Authors: Liv James
She sighed as she browsed a rack of costume
earrings. It wouldn’t be long before she started getting a regular paycheck again
and could pay the stuff off, which reminded her that she had to change the
addresses on all her bills and accounts as soon as possible.
She stopped and ordered a salad to go from
a slow food joint and wandered into the book store while she waited for it to
be ready. She hadn’t read anything for fun in years. She grabbed a couple of
paperbacks, charged them, and went back to get her salad.
By the time she pulled onto the dirt road
leading to the bungalow it was almost dark. She parked in the grass on the side
of the front porch and retrieved all of her shopping bags from the trunk. She
grabbed her salad last and balanced the whole load in her hands as she headed
to the front door, briefly reminded of the agility of her truck-stop waitress.
As Clara maneuvered up the porch steps she
noticed a blouse-sized box that stood propped up against the screen door. She
placed her salad and her shopping bags on the blue resin chair that her mother
had sat in a few days before and unlocked the front door. She propped the
screen door open with her foot while she grabbed everything from the chair and
went inside. She set everything down on the coffee table and went back out to
retrieve the box. It was probably a welcome home gift from Josie, if she knew
her mother.
She clicked on the lamp by the door. The
box was very light, and when she turned it over she saw that it had come by
overnight carrier.
The return address wasn’t Brighton,
however.
It was Tulsa.
She raised her eyebrows at the box as she
carried it into the kitchen and grabbed a knife from the drawer to open it.
She cut through the brown packing tape and
pulled open the flaps. She clicked on the kitchen light, which flickered
momentarily as the bulb warmed up. She reached into the box and pushed aside a
jumble of cream-colored tissue paper. She went still when she saw what lay
beneath it. She dropped the box onto the kitchen counter and stared at it.
The sequins that were sewn into the bodice
of the creamy negligee sparkled unnaturally in the greenish glow of the
kitchen’s fluorescent light. She’d expected those sequins to shimmer in the
candlelight at the resort on St. Kitts on their honeymoon.
In a flash of anger she pushed the box off
the counter onto the floor. The
negligee fell out and slid across Grammy’s blue-flowered
linoleum. It’d been slashed into ragged strips, leaving only the bodice intact,
and it looked like there was cool aid, or … she bent down to study the delicate
piece of silk sprawled on the floor.
“Blood?” she asked out loud, scooping it up
and holding it out in front of her. “He splattered blood on it?”
She felt a fit of temper coming on. It was
like David to be sure he got the last word in and he knew that she’d
painstakingly picked out just the right thing for their wedding night. She
stuffed the negligee back into the box and grabbed the packing paper from the floor. As she went to shove it back in to the box, a
small slip of paper drifted down onto the linoleum.
Clara’s eyes followed it until it landed,
face up, in front of her:
Too bad you
weren’t in this when I trashed it.
Her eyes rapidly scanned the message
several times before she grabbed the paper and crumpled it up, shoving it into
the box. She took the whole package and marched out to the large black trash
can leaning against the side of the bungalow and shoved it inside.
How dare he? she fumed. She stared out into
the darkness surrounding the lake, hands clenched at her sides. She knew he was
just trying to hurt her, but she couldn’t understand why he would be so damned
vicious. It was probably because she’d gotten the good jab at his hand with the
knife. This was his way of reminding her that he didn’t appreciate being
wounded.
Well get over it, she thought as she
watched the lightening bugs gather along the dock. Apparently he’d turned a
corner now that she knew about his secret family and had decided to let all his
warts show. He’d certainly been moody before, but never so downright nasty as
he’d been that day at the house. Usually if he got annoyed he just ignored her.
Yet that day she had no doubt he would have down something awful to her if she
hadn’t gotten away.
He was so angry.
Angry, she thought. But he didn’t seem too
hurt. Except maybe his pride.
She walked over to her car and opened the passenger
side door, pulling out the files she’d brought from the office. She took them
back inside, locked up and settled down on the loveseat with a glass of white
wine, her salad and the files. She clicked on the old, boxy television for
company, but all she got was static.
“Cable,” she said aloud. “I’ll need to call
them tomorrow.” She clicked off the television and dug into her files, trying
to ignore the quiet solitude of the tiny house with the bloody negligee
outside.
CHAPTER
8
The next morning Clara strapped on her new
running shoes, grabbed a hand towel and headed out to the lake. There was a
deer trail around the majority of it that she figured stretched for a mile and
a half roundtrip.
She decided to avoid
the park and any run-ins with old friends while she tried to regain her
stamina.
This time she was able to run for about
eight minutes before her chest seized up and her legs began to ache. She forced
herself to run another thirty seconds and then slowed to a walk. She adjusted
the large headset, the headband of which had slipped back behind her head. She
couldn’t wait to get the cable hooked up so she could get internet access and download some songs to her new
Mp3 player.
