Last To Leave, page 8
His words mean everything to me. Our relationship wasn’t perfect, of course. None of them are. But Paul was happy. Paul used to look at me like he’d won a prize. It made me feel special to think I actually was a prize to him, even though this was the first time I was hearing this story.
“Don’t you ever tell another soul about this conversation,” he says, pointing at me with a serious face. He slugs down the rest of his beer, then chucks the bottle further into the woods where I hear it smash against a tree or rock somewhere in the distance. The shattering glass sounds like my life with Paul - perfect until it wasn’t. Now the only shattered pieces left of our life together are me. “Swear you won’t say a word?”
I make a cross sign over my heart. “I swear it. I won’t tell a soul.”
“Thank you.” He smiles back at me, then turns to walk back to the parking lot, though I don’t recall seeing his truck there when I pulled in. He only lives a mile or so from here, though. Maybe he’s walking home.
“Are you coming tomorrow night? To my party?” I call out as his back is to me. I don’t know why I’m asking. The whole idea was to see who came organically, on their own, without me pestering them about it or telling them it was important to me. I don’t want this conversation to change that. I still have to carry out my plans tomorrow either way, whether or not this conversation with Jim is beginning to change my opinion of him.
“Yeah, of course I’ll be there. Didn’t you get my message?” He raises up his arms, like I already knew he was coming, and continues walking. Within a few seconds, he’s up over the hill and down the backside, completely out of sight.
He already told me he was coming? When? I haven’t seen him in ages. It’s been months.
I open my phone to the message I received at four-thirty this morning.
I’ll be there.
So…that text was from him? In the middle of the night?
At the same exact time someone was creeping around my house, putting that anonymous letter underneath my door mat?
Watch your back.
Holy shit.
It was Jim? He’s the one who’s been threatening me? This whole time?
No wonder I haven’t seen him in months. His feelings for me sure took a turn somewhere along the way. He went from caring about me…to wanting to kill me?
I look around the quiet cemetery. We were all alone, just now. Virtually in the middle of nowhere. There are no bystanders. No passing cars here.
He could’ve killed me now, right here, on Paul’s resting spot, and no one would’ve known.
My body tenses up. Before I can overthink it any more, I lean forward and throw up - right on top of Paul’s grave.
Chapter Nine
This day has been one disaster after another. Jim? Really?
No.
That’s impossible.
I mean, not so impossible that I didn’t already have him down on my list of suspects. But why did he just admit to having feelings for me at one time if he actually wants to hurt me now? My head is spinning. I can’t get a grip on my emotions. I want to go home and rethink this entire plan. I want to curl up under my duvet cover and not come out until Saturday. I want to go for a jog and end up in some other town with some better life.
But of course none of those things are going to happen today.
Because instead, I have to go to MoreMart to pick up some groceries.
I pull my car into the shopping complex. I park, say a little prayer that this day doesn’t get worse, and I head inside.
As luck would have it, however, the universe still isn’t on my side.
There are so many things to be embarrassed by today: the fact that I am going to pick up premade food that I will stick my fingers in enough to play off as my own; the fact that my husband’s best friend just tried to tell me in some roundabout way that he had feelings for me at some point; the fact that the same person who has feelings for me might also want to kill me.
But the most embarrassing thing? Running into Realtor Nancy with vomit in my hair.
I can’t shake the image of me throwing up on Paul’s grave. I don’t know what came over me. But after wiping off my face with the only spare fast food napkin I had in my glovebox, I thought that was the end of it. A bad memory that no one on earth would have any inkling about.
Except that right now I’m standing inside MoreMart, and Nancy is telling me I have something in my hair.
“It’s just…it’s right to the left, by your shoulder there. Maybe you dipped your hair in your oatmeal this morning?” She cackles like it’s so funny, but nothing about this is funny. The puke in my hair is the only bit left not on my husband’s burial site. Also, I’m hosting a party in just over twenty-four hours, and I don’t know whether or not this woman is coming. Talk about the elephant in the room. Except that one of these elephants has vomit in her hair.
