by Evie Long
I realized that in my distraction over my cute neighbor, I’d never thrown Trevor’s poop away. Instead I'd put it down on my entry table – where it was now festering. I went over and picked up the little purple bag then headed outside to the garbage can, giving it one last squish before tossing it. And that’s when I felt it. The ring. At least I hoped that’s what it was.
I dumped the whole smelly glob out on the grass in front of my bungalow and ran the hose over it.
And there it was. The ring!
I cleaned it up and placed it on my finger and stared at the stones, the gold band, the amethyst, the sapphire, the opal and the ruby – all in a neat, pretty row.
And as I stared at it, it was as though it was speaking to me. Telling me the truth that I’d been missing all along.
“Oh no!” I said aloud, when I finally saw it. It had been staring me in the face all along.
I hurried back inside and told Carlo to hang tight. Then I grabbed Trevor and jumped in my car, dialing Lilly’s number as I drove off.
“Lilly, I’m picking you up. It’s really important.”
She got in the car ten minutes later, irritated to have to have Trevor on her lap. I told her we just had to make one more stop and then we were getting rid of my ghost.
CHAPTER 35
We got home about an hour later, but before going inside I whispered to Lilly, “Don’t say anything, okay?”
I opened my front door and as I did, Carlo appeared – speechless. Staring.
His eyes began to water.
“It’s you,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper. “My beautiful, wild flower.”
She gasped. Speechless for almost a full minute. “How can this be?” she finally said in a voice shaky with emotion. “How?”
He put his hand out and took her old, wrinkled hand in his own. “My darling. It is you I’ve been waiting here for all along.”
Lilly and I watched silently as Carlo squeezed Rosa’s hand and stared into her eyes.
“My Rosa,” he said, his voice full.
Grandma Rosa continued to stare at him, her hand to her mouth in disbelief, as he led her inside.
They walked over to my dining room table – never taking their eyes off each other.
"What’s going on?” Lilly whispered to me. “ I still don’t get why we had to bring my grandma here.”
“Because she’s his true love!” I hisspered. “It was never Audrey. It was Grandma Rosa all along!”
“No,” Lilly shook her head doubtfully. She watched as Grandma and Carlo stared into each other’s eyes like two love-struck teenagers. “No way,” Lilly said. But her voice sounded less sure.
“It’s true! Audrey lied to the police. Carlo never loved her. Yes, they had an affair but he was never going to propose to her. He was never obsessed with her. It was Grandma Rosa he loved all along. Rosa, his wild flower. Get it? Rose, Rosa, flower?”
Lilly frowned. “But what about the creepy stalker note? He left it for Audrey,” she said.
“No. That was his proposal to Grandma! Audrey found it and got jealous cause she knew it wasn’t for her. So came to his house to try and convince him to forget Rosa. And when he said he never would – she killed him.”
Lilly still appeared dubious.
“Yes, Lilly! The neighbor got it wrong. Carlo didn’t tell Audrey, “You’ll never get away.” What he said was, “You’ll never get away with this!” Meaning killing him! He only tried to stab Audrey because he was trying to get away from her.”
“But…how can you be sure?”
“The ring told me,” I said. “Anyway, just look.”
We both stood watching, rapt, as the two lovers reunited through eternity. Their love for each other felt palpable – like a current filling the room.
Lilly nodded too, finally seeing what was before her eyes.
"It's so sad, “ she said softly. “All this time he loved her and Grandma never knew. She went all those years thinking he didn’t care about her.”
“I know.”
We watched the poignant scene before us as Carlo got down on one knee.
“Rosa,” he said. “My love….my beautiful wild flower. I have loved you since the moment I first saw you and now…,” he cleared his throat, his emotion almost getting the better of him. “Now…that I have found you, I will never let you go. You and I will be together for all eternity. To sleep with you forever and never let you go, this is my deepest wish.”
He looked at her, waiting for her response. As if the entire universe rested on her answer.
Rosa’s eyes watered as she giggled shyly and gave him her hand. It was easy to see the young girl that she was.
She could hardly talk as tears flowed from her eyes. “My Carlo…my love. I missed you so...” She stopped, choking up. Then she nodded, trying to find her voice again. “I love you forever,” she said. “For alvays. Forever.”
Tears ran down Carlo’s cheeks as he placed the ring on her finger.
I couldn’t help but wonder if he was seeing her as the young girl she used to be, or as the old lady she was now. But maybe it didn’t matter. Maybe he was just seeing her.
My eyes were watering and I had trouble swallowing as Grandma looked at the ring on her shaky, fragile hand.
“But how do you know that ring wasn’t for Audrey?” Lilly whispered to me, suddenly skeptical again. “He’s a total dog! You even said he was in love with me!”
“No,” I said. “I mean, yes, he was a total horndog. But that was only because he couldn’t remember what his true purpose was. But look at him now.”
She watched Carlo as he leaned in towards Grandma Rosa and stroked her face.
“And no offense, but I’m pretty sure the only reason he thought he loved you was because you looked a lot like your Grandma did when she was young.”
“Oh,” Lilly shrugged.
Carlo stroked Grandma Rosa’s face as she reached up and clutched his hand in hers. Then he leaned down… and he kissed her.
