The Pandora Effect

by Olivia Darnell

  “Don’t say that,” Louis told her, shocked by the depths of bitterness in her voice. “It ain’t right to go wishin’ you were dead. Larry wouldn’t like that at all.”

  “And why not?” She shoved her plate back. “What do I have but a bunch of cats? hell, they ain’t even my cats! They’re strays.”

  Louis didn’t know what to say. Maybe she had the right to be miserable.

  “Anyway,” he said looking out the window above the sink where a huge Himalayan cat peered back at him from the window ledge. “I’m gonna do it whether you want to help me or not, Hannah.”

  “Me? Help you?” She laughed and the sound made him shudder. “What could I do? Break a bottle of wine on it? You just go on and ease your conscience, Mr. Louis Parks and leave me the hell out of it. It won’t make a bit of dif’rence in the long run.”

  Louis shook his head. He walked down the hallway and let himself out among the cats. The fresh morning air made him feel better as soon as he was out of the house. He took a few deep breaths before getting into the patrol car and looked back at the house. Yeah, yeah, he was going to do it and he was determined more than ever to give Hannah something back of her son. But, then, maybe she was right. Maybe he was just trying to ease his own mind. It didn’t matter.

  Chapter Nine:.

  Chris Parker stared up at the underside of the Toyota Corolla that Pete was working on in the first bay of the garage.

  “Yep,” he said, reaching up to shake the exhaust pipe. “Gonna need a whole new system from the manifold on back. Got holes all in it and listen to that! Might even need a new converter. Must live down a dirt road. Lots of puddles, I’ll bet.”

  Pete nodded and began to unbolt the clamps holding the muffler and pipes in place. Chris backed up out of his way. He wasn’t officially dirty yet. He wouldn’t start work until later in the afternoon and he’d stay until they closed. He always got a lot of extra business that way. His was the only garage for miles that stayed open every night until eleven o’clock, but he was beginning to rethink the idea of working so late six out of those seven nights himself. It was getting old and so was he. That Mrs. Aliger had told him he had the right to be happy and somehow he didn’t feel happy anymore. It was time for a change. He was nearly thirty years old and he wasn’t getting any younger. He left Pete to his work and went inside the store to find his sister.

  Joanne was in the office behind the counter making up the deposit slips from Saturday and Sunday. Sundays were always slow, so she made the weekend deposit count as one.

  “Did pretty good for a Sunday,” she told him when he came in.

  “It’s summertime,” he said straddling one of the chairs backwards. “Lots of people passin’ through on vacations and such. We’re the only station in town that stays open on Sunday.”

  “Yeah, I guess so.” She punched the numbers in the calculator and watched her brother from the corner of her eye. He sure had been acting different since Saturday. “What’s up?”

  “I’ve been thinkin’,” he said slowly. “I ought to change my hours, you know, reserve some time off in the evenin’ for myself.”

  “Oh, yeah?” She nodded. “You got yourself a new hobby?”

  “Maybe,” he said, looking up at the ceiling. “I got a date Friday night and Saturday’s the annual thing for the library. I’d kinda like to go downtown and see what all the ruckus is about. You know, do something different for a change. Pete and Amos can handle it. I done talked to Pete about it. And maybe Joe.”

  “I guess they could.” Joanne smiled to herself. “You goin’ out Friday night, huh?”

  “Yep,” he said and stretched as if this revolutionary idea were commonplace for him. “And I’ve promised to stop by Louis Parks’ booth... on Saturday.”

  “His booth?” Joanne turned to look at him in surprise. “Since when is Louis Parks interested in raising money for the library?”

  “Well, it ain’t for the library for one thing,” Chris told her apparently very satisfied to know something she didn’t. “It’s a special project he has come up with. He’s gettin’ special permission from Mayor Crosby to run it concurrent.”

  Concurrent was a word Joanne had never heard him say in her entire life. Chris was a surprise a minute these days.

  “That’s real strange.” Joanne shook her head. “Louis Parks and Mayor Crosby? What’s it for? A new keg for the police ball?” She asked sarcastically.

  “Joanne, they don’t just think about the police ball all year. There’s only seventeen officers on the force anyway. The ball’s more like a picnic, if you ask me,” Chris told her importantly. “And no, it ain’t for that.”

