Over. (This. Is. Not. Over. #2) (2 page)

“Classy Laura, you’re a real charmer.” Winnie says with a smirk. She picks up her handbag, opens it, unrolls part of a Mentos package and then pops one in her mouth.

“Still the same Laura.” Lola says as she stands by Winnie’s truck next to Cadence. Cadence; the very reason I’m in this situation right now. My one mistake. “And she wonders why she’s no longer a member of the family.”

“From what I hear, you need to take some lessons from Winnie on how to suck a cock Lola!” How dare she mention Cadence at a time like this? I laid Cadence twice.
Twice. That’s it. What the fuck is the big deal? And, to tell you the truth, while some women may drop their panties at Cadence’s feet, I wasn’t too enthralled with his method of lovemaking. Cadence is too much of a romantic, too slow, too sensual. He’s aiming for your heart. Malcolm is a fucker. He’s aiming for your brains. He wants to fuck them out of you. Damn, I’ll never get that again. Never again. And this is when I start to panic. How in the world am I going to live my entire life without Malcolm Blair? Without a good lay? The horror! “You keep talking shit Lola and I’ll take your husband from you!” Not that I really want his hopelessly romantic ass.

“Oh please. If that were the case you’d already have him.” She gives me a grin. I charge for her. Of course Nat breaks my stride, throwing himself in the way, backing me up with his chest as Dena pulls me backwards. “
How dare you judge Winnie when you seduced my husband?”

You know what really aggravates me about this moment? Not what
Lola’s saying, not how’s she’s saying it, but what she’s doing while she’s saying it. I’m charging at Lola and she hasn’t even budged. She’s leaning against Winnie’s truck, with a smug look on her face and her legs have the nerve to be crossed at the ankles. She’s not worried about me at all. Lola can stand in front of me and talk shit because she has the power of Blair behind her. No matter what she does, as long as she’s married to Cadence, she has the power of Blair. She’s therefore untouchable. I’ll never get to her. But that most certainly won’t stop me from trying.

Remember that.

“Fuck you Lola! I will ruin your goddamn life! Do you hear me? I have the power to ruin your entire goddamn life!”

“Try Laura.” She shrugs. “Just try.”

“Enough Laura! Let’s just go!” Dena screams.

And everything is still spinning: the fireflies, the flickering stars, the scary moon, and my very life. My life is spinning too fast. It’s spinning out of control. The Blairs and Marchs are the families to marry into if you’re a Bostonian. Malcolm Blair, Nathan March, Jacob Blair: the Boston heavy hitters. Sure they have cousins and distant relations but who gives a damn about those lames? Malcolm Blair, Nathan March, Jacob Blair. Malcolm, Nathan, Jacob. Mac, Nat, Jake. You
have
to get one of those three, you just have to! So, if I don’t have Malcolm, I don’t have anything. I have nothing.

“Laura, have you taken your meds?” I hear Dena whisper in my ear as she pulls me towards her and Nat’s truck.
Wait a minute, why should
I
be the one to have to take my meds? It’s not like I’m crazy or something. Think about it: I just caught the man I love with another woman, my sister is taunting me, Malcolm is ignoring me, and no one is sympathizing with me. No one seems to
get
me. Oh this is disturbing, this is very disturbing.

“My entire life, Dena.” I say, my eyes stuck on Malcolm. “My entire life is gone.”

“Come on Laura, let’s just get out of here. Okay? Come on.” Nat opens the back door and patiently waits for us to enter. Nat’s such a gentleman, always the calm in the eye of the storm. You’re so perfect Nat and Dena. So, so perfect.

