by Unknown
Rick was in there, too. She couldn’t suppress her laughter at what Cole thought of him. The adjectives she liked best were pompous and arsewipe.
She turned one more page and immediately wished she hadn’t. The sketch here wasn’t a person Jeannie recognized but he’d labeled it ‘Mother’. The words surrounding it weren’t what she expected to read when referring to the woman who brought you into the world… ‘bitch, dark places, locked up, men, hooker, slut, hate you.’
Curiosity aroused by what she’d seen on the pages before her, Jeannie wanted to continue. She’d promised herself she’d only look for his name and address so she could return it to him and she’d done that albeit unsuccessfully.
“Thought you weren’t going to look in it?” Rick sneered.
Slamming the notebook shut, Jeannie shoved it back into her apron pocket. “Only looking for his address. I was hoping he would have written it down near the front.”
At the end of her shift, she placed the notebook in her large handbag and went home to her flat. When she opened the door, Murphy, her ginger and white cat hissed and swatted at her leg when she hit him.
She dropped her handbag onto her small dinette table and walked to the kitchen, opened her fridge and peered in. An open bottle of Riesling stood in the lower shelf in the door. She pulled it out by the neck and shut the door with her hip as she turned to get a glass from the rack affixed to the bottom of her upper cabinets.
Sitting at the table, Jeannie poured the wine and took a sip. She worried about Cole. He was always so predictable you could set your watch by him. Every day, the same time, the same latte, the same stool by the window. Yes, he was a bit odd but there had been customers come into Starbucks who were far stranger than he.
Jeannie pulled the notebook out of her handbag and placed it on the table in front of her. She rubbed the cover lightly with the palm of her hand. In places it was worn so thin, the paper backing on the inside almost visible. She opened it to the page marked by the ribbon. It was another sketch of her but without her mole. She reached up instinctively and touched her face then looked back at the page. Cole had written ‘must keep mole, glamorous, pretty, not Jeannie without it’ around the picture. Until then, she didn’t know he felt so strongly about the possibility of her having it removed, let alone him having an opinion of any kind about it. Suddenly, she felt frightened. Was Cole some kind of control freak? Would he hurt her if she went ahead with the surgery to remove it?
Feeling dirty and cheap, Jeannie slammed the notebook shut and pushed it away. She took the bottle of wine and her glass, ensured the flat door was locked and the chain on and headed for the bathroom, locking that door behind her, too. Soon the tub was filling with hot, steamy water. She poured a few drops of Green Apple bath and shower gel in. A sea of bubbles formed and floated on the rising water. Jeannie flipped the switch on her heated towel bar.
Before the tub filled completely, she moved her caddy from the opposite end towards the taps, topped up her wine glass and placed it in the specially designed holder, stripped and climbed in. She turned the water off and slowly sank below the bubbles.
Luxuriating in the hot, soapy water Jeannie let her mind wander. Perhaps she was making too much of the mole on her face. It wasn’t huge. It hadn’t changed. It was flat and dark and been there for as long as she could remember. She’d not made an appointment to have it removed. Maybe she wouldn’t.
Her thoughts returned to the page in Cole’s notebook where he had described his mother in such an unflattering way. She took a sip of wine then sank back under the water wishing she’d turned the heat up in the room before getting into the bath.
When pounding on her flat door startled her, Jeannie leapt out of the water, almost knocking the caddy and wine flying. She didn’t take the time to grab one of her warmed towels, just pulled on her long, pink, fleece dressing gown. She was still struggling with the tie belt when she reached the door.
Her cordless phone was in the base so she grabbed the handset before she looked through the peephole. It was Rick. What was he doing at her flat at this time of night? She opened the door a crack but left the chain firmly on the latch. “What’s going on?”
“Can we come in? It’s important.”
“We?”
“Yes. Let’s not stand here all night debating this,” he replied impatiently.
Jeannie removed the chain and opened the door to receive Rick and whoever was with him.
