Mira looked out the window and laughed. “Oh, yes. Miss Paula. I wouldn’t bother trying to talk to her. She and her husband are the official neighborhood weirdoes.”
“Oh, yeah?” Cindy leaned forward, her interest piqued. “Tell me more.”
Mira swallowed more coffee. “Moved in about a year ago or so, couldn’t tell you from where. Phillip and Paula. He’s a pharmacist I think, she stays home. No kids. You’ve seen that ‘Stepford Wives’?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, if that sort of thing exists, she’s got it.”
“No kidding?”
“Honest to God.”
“Well, I guess anyone who mops a driveway… ”
“Precisely. I think that’s all she does all day. Clean, I mean. Obsessively.” The two women looked outside in unison to see Paula wiping her brow and wringing out the mop into the bucket.
“They never talk to anyone, have made no effort to get to know anyone. Never go out to dinner, never take a vacation. They have a guy mow the lawn once a month, but other than that, I don’t even think a bloody pizza deliveryman comes. He’s home every night at six on the d-o-t, and, from what I can tell, he keeps her on a very short leash. Doesn’t even let her drive. She hauls her shopping cart all over the Pavilion.”
“Good God.”
Mira motioned to the window. “See that housedress she has on?”
“Yeah.”
“Not once have I ever seen her wear a pair of trousers. Just those funny old housedresses. She can’t be much past thirty and she dresses like my mother-in-law. Worse than my mother-in-law. One day, I stupidly locked myself out of the house, and ran over to see if I could use her phone to call a locksmith since Sam was out of town and my oldest had absconded with the spare. Probably buried it in the backyard. I never did bother to look. Anyway, I mean it was like bloody pulling teeth to get her to let me in. Said her husband didn’t like strangers in the house. And it’s not like she hasn’t seen me at the market and around the neighborhood. Finally, she let me in and I have to tell you, the house gave me the bloody chills. I mean, you couldn’t tell anyone actually lived there. Stark white, hardly a picture to be found. Not just neat as a pin, but sterile, cold. I couldn’t wait to get out of there. I sat outside my house for an hour waiting for the locksmith. Better than sitting in there.” Mira shuddered a bit before she resumed eating.
“Wow,” Cindy said. “That does sound like Stepford. What do you think the deal is? I mean, seriously.”
Mira scrunched up her face. “I can’t even begin to speculate. I gave up trying to figure it out.” Mira took a sip of coffee. “Of course… ” her voice trailed off.
Cindy perked up. “What? What?”
“Well, we’re all betting on how long it will be before she snaps and kills him. It’s always the people you least expect.”
Cindy leaned back, nodding as she considered this. “Interesting.”
“Care to lay odds?”
Cindy plunked her chin into palm. “Based on what you told me, I say she goes postal in a year.”
Cindy and Mira looked out of the window again in time to see Paula lug her bucket of water back into her house and shut the door.
“You’re on,” Mira said.
FIFTEEN
She had to get away. She had to get away before they realized what she’d done. The sky above and the ground below were white, but she had to try… had to try and fight her way through the swirl of whiteness around her.
She looked down. Thick, syrupy blood was oozing into the stark white snow. She screamed.
She had to get away.
Paula jumped and shot straight up off the couch where she had been dozing.
“Oh, my goodness,” she said aloud as she tried to catch her breath. Paula swung her legs around until both feet were planted on her white carpet. She shook her head and jammed her hands over her eyes. The white carpet was too much like the white snow in her dream. She looked at her watch. It was noon and after her morning chores, which included her weekly mop and sweep of the front walk, Paula had collapsed onto the couch and fallen into an unexpected nap. As she did so many nights, she’d lain awake the night before, staring at the ceiling, trying to stave off sleep. She was confused though. The dreams usually only came at night; she’d never had one during the daytime.
