by Tonya Kappes
I always have my clients list a few details about the relationship that only the two of them know. This way the dumpee begins to realize I’m for real.
“Who the hell is this?” James’s panic is beginning to set in. “How do you know my Candyland?”
Ahhh, the funny pet names lovers give each other makes me down right SICK!
“Your Candyland?” I laugh out loud. “She isn’t your playground anymore. Do you understand she’s dumped you?”
I can hear scuffling in the background.
“Hold on, let me turn off my TV.”
Typical. When they hear from someone else that their significant other is dumping them, they tend to take notice. Too little, too late.
“Oh, you mean the sixty inch plasma you spent Candy’s tax money on?”
I know that got his attention. Candy said in her file that this is a big fight with them. He illegally signed her name on her tax return check while she was at work and went to Best Buy where he bought the biggest television he could find.
“You’re a bitch and this is a joke.” All the background noise from his video games is gone. I can hear him fiddling around and I picture him loading bullets into his illegal handgun.
“Yes, I am, and this is far from a joke,” I assure him. “I never joke about money or my job. James I need you to understand that Candy is dumping you using Splitsville.com.”
“There’s no such thing.” The clicking in the background sounds like James is typing on his computer.
“I know you’re looking it up.” I don’t want him to think he’s pulling a fast on over on me. “As you can read, Splitsville.com is a real website where people hire me to dump people like you. Jerks who never spend any time with their significant others.”
“This ain’t funny, man.” James is becoming increasingly desperate.
“Mmm, yeah, I know this isn’t funny.” I’m glad to know he is finally getting it. Plus it’s time for lunch and my stomach is growling. It’s been a rough morning.
“Hold up, she paid you to break up with me? Is this real?” James is starting to throw me for a loop. He’s not really following the stages and that’s never happened. It’s there in plain computer text. Splitville.com, “The place where you can split and not feel guilty.” Really James, I want to say, you don’t look stupid.
Ay, ay, ay, I hit my forehead with my palm. “Yes, James, this is real. It’s a real website.”
“No, no, no!” The boisterous voice is turning whiney and pleading with me. “No.”
“James, James!” I yell in the phone to get his attention, “I’m Jenn from Splitsville.com. Do you understand that you are being dumped by Candy? It’s time to get your things and get out James.”
This man is now a babbling, bumbling idiot with sentences that are inaudible.
Time for the kill…
“James do you acknowledge Candy is using Splitsville.com to dump you?” I’m not sure if he hears me. I scream louder, “JAMES, do you understand?”
“Yeah.” James’s manly voice is much weaker than it was seven minutes ago.
“Thank you.” Exhausted, I hang up the phone and send the dump file to Candy. I suspect that James won’t be leaving quietly and I feel worse for Candy. But my job is done. I close my eyes and imagine both of my victims today. Slowly I can feel the hole in my heart deepen as I imagine their auras turning a light shade of grey.
Reading auras is my gift as some people call it. I call it—chains. I’m locked into my life of suffering.
I see auras. People’s auras, animal auras, you name it.
I didn’t really know what it was as a child. I quickly learned not to talk about it. My dad left when I was eight and the only memory I have of him was yelling at my mother. “Damn it Dawn.” He’d say, “You’ve got Olivia believing in that crap.” And he’d grab me and scream, “Don’t you dare go around telling the town folk about your crazy colors. They’ll lock you up in juevy.”
I didn’t know what juevy was, but I knew it didn’t sound good. Momma and I’d keep our mouths shut, that is until Aunt Matilda found out daddy left us and she came to stay. “Be proud of who you are!” she’d say, and she’d give me scarves to match the auras I’d describe to her, and make me skirts with all the colors of the rainbow in them. That’s when I wished Aunt Matilda was my momma instead of Dawn. Then one day momma went to the market and never came back. For the longest time I thought I’d actually wished her away.
In fact, I rode my bike to the south end of town where a bunch of abandoned buildings stood, because I thought that might be juevy and my dad sent Dawn there. But it wasn’t. There were only a bunch of broken buildings that are now restored and becoming a very attractive place to live.
