The Water

by Nancy Jackson

  Carrie watched Lainey out of the corner of her eye. Was it a nervous twitch or were the clothes uncomfortable, Carrie wondered.

  “Sitting here we can see if he catches the bus, or if by chance he did park in the garage, then we can see him pull out,” said Carrie. “You can wait for the bus, and if he shows up, get on. Then I will follow. If he doesn’t get on the bus, then we can move inside the garage.”

  “Good plan,” said Lainey. She had a frown on her face and was focused on the bus stop, still tugging at her top.

  Carrie watched for a moment and then asked, “Are you okay?”

  Snapped out of her focus, Lainey looked back at Carrie and nodded. “Yes.”

  Carrie continued to look at Lainey. When she had answered her head had bobbed up and down unnaturally. “Are you nervous?” asked Carrie.

  “Maybe a little. But I’ve done some undercover work before.”

  “You’re fidgety and you’re frowning. In the short day I’ve known you, I’ve never seen you frown.”

  Lainey let a short laugh burst forth. “Oh, I frown.” Once again she was unconsciously back to tugging on the clothes.

  “Are the clothes bothering you?” asked Carrie.

  Looking down at her lap a minute before looking at Carrie and answering, Lainey took a deep breath.

  “Yes. I’m very uncomfortable dressing like this.” Her forehead was pinched as if she were afraid to tell Carrie.

  Carrie studied Lainey’s face for a bit. She sensed that she was about to get an answer to her next question she didn’t expect, but felt compelled to ask it, anyway.

  “Why do they make you so uncomfortable?”

  “I don’t think it’s right to dress to temp men to look at you with lust. In my heart I know it’s wrong.”

  Carrie rolled the words over in her mind. This was something very new to her. For the last eight years that is exactly how Carrie had dressed when she wasn’t at work. She had wanted men to want her in a sexual way, and they had.

  Lainey looked away back towards the bus stop. The silence in the SUV was loud. Lainey was thinking how she might have offended Carrie and Carrie was suddenly feeling shame about her sexual behavior.

  Carrie knew Lainey had no way of knowing how Carrie lived. She did not understand that Carrie felt driven to entice men and sleep with them to fill a void deep inside. So, she knew Lainey was not directing her words at Carrie, but she still felt the weight of them.

  When her parents had died, and she had pushed her fiancé, Billy, away. She still had the drive to be with a man, but without emotional entanglement. She had convinced herself she was getting the best part of a relationship, and on her terms.

  She would meet up, have sex, and as soon as possible, leave. With her system, she didn’t have to feel. No love, no hurt.

  The problem with that plan was, she did hurt. Each year that had passed, she had entrenched herself deeper and deeper into herself, increasingly walling herself off from others. Except for her friendship with Randy, that was. She missed him now, and the thought of him brought pain.

  “I hope you understand about the clothes. I don’t want you to think I’m criticizing other women who do dress like this. I just don’t feel comfortable about it for myself.”

  Carrie nodded and shot Lainey a quick smile. She liked Lainey, really liked her, who wouldn’t? But she was a curiosity to Carrie. She was happy, but in a subdued sort of way that didn’t push others to be happy. It was a quiet, gentle happiness, and it was pleasant to be around.

  Carrie smiled back at Lainey. “No, I know you didn’t.”

  Several more minutes passed by with no sign of the man. “Do you have a boyfriend?” Carrie asked.

  “No. I don’t date very much.”

  “Why is that?”

  Carrie could see the Lainey was gauging her words and taking time to organize what she wanted to say. “I guess I have very high standards about who I see myself with forever. To me, dating a lot of different people who I know I don’t want to be with gets complicated. I don’t want to get someone else’s hopes up and I don’t want to wind up in sticky situations.”

  “How can you know if you want to be with someone without dating them?”

  “Oh, I have tons of friends. We all do stuff together. I meet a lot of guys when I volunteer and do other things. So there hasn’t been a shortage of guys around.” Lainey stopped again to think.