She never told Phillip about the torment sleep brought to her. He would put her back in the hospital and she didn’t want that. Anything but that. The constant wails and moans echoing from some far-off room. The medications. The cold that trickled into your bones and stayed, no matter how much you drew that threadbare gray blanket around your shoulders. Shaking her head to wipe away that awful possibility, Paula went to the kitchen for a glass of water. She was still somewhat disoriented from her dream, and as she pulled a glass down from the cabinet, it slipped clean through her trembling fingers and tiny pieces of glass went skating across the floor.
“Oh, dear.” She scurried to the laundry room where she kept her mop and broom. She swept up the shards and deposited them into the trash. Her doorbell rang; it would be Carlene coming to color her hair. Distraught, Paula crossed the room to open the front door and found Carlene standing there in a gold tank dress that hugged the rolls of fat jiggling across her hulking frame.
“Hey, girl, how you doin’?” Carlene said in her booming contralto. Her bright red lipstick punctuated the slippery yellow of her teeth and rich mahogany of her skin.
“I’m fine, Carlene, how are you?” Paula asked as she ran her hands down the length of her head to the bun at the nape of her neck.
Carlene cracked her gum and walked toward the kitchen to unpack her supplies. “Girrrl, I had me a date last night with a fine brother. We goin’ out again tomorrow. This could be the one,” she said as she set up on the table, her ruby lips curling into a smile.
Paula gave a disinterested smile as she leaned against the counter. Carlene always thought she’d found the one, so it was hard to get excited.
“Now.” Carlene’s numerous gold bracelets rattled as she sat Paula down into a kitchen chair and draped a smock over her tan cotton housedress.
“Are we doing the usual today?” she asked, tapping one long, red airbrushed nail against the wooden trim on the chair.
Paula nodded. “Yes, the usual,” she said as Carlene began to undo Paula’s knot and rake her fingers through the long black strands.
“Why don’t we try something different? I could cut it into a really cute flip? Or we could bob it?” Carlene said holding up Paula’s silky tresses.
“No. Just the regular touch-up.”
“Girl, you got the perfect face for all the really cute styles right now. I don’t know why you don’t try something different. I’ll bet your husband would like it. You know, spice things up a little?”
Paula gave Carlene a feeble smile. “Phillip doesn’t like spice.”
Carlene took one fingernail and scratched the scalp underneath her own black and blonde flip. “Alright girl, we’ll do what we always do. But I’ma keep on working on you. One of these days, we’re gonna get you a new ‘do.”
Every six weeks, Carlene came to the house on Red Rose Lane to color Paula’s gray roots black. Phillip had discovered some strands of gray around her temples and commented he didn’t like it. He found Carlene in the phone book and paid her double to come to the house and color Paula’s hair every six weeks.
“You know I don’t think you’ve ever told me about your husband. What does he do?”
Paula sighed to herself. She always hated people asking her a lot of questions about her personal life. “He’s a pharmacist.”
“Oh, that’s nice,” Carlene said as she began to section off Paula’s hair. “How did you all meet?”
“We were high school sweethearts.”
Carlene nodded her head as she soaked up that bit of information. “How sweet. You been married all that time?”
Paula squirmed in her chair. “No, he was married before,
but she died. We reconnected after that.”
Carlene’s fingers separated the wet black locks of Paula’s hair as she worked the color into it. “That’s a shame. But I guess if she hadn’t a died, you all wouldn’t have hooked back up.” She placed a plastic cap over Paula’s head and leaned against the sink. “I guess it’s like they say—everything happens for a reason.”
SIXTEEN
It was finally done.
For the first time in months, Sondra felt like she could relax. She’d finished the final edit. Now all she had to do was wait for the madness to commence in the fall; premieres, festivals, award season, press. In the meantime, she was going to get lost on a beach in California for a few weeks.
Sondra ordered up some Thai food and went in search of the box of Tracy’s things that she’d gone through a few months earlier. She’d told Mimi she’d bring a few things out that she figured her mother would want; she’d keep the rest.
