Backward, Turn Backward

We were out front on our porch, the Kuliks, my wife, Angela, and I, when Sarah Standish returned that Saturday morning. Angela had just put the baby in to nap, we were all having an early drink, Joe Kulik was telling a joke. In the middle of the joke, we saw something across the street catch Jeannie Kulik's eye.

"Look there," she said.

The Standish house was a knight's move from ours across the street, a bishop's move from the Kuliks'. A taxi was pulling up in front.

"A taxi," my wife said, "of all things."

"It's the old witch in her straw tam."

We watched Sarah Standish get out of the taxi, snatch her suitcase from the driver, measure out the fare and turn up the walk.

"She's madder'n a hornet. Where's she been, I wonder?" (continued overleaf)

"Visiting relatives, maybe. I haven't seen her in a while. Or heard her. Which is something. We saw the old man drive her to the station--when was it, Jim?"

"Three weeks ago," I said.

"He must've forgotten to meet her at the bus."

"God help him."

Sarah Standish was at her front door now. She'd set down her suitcase on the steps and was jabbing hard at the bell.

"He has to be home," my wife said.

"Where else would he be? The car's in the garage."

"Probably busy on the sun porch," said Joe Kulik.

The Standish house was the oldest on our block, a fair-sized Victorian gingerbread with a big lawn that none of the kids dared cross. Early that spring, Roy Standish had begun to add on a sun porch. It was mid-May and the porch was just about finished. Three weeks ago, Joe Kulik and I had watched Standish nail the shingles.

"Come to think of it," I said, "I haven't seen the old man since his wife left that day."

"Look, she's hunting in her bag for her key. And making a big show of it."

"In case the old man should come to the door."

"Now she's got it. She's going in. We'll hear some yelling now."

We watched Sarah Standish lift the suitcase over the threshold and set it down in the vestibule. A light went on in the Standish front hall. We couldn't see into any room, because of the shades and lace curtains and drapes that covered every window three times over--everywhere but on the new sun porch. Then we heard a scream.

"Good Lord!" said Jeannie Kulik.

The light went off again in a hurry. The front door opened, and the screen door, and Sarah Standish was out on the front steps. Her hand was over her mouth. Behind her we could see the suitcase still in the vestibule. Twice she glanced back at the open door, then turned and re-entered the house. The screen door slammed.

"Somebody call the police," my wife said.

Joe Kulik went inside. In a moment, he was back. "She called already. Ed Banks is on his way. We'd better see, meantime. Jim?"

I nodded. "Let's go." We got up and headed across the street. It was a sharp, cloudless mid-May morning, with just a bit of breeze in the elms. Screen doors were banging all the way up the block. We all had heard the scream. Tom Schroeder, his dog beside him, and Bill Shackleford were jogging toward us, and George McAlister, the Standishes' next-door neighbor, followed by his daughter, Cheryl. As we all started up the walk, the noon siren, and the church bells, began to sound.

"Tom? Watch your dog there." Schroeder's Dalmatian was sniffing the base of one of the Standish elms. The spring before last, Bill Shackleford's dog had had a fatal dose of the dog repellent Sarah Standish sprayed around all their trees. With a whistle, Tom called his Dalmatian back to the sidewalk. We went up the steps. Downstreet, the church bells struck the 12th chime. I peered in the screen door.

"Mrs. Standish?"

She was the only woman on the block any of us would fail to call by her first name. We could just about make her out in the front hall. She had seen us and was coming to lock the door. I opened it before she could get to the latch. We stepped into the vestibule.

"Get out," she said. She was pushing on the door.

"What's wrong, Mrs. Standish?"

"All of you. Get off my steps. And get that dog out of here. You've all been tramping on my lawn!" She stepped in front of us, I saw, to block our view of the living room to our right. McAlister, Kulik, Schroeder, Shackleford and I, we all saw this, and then we saw what was lying on the Standishes' living-room floor. McAlister put an arm out to shield his daughter, Cheryl, steering her back toward the front door. Kulik and I went on past Sarah Standish into the living room.

"Good God!" Joe Kulik said.

The body was lying face up across a bare stretch of floor between an antique chair and a fancy carpet. It was the dead, naked body of a young boy. The eyes were open, staring up from the bottom of two sockets like pieces of black foam. The body, all over, was bony, starved, the upper arms no thicker than the wrists, eggshell white except where the blood had settled. He had been dead some time. There was an odor around the body, mixing with the odor of unfinished wood drifting in from Roy Standish's sun porch. The light through Roy Standish's sun-porch windows lay across the dead boy's face and chest.

"Who is it, Jim?"

I shook my head. I was trying to imagine the bones with more flesh on them, but still it was no face I had ever seen.

"He's been dead awhile."

"Couldn't be more than fifteen years old."

"Who is it, Mrs. Standish?"

She was standing there, furious, with no intention of answering anything. The screen door banged just then and Ed Banks came in. Sarah Standish wheeled around.

"I insist that you order these people to leave."

Ed just flipped up his black glasses, staring past Sarah into the living room. I recalled how Ed's youngest boy had put a softball through the Standishes' kitchen window last summer and how Sarah Standish had called Ed Banks's superior to complain.

"You give us a minute, now, Sarah," he said. He bent over the body of the dead boy. He gave it a long look, without moving it or touching it, and then took out a pack of cigarettes, offering it around. "What do you make of this?" he asked. "Who is it, Sarah?"

She eyed him coldly. "My name is Mrs. Standish."

"You recognize this body, Sarah?"

"You're that policeman from up the street," she said.

"Is your husband around, Sarah?"

"Officer, I am not obliged to answer your questions, so long as you refuse to enforce the privacy of my home. And I find you insolent."

