A multi-talented guy with polished street-smarts, Ron Watson came close to getting his law degree from Tulane, but dropped out and traveled the world. Professionally single with a taste for Rubenesque women, Ron brokered and built apartment communities. After teaming up for the sale of the Dormouse Arms Apartments we became close friends and confidants. Though we talked every day by phone or in person, neither of us was willing to give up our friendship to try for a romance.
As I drove to Ron’s office, the road appeared to change and drift. My hands grew tiny and I couldn’t control the steering wheel. When I pulled into a parking space, I misjudged the length of my car and bounced against the curb. I hate when that happens and it was happening more often.
Since my divorce court days my personal growth was nonexistent and my life was out of control with day dreams and nightmares colliding. The stress generated by Leslie was pushing me over the edge.
Ron had a one-man, one-secretary office due to a recent downturn in his finances. The furniture was rich and bulky with original oil paintings on the walls and oriental carpets on the hardwood floors. He was alone when I got there.
“Gimme a hug. I need it,” I said.
He gave me a buddy-hug with three pats on the back. I returned the thumps.
We shared a seat on his leather sofa. He opened a bottle of Johnny Walker Blue and poured us each a double shot in crystal cocktail glasses. I shook my head to clear the little stabby pains that threatened to poke my brains out.
He stretched his long legs, his wing-tips touching the end of the coffee table. Head back, he studied the ceiling. “Do you think Archer did it… had Jug Hare beheaded?”
“There’s more. This Sunglasses dude wants me to dig up dirt on an Archer company — Red Queen, Ltd. I think I might be the registered agent for Red Queen. When I first started working for Leslie he had me sign to be director of an off-the-shelf company he formed in the Bahamas. He did a lot of that back then.”
Ron focused his dark eyes on me.
I looked away. “I tried to forget. I was embarrassed. It was dumb. I believed him when he told me it was routine. I have no idea what Leslie has done with that company. If he used it to destroy Jug Hare, then I’m as good as dead. Marc Hare is not going to be satisfied with Leslie’s assets. After he takes the toys, he’s gonna kill Leslie and maybe me too. That’s why I’m going to leave Archer Resorts… ASAP. I firmly believe in running when the time is right.”
“It might be your imagination that’s running… amok.”
“You had to see these guys. The lawyer looked like the Walrus in Alice in Wonderland. And the two thugs looked just like Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee.”
“The stress is getting to you. It’s not normal to meet fairytale characters, not at your age. Lay off the pills.”
“No. They were the Tweedles. He’s the Walrus. And I keep seeing the Cheshire Cat.”
He shook his head. “So you’re going to run away.”
I wished I smoked. I reached in my purse and popped a Xanax. “The first time I ran away from home I was only three years old. I had enough of my mother. I packed up my doll’s suitcase and marched down four flights of apartment stairs, dragging the suitcase behind me and hitting every stair with a thump-bump. I knew my mother was following, I could hear her creak. When I stepped into the gutter to cross the city street, I was lifted airborne by my hair and carried home.
“After my mother beat the punk out of me, I curled up in the hall closet with my White Rabbit doll. I shut my eyes real tight and wished and wished with all my might that my White Rabbit would take me to Wonderland for keeps. My mother yanked the closet door open and pulled my bunny from me. She put him on the highest shelf. The next day I tried to get him. I stacked boxes on a chair and climbed up to that shelf, but… he was gone.” I closed my eyes to hold my tears back. “He’ll come back to me someday.”
“And what’ll you do when he returns?”
I was starting to feel the scotch. “He’ll be from England if he’s a real white rabbit. I cling to the dream of starring in my own British romance, sharing scones and clotted cream with someone who says outrageous Oscar Wilde things. He’ll be like John Cleese and make me laugh until my sides ache. I’ll go to bed giggling and wake up with Cleese, naked, at my pillow serving me coffee.”
“Now I understand why you give those White Rabbit dolls to the Children’s Shelter.”