“Yeah, you know, I did have oatmeal,” I lie, trying my best to escape this conversation as quickly as possible. She reaches a baby wipe out to me from her purse. Of course she has wipes on her. Probably band-aids and tissue and hand sanitizer too. She is probably one of those moms who has everything in her purse, including a full balanced meal for later ‘just in case.’ I don’t want to take the wipe from her, but I do. Thank you universe, for pointing out that even lying-f-ing Nancy was blessed with kids while I wasn’t, and a Mary Poppins motherly purse that probably has an entire flipping First-Aid kit in it. Nancy’s kids are literally the reason I get to wipe vomit out of my hair, instead of it being my own kids and their vomit.
I am having a bad day.
I don’t know how to make small talk with her, now that I’ve awkwardly swiped my hands through my hair to take care of the mess. I also don’t know where to put my hands with the soiled baby wipe, so I just tuck them into my jeans pockets, wipe included, and regret my life.
“So, are you…”
“Have you been…” We both try to start a conversation at the same time.
Nancy laughs. “You’re still on Malbec Street, right?” She raises an eyebrow, as if to say don’t you dare tell me you moved and I wasn’t your realtor!
“Yes, definitely.” I want to point out that of course I’m still on Malbec Street, because she couldn’t sell the house after Paul’s death for the price I needed to get out of it. “And you, your kids must be at least…” I trail off, hoping she’ll chime in faster. I have no idea how old her kids are.
“My kids are still coming,” she quips, patting her small tummy. She’s pregnant again? We look the same size, even though I’ve only had vomit for breakfast so far. The universe truly does hate me.
“Oh, wow, congrats.” I smile, waiting for some comment pregnant women like to say, like, “yep, I can’t keep him off of me!” or some other drivel.
Instead, she points into my cart. The only thing worse than having an economy box of tampons and a jumbo-sized jug of fresh cider I was going to pass off as freshly-pressed would be if my cart was full of wet cat food.
“You’re having a party tomorrow night,” she says, as if she’s telling me this information for the first time.
I nod. This is the worst part of socialism. No, that doesn’t sound right. Socialization? Socializering? Geez, I am getting dumber by the second as I stand in front of Nosy Nancy and her stupid pregnant belly. She is going to tell everyone about the vomit in my hair, I know it. At least she told me about it. That’s a first, her telling me something helpful before the whole world knows about it.
I think back to her comment about the party, trying to get my brain to think straight. What my brain is trying to formulate, is that this is why I hate trying to have friends and inviting them to things. She probably doesn’t want to come and was planning on ghosting me, but now she’s run into me in person and can’t fake a debilitating illness, so instead she’s going to say she’s in out of guilt.
“I’ll be there!” she says too enthusiastically.
See. I knew it.
“You know, it’s just a casual get together,” I say dismissively, trying to give her an out if she really wants one. Hell, I am starting to want to talk myself into an out as well. Hopefully I am coming down with a debilitating illness. “You’re probably busy. If you have stuff going on, you know, doing pregnancy things and whatever, I totally understand.” I’m rambling and I sound stupid.
“No, are you kidding me? I wouldn’t miss it. At Tracey’s party, that big fourth of July bash she hosts every year? I sold eight houses from connections I made at that one party, can you believe it?”
Everything bothers me about her statement. First of all, I know Tracey, yet I’ve never been invited to a party on the fourth at her ridiculously large Tahoe mansion. In fact, I’m pretty sure I ran into her at a gas station around that time and I swear she told me she was in Europe for the holiday. Second, I am annoyed that she’s admitting my party is only a business opportunity.
“What can I bring? I have these great little cupcakes. I have a logo stamp!”
“A…what? A logo what?”
“You know, it’s like this stamp thing. I can stamp my key logo on these white chocolate discs and I put them on the cupcakes and they are so good and cute and they have my phone number! Isn’t that adorable?” She pats her stomach as she enunciates all the wrong words, as if her pending bundle of joy is so going to arrive with her mom’s phone number stamped on her forehead.
