1
“Good girl, Sandy, that was a good one.”
My dog yipped, calling me back from my remembrance of the evening just past. We both were still winded from the customary pre-dawn walk and jog along the lakefront, my heart still pounding and her sides still heaving between her playful yelps. Then looking over the recently re-painted black wrought iron fence into my small front yard, my eyes wandered over the vegetation, some dead branches hung low and limp from the trees in the parkway, still indistinct in the half light.
“The pines need trimming.” Sandy wagged her tail in agreement, shifting her weight to show me her eagerness to go inside.
Overgrown, the burning bushes lining the borders of the small patch of grass city folks call a lawn would soon be turning vibrant colors, as Fall stretched long and warm from a temperate summer, uncommon in the central Midwest. Begonias and hostas that rimmed the curving walkway leading to the front steps yellowed and drooping from the effects of the first light frost, the fountain that ran clear all summer now algae coated and silent, clarified how the yard and I could have been so alike, decayed, dilapidated, fading and in need of serious attention, if I hadn’t been financially successful in life. I gave in to Sandy’s urging and went inside, escaping the temptation to prolong this comparison and hoping that the act of paying attention to my dog would alleviate the pressure building in my temples from the pressures of responsibility the day would bring.
“Come on, you deserve some cheese.” Sandy wriggled with happiness. When I opened the iron gate and then the heavy oak door flanked by my favorite bevelled and stained glass windows that caught the first rays of the morning sun and refracted them into rainbows on the foyer wall, the dog knew it was also time for cheese. Simple pleasure. Simple reward. We crossed the few feet into the gourmet-chef designed, untidy kitchen. What a stye. Who lives here? A crazy person with no hygiene? The cleaning lady had yet to arrive. Her efforts every other day couldn’t keep up with my inattention to housework, a curse I probably suffered because of my mother’s fanaticism over dust and clutter during my childhood.
I flicked on the solitary light above the sink, avoiding the garish overhead flourescent that so often triggered migraines. Sandy’s eyes followed my every move, as if cataloging the rhythm of my actions to arrive at her moment of reward. I left the fridge door ajar as I chipped a few chunks from the block of sharp cheddar. They fell on the counter the way the events of the last few months had chipped away large chunks of my self-confidence, which had fallen on the future with nowhere to go. I was glad my boss hadn’t yet noticed how few of my big accounts were still ordering as they once had. It was only a matter of time, and a review of the system before I’d be found out. I squeezed the yellow wax into the crevices of the rawhide bone, which, when at last licked clean, Sandy alternately hid in corners and under the chairs. Taking the dog’s face in my hands and peering deep into her eyes, into the wells of wisdom I sought there, looking for the answers I knew could not be found in the myopic glance she returned to me, I continued to question her, knowing she could not respond. A perfect soundingboard.
“Sandy? How the hell did we get here, anyway?” Her tail swished the air lazily, slowing to the rhythm of my words, hoping I would soon give up the gab and give her the bone. I nudged the door closed with my hip.
Always an attractive enough woman, I didn’t let anyone know that my hair, turning gray under the salon auburn coloring, and that the mirror, shouting that I had gained more pounds than I wanted to admit, upset me rudely and were intimately connected to my routine inspection of wrinkles deepening around my eyes and age spots appearing on my hands. The high-priced lotions and pommades to bleach the spots and fill in the wrinkles were not nearly as effective as advertised. I knew, but couldn’t admit that living had become harder for me over time, not easier, in spite of material success. I petted Sandy’s head, again looking into her eyes.
“What should I do?”
Sandy’s tail sagged to the floor as she sat down. Her gaze jumped from my face to the bone and back. No human could speak more clearly. Cheese bone.
“Nice, take it nice.” I slowly placed the bone horizontally in front of her nose.
Sandy’s drooling mouth very gently took the bone from my hand. At the moment she owned it, she bounded off to her sleeping quarters at the top of the basement stairs to lick away every bit of cheese. I poured the last bitter cup of day old coffee from the pot, set up the babygate to keep Sandy contained on the tile flooring of the kitchen and off the silk, hand-woven carpets, and then headed upstairs to my home-away-from-the-office office. Sculpted into the guest bedroom were mahogany filing cabinets and an antique French armoire from Normandy, whose reconfigured interior served as a computer desk that engorged the overly decorated space into a cavern-like cubbyhole of solitude and isolation. This is where I kept my memories, family photos and treasures handmade by my children, reminding me of happier times as I frantically tried to survive the downturn in the economy and my self-esteem. Maybe I’d find some answers here.
