If I Were You

by Lisa Renee Jones

  “Sara, it’s me, Ella!” I hear as I shuffle my way toward the living room. “Hurry! Hurry!”

  My heart flutters because not only is Ella clearly in some sort of panic, but unlike me, who doesn’t like to waste a second of any day, Ella doesn’t get up before noon on days she doesn’t have to. The instant I yank open the door, Ella flings her arms around me and announces, “I’m eloping!”

  “Eloping?!” I gasp, pulling back and tugging Ella inside, out of the chill of the early morning. She’s still wearing her clothes from the night before. “What are you talking about? What’s happening?”

  “David proposed last night,” she exclaims excitedly. “I can hardly believe it. We’re flying to Paris this morning.” She eyes her watch and squeals. “In two hours.”

  She shoves something into my hand. “That has the key to my apartment. On the kitchen table, you’ll find the journal and the key to the storage unit. If it’s not cleared out in two weeks, it has to be rented, or it’s auctioned off yet again. So take it and sell the stuff. The money is yours. Or let it go. Either way, it doesn’t matter.” She grins. “Because I’m eloping to Paris, then honeymooning in Italy!”

  Protectiveness fills me for Ella. I don’t want her to get hurt and I’ve never even heard her say she loves David. “You’ve only known this man for three months, sweetie. I’ve only met him once.” He always, conveniently, got called away when we’d been planning to get together.

  “I love him, Sara,” she says, as if reading my mind. “And he’s good to me. You know that.”

  No, I don’t know that, but while I try to find the right way to say it, she is already reaching for the door. “Ella-”

  “I’ll call you when I arrive in Paris, so keep your cell handy.”

  “Wait!” I say, shackling her arm. “How long will you be gone?”

  Her eyes light up with excitement. “A month. Can you believe it? A whole month in Italy. I’m living a dream.” She hugs me and gives me a kiss on the cheek. “I’ll call and when we get back we’ll have a reception.” Her eyes soften. “You know I wanted you with me for this, don’t you? But David knew I had no family. He wanted to whisk me away so that it wouldn’t be painful.” She pokes at the tuckered spot that always appears between my brows when I frown. “Stop making that face. It’ll be wrinkled when you get older. And I’m fine. I’m perfect, in fact.”

  “You better be,” I say, attempting my best teacher voice, but my throat is too tight to do much more than croak out the warning. “Call me as soon as you arrive so I know you’re safe, and I want pictures. Lots of pictures.”

  Ella smiles brightly, “Yes, Ms. McMillan.” She turns and rushes away, giving me a last-second wave over her shoulder before she rounds the corner. She is gone, and I am fighting unexpected tears I don’t even understand. I am happy for Ella but worried for her, too. I feel...I’m not sure what I feel. Lost, maybe. My fingers curl around her keys, and I am suddenly aware that I have just inherited a storage unit and the journals I swore I wouldn’t read again.

  Chapter Two

  And then, the moment I know I will die remembering. The moment when the steel of a blade touched my lips. The moment that he promised there was pleasure in pain...

  Those words written in the journal replay in my head early the next evening, the same day of Ella’s rapid departure. They haunt me to the point I feel downright icy every time I think of them. They are why I’m here, standing inside a temperature-controlled storage unit the size of a small garage, that at some point I assume the journal writer leased. Thankfully there is a dim light and the neighborhood is good. I stand here, unsure of what to look at first, uneasy about digging through a stranger’s things.

  …the moment he promised there was pleasure in pain.

  Unbidden, the words replay in my head again. I shiver, and not just because the journal is explicitly arousing. I shouldn’t be aroused. Not by painful pleasure and bondage. I refuse to be aroused. I am worried about this mysterious woman. Besides, I am my father’s daughter, just as my mother had been my father’s wife, which translated to his puppets who didn’t dare walk in the same shadows he did. My mother had escaped him in death, and I’d chosen to leave him out of my life since. Despite five years without him, I remain all too aware that the lingering effects of his heavy hand are far too present in my life.

