Persephone hated parties because she hated being stared at. What a relief to leave this one; swiveling her legs up and into the car while Roy stalked, raging as usual, toward the battered green pickup that hedged them in.
“Assholes!” Roy shouted to the night sky as he kicked the capless hubs. “Trashpeople! How can they take a piece of crap like this street-wheeling? Like they took a dump on the asphalt.” It had been a better party than usual, thought Persey as she waited. That fascinating man she had spent all evening talking to; who was he again? While
Roy opened the pickup’s door, searching for keys, she fished out the business card from beneath her left breast and scanned it surreptitiously. “Ned McKick, Behavioral Profiler.” Glad to get rid of it, she tossed it in the glovebox. On her person that card was red-hot, but in the glovebox it was anonymous; trash left behind by one cop at a policeman’s party.
“Bingo!” shouted Roy, locating keys beneath a frayed mat and roaring the V-8 into action. He didn’t care where he left the vehicle – one wheel in the ditch was OK by him – as long as space was left for a hasty exit. Instant gratification was too slow for Roy. He wanted what he wanted when he wanted it.
He routinely drove too fast, refusing seatbelts as insufficiently macho. He was lit; he was high, but not enough to seriously interfere with either his reaction time or his goal-oriented behavior. He played with her nipples, coaxing them to points.
“Thanks for coming, pudden,” he told her. “I know you hate it.”“I sure was surprised, seeing Stormee there,” was her only comment. Roy signaled annoyance at a creeper in the fast lane by traveling in the median. The shift to dirt from tarmac set the car to bouncing wildly, but Roy steered it one-handedly back to the pavement.
“Last time,” he told. “Jarod says she’s history. She’s sexed out.”
Another of Jarod’s wives down for the count. Jarod 4, Wives Zero. Persey was glad; Stormee was creepy. A professional bodybuilder, she was a disturbing
gender shape shifter to Persey’s point of view, or even a third sex. She licked her lips at Persey in a particularly unpleasant way, as if she was the dirty-joke and Persey was the punchline. Thanks to Roy’s crazy driving – what policeman would stop them? — they were home in half the time. Roy began stripping off Persey’s mermaid dress in the driveway, tearing it in the process. Persey resigned herself to $800 down the drain – some things were good for one-time-only. Behind the house, Digger barked frantically from his pen.
Persey propelled her husband forward. No sex on the car tonight. Neighbor’s lights were already going on. “Not here, honey. It’ll be better upstairs.”
Roy chose to blame his frustration on Digger. “That goddamn DOG won’t shut up!” “He’ll bark all night. Give me just one moment to let him in!”
Roy stormed in through the front door, flinging keys in the direction of the hall table. She could tell from the sound of metal on tile that he missed. Holding the dress around her like a sarong, she opened Digger’s gate and took him in through the garage, skirting the boat, the Corvette, the Harley sleeping in their plastic sheets. Roy’s truck and her own car never even made it out of the rain.
“Barkers get bullets,” Roy muttered. “You tell him.”
She found him standing in her pink and celadon kitchen, throwing his shirt in the general direction of the laundry room. A finicky man, he couldn’t tolerate a speck of dirt; changed his clothes all day long. The white and gold pearl-buttoned shirt he had worn to the party was new; another one-time-only; he would never wear it again. Same for the white ducks; the bloom was off that particular rose. Jarod’s fortieth birthday party had been a spectacular occasion; tomorrow back to flannels and jeans.
Digger raced for his water dish, and Persey threw a biscuit in his bowl. She always had to be careful about showing too much affection to Digger in front of Roy. He was perfectly capable of complaining, “You love that dog more than me” just like a five year old. As it was, he shot the dog a jealous glance.
Persey let the dress drop. “Now what can do for you?”
His eyes rolled upward like an epileptic’s as he shivered. “Let me keep the lights on.” It was a concession, because he would want to use the handcuffs. Seeing herself from the outside, feeling exposed, made it harder to get into the mood and find the secret place inside that triggered come. Fortunately there was always fantasy, that loyal tool. “OK,” she agreed.
He didn’t say she had to keep her eyes open and she closed them as Roy carried her up the stairs. Into the depths of her brain rode the dark man, the scarred man met today at the party. When first she saw him she mistook him for a plumber; nothing in his garb proclaimed a celebrant. But their conversation revealed him as a hunter, a hunter of men who chose to remain incognito. Immediately Persey identified. If she could, she would choose to remain unseen, to float through life observing. She would never able to get her best friend Cinda to understand that in some ways it might be a curse to be born with a face and body that drew all eyes.
Roy bumped her legs in the doorway of the black-and-white bedroom, but in the grips of her fantasy she fell to her knees before the lathering horse, foam falling from his bridle like wedding flowers.
Roy laid Persey out on the bed, crooning over her whitegold skin. Back in high school, he’d wanted nothing more than matching tattoos, but Persey’s dream mentor, the Bird Lady, she whose heavy bracelets disguised a number string, called body-ink “slave-brand”, so Persey had the strength to hold out against him. Now that Persey was the only unmarked woman left in the universe Roy was glad. The few times she’d tried to tease him with temporary tattoos he’d been angry. His wife must remain pristine.
The rider was coming closer, so close that the ground beneath her shook as if wanting him too. He saw her, he was coming for her; he would stake her out here, like a sacrifice.
The handcuffs clicked into place; then Roy spread her legs open as wide as they would go, massaging her thighs with those little strokes dubbed “effleurage”. Here came the animal bridegroom of the Bird Lady’s tales; half man, half beast, furred like a bear and hungry for a mate. He and his horse had become one just as she and her wolf Digger were one. Animal called to animal as he dismounted and ran towards her. Beneath his fur the man was naked, dark and hairy, the opposite of Roy. As he bore flying down upon her, fur floated above them like a tent, and she braced herself to receive him, shuddering and smiling, opening in ecstasy.
26 hours without T. Spoke to him last night and again this afternoon. His acceptance of me is total, but it comes from a position of strength and I have fears of being annihilated. Last night I experienced hallucinatory states – drove home the wrong way – felt something was happening to the car – re-experienced my swallowing problem. Resolved my panic by starting a poem.
Sat night Toss and I read the diary passages where
we lose our “divinity” (his word) together. He cried and told me what he’d felt like from his “side”, wanting to be male & in control, feeling helpless & immature. Agreed if we had married then we’d be divorced now.
11:05PM Trying to read Oneness & Separateness. Not well suited to me right now! Much as I want to be a mother the thought of a demanding infant between me & T truly horrifying. Insane fears of rejection and abandonment – why on earth should I trust this man? Called T at work! Complete craziness. He reassured me we will have private alone time a real vacation in the Berkshires. He said champagne arrived. Called A & we discussed Mom & Dad – how they rewarded “self-sufficiency” and responded to neediness coldly. Makes it hard to be honest now but I hate this weirdly formal relationship with my own parents. Avril says there is no retraining them.
Sat 14 July 79 – StormFall Farm – 11:15 PM Oh, my God who would believe it – here I am 11 years later! Told T about my uncle last night as we made sexual “confessions”. He was completely calm about it so it’s no longer a Big Secret. He insisted I read his ex-girlfriend’s letters. She was a Piper Cub to his Concorde, believe me. He kept carbons of his letters to her!!!! Not very loving – downright fatherly. In a bad way.
T’s actual father and he smoked cigars last night
after dinner leaning against the mantel – they were so beautiful together I felt stunned. Wrote a poem:
MY HUSBAND SMOKES CIGARS WITH HIS FATHER BY CANDLELIGHT
Your profiles cut my heart like glass. Go ahead. I’m a bleeder, I’ll Still be here when you look back. Your father is a silver-headed Walking-stick; his elongation glows with far less heat. You’re his nemesis; and he’s used to it. The wooden floors washed cornelian Perhaps by sunset Perhaps by jealousy of girls who Lost you; judged too soon the temper of your eyes Wrote too many letters or Not enough; the wrong kind Addressed to the pale law student with The cinderblock heart Traveling commentator with the hundred Dollar bill rolled inside his shoe, The long-haired Pinkerton guard. You learned to suck the cherries Scarless from the tree; it’s no mean art Broke a few at first; we all did. By what right am I the winner? You chose me in thirty seconds leaving enough time to smoke another cigar.
Everyone wants us to marry before May. But I feel
I need some time in Kentucky first. Toss told me last night that on paper he is a millionaire. Here’s luck, because if I keep on keeping on, I’m a pauper! Tom’s grandmother’s response was “I am not surprised.” She committed herself to reading my “thriller”. At dinner he announced I’m the only woman he’s ever wanted to marry. Tom’s dad said he thought he’d be a bachelor forever. Privately we affirmed absolute sexual fidelity forever. Will we be able to keep it?
Plush Palace – Wed 18 July 79 – 4:55 PM Boring day but good tips. Magnificent party at The Third Edition last night for Avril’s birthday. (I didn’t care for Avril’s latest “honey” Vigo but was furious at myself – she should date as widely as possible. Maybe I was affected by T who is a snob and a purist.) Drinks, fruit & cheese – then dinner at The Old Angler & Frank Langella in Dracula. (Not a good version.) “Finances” discussion with T. He talked me out of selling my car. I worry about being dependent on him but he says it will be fine. Sounds to me like he is living on a knife’s edge – working part time, going to law school, selling stock when he needs money (which he is loathe to do being naturally frugal.) Too tired to make love last night but we started up in the middle of the night – both asleep. Doors keep opening – then there’s another one.
Castle – 1 PM – Thurs 19 July 79 So happy I can’t take it all in. Feel like someone recovering from a long illness. Read Cheever’s Goodbye My Brother – as satisfying as a novel. Last night we made love for hours and hours but I just couldn’t come – kept holding his face saying, “Is it really you”? Dancing with Barbara the Kikuyu and blonde Joyce of the day-glo costumes.
