“It's almost done. And I have a producer, a guy who's really interested in it.”
“The same person you've been meeting for drinks?”
“Yeah. He's connected. I think it's going to happen.”
“That's great,” she said, knowing it would never happen. That nothing would ever happen. That nothing would change. She would continue paying for most of the rent and all of the dog food. And now for the shawl. She decided to get drunk.
When they stood up, both tipsy, he possessively draped his arm over her shoulders, and they walked like that back to his car.
It wasn't until four in the morning that she woke up next to a snoring, sated Mike, her shoulders cold, and felt something was missing. She hurried to the shelf where she kept the shawl folded in tissue paper. It wasn't there. She ran into the living room, turning on all the lights, and searched for it.
Mike stood in the doorway, rubbing his sleepy eyes. “What are you looking for?”
“My shawl. It's gone. It must've fallen off. How could I not notice that? How could you not notice it?”
“We had a lot to drink. You probably left it in the booth at the Starlight. You can get it when they open. Come back to bed.”
“People steal things, you know.” Tears rimmed her eyes.
“Who would want to steal that?”
“It cost over a thousand dollars,” she cried.
His blue eyes widened and his mouth fell open. “You paid a...”
“Yes!” She collapsed onto the sofa and buried her face in her hands.
“Christ.” Mike shook his head and went back to bed.
Later that day she retraced their steps from the Starlight Lounge to Mike's car. She asked all the people working in the bar if they had seen it. None had. She asked the nearby shop owners and got the same reaction. She searched and searched, but she never found it.
Now, a few days later, she was putting the sealer coat on Anne Borden's nails and trying to keep her eyes off the shawl, trying to figure out how she could determine if it was hers. Then she remembered Pox and took a deep breath.
“Do you have dogs?” Callie looked up at her and smiled, trying to keep her voice calm.
“God, no. They shed.” She shook her head vehemently. Her brown hair was cut short. It was a style Callie had seen on many middle-aged women who had settled into the minutia of their lives. Or who had just decided to give up. Her darker brown eyes, the saddest Callie had ever seen, brutalized her almost-pretty aging face.
Anne Borden continued talking to the woman next to her who was getting a pedicure. “The house would be perfect for you. It has architectural integrity. It's in Holmby Hills. 2222 Jacaranda Lane, not far from the Playboy mansion.”
“How many bedrooms?” the woman asked.
“Six, and eight bathrooms not including the powder room.”
“Too big for me,” the woman said. “We're downsizing. Ouch!” She jerked her foot from Mia's hands.
“Sorry.” Mia lowered her Asian eyes.
Callie repressed a grin. Mia always managed to jab a client she didn't like.
She glanced up at the sad-eyed woman again and took a deep breath. “You have holes near the hem of your shawl.” Even though she couldn't see them she pointed to the area where she knew they would be—if it were hers.
“Really?”
“Right there.”
Careful not to smear her polish, Anne Borden lifted up the hem. Light shone through the two punctures Pox had made. Callie's stomach tightened as she tried to control a growing rage.
“So there are,” the woman said blithely. “I never noticed. Moths.” She let it drop from her hand.
“Is it a Liana?” the other woman asked her.
“I never pay attention to the names of designers. If I like it, I buy it.” Anne Borden waved her hands in the air.
“Yes, it is!” Callie's voice was raised and sharp.
The two women stared at her.
As she flushed a hot red, Callie's eyes darted around the Beverly Hills salon. The owner, Frederick, was discussing hair length with a young up-and-coming actress. If she were a star, he'd be seeing her in his private room. Sleek hairdressers aimed their humming blow-dryers like guns at the heads of women who looked uneasily into the ruthless mirrors. Music blared. If she made a scene about the shawl, the fast-paced rhythm of the salon would come to a stop. Frederick would take the side of the client. She could be fired. How could she pay off the thousand dollars without a job?
“Thank you, Callie,” Anne Borden was standing, the shawl crooked on her heavy shoulders. “You're very good at what you do.”
