The Scarlet Letter Scandal

by Mary T. McCarthy

  She hadn’t spoken to her mother or father in years. Taking care of her severely handicapped brother for her entire childhood was a thankless task. Her parents worked full time and she was left with too many caretaking responsibilities. When she left home for culinary school in Washington, DC, they had unceremoniously taken him to a full-time care facility. Lisa visited him once a month, but never her parents.

  I don’t need anyone to be proud of me in order to be happy, Lisa thought now, and she glanced at her reflection in the full-length mirror hanging in the hall. She tucked a few items, including her lipstick, into a black vintage purse and set out for the restaurant.

  Ben was standing in the gorgeous lobby of the historic downtown establishment. He wore a black velvet vest that immediately made her feel less overdressed. They dined by candlelight, sharing conversation about their jobs, the loss of their spouses, their hopes for the future. As Lisa watched from their seats in the round bay window, a light snow began to fall.

  After dinner, he asked, “Would you like to go for a ride?”, taking her arm and walking her to the front door.

  Outside, a perfectly restored bright red 1963 250 GT California Modena Spyder sat glistening in the streetlights. Lisa emitted a tiny squeal. “What a gorgeous car! It looks so familiar somehow.”

  Ben laughed. “Almost like it’s famous?”

  He opened the door for her. She climbed in, and he placed a fur blanket over her legs. “I know it’s a chilly night for a ride in a topless car.”

  Ben climbed into the car and started it.

  “So where do I know this car from? Is it yours?”

  Ben laughed.

  “Well, I didn’t steal it,” he said. “Though that would’ve been appropriate, actually. I did borrow it. My brother is, well, let’s just say he’s a bit of an antique car collector. He’s in town visiting for the holidays and it took some doing but he let me use it for the evening. He bought it at auction recently. It was in a pretty famous ’80s movie that was an old favorite of his. A friend of his writes for Road and Track and stalked it for many years. Any guesses?”

  Ben drove slowly as they enjoyed the scenery—tiny white lights lined the streets of Keytown. Beautiful handmade wreaths, candles in windows of huge brick bed-and-breakfasts, and decorated shop windows lined the drive. They made their way to the beautiful ponds at Bailey Park, which was dark and empty and quiet on Christmas Eve. The streetlights reflected on the pond as sparkling snow fell into the black water.

  “Hmmm,” said Lisa. “Maggie would kill me for not knowing this.

  “Pretty in Pink?” Lisa guessed. “Where he comes to get her after her sister’s wedding? Or something?”

  “Oh geez,” said Ben. “Well, you’re in the right wheelhouse with the John Hughes films, but if your friend Maggie is a fan? You’d be in pretty big trouble.”

  The iconic car stopped at the covered bridge, which was closed for renovation. Huge tarps covered the work area.

  Lisa had a puzzled expression on her face as she let Ben open the car door to let her out. Ben walked Lisa around to the front of the car, with its cat-eye headlights and chrome detailing, pointing out a tiny dent in the front grille.

  “That’s a clue,” said Ben. “It was left there on purpose during the car’s restoration.”

  “I give up,” said Lisa, taking the blanket out of the car to wrap around her slight frame. “Wait! Sixteen Candles! Because the sister’s wedding was on her birthday. What are we doing here, anyway?”

  Ben led her by the hand to the bridge, where he lifted one side of the tarp. She couldn’t believe her eyes. A huge black iron standing candelabra stood in the center of the bridge, holding enormous white pillar candles. Care had been taken to place tarps under the candles as wax freely dripped in the winter breeze. Ben walked over to an extension cord and flipped a switch. The entire bridge lit up with tiny white lights. A small heater hummed to life, radiating warmth toward them. It was a true winter wonderland through the sides of the bridge that opened to a snowy view of the stream beneath.

  “‘Life moves pretty fast,’” said Ben. “‘If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.’”

  “How…?” Lisa began.

