The Crazy One Read online

  A thought occurred to her. If Joel couldn't make it to California in time to shoot the movie, would his friend recast him? He had said he had a small part, so it wasn't likely they would stop production for him. It was possible Joel could miss his opportunity if he were, for example, in the hospital with a mysterious illness. The nearest hospital was in Tall Pines by the ski resort. It might be enough to keep him around for a little while longer. And she was sure a small town hospital would be much easier to access than the one in Omaha. She could have him right where she wanted him.

  Although she had Saturday off, Lucy still made her way to Boney Mahoney's for lunch. It had become a habit now, one she hoped to break when Joel left for the West Coast. Because she didn't have to work, and because she was in a sour mood, she ended up sipping Coke in the corner booth for more than an hour. She was the only customer left in the diner. Only the cook and one waitress remained.

  When the door chimed, Lucy barely looked up. She had been staring at all of Joel's home pictures, trying to piece them together in her mind. Then she heard his familiar voice. She looked up. At the far end of the diner sat Joel and his friend and two other men in matching baseball caps. The waitress politely interrupted their conversation to take their order.

  Another group entered the diner right away. They were five middle-aged women who giggled like high-schoolers. They had their ski bunny gear on, so they had probably come from the resort. Maybe they'd come to see the quaint little town and shop for some local treasures, but they'd apparently found more than they'd bargained for. It seemed they'd followed Joel in.

  The women squeezed into a booth across from Joel. One of them leaned over and stuck out her manicured hand. Joel had to lean over his friend to shake her hand. He smiled graciously and didn't seem to mind at all. While the women gushed, the waitress hurried back to get their order. A couple of seniors, seemingly oblivious to Joel's celebrity, entered the diner and sat down. Now the lone waitress was overwhelmed. Lucy was invisible.

  The cook was busy filling tickets. The waitress was busy taking orders. And everyone else was busy gushing over Joel. The cook put up the first orders and rang the bell. Lucy had clearly heard Joel order a BLT. Now there it was under the heat lamp waiting to be carried to his table. But the waitress was still occupied with the old couple. The women were taking selfies with Joel. The whole diner had been thrown into chaos.

  It was no trouble for her to stand up from the corner booth and snatch the BLT. She sat back down and placed the sandwich in front of her. From her pocket she fished the small baggie that had been in there for days. She had ground the glass into a fine powder and picked out any large chunks. Now she sprinkled it discreetly into the mayonnaise of Joel's sandwich. She quickly replaced the plate under the lamp before anyone noticed it was missing. Then she went to the back hallway as if she were headed to the ladies’ room and sneaked out the back door. She rounded back to the front of the building and jogged across the street. There was a bench there that faced Boney Mahoney's. She sat down to watch her plan unfold.

  Joel was raising his hands to the women as if to politely tell them to give him space. The waitress brought the tray and handed the plates around. Lucy couldn't see them clearly, but she knew Joel would be getting the BLT. They chatted with her for a minute more. Lucy willed her to move on. She was growing impatient.

  When Joel lifted the sandwich to his mouth, her heart beat faster. Instantaneously, she wanted to slap it out of his hands, but she also couldn't wait for its effects. It happened more quickly than she had expected. Joel immediately covered his mouth with a napkin. The men around him looked concerned. His friend motioned for the waitress who came right over. There was commotion. Joel handed her the plate. The cook inspected it at the counter. The waitress began to cry. Joel shimmied out of his booth and went to comfort her. One of the men with him was motioning angrily to the plate, but Joel, with his arm around the upset waitress, seemed to talk him down. One of the women snapped a picture with her iPhone and another was taking video. The cook asked the five of them to leave. The old couple, still without their food, sat watching the whole thing unfold with looks of total confusion.

  And that was it. Joel never ingested the glass. He never got mysteriously sick. He didn't go to the hospital. Her plan had failed. Whoever wrote that book she'd read was a damned liar.