Sifting through the photo albums, jewelry and other mementos again was no less bittersweet than it had been the first time. She decided to keep the small purple photo album, the Tiffany necklace and her diaries, setting everything else aside for her parents, making a mental note to take her big suitcase to California with her. The Thai food came and as she slurped down Soba noodles, Sondra absentmindedly flipped through Tracy’s last appointment book before she threw it out, but then stopped at the last appointment. She had seen it the first time she’d gone through the book but hadn’t thought about it much at the time. Today, it made her stop and think. There was an appointment for the Monday after she’d disappeared with D.R. at ten a.m.
“D.R. D.R.” Sondra wrinkled her nose. “Doctor. Of course.” Sondra was about to toss the book in the trash when a thought occurred to her.
“Maybe… maybe it wasn’t a routine visit… Maybe it was something she wouldn’t have wanted Phillip to know.” That would explain what she may have been unhappy about—according to Jack—and why Phillip wouldn’t have known about it. Sondra chewed her bottom lip, her heart racing at the awful possibilities.
“Only one way to find out,” she muttered, as she looked down at the phone number scribbled next to the initials. She picked up her phone and dialed.
“Damon Randall and Associates.”
Sondra was taken aback, surprised there wasn’t a “doctor” in front of Randall.
“Oh, uh, hi, yes, may I speak with Mr. Randall please?”
“Who’s calling?”
“Sondra Ellis.”
“And what is this regarding?”
“Um, following up on an appointment.”
“Hold, please.”
Sondra munched on a peapod while she waited to be connected with Damon Randall. Finally, a deep baritone came on the line.
“Damon Randall.”
Sondra cleared her throat. “Mr. Randall, good afternoon. My name is Sondra Ellis and well, this is going to sound strange, but I think my sister may have been meeting you a few years ago and I’m just wondering who you are and why she would have been meeting you.”
“I’m afraid I don’t follow.”
“Sorry. Let me start over. My sister, Tracy Ellis, disappeared about three years ago and I was going through her old date book and found your number in it. She’d made an appointment to meet with you and—”
“Did you say Tracy Ellis?” Damon Randall interrupted.
“Yes.”
“Hold on a minute.” Sondra could hear him shuffling papers and opening drawers.
“You said three years ago.”
Sondra nodded. “Right.”
“What month?”
“February.”
“Ah. Yes. I was going to meet with Ms. Ellis on Monday morning at ten a.m., February first. She never made it. I do remember now she disappeared and later died, so obviously, we never met.”
“Mr. Randall, why was my sister coming to meet you? I mean, what is it that you do?”
There was a small pause. “She wanted to discuss a divorce.”
Sondra’s heart began to stab her chest. “Whose divorce?”
“Hers.”
The box of Soba noodles slipped out of Sondra’s hands and spilled onto the floor, lashing her bare foot with thick, brown sauce. “You’re a divorce attorney?”
“Yes. A friend of Ms. Ellis’ gave her my card and she contacted me and asked if we could meet first thing that Monday. She wanted to file for divorce from her husband.”
“Are you serious?”
“Quite. She plainly said she wanted to talk about what steps she would need to take to file for a divorce from her husband. We didn’t discuss many details, planning of course, to do that when we met.”
“Mr. Randall, my sister had only been married six months.”
“I’ve seen shorter marriages.”
Sondra shook her head. “But… man, this makes no sense,” she whispered to herself. “And she didn’t tell you anything, nothing at all?”
“I’m afraid not. I’m sorry, Ms. Ellis, but I have a very busy afternoon and I really must go.”
“Oh, yeah right. Thank you.”
“My condolences on the loss of your sister. I do recall it being a rather gruesome crime.”
Sondra squinted, distracted. “Yeah… yeah it was. Goodbye. And thank you.”
“Good day.” The phone clicked in Sondra’s ear.
Sondra hung up her own phone and winced when her foot squished into slimy, now useless Soba noodles. She wiped her foot and floor as she contemplated this bit of information. A divorce? This was so contrary to… Sondra went in search of Phillip’s letter to Mimi, finding it stashed in the black mesh file holder she crammed her bills into. She pulled it out and examined it before she reread it for the first time in a year. She examined the photo of Phillip and his new wife. Sondra looked up, a new thought occurring to her.
