Obsession, Deceit and Really Dark Chocolate (16 page)

“I didn’t know Scott very well,” Mary Ann said carefully, “but he didn’t seem like the kind of guy who would be good at doing things like…well, like listening.”

“He was awful at listening. He was awful at a lot of things—academics, fiscal responsibility, sobriety, fidelity—but he
was
good at making mixed drinks. I think I married him for his lemon drops…or maybe I married him because I drank too
many
of his lemon drops.”

Mary Ann eyed me suspiciously. “Were you really that drunk when you got married?”

“No, my blood-alcohol level wasn’t high enough to account for my decision to enter into unholy matrimony, although I do blame it for our choice in officiants.”

Mary Ann giggled. “I forgot about the female Elvis impersonator. I kind of wish I had been there to see that.”

“She actually looked a lot like the male Elvis impersonators wandering around Vegas, only she was a little more butch.”

“So what was the real reason you married Scott? I always wanted to know but I was afraid that if I asked it would sound like I didn’t approve or something.”

I leaned my head back against the sofa and pondered her question. I had been divorced for almost ten years now and I still wasn’t a hundred percent sure why I had specifically chosen to marry Scott. Maybe it had been the fact that making cocktails was just a small part of a greater talent that Scott rightfully laid claim to. That talent was for escapism. Scott knew how to distract a girl. Sometimes it was with a spontaneous vacation, a wild party or an even wilder lovemaking session. Regardless, you could always count on him to support you in your quest to avoid dealing with anything that was too unpleasant or too real. On the other hand, maybe I had just married him because he was there and willing.

“I don’t know why I married him,” I admitted. “I just know that it didn’t help me deal with the loss of my dad.”

“How did you end up coping with that? You would never talk to me about it.”

“That’s another long story,” I said with a laugh. “As you know, I was attending USF, and while I was doing pretty well in all my courses, I was the absolute
star
of my creative-writing class, if I do say so myself. But after dad died, my work began to suffer. Eventually my professor asked me to stay after class. I thought she was going to ream me for handing in a paper a day late, but instead she just sat me down and looked at me for what felt like forever. Finally she just said ‘Tell me.’ And just like that I fell apart. I was crying and talking all at the same time, which probably made it difficult to understand what I was saying, but she never once stopped me to ask for a clarification. She just passed me the Kleenex and listened.”

“Wow, your professor must have been an incredible person. Is she still teaching at USF?”

I shook my head. “I’m talking about Melanie Allen…now O’Reilly.”

“And now you’re helping her!” Mary Ann exclaimed. “That is so neat!”

I studied a brown color variance on Mary Ann’s hard-wood floor.

“Sophie? It is neat, isn’t it?”

I remained silent. I hadn’t really thought about that moment for a very long time, but now I could see it unfold in my mind’s eye as clearly as I could see the popcorn I was now shoving into my mouth. There I was, sitting in Melanie’s office shedding enough tears to fill one of the Great Lakes and she was just nodding and listening. And then I had stopped crying and I let my inner bitch slip out and my bitch was
pissed.

“I want to make someone pay for my father’s death,” I had hissed. “If only there was a doctor who screwed up, or an ambulance that didn’t arrive in time, or…or…a company that was knowingly distributing products that increased people’s chances of having a heart attack. I just want a villain that I can rip apart.”

Melanie had sat back in her chair and regarded me thoughtfully. “How would you go about ripping apart this villain?”

“I’d kill him,” I said without hesitation. “But not before making him suffer in the most horrible ways imaginable, and I’d be sure that the whole world knew what an asshole he was. Hell, maybe I wouldn’t even have to kill him. By the time I was done mentally and physically tormenting him he’d probably want to take his own life!”

What I was saying was more than a little dark and incredibly insane. That’s why I hadn’t voiced those thoughts before. I didn’t want people referring to me as “that dark crazy chick.” Yet there I was confessing my most evil and whacked fantasies to a woman who wore a gold crucifix and had a silver Christian fish attached to the back of her car. I reluctantly made eye contact with her, expecting to see evidence of her horror and disapproval, but instead she just looked thoughtful. Eventually she took a deep breath and said the most shocking thing imaginable: “Do it.”

