by J. L. Abramo
All during dinner—taco salad—Mary Louise wanted to bring it up. And after the dishes were done, sitting on the couch watching Wheel of Fortune together, she almost said something. But didn’t. Couldn’t. She wanted to ask him about his cheating, but it was just too disturbing, too embarrassing. After the last puzzle was solved (CURIOSITY KILLED THE CAT BURGLAR), Kent went downstairs to the basement and worked on his model railroad. He had a whole little locomotive fantasy world constructed down there—mountains and valleys and Swiss villages and trestles and tunnels. Mary Louise stayed on the couch by herself and watched hour-long dramas about crime scene investigation.
Now, lying here beside him, she could smell vestiges of taco seasoning on his breath, as his exhalations evened out and deepened in the prelude to sleep.
“Kent?”
His breath caught in his throat, and he said, “Huh?”
She paused, quite dramatically, then said, “I just...I need to ask you something.”
“What?”
“Do you still love me?”
She heard him sigh. Mary Louise knew that sigh well. She believed that all wives were familiar with that sigh. It was a sigh of resignation and exasperation. It was a sigh that said, for Christ’s sake, are you kidding me with this crap? But she was surprised when his hand found her hand under the covers, squeezed it, and said, “Of course I do, honey.”
“If there was somebody else, would you tell me?”
“There’s nobody else. When would I have the time? Or the energy?”
“Kent, all I’ve ever wanted is for you to be happy. That’s all I’ve ever wanted. And if I’m not what makes you happy, I just want you to—”
“Mary, I’m not cheating on you. I swear.”
“I just want you to tell me. We’ll work it out.”
“There’s nobody. I swear. I don’t know what else to say.”
“If there ever is, just tell me. Don’t cheat on me. Don’t humiliate me that way.”
“You’re the only thing in my life. I swear to God.”
But that was a lie, and Mary Louise knew it. So she closed her eyes and let the hot tears flow in silence. And she thought, Jolene. Jolene. Jolene. Jolene. Over and over and over. Like a spell. An incantation. She pictured Jolene as she sent thoughts out to her, as though her rival were capable of hearing and responding.
Jolene, I’m begging of you, please don’t take my man.
The week before, she’d gone down to the model train room. To clean. Kent didn’t like her to clean down there. He was afraid she would break something or throw out some little piece worth keeping. But surfaces collected dust, and she didn’t think a feather duster was going to destroy anything.
That particular day she had been a little bored. Kent had left the train out on the tracks. Usually he put it up. So Mary Louise flipped the power switch and heard the transformer hum to life. She nudged the switch forward just a little, and the locomotive moved ahead with hesitation. She pushed the switch a little more, and soon the nine-car train was making its way leisurely around the track. It went under a mountain, hooked a mailbag in a little town. It climbed to where Kent had set tracks high up along the walls with painted scenery. There was a cut-out near the ceiling, at the top edge of the drywall, painted to look like the bricked arch entrance to a tunnel. The HO scale train disappeared into the darkness behind the wall for a few seconds, and then reappeared from another cut-out.
It took about ninety seconds for the train to complete one circuit. She increased the speed, and it did it again, in just under a minute.
Really, it was pretty boring. Once she saw it complete the track, the novelty evaporated. There had been some small thrill in running it alone for the first time, but even that buzz had quickly dissipated. How on earth could a hobby like this keep anyone entertained for hours on end? My God, Kent spent entire weekends down here.
Mary Louise decided to try and see if she could get the train to complete the track in under forty-five seconds. That might be fun.
She had the thing flying pretty soon. She could smell the transformer heating up from pushing it so hard. She had it going so fast, that it derailed one time. She carefully picked the cars up, found no damage, aligned the grooved metal wheels back on the track, and decided to try one last time for the speed record.
