by Noel Merczel
Byron hated flaws of any sort. The fact she was from New Jersey was already a flaw in her husband’s book. And then she'd be too sick to have sex... sick and weak from endless chemo treatments....and Byron would start thinking that he shouldn't have married her because he can’t handle it. No, wouldn't want to handle it – that’s more like it.
Maybe he would start seeing that trashy girl at the club house in a whole new light. After all, she looked really healthy and was obviously infatuated. In other words, easy.
This last thought made Daniella feel physically sick to her stomach. To Daniella, the fear of abandonment was almost as strong as the fear of losing her health.
"Anyway, if you remove those potatoes from your ears," Byron was saying, "I was thinking we could have your friend and her husband and their kid over tomorrow night for that barbeque. We bought all those chicken breasts at Woodman's, and you can pick up some more corn on the cob... maybe make your scrumptious macaroni salad..."
"And we have that watermelon," Daniella added, forcing herself to put on a happy face.
"That's right!" Byron boomed, as though Daniella had just answered a question correctly on a game show. "Well...what do you think?"
Byron blew a huge bubble for Brooklyn out of one of those giant bubble blowers.
Brooklyn shrieked with delight, trying to catch the monstrous bubble, which floated just out of her reach.
"Sure, I think it's a great idea!' Daniella exclaimed, trying desperately to sound enthusiastic.
"I wonder if Martin plays golf..." Byron was saying.
Daniella shrugged, recalling Sandy’s husband. The guy was so obese, he looked like he needed a forklift to haul him off the couch. Byron, who was obsessed with perfection, would not be pleased with the physical state of Sandy's husband.
However, if Martin had some good investments and possibly a vacation home or a boat (even though Sandy had never mentioned any of these things) and perhaps played golf on top of it all, Byron might be willing to let the man's formidable girth slide.
"You never know!" Daniella said, forcing a smile.
Daniella could not think of anything worse than entertaining right now.
What if she actually got a doctor's appointment for tomorrow and the ensuing news was not good? It was hard enough putting on a brave face for her immediate family. But for a whole other family, as well?
Hosting a dinner, even if it was simply a "casual barbeque," still involved a ton of physical as well as mental work. She would be required to act the part of the charming hostess, and Daniella didn’t know if she could pull that off.
But she would have to try! Her image of the perfect wife with the perfect life was at stake.
After Byron informed Daniella that he had gotten reservations for two whole weeks at their favorite hotel, the Hyatt Regency in Key West, Daniella excused herself to do the dishes. She couldn't think about vacations right now... even though enjoying the sunset at the Blue Mojito Bar was usually one of her favorite things to think about.
As Daniella washed the dishes, she tried to talk herself out of her increasingly agitated state. Nothing weird had happened since this afternoon, after all.
Maybe it truly was just "one of those things," like a dip in blood sugar?
I mean, if something was seriously wrong with me, would it just go away like that? Daniella wondered.
She was just on the verge of convincing herself that it was all a "big fat nothing" when the porcelain frog that held the scrubby pad on the sink winked at her.
Daniella shook her head and blinked hard, adrenaline surging through her body.
I just imagined that, right?
She was in such a nervous state, anything was possible. After all, she wasn't thinking clearly...
"Dream on, sister!" the frog informed her, in a deep baritone voice.
Holy hell!
Daniella turned off the water and poured herself a huge glass of wine. She didn't normally drink. But none of what was happening was normal!
Thankfully, after two full glasses of the wine, which hit her really hard since she'd hardly eaten anything, Daniella collapsed in bed on top of the covers blaming that darn migraine again.
Byron acted cool about it, taking care of Brooklyn's bedtime story before tucking the toddler into bed for the night. After that, he visited one of his favorite porn sites. Then he jacked off to a beautiful creamy skinned Asian girl dressed as a maid who kept telling Byron how much she wanted to lick his feet.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Daniella had no clue that she was about to abandon her perfect home and her perfect life and morph into the disease-ridden homeless woman behind Maybelline’s. But at around two in the morning, she woke up feeling as though she was on the verge of death.
Daniella's first thought was, Ebola! The blood from the mosquito...I knew it!
"Stop being so paranoid," she muttered to herself.
Her voice came out sounding like a croak.
Like a croaking frog!
She was shaking violently with chills which she knew from experience meant she had a really high fever. She didn't want to wake Byron, who was blissfully snoring away on his back with a slight smile on his face. No doubt he was dreaming about some golf hottie he'd seen online.
She quietly crawled out of bed, plucking the decorative cream and brown afghan that was folded neatly at the foot of the bed. Daniella wrapped the afghan around her shoulders. Then she stumbled into the bathroom, flicking on the light switch.
"Ahhh!" she groaned, when the bright fluorescent beam hit her eyes.