  “Well, the bridge isn’t really closed,” said Ben, grinning. He pressed a button on his phone, and soft piano music played: a Christmas tune, Lisa couldn’t think of the name. “I just knew a guy who was willing to let me close it for a few hours. I thought maybe it was time to make an honest woman out of you.”

  Lisa laughed. The lie about being under this very bridge had given her an admission pass to the Scarlet Letter Society when she hadn’t honestly earned it.

  He pulled her close to him. She was shivering a bit, but somehow the cold didn’t bother her as she let herself feel the warmth of his embrace, breathed in the smell of his spicy cologne, and saw the sweetness and the desire in his eyes.

  “Can we finish that kiss we started so long ago?” Ben asked Lisa.

  “Please,” said Lisa.

  He reached down and took her face into his hands, wrapping them around her beautiful, delicate neck to pull her closer. At first, Lisa’s inner voice dictated that there was no way in a hundred years she’d get caught out here in a public place on Christmas Eve with a man. But she soon forgot all about all that.

  They kissed passionately, their physical and emotional excitement growing as they were finally able to make the fantasy of being together a reality. The warmth of their bodies entwined in one another was enough; they held on tightly. Ben had placed a quilted blanket over the wooden edge of the bridge. He lifted Lisa’s small frame and placed her there, admiring the view of her red dress against the black of the night and the falling white snow. The candlelight reflected in her chocolate brown eyes.

  “You’re beautiful,” he said.

  She returned the compliment with another kiss. Though there weren’t any passersby, the view from upstream would simply have been of a woman in a red dress sitting on the edge of the bridge, a man’s arms around her. But as their passion grew and she felt the outline of his arousal, the minimum amount of clothing was cast aside, and Ben made love to Lisa for the first time, both of them reaching brilliant climaxes as they stifled their cries. The lovemaking was so intense that Lisa found a tear had slid down her face; maybe from the cold, maybe from the sheer emotional release she never remembered feeling before.

  “Thank you for this night,” said Lisa. “It’s officially my favorite Christmas Eve, ever.”

  “Mine too,” said Ben. He lifted her back to standing and wrapped the quilt over her legs.

  “Merry Christmas, Ben,” said Lisa.

  “Merry Christmas, Lisa,” said Ben, taking her into his arms for another embrace. “I’m glad we’re sharing it together.”

  “Oh my God!” Lisa exclaimed. “Ferris Bueller!”

  Ben laughed. “Maggie will be proud.”

  “Oh yes,” said Lisa. “Maggie will be very proud.”

  The New Year’s Eve toga party at Rocks was in full swing. Kellie and Brandon had debated cancelling it in light of all the recent publicity but decided against it. This was their home and their business, and they weren’t going to be intimidated by the newspapers or the police. Now that the newspaper had outed Rachel, she’d scarcely been seen around town or the neighborhood. Kellie hadn’t heard from her despite having texted her a few times and didn’t even know if Rachel had gone back to work after the splashy story had revealed her identity as the Keytown Mouse.

  Brandon and Kellie had been shocked at first, but then after discussing it, had decided it really wasn’t all that surprising that Rachel was the blogger. It had to be someone, Brandon had said, and Kellie agreed it had to be someone they knew. She was disappointed because she really thought she and Rachel were friends.

  But hell, Kellie thought, who the hell knows who your real friends are in the suburbs?

  She looked around at the partygoers. Most were club regulars, just ha
ving drinks, watching the latest pole dancer (some trick in a toga!), taking turns retreating to private rooms. Brandon had gone into a room with a neighbor dressed as Cleopatra and her date, a woman dressed as Napoleon. They’d invited Kellie, but she told Brandon she’d wait out here and tend bar for a bit.

  The truth was that she was waiting for the Phantom. She knew he’d be there, he had to be. They’d caught glances of each other across the way but she still knew nothing about him. He seemed to be the perfect secret; his life a complete mystery to her. She wanted to talk to him, find out who he was, get his phone number so they could text, and well, so they could set up times to fuck each other so she wasn’t constantly running to the window to see if he was there. Kellie didn’t think of herself as being completely preoccupied with him, but she did think of herself as being massively, overwhelmingly curious.

