by Amy Simone
Ralph took care of the patient. It was an elderly couple with their overweight Golden Retriever. He gave them the same lecture he always did and suggested they put the dog on a special food. After they left, he walked out to the back parking lot, opened the door to his pickup and sat in there for a few minutes with the AC and music blaring. He didn’t want his staff to see him this angry. He heard a knock on the window. It was Susan.
“Everything okay?” She looked worried.
“Nope.”
“Anything we can do?”
“Nope.” He ran a finger around the side of his collar.
“You got a 12:30,” she reminded him and left.
He watched her backside in his rear-view mirror. “Nice ass,” he thought.
With great reluctance, he shut the truck down and returned to work. It felt like someone had handed him a life sentence of sorts. Up to now he prepared to take in a future partner and build out the clinic as necessary. The shock of discovering what his wife had done and how much it set him back was a blow to him. He’d been working hard at this for almost ten years now.
Later that afternoon as he and Susan drove to a horse farm. Susan could tell he was still in a bad mood.
“Don’t forget to take a left by that little store,” she had to tell him.
Ralph clamped his mouth tight. Women just made little sense to him. He pushed his feelings down into the darkness of his gut then turned the truck sharply.
That night Cassie dreaded hearing Ralph’s truck when he got home. She had already tucked the boys in for the night.
Ralph entered, scowling.
“We need to talk,” he told her, putting down his computer bag.
“Right.”
“First, did you call your mom?” he asked.
“No.”
“Why not?”
“It’s not her problem,” Cassie said.
“Hmmm.” He opened the fridge door and pulled out a beer.
“Don’t you want dinner?”
“This will do.” He turned away from her. “I’ll sleep on the couch. And you—you need to think about a big ass garage sale, don’t you?” He said over his shoulder. “Hell, I may set a torch to that shed out back.”
She could tell it would be a long night. She would have rather told him about the strange incident in the storage shed but he was so angry that she knew better.
Very early the next morning Ralph announced that he’d be moving out for a while. He claimed he needed more space. They sat at the breakfast table. Until then he had appeared super calm, moving with slow deliberation as he got his cup of coffee ready and sipped it. It surprised her to see that he had not shaved that morning and had some stubble shading the sides of his jaw. It made him look a bit Hollywood, she thought.
“Where the heck are you going?” Cassie asked. Her voice got shrill.
“For now, the clinic. There’s a full bath there at my office. It’s all I need.”
“Wait, Ralph. Why are you punishing me like this? What about the boys?”
“Once you put the money back into the account, I’ll come back,” he told her as he zipped up his carry all. “In the meantime I’ll visit, see the boys. They won’t even know I’ve moved out, probably. Somebody’s got to work to pay the bills. So what if it’s a few more hundred-plus-hour weeks?” He smiled oddly. Cassie felt like her world caved in.
“It’s that or you hurry and get a real job. I’m tired of supporting this fake charity of yours.”
“It’s not a charity.” Her voice croaked. “I made a profit until last year.”
Her phone rang. Cassie took the call. It was Annie calling to see if Cassie could visit her later and give her some help with her computer. Cassie ended the conversation quickly.
Ralph picked up his coffee and headed out the door. Neither one of them noticed that Caleb stood just near the hall door and had seen the whole exchange. His little face was frozen in fear. Daddy was leaving.
Cassie angrily wiped down the kitchen. Caleb had crawled back into bed and pretended to be asleep when she came to get him up. He searched her face as he pulled back his covers. He could tell she’d been crying.
“Mommy,” he said, “what’s wrong?” he clung to her leg.
“Oh, honey pie. Your daddy and I are all mixed up. I’m not sure how it will play out.”
She picked him up and sat him on the side of his bed, then sat next to him.
“We need to be strong, Caleb. Let me tell you the truth. Your daddy is moving out for a while. We need to be nice to him when we see him, okay? He doesn’t feel appreciated.”
Caleb turned to her, slack jawed. “But I am nice to daddy.”
“I know you are. It’s me. I made some mistakes… Now let’s go on with what we need to do today. You need to focus on your schoolwork.”
It was after she had Caleb off to school and Josh eating breakfast she realized Ralph never noticed her new hair color. She put off calling her mother and called Catherine instead. Catherine would know what to do.
9
Suspicion
Catherine picked up on the third ring.
“Just got back from running the dog around the block,” her sister said breathlessly. Cassie’s sister always seemed so composed, it was funny to Cassie to hear her slightly out of breath.
“Are you alone?” Cassie asked her first.
“Yeah, sure. The kids are gone.” Catherine’s three were older than Cassie’s boys. She’d gotten married and started her family much earlier than Cassie had. Her kids all went to private schools.
Once Catherine heard what was going on with Ralph, she surprised Cassie with a question. “Is he having an affair?” was her first question.
“I don’t know how,” Cassie responded. “He’s home every night. Not tonight, though.” She sobbed despite her attempts to hold it together.
“Stop it, sis. You won’t win if you’re all puffy.” Cassie could hear Catherine run the faucet for a moment.
