Joe (23 page)

***

The huntsman was just passing the house,
and thought to himself: “How the old woman is snoring! I must just see if she
wants anything.” So he went to into the room, and when he came to the bed, he
saw that the wolf was lying in it.

“Do I find you here, you old sinner!”
said he. “I have long sought you!” But just as he was going to fire at him, it
occurred to him that the wolf might have devoured the grandmother, and that she
might still be saved, so he did not fire, but took a pair of scissors, and
began to cut open the stomach of the sleeping wolf.

-Excerpt from
Little Red Riding Hood
by
the Brothers Grimm

Chapter
Thirty-Five

Claire

“Here
little darlin’, don’t shed no tears,”
sang
Bob Marley from the speakers of Claire’s stereo.

Claire had gotten up early this morning
and decided that she needed to give her and Nikki’s apartment a good spring
cleaning. She had made herself some instant pancakes, maple-flavored bacon, and
cheesy eggs, along with a pot of strong coffee, and then had filled her
grumbling belly. She felt good today, better than she could remember feeling in
a long time. Nikki would get home tonight from her writer’s conference, and
Claire would spill the rancid beans in her stomach and let her sister help her
with her problems. Nikki would show her the way. All Claire had to do was let
her.

“My feet is my only carriage, so I’ve
got to push on through, but while I’m gone…”

Marley’s words encouraged her, and she
had put his album on repeat and cranked the volume up as loud as it would go.
She had caved in to her addiction and smoked a small bowl of marijuana upon
waking this morning, and the Rasta Man was making a great deal of sense to her
right now.
Yeah, mon!

She could get through this. With her
sister, she could get through this. Because

“Everything’s gonna be all right.
Everything’s gonna be all right, now. Everything’s gonna be—”

Her cell phone on the kitchen table
chimed with an incoming message. Claire finished wiping down the coffee table
in the living room and went to retrieve the phone.

“Love was burning through the night,”
Claire sang, as she flipped the phone up and checked her inbox.

The message was simple and clear. Yet,
as Claire read it, it seemed to take a great deal of time for its meaning to
sink in. As it did, the room around her seemed to darken, and the air in her
apartment became stale and stagnant. Her breath hitched, though she was unaware
of it—a whimper like that of a broken dog kicked one too many times. It was a
sound that came from deep somewhere inside her, a sound that seemed to hang in
the air like a white flag. Marley’s music was now a meaningless drone on the
periphery of her ears, soaking no further into her consciousness. Oddly,
another song, one that had grated on her nerves just the previous night,
sounded off in her head like a cowbell that brings the dogs in for supper; that
leads the way home.

 
(Come Monday, It’ll be all
right.)

The message, in all heartless caps,
read: OMG R U OKAY? I JUST HEARD. I CAN’T BELIEVE HE IS
MARRYING
THAT
SKANK. CALL IF U NEED 2 TALK. YOU’RE BETTER OFF W/O HIM N E WAY. LUV U!

It was from Claire’s friend, Sarah.
Sarah was kind of a bitchy yuppie, but she always knew what the word was around
town. She lived for drama and gossip. Claire knew who Sarah was referring to in
the text, but she wouldn’t allow herself to completely believe it until she
knew for sure. She exited out of her messages and selected the app on her
screen that would take her to ultimate-gossip-and-drama source. Facebook.
Facebook would shed some light on this unattractive situation. And, surely
Sarah had her facts messed up because…

There it was in black and white.
Undeniable now. Claire’s old, sly friend, Depression, swept right on in and
blew away any progress she had made this morning in edging her further along
the wobbly, rotten plank where she stood.

Brad, the guy whose child was currently
growing in Claire’s soft belly, had changed his Facebook relationship status to
engaged
. His wall was filled with congratulations from his many friends.
A recently uploaded picture showed Claire’s Brad with a big grin on his face
while his new fiancé planted a kiss on his cheek. Below that was a picture of
the shiny diamond engagement ring wrapped around the little whore’s finger. The
whore’s name was Marney. The three of them had once been friends. Claire had
introduced Brad to Marney at a party last year. Back before Brad had told
Claire
not to act like he was her boyfriend now that she was pregnant,
back when Brad had been hers.

