Paper Dolls

by Hanna Peach

  “Pull up over here.”

  I did so, put the car into park and turned off the engine. Salem pulled her legs off the dashboard and sat up. But she didn’t get out.

  Her fingers drummed on the console as she stared out my window and across the street. I turned my head but couldn’t tell what she was looking for. “What are we doing here?”

  “It’s a nice area,” she replied, still looking out beyond my shoulder. “Don’t you like this area?”

  I frowned. “Sure. It’s a nice area. Do you want to go for a walk here?”

  “No.”

  “Then what−”

  “Just wait.”

  Salem was being weird.

  Before I could respond again she straightened up and pointed over my shoulder. “There.”

  I turned in my seat. I had to blink several times to be sure my vision wasn’t betraying me. Across the street Clay had stepped out from inside one of the townhouses. What was he doing here? I thought he had a deadline.

  He moved aside and I could see that a slim blonde woman was holding back the red front door he had just come out of. She beamed at him as he turned back to speak to her.

  “I thought you should know,” Salem’s voice came from behind me, a smugness to her tone, “Clay comes here when he tells you he’s working on a deadline. That gorgeous blonde always answers the door and he always stays in there with her for several hours.”

  I watched, my vision shaking, my hand to my throat, as Clay leaned in to embrace her.

  Her voice was so close it sounded like it was coming from inside my head. “He’s cheating on you.”

  9

  I kicked the car door open and climbed out. Salem didn’t try to stop me.

  I was angry. I was numb. I just couldn’t believe that Clay could cheat on me. I knew the way he looked at me, the way he touched me. But there he was across the street pulling away from the arms of another woman, a woman who now disappeared behind a blood-red door. Seeing is believing.

  I slammed the door behind me, barely looking both ways before darting across the street.

  Clay was halfway down the stairs when he saw me, the surprise evident in his widening eyes. “Aria? What are you doing here?” We met on the sidewalk. He didn’t try to touch me, in fact he just stared at me. More evidence of his guilt.

  “You bastard.” I gripped my hands into fists so tightly that my fingernails dug into my palms. “You said you were working.”

  The only sign that he was uncomfortable was a throat swallow. “I was. What are you doing here?”

  “Salem brought me here.”

  His mouth twisted into a snarl. “Salem,” he said her name with venom. “I should have known.”

  My eyes darted to the townhouse door, the number 29 on the front in brass numbers.

  “It’s not what you think.”

  “Really? That blonde woman at the door isn’t your other girlfriend?”

  “No.”

  “Then who is she?”

  “She’s an employee.”

  I laughed. Was he really trying to pull that on me? “You really expect me to believe that?”

  “It’s true.”

  “What does she do for you then? As an employee?”

  “Quite frankly, that’s none of your business. All you need to know is that I’m not, nor have I ever, or will I ever sleep with her.”

  My mouth dropped open. I had never heard such a frosty tone coming from Clay. He had never ever spoken to me that way. If I even believed that he wasn’t sleeping with her, I knew he was still hiding something. Can you live with any more secrets?

  “If you won’t tell me the truth,” I swallowed, “we have nothing more to say to each other.” I turned to leave, tears already pooling in my eyes.

  Clay grabbed my arm and spun me back. His tone was softer now. “Stop, Aria. My relationship with Tenielle is strictly professional. I swear, it has nothing to do with you and me.”

  Tenielle. The stupid bitch. I’ll kill her. “That’s where you’re wrong, Clay. If it has something to do with you then it has everything to do with me. This won’t work if we won’t share all of who we are, good and bad.”

  I felt a stab in my gut. You hypocrite. If you demand his secrets, then you have to give him all of yours.

  They’re not just my secrets. They’re Salem’s too.

  Clay stared at me for a long moment, his brows furrowed with resigned anger. “You want to know all of it? Fine.” He grabbed my arm and pulled me up the stairs behind him.

  “What are you doing?”

