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He was The Perfect Guy.
At least, in my head he was.
I had plenty of time to imagine what Neil was like as I lay in his bed at night, as I sat at his dinner table eating my cereal every morning, as I brushed my teeth in his bathroom.
It was how I dealt.
That, and I’d begun to write him letters that I never sent. Not that I could have sent them, even if I wanted to. I had no address for him, not even an e-mail address.
Every night, before I went to sleep, I wrote him a letter in a notebook that I kept by the bed. Call it journaling, Anne Frank style. Her journal was written to an imaginary person she called Kitty, mine was written to a real person named Neil.
It helped me feel more connected to another person, to this man whose home I was living in.
I wrote to Neil about my day, about what I was feeling, about anything going on with the house.
I thought of it as a kind of therapy, because while I was telling Neil about myself, I was also learning things about myself. Things that I hadn’t ever really taken time to think about. Things that I was sometimes surprised to realize. Most importantly, though, I had stopped focusing so much energy on all the things Paul and I would never have the chance to do.
I was becoming my own person again, and I was moving past that place where I’d been the sad woman whose fiancé was dead.
I was more than that.
And I was determined to be more than that.
I’d even started running every morning again.
How could I not, with all those medals mocking me whenever I looked in the bedroom mirror? Fortunately for me, Neil’s house was in an area that was conducive to running.
I planned on hitting one of the local races soon, but I wanted to get a little faster before I ventured that far. I didn’t want to make a fool of myself or besmirch my good name in the running community. Not that I was sure they would even remember me, so long had it been since I’d actually been to a race.
A harsh, unflattering glow flooded the bathroom when I flicked the light switch, granting me the most ungracious welcome as I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror. I turned away quickly, deciding that merely washing the sweat off my face wouldn’t cut it.
I peeled off my clothes, throwing them into a damp heap in the corner. That was something else that had taken some getting used to—using someone else’s shower. Hotel showers are strange enough, simply because they aren’t yours. Someone else’s shower is strange because not only is it not yours, it’s someone else’s. It’s a very odd thing to pull back the curtain and see a half-empty bottle of men’s body wash and various shampoos that have been left behind.
When I’d gotten into the house, one of the first things I’d done was scrub the tub and shower walls with a very potent, very abrasive cleanser. It wasn’t quite strong enough to burn all of my nose hairs, but it was pretty close. Once the shower was sufficiently scrubbed and sparkling, I stocked it with my own shampoos and conditioners and body wash.
But I also put his back.
Somehow, I didn’t feel right totally displacing Neil’s things. This was still his house, and I was just a visitor here. Plus it kept me from feeling so alone. It’s amazing, isn’t it, the mind games you can play with yourself?
Once I’d showered, I wrapped up in one of the big, fluffy towels from the stack in the hall linen closet. I walked from the bathroom to the bedroom to find some clothes, thinking distractedly about how to blow up my poor excuse for a car.
Hmmmm. Wonder if any of Neil’s giant bullets would work? Or maybe he had some explosives somewhere in the house…
Probably he kept them in the same place that he’d stashed all the pictures of himself.
I found that terribly frustrating. Much as I hated having my picture taken myself, I should have given the guy a little more slack. But how in the world does somebody manage to not have a single picture of himself somewhere in his house?
Even I had a couple of snapshots that included my face floating somewhere in the sea of faces grouped together for a photo.
Even I, who was generally a reluctant party to any moment involving a camera that I wasn’t personally holding and controlling.
Squish.
I took another step further into the bedroom.
Squish.
What the?
I took more deliberate steps through the room, the carpet making squishing and sucking noises under my bare feet with each movement.
Okay, now I was getting really worried. I knew there was a water heater in a small closet-like space a few feet from the bed, and it seemed like the only logical explanation for all of this water.
Oh, dear God, don’t let it be the water heater, please don’t let it be the water heater, I prayed silently as I approached the door.
I knew, in all reality, that nothing would change between that particular second and the instant my fingers closed around the knob; but some small part of me was still hoping for a miracle.
A very small, very delusional part.
I opened the door and found an absolute mess in the small closet. I couldn’t tell exactly where it was coming from on the thing, but the water heater was definitely leaking.
Call me ignorant, but at that particular moment, I had no idea what to do. This wasn’t the kind of thing that was supposed to happen when you were staying in someone else’s house. This was the kind of thing that was only supposed to happen to people with their own houses, with husbands there to fix the damn thing. Or husbands there to act like they knew what the hell they were looking at and then call the plumber, claiming to be too busy to fix the damn thing themselves.
My mind was racing, my heart was going at a rate rapid enough to rival a hummingbird’s wings, and I wanted to throw up. Had I done something that made this thing burst or leak or whatever it was doing that it obviously wasn’t supposed to be doing?
I felt sick and guilty and panicked.
Neil was going to blame me.
I don’t know where the thought came from, but all of a sudden it was there. And, for only being a thought, it seemed as loud as if someone had shouted it into the room.
Neil was going to blame me.
Of course he would. I was the one here, watching his house, and I’d let this happen.
Granted, I hadn’t actually been present, but it had still happened on my watch. And I had absolutely no idea of what I should do.
I needed to call Ray. It seemed logical enough to me. At least he might know what to do, which was definitely a step up from standing there, staring at the thing like a helpless idiot. My feet were almost rooted to the floor, sunken into the spongy carpet, which seemed to have absorbed enough water to fill a bathtub.
Oh, God, the carpet! What was I going to do about the carpet?
Somehow, the realization that I was going to have to deal not only with a defunct water heater, but flooded carpeting, as well, sent me over the edge.