  “Then what’s it for?” She asked.

  “To raise money to rebuild the old war memorial down on the corner. You know, the flagpole.”

  “Really?!” Joanne was truly surprised now. “That sounds like a fine idea. Who roped Louis into doing that?”

  “It was his idea,” Chris told her.

  “No way. You’ve got to be kiddin’.”

  “Good intentions are not always congruent with results,” Chris told her matter-of-factly.

  “Whaat?” Joanne frowned at him. Now she thought she was hearing things.

  “Just something I heard from somebody,” he said. “It means that sometimes even the best of intentions go astray. Louis must have done good things before. He just ain’t too good at gettin’ results.”

  “So!” She said nodding. “What’s with this date on Friday?” She wanted to turn the subject back to more interesting topics.

  “Well, Perry... that’s Mr. Aliger... he and his wife, Angelica, have invited myself and Cheryl Martin over to dinner at their place. In fact, he told me to tell you to come along. I think you’d really like them, Joanne. She’s a nice lady.”

  “She is?” Joanne stood up. “And just who do you think would run the store? With both of us gone?’

  “hell, Joanne!” Chris frowned at her. “The store runs itself. Joe can run it. He’ll be glad for the extra hours. And there’s Maggie. I’ll bet she wouldn’t mind if you’d show her a little more trust. She’s been with us for five years now.”

  “I don’t know.” Joanne made a face. “You really want me to go? I’d be sort of a fifth wheel, wouldn’t I?”

  “Naw, not at all,” he told her. “The Aligers will make you feel right at home. You’ll be glad you did. That’s all I can say. And it’s high time you got yourself a real friend or two and quit hanging out with them old geezers on Saturday night. What kind of life is that for a girl anyway?”

  Joanne looked startled at his statement. She didn’t even think of herself as a girl. She never had. “I’m not exactly a ‘girl’, boy!” She laughed at him poking him playfully in the ribs. “I’m almost thirty-two years old. I’ve never had much luck with lady friends, Chris. They are usually more trouble than they are worth.”

  “Well, still,” Chris insisted. “You would like Angelica and I know she ain’t like the other lady friends you’ve had. She wouldn’t be a pest or a bother. And Perry plays that piano real good. Cheryl loves it. I kind of like it myself. You know, life can get pretty borin’ if you don’t experience something new from time to time. Do you realize that our private life don’t even exist?”

  “The store is my life, Chris. You’re beginnin’ to sound pretty strange. Are you sure you don’t have a fever or something?” She said defensively.

  “Will you come or not?” He asked impatiently. “Joanne, we can have some real conversation. Like talkin’ about philosophy and stuff and not the damned store.”

  Joanne sat in silence for a few moments.

  “I’ll think on it,” she told him and went out to wait on a customer. Philosophy? What was the world coming to? She chuckled to herself.

  Chris watched her go. He guessed she had no idea that she was really a very nice looking woman. She kept herself up good and wore nice clothes. He wondered if he had overloaded his mouth. He wasn’t used to talking a w
hole lot. But he’d never had much to say before... before what? He’d seen more than one customer give his sister a second glance. She had no life outside the store. He had never realized it before. Chris leaned around the door to watch her put the pouch in the safe under the counter. She was always looking out for him. Maybe it was time he looked out for her. It wasn’t that he wanted to marry her off. What would happen to the partnership if she got married? What if she had kids? What if he got married? What if he had kids? Boy, that would change everything! Had she given up her life for him? The idea shocked him to his foundations! Did she think he still needed looking after? The thought had never crossed his mind before. Maybe it was about time it did.

  Louis stopped by the New Castle Gift Shop after having first made the block three times to see if the gray Mercedes was in the carport. He parked out front and went to tap on the glass door where the blind was still drawn down tight. Still no hint of what lay beyond. He stood in the bright midday sun admiring the marigolds in the old brick planter. The door opened to the sound of glass wind chimes. Perry Aliger stepped outside and pulled the door closed behind him.

  “Louis.” He smiled. “What can I do for you?”

  “I hope I’m not botherin’ you,” Louis said sticking out his hand bravely to shake Perry’s hand, but no shock occurred.

