Valley of Ashes

by Cornelia Read

  Lots of pink in the room’s color scheme: pink rug, pink lamp shade, pink quilt folded at the foot of the bed. But the lavender had spilled across the hall from the bathroom, as well.

  The white bureau’s drawers were lavender, as was the skirt hiding the legs of a mirrored dressing table.

  There was even a lavender set of shelves, hung on the wall to the left of the mirror.

  One of those little tree things on it, the kind that you hang earrings off of.

  Hers were arranged by size. Next to that was a little lucky cat statuette with its paw up.

  I walked toward the large oval mirror, dropping my gaze to all the perfume bottles arrayed on the dressing table’s surface so I didn’t have to look again at the photograph Setsuko had stuck in the mirror’s frame.

  Dean held her aloft in his arms like a new bride. Setsuko’s toes were pointed and the two of them laughed at the camera.

  There was snow on the ground and you could see the Flatirons. Three bikes, one of them Cary’s, leaned against a stone wall beside them.

  No, Cary would never have told me about my husband and Setsuko. He’d tried to be a good friend to all three of us, keeping our various secrets.

  Her perfume was all cheap drugstore crap. In the front row there was a bunch of Avon and then a bottle of White Diamonds, “body mist” aerosol knockoffs of Giorgio and Obsession, even some Love’s Baby Soft stuff I hadn’t seen since middle school.

  Beside these was a wide, shallow bowl.

  Pretty, thick-walled, and heavy, in a beautiful rich streaky green: malachite. The kind of catchall you might use for loose change, cufflinks, maybe a stray paper clip.

  This one held three objects.

  My grandmother’s string of pearls lay clumped in a heap on top. Setsuko must have stolen them from me when she babysat my daughters.

  I picked them up carefully and put them on, making sure the clasp was solidly fastened before I slid it around to the back of my neck.

  Now there were only two things lying in the bowl: the four-leaf clover charm I’d given Cary and Bittler’s Playboy Bunny key ring.

  Those I didn’t touch.

  I raised my eyes once more to the big dressing-table mirror.

  Setsuko was now reflected in its surface, standing in the doorway behind me.

  She was holding a rather large kitchen carving knife.

  I guess the samurai sword on her hallway wall was papier-mâché.

  52

  I stood there empty-handed, and Setsuko was still behind me with a big-ass knife.

  “So,” I said, “you must’ve been fucking Bittler, too.”

  Well, okay, that pissed her off.

  But she didn’t answer. More important, she didn’t move. Which was why I’d said it.

  I needed a little time to consider my options.

  I didn’t turn around, but I kept talking.

  “I mean, no point killing Cary just because he was going to tell me you were screwing my husband, right?”

  Not that I was seeing anything on the dressing table worth a shit for self-defense, but still.

  “You would’ve liked that,” I said. “Get me all pissed off, make Dean step up to the plate once and for all—because you still think he’d choose you over me and our kids.”

  “He loves me.”

  “He thinks you’re boring,” I said.

  Bittler knew she’d been fucking Dean, of course. That’s why he’d asked me if she was inside my house, the day he wrecked his bike on the Creek Path.

  Fine piece of tail, that Setsuko.

  In the end, Cary must have taken my side.

  Maybe he hadn’t liked the idea of Setsuko alone with my children, maybe he didn’t like the way Dean treated me that day in the restaurant. I doubted I’d ever find out.

  Cary planned to come clean with Dean about Setsuko and Bittler, though, and he must have told her so. That’s why she killed him.

  But she still believed Dean would abandon me, just as long as he never found out about that particular detail.

  Too bad I’d quit smoking. If I’d had a lighter on me, I could’ve gone all Live and Let Die Roger Moore on her ass and made an aerosol-can flamethrower out of her fakey-fake “Obsession.”

  Because she sure as shit didn’t want me leaving here alive.

  Too bad she hadn’t left, say, a shotgun leaning conveniently against the end of her bed. I could’ve used one, right about then.