Callie thought she'd heard a warning in the compliment.
Waving goodbye to the woman getting the pedicure, Anne Borden strolled to the reception desk to pay.
Callie stared at the crumpled bills she had left on the table and began to straighten them. Three dollars. Her tip. Ten would've been fair. She watched the woman pay at the reception desk. She couldn't just let her go. She had to say something. If only she had the receipt with her. But what good would that do? So she let her walk out of the salon and disappear down Rodeo Drive.
She slumped back in her chair as the intense buzz of the salon zipped around her head. Silently she berated herself for being a coward. For not standing up for what was hers. But wasn't buying the shawl a brave statement? Wasn't that what Mike hadn't liked about it? The shawl had made her look different, not “everyday,” as he had described her. Maybe she had more courage than she thought. Stuffing the three bucks in her pocket, she decided to get her shawl back.
* * * *
It wasn't much of a plan as plans go. Callie had gotten Anne Borden's phone number from the receptionist at the salon. Using an assumed name, she called her and made an appointment to see the house she was selling. Once there, she would confront her about the shawl.
Now Callie parked her Corolla on Jacaranda Lane but out of view of the mansion. Feeling out of place in this neighborhood of forty-million-dollar mansions lounging behind gates and hedges, she sat for a moment, gathering her courage.
Then she got out of the car and walked to the leaf-scattered driveway of number 2222. The iron gates slouched open. In fact, they were rusted open. Surprised, she saw that the garden was neglected and overgrown. The mansion's thick retaining walls were streaked with dirt and needed a good washing down. The noon sun shined harshly on its roof, revealing missing slate tiles. The wood framing around the windows and French doors was splintered and dried out from the same relentless sun. An air of disappointment hung over the entire estate like smog. Even the street, Jacaranda Lane, was lined not with purple flowering jacaranda trees but with tall, skinny palms. Nothing is what it claims to be in Southern California, Callie thought, a little unnerved.
At the top of the drive, her heart was racing and her palms were sweating not from the walk but from nerves. The front door flew opened before she could ring the bell.
Anne Borden, wearing the shawl, greeted her. “Come in, Callie.” She stuck out her manicured hand and pulled her into the house, the heavy door slamming firmly behind them.
Stunned, Callie stood in a vast marbled foyer where a center staircase curved seductively down from the second-story landing; its intricate brass railing was dull from lack of polish.
“How did you know it was me who called?” Callie's faltering voice trailed up and up into a stained-glass dome in the high ceiling where it echoed around and finally faded away.
“Since the house isn't for sale and I have your shawl, I assumed, no, I hoped you'd have enough gumption to confront me about it. Gumption. Not a word that's used much anymore, but it should be.” She smiled, but it didn't brighten her cheerless eyes. “Come in and have a drink.”
“Just give my shawl back to me, and I'll go.”
“Aren't you interested in why I have it? Why I went to you to get a manicure? Why I pretended to have a house for sale?”
“I don't want any trouble, Mrs. Borden.”
“Not desiring trouble doesn't mean it's not going to come your way and knock you down and rip your heart out. Call me Anne.” She turned on her heels, dramatically throwing one long end of the wrap over her shoulder, walked through the cold, empty living room, and disappeared into a smaller room.
Left alone, Callie fought the urge to run out of this tomb of a house, get into her car, and drive back into her safe life. “Safe.” She whispered the word so it wouldn't echo. But it still reverberated back at her like a ghost murmuring in her ear. Chilled, she swallowed back fear and walked through the living room, the sound of her footsteps tap, tap, tapping on the marble floor.
“Sit, sit.” In the small room, Anne pointed to the chintz-covered sofa, then continued to make two gin and tonics from an antique tray table.
“Nothing for me. Anne.” Callie spoke the name carefully, as if she were learning a new language. Sitting, she took in the den. Books filled it. The slouchy chair matched the sofa. Brass floor lamps hovered nearby. A fire was lit in the brick fireplace. She loved the coziness of the room and allowed herself to relax slightly.
