“I’d love to get away.”
He scrolls down the screen. “Night sky. Nice. Reminds me of my Boy Scout days. Home sweet home. I’d like to think that’s for you and I. Snow White’s apple.” He arches a brow. “Interesting choice. I could go with the whole fairytale thing, but then again, I could put on my psychiatrist hat and say something about temptation and sin.”
“Or maybe how Adam could have just said no. Talk about a lack of willpower.” I laugh like I’m supposed to and point to the last one. “This one’s called Galaxy. I don’t know what it is, but I really like the lines.”
“I like it too. It reminds me of the last painting you did. The one I have hanging above the fireplace.” He looks away. “Sorry. I know it’s a sore subject. I wish you’d have told me you quit the class.”
“I—”
“That girl hated you because she’s jealous of your talent. You shouldn’t have let her bully you.” He takes away the fingers on my mouth, replacing them with his lips. And then there’s no talking for a while as the bowl of popcorn rolls off the bed, landing on the floor, leaving a trail of kernels as it rolls out the doorway.
The next morning as I stand in his bathroom putting on mascara, I stop. Really look at myself. Tilt my head from side to side, taking in the changes. My eyes look brighter. Hard.
The skin of my face stretches over the bones. I no longer have a glowing complexion. People used to stop me and comment on how nice my skin was. But now…I think I look slightly unhinged. Jackson hasn’t said anything other than he thinks I’ve lost too much weight. Made a joke about how he likes to have something to hold on to.
We saw his mother a few days ago, and she couldn’t say enough about how fantastic I looked. She’s one of those women who believes you can never be rich enough or thin enough. Weight. Looks. Youth. It’s the currency of our world. People at work I don’t even know comment on how amazing I look. Women shoot me looks filled with venom, and men talk to me. Frankly, I’m almost too skinny. You can see my hipbones, my shoulder blades, and collarbone. The thigh gap girls want…I have it. Everyone wants to know how I’ve done it. The usual, I say. ‘Lots of water, green smoothies, and living well. Taking care of my body and making time for me.” People nod like I’m sharing secret wisdom. If only they knew. What can I say? “Kill six people and you too can be thin”?
CHAPTER 40
“HOPE. WAKE UP.”
“LEAVE ME alone,” I mumble, turning away from the hand touching my shoulder.
“You’re late. Didn’t you say you had a big meeting today?”
“Oh fudge.” My hair sticks to my cheek as I sit up in bed, blinking. As I swing my legs over the bed, Jackson grabs hold of my arm, pulling me back so I have to face him.
“What really happened? That doesn’t look like it came from a stick.”
“I fell jogging and scraped it on a rock.”
Jackson sighs, running his hands through his hair. “Why is it I don’t believe you?” He looks at his watch. “Neither one of us has time to talk about this right now. But we need to have a serious conversation. And soon.”
I feel sick to my stomach as I nod. And even worse when he doesn’t kiss me goodbye, as he always does. Instead I hear the doors shut softly behind him. My nighttime activities are interfering with my day job and relationship. But the thing is I don’t know how to fix it. Can’t see a way to make all three things coexist.
The meeting is over and I’m back at my desk frantically trying to catch up on emails and finish a slide presentation that was due over a week ago.
“Hope, can I you see my office?”
Distracted, I shove papers around, looking for a notepad and pen. “Sure, I’ll be right there.”
As I walk down the hall to my manager’s office, I mentally go through the status of all my projects. And for the first time in all my professional working years, I’m behind on everything.
“What’s going on with you?” My manager sits behind his desk looking displeased.
“Lots of personal things going on. But I’m working to get caught up.”
“I’m afraid it’s worse than that. You’ve missed meetings, been late, and I’ve been getting complaints…from your coworkers and from clients—”
A knock on the door makes him look up, his expression hard to read. At first I sit there waiting, but when I hear the voice, I spin around in the chair. It’s our HR representative. My stomach turns over again and I think I may be sick. In all my years of working I’ve never even received a verbal reprimand.