“My entire life …” I say as I look
at Cadence. He’s still standing by Lola, appearing a bit hurt by my most recent scene. Well sure he’s hurt. Just a few days ago he called me up, out of the blue, after months of no contact, saying he was still in love with me. Needless to say, this scene here is probably a huge downer for him. He’s such a silly sap. Lord help his romantic soul, he’s such a fucking dope. I haven’t slept with him in months, but he doesn’t seem to care. He swears that what he and I have is real love.
As in the words of William Shakespeare
, he said to me over the phone,
The course of true love never did run smooth.
Do you see what I mean? Just a sentimental dumbass.  And what a loser. Don’t get me wrong, he’s a beautiful man, like most of the Blair men seem to be (the women … especially Malcolm’s ugly ass mother, are another story altogether). Yet, I fucked Cadence for one reason. Desperation. I needed to feel wanted, I needed to feel loved and Malcolm wasn’t fulfilling those two needs. Cadence won me over with those Shakespearean quotes he’s so keen on saying. But me going to Cadence was like a hiker who’s trapped in the wilderness with no water, so he drinks his own urine to stay alive. He’ll do that maybe once or twice but ultimately, his goal is to drink water. Both are liquids, but only one is satisfying. Malcolm and Cadence. Both are Blairs, but only one is the real deal.

I
t wasn’t all my fault, you know, that needy feeling that ended up ruining me. Maslow even told the world that all humans have needs. He placed them in Hierarchies, revealing that every human is in fact needy, though some pretend to be
above
the need for love and acceptance. Sex, camaraderie, acceptance and love are the most basic needs of every human being. That’s what my psychiatrist once told me. I told her that Malcolm was keen on sex, but not so much on love. When I was needy for love, he was sending flower petals to Red.
Red
. He left me for a black girl named Red. I should murder his ass for that. He could have tried to leave me for anyone else, but for a black girl? Oh, don’t act like you’re offended that I said that. No woman wants their man to leave them for a woman of another race. It’s a slap in the face. It says: not only do I
not
want you, I don’t want anyone who remotely resembles you. Isn’t that true? See, I’m not crazy. My anger is completely validated. I am disgraced and there’s no coming back from that.

I am humiliated.

“Come on Laura.” Dena says as she eases me into her truck. “I’ll rent us a suite at the Ritz and then you can take your meds. I’ll call your mom too, maybe she can come get you.”

“My entire life Dena.” I say. “My entire life … gone.”

I look to Malcolm and he’s now looking at me as though he’s studying me. His eyes are focused on my every move. He’s thinking. His brain is spinning ideas around. He’s trying to make some ends meet. What is he thinking? What’s going on in his brain? What does he see? Why is he studying me?

What is Malcolm Blair planning in that brain of his?

Friday

And Now …

Danielle

December 9
th

8:30 p.m.

Never underestimate the power of annoyance.

Annoyance, within five short days, turned me into a stone cold killer. I’m talking about a trap-her-ass-in-the-house-and-watch-that-bitch-burn killer. Death by burning; it’s a time honored tradition for us New Englanders. That’s how we kill all of our witches. It took the wiring of my home, the changing of my locks, the stealing of my car, the canceling of my accounts and –the gravest of all these indiscretions– the sending of butt naked pictures to my priest, to push me over the edge. I should have ordered Laura’s death with that first sin. And yet, it was only when she made my ass drive to Roxbury in search of cab fare, that I decided that murder was the only option.  Yes, suffocation by smoke was the only retribution equivalent for such annoyance. But now, Malcolm and I are standing outside of the Four Seasons, our heads are nearly pressed together and he’s telling me that I had it all wrong.

             
“It was Lola.”

             
Uh-oh. Someone’s in trouble. And I’ve got a feeling it’s me.

             
“What do you mean it was Lola?” And now the shivers begin. An acute shiver has started a wave of them inside of my body as I stand outside in frigid New York City, with its snow covered in blood. Blood. “Didn’t Laura have some guys come up here to rough you up?”

             
“No.” He whispers. “Jon, Marlon, Matt. They did this.” He nods to the blood in the snow. Great!

             
“What the fuck is going on!” I hiss. But more importantly, where is my child while Jon is up here trying to beat people up? Jon is someone’s parent, how is he setting a good example for his son? I swear, some people … “Malcolm, why have you been lying to me?”