  CHAPTER FORTY FOUR

  Boney Mahoney's was closed for the next two days. The sign on the window said they were closed for remodeling, but there were rumors flying all around town. Cory said someone had found something nasty in the food. Moon had heard the place had some kind of infestation. She was worried it would spread to her shop, so she'd had the exterminator come and spray just in case. Others claimed they'd been shut down by the health inspector and even that they'd had a fire in the kitchen. And of course, there was a video those ladies had taken that was flying all around the internet.

  Lucy kept her mouth shut and listened. She knew that diner had been closed so they could scour every inch of it for the source of the mysterious glass. It was a consequence she hadn't considered. The diner was losing money, and it was her fault. She felt bad about that.

  Apart from feeling guilty, she was disappointed. Joel had clearly noticed the glass when he took his first bite. Maybe she should have ground it into a finer powder. Would that have done anything at all? If he had ordered a milkshake she could have slipped it in. He probably would have gotten a few sips in before noticing anything was wrong. He might not have noticed at all. It was too bad he hadn't ordered a milkshake.

  By the following week Joel was tweeting from Hollywood. She had failed to stop him from going. Now she had to imagine she'd gone with him. She had to insert herself into every scenario he laid out. Living in the tiny mountain town was excruciatingly dull. It was certainly no life for the wife of a celebrity.

  On her day off, she drove to Joel's house. She parked on the road like before and ventured through the trees. Using the same path as before–along the tree line and behind the shed–she crept up to the back of the house. The snow was long gone, so her feet stayed dry this time.

  There were no cars on the property, but it was still possible someone could be lurking inside. She approached the kitchen windows and standing on an overturned planter, pulled herself up to look inside. The kitchen was immaculate. No signs of life. The back door was locked.

  She did the same around the side of the house. The living room looked like a magazine photo. The walls and even the mantle had been painted bright white. A dark gray couch and matching love seat skirted a red Persian rug. She smiled. She approved of his choices. She could even imagine they'd chosen the furnishings together.

  The screen door on the enclosed front porch was unlocked. She stepped inside, causing a shiver through her whole body. She was inside Joel's home. Well, not technically inside, but she was on his porch, and that was, so far, close enough. There were a few paint cans in one corner. In the other corner were an old yellow table and a kitchen chair. She ran her hands over them. These were things Joel had chosen to keep. He hadn't thrown them in the dumpster out front. Maybe he thought they gave the porch character–helped preserve the house's old charm.

  The front door was yellow with antique hardware. It was, unfortunately, locked. She had seen people in crime shows open locked doors with credit cards. That appeared to be impossible here. She wished she'd studied up on lock-picking. Apart from smashing a window, there was no way in.

  She walked around again to the side of the house. She tried some windows, but the house was shut up tight. This meant she was limited to peering in through the windows, instead of going inside and immersing herself in Joel's essence.

  The sound of tires on gravel caught her attention. She ducked down behind a shrub and watched two trucks come up the driveway. They stopped in front of the porch, and four men got out. Two of them had been with Joel and his friend at Boney Mahoney's on the day of the ground glass incident. One of them retrieved a set o
f keys and led the way through the front door. She could hear them talking loudly inside. They'd left the front door wide open.

  Shortly after the men had arrived, a small cargo van came up the drive. One of the men came out and instructed the driver to pull around to the back door. Soon they were transferring bathroom fixtures into the house.

  She waited on the side of the house for at least an hour. It was cold, and she hopped around to keep warm. She told herself it was worth it to be patient.

  And it was. Once the van had been unloaded, the men began pounding away on the second floor. She crept around to the back door, which was also standing wide open. She'd ripped some cardboard from a box near the stairs and now shoved it into the latch strike on the door frame. Her heart pounded. It was exhilarating. She channeled her inner James Bond.

  With that in place, she sneaked back through the tree line and to her car. Those men might be there all day. It was best for her to come back at night.

