Temporary Insanity

by Leslie Carroll

  I turned to my grandmother. “Gram?”

  “No, thank you,” she told the clerk emphatically. “Those things always crash.” The young woman looked at me, mortified that any other guests in the immediate vicinity might have heard her.

  I shrugged. “Just one person’s opinion,” I said, on the verge of laughter. Oh, how I loved my outspoken granny.

  Good thing our room was tastefully furnished. Given the décor in the public areas, I had visions of Versailles, which isn’t my style. I insisted that Gram treat herself to a bubble bath, while I called downstairs for the champagne and a snack. Then I booked a massage for each of us for tomorrow.

  “Alice, did you know that this place has a nightclub?” Gram called to me from the tub. “That’s where we’re going after the Carlin show.”

  “We are?”

  “Absolutely. It’s been years since I danced my fanny off. And maybe we’ll both meet some nice men.”

  “I hope I can stay awake long enough to go dancing,” I yelled in to her.

  “Don’t fink out on me. I’m almost three times your age and I’m raring to go!”

  And dance we did. And there Gram was, boogying with the best of them, requiring little encouragement to demonstrate her high kicks, no matter what the beat. I was terrified that in the dark and crowded disco, with the blinking strobes and drinks spilling onto the floor, she might slip and break her hip. Mercifully, my fears were unfounded.

  “I think I’ve had enough,” she said breathlessly as she returned to our little table.

  I was tremendously relieved. “So, shall we hit the hay?” I rose and offered her my arm. Gram grabbed a napkin from the table and mopped her glistening brow. “Let’s get you some air, you’re sweating.”

  We headed for the exit. “No, I’m not,” she insisted.

  “Yes, Gram, you are.” I was overtired and running a bit thin on patience.

  “Horses sweat. Ladies glow,” she grinned.

  “Gram, you’re glowing. Let’s go back to the room.”

  “Not with these quarters still in my handbag.”

  “Okay, then. We’ll each play one roll in the slots and save the other roll for tomorrow.” Note to self: Never become a parent.

  It must have been close to three A.M. when we finally went to bed. I made sure that Gram took all her medications before turning in. I’d been sleeping soundly for perhaps a little more than an hour when a strange noise awakened me. It sounded like a sorrowful whimper.

  Ghosts? It was my first semiconscious thought, no matter how ludicrous it seemed later on. I sat up in bed, my body paralyzed with terror. I’ve always feared surprising an intruder because my chest seizes up and I want to scream but nothing comes out of my mouth. It’s one of my recurring nightmares.

  I looked over at Gram’s bed. The covers were rumpled and arranged haphazardly; the bedspread had slid to the floor, where it lay in an amorphous lump of red quilted damask. The bed was empty.

  Shit. Where was she?

  She couldn’t have gone out of the room and be somewhere wandering through the maze of Taj Mahal corridors, could she? Similar incidents had happened at home a handful of times over the past couple of years. Concerned neighbors would scare the hell out of me by ringing our bell at odd hours. When I came to the door, there they stood with Gram in tow—slightly disoriented and often clothed only in her bathrobe and mules—as though they had found a stray. I was grateful that they never seemed to make judgments, referred to these nocturnal adventures other than to ask solicitously the next time we met if my grandmother was feeling okay.

  I tiptoed toward the front door, my own heartbeat echoing in my ears, and noticed light emanating from the bathroom. With visions of every bad slasher movie invading my brain, I pushed open the door in what felt like slow motion.

  She was sitting in the empty bathtub. Naked. Hugging her knees to her chest. Whimpering like a whipped puppy.

  “Gram?” I whispered.

  She looked without seeing, her eyes focusing on me without appearing to recognize who I was. “They…were coming after…me,” she cried softly.

  My heart was breaking. I knelt by the edge of the tub.

  “Who were? Who were coming after you?”

  “The purple men.”

  I shut my eyes. Maybe if I kept them closed long enough I could stave off my tears.

  “Get Alice,” Gram directed me. “She’ll know what to do.”

  “I am Alice. It’s me, Gram.”

