Dan parked behind Becca’s car and got out. He jogged to the house. The front door was closed. Everything looked all right. He would just pick her up and go. He wished he’d said something to Max and Kate about bunking at their place. It seemed a shitty thing to spring on them in the middle of the night. On the other hand, everyone was in good spirits. It wouldn’t be a problem.
The door was unlocked. Becca’s purse was hung on the banister. Her shoes were kicked off and in an untidy pile in the middle of the floor. He nudged them aside with his foot so that he didn’t step on them.
“Becca?” he called up the stairs. “Big news, babe! Big news! Your man, he da man!” he called up, and his voice echoed back to him, then eerie silence.
His stomach tightened. “Becca?” he called, louder. And listened.
Quietly, weakly, came the reply.“Dan?” she said. It sounded like she was crying. “I’m in here.” Where? The sound came from everywhere.
Oh, fuck.He leaned back against the door.Fuck. Fuck. He stuck the heels of his hands into his eyes and pressed. His body shuddered. Sweat began to trickle under his arms, the hairs on the back of his neck shot up, tightening the skin there, his scalp seemed to shrink.
“Becca?” he tried again. “Where are you?”
In answer, music blasted out at him, so loud he cringed against it. She was in the studio. Of course.
“Becca!” he called, trying to sound strong. “I’m coming!”
His knees shook. He clenched his hands into fists.How bad could it be? Maybe the door was just stuck. She went in there, maybe, to take a look at his stuff or something, and she couldn’t get the door open. It had happened before. She got stuck in there, maybe for an hour, maybe since after work. She knew he was out. She was frightened. Thought she would be stuck in there all night. That was probably what it was. Door was stuck.
He didn’t know who that was in the room. But he didn’t think it could hurt her. He walked the hall. The music drowned out most of his thoughts.
The door was closed. He turned the knob. The moment he touched the door, the music cut out suddenly, in the middle of a word as though the singer had been gagged.
—the slickest friend you ev—
What replaced it was much worse. A voice, a whisper, breathy and girlish, came not from the room, but from everywhere, as though the walls were breathing it into his ear.
Stay with me. Stay with me. Stay with me.From the hall, and upstairs, and the stairwell. The kitchen. Outside.
He shook the door and it trembled. “Becca!” he yelled, pressing his mouth and ear close to the door. He could hear fumblings inside. A groan.
“BECCA!”he screamed. He backed up and threw his body against the door. It shook but did not open. He rattled the knob again, frantically, all the while calling his wife’s name. He was coming. He was going to break the door. He was coming.
He shook it, twisted it. Kicked. Backed up and kicked.
“Let me in!” he shouted. And the door swung open.
Stay with me. Stay with me. Stay with me.
Becca stood in the farthest corner of the room, her face twisted in a sob, cheeks smeared with tears and makeup. Her jacket was unbuttoned and he could see her bra. She was shoeless. She stumbled toward him, reaching out.
He went to her. “Oh, baby—it’s okay. I’m here…” he mumbled. She fell into his arms, a groan of relief came out of her mouth. He rubbed her back, tangled his fingers into her hair. She sobbed against him.
“’Sokay. ’Sokay. I’m here.”
“Stay with me,” she said.
He started, grabbed her shoulders to pull her away from him, see her face. Her fingers curled into claws and dug into the flesh of his neck. He howled in pain and pulled her roughly away from him, reaching under her, between them, and pushing, the polemic issue of his wife and what might not be his wife fighting his pressure. He didn’t want to hurt her.
He forced her from him and her face twisted again into tears. “Dan!” she cried. He let go, uncertain. Becca fell to the floor. Beside him, there was movement.
He turned his head. The bed was down. Had it been down? Becca stumbled to her feet in front of him. She grabbed at him. “Dan!” she cried again.
“Hello, big fella,”came the voice, coquettish from behind his wife.
The woman stood against the back wall. She wore a dress. The front if it was rent with jagged rips, as though torn off and put back on. Through the holes he could see her flesh. Becca pulled herself to her feet.