3 PM Party Castle – 24 July 79 First real friction last night – very predictably, about my job. I’m irritated over the assumption that its sordid and brutalizing. It is totally NOT the same as the dancers in DC!!! LIFE can be sordid and brutalizing – I like this club because it ISN’T and I’ve tried others. We discussed HIS job which also has its sordid and corrupting aspects. Duh. His last girlfriend gave him shit about it (and refused to read the paper!) so it’s a sore point. He should get it. There was a horrible moment when he felt foreign and alien – but I expected it – too much intimacy always causes a backlash. Trying to read Sisters & Strangers. The Victorian novel is not dead.
Castle – 2 Aug 79 – Wed Seems hopeless to TRY writing in this book – things happen so fast – a month is an eternity. Last night celebrated our 11th “divinity loss” anniversary – and a difficult anniv. It was. T came to see me dance for the first time – with Avril so it wouldn’t be so bad but had to leave he was so upset. He didn’t like me smiling! Like I’m ENJOYING myself! The PLACE didn’t bother him (“reverent & reserved” were his words) just my pleasure in movement beauty & freedom! Uh oh! He goes back to my parents’ argument: IT’S TURNING MEN ON. So what? I get impatient with that – that way lurks the “hajib”.
We have to educate each other. At the end the atmosphere seemed cleared and we both cried with relief. Even though I know my love is in the larval stage, I’ve never loved anyone the way I love him. We had our last dinner at 641 E street – steak and wine, fruit, cream, brandy. He asked me if there were any boyfriends’ the report of whose marriage “depressed” me (he was referring to my marriage) and I had to say no.
He opened a letter from Mindy, ex-girlfriend he was thinking of re-starting a relationship with except she went to Nepal. A letter I would have thought perfectly reasonable two months ago now strikes me as ridiculous – an ounce of love is worth more than all these pages of barter.
I got a wonderful letter from Devon – he’s found “another girl” (with three more in reserve I’m betting) and wishes me the best. But T was upset because he closed with “I love you” a word NOT thrown around in his world! (Mindy and Cindy don’t say it!) He says it’s the only part of the letter he believes – “the guy is a total phony.” I said his only victim is himself. We then made love on the floor on top of all our exes’ letters. Gloriously. Got a poem out of it.
The Bridesmaid Yes, I know everything You’re my poor Relation. I know of your daddy’s desk where you Fucked with formaldehyde fingers I know of your lonely Rosary of abortions I repeat, I know everything. We made love on your letters undisturbed As two icons. She’s imperfect He told me. Unseated by mortality We must take our place With the king’s crazy mistresses; Brewing menstrual blood coffee And mandrake root tea. Swim away, little bridesmaid, You’re too young I’m in love We’ve got Too much in common ever to meet. Need to see dentist & gyno, overhaul bike, pay bills. T. meets Ralph Nader at 6. Lucky me snagging someone so ambitious and competent.
Castle Mon 6 Aug 79
God I need Maine. I love T but I need to get away
from him. I am used to being alone 4-5 hours a day. Starving for that. Wonder how many otherwise perfect relationships break up for this reason! T. is a little TOO driven. A little TOO single-minded. Makes me argue with him – I can’t help it. For example: he talked about the “ugliness of the desert landscape.” It’s not my “thing” either – because I grew up somewhere else – but O’Keeffe taught me to see the beauty of it. What he REALLY meant was “I don’t like it” but he raises it to a religious principle “New England is better.” That’s embarrassing.
I constantly feel he’s trying to “re-educate” me – for example he didn’t like my turquoise silk pants because he “doesn’t like colors that don’t appear in nature.” When shown an aquarium of tropical fish he doesn’t “count” them, their colors are “cultivated” and somehow “wrong.” The truth is bright colors make him nervous. So say THAT.
Sat night we went to an office party of his people (to which I wore the aforementioned pants) and praised the house over- extravagantly. (He does NOT like my yellow velvet furniture. I’m giving it to Maureen.) “One good picture” per wall, beige Danish oldern furniture – unbelievably boring and sterile. A chipped china frog would have done the place a world of good. Could warn of decorating problems ahead. His younger brother Dominic in town – when I complimented his Mazda sports car and said I’d love to have one someday Toss said “we’ll see” as if I could never buy one for myself! These flare-ups are important signs. Must work on my self-value.
8 Aug 79 Packing for Maine came across D’s letters. Not a “good” one among them. “Phoniness” is NOT his problem – that’s not the right word – he’s not even “tone deaf” which was Bruce’s disorder. I think it’s a “temperature” thing – he WANTS all passion sexualized (not that he would ever admit it) and doesn’t trust intimacy, closeness – as if he doesn’t believe – doesn’t want to believe it exists. He fears never freeing himself from the physical so he cultivates a lonely “spirituality” but he’s mired HIMSELF in it. So that’s pathetic. I take responsibility – he probably felt hounded by my love. Thank God I escaped is all I can say. I’m betting he was geared up to torture me for a lifetime. I let T read my short story about his mother. That was probably a mistake. (In it he’s planning her death!) He made some idiotic writing class comments – I said it wasn’t THAT far along – but there’s something appealingly mythic about this undigested mass. Worry about it in ten years!
Shadowe Island ME – Mon 7:30 AM 12 Aug 79
Toss just left on the ferry so I can relax. Wish this
diary ended here – I need a New Life. But Not Yet. Rainy with a gray sea. Dogs stretched out snoring on the Greek carpet. This visit has been everything I wanted, but the first night was classic in its ghastliness. Guests showed up at cocktails and stayed through dinner – unexpectedly – this mob scene making our announcement a bit tougher. Toss whispered, “Want to go through with it?” I said, “Sure.”
We opened the champagne. The guests loved it – Mom & Dad really surprised. Dad started talking about his difficult father-in-law and how things would be different but flat out calling me a liar when I chimed in about how Wilbur returned his prison mail (he told me this story HIMSELF last Christmas!) I kept my temper – oh I must have got it wrong. (I didn’t. We’d discussed it later ad nauseam.) Avril attacked me later for bringing it up and “embarrassing” Dad – but he’d been TALKING ABOUT HIS DIFFICULT FATHER IN LAW. Toss was surprised at Avril’s hostility – used to her as an ally. He said, “They obviously think you’re invulnerable.” Probably. If so they’re all idiots! I thought A was upset about her own out-of-his-depth boyfriend, Vigo. Anyway T rescued the evening bringing tears to Mom’s eyes by talking about how he’d always loved me. M & D apologized & congratulated us.
Sunday the four of us toured the island – trying to get along with Vigo. (A says he has just one testicle as if that’s all that’s wrong with him.) At dinner watched slides of my growing up – T tremendously moved – then lobster dinner.
Tues 13 Aug 79 – 5 PM T called last night on his WATS line and we talked ½ an hour. Says he used to play an “airport game” of “Looking for his future wife” but thought “I AM married!” Wow!
Sun. 19 Aug 79 T’s letter came! Glorious. I do not feel worthy. Tension between A & V – he teases her too much – we all try to ignore it – tough to figure out how to call him on it without opening up hostilities. Hope she dumps him. T on phone! Ex-island boyfriend visits. A says he acts like he wants to knock me to the floor and French kiss me to death. Seems accurate. Glad T missed him.
Party Castle – 11 PM 22 Aug 79 Glad to go to Maine and thrilled to leave it. Mary & Debby dancing. Today’s been eventful – T got my letters and was enormously moved. He says the worst mistake he ever made was burning my teenage letters. We should try to exist without this phoning but can’t help ourselves. Diet going well: I feel good. Struggling with a pile of thank you letters.
Castle – 7 PM Fri 25 Aug 79 T. and I separated 11 days already – feels like eternity. Avril announces she wants her own apt so I should put house on the market. Maybe its easier. Flooding small publishers with Blood Memory – feel pessimistic however. 3 poems accepted – 2 by Colorado Woman, 1 by Friends Journal. Doesn’t feel as good as I’d hoped. Struggling with new novel where I try to tell the truth about Devon. But why should anyone want THAT God knows. Moving costs $400. I still think I should sell my Fiat. Rotten crowd. Bored and jerking like a marionette. Dancing with crazy Robin and Anne who never stops talking. She says June’s in the hospital in a full body cast – will never dance again. 2 more sets – praise God. Trying to read about Lewis Carroll. A says Zach threatening to show up. Don’t show up, Zach. I have a headache.
2:30 AM Sun 27 Aug 79 – There is a God. Zach didn’t show. Long phone call w/T then walk dogs to think about it. He is such a powerful person it’s a little disturbing. Said he read my poem (The Duel) to his most erudite friend who was very impressed. We wound up in another argument about my dancing. I can’t bear his slurs so I referred to his past drug use – WE’VE BOTH EXPERIMENTED, ALL RIGHT? He wants me to live without money then complains about selling stock. I told him it’s a “schizophrenic bind.” Didn’t mention how I have to PRY my stock (that’s in my name) out of Mom and Dad.
Reading an idiotic romance – its very idiocy is refreshing. I see why people get addicted to these. Like looking at maps when you’re lost. Ok they’re only two dimensional but its SOMETHING!
Party Castle Tues 28 Aug 79 Last night dancing. Celebrate with chocolates but I’m too enervated to appreciate it. Finished I’m Radcliffe, Fly Me. Ultimately a failure. Fails to explore the inherent corruption of institutional structures. Horrible night. $5 in tips – they are sick of the sight of me and I refuse to buy new costumes. I am scared to death of being dependent on T. I think he could reassure me but doesn’t know how because if I really needed him would I be so desirable? Is a puzzlement.
I feel like I’m unfastening my suckers from Avril and grabbing onto T! Up here without a net! Then I get mad at myself for being so infantile. Can I just write and feel powerful? We’ll see! Doubts creeping in! This time next week I’ll be in Kentucky! Well, I’ve written some good poems lately. Self-confidence atrocity attack. Feel & look rotten. Realizing the extent to which I was fertile soil for my parents’ anxieties.
