TRACKER

Buzz, buzz.

Denise stirred. Buzz, buzz, the sound continued. A soft, vibrating movement on her side.

She rolled back and forth a couple of times and finally opened her eyes. The buzzing sound continued. She focused for a moment then hit the little tracker resting in her pajama pocket and sat up. Denise wiped the sleep out of her eyes and pulled the tracker out of her pocket. 7 hours and 42 minutes it read.

Hum, she thought to herself. “Well, it is not exactly eight hours of sleep but it’s probably okay,” she mused. After using the bathroom she stepped on the scales; 146 pounds. She frowned. Damn vacation! She was up two pounds. Damn it and she had been working so hard too.

Stepping off the scale she sighed, “Guess that’s the price for fun, huh?” she thought to herself. Going over to her desk, she pulled out the sugar monitor and pricking her finger, put in a little sample of blood. After several seconds it read ‘94’. She smiled. Her blood sugar was doing great! And the new diet plan emphasized low sugar levels to get the weight off. She felt like she was working toward her goal nicely.

In the kitchen, Denise hit the button to start the coffee maker. Regular black, no ‘special’ coffees with sugar additives.  She opened a new box of Special K cereal and retrieved the low-fat milk from the frig and added ½ of a green banana to the cereal and started to eat.

Back at her desk she opened her mail and started to check her bank balances. Hum, the one checking had a $5,000 balance and the other one was really low at $1,000. That vacation again. Whew! Just wiped her out! Her savings had a nice $25,000 balance and her 401k was rocking along very smoothly. Denise felt very proud of herself. As the daughter of an almost welfare mother and humble beginnings, she was doing pretty well for herself.

She had had to fight and fight with the travel agent to get her to take a cash payment for the vacation. 

“But, everyone pays by card,” the woman had said, almost pleading.

Denise had had to ‘counsel’ the woman and coax her into taking the cash and telling her it would be okay. That she was just very uncomfortable using ‘cards’ and this was how she did business. The woman shook her head, mumbling and very reluctantly took the cash over to her boss’s desk and handed it off to him. There was some soft mumbling that went on. The travel agency manager was a chubby little guy, who didn’t do much, as far as Denise could tell, except eat and play computer games all day.

She had been to this same agency before. They had gone through the same song and dance last time. The little fat guy stole a glance her way. She smiled beatifically back at him. She knew what was coming. He heaved himself up from his desk, reluctantly and cautiously approached her.

He smiled first. She smiled back. “Miss Smith,” he ventured, looking down at the agency document in his hand.  She nodded helpfully. “Miss Smith,” he repeated, “we don’t usually work with cash transactions. They can be…….” he searched manfully for the proper words. “they can be difficult to….trace.” He smiled again hoping to hell that she would understand without causing some fuss.

Denise was ready, they had in fact had the same conversation over a year ago; maybe he didn’t remember. She explained, slowly and very carefully how much she understood his position but that she didn’t ‘like’ to use credit cards because of all the interest and banking fees. She understood very well that was how most people did it, but couldn’t they make an exception this time? Besides, they had sold her another ticket just this way over a year ago.

The little fat man looked surprised. “He’s probably surprised he let a woman get the drop on him once before,” she though with a smirk. The man stared at her almost a full minute then shook his head and waved for the girl to continue the transaction and took the wad of cash back to his desk. With a look of almost disgust, he pulled out what looked to be a metal box and stuck the cash in there. This was no doubt going to necessitate an extra trip to the bank. He wasn’t pleased. 

Denise, smiling, completed her trip arrangements to Belize with the girl and got her confirmation paper. She left the agency smiling. She was always happy when she got people to see things her way. She had learned long ago that the banks were the biggest rip off artists in the business with their interest rates and fees on top of fees. “Better in my pocket than in theirs,” she thought to herself.

She got into her little economy car and started the engine. The car was a very uninspiring grey green color that she hated; but what the heck, she had gotten a super discount deal through her brother, the used car salesman, so there were no complaints.

Continued Part II

This day was particularly long and dusty. I had to drive from Redondo Beach back to the San Fernando Valley and was bushed.

Carmen, the Hispanic housekeeper, was responsible for picking up the princess from school each day and driving her home. Thereafter, hopefully, getting her started on homework. How much homework ever happened versus how much TV watching was being done, was the question.

This particular summer day, Carmen was in the process of starting dinner. The princess was looking like she was looking at her homework. I decided a nice long hot bath would be just the ticket.

I stripped down and got into my big tan tub with the Jacuzzi jets in the ‘bamboo’ bathroom. The previous owners must have been trying for some sort of Asian theme as the gold and rust wallpaper was a bamboo print and the curtain, a rolled up ‘bamboo’ affair. Once you got the jets going in the bath, it was Calgon take me away.

It just so happened that I was doing a lazy scrub of my armpits when I discovered a lump in one armpit. I instantly panicked and the huge ‘C’ word loomed large in my mind. I was devastated. I began to plan my own funeral and then get very weepy that Scooter was going to lose her mother so young.

