by Paul Preston
I hung out at the home for a few hours until the crowd began to thin out. I asked someone at the wake if they knew where the bathroom was and they directed me down the hallway.
After using the bathroom, I wandered up a staircase which led to the bedrooms on the second floor of the home. Down a hallway I peeked into a room and went in. There were devotional posters on the walls with quotes at the bottom from the Bible. Out of curiosity, I went over to the bed, lifted the mattress and took out the old paperback book hidden underneath. The cover page was missing, but the worn out pages of the erotic novel were still there. I heard voices in the corridor outside the bedroom, I quickly hid the paperback book back under the mattress and went back downstairs without anyone seeing me. Then I went out onto the back porch and looked out into the backyard.
Suddenly, Grace was standing right next to me. She spoke to me like I was a distant friend from the past in a quiet, introspective voice.
“We spent hours on that swing set, Eloise and I. When we got older and we didn’t want Mom or Dad to hear us, we would meet on the swings out back and talk about boys, whispering our secrets to each other.”
“Grace, I’m so sorry for your loss.”
She nodded. We both stood staring on the deck into the back yard. I wanted to put my arm around her and comfort her, but I thought it might make her feel uncomfortable.
“I think I owe you an explanation. I wasn’t altogether honest with you during our time together. I want to apologize to you, Charles.”
Even though I was a foot away from her, the black veil was so thick I couldn’t clearly see her eyes as she talked. Her voice was oddly detached and she spoke as if I wasn’t there.
“You don’t have to apologize to me about anything, Grace. I completely understand. I know you’re going through a great deal right now.”
“No, it was wrong of me to pretend to be my sister. I just felt so sad when she passed away at the hospice last week. I guess, just for a few days at least, I wanted to feel close to her again, to live inside her shoes and escape.”
“I understand, Grace.”
“I wanted to know what it must have been like to feel alive and free. We were so close as sisters. There was no one in my life I loved more than Eloise. I suppose our connection was inevitable, being born conjoined at the hip and separated right after we were born.”
Grace’s hand slipped from the porch railing to briefly touch the side of her body. I remember seeing the long sliver of a scar which blended seamlessly into the pale pigment of the skin over her hip.
“Even though we were identical twins, we couldn’t have been more different. Eloise was the adventurous one. I always envied her courage in trying new things. I was always too shy and nervous to go against the rules, but not Eloise. It was my fault she died of AIDS, really. Her last boyfriend was a drug addict and caught AIDS from a dirty needle. Eloise got it from him. But it’s my fault, really. I didn’t mean to… I never should’ve…”
I remembered the passage in her diary when Grace described losing her virginity and how her mom kicked her sister out of the house after discovering what happened.
“Grace… You can’t blame yourself for what happened. It wasn’t your fault.”
“My sister never would’ve left for Chicago and contracted AIDS if it wasn’t for me. It’s because I had premarital sex with that boy in high school that God…”
Grace sensed him coming before I did. She stopped talking just as her boyfriend approached us from behind. Patrick was a short man, not much taller than Grace, with short cropped hair and a stout, barrel-chested frame. He put his arm possessively around Grace’s waist.
“Who are you talking to, honey? Who’s this guy?” the boyfriend asked.
“Patrick, allow me to introduce you to an old friend of Eloise’, Charles Anderson,” Grace said.
Patrick held out his meaty paw and took my hand firmly in his grip. It was strange to see the man I had killed in my dreams standing before me in the flesh. He looked rather suspiciously at me and I took an instant dislike to him.
“What were you talking about?” Patrick asked.
“Oh, nothing really. Just memories of my sister and the fun times we used to have together as children,” Grace said sadly, looking away into the back yard.
“How’d you meet Eloise?” Patrick asked me.
I looked away.
“Oh… through a friend of a friend,” I said.
“Were you friends with that drug addict that gave her AIDS?” he said in an aggressive tone.
“No,” I said.
I turned back to Grace.