“I was worried about you,” Catherine said. “Let me sit down and drink some of this water. We need to think this out.”
Cassie was already sitting, slightly slouched, in her kitchen in front of her computer. From her vantage point she could see Josh watching cartoons.
“He wants you to get the money from mama?”
“Yes.”
“Good luck with that! She’s tight.”
“I know,” Cassie said. “I will have a garage sale. Maybe even this weekend. I’ve got to do something fast.”
Catherine paused. Cassie could hear her sip on her water. Then Catherine continued, “A garage sale? Now that’s…”
Darn it. Her computer did that god awful purple light thing again. Not now. Cassie reached over to shut the lid. Before she could finish close it, she felt the pop and found herself inside a strange vision again.
“Why are you people bothering me? I was talking to my sister!” she yelled at The Coach who sat at his dark wood desk.
“What’s with the attitude, little girl,” he told her condescendingly. “I’m here to help you.”
“My son. My sister. They will see I’m gone,” Cassie wailed.
“No, they won‘t. Quiet. I want to discuss something with you.”
Cassie sat back in one of the black blob of chairs that had risen from the floor, encasing her with warm support.
He zapped one screen to play. As things came into focus, the image on the monitor zeroed in on her husband now in his clinic.
“We see everything,” The Coach reminded her. “Part of our privilege of being a Controller.”
“Controller?”
“We monitor all of you people.” He looked at her and smiled slyly. “Some of what you humans do is funny.” Then he swiveled back and zoomed in on Ralph’s hands as he tied a knot after finishing a suture.
“Such a talented doctor,” The Coach said.
“Veterinarian.”
“Same thing. He’s good at his job.”
“I kn
ow.” She looked about his office. “Can I go now? I need to get back.”
“Hold on. What would you really like to happen?”
“I want to be rich,” she said. “So I can pay him back quicker.”
The Coach held up his hands. “Making you rich is too easy. You’d be like a kid in a candy store, go through it like water.”
Cassie’s mouth twisted. This wasn’t the answer she wanted.
“I’ll give you a hint. Aren’t you the least bit curious about your husband? As in what he does with his day?”
“Of course. I offered to go work in his clinic. He wouldn’t let me.”
“The solution is simple, my dear. Remember that word. Simple.”
“Whatever. Can I go? I don’t want to leave my kid alone and my sister will want to know what happened.”
“Quiet. You didn’t hear me. Nobody will miss you. You are still there. I repeat, one second. That’s the actual time you vacate your body.”
Cassie shook her head.
“You are hard-headed. I guess I’ll just have to…” He lifted one hand and flung a yellowish beam of light out of his palm towards her. It traveled fast at first, then slowed down as it got closer to her skin. She tried to jump out of its path but the black blob of a chair changed form and held her like a catcher’s mitt.
She gasped. The yellow beam flowed all around her, igniting her and then there was blackness.
Cassie felt a roughness under her feet. She rested on a small curtain rod in Ralph’s back office. She looked down and saw she had spiny black and brownish insect legs plus a compulsion to regurgitate. Rubbing her arms over the back of her neck seemed to be a new move, too. Ralph sat on his desk chair with his legs up, talking on his cell. She could see far better than she ever had, though. She saw everything—almost all 360-degrees worth.
“I’m referring this horse to you guys,” he said into the phone. “Figure if LSU doesn’t have all the proper diagnostic equipment, nobody does. They’re trailering him over right now. Just let me know what you find out, will you? Or I’ll do you one better, Professor Jack, I’ll drive over to Baton Rouge and treat you to lunch.”
Verna walked into Ralph’s office and laid some papers on his desk. She stopped, looked at him to make sure he registered she was in the office. “Susan has the truck restocked and ready to go,” she announced in a low voice. Ralph nodded, raised up one hand while he dug into a desk drawer looking for a pen to sign what she’d brought in. While he had his head down, Verna looked at him sternly with a down-turned mouth and marched out. Cassie wondered why the older lady seemed so pissed with her husband. Verna left Ralph’s door wide open to the hall.
Cassie heard water being sprayed in the kennels area. A dog was getting a bath. Barking from several cages echoed against the cinderblock walls of the back quarters.
Ralph got up to close the door against the din. He made one more call. “Mr. Cochon? Hi, It’s Dr. Owens. I will need to pull the plug on our building plans for now. My accountant wants me to wait,” he lied.
Cassie cringed. Ralph finished the call, then got up to leave. Cassie figured she might as well follow him.
She was amazed to find it easy to navigate the halls of the clinic. Nobody noticed her. She stayed up high, shadowing her husband, zipping from one hanging ceiling light fixture to the next. Once outside, she saw his assistant—the one who she privately referred to as Mophead—sitting in the truck waiting. In a mad dash, Cassie swooped inside the cab and hid behind the seat, clinging to the fabric of the inside of the door but out of sight. The diesel vibrated mightily. She had to hold fast to the synthetic fibers.