The thing screamed down the track. Dangerous. Like an action movie. She imagined the train carrying a deadly virus or a nuclear bomb. If it derailed, it would mean the end of humanity. At this speed, every curve in the track was a potential disaster. She slowed it for the downhill mountain underpass, then barreled it through the little village, picking up considerable speed. It was the uphill climb to those elevated tracks near the ceiling that slowed her down, so she gave it full throttle. The transformer was hot to the touch and giving off the odor of burnt plastic. She was going to ease it back down once it got to the top but didn’t time it right, and just as the train disappeared behind the drywall cut-out, she heard it jump the track and fall in the dark space behind the wall.
This was bad. In addition to the end of all humanity, if Kent found out Mary Louise had not only been playing with his train set, but had crashed it, he would be beyond upset.
The man was very particular about his model trains.
She carried a wooden bar stool over to the wall, climbed up, stuck her head through the tunnel opening and peered down into the empty space behind the drywall. It was too dark to see anything.
She went upstairs and found a little LED flashlight in the drawer under the microwave. While she was up there, she grabbed a pair of grill tongs from the utensil drawer, too, figuring she might be able to fish the train cars out from behind that wall.
Once Mary Louise was up on the stool, she stuck her head back through the cut-out. The opening was just barely wide enough for her fit her arm through, too. She clicked on the flashlight. And screamed.
She bumped the back of her head on the drywall, jerking away from the horror she saw back there. The shock and fear had caused her to recoil. She twisted and tumbled from the stool, landing face down on the repurposed ping pong table that supported the sprawling Alpine village.
She had seen a body behind the wall. A corpse.
Mary Louise lay on the table—miniature fir trees poking her stomach and breasts—and cried. She sobbed. She was married to a monster. A serial killer, maybe. She imagined herself doing the correct thing in this situation. She imagined herself getting up and calling 9-1-1 to report what she had found. Let the authorities sort it all out.
Fuck Kent.
That murdering motherfucker.
Then she remembered the cold snap last winter when she had been home alone because Kent was in Las Vegas at a human resources seminar. By herself in bed that night, she heard banging and cracking and called the police to report someone breaking in. A home invasion. Two deputies showed up and cleared the house. They explained that there was no sign of forced entry, and that the sounds were caused by the house contracting in the extreme cold. It was their third such call that night. They had been nice enough about it, but Mary Louise saw the two men exchange a wink and a grin on their way out.
She’d felt like a damn fool.
Maybe she should make sure. Before she called the police. Wouldn’t there be a smell? If there was a body back there? It would stink, wouldn’t it? She should look one last time. So she could be for-sure. So she wouldn’t make a fool of herself. Again.
Flashlight in hand, Mary Louise climbed back up the stool and peered into the recess. It was a body, alright. No doubt about it. A woman’s body. But there was something odd about it. For one thing, the body was sitting up. At a little table. With tea cups set out. Tea for two. The woman had auburn hair. Her arms were resting on the tiny table. And there was just something about it that was so familiar. And then it came to Mary Louise that she had set her dolls up like that when she was a little girl, and what she was looking at was not a dead body at all, but a doll. A life size play-pretty.
Kent must have set this up as a practical joke to pull on his buddies. Except that didn’t make sense, because Kent didn’t ever have friends over. Not down here, anyway. He was particular about people being around his trains.
Mary Louise took the barbecue tongs, reached down, and prodded the doll. It slumped over and fell to the floor—on top of the derailed train.
How on earth was she going to get down there and get those cars? It wasn’t possible. She pulled her head out of the wall and looked around the room, trying to come up with an idea. Maybe she could hook the train out with a fishing pole. Or make something out of coat hangers. She scanned the room. From up on the stool, Mary Louise could see on top of the supply case that rested against the wall just to the left of the tunnel cut-out. The shelves were loaded with supplies like pails of plaster of Paris and extra track and transformers and things like that. Cans of spray paint—green for foliage, white for snow, brown for rocks. From where she stood on the stool, she could see that the top of the shelving unit was covered in thick dust, and even as she reminded herself to run a feather duster up there, she noted that there was a clean spot along the corner. A clean spot in the shape of three fingers and a thumb. As though somebody put their hand up there regularly.