The phone rang as I settled into the compact lumps my sculptured derrière had moulded into the cushion of my husband’s aging office chair, the one I had given to him for Christmas ten years ago, the only real relic remaining from my marriage. I picked up the receiver and automatically punched the speakerphone button, giving no thought to the fact that someone was calling. Very few people other than my attorney ever called me at this number anymore. I prefered the silence and its implied distance, resenting to have to speak on command.
“Hello?”
Only a soft whisper of breathing answered me.
“Hello? Who is this?” Annoyance camouflaged the hint of fear I heard in my own voice.
“Hello?” I hung up. “Wrong number—damned kids playing a prank.”
The caller ID, I had diligently embraced the frantic acquisition of every kind of frivolous techno-toy in this world of high speed DSL lines and Internet viruses, gave a ‘private caller’ reading as I turned on the odd assortment of overly expensive decorator lamps and booted up the computer. Unpaid bills leered at me from the desk in-box where I relegated them to enforced stagnation. Perhaps they would evaporate if I left them there long enough.
“Damn the bills! Why can’t you ever earn enough money?” The words pummeled me with guilt, a habit engrained since childhood when my math grades could not satisfy my over expectant parents. I clicked on the computer program where I dutifully logged in Bills to Pay on the financial spreadsheet pretending they would get paid if they were logged in, just as I dutifully opened math books pretending to finish homework I would never understand. The amount of my commission checks had dwindled to barely cover the mortgage, electricity, and water bill. The small amount I received from my late husband’s social security paid the phone bill, intown transportation and food. After that, I couldn’t keep up. Juggling money had become like an incurable disease that sapped my strength and denied me any comfort.
“Lawyers! Why do you listen to them?”
Talking to myself had become my only means to vent the accumulated anger of the past few years, the unconscious act of isolated souls needing to hear a human voice. I shuddered with blame as the rant came on. Taking responsibility for my own shortcomings had become my new means to emotional liberation, unsatisfying and useless though it was, a scrim curtain to cover the guilt of my perceived tragedies and failings as a human being.
“You had the biggest orders in three years. You had loyalty from your customers. You had contacts and business friends. You had chronic migraines.”
My voice grew in decibles as the litany of sins rose from my often repeated, self-inflicted, verbal battering. “You risked your health. You drove yourself to achieve ever higher profits. On that gloomy afternoon in the last snow storm of early spring, you couldn’t resist temptation. You guzzled the last glass of whiskey with the men, without considering the consequences.” Memories ran headlong into the abyss of my loneliness like water over a cliff.
“You never play it safe!” I slammed my hand on the desk. “You have to play it safe!”
I knew I wouldn’t. Who I had become tormented me. I closed out of the spreadsheet and waited for Google to load. Every day I secretly searched online for a job. I scanned the job boards, filled out the resume wizards, looked for responses that rarely appeared. Why should the charade be different on any one day?
“Earn $6000 a day at home…Put your computer to work for you…Hot jobs…Scams, phantom jobs!”
Some days I thought I could simplify my life, maybe teach again—yet I was over qualified, they told me. Just routine excuses. I was too old and with twenty years of real-life, business experience and a Master’s degree, too expensive. Fresh young graduates got the teaching jobs. Professional silence infuriated me.
The phone shut off my thoughts. Second ring.
“Hello?” No response. “Hello? Who is this? Stop calling this number, whoever you are!” I slammed down the phone. “Get hold of yourself. Breathe deep drags of the stuffy air. Open the window.”
It rang again. Fifth ring this time.
“Hello?”