  He didn’t answer. When we reached the door he stabbed the doorbell with his finger, the buzzing echoing through the inside of the townhouse.

  Salem. I almost forgot about Salem. I turned my head towards the car still parked across the road. But Salem was nowhere to be seen.

  I turned back when I heard the sound of heels clacking on the ground from behind the door.

  “Aria,” Clay spoke in a low menacing tone, “I was going to bring you here when I was ready. But once again you seem keen to push me into doing things I’m not ready to do.”

  My stomach tightened. What had I done?

  The door flew open. There stood the most beautiful blonde woman I had ever seen, sapphire blue eyes and hair of golden threads, pulled back in a chignon, her long elegant neck on display. Her pouty lips flew into a smile when she saw Clay and my heart stabbed. “Clay, did you forget something?” She spotted me behind Clay, one step down. Her thick, dark lashes fluttered as she took me in. “Who’s this?”

  “This is Aria.”

  Her mouth widened to an O. Her large blue eyes opened to saucers as they went from me to Clay then back to me. “Oh, wow. Aria. This is Aria. I didn’t know she was coming.”

  “Neither did I,” Clay said coldly. “Can we come in?”

  The woman nodded and stepped aside. As she pulled open the door I saw a flash of something on her hand. A ring. An engagement ring.

  Were they engaged? Did that make me the other woman?

  My head spun. But I refused to entertain any more thoughts about that damn ring. No assumptions, Aria. Assumptions are what got you into this mess. Just keep your head about you until you know everything.

  Clay walked in first without looking back at me. Before I could follow, the woman stopped me with a hand on my arm. “I’m Tenielle, by the way.”

  “Aria. But then you already knew that.”

  She winced, before sending me what I guessed to be an apologetic look. “You guys should talk. Go on.” She pointed to where Clay was walking down the hallway.

  Yes, it was certainly time to speak to Clay.

  Tenielle disappeared and I was left to face Clay alone. He stood at a doorway, his hand on the handle. He glanced at me as I approached through this thin corridor. So far the other doors were shut and the bright ceiling light bounced off the white hallway walls, making this place feel so sterile and empty. There were no pictures on the walls, no paintings, nothing to show any character of the people who lived here. Did Tenielle live here? Who was she?

  I stopped in front of Clay. He looked so torn. So sad and conflicted. I wanted to touch him but I wasn’t sure I should.

  “I lied to you.” He swallowed, pausing long enough for my heart to jam up into my throat. “A harmless lie in my opinion. I just…wasn’t ready to talk about her yet.”

  Her.

  Her.

  The woman. The woman he lost? The woman he loved?

  Why would Clay be hiding her? Why would he still be visiting her? My heart began a steady increase in pace.

  “Before I take you inside to meet her,” he said quietly but firmly, “you need to know a few things about her.”

  He wanted me to meet her?

  “She suffers from schizophrenia. Do you know what that means?”

  Flashes of Jane Eyre came into my mind. The crazy woman in the attic. Clay was hiding a wife. He was already married and there’s something wrong with her.
<
br />   This was why he was so hesitant to sleep with me. This was why it always felt like he was holding something back. He had already made a vow to another woman.

  I shook my head even as images of wild-haired and spitting patients in white jackets came to mind. I stared at the closed door beyond him. I didn’t want to meet her. I wanted to turn and run. Why did Salem have to bring me here?

  “Schizophrenia is a brain disease,” Clay explained. “It can cause delusions, hallucinations and paranoia as well as a host of other symptoms, but those are the most well known. Medication and therapy can help but there’s no cure.”

  “Do you still love her?” I needed to know.

  I didn’t want to.

  But I had to.

  He glared at me, like he was angry that I would even think to ask him that. “Of course I love her. I’ll never stop, not even because of what she has. You can’t put conditions on love. That’s not real love.”

  I suddenly felt like the floor was swaying under my feet, so I grabbed the wall to hang on to the earth. He loved another woman who was mad. So what was I? Just someone to pass the time? Someone to fill the hole in his life?

