Liz sighed at his message. He didn’t want to ruin her night. Gary was so kind and so clueless. Perhaps she should tell him. It would be nice to have an ally in her fight against Mark’s advances. No, she thought, she could handle it. Why should she ruin his night?
You are thoughtful! Thank you. She texted.
Mark is a good guy, Liz. He asks me all the time if I am treating you well. He says you deserve the best. He is right!
There it was again. Mark was speaking, but it was Gary’s words she was reading. How odd, she thought. ‘You deserve the best’. Who did Mark really think was the best? She wanted to scream into her phone. GARY GET A CLUE!!! Instead she texted, Thanks Gary, get some sleep!
Night luv, I ‘ope that ya sleep well too!
“Lord!” she said out loud, “he’s doing the accent in texts now.”
Sleep tight. She replied.
She placed her phone on the pillow beside her. She expected her phone would chime again. Gary usually signed off with one last emoji at night before he went completely silent. Just as she suspected, it chimed again.
It wasn’t Gary. It was Mark.
Hey, I hope you got home okay?
I did. She texted.
I’m sorry no one else showed up tonight. I’m glad you came anyhow.
She hesitated before she answered. So am I.
It was nice to get a chance to talk to you. I hope you didn’t feel awkward.
She wasn’t’ sure what to say. She had felt awkward and she still felt awkward. She texted, No, because we are friends.
Her phone was quiet for a short while and it chimed again. Mark texted, Yes, friends. It was quiet again before Mark sent another text, Good night, friend. I hope you have the dreams you deserve. Liz did not answer. He texted a few moments later. It simply said, Friends, just friends?
Gary chimed in with a sleepy emoji face that yawned.
Liz answered with a heart. She looked at her phone again. She felt her face flush, she had sent the heart to Mark, not Gary. Her phone immediately chimed back.
Mark sent her back a heart and a wink.
She quickly pushed out another text, Good night, Gary.
Gary sent a winking face. She drew up a wink on her phone and sent it—to Mark.
She pulled the covers above her shoulders and rolled over. She felt the danger of her response, and she liked it.
24
The anticipation and excitement of meeting with little Annie left Anna Marie tossing and turning through the night. The few moments she’d spent with her before Kevin was shot in the lobby was all she really knew of the child. When the alarm on the nightstand went off, she pushed the button and rolled back over. She allowed the events of that horrific night to run through her mind.
She was enjoying the show from the audience when Liz passed a note to her from backstage that said, ‘Kevin is here’. Bill had placed a restraining order on Kevin and everyone knew that he was not allowed to be in the theatre. When Anna Marie saw the note, she climbed up to the light booth to let Bill know. He called the police and insisted that she stay with him until they located Kevin.
During the second Act, Liz spotted Kevin in the catwalks above the theatre and signaled Bill from the stage. Before Bill could do anything about it, Kevin was with them in the light booth. He’d pressured the show’s choreographer to help him bring his young daughter to meet Anna Marie. He believed that if Anna Marie met the little girl and found out that he'd actually named his child after her; she would know that he loved her all along. Hoping that he would be forgiven, he insisted that Darci was a mistake. He’d had an affair, gotten the woman pregnant and didn’t know how to handle the situation. Anna Marie later learned that the choreographer was another woman that Kevin had gone too far with. He’d convinced her that if she helped him get into the theatre with his little girl, he would never tell anyone about their short affair.
When the little girl met Anna Marie she simply blurted out, “I know who you are! You are the pretty lady that my daddy named me after because he loves me so much.” Everyone was reacting under the false impression that Kevin had a gun in his pocket. Kevin directed the choreographer to take the little girl back inside the theatre. He insisted that Anna Marie step into the lobby to speak to him, privately. Knowing that the police were on their way, Anna Marie tried to appease Kevin. Bill followed from a close distance.