I could show them all they all would be
sorry if I just stepped right off of this plank they forced me out onto how
could he do this to me? What a stupid bitch I thought she was my friend I could
show them all and they all would be sorry and then it would be Marney’s turn to
cry, Marney’s turn to cry, Marney’s turn to…

“Don’t shed no tears.”

Claire walked over to her stereo and
shut the stupid thing off.
That is quite enough out of you, Mr. Marley.
Quite enough.

Maybe, if out of some sort of miracle,
Nikki would have walked through the door right then, it wouldn’t have been too
late. Maybe Claire would have cried and told her about Brad and the baby and
all of her horrible thoughts. Claire even stared at the plain wooden door for a
moment, as though expecting just that to happen. But behind door number one
there were no miracles waiting for poor little Claire-Bear. She continued on in
her cleaning, whistling Jimmy Buffet’s old hit and believing every word that
the song said.

Chapter
Thirty-Six

Eric

While
Claire was receiving the text message from Sarah, Eric was standing in the toy section
of Target, staring at the enormous selection of princess and fairytale items
that could be purchased for a little girl. He had no idea what to get his
daughter. Maybe she didn’t like dolls or dresses. Maybe she already had most of
the toys here. He knew nothing about her except that he wanted to give his baby
a present when they met for the first time. Kids liked presents. He knew that,
too.

After he had wasted a good thirty
minutes in the toy aisle, wandering back and forth, staring stupidly, getting
odd looks from passing mothers, he asked a young girl who worked there what she
thought a six-year-old girl would want.

“Well,” the girl, a perky little thing
who popped her gum before every sentence, said, “I always used to love my Easy
Bake Oven. It’s like, the coolest thing ever for a little girl. And this new
model just came out…”

Eric tuned the rest of what she was
saying out and instead watched the way her full lips moved and thought about
how he could certainly put those pretty things to better use. He smiled when
she got finished pitching the Easy Bake and thanked her, making sure to brush
his hand over hers as he took the box from her and held up the oven.

“Looks perfect,” he said, and stood for
a moment to watch her ass sway as she walked away, pleased with her job well
done.

He bought the pink oven-thing and headed
home to catch the game that should be starting soon on TV. His community
service had been easy this morning. Instead of picking up trash along the
highway, he had been sent to the local shelter to spoon out
questionable-looking rice pudding to homeless people for breakfast. When he got
home he wrapped the oven in pink paper with a large purple bow and set it on
his kitchen table so that he would remember to take it with him on Monday
morning. Tomorrow morning. He was in high spirits. Sunday was usually his day
of rest, and that was just how he spent the remaining half of this one.
Drinking beers, reclining in front of the tube, sitting on his porch smoking
cigarettes and thinking about how soft the perky Target-girl’s ass had looked
and about how he would actually be seeing his daughter tomorrow. Mostly he
thought about that.

And, really, it wasn’t a bad way to
spend to the Sunday. Not too bad at all.

Chapter
Thirty-Seven

Merion

“So
how does it feel?” Briana asked.

Merion looked over at her oldest
daughter. “How does what feel? Approaching retirement?”

Briana nodded.

“It feels like it can’t come soon
enough,” Merion said.

Her daughter laughed. “You’ve got like
what, two months left? This is your last semester, right?”

Merion sighed. “Yep, and seemingly the
longest.”

The two of them sat at a table on
Briana’s back porch, under the shade of a large red-and-white umbrella. Two
glasses of iced tea sat on the table between them. Though Briana’s yard was
small, it was beautiful and peaceful. Flowers of various types were positioned
tastefully around the porch and two trees in the yard. Her daughter had had a
green thumb since she was a child. Briana also had a sense of backyard Feng
Shui. A swing set sat in the middle of a large sandbox and had everything from
monkey bars to swings and slides and shelter. The top half of it was a house
with doors and windows with shutters.

A little red-haired girl with big blue
eyes and pig-tails stuck her head out the window and waved at her mother and
her grandmother.  Merion waved back. She adored her grandchildren. They
seemed to be growing up just as fast as her children had, maybe faster.

“My little girl is too stinkin’ cute,”
Briana said.