“Excuse me?” I had asked.

“Destroy a villain. Get your revenge.” She reached into her desk drawer and pulled out a three-and-a-half-inch floppy and handed it over. “You’re a writer, Sophie, so write it up. Create a bad guy. Make him responsible for whatever you want him to be responsible for and then make him pay the way you see fit. It’s your story and no one is going to be grading it, so you can make up any rules you want. You’re the one in control of this.”

“You want me to make up a fictional character for the sole purpose of killing him?”

“If you think he should pay for his crimes with his life, then yes. But be sure to make it into a story. Any story that has a good villain deserves a good hero…or heroine.” She gave me a meaningful look. “Be sure that you thoroughly develop your protagonist. Give readers a reason to root for her. She doesn’t have to be perfect, just human. If she’s troubled, then provide insight into what those troubles are and how they originated. Explain the source of her anger and her motivations for going after the villain. That part’s important, Sophie,” Melanie had said, her tone getting sharper, underscoring her point. “Readers need to understand a protagonist’s motivations even if the protagonist herself doesn’t.”

I had gone home that day armed with the floppy disk, and for the first time since my father’s death I had turned down Scott’s offers of distraction. Instead, I had sat down at my computer and started typing. I created Alice Wright, a journalism major with an enormous amount of emotional baggage who was investigating her father’s homicide. The killer was a horrible man, although I had stopped short of making him pure evil. I didn’t want this to be a cartoon villain; this story was too important for one-dimensional characters.

Then a funny thing happened. While creating my fictional world I found less desire to escape the real world I lived in. I don’t want to say that I became more centered (that sounds a bit too Taoist for me), but I did feel calmer and I was ready to cope with my life—even if Dad was no longer a part of it. Every week or so I would take my newly written chapters to Melanie, who offered me advice and constructive criticism, and after two years of writing and rewriting I had finished my first novel. I also had a divorce decree, so there were two milestones to celebrate.

I never did try to get the Alice Wright book published. I couldn’t give some agent or editor the opportunity to reject something of mine so deeply personal. Instead I stashed the disk in a safety deposit box and spent the next year writing yet another book. It was about an investigative journalist named Alicia Bright. In that book Alicia had to track down this lovable but slightly deranged murderess who took pleasure in castrating and killing bartenders who specialized in making lemon drops.

If I hadn’t had Melanie to talk to back then I would have exploded. Now Melanie was asking me to save her, and how had I handled her request? I had made it about me and my feelings regarding Anatoly. I bit into my lower lip and replayed Melanie’s words one more time in my head. “Readers need to understand a protagonist’s motivations even if the protagonist herself doesn’t.”

I was the protagonist in my own life story and I had totally misread my motivations, or rather I had been right the first time around. This wasn’t just about besting Anatoly (that was just a really great bonus). The truth was that I wouldn’t be doing any of this if a big part of me didn’t feel compelled to do everything in my power to put Melanie’s mind at ease. If
that
was the goal, then I needed to get past the pettiness and start working with Anatoly a little better, even if he wasn’t working well with me. I would call him tomorrow and tell him about my meeting with Tiff and then we would find out who had killed Melanie’s husband.

“Sophie? Are you okay?”

I pulled myself out of my contemplation and forced a smile. “I’m fine. Let’s just start this movie before all the popcorn’s gone.”

10

In the Andes there’s an entire order of monks who have taken a vow of silence. They spend their days in peaceful and cooperative coexistence. If nothing else, this proves that communication is overrated.

—C’est La Mort

WHEN I LEFT MARY ANN’S IT WAS NEARING ELEVEN O’CLOCK, AND IT WASN’T
until I was sitting at a stoplight on Geary that I remembered I had turned off my cell phone while being pampered by Tiff and had neglected to turn it back on. I corrected the problem and cursed under my breath when I noted that I had two missed calls, both from Melanie. I tapped the button for voice mail and put my phone on loudspeaker.

