Chapter 1: A Tickle of Doubt

When Linda Jones dropped by to visit her mother, she discovered she wasn’t there and went home. Stepping off the elevator, she fumbled for the keys in her purse when she noticed her apartment door was open. A chill of trepidation shook her body. She pushed through the door and called out. “Joseph, are you here?”

The afternoon sun passing through the sliding glass doors illuminated her yellow sundress, her caramel colored legs and the light brown hair that capped her head. She looked like a brilliant mushroom wandering through the rooms.

She felt the odd sensation she was a stranger in her own home. Everything looked familiar yet new and unusual. She rested the palm of her hand on the flat surface of the round dining table. It was cool and smooth. In the front room she savored the richness of the Japanese teakwood coffee table and cabinets. Her sandals made a soft brushing sound as they passed over the white carpet.

She grasped the golden handle of one cabinet with her manicured fingers and pulled it open. Nothing was inside. She opened another and another and discovered they were all empty.

She passed through to the bedroom where a king-sized bed dominated the room, a blond wood bureau to one side. The bedding was ruffled, though she was sure she had straightened them that day. She set to making up the bed when a sudden fatigue caught hold of her, sapping her energy. She lay down and fell asleep.

***

When Joseph came home later he denied leaving the door open. “You leave later than me. You must have done it,” he said definitively. His fork paused in mid air, he peered at her with marble blue eyes, his curly close-cropped black hair wet from the shower, the scent of grease still about him from work.

“You’re right. I must have left it open but I just don’t remember,” she said shaking her head.

“You were tired, baby. You were knocked out when I came home.” He patted her hand then skewered another piece of meat.

She was still confused about the door and the bed and the strange sensation she had felt, but she thought she was having a bad day. “Tomorrow will be better,” she told herself.

Linda Jones and Joseph Thomas were in their thirties and were survivors of the bar scene, who decided to step away from the booze, hangovers and strange bedfellows to the relative calm of a relationship.

Linda Jones was ambitious for a prosperous life, a home and a dog or a cat, but not necessarily children. That wasn’t the way to go for her, she decided, though she had thought she would until her late-twenties; she realized most women around her were childless and living a good life. Her mother didn’t agree and thought she’d waste away in a life of hedonism. Being unmarried and living with a man did not work against that perception.

Linda felt her life was going in the right direction. She was a supervisor in the buyer’s department at the Rightway Department store. She’d worked there starting as an intern while earning her business degree at State. She took a fulltime job on a management track after graduation. Advancing in her career was the key to her security because there wasn’t a knight in shining armor to rescue her.

Joseph Thomas was her man. She met him in the L.A. club scene. She liked his dark good looks and his muscular arms. He pursued her and she put him off at first. But she started whispering in his ear about a better life and he seemed to be listening. She put it in his head that he could be a manager or maybe an owner of an oil change franchise. But he’d have to start putting money away. He could do that if they established a home where they could entertain their friends, saving money by not going out.

It was a year ago when they moved in together in a one bedroom in an apartment complex in Long Beach, which was smaller than she would have liked but she was used to that sentiment. It was close to work and there she found the peace she sought away from the parade of new faces she had to contend with when living with girlfriends.

***

“He’s not your equal. I keep telling you that!”
“And you are?”
“You said it.”

Reggie Barrow grinned broadly as he stood at the door of Linda’s office. Linda sat behind her desk, looking soft and pale like a cameo. Her brown hair was pulled back severely from her brow, then bloomed into a lacquered fullness at the crown, curving down to her ears. Her deep brown eyes returned his gaze.

Reggie stood tall in a sharp brown suit with a flamboyant red tie. He shaved his head smooth and it gleamed like a dark brown knob. Reggie was the manager of the Men’s Furnishing department, who often visited Linda on the pretext of advising her on inventory. Whenever Linda pointed out that she received daily reports from scanned sales information, he’d laugh and say he didn’t want her to overlook his inventory.

She welcomed his visits. He was fifteen years her senior and offered a different perspective on things. But she didn’t like it when he challenged her relationship with Joseph; it was her choice and she was committed to seeing it through. “That’s the white in you, steering you the wrong way,” he had said.

She told Reggie about the strange sensation she had the other day and expressed concern about what it meant. “Something’s wrong,” he said.

She didn’t think so but her instinct raised the hairs on her neck.

Chapter 2 will be posted on November 8.