As a child I was able to ignore most of the aura colors swirling around me. I’d just play and pretend they were part of the sky. But as I got older and understood about emotions, feelings and the truth of what I was seeing, being anyplace but alone become impossible.
People arguing and fussing, their aura colors colliding, gave me migraine headaches on a daily basis. Then one day it all changed. “Help me, Liv. Please!” Erin my best friend, begged me to break up with her boyfriend. “I just can’t face him. He’ll talk me into staying and I can’t stay!”
She’d been dating a guy named Kyle who was nothing more than a gigolo. He was using Erin for her money, but poor thing, she had a hard time admitting that to herself.
“You can do it,” I’d told her. “You’re better than he is.”
“But I love him.”
“Then why break up with him?” I played devil’s advocate, hoping it wouldn’t backfire. She totally needed to break up with Kyle.
“He keeps asking for things. At first it was cute. A brief-case. A beer making kit.” She twisted her hands together. “But now it’s fiberglass bicycles and state of the art stereos. You were right,” she added. “He just wants my money.”
I’d balked when she’d first asked me to drop the bomb, but I couldn’t let her throw her money away on a guy who didn’t appreciate her. I called him up, explained the situation, and…viola!
Splitsville.com was born. It’s the perfect job.
Aunt Matilda breaks my trip down memory lane. “You seem a little tired this afternoon.” She cautiously looks me over. She always could read me better than anyone else. She has the gift, too, but hers is fine-tuned after years of practice. I could hide my headaches and my exhaustion from almost anybody...except Aunt Matilda.
Some days the dumps take more out of me than others and this is definitely one of those days.
“I’m fine. I didn’t sleep well last night.” The letters DS rolled in my dream all night long but I had no idea why.
This is how I know there is calm before the storm. When I start seeing vision in my sleep, somewhere, somehow those will appear in my life. But DS?
She puts down her coffee and comes closer to inspect my eyes.
“Maybe I should stay the night tonight.” Her bells jingle in my ears like gonging bells. She knows me better than anyone.
Park City, Ohio isn’t big, but when Aunt Matilda isn’t here, it feels like she lives on another planet. There’s five stop lights through town with several side streets. Aunt Matilda lives in a small brick house smack dab in the middle of Main Street, next to the retirement community.
Over the years people have moved in Park City due to less taxes and small town life.
Just the mention of having her in my house calms me down.
“Did you have a dream?” She questions me like I’m still a ten year old little girl, but I don’t mind.
When I was younger and had my dreams or what she called pictures, I would wake up with her standing over me and taking notes on what I would say in my sleep. Since she thought it was important to take notes on what I said, when she would leave my room, I’d write down everything I could remember about my dream.
I have scads of journal entries on ramblings I don’t even understand.
“No,” I assure her. Total bald face lie, but I don’t want to worry her. “I’m fine.” I sit down to catch the end of Snapped.
I can see Aunt Matilda weighing her options. Should she press me for details, or keep quiet? She murmurs to herself, keeping a cautious eye on me as I thumb through my BlackBerry to retrieve my Splitsville.com dumps that seem to be piling up on top of each other.
Finally she settles back onto the sofa and turns back to the TV. I must be getting better at hiding my anxiety. Which is a relief. Aunt Matilda spent her life caring for me when she’d never asked for or wanted a child. She didn’t need to keep worrying.
I click on the dump file that doesn’t have a name, only a comment. “How do you live with yourself?”
I read it several times and try not to make any faces or eye gestures to clue Aunt Matilda in on the unpleasant email. She wouldn’t let me out of the house if she knew dumpees were getting disgruntled.
I read it again. First, there is no way someone would know me and secondly, the threat doesn’t seem…well…really like a threat.
Great! I look up at the commercial on the TV. Not only are the dumpee freak flags flying, I didn’t get to see the end of Snapped!
