Carrie (15 page)

She had been able to feel, actually
feel,
the Devil's Power working in Carrie. It crawled all over you, lifting and pulling like evil, tickling little fingers. She had set out to do her duty again when Carrie was three, when she had caught her looking in sin at the Devil's slut in the next yard over. Then the stones had come, and she had weakened. And the power had risen again, after thirteen years. God was not mocked.

First the blood, then the power,

(you sign your name you sign it in blood)

now a boy and dancing and he would take her to a roadhouse after, take her into the parking lot, take her into the back seat, take her—

Blood, fresh blood. Blood was always at the root of it, and only blood could expiate it.

She was a big woman with massive upper arms that had dwarfed her elbows to dimples, but her head was surprisingly small on the end of her strong, corded neck. It had once been a beautiful face. It was still beautiful in a weird, zealous way. But the eyes had taken on a strange, wandering cast, and the lines had deepened cruelly around the denying but oddly weak mouth. Her hair, which had been almost all black a year ago, was now almost white.

The only way to kill sin, true black sin, was to drown it in the blood of

(she must be sacrificed)

a repentant heart. Surely God understood that, and had laid His finger upon her. Had not God Himself commanded Abraham to take his son Isaac up upon the mountain?

She shuffled out into the kitchen in her old and splayed slippers, and opened the kitchen utensil drawer. The knife they used for carving was long and sharp and arched in the middle from constant honing. She sat down on the high stool by the counter, found the sliver of whetstone in its small aluminum dish, and began to scrub it along the gleaming edge of the blade with the apathetic, fixated attention of the damned.

The Black Forest cuckoo clock ticked and ticked and finally the bird jumped out to call once and announce eight-thirty.

In her mouth she tasted olives.

THE SENIOR CLASS PRESENTS SPRING BALL 79

May 27, 1979

ENTERTAINMENT

CHAPERONES

When he asked her the third time, Carrie had to admit that she didn't know how to dance. She didn't add that, now that the rock band had taken over for a half-hour set, she would feel out of place gyrating on the floor,

(and sinful)

yes, and sinful.

Tommy nodded, then smiled. He leaned forward and told her that he hated to dance. Would she like to go around and visit some of the other tables? Trepidation rose thickly in her throat, but she nodded. Yes, that would be nice. He was seeing to her. She must see to him (even if he really did not expect it); that was part of the deal. And she felt dusted over with the enchantment of the evening. She was suddenly hopeful that no one would stick out a foot or slyly paste a kick-me-hard sign on her back or suddenly squirt water in her face from a novelty carnation and retreat cackling while everyone laughed and pointed and catcalled.

And if there was enchantment, it was not divine but pagan

(momma untie your apron strings i'm getting big)

and she wanted it that way.

“Look,” he said as they got up.

Two or three stagehands were sliding the King and Queen thrones from the wings while Mr. Lavoie, the head custodian, directed them with hand motions toward preset marks on the apron. She thought they looked quite Arthurian, those thrones, dressed all in blinding white, strewn with real flowers as well as huge crepe banners.

“They're beautiful,” she said.

“You're
beautiful,” Tommy said, and she became quite sure that nothing bad could happen this night—perhaps they themselves might even be voted King and Queen of the Prom. She smiled at her own folly.

It was nine o'clock.

“Carrie?” a voice said hesitantly.

She had been so wrapped up in watching the band and the dance floor and the other tables that she hadn't seen anyone coming at all. Tommy had gone to get them punch.

She turned around and saw Miss Desjardin.

For a moment the two of them merely looked at each other, and the memory traveled between them, communicated

(she saw me she saw me naked and screaming and bloody)

without words or thought. It was in the eyes.

Then Carrie said shyly: “You look very pretty, Miss Desjardin.”

She did. She was dressed in a glimmering silver sheath, a perfect complement to her blonde hair, which was up. A simple pendant hung around her neck. She looked very young, young enough to be attending rather than chaperoning.