In the meantime, Darci was panicking because she believed that Kevin and Anna Marie were planning to run away with her child. She arrived at the theatre and saw Kevin speaking to Anna Marie in the lobby. She pulled a gun from her purse and turned it on Anna Marie while she begged Kevin to hand over the child.
Clifford was in the bathroom. When he stepped into the lobby and saw a gun pointed at Anna Marie, his instincts as a retired police officer took over. He rushed the gun. What happened next played out in slow motion in her mind. It was the first time since the incident took place that she was able to get a clear mental picture of what had transpired. Clifford ran across the lobby and threw his body into Darci. She heard the pop of the gun. Kevin leaped into the air in front of her. His body suddenly changed direction from the force of the bullet and fell into her. She felt her head hit the back of the wall and everything was black until she woke in the hospital.
She felt the dampness that had gathered under her hair at the back of her neck as she pulled her mind from the nightmare. Her thoughts fixated on the little girl in the light booth. She sat up in her bed thinking of how perfectly adorable the child looked the night they’d met. She remembered her beautiful blond hair and the way her ringlets had fallen messily around a ribbon that was loosely tied at the top of her head. She wore a sweet white and yellow cotton dress that matched her perfectly polished white shoes. ‘You’re the pretty lady that my daddy named me after because he loves me so much’. She smiled. She’d not been able to shake the overwhelming desire to see the child again since the dreadful night. She would see her in only a few hours.
As she drew back the covers she worried about what the child was thinking. Was the little girl waking with the same excitement? What if the child didn’t want to see her? What if she was terrified and angry? What if she refused to speak to her? Did it matter? She was going to do everything she could to make a better life for the little girl regardless of the way it started. Anna Marie set her feet on the floor and prepared to face the day for whatever it held.
When she pulled up to the Bagel Buddy’s she felt another rush of anxiety. The meeting was far more than a visit, she knew she was making a deep commitment. The child had already experienced an intolerable level of abandonment. She would not be responsible for adding another layer of pain. There would be no turning back no matter what.
She picked up her purse from the car seat and noticed a blue pickup truck pulling into a space across the lot. A large woman stepped out. She walked around the truck and little Anna Marie emerged from around the other side. The woman sauntered toward the building with the little girl trailing behind. The girl didn’t seem to hold any particular emotion. She imagined that if she didn’t know anything about the child, she would view the scene as a normal everyday event; a mother taking her seven-year-old into Bagel Buddy’s.
She did know the situation though, and it wasn’t ordinary. She didn’t like it—not one bit. How could the woman let the girl trail behind? The child had been traumatically abandoned. She needed to feel safe, loved and protected. She needed to know that the woman she was about to meet was harmless and caring.
The reality was that the foster home was a stop-over until they found a placement. A stop-over, Anna Marie thought. How could a child who was dealing with so much trauma have a ‘stop-over’ with a complete stranger?
The woman was already in line when Anna Marie walked up behind her. “Hi,” Anna Marie said, “I’m—” Before she could finish her introduction, the little girl shuffled her feet and set them back down as close as she could to Anna Marie’s. She looked up at her with her ey
ebrows furled into an expression that seemed to hold a question.
“Hi,” the woman said. Her eyes drifted to the little girl’s hand. Anna Marie looked too. The child had placed her small hand into Anna Marie’s without saying anything.
“You must be Suzanne?”
“Yes,” the woman said.
“I’m Anna Marie,” she nodded at her. She would’ve reached out to greet the woman properly, but she didn’t want to give up the hand that had so quickly found hers.
“She says she wants a cinnamon bagel,” Suzanne said. “I’m going to grab a coffee. I’ll wait over there.” She gestured toward a sitting area with a false fireplace. “Take your time.”
She turned around and joined the rest of the strangers in the room. Anna Marie watched her walk away with the thought that the child was nothing more to the woman than a check to help pay the rent.
