House of Blues

Go."
    Reed glanced wistfully at the other mattress.
    " Think of Sally."
    She climbed up on the sill and hung there.
    Skip pushed her.
    She wasn't quite ready, and landed slightly short,
half off the mattress.
    "Are you okay?"
    "I don't know." Her voice was small and
panicky.
    "Well, roll to the side. I'm coming."
    "I think my ankle's broken."
    Shit!
    "Reed, get up, go next door and call 911.
Sally's in here."
    No answer.
    " Crawl if you have to."
    Reed began to crawl, propelling herself on her
elbows. As soon as she had clearance, Skip climbed up on the sill,
but she didn't jump right away. It occurred to her at the last second
to gather up her purse and its contents. She climbed down and then
back up.
    She jumped.
    She landed hard, her system shocked. She'd been
taught how to fall, but it hadn't worked quite right. And no one had
told her her teeth were going to bang together with a crash that
rattled her skull.
    Reed was still trying to maneuver on her elbows, but
at least she'd thought to start screaming.
    " Help! Fire! Help!"
    The window looked out on a huge backyard, and beyond
it, on the bayou itself. From inside, Skip hadn't seen the houses on
either side. But now she saw that they weren't far away. The Dragons
house simply seemed isolated because of its wall and the
soundprooflng.
    Someone leaned out the window of a huge Tudor on the
left.
    "Are you all right?"
    " The house is on fire. Call 91 l."
    There was still apparently no smoke outside. The
peeker, a white-haired woman, craned to see some.
    Skip hollered, "Police! Its an emergency."
She got up and made sure nothing was broken. Every muscle in her body
shook; she was a human chihuahua.
    But she forced herself to move, to try to find a way
back in. She found a garden hose and wet herself down. From Reed, who
was now lying crumpled, moaning her daughters name, she demanded her
shirt.
    Reed was clutching her ankle, as if to keep it
attached. "My shirt?"
    "Goddammit, give it to me. I'm going in to get
Sally."
    Reed didn't question the sense of that. She simply
took off her shirt and handed it over. Skip wet it and draped it
around her neck, to be used to cover her face.
    She could see thick, curling smoke through the
kitchen window, but at least she didn't see flames. She held onto the
porch rail and kicked the door as hard as she could. It didn't budge,
but the pain in her ankle was so excruciating she had to sit a moment
while it subsided. She'd once sprained an ankle that way, but this
time she recovered fast: it wasn't a sprain.
    She could no longer use the TV as a bludgeon, but
found a heavy flower pot, containing several colors of impatiens.
She285 heaved it through the Window, unwittingly feeding the blaze a
giant meal of fresh oxygen. Fierce, scorching, almost yellow-white
flames leapt to the trough, a savage fireball that made her suck in
her breath, searing her throat. But suddenly she was cooler, and she
realized she'd jerked back reflexively and fallen to the ground,
under the flames, which had begun to retreat after their first
ravenous surge.
    She rolled out of the way and sat up. The shriek of
sirens mixed with the roar.
    "Omigod," said Reed, "your eyebrows."
    Skip touched a hand to her forehead and felt the
crumbling of singed hair.
 
    26
    Reed had struggled to her feet, and now turned the
garden hose on the blaze, which produced only a pathetic sputtering
under its thunder. The sight and sound seemed to Skip unbearably sad.
    "Come on. Let's get out of here." Gently,
she put an arm around Reed's waist and helped her to the front of the
house. Reed's ankle didn't seem broken, hadn't started swelling much,
but it had gotten a nasty twist.
    The white-haired woman from next door offered ice.
While they waited for that and the firemen, Skip looked for her car.
She found it in a garage on the right side of the house, and as the
firemen arrived, she radioed headquarters, saying only that she was
okay and would call back from a land line.
    Then, mind racing, she asked the white-haired woman
if she could use her phone.
    Anna Garibaldi had taken her money, credit cards, and
driver's license. Then she had probably pulled on a designer dress,
stepped into a pair of Italian shoes, and set the house on fire,
endangering the lives of one police officer and at least one citizen,
probably two.
    Skip could not bring herself to think about Sally, to
consider the kind of woman who'd burn a baby alive.
    Since there was no bridge to bum, the house was the
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