“This is Dr Baird. She’s Cole’s shrink.”
“Psychiatrist,” the well-groomed woman corrected.
“Wh-why are you here?” Jeannie stammered.
“Can we sit down?” the doctor asked.
“Yes,” Jeannie escorted them to the table. She picked Cole’s notebook up and shoved it into her large handbag and tossed it onto the peninsula counter before showing them each a chair.
“I came in to coffee shop looking for you,” Dr Baird said as she nodded at Jeannie. “Cole missed his last two appointments which isn’t like him. One I could see due to illness but not both.”
“Wh-what does that have to do with me?”
“He always spoke of you during our sessions. He thought you were a very special young woman.”
Jeannie blushed.
“You’re probably wondering why I insisted your friend bring me to your flat.”
“The thought has crossed my mind,” Jeannie replied sarcastically.
“There’s no easy way to tell you this. Cole is dead. His body was discovered in his flat earlier today. He’s been dead about a week. The police contacted me when they couldn’t find any next-of-kin information. My number was by his phone.”
Jeannie’s heart pounded so hard she thought it would explode. She stared at the psychiatrist. Her mouth gaped open. She couldn’t cry. She was too stunned. About a week—that would have been right after he rushed out of Starbucks the day she asked what he’d written in his notebook. “It’s all my fault,” she finally wailed. “If I hadn’t sat down beside him and asked what he was doing…,”
“Cole was a very disturbed young man. No one could have predicted he would do this, let alone when.”
The words were of little comfort. But now the sketch in the notebook started to make sense.
“It’s only in the past year that Cole has been living in his own flat. He went from the borstal where he was sent after he murdered his mother when he was twelve to a half-way house and finally when I deemed he was no longer a danger to anyone, we procured a flat for him.”
Suddenly, Jeannie felt nauseous and she bolted for the bathroom, hand over her mouth. Dropping to her knees in front of the toilet and threw up again and again, retching until there was nothing left. Tears ran down her cheeks. Cole, who she thought was her friend, was a murderer. But was he really her friend? Had he been sizing her up to become his next victim?
Gradually, she picked herself up off the floor and looked in the mirror. Her mascara left dark streaks down her cheeks. Jeannie grabbed the bottle of Listerine and rinsed her mouth hoping to eliminate the bitter taste but it didn’t help.
Moving robotically, she rejoined Rick and the doctor and dropped onto one of the hard dinette chairs.
Dr Baird took an envelope out of her handbag and slid it across the table to Jeannie. “He wanted you to have this if anything ever happened to him.” The psychiatrist looked at Rick and said, “You’ll stay here with her. She’s too upset to be left alone. I’m sorry but I must go. I’ll be in touch with the funeral arrangements. Don’t bother getting up. I’ll let myself out.”
Jeannie followed the doctor’s exit with her eyes. Her hand touched the envelope and she quickly recoiled.
After the psychiatrist left, Jeannie drew her knees up to her chest and planted her heels firmly on the chair, wrapped her arms around her legs and cried.
Rick tried to comfort her but he couldn’t. “Let’s get you into bed,” he said as he helped her off the chair. He put his arm around her and walked her to
her bedroom, opened the door and reached in for the light switch.
“Don’t leave me, please. I don’t want to be alone,” she begged.
“I’m not going anywhere. I’ll get a blanket and make myself comfortable on your sofa for the night.”
Jeannie pointed to the closet and watched Rick open the bi-fold doors. He reached onto the shelf and pulled down a comforter. She turned her bed down and was about to untie her dressing gown when she realized she was naked under it. Instead, she climbed in with it on.
Rick stopped by her bed. “I’ll turn the light out on my way to the lounge.”
“No! I need you to leave it on.”
He looked around the room. “Why don’t I just turn a couple of these small lamps on instead? They’re not as harsh and you won’t be in the dark,” he said as he walked around the room switching on the other lights.
She nodded. “Leave the door open, too, please.”