  “Every person who suffers from schizophrenia is different,” Clay continued, oblivious to my struggle to breathe. “She hears voices, mostly. She would hear them and talk back to them. She was depressed most of the time. Sometimes she became paranoid that everyone was laughing at her behind her back. At her worst, she attacked me once because she was convinced that I wasn’t her son.” He fingered his chest where I knew his scar was.

  “Her son?”

  He frowned. “Yes. My mother thought I wasn’t her son.”

  She was his mother. She was the woman? Not a wife? My heart felt like it pulled back into my chest.

  I’m an idiot. Stupid stupid stupid. “I’m so sorry.” I moved closer and placed a hand on his arm. “When did you realise…?”

  “In women, symptoms usually develop in their twenties and thirties. She began to show signs of it when I was thirteen, when she was thirty-two. She attacked me when I was eighteen. That’s when I knew I had to get her help, professional help. Up until then I had thought that maybe if I loved her enough…she’d get better.”

  My heart clenched as his face filled with pain. “You can’t make someone better by loving them. I know…”

  “Schizophrenic sufferers get a bad rep in movies and books. Most sufferers can get better with medication, living relatively normal lives. Unfortunately she was one of the unlucky ones who couldn’t. She needs twenty-four-hour care to make sure she doesn’t harm herself.”

  “Tenielle is her carer,” I realised.

  He nodded. “She takes the day shift. Usually she’ll call or text me if Mum is having a good day and I’ll come out here to spend some time with her while she’s coherent.”

  That explained the random calls or texts that he sometimes got. And why he was so eager to drop me off the other morning.

  “She was having a good day, but…I can’t guarantee how she’ll react to you.” Clay turned and he pushed at the handle. Then paused. “You don’t have to meet her.”

  “I want to.”

  He stared at me for a long time before saying, “Okay, then.” He pushed open the door, took my hand and pulled me into the living room behind him.

  It was a bright, airy room encased in windows letting in lots of light. The carpet was dark and several armchairs were placed around. The radio was on low.

  It was only when we moved around one of the armchairs that I even realised there was another person in here. A woman sat sunken into the armchair, so skinny and weathered that her skin sagged around her. If I calculated right, Clay’s mother would be in her mid-forties but she looked much older.

  “Tony,” her voice warbled and she lifted up her face to squint at Clay as if he were too bright, as bright as the sun, “is that you?”

  “Tony is my father,” he mouthed to me. “No, Mum, it’s me, Clay.” He kneeled beside her and took one of her leathered hands in his.

  Clay’s mother frowned as she stared at him. But the flash of recognition never came across her face. His mother didn’t recognise him. I couldn’t imagine how that must feel. My heart ached for him. I squeezed Clay’s shoulder, just to remind him that I was there and that I was here for him.

  “Mum, I’d like you to meet a friend of mine.”

  Her eyes swung at me. Then widened. “Olivia.” The name dropped from her lips with a shudder.

  Who was Olivia?

  “No. This is Aria. Not Olivia. You haven’t met Aria before.”

  I lifted up my hand to her. “Pleased to meet you, Mrs Jagger.”

  She stared at my hand as if it were a foreign thing. She frowned, then looked back up to stare into my eyes. She had Clay’s eyes and they sparkled with a brewing anger. “How dare you come back here after what you’ve done.”

  Clay pushed my outstretched hand down as if he were afraid of his mother. “Mum, it’s okay. This is Aria, my girlfriend.”

  “Get away from my son.” Her gaze remained fixed on me even as her hands started to flutter around her face as if she was trying to bat away invisible flies. “Do you know how much he’s suffered because of you?”

  “I think I should go,” I whispered to Clay, my chest hurting from where her words had stabbed me. Clay stared at his mother, a hollowness to his eyes. I slipped my hand into his and tugged him. “Let’s go, Clay. Please.”

  “Get out!” she screamed, her voice going hoarse. “Get out. Get out!”

