Read Words Unspoken Online

Authors: Elizabeth Musser

Tags: #ebook

Words Unspoken (2 page)

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 18, 1987

Lissa woke as usual to the sound of the voices. Sometimes they only whispered faintly, a vague accusation. At other times they shouted, furious, demanding.

As she glanced at the alarm clock, her foggy brain registered seven thirty. How many times had she hit the snooze button? She swung her feet out of bed and planted them on the hardwood floor. She stared at the small oval rug just to her left. The intricate needlepoint pattern displayed a rush of color—pansies and butterflies. Lissa concentrated on the blending of the muted yellows and bright fuchsia. She counted to ten, stood, and made her way into the bathroom, massaging her temples with the tips of her fingers. She threw cold water on her face, grabbed a towel, and blotted her face dry. She reached for an elastic band and pulled her tangled hair into a ponytail, wrapping the elastic around once, twice, three times.

Back in the bedroom, she lay on the rug beside the bed and forced her way through fifty sit-ups, staring at the imaginary spot on the ceiling, the one she had willed into existence so that she could report it to her therapist. Routine, routine.

Down the stairs and into the kitchen, still panting, she turned on the kettle, took a sachet of tea from the little cardboard box, and dangled it into a mug. She added two lumps of sugar. As the kettle began to whistle, she lifted it from the burner and poured the water into the mug, watching the steam rise. She opened a cabinet and grabbed for a box of cereal. It didn’t matter which one, just as long as there was enough sugar to perk her up. Then the hot tea would kick in.

Her father’s empty mug sat in the sink. She studied the thin-lined stain of coffee inside the rim. The dirty trace it left spelled out for her
You’re late.

“Lissa! We’re leaving in ten!”

“Okay, Dad,” she whispered to herself.

Sitting on a stool at the breakfast room counter, she leafed through the booklet once again. She knew it by heart—which had in no way kept her from failing the test three times before.

Today would be different, she told herself.

No, it won’t. Today will be like the last 423 days. Dark, depressing, sluggish, morose.

Today had to be different, she told herself, thinking of the letter that sat on her bedside table.
When are you coming to see Caleb?
it had asked.

Her stomach cramped. She imagined Caleb there in the dark, waiting for her.

Today had to be different.

“Good morning, Lissa,” Mrs. Rivers’s voice called out from behind a stack of books.

“Good morning.” She forced a smile, walked behind the circulation desk to the gray metal cart loaded with books. “I’ll start reshelving.”

“Thanks, dear.”

Lissa pushed the cart along the aisles, reading the book titles slowly, almost tasting the ingredients in the ones she knew so well.
Rebecca, All the King’s Men, Things Fall Apart.
She grimaced. That one described her life perfectly.

Eastern Crossings.
She had never heard of it. She carefully opened the cover, then snapped it closed and reshelved it.

Returning to the circulation desk, she offered, “I’ll pick out a book for the elementary reading today.”

“That will be fine, dear.” The librarian’s voice sounded sugary sweet, sweeter than the cereal Lissa had eaten that morning.

Quit feeling sorry for me!

But why shouldn’t Mrs. Rivers look at her resignedly, when one of Lissa’s favorite tasks was choosing and reading a children’s book for the first graders who came to the library on Friday afternoons?

“I’ll need to leave a little early today, right after story hour.”

“That’s fine, dear. Your father phoned to say he’ll be picking you up. Driving test?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“I’m sure you’ll pass this time.”

Mrs. Rivers didn’t mean to look pitiful, but Lissa knew her thoughts. The girl who had graduated in the top five percent of her class from this very school should not be shelving books in the school library. She should be getting an education from Radcliffe or Princeton or Harvard or Williams, or perhaps Georgia State. Somewhere.

Failure. Failure.

Seventeen first graders arrived at the library, giggling and whispering. It pained Lissa to study their bright, inquisitive faces.

I used to be like them
.
I used to want to know everything. Now I just wish I could disappear.

The children found their places on the rug and looked at her expectantly, eyes wide, faces solemn.

