disorient him—until he understood the cause of it. Together, the family was five targets clustered, therefore vulnerable to quick annihilation. Although he had no incontestable proof that any enemy waged war against him, he was thinking like a man embattled.
His hyperbolic suspicion embarrassed him, and more important, he recognized that if not controlled, it would cloud his judgment. Ifhe permitted his imagination to paint a gloss of evil on all things, he would provide camouflage for true evil. Besides, if you painted the devil on the walls often enough, you got the devil on the stairs, his footsteps approaching.
When John allowed his children to delight him, they soon lifted from him this pall of foreboding.
After grace, during the salad course, the primary subject discussed was the brilliant, the magnificent, the incomparable, the current that’s-who-I-want-to-be-when-I-grow-up, Louisa May Alcott, immortal author of
Little Women
, which Naomi had finished reading just that afternoon. She wanted to be Louisa May Alcott, and she wanted also to be Jo, the young writer in the story, but of course she wanted to be herself, embodying all the Alcott-Jo qualities while writing and living in her unique Naomi style.
Naomi seemed destined, as an adult, to appear on Broadway in the title role of a revival of
Peter Pan
. She contained both a tomboy who yearned for swashbuckling adventures and a perpetually breathless girl who saw romance and magic everywhere she looked. She wanted to know how to throw a perfect sinking curveball every bit as much as she wanted to know how to arrange roses to the best effect, and she believed both in Truth and in Tinker Bell. As likely to dance along a hallway as to run it, more likely to sing away a sadness than to sulk, she exhausted the possibilities of each new enthusiasm just as inevitably another one came along to captivate her.
As Walter whisked away the salad plates, Zachary said, “
Little Women
sounds like a giant bore. Why can’t you go nuts about vampire novels like every other dorky sixth-grade girl? Then we’d really have something worth talking about at the table.”
“I don’t find the living dead the least bit attractive,” Naomi said. “When I’m old enough to have a boyfriend, I don’t want one whodrinks my blood. Imagine his bad breath and what a mess his teeth would be. All these girls swooning over hunky vampires, what they really want is to give away their freedom, to be controlled and told what to do and not have to think—and never die, of course. It’s sick is what it is. I don’t want to be a forever-young living corpse, I want to be Louisa May Alcott.”
Minnie said, “It’s stupid how she has three names.”
“We all have three names,” Naomi said. “You’re Minette Eugenia Calvino.”
“But nobody calls me all three, like you guys said a thousand times already ‘Louisa May
“Wally,” Imogene said with some exasperation. “The man’s about to sit down to his dinner.”
“Sorry, Mr. C.”
“No problem. Nothing could turn me off carbonata.”
“It’s just curious,” Walter said, “how the smell came on so suddenly. One minute the laundry room is fine, and a minute later, it reeks.”
11
JOHN SAT AT THE HEAD OF THE DINING-ROOM TABLE, NICOLETTE to his right, Minnie to his left and boosted on a pillow. Naomi sat beside her little sister, Zachary across from Naomi.
For the first time, the sight of his family gathered in one place didn’t at once warm John but instead inspired a cold tightness in his chest, a greasy sliding sensation in his stomach. The dining room seemed too bright, although the lighting was the same as ever at dinner, and every window invited hostile observation. The stainless-steel flatware flanking his plate had the sinister gleam of surgical instruments. His wineglass was indeed glass, a potential source of jagged shards.
For a moment, this curious uneasiness threatened to disorient him—until he understood the cause of it. Together, the family was five targets clustered, therefore vulnerable to quick annihilation. Although he had no incontestable proof that any enemy waged war against him, he was thinking like a man embattled.
His hyperbolic suspicion embarrassed him, and more important, he recognized that if not controlled, it would cloud his judgment. Ifhe permitted his imagination to paint a gloss of evil on all things, he would provide camouflage for true evil. Besides, if you painted the devil on the walls often enough, you got the devil on the stairs, his footsteps approaching.
When John allowed his children to delight him, they soon lifted from him this pall of foreboding.
After grace, during the salad course, the primary subject discussed was the brilliant, the magnificent, the incomparable, the current that’s-who-I-want-to-be-when-I-grow-up, Louisa May Alcott, immortal author of
Little Women
, which Naomi had finished reading just that afternoon. She wanted to be Louisa May Alcott, and she wanted also to be Jo, the young writer in the story, but of course she wanted to be herself, embodying all the Alcott-Jo qualities while writing and living in her unique Naomi style.
Naomi seemed destined, as an adult, to appear on Broadway in the title role of a revival of
Peter Pan
. She contained both a tomboy who yearned for swashbuckling adventures and a perpetually breathless girl who saw romance and magic everywhere she looked. She wanted to know how to throw a perfect sinking curveball every bit as much as she wanted to know how to arrange roses to the best effect, and she believed both in Truth and in Tinker Bell. As likely to dance along a hallway as to run it, more likely to sing away a sadness than to sulk, she exhausted the possibilities of each new enthusiasm just as inevitably another one came along to captivate her.
As Walter whisked away the salad plates, Zachary said, “
Little Women
sounds like a giant bore. Why can’t you go nuts about vampire novels like every other dorky sixth-grade girl? Then we’d really have something worth talking about at the table.”
“I don’t find the living dead the least bit attractive,” Naomi said. “When I’m old enough to have a boyfriend, I don’t want one whodrinks my blood. Imagine his bad breath and what a mess his teeth would be. All these girls swooning over hunky vampires, what they really want is to give away their freedom, to be controlled and told what to do and not have to think—and never die, of course. It’s sick is what it is. I don’t want to be a forever-young living corpse, I want to be Louisa May Alcott.”
Minnie said, “It’s stupid how she has three names.”
“We all have three names,” Naomi said. “You’re Minette Eugenia Calvino.”
“But nobody calls me all three, like you guys said a thousand times already ‘Louisa May
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