  CHAPTER FORTY FIVE

  All Lucy could think about was getting back to Joel's house. Her hands trembled on the steering wheel as she drove back there in the dark. Her yellow headlights cut a path down the narrow country road. The night was as black as ink-–low clouds and no moon. It was spooky how the night seemed to know her ill intent and was determined to slow her down.

  She pulled partway into the drive and let her lights linger on the front of the yellow house. If anyone was there, she could again act like she'd pulled in by mistake.

  There were no cars and no movement other than the light swaying of naked branches. She backed onto the road again. This time she cut down to her running lights and slowly crept forward until she had almost passed his land completely. Once on foot, she cut through the neighboring field and entered his property from behind the shed. She kept her flashlight as low as possible so as not to attract any attention, although there appeared to be no attention to attract. It was nearly nine o'clock, and surely all the farmers were in bed for the night.

  Because Lucy had jammed the latch, the back door gave way easily. She shook her head at the incompetence of the workers. Those idiots hadn't even checked to make sure the doors were secure before they'd left for the day.

  Entering Joel's home was like entering a sacred temple. She was enveloped in his spirit. He had chosen this place to live and now she was inside. The wall she ran her fingers along was a wall he had touched. The smell of the interior had been smelled by him. It was a dusty smell, but with a hint of warmth and a hint of comfort. And paint. She thought of him on a ladder, painting the living room where she now stood. She saw him raised on a ladder without his shirt, reaching high to get the top of the wall. His jeans rode down low on his hips, revealing the waistband of his Jockeys. She imagined him calling for her and asking her for a favor. Maybe he needed a glass of water. She walked to the kitchen, again keeping the flashlight pointed low so it wouldn't be visible from the outside.

  There in the kitchen was a large, high-top table where he'd no doubt sat and eaten his breakfast. He'd surely sat on one of the stools over a bowl of Raisin Bran–a box of it sat alone on the counter–and composed on his phone a Tweet that made him smile to himself. Then her phone would have chimed and she would have read his Tweet and smiled to herself. He wouldn't even have known he had affected her world. They had been previously linked by this heavy lump of metal in her pocket. Now they were linked by this house. Because she was inside of it, and he had been inside of it. His ghost was around her. It came up behind her and laid its hand on her shoulder which made her close her eyes and shrug into it with a contented smile.

  "Are you happy here, Lucy?"

  "Of course I am. You were right. This house is perfect for us." She meant every word of it. The little mountain town had grown on her since he’d come. After weeks of living among the plastic stars in Hollywood, Spring Fork was a welcome change to the simple life. And any place was paradise with him.

  She turned around on the stool to face him. He kissed her tenderly and then with more passion. Then he took her hand and led her out of the kitchen. The sparkle in his eye told her they were headed back to the bedroom. She followed him up the stairs.

  The bathroom on the second floor was half finished. All of the fixtures had been installed, but the walls and floor were naked and covered in debris. There was the beginning of a beautifully modern bathroom; a circular, frosted shower stall, a cone-shaped pedestal sink, and a brand new toilet. She wondered how long it would take for them to finish the rest. How long until she had the house all to herself?

  Finally, she reached his bedroom. It obviously hadn't been touched up yet. The walls were a putrid shade of light green. Heavy maroon curtains covered the windows. There was an attached bathroom with an antique bathtub. Several of the wall and floor tiles were broken or missing. He must be saving this sanctuary for last. It made sense that he would want to wait for her opinion on the room where they'd wake up together every morning. The sun would beam through those huge windows and gently wake them both.

  "Sheer curtains," she said out loud. She imagined seeing the breeze blow through them from the open window.

  She stroked the comforter on the bed. This was obviously new, but he hadn't bothered to make the bed. One half of the blanket was still tucked neatly under a spare pillow. The side where he slept was pulled back and left disheveled. She touched the white sheet where he had laid and then lowered herself onto it. She was close to his body, close to him in his most vulnerable state. It sent a shiver through her.

