by Amber Kay
“Who was that on the phone?” she asks. “Cassandra? Cassandra!”
I slip a pen from my pocket and jot words into my palm.
“Where are you going so fast?” she asks. “Slow down. You know I can’t run in heels.”
“Get me to this address,” I demand while shoving my hand in front of her face to show her what I’ve written down. Sasha asks no questions. For once. We get in. Seatbelts buckle in unison then Sasha drives.
12
Sasha swerves into the driveway going forty.
She barely stops the car when I shove myself out and scurry to the Lynch manor front porch. Sasha remains in the car, surprisingly not bombarding me with questions. On anything else, she’d be harassing me by now. Can’t imagine what has her so tame.
“Vivian!” I call while banging on the front door. “Open the door!”
Soon, the door clicks open and instead of Asa, the doorman, Amelia stands on the other side.
“Come on,” she orders, neglecting the usual formalities. I follow her upstairs where a small huddle of Vivian’s other housemaids have gathered. Some with their ear pressed to the door. Others whisper amongst themselves. Finally, I spot Asa in front, twisting the doorknob repeatedly, trying to force it open.
“Dammit!” he snarls when it doesn’t break loose.
“What’s going on?” I ask Amelia.
“She’s been like this all day, locked that room, refusing to talk to anyone, but you.”
“Where’s Adrian?” I ask.
“Left for work early,” she says. “I tried calling, but when he’s at the office, he silences his phone. He probably won’t hear my voicemails until it’s too late.”
I blink and whip my head around. “Too late for what?”
She doesn’t answer, but I can read between the lines. A terminally ill and depressed woman locked in her bedroom, refusing to come out. Only one thing can occur from a scenario like this.
“Oh no.” I scurry down the hallway, dropping my backpack to the floor as I shoulder my way through the huddle of bystanders outside Vivian’s bedroom.
“Vivian?” I knock on her door several times. No answer. “Vivian! It’s me, Cassandra. I'm here. Whatever you’re doing, whatever you’re even thinking about doing—don’t! Just open the door and we’ll talk about this.”
I press my ear to the door to listen. No answer. My heart sinks. I'm already too late.
“Somebody get something heavy,” I say to the others. “We’re breaking this door down.”
The men in the huddle obey me immediately. A minute passes. Asa returns carrying a chair. Two other men help him push it into the door. Once. Twice. The door snaps open. I rush into the room. Only Asa follows me in.
The room, at first, appears dark. A single lamp light glows from somewhere in the back. A California King bed sits disheveled with its blankets torn from the mattress. A trail of these blankets guide me toward the light. Upon nearing the glow, I realize that it’s coming from inside the closet.
“Vivian?” I call out. She doesn’t answer. I move closer to grab the doorknob, but Asa removes my hand. I'm too hesitant and we both know why. He opens the door and my morbid suspicions are confirmed. Vivian hangs by her neck from blankets tied around the ceiling light fixture.
“Oh god!” I lurch backward, turning away from the sight. Asa moves quickly to detangle Vivian’s limp body from the makeshift noose. I drop to my knees in a bundle of taut muscles, quivering limbs.
Other men enter the closet along with Amelia. The men rush to Asa’s aid, helping him untie Vivian’s body. They move in unison like choreographed dancers. This routine looks rehearsed. Like Vivian’s suicide attempts happen on a daily basis.
“Amelia, call Carrick,” Asa orders. She fishes the cordless phone from her apron pocket and proceeds to whisper a private conversation. She notices me listening. So she leaves to keep me from eavesdropping. The men soon unravel Vivian from her noose and carry her into the bedroom where they lay her atop the bed.
“Why is no one calling 9-1-1?” I ask. No one answers me. I saunter to Vivian’s bedside to inspect her. Her chest pumps so it’s clear she’s breathing. Her skin, pale, spotty and dull. I touch her cheek and I scold myself for being so hard on her. Why couldn’t I just humor her, sign the stupid contract?
“Dammit,” I mutter. “Is this what you meant by Plan B, Vivian?”
She doesn’t answer. She probably can’t even hear me. At least now, even under such morbid circumstances, she looks…peaceful.