"We're all neighbors here, Sarah."

"I do not consider you my neighbor, nor any of these people." She looked around as she said this and her cold eyes came to rest a moment on George McAlister. It was George who had come closest to dealings with the Standishes. Last winter, a branch of his big oak had fallen on the Standish lawn and the Standishes had sued.

"What was the last time you saw your husband?" asked Ed.

She folded in her lips. "I have been visiting my sister for the last three weeks."

"Your husband is retired?"

"I imagine you know everything about us, the way you permit people to barge in here----"

"Was he in the habit of leaving home for any length of time?"

Her lips tightened. "My husband never leaves the house without me." She looked around accusingly. I felt Joe Kulik nudge my arm; he was pointing to the sun-porch door, just beyond where the dead boy's legs lay twisted on the dark floor. Cheryl McAlister was looking through, too, at the sun porch Joe and I had watched Roy Standish build. A power saw and sander lay in one corner, along with a vacuum cleaner for the sawdust and a pair of shoes. Bare wood shelves ran along one wall, empty except for a neatly folded pile of work clothes and a homemade digital clock. The windows were large, designed, it appeared, to let in all the light that Sarah Standish's drapes, blinds, shades and curtains kept from the rest of the house. In the center of the sun porch was an easy chair.

"The hermit's retreat," Joe whispered.

I nodded, looking at the easy chair. In the living room, where we were, there was no large or comfortable chair, just (continued on page 154) Turn Backward (continued from page 78) harp-backed chair without cushions, a fan-backed chair with a doily pinned to each thin arm and four Biedermeier chairs set side by side under a wall hung with old plates. If the sun porch was the retreat, here was the museum--the shawled rosewood table, the dead fireplace, the Saruk rug, the gilt-edged mirror, the tasseled shades keeping out the fabric-fading light. A chill went through us as we looked at the body of the unknown boy sprawled face up on the floor in front of the Biedermeier chairs, with the noon sun, whose angle had changed a degree or so since we'd all come in, bisecting his white, bony face. I turned to Ed Banks.

"It looks to me," I said, "as though Roy Standish hasn't been here for quite a while."

"Why do you say that?"

"Clock on the sun porch says five after eleven. And we just heard the noon siren."

"And so?"

"Daylight saving started--what?--three weeks ago. Last Sunday in April. Meaning he might not have been here to set the clock ahead."

"Or had other things on his mind," said Ed Banks. He was staring down at the body. "He's been dead about forty-eight hours. If I'm not mistaken, we'll find two kinds of prints in the house, the old lady's and the old man's, and one kind on the boy."

"What are you driving at, Ed?"

Ed Banks flicked his ash into a dish. "It's funny," he said. "If a kid was missing from these parts, I'd have heard by now." He took a long inhale. "Appears to me there's a hell of a lot we might not know about Roy Standish. You boys ever actually speak to him?"

"Not me. I don't believe any of us ever has."

"When your tree fell across their yard, George?"

"Not even then. You know as well as we do, Ed. None of us has ever set foot inside this house."

There was a rustling behind us. "I talked to him."

We all turned around. Cheryl McAlister was standing there apart, in her light-bulb T-shirt and bikini bottoms.

"When?" asked her father.

She was gazing off through the sun-porch door. "Three weeks ago," she said. She brushed some hair back from her face. "The day Mrs. Standish left."

"And?"

"And nothing." She unfastened her gaze from the sun porch, turned, shrugged. "We talked. Mr. Standish invited me over. He showed me the house."

"That is an outrageous lie." Sarah Standish stepped between Ed and Cheryl. "My husband is on no sort of terms with any of these people. Least of all this"--she hesitated, discarding a word--"this girl."

"Mrs. Standish, I believe you're saying my daughter is a liar."

"If that's all she turns out to be," said Sarah Standish, drawing herself up, "you can all count yourselves fortunate. Since she has been raised, or rather not raised, by people without a shred of consideration or decency, who let a perfectly good tree go to ruin until it endangers the safety of everyone and who permit their children to strut around naked in full view of their neighbors."

Among all of us there was a peculiar silence. I don't suppose any of the men had actually seen Cheryl McAlister naked, but we had opinions of our own about George's child-rearing practices, and Sarah Standish's little speech had caused a few feet to shuffle. Cheryl might be a good-looking girl, with more than her share of assets sliding around under those T-shirts, but none of us had much use for her smug, mysterious manner. She knew the effect she had, now and then, on us taxpayers, but was always surly to George's friends. George, I'm sure, was aware of how we all felt. Right now he was struggling with his dignity.

"Mrs. Standish," he said, "if my daughter says she was in this house, she was in this house."

"And I," said Sarah Standish, "know she was not."

George looked at his daughter. "Cheryl?"

The girl moved some hair back from her face and shrugged.

"She's right," she said.

"Cheryl, did you tell us the truth or not?"

She shrugged again. "She's right. I'm right. We're both right."

"Cheryl, you cut out the games, now."

"I think you can all cut out the games," said Sarah Standish. "I think you can all leave, immediately, so I can begin to clean up the mess you've made."

"Mrs. Standish, that's a dead boy lying there on your floor. It's not something somebody tracked in."

"And that is not an ashtray!"

She grabbed the china dish Ed Banks was holding under his cigarette, and then the cigarette itself and Joe Kulik's. Dangling the cigarettes at arm's length, as if they were a pair of dead, stiffened caterpillars, she swept out of the living room, headed for the nearest trash can. She was gone so fast none of us had a chance to say anything. Ed was staring at Cheryl, trying to think of another question to put, and all of us were gazing around the room. Well, we had come in and the first thing that caught our eye was that body on the floor, so we'd looked at it and not at the room itself, until some moments later, and when we did, it had seemed like a second sight. But how did I know that? And how did I know we were all feeling the same thing?

