“Ready,” I whisper.
It takes us forever to make it up the rest of the stairs. When we get to the top, Stone holds the candle out in front of him and looks to the left and the right down the hallway. Nothing. No one. Not a sound. I exhale in relief, sending a puff of air toward Stone’s hand, and the candle snuffs out, throwing us into total darkness. “Oh my God,” I hiss and unwittingly clench the Swiffer again. It makes another whirring noise, which sounds louder in the scary darkness.
“This is not happening,” Stone growls under his breath.
“I don’t want to be chainsawed to death,” I moan. I’m pretty sure that at this point Stone would like to chainsaw me to death himself, but to his credit, he doesn’t chastise me for the noise and snuffing out our last little bit of light, which will both probably facilitate our murder.
“I don’t like this,” I whisper. “I wish the lights would come back on.”
“They’ll probably be out all night. With a storm like this, a pole must be down, and it will take them hours to fix it.”
The words have barely left Stone’s mouth when the lights come back on. In unison, we look up at the light fixture in the ceiling above us, as if it’s a mirage of some kind. “I guess the pole was easier to fix than we thought,” I mutter.
“I guess so.”
My body relaxes. With the darkness gone, our situation in the house doesn’t seem so scary. To top it off, the storm whips up into a frenzy and the thunder cracks loudly, shaking the house, which makes me wonder if the sound we’ve been hearing is really the storm and not the escaped convict, Rock Tucker.
“Or a raccoon,” I say out loud, my thoughts coming to the surface. “It could be a raccoon.”
“There are no raccoons on Summer Island,” Stone says.
“Are you sure?”
“Of course I’m sure. Why don’t you know that? You’ve lived here your entire life.”
“Just because you’ve never seen one doesn’t mean they don’t exist.”
“They don’t exist on Summer Island,” Stone says, emphatically.
“I’m not so sure.”
He runs his hand down his face. “There’s more of a chance of it being a chainsaw killer than a raccoon.”
“I think I would prefer a raccoon.”
“Who’s on first, What’s on second. I Don’t Know’s on third,” he says and takes my hand.
We search room to room upstairs, but there’s nothing out of the ordinary. With the lights on, Ruby’s brightly colored house is happy and benign. “We let our imaginations run wild,” I say. “No chainsaw killers. No raccoons. Good. I need to pee.”
I hand Stone the Wet Jet and go to the bathroom. I lied to Stone. I don’t really have to pee. But I need a moment in private. Now that the lights are on and we’re no longer rolling on the floor together naked, I have to force myself back to reality. When the danger was over, and we were standing in the hallway together, it was all I could do not to rip his clothes off and force him to marry me. At least force him to give me a ring and promise to go steady. I don’t want to embarrass myself. I don’t want to love him more than he loves me. So, I’m happy to close the bathroom door behind me and have a moment to myself away from the love of my life in order to get myself under control.
“It was just sex,” I tell my reflection in the mirror over the sink. “I’m not living in The Notebook. There’s no to death-do-us-part relationship going on. It was just a little boffing on Ruby’s rug, and now it’s all over. It’s back to waiting on Stone at the diner for me. Nothing more than that. Don’t make a fool of yourself.”
My reflection doesn’t believe me. It’s looking at me with its eyebrows knitted together, and its lips pursed. I don’t believe me, either. I can feel the little demon of desire growing inside me, and I don’t mean a desire for more hubba-hubba horny toad. I mean a desire to hold hands with Stone and have a joint bank account and two sinks in the bathroom. I only have one sink in my little apartment. So does Ruby. But I want two sinks… A Norma sink and a Stone sink.
I point at my reflection. “Stop thinking that. That’s not going to happen. That’s impossible. No two sinks. No joint bank account. No holding hands. One roll in the hay and that was it. One. One. Do you understand me?” I demand at my reflection, holding up a single finger.
“Are you okay in there, Norma?” Stone calls from the other side of the door, startling me. I hope he hasn’t heard me talking to myself like a crazy person.
“Yes, just a little backed up!” I call and slap my forehead. Damn it. I’m terrible at lying. I’m terrible at thinking on my feet. Now Stone is picturing me on the toilet trying to poop, which is worse than talking to myself.
“Too much Jiffy Pop?”
“Yeah, that must be it,” I call, too late to get out of the lie now.
“You want help? I mean, no of course you don’t want my help. But do you want me to do anything? I mean, no of course you don’t. You know what? I’ll just wait out here. Or better yet, I’ll wait downstairs.” Stone isn’t good with words, either. I hear him walk down the hallway, away from the bathroom. “I’ll look for prune juice or something,” he calls, while walking away.
I flop forward, resting my head on the mirror. No wonder Stone doesn’t love me. Who would love a constipated woman? I should have told him I had diarrhea, instead. Oh, well. At least I’m firmly back in reality. Stone is looking for prune juice because he thinks I’m constipated. I’m not an expert, but I’m thinking that means the romance is over.
