Obsessed With You

by Jennifer Ransom

“I got one of Bob’s major clients,” he blurted out.

  Randy turned to him with a quizzical look. “Oh yeah?”

  “Mrs. Adelle Davis,” Aaron said. “I met her at one of the firm’s parties and after that, she requested that I be her advisor. Bob had been handling her investments for several years when that happened.”

  “How’d Bob take it?” Randy asked.

  Aaron tried to remember. Bob had come to his office, congratulating him on the coup. At that point, Aaron was oblivious to Mrs. Davis requesting a change in advisors. Bob was the one who let him know. Aaron had been dumbfounded about it, but Bob had been gracious. Aaron clearly remembered that. Or he thought he did.

  “He seemed to take it in stride,” Aaron said. “Bob was going to be my best man at my wedding. I don’t think he harbored bad feelings toward me.”

  “You never know what people are harboring,” Randy said darkly.

  Randy turned back to the computer. “Aha,” he said after a moment.

  “What?” Aaron asked sharply.

  “Looks like Bob’s got a second mortgage on his fancy house, to the tune of a hundred and seventy-five thousand bucks.” Randy whistled. “That’s some bucks!” he said.

  “That makes no sense to me,” Aaron said.

  “And looky here,” Randy said a few minutes later. “Bob’s got three credit card companies that have filed suit against him for nonpayment. Looks like a total of over fifty thousand bucks.”

  Aaron sat in the leather chair, stunned. Bob had never let on that he was having financial problems. Bob always grabbed the check first, often paying for the whole group’s meal and drinks. Sarah, his wife, always dressed in expensive clothes and their children attended an exclusive private school.

  “That’s neither here nor there,” Randy said. “Unless we can link Bob to knowledge of your Johnson.”

  There was that word again. Aaron cringed.

  Randy turned back to the computer and punched the keys. Aaron stared blankly into space, wondering what happened with Bob.

  “Well, I’ve found a Facebook page on a Marsha Gardner that might be the one. Is she overweight?”

  “Yeah, I guess you’d call her chubby,” Aaron said.

  “She sure loves that dog of hers,” Randy said chuckling.

  “That’s Delilah,” Aaron said. “She keeps several photos of her on her desk.”

  Randy scrolled through several pages of photos. “Bingo!” he said.

  Aaron looked at Randy’s screen, which was filled with squares of photographs.

  “That’s you,” Randy said, pointing at one of the squares. “At a Christmas party.”

  Aaron squinted at the photo. It was definitely him, in better days when he still worked out at the gym and kept his hair and beard cut. He couldn’t even remember that party.

  “’My boss, Christmas 2011’, the caption says,” Randy said.

  “So?” Aaron said. “She’s got a ton of others on there, too.”

  “That’s right,” Randy said. “Is Gardner Marsha’s original name or was she married somewhere along the way?”

  “She never mentioned an ex-husband,” Aaron said. “Not that I can remember.”

  Randy turned away from his computer and focused his full attention on Aaron.

  “We can link several people up three ways but not all four ways,” Randy said. “We’ve got to have the tie and the Johnson linked; we can forget the rest probably. The only one that we can link all four ways is Cathy.”

  A lightening bolt went through Aaron. “Cathy?” he croaked.

  “That’s how it’s lookin’,” Randy said. “She’s the only one that has knowledge of all four points. Is there any reason she would have it in for you? Maybe wanted to get out of your engagement and cooked up this scheme.”

  “Hell, no!” Aaron shouted, surprising Randy and himself. He was enraged.

  “Hey,” Randy said. “I’m just doing the job you hired me to do.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” Aaron said. “Cathy would never do something like that.”

  “Don’t be too sure about what people will do,” Randy said. “I’ve seen the underside in my line of business.”

  “No way,” Aaron said fuming.

  “Did you ever talk to the woman yourself?” Randy asked.

  “Well, no. I tried to call the number back but it was a private number and I couldn’t.”