In the kitchen, Sarah Standish screamed again.

We all turned toward the sound. She returned, mouth agape, weak in the legs, clutching two articles of clothing in one hand. In the other, she had something else. We moved toward her; she stumbled forward, on the edge of the carpet; the clothes spilled onto the floor and two pieces of paper fluttered down. Two photographs.

Ed held her up. Her face was white as chalk. The two articles of clothing, a T-shirt with a picture of a wall socket and a pair of jeans, lay on the carpet. George McAlister picked them up, turning toward Cheryl. Joe and I each picked up a photograph. They were Polaroids, the edges yellow with glue. In the photo Joe was holding, Cheryl McAlister was standing in front of a door mirror, holding up a long dress with large flowers and a lace ruff. In each picture, the Polaroid flash was reflected in a mirror. The man who had snapped the photographs, also reflected in the mirrors, was Roy Standish. In the picture I was holding, his face was tiny and somewhat beyond the plane of focus, but there was no mistaking him. Clear enough, too, were the faces of the other people in the photograph: Joe Kulik, and myself, and Tom Schroeder, and Bill Shackleford, and our wives. The camera had caught us unawares. We were talking with one another; we were drinking beer; we were at a party. We could even make out the Biedermeier chairs, the Saruk rug and the door to the sun porch. We couldn't take our eyes off that group picture of all of us, snapped in a house we had never entered, by a man some of us had never seen.

"Listen," said Joe Kulik.

We turned. The sun was pouring through the windows of Roy Standish's sun porch; the lower half of the dead boy's body was hidden in shadow, the head and face bathed in light. Through those windows, drowning Sarah Standish's sobs, came the wail of the midday siren. On the sun porch itself, the wheels of Roy Standish's digital clock slipped into place; for the second time that day, the bells of the church at the foot of the block were tolling noon.

• • •

The 10:46 bus was ready for boarding at 25 minutes to, but he had to sit in the waiting room for the few minutes while she went over the instructions.

"There's five packages of chicken (continued on page 214) Turn Backward(continued from page 154) parts. You can try boiling those if you get tired of the frozen. Use the big white kettle."

"The white kettle," he nodded, watching the bus driver at the sandwich bar.

"Move the things off the tables when you dust. Last time, remember, you left circles."

"I'll move them."

"Around the trees needs a new application of dog repellent. I noticed the Schroeders' animal sniffing there again."

"All right," he said. The bus driver had finished and was getting up to go to the cashier's desk.

"The rest I wrote down. The list is on the kitchen counter under the orange squeezer. You can reach me at my sister's if there's any need. I trust there won't be." The driver went out the waiting-room door toward the bus.

"Roy, I want these things done. I don't want you spending all day and night on that sun porch."

"It's just about finished," said Standish. "You'd better board now."

"All the same, I don't want you in there constantly. Here are the car keys. See me to the bus."

He followed her out, waiting as she went up the bus steps with the suitcase. Through the bus window he saw a man get out of his seat to help her with the suitcase and he saw Sarah shoo the man away and lift the suitcase herself onto the rack. He looked at his watch. It was a quarter to 11. The bus started up. As soon as it was out of sight, he turned and crossed the street to the shopping mall.

He knew what he needed and he shopped quickly. At the hardware store, he bought a pair of door hinges, then went back across the parking lot to the supermarket. There he bought a case of beer, several bags of pretzels and potato chips, two boxes of crackers, an assortment of cheese dips and a box of cocktail napkins. Waiting to pay, he noticed a display of flash cubes by the register, and after loading the groceries into his car, he went next door to the camera store and bought a Polaroid camera, flash cubes and film.

When he got back to the house, it was a quarter to noon. Across the street and one house down, Jim Hansen and Joe and Jeannie Kulik were sitting on the Hansen front porch; Angela Hansen was walking back and forth behind them, burping her baby. At the top of the block, Ed Banks, home for lunch, was getting out of his patrol car. In the kitchen of the house next door, Cheryl McAlister was drying dishes. Farther up, on the same side of the street, Tom Schroeder was perched on a stepladder in front of his house, adding a touch of white paint to his eaves. Standish, after taking note of these details, turned and carried the case of beer inside.

As he came back for the groceries, he heard a grunt and a cry from up the street. The can of white paint, he saw, had fallen from the shelf of Tom Schroeder's stepladder, coating the tops of his evergreens. Millie Schroeder was helping her husband descend the stepladder; Bill Shackleford was on his way over from next door; the Kuliks and Jim Hansen had turned around in their chairs to look; Cheryl McAlister had stepped to the kitchen window; Ed Banks was calling out something good-natured from across the street. Standish, nodding to himself, went inside the house and put away the rest of the party fixings. The noon siren started up and the bells of the church at the bottom of the block began to ring. Standish walked to the back hall, where the deliverymen had left the glass door for the sun porch. Sliding it slowly and turning it on its corners so as not to damage the carpet, he walked the door into the living room.

He had done all the preliminary work for hanging the door, and thus drilling the holes and screwing the hinge plates on took only about a quarter of an hour. The exertions of the morning, and his gathering excitement, slowed his hands and made them tremble, so much so that he had to make a fist each time he checked his watch. The hinges were finally on and he carefully lifted the door into place. His heart, as he drove the bottom pin, beat so strongly he had to lean for several minutes against the doorjamb. He went into the kitchen, took down his favorite glass from the cabinet, poured himself a drink of water and carried the glass into the living room. After he had rested awhile longer, he looked at his watch again. It was now five minutes to one. He noticed that his favorite glass would leave a ring on Sarah's rosewood table. The sight of the glass, and especially the circle of water beneath, filled him with pleasurable impatience. He went over to the newly hung door, pulled it toward him, closed it, opened it again and walked onto his sun porch.