“I should be going, Grace. Once again, I’m sorry for the loss of your sister. If you ever need someone to talk to, don’t hesitate to get in touch with me.”
“Thank you, Charles. I will”
As I turned away to leave, I felt her boyfriend grab my forearm.
“Let me walk you to your car, Charles,” Patrick said.
“That’s alright. I’m parked just a few blocks away,” I said.
“I insist. This neighborhood can be a little dangerous at this time of night. I’ll be back in a minute, honey,” Patrick said, kissing her cheek.
We put our coats on and left together, walking the few blocks to my car without looking at each other. The silence between us made me nervous. When we arrived where I was parked, he spoke.
“You know, I served in Afghanistan fighting the Taliban in Wardak Province, Command Post Nerkh. Did you ever hear about the shit we had to go through over there?”
“Not really, no.”
“This is my first night back in the States and I haven’t seen my girlfriend in over three years. Can you believe it? When I left she had brown hair and when I came back, she’s a blonde.”
I put my hand in my coat pocket and grabbed my keys.
“Uh-huh,” I said.
He looked up at me with a dangerous glint in his eye.
“So after serving our country in that shit-hole, imagine my surprise when I see my girlfriend, the woman I’m engaged to marry, the future mother of my children, standing on the back porch next to some guy I’ve never met, that no one in the family knows anything about, engaging in a long intimate conversation with him. Well, coming home for a funeral is bad enough, but seeing her talking so nicely to another man is not exactly the way I imagined my first night back in Chicago to go, if you know what I mean.”
“Look, I don’t really know what you’re talking about. I’m just a friend of the family and I came to show my support for—”
“Did you have sex with my girlfriend? While I was away fighting the terrorists? Did you, Charles?”
His jaw was clenched and his hands formed into fists at his side.
“Of course not,” I said.
After responding, I turned away from him. My hands were trembling so much that I fumbled with my keys in the lock. He turned me back around rather roughly before I could open the car door. Johnson glanced over his shoulder to make sure we were alone on the street.
“Don’t turn away from me, dude. I was talking to you. Why are you being rude to me?”
“I don’t mean to be rude. It’s just that it’s getting late and…”
“All the guys on the A-Team were so annoyed with me for preaching the Gospel to them all the time, but they all knew when push comes to shove, I had their back. The insurgents over there were scared shitless of me.”
“Listen, Patrick. I don’t know what you’re upset about. I don’t even know your girlfriend. I had actually never met her until tonight.”
“Every soldier had a nickname in my unit. You know what they called me? What was my nickname? Can you guess, Charles?”
I tried to turn away again to open the door, but Patrick spun me back around and pressed my body against the side of my car. I became truly frightened.
“Answer my question? Do you know what my nickname was over there?” he whispered through gritted teeth
“No,” I said.
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“The Avenging Angel. Why do you suppose I got that name?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t? Well, let me tell you then. Because I rained down all manner of whoop-ass on the enemy combatants over there.”
I nodded.
“And I don’t know if it’s the jet lag, the funeral for the sweet misguided sister of Grace or if it’s just seeing the woman I love talking to your punk ass instead of me on my first night back, but it’s put me in a very bad mood.”
“Look. Patrick. I didn’t mean to upset you. I was just paying my respects to the Madsen—”
“You happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, Charles. Somebody’s got to pay for taking my girlfriend’s sister away from us, and I’m afraid that someone unfortunately is going to be you.”
It all happened so fast I didn’t have time to yell for help. It seemed to occur in slow motion. I turned frantically toward the car door and tried to open it, but he already had me firmly in his grasp. I’d never been in a fight before, so I didn’t know how to respond. His massive hard fist cold-cocked me in the gut, knocking me back against my car. I saw whirling black spots and immediately dropped to my knees. I tried to cover my face with my arms like a turtle’s shell, but he kicked me in the stomach. When I instinctively covered my torso, he hit me in the face again repeatedly. I tried to crawl away from him under the car, but he pulled me out and kept kicking and hitting me. I heard myself sobbing like a child and begging him to stop hitting me. I tasted the blood mixed with tears in my mouth and saw my shirt collar had become red. After kicking me a few more times, I suppose he got bored and left me in a heap beside the car door.
