Rachel's Folly (16 page)

SARA DIDN’T
GO TO WORK
the next few days, preferring instead to spend her time locked in her bedroom. She was disoriented and furious that she had been played for such a fool. She was dying to tell someone about Jack running Ben off the road, but who could she tell? She had burned so many bridges in the past, and most people, including her parents, shrugged her off like background noise.

Her grandmother would frequently knock on her door and ask if she was okay, tell her she needed to eat something, get outside, take a shower. Sara could tell that her grandmother was worried about her and was probably going to call Sara’s father to intervene. Normally, the thought of having any drawn-out conversation with her dad was enough to motivate her to do anything her grandmother wanted. Not anymore. She just didn’t care.

On Sunday morning, after her grandmother left for church, Sara forced herself to get dressed and drive to Rachel’s house. She had been up all night thinking about who she could tell about Jack. She thought about writing an anonymous note to the police but quickly dismissed the idea as foolish. She thought about telling Rachel’s friend Elena, but Jack was her husband, and she would probably think she was just some crazy kid. She decided that Rachel’s husband might be the only person who would believe her.

She found Dr. Richards’ address in the phonebook and had no trouble locating his big, red brick house on a suburban hill overlooking the city. She parked her car across the street a couple of houses up from his. She sat for a while and thought about how she should tell Dr. Richards what she overheard Jack say to Ben in the hospital. She hardly ever came to this side of town. There was never any reason to. She noticed how perfectly manicured all the lawns were, how flawless this street appeared. It seemed like the perfect neighborhood, with perfect neighbors and perfect families.

She was in her car for about five minutes when she suddenly saw the garage door open. A little boy on a bicycle came out, followed closely by an older woman with silver hair and red-rimmed glasses. They headed in Sara’s direction, but didn’t seem to notice her car. Then Sara saw a man who she assumed was Dr. Richards walk out behind them. He was handsome, but his eyes were vacant and he looked tired. He closed the garage and slowly trailed the boy and the woman, staying several paces behind them. He walked with his head down, his gaze fixed on the sidewalk and his hands in his pockets. He looked distraught and reminded Sara of the broken man holding the brown hat she saw in the hospital the night she went to see Ben. Through all of this, she had never given much thought to what Rachel’s family was going through. It dawned on her now that Jack hadn’t just ruined her life, he had ruined many lives. She also realized she didn’t have the courage to tell Dr. Richards what she knew. She felt so small, so insignificant. She was nobody to him. Why should he believe her? Sara drove back to her grandmother’s house feeling worse than before.

Later that afternoon, she found herself sitting on the bathroom floor with her back against the door. She felt drained and was tired of crying, tired of feeling so low and meaningless. Without thinking, she opened a drawer and unfastened a safety pin, her old go-to—the habit she thought she had packed away during her sessions with Rachel. Pulling back her shirtsleeve, she pressed the sharp end into her skin and dragged it across the inside of her arm. She could feel the sting, and it comforted her. The burning sensation blurred out her own insignificance, as well as Jack. She cut herself a few more times until she felt somewhat satisfied.

When she was done, she put the safety pin back in the drawer. It was not enough. In the bottom drawer, she discovered some old clippers and a large pair of scissors. She figured they had probably belonged to her late grandfather. She stood and inspected herself in the mirror. She hated the person who looked back at her. She was just a stupid punk who never fit in. All the other kids had normal families. With parents that showed up for school plays or picked them up from the nurse’s office when the school called to let them know they were sick. All the other moms cared about their kids’ grades, who their friends were, if they had eaten dinner. They didn’t spend their days locked away in their bedroom, in a self-induced intoxicated coma. Or just leave, without a word. What would life have been like if she had had a mother who was actually there? Or a father who was more interested in his daughter than in what others might think of his wife? As much as her father tried to hide her mother’s behavior, he was also her enabler, making sure the house never lacked enough bottles of her favorite vodka. Now, her father had found a new wife, had started a new life. Sara was nothing but a thorn in his side. She wished she was someone else.
Anyon
e else.