The sun swarmed in, hot and dusty. The pulse in his neck rustled his collar. Steadying himself against the sun-porch wall, Standish went over to the window and looked out.

Across the street, the Kuliks and Jim Hansen were on the Hansen front porch, and Angela Hansen was walking back and forth, burping her baby. Next door, Cheryl was drying dishes in the McAlister kitchen. Up the street, Ed Banks was getting out of his patrol car. There was a grunt and a cry, and Standish, peering, saw the can of white paint on the shelf of Tom Schroeder's stepladder topple and fall, drenching the tops of his evergreens. The Kuliks, Jim Hansen and Ed Banks turned to look. Standish, wiping his forehead, moved away from the window.

It was true. Every detail was there. Everything was as it had been, exactly an hour before, and now everything was happening over again. The noon siren was sounding at the top of the block and the bells of the church had begun to ring. Roy Standish counted 12 chimes and looked at his watch. It read one o'clock. Carefully, his heart beating too fast for comfort, Standish reset his watch in accord with the digital clock on the sun-porch shelf, to the new, correct time.

For the next ten minutes, he sat in his easy chair on the sun porch, waiting for his nerves to calm down. With difficulty, Standish rose from his chair and walked through the living room to the front hall. He picked up the telephone and dialed the time. The voice and his watch were in agreement: It was now, again, for the second time that day, 11 minutes past the hour of noon.

Glancing back into the living room, he verified that his favorite glass, from which he had drunk at five minutes to one and then had set down on Sarah's rosewood table, was gone. The ring of water, too, was gone, wiped out by the receding hour. Everything was as it had been; everything in the intervening 60 minutes had been erased. Breathing cautiously, Standish went into the kitchen and opened the cabinet. There stood his favorite glass, just as it had stood an hour before. There, also, stood the boxes of pretzels and potato chips he had brought in from the car, before noon, more than an hour before he had stepped onto the sun porch. Sarah's list of chores was on the counter, weighted down by the orange squeezer.

A thrill of mischief passed through Standish's chest, causing him to swallow for breath; picking up Sarah's list, he tore it into tiny pieces and scattered the pieces over the kitchen floor, then seized his favorite glass from the cabinet and smashed it in the sink. Turning, he hurried out of the kitchen, through the living room and onto the sun porch.

The digital clock read 11:15. Outside, across the street, only Angela Hansen was on the Hansen porch, not yet burping her baby, only giving it a bottle; Kulik and Hansen and Jeannie Kulik had not yet come outside. The Banks's driveway was empty, the patrol car still due, and Tom Schroeder was only just opening up his stepladder. Standish, setting his watch back an hour, walked out of the sun porch into the living room and through the front hall to the kitchen. The floor and sink, he saw at once, were clear of debris; Sarah's list of chores was back on the counter in one piece; his own favorite glass was whole again and back in the cabinet. The potato chips and pretzels, the beer, the cheese dips and everything else he had bought that morning were gone, back where they had been at 11:15. He went into the living room. The glass door, firm on its hinges, remained immutably part of the sun porch. With a sigh and a chuckle, he went out to the car.

He drove to town and stopped at the supermarket. Again he bought a case of beer, pretzels, potato chips, crackers, cheese dips, napkins. Next door, again, he bought a Polaroid camera, flash cubes, film. Then, once again, he drove home. By the time he had finished unloading the car, it was a quarter to 12. Across the street, Angela Hansen was starting to burp her baby and the Kuliks and Jim Hansen were coming out onto the Hansen porch. Standish put the beer in the refrigerator and then came outside again and walked across the street. He went up the Hansen front walk to the porch. Angela Hansen, pacing back and forth with her baby, was the first to notice him. She stopped, turned, looked at him strangely. They all looked at him strangely.

It took him a moment to catch his breath and clear his throat.

"I'm having a party this afternoon," he said. "At one o'clock. I'd like it if you all could come."

The Kuliks and the Hansens looked at one another.

"Say that again?" asked Joe Kulik. Standish repeated.

"What, at your house?" said Hansen.

Standish passed a hand over his eyes. "I'm sorry," he said. "I ought to say who I am. My name is Roy Standish and I live----"

"Oh, we know who you are," said Hansen, with a look at Kulik.

"Your wife know about this?" asked Kulik.

"My wife is away," said Standish.

"Who all's coming to this party?" asked Jeannie Kulik.

"I don't know yet," said Standish softly. "I was hoping the people on the block."

"Kind of short notice, isn't it, Roy?"

"It is. I'm sorry. I hope you will come," said Standish, turning, with a flushed face, and walking back down the Hansen sidewalk to the street. Behind him, he could hear the Kuliks and the Hansens whispering, then a single burst of laughter, then the four of them, laughing together. He did not look around but went directly next door and rang the bell. There was no answer. He walked back down the sidewalk to the next house. There he glimpsed a face at the living-room window looking out to see who was at the door, but though he waited several minutes, no one came. Three doors up, he was mistaken for a salesman by Mrs. Banks, wife of the policeman, who ordered him off the property.

Just then, the noon siren began to sound. At the next house, the Shacklefords', he had better luck. Apparently, the Kuliks and the Hansens had been watching him go from house to house and had called ahead, because when the Shacklefords answered the door, they said yes, of course, they would try to come, smiling at each other much as the Kuliks and the Hansens had done.

