The Pandora Effect

by Olivia Darnell

  “And what did you learn? What was he up to?” She looked at him expectantly. “Did you learn how much insurance he was buying?”

  “No!” Sam shook his head. “Actually, I was hoping for an introduction. Mother tells me that his bank account is well worth pursuing. Magnolia Springs can use some fresh investments.”

  “So your mother sent you after his money,” she nodded truly beginning to feel the first stirrings of anger. “And here I was thinking you were concerned about me.”

  “Well, yes.” He knew he had made a fatal mistake. In fact, he’d made two at once. Mentioning his mother and money in the same sentence. “I was concerned about you as well. I had several reasons for being there. I am, after all, a banker and I am, as you know, your fiancée. And...”

  “You do, after all, have to do what Momma says.” She laid down her pencil and took off her glasses to glare across the desk at him. “You weren’t there to see if I was being seduced by a tall, handsome stranger. You were there to see how much money the stranger had. You weren’t there to find out if I was in the clutches of a pervert. You just wanted to know if he was a rich pervert. Correct me if I’m wrong!”

  “Is he a pervert?” Sam’s eyes widened.

  “Oh, come off it!” Maureen frowned at him incredulously. “You want his money. Your mother wants his corpse and I’m sure that someone else in town will want his soul and everyone in town wants his body. Right? Including me. Right?”

  “Maureen, that’s uncalled for.” Sam was taken aback. “We are all business people. You sold him insurance, didn’t you?”

  “He came to me, Sam,” she said defensively. “I didn’t go skulking around town trying to get an introduction so I could ply my wares! But for your information, he is a very interesting man and I most certainly would have liked him no matter how or where I had met him.”

  “Really?” Sam’s face darkened a bit, but he was determined not to fall into her trap any deeper. “I was just waiting for the right moment to interrupt you. I was trying not to interrupt your sales pitch.”

  “Sales pitch?” Maureen laughed sarcastically. “You were right the first time. I don’t usually discuss business at Chilly Willy’s. We went there because he asked me to go there. We were discussing a personal matter.”

  “A personal matter?” He asked. “OK. Yeah. I’d say that about sums it up. I thought he was coming on to you. You just confirmed that much for me.” He was losing his control. “I was trying to stay away from that. I know that you are a big girl and you can take care of yourself in that department. Any fool could see that and three fools did. Mrs. Aliger, Willy and, of course, myself. What do you think his wife thought about that? One fiancée, one wife and then, of course, one of Magnolia’s biggest purveyors of gossip. Willy Lambert!”

  Maureen knew that he was trying to put her on the defensive now. She reminded herself of what Perry had told her. She resolved not to apologize.

  “Really?” She said sarcastically.

  “Really!” He raised his voice slightly. “It’ll be all over town by tomorrow and do you know who will enjoy it most? Why, my mother, of course. I can’t wait to hear from her about it. I’ll have to spend hours just defending your honor.”

  “Is that so?” She stood up. “Is that what you’re worried about, Sam? Wasting your time defending the honor of a scarlet lady? Why should you care? Everyone in town already knows I’m your live-in girlfriend. Everyone in town knows that Samuel Morris Junior will never marry that Fitzgerald woman. I’m just your mistress! Everyone in town knows that we keep two different addresses just to placate your mother. Are you so ashamed of me? Or is it that you are so dominated by your mama?”

  “Maureen!” Sam stood up. His voiced cracked. She had never talked to him like that! “You know that I love you. I just don’t want to have my mother nagging after me all the time. I’m sure she knows you spend your nights at my house, but there’s a need for appearances to... to... You know that most marriages end in divorce these days and you know how I feel about divorce. I just want you to be sure, that’s all.”

  “You want me to be sure?!” Her eyes flashed. “That’s ridiculous! The only thing I’m not sure of is why I love you at all.”

  Sam skirted the end of the desk and took her hands. “Please, Maureen,” he lowered his voice. “I’m sorry. I came to apologize. I’m not mad at you and I thought you said you weren’t mad at me either.”

