An Arm and a Leg

by Olive Balla

  “Is this an emergency?” The young-sounding female receptionist’s voice, undoubtedly modulated to soothe the savage beast, flowed with her version of gentle understanding—something for which she’d probably earned high marks in Receptionist Training 101. But for some reason Frankie couldn’t fathom, rather than calming her, the sound scraped along her already raw nerve endings.

  “I guess that depends on your definition of the word. But I would like to see her as soon as possible.”

  The phone first went dead, then pulsed with Muzak while the receptionist checked the doctor’s schedule. Her eyes drawn to the snotty tissues on the floor, Frankie chewed on her thumbnail. She winced when her teeth tore a sliver of nail too close to the quick and sucked at the resulting drop of red.

  The sight jerked her memory to the vision of Tim’s blood pouring from his marred face. To the thick redness pooling on the floorboard at his feet, and to her clothes drenched in it.

  “Hello, Miss O’Neil?”

  “I’m still here.”

  “You’re in luck. Doctor Demaris has had a cancellation for three tomorrow afternoon.”

  “Perfect. I’ll be there.” Frankie hung up and hugged herself.

  What would the therapist say when she told her about hearing voices? Would the expression on her face change from the standard I’d-like-to-help warmth into the wide-eyed, yikes-you’re-crazy stare?

  Frankie stood in her entryway and cried. She had no one with whom to share her fears. No one to just be there for her. She had only herself to depend on. And now even that was beginning to look shaky.

  Words like crazy, cracked, and wack-o floated through her mind.

  “Dammit,” she said to the cosmos. “Dammit, dammit, dammit.”

  Chapter Seven

  Frankie awakened early the next morning. The sun poured through her half-open venetian blinds and lit her room with a cheeriness she recognized but didn’t feel.

  Still in her pajamas, she padded to the kitchen and made a pot of her own special blend of chai tea. As she sipped from a steaming cup of the fragrant, spicy brew, she stepped over to the large pantry she’d had installed, pulled open the wooden accordion doors and slid her eyes over the rows of items stored there.

  Cans of asparagus, green beans, peas, and turnip greens sat next to yellow wax beans and corn. Sweet potatoes and carrots sat alongside cans of miscellaneous fish and meats. Bags of dried beans, peas and rice lay next to the cans, and four five-gallon bottles of water stood on the pantry floor amid cases of packaged soup mix and marinara sauce.

  She adjusted the cans so that the labels faced outward and placed the most recent purchases at the back of each row, checking the expiration dates as she went. She felt relieved to find that nothing would need replacing for the next several months.

  Fruit—that’s what was missing.

  She added the word to her shopping list and wrote twenty dollars next to it.

  Finances would be tight this month. She twisted her lips in a wry smile. Okay, so she’d pay the minimum on her Visa instead of the two hundred dollars she’d promised herself. Problem solved.

  At least she’d had enough savings to cover the cost of Tim’s funeral. The young mortician, a scion of the owner operator, had been kind. His voice had been pitched low in well-rehearsed, comforting-the-bereaved mode as he showed her the photos and itemized expenditures of the funeral packages available. Frankie had nearly swallowed her tongue at the prices before settling on a modest but lovely blue polyester-lined casket in spite of the guilt trip the young man laid on her.

  “This will be your brother’s final resting place. Of course you’ll want to do right by him.”

  “Actually,” Frankie had responded, “this will merely be his body’s resting place. My brother is no longer here. And if he were, he’d be yelling at me to have him cremated and use the savings to help someone in need.”

  An image had blown through Frankie’s mind of the casket maker’s employees sifting through the landfill, collecting plastic milk and water jugs to melt down and mold into their obscenely over-priced wares. The memory of the crestfallen look on the young man’s face brought a grim smile to her face.

  After another sip of tea, she touched each can exactly three times before doing the same with the packages, bags, and bottles. Then she moved to the hall closet and performed the same ritual with the food stored there. As usual, the process calmed her, soothed her.