Anna Marie turned her attention toward the child. “So, you like cinnamon bagels?” she asked. The little girl nodded, yes. “So do I!” Anna Marie smiled at her. She followed the smile with a wink. The girl mimicked the wink without a smile. It made Anna Marie giggle with delight. The little girl looked away with no expression, but Anna Marie felt the squeeze in her hand tighten. They stepped up to the front of the line.
“I can order,” the girl suddenly said, “I know how.”
“Okay,” Anna Marie said with a hint of apprehension.
As they stepped up to the counter, the clerk said, “Hello, how are you today?”
“Very fine, thank you, how are you?” the little girl responded.
The woman behind the counter looked at Anna Marie with approval and turned her attention to Annie, “What can I get for you today?”
“I’d like to a have a cinnamon bagel, please. That will be—” she looked at Anna Marie, “is it for here or to go?”
“It is for here,” Anna Marie said.
“For here,” she sighed.
“Would you like anything to drink with that?” the woman asked. She hesitated and looked at Anna Marie.
“Would you like a hot chocolate?” Anna Marie asked.
Annie’s eyes widened, “Really?”
“Sure, you can have one—if you like.”
“Thank you!” She turned back to the woman behind the counter, “I would like a hot chocolate, please!” She looked at Anna Marie again, “Can I get whip cream on it.”
“If you like,” Anna Marie said.
“May I have whip cream on top, please?” she said to the woman.
“Would you like anything else?” she asked.
“No, thank you.”
“What can I get for you, Ma’am?” the woman asked Anna Marie.
“I’ll have exactly what she is having,” she said. Annie grinned with approval.
The woman handed Annie a buzzer. “This will go off when it is ready,” she said.
“Thank you,” Annie replied as Anna Marie dug in her wallet.
“Where would you like to sit?” She watched the girl’s eyes dart toward the booth Suzanne was sitting in. She picked the booth that was the furthest away.
“How about here?” she asked.
“Perfect!”
As they settled in Annie said, “Ms. Suzanne said that you might take me home with you. She said you can’t take me today, but can you? Can you please take me to your home today?”
“I wish I could, but Ms. Suzanne is right; I can’t today.”
“When?” Annie asked.
“I’m not sure, but I will take you as soon as I can. I don’t get to decide. It is not up to me. If it was, I would take you right now, but we have to wait.”
“Oh,” she sighed.
“I’ll bet you miss your home.”
She nodded, “Ms. Suzanne said that I am never going back there, but she lied. When I talked to my mom on the phone, she told me that she was going to come and get me and take me home as soon as she could. My mom said you are going to keep me at your house until she can come and get me.”
“That is what I want to do,” Anna Marie said. “Would you like that?”
“Yes. That is what my dad wants me to do too. He wants me to go to your house to wait for my mom.”
“He does?” Anna Marie said, trying not to sound alarmed.
“Yes, he told me that you’re really nice.”
“I bet you miss your dad,” Anna Marie said carefully.
“Sort of, but I miss my mom more. My dad still visits me.” She looked up. Anna Marie sensed that the girl was expecting her to question her statement.
“He does?” she said plainly. “Does he visit you a lot?”
“He talks to me a lot when I am playing with Cindy’s Barbie dolls.”
“Oh, who is Cindy?”
“She is the girl that died. She used to sleep in the pink room.”
“Oh!” Anna Marie said, trying not express her concern so as to keep the girl talking freely.
“She was Ms. Suzanne’s daughter. She died. Ms. Suzanne lets me go in her room and play with her dolls. That’s when my dad talks to me, sometimes.”
“Does Ms. Suzanne know that your dad talks to you?”
“No, I don’t tell anybody about it.”
“I see,” Anna Marie said. “Does the girl show up in that room too?”
“What girl?” she asked.
“Ms. Suzanne’s daughter, the one with the Barbie dolls.”
“Oh, Cindy?” she said nonchalantly. “No, yes, well once. She doesn’t talk to me though, like my dad does. She just watches me play, she doesn’t say anything.”
“I see,” Anna Marie said.
“Do you know my mom, or only my dad?”