Not just a little over the edge, either.
A lot over the edge.
I turned away from the water heater and barely made it two steps before I threw up. Right there, all over the ruined carpet.
Followed immediately by crying, of course.
Naturally. Isn’t that what one does?
I sat down in the middle of the room, freshly showered and wrapped in a towel, and cried until I had nothing left to cry.
I must have fallen asleep at some point, because the next thing I knew, I was being awakened by the sound of the doorbell being rung. Not once, not twice, but repeatedly.
Whoever was out there was either determined to be let in or determined to lose an index finger and have it shoved up their—
I felt as though I had a hangover.
My head was pounding, my eyes were swollen, and I was completely disoriented. The room was dark now that the sun had gone down, and the open windows that had previously been a source of natural light were now letting in only the soft glow of streetlights.
How long had I been asleep? I wondered, staring into the grayness that seemed to envelop the room.
And who in the name of all that was good and holy was ringing the doorbell?
I rolled off my side and put my hand down on the carpet to sit up. The carpet sucked my hand into the depths of its soaked pile, and I remembered everything all in a flash that had the force of a slap across the face.
I took a deep breath—a deep, mind cleansing breath to battle the panic I could start to feel forming a knot in my chest.
And held it in.
Something smelled awful.
Something smelled absolutely foul.
Apparently, the crying fit I’d had earlier had precluded any post-throw-up damage control; and the puddle of it was now fermenting on the carpet.
And still the doorbell kept right on ringing.
I’d been wrapped in a towel when I’d fallen asleep earlier, and now it was sort of bunched up around me and under me—not really on me anymore. I was going to have to throw on some clothes before I went to answer the door, so whoever it was—persistent as they might be—was going to have to wait.
Period.
I picked myself up off the floor and made a mad dash for the robe I kept hanging on the back of the bedroom door. That was going to have to do, since the maniac doorbell-ringer couldn’t seem to keep his fingers to himself.
As I sprinted down the hall to the front door, I plotted ways to break that finger and possibly all of the other digits on the hands of whomever was doing the bell-ringing.
Someone was going to regret this.
Someone was going to wish they’d been a little more appreciative of ten functioning fingers.
Someone was—Ray.
“Nice robe, sweets, but hopefully you don’t always answer the door wearing that.” Ray grinned at me and thrust a bottle of wine in my hands. “Oh, and I realize it might be all natural and organic, but you might want to rethink the barf doubling as a hair gel. It kind of reeks,” he added, fanning the air and bending slightly to kiss my forehead as he came through the door.
I was still standing there with my mouth open, feeling somehow robbed now that I knew I wasn’t going to get to yell at anyone or break any bones.
I blinked and shut my mouth, realizing it might not smell so hot in there, considering the afternoon’s events. Mental note to make a bathroom detour to brush the teeth.
“Rough day, Zoë?” Ray asked over his shoulder as he walked toward the kitchen, presumably to comb the contents of the fridge. It was his first stop anytime he came over, so I usually made sure I had an ample supply of Fig Newtons chilling out in there. Not that normal people generally kept cookies in their refrigerators, but this—as I’d learned over the past several months—was how Ray McPherson preferred them. And Ray was not normal.
I rolled my eyes and shuffled along behind him.
He had no idea how rough.
“Little bit.”
“So tell me about it,” he said around a mouthful of cookie. The man wasted no time.
I blew out a puff of air, wondering where to start.
“That bad, huh?” he asked, still seeming extremely upbeat. Not that my mood was really anything to compare it to.
I set the wine bottle down on the counter and took his hand. “Follow me, Ray McPherson, and behold the indescribable bliss that has been my day,” I said as I led him out of the kitchen and down the hall.
Showing him would be much easier than explaining everything.
“Where are we going, Zoë Trent, and why are we using full names?”
“Just wait,” I said over my shoulder as we neared the bedroom.
“Oh, hey. Um, yeah, Zoë, I love ya and all, but—” Ray stopped the minute his feet hit the destroyed carpet. Even in shoes, the difference was obvious. That, and the overpowering smell of the puddle I’d left on the floor left both of us at a momentary loss for words.
“What the?” Ray turned to me, his eyes wide in amazement, his nose crinkled involuntarily in disgust.
I wasn’t sure whether to answer, cry, or throw up again, because I had the overwhelming urge to do all three. I decided that the best thing was simply to tell him what happened. Then maybe he would be able to tell me if more crying or throwing up again were warranted or just a waste of energy.
“The water heater. In the closet there,” I stammered, pointing in the direction of the door that stood open. “It exploded? Or leaked? Or something?” It might have been an irrefutable fact given the state of the carpet, but it came out sounding like a question, simply because I still wasn’t sure what exactly had happened to the water heater.
Or why.
The carpet made very odd, very loud wet noises under Ray’s feet as he walked across the room.
“Hmmm,” he grunted and scratched his head, working from the back, to the right side, to the hair that ended just above his forehead. He let out a huge burst of air, then ran the back of his right hand back and forth under his chin, skipping up his jaw line to scratch his beard.
And then he started laughing.
“I’m glad you think this is funny, Ray, but I fail to see the humor in all of this. Look,” I said, gesturing wildly at the room around me. “Look at this room! What am I supposed to do? This isn’t the kind of thing that’s supposed to happen when you’re just watching someone’s house. This isn’t the kind of thing that’s supposed to happen to women who are already teetering on the edge.”
The crying had started again.
And the snot.
My God, the snot.
Why is it that when you’re already reduced to extreme indignity, you’re taken down even more by a seemingly unending stream of mucus?