“Today we’re reading a story called
Madeline
. It takes place in a faraway land called France.” She began to read, giving voice to the characters in the story.

It always surprised Lissa that her own voice sounded warm and full and calm, when inside the voices were not.

Failure
.
Your fault. Give up!

“I’m afraid you didn’t pass,” the young driving instructor said when Lissa cut the motor and sat with her hands folded in her lap.

She didn’t meet his eyes.

She bit her lip and nodded and murmured, “Thanks anyway.”

She started to get out of the car when he said, “Miss, I don’t mean to intrude, but you say you’ve failed the test three times?”

She nodded again.

“Well, if you don’t mind me saying so, I know you can pass. It’s not that you don’t know how to drive. It’s just you’re so doggone nervous.” He cleared his throat.

You’re doggone nervous too,
she thought, but the sarcasm stayed in her mind.

“I know a man who’s really great at helping kids who are afraid of driving. He runs a school. He’s kinda old, but he’s good. Been teaching kids to drive for thirty years now.” He fiddled in his shirt pocket where
Department of Motor Vehicles
was stitched in dark blue thread, pulled out a card, and handed it to Lissa.

She stared at the card and murmured, “Thanks.”

The young instructor shrugged. “I’d give him a call. Couldn’t hurt.”

Lissa waited at the curb for her father to pick her up. She thought of him as a jovial man, big and brash. He used to hug her to his chest and slap his hand down on the coffee table and let his head fall back in boisterous laughter. He did these things still, but it was all pretense. The arms that closed around her, the big, muscular arms, felt stiff, unbending—a wooden hug that gave no comfort—and his words were equally wooden:
Lissa, that’s enough. We will not talk about it again. Do you understand?

She felt the pain gnawing her from the inside.

Your fault!
screamed a voice.

So loudly that for the moment she couldn’t hear the one whispering
Not good enough.

Her father’s gray BMW rolled into the parking lot. Lissa painted a calm expression on her face, but she was sure he could read it nonetheless, before she even opened her mouth.

The image in her mind was still there, though blurred. She was giggling; her father was tiptoeing through the house, pretending to be befuddled; her mother hummed softly in the background. A bright, airy, happy memory. The tune she could hear even now, that softly hummed tune. Lissa reached, physically, with one hand for the image, trying to grasp it before it evaporated. Even after the image disappeared, she thought she could faintly hear the giggles.

Then she realized it was the panting of the BMW’s powerful motor as her father pulled the car up beside her.

He gave her the big, hopeful smile. “How’d it go?”

She shrugged, climbed into the passenger’s seat, not meeting his eyes. “I failed.”

His smile faded, and the wooden arm reached over and patted her on the back. She felt the heaviness of the silence between them. She closed her eyes as they drove toward home, and she willed herself to hear the soft melody again.

Instead, the voices whispered around her head, pecking at her like a bird on a windowpane, pecking. Then suddenly they were shrill—a siren, the teakettle whistling, the burglar alarm at the neighbor’s house. They made her head ache and throb! She rubbed her temples.

“Lissa, you okay?” Her father was staring at her with that perplexed expression on his face.

What could she say? What was she allowed to say?

“Sure, Dad. I’m fine.”

Back in her room, she collapsed on the bed, arms dangling off one side, legs off the other. She turned her head to the side, and with her right hand pulled open the drawer on her bedside table. Reaching underneath a stack of underwear, She forced a smile, walked of pills. Thirty-two of them, carefully saved. That should do the trick. She picked up the bottle, let her fingers close around it, and imagined pulling off the small white cap.

What about Caleb?
a small voice whispered, wooing her back.

Yes, Caleb.

Rolling onto her back, she reached into her jeans pocket and pulled out the little business card. It was crinkled in the middle.
MacAllister’s Driving School
. An address and a phone number.
I’d give him a call.
Couldn’t hurt.

She set down the bottle, picked up the phone, and dialed the number.

One more year until retirement
, Ev MacAllister told himself, leaning forward in the chair to tie his shoes. He did not dwell on the thought. Truth was, he loved his job. A vocation, he called it. At first Annie had thought he should look for something better than sitting in the passenger seat with nervous kids. Eventually, she had understood and accepted it, even embraced it.

