See You

Chapter 7

He rowed back, silently taunting Virginia.  Eighteen years of marriage and this is what you do to me.  Did you think I was an idiot?  That I did not know about what you were doing, what you were up to?  For six months you have been seeing psychics.  Psychic did not see that coming.  Did she?  What idiot visits a psychic?  Psychic told you to divorce me and take the money that I had done most of the work for?  Did she tell you to screw three different guys in the same year?  You could have easily divorced me and walked away.  You did not need my business.  I built that business without help from you or your family.  The only thing you brought to the table was a few connections.  Would I have been as rich as your family?  No.  But you could have tried to encourage me.  But that would not have been fair.  How could you support me and Josh?  Yes.  I knew you were screwing Josh.  Yes.  I knew you were leaving me in one month.  I saw some of your text messages to Josh.  He was a high school friend my ass.  You guys have been lovers forever.  I was supposed to be stupid.  Who’s stupid now?                        

He got out of the canoe and pulled it onto shore.  No one was on the beach.  He had checked what foot traffic would be on the beach at that time for the last few weeks and on different days.  There was never anyone on it.  Many of the houses were vacant.  The owners had closed them up for the fall and winter.  The beach was dead.

He pulled the canoe back to behind the house.  He hurried and removed the boxers and changed into the ones in his pants’ pocket.  He thought about the boxers when he planned everything else.  They would probably have chips of paint on them from the canoe.  And when he threw them away they could never be linked to him.  They would be too small for him to have ever worn them. 

He finished getting dress and went back to his car.  He slammed the door shut and started the engine.  Then he sat and stared out the windshield.  The satisfaction of killing her down the beach from her lover was indescribable.  The waves had picked up.  Maybe it was meant to be, he thought.  He smelled his hands.  Nothing.  No smell.  He exhaled and relaxed in the seat.  Then he put the car in reverse and backed out of the parking space. 

He drove the three minutes to Josh’s house and parked on the street.  It was down the beach from where he had just left Virginia’s body.  But a large bend in the beachfront made it impossible for anyone to see the house where he had taken Virginia.  And there were two vacant houses on either side of the house where he had taken Virginia.  Five houses, side by side, were vacant.  It was perfect.  What other sign could he have gotten to tell him that it was time to rid himself of unhappiness?  May be a voice?  He laughed.    

“Okay,” he said, before getting out and going inside Josh’s house.  “She’s taking a walk along the beach.  We had a few words.  It’s my fault.  She’ll be in soon.”  He looked in the rearview mirror at his hair and stroked it.  “That’s why I’m in PR.”  He winked at himself and got out of the car and walked up the driveway and around to the front of the house—despising each step he was forced to take.  The only positive about the party was that it was his alibi. 

The large sliding glass front doors to Josh’s house were open.  He could see most of the regulars milling about.  A few women in particular caught this attention.  Virginia’s best friend Bethany was one of them.  He had wanted to screw her the first day he met her.  She was probably one of the people who encouraged Virginia to do what she did.  He thought how great it would be to get her drunk and take her home with him.  When he was finished with her he would take her to join Virginia.  He laughed to himself and stepped inside the house.

Chapter 8

Paul did not like the reception he received when he walked inside Josh’s house.  Stares were his greetings.  No one asked how he was doing.  No one said hello.  Just stares. 

“Where’s Virginia?” Bethany asked with a plastic smile on her face for him. 

He hated her.  And he knew she felt the same way about him.  All five feet ten inches of her kept her distance from him.  She was smart to keep her distance.  Standing beside Bethany was Lisa.  Stiletto heels did not help her catch up to Bethany’s height.  What moron would wear stilettos to a beach party anyway?  And Lisa’s dress made her look more like a whore than the desired look she was trying to portray.  The dress made her breasts look larger than they were.  And they were already large enough.  Her lips were as red as usual.  He tried not to stare at them.  But when she ran her tongue across her teeth he could not help but to stare.  She thought the color made her look sexy.  It reminded him of a prostitute.  She probably gave good head for the right price, he thought.   

Bethany watched him watching Lisa and was no more disgusted with him than usual.  She was glad Virginia was divorcing that sleaze.  Why had she married him anyway?  And why had it taken her so long to realize that she had made a mistake?  Everyone else had known it the first month.  “Where is she?” Bethany asked and turned her head slightly downward to look down at him.  She liked making him feel small.  He repeated what he had practiced in the car.  Bethany squinted at him.  “What?  It’s too dark out there to be walking?  She wouldn’t do that?  Where is she?”

“Well, she did,” he said, abruptly.  “You don’t know everything she does.”  He walked away from her and Lisa.  Other people who were not Virginia’s best friends began talking to him.  He always felt he was in hostile territory when he went to any of Virginia’s friends’ houses or functions.  He could see Virginia’s friends glance his way.  He was sure the word was already spreading.  Virginia’s sorry ass husband has made her mad.   

“He’s such a liar,” Lisa said to Bethany.  “She’s probably sitting in the car.  Crying over something he has done again.”  Bethany told her she was probably right and that they should go check.  Paul caught the two looking at him.  He watched them leave out the sliding doorway. 

Josh came out of the bedroom in a pair of Speedos.  Everyone clapped and laughed.  Paul thought he was a show off.  What an asshole, Paul thought.  Kissing my wife and sending those filthy text messages.  Paul enjoyed knowing that Josh did not know that he had seen the messages.  That is what happens when people let their phones out of their sight, he thought.  Husbands may take a glance at who is texting their wives.  Paul thought about the pain Josh was going to feel.  No more sticking his filthy dick in his wife.  Hopefully it would be thousands of times more painful than what he felt when he found out he had been betrayed.