“Plan B?” Amelia repeats and I notice her standing behind me.
“I think I knew this was gonna happen,” I say. “She warned me. I should have listened.”
“No.” She shakes her head. “You don’t know what you think you know.”
The comment catches me off-guard. I don’t even know what to say to that so I say nothing at all. The room clears then the door opens again several minutes later. Asa returns accompanied by a man I don’t know. Middle-aged. Fortyish. Blonde. Average. Not handsome. Not homely. Just…average.
He enters the room carrying a briefcase, wearing a stethoscope around his neck.No scrubs. No lab coat. No other “doctor things.” In fact, he’s completely informal. Dressed casual in khakis and a button down shirt. His sandy, windswept hair lies in disarray. He’s Adrian’s total opposite. Not overtly dapper or clean-cut in any way.
“How long has she been like this?” he asks Asa while staring at Vivian.
“We found her a few minutes ago,” says Asa. “Still warm to the touch. Breathing, but unresponsive.”
“We?” says the man before shifting his eyes to me. It’s the only acknowledgement he gives me before proceeding to examine Vivian. He checks for her pulse and nods. He shines a light into each of her eyes then listens for a heartbeat with his stethoscope. Afterwards, he steps back and whispers something to Asa that I can’t hear. I assume I'm not allowed to hear. Neither of them seem to care whether I'm in the room regardless. After all the whispering, the doctor leaves.
“Well?” I say to Asa. “Where’s he going? Isn’t he gonna help her?”
“She’ll be fine,” he says, but I'm unconvinced. No one is talking to me. Amelia is cryptic. Asa is withdrawn and that shady “doctor” wouldn’t even look me in the eye.
“Cassandra?” says a voice.
Vivian opens her eyes. I finally exhale. Asa leaves the room.
“Oh god, Vivian, you scared me shitless.”
She coughs out a wheezy laugh and runs her fingers across the ligament scars around her throat. With a heavy sigh, she says, “You actually came. I knew you would.”
“Wait,” I say. “You…knew I’d come?”
“Well, I hoped you would.”
“Vivian, did you do this to get my attention?” I ask. “Is this what you meant by plan B? Trying to kill yourself?”
“I had to make you listen,” she says. “It worked, didn’t it?”
“You’re insane! You could have died and for what? To get me to sign your damn contract?”
“No, to get you to take me seriously. I need you! You blew me off. You can’t do that to me. Ever!” she snarls in a fit of sudden fury. She grips my arm and yanks me toward her. “You need to understand that. You can’t leave me.”
No one can exploit my pushover tendencies better than Vivian Lynch. Her eyes fixate on mine, spilling over with tears. I’m reminded of my mother. I look at Vivian and see a pitiful child staring back, begging for love, acceptance and for someone to tell her she’s worth it. Damn this woman for guilting me.
“Listen, okay? Fine, we can compromise,” I say, hoping to placate her. “I’ll sign the contract. I’ll try the internship, but you must promise me you won’t hurt yourself anymore. I won’t leave you. I promise.”
Harder, she tugs my arm, pulling me into a feverish hug. I collide against her, out of breath, wind compressed from my lungs. Ow.
“Vivian, don’t crush me,” I say, my voice muffled against her chest.
“You have no idea how lonely this house is,” she whispers and I feel her fingers in my hair, stroking. “No idea.”
“Listen,” I say while pulling myself up. Her fingers remain like human bracelets around my wrists. “You should call Adrian. Tell him to come home. He should be with you. You’re his wife for god’s sake! How is he not here?”
A smile softens her face. Her knuckles stroke my cheek and I can’t help getting gooey inside. Poor woman. All alone in her big, dark mansion.
“Thank you for coming,” she tells me.
I nod. The door opens again. Amelia pokes her head inside.
“Mrs. Lynch, you’re okay,” she says. “You gave us all a scare.”
Vivian nods. “Yes. I lost my head for a moment.”
Nothing more is said between them. Vivian’s focus returns to me. Amelia lingers, alighting a sidelong glance at me before leaving. I don’t get it. There must be some secret language here. What am I misinterpreting about that girl?
“Okay, I'm sorry for saying this, but Amelia is a little…strange,” I say.
