by Dianne Emley
Angus was reclining in an adjustable easy chair that was angled toward the television. He held a can of beer against one chair arm. A remote control was balanced on the other. Both men were barefoot and wearing shorts and tank tops.
The living room was separated from the tiny dining room by a molded arch in the ceiling. A door off the dining room led to a kitchen that had a faded yellow linoleum floor. Another door off the living room’s other wall probably led to the bedrooms and bathroom.
Angus leaned forward in the chair and peeked around the edge. “Hey, Iris.” He waved clumsily at her. “How the hell are you?” Bobby stayed where he was on the couch and smiled dimly. They both moved slowly and fuzzily and had loose grins.
“You remember Angus and Bobby?” Paula asked.
“Paula, get Iris something to drink. She just drove here all the way from L.A.”
Paula smirked facetiously but her back was to Angus so he didn’t see her. “You want something?”
“Whatever you’re having.”
“Beer.”
Iris noticed some framed photographs on top of the large-screen television. She asked Paula, “You mind if I look at these?”
“Go ahead.”
Iris was careful to stand so that she didn’t block the television. Among the photos of Paula, Angus, and their similarly ragged friends were a few family photos. There was one of Paula as a young teenager with her two brothers and her parents. Dolly sat with her hands tightly clasped in her lap. Her eyes were focused on something to the side of the camera and she was frowning, looking as if she had something on her mind. There was a photo of Dolly as a young girl with thick, braided hair. The braids were wrapped across the top of her head and woven with flowers. Her eyes were clear and attentive.
Paula returned with two cans of Budweiser and looked over Iris’s shoulder.
“Don’t tell me you’re getting sentimental in your old age, Paula,” Iris commented.
Paula shrugged. “I had to put something up there.”
Iris picked up a photo of Paula and herself as toddlers wearing ruffled bathing suits on the front lawn of the ranch house. They were hugging each other and laughing, their eyes sparkling and their smiles broad and carefree. She glanced at Paula.
Paula smiled. “We were cute kids, huh?”
Iris picked up a black-and-white wedding picture of Gabriel and Isabella. “Is this the picture?”
“That’s it.”
Iris picked up the photo of the young Dolly. “Such bright eyes.”
Paula held the beer out for Iris.
Iris slid the Louis Vuitton satchel off her shoulder onto the floor, took the can, and tipped it into her mouth.
“Paula, Iris!” Angus raised his beer toward them. “Baby dolls, can you talk outside, please? We’re trying to watch the game.”
Iris picked up the satchel. “So all those years, you never called your mom?”
“Is that why you’re here? To try and make me feel guilty?”
“I came to conduct some business. The guilt’s up to you.”
Angus raised his beer can again. “Iris, if you came all the way out here because of the will, I’m sorry. Paula, sweetheart, tell her you’re selling the will like we talked about.”
“Just shut up, Angus.” Paula set the beer on top of the television with a bang and faced him with her hands on her hips. “It’s my will, okay? My mother gave it to me. I’m going to do with it what I want.”
“That’s what you think.” Angus wormed around in the easy chair as if he were settling in for a long fight. “Who’s the one who’s been taking care of you for the past four years? Who’s the one who bailed you out when you got picked up? Who’s the one who gave you the idea of selling the will in the first place?”
Bobby, finding the argument more interesting than the football game, turned his attention from the television set and looked blearily from Paula to Angus.
Angus jabbed his hand, still holding the beer can, toward his chest. “Me! That’s who. You’re too goddamned stupid to figure out this stuff on your own.”
Paula said in a low voice, “I am not stupid.”
“The hell you aren’t.”
She screamed, holding her clenched fists in front of her. “Don’t say that about me, you asshole!” Her voice grew shrill. “You’re the one who’s stupid, you stupid prick!”
A small smile played on Angus’s lips, as if he were pleased to have gotten to her. He picked up the remote control and clicked the volume higher.
“Paula.” Iris lightly touched Paula’s arm to get her attention. “Let’s go outside and talk, okay?”
Paula’s eyes grew darker. She furrowed her forehead, rumpling the skin into well-practiced ridges. She turned her dark eyes onto Angus. “You motherfucker. I ought to slit your throat when you’re asleep.”
“Yeah, yeah.” He clicked up the television volume again.
“Let’s go for a walk, Paula.” Iris tried to affect a cheerful tone.
Angus said, “Yeah, I think you need to go for a walk, Paula.”
Saying nothing, Paula walked to the coffee table and picked up an open package of cigarettes and one of the plastic lighters.
Iris followed Paula as she walked through the dining room and into the dark kitchen which smelled of prepared food. A frying pan and several dishes stood upright in a dish drainer on one side of the sink. The cabinets, countertops, and floors were tired but clean. They went outside through a door at the end of the kitchen, which had a small curtained window at the top. The thin, lace-edged curtains were soiled around the edges as if they’d been opened frequently by dirty hands.
The backyard, mottled with patches of grass and dirt, was long and narrow and encircled by a chain-link fence. A detached garage was on one side. Through the fence, the backyards of the houses to the side and behind were visible. The third side of the fence bordered 18th Street.
