Afraid of Her Shadow

by Carol Maloney Scott

“Okay, say what you have to say. Let’s sit in here on this comfortable orange couch that I love so much. I won’t be sorry to leave all of this…” I wave my hands around the room and Eve cringes, as if she’s seeing it all for the first time, and she wasn’t just here recently telling Steve how wonderful the house looks.

  “What do you mean, you won’t miss it?” Her hands fly to her open mouth. “You’re not leaving, are you?”

  “I was just packing when you interrupted. Now get on with it.” I fold my arms across my chest, as if that forms a force field against more lies.

  “I had no idea Kathleen was going to do that. I thought I was being nice by inviting her. She’s a lonely old woman and I feel sorry for her. Now I see she’s in much worse shape than I thought. I haven’t been here enough to see what’s really going on. If I had known, I wouldn’t have said a word. And I didn’t mean to spoil your surprise, either. I just forgot.” She stares at me. “Are you going to say anything?”

  I throw myself back against the couch, which hurts as it provides no cushion or bounce. My God, they could have bought some pillows for this thing.

  “Eve, I don’t really care what you knew or didn’t know. Steve knew. It all makes sense now. I overheard him talking about how ‘she’ would love it. Presumably what he was planning for the party. He seemed very jumpy and nervous about Kathleen coming. I thought it was just because of my earlier contact with her, but now I know it’s because he knew what she had planned. And even if he didn’t plan it with her, he must have suspected. And anyway, how could she possibly do that on her own? How would she know the setup of the clubhouse, or the name of the DJ?” My eyes challenge Eve to come up with an explanation.

  She sits quietly with her hands folded on her lap. Blue and Jewel finally decide to join this fun conversation, and both of my little turncoats jump up on Aunt “Meowmie’s” lap. I rub my forehead and wait.

  “I just don’t know, but there has to be an explanation.”

  “And why do you care? You and Kathleen are of the same mind when it comes to loyalty to the dead.” Her stricken expression causes me to soften, just a hair. “I’m sorry. That wasn’t nice. I’m sorry you lost your husband. I’m sorry for everyone’s pain, but I should have said no when Steve asked me out in the first place. It would have saved everyone a lot of heartache. Speaking of which, where is Megan?”

  “That was quite a scene. After you ran out, and Steve tried to run after you, Megan called her grandmother a crazy old bitch, and Dylan had to restrain her.” My eyes widen. “I know, I hope she wasn’t planning on jumping a senior citizen, but she had venom in her eyes. Her mother looked like that when…never mind. Steve was torn between staying and dealing with Megan and the fallout, and chasing after you. He decided to let you run off, and cool down.”

  “Too bad no one filmed that. It would make a much better slide show.” A snort laugh escapes and I shake my head, turning more serious again. “Eve, you don’t approve of my relationship with Steve. Maybe you thought what Kathleen did was over the top, but you still aren’t on my side. Our side.”

  Her eyes moisten again. “I wasn’t. You’re right. I was wallowing in my own grief for far too long, and projecting it on Steve and anyone else I came in contact with. My boys tried to tell me. They both think I should be dating and that I should let their father’s memory rest.”

  She fidgets on the couch as if she has just noticed she is sitting on a slab of orange concrete. “The point is, seeing Kathleen’s behavior tonight, and knowing it is fueled by an open wound and a delusional mind, made me ashamed of myself. I’ve been as crazy as Kathleen. And I am not an old lady. I still have some good years left, and I’m wasting them stuck in the past.”

  She tentatively reaches for my hand. “I don’t want that to happen to Steve, too. He doesn’t want it to happen. If it wasn’t for me, Kathleen and Megan, he would have sold this house, and packed up the pictures.” She searches my eyes for some sign that she’s connecting.

  I exhale loudly. “Okay, so you’ve had an epiphany. I forgive you. But that doesn’t change the fact that Steve can’t handle all of this. You may be ready to join us on the side of normal, and Megan is clearly there, but what about Kathleen? Do we just wait until she dies to have peace? What you’re saying has some validity, but on some level he feels guilty being with me, like he’s betraying Noreen, and I can’t live like that.”