  “No, not at all.” Perry looked amused. The strange color of his eyes was even more evident in the bright light of the day. Louis would never get used to them.

  “We were just getting ready for the grand opening on Saturday,” he added after Louis seemed to go blank.

  “Oh, yeah. Of course.” Louis seemed to snap out of it. “I just came by to talk to you about a little project I got goin’. You see, I’m tryin’ to raise some money to rebuild the war memorial.” Louis turned and waved one arm toward the flagpole base visible down on the next corner.

  “Oh.” Perry frowned and then nodded. He reached into his back pocket and pulled out a leather wallet. “How much do you need?”

  Louis stared at the wallet as if it were still a live reptile.

  “No, I mean... I don’t want your money. No! I mean I’m gonna have a booth at the Library Festival on Saturday. That’s how I’m gonna get the money.” Louis wondered if he had told him that he needed two thousand dollars, would he have pulled it out of the wallet and handed it over. Louis believed he would have. “A booth. A junk stop. You know, like a mini garage sale.”

  “Ga...rage sale?” Perry looked confused.

  “I thought maybe you and your wife would like to make a donation. Some stuff for the booth. You know, things you don’t want anymore.” Louis was not surprised that Perry seemed to know nothing of garage sales. He didn’t look like a garage sale kind of guy.

  Louis sighed. He wished it had been Mrs. Aliger who’d answered the door. She was harder and easier to talk to than this guy.

  “Of course.” Perry seemed to finally register what he meant. “When would you like to pick it up?”

  “It?” Louis was brought back to the present.

  “The garage sale stuff,” Perry told him. “I can have it ready for you whenever you like.”

  “Oh, yeah, sure.” Louis smiled, but had no idea why. “That’s great.”

  “How about tomorrow evening around five o’clock?” Perry offered. “Bring your wife. Angelica wants to meet her.”

  “Sure,” Louis told him even though he knew that Julia would never agree to come and that he didn’t want to bring her here, ever.

  Samuel Morris, Jr. leaned against the window of his office on the second floor of the Savings and Loan, craning his neck to see what the police sergeant was up to down the street. It was not the first time he had seen the police cruiser sitting at the curb. He wondered if there was something wrong over there. It would be a pity just when things were beginning to shape up. His mother cleared her throat behind him.

  “Sammy!” She said impatiently. “Are you paying attention to me?”

  “Yes, Mama,” he said wearily. “You know I always pay attention to you.”

  “Well, anyway,” she continued without missing a beat “the construction work will start tomorrow and I want you to make some phone calls. Make sure that Mary McDaniels can’t do anything to stop it.”

  “Like what, Mother?” He turned to face her where she sat in the midst of the black leather sofa in a dress two sizes too small for her rotund figure. The dress was black. She could have been mistaken for part of the sofa and he wished abstractedly that she was. “What can she do? Throw herself in front of the bulldozer?”

  “An injunction! A court order! Something like that. I don’t know what all she can do legally. That’s your department, Sammy.” She waved one bejeweled hand in front her face while indulging her favorite pained expression. “I just know she will do something.”

  “All right. I’ll check into it,” he told her to satisfy her. “I’ll put a call in to Ed Webb.”

  “Ed Webb?!” She said in absolute disgust. “That shyster lawyer friend of yours is going to get you into trouble. You’ll call Terrell Lamb.”

  “Sure, sure, whatever you say,” he said resignedly. “But tell me, Mother, do you know what shyster means?”

  “Don’t take that tone with me.” She narrowed her eyes.

  “Ed Webb is a fine attorney.” Samuel Morris shook his head. There was no use arguing with his mother. “He knows his business.”

  “Yes, and everyone else’s too.” She snorted. “I’d just as soon he didn’t know ours.”

  “He makes his living knowing people’s businesses. He’s a Corporate Lawyer. He majored in Corporate Law. Terrell Lamb is the District Attorney. Mary McDaniels, as far as I know, is not a criminal. There is a big difference between Criminal Law and Corporate Law, Mama.”

  “Hmmph!” Mildred dabbed at the corner of her eye with a tissue. “I do all of this for you, Sammy. Someday you’ll appreciate your mother when she’s dead and gone.”