Paula flopped onto a folding aluminum chair that was webbed with plastic tubing. She gestured for Iris to sit in a sister chair next to it, then tapped a cigarette out of its package and quickly lit it with the lighter. She set the lighter and cigarettes on a small white plastic table between the chairs. It held a round ashtray of amber glass that had a restaurant’s logo printed in the middle. The ashtray was empty of cigarette butts but encrusted with ashes.
Iris took a swat at the chair, then examined her fingers. The chair was filthy but she sat on it anyway, not wanting to provoke further controversy.
It was late afternoon and the setting sun threw long shadows across the yard. Strains of a neighbor’s heavy metal music floated on the air. Something rustled in a patch of dry grass next to the fence.
Paula dragged on her cigarette, making it glow bright. She picked at something invisible on her lip and said nothing. Iris sipped her beer and also said nothing.
The curtains in the back door window parted. Angus called out, “What are you talking about out there?”
“Nothing,” Paula responded.
“You better not be talking about me.” The curtains dropped closed.
Iris inhaled sharply, as if she were gasping for air.
“Just shaddup,” Paula said.
“I didn’t say a word.”
“You didn’t have to.”
A minute of silence passed.
Paula dragged deeply on the cigarette, igniting the last of the tobacco. She tapped another from the pack and got a light off the old one before pressing it out in the ashtray. “He’s not that bad. It’s true, what he was saying. He’s helped me out a lot. A lot of it’s my fault, when he gets like this. I’ve been kind of weird lately. He’ll apologize. He’s real good about that.”
“I’m sure he is.”
“So you came here to talk about the will.”
“It really exists?”
Paula sneered at Iris. “Of course it exists. What do you take me for?”
“Thomas and your father said it was a figment of your imagination.”
&nb
sp; “What did you expect them to say? Oh goody. Paula has the will.”
“I want to buy it from you. I’ll pay you a lot more than you were going to get from your dad.”
“Angus wants to talk to this Gil Alvarez guy. Angus says he’ll pay more than the old man.”
“No!” Iris exclaimed.
Paula looked at her with surprise.
“Have you talked to him yet? Does he know about it?”
“No.”
“Don’t. Sell it to me. I’ll pay you more than your dad or Alvarez.” Iris picked up the satchel and put it on Paula’s lap.
Paula unzipped it. “Damn! How much money is in here?”
Iris lowered her voice. “One hundred thousand, give or take a few bucks.”
“Holy shit, Iris.”
Just then, the back door burst open and Angus stumbled into the yard. “Let me see that.” He ripped the satchel away from Paula, looked inside, then held it away from his body as if it might bite him. He stared at Iris. “How much, did you say?”
“I didn’t say anything to you.”
“A hundred thousand,” Paula answered.
“Whoo-wee!” He looked in the satchel again and winced as if he were looking at a thing of great beauty. “A hundred grand,” he whispered. “Baby, that could set us up for life.” He pointed at Iris. “Lady, you bought yourself a will.”
Iris was asleep on the shabby couch in Paula’s living room. She and Paula had sat in the backyard talking until late. Although she didn’t want to, she accepted Paula’s offer to spend the night, not because she was especially tired but because it was late to be tooling along the desert roads alone in the Triumph. Not that she felt safe in the house where Angus and Bobby lived. Paula went with her to retrieve the Triumph. It was now parked in front of the house shrouded in its canvas cover.
Before Iris went to sleep, she’d taken off her shoes and belt but had left the rest of her clothes on, only undoing the top button of her jeans. In her arms she tightly clasped her purse that now held Gabriel’s handwritten will.
Paula had taken the satchel with the money into the bedroom with her, managing to convince Angus that it wasn’t a good idea to go around town with it, showing it off. He took a few hundred dollars and went out with Bobby. By the time Iris and Paula had turned in around midnight, they hadn’t come home yet.
Iris was dreaming that Paula had left something in a frying pan on the stove and it had started to burn. Smoke rose from the frying pan and tendrils floated into the living room. They were dancing around her, she dreamt, caressing her but holding her too close. She was finding it harder and harder to breathe. She jolted awake. The room was full of smoke. The living room drapes were on fire.
She pulled the blanket from the couch and wrapped it over her head and around her body. “Paula!” She stepped on her purse, which had fallen. She put the strap over her head and diagonally across her chest and crawled to the bedroom. Smoke curled out from underneath and around the sides of the ill-fitting door. She touched the wood. It was warm. “Paula!”
She wrapped her hand in the blanket and was reaching for the doorknob when the door flew open. Paula stumbled out and fell on top of Iris. Smoke poured out and flames roared up, nourished by the new oxygen source.
“Let’s get out of here!” Iris started to drag Paula down the hallway.
“Wait!” Paula yelled.
“Let’s go.”
“The money. It’s on the floor near the dresser.”
“Forget it.”
“Forget you!”
Paula put her arm over her face and tried to walk back into the bedroom, but the heat was too intense. A spark flew onto her nylon nightgown and quickly ate a huge hole in the front. Paula madly swatted it.
