Don't Kill For Me, page 4
“Ms. Somers? Are you alright?” Mr. Bryant, the neighbor I didn’t know, but knew of, asked from his driver’s side window as he stopped his car nearby.
Feeling like a fool for making a scene by yelling at a cat, I walked off, ignoring his concern. Who was he anyway? He didn’t really want an answer.
#
Chapter Nine
At home, all alone, clarity of the full situation came to me. Anthony was gone and I couldn’t bring him back. On top of that, I wasn’t the only mistress he’d left behind. I decided to let the other bitches cry over him.
Growing up without a father, hardened me. I was taught the futility of trying to understand men. They were to be tolerated, not understood. A secret I kept close was that my mother had been raped and I was the product of that night. My existence had come from a flesh driven assault thrust upon my poor mother. That egotistical arrogant maniac was a part of me and I felt him when I was at my lowest of lows. It was that harsh side of me that’d help me walk away from Anthony and move on with my life.
It was midday and I should’ve been going into the shop, but instead I decided to take a quick shower. Afterward, I felt reborn. Wet hair dripped down my back. I closed my eyes and intentionally felt the trickle of drops travel along my spine. My storm was over. I was done with letting men control my life. Anthony wasn’t the first married man I’d dated and lost. Just the first one to die on me.
Self reflection took over my thoughts. Hugging myself, I examined the moles on my arms. They were as much a part of me as my memories. Forever the same. Few stood out as unique. A tiny red one on my forearm was like none other on my body. It made me, me. So did the barely there scar on my wrist. How many times had I seen it? It bothered me, because I didn’t recall where I’d gotten the scar.
Again, I closed my eyes. I caressed my elbow, running fingertips along a scar that didn’t exist. Anthony had a caterpillar-shaped scar on his elbow; he’d gotten it from breaking his arm at the age of twelve. I knew about his scar, but I hadn’t had a chance to memorize all his moles. I got the feeling when we were together that he didn’t want to memorize mine.
He never asked about them. I rubbed up to the birthmark just below my shoulder and fantasized of a man who’d desire to kiss it. His reasoning would be that when he kissed my unique markings he’d be kissing me. The real me. Not the mask, but Eileen. The woman he was in love with, the one he desired to spend the rest of his life with, his soul mate. His partner. His everything.
That man was a fantasy. I knew because it was impossible to find a man who cared about my needs above his own. Anthony had proven that. All the others had too. One man had come close and he’d been just a boy. Neither one of us had known how to be selfish yet. We’d been barely teenagers when we’d met. We’d promised we’d always look out for each other. He’d been there for me for a long time. Then he wasn’t.
Every man after him followed the same pattern. They all left when I needed them most, leaving me with doubts that I could even love at all.
Anthony’s sudden death proved that no matter what happened, for the most part, the world still turned.
Whatever I felt or wanted to feel, it didn’t matter. I had a business to run, a life to live. But it was already time for Stephanie’s shift. A day and a half wasn’t too long to leave the shop in the hands of two part-timers. I texted that I wouldn’t be coming back in and turned on a marathon of a bad dramas to pass the lonely evening ahead.
The next morning I was happily surprised to see the shop had survived unscathed. If Trina planned revenge, it was still coming. First thing I took care of was looking over the dossier for Anthony’s funeral arrangements. Melanie had very specific requests. Several were unreasonable. I made notes. Plenty of notes.
“Hey, stranger. You doing all right?”
It was Bob. He was walking early. I’d barely opened the shop gate. It seemed odd to see him so early in the day. “Are you checking up on me?”
“Me?” He placed a hand to his chest to over-emphasize a fake shocked attitude. “A grumpy old bachelor concerned for a beautiful woman. That’s impossible. I’m just here for exercise.”