  I grind my teeth at the memories. I have no idea how my mind has gone to places I try never to go. Forcefully, I refocus on the neatly stacked furniture and boxes lining the walls, as well as what looks like well-packaged artwork. A life left behind, forgotten. Who did that? Who left things that they’d clearly cared about enough to neatly pack and organize them, behind? I’m not buying the idea that some rich boyfriend had whisked this woman away to some exotic life. No one who hadn’t seen bad luck, or maybe even tragedy, did this. I’m not about to be a part of adding to this woman’s troubles by selling off her things. Not this woman, I corrected myself. Rebecca Mason is her name. That’s what the paperwork said, and as per the management they couldn’t give me her phone number and ‘it’s disconnected anyway’.

  “I’m going to find a way to contact you, and return your things,” I whisper to the room, as if I’m speaking to Rebecca, and a chill races down my spine. I feel like she is here, like I’m talking to her and it’s downright creepy. Somehow, it makes me more determined to find her.

  I sigh with grim realization at what my vow means. I have to invade her privacy and dig through her things to find a way to contact her, a way to return what was left of her life. If she’s alive, I think grimly, hugging myself.

  “Stop it,” I murmur, chiding myself. The Grim Reaper mentality isn’t me. I don’t even like horror movies. The world has enough real monsters without creating fictional monsters.

  There really could be a happy reason Rebecca left her life behind. Winning the lotto. There. Yes. There was a good reason to leave all your things behind. Unlikely, but still possible. Ten million to one or so, I imagine, but possible. So why does the idea do absolutely nothing to dismiss the eerie, hollow feeling of the room?

  Eager to get this over with, I drop my purse to the ground and run my hands down my soft, faded jeans, scanning the items around me until my gaze catches on a box neatly labeled "personal papers". Seems a good place to find contact information, if I ever saw one.

  ***

  Two hours later I am sitting against a wall, thumbing through information I have no business seeing. School records, bills, legal paperwork that amounted to pennies of inheritance from the death of Rebecca’s mother and last living relative, three years before. I think of my own mother, of the woman who’d tried so hard to shelter me from my father, but would never do anything to shelter herself. I squeeze my eyes shut, wondering if the pain of losing her will ever go away. If it will ever go away. She’d been my best friend, my closest confidante. I wonder if Rebecca was close to her mother, as I was mine? If she’d hurt as I did with my loss, as I still do.

  With effort, I refocus on the paperwork, and realize I’m not going to find any family connections to reach Rebecca. But thankfully, the mail and a bunch of bank statements have, at least, given me her address though I’m not overly certain it will be accurate.

  Feeling not much closer to finding Rebecca, I shove everything back in the box and stand up, feeling stiff and cramped in a way that defies my morning jogs.

  “Try the dresser,” comes a male voice from behind me.

  I yelp and whirl around to find a man wearing a staff shirt standing in the doorway. The hair on the back of my neck prickles, my nerve endings humming with warning. He is a handsome man in his mid-thirties-—blond, clean shaven, with short, spiky hair, but it’s the dark interest in his deep-set eyes that sets me on edge. The already small room seems to shrink and close in on me, that eerie feeling I’ve been unable to shake no longer hollow but focused on me, like an invisible weight on my shoulders and chest.

  “Dresser?” I manage to croak despite the dryne
ss in my throat.

  “Everyone has a secret bedroom drawer,” he says. His voice lowers, takes on a husky quality. “A place almost as personal as their soul.”

  I stiffen, a new rush of discomfort slicing through me. He's been in here. I knew it with every piece of my being. He'd gone through Rebecca's things. He knew what was in that drawer. I don’t like this man, and I’m suddenly immensely aware of the fact that I am alone with him, miles from the highway, not another customer anywhere near—at least not that I've seen or heard thus far.

  “I don’t want to know her secrets,” I say firmly, keeping my voice remarkably steady considering my knees are wobbly. “I want to find her and return her things to her.”