She walked for a few minutes and then broke
into a run for three minutes more. She finished up with a walk and some
stretching. By the time she was done she felt exhilarated, if still a little
breathless. She’d forgotten how powerful a good run could make her feel.
After she showered she pulled on a new chocolate-colored
suit and a cream-colored blouse. She’d been fortunate to find a petites
department in one of the stores at the mall that ran its pants out at a 29-inch
inseam. Usually she had to buy the regular length and have them hemmed, but
this particular manufacturer cut the length perfectly. She was grateful not to
have to make a trip to a tailor.
She grabbed a granola bar and the files
she’d worked on the night before and headed to the office. It was early, about
8:00
, and Meg’s car was the only one
in the lot.
She pulled into her spot and got out of the
Acura. She was juggling her folders and cursing herself for forgetting to pick
up a leather tote at the mall last night, so she didn’t notice the woman
holding a small child coming up the front walk toward her.
“Clara.”
She stopped dead, her heart leaping in her
chest.
“Rebecca?” she stumbled, her eyes growing
wide. A tiny blond-haired girl rested her head on her sister’s shoulder.
“We need a place to stay,” Rebecca said.
Clara searched her sister’s face and was
mildly surprised by the toll of the road on her pale skin. Rebecca’s hair was
longer than she remembered, and darker.
“Did you call Josie?” Clara asked, slowly
walking past them toward the office door, her hands beginning to shake. “She’ll
help you.”
“I wanted to talk to you first,” Rebecca
said, following her. “I was coming up to the office to see you.”
“I can’t help you,” Clara said. “Not this
time.”
“Please, give me a chance,” Rebecca
pleaded.
Clara looked her in the eye and shook her
head no. Then she pulled the door open and stepped into the lobby, allowing the
door to close behind her and separate her from her sister.
“I’m sorry ..,” she heard Rebecca call
through the glass.
Clara closed her eyes and took a deep
breath.
“Is everything okay?” Meg asked from behind
the reception desk.
“No,” Clara replied. “It’s not okay at
all.”
“What’s wrong?” Meg asked.
“Did you see who just came to the door?”
Meg stood up from her desk but the woman
had turned away and was heading down the sidewalk. “No,” she said.
“It was Rebecca,” Clara said.
“Rebecca? Your sister Rebecca?” Meg said,
straining to see if she could get a good glimpse of her.
“Yes.”
“What’s she doing here?” Meg asked.
“I’m not sure. But she had a little girl
with her,” Clara said, opening her eyes.
“You might be an aunt,” Meg said, her eyes
wide.
“I don’t know how that’s possible, but I
think I’ll find out very soon,” Clara said, still leaning against the front
door.
“Why didn’t you invite her into the
office?” Meg asked.
“Experience warned me not to,” Clara said
pointedly.
“Did she say anything?”
“She’s looking for a place to stay.”
“You have to tell Josie,” Meg said.
“I’m not saying anything yet,” Clara said, shaking
her head. “She needs to learn that she can’t keep showing up after disappearing
for years and expect everybody to bow to her needs.”
“Isn’t that a little harsh? She’s your only
sister,” Meg said. “And I’m sorry Clara but technically you just sort of showed
up here, too.”
Clara lowered her eyes at Meg. “Don’t
worry. She’ll be back in here before you know it. Josie will see to it as soon
as she finds out she’s back in town.”
“What’s Rebecca’s story anyway?” Meg asked,
clicking through a new email whose arrival had been signaled with a quiet
jingle.
“Last I heard she ran off after
high school and no one heard from her again.”
“This time? Who knows?” Clara said, moving
away from the door and leaning on the wooden shelf around Meg’s reception desk.
“She’s run off so many times in the past ten years it’s impossible to keep
track. After high-school she followed the Dead around but that didn’t last real
long because Jerry Garcia died and they stopped touring. Then, she hooked up
with some pirate re-enactor on the renaissance faire circuit. The last time I
saw her she was looking for money to start her own jewelry beading business.
I’m not sure what she did after that but Josie mentioned something about her
bolting after some guy who sold very intricately braided friendship bracelets.”
“Who’s Jerry Garcia?” Meg asked innocently.
Clara stared at Meg for a moment, trying to
decide whether or not she was kidding.
“The Grateful Dead? Jerry Garcia was the
lead singer,” Clara said.
“They were a band.”
“Yes. And people followed them all around
the country like gypsies, even after the band was kind of washed up. Rebecca
was one of those gypsies for a while.”
“But then she stopped?” Meg asked.
“And came home for a while then disappeared
again. It’s a pattern. She did the same thing to me a year ago. She showed up
in Fort Worth
and made a mess of things. I thought Josie said she was marrying bracelet boy
but I guess it didn’t work out or maybe it did, I don’t know,” Clara shook her
head. “She never mentioned anything about having a kid.”
“I can’t believe Josie would just let her
go follow some band around,” Meg said.