  “Don’t you think that you just kind of know?” Lainey asked Carrie. Her eyes were searching Carrie’s.

  “You mean love at first sight kind of thing?”

  Lainey shook her head. “No, not really like that. But you know how it is when you meet someone and in a few moments your gut tells you they aren’t the one. I think when I meet the right one, I’ll know that inside too.”

  Carrie reflected back to Billy. They had been young when they had met. They had both been popular in high school and had both dated quite a bit, but there was just something about Billy that stood out to Carrie. She had loved him pretty quickly and never looked back.

  “I think I know what you mean,” said Carrie.

  “So you have met your forever love?” Lainey was suddenly excited for Carrie.

  Carrie looked away out of her driver side window. Even after all this time, she still missed him; still loved him. “Yes. I guess I have.”

  Lainey sensed this was an uncomfortable moment for Carrie, so she sat quietly. There was a story there, but she knew it wasn’t the time to ask. Did he die, or did he leave her, wondered Lainey.

  Carrie’s voice was thick when she answered. “I was engaged to be married once.” She continued to look out the window with her face turned away from Lainey who was content to let her talk in her own time.

  “My parents died almost nine years ago. Billy and I were planning our wedding. I was happier then than I ever remember being.

  “Then one night I got the call that my parents had been in an accident. By the time I got to the hospital, they were both gone. I didn’t handle it well.

  “They had been my entire support system. My entire self was tied up into them, who they had encouraged me to be; raised me to be. Without them I don’t think I knew who I was anymore, or how to be.”

  “I’m so sorry Carrie.” Lainey’s voice was barely above a whisper.

  Carrie wiped tears she couldn’t prevent and shook her head to disengage from sad old memories. She turned to look at Lainey.

  “That was a long time ago.”

  Lainey thought her heart would break. Carrie was wearing the pain in her heart like a mask on her face, for the world to see. I want to reach out and help her pull off that mask, thought Lainey. I want to help her be free.

  “Carrie I don’t want to pretend I know the pain you’re feeling. But I do know one thing; you can recover, move on, and find happiness again. You want to know who you are? You are someone of worth.

  “Your parents did a great job in raising you to be a strong woman of integrity and value. Don’t dishonor the great job they did as parents by deciding you are nothing without them.” Lainey stopped. It was always best to say less than more.

  Lainey’s words penetrated somewhere deep inside of Carrie. No one had ever spoken words that had attacked her emotional walls the way those words did.

  She had worth. She mulled those words around. Her parents had thought she had worth. Why had she felt her worth had died with her parents? Not only her worth, but her will to live too.

  They had fed into her life and she had relied on their words, encouragement, and love. Without them, she felt she couldn’t be worth anything anymore.

  Was Lainey right? Did it dishonor the great job her parents had done by wallowing in self-pity? She knew it would break their hearts if they knew.

  That thought, that one single thought, broke something inside of her. She came to realize at that moment she loved her parents enough to honor them by tearing down the walls she had built. She had to try anyway.

  “Lainey
.”

  “Yes?” Lainey looked over at Carrie unsure what was about to come.

  “I need to break free of this emotional dungeon I’ve sentenced myself to these last eight years. Grief and anger dug the pit and then I willingly crawled down into it and slammed the top shut.

  “I drink too much. I sleep around with men. I’ve convinced myself that if I kept my distance emotionally from people, then I wouldn’t have to feel pain like that ever again. But it doesn’t work, so I drink.”

  Lainey sat quietly and reached her hand out to cover the hand that Carrie rested on the center console. “It’s okay. We all hurt. But we have to learn to navigate it.

  “We can’t park there and build a house there. We have to keep moving and put it in our rearview mirror as quickly as possible. The only way to do that is to acknowledge it, accept it, and move forward.

  “We have to let God heal our wounds so we can move forward and heal and love again.” When Lainey mentioned the word God, Carrie slid her hand out from under Lainey’s.

