I got home and immediately made the call, hating that I had to even do it but wanting it over with.
My dad taught me you should do the most difficult task in your day early instead of putting it off – then it was one less burden to deal with. I should’ve followed that advice always, but had forgotten over the last few years. I’ve decided I’m re-adopting that motto.
“Hennessy here.”
My heart is in my throat as I stammer,
“H-hi. I’m calling for Ray Iadanza. He asked me to tell you he’ll be back in one week and will take care of what he owes you in full the day he’s home. He’s out of town working for Killian Coulter.”
There’s nothing but background noise for a beat and then, “Who is this?”
“Violet. I’m calling for Ray. I didn’t know anything about what he owed you, it’s not my thing, I’m just doing him a favor by making this call.” I want that crystal clear, so I won’t suddenly be on the hook for this debt, too.
“Okay, Violet,” he says softly.
Then nothing. Dead air.
“Okay, well, thank you.”
“Thanks for calling,” he replies.
I hang up and find I need to sit. My knees have turned to jelly and I’m clawing at my throat as I lower myself onto the couch before I force myself to breathe in and out slowly.
Out with the bad air. In with the Ray-free air. Out with the bad.
Phew.
That whole thing was unsettling. I don’t know the guy to know his usual demeanor, but he seemed thrown by my phone call. I half-expected threats or demands that Ray turn up sooner with the money. Or more questions. The task felt too easy and that’s left me wary.
I decide to put that unsettled and nervous energy to good use and stay up until after one in the morning, cleaning the apartment, pulling his remaining stuff out, and putting it all on my dining room table in organized piles.
I find his missing bank card sitting in the bottom of his nightstand, underneath the only remaining necktie as I’d packed the other two for him. I glare at it and then I put it on the dining room table.
By the time I’m done, I’ve resolved myself. This is my apartment; this is my life here. He’s gonna be the one to go. He’s got just a few bags and boxes worth of clothes and stuff and that’s it.
All the furniture is mine. He came here with clothes and little else when he moved in. He’d sold anything of value he’d bought, like his video game console, his two guitars that I’d bought him (an electric one for our second Christmas, an acoustic one for his birthday the first year). All that was here was some clothes, some tools that he used for work (which I bought on my credit card, but wasn’t about to keep) some CDs and a few odds and ends. I’ve decided to use my car after finding a folded up twenty in his sock drawer that I can use for extra gas so I can ask the mailroom guys for some cardboard boxes that I’ll use tomorrow to pack him up.
If only I could find that envelope of nude Polaroid pictures he took of me. Back when I loved him. Back when I’d do anything he wanted. Anything to make him happy.
I start to feel bone tired. At least tomorrow is Friday and I’ll have the weekend ahead of me. Ray-free.
***
I leave early and take my car to the cheap $4 spray and wash place on my way there so I can get the dirt, junk, and stink off.
When I get to work, there’s a vase with a dozen roses on my desk. Blue roses. It makes me stop and teeter on my high-heeled booties.
“Ooh, look!” Cammy, my cubicle neighbor bounces excitedly, popping up over the half-wall between our workstations.
“Who is it from? Anniversary? Your hunky fiancé in the doghouse? Hm?”
I feel shaky, wanting to chuck the bouquet into the trash, thinking Ray has done this with Killian’s credit card, trying to buy some sort of good will with me. The blue roses surprise me as it doesn’t seem like Ray’s thing. They had to cost a fortune. There’s a card in a black matte envelope. The vase is even black. Sleek. Classy.
I open the envelope with Cammy watching me.
The glossy white card has thick black ink.
“Violet roses for their namesake.
Roses are usually red but these ones are blue.
I hope they make you happy and smile, too.
Lame? Should I have gone for a limerick or something?
This whole thing is coming off corny but I have one card and wrote on it in ink instead of pencil.
So poetry isn’t my forte, but I’d hoped to make you smile the way you smiled three years ago…
I gave very explicit directions to the florist so please send me a picture of your delivery with your beautiful smile in that picture so I’ll know –
1: that they did it right and
2: that I made a beautiful woman smile and show me her adorable dimples.
Killian
“Well?” Cammy asks in a high-pitched voice. “You’re blushing!”
“Yeah, it’s kind of… personal.” I shrug.
“Of course it is. No juicy gossip for Cammy. The fiancé? You don’t have his picture on your desk anymore. Is this a different man? Is he half as hot as that blond?”
I pinch an imaginary zipper across my lips and wink at her.
She beams. “Don’t make me put my sleuth hat on, chickie. Oh, and there’s donuts in the break room.”
“Thanks, Cammy.” I smile and take a picture of the roses. And then I take a selfie in front of them and check it out.
My smile drops. What am I doing? What was he doing?
Three years. He remembers me from that night? I didn’t think he did.
He’s Ray’s boss now, technically, and why is he sending me flowers and asking for a selfie and talking about a smile from three years ago?
It would be rude to ignore his request, but why would he even make that request? And goofy poetry? Calling my dimples adorable? I don’t know what to make of this.
8
Killian
It’s been an interesting week watching things unfold with both Raymond Iadanza and Violet Rose Gates.
It started getting interesting Sunday night when I got the alert that he’d taken out a second five-hundred-dollar advance from a casino ATM within twelve hours. It had begun.
His descent.
I knew it wouldn’t take long, that the lights and action of Atlantic City along with the other traps I’d set in advance would reel in an addictive personality like his. I intentionally left him to his own devices on Sunday and it was working like a charm.
He was given an electronic package with his directives including a list of spots to mystery shop at for me. He was supposed to get covert photographs and make lists of specific things. Reports were due daily, except Sunday. That package also had a list of his allowances for his expense account. And he’d gone over. Each day. This told me he barely paid attention to that section of the dossier, but regardless, my assistant had him sign the employee contract and take a snapshot and send it to her an hour after he landed and before she activated the Amex card for him.
I even told him to look over the contract before he signed it and contact me if he had any questions. He didn’t call.
It was a fool’s errand, designed to get him out of town and to put him in a position of facing temptation after temptation, so that he’d have to come back and answer to me for what I knew would be the outcome – going over the budget in his expense account.