  “I’m sure he’ll be home soon with a logical explanation. He said he was going to take a drive to clear his head first. And Dylan took Megan back to his dorm.” She raises her eyebrows suspiciously.

  Dylan’s a nice kid, but I doubt they’re just cooling off. Probably more like fueling passion with anger, but Megan’s sex life choices are not tops on my list of worries tonight.

  Eve clears her throat and says, “In the meantime, we need to get drunk.”

  “We do? How is that going to help?”

  “It certainly can’t hurt.”

  She jumps up and I say, “Eve, we don’t have any liquor in this house.”

  She pats her purse and says, “I knew that, so I came prepared.” She stopped at a liquor store on the way here?

  She opens her purse, revealing numerous small bottles of flavored vodka. I burst into rolling laughter. “You swiped those from the bar on your way out?”

  She grins and says in a screeching voice, “I did!”

  We decide to take our booze stash out to the back porch. It’s a nice night, and our asses are broken from the couch.

  Eve sets the bottles up on the table, and I go out to the kitchen to grab some snacks. My life may be unraveling, but I am going to enjoy getting blasted before I make any decisions about my future.

  I carry a tray of chips, dips, cheese and some fruit back to the porch, and rest it next to our little bottles of promised merriment.

  Not an hour later, Eve is obviously plastered. I don’t hold my alcohol very well, either, as I rarely have more than a glass or two, but she seems to be absorbing the booze at a fast pace. She can’t stop laughing and she’s holding her sides. The cats are laying in the corner staring at her, and Elsa is by my side, with her head at my feet.

  “There are so many things I want to do. I know,” she waves her arms wildly, “let’s take stripper lessons!”

  I smirk and say, “You mean pole dancing?”

  “Yes, that’s what it’s called.” She raises her hand triumphantly and tries to read the label on the next bottle she chooses, giving up and downing half the liquid in one gulp. Maybe she should be mixing this with ginger ale. I am not much of a mixologist but at least I could slow down her path to vomiting up her insides.

  Before I can respond she breaks out in a fresh fit of giggles. “But I would have to lose thirty pounds or I’d snap the pole!”

  We continue on with this conversational theme, as Eve ticks off the things on her newly discovered bucket list. “Wait, I have one, I want to do karaoke. On a bar. Do they have that?”

  “You mean, at a bar. Sure, that’s usually where you find drunk people singing off-key.”

  “No, I mean I want to stand on the bar. Do you think I could do it in my bra? Like a partial striptease karaoke?”

  I now see that there’s no point in trying to reason with her ideas, so I go along with it.

  “Sure, they probably even have naked karaoke somewhere. Probably not in Richmond, but we could drive to New York. They have everything there.”

  Eve goes off on a rant about how we must plan a trip and she wants to look at the stars naked in Central Park. I’m no psychology expert, but all this naked talk makes me think Eve is sexually frustrated.

  “And I want to find the bar where the firemen hang out and take one of them back to my hotel. Oh, that means we can’t share a room. I’ll pay.”

  She starts counting on her fingers, I presume tallying the extra cost of banging random strangers into her vacation budget.

  I am amused by Eve’s antics, and even if Steve and I don’t work out,
I would still like to help her find her way. She could lose a little bit of weight. It would give her more energy and confidence, without drinking a small cat’s weight in vodka.

  Eve is starting to slow down, and she drops her almost empty bottle to the floor. I swipe it before Elsa can get her greedy tongue on the tasty treat. The last thing I need is more than one species hurling later.

  Anticipating the fun of Eve’s certain sickness and hangover, I weigh the options of getting her to a more comfortable spot. She’s slumped in the chair and her head is hanging in an awkward position. I count the empty bottles. They’re tiny, but she downed a few very quickly. There’s no way I can possibly lift or carry her. I chastise myself for letting her get like this, but she seemed to be enjoying letting loose for once, and my own problems have left me rather numb tonight.

  “What the hell happened to her?”

  The voice startles me and I lunge forward, smacking my little toe on the metal table leg. Doing the “toe injury dance,” I study Megan’s incredulous expression.

