by Maddie James
Putting the car in gear, the tires squealed as she tore out of the parking lot and got away from there as fast as she could.
Before she hit the main drag, she pulled the ring off and dropped it in the cup holder. It clattered as it settled.
What have I done?
****
When Cheris arrived at her apartment, she headed to the kitchen and retrieved another bottle of water from the refrigerator hoping to erase the not-quite-gone pain in her head. The pain reliever had taken most of the ache, but had done nothing for the regret of a night she couldn’t remember.
Why had she been wearing a ring?
Cheris drank half of the contents of the bottle before sitting it on the counter. Her next task was to take a shower as if she could wash away what she had done.
If anybody found out….
On her way to the bathroom, the doorbell pealed. Against her better judgment, she pivoted and walked to the door peering through the keyhole.
Janie.
This was her fault.
She was the one who insisted Cheris come to the opening last night to support her best friend in the gala.
“You have to be here,” Janie’d declared. “My mom and dad won’t come because they have a bunch of my old fogey relatives in town who can’t take the vagina imagery of my Secret Garden Grown Up piece. I need you to video me with all the big wigs admiring my art.”
Where was Janie’s Flip camcorder anyway?
Cheris grasped the knob and pulled.
“What in the heck are you wearing? Where did you disappear to last night?” Janie began without preamble as she walked in the apartment.
“Hard to say,” Cheris hedged. She walked to her purse and rummaged through it. Where was the Flip?
“Are you okay?”
Definitely not here. “Umm. Why do you ask?” Cheris closed the bag, picked it up, and put it in its cubby hole under the counter separating the kitchen from the living room.
Janie collapsed on Cheris’ couch and propped her feet on the coffee table. “Some people got into Gary Sheirer’s Drink Me/Eat Me stuff in his Wonderland exhibit, and it’s created mayhem throughout the tri-state area.”
Cheris raised her other hand to her head cradling it. “The punch?” Yes. Cheris had been in the Wonderland room. She had eaten a petit four and drunk the sweet beverage from an oversized thimble.
“It was an interactive exhibit. That’s why no underage people could be at the party.”
“But it wasn’t—”
“Labeled alcoholic? I know. Neither were the cakes. One or the other was fine, but combined?” Janie grinned and shook her head. “They had to pull a woman off a water tower she climbed after the gala. A man got arrested for streaking in downtown Central Park, and there is another man missing. Got any Diet Coke? I’d kill for one.”
“Oh, Janie.” Cheris retrieved a can for her friend and handed it to her.
“Most people got the message from the Drink Me and Eat Me signs, but I guess a few brave dummies thought it’d be cute to see if they’d shrink and grow.”
A flash of the sleeping man rushed through Cheris’ memory. Last night he had stood in the Wonderland room with her.
“I dare you,” he said.
“I don’t take dares,” Cheris replied.
“What about a double dog dare?” He winked, and Cheris stomach fluttered. “Do you take those?”
Cheris gasped at the recollection.
“What’s wrong?” Janie asked. “You didn’t do the eat me, drink me stuff, did you?”
Cheris sighed. “Did I give you back your camcorder last night?”
Janie cocked her head at her friend ignoring her question. “You did, didn’t you? Huh. Well, that’s surprising. Ms. Let-me-fix-your-life Hip Granny ate and drank unknown substances.”
Hip Granny, the web giant who organized homes and lives, who advised on health and relationships, who did not get drunk and wake up next to a strange man.
“I’m not Hip Granny.”
Janie snorted. “You are soo the Hip Granny.”
“Annie Hill is the Hip Granny.”
“That woman hasn’t done anything but interviews in over a year, Granny.”
Janie was one of the few people who knew Annie had retired leaving Cheris as the practical advice guru. It was easy to impersonate the older woman via the World Wide Web when all people saw were typed words.
“Look, Janie, I’m going to go take a shower.”
“Are you okay? You didn’t do anything crazy last night, did you?”