3:30 Thurs 30 Aug 79 Everything done, ready to leave. I’m in shock. Crawled into the bath with a vodka tonic and now I’m feeling better. Trying to figure out how to approach parents for money. Maybe they could give me my own stock as engagement present? Feel I won’t be able to disguise my rage. This “I’m All Right Jack” no matter WHAT – is mighty convenient for them. I realize its any sense of helplessness that triggers all this rage NOT a good sign for T’s and my relationship. He can’t “make” me independent! I must not succumb, or Plath-ize. (She sacrificed herself to the gods of rage.) I’m doing this guy no favors handing him a woman on the edge of breakdown.
4:25PM – My darling just called! Relief! He borrowed a truck from somebody so although we’ll have to drive separately we won’t have movers or returns to cope with. He’s driving it out here so I can sleep as late as I like which I really need. Impossibly intense happiness. Peace & joy. Feel we have been standing in a dinghy trying to balance. Equilibrium is everything. The irrevocableness of marriage. My children mutely regard my choice. The hopelessness of explaining myself to any of T’s friends. Rain. Any excuse not to take a walk (T lives in bad neighborhood.) Feel like a girl in a gothic novel except for the constant sex which makes it a different kind of novel. Break with the past.
Reading Robert Ludlum’s perfectly ludicrous Matarese Circle. In 100 yrs people will wonder how we stomached this stuff. A. and I going to Olney theatre to see The Bat tonight.
TOMORROW STARTS WOMAN INTO WOLF Alysse Aallyn’s thriller about difficult marriages & split identities
…a thrill-ride, unique and highly recommended reading.” –Entrepreneur.com “deceit, rape, fertility, imprisonment and a mother’s grief…as each piece of the tightly coiled fiction was loosed I waited for the revelation to come…she couldn’t imagine the extent of the deception until it was spelled out. Neither could I.” –MyShelf.com “one of the most unusual mysteries I have ever read…I loved reading Woman Into Wolf … kept me on the edge of my seat right through the end…I highly recommend this novel to fans of crime mysteries that also enjoy some extra spice in their stories.” – Readerviews.com “a very fine psychological thriller… the characters in this book are as bright as crystal and as sharp as shattered glass. Aallyn not only can describe them to a neo-noun, she can make them speak true to those characters. Quite a talent…a novel every bit as worthy as her first.” ArmchairInterviews.com
When I heard my brother-in-law was dead, I thought my sister had probably done it. Apparently I was the only one who thought so, because my sister, an aggressively born-again Christian, is a Perfect Person. A martyr. St. Hayley. I recalled a conversation we’d had years ago, when I’d been needling her about her newfound identity, reminding her of all the things she couldn’t do. “No more adultery,” I said, although as far as I knew she’d never been unfaithful to that unfaithful bastard.
“True,” she’d remarked.
“No more lying. Not even tiny social lies. You’ll have to tell everybody the plain, unvarnished truth. No more friends.”
“That’s not true,” she’d said. “There’s a wider truth we must be faithful to. It’s spiritual dishonesty we have to fear. Spiritual dishonesty is a splinter in the body of God.” Hear that? I call that “Jesuitical”. That kind of “I know better” reasoning can justify anything. My husband talks like that, but he’s a lawyer. He says there’s no truth, only juries. “How about justice?” I’d demanded and she smiled at me with that superior smile. “God’s in charge of justice.”
See? A person like that could justify murder! Then she made it worse by talking about how there’s always both forgiveness for sin and sin. If you can be forgiven at the last minute, no matter what you’ve done, can’t you ultimately get away with anything? It bothers me because it’s so obvious, but I can’t get anyone to agree.
“Think she did it?” I asked my husband.
“Hayley? She’d have to stand in line,” Simon.snorted. “Plenty of people had a bigger motive than she did.”
That wasn’t true. There was all that insurance money, plus she’d had to live with him every day. The screaming, the vomiting, the violence. Dave was a piece of work. Now she was free to do whatever she wanted. Sell the house, take a cruise, live abroad. Of course by her lights she couldn’t have sex without marrying someone, but maybe that doesn’t matter either, with forgiveness shimmering eternally on the horizon. On the other hand, that kind of money brings parasites. I’ve heard women in abusive relationships are closet masochists. Right out of the frying pan and into the fire. “If she did it, would you defend her?” I asked my husband.
“Nah,” he said, knotting his tie. Busy guy. Always on his way to somewhere, looking like a fashion plate as always. “Shouldn’t have a relative for a client.” He considered. “Unless she couldn’t get anybody else.”
“If I murdered you, would Al defend me?” I teased.
“That would be tougher.” He laughed. “You wouldn’t be ridding the world of an incubus, you’d be robbing the universe of a first class litigator.”
He has an answer for everything. Litigators “She did it,” I said. “I know.”I don’t know why I kept after him. Maybe I have to.because it’s so rare that when he looks at me, he’s thinking thoughts with me in them.“I doubt she’d have the strength,” he told me. “Somebody gave Dave’s head a pretty good pop.”
“So she hired someone. Of course she’d be in that person’s power forever.” Masochistic, right? “Or somebody did her a favor,” my husband returned. “Danger invites rescue. You think chivalry is dead?”
He’s supposed to be the cynical one!
At the funeral I searched Hayley’s face. I don’t know what I expected to see. The Mark of Cain? What I did see was a person tired and worn, who hadn’t been sleeping. No makeup, hair a mess, black jacket and white skirt — at a funeral? She looked more the way she looked when Dave was acting up. Of course maybe getting your head bashed in behind a bar is the ultimate act-up. She gave me a hug. Can’t ask a person if they’re a killer, not in the receiving line. I was forced to move on. After the receiving line she rushed upstairs. I saw a friend of hers from Al Anon take up a plate of food and what looked like a glass of wine. Why not? She wasn’t the one with the problem. I chose a seat with Simon and the lawyers. Telling war stories as usual. Simon’s partner Al waved a sandwich at me to acknowledge my presence.
“Good eats,” he said. Like I had anything to do with it. Woman equals food in his equation. I took advantage of the pause in their conversation to revert to my favorite topic. asked.
“Think they’ll catch the guy that did it?” I “If he’s dumb enough to use the credit cards,” said Al. “You’d think he would have taken Dave’s car,” I suggested. “Clean getaway.”
Al shrugged. “Must have had a car of his own.” “Some “desperate thief”, then. What was Dave even doing there? The bartender said he wasn’t even drinking in that bar.” “So he got loaded somewhere else,” said Al.
“Those guys always lie,” said Simon, wiping his mouth with the hand that wears the law school ring. Ugly bulky tacky thing. “Bartenders. They don’t want trouble.”
See? No joy for me in this situation. Everyone was celebrating Dave’s death. Good riddance, they were thinking. I imagined our situations reversed, with me the widow and Hayley attending Simon’s wake. Simon’s family is Italian, there would be a lot of screaming and crying, I can tell you. He supports everyone. Would Ihave the nerve to disappear, the way Hayley had done? No, I’d have to stay to be pawed over and criticized. Everything I do is wrong. Thank God I only see those people once a year. If Simon died, I’d take a cruise first thing. Although I should probably go to the gym for a year before putting on a swimsuit. We have a family membership but only Simon uses it – who has the time? Hayley is thin enough but those stretch-marks of hers make her look like she’s been clawed by a tiger. She needs surgery but of course she can afford it now.
I got the idea at the super market. I was standing in line, scanning the impulse purchases, and they had a stack of those lined tablets people who never write letters buy when they have to write a letter. Of course I‘d need one of those untraceable self-stick envelopes: no DNA. Use gloves. Simon says they get fingerprints off paper, now, all the time.
It was so much fun. I wrote the letter with my left hand. No way they could trace it to me. I wrote, I SAW WHAT YOU DID AND YOU WON’T GET AWAY WITH IT and signed it GOD. A hoot, right? I used a “Love” stamp (nice touch) and the address was one of those return stickers my sister puts in her Heart Association collection drive packets. Must be tons of those around! Then I mailed it at the box closest to her house – it’s on my route to the hairdresser – I didn’t even have to get out of the car. Just thinking about it gave me pleasure for days, although I wished I as there when she opened it.
Two days was all I could stand. I called her right before lunch.
“Hayley? It’s Maxine. How are you holding up?” “Better. First night without pills.”
Maybe she hadn’t opened it. I cursed the Heart Association sticker idea. If she thought it was a donation maybe someone else opened it. Didn’t tell her, threw my letter away. “Anything I can do? Need food?”
“God, no. The freezer’s groaning.” She hesitated. “You could come over tonight and pack up Dave’s things for Goodwill. My women’s group is coming. I warn you – there will be praying.” Great! “No thank you,” I said stiffly. “Anything but that.” Dave wouldn’t have allowed her “witches” anywhere near his house. I imagined lengthy ceremonies to evict his drunken, aggressive spirit. Possibly they would even try to intercede for his sodden, bossy soul. Ugh. Let’s face it. Dave belongs in hell. But he won’t be alone there.
“Could you take Kevin and Deanie for the weekend? I’m going on retreat.” “Sure,” I heartily agreed. “No problem. James and Heather love being with their cousins.” “Thanks,” she said. “I’ll set it up.”
Now aren’t I a good sister? But when I got home Simon had strewn our marital bed with suits and shirts. Packing for a trip. It’s a kingsize so I still found a place to perch.
“Hey,” I said, “I just agreed to take Kevin and Deanie for the weekend.”
“Not like they’re any trouble,” he told me, carefully matching socks and ties. He’s fussy about his clothes. He always looks good. A litigator is an actor, he says. “Trial Lawyers Association. Gotta go. The kids’ll be fine with movies and pizza. Video games. Isn’t that all they care about?” He has no idea in hell what looking after four kids single-handedly is like. “Back Sunday night,” said Simon. “I’ll be at the Helmsley Palace.”
