Someone Like You

by Timothy J Beck

  “Good evening,” he replied, nodding his head once and returning her smile.

  When they stopped in front of the elevators, Christian whispered, “What floor?”

  “Thirteen,” Derek said.

  “Why doesn’t that surprise me?” Christian said.

  “I never realized how nice it is in the Rings of Uranus,” Vienna said with hushed awe as she continued to look at the lobby.

  “Why, thank you,” Derek said demurely.

  It took Vienna a minute to get the joke. Christian snorted once, then bit his thumb to keep from drawing the concierge’s attention. Vienna grinned and said, “I never get invited to the Rings of Uranus.”

  “The last time I tried to get into the Rings of Uranus, I got lost,” Derek said.

  “They should really put up a sign,” Christian said. “This way to the Rings of Uranus.”

  “I wish I lived in the Rings of Uranus,” Vienna said.

  “I can’t believe how easy it was to get into the Rings of Uranus,” Christian added.

  “Once you get inside the Rings of Uranus,” Derek said, “you never want to leave.”

  Vienna watched the elevator’s display count down to one. The doors opened; once they rushed inside and the doors closed, they burst out laughing, hanging on to each other for support.

  “Vienna, I never thought breaking in to the Rings of Uranus would be so much fun!” Derek said.

  “Stop,” Vienna gasped. “I can’t breathe.”

  “No more Rings of Uranus jokes,” Christian decreed.

  “Right. This is serious. We can’t slip up,” Vienna said once she’d regained breath control. She patted the curls of her wig back into place while Derek tucked his shirt back in. Christian studied his hair in the reflective surface of the elevator doors, muttering something about Paul Mitchell hairspray. Vienna couldn’t help herself and asked, “Do you think the payments are high in the Rings of Uranus?”

  They became serious again when the doors of the elevator opened on the thirteenth floor, consumed with the task of locating Natasha’s apartment. When they found the right door, Vienna said, “Okay, Derek. You’ve got the keys.”

  Derek put the key in the lock and they all drew in their breath before he turned it, not knowing what to expect. The click of the tumblers falling into place sounded like a cannon in the quiet stillness of the hallway. When nothing bad happened, they all sighed audibly. Derek looked to Vienna, who nodded, so he turned the doorknob.

  Once they’d crept quietly inside, Derek closed the door softly behind them, while Vienna peered into the darkness.

  “Where’s the light switch?” Christian asked.

  “I don’t know,” Vienna hissed. “I’m kind of waiting for a three-headed dog to appear.”

  “She called Erik today from Chicago, so she’s definitely out of town,” Derek whispered. There was a crash and he said, “Damn it! Stupid table.”

  “I’m turning on the lights,” Christian said, and Vienna could hear him running his hands along the walls to find a switch.

  She took three steps forward, then stopped, saying, “What was that?”

  The scrape of Christian’s hand stopped, and he asked, “What was what?”

  “I heard something. It sounded like someone walking,” she said, frozen in place.

  “It was your heels on the parquet, silly,” Derek said as the room was flooded with light.

  They blinked for a second as their eyes adjusted. Once she could focus, Vienna saw why the sound of her heels had echoed in the apartment. The main rooms were vast, and the furnishings were expensive, yet sparse. The floors were devoid of carpet, and the majority of the walls were bare. There were no bookshelves, no pictures, and no knickknacks. Natasha’s apartment had all the love and warmth of an operating arena in a hospital.

  “So much for my watering the plants excuse,” Vienna muttered.

  “Talk about minimalism,” Christian said, looking around the room.

  “I don’t see any dolls,” Derek said, sounding panicked. “Where would you put a doll in this place? Where are the dolls?”

  “Don’t make me slap you,” Christian warned.

  “That only works on television,” Vienna stated. “Slapping a hysterical person rarely quiets them. On the contrary, it usually provokes them and results in an equally violent—”

  “Excuse me! Hello!” Derek exclaimed. “I hate to interrupt, but I don’t think either of you is grasping the gravity of this situation. We’ve broken into my manager’s apartment. We’re committing a felony.”