  Sam turned back to the window to watch Louis Parks. His mother didn’t know how true her words were. He immediately felt bad for having had such a thought.

  “I don’t know why you slave the way you do,” she continued. “Your father and I worked so hard to make sure you didn’t have to. Why do you come down here day after day?”

  “Look around, Mama,” he told her. “I hardly call this slaving.”

  “You know what I mean!” She told him. “You don’t have to work for these... people! You could be working for yourself.”

  “I’m not an undertaker, Mother,” he told her for the thousandth time. “Dead people make me extremely nervous and so do their families. Let’s not go over the same thing again. I’ll make the phone calls. I’ll call Terrell Lamb for you. Just, please don’t start in on me again. I’m not in the mood.”

  “You’re breaking your poor mother’s heart.” She looked down at her hands, but he knew she had gotten what she had come for. The phone calls and the guilt trip. “One day you’ll be sorry.”

  “I know.” He went to kiss her cheek. The scent of her over-priced perfume engulfed him.

  “I resent the term undertaker, Sammy,” she told him. He was disappointed that his move for dismissal had failed. He had things to do. “A funeral director. You’d never actually have to... well, you would have your staff to do all the manual labor and you would hardly have any contact with the families if you didn’t want to. Why I never really go down there myself. I conduct all my business from my office just like you do. And I must say...” she glanced around his plushly appointed office “my office is much more suited to your abilities and talents. This bank will never appreciate you or pay you what you are worth.”

  “I would still know they were down there, Mother.” He shook his head and shuddered at the thought of the funeral parlor’s basement. “I appreciate what you want for me, but I’m telling you, I’d be no good at it.”

  “Well, I must be going,” she said finally and glanced at her diamond watch. “I have an app
ointment at two thirty. Pre-paid burials! What is the world coming to? They’re just trying to find a way to save money, cut costs, cheapen the whole affair, if you ask me. Why, funeral arrangements are just part of the grieving process. It allows the family to express themselves. What good is a funeral that was planned years ago? Next thing you know, I’ll be working a drive through window!”

  Sam had to repress a smile. That would have been interesting. I’ll take a white casket, blue suit and an order of lilies on the side and, oh, would you super size that please?

  “I certainly hope not,” he said instead. “I’ll let you know what I find out.” He was feeling better already as she stood up and adjusted her skirt.

  “Thank you, Sweetie,” she said and gave him a peck on the cheek, picked up her purse and walked briskly out the door.

  Sam hurried back to the window. The patrol car was gone. He focused on the reflection of Mary McDaniels little yellow house in the glass of the window. He’d often wondered what trick of the light caused her house to be mirrored in his office window in the afternoons. There was another house further along. A stately old house with three full stories with magnificent oaks in the yard. He couldn’t see it, but he knew it well. It was the house his mother had bought to build her additional parking space. She would be bulldozing all the trees and flowers and razing the old house. It was a shame. He had always wanted to buy the house and refurbish it. Maybe even live in it, but it would soon be gone. Another glossy black parking lot would cover up another one of his childhood dreams. He had once had a crush on a little girl who had lived there a long time ago, but soon, very soon, this memory, like most of his other childhood memories, would be eradicated, as always, by his mother.

  Chapter Ten:.

  Tyler pulled his truck into the drive and turned off the engine. Paula Anne’s classic Cougar sat in the carport. Good, he thought.

  He had taken off early just to come home to talk to her. What was Paula Anne up to? He got out of the truck and walked up the back steps onto the porch before stopping. He looked around the back yard frowning. There should have been at least five or six young girls in the yard jumping on the trampoline or practicing cheers. The house and the yard were strangely quiet. Had she cancelled her Monday afternoon classes without telling him about it? It wouldn’t have surprised him. She never told him anything anymore. He opened the back door and went straight to the refrigerator to get a beer. The kitchen was squeaky clean as usual. He glanced around at the array of hens and roosters decorating every nook and cranny. They made him nervous. A half empty glass of orange juice sat on the counter. He touched the glass. Still cold. He popped the top of the beer as he went to the living room searching for her. The television was on, but no one was there. He walked down the hallway to the bedroom at the end. The door stood open. Paula Anne was sitting on the bed, dressed in her hot pink wind shorts and black tights.