I stretch my eyes in a bug-out fashion to prevent them from rolling back in my head.
“That sounds perfect.” I love eating ink for dessert, is what I really want to say, but I bite my tongue. Literally. And I’m pretty sure even the taste of my tongue is better than Nancy’s cupcake ink.
“Great! Who else will be there? So I know how many to bring. Well, it doesn’t matter, I’ll make extra and you can pass them out around your neighborhood! Those are great little starter houses.”
Okay, these eyes are for sure about to roll out of my damn head. I can’t take this anymore.
I feign a smile, but all I can think is, thanks for pointing out how small my house is, you stupid pregnant jerk. I’m starting to wonder if she’s even more evil than Evil Evie.
“Great, I’m glad you can make it. I’ll see you tomorrow then. Six p.m.”
“We wouldn’t miss it!” She pats her stomach again, and I’m almost glad I vomited on Paul’s grave this morning, just so I’m confident I won’t throw up now on her.
I nod, and finally push my cart the opposite direction. That was dreadful. Every part of it.
There are so many things I wanted to say. I wanted to point out that Megan the Mistress was also invited. That would wipe that smug grin off Nancy’s face, wouldn’t it? Being reminded of how much pain her secret cost me? Did Nancy even feel bad for everything that happened? For keeping Paul’s affair a secret? Or was she too high on baby pheromones to even notice I was suffering?
I saw the frozen pizzas in her cart just now. See, Nosy Nancy, Gossip Queen of Secrets, you’re no better than the rest of us. I’m pretty sure her Instagram photos are all organic dishes with shiny green vegetables, but there is nothing shiny or green about that fake shrink-wrapped pepperoni you’re about to buy. You can’t fool me, Nancy. You’re not who the world thinks you are.
I wanted to blurt out that I know she took an excessive amount of diet pills after she popped out her last baby. She wrote it down on some questionnaire at the yoga studio. I hoped to God it wouldn’t give her baby any kind of birth defects, but I also secretly hoped her baby came out looking like an armadillo.
“Trish?”
The soft voice comes from behind me, and although I don’t recognize it right off, it doesn’t matter. Because I know whoever it is, I don’t want to talk to them anyway. Because I don’t want to talk to anyone else today.
The vomit.
The stamped cupcakes.
The person stalking me at four in the morning, which very likely seems to be Jim.
Isn’t that enough for one day? It feels like enough.
“Trish,” the voice says again.
I plaster on a fake smile. They would regret stopping me, I was sure of that. Even if it was my gregarious eighty-year-old second grade teacher, Mrs. Warwick, who was nothing but rainbows - who gave me ham sandwiches on the days my parents ‘forgot’ to pack my lunch - I had nothing nice left in my tank. Not even for a saint like Mrs. Warwick. I turn around to face whoever wants my attention.
“Trish, there’s something I want to talk to you about.”
My eyes lock on those of Dr. Cavinder, my therapist.
Great.
I have to keep it together. I was paying her to keep me together for Pete’s sake. I couldn’t slip now. My visits would just cost more.
“Looks like a wild night,” she jokes, pointing to the cider and tampons in my cart. For the love…but I couldn’t be mean. She would give me even more to work out in therapy.
“Yeah, right?” Truthfully, I like her. She tries hard. We go through grief exercises. She makes me smile when I bring up funny memories of Paul and me. She has some helpful tips here and there. I know I can’t call her a “friend” per se since I pay her to be around me, but I can admit she knows me well. Better than most others. Another gentle reminder that perhaps I’m not as alone in this life as I feel. She truly does help me in that regard.
Her face softens. “I was going to call you as soon as I got back to my office. Can we move up our appointment? Any chance you’re available tomorrow afternoon?”
That question was unexpected. When do doctors ever want to see you sooner? Usually it’s like pulling teeth to get a good appointment slot as it is.