The Helmsley Palace! That’s where we had our honeymoon! Such a wave of erotic longing washed over me I almost came all over myself then and there. Simon was such a good lover, and I was a virgin. But every time I told him to stop he stopped. It took us technically – a whole week to become man and wife. But what a week! Had I felt such arousal since? God knows where Simon got such control – I didn’t know and I didn’t ask. Both of us have tried telling our kids during “facts of life” discussions that you don’t have to go “all the way” to achieve the sexual nirvana MTV is telling them is out there, but I suspect it’s falling on deaf ears. Along with everything else we say. Single-parenting is not for sissies. The video was plugged in, the pizza was ordered and I was making popcorn when Deanie came in to tell me she’d forgotten her retainer. Perfect. Of course I said I’d go, telling Jamie in the garage — he was showing Kevin his dirt bike — that he was in charge for an hour and giving him the pizza money. They’ve got my cell number.
Felt a surge of independence climbing into the car and driving down the darkened street. No wonder Simon loves leaving us behind, all warm and cozy, headed off to his other life. Well I have another life too! I’m an Anonymous Letter Writer. Plus now I’m Maxine, Girl Detective, searching for the bloodied sledgehammer or the hitman’s threat note: Pay Up or Else.”
Hayley’s house was substantially different without Dave’s dark spirit. You could just feel it. That hideous den of his was emptied of its ugly sports memorabilia and beer signs; repainted and furnished with chintz and wicker. You could just see the church ladies sitting down to their cups of tea.
But when I entered Hayley’s bedroom I got the worst shock. It was completely empty, carpet torn up, furniture gone. Like she was running away. Except there were ladders and tarps and paint swatches. She was erasing him from her life. Who could blame the lucky bitch? But my problem is, where to search when your suspect has no desk, no bedside table and everything’s in boxes? I’d waited too long.
She’d moved into the guest bedroom, a monastic cubicle with a cross above the single bed. But there was a bedside table, and the table had a Bible, and the Bible was stuffed with papers, and that’s where I found what I was looking for.
It didn’t have an address, it didn’t even have a signature but I hope I know my husband’s handwriting. He said he respected her decision but his feelings would never change. That he would always be “there” for her. He said, “I want you to know there’s someone on this planet who loves you utterly.”
When I took the letter I was blind with pain and rage. It was like he’d killed something in me with that letter. Something in me was stillborn because it needed another person to bring it to life and I had never had that person. Because my own husband was “there” for someone else. Was she “rewarding” him right now at the Helmsley Palace? Was she speaking to his hands the way I used to, saying “here” and “here” and “here”? Faster, slower, deeper? And whose fault was that? Not mine, because I had always done everything that was ever expected of me. I took the letter because I knew then I could make him finally speak the truth to me. But what happens if the truth is that I’m alone and I’ve always been alone and I’ll always be alone? Where’s the justice in that?
I guess you could say that when my mother died, I came out of the closet. And – unfortunately for me – so did she. Different closet, naturally.
I’m one of those people born gay. It’s not just something I chose because there was nothing better on offer. And honestly, it had NOTHING to do with my mother. When I talked to the first lawyer he seemed to think that living with your mother until you’re forty and going to bed with women have to be two facts that have some sort of relationship. Not the case. Far from it.
So I have to make the point that my mother wasn’t sexual to me. I doubt that she was ever sexual to anybody. People who think of their mothers sexually must have mothers a whole lot different from mine, that’s all I can say. You don’t think about the body under the apron on the person nagging you to finish the food on your plate. At least I don’t.
I was a late-bloomer — over thirty before the penny finally dropped. I had rubbed bodies with girlfriends before, but I really didn’t think anything of it. If they had orgasms I sure as hell couldn’t tell. But then I was thirty-two and I met Eva. Eva was ripe. Eva was rich. Eva was honky-tonk come to life. She bleached her pubic hair with the reasoning that then it would become invisible and then she wouldn’t have to bother to shave. (NOT). That’s what drew me to her – this amazing woman with an explosion of Orphan Annie hair – a curly mirkin – coming out from under her bathing suit. I mean, you had to look inside, you know?
So I was the aggressor. I let it all hang out, and she liked that. Constant sex is my recipe for love. I was amazed to discover – this was after three months of me doing everything to her – that she was a masseuse, for Chrissake. Her job was rubbing people’s bodies. (And she was not one of those whore masseuses. She had a degree and all that.)
But when I was working her over I didn’t have those kinds of thoughts, hey, breasts just like my mother’s, a slit just like I came out of. I mean, that’s the furthest thing from your mind. But Eva and I were a short term thing.
I lived with my mother because she had that huge house and because it was convenient. Check the “get ahead” literature and they’ll all tell you to get yourself a wife. Well, this was the best I could do. When my brother died, I became my mommy’s only kid. The rest of our relatives really didn’t want to have anything to do with us. According to Mom it was because of the divorce. Everybody dumped us. She didn’t take it well. Not too strong to say she flipped out. But there’s a lot of that going around as well as a lot of divorce. After the right to marry the right to divorce tags right along behind.
My father’s family was no day at the beach, let me tell you. Too much emphasis on who sits where, who serves what and whether you have help in the house. Bunch of snobs. We were better off without them.
My mom wasn’t better off in the technical sense, because she insisted on staying in that house. Must have been worth a half a mill ; more, with work done. Without me, no way she could have paid those bills. But I wasn’t handy, and I wasn’t making enough money. I was too thirsty for poontang.
I do collection work and I enjoy it. You live on the phone. You find out things about people that are interesting to know, and yet you stay anonymous. Lots of secrets in this universe. First off, there’s no tiny subculture separate from the Real World because there is no Real World. Everyone’s got an act, and the only people who get to find out are the doctors and the lawyers and the guy who has to fix the corpse so Granny won’t be shocked and me. Who gets to see both sets of books.
My mother was a limited person, even though it’s me that says it. She probably thought no woman getting three tasty nourishing meals a day would even be interested in sex. I do remember she had arguments with my father about it. There was time we went away for vacation to some shrine in Connecticut. We used to be very good Catholics until the pope instituted liberalities and he lost Mom. (Which turned out to be good for us because she stopped trying to make us go to church.) But now I’m wondering – if she had been more spiritual, would any of this have happened? Who knows?
Anyway, when we got back from the shrine it was pretty obvious Dad had been “entertaining” while we were away. The woman must have been a smoker because her lipsticked butts were everywhere – but worse, there were condoms lying around like exploded balloons from a party we weren’t invited to. It was plain from my mother’s outraged screaming that he should be getting his sexing the back seats of automobiles like a normal person and bringing his floozies across her threshold was a sin so vile he would writhe in hell for eon upon eon. So I’m not likely to ask my mother’s opinion if a little snatch after work is OK. I had a pretty good idea what she would say.
Then Mom got cancer, the basically curable kind that if you just spread your legs for a doctor occasionally you could totally avoid. But she wasn’t that “easy” so by the time they found out about it, sayonara.
I had one night a week reserved for myself. Not too much to ask, right? I used to tell her I was going to the “club” – she wasn’t to know Rape of the Lock was a gay bar. They always had stuff — poetry readings, treasure hunts, mini-plays. Performances calculated to make the gals hot and horny, and a good time had by all. That’s where I met Klea – she was one of the bartenders there. She always claimed to be working towards an MBA but frankly I never saw any signs of it. She was stuck in a tense living situation too – living over a garage for free for a couple she was supposed to “caretake”.
Blurry job description leads to lots of complaining. She wasn’t supposed to have any roommates – this couple was afraid that the outside world would find out they had a house loaded with QVC collectibles. What with Snoopster Mom Klea couldn’t visit me and the only way I could visit her was by sneaking. I climbed the trellis on occasion. Heavy drinking, heavy sex, heavy trellis climbing – romance killers when you’re looking forty in the face. Ask any actuary. We were primed for new life. For a short window of time there I was busy with my work and Klea, and Mom was busy with hospitals and ladies’ clubs and life was doable.
Then there was another period where Mom was in the hospital and I could have Klea over. That was tense in some ways and better in other ways. It was better because it gave us an idea what it might be like to live together.
We felt we were through the period where you try to make the other person jealous – just to prove you can – and we were talking about selling the house right after my mother died – “as is” condition, of course, but at least it was free and clear – and opening our own place. Not a bar – no trying to keep horns clipped — more of a café. We had both reached exactly the same time in our lives where we had to make up our minds: keep babysitting the straight world, or shape our futures the way we wanted them to be. We were dreaming.
Klea worried Mom would “find out” and leave the house away from us. She kept nagging me to “come out” to this cancer-ridden lady. I told Klea she was being hysterical. The real problem was keeping Mom from finding out I was going to sell the place. If she’d been able to think in terms of progress and reward, her life wouldn’t have been such a shambles. Let me say right here that in her own way, Mom loved me and I loved her. If we loved “stylized” versions of each other – that’s family. So how do I explain what came after?
My conclusion that a person’s ghost is that person’s worst self. When you die, the good part goes to heaven or whatever, and the bad part stays here to torment us. Get it? We’re hell. That guy who said, Hell is other people? Bingo. Hell is being at the mercy of a dead person that’s shed its conscience. We’re like nightmares dead people keep having. And they’re ours.
The worst part was when the hospital sent my mother home to die. I think they were just trying to make things easier on themselves, but Mom was a willing participant. Home. That’s what she wanted. Hospice idea rejected right out of hand. So there I was with a nurse by day and a nurse by night. Hard on me, going without sex just when I needed it most. I had to have Klea back. I needed sex to relax, sex to get to sleep, sex to clear my head, sex to digest my food. You know how it is. Mom was confined to a hospital bed. So why couldn’t I get that support?
I told Klea to only use the back stairs and never the front part of the second floor, where Mom was. But the noises she made! You could say Klea haunted Mom before Mom haunted Klea. Mom actually decided — because of Klea — that the house she’d lived in for forty- five years was haunted. My dead twin, Uncle Andrew – her own mother – people I’d never heard of like “Carla” and “Mrs. Myers” – I had to listen to hours of crazy ravings about everyone who’d ever nurtured a grudge against Mom. Who knew there was such a long list?
