Live and Let Die (7 page)

Phillip yanked open the door to the hall closet and shoved Paula inside. She fell to the floor of the tiny, cramped space and tried to crawl out before he pushed the door closed and locked it.

“Phillip. Phillip! Please, I’m sorry. Please let me out!” She pounded on the door.

“Not another word, Paula,” came Phillip’s muffled response. “You must learn your lesson. Now. Silence.”

Paula clamped her hand over her mouth and cried into it. Even though it was early afternoon outside, it was pitch black inside her prison, save for the tiny crack of light peering through the bottom of the door. Paula drew her legs up to her chin and began to rock back and forth, the cries disappearing into her knees.

•

“Paula. Paula, wake up.”

Paula felt herself being shaken and she took in a deep breath to bring herself back to life. She had fallen asleep against the wall and as her eyes drifted open, she saw Phillip kneeling in front of her, shaking her awake. He stood.

“You need to clean the kitchen. And I expect dinner on the table in exactly one hour.”

Paula swallowed and nodded. “Yes, dear.”

He sniffed and turned to plant himself in front of the TV, which was blaring a documentary about the Titanic. Paula dug the heels of her hands into her eyes to sweep away the crust of sleep and unfurled her knees, wincing from the stiffness. She groaned and stumbled into the kitchen. The creamed corn had congealed in the stainless steel pot and the cheese from the sandwiches had seared itself to the bottom of the heavy black skillet. Paula filled the kitchen sink with scalding soap bubbles, but the hot water was no match for the tears scorching her face.

C
indy Cross stood in the middle of her living room trying to decide if it was too late to run away and join the circus. Looking less like a comfortable space for living and more like the inside of a storage unit, Cindy’s living room was bursting with moving boxes, packing peanuts, and newspaper. The Cross family had moved into The Maples three days ago and slowly but surely—mostly slowly—Cindy was getting the house in order.

Cindy’s sluggish progress was interrupted by the doorbell. She groaned and stepped around the two huge boxes blocking her path. She opened the door to find a stunning Indian woman in skinny black pants and a snug purple T-shirt standing on her doorstep. She was clutching a basket of pastries and a cup holder with two large cups of coffee.

“I saw you move in a few days ago, and if you’re anything like me, you have yet to find the coffee maker,” the woman said in a lilting English accent.

“Okay, I will babysit your kids for a month.”

“Are you kidding?
I
don’t even want to babysit my kids. I wouldn’t wish it on you.”

The two women laughed as Cindy ushered her new neighbor inside.

“Welcome to hell,” Cindy said as she motioned for the woman to follow her into the kitchen, where the small oak kitchen table was littered with discarded bubble wrap and newspaper.

“I swear, I keep house better than this,” Cindy said as she swept the packing remnants off the table and onto the floor with the back of her hand. “Of course my husband skipped off to Charlotte this morning for three days leaving me to deal with this mess. It would serve him right if I sat here until he got back and didn’t lift a finger. I’m Cindy by the way.”

“Mira,” the woman said as she set the pastries and coffee down on the table. She twisted one coffee cup out of the holder and placed it in front of Cindy. “I must say you look rather well put together for someone buried under boxes and with no coffee.”

Cindy laughed, revealing Chiclet-white teeth as she tossed back her strawberry blonde highlights. “Well, thank you. I can see I have you fooled.”

Mira smiled and lifted her coffee cup to her lips. “Welcome to The Maples.”

Cindy sipped her coffee, an almost orgasmic look shading her blue eyes. “Oh, this is tasty. You and I are friends for life.”

Mira smiled. “Isn’t it yummy? It’s from a little bakery in the Pavilion. I get all my sweets there. Carson’s. It’s divine. So where are you from?”

“A little town in Iowa you’ve never heard of. My husband and I met in college—we both went to Mizzou. He’s from here. He’s in IT and we’ve been married eight years, two kids, four and six.”

“Babysitter?”

Cindy nodded. “Babysitter. I mean can you imagine trying to navigate this with two kids tugging after you all day long? I go get them around three. How old are your kids?”

Mira bit off a piece of chocolate croissant. “Eight and five. Remind me to tell you about the park district day camp during the summer. What brings you to the neighborhood?”