He called his invitation to the Schroeders from the sidewalk and he wasn't quite sure whether or not they'd understood him. Millie was helping Tom as he tried to wipe off the white paint that had spilled over the tops of his evergreens.

Shortly after noon, he had come full circle and was ringing the bell at the McAlisters', the house next to his own.

"My name is Roy Standish," he said when the door was opened.

"Yes, I know. From the haunted house next door."

It was the McAlisters' daughter. For a moment, her name eluded Standish, and then he saw it, Cheryl, stitched to a rising sun on the pocket of her jeans. She was wearing a T-shirt with a picture of a wall socket, and she was smiling. Though tired and a little discouraged from his circuit of the block, he responded to her smile, which seemed more friendly than knowing.

"I came to ask your folks to a party."

"I know," she said.

"How did you know?"

"I was watching at the window. I thought, well, Christmas cards in April, and then I thought--well, who cares what I thought?"

"I went to every house," said Standish. He gazed up the street. "I don't suppose any of them will come, though."

"Don't bet on it. These are the nosiest people in the entire world, on this block."

"But if they think the house is haunted?"

"I'm the one who thinks the house is haunted," she said, going past him down the steps. "Is it OK if I come? My parents won't be back for a while, and I don't think they'd come, anyway. Because of that business with the oak tree. Which you were absolutely justified about, by the way. My father knew that branch was about to come down, but he was too lazy to do anything about it. Aren't you coming?"

"Yes," said Standish. He followed the girl across the driveway and across his lawn and up his front steps. He held the door open for her and they went into the living room. The girl walked up and down, staring around.

"It's really nice," said Cheryl. "I love this furniture. Is it haunted all over, or just one part?"

Standish swallowed. "Come on to the kitchen."

"Wow, your wife really keeps it clean," she said when they entered. "Not like my mother, who's always yelling for me to straighten my room, and yet there's always mold in the blueberries." She opened the refrigerator. "What's a 'Craig's Wife'?"

"Why?" said Standish.

"I heard my father say it. Oh, you know, they all say she's a witch, which is wrong, anyway, since she's not the witch, you're the wizard, but what good is having nice things if you don't take care of them? I mean, if you care about things, which I don't, but if I had a nice lawn, I wouldn't let a lot of brats play baseball on it, either, or let the dogs kill the grass around the trees. Look at my father, or Mr. Kulik, or Mr. Hansen, or any of these people. They all want nice lawns, like with special sod and Vigoro, and the first brat who cuts across or the first dog, they don't have the guts to tell them to get off, because they'll get a reputation as an ogre and the other people won't invite them to the parties, which they don't want to go to anyway. Is the haunted part upstairs?"

"No," said Standish.

"Can I see for myself? Say no if you don't want me to."

"I want you to," said Standish. He followed her up the stairs. At the landing, he stopped and turned. "You go ahead," he said and went back downstairs. His heart was pounding. When he went upstairs again, it was five minutes to one and Cheryl was looking through Sarah's clothes closet.

"I call other people nosy," she said, "and look at me. But your wife's clothes are so great. I bet she makes them all herself."

She held up a long, large-flowered dress with a lace ruff, turning before his wife's door mirror. A muscle quivered in Standish's chest. He raised the Polaroid camera, which he had brought with him, and, holding it at arm's length so as not to obscure his face in the mirror, snapped a picture. Cheryl blinked at the flash, smiling.

"What's that for?"

"That's just in case," said Standish. "To remember you by."

"But I can come over all the time. Can't I? I'd really love to meet your wife. I knew if my parents said you were bad, you had to be nice. Are you counting a minute?"

He peeled back the flap on the Polaroid.

"Oh, that's a really great picture. Look, your face is in the mirror, too. Uh-oh."

"What?" said Standish. He had taken the photo and was coating it with fixative.

"I think I heard the doorbell. That's got to be my father. I'm not supposed to leave the house."

"Shh," said Standish, touching her shoulder. "Wait here." Still holding the camera, he turned and walked out of the bedroom and down the stairs. He could see heads at the front door. The bell sounded again. As he crossed the front hall, he realized he was holding the Polaroid of Cheryl and stuffed it, still a little wet, into his shirt pocket. He opened the front door.

"Roy, old buddy!"

They all came in, Kulik first, clapping his shoulder, then Jeannie Kulik, the Hansens behind her, and the Schroeders and the Shacklefords. They moved past him into the living room. He looked at his watch. It was one o'clock.

"I'm glad you could come," Standish said, turning.

They were looking around slowly, like people getting their bearings in a circus tent.

"Won't you sit down?" said Standish.

"We can't stay but a minute," said Jeannie Kulik.

"We're on our way to the club," said Jim Hansen.

"Can I get you something to drink?" said Standish.

"When the cat's away, the mouse will play."

"Hush, Joe."

"I have beer," said Standish.

"You wouldn't have Scotch?" asked Hansen.

"Just beer. I'm sorry."

"We'll all have a beer," said Tom Schroeder.

"Will you look at the Biedermeier chairs. And a Saruk carpet. My mother would give her eyeteeth."

"Don't sit there, Jim. That chair is definitely not meant to be sat in."

"Where are those refreshments?"

"I'm sorry," said Standish. "I was just going to get them."

"Don't brother," said Tom Schroeder, coming in with a loaded tray.

"This place is like a museum."

"The oldest house on the block, right, Roy? All the land around here used to belong to this house," said Hansen.

"Jim, that chair is definitely telling you to get off."

"Whoops. Tom, watch the overflow."