“I know this is difficult, so let’s try to make it as easy as possible on all of us,” the HR rep says in her soft voice.
They go on and on about all the things I’m not doing or should be doing. And all I can think about is why does it matter? I want to scream at them, Can’t you see what’s happening out there? How much I’m needed? But I sit there, my hands curled into fists under my thighs, as I try to let the words wash over me and not react. One of the phrases catches my attention.
“… So you have sixty days and then we’ll revisit your progress. I need you to sign here.”
A performance plan. And the thing with those? Once you’re put on one, you never come off. The writing is on the wall. I basically have sixty days to find a new job.
It isn’t worth arguing. Once the document was generated, it was done. I sign it and drop the pen on the desk.
“Anything else?”
They both sit there and look at me, fake sad expressions on their faces. Like I have time for this. “I have things to do, so if there’s nothing else, I’m leaving.” Without waiting for an answer, I leave.
As I cross the street, a black Maserati blows by me so close I could have reached out and touched it. For several minutes I’m too stunned to move. Another car honks and I jog across the street to the parking deck. On the way home, I stop to buy a carton of ice cream and a bottle of wine. Call Jackson and cancel our plans, tell him I’m coming down with some kind of stomach bug.
As I leave the discount store, loaded up with bottles of bleach, trash bags, and plastic drop cloths, I can’t help but notice there seems to be more mentally ill people wandering around than there was in the past. Or maybe I was too young to remember.
Over the past several months I’ve encountered many mentally unstable folks. If they show up during my daily review of the police blotters and the case is hoarding, they come off the list. As long as there aren’t cruelty charges. Nine out of ten times they need mental help. They aren’t evil. The hoarders are different from those who intentionally inflict cruelty or harm. And while I know the animals in a hoarding situation desperately need help, if the person makes the effort to change, to learn, then I let them be.
They aren’t sociopaths. Not like the people who use their past as an excuse for their current actions. Unable to walk past that locked door in their head. Those people have to keep opening the lock door and looking inside. Stepping in the room and opening drawers, peering in closets. Those people are perfectly content to stay screwed in the head.
Even I know to keep certain doors locked. I read about a case in Oklahoma where the hoarder was also intentionally cruel. There’s no way I can go out of state. North Carolina keeps me busy enough. If I expand, I’ll be getting rid of multiple people a day just to keep up. When I hear about them, they are entered into a spreadsheet. A tab for each state. While I can’t do anything now—the whole “clean up your own backyard first” mentality—I can make sure I don’t forget them. Because you never know where you might end up.
One woman stands out in my mind. She’s been in my thoughts again recently. She’s in her early seventies, her husband has died of cancer, and her children are too busy with their careers and lives to bother spending any time with her.
I watched her for several days, and what I saw scared me so badly I had nightmares for a week. The woman lives alone in a tiny house and suffers from Alzheimer’s. Her grown children know what is going on but can’t be
bothered. The police have been out numerous times, responding to complaints from neighbors. One afternoon after the Fourth of July as I sat outside her house and the light started to fade, I was so creeped out by what I saw that I locked every door and didn’t go out after anyone on my list for a couple weeks.
The woman suffers from what I now know is called “sundowning.” As the light fades and it turns to night, her behavior becomes increasingly erratic. I’ve watched her take off all her clothes and stand in the center of the living room with all the windows open, staring at nothing. As it grows darker, the lights come on in her house. They must be on timers. It was like watching a horror movie. She crawled around on the floor like a wild animal, scratching the walls and the doors, making all kinds of inhuman noises. When she popped up and banged on the window, pressing herself flat to the glass, I let out a small yelp.