Vivian’s eyes narrow. I worry I’ve offended her.
“Strange how?” she asks.
I scold myself for being so judgmental, so wrong. The bitch in me tends to rear her ugly head at inappropriate times. Fuck, Cassandra can’t you meet anyone without finding something wrong with them?
“Nothing. I'm just being silly,” I say. “Amelia is actually a really sweet girl. She seems to care about you.”
“Yeah.” Vivian nods then her eyes deflect away. “She’s been with me through it all. The cancer. Adrian. The miscarriages. Now I have you.” She cups my hand in hers. The chill of her hands make ice in my veins. She’s cold as a corpse. No pun intended.
“Vivian, what’s with your hands?”
She pulls them back and blows breath into her palms.
“I had a crazy dream last night,” she says. “Death was here. It touched me. I felt it. I swear it was so real. I woke up in a cold sweat, felt like someone was watching me. I haven’t dreamed like that since I was a child. Then again, I don’t sleep much these days anyway.”
I’ll need to change the subject. An announcement like that could use something lighter to soften the blow.
“I have an idea,” I say. “When I was a kid and couldn’t sleep, my mom would let me take bubble baths. It always did the trick. Let’s try that out for you. Get you warm in the tub. Maybe some hot chocolate afterwards?”
“Oh Cassandra, that sounds lovely!” she says then with a frown, she adds, “But I don’t think I can get out of bed. I feel all gooey like my legs are gelatinous or something. Can you help me up?”
I'm hesitant, but what kind of a person would I be to refuse her? I could say no, but dammit, the woman has already tried to kill herself to get my attention. The word ‘no’ could push her over the edge.
“Sure,” I say. She wraps her arm around my neck. I wrap mine around her waist, hoisting her up. Her feet make contact with the floor and she collapses against me.
“It’s okay,” I say. “No big deal. The bathroom is only ten feet away. We can make it.”
Vivian’s legs resemble twigs—knobby and frail. Another fall and she’ll shatter like glass. We enter the bathroom and as I run her bath water, I notice her in my peripheral, removing her clothes. Vivian is a bony fragment of what should be a woman. Her skin, white like paste. Her waist, a puckered twist of flesh. Her knees, her thighs. Her…everything. She looks like she barely weighs half of what she should weigh.
“I'm sorry,” she says after noticing me staring. “I should have asked before getting naked in front of you.”
I shake my head, wanting to console her. “No, Vivian.”
“It’s okay,” she says. “Adrian looks at me the same way, like he’s disgusted.”
“You’re not disgusting,” I say. “You’re sick. If he doesn’t understand that—well, then fuck him.”
She allows herself to laugh. It’s the first genuine one I’ve seen from her. When the tub fills up, I mix in the bubble bath. Vivian steps in, one foot a time, needing me to help her sit down. As she leans forward in the tub, I suppress my apprehensive reaction to the open bedsores trailing down her back.
13
Vivian falls asleep on my lap.
Light from the television frames her face with an angelic glow. Her hair sprawls damp against my skin. I feel it soak through my jeans. Something old in black and white plays across the screen with subtitles. She’d fallen asleep twenty minutes into the movie.
A knock at her bedroom door reminds me of the time. I glance at the window and realize the sky has darkened.
“Cass?” Sasha calls from the other side of the door before barging in. Her hands clutch her hips, eyes glaring pointedly at me. The hostility softens the moment she notices Vivian’s head atop my thigh.
I press my index finger to my lips: Shh! “Don’t wake her up,” I say. “Took me forever to convince her to sleep.”
“You left me alone in the car for almost two hours so that you can babysit Vivian Lynch?” she whispers. “What the hell?”
“I’m sorry,” I whisper back. “I didn’t plan it. She—” I stop. Vivian stirs, whimpering in her sleep. “She had a…incident. I couldn’t just leave her.”
Sasha sighs, realizing in retrospect that there is no use in arguing with me. Sick cancer patient will most likely win this debate.
“Can I talk to you outside?” she asks. I know what that means. Usually, it means she’s in a semi-pissy mood and looking to take it out on someone. Or this is the part where she’ll attempt to talk me out of whatever it is that she thinks I'm getting myself into.
