by Linnea West
The front door opened as I passed and I stopped to greet a few people from town before my father came to take over greeting duty. As I watched, people came in and grabbed food and drinks before mingling around with smiles on their faces. The party seemed to be off to a good start. I finally felt like I could relax a little bit.
Chapter Thirty-Three
The party was in full swing and I was starting to get a little bit worried that Jill wasn't going to come. I knew she hadn't been totally on board with actually staying to attend the party, but I was pretty sure I remembered her saying she would come to drop the necklace off.
I pulled my flip phone out of my pocket and looked at it again. Nothing new. I figured that if something happened and she wasn't going to come, that she would at least let me know. I debated whether I should message her, but I felt I had already been demanding enough asking for the necklace to be finished in such a short time frame. My Minnesota nice may be extending a bit too far. I told myself that I would get one more glass of wine and if I hadn't heard from her by then, that I would message her instead.
The walk from the living room to the bar was short, but took a while because I was stopped by no less than ten people. Chelsea even gave me a half-smile as I walked by a group of people she was sitting with. I briefly wondered how in the world she had been invited, but that was not in the Christmas spirit, so I gave her a little wave.
Ronald had brought his dour wife Melinda and they had somehow taken over greeting duty. I guess it was only natural to want to greet everyone when you are the mayor and you are up for re-election in the next year.
"Tessa, what an amazing party," Ronald said. Today, the sweater vest stretched over his large stomach was Christmas themed with reindeer running back and forth across it "Your mother tells me you put all of this together. If that is true, I may have to get your help with more of the town events."
"The music is too loud," Melinda said, her face permanently pulled up into a sneer.
"Well thank you Ronald," I said, ignoring Melinda. She may not be a fun person to be around, but she loved Ronald and he loved her. Together, they made a strange duo that just worked. "Maybe I will help you with some other town events, but for now, I'm headed towards the bar. Do you or Melinda need anything?"
Ronald opened his mouth and started to say something, but Melinda cut him off with a subtle karate chop to the stomach.
"No, we do not need the extra calories in any sort of alcoholic beverage," Melinda said.
The front door opened and she turned back towards it to scowl at whoever was the next to arrive. Ronald chuckled as he shrugged a little bit. What we all saw as Melinda's fatal flaw, he somehow embraced in an 'aw shucks' sort of way. Honestly, it made me believe in true love.
"Thank you for offering Tessa," Ronald said before turning to save the unsuspecting guests who had walked in to Melinda's laser beam like glare. I noticed that one of the reindeer on the back of his sweater had a red nose and it made me smile to myself.
I turned to make my way to the bar when I thought I heard someone calling my name. I turned and saw Jill shuffling by Ronald and Melinda's greetings. She had on a large, purple, puffy winter coat and a big knit hat that was covered in snowflakes. She was carrying a big box in her hands, a box that was almost as big as the ones Mandy put a dozen donuts in at the Donut Hut. It confused me a bit because the necklace certainly didn't need a box that big. But I had mentioned that the necklace was going to be a surprise, so maybe she was just playing along. I was a bit touched by her thoughtfulness.
"Jill, I'm so glad you made it," I said, rushing forward to take the box out of her hands.
She wrenched the box back and clutched it tightly against the front of her big purple coat.
"I'm only here for a few moments," she said quietly. "I won't be staying for the party."
"What a shame," I said, a bit too exuberantly. I realized in that moment that I had imbibed with one glass of wine too many and I was glad I hadn't been able to reach the bar again yet. I promised myself I would grab some food next, and not just a cookie or donut.
"Can we go somewhere quiet?" Jill asked. "Maybe upstairs?"
"Oh sure but I'll need you to take your boots off," I said, gesturing to the big black, fur-lined boots she was wearing. It looked like she had trudged through ankle deep, muddy snow and I did not want that tracked through the house.
Jill hesitated for a moment, looking down at her feet and biting her lip like she was pondering something. I put my hands out again to offer to take the box from her.
"Why don't I hold that while you take your boots off?"
"No!" she shouted, and then looking embarrassed, brought her voice back down to speak softly again. "I can do it."
I wasn't really sure why she was so adamant about holding the box, but I let her. I reminded myself that she was still in a delicate state and she needed to be supported, not chastised. So I watched while she clutched the box against herself and tried to take her boots off by stepping one at a time on the backs of the boots. Finally, she was in her stockinged feet and stared at me until I beckoned her to follow me.
As we started up the stairs to the second floor, we left the din of the crowd below. With every step, the conversations and music faded a bit more into the background. The hallway only had a touch of holiday decorating because I had focused my attention on the first floor. But on the door to our private, family area was a wreath. I had tried to infuse a little holiday spirit.
Our apartment itself needed more holiday cheer and I was planning to have my siblings come over soon to help me put up the family tree. But for now, it just looked like a normal, Midwestern home. I knew my mother wouldn't be able to surprise us in here because of the obvious problem with stairs, but I didn't want my sisters to come in. I assumed the reason for the large box may be that she had finished all three necklaces. So instead of just having her come to the living room, I brought her all the way to my bedroom.