“Thank you.” She hesitated, then put a gloved hand on Carrie's arm. “You are beautiful,” she said, and each word carried a peculiar emphasis.

Carrie felt herself blushing again and dropped her eyes to the table. “It's awfully nice of you to say so. I know I'm not . . . not really. . . but thank you anyway.”

“It's true,” Desjardin said. “Carrie, anything that happened before . . . well, it's all forgotten. I wanted you to know that.”

“I can't forget it,” Carrie said. She looked up. The words that rose to her lips were:
I don't blame anyone any more.
She bit them off. It was a lie. She blamed them all and always would, and she wanted more than anything else to be honest. “But it's over with. Now it's over with.”

Miss Desjardin smiled, and her eyes seemed to catch and hold the soft mix of lights in an almost liquid sparkling. She looked across toward the dance floor, and Carrie followed her gaze.

“I remember my own prom,” Desjardin said softly. “I was two inches taller than the boy I went with when I was in my heels. He gave me a corsage that clashed with my gown. The tailpipe was broken on his car and the engine made . . . oh, an awful racket. But it was magic. I don't know why. But I've never had a date like it, ever again.” She looked at Carrie. “Is it like that for you?”

“It's very nice,” Carrie said.

“And is that all?”

“No. There's more. I couldn't tell it all. Not to anybody.”

Desjardin smiled and squeezed her arm. “You'll never forget it,” she said. “Never.”

“I think you're right.”

“Have a lovely time, Carrie.”

“Thank you.”

Tommy came up with two Dixie cups of punch as Desjardin left, walking around the dance floor toward the chaperones' table.

“What did she want?” he asked, putting the Dixie cups down carefully.

Carrie, looking after her, said: “I think she wanted to say she was sorry.”

Sue Snell sat quietly in the living room of her house, hemming a dress and listening to the Jefferson Airplane
Long John Silver
album. It was old and badly scratched, but soothing.

Her mother and father had gone out for the evening. They knew what was going on, she was sure of that, but they had spared her the bumbling talks about how proud they were of Their Girl, or how glad they were that she was finally Growing Up. She was glad they had decided to leave her alone, because she was still uncomfortable about her own motives and afraid to examine them too deeply, lest she discover a jewel of selfishness glowing and winking at her from the black velvet of her subconscious.

She had done it; that was enough; she was satisfied.

(maybe he'll fall in love with her)

She looked up as if someone had spoken from the hallway, a startled smile curving her lips. That would be a fairy-tale ending, all right. The Prince bends over the Sleeping Beauty, touches his lips to hers.

Sue, I don't know how to tell you this but
—

The smile faded.

Her period was late. Almost a week late. And she had always been as regular as an almanac.

The record changer clicked; another record dropped down. In the sudden, brief silence, she heard something within her turn over. Perhaps only her soul.

It was nine-fifteen.

Billy drove to the far end of the parking lot and pulled into a stall that faced the asphalt ramp leading to the highway. Chris started to get out and he jerked her back. His eyes glowed ferally in the dark.

“What?” she said with angry nervousness.

“They use a P.A. system to announce the King and Queen,” he said. “Then one of the bands will play the school song. That means they're sitting there in those thrones, on target.”

“I know all that. Let go of me. You're hurting.”

He squeezed her wrist tighter still and felt small bones grind. It gave him a grim pleasure. Still, she didn't cry out. She was pretty good.

“You listen to me. I want you to know what you're getting into. Pull the rope when the song is playing. Pull it hard. There will be a little slack between the pulleys, but not much. When you pull it and feel those buckets go,
run.
You don't stick around to hear the screams or anything else. This is out of the cute-little-joke league. This is criminal assault, you know? They don't fine you. They put you in jail and throw the key over their shoulder.”

It was an enormous speech for him.

Her eyes only glared at him, full of defiant anger.

“Dig it?”