  “Alice is my granddaughter. She’s very responsible. She handles everything. You’re not Alice,” she added, evidently amused at my error.

  Debate was clearly useless. Although I did debate with myself whether or not to ring for the house doctor. Surely there must be staff on call at a place like this.

  Gram rested her forearm on the edge of the tub and laid her cheek against it. “It was hard,” she said, her voice small and sleepy, “but I scared them away.” She looked up at me, her expression registering supreme pluck. “It really takes it out of you, though.”

  I extended my arms. “Let’s get you out of here and put you to bed.” I will never know where the strength to lift her came from. It was all a bit of a blur. But I got Gram back into bed and before I finished tucking her in, she’d fallen asleep, curled up on her side like a little girl. Then I paged through the leather-bound loose-leaf of hotel and casino information and located the extension for the house physician. I sat across from her on my bed, receiver in one hand, the other poised to dial, and watched her sleep. Her chest rose and fell with regular breaths. I didn’t phone the doctor, but sat sentinel for the remainder of the night.

  “Alice, you look terrible,” Gram exclaimed when, on waking at around ten A.M., cheerful and rested, she took one look at my sallow complexion and sunken eyes.

  “I…was up…most of the night,” I said, giving her an opportunity to allude to her bathtub escapade.

  She giggled. “We were kind of wild women, weren’t we?” She ran a hand through her matted coiffure. “I haven’t danced that much in decades!”

  Gram didn’t appear to remember a thing about what had transpired after we returned to our room. Obviously, I was worried about her and thought it might be a good idea to take an earlier bus back to New York. “Maybe we should cancel those massages,” I suggested. “Just get some breakfast and check out.”

  She reacted with mock huffiness. “As far as I’m concerned it’s still my birthday until we set foot in our own apartment again. Would you deny me that massage I was looking forward to? Besides, these bones could use it after all that bumping and grinding last night.” Her tone softened. “Is it the money, Alice? I know it was a birthday treat, but this weekend shouldn’t cost you a fortune. I’ll pay for the massages.”

  She’d misunderstood my hesitation. Another clue, to me, that she had no recollection of any impending invasion by purple men.

  I think I must have fallen asleep on the massage table, unsurprising, given that I hadn’t slept all night. I heard a phone ring in one of my dreams, but in the dream no one went to answer it, so it kept on ringing. I woke when the dream-me remarked, very put-out and annoyed, “Is anyone going to get that?” Funny thing is, the phone kept ringing.

  “Is that yours?” the masseuse asked me, kneading a particularly nasty knot out of my right scapula. She didn’t sound pleased. “Didn’t you see the sign?”

  I’d wandered into the hotel spa bleary-eyed. Read? “What sign? Ouwwooohh.” There went the knot. I was glad to part with it; it had overstayed its welcome by several weeks, taking up seemingly permanent residence in my shoulder blade.

  “The sign that says turn off all cell phones.” The masseuse handed me my purse.

  From my prostrate position on the massage table, I pulled the phone from my bag and answered it. “Hello?”

  “Alice, I’m so glad I found you!”

  Ms. Hunt. I thought I had deliberately made sure the phone was off yesterday, just to prevent such an intr
usion. Oh, wait…I’d phoned Terry to tell her about her winning bet. I must have ended the call and not turned off the phone when I saw the casino’s muscleman headed our way.

  “Alice, I left several messages for you at home this morning and when you didn’t return my calls, I thought I would try this number.”

  “This isn’t a good time, Ms. Hunt,” I groaned into the phone. “Owwwwwoh. Whoa!”

  “Alice? You sound like you’re in pain.”

  The masseuse had recommenced her sweet torture. “I am.”

  “Well, we need to talk about something very important. Would you do me a favor…”

  Another favor. Will wonders never cease?

  “…and come in to work early tomorrow. I’ll meet you there at eight-thirty sharp. Sharp. Will you be there?”

  I sighed into the phone. “Yes. I’ll be there.”

  “Your boss is a very selfish woman,” Gram observed from the table to my right, as another masseuse worked on her back. “And I don’t think she’s a very happy one.”

