by SE Reynolds
"Stacie was a wonderful sister and aunt. When we were growing up, I could always confide in Stacie. She always had my back; she was very loyal to me even when I didn't deserve it. Stacie seemed so innocent. She had child-like wonderment and always saw the good in people even when no one else could. She was that light at the end of a dark day…."
All the qualities that her sister spoke of were the things that drew me to Stacie. If only she could have stayed that way, maybe things would be different. Who am I kidding? There was no other end to the story, at least this story. It wasn't fair to Melissa or to Stacie. No one could compete with the likes of a perfect beautiful dark soul like Rose. Melissa lost the day I found out she lied to me; she kept me from the one thing, that one entity that I desired more than my own ambition, more than my own breath.
Stacie, my sweet, sweet Stacie, you were so close to winning the race, but you changed on me. You twisted and turned into someone that held my freedom under lock and key, and you reminded me every day that you had the key. There is no way you would have let me walk away and leave you to the pathetic life you had before you met me. I almost resigned myself to the fact that you won, but I didn't expect the dark horse to enter the race at the last minute. You lost, Stacie, the second I saw Rose sipping on her coffee in Arlington. It's tragic the way it all ended, but I put you out of your impending misery just like I had to with Melissa.
There were only a few cars in the funeral procession: the hearse carrying Stacie; the limousine carrying me, Mrs. Shewster, and Stacie's sister; and of course, the Sheriff's cruiser guiding our way down Main Street. I don't feel like I'm in a funeral procession today. I feel excited, I feel hopeful, I feel free. I feel like I'm in a parade. I look through the window of the black limousine, watching the shops go by, Benny's, Ryan's, Misty's, and the law firm with one less name on the sign. There are no more parades in my future, and I hope no more funeral processions. Only a few more minutes of death and condolences, and I can move on again, but this time, I'm not dragging JJ into my next adventure. He needs stability. He needs a mother. I dropped JJ off at Mimi's after the burial.
"I'll be back in a couple of weeks to check on you, JJ. Once I get settled, I'll—"
"Don't, Dad. I mean, you can check on me, but you know. I like being here. Mimi needs somebody around. She's lonely."
"Yeah, she does. You deserve a warm stable place, but that doesn't mean I'm not your dad. I will be around a lot, you know."
"I know," JJ says as he turns and runs into Mimi's house.
Mimi waves to me from the front door, and I wave back. I have nothing else to say to Mimi, and neither does she to me, so I get in my car. The time has finally come. I turn on the radio. Lips Like Sugar is playing. I turn it up and roll my window down. The cold air cleanses the morbidity of the day off of me. I get on Route 66 East towards the Beltway. I always thought that my trip up the Beltway would bring me straight to Capitol Hill, but instead, it brings me to a little dusty bookstore right on the outskirts of DC. I see her through the bookstore window. She's standing on a ladder shuffling hardbacks around. I feel like a teenager every time I lay eyes on her. She hears the front door bells ring and turns towards me. She looks down on me like the goddess that she is, and I gaze up at this mythical creature named Rose.
"Did your plan work?" She asks.
"Perfectly," I say.
She climbs down the ladder and tries to pass me. She loves to brush me off every chance she gets, but this time I don't let her. I pull her into my arms.
"Not so fast, Rose; you can't get away from me that easily."
Chapter 59 – Rose
Here he comes, my handsome frat boy. He's still just as handsome as he was the first day I saw him in English Lit. After everything he has been through, he still has a twinkle in his blue eyes and a mischievous grin. I can see why women loved him and did what they did to keep him. He is boyish, someone you want to mother; charismatic, someone you want to follow; and handsome, someone you want to fuck. He's driven, accomplished, well, sort of, almost accomplished, almost.
"Did your plan work?" I ask as he walks through the door.
"Perfectly," he says.
I return my first edition of Wuthering Heights to its proper place on the bookshelf and climb down the ladder. He's waiting for me at the bottom. I try to avoid his embrace. He can be too touchy-feely, sometimes suffocating. He catches me.
"Not so fast, Rose; you can't get away from me that easily."
"You think?" I ask.
"I know," he responds.
"You have mail, Joshua. It's on the counter."
"I do? No one knows I'm here, Rose, unless you told someone."
"No, Joshua, I didn't tell anyone."
Joshua releases me and walks to the counter. He picks up the envelope.
"It looks like a bill?"
I watch him as he studies the address on the front of the envelope and then opens it.
"What the hell?"
"Something wrong, Joshua?"
"It's a bill from Amazon. It's a bill for—"
"Face cream?" I say, finishing his sentence.
"I didn't order this. Wait! How do you know, Rose?"
"How do you think I know, Joshua?"
"Did you order this?"
"Why would I do that?"