  “Oh, Derek, don’t be such a pussy,” Vienna said. She wandered farther into the apartment and began nosing around. “If we were going to be busted by security, it would’ve happened by now. Let’s spread out. If you move anything, be sure to put it back exactly where you found it.”

  Derek, looking worried, wandered down a hallway. Christian started opening drawers in the kitchen. Vienna continued observing everything. The lack of pictures in the apartment was telling. Since there were no photos of friends or family anywhere, Vienna could ascertain that Natasha had no fond memories. She frowned at her realization that she and Natasha had something in common.

  She noticed a television remote on the coffee table and gingerly picked it up with two fingers. There was a faint outline of dust where the remote had been, which caused Vienna to frown again in thought.

  “What is it?” Christian asked, returning from the kitchen.

  “Did you find anything suspicious?” she asked, coming out of her reverie.

  “The refrigerator holds the bare minimum for survival. The baking dishes have no brown stains on them. I’d say our girl orders in a lot. Other than that, there’s nothing,” Christian said. “No refrigerator magnets. Nothing incriminating in the trash. The only things in the dishwasher are coffee cups and martini glasses.”

  “There aren’t any fingerprints on this remote control,” Vienna said. She carefully set it on the coffee table, making sure it was within the dust outline. “If there’s any life happening on a daily basis in this apartment, it isn’t going on in here.”

  Derek appeared in the hallway and said, “I think whatever it is we’re looking for is down here.” Before he could lead them to the end of the hall, Christian stopped short and said, “Natasha’s bedroom?” When he darted inside, Vienna followed, with Derek on her heels.

  She hastily looked around the nondescript room. The bed was made with military precision, had no frilly pillows, and the comforter was a solid black. The top of the dresser was barren. The bedside tables had steel lamps with dark shades. Like the living area, it had no artwork on the walls, save for one lone mirror above a barren desk.

  “This place scares me,” Christian said. “It’s like an apartment in one of those decorating or architecture magazines. They look nice, but it’s just for show. You’d think she’d have at least one picture of herself, a stuffed animal, an old yearbook. Something that shows she lives here.”

  Vienna opened the closet and recognized the clothes she’d seen Natasha wearing at work. Everything was meticulously hung and arranged by color. It was all perfectly merchandised and could have been displayed on a rack at Drayden’s. Natasha’s shoes were all in boxes stacked neatly on the floor.

  “I checked, and the shoes are arranged by color and heel height,” Derek said. “Just like we do at work.”

  “But where are the dolls?” Christian asked. “Do you think DeWitt lied about that?”

  “I think what we’re looking for is in the next room,” Derek said, motioning for them to follow him. He led them to a padlocked door at the end of the hallway. “None of the keys I duplicated fit this lock. I didn’t find another key in the bedroom. Did either of you find a key?”

  Christian shook his head while Vienna eyed the padlock and said, “This has to be it, boys. We’ve got to get in this room.”

  “I’ll be right back,” Christian said and ran back down the hallway.

  “Maybe ther
e’s a screwdriver somewhere,” Vienna said. She left Derek and went into Natasha’s bathroom. She was momentarily distracted by the toiletries and cosmetics on the counter, which were carefully arranged by product and rivaled any display Vienna had ever seen. She found what she was looking for under the sink and said, “Jackpot!”

  Just then, she heard several loud crashes coming from the hallway, followed by Christian exclaiming, “Jackpot!”

  Screwdrivers in hand, she stepped into the hallway and found Christian wielding a fire extinguisher. The lock on the door was broken and hanging limply from the door frame. Christian waved the fire extinguisher and said triumphantly, “I remembered seeing it under the sink in the kitchen.”

  “You fool!” Vienna shrieked. “Now she’s going to know there was a break-in! We used a key before, so technically we didn’t break in. Now something’s broken! I can’t believe you’d do something so stupid.”

  “Ew,” Derek said. “You sound just like Natasha.”

  Vienna clasped her hand over her mouth and looked horrified.

  “It’s this apartment,” Christian said. “It’s evil, I tell you.”