  Think, Madeline.

  Okay, so there was also a round box of dusting powder on the table. Which was perfectly useless unless of course I suddenly remembered some secret recipe for making tear gas out of it. Or pulled a magic wand out of my ass and bibbety-bobbety-booed myself up a sparkly fairy-godmother grenade.

  Although it did cheer me up to think that after Setsuko hacked me to death, Dean would probably figure out she’d done it, and not be in any hurry to propose to her afterward.

  My husband was a philandering asshole, but he wasn’t particularly slow on the uptake—despite his patently execrable taste in side-pussy.

  Fuck it, I was going to have to try talking my way out of this.

  And that seemed like the dumbest plan ever. But it was all I had.

  I would’ve tried it, too, if she hadn’t charged me with the knife instead.

  So instead of chatting I grabbed the malachite bowl and whipped around fast, pitching it at her face with everything I had.

  I’ve always had a mean arm, for a chick, and I at least grazed the side of her head.

  She was off balance now, but she was still coming toward me.

  I waited until she was close and then ducked, which was a good thing, because she missed me with the fucking carving knife on her first swing.

  Not, unfortunately, the second.

  53

  On the bright side, Setsuko only got a light slice in, across my left forearm. Not enough to disable me or anything, but plenty to wake me the fuck up.

  Unfortunately for her, I dove past her and toward the bedroom door while she was slashing me.

  I was now looking down the hallway with my eye on her entry foyer. From which I really, really hoped to escape into the parking lot.

  Setsuko was right on my heels but I did my level best to follow the advice of Satchel Paige: “Don’t look back, something might be gaining on you.”

  Like, say, a knife-wielding psycho. Who was screaming all kinds of crazy shit while she chased me, by the way.

  Not that I had any idea what she was saying.

  Probably a good thing: It didn’t sound like she was shrieking anything very complimentary.

  And then she must have taken another swing at me, because I felt this nasty sting in the middle of my left shoulder blade.

  Not deep, again—lucky me. I was still moving fast, still pumping my arms just as hard, but she’d gotten a taste. And it fucking hurt, too.

  It also meant she was close enough that if I stopped to open the front door, she’d take me out before I turned the handle.

  So when I was almost there, I faked left away from the door and launched myself airborne over Setsuko’s appallingly ugly love seat.

  Hadn’t hurdled since I ran track in sixth grade, but I’d been damn good at it back then and the instinct hadn’t deserted me.

  Didn’t think, just kicked my right leg straight out in front of me, snapped my trailing knee up high and sideways, and cleared that mofo like a goddamn springbok, I shit you not.

  Thank you, Title Nine.

  Okay, so I almost did a face-plant into the brick fireplace mantel, but I got my hands up in time and bounced myself into a 180 turn—in time to watch Setsuko hip-check the love seat, hard.

  Probably good she didn’t try to jump it, what with the big-ass bloody knife in her hand and everything.

  Maybe not good for me, exactly—because, hey, I would’ve been more than happy to see her go splat and impale herself—but she might just as easily have cartwheeled over the damn thing all akimbo and sha
nked me, flailing, on her way down.

  And that love seat sure as shit slowed her down for a few precious seconds. Caught her right at the pelvis, and the momentum snapped her torso forward.

  Too much to hope, that a stop that sudden would break her grip on the damn knife and bring it clattering perfectly to rest at my feet.

  But it did wrench a big “oof ” out of her, and she sliced open a leather cushion as she fought to regain her balance.

  Better it than me.

  She was up again now, and even more pissed off.

  But I’d used the downtime to equip myself with a brass fire poker and matching long-handled ash shovel from the andiron set she’d put conveniently next to the fireplace.

  Purely decorative objects, since it was a gas fire, but awfully handy for me. And way more lethal than talcum powder, too, if I played my cards right.

  “Wouldn’t worry about any damage to the furniture,” I said. “It was already so fucking ugly.”