I pick up the paper on the table. The headline grabs me: Young Business Executive Found Dead. Foul play. Strangled.
“Dabi Stone?” I gasp seeing that name.
Two
How could forget a name like Dabi? She’s a rich gal whose dad is some big wig in a local company. She was a few years behind me in school. There were only three times I came in contact with Dabi Stone. The first time was on the playground at Pleasant Ridge Park when I was ten years old and she came up asking all sorts of questions about Aunt Matilda. I can see her now in her pigtails, fancy dress and play shoes. “Who’s the crazy lady with you?” she’d ask me, a nasty tone in her voice. “My daddy said she’s crazy and swindles people out of their money. She tells lies and pretends to see the future.”
I snarled and punched her square in her jaw. Her nanny came running over yelling, “Get away from her!” She yanked Dabi away from me, their auras mixing until they were all different shades of green and said, “That’s what happens when you don’t have a momma.”
“You shouldn’t be on this side of town anyways!” I yelled back knowing this park was where the poor kids came to play. Her dad put his money behind rehabbing those old buildings and she played there when he worked.
The second time I saw Dabi Stone was that same night when her momma brought over brownies to Aunt Matilda and apologized for what her daughter and the nanny had said. Dabi hid around her momma’s skirt with her tongue sticking out at me the entire time.
And I just stared, hating Dabi Stone.
The third and now final time I saw her was right after she used Splitsville.com to break up with her boyfriend, one Michael Schultz. He didn’t fit her father’s mold, but she was too chicken to call it quits with him. I’d stop by White Castle to pick up a cup of coffee and there she was still dressing in fancy clothes, but without the silver spoon attitude to go with her Gucci bag. She nodded and said, “Hello Olivia.”
I smiled feeling a little sorry for her (only a little) that she didn’t know it was me she was spilling her guts to on the internet about her love life.
The distaste for her comes back into my mouth. I hadn’t liked her, but she didn’t deserve to die. I shudder and put the file back in the drawer. I shake the murder from my head. I can’t. The letter DS are rolling around inside my mind like they did all night.
I can’t take it. My sixth sense is pulling me in, kicking and screaming. I know something about Dabi’s death. Only I have no idea what it is that I know.
One thing keeps rattling around my brain. What if she got knocked off all because of my break up service? Could hers have been a breakup gone badly? Was Mr. Nice Guy not so nice after all? It made sense. Scott Peterson. OJ Simpson. They all looked like innocent good guys, but deep down they were cold-blooded killers. Was Michael Schultz’s like this?
I open the computer file on Dabi’s breakup with Michael and carefully read through her email to dump him.
Holy Crap. I nearly fall out of my chair. There it is in black print.
Name: Dabi Stone
Dumpee: Michael Schultz
Reason for dump: First off if I don’t break up with him, my dad will kill me and if I do break up with him I will not be disinherited, my family will be happy, but Michael will kill me. Well not really. I mean Michael does love me, but I have to do this for my family.
Excited I jump up to get my backup discs and run my finger along the alphabetical names. I stop when I reach Dabi and Michael.
“Ah ha!” I take the disc out and slip it in the CD drive. The audio recordings I routinely do of the breakups have never come in handy. Until now. God, maybe I’m psychic, too, and knew I’d need one of them one day. I push that thought away. Can’t deal with that idea right now.
I listen to the break up, listening for anything unusual, but the usual dump is taking place. At first Michael doesn’t believe it; he claims their relationship is great, except for her overprotective family. But then something changes. “Guess she doesn’t have a choice,” he says. But it’s not what he says that has me spooked. A chill flits over my skin. It’s the eerie tone in his voice.
I close the file and put it back. A million different things run through my head. Did Michael do it? Was it her family? And most importantly, is this something I need to take to the police?
***
I’m still a little freaked by my phone call with James, the email threat and the discovery of Dabi Stone’s body by the time I head downtown to meet Erin, my best friend and the only friend who knows about my “gift”. I don’t know how I let her talk me into this. Again.