They taught me to give her the morphine shots – made me practice with an orange – and I just kept upping the dose so she’d be out of it most of the time. Everybody does it. The nurses don’t mind so long as it isn’t them. Towards the end there’s a very fuzzy line between life and death and everyone understands that, but the law, apparently, still operates under the Old Testament scapegoat system. That’s all I can deduce.
I was with her when she died. It was right between nurses,by coincidence, just at dusk. I had given her that last shot, and I was sitting there listening to her breathing go raspy. Definitely a death rattle – I had to leave the room. Then nothing. Hallelujah! I’d swear mom was relieved too. Now she was free. No need to Stepin Fetchit, I decided to wait for the nurse, who was late, by the way. So I called Klea down for a beer. Watching someone die is an unsettling experience, I can tell you. It’s Miller time.
Klea wanders around in the nude by choice, but when the nurse is around she will make the concession of long shirt and jean-shorts. But her feet were bare. Halfway down the stairs she doubled up with pain and started screaming. Stepped on something. “Jesus!” she yelled. “I’ve been stabbed!”
I sort of half carried her upstairs where I could lay her out on the bed. “It’s a hat pin,” I told her. “It’s really in there. I’m going to pull it out.”
“No, no, no!” she screamed, grabbing my hand. “Don’t do it! Don’t do it! Promise you won’t touch it!”
“Klea, stop being a baby about this. I can call the paramedics but when they come, you know what they’ll do? They’ll pull it out. Or we can wait for the nurse – to refuse to work on you — and who knows how long that will be? “
“Please,” she whined, clutching me so desperately her face bones turned white and stuck out of the skin like a skull, just like Mom’s before she died – “Don’t do it yet! Give me some morphine!” I could hear myself explaining to the nurse why there was so much morphine missing with Klea zonked out upstairs. Recipe for trouble.
“Relax. I’m going to pull it out real fast. It’ll be just like a bandaid. Don’t look at it.”
But she held my hand. “So don’t give me a big dose. Just a little. You know they won’t miss it.” “Klea! Morphine to take a pin out of your foot! What an infant!” “You don’t know how it HURTS,” she wailed. “It hurts and I’m scared.”
Well, it was in pretty far. Long hatpin. God I hoped her tetanus was up to date. What was it doing on the stairs anyway – in that position? Tell me how likely is that? My brain was scrambling. “Ok,” I said. “Be a pussy. Be a drug addict.”
I tell you what decided me. I had a feeling this nurse wouldn’t do anything – she’d call the paramedics anyway. She was one of those people very worked up on only doing exactly what they’re paid for. I squirted plenty out because obviously she wouldn’t need as much. But since I got rid of it, how could I prove it? I shot the inside of her elbow, and it hit her pretty fast. You could see her blink off like a light. Went right to sleep, but her breathing was good.
I hadn’t expected her to lose consciousness, but you better believe it helped me. Pliers got that thing out of there. I had the wound all dressed before the nurse arrived, so we could make the Mom calls together. Death certificate, doctor, funeral home. Then I got that Miller, long overdue. I had no idea Klea would be such a five year old. I’ve seen her handling drunks twice her size, which is nothing I’d line up for.
She didn’t open her eyes till next morning. “So how’s my little junkie this morning?” I asked her. She was lying in bed – clothes askew, hair spilling everywhere – it would make the pope horny.
“My foot’s sore,” she said. But she smiled. Looked like herself again. Pulled me on top of her. “So….” she whispered, “Is the place ours?” She probably shouldn’t have said that. “What’s for breakfast?”
“I got a better idea than breakfast,” I said, rubbing her hard, flat stomach and trying to get my hand under her jeans, “How about deep, deep tissue massage? Guaranteed cure-all.“
That’s when it happened. I was trying to unzip her jeans, wiggling that zipper up and down – and she started screaming again. Pushed me away, screamed I’d zipped her skin. When I realized what it was, I got the scissors and I cut the pants off her. But it was difficult because she was fighting hard the whole time. She was so upset she pissed on herself in the bed. God, it was like taking care of my mother all over again! And then to get blamed for everything. She was bleeding all right, but it was a tiny wound – just a little of the loose skin on her gut. It would grow back. It’s not my fault she wears her jeans so tight. Definitely no need for morphine here.
“Here’s the culprit” I said, trying to show her the zipper with its played metal teeth.
“YOU DID IT!” she hissed. “Don’t go blaming my zipper that never did that before! And it was your pin, too!”
I was so taken aback I really didn’t know how to defend myself. “Hey, I fixed it,” I said. “You mean you fixed ME!” she said. “You sure did! I’m getting the fuck out of here before you slit my throat and offer to stitch it up for me!” And she shot out of bed and started pulling on sweatpants – my sweatpants.
She was flying out the door before I had a chance to warn her about the stairs. I took up the rug and the stair rods so they could take out Mom and her hospital bed and I hadn’t replaced them yet. I mean, I get tired too. Mom waxed and waxed those goddamn stairs. My hair used to hold the smell for days. Klea would have been fine if she wasn’t going a hundred miles an hour. But I heard the thump, the slam – I swear I heard a crunch – and when I got to the bottom of the stairs, there was my second corpse in a two-day period.
But I knew at that point that it was my mother who killed Klea — to keep us from living in her house! Of course! Bad anger, competitiveness, rage, resentment – they’re killers.
Don’t you see I’m next? This way she gets us both. It looks so bad, what with the missing morphine, the extra morphine in Mom, the wounds on Klea, even her piss in my bed – and I can’t find a lawyer who will treat my story with respect!
The way I see it is, it’s too late to apologize to a dead person. Too late to say the things I should have said — so she died and left pure rage behind. As a sort of default mode. What I need to know from you is, can a hant get a person convicted of murder? Because if that’s possible, we should all give up right now. Nobody’s safe.
Unfortunately, Ron was already pacing and angry when I got home. I guess it was an evening of firsts. I felt first guilt, then a cold, unpleasant wedge of fear across what was left of my gut. But in our game of emotional isometrics it wouldn’t do to show him. I had to force myself to act unconcerned as I strolled through the kitchen door.
“You went out,” I said, tossing my purse to the chair. Missing, dammit. “So did I.” “You were out with some guy,” he sneered. “How could you think I wouldn’t find out?” Lucky guess or did Ron have spies? Here was something Bolio obviously hadn’t thought of. Me either, for that matter.
“I don’t know his name,” I said, walking past him up the stairs. “He just happened to be there so I talked to him. You talk to people, I talk to people. I’m sure your spy told you we never touched each other.”
He was following me up the stairs too closely. It was all I could do to keep from running. Showing fear would be fatal; I would lose my upper hand. I found myself thinking frantically about possible weapons, methods of escape. Slam my door shut and jump out the bedroom window? Now!”
“I don’t believe you!” he barked. “Strip!
Physical fear is a disgusting and unforgettably horrible experience. Ron was drunk, but not enough to help me out. His eyes glowed insanely. If I’d had a gun I would have rescued Bolio then and there. In all our time together I had seen Ron this mad plenty of times; just never at me. Because I never challenged him. How had I ever lived with this man? Kidded myself that I was free? I started undressing because I knew I had to or he would tear the clothes off me. What was he after? I could no longer read him. He pushed my garments aside and put his hands on my body – hard. “Where did you get those marks?”
He pried my thighs apart. I tried to back away from him, almost tripping over the bed.
“You made them yourself, this morning. Don’t you remember?” I bruise easily. Cost of doing business. “Twice.”
He flipped me to my stomach. He had a lot of strength. “You’re lying. Who have you been with? What did you do?”
Out of his back pocket he pulled the handcuffs and began to smack them menacingly against his palm. At the sight of them I began to shriek and babble. I’ve never liked confinement or restraint – this was not a game I cared to play. As I’d suspected, my fear only emboldened him. He handcuffed me right to the headboard. I couldn’t help showing fear, so I needed Plan B. Maybe if I just cooperated with everything I could calm him down. I wasn’t guilty after all, not of what he thought. He bent over sniffing me. Sniffing me like a dog.
I kicked at him furiously. Big mistake. He stared at me as incredulous as if I’d aimed a punch. Then he started taking off his belt. I began screaming, but out on the country there was no one to hear. We were both out of control.
“Don’t come near me! Don’t touch me! I’m leaving! I’m calling the police!” I said everything except, “I’ll kill you,” which was the only true thing. He was a dead man from that moment. He beat me, rhythmically, shouting, “Don’t -Ever-LieTo-Me-Again!”He said he only hit me six times – but I wasn’t counting. I floated away.
I floated away because I hate being trapped. Closed my mind because, in spite of everything I’d ever thought, everything I’d ever felt, everything I’d ever done, my life came down to the fact that I was the sort of person to whom this happened. That was the truth about me. Was there blood? It hurt a lot. He said, “You brought it on yourself.”
I could tell from his face that he was the scared one now. That meant there were marks. Now the police would lock him up for the night on just my say so. He knew that. He uncuffed me, asking solicitously,
“Are you going to be good?”
I pulled the comforter up over my head and snuggled down into a hot fetal nest, the way I used to when I was a little girl. Gone. I didn’t want the police. I planned for better than momentary satisfaction. I am a cultivator and my plans were flowering hugely.
I heard him talking to himself, stomping around and muttering, something about putting a roof over my head, giving me gas money, being entitled to respect. Entitlement? On the “fairness planet,” he would be squashed at birth like the bug he was. It was up to me to squash him.
“Well, I’m going on a rubber run,” he said. “Now that I can’t trust you any more.” I didn’t want him out in the world, babbling to sets of sympathetic ears about his horrible, ungrateful devastation of an evening. So I lowered the comforter. “Nothing happened,” I said. “I guarantee you. I swear to you. You’re the only one.”
Was there something in him that was wishing I was lying, so the beating would be OK? Who cares? Try too hard to understand someone and you let them invade you. I had to play through. My conciliatory attitude inflated his confidence.