It was while contemplating my own death, that over the sound of the bathroom fan, I could make out a faint ‘wop, wop, wop’ noise. The nosie continued.

With a “What the hell?” I got myself out of the big tub, did a half-dry and put on my bathrobe.

Like a cop at a crime scene, I ventured carefully into the family room and followed the sound. At first, given the confusion, I couldn’t tell what I was looking at.

Scooter was screaming and jumping around, Paws was leaping repeatedly into the air. There was something grey and white fluttering around and around the dining room table. Carmen had the broom out, was waving it up and down and whacking the floor. This was creating the ‘wop’ sound I had been hearing.

My benumbed brain finally kicked into gear. Paws had captured yet another bird from the backyard and had brought his prize into the house to show off. As luck would have it, the unfortunate creature was still alive, trying desperately to get away from the cat who was trying equally hard to recapture him.  

Carmen was ineffectually trying to ‘shoo’ them both out of the house and Scooter was helping by screaming and jumping up and down. I clamped my teeth together, yanked open the slider door, grabbed the broom and with one mighty ‘whack’ sent Paws out into the yard.

“Scooter, stop screaming!” I yelled. She gulped and shut up. I found the dust pan. Carmen and I managed to capture the almost dead bird and take him to the garbage can on the side of the house where he could rest in peace.

That done, I finally made it back to the bathroom, where the water was now lukewarm. I had forgotten all about my cancer when suddenly a thought popped into my head. I lifted my arm in front of the bathroom mirror and examined my lump. It was a very large, subcutaneous pimple, the kind I always got at a certain time of the month. I got some mud masque and plastered my armpit with it and put on some clothes so Carmen could go home.

Forty-five minutes later, dinner was done and on the table when the Master of the house had returned.

“So,” he queried, “anything interesting go on today?” He was looking down, slicing his chicken.

Scooter opened her mouth  to tell the cat and bird story. I shot her a freezing look and cast a meaningful glance at Paws, lying casually on the rug, licking his fur.

 Scooter stared back at me, then looked over at Paws. A momentary look of panic flashed across her face as she began shoveling down mashed potatoes.

“Na,” I said, “just another day, how ‘bout you?’

The end

Read more of Courtney’s writing in:
https://sites.google.com/view/webbywritercom/page-5?authuser=0

and Amazon/Kindle.

                                             

The alarm clock went off in that annoying way it had, every single morning at 6am. Why was it always 6 am?

I stumbled out of bed to turn it off. I had long since learned that I could not trust myself to have it next to the bed. I careened back to the bed and fell in a lump on my pillow. The drool woke me up again and I faced the inevitable and ambled into the bathroom, then the kitchen. Mercifully, the master of the house had at last figured out the automatic coffee maker. If I could just keep it together long enough in the evening to pour in the water, measure out the beans, grind them and dump; not forgetting to hit the ‘on’ button, I was assured of lifesaving caffeine in the am.

I clutched the first cup to my chest like a new baby and opened the door to the back yard. It was summer and the yard was still cool and invitingly green. The lawn chairs beckoned to me. Chubby, the dog, had gotten up with a big yawn and was taking his morning pee in the bushes. The cats were prowling around looking for big game. Paws, the big cat, sniffed the dog’s pee like it might be interesting. Early summer, the intense Southern California heat had not yet begun so we still had a few coolish days left. The birds were flitting about. All seemed right with the world.

Taking another sip, I wandered back to refill my cup and start my rounds of waking and reawaking the Master and child of the good ship suburbland.

The Master was pretty good, once his feet were actually on the floor. It was but a few moments before the big red bathrobe I got him one Christmas was tied around his skinny waist and he was slouching into the shower.  I could hear hot water pelting down. By the time he was out of the shower and on his second cup of coffee, he was almost speaking.

Getting the princess up and moving out of lavender kingdom was another matter. It could easily take five trips to wake and then reawake her highness and position her into an upright state. She had to be tempted with food to actually get moving. It might have been a Coco Puffs morning or perhaps a cinnamon oatmeal day; these things run together.

Whichever, I had learned to do breakfast first and dressing second so that we didn’t have to dress two times in one morning on account of spills.

The Master and commander was showered and dressed and sitting down to eat and shooting an impatient look at the princess.

“If I have to drive her to school, why can’t she get her clothes on first?”

Actually, a logical question.

“Lee, I think we have discussed this before,” I said in my smiley voice, “too many spills cause us to have to dress all over again. Remember?”

The princess was busy intently studying the back of the cereal box, trying to figure out how to get the prize, not paying too much attention to us.

“Mommy, I don’t see how you can get the parrot from this game.  Do they just send you the parrot in a box by mail? How do they breath?” The princess wanted to know

“Darling, I am not sure that it is a real parrot.  Maybe a toy one is what you win.”

“Oh, that’s no good,” Princess Scooter answered, “I only want it if it’s a real one”

“Ah,” I answered sagely.