He nodded, switched the ceiling light off and went into the other room.
For hours, Jeannie lay and stared at the ceiling. She couldn’t believe what she’d been told about Cole. Dr Baird hadn’t said he’d killed himself but it sounded like he had. But why? What had she done that day in Starbucks to drive him to it? Surely wanting to see inside his notebook wasn’t that extreme? Eventually, she fell into a restless sleep.
The next morning, Jeannie was up before the sun rose. Rick remained on the sofa, snoring in ignorant bliss of the torment she felt. The letter remained on the table where it had been placed the previous evening. She put the kettle on to boil and while she waited, got a mug and the instant coffee from the cupboards and the milk from the fridge. Rick groaned from the lounge. “Coffee’s up if you’re interested,” she called out to him.
She watched him throw the comforter off. He was in his boxers and socks. She hadn’t noticed his pants and shirt draped over the arm chair. She turned away so he could have a moment of privacy to get dressed.
Jeannie sat down at the table and looked at the envelope. She picked it up and examined it. The handwriting was identical to what she’d seen in Cole’s notebook. The words ‘To Jeannie at Starbucks… to be opened after my death’ spooked her. She dropped it like it scalded her. What was so important that he couldn’t tell her when he was alive?
“You not opened that yet?” Rick asked when he passed by the table on his way to make himself a coffee.
“N-no. I’m not sure I want to see what’s in it.”
“It’s got to be something fairly important I would think. Why else would he have left you a letter?”
“I don’t know. I’m not sure I want to know,” she replied and laid it back on the table.
“Don’t be such a wuss. Open the letter.”
Jeannie picked up the envelope, walked the kitchen and tossed it into the bin. “I can’t do it. I don’t want to do it.”
“You’re making a mistake. If that letter goes out in the rubbish, you’ll be kicking yourself in the arse from here to Sunday and back again.”
Suddenly, she started to giggle. The words pompous and arsewipe from Cole’s notebook came to mind. She couldn’t look at Rick and keep a straight face.
It was a relief when he left to go to work. She had the flat to herself. She could go through her normal morning routine. She poured her cold coffee down the sink and opened the cupboard door. The bin was still there but the letter was missing. Panic set in. She wheeled around and found it on the peninsula countertop.
This letter would haunt her until she opened it. Jeannie turned it over, stuck her thumb under a loose corner of the flap tore it open. She pulled the paper out of the envelope and let the latter flutter to the floor. Carefully, she unfolded the page and began to read.
My dearest friend, Jeannie,
If you’re reading this, then Dr Baird has passed my letter on to you and you’ll know that I’m dead. There are many things about me that you will never understand. I don’t understand some of them either.
Dr Baird has probably told you that I murdered my mother. That is true. I don’t deny it. But you deserve to know why. From the time I was a little lad, she was a prostitute. Quite often, she left me alone overnight while she went out and shagged blokes for money. It wasn’t to support me but her drug habit. Social services were around and every time they threatened to put me into care, she pleaded with them saying she would mend her ways and promise to be a good mum.
Her idea of being a good mum was bring her tricks back to our dingy flat. She locked me in the closet or the chest at the foot of her bed. But I knew what she was doing. I saw the men come into the bedroom, grabbing at her and her clothes. I heard them shagging. Sometimes, those blokes would beat the crap out of her and steal what earnings and drugs she had.
I know what I did was wrong. I don’t think in the beginning I really meant to kill her. But after I stuck the knife in her the first time, I couldn’t stop. They say I stabbed her over thirty times. Even after she was dead, I kept sticking the knife into her.
I think I did it out of some misguided loyalty. If she was dead, she was off the drugs. The blokes couldn’t beat her almost to death. She’d got aids either from the dirty needles or from letting blokes do her bareback. Do you know what that means?