Animal control officers have removed twelve dogs from her home and now she doesn’t have a single pet. Those poor dogs are probably traumatized for life if they saw her behave that way every night. What has our society come to that we let the elderly suffer so? She carried those children in her womb for nine months each, raised them to adults. And now when their mother so obviously needs help, they’re too busy with their own lives to bother.
I have seriously considered putting her out of her misery, but she seems so normal during the day that I don’t have the heart to do it. For she isn’t truly a bad person, simply ill. The distinction is an important one. As long as I can show mercy when it’s needed, then I’m not a sociopath.
CHAPTER 41
FOR THREE DAYS WE’VE BEEN trying to fix two processes. Streamline and make them more efficient. This group is notoriously difficult and I have absolutely zero tolerance for their bullshit.
I had platters of barbecue with hush puppies, coleslaw, and baked beans brought in. Usually after lunch it takes a little longer to get started again. People are full and sleepy from a big meal and a bit easier to manage.
Greg Chambers is on my last nerve. He’s a big, burly guy with a chip on his shoulder. Thinks everyone is a Yankee unless they were born and raised in the South. It doesn’t matter I’ve lived here since college—he still calls me “Yank” every time he sees me. Thinks it’s highly amusing. And since he’s a client with a relationship to one of the higher-ups, my boss tells me to ignore him.
“Come on now, this is the way we’ve always done things, little lady. Don’t go trying to change things you don’t understand.”
I raise an eyebrow at him. “I think I understand perfectly. You like the extra steps because it gives you time to fool around when you could be accomplishing three times as much in the same amount of time.”
He blusters, turning bright red. “You listen here. I’ve been doing this job since you were a baby. Don’t you tell me how long it takes me to do something. You come in here telling us how to improve things. You don’t do our job every day, don’t have a clue what it takes to get things done around here. So wipe that bimbo smirk off your face and go bother somebody else.” He takes a swig of his coffee and sneers at me.
“Better yet, flounce on down to the Florida office. They like silly little gals whose biggest worry is what color to paint their fingernails.”
Before I know what I’ve done, my hand shoots out, whipping the pen across the table. It hits him in the mouth and there’s shocked silence around the table. Fury blows through my soul. The blackness is coming out. All I can think about is the messenger bag in my car. How easy it would be to go out to the parking garage and get it. Come back and end him where he sits.
Lewis stands up. “I think we should adjourn for the day. Hope. I need to see you outside.”
Greg points a fat finger at me as he spits from a bloody mouth, “You’re done, girly.”
Lewis pulls me into an empty conference room down the hall. “What is wrong with you? You could have really hurt him. If that pen hit him in the eye…” He holds his hands up. “I know you’ve got some kind of personal problems going on, but that was a huge mistake. You know Greg is the second cousin to some big senior vice president. By now he’s called him.”
I shrug away from him. “He’s a complete misogynist. Thinks women should be barefoot and pregnant. Waiting at home for the big man who brings home the bacon. Even if she makes more, she better not ever mention it and hurt his fragile ego. He’s the one who should be in trouble, not me.” Stomping over to the door, I look at him.
“It was only a plastic pen.” Then I slam the door so hard it bangs into the wall, leaving a hole in the sheet rock. “Who knew? Thought these rooms all had door stops.”
At three thirty that afternoon I’m summoned to my manager’s office. This time along with the HR rep there are two security officers. Guess I shouldn’t be surprised. They go through all the lame reasons why I’m being terminated. A third security officer shows up holding my tote bag and purse in his hand. Thank the stars the messenger bag is in the car.
“If you have any other personal items at your desk, they’ll be boxed up and mailed to you. Do you have any other questions?” The HR rep smiles at me. Who smiles at a time like this?
I shake my head.
“We all hope you get the help you need for whatever problems you’re having,” my manager says. I narrow my eyes at him but wisely keep my mouth shut for once.