“It could keep Chubby company,” she told me brightly.

“I think Chubby has lots of company with the two cats,” I replied.

“Yeah, but cats can’t fly,” she told me wisely.

The Master muttered something about how he could certainly make a cat fly and would too if that cat brought one more GD bird into this house.

“Ok,” I said hurriedly, “it’s about time to go Scooter, let’s go get your clothes on.”

Of course, ‘getting your clothes on’ was a process much easier said than done.

The teachers at Scooter’s school told me to have her pick out the maximum of three outfits the night before to reduce the morning fashion crisis.

This worked, sort of, if I locked and bolted the closet door so that she couldn’t get ‘one more thing’ out of there that had to be added to the ensemble. My current ploy was to quickly make her bed and plop the outfits in a row, blocking eye contact to the closet.

Making a choice between the three could sometimes be a grinding chore and some days easy. Usually those days were the ones were she wore the same outfit over and over again. Not so great for total cleanliness, but it did cut down the decision making time.

Years later I worked with a guy who, I realized with some surprise, wore exactly the same pair of pants and the same shirt to work every day. The next week, he changed the shirt and pants, wore those all week, then repeated the process the next week.  At first I was prompted to say something to him and stopped myself. “He has a system,” I told myself and in fact he had.

Anyway, garments on the body, books in the backpack; lunch in the lunch pail, wagon train ho! The Master and princess were off to another full-filled day. I was left to run around like a crazy person, stuffing dishes into the dishwasher and getting my clothes on.

Since most attorney offices didn’t get going until 10 am, I usually had enough time to pull it together with some reasonable organization and hit the freeway crawl with all the other commuters. I worked for Universal Insurance Company. My job was to meet and greet the clients in the flashy, expensive offices of their flashy, expensive attorneys who all had perfectly tailored suits and perfect orthodontia work.

The work was not super hard but with the Los Angeles freeway grind, a girl could get pretty tired at the end of the day. You can swear at just so many people behind the wheel of the car before it stops being fun.  

This day was particularly long and dusty and I had to drive from Redondo Beach back to the San Fernando Valley and was bushed.

Continued in Part II

Famous People with BDD

These celebrities have shared their struggles with appearance anxiety and Body Dysmorphic Disorder (BDD)

What is BDD? Find out more >

Billie Eilish

The Singer Billie Eilish has opened up about her Body Dysmorphia “I’ve never felt comfortable in really tiny clothes,” she said, “I was always worried about my appearance. That was the peak of my body dysmorphia. I couldn’t look in the mirror at all.”

---

Reid Ewing

Reid Ewing the actor from Modern Family has been open about having suffered from BDD for years. He has undergone many cosmetic surgeries but has never been satisfied with the results. When he first moved to LA, he admitted that all he wanted to do was sit in his apartment and take photos of himself from every angle. His first surgery was at age 19 for a cheek implantation that he describes as leaving his cheeks “as hollow as a corpse’s.” He then had multiple surgeries to fix the problems that he believed the initially surgery had caused. He now believes the surgeries were unethical and ineffective. He said, “I genuinely believed if I had one operation I would suddenly look like Brad Pitt”. 

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Robert Pattinson

Robert Pattinson, an actor who rose to fame through the Twilight movies has revealed his experiences of BDD:

‘Body dysmorphia, overall tremendous anxiety. I suppose it’s because of these tremendous insecurities that I never found a way to become egotistical. I don’t have a six-pack and I hate going to the gym. I’ve been like that my whole life. I never want to take my shirt off.”

---

Shirley Manson

Shirley Manson, the lead singer in the pop group Garbage, states in a magazine interview that she had a history of BDD:

“I always turned up five hours late because I’d be fussing about my hair and make-up. I would change into a million different outfits, and make them change the lighting a million times, I would spend two hours crying in the toilet – and whatever the result, I always thought I looked disgusting. I would look in the mirror every morning and be upset. I would get dressed and look in the mirror again, and be upset. It could be anything; I could be too fat, too thin, too flat chested. My hands were not long enough, my neck was too long. My tummy stuck out, my bum was too big… It was driving me crazy and I was wasting energy – precious energy – that I should have been putting into my music or my family or friends”.

---

Michael Jackson

Michael Jackson (1958-2009) probably had BDD (as well as many other emotional problems). He is famously known for his extra-ordinary amount of cosmetic surgery (and indeed denial of having had cosmetic surgery.)

He had had an abusive childhood from his father who repeatedly called him ugly and he suffered from acute acne as a teenager. In latter years, he led an isolated life and repeatedly covered his face using a surgical mask when out in public.

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Andy Warhol

Andy Warhol (1928-1987) may have had BDD. The pop artist, who put Campbell soup cans and coloured photographs of Marilyn Monroe in museums, was very self-conscious and preoccupied by “redness” on his nose.