  “Uh huh,” Randy said knowingly.

  Aaron jumped up so forcefully that the leather chair pushed out behind him.

  “Send me your bill,” he barked when he reached the door. “Your services are no longer required.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Aaron drove angrily through the city streets and parked in the garage near his old firm. He was still breathing hard when he hit the pavement and trotted toward his building. By the time he got off the elevator on the eleventh floor, he had composed himself. He stopped and spoke to Jeanie, the receptionist, who insisted on showing him photos of her new grandchild. He made appropriate oohing sounds about the kid, then moved straight to Bob’s office. He needed to see his friend. Needed to feel the situation out. But when he got there, Carolyn, Bob’s secretary, informed him that Bob had taken his old office and his old secretary too!

  Aaron walked as calmly as possible down the corridor to his old office. He stepped into Marsha’s outer office, the place where all guests were greeted. Marsha looked up from her computer and her face broke into a smile. She even laughed a little as she jumped up to give him a hug.

  “I almost didn’t recognize you with the beard,” Marsha said. “It looks good on you.”

  “Thanks,” he mumbled. “I understand Bob is over here now?” he asked.

  “Yes, but he’s not like you,” Marsha said under her breath.

  “Is he in?” Aaron asked.

  “No, he’s already gone to lunch. Do you want to leave him a message?”

  Aaron thought about what kind of message he wanted to leave Bob. Such as, “What the hell do you think you’re doing in my old office with my secretary?” Or, “What’s up with all your financial problems?” Or “Were you really pissed off when Mrs. Davis became my client and hate my guts?” But he just shook his head no. He had no message.

  “I need to get to my parents pretty soon. Can I dictate the letter for you and sign it before I go?”

  Marsha sat at her computer and opened up a new Word document. “Go,” she said. It was a familiar routine. Aaron often dictated to Marsha as she typed his words. He sat on the corner of her desk and started the letter. “Quite simply, Marsha Gardner is the best secretary I’ve ever had.”

  She looked up at him, glowing, waiting for him to continue. He went on to talk about Marsha’s skills and her overall work demeanor. Hell, anyone would be a fool not to hire her if his letter meant anything. When he was finished, Marsha printed the letter and he signed it.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t get that to you sooner, Marsha,” he said as he stood to leave.

  “Are you doing all right?” she asked with concern. “Where are you living now?”

  “No need to worry,” he said with a wave of his hand. He wanted to get out of there before Bob came back. “I’m fine. Doing some traveling.”

  “Keep in touch,” she called after him as he went through her door.

  Aaron managed to get through the office and out the door without running into anyone. It was still the lunch hour, so most people were away from their desks, including Jeanie. A young woman sat at her desk, an intern no doubt. She gave Aaron a little wave as he went past her and out the door.

  On the way out of the city, Aaron passed by many familiar places. His first firm, on a busy corner, rose above him. He looked up at it, envisioning himself as a young financial advisor on the fourteenth floor. A couple of blocks down, he glanced over at Deccio’s, a bar he and his coworkers frequented often, especially on Tuesday nights when the drinks were half price until eight. That was where they all congregated at the end of
his last day at his first firm. Drinks had been plentiful, and he remembered, as best he could, that he had had quite a bit. Too much to drink. He was only twenty-four at the time and still full of himself.

  Finally, the city was left behind him and he drove another forty minutes to the farm country where he had grown up. He passed through the little town near his house. The feed and seed store was front and center, right across from the post office, as it always had been. February pansies bloomed in a colorful profusion of purples and pinks and yellows in big half barrels outside the general store and all along the street. The City Diner and Miss Marie’s Diner still stood across the street from each other, constant competitors, still going strong after more than sixty years. His parents met each other at Miss Marie’s, where his mother was working, so the place was special to him. He mentally tipped his hat to the diner as he drove past.

