by Paloma Meir
We kept the original bones of the crumbly two-story building, which even I could see wasn’t worth keeping, and rebuilt it with quality materials. Gorgeous reclaimed wood, shiny steel beams with sweeping windows that spanned the front of the superstructure.
What was once a barren front yard, was filled with a maze of tunneled play structures. The modest backyard was a vegetable garden with towering stalks of corn. At our first Halloween we turned into a haunted garden.
The afterschool center opened at noon for the kindergarten class that got out early. We stayed opened until 9:00 for the few parents that worked late shifts. Our staff was top-tier and well paid by my inheritance from the man who took a special dislike to this particular community.
Never would the thought of that not make me laugh.
I named the comprehensive afterschool center J.A.C.K. It was difficult to turn his name into an acronym, so don’t laugh, dear reader. J.A.C.K stood for Juvenile Activity Center of Knowledge. If you can come up with a better one, please feel free to send me an email. I would love to change it to something more dignified.
Mila and I spent our time at the center overseeing the day-to-day operations. I was thinking of going back to school to get a masters degree in child development. I had definitely found the passion for work that I had worried would elude me in life.
Mila and I would go home to our rental house in the foothills of Studio City at the end of the long days. Jack and Mr. Galloway would greet us from the urns their earthly remains were contained in. I’m joking, they didn’t greet us, I would greet them.
Their eternal jars were from Tiffany’s. I thought they would like that. They were firmly affixed on the ledge above the fireplace with industrial grade earthquake putty. The shaking earth would not be disturbing my two friends.
Living with a corpse for months on end, can warp your senses. I did feel their spirits around me, and I know Mila did too. She would take her catnaps on the tiny space on the shelf next to Mr. Galloway.
I sent all the remaining pre-Colombian bowls back to their respective home countries. They were scattered through museums throughout Latin and South America. Most of them were in Peru. Maybe one day I would take a vacation again and visit them all.
I sensed my parents would be proud of me. This brought me great comfort. My life had meaning and was lived in service of others.
You know what though? It wasn’t enough. I was tremendously lonely and thought about Landon all the time. If the price for everything I had was him… I didn’t know if it was worth it.
There wasn’t anything I could do about it. What kind of man would want to be with a woman who had done the things I had done? In some ways, living with a carefully packed dead body was the least of my bad decisions.
“Esme,” Eloise, my assistant knocked on the door of my office in the J.A.C.K. center, “Somebody is here to see you.”
My name was legally Esmeralda, but everyone called me Esme. Did Mr. Galloway really think it would be any different? Such a funny man. Such a silly victory for him.
“Send them in.” I sat up high in my chair expecting to see one of the parent’s of the children in my care come through the door. It was not one of the parents.
It was Landon.
I jumped up out of my seat and banged my leg very hard on the desk in the process. The pure joy in seeing him again blocked out the pain. I felt as if I were floating.
“Landon,” I squealed in a higher tone than my voice had ever reached before.
“Esme… I’ve missed you… You’re absolutely nuts, and I missed you.”
I hobbled around my desk at lightening speed and threw myself into his arms, “I’m not nuts anymore… All better now, no more dead bodies hiding in sheds. I’ve missed you so much too.” I clung to him and he returned my heartfelt embrace.
“Can you keep it that way?”
“Yes.”
“Can you accept that not all of “my kind” doesn’t see you as lazy or a criminal or whatever you said that day?”
“I can accept that not all of your kind see my people that way, but some do.” I wanted to hit myself in the head for not just agreeing with him. No, that would have been wrong. I never wanted to lie to Landon ever again.
“Okay, I can deal with that. Is there anything about me you would like address right now before we go any further?”
“No, you’re the perfect man.”
“Pretty close to perfect,” He laughed, “But not perfect. Do you think you’re capable of addressing any problems we may have in the future head on and not metaphorically burying them, or in your case literally burying them?”
“I’m never going to live that down, am I?” I laughed, which felt dark and wrong. I couldn’t help it, sorry, dear reader.
“Not for awhile…” He kissed the top of my head, “Is that okay with you?”
“Do I have a choice? Don’t answer that. The answer is yes, a little teasing isn’t going to hurt me. That’s all it will be, right?”
“Yes,” He released me from his arms and looked lovingly into my eyes, “Well then, I think it’s time we start the business of spending the rest of our lives together.”
“Oh, Landon…” I sighed heavily, never more happy.
“I love you, Esme.”
“I love you, Landon.”
And we lived happily ever after.
About the Author
Paloma Meir lives with her family by the beach in Los Angeles. When she's not taking long walks she likes to writes sordid and tortured stories of people in love. You can find out more about her on her blog www.palomameir.com. She loves her family, writing books, reading books, dresses and Twitter.