"Jeannie'll get a sponge. You sit tight, Roy. Bill? Pass the pretzels. I see you finished your sun porch, Roy."

Kulik was ambling toward the sun-porch door. Standish stepped in front of him. "Wait," he said.

"I see you have a ringside view of Cheryl McAlister. I wonder what the old lady says to that."

"Please don't go in."

"Well, OK. Hey, I was just gonna look around."

"Just don't."

"Sure. Sure. I understand. The sanctum sanctorum. Well, sure. Just take the claws off me, OK? OK."

Standish let go of Kulik's arm. Kulik, with a look at Hansen, turned and opened another can of beer. Tom Schroeder, Standish saw, was now eying the sun porch. There was no way to mingle and yet keep watch on the doorway. After a moment's thought, Standish slid a harp-backed chair in front of the sun-porch door and sat down. He tried to manage this inconspicuously, but Schroeder was giving him a funny look. Minutes were passing, the voices were rising. He must try to join the party, but his limbs and eyes felt heavy. His head fell onto his chest, jerked back. He looked at his watch: ten minutes to two. On the sun porch, the digital clock was just now changing to 12:50. They had been in his house almost an hour. The noise was loud, the beer nearly gone. He must try to join in.

"Well, look who's up. Have a good nap, Royboy?"

He raised the Polaroid camera and, positioning himself so that his reflection showed in the center of Sarah's gilt-edged wall mirror, pressed the button. The flash went off.

"Well, isn't that cute? He wants a souvenir."

"I'll bet this is a historic occasion. We're the first people to set foot inside this house."

"You gonna show it to the old lady, Roy? What do you think she'll say? You think she'll have us over again?" Hansen winked at Kulik and leaned back, causing the legs of the Biedermeier chair to creak. "Cook us all a good old-fashioned American meal?"

"I hope so," said Standish.

"Good," said Hansen. "I've always wondered what dog repellent tastes like." He belched, threw his head back. There was a splintering crack and Hansen and the Biedermeier chair pitched sideways onto the floor. A beer can went rolling across the carpet, unreeling a string of liquid. Standish felt his bladder tremble.

"Jim," said Jeannie Kulik, forcing back a giggle, "that's a priceless antique."

"I'll say it's antique." Hansen stretched out on the carpet, making backstroke motions. "Help," he said, "I'm drowning."

Pain struck Standish's belly. His bladder felt ready to burst. Unbuttoning his fly, he shuffled over next to Hansen and urinated on Hansen's shirt.

"Oh, Lord! Jim, get up----"

"You senile son of a bitch." Hansen grabbed at him, getting a fistful of sleeve. Standish squirmed for a look at his watch. Six minutes to two. The sun-porch door was behind him, Kulik and Schroeder blocking his way. Hansen came up close to Standish, breathed in his face and cocked his fist; Standish felt Hansen's foot on his shoe. Suddenly, he pulled free, stumbling back between Kulik and Schroeder; sliding away the harp-backed chair, he lunged through the sun-porch door.

The digital clock clicked to 12:55. The noise in the living room snapped off; he looked back; the room was empty; he went to the window. Across the street, the Kuliks and the Hansens, the Schroeders and the Shacklefords, were gathered on the Hansen front porch, about to leave for the party. Standish walked back through the sun-porch door and into the empty living room. The carpet was dry, the Biedermeier chair in one piece again, the beer and pretzels and cheese back in the kitchen. He looked in his hand; he was still holding the second Polaroid. He examined the faces of Hansen, in the chair, and Kulik, and Schroeder, and Shackleford, and the wives, and his own face, tiny, in Sarah's gilt-edged mirror. From his pocket, he took out the first Polaroid, of Cheryl with the long, large-flowered dress. The ceiling above him creaked. He went up the stairs and into the bedroom. Cheryl was in front of Sarah's door mirror.

"I call other people nosy," she said, "and look at me. But your wife's clothes are so great. I bet she makes them all herself."

He handed her the first Polaroid.

"It's me," she said. He saw her shudder. "When did you take this? Were you hiding somewhere? Oh, wow! I knew this house was haunted."

"Come on," said Standish. "They'll be here any moment."

She was staring at the second Polaroid.

"They were here," she said.

The front doorbell was ringing. Through the window he saw the Kuliks, the Hansens, the Schroeders, the Shackle-fords. It was one o'clock.

"They're here again," she said. He took her by the hand and they went downstairs to the door.

"Mr. Standish, I don't want them to see me----"

He opened the door.

"Roy, old buddy!" said Joe Kulik, coming in and clapping him on the shoulder. He stopped, peered at Cheryl McAlister. "Hey, what's she doing here?"

"Come on," said Standish, still holding her by the hand. Behind him, as he approached the sun-porch door, he heard the Kuliks and the Hansens and the others whispering to one another. Ahead, in the sun porch, it was 12 o'clock. Keeping a grip on Cheryl's hand, he walked in. Then, turning, he pointed back through the sun-porch door to the front hall.

"They're gone," she said.

"Listen," he said. Outside, from up the street, came a grunt and a cry. He steered Cheryl to the window. The can of white paint had fallen from Tom Schroeder's stepladder, coating the tops of his evergreens. The noon siren started up; the bells of the church began to ring.

"It's twelve o'clock again," said Cheryl softly. "We made it twelve o'clock."

"That's right."

"We walked onto the sun porch. The sun porch is always an hour behind. And when you walk out again----"

"You're still an hour behind," he said.

"Oh, wow!" she said and sank cross-legged onto the floor.

"You're the first to know," he said with pride.

She sat staring at her feet. Standish lowered himself into the easy chair. He closed his eyes, feeling the back of his neck blend with the cushion. He heard her get up, felt her sit down beside him on the chair arm.

