“Are you Olivia Kaspen?” the older of the officers asks. He is dead-eyed and pockmarked.
“Yes. My dog?” I try peering around them, but their uniformed bodies create a barrier between me and my front door.
“May we see some identification?” I pull my driver’s license out of my purse and hand it to him.
Satisfied, the officer steps aside. “Your neighbor has your dog,” he says a little more kindly. I breathe a sigh of relief.
I check to make sure Caleb is tagging behind me and step over the threshold. I don’t know what I am expecting to see. But, it wasn’t this. Everything a thief would want to steal is still there; television, DVD player, stereo. I blink confused and then my eyes catch the chaos formerly known as my home. Everything is smashed. Everything. Pictures, knickknacks, lamps. My sofa had been slashed open and the stuffing is pooling out like white vomit. I hear myself make a noise that is part sob—part wail. Caleb takes hold of my hand and I cling to him. I move from room to room my eyes bleeding tears as I survey the damage, or rather the annihilation of everything that I own. My coffee table is the only piece of furniture that remains unbroken; however, the intruder has taken the time to carve the word “SLUT” into the wood.
“This doesn’t look like a robbery,” I hear Caleb say to one of the officers. I slip into the bedroom before I can hear his reply. I step over my mutilated clothes and into my closet.
My memory box is laying topsy-turvy on the floor. I drop to my knees and begin rummaging through the bric-a-brac, running my fingers over each object in relief as I recover it. Almost everything is there. Almost. I press my palms to my eye sockets and rock on my haunches. Why? Why? Only one person would have a use for what is missing. She is the devil’s spawn, evil, with red hair and motives as big as Ursula the sea witches’ ass.
My head automatically turns in Caleb’s direction. Time. I was out of time. She was on her way to his condo now, no doubt, the evidence clutched in her hands. I start shaking. I am not ready. I can’t say goodbye yet.
“Miss?” the police officer is standing at the closet door, looking down at me. “We need you to fill out a report, to let us know what they took?” I see Caleb push past him and walk carefully around my ruined belongings. He lifts me from the floor and leads me back into the living room, his hands are like anchors on my arms.
I feel anger bubbling beneath my eyes, my nose, and my mouth. It is coursing through my limbs and doing a tap dance across my abdomen. I want to grab that bitch by her skinny little chicken neck and squeeze until she pops. I grope with my calm and turn to the policemen.
“They didn’t take anything,” I say waving my hand at the television. “This wasn’t a robbery.”
“Do you know anyone who would want to do something like this, Ms. Kaspen? An ex-boyfriend perhaps?” he says stealing a glance at Caleb. Did I? I grind my teeth. I can tell him everything right here, right now—beat the bitch to the punch.
Caleb is looking at me intently. I open my mouth to say something, but he beats me to it.
“Tell them about Jim, Olivia,” he says gently.
Jim? No—Jim would never do something this precise. No, this was a woman’s work. The detail impeccable.
“It wasn’t Jim,” I say. “Let’s go get Pickles.”
After they leave, Caleb takes my hand and tenderly says, “I want you to stay at my place tonight.”
I have no intention of doing any such thing but I am on mute until I can stew up a plan. We lock up and go over to Rosebud’s apartment, where Pickles throws herself at me with rabid hysteria. Rosebud clucks around me like a mother hen, touching and prodding until I grab both of her hands and assure her I am fine.
“Wait here,” she says disappearing into the kitchen. I know what is coming. The moment she first laid eyes on me, Rosebud decided that I needed taking care of. Her first gift had been a tarnished hunting knife that belonged to her dear, dead Bernie.
“If someone breaks in, you use this,” she jabbed the knife in demonstration, slicing at the air, and then handed it to me, hilt first. I was honored and mortified, but ended up stashing the knife underneath my bed.
Now, every time she sees me, she runs back into her apartment to fetch some half-eaten or lovingly used item she had set aside for me. I don’t have the heart to refuse.
She stumbles out of the kitchen carrying a massive bag of oranges and pushes them against my chest. Caleb raises an eyebrow in question and I shrug.“Thanks Rosie.”
“No proby,” she winks at me. And then in a very loud whisper, “You steal this boy’s heart. Make him marry you.” I glance up at Caleb who is pretending to study Rose’s framed needlework. He is trying not to smile.
I kiss Rosebud’s wrinkled cheek and we leave. Caleb takes my oranges and gives me a smile that I don’t understand.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“Tell me...”
He shrugs. “Her—you. It was very sweet.”
I blush.
We climb into his car and ease onto the highway. I count the streetlights tying to think of a way to steer him away from Leah.
When we pull off at his exit, I am swearing under my breath. We are blocks away from his high-rise and if I don't want to be caught. I have to do something—and fast.
“Can you pull over?”
“What? Are you sick?” I shake my head as he steers us into a shopping plaza. “Olivia?”
We are parked helter-skelter in a Wendy’s parking lot, and I am inappropriately thinking about a Frosty. Then I get an idea.
“Can we go camping? To that place you saw in that magazine?”
After we get a Frosty? I add in my head.
Caleb’s brow furrows and I wither in my seat. He is going to say no, tell me I am weird and crazy.
“Please,” I say closing my eyes, “I just want to be far, far away…” from Leah and the truth.
“It’s an eight hour drive. Are you sure you want to do that?”
My eyes snap open and I nod fiercely.
“I can take some time off of work. We can buy what we need when we get there. Let‘s just go…please.”
He is rolling things over in his mind, I can see it in the slow movement of his eyes-he looks at his hands, at me, at the steering wheel, and then he nods.
“Okay. If that’s what you want...”