by L. T. Vargus
With the boxes stacked up in the corners and a couple stowed under the table for good measure, the center of the floor began to clear at last. Charlie surveyed the area. Bare wooden planks stared up from beneath her feet.
“I never really noticed the floors back here were wood,” Paige said, echoing Charlie’s thoughts.
“I know. It’s usually so cluttered with junk back here, I think I forgot there even was a floor.”
Next Charlie flung a blue vinyl tarp over the floorboards. It ballooned and floated down into place in slow motion like a sheet settling over a mattress.
She plucked a pair of latex gloves from the box on the counter and snapped them over her wrists, cool on her fingers, a little tight on the heels of her hands. She tossed a pair to Paige.
Finally, it was time to open these bags, see what secrets lay hidden within.
She untied the first bag, hefted it, moving until the bulging thing hovered over the tarp. Adjusting her grip so her hands slid down to the bottom, she tipped and emptied it.
The garbage slopped out as though vomited from this black plastic stomach. Lumps of it spilled free, tumbling, the pile on the tarp pooling outward from the center.
The second bag was lighter, blotting out most of the blue tarp now. Trash piled upon trash. Garbage all the way down.
Taking a deep breath, Charlie and Paige picked at the trash, spreading and sorting bit by bit until there was some semblance of order.
Then Charlie stood back. Looked at the big picture.
Most of it was useless to her. Packing peanuts. Shards of a broken mirror. Food-tainted paper containers. Evidence that Vivien drank a lot of orange juice and that she had a soft spot for Pringles.
On the other hand, there was a lot of mail. Torn envelopes hung open like mouths, bundles of papers protruding from the tattered places like the tips of tongues. That was good.
Loose sheets of white paper caught her eye. Stacks of them interspersed with the rest of the mess. She didn’t know what those could be, and why they hadn’t been recycled.
“Maybe I should start picking out the food stuff?” Paige suggested. “If I bag up all the grody bits, it might be less gross to sift through the papers and whatnot.”
“Good idea,” Charlie said.
Charlie got down on her knees before the pile, rolled her sleeves up, and really got to work. Junk mail was the easiest to check over and dismiss, and there was plenty of it. Colorful envelopes advertising everything from a new almond milk brand to the hottest online slot machines. Glossy postcards from used car lots running sales made to look like gigantic scratch-off lotto tickets. All of these she glanced at and dismissed, passing them from her right hand to her left hand to the mail pile without really stopping.
She lifted a bundle of coupons for the local grocery store and a glob of brown goop dripped out.
“Ew, what is that?” Allie asked.
Charlie studied it for a moment.
“Baked beans?” Her eyes scanned the rest of the garbage. “Except I don’t see any beans anywhere. Just the juice.”
Paige plucked a coffee filter from the pile and squinted at the mystery goo.
“Kinda looks like the sauce that comes on General Tsao’s chicken.”
“Nah,” Allie said. “That’s Mesquite barbecue sauce, sure as you’re alive. Smell it. You’ll see.”
Charlie crawled closer to Paige and deposited the soggy flier into the bag of definite trash.
Having separated out most of the junk mail, Charlie moved on to the loose sheets of white paper, which took longer to decipher. The pages sported tightly packed text periodically splotched with a grainy black-and-white photo. They were online articles printed off, she could tell that much. Documents for some kind of research project by the look of it. Lots of stuff about the wildlife in tropical regions, especially Hawaii. A few academic papers about the economies of such regions.
Charlie turned one of the pages in her hand. A wild boar stared back at her from the photo, his eyes somehow cold even through the murky rendering of a dated laser jet printer. The article talked about a rash of feral pig attacks on the big island.
Was Vivien planning on moving? Or had one of her worker’s kids been using her computer for some homework project? Charlie wasn’t sure, but she set the papers aside, keeping them separate from the junk mail for now.
The non-junk mail took the most time of all. She had to peel the papers out of each envelope, really read them, hoping that just one held some clue about where she might meet up with Vivien, get the jump on her.
A lot of it, while legitimate, was just as useless as the junk. Thank you cards sent by local businesses and charities. Credit card companies sending repeated updates about their terms of service—pages loaded with tiny text that no one ever read.
Charlie found a stack of papers pinned together with a paper clip. No photos this time, just double-spaced text in twelve-point Times New Roman. Charlie let her eyes scan the words. After a moment, she burst out laughing.
Paige’s head snapped up.
“Did you find something?”
“Oh, I found something alright.”
Charlie cleared her throat and began to read aloud.
“‘Broderick’s manhood strained against the zipper of his khakis, and he could tell by the sharp outline of Maleah’s nipples against her thin silk blouse that she, too, was aroused.’” Charlie snickered. “It goes on from there. In graphic detail.”
Paige giggled, her cheeks turning pink.
“Oh, Lordy.”
Charlie flipped through the rest of the pages, skimming. She found a mention of the main character, Broderick Sterling, being an ethnobiologist studying the mammals native to the rainforests of Hawaii. That explained the printouts, then. Vivien was writing a romance novel.
“My granny was a big reader,” Paige said as they continued their work. “Always had a book in her hand, and her basement was stacked floor to ceiling with paperbacks. She loved nothing more than to spend all evening on the back porch reading in her glider.”
