A Stillness in Bethlehem(120)

That first time she had stood behind the door with the sweat pouring down her face and her heart hammering and she had seen him coming up the walk, coming up as if there was nothing wrong at all, nothing he had done, nothing he ought to be ashamed of. There were people on the street behind him, walking down the sidewalk, walking dogs, carrying packages. She saw an old lady with a hat with a flower on it and a mother with two small children who looked frazzled in the heat. It had been very hot for days and it was going to get hotter. It was ten o’clock in the morning and already so thick with humidity the air felt wet. She watched him coming up toward her and decided it didn’t matter. As long as she killed him it didn’t matter what else happened because nothing else would. Nothing else ever would. She was alone on top of a high place and very calm. She could aim her father’s rifle out the front door and down the front walk and right out into the street and the bullet would be magic. It wouldn’t go to the right or to the left. It would hit him in the heart just as surely as if it had been drawn there with a magnet.

Safe, she thought now. Safe, safe, safe. She was always safe.

The flap at the far end of the tent opened and she could hear someone moving down the center aisle, humming and shuffling along. She tensed against the long stock of the rifle and waited. The voice sounded right but she couldn’t be sure. If it turned out to be right she would be luckier than she had ever imagined. She held her breath and waited. She brought the rifle up a little higher and waited. She listened to the humming get louder and realized it was “The First Noel.”

“Bugger,” Kelley Grey said, interrupting her music, banging her leg into a metal folding chair that had been left out to no good purpose. Kelley moved the chair and then pulled back the flap on the dressing room at the very end of the row on the far side. She made the flap secure, went into the cubicle, and sat down on a bench with her back to the corridor. She was dressed in a bright red sweater that seemed to sparkle and pulse in the dim light.

Behind the curtain flaps in the corner, she waited, barely able to breathe.





3


“Bugger, bugger, bugger,” Kelley Grey said, to the air, to nothing at all. It was cold and she was colder. It had been a long night and she wanted it to end. Reggie George was in jail but she still had Candy to take care of. The play was almost over for the night, but she had Candy’s things to pack up before the tent could be taken down. Her head ached and she began to wonder what she really wanted to do with her life. Last week, she would have answered that with: Grow up. Now she wasn’t so sure. Growing up was all about responsibility. She’d had enough responsibility tonight to last her forever.

Candy had left her few pieces of jewelry in a small box on one of the tables. She didn’t think it was right for Mary to wear jewelry even if it couldn’t be seen. Kelley checked through the box to make sure it contained a pair of gold earrings, an ivory ring in the shape of a daisy and a tiny locket on a chain. Then she put the box into her pocket and went looking for a change purse. The change purse was supposed to be red plastic and not to have anything in it but a New York City subway token Candy said she kept for luck.

Kelley found the change purse and the subway token on the floor, next to one of the spike-heeled shoes. She didn’t know if it was the shoe Candy had used to kick Reggie or not. Even if it wasn’t, it looked lethal. She picked it up and turned it over in her hand.

“I wonder if she wants these,” she said, to nobody at all.

Then she got off the bench and dropped to the floor, to see if she could find the other one.





4


When Kelley Grey dropped to the floor, she had just brought the rifle up to her shoulder. She was in the process of adjusting it against the padding of her coat. Then all of a sudden, Kelley was out of sight. She was talking to herself and moving around on the ground. If it went on very much longer, the actors would be in from the play, and then what would she do? There was nothing to say Kelley would stick around until most of the rest of them were gone. She would have to go out to the rectory, and she really didn’t want that.

“Shoes,” Kelley Grey said. “Stupid shoes.”

She was moving around much too much.

If you stay calm it will work no matter what, she told herself, watching Kelley move, hearing Kelley swear.

Just remember.

Her body is a magnet.

Her body is a magnet for the bullets from this gun.

Your hands are steady.

All you have to do is fire.





5


“Damned stupid shoes,” Kelley Grey said to herself again, and then it went past her, hard air moving fast, and the next thing she heard was wood splintering and metal whining in complaint.