Knock. Knock. Knock.
Cheris formulated an answer as she stepped to the door and opened it. On her porch stood what she did crazy last night.
A squeak escaped her mouth as she stared at him.
How did he know where she lived? How did he get here?
With a white plastic bag in his hand and wearing a snug undershirt with Tuxedo pants, the man stared back at her. His disheveled hair and unshaven face testified to the fact he had come straight here from the hotel.
“Hi,” he said.
“Who is it?” Janie asked.
Good question.
Janie appeared next to her and pulled the door open wider. “Oh, hey, Geoff. What are you doing here?”
Geoff? Cheris turned to her friend. “How do you…?”
Janie gawked. She pointed at Cheris’ oversized Tuxedo shirt then Geoff’s black pants. A huge grin split her face. “Are you kidding me? You two slept together last night? I love it!”
Janie grabbed the man’s arm and pulled him inside. Cheris moved so as not to get hit by the door or…Geoff.
He studied her while Janie took the bag from his hand. “What’s this?” She smacked her lips as she set the bag on the counter and opened it. “Oh. Evidence.” She reached inside and pulled out Cheris’ turquoise shirt, her matching high heeled pumps, and the Flip recorder.
“How did you know where I lived?” Cheris asked him. Geoff. Who are you? Did you get into the Drink Me/Eat Me concoction too?
Geoff’s gaze moved from her to Janie and back again. He adjusted his glasses. “I found out.”
Janie placed her hands on her hips surveying them both. “My brother and my best friend doing the dirty deed!”
“Your brother!”
He reached beneath his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose with thumb and forefinger. “Nothing dirty, Janie, so would you leave so I can talk to Cheris alone?”
“You’re Janie’s brother?” Cheris scowled at him before turning her attention to her friend. “How could you let me go off with him like that?”
“I didn’t know he’d take you to Serenity to have illicit sex with you. Why Serenity, anyway? Aren’t the beds here in Cullsbaier good enough? Seems like a long drive just to—”
Geoff held up his left hand with the gold band prominent on his ring finger. “To get married.”
“We’re not!”
“You’re not!”
Both women spoke in unison.
“Real nice anniversary present, you jerk! Mom’s going to throw a hissy when she finds out.”
Geoff turned his back on his sister and faced Cheris, his caramel colored eyes appealed to her. “You don’t remember?”
Cheris shook her head. “We’re not.”
“Not anything?”
“We talked at the Wonderland exhibit, but I wouldn’t have…I wouldn’t have....We’re not m…m…m” She took a shuttering breath.
He broke eye contact, reached into his pocket, and pulled out a folded paper. “The courthouse closes at nine pm on Fridays in Serenity.” He glanced over his shoulder. “Janie, please? I’d like to talk to my wife by myself.”
“I’m not,” Cheris whispered.
Without another word, Janie walked to the door, opened it, and left shutting the door softly behind her.
Cheris gripped the edge of the paper sliding it out of Geoff’s hand. Walking to the counter, she opened the papers and spread them on the surface. A copy of a
marriage license and a smaller perforated sheet of the original to be given to the legally married couple.
Groom: Geoffrey Watkins Arrowood, III.
Bride: Cheris Leigh McDowell.
She turned stricken eyes to the man standing next to her. “It isn’t legal. We were both drunk from that…food and drink.”
“I wasn’t.”
“It can’t be binding because I was.”
Geoff said nothing.
“Why would you marry me if you weren’t high on that Wonderland elixir? Is this a joke to you? Marry some stupid drunk woman and sleep with her?”
“You—”
“Don’t. Please. There’s nothing you can say to make this all right.”
“How about let’s see if we can make this work?”
“You’re insane.”
Geoff shrugged. “You look good in my shirt.”
Cheris dropped her head and studied the shirt. She raised her chin and marched into her bedroom slamming the door shut behind her. In less than a second she had whipped it off of her body, wadded it up in a ball, and threw it to the floor. Stepping on the material, she crossed her room and pulled a neatly folded shirt out of her bureau drawer and stuck her head and arms in it.