Paul took a drink from the waiter’s tray.  He sipped it and walked around and mingled with the friendly people.  Josh spotted Paul and walked up to him with his hand out.  “Glad you could come,” Josh said.  Paul lied and said he was too.  “Where’s that gorgeous redhead of yours?”  Paul wanted to ask him why.  Did he want to bang her some more?  But he got satisfaction from knowing that Josh had screwed her for the last time and did not even know it.  Paul told him she was out walking and that she would be in soon.  He watched the expression on Josh’s face.  Was he concerned?  Was he nervous?  Was he just anxious to see her?  “Good night to walk.”  Then Josh stood up in a chair.  “Everyone outside in fifteen minutes.  Around the corner is the largest whirlpool in the world.”  The guests laughed.  “So get undressed and change into your swimsuits.  Or just get undressed and get into the whirlpool.  Whatever makes you comfortable.”

Chapter 9

Four of Virginia’s friends came back inside and found Paul talking to two other guests.  “Paul,” Jamie said.  Paul looked around and smiled.  Bethany, Lisa and Deidre stood in the background a few feet way from Jamie.  Jamie was one of the few friends of Virginia’s that he liked.  Maybe it was because she and her husband had built their success.  Unlike Virginia and her friends who had either married it or inherited it.  And Jamie did not wear so much make up that she looked like a clown.  Nor was every inch of her body either pulled or tucked or injected with something.  “Which direction did Virginia walk in?  We’ve been up and down the beach.  But we haven’t seen her yet.”  He turned down the corners of his mouth and shook his head.  “We’re a little concerned.  Aren’t you?”

“I value your concern,” he said.  “But you know Virginia.  She gets mad.  She walks out.  She cools off.  She comes back.”  Jamie told him how dark it was out there.  Paul smiled and shook his head.  “She’s not afraid of the dark.  She’s done this before.  And I couldn’t stop her then.”

Bethany was watching and listening and hating Paul’s answers.  She walked closer and dropped all pretense of this being a peaceful friendly question and answer visit from them.  “What’d you argue about that could’ve made her so mad that she would walk out in the dark?  That’s dangerous.  What you’re saying makes no sense.”

Paul brow furrowed.  “As close as you are to Virginia, that doesn’t mean you can interfere with our marriage,” he said.  “What we argue about is our personal business.  I’m not being difficult.  But I think you’re crossing over the line.”

“One more walk down the beach and I’m crossing over another line,” Bethany said, leaning toward his face.  “I’m calling the police.  Then you can answer their questions.  What you’re saying…”

“I think I see her,” Jennie said, standing in the doorway.  She was another of Virginia’s friends.  The four headed toward Jennie.  Paul followed them.  His heart in his throat and pounding so hard he could barely breathe.  He moved quickly through the crowd to outside.  He ran onto the beach—past Virginia’s friends.  Bethany asked where he was running to.  She asked if he was afraid that Virginia would tell them what he said to her.  He did not respond to her.  He stopped running and stood still. 

Seventy to eighty yards ahead of him was a woman walking on the beach in a white dress.  She walked liked Virginia.  She was medium height and lean like Virginia.  Her hair may have been red like Virginia’s.  But it could not be Virginia.  Or could it?  He ran down the beach after her—calling her name.  But she would not stop walking.  She seemed to be walking faster.  He tried to run faster.  He was not getting any closer to her.  Then she vanished.  He stopped and stared down the beach.  His eyes had to be playing tricks on him.  He was feeling some guilt after all, he thought.  He stared down the beach for another minute.  He reminded himself she was dead.  Then he told himself to pull it together before he got himself arrested.

He walked back to Josh’s house—occasionally looking over his shoulder.  Some guests had stepped outside to see what was happening on the beach.  Most of the guests, however, were inside and oblivious to Paul’s war of words with Virginia’s friends.  He walked back through the doorway, a little shaken inside.  But he tried not to show it.  Then he saw two police officers standing at the back of the room and looking at him.  

Chapter 10

They did call the police.  Paul said to himself.  Why was the older man standing by the police officers and pointing to him?  He had never seen that man before.  Paul looked around and wondered if the man had not been pointing at someone else.  He considered running.  But he quickly dismissed the idea from his mind.  “That may have been him,” the old man said.  Paul vaguely heard him.  But that is what he thought the man had said.  The officers and the older man began to approach Paul.  Paul had to keep his feet from retreating.  The guests were paying attention to this. 

Josh came from outside and stood next to Paul.  “Were we too loud?” Josh asked.  “We’ll turn it down.  We’re good neighbors.  Sorry about that Mr. Hall.” 

The old man’s name was Carter Hall.  He told Josh his party was fine.  It was not disturbing him.  He told Josh he had followed the police car to get it to come to his house.  He had called the police to his house.  And thought they were going to the wrong house or could not find his house.  So he had driven after them.  He had caught up to them when they turned into Josh’s driveway.   

One of the officers told Carter Hall to tell Paul what he had told them.  The other officer moved closer to Paul.  Carter seemed embarrassed by what he had to say.  “As I told the police, I called them because the houses near mine had been vandalized by kids.  So our row of houses set up a security system.  They’re all connected.  One homeowner can see what’s going on inside and outside of the other houses.  There are cameras that people can’t see that are facing out all of our backdoors.  And even though it’s somewhat against the law…we had them facing the beach.  They’re those infrared cameras.  They catch everything.”

Paul was having trouble catching his breath.  The only thought on his mind was what Virginia had told him the psychic had said to her.  “Someone will always be watching out for you.”  He remembered waving the words off as nonsense. 

Thank you for joining me for the final chapters of “See you.”  I hope you enjoyed this short story.  I will be in touch soon.            

John Martin