“Well, next time I won’t just beat your pretty ass,” he said in a big voice for the trees to hear. “I’ll toss you out.”I reached for him. Hardest thing I ever did.
I proved it. Next day I was very sore. I woke up first as I always did, stepping out of bed over the pants I’d sucked off him. I made coffee, brought him a cup. As he drank, he looked me over with a fond smile.
“Let me see your tail.”
I turned. He pleated my buttocks with his hands, petting his handiwork. “Nothing. It’ll be gone in a week.”
He found me sitting out in the garden with a glass of wine. No comment on how early it was to be hitting the bottle.
“I’m going to PepBoys. Need anything?”
What the hell would I be needing at Pep Boys? Thank God for dark glasses. I didn’t trust myself to answer. dinner?”
He persisted. “Got everything you need for Cyanide? Rat poison?“Sure,” I managed.“Enough wine?”
He was teasing now. He liked that I was hitting the bottle. Not so superior now, was I? He could see I’d turned some sort of corner, but he couldn’t tell where that left him. heard.” “Liquor stores aren’t open on Sundays, so I He rattled his keys. “I’ve got connections.”
“Sure then.” Let him be seen buying illegal booze all over town. “St. Emilion.” There’s a touch of my old self. “Nothing later than ’94.” Blowing smoke, but he wouldn’t know. He never knew. He drawled, “Right.”Then he was gone. Free! I went straight to the phone and hit 2 on the speed dial.
Would Bolio be in the office on a Sunday, cooking the books, trying to make sense out of his own addicted senselessness? And if so, would he answer? He did, on the second ring. possible.”
“I want him dead,” I said. “As soon as “What happened? What’s up?” He kindled at my change in tone.“He beat me up last night. First time.”
“Could be a problem. Is it visible?”“It could be a problem! Hell, it’s more than a problem. I almost killed him myself.”“We don’t want you to have too obvious a motive, that’s all.”“No. Not visible.”
“Well, what happened?”
“Someone saw us together, you and me. But they didn’t seem to know who you were.”
“We might be able to carry it off tonight. Make sure the liquor flows. Stay away from the stuff yourself. Right before bed, take him out to the garden to look at the moon, or whatever. I’ll do the rest.”
I prepared steaks the way Ron liked them, rubbing them with garlic and mustard, pounding them thin. While I worked, my mind wouldn’t stop whirling. Back when I was having chemotherapy, they threw a therapist at me. She made much of the fact that I’d lost my dad at age 5. Lays you open to subsequent depression, she said. Making it sound like that caused the cancer.
Death, she said, would be “processed” by my five year old self as rejection. “Narcissistic injury”. When I told her I didn’t believe in wasting time in depression, she made one of those “damned if you do and damned if you don’t” modern therapy comments; said, “Maybe you don’t allow yourself to feel it.” That remark has bugged me all my life. If I was going to start getting even, that dame would be on my list. Blaming my poor dead dad for cancer. Telling me she knows my feelings better than I do.
If I had ever been depressed I was no longer. Instead, I was galvanized, pulsating with excitement in every cell. Call it “The murder cure”. I laughed out loud as I imagined myself writing a book, becoming famous, touring the talk shows. “Sometimes You Just Have to Kill ‘Em.”
“Well, Geraldo, all I can say is it worked for me.” I set the table with my best linen, china and silver, things used only once or twice a year. Ron would be impressed. He never knew they weren’t my antiques. I had always tried to convey the impression I was wellborn, a mysterious wealthy family somewhere off in the mist. Of course I’d bought all the things myself. Presents to myself.
If I am the one who gives them their meaning, I might as well give them their existence. That’s the way I look at it, whatever people say. The only thing I really want is that chainsaw mermaid. Everything else is a substitute. If while looking for her I found a wonderful piece of china or silver instead, it was like a gift from my dad.
I actually tried telling that damned therapist about my chainsaw mermaid, and how much she meant to me, about how I lay in bed imagining her looking at me from the woods, peering through the trees, and it gave me such a sense of reassurance. I felt so safe. But the stupid therapist said, “Why does she feel she can’t come inside?”
Because she’s a garden sculpture, you idiot! That’s what I wanted to say. Instead I clammed up, because I was too sick. But the real question is, why didn’t I go out into the woods to join her? I couldn’t go, because I was only five years old, but I was not five years old any more. The woods were beckoning, dark and deep. Boiling with life and possibility.
Ron was late coming home, and when he did, it was obvious he’d been boozing. When he saw my slinky black dress, heels and makeup and the ornamental table, he thought just what I wanted him to think, which was that I was trying to make up to him. Apologizing for upsetting him so much he had to hit me. Big You, Little Me.
He pinned me up against the kitchen wall and gave me a tongue bath. I wondered how many bars he’d visited. All of them, I hoped.
“Got you something,” he told me, after he’d scored my thong as a trophy. “Come and look.” My trophy was a fairly new looking, bright blue Pontiac GrandAm. I knew him too well to even imagine he had put it in my name. It was just about the most repulsive thing, outside of Ron himself, that I’d ever seen. Don’t care for “push” presents.
“Only thirty thousand miles on it”, he bragged. “Sure beats that ancient Beamer of yours.” In Ron’s world, everything “beats” something. I guess it’s beat or be beaten. You bought your own coffin, Ron, I thought. I had a hard job convincing him not to take us out for a spin. Told him you can’t keep red meat waiting!
For his last meal I fed him all his favorite food. Ranch dressing on his salad, cheese poured all over his vegetables – restraint was gone for good. He didn’t offer St Emilion – lowballed me with California Riesling instead – but I was only pretending to drink so it didn’t matter. Ron, who considers wine an affectation, swilled several bottles of Magic Hat.
Was I going overboard? Was he too drunk to realize I wanted him to explode? But he accepted it quite unironically in tribute to his kingliness. He even finished my dinner.
“You go sit in front of the TV,” I said. “I’ll clean this up.”Should I make coffee? I didn’t want to sober him up one iota, but I needed the stuff myself. Hell, I could throw brandy in his.
As I was carrying plates out through the pantry I was annoyed to discover the light was off. I know I’d left it on. Must have been the bulb.
But then Bolio detached himself from the darkness and stepped into my path. “Having fun yet?” he asked, touching my neck. Left hand-right hand. Tried to kiss me.
I smelled scotch, cigar and sweat. He wore a suit but no tie, and his shirt was partially unbuttoned. I was angry that he had broken with our plan and let his gambler out and enraged that he’d been drinking, but I couldn’t do much with all those plates in my hand. I tried to push around him, but his hands grabbed my shoulders.
The light went on. It was Ron, screwing in the bulb and gaping at us, too stupefied to speak. He shook his head as if to clear hallucinations.
Bolio lunged for him, grabbed his head and smashed it into the glass cabinet. Glass shattered everywhere, spraying out into the room in fine particles. I dodged away from them into the kitchen. They clutched each other and went down on the floor, rolling back and forth in the tiny space. Ron had the upper hand of knowing the room. He grabbed a drawer, pulling the contents down on himself. Uh, oh. Knives. He was on top – it looked to me as if Bolio was losing. His cell phone skittered across the floor.
But it was Ron who lost when I slapped the brandy bottle against his head. It didn’t break, but he went down and stayed down.
“Thanks,” said Bolio. I wanted to shriek at him for betraying our plan. But I never cuss when I can get even. “He dead?” I asked instead.“Not hardly. Better tie him up, he could come to at any moment.”
“How are we going to explain this mess?” We were out of the plan and floating free. “We’ll take the crime scene elsewhere. Clean it up. Tell anyone who’s interested he was going to replace the cabinet fronts. We’ll break the window on that new car of his and hope they can’t tell one kind of glass from another. Got any bungee cords?” I went to get them.
“And a couple cans of whatever he was drinking. Full.” Ron up.
“Bottles.” I produced them as he trussed “I suppose that will do. Ready to roll.”“I’ll get my coat.”“You won’t need it.”
“Will too.” I certainly didn’t tell him why. My coat pockets have gloves.
“Nice new car,” said Bolio as he bundled Ron into the front seat of the Pontiac. I followed them in Bolio’s diesel Mercedes. At the railroad crossing Bolio propped Ron up in the driver’s seat and began removing the bungee cords.
Ron was coming to, moaning. I came slowly up behind Bolio and from my pocket whipped out the handcuffs, cuffing both him and Ron to the steering wheel. I counted on a moment of drunken, frozen amazement to be able to steal the car key and I got it. I threw it across the tracks. Bolio couldn’t puzzle it out. With all his best efforts, best intentions, the house kept winning. “What’s this?” he demanded drunkly. “No time for this, babe.”
“I’m not your babe,” was all I said. See? Save your breath for the important stuff. It was already almost midnight, so I got in his car and drove away.
I would have liked to stay and tell him I’d figured out who reported seeing me with a man to Ron, but I could already hear the train. Maybe Bolio salted the earth a bit, never wasting an opportunity to point out to Ron how little I gave for what I got.
Bolio was banging on the hood and screaming so loudly I was afraid he’d rip out the steeping wheel. But he hadn’t managed to do it by the time the train blew through.
As soon as I got home I called the police. My husband and his lawyer had a terrible fight. Something about money. When it turned physical and they started smashing things, I ran upstairs. Then they drove away in Ron’s car. Since they were drunk as well as angry, I was scared, so I took the lawyer’s car and tried to follow them but I couldn’t find them. I was afraid something awful was going to happen.
The police were extremely uninterested in things that were about to happen. No emergency that they could see. So instead of cleaning up I took a nice hot bubble bath, with music and candles. I was still in the bath when I got the call about the train crossing.
Bolio was right. There was a lot of money. But I was most surprised to get a check from the Client Security Fund, some special fund that compensates people for thieving lawyers. The attorney who brought me the check was such a nice young man. He explained with great seriousness how apologetic the Bar Association was, but in a whole barrel of apples one or two are often bad, and poor Mr. Bolio was infected with the disease of gambling. Maybe they’ll find a cure someday, said the nice young man handing me the check.