“Quit it.” I slapped his arm. His attitude warmed my heart toward him. For no reason at all, I noticed his graying hair peeking up out of his unbuttoned collar. He had a small mole right there among the hairs. It sort of made him human and I felt bad that I hadn’t looked at him like that before. “Thank you so much for coming to my rescue the other day. I really needed a friend.”
“I’m flattered to be called a friend. Oh, could you give these to Trina?” He produced from his pocket the expensive wireless earphones he usually wore. “She needs a new pair and she admired these yesterday.”
“Bob. No. She doesn’t deserve them.” He leaned in close, the air between us filled with the smell of his aftershave. For an instant it reminded me of Anthony. Could’ve sworn it was the same fragrance, but I had to be wrong.
“They’re over priced, but they don’t work as well as this cheaper pair I have.” He placed the second set of earphones around his neck and tucked the earpieces in his ears. The first set, he slipped into my apron pocket. “Well, gotta walk. My goal is ten thousand steps today.” He smiled and left.
“Trina will be surprised,” I said to myself, stepping back into the shop. “If she comes in to work today.” I checked the calendar to verify it was her day off. It was. After my disappearing act, the spoiled twenty year old was damn sure not coming in.
#
Chapter Ten
Like it or not, I had seven long hours alone until my other part-timer would show up. I could’ve thrown myself into arranging upcoming orders, but I didn’t trust that I’d make good design decisions. There was too much on my mind. Pushing thoughts of Anthony out left me with one glaring puzzle to solve. Who was the secret admirer delivering notes to the store?
What reaction is he looking for? How long has he been trying to get my attention? Well, he has it now.
Thinking back over the notes we’d received, I attempted to piece together his motives. Why would you announce a death in such an impersonal way? A photocopied article, slipped under a door gets you nowhere with me. If you cared, wouldn’t you use Anthony’s death to be by my side? It was all baffling. I tried to understand the man behind the letters, but quickly, realized my mistake. He’s a man.
Restarting, I focused on understanding the letters themselves. To fully examine them, I had to gather them up. After she’d read the notes, Trina had wanted nothing to do with them. She’d tossed them wherever she could. Most were in the work table drawer with the trimming shears, but I felt it was necessary to find them all. I spent an hour searching every inch of the shop to find every last letter, note, envelope, and newspaper clipping. Anything that had been slipped under the door in secret had to be gathered.
The envelopes all looked similar spread out together on the work table. I opened and did my best to arrange the notes in the order that I remembered them being found.
There was so much I hadn’t noticed in the previous letters. When I’d assumed they were for Trina, I’d only half listened to the contents.
The very first one was memorable. He called her an oasis in the mall. The worst line I’d ever heard, but he’d hooked Trina with it. As soon as she’d read it, she’d taken off flaunting the love letter all over the mall. I’d assumed a timid guy would come in and ask her out after the first note. Then it’d be over. He never came, but the letters kept showing up at the back door.
It was different reading over them with the idea that I was his love interest. It was more like I was reading them for the first time. In ways I felt I was.
Trina had skipped many of the passages he’d included. In the first note, the line following the one about an oasis in the mall stated, “Like the fountain at Shartel Park, you quench my thirst on a hot summer day.”
Shartel Park was a half a block away from my childhood home. I’d spent countless hours there playing on the swings, attending classes in the recreation center, and roaming around the fountain.
How could she leave that part out? Words and phrases in all the letters jumped out to me. Places I’d grown up near, names that seemed familiar, he’d even mentioned handprints in concrete. In the home I grew up in, there were handprints left in our driveway by a previous owner. They’d haunted me, because I’d never known who they’d belonged to and always wished I had known the story behind the mysterious imprints.
All the tiny details that correlated with my childhood couldn’t be complete coincidence. The more I read them, the more I knew that the man who’d sent them knew me. The real me. The one I’d pushed down to the bottom of my soul and hidden from everyone. I was engrossed, reading every word, but also terrified. One place scared me the most. Not the park, or the mortuary next door, but a simple crack in the sidewalk. He had to mention it. If he knew as much about my past as I thought he did, he’d know that crack represented everything about the woman he was supposedly in love with.