As Grandma and Carlo’s passionate embrace went on and on and on, the room suddenly started swirling. A bright, blinding light shone through the wall. Carlo was drawn backwards as though into a twinkling sun. He stared at Grandma, never moving his eyes away – as he was carried off, into eternity.
For real this time.
CHAPTER 36
After the dust cleared everything went back to normal. The room was just the room and Grandma sat at the dining table, staring at her ring.
“Wow,” I said, shaking my head. “So true love does last for an eternity.”
I looked over at Lilly who was sobbing. She ran over to her Grandma and held her hand. Grandma patted her head gently.
“Grandma,” Lilly said sadly. “It’s so unfair. Just when you got him back, he’s gone forever.”
Lilly wiped her runny nose with the back of her hand in a very unLilly-like way.
No honey…not forever. I vill see him again. Soon.” She gently patted Lilly’s head.
Lilly nodded, crying and hugged her tightly.
I looked on, sobbing now too. Thinking what a great ending they’d given me for my script.
“But I still don’t get how you knew so positively that the ring was for Grandma,” Lilly whispered later as we got into my car to take Grandma home.
“Because it was spelled out for me,” I explained. “It was a Victorian message ring. But the message wasn’t in the meaning of the stones – it was in their names.”
“Yeh,” Grandma said, holding up the ring as though it were the most obvious thing in the world. “My name spelled out right here… R(uby)/O(pal)/S(apphire)/A(methyst).”
“Rosa,” Lilly said softly. “His wild flower.”
EPILOGUE
Okay, I admit it. It only took me two days to start missing Carlo. Once I realized he wasn’t a crazed killer it was much easier to appreciate his finer points. Granted it was nice to have the place to myself but it was sort of fun having him there for compa
ny sometimes.
I tried to avoid my cute neighbor as much as possible since I’d been so stupid and accusatory for no reason. I also vowed to not be judgmental whenever I saw his girlfriends in the future.
But strangely, I never did see them again.
I finally did run into him one night about a week later, when we were both taking our garbage out at the same time. I was throwing away empty donut boxes along with diet soda bottles while he was recycling empty beer cans along with lots of balled up sketches.
“Hi,” I said, uncomfortably.
He tossed his cans into the recycling bin and nodded.
“So listen, I’m sorry about accusing you of cheating before,” I said. “I was wrong.”
“Yes, you were,” he agreed with what might have been a hint of a smile.
That was a relief.
“So how’s your graphic novel coming?”
“Good, I got the main character and the title: Assasination Angel. So now I just have to draw it.”
“Wow -that’s great,” I said too enthusiastically. “Figuring out the concept can be the hardest part.”
“Yeah, I think I was a little stuck because Lexi – er, ‘Blondie,’ wanted to be the model for it. But it just wasn’t working. Which I guess is why she was so pissed.”
I nodded sympathetically.
He shrugged. “I guess you never know who your muse is going to be.”
“Right. Because using a gorgeous brunette model as a muse is such a shocker,” I said, unable to refrain from a snarky retort. I didn’t know what it was about this guy but I just felt the need to continually bust him on his BS.
He looked at me through hooded eyes. “There you go making those assumptions again.” He shook his head and reached into the garbage bag he’d just tossed away, pulling out one of the crumpled pieces of paper. He opened it up and there I saw the character – his assassination angel.
And I wasn’t sure, but…she looked a lot like me.
Her hair was disheveled and flyaway. She was wearing a tight, dark, stretchy outfit and was just a tad big in the butt and thighs. She carried a big futuristic crossbow and most adorably… had a scruffy little mutt next to her. A mutt that looked suspiciously like Trevor.
She was sitting, elbows on her knees, looking like she’d just fallen on her ass and was perturbed. But in a cute/sexy way.
“Wow - she’s cute,” I said.
“Yeah,” he said looking at the picture. “She’s deeply flawed and tends to misinterpret everything around her. But she tries hard.”
“Huh,” I said, not sure whether or not to be insulted.
“Her dream is to find a hidden treasure that will pay her millions of bucks so she can quit killing bad guys and retire in peace.”
“I really like it,” I said, my voice soft.
“So do I,” he said with a shrug. “I was trying to do the whole sexy, bony, erotic lip biting indie chick but I had a lot more fun with this.”
I looked at him and smiled. “Neurotica,” I said.
“Yeah. Neurotica.”
And at that moment I looked over and saw my little Trevor trying to hump his big, black lab. “Trevor! Down!” I called. “I don’t know why he’s doing that. He’s not gay,” I said defensively.
“Right, they’re just ‘dogs that are friends’” he said. “And not ‘dogfriends.’”
“Exactly,” I watched as my cute neighbor started to walk away and then I gathered all my confidence. Ask him to dinner. Ask him to dinner. It’s now or never.
“Hey, I owe you a dinner, right?”
He turned and stared at me. “Yeah, you do. This Thursday?”
I nodded. “What’s your name anyway?” I asked.
“I’ll tell you on Thursday,” he said and walked away.
“Okay,” I said, smiling to myself.
Maybe I could live without Carlo after all. “C’mon Trev.”
Table of Contents
Copyright
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER 26
CHAPTER 27
CHAPTER 28
CHAPTER 29
CHAPTER 30
CHAPTER 31
CHAPTER 32
CHAPTER 33
CHAPTER 34
CHAPTER 35
CHAPTER 36
EPILOGUE