In his autobiography (Warhol, 1975) he reveals, “I believe in low lights and trick mirrors. A person is entitled to the lighting they need.” (p.51).  “At one time, the way my nose looked really bothered me – it’s always red – and I decided that I wanted to have it sanded… I went to see the doctor and I think he thought he’d humour me, so he sanded it and when I walked out of St Luke’s Hospital, I was the same underneath but had a bandage on” (p.63). “If I didn’t want to look so bad, I would want to look plain. That would be my next choice” (p.69).

Carl Withers, who became his lover in 1952, confirmed in an interview “he was incredibly self-conscious and had such a low opinion of his looks; it was a serious psychological block with him.” His concern with his nose is reflected in one of his early works “Before and After”, which is an advertisement for a rhinoplasty and can be seen in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

---

Currently, controversy is raging in the state of Florida about a bill which restricts underage minors from having permanent sex-change operations even with the consent of an adult. In these days of ‘everything is new’ including transgender issues, research into the annals of psychiatry show that body dysmorphia was studied as far back as Freud and is frequently associated with deep seated depressive issues. Before we start agreeing to slice and dice, some insight into research that has already been done would be very useful.

Indian J Psychiatry. 2006 Oct-Dec; 48(4): 260–262.

doi: 10.4103/0019-5545.31561

PMCID: PMC2915600

PMID: 20703349

Body dysmorphic disorder, dysmorphophobia or delusional disorder—somatic subtype?

V.K. Aravind^* and V.D. Krishnaram^**

Author information Copyright and License information Disclaimer

This article has been cited by other articles in PMC.

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Abstract

Excessive concern about the appearance of one’s body is the hallmark of body dysmorphic disorder (BDD). A case with recurrent intrusive preoccupation and concern about the appearance of the face, ritualistic behaviours associated with this preoccupation, resulting in social and interpersonal difficulties is presented. The difficulty to draw a discrete boundary between BDD and a delusional disorder of somatic type is highlighted.

Keywords: Body dysmorphic disorder, change of face appearance, delusional disorder, somatic type

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INTRODUCTION

Body dysmorphic disorder (BDD) previously known as ‘dysmorphophobia’ is defined as a preoccupation with an imagined defect in one’s physical appearance. The preoccupation is associated with many time-consuming rituals such as mirror gazing or constant comparing.¹ One of Freud’s patients who was subsequently analysed by Brunswick was known as the ‘Wolfman’ and he was preoccupied with imagined defects on his nose.²

In 1886, Morselli described dysmorphophobia. Dysmorphophobia by proxy was reported by R. Laugharne in 1997—the patient was preoccupied not with her own appearance but how her potential offspring might look.³

There is frequent comorbidity in BDD, especially in depression, social phobia, and obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD) and delusional disorder.⁴ Beliefs about defects in appearance usually carry strong personal meanings and implications. A belief that his nose was too big caused one patient to feel that he would end up alone, unloved and that he might look like a crook. Also, such patients are likely to display delusions of reference, believing that people around them notice their defect and evaluate them negatively or humiliate them as a consequence of their ugliness.⁵

A further aspect of BDD is time-consuming behaviours adopted by sufferers to examine the defect repeatedly or to disguise or improve it. Examples include gazing into the mirror to compare particular features with those of others; and some other features such as excessive grooming, which can be quite deleterious especially where the skin is concerned, camouflaging the defect with clothes or make-up, dieting and pursing dermatological treatment or cosmetic surgery.

Delusional disorder comprises a heterogeneous group of disorders of unknown aetiology whose hallmark and chief features are the presence of a single delusional system. Major modes of presentation of somatic delusional disorder, ‘mono-symptomatic hypochondrical psychosis’ are those of infestations by insects, worms and foreign bodies, emitting a foul odour (halitosis) or of being ugly.⁶

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2915600/#:~:text=INTRODUCTION,mirror%20gazing%20or%20constant%20comparing.

         

She is old and every inch of her

is covered up against the

freezing cold.

I can see her here from upstairs

on my Stairmaster as I start at 1.5 and

start to work my way up.

She has an old metal cart with big wheels and

she patiently places one piece of cardboard

after another into the cart.

I hit the button up to 2.5 and think about

how I need to get more

distribution on my books. She puts another

bit of cardboard in the cart.

I am on Face Book and Twitter and should get

stuff on Pinterest and Tumblr and Share.

More cardboard goes in.

Also; Kindle, Biz Sugar and Aviary Capture and what the hell is that

anyway?

I push the number up to 3.5 and the disco music

next door is just blaring in the dancercise class. I can hear the thump, thump of the women bouncing, clapping and shouting.

She disappears and comes back with more cardboard.

The problem is  the stock market and

then the interest on these damn credit cards.

She places more cardboard in the cart.

I am thinking about having my eyes done.

I need more Botox, Jesus, what’s that guy going to charge me this time?  Hair color; need another box of hair color.

She places more cardboard in and I punch the numbers up to 5.0 and

I am moving now. The pounding next door seems louder and I increase the speed to 6.0. 