"You can take off your jacket," I said as we walked in. "I know you aren't staying, but you must be awfully hot."
"I'm fine," Jill said. She shut my bedroom door behind her and stood directly in front of it. "I really do have to leave right after I give you this."
She gingerly lifted the box a bit to indicate what she was talking about. I was a bit confused about why she was still being so cryptic. We were in privacy now.
"Okay, you don't have to stay," I said, taking a step towards her. "You can just give me the necklace and go back home."
"The necklace?" Jill said. Her hand flew to her throat and wrapped around a necklace she was wearing before she loosened her grip. "Oh, yeah the necklace for your mother."
I took another step towards Jill and put my hand out towards her. She flinched and jerked the box away from me again. I was getting a bit worried about her mental state.
"Jill, are you okay?" I asked.
"Not really," she said. "But I will be after this. Right now, I need you to go sit on the bed while I open the box."
I complied, walking over and perching on the edge of the bed. An uneasy feeling was starting to settle in my gut, but I tried to ignore that. It was obvious that Jill needed help, but how could I help her? I needed to find a way.
Chapter Thirty-Four
For a while, Jill stood by the door with the box in her hands just staring at me. She was pale and sweaty and she looked like she was almost ready to pass out. I sat uneasily on the very edge of the bed, ready to spring up and catch her if she started to faint and fall down. I wished she would take that jacket off, but I'd already asked her a few times and she seemed to be getting angry, so I didn't want to push it.
"How long have you been making necklaces Jill?" I asked. I was hoping to break the tension by getting her to talk about something she enjoyed. "They are so beautiful and you really are wonderful at it. Do you make anything for yourself?"
"Thank you," Jill said, her face brightening a bit. "Yes, I actually made the one that I am wearing
and it means a lot to me. Would you like to see?"
She grabbed the necklace from around her neck and slipped it off over her head. I put my hand out and she dropped it into my palm. I noticed a glint of gold inside the wrist of her jacket as she pulled her hand back. Jill was wearing some sort of a gold bracelet.
I looked down. The gold chain of the necklace had a little gold, wire charm on it in the shape of a horse. It was small, only the size of marble, but somehow it was filled with detail. It wasn't just a charm shaped kind of like a horse, it was a horse charm. The thin wire had been twisted back and forth delicately until it had come out just perfectly.
"Do you like horses?" I asked. My mind flashed back to the picture of a horse she had in her apartment. "I noticed you have a picture of one in your apartment."
"I've always loved horses," Jill said. "I wanted to ride horses all of my life, but we were too poor. I finally had to take matters into my own hands. I found a way to buy a horse that I loved when I was only sixteen, but unfortunately we had to put Misty down just a few years after. I have been too heartbroken to get another horse since then."
Jill started to cry. I turned and grabbed a box of tissues off of my nightstand and handed one to her along with her necklace. She slipped the necklace back over her head and dabbed at her eyes with the tissue before blowing her nose with a loud honk.
For a minute, I stared at her. Despite having been to her apartment twice now, I still didn't know much about Jill. She seemed to be about my age, but otherwise I didn't know where she was from or why she had moved here. She was quiet and kept to herself. I had always scoffed at the idea that it was hard to make friends when moving to a small town. Small towns are always friendly, I thought, just look at Shady Lake. I can't go anywhere without being recognized and talked to by someone.
But here was proof. Jill seemed nice and yet almost a year after she had moved here, we didn't know hardly anything about her. The reason Shady Lake had been so welcoming and comfortable for me was because I had grown up here. But it takes a while for us to accept strangers like Jill, no matter how nice their jewelry was.
"This might seem kind of weird but I do want to apologize," I said. Jill gave me a strange look, but I plowed on. "I just realized that even though we are the same age and you've been here for a while, I never really tried to talk to you much or be your friend. I'm so sorry. I assume no one was very welcoming since I hardly know anything about you."
Jill sighed a big sigh and dabbed at her eyes again with the wadded up tissue. I offered her a new one from the box, which she gladly pulled out and also used. She set down the box on the desk next to her. I eyed it up, but it still just looked like a large white box to me.
"This may sound strange, but I kind of liked the peace and quiet," Jill said. "I moved to Shady Lake for a fresh start and I really wanted some place where I could start fresh. Shady Lake provided just that, although it was a bit lonely. I got over that by being extra friendly while waitressing. That way I did get some social interaction."
"Well I'm still sorry," I said. "I'd love if you told me a little more about yourself."
"I grew up in a very small town up north," Jill said. She was facing my direction, but she was staring out of the window next to me where the snow was softly falling, making the Christmas party feel so cozy. "The town I'm from is way smaller than here and I always dreamed of living in the big city. I always wanted a fancy life in a great apartment."
She chuckled to herself and she seemed to be lost in her childhood dreams, smiling at how ridiculous and wonderful they were all at once. I knew how she felt because I felt that way too when I thought back to my desire to be a 'fashionable lady' when I grew up. That obviously hadn't happened, but my ideas about it were still there in the back of my mind.