  Back in the living room, she stood staring through the picture window at Tim’s old Volvo. The vehicle’s once-shiny, emerald green paint had oxidized to a dull matte finish. The interior had the unmistakable smell of an old beater, and the odometer read two hundred thousand miles. But she’d keep it. Tim’s nearly palpable presence was a comfort to her as she sat in his driver’s seat. The good news was the engine still ran so smoothly as to be nearly silent.

  She’d decide what to do with her Jeep once it had been cleaned up and repaired. One thing was certain—she could never again drive the vehicle in which her brother died. The image of its interior horrifically baptized in his life’s blood would haunt her dreams for the rest of her life.

  The hungry whine of her stomach pulled her attention back to the present. She returned to the kitchen and filled a plate from the truckload of food brought by the members of the church where she served as choir director. A breakfast of ham and sweet potatoes was nutritionally sound, wasn’t it? Couldn’t be any worse than cold pizza. Reflecting that she should probably have something green, she spooned lime gelatin into a cup.

  When the microwave dinged its all-done bell, she noticed for the first time the blinking light on the landline sitting next to it. Like the warning beacon before an approaching train, the phone’s built-in answering machine blinked six times. Six messages.

  Frankie had initially kept the outdated phone because it belonged to her Uncle Mike. But after a solar flare jacked up her android’s reception, she decided to maintain the landline’s service. She pressed the replay button.

  The machine’s pseudo-human voice announced the dates and times of each message, the first of which had been left nearly one week earlier. All the messages were from the same young male. And although the first message was spoken in matter-of-fact tones, each successive message grew in intensity and decibel level, until the final one, which dropped off to more of a pleading whimper.

  “Miss O’Neil, this is Greg at…at The Regal Scratching Post. Could you please come and get your cat? Um…could you do that, like, right now?”

  Collette. She’d completely forgotten about that damned cat.

  Frankie wolfed down her breakfast, ran to her room and dressed, grabbed Tim’s car keys and headed for the door.

  ****

  As Frankie entered the Regal Scratching Post’s front door, a young man walked from behind the counter and approached her. He wore khaki pants and a green Henley style tee shirt with the establishment logo appliquéd on the left side of his chest. Embroidered in neon yellow, the name Greg had been stitched on the right. The young man sported brightly-colored cartoon character bandages on his face, arms, and hands.

  Frankie introduced herself.

  “Thank goodness you’ve come.” Greg rubbed his index finger over the bandage on his chin, his eyes so wide the whites showed all around the brown irises.

  “I’m sorry, I’ve had a death in the family. I only just got your messages a few minutes ago.”

  “It’s a good thing you came today.” Greg moved close to Frankie, his voice low and conspiratorial. “Mom Blatney was going to take your cat to the pound this afternoon. And they only keep animals there for a few days before putting them down.”

  “Mom Blatney?”

  Greg nodded. “The owner. She makes us all call her Mom.” He wrinkled his nose as if he’d just caught a whiff of something disgusting. He leaned in closer and lowered his voice even more. “Personally, I don’t even want to think of anyone getting close enough to actually make her a mom, if you know what
I mean.”

  Unsure of how to respond, Frankie said, “Ah.”

  After motioning for her to wait in the foyer, Greg disappeared through a metal door. In a couple of minutes, an older woman—apparently the infamous Mom Blatney—walked back through the same door. With the light of battle shining in her eyes, the woman approached.

  Somewhere in her mid-sixties, Mom Blatney resembled a grandma from the 1950s. Silver hair in tightly permed rosettes rested above gray, doe eyes. Her mid-calf-length dress—a veritable meadow of floral print fabric pulled tightly over what appeared to be two thick sofa cushions jammed together and fastened to her chest—hovered above black slip-on clogs.

  The woman’s voice, however, took Frankie by surprise. The basso profundo rasp reminded her of the sound her garbage disposal once made when she dropped a teaspoon into its grinder-maw. The attendant effluvium of stale cigarette smoke suggested the cause.

  “I deeply regret that we cannot continue boarding your creature.” Mom Blatney then embarked on an extended diatribe highlighting the dangers of spoiling one’s pets.