“You know,” he tells me, smiling, “you would be pretty if you just weren’t so old!”

Got to get these pounds off, they really show up on my chin and age me so much. Faster on the treadmill.

“Mom, I need some money. I can’t make my rent.”

“I don’t have it darling. I have to buy plane tickets. I’m sorry.”

‘Ok, I understand,” she says dully.

Slowly, she puts more cardboard in the cart. “When the hell is she going to be done?” I think.

“You know, it is really too bad you have to work in a place like that,” my friend says. “If you would get a job in a good place, I would come visit you.”

I am really starting to work up a sweat.

 “That school you work for isn’t very high level,” the teacher tells me.

“It’s my first University job.”

“It just isn’t a very good school.”

I am flying on the treadmill now.

“I have published several books.”

“But who reads them?” asks my coworker.

“I have readership.”

“Yeah.”

I get off the treadmill to go join all the other middle-aged ladies bouncing and screaming in the gym.

I feel sorry for the old lady gathering her cardboard; it must be tough working out on the street on a day like this.

Read more of Courtney’s writing in:
https://sites.google.com/view/webbywritercom/page-5?authuser=0

and Amazon/Kindle.

Winter unwove into spring and the end of school approached with the end of year activities; dances, dinners and the like. Key Club decided to have a big end of the year dinner at a fancy restaurant in town. My mother dutifully created another ‘hand-made’ dress for me. I hinted around at one of the other guys in the group that I needed a date and he obligingly asked me to go. Jeff was a nice enough kid, cute and pretty smart without being movie-star good looking or brilliant. He wasn’t Peter, but as a member of the Key Club, he was still in the ‘inner circle,’ and I was still holding out hope.

The big day arrived and I got into my new dress, my hair looked presentable and I spent an hour on my makeup. Jeff was scheduled to pick me up and as I was getting ready to go a thought struck me; my dad. My dad was always about half in the bag by dinner and by the time Jeff and I got back; he would certainly be way gone and around the bend liquor wise. I had a hurried and feverish conversation with my mother and she promised to ‘get him out of the house.’ I said to her “Can’t he just go to the Club for a few hours? He’s there all the time anyway.” She made promises to make it happen and my ride picked me up without a hitch.

We got to the restaurant and immediately saw Linda and Peter by themselves in a booth. Peter summoned us over and we ‘got’ to sit with them. My dress at the time was a yellow, polka-dot affair that my mother thought was ‘really cute.’ I thought it looked really dumb but, what choice did I have? Linda was sitting, regally, by Peter’s side in a low-cut black cocktail dress, no doubt purchased for the occasion. My eyes bugged out a second while I took this in and for a moment considered covering myself with table napkins. However, this passed and we got to soup when I realized Linda was wearing a new necklace. Was that a diamond heart setting? I couldn’t bear to ask. The last remnants of hope were drifting out the window with the beef vapors.

Two painful hours later, Jeff brought me home and we sat down in the living room to chit-chat a bit with my mom. Things seemed to be going well and Jeff was starting to look better to me. Suddenly, the front door opened and in walked my dad.

Walked in is too generous a phrase; stumbled in is a better way to put it. He stumbled in with a shot glass in his hand. “‘ello, everybody,” he slurred. “Woos’ ‘is,” he continued, pointing at my date.

I got a grip on myself and carefully said, “Jeff, this is my dad. Dad, Jeff.”

“Glad ‘met ‘ya young man. Want a drink?”

“Dad, Jeff is sixteen years old, I don’t think he is old enough to drink,” I responded tersely.

“Oh, no,” Dad continued, “Never too young to have a drink. Man’s drink,” he lurched a bit toward the increasingly nervous Jeff. “Scotch?” he queried hopefully.

Jeff was starting to look wildly around the room, trying to find the escape hatch. My mom was twisting a paper towel in her hands and I had, by this time, stood up.

“He doesn’t need a drink, Dad; he’s fine,” I spat out.

“Oh, no,” Dad responded, “‘ittle drink. Be right back.” He veered off course toward the kitchen.

The moment he was out of the room; Jeff leapt up and started to stammer, “Well, nice meeting you Mrs. Caufield, nice, nice house. Ah, thanks Cissy, I, I’ve got to go. So, see you at school, right?” And without completely running, he got himself to the door and out like a flash. I didn’t even bother walking out to his car.

My dad came back in carrying two glasses with brown liquid. “Where’d ‘e go?” He sagged down on the Barcalounger, his favorite chair.

“The young man left, Dan,” was my mother’s plaintiff reply.

“Oh,” my dad started to sip his drink again. “More ‘fer me.”

I could feel a curtain of rage sweep over my body. I tore out of the room and ran toward the garage.

My mother yelled, “Cissy, Cissy where are you going?”

I knew where I was going; I was going to the locked trunk. I found the key, wrenched the lid open and found the revolver; loaded as per usual. Running back into the living room, aiming with both hands, I pulled the trigger and shot my dad. Boy, was that sound loud. My mother shrieked.