  A few minutes later, Aaron turned off of the main road onto the county road that led to his family home. The fields on either side of the road were either brown and fallow or green with cover crops, waiting for the last frost. Eventually, Aaron passed by his own family’s farmland and turned into the long winding gravel driveway.

  The white two-story farmhouse came into view, a home that had been in his father’s family since the late eighteen hundreds when they had first farmed the land. It was old, but it was sturdy. His parents made sure it was maintained, and now it looked like it had a fresh coat of white paint. Pansies spilled out of several pots on the front steps.

  As he was getting out of his car, his mother flew down the front steps, smiling and crying at the same time. He hugged her hard.

  He walked into the house with his arm around his short mother and she led him right away into the kitchen.

  “You’re too thin,” she said. He dropped his bag on the floor beside the kitchen table, a worn rustic planked wood. He ran his hand across the wood, remembering his many meals there. His mother put a bowl of homemade minestrone soup and a baloney sandwich in front of him.

  “I know you love baloney,” she said. And he did love baloney. Always had loved baloney since he was old enough to eat sandwiches.

  “I put plenty of mustard on the way you like it,” she said.

  “Thanks, Mom,” Aaron said picking up the sandwich for his first bite.

  The soup especially reminded him of his childhood on cool evenings in the fall and winter. His mother always had a pot of soup going on the stove, no matter the season. It was her standby, and the minestrone was her best, if you could say she had a best. There were so many soups in her repertoire to choose from.

  When he had finished eating, his mother took his dishes to the sink and sat back down. She took Aaron’s hand in hers.

  “Son, I don’t mind telling you that we’ve been worried about you.”

  Aaron started to protest, to set his mother’s mind at east, when she held up her hand to shush him.

  “Now don’t tell me I don’t know what I’m talking about,” she said. “I’m your mother, and a mother knows if her child is all right.”

  Aaron saw no point in arguing with his mother. He never could fool her, and God knows he’d tried during his rebellious teenage years.

  “I know your heart is broken,” she said softly.

  His mother always spoke the truth, and she spoke it now. There was no point in denying it. Aaron looked into her eyes, the same eyes he saw in the mirror.

  “I’ve got to get her back,” he said.

  “You’re going to get her back,” she said assuredly.

  “Really?” Aaron said.

  “Yes, really. I know it.”

  “How do you know?” he asked.

  “Because I’m your mother,” she said simply. “And I know it. Love like that doesn’t die.”

  For the first time since Cathy left, Aaron felt hopeful. His mother had always told him the truth, and he decided that this time was no different. It had to be the truth.

  “Let’s take a walk,” his mother said patting his hand.

  Outside, they wandered through the vegetable garden with its neat rows of turnips, cabbage, onions, and newly sown sweet peas—the winter crops. In the spring, summer vegetables of all types would be planted and either sold at the farmer’s market or cooked and preserved. It was the way it was on a farm.

  Several chickens pecked around in the grass beyond the garden. Aaron would likely be gathering their eggs in the morning, as he always had when he was living there. He and Sherry and little Allison before she died.

  The farm was in a lush valley and the mountains formed a backdrop in the distance. He’d tried to paint that mountain vista in middle school when he was taking art. His mother still had the framed painting, though Aaron knew it wasn’t very good. Art was not his calling.

  He and his mother walked over to the woods and took the path that would lead them to a lake in the middle of the forest. As they followed the pathway, surrounded by bare hardwoods and green pines, Aaron thought about his path to Cathy’s house. He remembered his desperate hacking at the underbrush and vines with the dull rusted machete, and then his standing hidden behind the trees as he spied on Cathy’s house. He was ashamed as he recalled those events in the presence of his mother. What would she think if she knew he had done that? But he knew the answer to that. She would understand. She did understand, even if she didn’t know all of the sordid facts of the downfall of his life.

  Over his mother’s head, Aaron spotted the water from the little lake. He had spent many hours of his childhood here, fishing for bream and catfish, or just lying back in the rowboat daydreaming. The woods were thick all around the lake, and only during a certain part of the day, the sun shone down full force onto the water. Aaron saw the sun through the tall trees and knew that the time for that had already passed. It was dark and quiet, very unlike the day he had brought Cathy here.