After I was absolutely sure he had gone, I pulled myself up and managed to get into my car. I was afraid to look at myself in the mirror. I was still crying and my face and body ached. I started the car and drove, wiping the tears and blood out of my eyes with my sleeve. After getting beaten up, everything else seemed to fall apart. I was already depressed over losing Grace and I wasn’t in my right mind. I bought a bottle of Scotch from the liquor store and drove back toward my apartment, but got off the highway at the exit for Obsessions. I parked in an open space, stared at the building where I had taken Grace on the last two nights and drank nearly half the bottle of Scotch. Getting drunk took the physical discomfort away, but the emotional pain remained. Without Grace, I realized my life was now over.
When the crowds started leaving the club I impulsively drove back to the overpass, swerving my car to the shoulder of the road. I got out and stumbled across the road, nearly getting hit by oncoming traffic. I climbed up on the retaining wall, sat down on the bridge and looked down at the cars streaking past on the freeway below. The thought crossed my mind that my mother would shed a tear, maybe an ex-girlfriend and a few work associates, but there was really no one else in the world that knew me or would care if I died. It would be fairly easy to throw myself over the barricade so I would land on the shoulder of the freeway below. My suicide would be clean and I wouldn’t even endanger the other motorists. Someone would see me and the police would eventually come peel me off of the cement. I stood up, feeling dizzy and weak. I walked slowly across the top of the retaining wall, nearly falling over the side twice. Just as I was about to throw myself off the bridge, a voice called out my name. When I realized it was the man with the scar, he grabbed me and I passed out.
The next morning I woke up on the couch in Jefferson’s office. My entire body ached and I looked like shit. My pointless life was saved, but to this day I have no idea why. I felt embarrassed when I remembered vomiting in his bathroom last night.
Jefferson offered me a cup of coffee. When he asked me what happened, I told him I had just attended the funeral of Eloise Madsen. He grabbed my shoulders and desperately shook me, despite my bruises.
“What do you mean? What are you talking about? When she left here she was fine! What the hell happened to her? Tell me!”
“Easy! Calm down, Jefferson! Christ! You’re hurting me!”
“Tell me!”
“The woman we knew was not Eloise Madsen!” I shouted. “Her real name is Grace. It was her twin sister whose funeral I attended. Her twin sister, Eloise Madsen, is the one who passed away.”
“Grace was pretending to be her sister with us for some reason,” I said.
Jefferson released me from his grasp and sat back on the couch. He asked if I knew why Grace had impersonated her sister with us. I told him about the strange circumstances of their conjoined birth and how much Grace loved Eloise and admired her sexual freedom. When Eloise Madsen passed away from the AIDS virus, I told Jefferson that I assumed Grace was so upset that she must have escaped into her sister’s personality. After the funeral when Grace’s boyfriend caught me talking to her at her parent’s house, I told Jefferson that the boyfriend beat the shit out of me for no apparent reason on the street outside of her parent’s home.
“He was trained in hand to hand combat in the military. It wasn’t a fair fight,” Jefferson said, with a look of anger in his eyes.
I nodded, trying to keep my emotions in check. Jefferson helped me out of my bloodstained shirt and gave me a clean change of clothes to wear.
“I never had a relationship with a woman like Grace. Meeting her was the most extraordinary thing that ever happened to me. There is nothing left in my life now, nothing… Losing Grace, getting beaten up by her boyfriend, I must’ve lost control of my senses. I was drunk; I climbed up on that overpass… I don’t think I said this earlier but… thank you. I didn’t know what I was thinking. You saved me, Jim.”
“Don’t worry about it. I’m just glad I was there to help you,” he said.