You were always kind to me, Jeannie. You never made fun of me. Never tried to take advantage of my weaknesses. I couldn’t show you the notebook because I had drawn so many pictures of you in it. I didn’t want you to think I was some sort of freak or stalker. I know some of the people you worked with did.
I would have been proud to step out with you on my arm. You’re a beautiful, young woman. You must have a number of nice blokes queuing up to take you out. I would never have stood a chance.
Don’t grieve for me. I’ve been dead inside, except when I’ve been in your presence, for a very long time. My topping myself was just the final act.
Remember, though, that I appreciated the kindness and friendliness you always showed me.
No matter if I’m in heaven or hell (and I don’t particularly believe in either), I love you and always will. I wished I could have told you to your face.
Cole xo
***
After reading the letter he’d left for her, she’d gone through his notebook from the beginning to the last page he’d used. The sketches were amazing. He had such a talent for capturing the essence of people, not just their features.
The day of Cole’s funeral came too quickly for her liking. Jeannie didn’t want to go but knew she had to. She persuaded Rick to accompany her so she wouldn’t have to go alone. Since the night she found out about Cole’s death, Rick had been there for her.
Jeannie wore her hair down, the way Cole had sketched her more than once in his notebook. Glad that Rick came with her, she stood bravely by the graveside with the few mourners who attended. When it was over and the casket lowered, she dropped Cole’s grotty, leather notebook into the grave. It landed with a resounding smack on the wooden surface of the coffin. “Goodbye, Cole. Your notes will always be private now,” she murmured.
Immediately after, Jeannie dropped the long-stemmed red rose she’d brought. It landed silently beside Cole’s prized possession. She whispered, “I love you, too, Cole. I wish we could have told each other our feelings.”
She turned away and sobbing, buried her face in Rick’s chest.
Melanie wrote non-fiction articles before she turned her love for the written word to short stories and novel-length fiction. Her first book, A Shadow in the Past, will be released in September 2012. A lover of Scotland and all things Scottish, she met Princess Anne on one of her trips.
Visit Melanie at her Website
or at her FaceBook Page
RUNNING PARALLEL
Tracy L. Ward
I could hear the hollow train whistle from my bedroom better than any other part of the house.
Its high tones were muted by blocks of buildings, houses and trees but the base sound rattled my skin from miles away. T
he rumble became a kind of lullaby to me as a child so much so that when the trains did not run on Christmas Day, everyone noticed.
“Do you hear that Lily?” My father would ask at the breakfast table, his lips almost curled around his coffee cup.
“I don’t hear anything,” I would answer.
“Exactly.”
The tracks ran everywhere throughout town, sometimes four or five even six sets running parallel to each other before turning and merging into one. It was such a poor design for pedestrians yet exquisitely engineered for maximum haulage. The grain elevator at the end of the line on the lake shore sat as a massive reminder to all in town that our very livelihood was held in its deep hauls.
The Great Depression, as they later called it, was tightening its grip around us. Jobs were scarce, markets for our farmed goods even more so, and those that needed them could hardly afford to pay. We kids spent every day in fear of what this would mean. We heard the adults speak in hushed tone, noticed the increasing sense of unease and could tell things were different then, really different.
I was woken up early one morning, too early for a Saturday but my brother, Charlie, cared not as he gripped my shoulders to wrestle me from my sleep. “Get up!” he demanded in a harsh whisper so no one else would hear. He was the oldest of the four of us kids, and I was the second oldest. I imagine that is why he came to me that morning instead of Jacob or Mary.
My eyes shot open when I heard his hastened voice in my ear. Gripping the quilt tightly with my fingers, I pulled it up to my chin lest my nearly grown brother see me in my nightshirt. I glanced to Mary, who as still sleeping soundly in her bed across the room, miraculously undisturbed by our brother’s intrusion.
“Damn it Charlie!” I hissed back, but he ignored me.
“Get dressed and meet me in the kitchen,” he said quietly and turned to leave.
I watched him leave the room, and wondered what could possibly be so important that he wake me before dawn.