  Maureen relaxed a bit and let out a long breath. “I just don’t like the insinuations you are making about Mr. Aliger. He’s a very nice man. A little weird maybe, but I don’t think he would be the type to be unfaithful to his wife.” She was lying. She didn’t know what to make of Perry Aliger and she certainly had never met anyone like him. “And as far as the personal matter we were discussing, it had to do with a problem he has with his wife.”

  “Oh?” Sam frowned. He knew from experience that the best way to start something was to use the sympathy angle. Women could never resist the sympathy pitch.

  “Yes,” she nodded. “It seems that she doesn’t listen to him.”

  “I see,” he said thinking that he saw perfectly, but decided to drop it. He knew that Maureen would not have been telling him this if she knew how it sounded. Apparently, she was being sincere. “I’ll tell you the truth. Yes, I suppose I was a bit jealous.”

  Maureen smiled at him and then picked up the papers from the desk.

  “I’ve got to get Erica’s signature on this,” she said “I’ll be right back.”

  Sam smiled at her and then sat back down as she left him to get her boss’s signature on the papers. As soon as she was gone, he leaned forward to scan the forms on her desk. A neatly written check for $1064.31 from Perry Aliger lay clipped to a stack of papers with a pink paperclip. He whipped out his gold pen and wrote Aliger’s bank account number on one of Maureen’s business cards and slipped it into his pocket. He ventured one more look at the application and was shocked to see that Perry Aliger had insured the old junk shop for two million dollars. It seemed rather exorbitant for a gift shop. He wondered exactly what kind of inventory the Aligers would have in the store. Perhaps they were scam artists. He had no time to look further at the application before Maureen returned.

  “Well,” he stood up when she entered and reached to take her by the arms, planting a kiss on her nose. “I better get back to the bank. I have some business to attend to. I might be late for dinner. Will you wait up for me?”

  “Of course.” She smiled up at him and he kissed her again on the lips before walking hurriedly out the door.

  “Mother!” Sam was flabbergasted to see his normally very busy mother still sitting idly in his office when he returned. She was reading one of his Gary Larsen cartoon books and sipping a diet Coke.

  “Well!” She looked up at him knowingly. “It took you long enough. Did you get your ice cream? You missed seven calls and one appointment and I fail to see the humor in wiener dog art!” She laughed and tossed the book on the table by the sofa.

  Sam frowned and picked up his book. It was one of his favorites. He returned it to the credenza behind his desk.

  “I’m sure they’ll call back,” he said and sat down at his desk. He swiveled his chair to face his computer and began to type in commands.

  “What happened?” His mother asked point blank.

  “Nothing happened!” He told her irritably.

  “Is that why Louis Parks showed up and then took Mrs. Aliger and Reggie Greene away in his patrol car? And is that why Mr. Aliger took Maureen back to her office? What did you do? Punch out Willy?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” he told her. “The kid turned over half the store and then Mrs. Aliger took him home with her until they could locate his father.”

  “Sounds like a fiasco to me,” his mother said with satisfaction.

  “It was not a fiasco and it was not what it looked like at all,” he told her. It would be better if he told her something or else she would make up her
own story to fit what she had seen. “I was angling for an introduction to Aliger when the kid pulled his stunt. I don’t know what Mrs. Aliger was doing there. I suppose she has the right to look for her husband. Maureen was just about to close a deal on an insurance policy and I didn’t want to interrupt her before she was finished. So here comes the kid and boom. It looked really bad I guess, and Maureen was pretty upset, but everything is alright now. I went over to see Maureen and explained why I came over and she understood perfectly.”

  “And what was he selling Maureen?” She prodded.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He began to punch in the numbers necessary to plug into Aliger’s personal account. It was illegal, but he was pretty good with computers. He’d never been caught hacking... yet. “I thought you told me he’s a nice guy.”

  “Well, yes, I did...” her voice trailed off. “I could be wrong. As much as I dislike Maureen, she is quite attractive. I mean, it was quite apparent that Mrs. Aliger might have had some misgivings herself about the situation. And you know that looks can be deceiving.”