  Tenielle raced into the room to Mrs Jagger’s side, murmuring calming things. She was holding a syringe. She shot an apologetic look to Clay and me.

  “Sorry, Tenielle.” Clay finally snapped out of it and began to turn. “We’ll leave.”

  Clay stormed out of the front door and down the steps with me trailing after him.

  “Can you slow down, please? Clay?” I grabbed his arm just as he reached the sidewalk. “Clay−”

  “Don’t touch me.” He yanked his arm from me. “Crazy is contagious, don’t you know?” he said, bitterness dripping from his lips.

  “Don’t talk about yourself that way.”

  His shoulders dropped and he pressed one hand to his face. “That’s why I didn’t want you to know about her. That’s why…”

  At that moment I hated myself for ever getting out of the car and confronting him. “I’m sorry.”

  “No, I’m sorry.” He sighed and finally lifted his eyes towards me. “I’m sorry she reacted that way to you.”

  “Who’s Olivia?”

  He flinched and closed his eyes. “Olivia,” he breathed around her name. Then he opened them and shrugged. “She’s no one.”

  He was lying. Why was he lying? “She can’t be no one.”

  He shrugged. “She’s just an ex of mine.”

  “Did you−?”

  “Let’s not talk about her right now, okay? One day, but not today. I don’t know why my mother brought her up. It doesn’t mean anything. You saw how she is. Sometimes she thinks that I’m my father.” He turned his face away, a flush creeping up his neck. He was embarrassed.

  I stepped to stand in front of him. “It’s okay, Clay.”

  He winced and I knew he didn’t believe me. I tried again to hold his arm but he pulled away.

  I grabbed onto his shirt, forcing him to look at me. “Do you hear me? It’s okay.”

  The strong façade that he wore cracked, his eyes misting over. He grabbed me, his arms going around me, crushing me until I almost couldn’t breathe, and he pushed his face into my neck like he wanted to disappear. In that moment I knew I was the only thing holding him up.

  * * *

  “So did you dump him?” Salem stood in my living room that evening as if she had been waiting for me.

  I paused for a second in the doorway before I shut it and locked it behind me. I turned to study her. She was wearing the same clothes from earlier but her shoes were off, kicked acro
ss the living room carpet. “How did you get home? You left the car with me.”

  “Who cares how I got home. Did you end things with Clay?”

  “No.”

  “What?” Her voice rang out, shrill in my ears. “But he’s−”

  “He’s not cheating one me.”

  “He is. I saw that woman−”

  “You don’t know what you saw.” I strode through the living room towards the bathroom. I had to get away from her before I said something I’d regret.

  Salem leapt up from the couch and grabbed my arm. “Don’t walk away from me.”

  I yanked my arm from her grasp and turned to glare at her. “I met her. Her name is Tenielle. She’s not his other girlfriend.”

  “And you believed him.”

  “She’s his mother’s carer.”

  That made Salem flinch. “Carer?”

  “His mother’s not well. She needs twenty-four-hour care. Tenielle is her carer.”

  She shrank back, her face paling. “I didn’t know.”

  “No, you didn’t. And I would appreciate if you kept your nose out from where it doesn’t belong.” I shoved past her towards the bathroom so I could lock her out.

  * * *

  “Okay, Aria. That’s it. What the hell is up with you today?”

  I jolted. I had been so lost in my own world I hadn’t noticed Flick sidling up to me as I stood by the back counter. It was the after-lunch lull on my next day of work. No one had come in for a few minutes, giving me too much room to get lost in my thoughts.

  “Nothing.”

  She raised a stern eyebrow. “Don’t give me that. Firstly, you came in late and totally flustered. You haven’t been late ever since you started here.”

  “Sorry.”

  She waved off my apology. “I don’t care that you were late. Secondly, you’ve been somewhere else all day.”

  “No, I haven’t.”

  “Puh-lease, you put the anal beads back with the vibrating eggs. I know you’re inexperienced but I know you know which hole is which.”