I almost fell backwards from the recoil. A second later, my dad was touching a little red streak on the top of his head and there was a hole in the Barcalounger.

“You shot me,” he said blankly.

Let my digress just a little; I never really meant to kill my dad, more like just make a point, if you know what I mean. I had taken riflery and small arms at summer camp at his insistence.

“Any daughter of mine,” he had said pompously, “should know how to shoot like a man, defend yourself.” So, I did learn how to shoot like a man and was pretty good at it too. This was just a little statement shot so to speak.

My mom was open-mouthed. I threw the gun down and ran to my room, slamming the door behind me as hard as I could. Throwing myself on my bed, I burst into tears.

The next day; our house was pretty quiet. Dad and Mom were at the kitchen table when I came down for breakfast. My dad’s head was hanging and he had that special kind of green look I knew so well. On purpose I banged down my cereal bowl. He jumped a little and winced, but didn’t look up.

My mother was fiddling nervously with a fork when I sat down. I didn’t say anything. She chirped brightly. “Cissy, your dad and I have had a long talk. Didn’t we Dan?”

My dad moved his head a little.

“And, well, we have decided he is going to go get some help with his, his…..problem. That’s right, Dan, right?” Little head movement from my dad.

“Oh, and about those guns in the garage,” my mother continued, “we have decided we are going to get rid of those too. Might be better for all of us,” she finished brightly sounding a bit like we were planning a trip to Florida. I nodded glumly and finished my cereal in silence.

Actually, my mom was right about the guns. It probably would be better for all of us; next time I might not miss.

The End

Read more of Courtney’s writing in:
https://sites.google.com/view/webbywritercom/page-5?authuser=0

and Amazon/Kindle.

You can’t always get ahead but you sometimes can get even.

My next door neighbor had everything. She lived in one of the best houses on the block, she had bleached blond hair at age thirteen, and she always wore it up high and ‘teased’ with a ton of hairspray. She wore real black eyeliner, cut-off jeans and big white men’s shirts over that. She was cool. Her mother didn’t work and spent time making cookies and pies so that when the ‘girls’ came over to Linda’s house, there were always cookies and lemonade.

Her real name was Belinda; but she shortened it to Linda. She was one year older than I and had one brother who always played football. Not only was her house nicer, her parents drove bigger, newer cars and her mom had time to take her shopping for all the latest clothes. When Linda moved in next door; she blew the socks off everyone in the neighborhood and she became an instant hit. Everyone always wanted to hang out at Linda’s.

I, on the other hand, had non-descript brown hair, not bleached and not ratted (what’s that?) I don’t think I owned a can of hairspray. My hair is mostly stick straight except for one little spot that likes to pop up into a weird curl all the time. My mom worked five days a week and when she wasn’t doing that, she was shopping for fabric to make us all ‘hand-made’ clothes. Most of my clothes were either ‘hand-made’ or hand-me-down until I was almost twenty.

I lived next to Linda with my mom, dad and two obnoxious brothers. It didn’t seem fair that Linda got so much attention from everyone; I lived there first! Anyway, like I said, my mother was usually either gone at work, playing bridge or hidden away in the sewing room. She could be counted on for saying things like, “That’s nice,” or “If you don’t like them Cissy, why don’t you stop playing with them?” That’s my name, Cissy Caufield, named after one of my mother’s friends. Who names a kid something like Cissy? Dumb.

Oh, and my dad. My dad was a big guy, very handsome at one time, lots of black hair and shiny white teeth. He was a WWII veteran and loved nothing better than to tell a ton of stories about the war. He would ramble on about some story or other about the war or the military, have a sip of scotch, and continue. He was proud of the fact that he still had three service revolvers in the garage. There were always loaded, ‘just in case.’ He kept them locked in a steamer trunk, but I knew where the key was.

Did I mention the scotch? Yes scotch, and lots of it. My dad was a drunk. In addition to telling stories, he loved to get drunk. Yes drunk, not tipsy; but smashed, blotto, wacked, bombed, stewed to the gills, pie-eyed, blind drunk, stumbling drunk, very, very drunk.

My mother would spend time, when I got into one of my fits about Dad, to use her best calming voice to talk me down and tell me how we needed to be understanding of Dad; he’s got problems, he needs our support, etcetera, etcetera, blah, blah and blah. She would get that pensive, screwed up look to her face and look a little bit like a suffering puppy and I would finally snap out of it and she would go back to her nice-nice face. Gag!

Time marched on and before long I, my brothers and Linda were all at the same high school. Linda still had the bleached blond hair, and I still had the weird hair but these days she was on a ‘diet’ specially constructed by her mother. She was trying out for the flag twirling team and had to ‘slim down’. I never had to go on many diets as I had a stick figure already. I too tried out for a cheer-leader position and worked at it very, very hard. However, Linda got picked for flag and I didn’t get cheer. So now, in addition to seeing her next door all the time; I also got to see her kicking up her heels and showing off her satin rump while twirling a flag at half-time. Lucky me.