Merion smiled at this. Yes, life went by
fast, but days like this reminded her that she had loved a great portion of it.
Sitting in the shade of an umbrella on a warm sunny day, sipping iced tea with
her daughter, watching her grandchildren chase each other around the yard–a
sweet-smelling, beautiful yard, at that. It was days and moments like these
that gave life its meaning, when you’re able to just ponder the wonderful
things and people that nature has allowed you. The sunlight, the smiles, the
sweet smell of earth and flowers, of life and family and blue skies. The rare
times when there is truly no place you would rather be.

Briana made lunch for all of them. They
watched a movie until late in the afternoon, when Merion ordered pizza. They
ate it on the back porch under the softly lit sky. Fireflies floated and
blinked yellow, and children laughed and so did Merion. It was not a bad way to
spend a Sunday, either.

Most Sundays Merion visited her mother
in the nursing home, but since she had seen her on Friday she figured she had

(Put in her time)

every right to spend the day with her
grandchildren and daughter. A little guilt dug at her nonetheless, but after
two glasses of wine with Briana, even that damper went away.

And, no, it was not a bad way to spend a
Sunday.

Chapter
Thirty-Eight

Joe

This
was not the way I had planned to spend today. I should have been preparing some
master plan of attack. Instead, I was staring at my meager wardrobe and trying to
decide what one is supposed to wear when they go out to lunch with a boy. If I
could hurry lunch along quickly, I could still make a trip to UMMS in the
afternoon to compare my sketch openly in the Quad. No one would be there on a
Sunday, and then I could get back home and find out just what Mr. Landry
had
for me. I decided I was going to ask him some questions. The things he had
said, or
didn’t
say, had been on the forefront of my mind since I
arrived back at my apartment after finishing the work at his shop.

“People like me and you.”

I had never met anyone who was
like
me.
It made me wonder.

Michael would be arriving in about
fifteen minutes to pick me up and take me somewhere for lunch. I wasn’t sure I
would even be able to eat. My stomach was a mess, apparently angry at me over
the stress that was taking over my life. It seemed to me that every moment I
had to wait and anticipate what would happen on Monday was endless and
agonizing. I just wanted to get the whole thing over with, either way. At the same
time, the days seemed to be just flying on by, and now only the rest of today
was in front of me, and then it was Show Time.

I picked out a gray v-neck t-shirt and a
denim skirt with flip-flops, and put them on. Just as I was pulling my hair
back into a ponytail, the doorbell rang. Michael was here. My angry stomach
twisted again. My concession that Michael was good-looking made me more nervous
to be around him. On top of the nerves that were a result of what I would be
facing tomorrow, it was almost enough to make me want to vomit. That would
certainly charm him.

Before opening the door, I attempted to
smooth out the worry lines etched on my face, and place a smile there instead.
I think it worked. Michael had changed his clothes and restyled his hair in
that messy way that seemed to me like it took a lot of effort to achieve. His
smile was shy, and I wondered if he was as nervous as I was. Probably not.

“Hey,” he said. His brilliant green eyes
studied my new attire, and I felt my cheeks heat up. “You look great. You
ready?”

I nodded and stepped out, shutting the
door behind me.

We headed down the concrete steps to the
parking lot where his black Lexus was parked. He held the passenger door open,
and I slid into the leather seat. The car must have been a very new model. The
interior was equipped with a large GPS set into the dashboard and all types of
buttons which did various things. It even still held the lingering new-car
smell, laced with Michael’s soft cologne. I took a silent deep breath as he slid
in behind the steering wheel beside me. I made myself take a good look at him
for a moment, but his green eyes met mine I looked away again.

He’s handsome, kind, and wealthy,
I thought. So why is he interested in
me? I didn’t speak to hardly anyone. I keep to myself so much so that I’m sure
I exude an introverted persona. It’s not something I try to do, but my speech
impediment makes conversation too much of an annoyance to be bothered with. As
a result, people don’t often talk to me, and guys like Michael
definitely
don’t talk to me. This was the first date I had ever been on. My mind is so
filled with the future and my life so overwhelmed by coping with it that I
never really considered romance as a possibility for me. Now that I was
thinking about it, I found it rather sad.

Beside me, Michael started the car. “So,
I hope sandwiches are okay,” he said.