“Get me out of here!” she screamed, and pushed past him. He grabbed at her and the two of them staggered out into the hall. Becca was screaming and crying alternately, hysterical. They lurched their way to the door, hanging on to each other. Heels clicked on the floor behind them, above them, in front of them.
Becca sobbed.
Stay with me,the voice came distinctly from behind him and Dan turned his head to look. Maggie stood behind him, her arms outstretched. Her face was wrenched into the saddest expression of longing. Her arms reached for him. Like a waif. Please.
Stay with me.He paused. Becca yanked on him.
“Let’s get out of here!” she cried. He couldn’t move. She pulled on his arm. “Dan!” she screamed. She called from a distance, as though her voice were at the other end of a tunnel. Dan tried to pull his eyes away from her.
Please.
“Please,” he repeated dully.
The front door flew open. Sunlight poured in, splashing on the floor of the hall. Becca shrieked and stumbled toward it, letting go of Dan. At the threshold she turned and screamed at him to come. She tumbled out, bending at the waist, she screamed, no words, just a long shriek.
The door slammed shut.
Maggie smiled, softly, her bottom lip trembling appealingly. Dan’s body turned full toward her. He was unable to stop it. She was so beautiful. Under the terrible tears of her dress, her breasts quivered prettily, with fear or promise. A strip of fabric, hardly held to the rest of the dress, clung to the soft curve of her hip. Her throat was long. Her head tilted back. Her skin was white and smooth.
Sweat gathered on his upper lip. His eyes closed for just a moment. Heat swelled in his belly. From far, far away, he heard the sounds of the house. Someone lay on a mattress that squeaked. The attic hatch closed.
From outside, his wife called his name. All very far away.
Maggie lowered her arms. She backed away. Dan followed—the lure of her already ruling his body. He followed her into the little room under the stairs. Enticed. Beguiled. Bewitched.
The door swung closed behind them.
Stay with me.
On the bed then. He pressed himself to her. Pressed his penis, hard with wanting, against her soft belly. She opened her mouth to receive his kiss. Her tongue found his. His arms wrapped themselves around her back, he felt the knobs of her spine through the thin, torn fabric of her dress. It was wet. He buried his head in her neck. Tasted her. Tasted copper.
He pulled away from her.
Everywhere, she was torn and rent. Her throat was a gaping wound. He was soaked through with her blood. He pulled his hands away from her body, his mouth still hanging open, wider now, from her kiss. He looked down. He was covered in her.
When his eyes reached up to hers, she enveloped him. His throat gagged with the taste of her until he couldn’t breathe. His heart thudded mercilessly for a while, then became erratic. She was in him. She was of him.
Stay with me.
Becca stood on the steps for a long time. She leaned against the front door, which would not open. Her screams had brought neighbors. Someone said the police were coming. She heard these things outside herself. Her ear was pressed to the door.
Inside, the same song played over and over. Something old. Jazzy.
After you’ve gone, and left me crying
After you’ve gone, there’s no denying
You’ll feel blue, you’ll feel baaaad
You’ve lost the slickest friend you
ever haaad.
After you’ve gone.
After you’ve gone awaaay.
Glenn
One
A roll of laughter overtook conversation for a moment as Gavin held up a full-sized garden spade on which someone had painted the words BETTERGETSTARTED! Under that wasHAPPY RETIREMENT !
Elsie leaned into Glenn and said, “Is that supposed to be for gardening, or digging his own grave?”
“Oh, I think Helen started digging his grave the minute she heard he was retiring.” Glenn smiled.
“Or her own.” The two of them laughed. Glenn had a bit of cake left on her plate and decided against eating any more of it. It wasn’t sitting well. She tucked the plate and the napkin into her hand behind a photo of Gavin and his dog, Trigger. She smiled wryly at the photo. Trigger wasn’t going to know what hit him.
Gavin Edwards was retiring at sixty (the office joke was that his toupee was also retiring—sometime next year,ba-boom). He was hanging up his pager, as he put it, to spend a few years enjoying his garden, dog and wife (in that order, he said,ba-boom ) before he forgot what to call them. There had been a mumbling of reassurance when he said that, but he raised his hand for quiet. “I’ve put in a lot of years, a lot of miles, and it’s time to spend some time in myown house.”