Mary Louse climbed down from the stool and reached up to that spot on the shelf. She used her hip for leverage and gave it a good push. The whole unit moved easily. It seemed to float over the carpeted floor like it was on casters.
There was a door behind it. Just a plain plywood rectangle with a little hook-and-eye latch. It shouldn’t have bothered her, this little plain door.
But it did.
Mary opened the door. A long narrow area back there ran the entire length of the wall. Narrow, yes, but roomy enough. Back behind the doll and the little card table, there was a single-size mattress on the floor.
It had clean sheets on it.
She pulled the doll out into the main room. It was heavy, but not as heavy as a real person. Maybe seventy pounds. Dressed casual in blue jeans and a T-shirt.
She was beautiful. The doll. The doll was beautiful. Out in the light, the auburn hair was like flame. The latex skin made Mary think of pink-tinged ivory. The eyes were brilliant emeralds, piercing, drawing Mary Louise in. She couldn’t look away. The doll was beautiful.
If she hadn’t seen the mattress, Mary Louise’s next thought would never have entered her mind. It was too bizarre. It was beyond her comprehension. She could believe Kent was infatuated with the doll, that he was some kind of closet sissy enthralled by huge dolls. But the idea that he kept this doll in order to have sexual relations with it? Not possible. But she had to know. So Mary Louise undressed the doll.
It wasn’t a cheap blow-up novelty toy with a circular open mouth like she had seen in comedy movies. It was just like a real person. A replica. Another woman.
It had full, perfectly formed breasts. And down below, what appeared to be a functioning, anatomically correct vagina. Most disturbing, Mary Louise noted that the pink flushed skin tone around the lips was flaking. Worn away. Kent had been getting plenty of use out of it.
That sick son of a bitch.
When she lifted the doll’s leg to put the jeans back on, Mary Louise saw that there was a word embossed on the sole of the foot. JOLENE. And under that, a model number.
She searched the little secret room some more and found an envelope. It held a receipt.
Silicone Fantasy Doll.
Model: Jolene.
Weight 30 Kg.
Hair: Auburn
Eyes: Emerald Green
7” Mouth Cavity
Real Human Hair
The total price made her stomach ache. Mary Louise had been doing the dishes by hand for over a year, because Kent said they couldn’t afford to replace the broken dishwasher. She put the invoice down after reading there was an option to purchase extra faces for the doll, and that it came with inserts for “hygiene and easy clean-up.”
It took her the rest of the afternoon to put the train room (and the sex doll room) back to rights. She had to replace three fir trees that she’d crushed when she landed on the table. But she thought everything would pass inspection.
Then Mary Louise went upstairs, took a Xanax, and lay down on the couch.
What was she going to do? What was she going to do about Kent? About that doll?
Jolene.
She finally got up the nerve to ask Kent if he was cheating on her, but he lied and swore he wasn’t. In the end, she decided to do nothing. Not to confront Kent any further. Not yet. She wanted to come to terms with this herself before she dared peer into her husband’s sick mind.
Mary Louise stewed on it. Came to view the doll as a rival. Competition. Thought about buying green contacts and dyeing her hair red.
During the day, she couldn’t rest knowing that thing was down there. In her house. Under her roof. She decided she wanted to look at it again. So she went downstairs and pulled Jolene out of the dark. Mary Louise noticed that the sheet on the mattress back there was a different color now. He’d changed it.
She carried Jolene upstairs and sat her on the couch.
“Want a Coke?” She asked it. “Slice of pie, maybe? How about an EPT pregnancy test?”
Mary Louise fixed herself a cup of hazelnut coffee and turned on the TV. From the loveseat, she sipped her coffee and watched The View. Jolene sat across from her, on the couch, looking toward a plastic ficus tree. Mary Louise got up and tilted the doll’s head so that it was watching the television.
After a while, Mary Louise said, “I know you’re screwing him.”