  God was a lofty concept that was a faint idea to Carrie. She had not gone to church growing up. Well, a couple of times for certain things with friends. But she didn’t know anything about God.

  With all the surrounding pain she questioned just how powerful this God really was.

  Lainey pulled her hand back and sat quietly again watching the bus stop. “I was raped when I was only fourteen.”

  Carrie’s head jerked around to look at Lainey. Thoughts like rockets shot through her head. But, she’s so happy. She doesn’t act like someone who was raped. How can she be so happy?

  “I know what it is like to feel pain. I know what it is like to hurt deeply. I know what it is like to be filled with white hot rage and murderous anger. I know what it’s like to want to crawl in a hole that self-pity dug. I know Carrie.”

  Lainey turned to look at Carrie. “It was only by talking to God about it. Yelling at God about it, then working my way through it with Him, that I was able to heal. It was His love that brought me out and helped me to love and be happy again.

  “You’re probably wondering if God is such a loving God, why is there so much pain in the world, why doesn’t He protect us? I hear that all the time. Well, we can either have a free-will to choose, or we can be robots.

  “Let me ask you Carrie, would you rather have a stuffed puppy who sits only on your shelf doing nothing bad, but never able to do anything good either? You can hug them and touch them, and they offer a small measure of comfort, but they’re powerless to reciprocate your love.

  “Or would you rather have a real puppy who bounces in exuberance when you walk through the door happy to see you, and licks your face until it’s raw, even though they poop, pee, and chew up your favorite shoes?

  “God wants us free. If we choose to use our freedom to do bad things, then He must allow that because you can’t have it both ways. But there is so much He does stop. We just don’t realize it because we can’t see what He has prevented.”

  Then Lainey looked back at the bus stop. “He isn’t coming. It’s six o’clock, the bus has run, and there has been no sign of him out of the garage.”

  “What now?” asked Carrie.

  “I guess it’s time for me to walk the street.” Lainey looked at Carrie and grinned.

  Lainey got out of the SUV and walked over to Kerr Park. She sat on a bench that faced North Broadway. She could see the Skirvin to the east and the bank to the north.

  Carrie had also gotten out of the car. She had chosen to wear a tank top and shorts rather than her navy blue OSBI polo shirt. Today it was all about blending in.

  About ten minutes after Lainey took her seat on the bench, Carrie casually walked into the park with her iPad and sat on the other bench. She wore her cap and sunglasses which would allow her to look around with no one noticing.

  She glanced out of the corner of her eye towards Lainey, who was playing the part. She had a tight tank top on with spaghetti straps. Its unique design had a v-neck that dipped low, then had three buttons at the point of the V which could be opened below that. All three were unbuttoned and with her arm stretched out across the back of the bench, the extent of Lainey’s endowment was not in question.

  She wore a short denim skirt that slid so far up when she sat down and crossed her legs, that Carrie realized Lainey must be wearing g-string underwear. She thought about just how uncomfortable Lainey must feel right then.

  It was Thursday and past quitting time for most people downtown. People hurried through the park on their way to their cars or hotels.

  Some small groups of two or three chatted and talked about getting a drink or going to dinner. No one wanted to stop in the park. The enduring August heat contributed to that.

  Lainey and Carrie sat on their perspective benches, roasting in the sun for at least forty-five minutes. Lainey’s fair skin, which normally looked lovely against her dark hair, was now bright red.

  I’ve got to get her out of the sun, thought Carrie. She sent Lainey a text saying as much.

  The phone Lainey had stashed in her small purse, produced a muffled ding. She casually pulled it out and read Carrie’s text. Lainey recrossed her legs the other way and responded.

  Carrie got up first and walked north towards the parking lot where they had left the SUV. Soon after, Lainey got up and walked south on Broadway. The shade of the building was a welcome relief.

  At the corner of Park Avenue, she turned west and stood looking in the windows of BC Clark Jewelers, an Oklahoma icon since long before Lainey was born.

  Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Carrie drive past on Broadway going south. After giving the beautiful jewelry in the window adequate review time, Lainey casually turned and walked east on Park towards the Santa Fe parking garage, just to the east of the Skirvin.

  Another text from Carrie indicated that she was on the second floor of that garage, on the west side. Lainey found her and crawled into the SUV.

  When Carrie saw Lainey she had to chuckle. “My goodness you look like something the cat drug up! Here, drink this water and cool off.”

  Lainey felt like something the cat had drug up. Walking in the heat after sitting in the hot sun for so long had drained her. She pulled out an old t-shirt from the backpack she had stowed in the SUV, and wiped her face, then reapplied sunscreen.

  Once she had finished the bottle of water and combed her sweat laden hair, she felt like a new woman.

  “What now?” asked Lainey.

  Carrie shook her head thinking. “Are we spinning our wheels out here? Our plan was to get the guy coming from the bank. Without that I didn’t have a plan. What do you think?”

  “It’s too early to be out walking the streets. If we wait until dark at least, then I can go out and strut my stuff some more.” Lainey was grinning at Carrie.

  “Well, I have to give it to you. You sure know how to strut it even if it makes you feel uncomfortable.”

  “Let’s go get dinner and come back,” said Carrie as she shoved the SUV into gear.

  Lainey threw the t-shirt on over her tank top and replaced the skirt with a pair of shorts. With a heavy note of sarcasm Lainey said, “Lookin’ forward to it.”

  Chapter 20

  Anthony saw that woman was working late at the gift shop. He still didn’t understand how she could work both jobs. And why would the Skirvin want to hire someone like her, anyway?

  He had parked on the lower level of the Santa Fe garage as close to the Skirvin as possible. He had watched her the other day and saw the exit she liked to take and where she had parked then.

  At precisely ten-fifteen, the girl left the Skirvin and headed towards the garage. Her head was down as she dug in her purse for her keys. When she stepped into the shadow, a hand came from behind and smothered her face with a damp rag.

  The ether worked quickly, and soon she was a limp rag in Anthony’s arms. She had another wispy thin dress on and he was trying to move her body to his car without touch
ing her bare skin in those places.

  Finally, he had her in the back seat and was headed to his house. Excitement surged through him. He had grown sweaty trying to get her into the car and sweat dripped from the curl on his forehead. The heat had dissolved the Brillcream and his hair was hanging limply now. Fortunately, the garage was only a few blocks away and in less than five minutes he was back home.

  Carissa was coming to when Anthony opened the car door. Just as her eyes grew wide, his hand shot out to once again cover her mouth. She struggled this time, and he had to endure her flailing arms to push the rag over her mouth.

  Quickly, she went limp again. Tired of this mission already, he scooped her up and carried her to the house. Feeling her smooth legs draped over his arms was causing him an erection which rather irritated him.

  The instant he had her in the basement he dropped her on the concrete floor and began to beat his head against the block wall. He couldn’t allow this! He couldn’t be like all those men who had bought his mother.

  The beating did the trick. Even though it left his head scraped and bruised, it had served its purpose. He was once again able to control his thoughts.

  He grabbed Carissa’s wrists and put each wrist in one end of a pair of handcuffs. He then took the other end and clamped it into the end of a chain he had hanging from the ceiling. Once both wrists were cuffed and attached to their individual chains, Anthony stepped back. The duct tape he had placed across her mouth would keep her quiet while he was gone.

  Carrissa was hanging with her head slumped forward. She won’t be going anywhere while I go get more dirty whores, thought Anthony. Once he had decided to make quick work of his new mission, he devised a plan to gather as many whores as he could, and contain them in the basement. Then he would cleanse them all at once.

  He smiled as he drove the short trip back to the center of downtown. His plan was genius and living so close to the target area was perfect.

  This time, he pulled into a parking spot alongside Sheridan Avenue just to the south of the Sheraton Hotel and parked. There were no events that night, and it was fortuitous that he had found street parking.