John Lutz - The Ex

She entered her apartment and, still gripping the plastic bag of groceries, backed into the door and gave it a final shove with her rump to close it.

After fastening the chain lock, she carried the bag into the small but neat kitchen and laid it on the breakfast counter. She draped her purse by its strap over the back of a chair then began unloading the bag and putting away the perishables she’d bought-a pint of milk, half a dozen eggs, frozen yogurt, a tomato; small amounts, recipe portions for one.

When she was finished, she got a bottle of Evian from the refrigerator, opened it, and carried it into the living room.

That room was small, like the kitchen, and also neat, with a gray area rug, blue upholstered chair and sofa, and bookcases that a onetime boyfriend named Chuck had built for her lining one wall. On another wall were two original oils by unknown artists, which she’d bought in the Village on the recommendation of a friend who painted. Alongside a combination secretary desk, bookshelf, and TV stand hung an old-fashioned, schoolhouse wall clock that had a modern quartz movement and ran on tiny AA batteries.

Lisa sat down on the sofa, slipped her feet out of her high-heeled shoes, and relaxed. Sterling Morganson had briefed everyone on the necessity of the fee reading department to generate more income. Lisa would be given additional duties. There would not be a commensurate increase in salary. It had been a long day at work.

She sipped water from the clear plastic Evian bottle and again considered seeking another job. She lived alone in her one-bedroom apartment and had few bills, but in New York even a modest lifestyle was expensive. She had excellent qualifications and could possibly find a higher-paying position, but there were other considerations: security, the new health care plan the company might make available…other considerations.

Maybe tomorrow she would check the classified ads and see how the job market looked, she told herself. She might even call a few people she knew who could furnish leads. It wouldn’t hurt to inquire.

She smiled. She’d had this conversation with herself a hundred times but hadn’t acted on it with any real resolution. Circling want ads with a pen and calling some of their phone numbers was as far as it usually went. Once she’d gone to interview for an associate editorial position with a large publisher, but at the last moment she’d decided she couldn’t accept the job even if it were offered to her. Which, to her relief, it wasn’t.

Well, maybe someday she’d listen to herself and take her own advice.

When the Evian bottle was empty, she took it into the kitchen and dropped it in the container for plastics. Then she went back into the living room, picked up her shoes, and carried them into the bedroom.

The window looking out on the air shaft was open, letting in warm air and the peculiar musty odor she suspected came from the pigeon droppings on the outside sill. The pigeons used to keep her awake at night, with their periodic cooing and flapping, but finally she’d gotten used to them and even found their presence oddly soothing. Lisa lowered the window and locked it.

The bedroom was the size of the living room, with a tall walnut wardrobe as well as a closet. The bed had a brass headboard with white porcelain knobs, a gift from her father when she’d moved into the city. A framed blowup of a Gothic romance paperback cover illustration given to her by a writer was on the wall opposite the bed, a young woman with windblown hair and a long, flowing dress standing on a cliff looking out at a sweeping view of sea and clouds. The woman had her hand raised to her forehead, as if straining to see something far out from shore. Something in her stance and expression suggested that she yearned to sail on that sea. It was a corny illustration, Lisa knew, yet some nights in bed it comforted her to lie and stare at it until she fell asleep with the light on. She didn’t like to admit that her life was lonely.

Still with her shoes in her right hand, she walked to the closet, opened the door, and was face to face with the woman from the office, David’s woman Deirdre.

Lisa was shocked into paralysis. The shoes slipped from her hand and thunked on the floor.

This couldn’t be happening!

Deirdre was smiling and holding some sort of long-handled tool close alongside her body. A shovel, maybe. She moved it slightly and a rusty implement came into view from between two dresses-a mining tool, Lisa thought. A pick.

This wasn’t real!

Deirdre took a quick step forward.

“Wha-” Lisa managed to say, before the pick struck her in the chest, knocking the wind from her.

She was lying on her back on the floor with no sensation of having fallen, and she was having great difficulty breathing.

She tried to roll over and found she couldn’t move. It was then that she saw the wooden pick handle extended upward at an angle from her body. She glanced down and there was the rusty pick itself protruding from her chest just below her heart.

…couldn’t be real!

When she inhaled, a terrible pain jolted through her body.

She lay back and was very still, as if her life depended on an intricate balance she didn’t understand.

“Hurts…” she heard herself moan.

Above her, Deirdre grinned wildly and shook her head in mild disapproval. “Picky, picky!”

Lisa saw her bend slightly and grip the wooden handle firmly with both hands. She planted her foot on Lisa’s stomach and grunted with effort as she withdrew the pick. As its long, rusty point pulled from the gaping wound, pain too severe to allow breathing or thought raged through Lisa like fire.

Through blurred, agony-slitted eyes, she saw Deirdre raise the pick high, saw its bloody point descend in a rush toward her head.

She tried to turn her head to get it away from the deadly arc of the pick. Pain exploded in her temple-and was gone in a burst of brilliant red.

Then she was falling, plunging faster and faster, and everything was white.

Then black.

Deirdre lowered the pickax and listened to her own breathing in the quiet bedroom.

“My God!” a breathless voice said.

When she raised her head, Deirdre saw Darlene’s reflection in the dresser mirror.

“She wanted David,” Deirdre said to the reflection.

“She wanted what you wanted, so you killed her.”

“Exactly. I have the right. David was always mine, and always will be mine.”

“You’re evil, Deirdre. You were always evil.”

“That isn’t true! Evil was done to me.”

“That’s not an excuse.”

“You were lucky. You died when you were five. You stayed good. Father never had a chance to-”

“To what?”

“You know. Mother knew too, but then she didn’t know. So I was never good enough, never bright or pretty enough. I was never you. I couldn’t live up to you because you weren’t there to live up to. It wasn’t fair!”

“Scarlet fever wasn’t fair to me.”

“I would have been better off dead too. Almost every night I wished I was dead. Someplace where I couldn’t be touched. At peace like you. You could never have been what they pretended. You would have been just like me if you hadn’t gotten sick and died, not some pure and perfect angel that belonged in heaven. That’s where they always said you were. When you died, I was condemned to hell. I wish it had been you in the bedroom when the door opened, and you who was forced-”

“Forced?” Darlene smiled. “You know that isn’t true.”

“Not after a while, maybe.” Pressure built in Deirdre’s throat and she swallowed. “You never knew what it was, never saw the blood on the sheets. I have scars, inside and outside. I look different from what I am. Sometimes people think a sexy woman is dumb.”