Jolene neither confirmed nor denied the accusation, and a little later, Mary Louise took Jolene back downstairs and finished up her housework.
She got in the habit of bringing Jolene upstairs every day and putting her back downstairs before Kent got home. She knew it was a weird thing to do, but she liked having the doll visible. Where she could keep an eye on it. Not hidden away.
Not an unseen threat.
Mary Louise would sit and watch television with Jolene. She would do her housework and drift in and out of the living room. Talking to the doll about anything that popped into her mind.
“Did you ever see that movie, Harper Valley PTA? With Barbara Eden? That was based on a song. Do you remember that song called ‘Ode to Billy Joe?’ What do you think they were throwing off that bridge?”
“We were best friends. Talked all the time. Cut-up with each other. Laughed. We haven’t laughed together in years.”
“He’s a stranger to us now. Our only son. A stranger. Maybe you blame the drugs. Maybe he was just born like that. I don’t know. Maybe we did something that broke him inside. The way we brought him up. I just don’t know.”
“No, I was a teacher’s aide for a long time. Taught deaf children. I still remember a lot of the signs. If you want, I can show you some. Look, this is ‘water.’ Three fingers like a W. Tap ’em against your chin. See? This one means ‘bathroom.’ And this is ‘friend.’ Like this. Let me see your hands. Hook your fingers together. That’s it. Friend.”
“And he looks me right in the eye, and he says, ‘Actually, I do still want sex. Just not from you.’”
“And now I’m just a housewife. That’s the right word for it, too. I’m married to this house.”
“I prayed about it. That’s all you can do.”
“We were just teenagers. He put an anonymous love letter in my parent’s mailbox. My daddy opened it.”
“It was atypical. Precancerous. So I was okay. Thank God.”
“Mr. Elway, the principal, wanted to have an affair with me. He made it plain.”
“Love is an illusion for young people. That’s what I’ve decided.”
At some point, and without her realizing that a line had been crossed, Jolene began responding to Mary Louise. She wasn’t crazy. She understood that Jolene wasn’t really speaking, that it was her own voice she was hearing. But if someone had snuck
up to the living room window to spy, they would have seen Mary Louise talking to a life-size doll, hands gesticulating—wishing for one of the cigarettes they hadn’t held in over a decade. And in the silence that followed, the peeping Tom would have seen Mary Louise cock her head to the side, listening to a high-pitched feminine voice that only she could hear.
It took them a long time to work up to the one thing that they each really wanted to know. What was he like? What was Kent like when he was alone you? And so they told each other. Voices hesitant at first. It was uncomfortable. But the truth was gotten at. And they each made peace with it.
And with that peace, Mary Louise felt no humiliation when she acknowledged that Jolene had bested her. She pleaded with her not to take her man. Jolene could have her choice of men, but Mary Louise could never love again. She begged, knowing that her happiness depended on whatever Jolene decided to do. She put it in Jolene’s hands. That was all she could do.
As Mary Louise was taking Jolene downstairs before Kent got home, she paused before opening the secret door, and asked Jolene if Kent had ever taken the time to show her his train set, or did he just throw her on the mattress and pump on her. The train was most important thing in his life, after all. It trumped both his women. So she decided to take a minute and show it to her before she put her up for the day.
She pointed out the river pass, the woodland scenes, the coal loader, the functional crossing gates. All of it.
She got the locomotive moving, too. The throttle on the transformer went from zero (stop) to one hundred (full.) By the time she got it up to eighty, the transformer was getting warm. Mary Louise knew she was showing off for Jolene, and pushed it up to ninety. The train shook and shimmied and rocketed down the track. The power pack got hot to the touch, and gave off an ozone odor. The train was whipping along the tracks like death on steel wheels.
Mary Louise pushed the throttle up to ninety-five, cutting her eyes to Jolene and giggling. It was at that moment that two things happened simultaneously. They were both things Mary Louise should have foreseen. First, the train derailed. And then the low rumbling of the electric garage door opener could be heard—even downstairs.