Where is it?
Say it.
Say you’ve seen it.
All of a sudden, the landline phone rang, startling me. I quickly whipped up the receiver. “Hello.”
“Is this For the Hour Floral?” the customer on the other end of the line asked.
“Yes, sorry. This is Eileen Somers, owner of For the Hour Floral. How can I help you?”
“This is Melanie Milan. You’re arranging flowers for my husband’s service.”
“M—Mel—Mrs. Milan. Yes, I’m working on completing every detail of your request.” I shuffled the letters aside and pulled the dossier in front of me, as if she could see through the phone that I was lying.
“It was Tony’s final request. I would’ve chosen a different florist for the service.” She knew who she was talking to. She knew I’d had an affair with him. I heard it in her voice when she emphasized the word husband and called him Tony. He hated being called that name. “I hope you can get the job done in a reputable manner.”
“I assure you I’m well qualified. I’m glad you called. As much as I’d like to fulfill your late husband, Anthony’s, wishes.” I paused, listening to her clear her throat. “A casket spray of Birds of Paradise is unusual. I can add several blooms along with other tropical flowers. It will look more pleasing.”
“That won’t do, Ms. Somers. Tony wants all Birds of Paradise. Tony always gets his way. But you know that dear, don’t you?”
She was tempting me to confess. I wouldn’t take the bait. “Like I said, it’s a tall request. I always try my best to please the client whenever possible. Is there anything else, Mrs. Milan?”
“Just one tiny little thing. All orders for Tony must be cleared by me, before delivery. I won’t have just anyone sending sympathy bouquets to my husband. Appearances, you know.”
“Of course. If I get any arrangement orders, I’ll call you.” Keeping the advantage, I hung up first, getting in the last word.
#
Chapter Eleven
After the phone call, I went back to examining the letters. I noticed a common thread among them. More than compliments, like Trina emphasized, the letters were mostly about places and memories. Many of the details of his experiences were the same ones I’d had. We’d both eaten at Leon’s Barbecue and shopped at Kaiser’s Grocery. He even knew Uncle Clem. That letter was particularly disturbing. I didn’t recall Trina having shown it to me before.
It started out with a question: Have I told you the story about Uncle Clem? He was a lonely man who had a favorite chair where he sat every day. The world passed by in front of him. He didn’t care. He sat there in silence. Folks said there was something wrong with him. Uncle Clem didn’t pay attention to their complaints about him. He lived his life. I was older when I met him, so I admired his stubbornness to live life according to his own terms.
When death caught up with his soul and he took his last breath, he did it alone, but not in his chair. The void that was left taught me a valuable lesson. No one can count on how many breaths they have on this earth, only in whose presence they take them. I decided not to be like Uncle Clem. Not to live and die in silence.
The odd thing about that letter was that I knew a man named Uncle Clem, too. He had a booth at the flea market. He sat in his chair every day and sold nothing to no one. He was deaf.
One day his chair was empty. The next weekend, it was gone. In its place were a few bouquets of flowers. The next day, a table was there and a woman was selling trinkets. If it hadn’t been for the few bouquets and the fact Uncle Clem had never sold anything in that space, it would’ve appeared that he’d just closed shop. As a child, I should’ve assumed that to be true, but I lived next door to a mortuary. I knew death when I saw it.
The author of the letters was telling me about a day in my own life We were both in the same place at the same time. We both experienced Uncle Clem dying in different ways. But we were both there.
I got a chill after reading that note. Comparing it to the article left about Anthony, I felt like I had a killer leaving notes. Was it a coded confession? Or just a man reminiscing? I had no evidence that the article was left as a confession, either. But it was possible.
I can’t consider that. He’s not a killer. These are rambling memories. A lonely man looking for love. I stacked all the letters into a pile and got up to stretch.