  “Now it’s ruined, like yours. But my house is still cleaner.”

  I mean, seriously, she wanted to insult my housekeeping at this point? Fuck prolonging this bullshit. I wanted her dead.

  She started edging around the love seat. “That’s why Dean wants to be with me.”

  “Dean’s bored with you, you stupid cunt. We’re moving to Boston. He got himself a job there before I found out you two were fucking. Not to mention before he found out you killed Cary, or were doing the nasty with Bittler. Which knowledge is not exactly going to improve his opinion of you.”

  “You’re not going to tell him. Because you’re going to be dead.”

  “Oh, for fuck’s sake, Setsuko. Now you’re boring me.”

  She was around the corner of the love seat now, coming toward me slowly.

  “Dean doesn’t love you,” she said. “He loves me.”

  She lunged at me, but I parried with the shovel and managed to get a good whack in with the poker. Right across the side of her rib cage.

  Made her wince.

  “He also thinks you’re tacky,” I said. “And not tremendously bright.”

  I swung at her, but didn’t get another lick in.

  “I mean, really, sweetie,” I said, taking a step back, poker up in front of me, “he didn’t even want to fuck you anymore. We laughed about it.”

  “I’m a better wife for him. Better than you.”

  I took another step back. A big one. “Why, because you’re so bereft of wit and imagination that you actually enjoy cleaning?”

  She took another slice at me. I jumped back, right up against the wall.

  That made her smile.

  I smiled back. “My husband likes smart, articulate women, Setsuko. You don’t happen to be either.”

  “I am going to kill you,” she said. “And Dean will be happy. Because he wants to be with me. He calls me his sweet little kitten.”

  She came at me low, making me swing with the shovel, but it was a feint and I fell for it.

  She tried to slash that arm, but missed.

  “Big fucking deal,” I said, dancing out of range. “He calls me Bunny—which, although it is nowhere near as grotesquely insipid as ‘kitten,’ has always struck me as an idiotic endearment.”

  She lunged again but I whacked her with the poker.

  I tried to nail her with the shovel, too, but I was bleeding a lot now. Which kind of messed with my grip.

  She tipped it right out of my hand with the fucking knife. I heard it hit the carpet with a dull clang, but didn’t make the mistake of looking.

  Not good.

  “I am going to kill you,” she said.

  She went for my right arm this time. Sliced my sleeve near the elbow, but no other damage. And I sure as shit didn’t let go of the poker.

  I was breathing hard now, and she wasn’t.

  And I was losing blood. Which she also wasn’t.

  “Your children deserve a better mother,” she said.

  I didn’t look down at it, but my left arm was seriously wet. I could feel a steady line of warm liquid running down my palm and onto the floor.

  Not just dripping. Worse than that.

  Kind of pouring, actually. I mean, not arterial spray or anything, but, like, I could actually hear the drops landing on her already-wet carpet.

  “Dean knows it,” she said. “So do you.”

  I was a little dizzy, but didn’t feel cold yet. That was good.

  And then I thought: Fuck, the bitch is waiting me out. She knows I’m getting weaker.

  She nodded, as though I’d just spoken those words aloud. “Parrish and India won’t remember you. And I’ll be a better mother.”

  I don’t fucking think so.

  Setsuko telegraphed her next move, raising the knife up to her shoulder in what had to be slow motion.

  Really? We’re gloating now?

  “Oh, Setsuko!” I cried out. “I’m so sorry! I’m bleeding all over your pretty white carpet!”

  She dropped her eyes to my bloody left arm.

  Which was indeed leaking rather profoundly onto her tacky albino wall-to-wall, but still, stopping to look? Right up there with falling for the old, “Look at my thumb. Gee, you’re dumb.”

  I walloped her across the face with my poker, really fucking hard.

  Right under the cheekbone.

  Hard enough to break her teeth.