“Get on the ground!” Iris pulled the blanket tightly around her, almost covering her face. “Hold onto my legs. Pull me out in ten seconds.” Iris crawled into the room and Paula crawled behind her.
This is stupid, Iris Ann! Stupid, stupid…The heat was unbearable and she desperately needed to breathe but didn’t dare lest she inhale smoke. Stupid, stupid…
The flames hadn’t yet touched the satchel. She reached her hand from underneath the blanket. The heat singed the hair on her arm. She grabbed the satchel, but the vinyl was too hot for her bare hand, so she enveloped it in the blanket and dragged it with her as she slithered out of the room with Paula dragging her by the ankles.
The fire in the living room had spread, making the front door inaccessible. Paula grabbed the bedspread that was covering the couch and wrapped it around herself. The flames were near the television but Paula grabbed some of the pictures off the top anyway. Iris yanked on her arm and Paula reluctantly followed her through the kitchen and out the back door where they collapsed on the dirt, choking and gasping for breath.
Paula lay prone on the ground facing the fence that bordered 18th Street. She suddenly raised herself on her elbows and stared at the street. “Son of a bitch!”
“What?” Iris snapped her head around to look at the street but it was empty.
“A red pickup truck just drove away.” She looked at Iris wide-eyed.
“So?”
“Didn’t you say that Junior drove a red pickup? Get a clue, Iris. The old man must have seen me at the funeral in the Olds and tracked me down just like you did. See, he knows the will’s not fake.”
Iris unleashed her purse from around her chest and pulled out the will. “It certainly isn’t.” She reached in again and took out her cellular phone.
“What are you doing?”
“Calling the Fire Department.”
“What for?”
Iris was befuddled. “What for?”
Paula reached into the Louis Vuitton satchel and took out Dolly’s purple velvet jewelry box. She shoved the photographs into the bag and fit the jewelry box on top of them.
Iris watched her with surprise. “What was your mom’s jewelry box doing in there?”
Paula shrugged. “Just a place to put it.” She stood and slipped the satchel over her shoulder. “I’ve got everything I need. Let’s get the hell out of here.”
Iris stared at her speechlessly.
“Let’s go!”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Paula was sitting on the floor in Iris’s almost empty living room, wearing one of Iris’s bathrobes. She was pouring handfuls of money over her head and rubbing it on her face and body.
Iris, also clad in a bathrobe, stopped in the doorway when she saw Paula.
Paula reclined on the money that was spread across the warped hardwood floor and writhed on top of it while scattering it over her. “I saw someone do this in a movie.”
“That’s really disgraceful,” Iris said.
“It’s fun. It’s the most fun I’ve ever had in my entire life.”
“Tomorrow, I’m putting the rest of my cash and the will into a safe-deposit box. I recommend you do the same with that.”
Paula shook her head. “I don’t trust banks. And I need to buy some clothes.”
Iris raised her eyebrows.
“All my stuff burned, remember? And I need some wheels.”
“You should put most of it away.”
“You’re a bore.”
“Hey, I just spent a hundred grand to buy a will, so don’t talk to me about spending money.”
“Girl, I saw with my own eyes that you love money more than life itself.”
“That’ll come as no surprise to my coworkers.” Iris walked to the dining room table where the remaining three hundred thousand was still piled. Next to it was Dolly’s small purple velvet jewelry box. She opened the lid and took out a tarnished gold-tone charm bracelet. She undid the cheap clasp, put the bracelet around her wrist, then turned her wrist in front of her. “When are you going to tell me where you got this much cash?” Paula asked.
Iris dropped her wrist into her lap. “I can’t.”
Paula sat up on the floor. “C’mon. You think you’re gonna shock
me or something?”
“Frankly, I don’t think I can trust you.”
“Iris has a secret,” Paula sang. “Tell me. You can trust me.”
Iris looked at her skeptically.
“Believe it or not, Iris, I do have some principles.”
“I had a friend who ran the mailroom at my office. Alley Muñoz. He was from Mexico and had polio when he was young so he had problems walking. He was deaf too. I taught hearing-impaired children for six years, so Alley and I bonded. He was talked into getting involved in a money-laundering scheme at my office and was murdered. He suspected he was going to be and before he was, he left me the cash. John Somers was the homicide detective on the case. That’s how I got involved with him again. I tried to turn the money in to John, but he convinced me to keep it. He said that it didn’t belong to anyone and it would probably be stolen by someone in the Police Department anyway. So, I kept it. And that’s the story.”
Paula nodded approvingly. “Not as sexy as I’d hoped, but it’s pretty good.”
Iris turned her attention to the burn on her arm. “This hurts like crazy.” She took a tube from her pocket and dabbed on white cream. “When are you going to call Angus? Don’t you think he’s worried about you?”
“He’s probably more worried about what happened to this.” She tossed some of the money in the air.
“Is this your subtle way of leaving him?”
“I’d had it with him anyway. That thing with the will really pissed me off. I get one thing in my entire life that’s worth something and he’s got to put his claws on it. I can use this money to get set up. Get a little house or something. Maybe get my kids back.” She seemed thoughtful.
“I don’t know why you just let them go, Paula. It wasn’t like the court took them or anything, or so you told me last night.”