Hard Rain by Peter Abrahams Page A

make out the “T” and the “o.” Now she saw that the third letter was “i.” “Toi.” It was French for “you,” wasn’t it? And hadn’t the last word been “toi” as well?
    After searching unsuccessfully for a magnifying glass, Jessie unhooked the blackboard from the wall and carefully wrapped it in dry cleaners’ plastic. In her workroom at home, she had the big light, a powerful magnifier and fine brushes for uncovering chalk dust, layer by layer. She called a taxi. When it arrived twenty minutes later, she picked up her package and went out.
    It was late afternoon. A cool, damp wind was blowing in off the ocean. The blue oblong at the end of the street stretched to the horizon, turning gray under a graying sky. Rain was in the air.
    The taxi driver looked her up and down, then got out of the car to open the trunk for her. He had to step around the bag lady, who was leaning against her shopping cart, watching the sky; reflected clouds drifted over the lenses of her sunglasses.
    The taxi driver held out his hands to take the blackboard, but Jessie wanted to put it in the trunk herself. As she leaned forward, a metal wheel squeaked. Then the bag lady backed into her, knocking the package from her arms. The blackboard shattered on the pavement.
    â€œChrist almighty,” Jessie said, turning on her.
    The bag lady hunched down as though in the teeth of a storm, her gray head tucked into her thick shoulders. Then she spun around and hurried away toward the beach. The shopping cart ran over the blackboard, crunching fragments under its wheels.
    â€œBeam me, beam me,” the bag lady whispered.
    Jessie bent down and looked at the pieces. They were all there in the plastic, dozens of them.
    â€œMierda,” said the taxi driver.
    A cold raindrop landed on Jessie’s face.

7
    It was just like a jigsaw puzzle, except the pieces were all jagged and black. Find the four corners, find the four sides, fill it in. Under the five-hundred-watt bulb, Jessie’s fingers dipped into the plastic wrapper, found the piece they wanted, stuck it in place, working quickly and surely, like a well-trained team that didn’t need coaching anymore. The puzzle began to take shape on a big sheet of brown paper she’d laid on the worktable—“Night Sky with Milky Way,” or a rectangular blackboard with swirls of chalk dust. And under the chalk, Jessie could distinguish block capital letters: “T,” “o,” “i,” and now a “g” and “e” as well.
    When she had fit most of the pieces together, Jessie glued them, one by one, to the brown paper. Then she swiveled her magnifier into place, adjusted the focus, took her number eight flat brush and got to work. She knew that wiping with a dry cloth dislodges loosely packed chalk particles, spreading them over the blackboard, but underneath, unless the wiping has been very thorough, the tightly packed core remains. Particle by particle, Jessie brushed a narrow border around the “T,” the “o,” the “i,” the “g”; then she found the top of the next letter, found its side, brushed away the covering layer of chalk dust: another “i.” By the time the doorbell rang she’d exposed it all: “Toi giet la toi.” It still meant nothing to her. She copied the words on a sheet of paper and went upstairs.
    Jessie opened the door and let Barbara in. Rain danced on the roof of her car, parked in the driveway. “Peace,” said Barbara, handing her a stack of Lean Cuisine packages.
    Jessie took them and went into the kitchen. “What’ll it be?” Jessie asked, going through the packages—Chicken à l’Orange, Turkey Dijon, Linguine with Clam Sauce. “Two hundred and twenty-two calories? Two sixty-seven? Or do you feel like pigging out on two ninety-six?”
    â€œI don’t care,” Barbara said.