I prepare for the inevitability of them both. I carefully slip from beneath Vivian and rest her head atop her pillow. Upon climbing out of the bed, I don’t get to take one-step forward before Sasha grabs my arm and herds me out into the hall.
“What is this?” she demands. “Last night, you said you weren’t gonna see her anymore. Now, you’re rocking her to sleep? Cass, this is way beyond the realm of weird. You barely know that woman. When’d she become your surrogate kid?”
I sigh heavy. “Look, Sasha, don’t take this the wrong way, but you’re completely crossing the line.”
“You know this isn’t normal.”
“She tried to kill herself,” I say. “She’s dying! She’s alone and her husband doesn’t give a shit. Someone has to take care of her.”
Her eyes narrow, breaking me down with their scrutiny.
“Doesn’t she have a house full of servants? Ever thought about why this woman is fixated on you, specifically? Feels creepy to me.”
“You know what? She’s asleep now,” I say in the interest of ending this argument. I'm too exhausted to lead the Calvary toward this war. I willingly raise the white flag. “We can go home. You can calm down. Happy, now?”
I saunter back into the bedroom to retrieve my things. Vivian is gone. I break out in a nervy sweat—the same sweat I’d shed just before we found her body hanging from that light fixture. I scurry across the bedroom, flinging open the closet door. Nothing.
I rush toward the bathroom where she stands in front of the sink just…staring into the mirror. Bloodshot eyes. Deadpan face. She looks like she sleepwalked in. The strap of her bra slides down her bruised shoulder from beneath her nightgown. Her fists quiver, clenched along the edge of the sink. Beneath her, I notice, is a puddle of urine.
“Vivian?” I call out. Gradually, her head turns in some odd fashion like a ventriloquist dummy. “Vivian, let me help you get back to bed,” I say, but what I really like to say is: What. The. Fuck. Had she overheard my argument with Sasha? Sasha’s big ass mouth had no mercy. Of course, she overheard.
“C-Come on,” I say in my choppy please-don’t-hurt-me-or-yourself voice. “Let’s get back to bed.”
I reach toward her, urging her to take my hand. She doesn’t. Eventually, she walks back to bed on her own. I say nothing a
nd leave while I still can, but before I go, Vivian says, “Tell Sasha I said hello.”
* * *
“I'm just saying,” says Sasha on the way home. She drives. I can’t even look at her after the way she reacted with Vivian. “That woman is two leaves short of a whole tree. Something’s wrong with her. Don’t believe me? Fine! Just remember that I warned you when she has a chain leash around your neck and you’re strapped to her bed Stephen King, Misery style.”
“Sasha, no offense, but we’re not talking about this anymore,” I say.
She glances at me, noting my mood. Like a guilty husband, she acquiesces. Thankfully, she takes the highway, cutting the drive time in half so we’re home before complete nightfall. 4:19 PM. I shove the key into the door. Sasha follows.
Though the only thing I want is a hot shower to wash off the grim of dry sweat, Sasha won’t shut up about Vivian. I have to climb into the shower to get away from it. All I want is one Vivian free minute. No phone calls. No texts. Just me.
I shower for half-an-hour, using every drop of hot water these faulty pipes allow before the water goes cold. I wring my hair in my fists. I imagine Sasha waiting on the other side of the door. I won’t be leaving my bedroom. I’d refused to hear it from her, but I'm not too blinded by the tragedy of Vivian Lynch that I can’t admit when Sasha’s right.
I’d always suspected it, but put it out of my mind, wishing it away. Something is wrong with Vivian. It’s not just the cancer. Developmentally, I’d say she’s one of the most charismatic people I know. Intelligent. Beautiful. I just can’t get past the things about her the stick out like a sore thumb.
It’s like something in her eyes changes from time to time. A dark something that I can’t pinpoint or name. Something in her mind contorts, turning her into a different person. At times, she’s a whiplash of several different people and I'm not acquainted with any of them.
I climb atop my bed and open my laptop. The old Dell cranks up with the speed of a slow moving snail, but that’s not surprising from such an outdated system. As I wait, I finger comb my hair until the splash screen pops up and Windows Vista welcomes me with a delightful chime sound.