She tried to listen to the speeches. Boss Paul was making some crack about how 50 percent of all listings came from divorces, and the leading cause of divorce after fifty was retirement.
“I guess I just want to say that, as an old friend, I hope Helen will list the house with Shelter Realty,” he finished somberly, to great amusement.
Elsie leaned into Glenn and clucked. “Not very funny, if you think of the truth of it,” she whispered. Glenn nodded in acknowledgment, if not agreement. Elsie was the very voice of the disapproving (and shrinking) middle class. Who was Glenn to disagree?
There were more speeches, few as amusing, and then the last act of a realtor, the distribution of Gavin’s current listings. It was turned into a game. Gavin gave each listing a sales pitch and then a realtor’s name was drawn from a hat. There were fourteen agents and only six listings.
“A beautiful bungalow on lovely picturesque Waymar Avenue in the faltering but-never-giving-up west end. Only six miles from the river! Four bedrooms! Close to bus, school and train yard. A self-seller! Stand around and watch her go! And the listing goes to—” John Peterson did an impromptu drumroll on the desk and everyone laughed.
Merle got the listing on the draw. “How long have you had this?” she asked with a frown.
Gavin shrugged. “Long enough to know the lonely divorcée vendor will not be pleased with her new girl realtor. Good luck, darling!” More laughter.
Carl Wall got the next listing. A two-bedroom condo that really would sell itself. Merle groaned and offered to trade.
“Now as you know,” Gavin moved on, “I shouldn’t have been on the rotation this week, but our next rotation, Benji, has broken his leg and is using that as an excuse to get in a little more golfing.” Everyone laughed. “Mark my words, he’ll be back in here next week, tanned and looking fit and relaxed with a plastic cast on his foot, with ‘Made in China’ stamped on the bottom.” He raised his hand against more laughter and wondered what people were going to do for laughs once he was gone.
Tom called out. “I’m next on the rotation for ‘class clown,’” he said.
“Enough, you people. As I was saying. I decided to take the rotation that came in this morning—should have been Benji’s, too bad for him, and raffle it off in this afternoon’s festivities. So here it is: an old, familiar favorite.” Everyone groaned. “A peace of a house, a plum of a listing, a piece of cake—I’m getting hungry—a three-bedroom plus, two-story, landscaped, hardwood throughout, many unique features, on—don’t take it too hard, Glenn darling—Belisle, in the near heart of the city, and the listing goes to—”
Glenn frowned at him, drawing a blank for just a moment and then(Belisle) smiling at the reference. Gavin pulled a little piece of paper out of the hat and grinned when he read the name. “Well, what a surprise. Ms. Glenn Darnley!” He laughed and held out the stats sheet for her. She held her frown as she came forward to get it.
“You remember how to get there, dear?” he said.
She smiled sportingly and glanced quickly down at the address: 362 Belisle. “You’re kidding,” she said. “It’s the same house.”
Gavin nodded. He leaned in and gave her a wink. “I’ll tell you all about it when I’m done here.”
Glenn walked back to lean against Gavin’s desk. She quickly looked over the details on the sheet, thinking it had to be a mistake.I just sold it. When was that? She couldn’t seem to pull it out of memory exactly. Not long. Late spring.
I just sold it.
A notation at the bottom, photocopied but legible, said, “Selling due to death in the family.”
Oh, my.
It went on like that, the listings getting better and more exciting, saving the best for last. Glenn was anxious for it all to be over.
Then itwas over and Gavin was shaking hands and someone was passing out champagne to toast him. Glenn took a glass and a polite, single sip, no more than required for form’s sake. She didn’t think her head could handle the sweet, thick, cheap champagne.
When people started making their way into little groups and chatting, Glenn walked over to Gavin to congratulate him. He shook her hand, his grin nearly bursting.