"Think of all you could do," she whispered.

His legs tingled. He inhaled, taking in the odor of her skin.

"All the money you could make, if you had to. Like, if you knew who won a horse race, and went back. Or if something bad happened, erase it. Like a murder. Or if you didn't want certain people to be born."

"It was a fried-lemon smell. His thighs felt hot.

"I know what I'd do," she said. Her fingers were twirling his hair. He rolled his eyes back. "I'd take that camera everywhere. I'd show all the women on this block what dirty old men their husbands are. I'd bring back dirty pictures from their dreams. Mr. Kulik, who's always coming over to borrow my father's lawn sweeper when he doesn't need it, just to see me with my straps down. Big thrill. I'd embarrass him first. They're all like that. I don't see how their wives can take it. Ed Banks, when he was head of the crossing guard of all the grade schools? He'd drive around, and the girls in the crossing guard he liked, he'd take them in his patrol car, and he always had this pair of stockings. And he'd show you ... how to get excited. That was before he got promoted."

Small particles burst in his legs, like sparks from a child's toy. His head rolled from one side to the other.

"You know what else I'd do?" she said softly. He felt her cheek next to his. "I'd make it be now," she said, "over and over. Forever and ever." Her odor went up his nose. "That way, my parents would never come back. Oh, wow!"

"What?" He felt the absence of her cheek.

"Where would they be?"

"Wherever they are."

"But time has to go on, somewhere."

"Who knows?" said Standish, wishing for her cheek again.

"What would you do?" she said.

"What I did. Try to make friends."

"But you made a friend."

She stroked his head. Her hand, going past the hollows of his ears, made a steady, flowing sound. His hair crackled. The hot air of the sun porch, busy with sawdust, pressed at his body.

"Let's do it," said Cheryl.

He opened his eyes. She had bounded from the chair and was at the window, gazing up and down the street. "What?" he said, alarmed.

"Come on. I always wanted to."

Her eyes shone hugely. With a quick motion of her thumbs, she snapped open her jeans, peeled them down, hopping on one foot. Underneath she was naked, the backs of her thighs brown and taut. Cheryl yanked her wall-socket shirt up and over and let it drop. Standish stared at the pool of clothes on the sun-porch floor.

"Come on," she said, tugging his arm. One hand on the chair, Standish rose to his feet. Cheryl was pulling at his shirt buttons. Pressure from his heart swelled his throat. She was helping him off with his pants, the fabric scraping past his knees like chalk over glass.

She folded his clothes in a neat pile, bouncing softly on her heels. She ran out of the sun porch into the front hall.

"Come on."

He walked out of the sun porch. The digital clock slipped to 11:45. Sweat collected on his back. She opened the front door and walked out into the sun, turning to help him down the steps. He eased his feet onto the sidewalk.

"It's hot," he said.

"Well, if you want to go back for your shoes." She bounced impatiently, running ahead of him into the street. Across the way, the Kuliks and the Hansens were staring from the Hansen porch. Tom Schroeder backed down his stepladder, looking. The Shacklefords were on their lawn, hands arched over their eyes. Standish stepped down from the curb. The gravel embedded in the tar bit into his feet. The breeze burned his skin.

"We'll go up and back," said Cheryl, taking his hand.

His feet stung. He tried to scrape loose the pebbles. The Kuliks and the Hansens had come down from the Hansen porch and were starting across the lawn.

"Don't look at them," she said. "Just walk." The elms shook violently overhead. "Feel the breeze," she said.

Schroeder, the Shacklefords, Joe Kulik, Hansen, all were edging toward the street. He felt their hot, puzzled stares.

"I wish I'd brought the camera," Cheryl said.

Standish halted in his tracks. "Don't stop," she said.

He looked behind him. A car was turning the corner at the foot of the block. It came toward them. Fifty yards away, not quite in front of the McAlister house, it stopped. George McAlister got out. Standish saw Cheryl whirl around, saw her freeze as she spotted her father coming toward them, saw her spurt across the street, headed for his, for Standish's, house, headed for the sun porch, the whites of her buttocks shaking as she leaped onto the curb. No one was chasing her; Kulik, Hansen, Schroeder, the Shacklefords all stood at the edge of their lawns, glued to the spot by the sight of a naked girl running. Another moment and she would be at the front door of his house, then inside, then across the living room and through the sun-porch door, and what, on the instant, was going to become of him? It would be her sun porch, her time, her world.

With a groan, half relief, he saw she was not going to make it after all. He saw George McAlister lunge past his car, nabbing his daughter as she reached the sidewalk. Pain rose in Standish's legs. He felt someone seize him from behind.

"Easy, Gramps. I ain't gonna hurt you."

It was the cop, Banks. Standish felt a strong impulse to cover his privates. His flesh felt loose, his belly hung like a carpenter's pouch, Banks was twisting the slack of his triceps between a finger and thumb.

"You come with me now, Gramps."

He steered Standish forward. Across the expanse of lovely grass that was his lawn, Standish could see George McAlister prodding his daughter up the McAlister steps. The girl was arguing loudly with him. Banks was pushing him toward his own front door.

"You get your clothes on, Gramps, and we'll take a little ride."

The cop moved past him, opening the door and shoving him in. Athwart Banks's right pants pocket, Standish noticed, there was an erection.

"My clothes are in here," said Standish, gesturing toward the sun porch. The digital clock read 11:59.