“Where to?” Ralph asked.
Cassie heard the snap of a clipboard. “We got three,” Susan told him. “The Broussards’ out in Carencro, then that cattle place near Maurice and the grand finale is the horse farm out in Scott where we did the Coggins test last week. They have some new horses in and want their annuals done.”
“Remind me about the Broussard thing.”
“You told them you would follow up on the lameness check. If it didn’t look much better, you would have them bring the horse in for joint injections.”
“That’s right.” There was silence. Cassie desperately wanted to crawl upwards so she could get a look over the back of the seat but she didn’t dare move.
“I told her,” Ralph said after a time.
“Told her what?” Susan asked.
“I’m moving out.”
“Oh.”
“That’s all you can say?”
“Well, Dr. Owens, I don’t know what to say.”
“Don’t call me that. It’s Ralph.”
“Whatever.”
Cassie vibrated her wings angrily.
Susan spoke slowly. “I don’t want to be in the middle of this.”
“But you are.”
She sighed. “I’m here. Here in this truck and here at work. That’s all the here I want to be.”
“Give it time.”
Cassie couldn’t take it. She flew to the dash, glared at both of them with her massive protrusive fly eyes.
“Get that fly out of here, would you Susan? At least roll down your window,” Ralph suggested.
Susan opened her window and used a rolled-up magazine to usher the fly out. The next thing Cassie knew she was whirling along at 60 miles per hour up, up and away, watching Ralph’s truck grow further away from her. Instantaneously there was the popping sound. She sat in front of the Coach.
“Got some answers?” he asked, examining his fingernails.
“Liked none of it.” Cassie, now in human form, gripped her stomach.
“Easy girl. I just wanted to show you. We’ve known of this for quite some time.”
“What the hell am I supposed to do?” Cassie wanted to scream.
“I’ll be in touch. Bye for now.” The Coach pointed a remote control in her direction and clicked it. Immediately she was back in her kitchen, smack dab in the middle of her conversation with her sister. She opened and closed her mouth rapidly, gaping like a fish out of water. Her sister saw none of this and kept on talking right where she’d left off.
Cassie interrupted her abruptly. “I’ve been thinking… you may be right. There may be somebody else. Now what?”
“The solution is simple. L-A-W-Y-E-R.” Catherine spelled the word so deliberately.
“Jeez,” Cassie moaned. “I don’t have that kind of money.”
“Mama does,” Catherine professed. “She’ll help you if you really need it. I mean, c’mon Cassie you need to learn how to ask for help.”
All of this was too much for Cassie to digest. She was reeling. “I need to meet Annie. Let’s more talk later. Please say nothing to mom.” Cassie also knew if she tried to describe to her sister what she had just been through with her computer that Catherine would think she’d gone nuts. It was freaky. Powerful but freaky.
10
Peas in a Pod
Cassie bundled up Josh and hurried over to Annie’s shop. She intended to check out some of her favorite haunts—various thrift stores—after their appointment.
Annie smiled weakly when she saw Cassie enter.
“I’m trying,” she told Cassie. “I’m trying so hard to understand all this stuff. I think my computer caught a cold.”
“Relax. You mean a virus. Hold on. I brought my laptop so we can use that if nothing else.”
Annie reminded Cassie of one of those women who, though being sweet, was too passive and not able to hold a thought for long. She had to remind herself to stay patient. The drive with Ralph and Mophead had her rattled, though. Whatever in the world was her husband seeing in that millennial piece of…? Cassie shook her head. She had to stop thinking about this. Annie stood behind her counter, frowning at the frozen screen, clicking on her keyboard like crazy.
“Shut it down. All the way,” she told Annie.
“I’ll lose stuff.”
“Doesn’t matter. It might solve your problem on its o
wn.”
Cassie feared opening up her own computer. Now it had swallowed her up and spit her out into places she had no business being, with no warning, the thought rose in the back of her head it might grab Annie too. Now wouldn’t that put them in a pickle? She chuckled at this thought.
Annie looked at her with her eyes wide open.
“Did I do something wrong?” Cassie saw the tension in Annie‘s face. Although the older woman wore copious amounts of make-up, she had dark circles under her faded eyes which drooped around the outer edges. Cassie wished she could help her new friend.
She patted Annie on the back. “You did fine.”
They stood for several moments watching the dark screen.
“Now power it back up,” Cassie told her.
All appeared good and in working order.
“Tell me exactly what you’re having problems with,” Cassie asked. “I know these selling platforms can be tricky.”
As they worked through Annie’s difficulties, Cassie periodically redirected Josh’s attention so he didn’t fiddle with items on the shelves.
Finally, Annie understood what she needed to do and smiled. It was as if the sun had come out.
“You good?” Cassie asked.
“I’m good. Now show me how you do it on your computer. I just want to see a pro,” Annie said.
With trepidation, Cassie flipped the lid on her laptop. She no longer trusted it.
Sure enough, the strange violet light blasted out of her laptop. She hadn’t even gotten the lid all the way raised.