“I feel like the Rabbits are a tiny piece of hope for those abused kids. Let’s not talk about it.”
Ron put his arm around my shoulders. “So until your personal White Rabbit returns…”
“I feel like I’m in the wrong kind of Wonderland — the Blunderland version. I need to start documenting all this insanity, maybe start keeping a journal or a diary to protect myself.”
“There is no such place as Wonderland.”
Irritated, I deflected his remark. “How’s your bankruptcy doing?”
“I’m working it out with my creditors according to Chapter 11. I can’t help but be mad at myself for getting involved with that Crete-It product. My building looks like a giant piece of Swiss cheese on the 17th green. Every golf ball that goes astray leaves a round pock mark in the yellow fake stucco.”
“Logic says the Crete-It company would have settled with you. They sold you defective construction materials.”
“Instead they folded the company and reincorporated under a new name. There’s no one to sue. I’m left with sixty condos I can’t sell because they look like they’ve been under mortar fire. The things that seem like slam-dunks are the things that most often do you in.”
He put down his glass, took my elbow and nudged me out off the sofa. “New Year’s Eve is amateur night. Get your butt home before the drunks hit the road. And forget about the diary. It’s a stupid idea. What you write down can only come back to haunt you in the end.”
“You got a date?” I asked, feeling a teeny bit jealous.
A cloudy look crossed his face. “Nothing special.”
We clinked glasses and did the pal hug thing. Then I hit the road, making a quick stop at Barnes & Noble against Ron’s advice. In an effort to avoid any more thugs in parking lots, I parked at the curb with my emergency flashers blinking.
In the dim glow at the back of the stationery section I found a solitary diary just waiting for me. It was a thick daily journal with quotes from Alice in Wonderland on each page. It was perfect.
The Diary
~ Friday January 1
In another moment, down went Alice after it,
never once considering how in the world she was to get out again.
If my body is found without my head, Leslie Archer did it. With it… Sunglasses.
~ Monday January 4
The rabbit hole went straight on like a tunnel for some way,
and then dipped slowly down…
11:00 p.m. I’d been pouring myself into my work at Archer Resorts for almost a year and the door hinges were beginning to talk to me. I’d earned the right to reclaim my life. The time was ripe for an adventure.
It was easy to accept the fantasy contained in my home computer. I watched as England came to me with the click of a few keys. It was now or never. I became “AliceUSA” and slid down the rabbit hole.
Drastic steps were necessary to escape and find enchantment in England, a dream I had been training for all my life. A romantic in love with all things British, every fairy tale I carried in my heart ended happily ever after in England.
I would rent a cottage in the Cotswolds, one of the prettiest places in the world, the countryside just west of London, a land of thatched cottages and villages with names like Chipping Camden and Bourton-on-the-Water. It would be a tiny two bedroom retreat, just large enough for visits from my daughter Dana and grandbaby Lily. We would spend glorious days feeding ducks and walking the countryside. The girls would come to love England and maybe settle there with me.
Holiday Home Exchange looked like a great place to s
tart. I scrolled through roadside cottages and gardens, through houses on knolls and next to knolls. Pink flamingos walked the lawns of a house in Bourton-on-the Water, a perfect Alice in Wonderland scene. I would be quite happy. I could forget about Leslie and Sunglasses. Perhaps I would take up painting and sell my landscapes to tourists.
I typed in the request box, “American Alice seeks long term rental in Cotswolds area.” Advertisements danced along the right hand of the page. A pop-up ad appeared for European Dating. Hmmm. What harm could there be? One click and I was on the site. I scrolled down to the United Kingdom and focused on London. As long as I was going to live in England, I should have a British guy friend.
Listed were men wanting women, vice versa, and same sex shoppers. I clicked on gents who were looking for ladies.
Daniel showed up first. His profile was laced with four letter words. His language was coarse and his spelling was gruesome. I imagined him costumed in a trench coat and sucking on a stinking cigar with brown teeth and fierce eyes.