"I've been making necklaces since I was a teenager," Jill said. "My parents didn't have any money and if I ever wanted anything, I had to make the money for it myself. So I started making jewelry and it just kept getting better and better. In fact before I moved here, I sold my stuff in boutiques all over the Cities. I was making a good living as an artist."
She was looking off into the distance and her eyes almost seemed to glaze over. It was like she was dreaming about her former life. I knew what it was like to have two different lives. She had been a working artist in a big city and now here she was waitressing in a small town. While my move from one world to another had been good despite the circumstances, I got the feeling that her move was not so happy and plucky as mine turned out to be.
"You were making a good living as an artist?" I asked. "What happened?"
Jill turned to me with a sneer on her face. Her eyes were blazing angrily and her pale face suddenly turned red. All of the happiness and wonder that had been there when she talked about her childhood dreams had been pulled off and thrown to the side.
"What happened was that ugly witch Claire accused me of stealing," Jill said. "Suddenly all of my jewelry was on clearance and no more orders were coming in. All of the other boutique owners were her friends. They weren't going to turn their backs on her, so they turned their backs on me instead."
I sat up straighter as I took in what she had said. I replayed her words in my head a few times while she appeared to be lost in the painful memories of the past. It was like the curtain had suddenly dropped and I wasn't quite sure what I was taking in.
"Wait a minute," I said. "You knew Claire before she came down to the shop that day?"
"I've known Claire for years," Jill said. She was yelling now, but I knew no one could probably hear her over the noise of the party. "Claire was the one who discovered my work and befriended me. She owned her own store and wanted to sell my necklaces and other jewelry there. She convinced me that my work was good and could be sold for much higher prices than what I was selling them for. She helped me get my jewelry into all of the other boutiques."
I sat uneasily on the bed. Jill was agitated and was pacing in front of my bedroom door. As long as she stayed where she was, I was trapped. I decided to just be as quiet and unassuming as possible. I couldn't afford to make her angrier.
"I was living the high life and Claire was my best friend," Jill said. "We were on the society pages of the newspaper and I was invited to the biggest and best parties. I was finally living the life I had dreamed of as a child growing up in a trailer."
Jill paused her story, her eyes shining. I could almost see the memories of those parties scrolling through her head like a slideshow.
"So what happened then?" I asked. I knew I was tempting fate, but I couldn't just sit there and stare at her.
"A lot of the boutiques where I sold my jewelry started to get money stolen from them," Jill said. "They weren't large robberies, but stealing a few hundred dollars from a small boutique is quite a hit, so it was a big deal. Claire accused me of it and turned everyone against me. She said that since I was trailer trash, I was obviously the culprit."
Her face fell and she looked like a child who had just had their dreams crushed. I suppose that she kind of was. She had been living her dream life and it had fallen down all around her despite her hard work.
"I'm so sorry Jill," I said. "That is awful."
"What hurts even more is that after she turned everyone against me, she caught the actual thief red-handed," Jill said. "Another artist who showcased and sold her shirts in the boutiques had fallen into a drug habit and started to steal from the registers when she came by to dropp off her orders."
I didn't even know what to say to Jill. I stood up and walked over to put my hand on her arm. For a moment, she let it stay there. But then she shook her head like she was coming out of a fog and she pushed my hand off as she backed towards the desk where she had set the box down.
"It was too late by then," Jill said. "All of the boutique owners had moved on and my name had been slandered all over town. I knew I needed a fresh start, so I just packed up my car and drove."
"You drove until you got to Shady Lake,
" I said. "I understand why you wanted the peace and quiet."
"And I had that until Claire walked into the Christmas Shop that day," Jill said.
"But I was there, Claire didn't even seem to recognize you," I said, confused because Claire had given no indication that she had known who anyone in the room was.
"She did and she came to my door later that afternoon to try to apologize," Jill said. "But I wasn't about to let her get off so easy. I had seen her true self and it was ugly. I knew someone had to do something."
Jill's tone had dropped into a serious and sinister place. She was still standing in front of the only exit and, if what I was starting to think was true, I knew that I had gotten myself into real trouble.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Jill turned around and grabbed the top off of the white box. I couldn't see what was inside and suddenly I was quite aware that it was probably not the necklaces I had ordered. My mind spun and I tried to figure out what to do. Unfortunately, the glasses of wine I had consumed in celebration of the party were now slowing down my thought processes.
"I feel so honored that you told me all of that," I said. I stood up and walked towards Jill and the door. "I promise that it can just be a secret between you and I. No one else has to know."
"No one else will know," she said. "And you can yell all you want, but no one can hear you over the noise of the party. It really did work out perfectly for you to invite me here."
Jill reached into the box and pulled out a pistol that she pointed at me. I immediately backed away which unfortunately meant I was also backing away from the door. Jill's hand was shaking while she threatened me.
"You were the one that killed Claire," I said. My voice was shaking. Everything seemed to be falling into place now.
"I thought I had covered all of my tracks," Jill said. "I was so careful about everything and I even planned a few things to help. It helped that I lived above the crime scene so I was able to go up and grab some things to stage the crime."