“Yes.”

“All right. When the buckets go, I'm going to run. When I get to the car, I'm going to drive away. If you're there, you can come. If you're not, I'll leave you. If I leave you and you spill your guts, I'll kill you. Do you believe me?”

“Yes. Take your fucking hand off me.”

He did. An unwilling shadow-grin touched his face. “Okay. It's going to be good.”

They got out of the car.

It was almost nine-thirty.

Vic Mooney, President of the Senior Class, was calling jovially into the mike: “All right, ladies and gentlemen. Take your seats, please. It's time for the voting. We're going to vote for the King and Queen.”

“This contest insults women!” Myra Crewes called with uneasy good nature.

“It insults men, too!” George Dawson called back, and there was general laughter. Myra was silent. She had made her token protest.

“Take your seats, please!” Vic was smiling into the mike, smiling and blushing furiously, fingering a pimple on his chin. The huge Venetian boatman behind him looked dreamily over Vic's shoulder. “Time to vote.”

Carrie and Tommy sat down. Tina Blake and Norma Watson were circulating mimeographed ballots, and when Norma dropped one at their table and breathed “Good LUCK!” Carrie picked up the ballot and studied it. Her mouth popped open.

“Tommy, we're
on
here!”

“Yeah, I saw that,” he said. “The school votes for single candidates and their dates get sort of shanghaied into it. Welcome aboard. Shallwe decline?”

She bit her lip and looked at him. “Do you want to decline?”

“Hell, no,” he said cheerfully. “If you win, all you do is sit up there for the school song and one dance and wave a scepter and look like a goddam idiot. They take your picture for the yearbook so everyone can see you looked like a goddam idiot.”

“Who do we vote for?” She looked doubtfully from the ballot to the tiny pencil by her boatful of nuts. “They're more your crowd than mine.” A little chuckle escaped her. “In fact, I don't really have a crowd.”

He shrugged. “Let's vote for ourselves. To the devil with false modesty.”

She laughed out loud, then clapped a hand over her mouth. The sound was almost entirely foreign to her. Before she could think, she circled their names, third from the top. The tiny pencil broke in her hand, and she gasped. A splinter had scratched the pad of one finger, and a small bead of blood welled.

“You hurt yourself?”

“No.” She smiled, but suddenly it was difficult to smile. The sight of the blood was distasteful to her. She blotted it away with her napkin. “But I broke the pencil and it was a souvenir. Stupid me.”

“There's your boat,” he said, and pushed it toward her. “Toot, toot.” Her throat closed, and she felt sure she would weep and then be ashamed. She did not, but her eyes glimmered like prisms and she lowered her head so he would not see.

The band was playing catchy fill-in music while the Honor Society ushers collected the folded-over ballots. They were taken to the chaperones' table by the door, where Vic and Mr. Stephens and the Lublins counted them. Miss Geer surveyed it all with grim gimlet eyes.

Carrie felt an unwilling tension worm into her, tightening muscles in her stomach and back. She held Tommy's hand tightly. It was absurd, of course. No one was going to vote for them. The stallion, perhaps, but not when harnessed in tandem with a she-ox. It would be Frank and Jessica or maybe Don Farnham and Helen Shyres. Or—hell!

Two piles were growing larger than the others. Mr. Stephens finished dividing the slips and all four of them took turns at counting the large piles, which looked about the same. They put their heads together, conferred, and counted once more. Mr. Stephens nodded, thumbed the ballots once more like a man about to deal a hand of poker, and gave them back to Vic. He climbed back on stage and approached the mike. The Billy Bosnan Band played a flourish. Vic smiled nervously, harrumphed into the mike, and blinked at the sudden feedback whine. He nearly dropped the ballots to the floor, which was covered with heavy electrical cables, and somebody snickered.

“We've sort of hit a snag,” Vic said artlessly. “Mr. Lublin says this is the first time in the history of the Spring Ball—”