My heart palpitates faster and faster as I approach the volunteer sign in. Being in public always makes me nervous. Even though the dumpees don’t know my name, they do know my voice. And trust me, I guarantee they hear my voice in their sleep. Add to that the colliding auras and the headaches I end up with every time I’m in a crowd, and the last thing I want to do on a Saturday is volunteer.
My pace slows as I cross the grass at Pleasant Ridge Park and look at all the spring flowers in full bloom, dotted all over the park just waiting to become the bathroom for many of the male dogs sniffing around. The SPCA is putting on its annual adoption drive and Erin’s hospitality company, Plan It, is in charge of the festivities every year. Once again, she’s called on me to help.
“Olivia!”
I turn toward the lake and see Erin flailing her arms in the air like a mad woman. “Over here.” She yells and waves me over like I’m an airplane ready to land on the runway.
Embarrassed, I duck my head around, but no one seems to notice. Every other person is walking their dogs or chatting with another dog owner. The once peaceful lake is full of the four-legged creatures chasing the ultimate frisbee that’s probably sunk to the bottom by now.
Erin doesn’t care who’s around. She’s still yelling my name over the barks and voices around us.
We’ve been friends a long time. Our story is sorta of the same but different, meaning her parents are dead, which mine might be but I don't know, and they left her a fortune, while mine left me nada. That’s how she had the money to start her business. She invested most of her money in the company and made sure she did it right. She has. Her business is flourishing.
I can’t say the same for her love life. After Kyle, she used my service to dump another free loader. She had a horrible habit of picking the wrong guys. Considering how smart and beautiful she is, I couldn’t understand it.
My job this year had better be better than last, I think as I make my way across the grass to Erin. How humiliating is walking around in an orange vest holding a pooper scooper picking up dog poop all afternoon? Plus, last year was a record-breaking weather day. Instead of the usual sixty-four degree temperature it was eighty-five de
grees. There’s generally a breeze coming off the lake, but not that day.
Really I can’t complain because looking for the little flags did help me keep my eyes on the ground and not queasy from colliding auras. Even dogs have a tendency to emit their auras in my direction.
“Ready for poop duty.” I salute Erin like a good soldier, lying through my teeth.
I can handle scooping out cat poop from the litter boxes, but not the hot steamy piles of dog poop. Give me a guy like James to break up with any day of the week.
“Shut up,” she says with a laugh. “I don’t have you picking up poop this year.” She points to a young man walking around in my orange vest with my scooper. “He needed community-service hours for school.” Her aura changes from a sparkle to yellow and shimmers like a halo around her entire body.
Erin’s aura is crystal. She is a chameleon of sorts. She reacts to other people’s auras, another sign of her insecurities. My parents left me and I had more confidence than she did. But parents dying can feel like abandonment, too, and Erin never had an Aunt Matilda.
Aunt Matilda always told me, “Tell me who you run with and I will tell you who you are.” Only she can read auras too, so she used that talent to her advantage to tell me who I could play with and who I couldn’t. Erin and I’ve been best friends since the third grade, and Matilda warned me from the beginning. “She’s unsure of herself. You’ll have to help her.”
The crystal aura is rare; it changes to match the people around. Erin generally has a great aura, but lately, since she met her new beau, it’s been a little off. I’d gone into protection mode. I don’t want Erin to get hurt yet again.
She’s also always had that contagious laugh. You know, the one you wish you could sound like. It’s flirty, fun and fits her personality. She’s the outgoing, petite part of our duo while I’m the girl next door, down to earth recluse. But hers is all an act. The bubbly personality hides the scared girl inside.
We’re total opposites, Erin and me. Her black hair to my blonde. Her side banged bob to my side part with long hair below the shoulder. She has the deepest blue eyes and mine are green. Worst of all, I’ll never be able to stuff my size eight body into any of her size four clothes. Today she’s wearing her white a-line skirt that hits perfectly above her knee, paired with a light blue t-shirt which compliments her aura, creating an angelic looking Erin.
