every day guy faces that blends in easily. A guy that wouldn't stand out unless he was a jerk. Even his description sounded like half the guys she'd met in her life—brown hair, blue eyes, slight stubble.
Sighing, Gail dropped the picture onto the seat andstood up. Feeling helpless, Gail returned to the one place shefelt safe: the bedroom upstairs. She slipped into a pair ofpajama shorts and a matching tank top then slid into the bedonce again. As she lay there waiting, she stared at the pillbottles.
"Fuck it," she said, throwing the sheet back and reaching for the pills.
An hour later she was knocked out cold and Steve returned to the house to execute level two.
The next morning sunlight streamed in through the windows, falling across the bed and warming Gail. She roused quickly when she realized that someone had not only slept in the bed beside her but that she'd had sex sometime during the night—evidenced by the missing shorts and the sticky residue on the inside of her thighs.
After throwing the shorts back on, Gail checked the room and the bathroom. She only found a few new cardboard boxes with David's clothes written in the same handwriting as the note on the car. The shower also seemed to have been used recently and a second toothbrush was beside the sink.
Gail came flying out of the bedroom and down into the kitchen. She found a coffee machine half full and still warm, and crumbs on the counter. There was a note on the fridge.
Didn't want to wake you this morning. I've got to go into work but I brought in a few more boxes for you to unpack. Love you.
Gail snatched it up as she read it and nearly crumpled it up in frustration. David had been here and had left and she'd missed the entire thing? How was that possible? She leaned against the counter as she tried to fathom just how this man could have mistaken her for someone else.
But maybe he hadn't mistaken her. Perhaps she was the one that was getting things wrong. After all, this was two people who claimed to know her, wasn't it?
"Dammit!" she shouted, slamming the note down on the counter. She stomped out of the kitchen and returned to the bedroom to shower and change before she started unpacking David's things.
Several hours later, she was finished and feeling restless. There had been gardening tools in the garage and if she was going to be living here, she might as well make it enjoyable.
But try as she might Gail couldn't locate either the front or the back door. In fact, she couldn't find a way out of the house at all. The windows were secured shut so they couldn't be opened and were all frosted glass so while she could enjoy the sunlight of the day she couldn't actually see out of them.
In a moment of pure rage she threw the new garbage can, aiming for the window. But all that did was get garbage all over the place when the can bounced off the window. Gail resigned herself to organizing the pantry and fridge alphabetically and sorting the closets and drawers by hue while she waited for David to return. She attempted to do more than peanut butter and jelly for dinner.
After twenty minutes of waving a towel at the smoke alarm to get it to stop beeping, she surmised that David must be the cook in the family. Still, she managed to cut off the worst parts of the burnt pork cutlets, and the noodles she prepared weren't too terribly gummy. After she ate, Gail spent an hour or so trying
to get the television to work but finally gave up and headed off to bed, leaving a plate for David on the counter.
This time she was bound and determined to wait up for him. She sat up in the bed with the history book from the living room propped in her lap. But exhaustion overcame her, and even without assistance of the medication, it wasn't long before she was softly snoring and dead to the world.
When Gail awoke there was a note beside the bed. When she sat up to read it, she cried out in pain. Her inner thighs were bruised and rubbed nearly raw, and Gail was horrified to realize she was bleeding.
I'm going away for a few days. You know why.
Gail's jaw dropped as she read. What could have happened? Did they have some sort of fight? Why was he mad at her? How could she fix things if he wasn't going to be around?
Gail let out a sob and collapsed back onto the bed, clutching the note to her chest as she cried into her pillow.
She reached a hand across to touch David's side of the bed and felt something under his pillow. Frowning as she half sat up, Gail pulled a handgun out and stared at it for a moment before she dropped it on the bed.
What did David need a gun for? And why would he need it in their bed?
"Dammit, David!" she cried out, snatching the gun up and scrambling off of the bed. She threw open her bottom dresser drawer and hid the gun under a pile of clothes before she returned to bed where she could properly feel sorry for herself.
A moment later she realized the phone was ringing.
"David?" she said into it.