Oh no.
Maybe she has bad news.
Maybe I am dying.
But also, wouldn’t a terminal illness be better than being murdered by Jim or William or Stamping-Cupcakes-Nancy? I debate it for a second.
“Will tomorrow work for you?” she asks again.
“I’m teaching at four tomorrow. And then hosting a dinner party after that,” I admit.
She looks surprised. “A party? Trish, that’s wonderful.”
“All thanks to you,” I reply. “Oh, gosh, you should come. I didn’t invite you, and I just told you about a party, that is so rude of me. You should come!” I am talking without thinking. This is too risky. A therapist at a murderer-reveal party? I’m literally planning to catch the person wanting to kill me. I can’t invite a licensed head-doctor to uncover that secret before I do. That would be more embarrassing than walking around with hair vomit and jumbo tampons. Not to mention that would make me liable for the outcome of what might happen when I find out who that person is.
“Oh, no, Charles and I are heading to Sacramento tomorrow night for our anniversary,” she dismisses. “But I need to talk to you about your chart. I’ve made a mistake.”
“Oh?” I don’t like the way I can hear the concern in her voice.
“Have you been taking those sleeping pills I prescribed you?” Her voice is quieter than it was just a second ago, which catches me off guard. I understand doctor-patient privacy, but it’s not exactly herpes medication. Doesn’t everyone take sleeping pills from time to time? I may be a grown woman feeling self-consciousness by my economy-sized tampons, yet the topic of sleeping pills doesn’t even faze me.
“I tried to take them. A few times, actually. But I hated the way they made me feel. I was like a zombie the next day. I stopped taking them.”
She nods, like she expected that answer.
“Well, I’m glad to hear you’re not taking them regularly. I made a little goof.”
Put that on the list of things you never want to hear your doctor say: I made a goof. Good thing she was only in charge of listening to my feelings and not doing organ transplants.
“I wrote the script wrong. It’s not a huge deal. Well, I mean, it is.” She’s choosing her words delicately, like I already have the papers drawn up for a lawsuit. “I juxtaposed some numbers. They’re just not right for you is all, and I need to make sure you’re not taking them. I can write you another prescription and you can come pick it up from my office tomorrow? Can you just bring those pills back to me? We can swap them out?”
I’ve never had a doctor ask me to bring them pills. I’m starting to wonder if Dr. Cavinder has sleeping trouble too, and her own breathing techniques aren’t working. But can’t she write her own prescriptions for herself? Or are doctors not allowed to do that? Is that why she wants my pills back? Why not just tell me to destroy them?
Either way, I don’t have time for this.
“I only took a couple. Half-doses too, per your suggestion. You know, they were so bad, I think I got rid of them already. You know, safely. Like, I flushed them, I’m pretty sure. Don’t worry, I’m not taking them and I couldn’t even if I changed my mind, so we’re all good. Can we just keep our regular appointment next week? I’m just so dreadfully busy, between work and entertaining.” I try to sound as convincing as possible.
Without vomit in my hair, I must have a nice face, because it works.
“You’re sure you threw them out?”
“We talked about cleansing negative things from my life last month, remember? And I assure you, those side effects were negative, so I’m sure I got rid of them.”
I can see the relief on her face.
She hesitates for a second, but finally seems on board. “Okay. Yes, that’ll be fine. But should you find any, you know, lying around for whatever reason, please dispose of them. They’re way too high a dose. Those things would knock out a grown man for heaven’s sake, which is probably why you felt so terrible the following day, even after only a half. I do apologize for the mix-up.” Her expression is begging me to keep it our little secret.
I don’t really know the rules about this kind of thing. Can doctors get in trouble for writing the wrong prescription, if it’s only an accident? That must happen fairly often. Either way, I don’t want Dr. Cavinder to get in trouble. She’s been nothing but kind. Even though her sleep advice and breathing tricks are dogshit, I still wish her well. I don’t want her to get reprimanded in any way.