"I don't know…What are you up to, Rose?"
He looks so lost and confused. I can't help but laugh.
"What the fuck are you up to!"
Joshua rushes towards me and grabs my arms. He is hurting me, but I don't let him know it.
"Okay, okay, calm down, Frat Boy. I will tell you if you get your hands off me."
He lets go.
"I ordered it from your Amazon app and had it sent to Virginia."
"The app on my phone?"
"Yes."
"Oh my God! Virginia said something about that when I went to see her, but I thought she was just confused like she always is. Were you trying to plant evidence on her? I told you I had it all worked out. Everything points to her. You didn't need to do that. That could be traced back to—"
"To you?" I finish his sentence again.
He is silent. It hasn't hit him yet. He is trying to put it all together in his small cocky brain. I patiently wait. Oh, I think he finally gets it.
"Why, Rose, why?"
"Oh, Joshua. Don't you see? You would do to me what you did to them. I don't want to turn out like them."
"I would never; I would never."
"Never? Did you ever think that you would smother saintly Melissa to death? Did you ever think you would cause sweet Stacie's throat to swell shut? I have to say it was very creative of you putting droplets of bee venom in the face cream. Who knew you could buy bee venom on Amazon? I really need to buy stock in that company. I still don't understand why you just didn't replace it with the other product, um, bee something or other?"
"Bee Lift? No, it would be too obvious if I used that one. Stacie would've noticed it. Enough about that, Rose. I could never do that to you. You are my end all be all. Fuck, you are the reason I did what I did. I told you that. I confided in you. I had to be with you in the end."
"I know, but that's your downfall. You need to learn how to hold your cards close, Joshua.
Do you remember the first time you came to my bookstore, and we fucked behind this counter? You said something to me. You called me an enigma. Do you remember that?"
"Yes, and you are. You've always been my enigma."
"Do you know what an enigma is, Joshua? It's a person, even a thing for that matter, that's mysterious, puzzling, maybe even difficult to comprehend. On the surface, I'm flattered; I like being your mysterious wonderment. It's awesome, until it's not."
"It will always be, Rose. There's something about you that makes me want more and more."
"Until you are full. Eventually, you will figure out the mystery of me. You'll sober up and realize you are done with me. Something shinier will appear on the horizon. You will come to th
e same conclusion as you did with Stacie. I know too much, and then, well, I'll let you fill in the blank of how you will do me in."
"So, sending the face cream to Virginia in my name, that's your insurance I won't kill you?"
"Yes, sort of, and I also changed the billing address from your house to the bookstore's…your lover's bookstore."
Joshua is quiet again, his eyes rolling around their sockets. He is trying really hard to understand. His bewilderment reminds me of the time I tried to explain The Sound and The Fury to him; he was so perplexed, so lost. His eyes almost rolled off his face.
"Fine, I don't care. I don't care. I love you, Rose. I've never loved anything or anyone the way I love you. Hold it over my head for the rest of my life. I know you will never need it because I'm yours forever."
"But I don't want you to be, not anymore."
"Not anymore? What does that mean? Are you dumping me? Are you fucking dumping me after everything I did for you, for us?"
"I'm sorry, Joshua, but you only disappointed me. I thought you were this up-and-coming mayor, the next Ronald fucking Reagan. When the life insurance I got from my ex was running out, I knew I needed help to keep the bookstore open. I love this place. It's all I have. I even wanted to expand and open up an adjoining coffee shop. I was at my wit's end thinking I would have to sell my lovely bookstore. But just when I lost hope, as if it was meant to be, your face pops up on the news. My college fuck, on the news, a respectable mayor. So, I found you on Facebook. I saw your post that Melissa died, and I reached out. You did look so sweet in the coffee shop. I really wanted to be with you that day. So, I let you fuck me, but it turns out I'm the dummy. After we fucked and you left, I did a little more research. Not all Mayors are created equal. Some do very well for themselves, but your salary is a public record. Do you know you make a fourth of what the Mayor of DC makes?"
"You were after my money?"
"Yes, until I found out you didn't have any, but your new wife did. You were so unhappy with her. You told me how it pained you to be with her physically, and the only way you could get through it was pretending she was me. That was very flattering, but you were so depressed. So, I comforted you and eventually steered you in the right direction. Things finally were falling into place for me again. I thought, shit, she must have had a ton of life insurance."
"She does, but I'm not the beneficiary; her mother is. She gave everything to that shrew except the house. She left that to me. She wanted JJ to have a nice home. Please, Rose, I love you. I will make it big. I just need some time and a new plan, and when I do, everything I have will be yours. Just please don't leave me."
Joshua leans up against the bookshelf and slowly slides to the floor and sobs. All I can do now is let him cry, let him get it all out—my poor, broken Joshua.