Charlie doubted Vivien’s attempts at fiction would reveal much—other than a healthy imagination—but she set the papers aside anyway.
“I was there for a visit once and it rained for like three days straight, so I couldn’t be outside like I usually was. I got so bored that I decided I’d read one of Granny’s books.” Paige shook her head. “Oh my word. It was ‘throbbing member’ this and ‘heaving bosom’ that. I couldn’t look her in the face for the whole rest of the visit. Not that I begrudged her guilty pleasures, of course. Whatever floats your boat, that’s what I say. But she was such a strait-laced…”
Paige trailed off for a second, staring at an envelope speckled with coffee grounds, and then she was talking again, her voice going up in pitch.
“Oh, crumbs! I was just starting to think we were picking through all this filth for nothing. And then here it is!”
“What are you talking about?”
“I think ‘gala’ would mean it’s kind of fancy, but that shouldn’t be a problem, I don’t think—”
“Paige,” Charlie interrupted. “What is it?”
“Sorry!” She let out a nervous chuckle. “Here. See for yourself.”
The envelope was moist, but the letter inside had been mostly protected from the rest of the refuse. One edge sported a faint coffee-colored stain.
The return address was typed out in fancy script and listed the Bridgefork Heights Country Club as the sender. The logo on the letterhead inside matched it. Charlie’s eyes flitted down the letter, devouring it.
You are cordially invited to the 18th Annual Jazz Brunch Gala and Silent Auction to benefit Meals on Wheels. This year’s gala features a menu planned by world-renowned chef Bobby Flay and a wine-tasting with some of Napa Valley’s top sommeliers. Enclosed, please find your complimentary tickets for you and one guest.
“Holy shit!” Allie said. “Bobby Flay’s going to be there?”
Charli
e checked the inside of the envelope, squeezing the sides so it fattened and opened like a bullfrog’s mouth. Empty. The tickets were gone, of course.
Still, she had something to work with now. If Charlie ambushed Vivien Marley at the gala, there’d be nowhere for her to run. No maid to play gatekeeper this time.
Better yet, she wouldn’t even have to wait long. The gala was tomorrow morning.
THIRTY-SEVEN
When Charlie finally got herself into bed that night, she lay awake for some time, restless at the thought of sneaking into the gala.
She was just drifting off at around 2 a.m. when the sound of her phone ringing startled her awake. Squinting through the slit of one eye, she read the name on the screen: Mom.
Charlie picked up, expecting to hear a burst of her mother’s paranoid babbling before she could get in even a word. But there was only silence.
“Mom? Are you there?”
“Charlie!” Nancy’s voice came out in a hiss. “You have to help me! I think there’s an intruder!”
Charlie sat up, feeling an immediate jolt of anxiety. Then she remembered what had happened with the so-called lurking reporter who had turned out to be a woman collecting donations for the local animal shelter.
“Someone is in the house?” she asked.
“No. They’re prowling around outside.”
“How can they be an intruder if they’re outside the house?”
“Don’t get into semantics with me! I heard scratching, like they’re trying to get inside.”
“That’s probably just the birds on the side of the house.”
“Birds?” Nancy repeated. “Do you think I’m an idiot?”
Charlie gritted her teeth. Her mother’s chronic tendency to overreact and catastrophize every little thing was exhausting.
Charlie remembered something her mother’s psychiatrist had told her before, that there tended to be triggers for Nancy’s outbursts. With the little scare Nancy had had earlier with the not-really-a-reporter, it was only natural that she’d have a bad night.
Sighing, Charlie let her head fall back against the wall behind her. She needed to calm her mother down enough so that they could both get some sleep.
“Mom, do you remember earlier when you called me in a panic about there being a reporter outside the house?”
“I wasn’t in a panic!”
“Well, it sounded that way to me,” Charlie said, patiently. “And then when I got there, everything was fine, wasn’t it?”
“I can’t believe you’re using that against me.” Nancy whimpered. “I guess I’m just a burden to you. I’m frightened and alone, and now you won’t even help me.”
Like a dose of drugs plunged straight into her veins, the guilt went straight to Charlie’s head.
She opened her mouth to tell her mother she’d be right there. But she stopped herself. Dr. Kesselman had told Charlie over and over that playing into her mother’s guilt trips only perpetuated the cycle. It was something that happened every time Charlie spent too much time with her. Her mother began to grow dependent. Created scenarios that made Charlie feel obligated to intervene.
Apologizing, placating, appeasing.
And it wasn’t just tonight, Charlie realized. Her mother had been playing this game all week.
So Charlie did something she’d never done before. Something she should have done this afternoon. She called her mother’s bluff.
“If you’re that scared, Mom, you need to call the police.”
A rush of breath rattled out of the speaker.
“You know as well as I do that the police in this town are worthless.” Nancy’s voice was hard. The simpering woman from a moment before had vanished. “Well, if you won’t help me, I’ll just go get your father’s old hunting rifle and sort it out myself.”
And then the line went dead.
THIRTY-EIGHT
Charlie flopped back against her pillow, fuming.
