I rose bright and early the next morning and headed towards the door, which I thought led to a bathroom, and found that it truly did. It had a shower in it as well. This was obvious by the wet hair with which I emerged.
I plugged in the refrigerator, which was along the wall to the left of the bathroom, then headed over to my armoire, many steps away towards the right side of the room. I took off my terrycloth robe and put on a pair of jeans and a red T-shirt. Then I pulled a thin, brown leather belt through the belt loops of my jeans and walked back over to the refrigerator, checking to see if it was cooling. I shut the door and headed over to the desk where I’d placed a small purse, grabbed a set of keys next to it, and headed out to my small, blue pickup.
I returned nearly an hour later with several bags of groceries. I loaded them into the refrigerator, as well as onto another large, cardboard table I had set up next to it for the items that didn’t need refrigeration. Once done with that, I opened a box and pulled a coffeemaker from it. I set it up and began to brew a pot when a car came into view and parked in front. A casually dressed couple exited the car and walked up to the door. They appeared to laugh at something for a brief instant along the way. The sandy-haired man was short, stocky, and not very handsome. The woman was much the same. She was short and heavy, with short, light-brown hair void of any real style. Although she had a homely-looking face, there was an air of friendliness about the woman that put one at ease. Both she and her partner seemed to be somewhere in their mid-to-late twenties.
I noticed that I didn’t seem as dismayed to see them as I had with Alicia.
I ran to let the pair in the building.
“James, Janet, how ya doin’?” I asked with a smile as we entered the large room.
“We’re ok, but we hear you’ve seen better times,” said Janet as she and James gazed around the room from just inside the inner doors.
“I sure have, but that’s ok, I’ll survive.”
“Don’t be so sure of that,” James said with a laugh.
I looked at him, confused. “What does that mean?”
Janet answered for him. “Well, how would you like a special assignment?”
I glanced back at Janet. “Depends on what it is. I’m pretty booked up.”
“Just hear the proposition first,” Janet insisted. “It’s about a young lady with about as much computer knowledge in her brain as you could ever need.”
I still looked confused. “So?”
“Well, the catch is that she’s quite a monster according to her social worker.”
I studied the two of them for a moment, then said, “So far, this doesn’t sound like a very exciting proposition.”
James and Janet looked at each other, then back at me.
“What if the subject was Rosemary?” Janet asked.
I blinked, seemingly having a hard time registering what I was hearing. “Rosemary? What’s Rosemary got to do with this? You found her?”
“Yeah, we found her, alright,” Janet said with a smile. “And what we found was not quite what we expected.”
A wide grin began to break out across my face. “Wait a minute now; when did this all happen?”
“Today.”
“Oh, my God. How old is she?”
“Twenty-six. A few years younger than you. Didn’t you just turn twenty-nine a few weeks ago?”
I nodded. “If she’s an adult, though, then what would she be doing with a social worker?”
“That’s part of what’s made her a monster. Not only has past abuse had devastating effects on her, but she was involved in a very bad car accident about eight months ago.”
“Oh, no,” I said with dismay.
Janet went on. “Her sister was driving when they were plowed by a drunk driver. They plowed right into the driver’s side, killing her sister instantly and sending Rosemary into a week-long coma.”
I listened intently with a serious expression.
“The reason for the social worker is that she’s not always able to manage her own affairs. I mean, she is, and she’s smart; she’s just not always mentally sound, but of course, this also depends on one’s definition of just what ‘mentally sound’ is. If you consider eccentric people to be unsound, then unsound she is. If not, she’s actually saner than most people will no doubt ever be. So it isn’t because she’s crazy or incompetent; it’s mostly her aggressiveness. She’s quite a genius from what they say, and has turned out to be one glass-shattering contralto. Had some training before she left these parts.”
“Oh, good,” I said with a smile. “So did you guys meet with Rosemary herself, her social worker, or what?”
“We placed an ad at this site they have online for those looking for old friends or family members,” said James.
“Mmm-hmm,” nodded Janet, taking over once again. “And that’s when we got the email from the social worker, Gwen Lee. I called her with the number she provided and told her I had an old friend who would be interested in a reunion. Of course, I kept your identity a secret. As far as we know, James and I are still the only ones who know of yours and Melanie’s true origin. Anyway, Gwen filled me in on the highlights.”
“Which are?” I asked eagerly.