“I know you like gin,” Anne said. “I saw you drinking martinis at the Starlight Lounge.”
“You were there when I lost my shawl? You found it and took it?”
“Yes, I was alone at the bar. My husband and I used to go there often.” She handed Callie the drink, then settled into the chair with hers. “I could have rushed outside and given it to you, but I decided not to.”
“Why?”
“Because I know good deeds can go horribly wrong. And here I am about to do one.” She laughed and shook her head.
Setting her untouched drink on the coffee table, Callie dug in her purse. “I brought the receipt.” She held it up.
“Callie, your ownership isn't in question. Your life is.”
Callie tensed. “Are you threatening me?”
“Well, not in the sense of murdering you. I've already committed one, and I can tell you quite honestly I have no need to commit another. I think one murder in a woman's life is enough, don't you?”
Letting the receipt fall back into her purse, Callie asked falteringly, “You actually killed someone?”
“My husband.”
Callie froze. She was alone with a madwoman.
“I'm not crazy,” Anne said as if reading her mind. “You don't have to be insane to murder someone. In fact, pushing my husband down the stairs was one of the sanest things I've ever done. But unlike the truly psychotic, I suffer from guilt.”
“Why are you telling me this?” Callie eyed the door, her only means of escape.
Anne sighed and took a long swallow of her drink. “Because I don't want you to be like me.”
“I could never kill anyone.”
The woman tilted her head and studied Callie. “I thought that too. I didn't love my husband. I tried, but facts are facts.”
“Then why did you marry him?”
“He was there. I was there. We'd been living together. We were used to each other. It was time to change my life or marry him. I wasn't brave enough not to marry him. I wasn't brave enough to find out what I really wanted—not needed, but wanted.” She arched her eyebrows. “Sound familiar?”
“I'm not getting married,” Callie said defensively. Then asked, “Wouldn't divorce have been a better solution?”
“Of course. But logic had nothing to do with my quiet, seething rage at him. I don't mean to mislead you. It wasn't a crime of passion. It was a crime of boredom. Before he ate, he'd wipe his silverware clean with his napkin, even at home. When he was talking, he'd take off his glasses and clean them, stopping in the middle of a sentence, leaving me standing, waiting until he got every speck off and had them adjusted perfectly on the bridge of his nose before he'd continue. In fact, he was cleaning his glasses when I shoved him down the stairs. I had come out of the bedroom, and he was standing on the top step, rubbing furiously at some imaginary smudge. I came up behind and gave him a good push. He fell headfirst down the steps and landed on the marble floor, breaking his neck. He held onto his glasses all the way down.” She took another sip, ice rattling, slice of lime bobbing in the crystal glass. “The police assumed he'd started down while cleaning his specs and missed a step.”
Transfixed, Callie asked, “Do you miss him?”
“No.” She tapped her finger against her pursed lips, then added, “But I miss the part of me that died because I killed him.” Standing, she stared coldly down at Callie. “Now this is where I am going to hurt you.”
Chest tightening, Callie leapt to her feet and ran to the door, grabbing for the knob.
“Your boyfriend Mike is seeing another woman,” Anne said flatly, moving to the drinks table for a refill.
Hands trembling, Callie stopped and turned. “How do you know?”
“I've seen him with her at the Starlight bar. They sat next to me one night. She's blond, fake tits, listens to him intently, and laughs at his jokes. Seems to love the script he's writing. She's perfect for him. But he'll marry you because you're safe and you'll take care of him. And you'll marry him because you can take care of him. Because you're used to each other.”
Fighting back tears, Callie felt hurt and angry. “He told me he was meeting a producer. How do I know you're not making all this up?”
“You know. I knew when my tidy husband started to have an affair. One more thing. You didn't forget your shawl when you left the bar that night. He purposely pushed it off you when he put his arm around your shoulders. Why would he do that?”