  “Mother, I told you what happened.” He turned to look at her as he waited for the connections to be made. “It was nothing.”

  “Really?” She smiled and leaned over to try to see his computer screen. He reached to turn the screen, but was too late as the information concerning Perry Aliger’s bank balance scrolled onto the screen. His mother had eyes like a hawk. Especially when it came to money. “Oh my! Forget Maureen Fitzgerald! You need to marry Perry Aliger!”

  “Is nothing sacred to you?” He asked sarcastically and turned back to peruse the screen. “You’re always thinking of money,” he said hypocritically as he scanned the spreadsheet. “I hardly think Mr. Aliger would be interested in Magnolia Springs Savings and Loan. I’ve never seen such a diverse portfolio. What on Earth is he doing here? Why would he be interested in running a rinky-dink little gift shop?” He punched in more codes and numbers. “Spouting Chinese poetry and pitching woo at an insurance agent? Plying her with the old my-wife-never-listens-to-me story?”

  Mrs. Morris’s eyebrow shot up. Sam was rambling. He was so engrossed in the figures scrolling across the screen, he forgot entirely that he had just told her everything was perfectly all right.

  “Chinese poetry, eh?” She smiled to herself. “Is that how he buys insurance? But I doubt seriously he had anything else in mind. You saw his wife. Why on Earth would he want to flirt with Maureen Fitzgerald when he has someone like her at home? It’s probably just his way.” She sighed and toyed with her pearls again as she remembered the visit he’d made to her office.

  Sam did not answer her questions. She hoped that Perry Aliger would not only pitch woo at Maureen, but that he would pitch everything at her and then Sam would be free of her. Everything but his checkbook, of course.

  “I still don’t understand why he would come to such a small town.” Sam frowned. “It doesn’t make any sense.”

  “Of course it does,” Mildred Morris countered as she sat back on the sofa and picked up her diet soda. “Lots of people are breaking out of the larger cities and heading for the country. Why, he could own Magnolia Springs if he really wanted to. He might just want to play with us low-lifes for a while. He brought me fortune cookies and potpourri. He could have brought me caviar and a Rolls Royce.”

  Sam shook his head.

  “To think I talked to him about pre-paid burial plans!” She laughed. “I guess he got a real kick out of that.”

  “Well, I can at least talk to him,” Sam said quietly. “He might be a bit of philanthropist. Maureen did say he was a bit weird. What can it hurt?”

  “Come on Reggie.” Bobby tugged on the reluctant boy who was still munching on cookies. “We’ve caused these people enough trouble already.”

  “I don’t wanna go.” Reggie pulled away and whined, looking stubbornly up at his dad. He had chocolate on his face and a milk mustache.

  “No, c’mon, give Mr. Aliger’s ball back to him,” Bobby grimaced.

  “Let him keep it,” Perry told him and winked at Reggie. “He likes it much more than I do.”

  “It’s magic, Dad!” Reggie’s face lit up.

  “All right. OK,” Bobby shook his head. “I don’t know how I can thank you, Mrs. Aliger. Mr. Aliger.” He shook hands with Perry as he nodded and smiled at Angelica.

  “No problem.” Perry smiled at him. “We’ve enjoyed having Reggie here.”

  “Yes, of course,” Angelica agreed. “Then we will see you Friday? At seven?”

  “Oh, yeah, sure,” Bobby nodded. “We’ll be here.”

  Angelica stood in the doorway looking at Perry, obviously displeased. Still or again, he did not know which.

  “What?” He asked when she said nothing. “What is wrong now?”

  “You shouldn’t have given the boy that thing,” she told him. “He will never be able to do what you did with it.”

  “How do you know?” He asked. “I think I got my message across.”

  “That’s ludicrous.” She turned away from him. He followed her down the hall to the living room. “Do you have some sort of hidden agenda, Peregrin?” She asked over her shoulder.