Jefferson took me out for breakfast and I managed to eat something without throwing up again. Back at the club he asked me what I was going to do now and I said I didn’t know, but I had to pull myself together somehow. I thanked him once more and shook his hand. Then I drove myself home.
When I got back to my apartment I called in to my office, told the sales manager I was in a car accident and asked for a few days off from my job. Since I was their top producer, the manager readily agreed. “Sure. Take as long as you need, kid,” he said. I fell into my bed, exhausted.
Chapter Eleven
Goodbye, Cassandra
After a few days off I felt much better and went back to work. Everyone greeted me very warmly and I had to lie to everyone about the car accident. After a few minutes I was back on the phone, cold calling businesses around Chicago again and pitching radio advertising spots for our station. I got back into the swing of my life, falling into the same tedious routines I had before I met Grace Madsen. I got up, went to work, did my stupid job and then came home, occasionally stopping off at a generic restaurant to have dinner as before. The next day I got up and did it over again. I still thought about Grace constantly and wondered how she was doing. I missed her. I fantasized her military boyfriend was killed in a terrible car accident and Ms. Madsen and I were able to be together again.
One evening after work I impulsively drove over to Obsessions. As soon as I walked in, I saw a blonde woman sitting at a table, smoking and talking to a gentleman. She was wearing a sheer dress very similar to the one I bought for Grace. At first I stood very still in the middle of the bar with my heart racing, hoping it was her and that she had decided to leave her boyfriend and come back to me. On closer inspection the woman was not Grace, though she looked very much like her. I went over to the bar and sat down, occasionally staring in her direction.
Mr. Jefferson came over to say hello to me. He greeted me warmly and asked how I was feeling. I told him I hadn’t jumped off any bridges lately. I think he liked the joke, since he smiled, which was rare for him. He asked if I’d like a drink and ordered us both a top of the line Scotch. I asked him if he’d seen Grace Madsen in his bar lately and he shook his head no. We both took sips of our drinks in silence. I looked back across the club in the direction of the blonde.
“Do you see the woman with the bright red lips, sitting across the room? The one in the blue dress? She looks just like her, but it can’t be her, can it?”
“No,” Jefferson said. “She looks like Grace, but her name is Janet.”
“Do you know her?” I asked.
“A little.”
“She’s lovely.”
“Yes.”
“Do you know if she’s looking for a Dom?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Is she… unattached?”
“I… really can’t say.”
I stood up from the bar stool.
“Thanks for the drink, Mr. Jefferson,” I said.
“Jim,” Jefferson said. “Call me Jim. And I’m glad you’re feeling better.”
“Thanks, Jim…” I said.
Before turning away, I looked Mr. Jefferson sincerely in the eyes.
“I want to thank you once again for pulling me down off that ledge on the overpass. You saved my life that night, Jim, and I’ll always remember you for that.”
“Don’t mention it, Charles.”
“I don’t know what was wrong with me. She… she got under my skin, you know?”
“I know. I know how you feel,” Jefferson said quietly.
I stood up from the bar stool and picked up my drink.
“I think I’ll go over there and talk to her, if I can summon up the courage. What do I have to lose? I promise not to jump off the bridge if she rejects me,” I said, reaching out my hand.
“OK. I’ll hold you to that,” he said, shaking my hand with a firm grip.
I walked over to her table and waited while another gentleman talked to Janet. After a few minutes I had my chance. Despite my fear of being rejected, I dove into the water once more. I had my experience with Cassandra to thank for making me more confident with women. I lit her cigarette, sat down at the table and introduced myself to her. She told me her name. I said Janet was a rather ordinary name for such a lovely woman. She smiled. It turned out we were raised in the same suburb of Chicago, she was around my age and we even knew some of the same people. I had a connection with her and we hit it off immediately. I even made her laugh when I told her about my meaningless job. Impulsively, I invited Janet out for frozen yoghurt and to catch a movie with me that evening. I was surprised when she agreed to go out with me. After we finished our drinks, we stood up together and walked toward the door.