  Frankie fought back the instinctive sympathetic urge to clear her own throat during the woman’s phlegm-rattling rant.

  “It’s popular for pet owners to treat their animals like little people wearing fur coats.” Like an air-impact drill removing lug nuts in a machine shop, Blatney’s barking voice resounded off every hard surface in the office. “That’s nonsense. It’s neither good for the pet, nor its caregivers. Our animal friends not only need to be disciplined, they expect it.”

  Suitably chastised, even if only by proxy, Frankie studied the tops of her shoes.

  “Greg will take you to Collette.” Blatney sniffed and peered down her lumpy nose at Frankie. “None of my staff is willing to approach your animal. You’ll have to gather her yourself.”

  Greg materialized from somewhere and escorted her into the back of the building. Alternate hissing, meowing, growling and purring filled the air. Someone had sprayed air freshener, but the fragrances of vanilla and lilac had long since given up their heroic battle with the essence du boarded pet urine and feces-soaked litter boxes. Frankie’s stomach tightened.

  Greg unclasped the door to Collette’s kitty-condo and quickly stepped back out of attack range. Unsure of what to expect, Frankie approached the cage, holding the open pet carrier in front of her like a warrior’s shield.

  A gaggle of Pet Pals stood silently by in high anticipation. But in an act of anticlimactic insouciance, Collette first shot withering glances around the room then went passively from cage to carrier.

  Frankie smiled inwardly at the stark disappointment on the faces of the encircled staff. She latched the carrier’s door, and made her way back to the front desk.

  Mentally calculating how many months it would take her to pay off the ludicrously high fee, she plopped down her Visa. She breathed a sigh of relief when it wasn’t rejected for being maxed out, hoisted the pet carrier and made for the exit.

  As the door shushed closed behind Frankie and the conspicuously docile Collette, Mom Blatney hurled her voice at them like the Biblical stones out of David’s slingshot. “Consider taking our Perfect Pet Parenting class. It would do you both some good.”

  Once back at her vehicle, Frankie lifted the carrier onto the back seat and peered in at the scowling kitty face staring back at her. “Perfect Pet Parent? Please. A Perfect Pet class…now that’s an idea.”

  Collette shifted inside the confined space, showing her backside to the world. Most likely the kitty equivalent of giving someone the finger.

  Frankie chuckled. “Brat. Wait ’til your daddy gets back.”

  She’d just climbed into the driver’s seat and buckled up when a flash of light caught at the periphery of her vision. She instinctively turned her head toward the source—an ancient Chevy sitting a few spaces away. Sunlight reflected off the other car’s windshield, making it impossible to see the driver’s face, but Frankie was certain she’d seen the vehicle a couple of times that day, once driving down her street and again at a gas station.

  Coincidences did happen. That’s why someone made up the word. But even as she argued with herself, the tiny hairs on the back of her neck stirred.

  Chapter Eight

  Dr. Angela Demaris was Frankie’s fourth therapist since her divorce. She’d dropped her first therapist after he sat staring at her breasts and dubbed her recurring nightmares unresolved sexual fantasies. She dropped the second when his habit of picking invisible lint off his trousers suggested her story bored him to near catatonia. And she dropped the third therapist when, after seeing her only once, he diagnosed her with a mental disorder and wanted to start her on powerful, potentially lethal medication.

  She’d found Angela’s office by closing her eyes and randomly placing her index finger on a listing in the yellow pages. Having passed Frankie’s tests for empathy, intelligence, sense of humor, and compassion, Angela seemed to be the best choice yet.

  During the first few sessions, Frankie would be expected to metaphorically spill her guts onto Angela’s geometrically patterned rug to bring the therapist up to speed on her issues. Since the health insurance her church job provided would cover only a few sessions, the knowledge that time was limited prompted her to talk as fast as she could. Once the insurance ran out, she’d be on her own, and there was no way she could personally afford the over three hundred dollars per hour Dr. Demaris charged.

  “When did you begin to hear voices?” Angela’s voice was deep, somewhat husky. She leaned forward in her chair and her kind eyes studied Frankie’s face.