“I only know a little bit about your mom. I knew your dad best,” she said out loud, but what ran through her mind was, I thought I knew your dad. She lost her train of thought. She began to study the little girl’s features as if she were searching for Kevin.
“You look sad,” the girl said. “Do you miss my dad?”
Good question, she thought. It was something she was still exploring in the depths of her soul. “I do,” she said.
“Me too!” the little girl said. “Jeremy says people die all the time and that I just have to suck it up!”
“Who is Jeremy?” Anna Marie said.
“He is the boy at the house. I don’t like him.”
“Why don’t you like him?”
“He is mean and he's always poking at me!”
“He pokes at you?” Anna Marie’s instincts were heightened again, she tried not to display her sense of panic.
“Yeah, he always pokes his finger on my arm and sometimes he pokes it in my back. He is bossy.”
The buzzer began to vibrate on the table. “YES!” the girl said, “it's ready!”
When they brought the food back to the table, Annie Marie asked, “How old is Jeremy?
“I don’t know,” the girl said. Her attention was on the food. Anna Marie gave her time to start eating, but she wasn’t ready to drop the subject.
“Is Jeremy a big boy? Is he a teenager?”
“Yes, I think so, but he doesn’t act like it,” the girl said.
“Does Ms. Suzanne know he is mean to you?”
“I didn’t tell her,” the girl said.
“Why not?” Anna Marie asked. “I think you should tell her.”
She shrugged her shoulders, “she says we all have to get along if we want to stay in the house. I don’t want to stay in the house. I don’t like it there.”
“I think you should tell Ms. Suzanne. I don’t think she wants Jeremy to bother you.”
“I don’t want her to be sad and cry anymore. I just tell Jeremy to shut up and leave me alone!” She used a spoon to catch the last of the whip cream melting into her hot chocolate.
“Ms. Suzanne cries?”
“When she goes to sleep at night she cries in her bed sometimes. Jeremy says it’s because her husband got killed in a car with Cindy. He said that is why she’s always sad.
He said I need to get over it with my dad or I will be a grown up crybaby like she is.”
Anna Marie took a bite of her bagel as she swallowed her own guilt. She’d been too quick to judge. “Do you think she is a crybaby?”
“No,” the girl said, “I just think she is a grown up sad person.”
“Me too,” Anna Marie said. “Me too.”
When they finished eating, Anna Marie returned the girl to Suzanne. The woman opened the truck door and little Annie climbed inside. Anna Marie saw a very different woman than she’d thought she’d seen entering the building. One foot was on the ground but the other was in the grave; two graves. She was living in the harsh shadow of overwhelming loss.
Perhaps she’d walked into the building ahead of the girl with intent, wisdom and calculated purpose. Maybe she knew not to allow the child to attach to her temporary relationship or more importantly, not to allow herself to attach to the child.
She wanted to believe that Annie was safe while she waited. But who was this boy named Jeremy? Was he dangerous? Was she ridiculous to worry? Was Jeremy just a child acting as children do, or was he a child that had seen too much? Was Ms. Suzanne awake enough to notice?
She climbed into the heat that had collected in her car and recalled the dream. The pink room, the dollhouse and the long arm reaching for the little girl played out in her mind. She shuttered. She’d thought about asking the woman about Jeremy. Why didn’t she? Regret dripped from her shoulders as she watched the blue pickup pull out of the parking lot and disappear down the street.
25
It was another game day and Elsie and Verde were both anxious to get out of the house. Clifford was ready to be released from the hospital. The ladies offered to escort him home. When Verde and Elsie pulled into the driveway to pick up Mary she was waiting on the porch with a brown grocery bag sitting next to her.
Elsie slid down the window, “Verde’s Limo service! We are looking for a back-seat driver.”
“What are you suggesting, Elsie?” Mary asked as she climbed in to the back seat.
“Suggesting? She is not suggesting anything. She is just telling it like it is.”
The False Exit Page 12