Who Loves Her? (15 page)

Behind the men at the door
, she could see the musical band joining in to tease her even more.

“This is insane,” s
he whispered slowly.

“I am dead,
” Harris smirked.

“What do you think, rich girl, huh?
!” shouted Bob.  His rosy cheeks suddenly turned dark red as his eyes blazed under his baseball cap.

“
You just don’t get it, do you?  It’s your dad that is the problem.  All that time your mom told you that it was Bill with all the cash, she was lying.  Your dad is the sleeze bag that has ripped off all these people of their hard-earned money.  The Isaksen brothers were just the tip of the iceberg.  You know why my dad drank himself to death and left us?  It was simple.  He had this one little gift and bait shop just on the edge of town.  Wasn’t much.  Wasn’t a whole hell of a lot to raise a family on, but he was proud of his work, and the little store was paid for so he made enough for us all to get by.  Then your dad went behind everyone’s back and got a couple of his city council buddies together to sign away the rights to the land on some stupid toxic waste investigation.  It was a bogus set up.  By the time my dad could get back in his shop, all the customers had run down the road to that big conglomerate that your dad set up with Bill.  My dad lost it all, and then I had to put up with my mother crying her eyes out while he went out fishing every day, and trying to pick up odd jobs at the marina.

The time I realized you were rich, in grade seven or something, I knew I had to play it
.  Remember that fellow who strangled you when you fell from the swing?  Well, he is standing right behind me, and sweetheart, I was the one that dropped your hat in the sea.  I was smart enough, I wore the lifejacket before I jumped in that sea to get that stupid hat for you.  You rich, smart beauty.  Crazy, rich, smart, beauty.”

“
Crazy, rich smart beauty,” sang the band singing in chorus; who were playing their musical instruments live from behind Bob, Harris, and the rest of that gang.

“You thought I love
d you?  You bet you were wrong, and call it fate, stupid girl, as you always had told me, then I met Harris.”

“Harris,
” sang in the live chorus.

“And Harris told me
how his father hated your father.  It wasn’t just my dad.  Harris had a cousin in real estate that went bankrupt because of your stupid father.  Your father was so high and mighty at picking up properties, but then when it came down to finishing the deal, he’d screw the agents by buying it for cash straight from the seller.  Stupid out-of-state people from California would suck up his cash and screw Harris’ cousin.  Your dad made all sorts of promises.  He promised the moon with fancy cars from Bill’s and future accounts with prime land around Lake Carlos.  No deal.  He’d screw whoever was in the way of his cash.  I had to play it slowly and carefully.  Harris gave me a lot of money, while resting at this farm house, and he has promised me millions, once we are done with you and your family.”

They all laughed
again in the ugliest way that Susan has ever seen or known in her life.

You know why I never kissed you, rich girl?  Huh? 
Because Harris wants to do it.  Wants to see if you’re as good as those whores he was doing this morning before he drove up here to get rid of you.  We’ll kill you and bury you here at the farmhouse.  Ha ha ha, scared, Stir-Crazy-Susan?  Huh?”

“But the police said that they found Harris’ body tortured and deformed around his car.”

“Well that’s where it gets even better.  You had your fit and wondered up to the Bistro this morning.  We needed someone to take the blame for the crimes, so when that old couple borrowed your car to get some supplies, Harris had them snag the old couple.  The autopsy will show that the old guy is the tortured body.  Bill was in the Special Forces and a part of him rubbed off on Harris.  The old woman is somewhere at the bottom of Lake Carlos by now, and it will put the police force in a tizzy for years to figure it out.  Best of all, we left one of old guy’s fingers in the backseat of your dad’s car in one of your handbags that was in the trunk of your car.  As far as everyone knows, Stir-Crazy-Susan went a little too far and committed two murders.” Bob laughed.

“No way,” Susan argued softly.

“Who’s going to believe what?  You’ll be buried here under the farmhouse and all the police will have to go on is that a finger was found in your dad’s car.  His whole empire will start to unravel when they start to find body parts at his different properties.  They’re all going to think you were more than a little crazy.  They’ll all think you planned the whole thing and then Mr. Christiansen will take the hit.  It’s going to be great.”

“My d
ad’s too smart.  The police won’t believe it.  He won’t pay for your insanity.  I’m just crazy.  Not a murderer.  Dad won’t pay.”

“Yes, he will,” Bob replied most cruelly.

Harris started walking toward her as the other men came forward behind Susan, grabbing both her arms.

Harris bent down toward Susan’s head and his lips neared Susan’s
.  She slapped him and he smirked.

“Well, open your eyes, Susan.  What’s wrong?”  Susan was thrashing in bed.  The nightmares were still there even though they had most of the agitation under control.