"Uh, no it's Steve," said the voice on the other end of the line.
"Oh," Gail said. "Have you spoken to David?"
"Gail. . ." he paused.
She waited, knowing that whatever he had to say she didn't want to hear. "Just tell me already," she muttered.
"Don't drag it out and make this worse than it already is."
"David will be by tomorrow to get some of his things."
"What?" she cried out, sitting up and inhaling sharply at the pain in her thighs. "He said he'd be gone for a few days, he didn't say anything about moving out."
"I don't know what he's thinking. Listen just … get some rest, alright?"
"Fuck off," she snapped.
Gail hung up the phone and threw it across the room.
She got up to shower, but quickly realized how much pain she was in and took her pills and went to sleep instead.
It was some time after dark. Gail stumbled out of the bedroom to get something to eat. When she heard a woman's laughter coming from the living room, her stomach went ice cold and she stopped dead in her tracks. She could hear the low murmur of a man's voice and she crept forward, listening.
"Baby I'm telling you, this house will be perfect for parties," the man's voice said, full of laughter and promise. "Like an engagement party."
"Oh, David, I can't believe you bought me a house!" said the female.
The ice cold that had filled Gail's stomach turned into a red hot rage. She spun around and fled back to the bedroom, diving for the drawer where she'd put David's gun. The weight of it in her hands gave her strength and made her feel more powerful. Gail stomped back down the hallway and came striding into the living room with it leveled at the couple as they cuddled on the couch.
"Really David," Gail snarled. "And what about me?"
The woman screamed and David tried to both jump up and shield the woman at the same time.
"What the fuck!" he shouted, "Who the hell are you?"
"What do you mean who the hell am I?" Gail screeched, feeling as though her heart was breaking and her head was going to split in two. The woman's screams were not helping. Gail turned her attention to the woman. "Would you shut up, you fucking home wrecking bitch?"
"Lady, I don't know who you are but we can talk thisout. . ." David said, his eyes wide as he put his hands out in what he thought was the universal gesture of goodwill.
"Lady? Did you seriously just call me lady? And tell me we can talk this out?" she asked. "What the fuck kind of a game are you playing?" The gun was shaking in her hand now. It was heavier than she ad always imagined them to be and holding it up was tiring. "Who is she?" Gail asked, jabbing the gun in the direction of the woman.
"This is Shay," David replied. "My girlfriend."
"Fiancee," Shay whined softly.
David gave her a very pointed look. "Really?" he asked. "Now?"
"Both of you shut up," Gail snapped, dropping the gun long enough to rub her pounding temple. "I don't want to listen to this!"
"Right, sorry. Shay this is. . ." David said gently, giving Gail a nod.
"I'm Gail. I'm David's wife. We moved in this house together weeks ago
," she said saucily, giving Shay a satisfied smile.
"I'm not married." David shook his head, a confused look etched across his features. "Besides, that's not possible. I hadn't even completed the contract negations with the flipper a few weeks ago."
"The what?" Gail said.
"The house flipper," David said. "Guys who buy old houses and dump a bunch of money into them and then sell them for a profit. I've been negotiating the contract for the sale of this house for weeks."
"No. We've been living here. You and I. . ." Gail's voice trailed off and she stared blankly at David for a moment as she tried to understand what was going on.
"Bitch, you're crazy," Shay said suddenly.
Without thinking, Gail brought up the gun and pulled the trigger. Shay fell back, dead. David screamed and Gail shot him too.
Then she dropped the gun on the tile floor and walked into the kitchen to finally get something to eat.
Across the street, Steve and Frank sat watching the television monitors.
"Did she pass, boss?" Frank asked quietly as they watched Gail dig her hand into a box of cereal.
"Yes, Frank, she passed."
Disappointed, Frank leaned back in his chair and sighed.
He wouldn't get to play with this one; Steve would never let her go now.
###
A. Maire (MOY-rə) Dinsmore is a writer living in Snohomish County, Washington with her husband, whom she has shared her life with since she was 19, their three children and two spoiled husky mixes [husky-doberman & husky-pitbull]. In her free time she enjoys spending time with her