There now.
Picking up the offending object in her fist, she rejoined the crazy man in her living room.
“Here you go.” She shoved the shirt at him and strode to the front door opening it in invitation. “Please leave now. I have a headache, and I cannot deal with lunatics at the present moment. I will contact you later, at which time we will discuss how to get unmarried.”
Geoff didn’t move. “You don’t have my number.”
“I know your sister. I know her number.” The implications of the statement were cosmic.
Janie the artist. Janie the rebel. Janie the wild woman who would try anything and do anything a second time so everybody would know the first time hadn’t been a fluke. Janie whose current boyfriend had served time in jail.
“Janie’s my sister.” Geoff entered Cheris’ kitchen, and she ducked to watch him through the opening between the overhead cabinet and the bar. “Twin sister, actually. But we’re not very much alike.” He plucked a marker from its holder next to a small dry erase board displayed on her refrigerator. Next to her grocery list, he wrote his name and a telephone number. “I’m staying at the Days Inn on Vincent Avenue if you’d rather talk in person.”
He replaced the marker and strolled toward Cheris.
He paused in front of her. “Okay?”
Cheris shook her head.
“It will be.” His warm gaze caressed her before he exited the apartment.
Cheris stood at the open door and watched him shake out his shirt and slide his arms into it while he punched a number on his cell phone and spoke into it.
Suddenly he stopped and did an about face. He lowered the phone. “Hey Cheris?” he called.
Cheris waited in silence as they watched each other across the span of the walkway.
“You look good in your shirt, too.”
She stepped behind the threshold as her heart thumped in her chest and closed herself away from the sight of Geoff Watkins Arrowood, the third, with his rumpled unbuttoned shirt and ebony dress pants in the early spring sunshine.
A memorable quote from the Queen of Hearts entered Cheris’ mind, and she bit her lip in mirth.
Off with his head.
Chapter Two
“It’s a poor sort of memory that only works backward”
—Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll
Cheris surfed the web looking for a way out of her marriage. It seemed that even if she was under the influence the marriage was legal if it was signed by the appropriate parties. Cheris picked up the document which Geoff had left behind. County Clerk. Witness. Bride. Groom. She checked each name, each signature. The witness had been Gloria Kloes who had written her title as well. Administrative Assistant to the City Commissioners.
Administrative Assistant. What was she doing there at eight-thirty on a Friday night anyway? That’s ridiculous. Darned dedicated public servants.
Cheris pulled out a blank file folder and picked up a pen. Poised over the manila tab, the pen stilled. What should she label this folder in which she would keep the marriage license until she and Geoff could go see a lawyer?
Marriage?
Mistake?
Finally, she decided on License and slipped the papers inside and placed it behind her Life Insurance folder in the filing cabinet.
How could this have happened? Why couldn’t she remember anything? Had Janie introduced her to Geoff?
Cheris stood from her chair, pushing it under the desk and going to the bathroom pantry to retrieve a spray bottle of cleaner and a dust cloth. Beginning at the bureau in her bedroom, she wiped each surface.
No. Janie had not introduced them.
Cheris had filmed Janie with her Secret Garden exhibit before moving to the other rooms, admiring the other artistic renditions of classic children’s stories, the theme of the gala. The Wonderland room had been exquisite with a vaporous water pipe in the shape of a club teetering on the edge of an oversized mushroom on a bed of real Fescue, a warped table with a black tea service arranged to resemble a spade, and a heart topped scepter lying across a gilded throne.
In the corner sat a stark white façade of a house. To one side toddler-sized furniture was arranged—an armoire, a marble topped sideboard, and an Elizabethan style chair. On the opposite end the furnishings were large and blocked. A skeleton key balanced at its side on the edge of the table above Cheris’ head, and the wooden chairs big enough to sit three people. Arranged on a doily of one of the chairs were small punch filled milk glass cups etched to resemble thimbles and snowy petit fours on a china platter. A man stood next to the chair eating one of the delicacies.