Lynn Hargrove’s voice chirped at me. Kindness flowed from her like honey from the hive. Her gentle manner calmed my terror when she handled my divorce from my first husband fifteen years ago. In one crisis after another her sweet confidence reduced to non-existance a couple of traffic violations, one job related suit trying to preserve both the job and my reputation. Lynn, my guide in many ways, in the purest sense of goodness attempted to keep me in contact with my four children out of some altruistic concern for me. She saw my deserted personal island as a liability to my health and well-being. I saw it as a refuge from the disasters of my life. Distance removed me from my children, like personal oblivion removed me from reality. Death had forced me into my own prison where so called family issues locked the cell door. I stayed sequestered and shut in as much as possible. Lynn remembered the outgoing, vivacious personality. She wanted to rekindle that spirit. I was tired. I was enraged. I wanted to be left alone.
“Hannah? Good news. The DUI charges have been dropped. You’re a free woman.”
“That’s that? Oh. Okay, that’s good. I’ll be gone for a while. Taking a little trip to sort things out. Thanks for your help. Take care of yourself. Bye.” I heard the apathy in my voice. Did she?
Lynn couldn’t respond before I hung up the phone. Computer on, I went down stairs. Sandy’s eyeballs rotated up at me, but she never stopped licking the bone.
“I’m losing it, Sandy.” Sandy wagged her tail as if she knew I was right as I sat on the Victorian chaise longue and stroked the maroon satin upholstery.
“I need a drink.” Looking through the open blinds, the familiar wave of sadness washed over me like a tide washing up on a beach. Tears flowed hot, again, blurring my vision with the steam of impossiblities. Wrapping my arms around my own shoulders, hugging myself as I rocked slowly forward and back, I sobbed. Grief dropped over me like a net some astral being had thrown to capture me.
“I need you. Come back to me.” I moaned at a framed photo of my second husband. Sandy left the bone. She came over to lick my tears, wagging her tail slowly to comfort me. My memories of his laughter mingled with my own gasps for air.
What was it like to die instantly at seventy miles an hour? I hugged Sandy. “You’re my best friend, Sandy. I’m glad you’re here.” Hiding my face in Sandy’s fur then looking out the windows again, a man at the bus stop in front of my house, like so many others, flicked a cigarette butt into my yard. I hated these arrogant strangers who thought my property was their personal ashtray. He pulled a cell phone from inside his coat. I approached the small English armoire, opened the door and stared at the array of liquor lottles, begging me to break their seals and taste of their spirits.
“I’ll pour these into the sink later.” I closed the door. One demon restrained.
Shivering from the sweat that had cooled since my return and heading back upstairs to the luxurious bathroom/spa I had installed right after buying the brownstone, I turned on the spigots, polished brass and antique French design, to banish the passing spell I had mangaged to break with the simplest act—drawing a bath. The bubbles frothed cheerily from the stream of soap I was pouring generously, releasing the fragrance of lavender into the steam that filled the room. I zipped off the designer gortex jogging suit, tossed my shoes into the corner, and flipped the socks toward the hamper as I climbed into the churning, hot bathwater of the whirlpool tub intent on letting the water rise around my body and wash away my cares.
As I turned to sit, something caught my eye. I straightened up and glanced into the street through the oval window above the tub that allowed me to view out, but no one from below to see in. A delivery van pulled in front of my building, and a uniformed man climbed out. I recognized him as he circled the vehicle and then opened the side door towards the sidewalk. His name was Peyton, unusual and sexy. He reached into the opening and lifted a large bouquet of red roses, wrapped in cellophane and tied with an enormous crimson bow, from the van and placed it on the curb. I recalled his soft-spoken demeanor and how each time he delivered flowers to my door, his muscles rippling under his brown shirt had made me feel nervous, like a schoolgirl at her first dance. He looked up at my windows as he secured the truck.
Sandy began to growl, her rumbling floating upwards from below as it always did when she heard someone in the street. Peyton turned as if to approach my door. Her growls erupted into warning barks, low and menacing. It was a good thing I had set up the gate to her space so she couldn’t actually have the run of the house.