Maybe Phillip was cheating on Tracy and that’s why she wanted a divorce.
Sondra threw the envelope down on the kitchen counter and went digging for Tracy’s last journal so she could re-read the passages. The same rosy picture she’d read before still filled the pages. Of course… she looked at the date again, reminding herself the last entry was three months before Tracy disappeared.
What the hell could have happened in three months time?
She fished a cigarette out of the box on the kitchen counter and lit up. Her eye fell on Tracy and Phillip’s wedding album and she went over to pick it up. She flipped the book open to a picture of the bride and groom smiling for the camera at the reception. Sondra sucked hard on her cigarette and let out a deliberate exhale, the smoke curling around her in a lazy cloud. The happy couple’s glowing smiles beckoned to Sondra to figure out what secrets had driven them apart.
SEVENTEEN
As long as Paula could remember, she had loved Phillip.
It was the first day of sophomore year and she had seen him in the hallway by his locker outside of gym class. He wore a pair of stiff blue jeans, a plaid button-down shirt and thick glasses. She had watched as he unloaded and loaded books into his locker. It turned out they had biology together and became lab partners. They were both shy and quiet and she spent each day hoping he would look at her as more than someone who could hold the frog open while he cut it. She was in awe of him. He was so smart and nice and Paula fell hopelessly in love.
At the end of the year, he finally asked her if she wanted to see a movie and Paula thought she would die. He had kissed her that night, his soft lips caressing her trembling ones with sweet, gentle pressure. After that, they became inseparable, planning to marry. However, he went off to Chicago to study psychology and Paula stayed behind to go to secretarial school. They tried for a while to keep up the relationship, but it was too difficult and they parted ways. Phillip stayed in Chicago and eventually met and married Tracy. Paula stayed behind and became a secretary at an insurance company. She kept up with Phillip through his mother and wondered if he still thought about her at all. She had dated
some, but no one could measure up to her first love.
Paula had been staring out of her kitchen window thinking about her marriage, before she got back to the task at hand. She rinsed the final breakfast dishes and swiped her now-damp dishtowel across the white bowls from this morning’s bran flakes before placing them in the rack to finish drying. She hugged herself at how lucky she was to have Phillip back after all these years. She knew that sometimes she disappointed him and every day when she woke up, she concentrated on how she could be the best possible wife to him. He deserved nothing less. She hated that Tracy had to die for her dreams to come true, but it was like Carlene said—everything happened for a reason.
EIGHTEEN
Paula didn’t like Tuesdays. Tuesdays was meatloaf. Tuesdays was the day the little Mexican man with the gold earring, ponytail, and dirty green t-shirt came to mow the lawn.
Tuesdays was sex.
Every Tuesday and Thursday, Phillip and Paula had sex and Paula didn’t like it. It was now Tuesday morning and Paula had all day to dread the nighttime custom. At the moment, she was scrambling eggs, brewing coffee and browning toast for Phillip.
After arranging the table with his breakfast, Paula went outside to retrieve the morning paper from the end of the driveway. She withdrew the sports section and placed it next to Phillip’s breakfast plate before discarding the rest into the trash. She then went to the kitchen and poured herself a glass of orange juice.
“Dear? Dear, your breakfast is ready,” she called out.
Phillip appeared and smiled at Paula. “Good morning,” he said, walking over to her, preparing to perform the daily morning routine.
“Open wide,” he said, holding out his hand, which contained one tiny white pill and one larger blue pill. “Vitamin time.”
An obedient Paula opened her mouth and Phillip dropped the vitamins on her tongue. With a swish of her juice, she washed them down into her system. She smiled at Phillip and went to rinse out her glass. Phillip waited for her to seat him and give him the first sip of coffee.
Live and Let Die Page 6