  We arrived home without further incident. Gram had returned to full lucidity and seemed to give all indication of remaining that way, but damn, she’d given me a scare.

  The answering machine was blinking like crazy. Ms. Hunt had filled every message unit with variations on her frantic theme of needing to speak with me right away. Our machine robotically tells us the time and date of each call. Claire Hunt’s had begun at seven-thirty in the morning. With no more wedding to plan, she’d found something else to occupy her every waking obsessive moment.

  When it became apparent to her that I must not have been around to pick up the phone, she’d launched into numerous consecutive permutations of the request she’d made when she caught me on the cell: Be at work bright and early at eight-thirty Monday morning.

  Whatever was so “very important” could wait another twelve hours. I resolved not to dwell on it. I fixed Gram a cup of tea and kept her company while she sipped it thoughtfully. “I can’t remember if I told you this yesterday,” I said to her. “It was ‘very important.’”

  She laughed. “Was it ‘happy birthday,’ by any chance?”

  I furrowed my brow. “I didn’t say that? That, too, then. What I meant was, ‘I hope you enjoyed your celebration and I love you.’”

  “You do, huh?” She gave my arm a loving squeeze accompanied by a loving-squeeze vocal effect that I couldn’t spell if I tried. “You think you’ve got a monopoly on that, young lady?”

  Chapter 14

  ARMPIT was dark when I entered the premises at exactly eight-thirty the following morning. Terry wasn’t due in for another hour, so the reception area was unlit, save for a ghostly light seeping in from the hallway by the elevator bank. The office was quiet and still, almost eerily so. Ms. Hunt was waiting for me by my desk, somewhere between leaning and perched on its rounded edge. She checked her watch as I approached and gave me a grim but satisfied look.

  “Alice, do you know the difference between dahlias and daylilies?”

  I hadn’t prepared for a horticultural quiz. I searched for an answer that my boss might find acceptable. Before I could respond, Ms. Hunt said, “In the language of flowers, dahlias represent eloquence and dignity—except for a few years during the late nineteenth century when, for some reason, they denoted instability—but that’s neither here nor there. Daylilies, on the other hand symbolize coquetry, a characterization which is singularly inappropriate for a bride on her wedding day.”

  What is she talking about?

  “Was this some form of jealous acting-out on your part, Alice? Some form of revenge?”

  “Ms. Hunt, I don’t understand where you’re going with this.”

  “Daylilies. The entire grand ballroom at the Pierre was lavishly decorated with daylilies on Saturday night. How many times did we specifically discuss that there were to be dahlias in the centerpieces, dahlias in Regina’s bouquet? They’re her favorite flower; I’m quite aware that you knew that. I’m sure the room was buzzing with shock when our guests saw daylilies everywhere.”

  I’m sure they never noticed. But that wasn’t the point. “I’m positive that we ordered dahlias, Ms. Hunt. Daylilies don’t even last. I remember several conversations with Melania San Miguel herself over the specific arrangements.” Melania San Miguel was one of New York City’s preeminent florists, known for her stunning and unusual creations, particularly for special events like weddings. However, Ms. San Miguel had a rather pronounced accent; perhaps, to her, no matter how many times I said the word “dahlias” and she repeated it, it may have sounded to her ear like “daylilies.”

  I retrieved the file copy of the contract from the desk drawer devoted to Regina Hunt’s wedding plans. No specific blooms were referred to; only the style names of the arrangements were mentioned, creations that could be crafted with several different flowers, depending on the client’s preference.

  “The error you made regarding the floral arrangements was egregious, Alice, but I could have overlooked it, had the chamber ensemble performed the pieces Regina had specifically requested. She detests the Pachelbel Canon; it makes her break out in hives, which is most unattractive for a bride in her wedding gown.”

  “We went over the list of music as well,” I told Ms. Hunt. “I can’t be held responsible if the orchestra for whatever reason decided to play something else. Maybe they misunderstood when I kept mentioning the Canon, meaning they should leave it out of their repertoire. Maybe they thought it was her favorite piece because I kept referring to it.”

