There were three girlfriends and they were walking down a trail that
led to a lake. One small and plump, one pretty and medium-sized, one
not so pretty and tall. This was in the early years of the
twenty-first century, the unspeakable having happened so many times
everyone was still in shock, still reeling from what they’d seen,
what they’d done or failed to do. The dead souls no longer wore
gowns. They’d gotten loose, broadcasting their immense soundless
chord through the precincts of the living.
At the lake the trail branched right and left. Right to the town
beach, a grassy plot with six picnic tables, two stone grills, a pit
toilet, a trash can, and a narrow strip of lumpy gray sand. Left to
the Knoll, where the overlarge houses of the rich nestled among
shade trees and tasteful redwood play structures-and then back to
town. Straight ahead was the boat ramp and the Crocketts’ chocolate
Lab, Buddy, going down shoulder-first on a dead fish. Beyond the
ramp was the water.
The sky was the palest blue and fluttered over the girls’ heads like
a circus tent at the apex of which the sun was pinned. It was a
Saturday in mid-May, the sun only just starting to heat up, it being
the northern latitudes, but even so Mrs. Kipp had made sure they all
wore sunblock. You couldn’t be too careful. Like many objects of
worship, the sun had grown impatient with its worshipers, causing
some of them to sicken and die. As she larded on the sunblock, Mrs.
Kipp informed them that these days only stupid people had tans.
When they got to the beach, the three girls came to a halt. A very
large man, dressed in a pair of khaki shorts and not much else, was
lying on his stomach in the sand with his head facing the lake. From
where the girls stood, they could see the bottoms of the man’s feet,
which looked smooth and white. Almost as if he were a baby, observed
Lorna Fine, not only the tallest and least attractive but also the
most fanciful of the three. The older Lorna got, the prettier she
would become, but for now she was like a bespectacled monkey wearing
red-and-yellow plaid seersucker pants and the vintage Ramones
T-shirt she’d found in the back of her brother’s closet under a
stack of dirty magazines, so she was sure he wouldn’t ask for it
back.
Sunny Crockett let out a loud sigh Lorna knew was meant to be
overheard by anyone inconsiderate enough to be hogging the entire
strip of sand when obviously there were other people who wanted to
use it.
“It’s Mr. Banner,” said Mees Kipp.
“Who?” Lorna asked.
“Mr. Banner,” said Mees, “from Sunny’s church.” She walked around to
the man’s right where she planted herself, a small round thing in a
pink tracksuit, in the sand next to his face. Mr. Banner’s eyes were
loosely shut, and his black eyeglasses were shoved up so the left
lens was wedged over the bridge of his nose, which was bruised and
bleeding. His mouth was partly open, and a little foamy drool was
coming out of it; there were several blackfly bites, the first of
the season, on his bald head, and four long fine hairs were growing
out of the middle of his nose halfway between the bridge and the
nostrils.
Noon. The sun shone down; Mees leaned closer. Mr. Banner smelled
like perspiration but also sweet like cotton candy, and there was
something about him, about the way he lay there so perfectly still
yet with a sense of something enormously alive inside him, something
almost insanely teeming with slumberous hidden vitality deep inside,
that made her feel like she was looking at a cave full of sleeping
bats.
“Don’t,” said Lorna, when Mees reached out a finger. “Don’t touch
him.”
“Germs?” guessed Sunny, but Lorna, a great fan of Agatha Christie,
shook her head.
“I don’t think he’s breathing,” she said. “Look at his chest.”
Tentatively she held her hand near the man’s nose. “I think he’s
dead.” The sand was coarse and gritty, the entire beach hard as a
rock. If there were any footprints, Lorna couldn’t make them out,
though despite the trash can, there was a lot of trash on the
ground, including cigarette butts and a beer bottle. Molson.
Canadian.
“We should do something,” said Sunny. “We should get help.”
“You get help,” said Mees. “I’m staying here.”
“It’s not like he’s going anywhere,” Lorna pointed out, but once
Mees had made her mind up, forget it. “Just try not to touch
anything,” Lorna added sternly. “Okay?”
Of course Lorna knew perfectly well that the minute she and Sunny
were out of sight Mees would do just that-it had been so obvious,
her hand visibly itching to touch the man’s cheek.
“Sure,” Mees said. She nodded her small round face, a face that, no
doubt due to its exceptionally round dark eyes and full bow lips,
its fringe of dark hair and pronounced widow’s peak, tended to
remind people of a pansy. Such a sweet little flower, with such a
fierce expression!
Mr. Banner, Mees was thinking. Mr. Banner Mr. Banner Mr. Banner Mr.
Banner.
Think of me. That was what Pansy said in The Language of Flowers.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from The Thin Place
by Kathryn Davis
Copyright © 2006 by Kathryn Davis.
Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Little, Brown
Copyright © 2006
Kathryn Davis
All right reserved.
ISBN: 0-316-73504-3
