The dress looks like crushed velvet, but it’s really washable polyester just in case there’s a kitchen disaster to contend with while I’m expertly playing the role of carefree hostess. If I cut off the tiny rosebuds, the dress will be perfect to wear to Cameron’s funeral.
I will bury Cameron at the top of the hill, try to ease my grief by volunteering to speak at those anti-drunk-driver rallies. Only a matter of time before Cameron’s luck runs out. All those late hours spent at the office or wherever he really strays when he should be here helping with baths and bedtime stories… surely it’s only a matter of time before some drunk driver proves the Volvo isn’t really safe after all.
The party comes off without a hitch. My mother would be proud. Is proud? I can’t quite force myself to use the speed dialer and find out once and for all if she answers or if the number’s been disconnected.
My “caterer” would be an instant success if only I could figure out a way to hide that sideline as easily and efficiently as I do the paper route.
Cameron disappears into the study the instant the last of the guests departs. No need to try to hide the cleanup. The babysitter and her brothers are thrilled with their pay, thrilled enough to stick around and help.
My internal alarm clock goes off precisely as Grandma’s clock chimes four times in the living room. I’m not in the master bedroom or the guestroom where I wake up most mornings. The kitchen chair is hardly a comfortable resting place. There’s an icy mug on the table with the hardened remnants of what was once hot chocolate. A half-eaten bag of mini-marshmallows and crumbs of carefully crafted pastries from the party complete the scene. Didn’t I ever go to bed last night? I can’t quite remember.
Tyler will want bananas sliced on his favorite sugary cereal with just enough nutrition hidden in it to make it acceptable to me. Instant oatmeal and strained peaches for Sasha. Bacon, eggs, and hash browns for Cameron, or maybe a nice four-egg omelet oozing with cheddar cheese and ham. I’ll ask him what he prefers as soon as the shower turns off.
Something’s wrong. I don’t hear the shower. The master bedroom is dark. I tiptoe to the edge of the cavernous bed that seems so small and suffocating on those rare occasions when I still bother to go though the motions of playing loving wife to Cameron. Dear God, there’s so much blood. I should pick up the phone and dial 911, but it’s obviously far too late for that. I should call the police. No. I’m beginning to remember why that would be a bad idea, a very bad idea.
I will tell the children Daddy is already working in the study, mustn’t be disturbed, feed them breakfast. Never skip a beat of the normal routine. Tyler will help with the newspaper inserts, then curl up in the minivan for a bit more sleep as I fly through the paper route in record time. He won’t tolerate a kiss when I drop him off at preschool, but he might grudgingly accept a hug.
Just another morning. No reason to panic. Deep breaths. Play the role of the perfect wife. Once more with feeling.
Cameron’s Volvo will pull out of the garage at exactly the same time as any other morning. By the time his partners realize he didn’t get to work, I will have taken care of all the messy little details.
Just this once, I will give thanks that I’m not a perfect size two. Better to have the bulk and the strength to do what must be done.
I will bury Cameron at the top of the hill. Maybe under a tree. Maybe not. Wherever the soil is soft enough to dig and wherever there’s enough loose brush to cover up my handiwork. No lie of a eulogy. No mourners. Just me, and Sasha sleeping soundly in her baby seat. I will be ever so careful to leave traces of Cameron’s blood in the trunk of the Volvo. Maybe I’ll even leave the sheets and buy new ones in the kind of ritzy linen emporium worthy of a prominent attorney’s wife. Nobody would ever suspect the K-Mart sheets and blankets belonged to us.
No need to wipe fingerprints from the Volvo. Everybody knows Cameron insists that I drive it at least once a week so he can do God knows what with the minivan. I will wear gloves when I drive the Volvo one last time so there will be smudges on the steering wheel.
Just in case Cameron was wrong about how close crime is sneaking up on us. Just in case nobody steals the Volvo after I park it at the bottom of the hill on the far side from home, leaving the keys in the ignition.
Sasha isn’t that heavy yet. We’ll be home long before anybody misses us or Cameron.
Even if they discover Cameron’s body, nobody would dream of suspecting his grieving widow. Loyal wife. Mother of his three beautiful children. So brave to sleep alone in the cavernous bed in the big house so far away from any neighbors, so courageous to pick up the pieces and move on.
If there’s ever a knock at the door, ever a detective with Columbo’s raincoat and Ricky Ricardo’s hat, Lucie will have some ’splaining to do. I will tell him what I remember, tell him how Cameron pushed me over the edge by admitting our Hollywood happily-ever-after marriage was nothing more than an icy business arrangement, carefully crafted with Papa.
Cameron told me more than I ever wanted to know, repeating Papa’s opinion that it would be a waste of time and money for me to go to college. “She’s a headstrong filly who needs a firm hand.”
After all the questions, surely the detective will come to understand who’s really responsible.
I will bury Cameron at the top of the hill.
A Berlin Story by LIBBY FISCHER HELLMANN
HERR HESSE SHOULD never have stayed for the last number. Indeed, some expressed shock he was there at all. A physics professor at the University of Berlin. Well-dressed, a touch of gray in his hair. Why would Friedrich Hesse visit Der Flammen, a seedy cabaret tucked away on a side street?
It came out later that Ilse had asked him to stay. Ilse-the star performer at Der Flammen. Ilse-with the sad brown eyes and short blonde hair and a black sequined costume that stopped at the top of her thighs.
He sat in the audience that night, a glass of schnapps in his hand. Elbow to elbow with the riffraff, all of them vying to be decadent. The life of the genteel Prussian had vanished, replaced by the ennui of the jaded. No one pretended to innocence in the Berlin of Thirty-two. What counted most was scandal. It masked the pain and despair.
He suffered through buxom women in skimpy costumes and the men pretending to be. He turned away from the animal parade. But when the orchestra sounded a drum roll, he twisted back toward the stage. And when Ilse appeared in the wavering beam of the spotlight, he brightened like a man glimpsing salvation.
In her first number she flounced across stage as a mountain girl, long braids pinned to her head. She wore a leather vest laced tight across her breasts, but not much else. It wasn’t until the shepherd boy unlaced it and forced her to ride the goat that Hesse looked away.
Next she marched onstage in an Imperial Regimental jacket, a rifle slung over her chest. She sang and crawled and shot and saluted her superior officer, who relieved her of her jacket and threw it into the wings. The randy shouts of the audience drowned out the last verse of her song. Through it all, the professor politely sipped his schnapps, as if Ilse were reciting poetry in a salon.
In the finale, she sang a sad ballad, wearing black sequins, fishnet stockings, and stiletto heels. A stray lock of hair fell across her face, throwing her profile in shadow. As her final note hung in the smoky air, the professor rose, put on his hat, and walked out. Skirting the bank of snow on the street, he cut through a narrow alley and knocked at the stage door.
The janitor found his body the next morning, half-hidden behind the stage in a corner. A pool of blood, now congealed, had seeped across the floor. The police found entry wounds in his chest and bullet casings that had come from a Luger.