Dressed in a Tuxedo in front of the completely white exhibit, he seemed to belong within the display. His nearly black hair, a little too long, curled at his neck, and he wore small gold rimmed glasses. Cheris glanced around the room to find they were alone. Was this why he thought it permissible to deface the art?
“You’re not supposed to eat that, are you? That’s part of the exhibit,” Cheris advised.
“We’re part of the exhibit.” His eyes glittered in amusement from behind the clear lenses. He held out the cake to her. “Take a bite.”
“I’m not eating after you. I don’t even know you.”
“Afraid you’ll catch cooties? I’ve had all my shots.”
“There is no vaccination against lice, and you don’t catch them by sharing forks.”
“How astute of you. Come here.” He motioned for her to follow him to a row of mirrors. “That’s why there are no characters because we are the characters. See?” He walked to a mirror next to the wall, and Cheris followed. Though their faces were theirs, their bodies had morphed. The man was now The Mad Hatter, and Cheris the Cheshire Cat. She smiled in delight.
“Keep your smile, and watch what happens,” he advised.
“What?”
“Show that gorgeous grin and look into the mirror.”
Uncertain, Cheris glanced at her companion, so tall, next to her. He nodded toward the glass surface, and Cheris turned her attention back toward it watching in amazement as the fluffy stripped cat disappeared, then Cheris’ own face until only her mouth remained in the darkened mirror.
“Oh.” She breathed the word out.
“Indeed.”
“How does it do that?”
“I think the appropriate response is Curiouser and Curiouser.”
Attraction for the stranger tugged at Cheris. He seemed familiar to her though she didn’t know why. “Have we met?”
“No, we haven’t.” He met her gaze in the next set of mirrors. “It appears that I am now the Queen, and you are the Mock Turtle. Can we switch? It’s so unbecoming to want to decapitate everybody.”
Cheris stepped to the shiny
frame centered among the rest. Instead of a whimsical character, there reflected were the petit fours on the doily and blood red punch in oversized white thimbles.
Cheris moved her hand in front of the reflection and pivoted her body to stand in between the mirror and the display nearby. How odd that it showed the display but not her. In a moment, she understood that it was not a mirror at all, but a receded crevice. Feeling a bit like Alice, she reached her hand inside the rectangle.
“You should take a cake to reflect the one I ate.”
“I take the cake?”
“Most definitely.”
Cheris paused. She glanced over her shoulder, judged which one to pick up before doing so. Withdrawing her hand, she bit into the delicacy, its lightness surprising her. She wondered if she could get the recipe from the artist, maybe cover the exhibit on Hip Granny on art appreciation and the senses?
She swallowed and sighed in contentment eyeing the blood red punch.
Drink Me
“I dare you,” her companion murmured.
“I don’t take dares,” Cheris replied shooting him a disdainful look.
“What about a double dog dare?” He winked, and Cheris’ stomach fluttered. “Do you take those?”
It was silly, really, letting this stranger impel her to anything. Studying the thimbles on the tray and comparing them to the one behind her, she did notice one less cup. Squaring her shoulders she stepped forward into the looking glass and retrieved the drink. Bringing it to her lips, she sipped once and discovered it to be mild yet sweet—similar to cantaloupe in the peak of its season.
“Mmm. Very nice.” She tilted the cup and drained it. “I’ve never tasted anything quite like it.” She licked her lips and tilted her head. Picking up another glass, she set the empty one in its place. “Go over there and drink one.”
The man raised his eyebrows, but walked to the chair. They faced each other as he determined the correct glass to pick up.
“Yes. That’s the one.” Cheris drank from the second glass enjoying the cool liquid. “I’ve got to find out what this stuff—oh!” She gasped as she tripped over the frame.
At once he was at her side steadying her. “Careful there, Alice. It’s the rabbit hole you’re supposed to fall into.”