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Chapter One
It was Faye’s birthday. She was feeling generous. She liked to feed the traveling youth that gathered in front of the convenience store not far from home by the beach in Venice. She would pass out sandwiches and orange juice to the malnourished drifters. Left to their own they would choose to survive on a diet of chips and sports drinks. It didn’t seem healthy to her.
The gathering of kids shouted out their hellos. They morphed into new groupings over time but there was always a straggler who recognized her and would alert the others to Faye being a soft touch. She didn’t mind. They were her daily good deed. Maybe it was selfish. She would go to the store to buy cigarettes. Part of her felt that this act of charity inoculated her from the dangers of the secret habit. The secret habit that was ending that day.
“Hey Faye,” A dread locked boy with a guitar in hand sang out to her. She didn’t know his name. She tried not to get too attached. The travelers aimlessly roamed around the country and she would sometimes hear of their sad fates. “Roast beef would be good today.” He smiled brightly to her and she couldn’t help but return the expression.
“Vegetables would be better…” She counted up the kids as she entered the store, five boys and one girl. There were never many girls, and she did worry about their safety, but she admired their spirit all the same.
She opened the refrigerated compartment and randomly grabbed five sandwiches, making a small effort to find one made with roast beef. Hands full, she dropped them off at the counter and returned to get the kids a selection of fruits and juice. Back at the checkout to pay, she spied a shelf of donuts and chips.
She rolled her eyes to herself and took the bags and packages off the shelf and placed them on the piled up counter. She knew they would eat the junk food first and spoil their appetites for the healthier food. But it was her birthday, and she was in a generous mood.
“Cigarettes?” The counterman shyly asked. He had been working in the shop for the previous ten years a
nd saw Faye daily but still couldn’t make eye contact with the comely, friendly woman.
“Yes,” She tilted her head down and looked up, forcing him to catch her eye. He turned bright red and covered his mouth with his hand, reminding Faye of her daughters when they were small children, “Six lottery tickets too.” She thought the kids outside might like that.
The man standing behind her in line let out a heavy sigh at the amount of time her transaction was taking. She turned to him, a smile plastered on her face and apologized. She wasn’t really sorry, but she liked to see the embarrassed reaction impatient people expressed when caught in their moment of rudeness.
He opened his eyes wide in something close to terror as she laughed to console him. It was the little things in life that made it fun for her.
“64.80,” The counterman said.
“I meant the scratch tickets.” She said as she fished the credit card from her handbag and saw he was handing her quick pick number slips. She knew the kids would lose the quick pick tickets before the drawing.
“Okay, let me get the manager to void these ones.”
“Oh, that’s okay I’ll keep those… but six scratch tickets please.” She didn’t want to hold up the impatient man behind her any further.
“Thank you… Bye.” She said with a friendly wave of her hand as she exited the store.
She passed out the food and lottery tickets to the kids and continued on her way home to the sound of a jaunty improvised song of gratitude from them. It was very sweet, and she thought for a moment of going back and telling them that it was her birthday. She wanted to hear them sing the birthday song in their folksy way. She didn’t turn around because turning forty-five wasn’t something she particularly wanted to celebrate.
She glanced down at the tickets held firmly in her hand as she opened the door to her house and noticed her birth month and day on one of them. That’s fun, she thought to herself as she dropped the tickets on the computer desk in the family room before heading outside to her secret smoking area beneath the Magnolia tree in her backyard.
The scent of the tree’s blossoms reminded Faye of her daughters who were away at school. They had loved the tree when they were little, playing in it all day long, coming back into the house covered in the sweet odor. She responded to their birthday greeting texts as she inhaled deeply on her cigarette and put the lottery tickets out of my mind.
Chapter Two
Faye's husband, Adam, came into the family room, lounged into their overstuffed sofa and turned on the television. She withheld her inner protest at the interruption and concentrated on the computer screen in front of her. The accounting software she had opened baffled her and required full concentration. Adam was aware of this.
“Could you be a dear and–"
“Car chase… in a minute.” Adam’s voice held a trace of his boyhood Croatian accent. The melodic tone never failed to make Faye’s heart flutter.
“Okay…” She never understood why their whole city shut down to view the chases that always ended in the same way. “That’s Los Angeles for you,” she muttered to herself. She stared at the numbers on the screen willing away the sound of raised voices over the whirling helicopters that blared from the television. She was successful.
Their finances came from Adams’ job. He was a liquor distributor, promoting the newest brands to trendy hotels and restaurants. He traveled a lot for work. She would miss him but made good use of her time while he was away.
Faye had a small company, producing hand tooled black leather handbags. Their day-to-day finances were taken care of by Adam’s salary. Her business was for their future, not that Adam was aware of her intentions.