Standing in the doorway leading out to the mall, I studied everyone that walked by. Why were they there? What were their stories? Moms with strollers were obvious. Teenagers, again obvious. But the random men and women with no purchases, no bags in their hands, they were suspects. Any one of them could be watching for just the right moment to commit a crime.
I have to go to security. My stay-at-home mom and part timer, Stephanie, wasn’t due for another hour. She couldn’t work before five because of her kids. Leaving the shop to go across the mall to the security office would have to wait until she arrived.
To pass the time proactively, I scanned the letters on the copier and secured three sets of them in archival envelopes. In my mind, they were evidence. The secret admirer might not have killed Uncle Clem, but I was all but convinced he had something to do with Anthony’s death. I hoped I was wrong.
When Stephanie walked up, I couldn’t wait to hand the store over to her. “Things around here have been slow,” I said, grabbing my stuff, including the three sets of the letters. “Can you finish where I left off on the Milan order?”
“Sure thing. Eileen, could I ask?” She stopped me. “Jacey has a play group coming over tomorrow. Do you think I could take some stems?”
“Yes.” I stopped myself from running off. “How are Jacey and Jacob?”
“Jacob’s having a hard time adjusting to preschool. He misses his sister.” Stephanie tied an apron on, wiped down the counter, then washed her hands in the back sink where we filled up vases.
“Thank you for covering yesterday. I guess Trina told you a friend of mine died suddenly.”
“She said he was in the business. Were you two close?”
There I was doing it again. I was letting it out that Anthony was closer to me then he should’ve been. “It’s just easier to say friend than business associate. We have the contract for his service.” I took the dossier out. “Can you call around and find as many Birds of Paradise as you can?” I smiled and crossed my fingers.
“Can I take roses to Jacey?”
“Yes. If you find what we need. Just write it down.” I’d passed on responsibility. In no way was I able to make his final arrangement. “It’s been a long day. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
The last thing I did was secure a copy of the letters in the store safe. A twirl of a knob and they were locked in. Tucking the other two envelopes under my arm, I set out for the security office at Crystal Mall. They were the closest I wanted to get to a man with a badge. I’d not had good experiences with authority figures in the past.
Just as I’d hoped, Adrienne, and not Eric or Jose, was working the closing desk shift. The tall, broad-shouldered woman bleached her hair stark white and wore it short and spiked. She had no qualms about embracing her masculine side or emasculating any male criminals that crossed her path. I approached her with caution.
“Can I ask you to look into something for me?” I said, keeping the envelopes close to my side.
With her arms crossed on the desk in front of her chest, her head tilted to the side, Adrienne appeared to consider my request. “Does it have to do with the security of the mall?” Her answer was predictable. If she was on the job, she was all business. “I don’t need to be fixed up with the friend of a friend. If you get my drift. I manage on my own.”
“I’m sure you do. How do I—phrase this? In a way—this could be a security matter.” I gave her the quick recap of how the letters were being left at the shop. How they started seemingly innocent, but turned sinister once I’d looked closer at them. “You see I can’t prove anything, but there are some strange coincidences in these letters.”
“And this perpetrator is in my mall?” She motioned for me to hand over the envelope. I did, she popped it open and looked down into it as if she could see the answer just by peering into the void. “It may take a few days, but I’ll find your Mr. Anonymous.” She slugged me in the arm. “Love will avail.”
“No—I.” How she got to ‘winning over a lover’ from a ‘possible criminal in her midst’ confounded me, but I let it go. All I really wanted was for a copy of the letters to be secured somewhere away from my possession.
#
Chapter Twelve
The next morning I woke earlier than my alarm. I hadn’t been able to sleep all night. I’d dreamed of people and places I hadn’t really given thought to in twenty years or more. If the admirer was trying to get into my head, he’d done an excellent job of doing just that. I was lost in thoughts of the past. It was a nice change from the previous sleepless nights I’d spent getting over Anthony’s betrayal and death.