Actually he was infected with the disease of losing, I thought, but I certainly didn’t say so. And they’ll never find a cure for that.
Seems criminal that a person has to wait thirty-nine years to acquire a garden, but that’s what happened to me.
My father was a sculptor — a master of transformations. His day job was arborist so his tool was a chainsaw. He made many fantastical creatures to populate our wild garden — dragons, demons, griffons. My mother believed too much in personal freedom even to weed – thus giving my father’s creations their perfect background. When my dad asked me what I wanted him to make for me I said, “Mermaid” – the Little Mermaid being all the rage that year. So she was born – a chainsaw mermaid to watch over me through the sumac saplings. Then my father died and life assumed a different mien.
Turns out there is no freedom without money – a brutal fact with which my mother seemed unprepared to cope. When the process servers came, the things I’d always known were sold piecemeal.
I’ve haunted junk shops and garden stores ever since, certain I would someday find something of his again, and when I did not, well, it only proves how unwilling anyone would be to part with such masterpieces. But everyone has to die eventually, right? Someday I would find them. And!the right garden to put them in.
Ron never wanted to be a homeowner, just like he’s never wanted to get married. “Steps to the grave” is what he calls such behavior. He’s more concerned about premature burial than Poe ever was. But he’s been so successful in the construction business that finally his lawyer made him see reason, by actually accusing him of throwing money away. That lawyer is the only person I’ve ever heard of who can make Ron do anything. His technique? Numbers.! Show Ron the numbers, and prove to him he’s wasting money.
If numbers aren’t my thing, neither is begging or cajoling. The really worthwhile things in life are without numerical expression. If a person can’t figure that out for themselves then God help them, I say.!! Ron already has a sneaking suspicion my brain is better than the one he’s got and he wastes too much time trying to convince himself of the opposite. It’s a sore spot – one he irritates himself. I was less than thrilled about moving, after finally getting the garden at the rental place just the way I like it. I could hardly imagine that Ron, acting alone (or even with his lawyer) could come up with a house acceptable to me.! Partly because Ron is!the King of Deals – he won’t buy anything unless the price is an absolute steal.!What else can you expect from a man who chains his wallet to his pants? So I took it for granted the place he bought was a dump. Rental agents have legal standards they’re required to maintain, but you can slap a “for sale” sticker on anything. Since Ron’s expertise is construction,! he’s not bothered by little details like missing roofs or bathrooms. He likes to pee outside anyway.
I’m happy to say I was very surprised. Yes the house – and garage – were a dump and going to be an eternity of work – but that garden! Or “yard” as Ron calls it. Huge! Gorgeous! So overgrown – very reminiscent of the garden of my childhood. Haunted by the ghosts of perennials – hollyhocks and roses and dahlias and poppies– poking up through the weeds. Shadows of espaliered pears and pollarded crabapples. So much room! I was dazzled. I was in love. It was big enough for a water course – a koi pond or even a waterfall. A garden you could get lost !in. Delicious challenge!
I was unwise enough to let Ron see my rapture. Afterwards I heard him on the phone with his lawyer worrying about what constitutes common law marriage. Would I get some kind of legal hold over him by sharing his legal residence?! (He didn’t know I was listening, natch.) His lawyer reassured him that we don’t live in a common-law marriage state and Ron was all relieved. The property was in foreclosure – too good a deal to allow to slip away.! Some other guy’s grief was Ron’s tax break, because the garage was big enough to store business equipment and there was room enough for a home office. So after offer and counteroffer, scaring me half to death, he bought the place.
Don’t ask me what Ron’s problem is. I’ve got too strong a gag reflex to study anyone’s psyche closely. All I can say is Ron appears to operate on the basic theory that women are always trying to force men to do things they don’t want to do and the only manly stance is Resistance. In our relationship, I’m cast as the Nazis and he’s the French Underground. Emotional isometrics.! At the beginning of our relationship he used to try to get me to take any position, just so he could pick the opposite side. If I switched, he switched. I’m too wily for that now.!I don’t care about marriage. I was married before and it was sufficiently unpleasant that I wouldn’t care to go through anything like it again. The short version is, I was diagnosed with ovarian cancer and my husband bailed. He was the type who has to be having sex every minute and if you’re under the weather, he’s out the door. And no kids? Dealbreaker.
I! beat the cancer – I’m a survivor. Forget marriage. I’ve explained all this to Ron this over and over, but Ron thinks women automatically lie about everything. At the start of our relationship it was condoms, condoms, condoms. He’s a double bagger — he just wouldn’t take my word for anything. “That’s what they all say,” was his wittiest retort. We must have had sex 180 times before there came that one time when he “wasn’t prepared.” Of course that makes them want it even worse.!I said,“Don’t worry,! baby, I took care of it.”
Bit of a euphemism for massive organ removal, wouldn’t you say? But things improved from that day forward.!!As a cultivator, bound by the cycles of the seasons, I cultivate patience. I care about potential, about becoming. One thing I learned from my mother is, don’t waste energy. Allow nature to take its course. I respected Ron enough to allow him to take his course; he would love me or not, as he needed to; we would stay together or not. Whatever.
We’d been together five months – approaching the Critical Half Year – when I got The Speech. He had to wire himself up with a few beers first so I could see something big was coming. He told me he was never getting married and he never wanted children, and I could live under his roof and cook his food and tease his penis but that was it.
I probably gave him the shock of his life by telling him it was fine with me. Whew! I was afraid he was going to tell me to get a job but as long as he pays the bills and lets me do what I want I consider myself lucky. I’ve got too many plans of my own to sign my time over to someone else.
So I gave Ron my speech. I said that since the condom’s disappearance I had assumed we were a monogamous pair, but if he ever wanted to partake of foreign delights, I would appreciate its reappearance. I wouldn’t say a word of criticism – he was as free as a bird. But I’d be grateful for protective impulses. I’ll share, but I don’t gamble with my health. He said “OK.” Although I considered we had an ironclad agreement I couldn’t resist being a bit curious about him. I wasn’t surprised to discover that his most potent fantasy is being handcuffed to a bed. “Control freaks!”
Careful not to wear her out I saved Dungeon Mistress for our “special” nights. His other fetish seemed to be taking nude pix of me – I have a great body and I don’t mind showing it off – but I draw the line at action fare. And I was gratified to see the condom never again reared its ugly head. In a relationship like ours, “Love” is a forbidden word. You don’t want to hear Ron on the subject of love – it’s his least attractive side. He totally buys into the self-interest explanation of why people do things. “Love” doesn’t exist – it’s just dressed-up lust, a social lie people tell to make themselves feel better, yada yada yada.
He’s “freed” himself from all that. I did feel sometimes like I was having sex with a fifteen year old – he’s not that much younger than me – but if he’s immature, he has other qualities. I learned not to scare him with the things he can’t understand. It just messes with his hard-ons.
I’m the Queen of Deals myself — I haunt consignment and thrift stores. It’s amazing the treasures you can find. That night I wore my red silk Halston with the long skirt – slit right up to here – and no blouse beneath the jacket.! It doesn’t need a blouse unless I lean way forward, which I wasn’t planning to do. I put on long dangly jet earrings and all my rings.
I enjoy being alone in restaurants — I insist on one set place so everyone can see I’m not expecting company. I love the whispering, the speculation; whatever they guess about me is wrong. I even enjoy the occasional attempted pickup, but so far I haven’t been tempted to accept. Ron keeps his weirdnesses well hidden – he’s a handsome man with a gorgeous body – and he knows what I like in bed — so he’s actually made my standards higher. If he’s intellectually lacking, well, a game of intellectual chess usually results in boudoir disappointment, I find. So who could seduce me? Perhaps a man the exact opposite of Ron – wearing, say, a Tom Ford suit with art deco cufflinks; blond, foreign, cosmopolitan.! None of those hanging around our corner of the world.! Not so far.
I’d been busy with the move and I hadn’t had the opportunity to study the “fine dining” pages and pick a place to patronize, as is my usual amusement. Plus, now that we lived in the country I really didn’t want to go all the way to town. The Smithy was the furthest outpost I could think of where the food was impressive, the ambiance acceptable and the decibels dulled so I steered the BMW there. At the entrance to the restaurant I was hurrying from the parking lot as fast as possible in stilettos when I bumped into somebody.! Come to think of it, he bumped into me. “Renata,” he said. “Right?”
“I don’t know you.” I halted abruptly. This was not my dream man, but he was wearing a suit. He was about my height with a receding hairline and long, messy salt and pepper hair. An unkempt moustache. Looked a bit like the manager of a rock group or somebody of that sort.
“Oh yes you do, Renata. You know me quite well. It’s true we’ve only talked on the phone, but we have so much in common. I’d like to buy you dinner tonight.” Hmmmm. Nothing familiar about those bloodhound cheeks, those sad, sad eyes. But he was right. The voice I recognized.
“Brad Bolio,” I said. “You’re Ron’s lawyer.” “Right.”! We were standing in the doorway blocking traffic. He took my elbow and steered me inside.
“How did you know I was coming here?” I asked. “I didn’t even know myself till about twenty minutes ago.”
“I followed you. I’ve been following you for days.”
Questioning my memory, I hadn’t noticed him – I hadn’t noticed anybody. But thirty-nine-year-olds don’t expect stalkers. !So I allowed myself to be led to a table. I noticed he chose the darkest corner.
I ordered the grilled salmon; he selected the lobster ravioli and a bottle of St.Emilion. A vintage that can lead you astray.
With the long habit of saying the exact opposite of what I’m really thinking, I said, “It’s kind of flattering to be followed. What did it tell you about me?” “That you’re a deal taker and a risktaker. I already knew you were clever and cultured. Ron brags about you. “
Jawdropper. I had to struggle not to react. Ron, bragging to others about the very things he criticizes in me?! Be still my heart!