She grabbed a chunk of her long hair and slowly twirled it in between her fingers. Her natural goddess hair, as Jack used to call it. He said it was what first attracted him to her the day they met at Isaacs’s Coffee House. He would often pull out her hair band, releasing her ponytail, letting her long locks fall freely. She remembered how he would hold her hair and her head in his fingers while he kissed her slowly. She twirled the chunk of hair a few more times
. That liar
. Holding the scissors closer to her scalp, she hesitated. And then, without a second thought, she cut off the thick lock.

She held the hair in her hand, inspecting its unusual separateness, and let it drop to the floor. There was no turning back now. She grabbed another chunk and did the same. She continued to do this until it was all gone. There were clumps of long hair covering the sink basin and the floor around her bare feet. Her newly short hair was uneven and patchy, so she grabbed the electric clippers and shaved her head.

All of her highlights were now gone and she was left with a dark brown crew cut. She ran her hand over her bristly scalp. She swayed her head from side to side. It felt so strange and light. Like the weight of her fear was gone, lying on the floor. She was amazed at how different she looked. She was older, serious. Her eyes were more pronounced. She could see the definition in her cheekbones and how they shaped her face. She stood motionless in front of the mirror and studied herself intently: her nearly bald head, her determined face, her deep eyes. She examined the fire red blood marks on her arm, like they were part of an initiation process into a new tribe. She looked like a fighter. It was then she decided that she wasn’t going to let Jack get away with it. She wasn’t going to cry anymore, or feel sorry for herself. She was going to make Jack regret what he did to Ben, regret what he did to her. And if Ben was right about Jack killing Rachel, well, she was going to make him regret that, too.

* * *

She spent the next couple of days planning and preparing for what she now knew she had to do. Alone in her room with the door locked, Type O Negative’s “September Sun” played loudly from the small stereo. She peered out the window at her grandmother who was busy tending to her small greenhouse in the backyard. Even though her grandmother was upset about what Sara had done to her hair, she seemed relieved to see her up and about, going back to work and over her grief.

Sara sat down on her bed, picked up a wrinkled sheet of paper lying nearby, and reviewed her handwritten notes. She rehearsed what she was going to say one final time. Then she leaned over to turn down the music. It was time for the first step. She carefully dialed the number she had found in the phonebook. After two rings, a woman’s voice answered the line.

Doing her best to disguise her voice and sound mature, Sara asked, “Is Jack there?”

“Yes, one moment please. Jack, hon, it’s for you,” she heard the woman call out. Then she heard the sound of footsteps approaching.

“Who is it?” she heard Jack ask.

“A mistress? I didn’t ask.” The woman giggled playfully. Sara imagined Jack tickling the woman the way he had often done with her. The thought made her want to throw up.

“Hello?” he said.

“Hello, James.”

There was a hesitation before he responded. “I’m sorry, you must have the wrong number.” His voice was loud and animated.

“Oh, that’s right, it isn’t James, is it? It’s Jack. Jack Spencer, right?” she said as her hand that held her notes began to sweat.

“Yes,” he said, “This is Jack Spencer. Um, what can I do for you?”

“Oh, so you don’t recognize my voice?” She grew irritated. “Okay, let me refresh your memory. We met at Isaac’s. We went around together for, like, six months. You got me pregnant, made me get a fucking abortion and then dumped me. Oh, the latest news, you also slept with my
therapist
, your wife’s best friend. Ring a freaking bell?”

“Oh, yes, I think you’re trying to reach my coworker, Bill. Tell you what, give me your number, I’ll have him call you,” he said forcefully.

She paced the room. “Can’t talk, huh? I can always, you know, come by. Now that I know your real name, and know how to use the Yellow Pages.”

“Give me your number, and I promise I’ll have him call you,” he repeated, then whispered directly into the receiver, “Not here. Give me your number. I’ll call you.”

“No,” Sara shot back. “Meet me at your old house tomorrow at midnight.” She paused. “With $25,000 cash. If you don’t show up, I’m going straight to the police.”

“Are you insane?” he whispered again. “I can’t just come up with that! Give me a few days. I’ll be there Monday night.” He raised his voice to speaking volume. “Yes, I know Bill will be happy to speak with you, and help you with whatever you need.”

“Monday. Midnight. Be there,” she said and cut the line.