“Can’t wait to get the hell out of here,” he said. “I got a golf date tomorrow morning at eight. With any kind of luck I can squeeze in a nap before dinner. Hey, Helen’s got a little ‘do’ planned for the twenty-second. Can you make it?”
Glenn smiled warmly. “I’d love to. Shall I bring something?”
“Just bring yourself,” he said affectionately. “And yourbathing costume, of course.”
Glenn snorted. “You won’t get me in a bathing costume, orsuit, either, but I’ll bring a lovely bunch of roses for the table.” The roses weren’t doing so well in the garden. She would have to pick some up and lie.
“I’m awfully curious, Gavin,” she said. “What’s going on with the house on Belisle?”
Gavin’s eyes widened. “The fellow. The husband. Mason? He died.” Glenn shook her head.
“Just dreadful,” she said. “I can’t believe it. They’re soyoung.” Gavin seemed near bursting with some kind of news, but Glenn didn’t notice. “Was it a heart attack?” she asked suddenly, thinking of Howard.
“Uh-uh,” he said cryptically.
“What, then?” Car wreck. Cancer. There were so many terrible ways to die young.
Gavin leaned in and whispered with careful enunciation, as though he didn’t want to get it wrong, “Autoerotic asphyxiation.”
“What?”
“No kidding,” he said. “The guy choked to death while—how do you say?Pleasuring himself? Is that the love that dare not speak its name? Or is that something else?” he asked, frowning.
“Something else. And we don’t call it that anymore.” She gazed past him.
“Uh, yeah. That’s right. Anyway, autoerotic asphyxiation is when you choke to death doing that. Self-damage, as my dear mother used to say. Not to my face, of course.”
“I knowwhat it is,” she said. “I’m just…shocked, I suppose. My goodness.” She grimaced. The image of such things rose and was quickly quelled in her head. “Terrible thing for his wife.”
Gavin said, “Oh, yeah. She found him. In that little room under the stairs.” He shook his head in disapproval. “Why couldn’t he just take it to the bathroom like the rest of us.”
“Gavin!”
He patted her arm. “Don’t forget about the twenty-second,” he said, and wandered off toward Merle and Paul.
Glenn found the package in her briefcase, under a heavy stack of current and pending listings. How could she have forgotten? A large brown manila envelope. It was addressed by hand, the address,362 Belisle, wr
itten smaller and in a different ink than the larger,Dan and Rebecca Mason. Their names(that poor woman) had been centered across the middle of the envelope, throwing off the balance of the rest of the address. Inside, as she recalled, was the various paperwork that had come with the house, forgotten in the process of the transaction. Receipts from the renovation, the letter from the bank, descriptions of the work done on the house and the names of various contractors, etc.
The details were vague but, for whatever reason, she hadn’t delivered the letter. She did remember coming across the envelope in her briefcase later and addressing it. The postage was already on the package. She’d never mailed it.
It was strange of her to be so forgetful. She was usually so efficient. And now this. The package felt electrically charged and cumbersome in her hand, as though there was a connection to it all, a series of ripples in the universe. Absurd, but there, lurking; small.
Terrible to think of it, but the whole thing had likely just slipped her mind because, at the time, the house was sold, it was a completed deal bymonths, and in all truth, it simply wasn’t her house any longer.
It isn’t mine now.She opened her bottom drawer and stuck the envelope into an empty slot in the hanging files for the new (next) owner.
The car turned quite naturally down Gibbons and Lane Drive. She stopped at the stop sign on Gibbons and smiled at a little girl riding her tricycle on the sidewalk. The little girl’s eyes followed the car unsmilingly as it went through the intersection.Probably thinks I’m a stranger. She pulled onto Belisle and slowed the car, leaning forward so that her head was nearly touching the steering wheel, taking her eyes off the road at intervals to search for the house.
She checked numbers, although it was unnecessary: 372, 370, 368.
Scaffolding veiled a house of similar construction on the south side. It was being painted; the upper half was complete, the white so clean and bright she could smell the paint through the closed windows, by suggestion only. They’d trimmed it in a deep, rich green. Very nice. Big windows. Excellent curb appeal. People didn’t realize what a difference the little things made.
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