“I assume you know he has nude pictures of you on his phone and he shows them to everyone. Waitresses, cops, flagmen. People he’s just met. They’re his calling card.”
This info was less welcome. If he was trying to get a reaction out of me, he’d scored. My one hope was in all this darkness he couldn’t tell how dark I’d reddened. Brad Bolio eyed me glitteringly.
“I ask myself why the hell do you put up with him?” He answered his own question. “I’m guessing you’re addicted. Addicted to comfort.” The wine was delicious. I pushed away the forgettable food to concentrate on its dark delight.
“You’ve got me,” I said. “I’m a lazy risktaker.” I always think of my father when I drink. Why? He used to get down on his knees to speak to me. No man has done it since. “Unfortunately,” Bolio was saying, “I’m a risk-taker too. And the house keeps winning.” A gambler! Poor bastard.
“I’ll bet you have a system,” I said.! I’m not a dumb risk taker. I would never bet against the house. The odds are deliberately stacked in favor of the house and everyone knows this. The key is to be the house.
“Let me show you something.”! He produced a black eelskin document case from his breast pocket and removed a folded square. He wore three big rings – Catholic high school, college and law school rings, judging by appearance. They’re usually the gaudiest. His precise movements didn’t match that big lazy body, so I psychoanalyzed him for amusement. I can smell “internal conflict”. I visualized the gambler in fisticuffs with the attorney, picturing each in a variety of hats. Cowboy? Coonskin? Maybe a Cardinal’s hat to go with those ostentatious rings. He produced a cigarette lighter – gaudy and bejewelled – and lit it so that I could read the paper.
It was a marriage certificate, made out for Ron Valerio and me. Ron’s side was signed; a line awaited my signature. Somehow, in the midst of packing and unpacking the UHaul, it seemed we had found the time to go to Vegas.
“Who are these witnesses?” I demanded. “They’re going to know it wasn’t us.”
“They’re professional witnesses,” said Bolio. “A Franklin is the only face they recognize.” “It really looks like his signature,” I teased. “Must be one of his surprises. I wonder when was he going to tell me?”
“It ain’t real, sweetheart, but the minute you sign it, it’s legal,” and Bolio stretched it helpfully out on the table and offered me a pen. “What Ron doesn’t know won’t hurt him. There’s a will, too. I’m a Renaissance man with many gifts – I’ve been signing Ron’s name for years. Sign here so you will no longer live in sin.! Then everybody’s happy.”
Maybe after a day of hard work, on an empty stomach and three glasses of wine, I was as high as a kite, because I signed. But I still wasn’t getting it. I was certain Ron knew all about this. It was some kind of underhanded legal maneuver – like, we’re married if it suits Ron financially, and not when it doesn’t. That touchstone. A marriage of convenience. I tolerate ambiguity less well when drunk. challenged.
“Did Ron ask you to come here?” Bolio summoned the waitress and addressed her flirtatiously from beneath his lashes. “This lady is cut off,” he said. “Get her a double espresso.”
“Hey, I signed,” I said. “So how come I don’t get another bottle of wine?! You could always drive me home.”
Bolio sighed. “Because I have something very serious to discuss with you and you need your wits about you. And no, Ron definitely doesn’t know I’m here.”
The waitress delivered my espresso with a smirk. I felt like giving her the finger. I was starting to feel rebellious but also antsy. Ron wouldn’t like me doing things behind his back – had I just done something stupid? Messed up my future? But if Ron’s signature was forged, couldn’t I claim mine was forged too? But would I get away with it?
Bolio poured cream so carefully over a spoon it floated on the surface of his coffee. Flashy dude. “Ron is very, very rich,” he said. “And he maintains a huge position in undeclared cash. But not as much as he thinks he’s got because when I was in a jam I helped myself to some of it.” “And now you can’t pay it back.” I guess the party was over. Regrettably the espresso was working.! Time to smarten up.
“I’d rather not pay it back,” said Ron’s attorney. “I’d rather kill Ron actually, but for that I need your help.”
“Why on earth do you want to kill Ron?” That got a reaction out of me. “Doesn’t everyone? Don’t you? Isn’t he the most irritating bastard you’ve ever met? He won’t marry you and he doesn’t love you. He says emotional involvement is for suckers. You got nothing, lady. I expected you to be smarter, actually. After you’ve worn your pretty fingers to the unattractive bone fixing up his brand new house, what’s to keep him from kicking you out and moving in a younger cutie?”
Of course that had always been a possibility. I simply enjoyed believing Ron couldn’t find anyone as wonderful as Wonderful Me. But Wonderful Me was definitely getting older and missing most of her insides. What if he got some cootchie pregnant? Ron wouldn’t be the first man to decide in his fifties that what he really wanted was a family. I had a sinking feeling Bolio knew plenty of things I didn’t know. But I was hinky. There was still that possibility of a setup. “Are you recording this?” I demanded.
“Why would I? I’d have to be crazy – since I’m doing all the talking, and you’re doing all the listening, right? So listen a little. I need an heir I can trust. You can’t lose! – it’s all gain.! He’ll leave a huge estate. There’s even insurance. We split fifty-fifty and you clear a cool mill after taxes. Did you know he paid cash for that house? Can you imagine such a thing in this day and age? The house would be yours. The cars would be yours. There’s no family around to spike your play. The partners will almost certainly offer to buy you out of the business. I could negotiate that for you. You don’t want to get ripped off.”
I knew better than to show the rage I was beginning to feel but my remarks were fairly cutting. “And we’ve established how trustworthy you are. My affairs would be so safe in your hands.” He was game; a game advocate. And so he advocated. “Look at it this way. We’d each be contributors to the body of the crime, so if we tell on each other we’d be telling on ourselves. My assessment of you is you’re too smart. You enjoy the finer things of life but spend all your time at flea markets. Here I am offering a free upgrade. Want to spend a lifetime in jail? Neither do I. I’m his executor, I’ll see his estate through probate, then we’ll say sayonara. I’m even willing to do all the wet work. The way I see it, all you’ve got right now, is Ron, and if you knew Ron as well as I know him, you’d realize that’s less than nothing.”
Before meeting Ron I was in sales, so I recognized this technique. Give the sucker two choices – yours and something horrible. Don’t let them think about what could go wrong. This is the same way he probably manipulates Ron.
“Don’t assume-“ I hissed with a little too much heat but he held up his hand.
“I’m not assuming anything. I’m asking. You can certainly refuse and that’s the end of it. I wouldn’t dare kill him if you say no, so his life is in your hands. I’ll pay the money back and look for other opportunities.” He shook the eelskin document. “Here’s your bonus for even talking to me about it. Goes in the safe and mum’s the word – only gets found if it needs to get found. All I ask is you sleep on what I’ve said for a week. One week. OK?”
He leaned over the table, gripping my hand in both his. A musky, heated smell of desire poured off him. He said troatily, “You’re settling for way too little, lady.”
Finally a come on! I pulled back and loosed my hand. Cocked a brow. “Is there a Mrs. Bolio?”
He threw down his napkin. “There’s a question I didn’t expect.! Should I be flattered?”
I guessed clever Mr. Bolio was still a secret to himself. “You know all about me. Tell me all about you.” I liked seeing him nervous. Unsettled. He rattled his rings against his coffee cup.
“There are no co-conspirators, if that’s what you’re asking.” “That’s not what I’m asking.”
“There are three Mrs. Bolios. All of them are too expensive. However, they are not in the picture at present.”
“Got a girlfriend?”
“All my exes live in Texas,” I hummed. He shook his head. “Can’t dignify her with the title.
“So here’s my final question. Wives or girlfriends –who do you treat better?”
His mouth worked his moustache nervously. He realized he was auditioning and he didn’t like it.
“I’ll agree with Ron about one thing. Marriage is best avoided,” he said shortly. “My advice to you is pass through engagement and head straight for widowhood. You’re going to be a very wealthy widow. I recommend it as the best of all possible worlds.”
Of course it didn’t answer my question. But it only raised my suspicion that the truth about Mr. Bolio was that his right hand and his left hand had never even met. When I drank the last cold little bit of espresso, I was sorry to see it go.
“Do you know how you’ll do it?! Have you gotten that far?”
Now he was on surer ground. “He makes it pretty damned easy by driving drunk every Saturday night. It’s not a question of how.! It’s a question of when. I favor jamming a beercan under his pedals and stranding him unconscious across the train tracks with the midnight Acela coming through. There’s a bad crossing the town fathers have been dithering about fixing for years. Three deaths there already. Simple but effective.”
Sounded functional. As the suicide hot line counselors say, his method was sufficiently lethal.! I rose abruptly.
“OK. I listened.”
“You’ve got one week,” he reminded me. “Call me. I’m number two on your speed dial.” That was also true. Over my shoulder I saw him paying for our dinner in cash. Ron’s cash, presumably.
My books have sold over 100,000 copies so YES except – I’ve made very little money BUT… Devlyn has a brisk re-sale so readers must like it BUT… Even though Find Courtney got excellent reviews hardly anyone read it BUT… Come to think of it, I’ve only ever had good reviews. (Many raves.) Only one bad one I know of. BUT… The people who are closest to me seem untouched & unimpressed BUT Several strangers appreciated exactly what I was doing and called me their “favorite author” BUT Wasn’t able to get an agent because I didn’t have a big enough “following” or “platform” BUT transitioned easily to plays, wrote 8 with much pleasure, won three prizes, had a small New York opening BUT… I had a horrible director who didn’t understand the play BUT… I thoroughly enjoyed working with and learning from the actors BUT… Felt silenced & stymied by the pandemic BUT… Have been working on transcribing my diaries, (Inspired Pleasure) am NOT intimidated by getting old – so –
Am I a success?
It really depends on your definition of success. My definition of success is to:
1) Never stop writing 2) Draw joy from writing 3) Achieve “flow” while writing (i.e. a blissful state) 4) Feel I am advancing in my spiritual path 5) Using art to connect with others.
Alysse Aallyn 