“Chris—that’s my husband—his company moved offices and it would have been an hour and a half commute from the old house. The neighborhood seems nice.”

Mira nodded as she took a sip of coffee. “It is. Everyone is quite friendly. We have block parties, holiday gatherings, that type of thing. Very warm and open. What do you do?”

“Substitute teacher in English at the high school level. You?”

“I do marketing work out of the house. Mostly writing.”

Through her kitchen window, Cindy saw Paula drag a broom, bucket of water and mop outside. She watched as Paula took the broom and attacked the concrete driveway with it, sweeping dirt and debris out to the street. Paula then grabbed the mop and swabbed it back and forth across the area she’d just swept. Cindy picked up a muffin and motioned to Paula.

“What’s the story with the chicky across the street?” she said as she tore off a banana nut chunk.

Mira looked out the window and laughed. “Oh, yes. Miss Paula. I wouldn’t bother trying to talk to her. She and her husband are the official neighborhood weirdoes.”

“Oh, yeah?” Cindy leaned forward, her interest piqued. “Tell me more.”

Mira swallowed more coffee. “Moved in about a year ago or so, couldn’t tell you from where. Phillip and Paula. He’s a pharmacist I think, she stays home. No kids. You’ve seen that ‘Stepford Wives’?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, if that sort of thing exists, she’s got it.”

“No kidding?”

“Honest to God.”

“Well, I guess anyone who mops a driveway… ”

“Precisely. I think that’s all she does all day. Clean, I mean. Obsessively.” The two women looked outside in unison to see Paula wiping her brow and wringing out the mop into the bucket.

“They never talk to anyone, have made no effort to get to know
anyone.
Never go out to dinner, never take a vacation. They have a guy mow the lawn once a month, but other than that, I don’t even think a bloody pizza deliveryman comes. He’s home every night at six on the d-o-t, and, from what I can tell, he keeps her on a very short leash. Doesn’t even let her drive. She hauls her shopping cart all over the Pavilion.”

“Good God.”

Mira motioned to the window. “See that housedress she has on?”

“Yeah.”

“Not once have I ever seen her wear a pair of trousers. Just those funny old housedresses. She can’t be much past thirty and she dresses like my mother-in-law. Worse than my mother-in-law. One day, I stupidly locked myself out of the house, and ran over to see if I could use her phone to call a locksmith since Sam was out of town and my oldest had absconded with the spare. Probably buried it in the backyard. I never did bother to look. Anyway, I mean it was like bloody pulling teeth to get her to let me in. Said her husband didn’t like strangers in the house. And it’s not like she hasn’t seen me at the market and around the neighborhood. Finally, she let me in and I have to tell you, the house gave me the bloody chills. I mean, you couldn’t tell anyone actually lived there. Stark white, hardly a picture to be found. Not just neat as a pin, but sterile, cold. I couldn’t wait to get out of there. I sat outside my house for an hour waiting for the locksmith. Better than sitting in there.” Mira shuddered a bit before she resumed eating.

“Wow,” Cindy said. “That does sound like Stepford. What do you think the deal is? I mean, seriously.”

Mira scrunched up her face. “I can’t even begin to speculate. I gave up trying to figure it out.” Mira took a sip of coffee. “Of course… ” her voice trailed off.

Cindy perked up. “What? What?”

“Well, we’re all betting on how long it will be before she snaps and kills him. It’s always the people you least expect.”

Cindy leaned back, nodding as she considered this. “Interesting.”

“Care to lay odds?”

Cindy plunked her chin into palm. “Based on what you told me, I say she goes postal in a year.”

Cindy and Mira looked out of the window again in time to see Paula lug her bucket of water back into her house and shut the door.

“You’re on,” Mira said.

S
he had to get away. She had to get away before they realized what she’d done. The sky above and the ground below were white, but she had to try… had to try and fight her way through the swirl of whiteness around her.

She looked down. Thick, syrupy blood was oozing into the stark white snow. She screamed.

She had to get away.

Paula jumped and shot straight up off the couch where she had been dozing.