Eventually, being the good-girl type, I joined the Key club and we all ran around doing service work. There was also a boy section to this service thing and the girls and guys would occasionally get together for projects. It was on one of these projects that I saw him. One year older than me, slim with a little muscle, black hair, blue eyes and very, very nice. Peter. Peter was the president of the boy’s side of the Key club and he was gorgeous. Wow.  He would start talking and I would hang on every word like a dog waiting for a biscuit. He walked by and I almost drooled.

I am not sure if I ever really talked to Peter; other than in my head of course, but I was certainly working up to it. In addition to that, I had plans; many, many plans for me and Peter.

It was with thoughts such as these dancing in my head that I drove home from school one night to a big surprise. As I pulled round the cul-de-sac; my headlights hit a car that was parked in front of Linda’s house. Suddenly, two heads popped up from the back seat. I drove by and parked and the heads disappeared. As I was walking inside it hit me as to who they were; it was Linda and Peter! I was shocked, stunned and disbelieving. Oh no; that, that…..how could she! I saw him first!

Later days proved the grim and disappointing truth; Linda and Peter had become an ‘item’ on campus. My soul was dark and filled with dread whenever I had to drive by her house, afraid of what I might see again. Good God, this couldn’t be happening. But, oh yes, it was.

Continued part II

The next day, the cops were all over the parking lot after an early morning shopper found Stanley’s dead body. There was crime scene tape around the place and cops were busy talking to everyone they could find.

Unfortunately for them, this little section of the parking lot where the employees had parked was the darkest part of the lot. The camera range didn’t extend that far. There had been a lot of people at the Showcase but most of the businesses were closed at that time. At the moment Stanley died, Larry and Lady G were busy accepted rounds of applause from the audience. No one could be exactly certain about who was or was not there.

The detectives shook their heads and kept making notes in their little books. They promised to come back when most of the staff instructors were there to teach lessons.

It was probably mid-morning before Maude realized that Jane was not at work. Larry checked the answer machine; the studio still had an old fashioned one for backup. There was a wavy message from Jane saying she had a bad headache and would make it in the next day.

Larry told the detective who made a note of her address and phone.

“Ah, if she doesn’t come in soon, we’ll have to go to her place to talk to her. You understand.”

Larry nodded. He felt vaguely guilty and wasn’t exactly sure why.

When the cops finally left with promises to come back, he looked at Maude.

“Maude, you know Jane pretty well. She wouldn’t do something like this, would she?”

Maude shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t know, Larry. She hasn’t been herself lately. But, to do something like this? This bad? Wow, I don’t know. This new generation, you know?”

Larry sort of knew but was going to have to let it go for a bit. His head was spinning.

                                                #

It was an anxious Larry Gee who reported in at the police station two days later. With his black clothing and pale skin, he looked a little out of place around the buff cops in their navy-blue uniforms and dark tans. Detective Martinez had asked that Mrs. Gee come too. Larry begged off and asked to be interviewed alone.

They were sitting in a private interview room now.

“She’s in Mexico,” Detective Martinez volunteered. “Miss Stanwell, your receptionist.”

“Oh,” Larry added.

“We got extradition laws with the State of Mexico. Lots of people don’t know that.”

“Oh,” Larry replied again. “So…”

“So, Mr. Gee, we wanted to know what you could tell us about this.” Martinez slid a slip of paper forward. It was contained in a clear plastic sleeve.

Larry read the note. His already pale skin blanched further and then started to turn pink.

“I, I don’t know,” he replied.

The detective pulled the note back, turned it around and read it. “I’ve gone forever. Tell Larry I’ll love him always. Jane.” There was a pregnant pause.

“Why would the young lady write such a note, Mr. Gee?”

Larry shook his head, numb.

“Was she, in fact, in love with you, Sir?”

Larry opened his mouth, and nothing came out.

The detective had a little black notebook and a short ink pen. “Why don’t you tell me about your relationship with the young lady. And, while we’re at it, why would she do such a thing as to stab a client like Mr. Stanley?”

“She, she was an employee. A good employee. She had only been with us a few months. I don’t…”

“Were you having an affair with her, Sir?”

Larry blanched again. “No, no…no affair.”

“Okay, no affair.” Martinez made notes in his book and tapped his pen on the paper as he considered the man sitting across from him.

“No affair,” Martinez said slowly. He drew some little circles on the paper. “Then what was it?”

“What?” Larry looked confused.

“What was it that was going on between you two?” Some more sharp taps of the pen as Martinez shifted in his chair.

“Jesus,” Larry sunk his head in his hands.

Now we’re getting somewhere, Detective Martinez thought to himself. He looked up at the two-way mirror and nodded at his partner who was standing on the other side, listening.

“It was nothing.” Larry finally pulled himself up and spoke.

