The Night Listener : A Novel

It’ll be good for you.”
    “Thanks,” I said. “I’m a little nervous, actually.”
    “Why?”
    “Oh, I just wonder what he’ll look like. How far gone he is. He sounds so cute and energetic on the phone, but he must be in pretty bad shape, considering all he’s been through.”
    “But he sent you a picture, right?”
    “Yeah, but that could be fairly old. Even a month or two can make a difference.”
    “You can handle it. You handled it with Wayne. He was beautiful at the end, remember?”
    “Yeah…he was.”
    “Just look into his eyes,” said Jess. “You’ll be all right.” The next order of business was to arrange accommodations in Wysong, so I called the place Pete had suggested—the Lake-Vue Motor Lodge—and reserved a single room for two nights. This was not their busy season, the desk clerk said, so I could easily extend my stay should I choose to do so. She was so chatty and cooperative (“Do you know about our antique auto barn?”) that she put me instantly at ease. I could almost see the place already, with its greasy-antlered snack bar and knotty pine office, the stack of old jigsaw puzzles they probably kept behind the desk. And all of it less than a mile from Pete’s house.
    It was snowing in Wysong, the desk clerk said, so I should keep that in mind when I packed for my stay. This shouldn’t have surprised me, but it did, a little, since Pete had never talked about the weather, presumably because he took it for granted; only Californians and Southerners see snow as something to make a fuss over. I read-justed my mental image, adding frost to the double-paned windows, a cornice of snow to the long row of rooms. As for that fabled Vue of the Lake, it was now enlivened by a random deer or two, or maybe even elk or moose, scribbling their signatures across the blue-white landscape. This was virgin territory for me, a place so unfamiliar that it was still susceptible to my imagination.
    I consulted the elegant little leather-bound atlas my friend James in New York had bought me at Barneys just after Jess took off. (This had been James’s way of saying that there was still a world out there.) Only a page was devoted to all the Midwestern states, so Wysong was nowhere to be found. I saw some wonderful names in Wisconsin, like Fond du Lac and Rhinelander and Chippewa Falls, but Pete’s hometown would have to wait for a much more inclusive map. I knew I could find one downtown, and the thought of an expedition for that purpose was curiously exhilarating.
    I was searching for my keys when the phone rang. Miffed that my mission had been delayed, I answered with a tart “Hello.”
    “Gabriel?”
    My ill will vanished on the spot. “Pete! Sweetie! Guess where I’m heading!”
    “No,” came the voice at the other end. “It’s Donna.”
    “Oh…of course…sorry.” Thank God she couldn’t see my face, which was traitorously aflame.
    “No problem,” she said. “We’re used to it. Pete hates it when it happens, but that’s boys for you. They don’t wanna sound like some dorky girl. So it’s better you did it with me.” Calming myself, I told Donna about my own mother and the way we’d sometimes been mistaken for each other on the phone.
    “Did you both grow up in the same neighborhood?” she asked.
    “Not really. Her parents were English, but she was born in western North Carolina. I grew up in Charleston.”
    “West Virginia?”
    “No. The one in South Carolina.”
    There, I thought. There’s your proof. Donna wouldn’t have asked that so casually if she and Pete were the same person. She would have known exactly which Charleston I meant, since I’d already talked to Pete about it at length…unless, of course, she had deliberately played dumb to throw me off track. She might have decided that such a ruse was necessary, since I’d just mistaken her voice for Pete’s. Then again, if she was a true multiple, she wouldn’t even know what I had told her other personality, so it was still possible that one person could be…
    Stop it , I ordered myself.
    “Oh, I love that Charleston,” Donna purred. “So pretty. I went there once for a conference on child abuse…Look, I’d love to shoot the breeze, but I’m afraid I’m the bearer of bad tidings.” Did I suspect then what was coming next? I didn’t, as I recall. But I knew that something was seriously out of whack.
    “I’m so sorry to do this, but we have to withdraw our invitation.
    I’m afraid it’s