  Kellie was wearing a very short, tightly wrapped cream-colored silk sheet that she’d fashioned into a toga and tied with a thick gold sash. She’d also created a halo of ivy and gold leaves for her long hair, which was piled on top of her head in ombré curls that descended in ringlets. She’d spent extra time perfecting the black cat-eye makeup, not to mention how long it took to find the gold stilettos with straps that wound around her calves, ascending nearly to her knees. Her very chunky gold jewelry completed the outfit. She stood at the bar sipping a vodka and cranberry, swinging her hips in time with “Jam On It” by Newcleus and inadvertently watching the door.

  She looked around at everyone having fun and grabbing one another and dancing and she realized she was bored. What an odd feeling, boredom, she thought. How is it boring to be in this room, filled with so much sexual energy and excitement and fun?

  A woman she recognized from back in her yoga days approached her.

  “Just wanted to thank you for doing this,” said the red-toga-clad woman, her eyes painted heavily with glittery copper eye shadow. Her long black straight hair and dark red lipstick were striking against her pale skin.

  “Doing what, the party?” said Kellie, smiling as she tried to remember the woman’s name; she wasn’t a regular. Customer service. “It’s my pleasure. It’s what we do!”

  “It’s just been so nice to have a place to come where I don’t feel like a freak for having the passions I do,” said the woman, who was there with a man and another woman who were currently making out on the dance floor as if “Jam On It” was a slow song. “Well, Superman looked up at me, he said ‘you rock so naturally…’”

  Kellie focused all of her energy on not trying to see the door behind her. She was determined to discover the identity of the Phantom if he walked in; she knew she’d know him.

  “You’re welcome,” said Kellie, placing a smile back on her face once again. “I really wanted this to be a place where people could be free from the limits our society places on sexuality.”

  The woman smiled. “That’s why we’re all here, isn’t it?” She reached out and slid a perfectly manicured red fingernail down Kellie’s bare arm, sending a shiver up her spine. “Now come on and dance with us!”

  Kellie followed her to the dance floor like it was an obligation, joining the others and rocking to the old-school beat. The woman was hot, no doubt about it, Kellie thought, trying to forget about the door. But even as the woman reached over to kiss her and Kellie let her, she thought, I want something more. What is it?

  Brandon walked out of the Vault with the two satisfied-looking women who headed to the bar. He looked up at Kellie, happy to see she was on the dance floor making out with that hot, black-haired girl, and then returned his attention to his phone, where he was answering a text. He served drinks to Cleopatra and Napoleon and then reached down and took a small bottle of pills from a hiding spot behind the martini shakers and headed toward the back door. Kellie caught a glance of Brandon heading out the door as she took a breath from the advances of the horny woman, who had just asked if she’d like to join her and her friends in the “Eyes Wide Shut” room.

  “You get started in there,” Kellie said. “I will join you in just a few minutes, I need to make a pit stop.”

  She wondered where Brandon went, and opened the back door to walk up the cellar steps. Holding onto the railing to steady her sky-high heels, just as her ringlet-topped ivy leaf crown ascended ground level, her eyes widened to take in the chaos around her. There were flashing siren lights on the road, five or six uniformed officers around the yard, and one of them was putting handcuffs on Brandon and—who was that woman in the dark coat—Oh my God, it’s Rachel.

  As one of the police officers put handcuffs on Rachel, a bottle of pills fell to the ground. Kellie looked at Brandon, who looked apologetically at her as he was forcefully shoved toward a police car.

  “What is happening?” said Kellie.

  A tall uniformed officer who was clearly in charge approached her. Kellie read the “CHIEF” badge from his uniform, bedecked as it was with brass bars and buttons.

  “I’m sorry, ma’am,” said the police chief. “My name is Christopher Linden, and I am the Keytown police chief. We have a search warrant for your property and we have arrested your—arrested Mr. Brandon Jeffries on charges of selling prescription drugs illegally. I need to ask you to come down to the station for questioning.”