Sara had bought a disposable phone from the drug store to make the call, so she knew he couldn’t trace her. Still, her fingers were shaking when she pressed the button to hang up. She felt feverish and had to sit down. She had a sudden urge to scream, so she grabbed her pillow and let it out as loud as she could. She wasn’t expecting to have such a strong reaction to the sound of Jack’s voice. All the love, gone, turned to disgust and rage. She got up and walked around her room, trying to shake off the anxiety that had built up like a flood in her body. She closed her eyes and fought back the tears swelling inside. She tried to focus and bring her mind back to her plan. She told herself everything would be fine after Monday night.

She was actually relieved he had pushed back the night they would meet. It would give her more time to prepare. She sat again and turned the stereo up, focusing her attention once more to The Plan. She carefully inspected the items she had laid out on her bed. The night before, she had broken into her father’s house, snuck into his office to take his compact digital recorder. She also had bought some duct tape, rope and two bottles of wasp spray from the home improvement store. She began stuffing her backpack with all her supplies. There was only one more thing she needed, but she would have to get it from the vet’s office, and she would need to make sure no one saw her taking it.

* * *

It was nine-fifteen on Monday night. Sara drove slowly down Jack’s street. His house was on the far-southeast side of town in a modest, somewhat rundown neighborhood that had deteriorated over the years. It was a simple three-bedroom, single-family home that had been built in the early seventies. Like most of the homes in the area, it had been badly neglected, and the yard was overgrown. The house across the street appeared vacant, and in its driveway was a late model car without a tire propped up on a cinder block.

She looked intently at Jack’s home. She had to make absolutely sure he wasn’t there. For her plan to work, she had to be inside the house well before he got there. She parked her car a few yards away and turned off her headlights. She looked for any movement around his house. There were no lights coming from the windows; it didn’t look like anyone was home. She waited and watched for fifteen minutes. When she was sure Jack wasn’t there, she drove her Civic two blocks over and parked it in a dark area, under a cedar tree by a ditch.

She was dressed in black, from her sneakers to her baseball cap. She looked around for neighbors, but the street was deserted. She carried her heavy backpack, walking briskly through the shadowy streets that were dimly lit by dull, yellow streetlamps, then darted into the back alley that ran parallel to the houses. Several dogs barked ferociously as she passed by the decaying wooden fences. She prayed she wouldn’t encounter one. She stopped to arm herself with a can of wasp spray, just in case. She had never actually used wasp spray as a weapon, but she knew it could spray up to twenty-five feet with pretty good accuracy and would definitely cause substantial pain and temporary blindness. She stood on her tippy-toes and peered over the fence into the area where she thought Jack’s house was. It was dark but she could tell it was the right one because she recognized the old planter on the back porch he had often used as an ashtray. She looked around and was pretty sure she had made it without anyone noticing her.

She glanced around one last time before she threw her backpack over the gate, then hoisted herself up, and jumped over and into the backyard. She stumbled and fell on her hands and knees. Shaking herself off, she was startled by the sudden horn and rambling of a train passing nearby. There were long, dry weeds all around her. She took out the small flashlight from her pocket and checked to make sure nothing had fallen out of her bag. With everything accounted for, she made her way to the back porch. Unless Jack had had it fixed, she knew the latch on the sliding door was loose. She grabbed the handle and wiggled it up and down until it unlocked. She stopped and peered over the fence to make sure no one had heard the noise. Once she felt safe, she slid the heavy door to the side and let herself in.

Inside, the house was dark and stale with little furniture. She moved her flashlight around to check out her surroundings. There were large cobwebs in the upper corners of the living room and old water stains coming from the air vents. It was obvious the house had been vacated and that no one had been living there for a while. The house’s few windows were covered by filthy, mangled, metal blinds. She stood in the living room and thought about the last time she was there. This was where Jack would bring her to be intimate. They would charge into the house so worked up they hardly ever made it to the bedroom. She figured they had had sex in most, if not all, of the rooms. It was in this house, during one of those ill-fated encounters, that she had gotten pregnant. And it was there, on a cloudy Sunday in October, that Jack’s friend Mike had given her an abortion.