  “All of this could have been avoided if you had come to the hotel on Saturday morning as I requested you to. You could have gone over every one of the last-minute instructions in detail.” Ms. Hunt sighed dramatically and shook her head. “Alice, you haven’t been putting yourself into your work lately. Not for weeks, in fact. I think you may be jealous that my daughter found a man to marry while your own relationships have been less than successful, but that’s no excuse for shirking your job responsibilities.”

  Job responsibilities? Traveling out to Jersey after work to be treated like a domestic? Expected to give up my grandmother’s birthday celebration to play wedding planner? And what’s this gratuitous snipe about my love life?

  “You have used the Association of Research Marketing and Promotion Industrial Trends as your own personal playground. I’m aware, for example, that you created a cookbook on my computer,” she said, pointing to the monitor on my desktop, “while you were on the clock.”

  I was seething. “Excuse me, but the very first week you hired me, you quite specifically told me to ‘look busy’ in order to make you look industrious in the eyes of your colleagues. I work efficiently enough to complete the few letters you give me to type in far less than one hour, let alone eight. So how was I expected to fill my workday? Like a little accomplice, I kept your cover for you!”

  She ignored me the way she had done to Regina on that sojourn to Jersey. “Hand me your keys, Alice. I’m afraid I’m going to have to let you go.”

  I was stunned, though somehow not surprised. No wonder Ms. Hunt had called this meeting so early. She didn’t want any of our co-workers to be there. She knew their fondness for me was about equal to their distaste for her.

  “I’m very disappointed in your performance, particularly since you came to me so highly recommended by your friend. I’d like you to leave right away,” she told me, “before business hours officially begin. I am not about to have you claim today on your time sheet.”

  I could feel my blood bubble up inside me, hot, spoiling for a fight. “I believe that it’s customary to give two weeks’ notice before terminating employment,” I said, trying to mask my emotion. “I am, after all, on the company’s payroll, which makes me an official employee.”

  “Even if notice were the case, and we signed no such agreement, Alice, there are extenuating circumstances here. This past week in particular, you behaved with extreme recalcitrance and displayed a cavalier
attitude toward your job, evidence enough that you no longer wished to continue working for me.”

  I fished in my purse for the office keys, which I kept tightly in my hand. “I’m going to clear out my desk now,” I said evenly, sitting down. “When I have finished, I will take my things, hand you my keys, and leave the building.”

  “I want you to leave now,” she countered firmly. “Your personal effects can be sent on to you by messenger.”

  “An expense that you would no doubt charge off against my hours,” I snapped. “By law, I am entitled to remove my own property from the premises; you’re not to touch it.”

  “Now, Alice.” C. Hunt in all her blazing fury.

  You want to play hardball, bitch?

  “Fine. I’ll just call my attorney and have him speak with you directly.”

  You don’t have an attorney, Alice.

  Whoops. Good point.

  But you know one…if you want to make the call.

  Well, they say blood is thicker than—

  Call him, kiddo. You know how much he enjoys a good fight.

  I looked at my watch. Eight forty-five. It would ruin my bluff if he weren’t yet in his office. Glaring a challenge at Ms. Hunt, I picked up the phone. I waited for it to connect. One ring. Two. Then three.

  Where the hell are you when I need you?

  “Balzer and Price law office, how may I direct your call?”

  I employed my most businesslike tone of voice. “Hello, Louise. Would you please tell Mr. Balzer that Alice Finnegan is on the line for him? It’s extremely important.”

  “Hi, Alice, how are you? We haven’t heard from you in ages. What have you been up to these days?”

  It was not the time to exchange pleasantries with the sweetly dim Louise. I could hear my uncle’s voice through the phone line barking orders at her and, for the first time in my life, welcomed it as a relief. “Who’s on the phone?” he asked Louise gruffly.

  “Alice Finnegan, sir. She said it’s important.”

  My uncle must have grabbed the receiver out of her hand. “Alice?” He sounded like General Patton, but that’s essentially the persona I needed him to play.