“Nothing,” Martinez stopped tapping and looked at the man.

“Yes, it was nothing. A little flirting is all. Then, Jane, Miss Stanwell, asked for some private dance lessons. We arranged a discount price since she was an employee and I gave her some lessons.”

“How private were the lessons?” Martinez had to force himself not to smile.

“They were all at the studio. Period. Definitely no hanky-panky, Detective. Believe me.”

Martinez nodded. “Go on.”

“Then, at some point, Lady G,” Larry paused, “my wife,” he said pointedly, “felt there was too much interaction between myself and the young woman. She took steps to change the schedule to get Jane doing other things. The privates came to an end.”

“I see,” Martinez said. “So, Lady G, your wife, was the one put the skids on.”

Larry Gee crossed his arms across his chest. “Yes, she did.” He managed to look a little offended.

“So, if your wife had not done this, then…”

“Nothing, Detective. Nothing at all. I am married the last ten years with three young children. There was nothing going on between me and Miss Stanwell and there wasn’t going to be either.” Larry nodded up and down with some force.

“Okay, Mr. Gee. I get the picture. A little light flirting with the girl. Wife gets wind and changes the girl’s duties around. Is that when she began to partner with Mr. Stanley?”

“I believe so,” Larry added. “Miss Stanwell was being coached by one of our oldest teachers, Maude Adams. It was Maude who assigned her partners.”

“That would explain, I guess,” Martinez added, “how it was she even knew the deceased.”

Larry nodded. “Yes, yes it is.”

“What possible motive would the young lady have in stabbing Mr. Stanley, Sir? That you can think of?”

“I have no idea, Detective Martinez. I have absolutely no idea.”

A shaken Larry Gee left the station. Detective Martinez met with his partner back at their desks.

“So, what’s you think?”

“I think he’s a pretty boy dork, who almost had an affair. The wife found out and put a stop to it. Don’t think he’s involved. Scared of his own shadow that one.”

Martinez nodded his agreement.

“You looked at her picture? Stanwell?”

His partner nodded. “Yeah, she’s a looker for sure. Won’t do well in prison.”

“She might get manslaughter. Un-premeditated thing.”

“My guess too.” O’Reilly picked up his coffee cup and stared at the contents. He got up to get a fresh cup.

“So, Reilly, what’s you thinking ‘bout what happened here?” Martinez asked casually.

“Me?” O’Reilly tapped his cup. “Ah, if I was to hazard a guess, I’d say probably a case of unrequited love.” He started to walk away.

“Unre…. what?” Martinez spluttered.

“Ah, look it up partner. You got a dictionary in that computer of yours. Unrequited.”

“Hey, pal. I been to college too, you know.”

“I do know, Martinez. And let me say the department is eternally grateful to online learning courses. But, a word a day, Marti, a word a day.”

“You’re a pompous ass.”

“True, but I really do need another cup of coffee. Be back.” O’Reilly slouched out of the room.

A few minutes later, coffee refreshed, he came back. He scooted his chair up to his partner’s desk.

“Okay, we got one very hot chick.” He pointed to Jane’s picture.

His partner nodded.

“Then, we got one older, fairly ugly dude,” he pointed to a picture of Stanley. “For whatever twisted reasons, Lady Gee, in a fit of pique…”

“What….” His partner started to say.

“Aggravation call it. Puts the two of them together in this dancing thing.”

Martinez nodded.

“The hot chick here,” O’Reilly points, “falls for the handsome married guy,” he pointed to the printout labeled, Larry Gee. He reciprocates just enough to get her cranked up and then pulls out. To use a phrase.” He grins at his partner.

“Ugly dude here,” he taps the picture of Stanley, “falls head over heels with beauty,” tapping the pix of Jane, “and tries real hard to make it work. Ugly follows beauty to her car and tries something. God knows what. She sticks him and flees.”

Martinez held his chin with one hand. “Makes sense.”

“Plus, I think she was on something when this happened.”

“They didn’t serve liquor at that Showcase thing of theirs.”

“Yeah, I know they didn’t. But if you examine the record of your girl Jane, you’ll see she has two priors for drunk driving and one domestic assault charge. Maybe they weren’t serving liquor at the party, but I still think she was on something. We won’t know what it was ‘til we get her back here State side.”

So, all fer love, huh? What an idiot.” Martinez shook his head.

“Yeah, well. ‘The face is the mirror of the mind, and eyes without speaking confess the secrets of the heart,’” O’Reilly quoted.

“Who said that? Don’t tell me it was you,” Martinez frowned.

“St. Jerome,” his partner said. “We’ll know more when we see her.”

“Still think she’s an idiot.”

“Ah, Martinez, you’re just not a true romantic.”

“Not a romantic at all. Thank God.”

“Well, there’s that. Lunch?”

“Yeah, I need some food after all this creepy romance stuff. Yuk.”

“Sounds like a Tommy’s burger then.”

“You on, pal.”

They both grabbed jackets and left the office.

The End.

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