  I heard them crack and splinter. And I have to say it was rather a pleasant sound, considering.

  “Ha,” I said. “Made you look.”

  And then I hit her again. Same cheek, only harder.

  She was still standing, though.

  So I swung low and hard into her left kneecap, then snaked my foot around the back of that same knee and hooked it forward.

  She went down screaming.

  That sounded pretty damn good, too.

  54

  I had Setsuko down on the floor now. But she was still kind of armed and everything.

  Which didn’t seem prudent.

  So I put my left foot on her throat and proceeded to whack her across the hand with the poker until she let go of the knife.

  I stepped a little harder on her windpipe when I leaned down to pick it up.

  Just in case.

  Oh, poor thing—I kind of leaned my weight on that left foot, getting up. With her throat all under it and everything.

  And, okay, after I was standing again and holding her sword instead of the poker, I gave her another good lean on the windpipe.

  Not, like, hard enough to break the hyoid bones or anything. Just hard enough to make her start crying.

  I mean, you’d think having a bunch of her teeth knocked out would’ve achieved that worthy goal already, but it hadn’t.

  And besides which, she totally fucking deserved it.

  Because you do not mess with me, when it comes to my daughters.

  I will hurt you.

  I will inflict serious damage on your dumb, sorry ass.

  Especially if you murder a friend of mine, and double especially when you’ve been fucking my husband.

  “You fucking killed Cary?” I said. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

  “He was going to tell,” she said, kind of mushily, what with her mouth all full of blood and teeth.

  “Dean was right,” I said. “You’re really stupid.”

  She looked like she wanted to bite me.

  So I pressed my foot down on her throat with a little more conviction.

  “Go ahead, spit them out.”

  She mumbled something, kind of garbled.

  “Your teeth, you dumb bitch,” I said. “Because you really don’t want to choke on them, the next time I hit you.”

  Not a happy Setsuko… poor baby.

  “Go ahead, spit,” I said. “I already bled on your carpet.”

  So she spat out her teeth, which took a couple of tries.

  And when she was finished, I grabbed her by the hair, lifted her head, and punched as hard
as I could at the corner of her jaw, trying to get the mandible to slap against her cranial nerve.

  I had to punch her again before she lost consciousness.

  “Jesus, you’re an idiot,” I said. “It’s kind of astonishing, actually.”

  Yeah, so much for that not-being-a-bitch thing. Again.

  But she’d killed a really nice man. So she could keep fucking my husband. And steal my children.

  I waited there for another minute, making sure she wasn’t going to move.

  Then I leaned down.

  Still breathing, check.

  Not in any hurry to get up, check.

  Okay, time to call Dean, back home.

  I went into her kitchen and grabbed a nice fat bunch of fluffy clean tea towels, with which I applied pressure to my bleeding arm.

  Then I picked up her phone and dialed.

  55

  Dean picked up on the first ring. “Bunny?”

  “This is she,” I said.

  “Are you all right? What’s going on?”

  “Well, your girlfriend is kind of unconscious on her living room floor, and there’s a lot of blood on the carpet. Most of it mine. Also, I knocked about half her teeth out. With a fire poker.”

  “What the hell—”

  “You should probably call an ambulance and give them Setsuko’s address, but not until after you send Mimi over here for me. My arm’s going to need stitches where your little side dish slashed me with a carving knife.”

  “Bunny, slow down… what the hell happened, how did this start?”

  “Setsuko killed Cary, Dean. And tonight she tried to kill me.”

  “What?”

  “Well it turns out she was also fucking Bittler, and Cary was going to tell you. Setsuko didn’t think that would be convenient.”

  “Oh, my God.”

  “Apparently, she is also under the impression that she would be a far better wife and mother than I am. And that you would be entirely on board with her killing me so she could prove it.”

  “Are you all right?”

  “About fucking time you asked. I’m bleeding. Send Mimi over, then call nine-one-one. I’m going to hang up. I’d like to sit down for a while.”