  “Am I under arrest?” asked Kellie, her heart racing. “Are you coming inside? I’m having a private party.”

  “You are suspected of operating a sex trafficking venture,” said the police chief. “But we are not placing you under arrest at the moment. I am just asking you to come downtown and talk right now. We will give you an opportunity to contact a lawyer. Please come with me.”

  Kellie followed him blindly as he took her arm gently, watching as the other officers descended the stairs toward the small club. She wondered what would happen to the partygoers.

  “Will the people at the party be arrested?” she asked the police chief. As he opened the back door, he handed her a wool blanket. She was shivering in the cold winter air.

  “No, ma’am,” the chief responded. “We are only doing a property search for the illegal prescription drugs right now.”

  She took the blanket and wrapped it around herself, watching the other police cars’ lights as they headed out of the neighborhood. As they drove in silence, the chief’s piercing green eyes looking in the rearview mirror to check on her occasionally, Kellie was terrified. This had been her fear for months, and now it was happening.

  When they arrived at the police station, the chief patiently waited for her to get out of the car, her heels making it difficult to balance while she held the blanket wrapped tightly around her. He took her elbow, steadying her to make the ascension of the large stone steps to the old brick building.

  He brought Kellie to a white interrogation room furnished with only a wooden table and two wooden chairs. A large mirror hung on the wall. Though she had never been inside a police station in her life, she assumed it was a two-way mirror. She felt ridiculous wearing a slutty toga outfit and exaggerated Cleopatra-style makeup. She sat, waiting for him to do the same.

  “I need to check on the processing of Brandon Jeffries and Rachel Tisler,” said Chief Linden. “I will be back with you in just a few minutes.”

  Kellie’s instinct was to pick up her phone, but she didn’t have her purse or her phone. Who would she call, anyway? Her mother in East Lansing, Michigan? She hadn’t talked to her in years. Brandon knew the lawyer from the club, so Kellie knew he’d call him. How stupid of him, Kellie thought, for getting busted! And of course it had been over Rachel.

  She had never felt so alone. She couldn’t believe that seemingly moments before she had been feeling bored. She wondered if she’d get arrested or thrown in jail. She didn’t have any money for an attorney, so that was out. After what seemed like an hour, though she had no sense of time, the police chief entered the room.

  He sat down across from Kellie.

  “Though you haven’t been arrested, you do have
a right to contact an attorney if you’d like,” said the chief. “I’m just asking for five minutes of your time first, if it’s okay with you.” He looked at her sympathetically.

  She was in a daze. “I don’t have money for an attorney,” she said. “And my life seems to have fallen apart, so I don’t really have any place else to be at the moment.”

  “Just to fill you in, your fiancé, Brandon, has contacted both an attorney and his parents in New York,” said Chief Christopher Linden. “They posted bail and are coming to pick him up. His trial will be scheduled at a later time.”

  “Ex-fiancé. How wonderful for him,” Kellie said absently. “And I don’t give a shit what happens to Rachel.”

  “Her charges are pending,” said the chief. “And another one of your neighbors is here too, by the way. Your fearless leader, the homeowners association president, Chaz Appleton, has been arrested on charges of embezzlement. He didn’t quite make it to the party on time tonight. He’s in the room next door, wearing a toga and asking for a lawyer.”

  “Not shocking,” said Kellie. Nothing could surprise her at this point.

  He looked at Kellie. She returned his glance because he had fallen silent. Those piercing green eyes. Had she seen them before? And ever since they’d been in the car together she thought his smell was somehow familiar…that cologne…

  He blinked, smiling at her.

  “And what is to become of me?” asked Kellie. There was no way…

  “That depends,” said the gorgeous police chief. He stood up, reaching behind him and removing something that had been tucked into his waistline, under his shirt and beneath his leather gun holster. “On what you want to happen to you.”