Had her dad actually owned a rifle? She couldn’t remember. He and Uncle Frank had gone fishing all the time, but hunting? She had no distinct memories of that. Then again, here in rural Michigan, hunting and fishing went hand in hand. And plenty of people who never went hunting still had a gun or two around the house.
The more she thought about it, the more Charlie couldn’t confidently say her father hadn’t owned a gun. It was possible.
“Goddamn it,” she whispered into the dark.
She had to hand it to her mother: she was a master at the game. Charlie had called her bluff alright, but then her mother had called hers in return.
The question was, what now? Call the police? That would probably make things worse. Besides, she didn’t want to be one of those people who sent the cops to do her dirty work. Especially when all of this was over a pair of robins nesting on the side of the damn house.
Charlie threw the covers aside and climbed out of bed, dressing quickly.
On the drive over, she silently berated herself for letting things go this far. She should have seen it coming from a mile away. It was what always happened. No matter how hard she tried to keep her distance, she always got sucked back in.
This was it then. The final straw. From this point forward, Charlie vowed to keep space between her and her mother. She’d tried saving her, but nothing she’d done had ever worked. It was like the stories about drowning victims who end up taking their rescuers down too because they fight and try to climb on top of them to get out of the water. It wasn’t intentional. Sheer panic. Fight or flight. But the rescuers got dragged down anyway, sentenced to the same fate they’d been trying to pull someone else out of.
And just like a drowning victim, her mother didn’t know what she was doing. She had no idea she was forever pulling Charlie down into the swirling depths of her misery. For Charlie’s own sake, the only option left was to save herself.
At the house, Charlie pulled into the driveway and parked. It was dark, no lights on inside. She wasn’t sure if that was good or bad. If she was lucky, her mother had realized it really was the birds making noise and had gone back to bed.
Charlie padded up to the front door and paused there for a moment, looking both ways. No activity outside, as expected. Another of Nancy’s false alarms.
Charlie sighed. She twisted the key in the deadbolt, turned the knob, and stepped inside.
She was about to call out to her mother when there was a bright flash and then a bullet exploded through the window over her right shoulder.
THIRTY-NINE
It all seemed to happen at once. The muzzle flash. The bullet whizzing past Charlie’s face. The popping sound so loud it felt like it ruptured her eardrums. The glass bursting into a thousand pieces.
She knew, of course, if she could rewatch the scene in slow motion, each little event would occupy its own millisecond. But in the moment, it felt simultaneous. It was only after that everything seemed to slow down.
“Mom!” Charlie’s voice sounded dull in her own ears, which were ringing.
There was a long pause. Nancy stared at her from across the room, the rifle still aimed at Charlie’s face.
Charlie held her breath, afraid to move. Afraid to blink.
Her mother’s eyes were stretched wide, showing too much of the whites. Like a cornered dog. It was the look she always got when things went bad. But things never got that bad when Nancy was on her meds.
And then it hit her, what she should have seen before: her mother had obviously stopped taking her medication. She should have figured it out sooner. How long had she been off her meds, was the question. Had she been skipping doses? Fooling Elaine? Or maybe that didn’t matter at all, considering the current situation—the one in which her mother was holding her at gunpoint.
Charlie wasn’t sure her mother was even seeing her right now. Her paranoid delusions could be making her see just about anything.
Very softly—not wanting to spook her—Charlie spoke.
“Mom? It’s me.”
The bar
rel of the gun hung there in the air between them, trembling slightly. And then it swung away as recognition overtook Nancy’s features. Charlie had been standing ramrod-straight, and her shoulders relaxed just a hair now that the rifle wasn’t pointing between her eyes. If her mother still knew who she was, then she wasn’t quite as far gone as Charlie had worried. That was good.
These were the thoughts swirling in Charlie’s mind in the brief moment before her mother whispered the single word that told her that things were indeed much, much worse than she’d anticipated.
“Allie?”
Charlie’s blood went ice-cold.
“Allie!” The gun thudded to the floor as Nancy released her grip on it. “Oh, Allie, my baby. I knew you’d come back to me.”
Bony arms closed around Charlie, clinging to her as her mother seemed to lose the ability to stay upright. Wilting. Collapsing.
Charlie didn’t have the strength to hold both of them up, and she felt her mother’s tears mixing with her own as she let herself be pulled down, down, down.
FORTY
Charlie didn’t know how long they’d been huddled there on the floor, her mother stroking her hair, holding her tight, face pressed into Charlie’s neck, crying and repeating, “Allie, Allie, my baby.” Over and over again.
Charlie felt like someone set adrift in the middle of the ocean. Floating aimlessly in the void. Flitting out into nothing.
Her mother had gone through some bad times. Charlie had lost count of the number of breakdowns since Allie had died. But she’d never openly mistaken Charlie for her dead sister. Not once.
Eventually Charlie came back to herself. Realized what she had to do. The awful thing she had to do.
She got out her phone to call the sheriff’s department. She was still staring at the dial pad when she saw the lights. Flashes of red and blue twirling among the branches of the trees lining the street.
A few seconds later, a sheriff’s cruiser pulled to the curb out front. Two deputies climbed out.