“Sophie, it’s Melanie. Could you call me when you have a moment? I think it just hit me that Eugene’s not coming back. I’m alone and…he’s not coming back. You’re already doing so much for me and I have no right to burden you with more, but I need to talk to someone…well, if you aren’t too busy could you call? I’ll try your home number.”

Then the second message: “I just tried your home and you’re not there. I didn’t leave a message.” Then a strangled sob. “I know this is simply a panic attack. But I’m alone, Sophie. I’m sixty years old and I’ve lost the only man who ever loved me. I loved him, too, but I treated him so appallingly. I’ll be all right, but I do need someone to talk me through this. Call me…
please.
”

Shit. My phone told me she had placed that call five hours ago. I had just promised myself that I was going to be there for Melanie, but when she had needed a shoulder, where had I been? At Mary Ann’s, watching Errol Flynn redistribute wealth in Sherwood Forest. I punched in her number but only got the answering machine. Great, she had probably cried herself to sleep.

When I got home I changed into something more comfortable and then plopped down on my couch, Mr. Katz curled up next to me. “I really wish I had gotten that call earlier,” I whispered to him. I checked the time again, eleven-twenty-five, way too late to call. I called, anyway.

“Hello, you’ve reached the O’Reilly residence. Please leave your message after the beep.”

“Melanie, it’s Sophie again. You’re probably asleep right now, but if you’re awake, could you pick up? I’m worried about you.”

Nothing. I hung up the phone and stared at the wall. I had this vague feeling that something was wrong, and that it was more than just Melanie being upset about Eugene. But this feeling was based on nothing. Melanie probably
was
asleep. She might have even taken a sleeping pill, which is what I would have done in her position. I just needed to relax and call her tomorrow. I clicked on the television and f lipped through the channels until I got to Comedy Central. Laughter and sleep is what I needed tonight. I could be a good friend tomorrow.

At exactly 8:00 a.m. the next morning the shrill ring of my phone jarred me out of a very nice dream involving both Johnny Depp and George Clooney. Without opening my eyes I fumbled for the phone and pressed it to my ear. “This had better be good.”

“It’s not good,” Anatoly growled.

“You.”

“Yes, me. When were you planning on telling me about your meeting with Tiff Strauss?”

“Right around the time you told me that Melanie had found a letter written by Peter Strauss to Eugene.”

“I was going to tell you…right after my interview with Tiff.”

“Uh-huh. Next you’ll be trying to sell me the Brooklyn Bridge. And what’s the deal with you calling me at 8:00 a.m.? Do I need to add passive-aggressive to your list of character f laws?”

“Passive-aggressive people try to upset those around them in subtle ways. I’m not trying to be subtle.”

I hung up the phone.

Two seconds later it rang again. “I wasn’t done,” he snapped when I finally answered.

“I was.” I hung up again.

The third time he called I let the answering machine pick up. “Sophie, I know you can hear me. Pick up the phone!”

I put a pillow over my head.

“If you don’t pick up I’m going to come over, and this time I’m not going to pretend that you look good without your makeup.”

I snatched up the receiver. “You used to tell me that I looked sexy in the morning!”

“You do, when you’re naked. I don’t suppose there’s any chance of that now, is there?”

“I’m going to hang up again….”

“Don’t. I talked to Tiff last night and we need to compare notes.”

“I won’t compare notes or anything else until I’ve had at least two cups of coffee. You know that.”

“So we’ll meet at Starbucks. I’ll even buy the first round.”

“Of coffee? Am I supposed to be impressed by that?”

“I’ll meet you at the Starbucks on Polk in one hour,” Anatoly said, ignoring my last comment.

“Make it three hours. I have to finish up with Johnny and George and I don’t want to feel rushed.”

“Johnny and George?”

“The men who were entertaining me when you called.” Let him think I was having ménage à trois. That should be enough to screw up his morning.

“Are you talking about Johnny Depp and George Clooney?” Anatoly asked with a laugh. “Are you still dreaming about them?”

“Shut up. I’ll see you at eleven.” I slammed down the phone, squeezed my eyes shut and tried to reconjure the dream. Three seconds later my cell phone rang. I snatched it from my bedside where it had been charging without even bothering to check the number on the screen. “Why can’t you just leave me alone!”