Graham came up next. An aerospace engineer who traveled the continent, Graham sounded interesting. He listed times when he was available for chat rooms, always day times. I figured Graham was married and playing while at work. I skipped over his profile, slightly saddened for his wife.
I read a few more profiles, inserting hunches between the lines. Then growing tired of married men pretending to be single, I posted a message on the dating board proclaiming myself to be in the market for a move to England:
American Business Woman, age 42 and three quarters, considering long term stay in English countryside. Looking for a house exchange and would also enjoy the company of a cultured, kind Brit with a good sense of humor. John Cleese clone preferred.
I smiled at my handiwork, logged off the computer, and crawled into bed, offering a whispered prayer that Leslie and Sunglasses would disappear from my life.
~ Tuesday January 5
She was looking about for some way to escape,
and wondering whether she could get away without being seen.
4:00 a.m. I dreamed I was facing a faceless emailer. He was strong of shoulder. In his crisp British voice he pronounced me to be far cleverer and so much more than he ever dared to imagine. He handed me into his ancient Bentley and we rumbled down a lane framed with cottages and pink blossoms. Wooly sheep scurried away from our car. Smiling British ladies in tweed skirts and sensible walking shoes waved us on. I woke up thinking I had dreamed of heaven.
It was far too early to start the day. I tottered over to the computer and hit a key. I had mail. I clicked and there he was.
From: Nchanning
To: Alice USA
“Hi. Just a quick note to say hello. I noticed you are looking for a retreat in England.
I’ve just returned from a rather rain soaked trip to Holland and am ploughing through
the back log of mail. I will send you a proper letter over the weekend. You sound like a
most interesting person and I am sure we will have some fun together.
Must dash.
Best regards,
Nigel
Nigel sounded so perfectly British. I responded to his email without disclosing anything a stalker might use.
10:00 a.m. “Good morning, Salli,” I said as I breezed past the administrative assistant’s desk. I was wearing white St. John slacks, a black V-neck top and attitude.
“Good morning,” Salli said without looking up from her keyboard. Her thick blond hair flopped over her shoulder blocking my view of her face.
“Where is he?” I asked glancing at Leslie’s closed door.
“In court. Maris has been asking for you.”
“Make my day…” I said under my breath.
Maris Archer, the former Mary Christine, the belle of Brooklyn Heights, firing off insults like a drive-by shooting. Her mouth was in gear long before her mind woke up. She dropped out of high school and ran away from home at sixteen. She waited tables in Manhattan, hoping to catch a rich husband. All she picked up was a great collection of one-liners and a bad case of the clap. A slave to fashion, Maris devoured Glamour and Vogue, pilfering the worn copies from doctors’ offices she visited, forever in search of the perfect weight-loss plan. She survived on white wine and Metamucil biscuits.
Leslie’s wife had developed a sick dependency on me. Fear of being alone drove Maris to cling like Saran Wrap to anyone who showed her any kindness.
I settled in my office, comfortable in my swivel chair, and pushed the Archers out of my thoughts. In the center of my desk, sat my favorite picture; it was a snapshot of my daughter Dana, taken ten years earlier. In the photo, twelve year old Dana stood on the boat dock of a house on a lake outside of Atlanta. Her dark brown hair was blowing in the breeze, her chocolate eyes shining. We had rented the house for a long, sweet summer of mother-daughter play.
I’d done everything I could to give my daughter a childhood, to protect her. I didn’t do a perfect job, but not bad.
I was never a child. My father was a war hero, my mother was a war and I was a casualty. There are some things that shouldn’t happen to a kid.
Every time I look at the picture of my child, I smile. Chronologically Dana was my daughter but emotionally she was the kind of mother I never had.
When I married Patrick I was just a kid. I flipped a coin and it came up heads. We lasted ten years. Then the attorneys stepped in erasing my life in a few short months and burying me in lawyer bills.
That was my first experience with our legal system. My second one took a greater financial toll.