Since I’m being fired, I won’t receive any severance, but I have a lot of vacation time stored up. Twelve weeks’ worth. So there is that. My savings account is padded. For a while I’ll be fine. How am I going to explain this to Jackson? Even more worrisome, how am I going to tell Gram? It’s humiliating to be escorted from the building. People are talking and whispering, watching out the windows as security walks me to the parking deck. Embarrassment and shame roll over me. At my car, they take my badge and parking card, handing me a parking pass to get out of the garage. By the close of business, everyone will know I’ve been fired.
Time to put on my big girl panties and get it over with. As the phone rings, I pray for once she won’t answer. But it seems God is in no mood for my pleas.
“I’ve been thinking about you. It’s so nice to hear from you, dearie.”
Hearing my gram’s voice, the kindness in it, I completely lose it, bursting into tears as I sit on the cream-colored carpet, my back up against the sofa, the velvet warm against my neck.
Through awful tears and lots of nose blowing, I get the words out. Telling her for the first time in my life I’ve been fired and why.
“Pack your things and come stay with me for a while. You work so hard. It’s time to rest, figure out what’s next. Everyone makes mistakes. Though heaven knows I would have done the same thing. What an ass.”
Gram is such a good person. If I stay with her, there’ll be no hiding the monster I’ve become. What they have forced me to become. I can’t bear to see the disappointment in her eyes.
“The kids in my art class will be so disappointed if I quit teaching now, in the middle of classes. There’s only eight sessions left then I’m done. My lease is up in two months. I won’t be renewing, so it’s good timing. Are you sure it’s okay to come and stay a while?”
Art class for kids? I shudder. I’d rather cut my eye out with a spoon. It’s a lie I invented to explain why I’m tired. Why I don’t call much. The fear she will hear the darkness in my voice has me pulling away from her. Away from everyone.
“That will be lovely, dearie. You can’t know how nice it will be to have you here with me over the holidays.”
“I’m looking forward to it, Gram. I love you very much.”
“Oh, Hope. You are a good person. Sometimes I think you feel too much and your emotions lead you down the wrong path. But trust your heart and your judgment and everything will be all right. I love you too, dearie.”
I hang up the phone, blubbering. Snot running from my nose as I bawl my eyes out.
“What happened?” My fork clatters across the plate. I make a show of wiping my mouth
with my napkin so neither one of them will see the slight tremble to my hand. The three of us are eating watermelon out by the pool. Another month and a half and it will be closed until spring. Of course I won’t be here then. I don’t want to think about any of that today. All I want is to soak up the sun, forget my troubles. Figure out when I’m going to tell Jackson I got fired.
“Remember I told you about a guy I knew in Wilmington and about that guy Walt?”
Alarm bells go off in my head. “Was that the guy who abused his horses?”
“The odd thing is, there was a woman found shot to death in Clayton. The bullets in her case match the murder in Wilmington. Doesn’t that seem strange?”
The blood drains from my face and pools at my feet, leeching out onto the concrete. And, of course, Jackson looks interested. The lawyer in him.
“But the horse guy’s murder wasn’t a match?”
“Bullet was too fragmented.”
And Jackson is off, asking all kinds of questions. I periodically nod while my mind races. Have my mistakes cost me everything?
Grayson takes another slice of watermelon. “Drug and gang activity are picking up. You know our state is one of the biggest drug hubs in the country. The woman who was shot to death—they found enough Adderall in her car to supply every high school in the county.”
“She must have been thin and full of energy.” I force a laugh.
Jackson grins. “No kidding. Some of my mother’s friends probably knew her.”
Grayson wipes his mouth. He’s gotten used to cloth napkins. Told Jackson he bought a set of his own.
“Mr. Cunningham starved his horses. One of them had to be put down. The other three adopted out. They were in horrible condition. And the case in Clayton, I hate to say she deserved it. But she did. She was into some kind of satanic shit. Killing cats, hanging their bodies from trees and displaying their skulls out in the woods. Guy said it was the eeriest thing he’d ever seen.”
There Was a Little Girl Page 17