“Shh-sure,” I said, wondering where he
was taking me.

“Cool. I packed us a picnic. I figured
since it was so nice out today that maybe you wouldn’t mind having lunch
outside?”

A picnic? That was actually kind
of…cute. I found myself smiling. “That’s a g-great idea,” I said slowly, so
that my words wouldn’t be too broken. All of a sudden my stutter felt like a
disability. Maybe it was.

Michael put on some music, and we drove
the rest of the way in silence, which suited me just fine. I relaxed a little
more as we drove, thinking that if this did happen to be my last day alive,
this wasn’t too bad a way to be spending it. It didn’t really matter why
Michael liked me, the fact that I was at least going to get to have a nice
lunch with a sweet guy out in the sunshine as my first date—maybe my last—on
this lovely Sunday afternoon was just fine indeed. I had spent so much of my
life worrying and stressing, so if it was destined to end soon, at least I
could enjoy this. On any other day I would spend this time with Michael trying
to figure out what his agenda was. But today, it didn’t matter if he had one or
not. If he was a spy for the Men in White Coats—a crazy idea, maybe, but I’ve
admitted that I am paranoid—then let him be. None of that mattered on this
particular Sunday, because tomorrow, I had a date with destiny.

Maybe I wasn’t the only one.

“Here we are,” Michael said.

I had been too wrapped up in my own
thoughts to be paying attention to where we were going. I looked up through the
windshield and my jaw fell slack. “Huh-here?” I asked. And then, because I
thought that probably sounded rude, I added, “It’s puh-perfect.”

Michael’s face looked worried. “Are you
sure? Because we can go somewhere else if you want. I just thought that it
would be nice because no one would be here and it’s really pretty and quiet.”
He smiled sheepishly, apparently aware that he was rambling.

I managed a smile of my own, but my
heart was pounding in my chest again, overrun with worry once more. Thoughts of
just enjoying today had abandoned me in a flash. I drew in what felt like a
shaky breath. “No, r-r-really. It’s puh-perfect,” I said.

“Okay.”

Michael pulled into the C parking lot of
UMMS closest to the west side of the Quad. On school days this parking lot was
always too full to find a spot, and I usually ended up parking in one of the
distant garages that the school owned. Today the parking lot was empty, save
for a silver Honda that was parked two rows ahead of Michael’s Lexus.

Michael grabbed the picnic basket and a
blanket from the back seat and we got out of the car. “Guess someone else had
the same idea,” Michael said, gesturing to the silver Honda.

My eyes were fixed on Blue, the big
building that made up the west side of the Quad. Why did we have to come here?
I couldn’t help but feel like it was some cruel joke of the gods. Maybe they
were reminding me that I had plenty of things to do today that didn’t involve a
picnic with Prince Charming. On the other hand, maybe it was that I was being
given the opportunity to kill two birds with one stone.

“Joe?”

Michael was already starting up the
trail that led between the buildings and into the Quad. He held his hand out to
me. I smiled and took it, feeling oddly better about being here with him by my
side.

He squeezed my hand gently and pulled me
forward. “Come on,” he said. “I know the perfect spot.”

Michael led me up the path and under a stone
archway that opened up onto the expanse of walkways and park benches and oak
trees and beautiful gardens. Birdsong was audible, now that so many people
weren’t here to drown it out. It was almost like a different place when
deserted. The Quad really was beautiful. Like a music box.

Such a shame,
I thought, still holding Michael’s hand
in mine and sweeping my eyes over the place.
It will never be the same after
tomorrow. Such a shame…

Michael led us to a large oak near the
center of the Quad, between two paved walkways near the statue of the school’s
jaguar mascot. The oak sat on an open spot of green grass that was raised
slightly higher than the rest of the ground. I had never sat up here before,
and I thought now that Michael had been absolutely right. This spot was
perfect. It wasn’t a hill by any means, but standing atop it by the old oak I
could see the entire Quad in every direction. “You c-can see everything
huh-here,” I mumbled.

“I know, right? I love this spot. Most people
don’t notice that the ground here is slightly higher than any other point in
the Quad. Even when it’s full of people, you can see the entire place in every
direction from here,” Michael said. He laid out the blanket he had brought and
set the picnic basket in the middle of it. He sat down on top of it, holding a
hand out to me again to join him.