“Well, here’s the chilling thing; to give you an example of how compassionless they say she’s become. When asked if she felt survivor’s guilt, which as you know is a very common thing, her response was said to be, why should I? My sister was a bitch. Better her than me.”
My eyes went wide with shock as I snorted, though I seemed to find something slightly amusing about Rosemary’s open honesty. “Geez!” I said. “I do have to point out one thing, though, on her behalf, and that’s that regardless of how chilling that may sound, her sister really was a bitch. I remember that well enough. I always thought she was jealous of her or something.”
“She might’ve had reason to be. According to her picture in the paper, when this accident occurred, she was one hefty lady.”
“She was,” I remembered aloud.
“Anyway, to give you a brief rundown on everything I could find out, she had a few apartments here in the east, then at age twenty-two, she decided a change was due and so she sold off her furniture, kept just the bare necessities, and headed out west. She started off in Phoenix, Arizona, where a friend had moved to. It was barely two years later when they terminated the disability benefits she’d been getting on account of her ear deformity, saying that there was no reason she couldn’t be independent, and independent she had become, alright. And surprisingly successful too, considering the walk of life she’d come from.”
I smiled, eagerly awaiting Janet’s next words.
“She sang and acted, though mainly danced, which led to a full-time circus job.”
“Wow, she was in the circus?” I asked with a surprised smile.
Janet nodded. “Just like Melanie, though they trained her for acrobatic work. It was sort of a combination of gymnastics and dance. She performed throughout the southwest. You know, Arizona, California, Nevada, New Mexico. She even lived in Sonora, Mexico, for a while, though I don’t know why. Gwen never really got into that with us. The only thing she really got into was Rosemary herself, which I’ll get to in a minute.”
“Finish with her life in the desert first,” James said.
Janet glanced at James, nodded, then went on. “She spent a total of four years there. One in Arizona, two in Mexico, and one on an Indian reservation, though this was also in Arizona. It was close to the New Mexico border. She wants to return to either Arizona or Mexico sometime soon because she hates the weather here. Too cold, snowy, and humid, she says. Oh, and before I forget, her Spanish is now almost as fluent as her sign language.”
My smile broadened yet again as I shifted my weight to the other foot. “Oh, cool. Did she ever learn more French?”
“French?” asked James, looking curiously at Janet.
“Didn’t hear any mention of French, but she knows a little Italian. Anyway,” continued Janet, “she ended up leaving the circus on account of a knee injury. From what I understand, she was back in Arizona around the time she left the circus after spending time down in Mexico. Meanwhile, she submits this photo of her pet rat to this online photo contest and wins.”
I chuckled.
“They not only pay her $10,000, they publish the picture while all kinds of companies use it for various things like calendars, stationery, and so on, so now she’s living off royalties from this picture of her rat, who’s now dead.”
The three of us laughed.
“Amazing, huh?” asked James.
I nodded with a grin.
“Especially since most people are creeped out by rodents, rats being at the top of the list, even if they are very smart animals,” said Janet. “Anyway, it was around this time when disaster struck.”
My brows furrowed. “I thought the accident happened here.”
“It did. This was a whole different tragedy. Everyone’s worst nightmare come to life,” Janet said.
“You can say that again,” James agreed.
“So, what happened?” I asked with anticipation.
“She was framed on a charge of attempted stalking, a class six felony,” replied Janet.
“What!” I exclaimed in shock.
“This was about fifteen months before she came back here,” Janet explained. “She started learning computers like crazy and got one of her own. She began writing books with gay themes…”.
“Wait a minute,” I said, cutting her off. “She’s gay?”
Janet nodded. “A dedicated lesbian, as she herself put it.”
I laughed.
“You’d never know just by looking at her either,” James said.
“Not like with us butches, huh?” I said, motioning towards myself with my thumbs.
Janet and James laughed, then Janet went on. “We read part of a manuscript and were like, oh my God, this girl’s good. It was very professionally written. Definitely no childishly scrawled, amateur writing.”
“What kinds of books does she write?” I asked.
“Mainly suspense.”
I smiled yet again and nodded.
“So, anyway, she’s writing books and dipping incense,” Janet said.
“Dipping incense?”
“About every fragrance imaginable,” Janet said with a laugh. “She sells it, from what I gather, and she also has a rather impressive doll collection.”
“God,” said James with a roll of his eyes. “The girl’s got more toys than most little girls will ever have.”
“She does,” Janet agreed. “A lot of young stuff for the young at heart, you could say, though.
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