"Make it snappy, Pappy." Banks hitched his pants, realigning his erection. Laboring, Standish crossed the living room and walked onto the sun porch. He turned. Banks was gone. He looked at his clothes neatly piled on the shelf and Cheryl McAlister's on the floor. From outside the sun-porch window, he heard a grunt and a cry, as Tom Schroeder's paint can toppled from the shelf of his stepladder. The noon siren sounded at the top of the block. The church bells began to toll noon. Standish covered his ears with his hands.

Weak with shame, he leaned against the window for several moments, his head against the pane.

He bent down slowly and picked up Cheryl McAlister's T-shirt and jeans. He walked out of the sun porch. The digital clock slipped back to 11:10. He went into the kitchen and dropped Cheryl McAlister's clothes into the garbage can. Closing the lid, he remembered the Polaroids and went back to the sun porch. He took the two Polaroids from the pocket of his shirt, on the shelf, and walked out of the sun porch into the living room. The digital clock clicked back to 10:15. He went into the kitchen and dropped the photographs into the garbage can. He went back to the sun porch. He lowered himself into the chair.

"Roy!" He looked up. In the front hall stood Sarah, his wife, in her topcoat and straw tam, suitcase in hand, ready to leave for the station.

"What are you doing, Roy?" His arms shook as he rose from the chair.

"Roy, why are you like that? Why aren't you dressed?"

"Sarah----"

"I'll miss my bus! Roy, will you put on some clothes!"

He shuffled toward her. She backed away. "Roy, what is happening?"

"I have to show you." Shame, longing filled him. "We have to go back. Far back."

"Roy, don't----"

"I love you, Sarah."

"Roy!"

His erection rose and fell and rose again. He threw his arms around her shoulders. She stumbled, collided with the wall, sank back. He fell against her and put his mouth on her face. Gasping for breath, he laid his tongue against her cheek. Her body, however, was still. She did not move. Her eyes gaped.

"Sarah." He backed away, crawling toward the sun-porch door. Black sparks beat in his head. At the door he managed to rise. He stepped into the doorway, turning. The digital clock read 9:25. The living room was empty. Her body, lifeless a minute before, was gone.

Sarah's voice came from the top of the stairs. "Roy, where did you go?" Her slippered footsteps were coming down. "I don't want to miss my bus, I have chores I have to go over with you. Roy?"

She turned the corner into the living room and gasped. He turned, naked in the doorway, looking back over his shoulder. She was gone. The clock had slipped back. From upstairs, he heard the morning alarm.

"Roy?" she called from the bedroom.

He turned in the doorway of the sun porch. The light outside the windows dimmed. He turned once again, and again. Night sucked back dawn.

"Roy? Where are you? I woke up, I was so tense I couldn't sleep, you weren't there. Are you down there? Roy?"

He stood in the doorway to the sun porch, turning.

• • •

Ed Banks let the dead boy's arm drop. "It's Standish, all right," he said.

He handed round the fingerprints. Joe Kulik took the card, passed it to Tom Schroeder, who gave it back to Banks. The small, smooth white body, divided in two by the sunlight from the sun porch, lay quiet as a twig.

"He had nice black hair," said Jeannie Kulik.

"Small for his age," Millie said.

"Hard to tell," said Tom Schroeder. "Because of the weight loss."

"Makes him look older," Joe said.

"I wonder if he did starve. Or if the heart just gave out."

"It was a young heart. Getting younger by the second."

"I could use a drink. Anybody else use a drink?"

"Maybe he just got dizzy. Going back and forth, in and out of that room, all those times."

"Thirty times a minute."

"You figure?"

"At twelve hours a day, if you allow for rest."

"You wonder why he kept going back."

"You wonder," Ed Banks said. Everybody looked at Cheryl McAlister. She turned to hide her face. Sarah Standish was kneeling beside the body of her husband.

"Joe?" said George McAlister. "I could use a drink, too."

"There's nothing in the house."

"Thirty times twelve--no, thirty times sixty minutes per hour times twelve hours a day times, say, twenty days, divided by twenty-four hours a day divided by three hundred and sixty-five days a year--"--

"We'll all have a drink back at our house."

"Would be about minus fifty years. You're right."

"Making him about fifteen."

"Mommy? Daddy? Goodbye."

"Where are you going, Cheryl?"

"Goodbye, Mommy. Goodbye, Daddy."

"Tom? Bill? Joe? What say we go back to my house?"

"Fifty years. At least. Before any of us were born, at any rate."

"Listen! That clicking sound--it seems to be going faster and faster."

"Ed? You don't need us anymore. If you want help with the report, call me."

"No use--Ed has gone already. Funny."

"Tom? Bill? Joe? Come on. The air is getting to me."

"Before any of us were born."

"Where did Cheryl go?"

"Angie, did you bring your baby over with you?"

"What baby?"

"Come on, I'm getting spooked. Let's go back to my house, quick."

"What house?"

"Cut it out."

"Jim, I'm asking you, where's our house?"

"Joe, stop clowning with that hairpiece. Angie's upset."

"Hey, Jeannie, suddenly you look very terrific."

"I feel terrific. I feel ... strange."

"Our house, Jim. All I see is a vacant lot. Jim, I feel crazy."

"Tom, do you know you're shrinking? God, listen to me. My voice hasn't cracked in ages."

"Where's our house?"

"Jeannie? What happened to Jeannie?"

"What happened to the street? Where'd all that grass come from?"

"Angela?"

"Jeannie?"

"Who let all these kids in here?"

"Tom?"

"Joe?"

Houses tumbled, trees shrank into the ground, waves of grass rolled over the block. The sun porch remained, and the frail, white body of young Standish, and his young wife, Sarah, kneeling above his forehead, planting a kiss on the small, dead lips. In the crumbling sunlight, shaking tiny, dwindling fists, those left began to scream.