Kevin O'Brien - Disturbed

“No, I’m sorry,” he said. He slid a printed sheet of paper inside an eight-by-ten envelope so the address appeared through a little window. It looked like a bill.

Chris stared at it. He remembered something Serena had said: “Aunt Jenna’s paying for this thing. You’d think she’d want to put in an appearance.”

The man gazed at him over the rims of his glasses. “Is there anything else?”

“Yes, sir,” Chris said. “My mother sent me in here to get the address for Jenna Corson. She’s Ray Corson’s widow. It’s a new address in Kent, and my mother wants to send Mrs. Corson some flowers.”

With a pinched smile, the man reached for a business card from a little silver tray on his desk. “Your mother can send the flowers care of us, and we’ll see that Mrs. Corson gets them.”

“Well, that’s just the thing,” Chris said, taking the card with Bonney-Watson Funeral Home and the man’s name on it. “See, the last time she did that here, Mr. Decker, her friend never got the flowers, and my mom was really ticked off. So she sent me in here for the address. Corson. It’s a new address — in Kent.”

Frowning a bit, the man turned to his computer keyboard and started typing. Then he copied down the address on a memo pad.

“And the phone number, too,” Chris thought to say. “The florist is gonna want it.”

The man sighed and scribbled down the address.

Five minutes later, Chris was near the side of the Bonney-Watson building to get some distance from all the traffic noise on the cross street, Broadway. He was dialing the number for Jenna Corson on his cell phone. He wasn’t sure what he’d say if he got her machine, or if he’d even leave a message. He started to count the ringtones.

Someone picked up on the third ring. “Hello?” It was a woman’s voice.

“Hello, is Mrs. Jenna Corson there, please?”

“Speaking.”

Chris covered his free ear as a floral delivery truck pulled into the driveway beside the funeral parlor. “Mrs. Corson, this is. .” He hesitated and glanced at the truck. “This is Emerald City Flowers calling. We have a delivery for you. Are you going to be home for the next hour?”

There was a pause on the other end of the line, and Chris held his breath.

“Yes, I’ll be home,” she said finally.

“We have you at 22013 Forty-second Avenue in Kent, Unit 2-F, is that correct?”

“Yes.”

“We’ll be there within the hour, Mrs. Corson, thank you,” he said.

“Thanks,” she said. Then he heard a click on the other end.

Chris switched off the cell phone. He had a strange feeling of dread in the pit of his stomach. It had been stupid of him to pretend he was someone else on the phone; but he’d figured she would hang up if she knew it was him. Now she’d be even angrier once she found he’d lied to her.

He heard a door slam and saw a young, heavyset woman with red hair unloading a blooming plant from the back of the truck. “Excuse me?” he called to her. “Is that for Corson?”

She hesitated, and then glanced at the card on the plant. “Yeah,” she said.

“I’ll take it, thanks,” he said, holding out his hand.

She gave him a crooked grin. “Wait a sec. Who are you?”

Chris straightened his tie. Then he pulled out the business card with Bonney-Watson Funeral Home and the man’s name on it. He flashed it at the woman. “We were expecting you an hour ago.”

“Oh, well, sorry.” The redhead handed him the mum plant.

“It’s okay,” Chris said. “Mrs. Corson will be glad to get it.”

Minutes later, Chris sat in the back of a Yellow Cab, balancing the blooming plant in his lap. He was on his way to Kent. The card on the little plastic holder read: To Jenna — Thinking of you, with love, Dennis & Debbie Gotlieb.

Chris felt inside his jacket pocket for his sunglasses, but they weren’t there. Then he remembered — they were on the bathroom floor in the funeral parlor. An eighty-five-dollar pair of Ray-Bans, right down the toilet — or in this case, right beside the toilet. He checked his other pocket just to make sure. No, he had his cell phone in there, and nothing else.

His cell phone.

“Shit!” he whispered. He realized — after thinking he’d been so damn clever with the funeral parlor guy and the florist — he’d done something really bonehead stupid. He’d called Mrs. Corson on his cell phone , pretending to be someone else. She almost certainly had caller ID. She might have forgotten to check it when she’d picked up the phone. But chances were she would check it before he showed up at her door. Maybe she already knew it had been him calling.

He felt that knot in his stomach again and wished he’d just been honest with her. He expected his cell phone to ring any minute — with Mrs. Corson on the other end, ready to chew him out. And he would deserve it.

“Stupid,” Chris muttered to himself. He adjusted the mum plant in his lap and pressed a hand to his stomach.

He felt the knot tightening.

Molly was driving on the interstate, halfway home. “Tuesday Afternoon” played on the car radio, and a cool breeze whipped through the half-open window.

She thought again about calling him, but told herself that Chris was a big boy. He had bus fare and a route schedule. He could get home on his own. He was a responsible kid.

As she watched the road ahead, Molly remembered six months ago and how they’d tried to do the responsible thing. But then it all spiraled out of control.

Before that, back in October, she still hadn’t known Chris well enough to read his various moods. She’d been married to Jeff for only three months. She’d figured most teenagers were sullen and withdrawn all the time. Chris was still getting used to this strange woman in the house, moving in on his mother’s turf. His behavior seemed normal considering the circumstances. But Jeff was deeply concerned about him.

“Since Angela moved out, he’s been getting worse and worse,” Jeff observed. “Every time he comes back from a weekend with her, all he does is snarl at me. I’m sure Angela’s bad-mouthing us to him every chance she gets. And poor Chris is her captive audience.”

Molly tried to reach out to Chris. Having him pose as the teen hero for the cover of the young adult novel, Conquer the Night, helped thaw him out a little. And in early November, when he asked her to come with him to Zales to pick out a bracelet for Courtney, Molly felt she’d finally won him over. She told him in the jewelry store how flattered she was that he’d solicited her opinion.

He shrugged. “Well, Mr. Corson thought I should ask you — since you’re a woman and you know this kind of stuff.”

She and Jeff had been hearing more and more about his guidance counselor, Mr. Corson. At first, Jeff had been grateful Chris was even talking to them — about anything. But after a while, Molly could tell he felt a bit threatened. Ray Corson seemed to have become Chris’s new father figure. “I’m not sure I like Chris going on these late-afternoon runs with this guy — just the two of them,” Jeff told her one night. “It’s just weird.”

But Molly considered Mr. Corson a godsend. Until the guidance counselor came along, Molly hadn’t realized Chris could be so sweet and friendly. She guessed he might have been that way before his parents’ separation; and if so, they had Ray Corson to thank for bringing back the old Chris.

But he started to backslide in late November. His mother had suddenly fallen in love with Larry Keegan, a Bellevue divorced dad. She didn’t waste much time moving in with him. So Chris had a potential stepdad and teenage stepsister, and obviously, he wasn’t crazy about either one of them. Making matters worse, he and Courtney had broken up.