             
“Red, I’m trying to make this shit easy for everyone, okay? There are a lot of hurt feelings behind you and me and I’m just trying to make them all –the people and the feelings– go away. That’s it. We’ve pissed some people off because we didn’t do shit the right way. I was fucking around with you while you were still married, I drew up the divorce papers, I had them hand delivered to Jon’s hotel room. He’s livid. He lost you and to make matters worse, he lost you to me. I can’t fault him for wanting to kill my ass.

Laura and Lola are another story altogether; they’ve been at war with each other for years now and they will use anyone or anything as weapons of mass destruction. In this instance, Lola used you. Before this, Laura used Cadence. Lola used you to destroy Laura because she knew you would.”

              “Shit! Why not tell me the truth Malcolm? Before I–”

             
“The truth isn’t always in everyone’s best interests.” He locks eyes with me and in that moment, there is no snow, no New York City shoppers, no sounds of
Ave Maria
playing from the hotel’s sound system. It’s just Malcolm, me and the
unsaid
.

             
The fire.

Just a short while ago, Malcolm and I dressed for the concert in relative silence. He showered and shaved, explaining only that my bag was lost and was now found. Considering its owner, obviously my bag was in need of religion. Anyways, I didn’t question it. I still had
Rena’s voice ringing through my head. I knew that Laura was trapped in that house and I figured that she’d be
lost
soon. I wasn’t even sad about it, after all, she annoyed me for five days straight, I logically assumed that my murder was the final step in her plan. Had I known that Jon was the one who banged up Malcolm’s face and Lola was the one who, for some god-forsaken reason, was trying to annoy me, I wouldn’t have burned Laura’s house down … with her inside of it. Considering this new evidence, I took matters with Laura a bit too far.

It was as Malcolm and I were heading downstairs, in the elevator that he received a call from the fire commissioner, notifying him of the fire in
his
home. Yes, Laura’s home was actually owned by Malcolm. I burned Malcolm’s home down.
I burned Malcolm’s home down and killed Laura in the process
, I thought to myself. My next thought was
, why in the hell did Malcolm still own her home?
Though the question was nagging me the entire way down to the ground floor, I figured I’d have the decency to wait until after Laura’s wake and just before her funeral to ask him that. But it seems that my plans have now changed.

There were no bodies found in the rubble.

Laura is alive somewhere out here. She’s coughing and wheezing, her face is covered in soot, her clothes are crisp to the touch. And she’s alive. Somebody’s going to be in trouble, and I’ve got a feeling it’s going to be me.

“Do you hear me Red? The truth isn’t always in everyone’s best interests.”

“Okay.” I whisper.

“Got it?” He continue
s to lock his eyes with mine while he nods. He knows I had a part in it, but he hasn’t asked me the details. He doesn’t want to know. He needs to be able to truthfully deny it all. Why? Well because after my failed attempt at murder tonight, Malcolm is now my attorney. And this time, he’s not drawing up divorce papers to deliver to Jon, this time, he’s keeping me out of prison for conspiracy to kill someone who annoyed me.

“I know nothing.” I say to him. He nods again.

“Good … come on.” He says as he straightens himself, squares his shoulders and then looks towards the front doors of the Four Seasons. And smiles. “You all ready for this concert?” I turn and see Nat, Dena, Winnie and Jacob walking out. I’m so nervous as this point, that I can feel adrenaline rushing through my entire body. Even my scalp is tingling.

             
“What the hell happened down here?” Winnie asks as she points to the bloody snow and then looks around at the men whose faces are banged up.

             
I’m so nervous, I’m so nervous, I’m so nervous … I lean on Malcolm, I need his touch to tell me everything’s going to be okay. He begins brushing my arm with his hand.
Relax, Danielle
.

             
“Life happened down here baby.” Jacob answers with a smirk. “But don’t worry, they got as good as they gave.”