  “I first started hearing them shortly after my divorce three years ago.”

  “And how have you coped with your divorce?”

  You keep doing that come-here-go-away thing. What’s that about? Either you want me in your life or you don’t. At least I have buddies, guys I can hang with. But you? You don’t have one single close friend. Stephen’s last words rang in Frankie’s head. The words he’d flung over his shoulder as he walked out the front door of their apartment.

  She responded to Angela’s question with a shrug. “Okay, I guess. It took several months for me to realize my marriage was actually over. I always thought Stephen and I would get back together, that we were just going through a rough patch.” She snorted. “Boy, was I ever wrong.”

  “Oh?”

  “For the first few weeks we stayed in touch. But the phone calls grew further and further apart. Then about six months ago I caught sight of him with another woman in a health food store. They were pushing a stroller and looked happy as clams.” She took a deep breath and blew it out through pursed lips as the scene rushed back with the intensity of a Wagnerian opera.

  She’d ducked back out the door, but not quickly enough to keep the sight from searing its image into her brain. Like the phantom shadow burned into a laptop screen when a static image is left too long, the picture of that happy little family popped into her head when she lest expected it—the fond smiles, Stephen’s protective arm around the woman’s waist, and the cooing, gurgling human that was his tiny, pink-faced replica. The snapshot mocked her, accused her.

  “Tell me about your marriage. Was it happy?”

  “Happy is not a word I’d use to describe it.”

  “Unhappy?”

  “Not at first. Stephen was a Bad Boy…That seems to be the kind of guy I’m attracted to.” Frankie shrugged, cast her eyes upward, and searched her memory. “Let’s see, there was Paul Scranberry in grade school who later drove a limo for a drug lord, David Crandosh in middle school who was later indicted for white collar fraud, and Allen Tukes in high school who was an anarchist. Not sure what became of him.”

  “How did Stephen fit your definition of Bad Boy?”

  “Pretty much how you’d guess. He loved to party and drink, spent more time with his drinking buddies than he did with me. More than once he smelled like perfume when he came to pick me up for a date. But he was so possessive of me,
so jealous. I thought he must love me madly. I grew up in a sheltered environment, never knew anything about the kind of life he lived. It seemed so full of adventure and excitement, so…” Frankie waved her hand in the air. “So anything-but-boring. Of course I couldn’t wait to marry him.”

  “And you chose to keep your maiden name?”

  “Yes. I perform four to six pipe organ concerts a year; it’s my professional name.”

  “Ah.” Angela nodded. “Whose idea was it to break up?”

  “Stephen’s, would you believe?” Frankie snorted again.

  “How did you feel about that?”

  “I was crushed. I mean, isn’t it usually the woman who wants out?” Frankie shook her head and looked at the floor. “He told me I was afraid to jump in with both feet, that I always held something back. He said he knew I never really loved him.”

  “And did you love him?”

  “I must have. I mean…I think so. I’ve missed him, missed having someone.” Frankie’s face screwed up into a tight wad of flesh. She probably looked like one of those hand-carved, dried-apple-heads she’d seen during a trip through the Ozarks. Dried up. That was going to be her future—a dried up old woman. She sniffed. “But relationships always bring problems, don’t they? All relationships. You let yourself love someone, and they move away. Or stop loving you. Or they die.” She shook her head, a couple of tight little jerks. “I decided a long time ago that it’s better not to get sucked in too deep. Life’s easier without having to wait for the freight train you know is just waiting to run you over. It’s like…I mean, why just stand there waiting for the bullet that’ll tear out your heart? Seems like a no-brainer to me.”

  Angela sighed. “So you avoid the pain of loss by keeping everyone at arm’s length. How has that worked for you so far?”

  Frankie blew a puff of air through her stiff lips. “I’m getting by.”

  Angela’s face softened, as did her voice. “You’ve gone through a divorce, you’ve lost the uncle who raised you, and you’ve seen your brother killed before your eyes. In spite of your efforts, in a fairly short time you’ve sustained a great deal of what you’re trying so hard to avoid. No one could suffer that much loss and remain unscathed.”