  He studies me a long moment, his gaze as sharp as the slice of discomfort digging deeper inside me. Then finally, when I am about to choke on the silence, he says, “Like I said. Check the drawer.” His lips hint at a sardonic smile, and he pushes off the doorjamb. “I’ll be back to lock the exterior building at nine. You won’t want to be inside when I do.” Without another word, he is gone.

  I don’t move. I can’t move. I want to slam the door shut but don’t dare, not when it locks from the outside, a thought that terrifies me. Seconds tick by and I wait as the man’s footsteps fade away into the distance. Away. Yes. Away. I have to get away from this place. I rush to the glossy mahogany dresser against the wall and yank open the top right drawer. Empty. I try the left. God, my heart is in my throat, threatening to choke me. I have to stop and force myself to inhale, and slowly exhale. I am shaking and irrationally frightened. I count to thirty and I can breathe again. I’m okay. Everything is okay. I open the left drawer and the breath I’d finally found again hitches at the contents. A black, twelve-by-eight, velvet box with a lock. A red silk scarf. Three red leather-bound journals.

  My teeth worry my bottom lip. I dart a look toward the hallway and then back to the drawer. I am intrigued despite my nerves, but afraid the creepy man will return.

  I quickly refocus on the drawer, and search for a key to the box, telling myself there might be contact information inside. That I am not caving to carnal curiosity. I flip open each of the journals, shake them for loose papers, for a key. A brochure falls from inside one of them, and I start to shove it aside, exposing several more brochures in the process.

  I pick one of them up and read "Allure Art Gallery," San Francisco. They are all Allure brochures. Allure is the largest, most prestigious gallery among San Francisco’s many. I remember Ella mentioning art she’d found in the unit. It appears that despite our vastly different love lives, Rebecca and I share a common thread in our interest in art. I love everything about art, from the history to the creative process. There was a time when I might have cut off my right arm to work in the art world. It’s what I went to school for, what I’d dreamt of. A dream I’d given up years ago when life, bills, and responsibilities took precedence.

  A loud crash sounds somewhere outside, and I nearly jump out of my own skin. My hand balls on my chest, willing my heart not to jump right through it. Thunder. The sound had been thunder. It is about to storm. Another loud rumble radiates through the walls, echoing as if I am in a cave–-almost like an omen of warning telling me to hurry the heck up. Oh good grief, my imagination is running wild, but I won’t ignore this feeling of unease.

  I grab my purse, stack the journals in my arms, which I justify taking because they are my only hope of finding a clue to Rebecca’s recent whereabouts. I am about to exit the room, but I hesitate for a moment before turning back and rushing to the dresser to retrieve the box. My hands are still shaking as I manage to juggle the items I’m holding and attach the lock to the storage unit.

  Quickly, I head down a narrow, dimly lit hallway, past rows of locked units like the one I’ve just left. I feel like I am Alice in Wonderland about to be sucked down the rabbit hole. I exit the garage-style main doorway to find a now dark parking lot made darker by the brewing storm. How has time gotten away from me so quickly?

  I fall into a half run, half walk, in stealthy silence thanks to my light blue, Nike cross trainers, closing the distance between myself and my silver Ford Focus. My keys are still in my purse, and I don’t know why I haven’t pulled them out before now. I set the items I’m holding on top of the hood with the intent of digging in my purse and manage to drop one of the journals. I reach for it and drop another.

  “Dang it,” I mumble and squat, scooping them up, but the hair stands up on my neck again, and despite the cold droplets of water smacking my forehead, I don’t stand. My gaze shifts to a shadow near the open garage door, and I search to find no one there. I jerk myself upright, stomach lurching. Get in the car. Get in the car. Why are you outside the car?

  Hands shaking now, I dig out my keys, and curse the out-of-character paranoia I can’t escape. I yank open the car door and throw my purse inside, get in, the journals and the box awkwardly on my lap. I can’t lock the door fast enough. A heavy breath escapes me at the sound of the clicks that seal me inside and I haphazardly stack the journals and box in the passenger seat.

  I’m about to start the engine when a trickle of awareness draws my gaze to the side of the building I’d just exited, and I gasp. Standing in the shadows, beneath a slim awning, one leg propped against the wall, is the man who’d visited me a few minutes before. Watching me.