I strained to watch him take the bouquet to my door, at the same time as I reached toward the matches on far end of the shelf ledge, so I could light the frangrant candles perched like so many birds on a wire along the shelf above the tub. The gesture caused me to over reach my balance point. I slipped, trying to catch myself on the shelf, but it tore away from the supports as my hand missed its grip. The board flung the candles ceilingward, as I fell back. It was all slow motion. I saw the board slam between the tub and the wall. I heard the candles thud like fallen apples onto the ceramic tiles. I smelled the lavender as my head hit the faucet full force, all my weight and the speed of the fall catching the nape of my neck on the brass curve of the pour spout. It didn’t hurt, I was just surprised. I felt the water rising against me. I couldn’t move. A distant train whistle sounded in my ears and I was gone.
v v v
I hate looking for the street numbers again and again, wandering for fifteen minutes, finding myself turning the wrong way on one way streets. But as I remembered the frustration I had faced every day in the IS department of Dayton-Holland Industries, the simplicity of delivering flowers seemed like heaven. I was not one to cheat, lie or steal another guy’s glory, or ideas or wife. I believed that playing fair was the only way to success, lasting success. I believed, apparently wrongly, that saving a guy’s reputation instead of destroying it was the way to the top. I had been down the ladder of success so often that I had given in to the unemployment line in favor of selling my soul to the lowest bidder. I could not eat the shit they served up on my plate. So, I quit. Walked away. What is big money anyways, but a trapdoor into the prison of yes men.
My thoughts ran free as I watched for details in the houses, the gardens, the light. It’s just how I pass the time when I’m on my route. Keeps the boredom at bay. The sunlight cast hotspots between the shadows of the trees, though the chill was definitely on the breeze. Finally, there it was, the address of familiarity on a street I knew. It felt good to arrive at her brownstone. I could smell the autumn as I threw the van door open and jumped into the street. I looked up at her second floor windows. The oval one peers out at the world like a cyclops, not evil, just odd. I missed my step.
“Ouch! Damn that knee!” I kept forgetting the weakness in my right knee, the effects of early onset arthritis. I broke my leg playing football on the empty lot with a bunch of other guys, showing our kids how it’s done. I took a tackle that snapped my shin, weakened from the five mile runs I had been making everyday to train for a marathon. They couldn’t set it right, too many fragments, so they left it out of alignment. The wear and tear of walking brought on the arthritis. A guy my age shouldn’t feel the way that thing made me feel in cool weather, like I had a wooden stump for a leg, a stiffened log hinged by rusted irons, a hobbled appendage that kept me off balance. But, the wierdo standing at the bus stop distracted me from the ache. Scraggly hair, dirty coat, cigarette hanging from his lip, cell phone to his ear, unmoving, not quite alive. Why he nodded at me as I slid the cargo door open, I couldn’t figure.
Flipping the addresses on the receipts until I found the right one, “1411 State Parkway…whew! Rich digs!” The huge bouquet, all wrapped in cellophane and ribbon, fanning out from the Lalique crystal vase, filled with water and moss grass, the whole thing heavier than my grandmother’s Thanksgiving turkey stuffed and filling her enormous porcelain platter, was from some guy whose name I hadn’t seen before.
“Ungghh!” God, I couldn’t believe I had grunted like my eighty year old grandfather when I picked it up. Balancing it so I could see the ground as I walked, I felt my way up the steps to the brownstone’s oak door. The bell chime played a phrase from a Mozart sonata or something like that.
“What ever happened to a simple ding-dong?” No answer, except the barking of her dog from deep inside the apartment. “Shit!”
Disappointed by Ms. Hannah Sebastian’s absence, I had to try the neighbors, company policy, like anyone would know if I skipped the routine this once. The vase was getting heavier as I worked my way next door on the left. No one home. Across the street…no one home…next door on the right…silence. “Damn! Well, at least I tried.” I hate talking to myself like this. I noticed that the greasy statue-guy didn’t get on the bus that stopped at the bus stop. Made a mental note of it…you never know when you’ll need to remember things. I decided I’d try the door at 1411 again, just for luck. Sometimes people wakeup when the doorbell rings, and it takes them time to answer. It was early yet.
I rang the bell again, but, nothing. So, rather than take this gargantuan greenhouse with me, I set the roses down to give my back a rest, a little too close to the door. They started to tip over, and I over reacted, shoving them against the oak door, which swung open like an invitation to enter.