  I slow down and rub my throbbing appendage. “Vodka. And life. Death. All of that.”

  “Is she okay?” Megan must be thinking that she would be better off if she could get her own place, away from all the lunatic adults in her life.

  “Yeah, she’s just wasted. It happens.” I want to ask Megan about tonight, but first I say, “Do you think you can help me get her to the couch? Not the orange one, I want her to actually rest. She might be okay in the family room.”

  “Let’s try for the guest room.”

  I attempt to gently wake Eve, just enough so she can support some of her weight. Megan is a little thing, and I’m no lady wrestler. Somehow we manage to rouse her enough to get her to stumble, with our guidance, to the guest room, where she throws herself face first on the bed. We look at the blankets, as if we could possibly get some of them over her, but we both shake our heads and leave the room.

  “Was she saying something about being naked in Times Square with the Naked Cowboy?” Megan’s face is contorted in a mixture of disgust and confusion.

  “Yeah, Aunt Eve apparently has some dormant fantasies brought out by inebriation.” I smile, then say, “So do you want to tell me your take on what happened tonight?”

  Megan explains the scene and aftermath of Kathleen’s performance, much the same as Eve did earlier. I tell her she really shouldn’t have called her grandmother a crazy bitch in front of fifty people, but she stands firm.

  “I am sick of everyone acting like deranged zombies. I miss my mother, too, but holy shit, be fucking normal.” She keeps saying this, but no one is listening.

  I can’t argue with her. “Do you think Steve knew?”

  She echoes Eve’s sentiments, not believing he would be part of it, but also agreeing that Kathleen would have needed inside information. “Did Steve even know the setup of the clubhouse? Or the DJ’s name?”

  “He’s been there many times. We’ve used it for Meetup parties. He may not have remembered there was a screen, but it’s possible. And the DJ is the same guy we use for those parties, too. He could have put it all together.” I rub my eyes, smearing what’s left of my makeup.

  I tell Megan to go to bed, and try not to worry. I’m glad her room is on the side of the house where Eve is out cold, and she isn’t going to walk past my open bedroom door. I don’t want her to see that I was packing a suitcase.

  CHAPTER FORTY THREE

  Hmm…what’s that noise? Who’s talking? There’s no one here…Maybe Eve’s up. Shit, she’s probably heaving all over the…

  “Rebecca, wake up, Love.” I can make out Steve’s silhouette in the darkened room, and I sit up abruptly, rubbing my eyes and clutching the afghan on the family room couch. Elsa stirs and jumps down, trotting off to the kitchen.

  “What are you doing here?” Oh, he lives here. My mind is foggy, partially from the vodka, but mostly from the earlier events of the night, which all come flooding back to me.

  “I came home to check on you. And everyone. Megan’s asleep in her room. And I saw Eve in the guest room.”

  “She’s drunk. Apparently I should be, too. You wouldn’t have been able to wake me.”

  He sits down next to me and tries to touch me, but I recoil. His wounded eyes plead with me. “Rebecca, I am so sorry about what happened tonight. I had no idea she was going to do that. I knew she might say something, and I would have to divert everyone’s attention, but if I had any idea she was cooking up such an elaborate plot…” He hangs his head and then stares up at the celling.

  “How could you possibly not have known?”

  He leans back and says, “I know it looks bad, but I figured it out. When everyone was freaking out, and you, then Megan, then Eve bolted out of there, Diane told me an interesting bit of information.”

  “Wait, what happened to Kathleen?” Wishing that she was stoned by the villagers for her sins is a reasonable hope.

  “She left in a huff. I called her son, Dan. He lives in Ohio, but he’s the only one who would be sympathetic to hearing about her crap. He said he’ll call her and maybe come out for a visit with his wife and kids. I can’t bear the burden of her grief anymore. It’s not fair. And as for Eve—”

  “She came here to apologize. So what did Diane tell you that helps solve the big mystery and proves your innocence?”

  Steve shrinks a bit, and responds, “She told me that the lady who runs the association in your neighborhood, and rents the clubhouse, also attends the senior center where Diane and some of the Meetup members volunteer.”

  “What does that have to do with Kathleen?”