"I'm sorry, Joshua, but you are too desperate. You scare me. You're a ticking time bomb. If I stay with you, I'll end up like Melissa or like Stacie. I'm only self-preserving. You, of all people, should understand that. All I want is a quiet life here with my books and an occasional conversation about the next best-selling author with one of my faithful customers. That's all I want. Oh, and one other thing."
"I have nothing to give you. I only have me, and you don't want that now."
"No, I don't, but I do want the proceeds from the sale of Stacie's house. Otherwise, I will let it slip that the mayor had a lover at the time of his wife's death and that he is setting his ex, unstable girlfriend, up for the murder of Stacie Steadman-Shewster. I could throw in Melissa's death too, but that may be too farfetched for even the police to believe."
"You fucking bitch, you fucking bitch!"
"See, I'm already metamorphosing right in front of you, from an enigma to a fucking bitch."
Chapter 60 – Joshua
I met Rose's demands, so she let me keep 50,000 dollars from the sale of the house. She said she couldn't leave a sick dog to die, so she thought she would throw me a bone. I had to laugh. Thank you, Rose, for giving me a small portion of what is mine and then sending me on my way. Thank you, Rose, for letting me taste you again, letting me smell you again, letting me cum inside you again. You are a fucking bitch, those were my last words to her, and then I left the bookstore knowing that she will never want me in the state I'm in.
Man, I didn't see it coming. She fucking gutted me, really gutted me to the core, and yet, after she was done ripping out my insides like her prey, I still desperately and most certainly want her. I miss her scent on my fingers, reminding me of her grapefruit juice, my addiction. There's still so much I don't know about Rose Umbra. She cut me off before I got my fill. One day, Rose, one day I'll see you again, and then I'll have metamorphosed into something you want, something you need. I don't care why you need me, for money, for shelter, to be your dog to kick around when you're bored. I don't care. I will see you again, and you will have no choice but to accept me, to need me, and to keep me. Rose is wrong about one thing. She is still an enigma to me.
Chapter 61 – Virginia
The consumption of wine mixed with an obsession with the unattainable has led me to where I am today, angry, scared, and alone, but at least I'm sober. I quit drinking the day Joshua walked out my door for good. Oh, do I crave that crisp taste of my first sip of a dry white. I miss the relaxation I feel in my body after the second glass. Sometimes, around six in the evening, I find myself grabbing a wine glass and walking towards the refrigerator in search of a bottle, which I keep in my refridgerator just in case, but then I stop myself. I remeber Joshua's words, the best alcohol deterrent I know. How can I possibly be attracted to a desperate drunk like you, Virginia? And I put the glass away. I know what I'm capable of when I'm numb, and it scares me. I hope one day, I won't freak out when I see a police cruiser driving through my neighborhood. I hope I stop hiding in the bathroom when someone unexpected rings my doorbell. I've gone from being a drunk to being a paranoid lunatic. I get so pissed at myself and so pissed at Joshua for turning me into this. Sometimes, I get so overwhelmed, so enraged, that I decide to just come clean. Fuck it! Let the chips fall where they may. I even go so far as to drive to the Sheriff's Department, only to sit in my car and talk myself out of it. The stakes are too high. Robert deserves a sober mom, a mom that's present and clear headed and not locked up in the state penitentiary. That would ruin him. He would be forever known as the kid whose insane mother stalked and murdered an innocent woman. I would rather kill myself than have Robert endure that. In the end, Joshua owns me. Even if I never see him again, he will always own me. I often wonder what Stacie had on him, how bad could it have been that he felt so trapped. But sadly, I can relate to the man, to the monster that destroyed me. He, too, was desperate, so desperate to get what he wanted and what he thought he needed. He did horrible things, but he can move on, be free without a conscience. Am I any different, though? Do I really feel bad about Stacie and her last seconds of life? Do I ever lay awake thinking about the terror she must have felt suffocating, waiting for her throat to close shut? Do I have any remorse for wanting her to just go away? No, no, not really.
I make myself a cup of herbal tea and turn on the evening news.
"Hi, good evening; I'm Doreen Rieger. Just two weeks after Mayor Joshua Steadman's wife Stacie died tragically of a rare allergic reaction to face cream that was contaminated with bee venom, the mayor released a statement today announcing that he is stepping down as mayor of Fairview, Virginia. It reads in part, given recent events that have occurred over the past month, I feel it is in the best interest of my family and for the citizens of Fairview that I step down as mayor. Some of the happiest days I had were serving Fairview and its citizens, but the tragedy of the last couple of weeks has made me realize my attention and priorities have been misplaced. Fairview will always be in my heart, but it is time for me to stop and smell the roses.
The End