Susan hear
d Bob’s voice coming from beyond.  Her nightmare was fading.  Suddenly Bob was in another room and then Harris and the band were running into the root cellar…”

“
Susan!  Open your eyes!”

“No, please don’t hurt me
!  Please.  I trusted you…”

Susan s
lowly opened her eyes, trying to discern fact from fantasy.  She looked around and realized she was not being murdered by a demented Harris and a tough guy Bob.  There was no blood on her dress, but she was trembling and had the characteristic dry mouth.  Why did fear make people’s bodies just freak out? Even now, wide awake and aware of her dreams, her body would not behave.

She was sweating like hell
.  Bob was hugging her and shaking her like mad.  She bolted upright, drenched in sweat.  She was breathing heavily and trying to get her eyes to adjust to the darkness.  She hadn’t been feeling well all week and the migraine was starting to subside.  The red lights of her alarm clock declared that it was seven thirty-seven a.m.  The curtains were all drawn and she peeked out from under the eye mask she wore to sleep.  Her head was throbbing, slightly from a headache.  She hoped the migraine wouldn’t come back.

“Hey, hi, I was dreaming
, Bob, one of the most horrible dreams that I have ever had ,” Susan said.

Bob
let out a big sigh and replied: “Must have been the food…from last night’s dinner.”  He comforted her, hugging her close, and wiping the sweat from her head.  “You’ve been shouting in your dream.  I came in from outside and woke you up, honey.  Just blow it off.  Here, drink some water.  How many times have I told you not to have mushrooms?  They don’t do you good, you faint, you get headaches.  Please, once and for all, quit it.  Mushrooms are bad for you.”

“You’re
right, Bob.  I just love that mushroom sauce they make for the roast beef.  But I’ll stop, especially since what I had just dreamt.  I am not going to even look at them anymore.  Boy that was a horrible dream.  It was
hell
.”

Susan was still recovering from her
nightmare.

“Well, you know what, you should go freshen up, take a nice warm bath, because it’s our wedding day today, the day we have been waiting for so long
.”  Bob smiled and hugged her once more.  We’re all set for the big day!”

Susan regained herself coming back to the real world, breathing normally again
.  “Bob, could I ask you a question?”

“Sure honey, of course,” Bob replied in a gentle voice.

“How am I supposed to know if am dreaming or not?” she slowly asked Bob in a whisper.

“That’s a tough one sweetheart,” Bob slightly laughed at her question.

“I suppose I’ll think about it and answer you later.  Wait until you see the live musical band that we have arranged for the wedding.  Funny group.  And guess where we are headed to after the church?  To my oldest and best friend’s farmhouse.  We got a great swimming pool and a view.  He turned it into a bed and breakfast and we’re his first guests.  On the house!”

***

Somehow, Susan woke up with Bob.  Was it all just a bad dream? This is my story, but there is something missing.  A small dark window into the recesses of my mind is somehow blocking me from understanding. What is that saying? “Without understanding there is no acceptance?” What is everyone else supposed to think?  Susan just had a bad attack? As I reached for the cold bottle of water, the droplets of condensation reminded me of the drink on Dr. Freudette’s desk the last time we met.  What had she said? Dr. Freudette told me to write my own ending.  That it would feel better if I wrote about it, but I just can’t.  Just because I wrote down that she woke up from a nightmare with Bob by her side, doesn’t change the fact that I’m not waking up from my nightmare and Bob isn’t by my side or is he?  Sure we didn’t have the Harris and ritzy people conflict thing going, but Bob and I were going places, weren’t we?  I mean we had our little lives together and we were happy.  Anna told me over and over she wished she could be that happy.  Nina reassured me constantly that Bob was my destiny.

We all thought it was bad enough when we lost Dad to that stupid water skiing accident last year
.  We just couldn’t believe it was real.  Dad was the best skier we’d ever known.  He even boasted that waterskiing was invented by a crazy guy who stuck giant skis on his feet and had an airplane drag him around in the early 20’s.  Dad was practically a fish when it came to anything having to do with Lake Carlos.  So when we watched him go down so hard, we were a little worried, but he did it before.  Then when the boat came around, Dad wasn’t getting up.  Mom was screaming.  Apparently there was a piece of some sign or driftwood or something right where he hit it.  They drug him out of the water, but he never came to.  Mom was a wreck.  There was the funeral and then her selling the boat and everything else he had ever touched.

We tried to get her out of the house for more than
attending church, but it was slow going for a while.  Luckily, Dad had set her up pretty well with the different life insurances.  At least the house is paid for.  As I considered Dr. Freudette’s words, I wondered how Mom would write her story if she could.