“He said I was too normal, too ‘everyday’ to wear it.”
“Maybe he saw a change in you. Maybe he sensed danger to his own careful life, like I did.”
“I don't want to hear any more. I just want what's mine. I want my shawl back.
Anne studied her for moment. “No, I can't do that.”
“You have no right to keep it. I'm going to be paying on it for a year.” An uncontrollable fury rushed through her, and she swung her purse at Anne Borden, first knocking the glass from her hand then whacking her on the side of the head. The woman staggered backwards then regained her balance, her hand going up to her bruised cheek.
Horrified at her own rage, Callie burst into tears. “I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. But you're being so unfair. It's all unfair.”
“Get him out of your life, Callie, without killing him. Then you can have your shawl back. I promise.” Turning her back on Callie, she picked up a fresh glass and began making another drink.
Callie thought of jerking the shawl off this woman who was trying to destroy her life. Instead she mumbled, “Thank you,” and walked out of the house, dazed.
* * * *
Callie smiled at her reflection in the bar mirror. She wore a blond wig she'd bought at the beauty-supply store. Her eyes were defined by false lashes and inky black liner and her lips shined a deep red. She looked like a Woman of the World. A woman whobeen around. A woman to be dealt with. One guy had already hit on her.
The Starlight Lounge was getting more crowded, but there was still no sign of Mike. He had told her earlier in the day that he had another meeting with his producer. She looked down the bar and saw a lone pretty blonde sipping a white wine and checking her watch. Was she waiting for Mike? Callie tried to see if her breasts were fake.
Just when she was sure Anne Borden was a cruel crazy woman, the lounge door opened, and Mike sauntered in. His dark hair flopping down his forehead, he scanned the room. Callie's heart stopped as he didn't head for the woman at the end of the bar but instead made a beeline for her, grinning ear to ear.
Pausing, confused, he mumbled, “Sorry. Thought you were someone else.”
“Mikie!” The other woman waved at him. “Here I am.”
“God, all blondes look alike to me.” He turned and hurried to her.
She laughed at his joke, then they kissed long and hard.
Callie felt her stomach drop. Felt her very existence tilt like a s
inking ship. She rubbed her forehead. The wig felt tight. She paid for her drink and left.
Sitting alone on her bed, Callie petted Pox and thought he had the same knowing sad eyes that Anne did. She could tell he sensed change coming, and it made him nervous. Finally, at one o'clock, she heard the front door open and close and the jingle of Mike's keys.
Heart thumping, she stood up and glanced at herself in the mirror. She adjusted her blond wig and checked her over-the-top makeup.
Swaying into the bedroom, Mike stopped dead, gaping at her. “Who the hell are you?” he demanded.
“Callie.”
He angrily shoved his hair back from his forehead and leaned forward, staring at her. Recognition entered his blue eyes. He forced a laugh. “God, you almost gave me a heart attack. I thought there was a strange woman in the apartment.”
“Some men might find that exciting.”
Mike glared at her. “You don't look like yourself.”
“Good.” As Callie talked she began to feel stronger, even formidable. She suddenly understood the dual personalities of Clark Kent and Superman. The power and freedom a disguise can give you.
“Are you having some kind of breakdown? First that poncho thing, and now you've got too much goo on your face and you've bleached your hair.”
“It's a wig. The real Callie is right underneath. And no, I'm not nuts.”
He looked petulant. “What's happening to you?” His big jaw tightened. “You look like a slut.”
She froze, waiting for his remark to hurt her. But it didn't. “Does your producer look like a slut? She's blond.”
“Is that why you're dressing like this? She doesn't mean anything to me.”
“Why do women always mean nothing to men when they're caught screwing them?”
“I don't mean nothing. I mean...”
“What do you mean?”
“She's not you.”
“Who is she?”
“She's just some ... some...” He gestured helplessly then gave up.
“I want you to be honest about one thing. Did you push my shawl off my shoulders that night?”
EQMM, August 2012 Page 16