  “You know how Diane knows and remembers everybody?” I have to nod in agreement to that gospel truth. “Well, she said she recognized Kathleen as the annoying lady who hangs out with the clubhouse lady, I think her name is Margaret. Anyway, Diane said that all Kathleen does is tell stories about her late daughter.”

  “So you think that Margaret helped Kathleen plan his whole thing because she knew about the logistics of the clubhouse and the party? But Kathleen didn’t even know about the party until Eve told her a few days ago.”

  “I think Kathleen is pretty cunning. Eve said that Kathleen asked her about my birthday, probably trying to wear her down to get an invitation, probably after she found out about it from Margaret. I’m sure Margaret told Kathleen there was a party on the books for a Steve Hollister’s birthday.”

  “No, it was in my name.” I pause and reflect. “Shit, I did tell her your name. She asked me who the lucky birthday boy was when I booked the date. I just thought she was a nosy old bag, which I guess she is. She must have been thrilled when she put two and two together.”

  “You also forget that I spent the better part of a year at your condo. She could live right on your street and have known about our relationship the whole time. I bet her and Kathleen gossiped about it constantly.”

  I don’t want to admit that this makes sense, but it does. However, this does not change things. Not really.

  I squirm and delve into a more uncomfortable topic. “I overheard you on the phone last week. Elsa was barking and I was distracted. I only heard bits and pieces, but you said something like ‘she would have loved it.’ I only assumed you were talking about Noreen. So you can see how I assumed that tonight’s presentation was what she would have loved.”

  Steve’s puzzled look could be an act, but I’ve never known him to be a good liar. “I said that? Who was I talking to? Oh, I know. I didn’t say, ‘she would have loved it.’ I said, ‘she will love it.’ You probably couldn’t hear properly if Elsa was barking.”

  He’s right. I only heard every other word and I panicked and jumped to the worst possible conclusion. “Hold on. How could she love something if she’s not here?”

  “I wasn’t talking about Noreen.” He stands up and walks to the foyer. What the hell is he doing?

  He returns, still with only the hall light in the distance to light his way back, and kneel
s.

  “I was going to do this at the party. I thought you would love it with all our friends and family there. I was waiting for your parents and Ryan’s family to arrive. I was originally going to take you away for the weekend next week, but when Eve spilled the news about the surprise party, I decided that was the perfect time.”

  My eyes haven’t blinked in several seconds, and my contact lenses have dried out from sleeping in them. My breath is shallow and my eyes are becoming lubricated with tears, clouding my vision of Steve in the dim light, holding a little black box.

  “Rebecca Elizabeth Scarborough, will you be my wife?” He opens the box and reveals a diamond ring. I can only assume that it’s an engagement ring, based on the question, but my eyes are so hazy now, Kermit the Frog could be offering me a fraggle pebble.

  I blink hard and say, “Oh my God, oh my God.” I shake my hands and jump in my seat. “Oh my God!”

  Steve shifts from one knee to the other, still holding the box. “Oh my God isn’t an answer.”

  “Oh my God! I’m sorry. Yes, wait. I think yes. Are you sure?”

  “As sure as I’ve ever been about anything. I love you, and I want to be with you always. I am not living in the past, it only looks like it. I promise we’ll work on building a new life, and home, together.”

  “Yes. I will marry you.” I reach forward and hug him, practically knocking the ring out of his hands. This moment is surreal, and I have to steady myself. Thank goodness I’m sitting down.

  “Don’t you want to see the ring?” I break free from the tight embrace, and Steve places the ring on my finger.

  “Do you like it?”

  “It’s perfect.” I stare in disbelief, and Steve switches on the lamp on the end table so I can actually see my engagement ring. It’s dazzling in the soft light.

  “I’m sorry I’ve been jealous and moody. And angry. But I can’t promise that will all go away overnight. You have to know that. This is wonderful, and I’m very happy, but once the glow wears off, we still have some issues to deal with.”

  “I only want you to be happy. And Megan. I want a family.” My eyes widen and he says, “I don’t mean a baby, silly. We’re too old for that. But in a way, we form a family. And I was thinking we could get that Corgi puppy we were talking about.”