“Hello? Anybody home?” My voice echoed from the ceramic hallway and across the hardwood floors that shone like polished amber in the light from the front. My shadow darkened my silhouette onto the wall. I heard water running upstairs, kind of sloshing like in a deep vessel, a bathtub maybe. I also heard her dog growling, deep, rumbling, throaty growls, like a big dog would make. There she was, standing in the hallway, head lowered, menacing from the other side of the gate Ms. Hannah Sebastian had put in the door to keep her dog confined.
“Hey, Sandy, a babygate for a german shepherd? Hey there baby, aren’t you part husky too?” I loved dogs, had a bunch of my own. “What are you doing all cooped up?” Sandy actually settled down and sat quietly as I spoke to her. She allowed me inside, whimpering for me to come play with her. I put the roses on the foyer table, one of those godawful antique polished mahonagy monstrosities that rich people think are so cool. I glanced toward the stairs just as water poured down the bare wood steps.
“Maybe you can help me out here,” I said to the dog as I released her, patting her head, setting the babygate aside. She bounded up the stairs, leading the way to the bathroom, her big paws sloshing through the water like galoshes on a child’s feet. I followed her up the flash flood steps to the half opened hallway door of the bathroom. As I shoved the door open wider, I pulled my cell phone from my pocket. The dog stood front paws on the tub, barking at the naked woman whose auburn hair floated on the surface of the water. I grabbed her hand, pulling her up and out of the water, dropping my cell phone on the floor. I knew I was in trouble now, my hands grappling with her naked body, limp, heavy, still warm, still breathing, but not conscious. My heart pounded, my knees buckled as I put her down face up on the wet floor, and turned off the spigot. Then I saw the blood spreading like oil on the water that pooled in the cervaces of the designer slate tiling.
Sandy, whimpering, crying, whining, licked Ms. Sebastian’s face as I salvaged my cell phone from under the tub.
“911. What’s your emergency?”
“A woman tried to drown herself in the tub, or she fell, I don’t know, but at 1411 State Parkway, we need help here.”
“What is her name?”
“I just delivered her flowers, and…”
“What is her name?”
“Uhh…Hannah Sebastian is the name on the delivery ticket.” I knew her name all right, but I didn’t want to seem too familiar with her. Who could tell what had happened here, and if I knew too much, I might be in trouble.
Sandy turned, baring her teeth, exploding in fury and hatred at the man who stood in the bathroom doorway. The bus stop statue had come to life. Her spring from the floor, airborne in a second, stretched her full length, roaring like a starved lionness attacking her prey, took her to the upraised arm of the intruder, who accepted the crushing jaws without remorse, and who curled his free arm around Sandy’s neck, and raising his trapped arm upward violently, snapped the dog’s neck. Ninety pounds of canine loyalty fell to the floor like a sodden sack of wet towels, heavy and lifeless.
His fist flattened the left cheekbone of my face. My cell phone flew against the wall, and landed somewhere behind the commode. I countered with a jab and a power punch to the guy’s ribcage and solarplexus. He doubled over in pain. Go figure, a dog bites him, he’s unmoved. I hit him, and he’s a noodle. The guy rose up and smashed the back of his head into my jaw, simple but effective head butt technique. I fell backward into the shower door, shattering it. I think my head cracked the tiling in the shower stall just before I slumped to the floor. I watched as the bus stop guy staggered from the room. I dragged myself to my hands and knees and crawled after him, stopping at the doorway into the hall. He staggered into the office, raging through it like a campground bear in search of food in a camper. He was looking for something and he apparently knew vaguely where to find the lockbox he grabbed from inside the filing cabinet. As he came out of the office, he saw me watching him. Just as the realization he meant harm pierced my consciousness, the guy panicked. He reached into his pocket for his handgun, raising it towards Hannah and me. I heard the clicks and the two reports. He ran down the stairs like he was escaping a flashpoint fire, two risers at a time, staggering like a drunk, slipping on the wet floor, falling out the front door, taking no time to stop for the cell phone that had dumped out of his pocket. Maybe he didn’t know he’d dropped it. A train whistle, urgent and harsh, broke the sudden silence and shattered my mind as I fell to the floor, my chest burning, my sight fading, my thoughts evaporating into the dark.
