“Something like that.” Mouse was unable or unwilling to answer any personal inquiries directly. “I just help others feel better.”
“I know. You’ve already said that.” This time Alicia was determined not to be put off. “But just how do you go about doing that? I mean, exactly what kind of therapy do you employ?”
“Musical. I am a singer.”
“A singer, wow!” said Wendy.
“A singer.” Steven sounded disappointed. He’d been hoping their beautiful visitor was something much more mysterious. A spy, like, or a lady commando. Although spies and commandos usually didn’t help people to feel better.
If Alicia had been hoping that pinning a specific profession on the hitchhiker would dilute her daughter’s interest, she found Mouse’s admission had just the opposite effect.
“I’ve never met anyone who sang professionally before,” Wendy was saying rapidly. “I mean, I’ve got friends who want to and a couple of the kids at school have parents who are pretty big in show business, but they’re not singers. What do you sing? I know! The way you dress and the kind of voice you’ve got, I bet you’re a lot like Stevie Nicks.”
“Who is Stevie Nicks?” asked Mouse politely.
“You don’t know who Stevie Nicks is?” Wendy hesitated, then grinned broadly. “You’re putting me on, right? Sure you are. Hey, could you sing something for us?”
“Oh, I don’t think it’s right to ask something like that.” Alicia was beginning to wonder if she mightn’t have pressed her inquiry too far.
“Your mother’s right.” Frank had been listening while driving. “We don’t want to embarrass our guest.”
“Besides,” said Steven snidely, “she doesn’t have a band. Every singer’s gotta have a band.”
That’s my boy, Frank thought admiringly. An overweight junk food junkie he is, but he’s got brains. He listens to stuff between the commercials.
“I do not use a band,” said Mouse. For a moment her expression turned dreamy. “It helps, but it is very rare I find musicians who know how to play just the right music. I usually have to sing a cappella.”
“A cappella? What’s that?” Steven wondered.
“Without accompaniment.” Mouse stared down at him, then back at Wendy. “I would be happy to sing you a little tune. It is what I do.”
Alicia’s bluff had been called, but once Mouse began to sing she no longer minded. She was as enthralled by the music as the rest of her family.
It was a wordless song Mouse sang. Alicia’s formal musical education extended to a single music appreciation class taken in the tenth grade. Despite that, she knew the hitchhiker’s range was extraordinary. The soprano that flowed from Mouse’s throat was pure as spring ice, and just as clear. In actuality Mouse’s voice was effortlessly spanning six octaves. This was quite impossible, but no one in the motor home knew enough about music to realize it. They knew only that the sweet sounds that filled the motor home were achingly lovely.
Mouse sang without visible effort. Beneath the folds of silk her chest did not seem to rise and fall with each breath. Sometimes her song imitated the sounds of waves lapping at a beach. The slower sections reminded Frank of pictures he’d seen of South Pacific lagoons, pristine sheets of water, flat as mirrors, disturbed only by the fleeting musical ping of a fish breaking the surface.
Individual notes rippled and flashed through the underlying melody, like brightly colored tropical fish darting among a coral reef. Bells and chimes echoed in the air, lingered in the ear. Certain notes were like pebbles tossed in a pond, each initial sound framed by spreading, decreasing vibrations.
As the last of the song faded to silence, an exquisite yet disturbing chill ran through his spine.
Mouse closed her eyes. She’d kept them open while singing. Now she gathered herself as she relaxed. Throughout it all her body had hardly moved. Steven and Wendy sat as if gently frozen. Even television couldn’t hold Steven like that. No one spoke until the last echo of the final note had finally died, dissipating itself against the metal walls. Frank cleared his throat, was surprised how dry it was. It was almost as if he’d forgotten to breathe or swallow for the duration of the song.
“That was one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever heard in my life,” he said slowly. “Maybe the most beautiful thing. I mean, I’m no music expert or anything like that, but I know what I like. And I liked that.”
“I am pleased you did.” Mouse sipped her lemonade. “I like to sing. To sing for pleasure, as now, is fun. When I do my work it can be something of a strain. The notes you cannot hear are difficult to sing.”
Frank chuckled good-naturedly. “Now how can you sing notes nobody can hear? If we can’t hear them, that means you can’t either, and if you can’t hear them, then how do you know they’re being sung?”
“Vibrations. Those are the most beautiful notes of all. You must feel what you cannot hear.”
“I don’t know about that, but I know I heard what I felt. How about it, kids? Not heavy metal, but…”
“It was amazing.” Wendy was gazing at their guest out of worshipful eyes.
“Yeah, pretty,” said Steven, equally overwhelmed if not as descriptive.
Wendy’s expression turned sly. “I just figured it out. You are going to Las Vegas.”
“She said she wasn’t, kiddo,” said Frank.
“I’ll bet she is, Pops. I’ll bet she was just too shy to tell us. That’s why you didn’t recognize this Vanishing Point place. In art class they told us the vanishing point is where all the lines on a drawing meet. It sounds like a perfect name for a club.”
The Vanishing Point. You had to hand it to his daughter, Frank thought. Considering where their old man had come from they’d turned out damn bright. Of course it was a nightclub, or something similar. Mouse was a young singer, maybe just trying to get started. She’d landed this important gig in Vegas but didn’t have the bucks to get there. So she’d decided to hitch it across the desert.
“I mean,” Wendy was saying, “it’s so obvious. Anybody can see you’re good enough to sing professionally. I’m right, aren’t I?”
Mouse smiled enigmatically, then abruptly put a small hand to her forehead. Those expansive violet eyes closed tightly. Lines appeared on that perfect face.
“What’s wrong?” Wendy was suddenly concerned. “You okay?”
Mouse’s hand fell from her forehead and she managed another smile. “I just need to rest. My journey thus far has been a long and difficult one. Singing is exhausting.”
“Standing out in that heat would knock anyone for a loop.” Frank glanced at Alicia, who spoke up reluctantly.
“The big bed is in the back. It’ll be quieter there.” She tried to set her suspicions and concerns aside. “You lie down for as long as you like. Shall we wake you when we get to Baker?”
“Whatever you will be comfortable with,” Mouse replied as she stood. “I just need some sleep. And this.” She hefted the half-empty glass of lemonade.