She was surprised how much the light physically hurt her. Daniella's headache was so bad now, it felt like the lining of her brain was inflamed.
Was it meningitis? Oh God, meningitis is bad! Although if it's bacterial meningitis, it can be cured with antibiotics. That's probably better than a brain tumor, right? But you need to get treatment right away for meningitis, or you'll die!
Shielding her eyes from the piercing beam, Daniella yanked open the door of the medicine cabinet and retrieved the Ibuprofen bottle. She shook out two pills. There was no point even taking her temperature. She knew it was soaring and the actual number would probably panic her.
Oh my God, this nausea! Daniella thought. How will I keep these pills down?
Daniella gagged just thinking about it. Then she closed her eyes and willed herself not to be sick to her stomach. She didn’t want to throw-up since she knew how much Byron hated it. Even when she threw up during her pregnancy with Brooklyn, her husband would run away in disgust...afterwards, spraying Febreze everywhere.
Daniella heard the mattress creak slightly as Byron moved around on the bed. She flicked off the offending light. With teeth chattering, she quietly went downstairs. Then Daniella slowly padded into the kitchen. The tile floor was freezing cold on her bare feet.
Freezing cold in the middle of summer?
She poured herself a cup of tap water, avoiding the porcelain frog in the dim orangey glow that the night light gave off. She thought she saw the frog make an obscene gesture at her, but high temperatures can do funny things to the brain.
"Wait a minute...." Daniella said.
She quickly swallowed the Ibuprofen, so she wouldn't have to think about what she was doing. It was important to keep these pills down to get rid of the fever that was so dangerously high. Daniella gagged but stopped herself from hurling, once again, with mind control. Then she shuffled over to the flowered couch in the living room and flopped down on its hard nubby surface.
She wished they had a more comfortable couch. This one was expensive and looked good, but it wasn't very comfortable, that's for sure. The rock hard texture was definitely not conducive for laying down on when you felt like death warmed over.
"I have the flu!" Daniella's hoarse voice announced to the semi-dark room. "The flu! In the middle of the summer!"
Not meningitis or a parasite or Ebola or a brain
tumor, she thought. And I'm not going insane. I just have the flu. The plain old flu!
Daniella had never gotten a flu shot even though Byron got one every year and always urged her to do the same. Byron would do anything in his power to prevent sickness. But Daniella was always worried about side effects of the shot... her "out of control paranoia," as Byron labeled it, rearing it's ugly head once again.
The flu.....the plain old flu...she kept thinking, wrapping the afghan tightly around her weak shivering body. The flu.....
Maybe she should have gotten the stupid shot, after all...
Daniella fell asleep shortly after that, vaguely aware of the darn mosquito bite on her shoulder, which was creating the most infuriating itch. She was just too damn sick and tired to scratch it. She woke up to Byron shaking her itchy shoulder and staring down at her with a what-the-hell look.
"What's up, hon?" he asked in his fake overly concerned voice.
It was getting light outside. Byron was already out of his Old Navy sleep pants and dressed for work.
"I let your sleep cause you looked so cozy," he said, showing off his pearly whites in an "I'm such a great hubby aren't I?" expression.
"I'm sick!" Daniella informed her husband. "So sick you wouldn't believe! I have some weird flu to beat all flues! I swear, I've never felt this bad before in my life!"
Daniella coughed, making a ghastly hacking noise that sounded like she was choking.
"WHOA!" Byron shouted, jumping back from the couch. "That is weird! Nobody gets sick this time of year. Maybe you got it at that club house... being around all those little kids, ya know?"
"Yea..." Daniella said, still hacking away. "I don't think we can do that barbeque any time soon."
"Well...there’s no rush!" Byron proclaimed.
Byron stared at his wife for just a fraction of a second longer. But it was long enough for Daniella to see the distaste in her husband's eyes before his handsome face arranged itself back into its customary charming mask.
Oh my God, she must look awful! She sure felt awful. She was so weak and her mouth was so dry. She felt like she had been sucking on cotton balls all night. Thankfully, her fever was down and at least she didn't feel so hideously nauseous any more.
Daniella quickly turned off the water and whipped out of the bathroom. She marched purposely into the master bedroom and slipped her bare feet into her black flip-flops with the sequins that she'd been so thrilled to buy because she thought they made her look “rich.”
Growing up in New Jersey, she’d only worn plain rubber flip-flops in red, yellow, or blue...standard cheap flip-flop colors.
She also tossed on her new fake hipster glasses that Byron hated. She had bought them on a whim at the dollar store, just for the fun of it. However, fun was probably the wrong word to use in relation to the glasses.
The first time she put the glasses on, Brooklyn burst out crying and Byron informed her that she looked like those annoying women on the news who try to look super smart, but end up looking like angry feminists. So Daniella had removed the glasses and promised never to wear them again.