For eight happy years before I met Steve the Sleaze, I had deftly avoided remarriage, refusing proposals after my first marriage ended. Steve was slick. He forcefed me his sad story and appealed to my need to nurture. Within a few weeks of our meeting, we were in front of a minister. That’s when my migraines started.
Twenty-one days after our wedding, Steve’s name was on the deed to my house. His extra-marital sex life soon surfaced. Two years in court and I was granted my divorce… but only after the judge and lawyers had stabbed nasty holes in my happy world. Steve was awarded half my pre-marital assets and monthly payments until he got on a job. I came away with migraines, palpitations and a dependence on little pink pills. It had been five years and I was just starting to get back on my financial feet. I learned to hate the legal system.
“Nuts.” Maris banged into the door and leaned over my desk, her skinny frame bent in two like a croquet hoop.
“What are you doing here?” I asked.
“I wanted to show you this photograph.”
I was about to bite her head off, but thought better of it. I had more to gain by humoring her. I was the ever-available audience for Maris Archer’s search for validation. Left alone, Leslie’s wife would probably disappear in an overdose of laxatives, folding in on herself like a black hole.
“Now look at this, what do you think?” She held a candid photo of Leslie on his yacht.
Maris was obsessed with capturing the “real” Leslie with her digital camera. She hoped one day to write a book about him.
The picture was nicely set up. Maris did have an eye for structure. Leslie stood at the bow of his ship, head slightly turned, gray hair blowing in the wind. He wore baggy swim trunks on his bony frame. His legs bowed out causing his knees to look at each other.
“Good shot,” I complimented her. “You know that Leslie is going to kill you when he finds out about your photography.”
“I don’t care. I’m going to sell the book to a big publisher and he’ll be happy in the end.”
“Did he give his permission for this book?”
“Well…” Stuck for an answer, she switched topics. “Can you come to dinner tonight? I think we’re going straight from the office to a steak house. Please…”
“Maris, you’re whining again.” My voice was a bit shakier than I would have liked. “I do not feel like sharing a meal with you guys right now. I have a news fla
sh; I’m resigning from Archer Resorts, effective as soon as I can wind up my business.”
Maris unfolded and slouched to the door. She reminded me of an exotic bottle of poison, with her small head, narrow chest and wide, wide bottom. Her expensive clothes hid a multitude of problems. Marrying Leslie was the best thing Maris ever did for her figure.
“I’ll tell Leslie,” she said.
“Do that.”
“You can at least go to lunch with me,” she said. She blocked the doorway, “I’ll buy.”
Nice and friendly, I reminded myself. “Maybe.”
12:30 p.m. Maris and I walked into the seafood restaurant across from the Archer Building. I had the time for lunch since all my clients had gone dormant on me. We were in one of those slow market cycles, not a single pension fund was looking to buy apartments.
Maris was pleased I had come along. She would rather eat dog biscuits than eat alone. Maris made Maris edgy.
She stepped to the front of the line and assaulted the hostess, a woman-child of nineteen. “I want a table. NOW. I’m in a rush.”
“There are others ahead of you. It will be just a minute.” The hostess was controlled politeness while she looked down at her reservation chart.
“I said NOW,” Maris demanded. “I’m good friends with George Smithers. I have no trouble speaking to him about your attitude.” Her nostrils were flaring. I wished she could see herself in a looking glass.
Bemused, the young woman asked, “Who is George Smithers?”
“He owns the friggin’ place.” Maris’ voice rose. She needed her wine.
“Maris, have you forgotten what it’s like to work for a living? I know how raw your nerves are. It’s not easy to feign an inability to type, hour after hour, day after day, especially when the office is busy and we could use your secretarial skills, Mary Christine.” I was trying my mightiest to be friendly; it just wasn’t working too well.
I stepped aside and pretended to watch some lobsters clamber over each other while Maris continued to abuse the help. There was not much I could do. Maris was a lonely, frightened animal. Leslie had proven to be an empty shell — not much for her to cling to there.
Indie Chicks: 25 Women 25 Personal Stories Page 51
