The Tattered Thread

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  Tasia had been in a down mood ever since Carl forced her to leave the steakhouse and come back to the estate. To say that she was especially depressed the night she decided to take her own life would’ve been an understatement. Elaine had never seen anyone so down before, and prayed she never would again. Tasia hated being back with Carl, and more than that, she hated feeling as if her life wasn’t hers anymore.

  Fed up and willing to prove it, she went on one of her drug and alcohol binges. A half-empty pitcher of sangría, apple wedges, lemon peels, and orange slices littered the coffee table in the servants’ lounge. Lines of cocaine had been laid down so neatly they resembled soldier’s stripes, and empty, three-ounce bottles of red wine and brandy were scattered everywhere. When abusing drugs didn’t kill her, Tasia fell into a deeper depression and by ten that night, she was ready to take a nosedive off one of those magnificent semicircular balconies decorating the place. Everybody saw disaster coming, but they’d seen it all before. Sadly, everyone who knew her was growing apathetic to her pain. Too much of something made most people blind to it, and even Elaine was starting to shut it out.

  Before Elaine went to bed that night, she peeked into the lounge at the end of the hall and found Tasia sitting on the sofa, a mixed drink in one hand and a rolled up one hundred dollar bill in the other. There were five lines of cocaine on the end table next to her, and she was bending over to snort another load up her left nostril. All she had on was a white, full-length silk slip, and the basic black stockings she wore had a big hole in the left knee. Maroon lipstick was smeared across her breasts, and a dab of it on her chin added the only color to her face.

  After snorting cocaine up one nostril and then the other, she coughed and wiped her nose with the back of her hand. Her body was trembling. “Elaine!” she said when she noticed her standing in the doorway. “How are you?”

  “I should ask you that question.”

  “Me? Hell, I’m all right.” Sniffling, she wiped her nose again. Cocaine abuse always left her with the symptoms of a cold. The rim of her nostrils and her eyes were red and her lips, dry and pale. Bruises like finger marks were on her right arm, as if someone strong had grabbed her in anger.

  “I think you’re overdoing it with the drugs, Tasia,” Elaine said, not being able to think of a more tactful way of putting it.

  Tasia smiled; if it hadn’t been for her pale complexion and the bags under her eyes the size of paperweights, her expression might have appeared cute. But Tasia wasn’t cute anymore. She didn’t want to be.

  “Ah, wait a minute!” she said, leaning over and opening the kind of black leather bag a physician carries. She pulled out a hypodermic needle and a vial of white powder. “There,” she said, scratching her irritated nose with a couple of fingers. “Dessert.”

  “What is that?”

  Gazing at Elaine as if she wasn’t hip enough to hold an intelligent conversation, Tasia said, “It’s heroin. And it’s as pure as my Irish mother was before she soiled herself by associating with my pathetic father. My boss pays me well, so I can afford the best.” Holding up her arms so that they would catch the light, she seemed proud to unveil the track marks already clustered around her most prominent veins.

  “Are you trying to kill yourself?”

  “Yes, I am. But I’ll bungle that up, too, just like everything else in my miserable life.” After laughing, she added, “See, I feel safer already.”