  “If you continue to behave this way...” she began another of her lectures. He was very tired of her complaints. He repressed the urge to silence her. “I will be forced to abandon this project and go somewhere fresh... alone and begin again.”

  He reached to take her wrist. “Please don’t do that, Angelica,” his voice contained a hint of weariness. “I would... miss you.”

  “Miss me?” She looked up at him puzzled.

  “I want you to stay here. Finish your work,” he told her. “There are many things to be learned here. It would be a shame to give up now.”

  “You are complicating the issue.” She extracted her hand from his. “You continually confuse me.”

  “You have all the time in the world, Angelica,” he said. “Tell me, are you any closer to finding the answer now than you were ten years ago? Twenty years ago? A hundred?”

  “I am making progress. Yes,” she nodded. “I believe that the people here exhibit evidence of having the ability to make the free choice. They lived under a less constrictive form of government for two centuries. They exhibit a rudimentary understanding. I am even beginning to think that they may be capable of making a change. Becoming part of the whole. Louis Parks, for instance, would welcome a change. There are others like him. He is simply the product of poor training and insufficient education. And he, like you, does not master his basic instincts. Of course, he has no choice but to deal with them, whereas you intentionally allow them to override your ability to control them. You choose to indulge them. He does not see that whole picture, but he senses its presence.”

  “Does he?” Perry arched one eyebrow. “And what picture is that?”

  “The universal design.” She sighed. “Why do you insist on questioning me as if I were the student rather than the reverse? I believe that these people are degenerative off-shoots. Sometime, somewhere they lost the essence of the truth. Something catastrophic happened to them. I know that this is true and I am not concerned about what happened to them. I am only interested to learn if they can get it back. In other words, they gave up their wings and opted to remain here.”

  “Perhaps they wish to remain here,” he said and walked to the window to look out at the sleepy little town. “It will be a hard task indeed to bring them back. They might not want to come.”

  “That is true,” she nodded. “The ultimate question, of course, is are they worth the trouble?”

  “Not everything is open for analysis, Angelica,” he told her off-handedly. “Sometimes we just have to let nature take its course.”

  “Not where the soul is concerned, Peregrin. I cannot believe that all these parts should be sacrificed. It would be an irreparable loss. Surely...”

  “What if they feel differently?” He asked and looked back at her.


  Angelica narrowed her eyes. Louis Parks had commented that he would rather keep the world as it was rather than give up love. Was that what Perry was talking about?

  “I cannot accept that.” She shook her head. “Of all the civilizations I have studied, this is by far the most perplexing and you are not making anything clearer.”

  “And of all the creatures I have encountered, you are the most difficult to persuade.”

  Perry left her standing in the living room to think over his words.

  Angelica followed him as far as the top of the stairs on the porch and watched him retreat down the steps and then disappear around the corner of the building toward the rear. She heard a car door slam and presently the sound of the Mercedes being started. When he backed out and drove away, he did not look up at her even though she knew that he knew she was there. His presence began to fade as soon as he turned the corner and it was a most disconcerting feeling. She stood for a moment considering what he had said about missing her and reluctantly admitted that she would miss his presence as well if the project were to end. Of all the assistants she’d had in the past, Peregrin was the most exasperating. He seemed to fit none of the requirements for a searcher and his rebellious attitude made him problematic. He would never be a scientist and yet, he had affected her beliefs and her own attitudes more profoundly in the few short weeks she had known him, than all her previous associates put together. Peregrin was a mystery in and of himself and she thought ironically that he needed as much study as the people of Magnolia Springs. He actually reminded her of her father from time to time. For the first time in her life, she felt (as Peregrin would say) she needed a consultation. She needed to speak with someone on her own level. An equal. Someone from whom she could seek advice as to what to do about Peregrin. Her threat to dismiss him had been empty. She didn’t even know how to begin to do such a thing. A second opinion would be helpful. There was plenty of work left to do in the Gift Shop and it appeared she would have little help to accomplish it. She went back inside and down to the shop. She would give more consideration to the possibility of consultation.