  I turn on the engine and say a silent prayer of thank you when it starts. I can’t get out of here fast enough.

  ***

  I’m halfway home when the storm explodes on the city in a fury of pounding rain and vivid lightning, no doubt the reason why, despite it being Friday night, there isn’t a nearby parking spot at my apartment complex. Thankful that a boatload of schoolwork to grade had motivated me to buy a purse the size of a small suitcase, I cram the box and the journals inside to protect them from the downpour. A wet run later, with water dripping from my hair and clothes, I flip the lights on in my apartment. I can’t shut the door and lock it any faster than I could get away from that storage facility.

  Maybe my imagination is running away with me over the mystery of Rebecca Mason, but I feel like I am being stalked. That man back at the storage unit gave me the creeps. I shiver just thinking about him. Well, that and I’m dripping wet and despite the fact that it’s August, it’s a chilly fifty-one degrees outside according to the radio announcer.

  Water is puddling at my feet, and I quickly pull the box and the journals from my drenched purse, setting them on the dry carpet before stripping right there in the entryway. My tan carpet is a dirt magnet but renting means you take what you can get. I start for the bathroom and hesitate, backtracking to grab my cell phone because it just makes me feel better to have it in hand, but I tell myself it’s to call Ella. I start a hot bath and dial her number, hoping she might know where to find Rebecca, and to hear she is safe and happy. Her phone rings with a fast busy signal that tells me that she was out of service range, but I still feel worried. I am one big ball of nerves and it’s making me insane.

  Forty-five minutes later, freshly showered and dressed in pink boxers and a matching tee, my hair soft and dry and smelling like my favorite rose-scented shampoo, I am chiding myself for being so paranoid. I head to the fridge for my answer to all troubles—-a pint of Ben and Jerry’s Boston Cream Pie ice cream.

  My gaze slides to Rebecca’s personal items still sitting by the door with my discarded clothes. I should have stayed at the storage unit until I found her information. Now, I have no choice but to seek what I need in between the pages of those journals. Or in the box...that I can’t open. I'm not even sure why I’d brought it with me.

  A few minutes later, I sit down on the couch with my good friends Ben and Jerry, the stack of journals, and the box on the coffee table. The box that I still see no way to open without potentially damaging it.

  With no other option, I reach for a journal and flip it open. In delicate female writing, it reads 2010 . No month. I wonder if this was written befor
e, or after, the journal Ella had left in my apartment last night.

  Thumbing through pages, I try to scan for words that might relate to a place of employment and catch little pieces of Rebecca’s life along the way. The night was hot and my body thirsty. I inhale and turn the page at the clear indication of something far more private than a place of work. This woman wrote with such flowery, exotic words. Who writes like that? My life changed the day I walked into the art gallery. Okay, that has my attention for the right reason. The gallery is clearly where I need to look for Rebecca. But did she work there or shop there? Or maybe she was an artist?

  I keep reading, looking for my answers. I’ve changed. It’s changed me. This world has changed me. He says he’s simply helped me uncover the real me. I don’t even know who the real me is any more.

  “He who?” I whisper at the text.

  The places I go now, both emotionally and physically, are dark, dangerous places. I know this, yet where he leads-–where they lead – I follow.

  I frown, thinking of the journal entry of the night before, how I’d read that someone had entered the room while Rebecca had been blindfolded to the bed.

  How can fear be arousing? How can fear make me need and burn and want? But yet I want, I need, I dare things I never believed I was capable of doing. Is this the real me? That idea scares me deep down into my core. This can’t be me. I am not this person. But even more than that fear that I am, indeed, someone I do not recognize, I fear the idea of not being that person. Of going back to the past. Of once again being the good girl with a boring life, pushing paper in an eight-to-five job. Never happy, never satisfied. At least now I feel something. The rush of fear is far better than the defeat of boredom. The high of not knowing what comes next, so much better than always knowing one day will be like the last. Never anticipation, never feeling anything. No. I cannot go back. So why am I so terrified of going forward?