  Joel’s ghost appeared again. She was daydreaming of the next morning. She had slept there in pure bliss.

  "Good morning, Beautiful."

  He entered the bedroom with a tray that he set on the table next to her side of the bed. The sun was shining through the large windows, casting a heavenly glow through the sheer, white curtains.

  "Joel, you shouldn't have." She ran her fingers under her eyes, hoping to wipe off any lingering eyeliner that may not have come off during their mutual shower the night before. She wanted to look her best for him every morning for the rest of their lives.

  "I really didn't," he said and shrugged.

  She looked over the tray. There were two pieces of toast, a jar of jelly, and a glass of orange juice. She giggled and kissed him on the cheek for his effort.

  "Looks like we need to do some shopping," she said.

  "Well, get dressed and we'll go into town."

  She groaned and sunk back into the warm bed. In the city, they never had to actually go to the grocery store. She ordered what she wanted online and Joel's assistant had someone pick it up. Sometimes she ventured to the farmer's market, but that was more fun than trudging through the florescent aisles of a big store. But assuming Spring Fork's one supermarket probably wouldn't adapt to the online trend anytime soon, she knew she had to get used to doing it herself again.

  "Come on." He pulled her arm from under the fluffy comforter and tugged. "It'll be fun. We'll be one of those cute couples who goes grocery shopping together and picks out fruit while holding hands."

  "Do you want to wear matching outfits?" she teased.

  "Only by accident." He yanked on her arm again. "Let's go."

  The fantasy faded, and Lucy was again alone in the dated bedroom. Her breathing became shallow. There was a tight knot in her throat. She was here, in Joel’s actual bedroom, and still she couldn’t grasp the one thing she wanted: him.

  CHAPTER FORTY SIX

  Visiting Joel's house became a nightly activity. On the second night, there seemed to be no progress on the bathroom, but she knew the workers had been there. They probably got paid by the hour. Would Joel have a fit if he knew they were milking the job?

  On the fourth night they had it completed. She cautiously turned on the light for a minute to see how it looked. The room was bright and clean and nothing at all like it must have been before it was torn apart.

  Five nights in she discovered they had started working on the master ba
throom. It obviously needed a makeover, but she was getting restless. She'd been getting back to her room later every night which meant she was dragging to work every morning. Cody noticed how tired she'd been and wondered aloud if she'd been "partying too hard?"

  "Yes," she'd replied sarcastically. "Partying hard in this metropolis. It's like being in Vegas."

  Evidently, one of the workers had noticed the jammed back door and had fixed it. This was no problem. She had already found a box of keys in an otherwise empty kitchen cupboard and had tried all of them. She now had on her keychain a key for both the front and back doors. It was careless for Joel to not have changed the locks. She would have to talk to him about that.

  By Sunday night both bathrooms were finished. They had also changed out the fixtures and appliances in the newly converted laundry room and added a half bath in the closet under the staircase. The foreman had left the house keys on top of a manila envelope on the kitchen counter, meaning their job was done.

  Joel's recent Tweets indicated he wasn't coming back to Spring Fork anytime soon. He was enjoying filming his small part. Mostly he seemed to get a kick out of hanging out with his friends on the set. She didn't mind. She thought of herself as the cool kind of wife who would let her man spend time with his buddies.

  Now that the workers were gone, she had free reign of the house in the daytime. She had already scoped out multiple places she could hide in case someone dropped by. The only person who would stay too long was Joel, and she was keeping tabs on him with her phone.

  It was unfortunate that Joel hadn't fully moved into the house yet. He'd only left a few things in the drawers in his bedroom. Nothing was very personal. Still, his scent was all over the neat pile of t-shirts in his dresser drawer. Lucy had pulled one out and had it pressed to her nose when she heard the pop and crackle of tires on the gravel driveway. She ran across the hall to the empty bedroom and looked out.