“Hey!”

“Oh, hi
, Nina.”

“
Whatcha doing?”

“Nothing much, just making sure that the mints
are on the pillows here at the Hyatt Regency.”

“You know
, your uncle should pay you more for running that little lemonade stand of a hotel he has there.”

“It’s a motel, and I’m fine
.  What did you need?”

“We’re going to the Fishing Frenzy
and to kick around later, and it’s my duty as your best friend to try and drag you away from all your important duties.”

“Maybe later.”

“You can only eat so many of your mother’s casseroles.  Some day you have to come out of hiding.”

“Who
’s hiding?  I talk to tourists every day.  It’s not like I’m turning into some hermit crab or nun or something.”

“You take
care,Susan.  We all miss them.  We’re all trying to find a way back.”

“Thanks, Nina
.  I’ve got to go.  Maybe next weekend.”  Nina had been Susan’s friend since middle school when stinky Johnny Bergman pulled her bra strap.  Nina decked him and told him to grow up.  John loves to tell that story at every family reunion up at the lake.  They shared everything and still were best of friends.  The problem was, Nina didn’t get how painful it was for Susan to watch her take John’s hand and walk down the street.  It stabs her in the heart every time because it reminds her that Bob isn’t there.

Bob and Anna aren’t here anymore
.  We were all in the car coming home from a volleyball game in Little Falls.  The stupid bitch in the other car didn’t even get a scratch.  Even hit the national papers and said she blew a point three when they got her untangled from the wreck.  The cops are so full of bullshit when they talk to the papers.  “…and alcohol may have been a contributing factor in the crash…”  Ha!

It was me, Bob, Anna, Grammy, and little…

Suddenly, an incessant ringing came from somewhere, the cursor blinking furiously.

“Skylark Motel, Best skyline in America’s best little town.  Can I help you?”

“Mrs
. Soronsen?”

“Depends
.  We live in a small town and I’ve got about thirty cousins, so what do you need?”

“I’m looking for the widow of Bob Sorensen
.  I’m from Minnesota State Patrol.”

Susan took a deep breath
.  She wished they would just leave her alone.  “Guilty as charged.  What would you like?”

“Well, we are having this ceremony as part of a way to honor all the victims of drunk driving in our state
, and we wondered if you would be able to attend.”  Susan stared out the window.  “Now I realize how painful these memories can be, and that this may not work out for you, but if you wouldn’t mind, I’d like to send you information about it.”

“I
don’t have any money to go and…”  Susan blurted to try and get the woman to go away.

The voice on the other line softened
.  “Mrs. Sorensen., it took me five years to even get out of the house.  If you don’t want to come, I understand.  I just wanted to know if I could send you the information.  We have scholarships for victims and families who need help with travel.”  There was a pause on Susan’s end as she looked up at Bob’s picture where he almost won the Walleye competition.  She didn’t want to cry, but tears were already blurring her eyes.  She hung up the phone without responding to the woman on the other line.

She
and Bob had giggled their way through high school along with everyone else.  Parts of my little horror story are true.  Bob wanted to be a boat mechanic at ATCC and his dad was a real prick.  I left out the gory details and made the story of Bob a little thinner, and he a football player.  Truth be told, Bob was my burly bundle of man and Iloved him from the very beginning.  He played football, but he was the chubby left guard nobody noticed.  He hated the football pants because he had an early start on a beer gut that was exposed every Friday night they would play.  I didn’t care.  Even now in the mirror.  Black hair parted in the middle to a simple ponytail; black hoody with a nose ring.  I look a little like Miss Piggy’s evil stepsister.  Bob didn’t care about that.  He called me “Easy Squeezy” when we were all by ourselves.  He made me giggle every time his beard got into my nose.  Well, either that or sneeze, which had quite the impact on the mood.

***

The crazy bitch blew a point three and ruined all our lives.  Anna really didn’t lead some exotic travel life.  In fact, she did all the right things and became one of those high-strung teacher types down at the high school.  She was a little skinnier than I am and we always accused her of tying her bun to tight on the top of her head.  When we were kids, I’d come up with imaginary friends and wild stories about gorillas eating her pudding pops in the fridge from the planet Zurcon.  Even back then she was a little disciplinarian.  She’d squared up her hips and wagged her finger at me.  “Susan.  You can’t escape yourself.  You need to get your head out of the clouds.  Those were my pudding pops and I’m going to tell Mom!”  I belched in her face.  Mom would always punish me by making me rake the leaves or mow the lawn for a second time that week.  Dad would come home and get an earful from both of us and tell Mom that he’d handle it.  So about every other weekend or so, he’d pile me in the truck and we’d tow “Old Glory” out to a remote corner of Lake Carlos.  I’ll never forget the first time.  I was nervous because he hadn’t cracked a smile the entire trip up.  He woke me up at three-thirty in the morning anyway and used a flashlight as my alarm clock.