  That day had been in the summer, right after they got engaged. Everything was green and the sun shone brightly on the lake. He had taken her for a leisurely ride in the rowboat, traversing the middle, then coming back around along the edges. His mother had packed a picnic lunch for them, and they ate the sandwiches and brownies on a blanket spread out on the lakeshore. His heart caught in his throat as he remembered that day with Cathy.

  And here he was in the same spot, without her.

  When they got back to the house, his father was sitting on the porch. His hunting dog, Handy, long since retired and now living the dog’s life, came down the front steps to greet them. His father wasn’t far behind.

  “Hey, son,” he said holding out his hand. Aaron shook it and then his father gave him a brief hug, a man’s hug.

  “I see you’ve decided to join the beard team,” his father said, rubbing his own neatly trimmed beard.

  Aaron laughed. “I got tired of shaving,” he said, and that was the honest truth. He’d been too obsessed with Cathy to deal with the tedious chore of shaving every day. His beard was thick, and he had usually shaved before bed so his heavy bristle at the end of the day wouldn’t scratch Cathy.

  Unlike his mother, his father didn’t ask him any pointed questions or even bring up the subject of Cathy. They spent the evening playing checkers before his mother’s fried chicken dinner with mashed potatoes and gravy, Aaron’s favorite. She knew what he needed.

  While Aaron was eating his second plate of food, his mother said, “Oh, how is that secretary of yours? I can’t remember her name. She called here.”

  “She called here?” Aaron said putting his chicken leg on his plate.

  “Yes, it was about two weeks ago. She wondered if I knew where you were. Said she’d been trying to get in touch with you.”

  “What did you tell her?” Aaron asked, wondering why Marsha would call his parents when she knew how to contact him.

  “I told her that I didn’t know where you were at the moment, but that she could reach you on your cell. I was sure she had that number. Was that okay?”

  “Yes, that wa
s fine,” Aaron said. “She wanted me to do a reference letter for her and I forgot to. I guess she was trying to light a fire under my. . . . um, butt.”

  “Did you ever talk to her?” his mother asked.

  “Yes. I went to see her today and did the letter like she needed. It’s all fine.”

  After watching two episodes of “CSI” back to back, with Handy at his feet the whole time, Aaron went to bed. Whenever he and Cathy had visited, which had been often, she stayed in the guest bedroom and he stayed in his boyhood room, out of deference for his mother. She knew they lived together and had never said a thing about that. But Cathy felt more comfortable staying in a separate room, and he thought his mother did, too. That didn’t stop him from sneaking across the hall after he was sure his parents were asleep to spend the night with her.

  Aaron crawled into his boyhood bed and checked his messages. There was nothing important and he turned out the light. Sleep did not come easily to him as he tossed and turned fitfully. He woke up several times, wondering where he was before he got his bearings. The moon cast an eerie light in the room, a light that had scared him when he was smaller. Now, he just wanted to get some sleep.

  He finally dozed off into a series of dreams that felt not quite like nightmares, but close to it. Throughout his floating around in the dreams, he felt a sense of doom, of evil. It felt that way as he walked through the empty Buckhead house, his footsteps echoing hauntingly. He felt it in his old office staring at the tie that was somehow on his desk. He felt it in his first office, then at Deccio’s. At least he assumed it was Deccio’s in the dream. His old coworkers were laughing around the table, but there was no sound. He looked around at their faces and they grinned at him maniacally, holding their drinks up in a last toast. He looked around at their faces and he knew them, except for one. She was grinning crazily like the rest of them, but he couldn’t remember who she was.

  Aaron struggled out of his sleep, his heart racing. The sunlight was pouring through his window, slanting its rays across the floor. The dreams came back to him in that state of half sleep, half awake.

  And then he shot out of bed.