  “Don’t be absurd,” Vienna finally said. “Apartments and inanimate objects can’t be evil. Evil is in the mind of the beholder. I’m sorry I snapped at you. Let’s just see what’s inside.”

  Like before, Derek cautiously pushed open the door and hit the light switch, and they gazed inside before entering.

  “Holy flying crap,” Vienna said.

  An entire wall of the room was lined with display shelves filled with Dolly Parton dolls. There were framed Dolly Parton pictures and posters on the walls. A throw rug with Dolly’s image covered the floor. A curio cabinet held a collection of Dolly plates, pins, and patches. Possibly every book or magazine published about the country singer was crammed into a bookshelf next to a life-sized cardboard cutout of Dolly. A sign affixed to the wall opposite the door read “Dolly Parton Drive.” There was even a Dolly Parton pinball machine in the corner.

  They were speechless as they walked into the room. Christian examined a media cabinet with a television, VCR, DVD player, stereo, and every possible Dolly Parton movie, album, and compact disc stacked inside. Vienna opened a closet door and found an array of glittering dresses, jeans, and shirts. There was a shoe rack filled with high-heeled shoes in every color, as well as a collection of cowboy boots.

  “DeWitt wasn’t kidding,” she finally said. She turned around and saw Derek staring with horror at twenty wigs on a table, each perched on a Styrofoam head. “Are you okay, Derek?”

  “I don’t know why, but all of this scares me,” he said. “I feel like I’m in a horror movie and something terrible is about to happen. I think I’m going to quit my job tomorrow. I don’t want to be around Natasha another second. Look at all this. She’s obviously deranged.”

  “I wouldn’t go that far,” Vienna said. “She’s obsessed with Dolly Parton. This is where the life of her apartment begins.”

  “Or where life ends,” Derek said. “Let’s get out of here.”

  “Not so fast,” Vienna said. “We’re fine. Judging by the clothes in that closet, Natasha might sometimes dress like Dolly. But she doesn’t seem to live her life as Dolly. At least, not twenty-four/seven. I don’t think she has any Dolly personalities or anything like that. But there was a lock on the door, so she wants to protect Dolly. Keep her safe from society. I seriously underestimated the magnitude of her obsession, though. I thought we’d just find a few dolls.”

  “What do we do now?” Christian asked.

  “I’m not sure. I want to have a look around,” Vienna said.

  She examined the dolls on the display shelves and took down one doll that had a bald patch on the side of its head. Derek stood in the middle of the floor wringing his hands, obviously not daring to touch anything. Christian sighed and sat down in a chair with a Dolly afghan slung over its back.

  Just then, a loud voice screamed, “Why’d ya come in here looking like that?”

  Vienna shrieked and involuntarily launched the doll across the room, where it knocked over the wig stands as if they were bowling pins. Derek jumped backward and jarred the curio cabinet, causing the doors to swing open and several plates to crash to the floor. Christian leaped from the chair, looking wildly around the room, as if searching for whoever was screaming at them.

  “It’s the stereo!” Vienna yelled, trying to be heard above the din.

  Christian opened the media cabinet and shut off the stereo. He looked at the chair and held up a remote. “I must’ve sat on it.”

  “I almost peed my pants,” Derek said. He looked at the broken plates on the floor and at the overturned wigs, and said, “We’re never going to be able to fix this stuff.”

  “He’s right,” Christian said. “Let’s grab the dolls and get out of here.”

  “I don’t think that’s such a good idea anymore,” Vienna advised.

  “I thought that was the plan,” Christian said.

  “If these dolls are what’s holding her together, I don’t think we should take them away. Maybe I can talk her into getting therapy,” Vienna insisted. “That would be better for her.”

  “Come on, Vienna. You know Natasha. Do you really think you can talk her into anything?” Christian asked. “The woman is living in a fantasy world. I thought we were going to push her back toward sanity?”

  “Who can say she was ever sane to begin with?” Vienna argued. She thought about it for a moment and sighed, finally giving in. She opened up her Kate Spade tote and doled out pillowcases to Christian and Derek. “Fine. We’ll remove the stimulus and deal with the emotional repercussions as they’re revealed.”