“Oh, my goodness,” she said aloud as she tried to catch her breath. Paula swung her legs around until both feet were planted on her white carpet. She shook her head and jammed her hands over her eyes. The white carpet was too much like the white snow in her dream. She looked at her watch. It was noon and after her morning chores, which included her weekly mop and sweep of the front walk, Paula had collapsed onto the couch and fallen into an unexpected nap. As she did so many nights, she’d lain awake the night before, staring at the ceiling, trying to stave off sleep. She was confused though. The dreams usually only came at night; she’d never had one during the daytime.

She never told Phillip about the torment sleep brought to her. He would put her back in the hospital and she didn’t want that. Anything but that. The constant wails and moans echoing from some far-off room. The medications. The cold that trickled into your bones and stayed, no matter how much you drew that threadbare gray blanket around your shoulders. Shaking her head to wipe away that awful possibility, Paula went to the kitchen for a glass of water. She was still somewhat disoriented from her dream, and as she pulled a glass down from the cabinet, it slipped clean through her trembling fingers and tiny pieces of glass went skating across the floor.

“Oh, dear.” She scurried to the laundry room where she kept her mop and broom. She swept up the shards and deposited them into the trash. Her doorbell rang; it would be Carlene coming to color her hair. Distraught, Paula crossed the room to open the front door and found Carlene standing there in a gold tank dress that hugged the rolls of fat jiggling across her hulking frame.

“Hey, girl, how you doin’?” Carlene said in her booming contralto. Her bright red lipstick punctuated the slippery yellow of her teeth and rich mahogany of her skin.

“I’m fine, Carlene, how are you?” Paula asked as she ran her hands down the length of her head to the bun at the nape of her neck.

Carlene cracked her gum and walked toward the kitchen to unpack her supplies. “Girrrl, I had me a date last night with a fine brother. We goin’ out again tomorrow. This could be the one,” she said as she set up on the table, her ruby lips curling into a smile.

Paula gave a disinterested smile as she leaned against the counter. Carlene always thought she’d found the one, so it was hard to get excited.

“Now.” Carlene’s numerous gold bracelets rattled as she sat Paula down into a kitchen chair and draped a smock over her tan cotton housedress.

“Are we doing the usual today?” she asked, tapping one long, red airbrushed nail against the wooden trim on the chair.

Paula nodded. “Yes, the usual,” she said as Carlene began to undo Paula’s knot and rake her fingers through the long black strands.

“Why don’t we try something different? I could cut it into a really cute flip? Or we could bob it?” Carlene said holding up Paula’s silky tresses.

“No. Just the regular touch-up.”

“Girl, you got the perfect face for all the really cute styles right now. I don’t know why you don’t try something different. I’ll bet your husband would like it. You know, spice things up a little?”

Paula gave Carlene a feeble smile. “Phillip doesn’t like spice.”

Carlene took one fingernail and scratched the scalp underneath her own black and blonde flip. “Alright girl, we’ll do what we always do. But I’ma keep on working on you. One of these days, we’re gonna get you a new ‘do.”

Every six weeks, Carlene came to the house on Red Rose Lane to color Paula’s gray roots black. Phillip had discovered some strands of gray around her temples and commented he didn’t like it. He found Carlene in the phone book and paid her double to come to the house and color Paula’s hair every six weeks.

“You know I don’t think you’ve ever told me about your husband. What does he do?”

Paula sighed to herself. She always hated people asking her a lot of questions about her personal life. “He’s a pharmacist.”

“Oh, that’s nice,” Carlene said as she began to section off Paula’s hair. “How did you all meet?”

“We were high school sweethearts.”

Carlene nodded her head as she soaked up that bit of information. “How sweet. You been married all that time?”

Paula squirmed in her chair. “No, he was married before, but she died. We reconnected after that.”

Carlene’s fingers separated the wet black locks of Paula’s hair as she worked the color into it. “That’s a shame. But I guess if she hadn’t a died, you all wouldn’t have hooked back up.” She placed a plastic cap over Paula’s head and leaned against the sink. “I guess it’s like they say—everything happens for a reason.”

I
t was finally done.

For the first time in months, Sondra felt like she could relax. She’d finished the final edit. Now all she had to do was wait for the madness to commence in the fall; premieres, festivals, award season, press. In the meantime, she was going to get lost on a beach in California for a few weeks.