“Your
mother says you’ve been quite a pain in the ass lately, with the stories.”

I just nodded
.

“Thinks I should dump you’re little body in the lake here, some days
.  You agree?”

He wasn’t looking at me
.  Just a dead stare into the darkness.  He took a sip of coffee and listened to the lake.  He cast his line and settled back for my answer.  I shook my head no with my eyes wide with fear.

Then he turned around a
nd smiled.  “Well then quit giving your sister so much hell.  Damnit little one, if you aren’t just like my sister Wilma.  She’d put my mother in fits with stories and antics every day she was under our roof.  I about bust my gut laughing at her when my folks weren’t around.  You bust my chops every day.  Pretending that raisin was a dead spider at the dinner table?  I about peed on myself trying to keep a straight face.”

I looked confused, but kind of lightened up
.

“Honey, you just need to understand your mother and sister don’t have your gift for making it up as you go
.”  I nodded again.  “Here’s what we’ll do.  You’ll do your best to get along with all the rules and then every week or so I’ll come out here and you can tell me all about your side of the story.  Sound like a deal?”  I nodded again and he handed me another pole.  I told him story after story about Anna.  Some I made up.  Most were just a little embellished.

Anna
had so little success controlling me that she went into teaching so she could pretend that she was controlling all the knuckleheads at high school.  She loved it when church ladies said she had the patience of a saint.  She was riding in the car that day.  We had all been to the volleyball game and she was just along for the ride to see if she could connect with one of her students.  She never went to the games because she was always burying herself in grading papers.

Lately she had been shak
en up because teenagers can be mean.  Some girl was brutally honest with Miss Control Freak Anna.  “You’re bun is too tight, lady.  You never do anything except yell at us for not caring about our futures and wasting the school’s time.” It happened to the daughter of the school board president and captain of the volleyball team.  I mean, I’m sure the little prissy bitch had something coming to her.  Especially since Anna was about to give her a failing grade for copying her last essay off of one of those paper-writing sites.  Anna never did do well with conflict, and I imagine there were a few non-teacher type words that were flying in that classroom that day.”

But there were quite a few meetings with people in suits
, and part of Anna’s punishment was to attend at least one volleyball game to show her support for the school’s extracurricular program.  It was also partly a way for the school board president to rub his powerful nose in Anna’s face for daring to call his daughter a “chubby little bitch.”

That’s really what sent it over the top
.  Anna almost lost her job over that one.  She said it was a good thing she was a woman.  Coach Clark called some skinny little kids a pimple-prick and ended up being busted down to the middle school softball team.  Schools always favor the ladies.

She was still a little defiant during the entire affair, bringing a book along to read for the slow parts of the game
.  Or at least while her adoring students were warming the bench.  I could feel the steam coming out of her ears.  Bob tried to make it work.

“Lighten up, sis
.  Just pretend the squeaky shoe sounds are your tennis shoes running over Miss La-dee-dah’s face.”  Anna cracked a smile in spite of herself.  Bob was good that way.  Always light with a joke to try and make a screwy situation better than it actually was.

Bob’s dad was a nightmare when they were g
rowing up.  His dad was what we call in the business a “functional alcoholic.” Bob meant that he really had a “hold” of things.  Bob loved the air quotes with his fingers.  “He could
hold
his liquor long enough to
hold
down his job so that he could come home and put mom in a choke
hold
if he thought the beans were cold.”

By the time Bob was eleven, he and his dad were having knock-down drag-
out fights.  Bob took after his mom’s side of the family and whoever else was in Big Ole’s blood line back in the day.  Bob’s dad was a scrawny little turd that turned up this way after his parents lost their farm during the Depression.  The most disturbing part of Bob’s story was the unusual disappearance of his sister.

During his senior year in high school, Bob returned home late in the evening
after ball practice.  As he tells the story, there were cops crawling like ants.  His mind was a jumble of questions as he walked from his old truck to the house, the crying countenance of his mom stood in sharp juxtaposition to the angry eyes of his father.  Although his soul swelled with breath-stealing fear, his steps were small and slow as if to avoid the impending inevitable.  When he walked into the room, all eyes were on him.  “Have you seen her!  Is she with you?”

Bob blinked, “Who?” And with that Bob’s mother
lowered her head and the room filled with a single low animal groan.  Bob said he knew in an instant, the only time a mother animal makes that noise is when her offspring has died.  Bob’s face grew dark with anger, “Where is Nina!” he cried.