I was smiling. I took his hand again and
joined him.

“See?” he said. “Even when you’re
sitting down you are still higher than the rest of the land. The jaguar is
supposed to be the centerpiece of the Quad, but I think this oak is the real
centerpiece. The jaguar is higher up because of its pedestal, but this oak has
the real vantage point.”

Before I could stop it, laughter came
bubbling out of me, and I slapped my hand over my mouth to contain it.

Michael raised an eyebrow at me. “You
okay?” he asked.

I nodded. When I could contain myself, I
said, “I’m juh-just great.” After I few deep breaths, I was back under control.
Maybe he thought I was some kind of crazy person, but I was too caught up in my
own hopeful thoughts that it didn’t matter. That was exactly what this spot
was, a perfect
vantage point.
   

I figured I should probably say
something. “You’re v-very observant,” I said.

Blushing, Michael gave me a slanted
grin. “Well, it’s kind of my nature to notice things that most other people
overlook. That’s why I write poetry.”

I didn’t really know what to say to
that, so I didn’t say anything. I was too occupied with looking all around us
as carefully and discreetly as I could. A chill walked up my spine as I came to
the sudden and certain conclusion that the man I was looking for had looked
down from where I was now sitting. A park bench sat not far away from where
Michael had lain out the blanket, on the other side of the large oak
. I just
bet Mr. Psychopath sat there recently, plotting the way he would murder all of
the innocent people just slightly below him. In fact, I just bet—

“You hungry?” Michael asked, breaking
into my thoughts.

I nodded, even though the last time I
had actually felt hunger had been Thursday morning, before I had drawn the
awful sketch in Professor Johnson’s class. Michael pulled sandwiches, bags of
chips and two sodas out of the basket and handed me my share.

I smiled my thanks and we ate in the
quiet of the warm day. Michael was either not big on small talk or knew that I
wasn’t big on it, because he seemed to be perfectly comfortable in the silence
between us. Either way, it is a quality I appreciated. Especially at that
moment.

Then he went and ruined it all by asking
a very reasonable, annoying question.

Michael set his sandwich down on his
paper plate and wiped his hands on a napkin. I shifted uneasily. His green eyes
felt as though they were looking right past my own and down into my soul. It
was an intense and attractive look. I didn’t like it. My soul held important
secrets, and no one needed to be looking in there but me.

“What’s going to happen on Monday?”
Michael asked.

I have never been a quick and easy liar.
My mouth fell open on its own. My rapid heartbeat urged my brain to spit out
something,
anything
that could answer that question. Anything that
wasn’t the truth, of course. I had nothing. So, as I had no answer, I asked a
question instead.

“Wuh-what do you muh-mean?”

I know, I’m a genius.

Michael wasn’t deterred. He just smirked
a little and gave me a look that said I knew exactly what he meant, and he knew
it. I got the sudden urge to stand up and just run away, but I could only
imagine how stupid I would look doing that. Well, if I was good at anything, it
was shutting people out.

It was a struggle not to fold my arms
across my chest. “It’s juh-just no—

My mouth snapped shut as I peered over
Michael’s shoulder. A man had just appeared from around the corner of Blue,
some sixty yards away from where we sat. I had been watching him walk down the
path since he appeared from around the side of Blue, and had only subliminally
taken notice of him. He was too far away to make out any features, but what I
could see of his outfit was that it was plain and simple. What looked like a
black duffel bag was slung over his right shoulder. Had anyone else been
around, they might not have even noticed him. Even the way he moved seemed to
be nondescript. The reason my words had jammed up in my throat was because he
had stopped walking and simply just stood in the middle of the walkway. When he
stopped, I had gotten the completely unfounded feeling that he was looking
right at me. I couldn’t see his eyes at all at this distance, but I could
feel
them. And now, as he stood still as stone sixty yards away from me, the
image of my sketch came flooding back to my mind with surprising clarity. I
squinted, concentrating to compare the silhouettes of the man on the path to
the Shadowman of my drawing. Whether it was because my imagination was running
away from me or not, I don’t know, but they matched. They matched perfectly.