  “Even if we didn’t take the dolls, this mess is probably enough to send her over the edge,” Derek said. “We may as well finish what we started.”

  “Don’t forget, the door to this room was locked,” Christian reminded them as he and Derek began filling their pillowcases. “If she didn’t want people to get in and was keeping this place under lock and key, I seriously doubt she’ll go to the police when she finds her dolls missing.”

  “The last thing we need is the police getting involved in this,” Derek said. He looked at his pillowcase full of dolls and noticed the Congreve logo. “Hey, these are my pillowcases.”

  “You didn’t think I’d use mine, did you?” Vienna asked. “They’re Egyptian cotton.”

  Derek frowned, then pointed to a large doll on the wig table. It was a two-foot replica of Dolly in blue jeans, a red top with white polka dots, and a cowboy hat. The partially bald doll that Vienna had thrown lay at its feet like a victim slain by her gigantically malicious Dolly doppelgänger. He said, “What about that one?”

  Vienna shrugged and said, “Might as well. Why stop now?”

  Derek picked it up and was about to put it in his other empty pillowcase when a piercing alarm was activated. He dropped the doll and the pillowcase, bellowing, “You’ve got to be kidding me!”

  “Do you think it’s just in here?” Christian yelled. “Or do you think it’s connected to building security?”

  “Holy crap! Who cares? Let’s get out of here!” Vienna screamed.

  “The dolls!” Christian hollered.

  They each grabbed a pillowcase full of dolls and ran from the apartment. Vienna had the presence of mind to make sure the front door was locked behind them to keep up appearances that nothing was wrong on the other side. She sprinted down the hall to find Derek frantically pressing the elevator buttons while Christian danced in place behind him.

  “Are you kidding me? The last thing we want is to be trapped in an elevator. The stairs! Where are the stairs?” she insisted.

  They found the stairwell and began racing down as fast as they could. A few flights down, Derek stopped short and said, “Wait. There were four pillowcases. We have three. We left a pillowcase in the Dolly room.”

  Vienna, panting, said, “It’s too late for that now. We’ve g
ot to get out of here.”

  Derek thrust his pillowcase full of dolls into Christian’s free hand and said, “If she finds it, she might connect it to me. Go on without me. I’ll only hold you back. Save yourselves.”

  “What is this, Gunsmoke?” Vienna asked incredulously. As Derek darted through a door to the hallway of the eighth floor, Vienna pushed Christian onward. “You heard him; keep moving!”

  Christian continued their flight from danger, calling back, “I had no idea it would be so perilous to steal from the Rings of Uranus.”

  30

  The Scene of the Crime

  When he was five years old, Derek stole a pack of M&M’s from a small grocery store in his neighborhood. He didn’t realize he was stealing, because the grocer always let him take a piece of candy, then charged his mother for it afterward. Mrs. Anderson had warned the man that Derek wasn’t making the connection, so when he showed up at home one afternoon happily crunching his M&M’s, she grabbed his arm and returned him to the store to apologize. Confused, Derek broke away from her on their walk back home and climbed a tree. She left him there. His father’s arrival a while later alerted him that he’d done something really serious. Confusion turned to shame. When his father asked him to climb down, he declined, insisting that he was just going to live in the tree for a while.

  As the elevator doors opened on the thirteenth floor of Rings of Uranus, Derek relived that childhood moment of shame when he found himself face-to-face with a Barney. The security guard took one look at his guilty face and said, “Which apartment do you live in?”

  “I don’t live here,” Derek said.

  “Which resident are you visiting?”

  “Um…”

  “I think you’d better come with me,” the guard said, stepping into the elevator and hitting the lobby button.

  While the elevator made its descent, Derek weighed his options. A full confession was out of the question. He was hardly going to embrace a criminal record for breaking and entering, nor was he going to implicate his friends, who were the ones holding the stolen goods. At the moment, he looked guilty of nothing more than trespassing. Unless they searched him and figured out he had keys to Natasha’s apartment, especially if the alarm in the Dolly room was linked to a security system and their crime was exposed.