He stood up with a grunt, thankful that they had agreed and flourished in that idea for so long after the accident. Could it be almost thirty-five years?

His first client drove well, a sixteen-year-old girl who was meticulous, careful, and focused. Easy. The next client was waiting for him by the mailbox of the dirt driveway that made a loop in front of his old Victorian home. The sky was cloudy, a surprisingly cool nip in the September air.

Ev always gave his clients the benefit of the doubt, refused to judge by appearances. But after observing kids for so long, he could read them with amazing accuracy, and what he saw in front of him was spelled out on the young lady’s face as if she were holding a sign.

I’ve failed this test several times and I’m scared to death and I’m begging you. Please help me.

She wore jeans and a bright turquoise T-shirt. She had pulled her tousled brown hair into a loose bun and secured it with a long spearlike instrument, and the hair stuck out and strands fell down around her face. That face held an injured look, fragile; thin, dark circles around large, dark, expressionless eyes. He thought briefly that if she’d gained ten pounds she would be very attractive. As it was, he wondered if she could be anorexic.

“Good morning, miss,” he greeted her, holding out his hand.

She offered hers limply, not even bothering to disguise her resignation.

“You must be Lissa. I’m Ev MacAllister. You ’bout ready?”

She nodded, met his eyes briefly, then stared at the ground. “Yes, sir.”

And he imagined her thinking
Just my luck to get some old geezer.

She looked up. “I’m only here for the free evaluation. I’m not sure I’ll be taking lessons.”

“That’s fine, young lady. See how you feel after today. If you want to continue, you may.”

She nodded again, her hands stuffed into her jeans pockets. “How long does it usually take to help someone?”

“All depends on the person.”

“I see.”

“But I can tell you that in over thirty years of teaching, only a handful of people couldn’t get over their fears.”

She glanced up at him suspiciously when he pronounced the word
fears.
“I need to learn to drive again. It means everything to me.”

“Then we’d better get to work, wouldn’t you say?”

For one brief moment, Ev saw what looked like a flash of determination in her eyes, before she turned them down to stare at the pavement again. That was enough—the look in her eyes brought back the memory of an old, familiar aching. He felt the lurch in his gut, ignored it, and walked toward the car.

“Okay. Thanks, sir.”

“You’ll be driving Ole Bessie today. The blue Ford Escort over there. We’ll take a few loops around the driveway first, just to see what you know, if you don’t mind.”

The girl didn’t smile.

She’s a serious one.

“I don’t mind.”

Lissa took in the surroundings as she walked over to the old car. The house sat perched on a hill at the end of a wide country road with a view of Lookout Mountain spreading out in front of it. A spacious green carpet of grass out front bisected the semicircular dirt driveway. The house was white and needed a new coat of paint, but it looked neat and clean. A wraparound porch led to the front door, and the roof was black and gabled. Flowers grew rampant around the house and in window boxes
.

Two other cars, a red Buick and a white Impala, were parked beside the light blue Ford. Painted along both sides of the Ford in dark blue lettering was the advertisement:
MacAllister’s Driving School.
Mr. MacAllister wore a blue seersucker suit that almost matched the color of the car.

Lissa studied him curiously. He was tall and lean and stood erect, as if he had been in the military. His thick silver hair was abundant— definitely not military—and he wore old blue and white tennis shoes that seemed incongruous with the rest of his appearance.

She liked him. He seemed confident and calm, and something else. Kind. Yes, that was it. Kind, with a sense of humor.

“Okay, Lissa. A few bare essentials before you take the wheel. I know you’ve heard it all before, but it never hurts to review.” He pointed out the accelerator, the brake, the turn signals, the rearview and side mirrors. He mentioned that the faster the car was going, the more sensitive the steering wheel was to the touch, and easier to turn.

He glanced down at the sheet of paper she had filled out with her personal information.

“I see you used to drive. Is there anything you’d like me to know before we start? Any past experiences I should know about?”

She shook her head too quickly, swallowed, and stared at the ground.

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