He wasn’t what one would call good with money. She would never have said that she was either, but it didn’t take a genius to see that a total lack of savings at their age was reckless. She had managed to save in a hidden bank account a little over 100,000 dollars in the previous five years. She mentally patted herself on the back, returned to the numbers and looked for ways to cut the operational costs of her company without sacrificing the quality of the handbags.
“And the numbers tonight…” The television screeched after a relative period of quiet following the arrest of the scofflaws.
“Adam…” She swiveled her chair around, the sweetest smile on her face, to ask him to turn the volume down. He was asleep on the sofa. She grunted and returned to her work. She knew her concentration would be lost for good if she got up to turn it off.
“11… 16…” She heard her birth month and day called from the television and swiveled her chair around.
“36, 12, 7 and the powerball number is 1...”
She felt a shiver of excitement. She had never played the lottery before and didn’t know the rules but she had heard that getting three or four of the numbers paid out a few hundred dollars, or maybe you needed to get the powerball number correct too. She wasn’t sure, but it seemed worth checking. Her eldest daughter, Anja, had been hinting about a pair of boots outside of their family budget for her upcoming birthday. She would be able to get them for her.
She rifled through her drawer looking for the pile of tickets she had put away earlier as Adam snored away on the sofa. She was tempted to pour the carafe of water over his head, but she didn’t. She was nice that way.
She leaned back in her chair, tickets in hand and looked up to see the news program had moved on to the sports segment. Enough was enough. She tiptoed across the room and turned it off. She didn’t want to wake Adam up. She did not want him to wrestle away control of the few hundred dollars that was hers with a suggestion of a weekend away or an overpriced dinner. It was always so hard for her to say no to him.
She closed the accounting file and opened the lottery website page. A wave of nausea passed over her as she read the numbers, her heartbeat coming to a full stop before the powerball number. She had won.
She closed her eyes as the room spun around her and held back the bile in her throat. No, no, no were the only thoughts in her head. She knew with certainty that the money would destroy their lives. She saw the four of them, five years in the future living in a single room occupancy apartment in Downtown L.A. Skid Row would be their home. The traveler kids she offered food to would be giving her scraps from their leftovers.
She forced her eyes open and stared down at the ticket. She would rip it up and put this unfortunate incident behind them forever. The tearing sound at the corner of the pale yellow slip of paper brought reality back to her with a sickening speed of force. Her stomach was not handling the situation well at all.
She didn’t know how much money she had won. Perhaps it was only a million. That would be a lot of money in one lump sum. She wasn’t a jaded person. But it seemed manageable. She could see Adam plowing through in under a year but perhaps she could skim a little off the top, save some for their children, hide it in her business’s secret savings account.
She turned back to the computer. Her hands trembled and her eyes strained to focus on the jackpot amount, thirty-eight million dollars. She ran from the room, on tiptoe of course, to the bathroom and threw up.
Chapter Three
Faye hadn’t woken Adam up the night before to move him into their room. The bed was hers. She stretched out, relishing the extra space and her well-rested mind from having slept the night far away from his snoring. Her peace was interrupted by the memory of the lottery ticket.
She slunk under the covers and wished the ticket away. The amount was too large and Adam’s dreams too big. The money would be invested into schemes that would never come to fruition. He would spend it lavishly, assuring her that it was just for this one time. Just one trip, just one this, just one that, just one orange grove in the Sudan for all she knew.
“My back… Why didn’t you wake me up?” Adam asked as he loudly thrashed through their room.
“I’m sorry,” She popped up from under the covers and said through her first false smile of the day, “My stomach w
as upset... I laid down for a moment and fell asleep.”
“Are you feeling better? Can I get you something?” He sat down on the edge of the bed and rubbed her foot through the thick duvet.
“I’m fine…” She looked away from him, “I had the strangest dream… I won the lottery… Isn’t that funny?”
“If you say so.” He smiled.
She was not the only one in their home who had perfected the art of the false façade. “What would you do if we won?” She looked straight into his eyes. He held her gaze for a moment and looked away.
“You’re never going to let that go, are you?”
“This has nothing to do with that.” It really didn’t, she was willing to give him another chance, even though all the windfalls they had experienced in their lives had blown through his hands. The last and the largest had been a few years before when her parents had passed on. “Really what would you do?”
“I don’t know…” He dropped her foot and stared ahead, “Buy a house, maybe in Laguna… renting this house for the past fifteen years has been downbeat… Invest the rest of it.”
“Do you mean that?”
“Yeah… I learned my lesson and I’m sorry it came at the expense of you and the girls.” He turned to her and the morning light illuminated his full and dark Slavic features and a trace of lipstick in a color she never wore on his neck.
She had let go of her disappointment in his financial responsibility. But his extramarital relationships? No. She had not grown used to it and she did not forgive him.
“It was just a dream.” She sat up in the bed and gently flicked his chin before getting up and going into the shower.
Chapter Four