Still wearing her plaid pajama pants and a light blue T-shirt, Daniella marched downstairs. She grabbed her cell phone on the coffee table and shoved it into the pocket of her pajama pants.
Then, without even leaving a note, Daniella marched right out the front door, slamming it behind her. After that, she just forged ahead, like an automaton, marching up Lamplighter Avenue. She didn't see anyone. She didn't even care if anyone saw her, which a few people did.
Nancy Blanchard was one of them.
Nancy lived four houses down on Lamplighter. She spotted Daniella marching by in her pajama pants, looking like an absolute mess - except for the nice pajama pants that Nancy had admired at Maybelline's, the only problem being that they didn't come in her size, which was twenty-four.
But Daniella's hair looked all dirty and stringy, and she was walking in a very unattractive way; sort of shuffling along like those zombies on that show....what was it called again? Dead Heads. That was it! Her skin looked all nasty; sickly and discolored. Plus, she had weird over-sized glasses on with thick black frames.
The site of this normally attractive put-together woman appearing so disheveled was incredibly intriguing to Nancy.
So intriguing, that Nancy was willing to put her recorded episode of The Real Housewives of Orange County on hold. It was a really good episode, too. Shannon, one of the new housewives this season, just had a big blow-up at Lizzie's dinner party.
However, Shannon and Lizzie would have to wait. Real life trumped the plastic and fake overly made-up ladies of Orange County, any day!
Nancy picked up the phone and called her friend Shelby, who lived a block away.
"Her hair was all dirty and messy and she had this weird rash all over her skin!" Nancy reported with relish. "And she was wearing pajamas!"
"Really?" Shelby asked, sipping tea and trying to picture the scene her friend was describing. "You mean the one from New Jersey? The one with the long black hair who lives in the really nice house? That doesn't sound like her at all."
"I know!" Nancy agreed. "Isn't that weird?"
"Maybe she had a fight with her super cute hubby," Shelby suggested, slurping her mint peppermint tea.
"I bet he's cheating on her!" Nancy declared. "I swear, he was giving me the eye at the pool the other day. Maybe he's getting tired of little miss skin and bones and wants himself a taste of a real woman!"
"Oh my God!" Shelby said, almost choking on her tea. "Nancy, you are too much! But seriously, you can never trust guys who look like that."
“Yea,” Nancy said, sighing. “Almost makes me glad my hubby’s such a blob.”
This made Shelby laugh so hard, she really did choke on her peppermint tea.
"You okay, hon?" Nancy asked.
"Oh yea," Shelby said, clearing her throat and sputtering out a few more weak coughs. "Keep me posted if you find out anything."
Sandy, Daniella's new friend from The Mommy and Me Club, also saw Daniella shuffle by. Sandy had just popped in a Veggie Tales DVD for her daughter when she caught site of a woman with long dark messy hair and big glasses slowly making her way up the street in a very erratic fashion.
Sandy walked over to the window to confirm what she thought she had seen, and sure enough, she was right. It was her new friend Daniella, from the Mommy and Me class.
Daniella was all alone....in pajama pants? Where was her daughter? Sandy hardly ever saw the two of them apart during the day. And why was she wearing those weird glasses?
Sandy, however, wasn't one to gossip. She just hoped her friend was okay because something about the whole situation didn't feel right. Sandy vowed to call Daniella in a little while, to make sure nothing was amiss.
As if a homing pigeon was planted inside of Daniella's sick brain, she robotically marched out onto Heathcliff Avenue, then over onto Country Club Lane...past the guardhouse and out of the development, all the way onto Route seventy-six.
After that, she just kept on marching without a single conscious thought in her head, in the direction of Maybelline’s. She had no clue where she was going or why she was embarking on this odd sojourn. She never once thought the words "Maybelline’s" or "highway" or "maybe I should get some help."
It was as though Daniella's thinking brain had shut down and she was simply operating on instinct, which at least seemed to dictate that she walk on the side of the road and not in the middle of the street.
People driving by noticed Daniella. It was hard not to. But they quickly looked away, feeling pity. They thought she might be someone who was not quite right in the brain...or maybe she was sick with cancer or some other terminal disease and she was depressed about it. Too depressed to take care of her hygiene. Some even thought she might be a homeless person...
The drivers witnessed a few other strange looking people shuffling along the side of the highway an
d lurking aimlessly about in the words; people who also sported limp greasy hair and oddly mottled skin. Most of the passerby's didn't think too much about it. They just wrinkled their collective noses in distaste and went about their way. A few did mention that the town seemed to be going downhill...rapidly.
"What's with all these losers today?" one smug tween girl sporting a wrist full of friendship bracelets pondered.
The girl was on her way to Maybelline’s to buy some cool new clothes for school, which was starting all too soon.