Municipal Blondes
3
Nightmare
I HAD HAIR. Lots of hair. Long beautiful blond locks like Angel’s. And I had hair under my arms. I couldn’t even imagine shaving. And hair on my legs. And on my pubes. I couldn’t help but run my fingers through it. I wanted to spend all day brushing it and shaking it back and forth like a wild animal. Long beautiful hair and it was all mine.
Dreaming
But I couldn’t reach my hair. My hands were tied behind my back. I was sitting naked on a straight chair and Bradley was mocking me. He reached out and jerked out a big fistful of my hair. I thought he would tear my scalp apart when he pulled it. Then he jerked out another fistful. And another. Oksamma walked up beside him and hit me. Hair fell off my head with the jolt as if it were a wig. He hit me again. And again.
They were ripping out all my beautiful hair and my mother was laughing. I could hear her yelling, “Hey Baldy!” and smelled alcohol on her breath. I had just one lock of hair left on my head. Everything else was bald. He reached out and took hold of the last lock of hair.
“No!” I screamed. “Don’t take my hair away. Stop! Stop!” But he yanked on it anyway and I felt my soul being ripped from my body. And all my thirteen-year-old friends were laughing at me and pointing and calling me a freak. I couldn’t wake up. There was the fright wig mother gave me with its polyester hair sticking out in clownish curls.
“Hey Bozo!” my one-time friends yelled. “Hey Bozo!” “Wake up, Baldy!” “Freak!” “Tranny!”
I woke up. My heart was racing and sweat poured off me. I was in a flat-out panic. I wanted to run. I was crying. Panting. I was trapped in the sheets and couldn’t get free. When I finally found my voice, I screamed.
“Daddy!”
That broke it. With the word came lucidity. Daddy was dead. Mom was dead. Bradley and Oksamma were dead. For all I knew, the nasty kids at school were dead—at least as far as I was concerned.
I untangled myself from my sheets and went back to the shower. I sank to the floor and spent an hour in there before I went back to bed and I still felt dirty. The image of Bradley’s corpse came unwillingly into my mind. 1SB41D1E. Once before I die.
Too late, bastard.
I didn’t bother to dry myself. Once I caught myself starting to drift off in the shower, I turned it off and flopped on my already wet bed. I was asleep in an instant.
Damn. I haven’t had a nightmare and panic attack in months. Not since meeting Dag.
No respite
Something was thudding in my head. I covered it with a pillow and demanded that I go back to sleep. Then the ringing. My stupid cellphone. I struggled out of sleep and finally got the MF thing to my ear.
“Deb,” Jordan Grant said in my ear. “Are you home?”
“Yeah, of course,” I answered muzzily. “Where else would I be?”
“Come to the door then. We’ve been knocking forever.” The pounding in my head. It was the door. I looked at myself in a mirror and hastily pulled on a wig and a robe. I padded barefoot to the door and looked out the peephole to be sure it was Jordan.
I opened the door. Not only Jordan, but Lars. WTF? Was I busted?
“Deb,” Lars said as he came into the room. “We thought we should come in person instead of calling you.” Panic was setting in. I could feel my breath coming in gasps. Please don’t say what you’re going to say. Please, don’t. “Dag passed away about two hours ago.”
My whole world collapsed. Please let this be another goddamn nightmare. Please.
He was sitting by himself in his chair at home. Mrs. Prior found him when she heard Maizie howling. She rushed upstairs and Maizie met her at the door. Dag was sitting in his chair with his eyes wide open staring at his painting with some music by Brahms playing on his stereo. He was wearing the suit I brought him Tuesday and the lavender shirt and tie I bought for him.
All by himself, except for Maizie. Poor Maizie.
I don’t know what to do with myself. Lars and Jordan wouldn’t leave after they told me. Jordan went into the kitchen and fixed coffee while Lars sat on the sofa with me and held my hand while I cried. There can’t be any more tears. Dear God, please let me stop crying sometime soon.
Wake
Teri brought some food over. Lars didn’t leave until I’d called her. I’m going to float away on all the coffee and tea I’ve had to drink. I don’t know why, but after I called Teri, I called Angel, too. She showed up about noon with Cinnamon. So here we sit—four blondes talking about the men in our lives and who we’ve lost. We all sat around crying and then laughing.
Cinnamon said she’d tried to seduce Dag at the Condo and finally suggested we have a threesome. She felt a little foolish when I revealed that I was his partner and we were private investigators.
“You mean I could have had him all to myself?” she said indignantly.
“Over my dead body, girl,” I snapped back.
“God, please,” Angel interjected. “We’ve had enough of those.”
We agreed. Cinnamon opened a bottle of wine she brought and poured us all a glass. It’s been so long since I’ve drunk any alcohol, I wasn’t going to have any. But she put glasses in each of our hands and raised hers. “Here’s to Jeremy Brett and his girlfriend, Debbie,” she said. We raised our glasses and drank. It didn’t taste good but it tasted necessary.
“And don’t you ever call me Debbie again,” I said. “It was all I could do to keep from throwing you off the atrium at the Palomino the first time.”
“That’s dedication for you,” Teri said. “So into her disguise that she spared the life of someone who called her by the one name she can’t stand.”
“There are others,” I said. “But I killed the last man who called me one of those.” That set us off talking about what happened at the Condo Sunday morning. The only person I’d told anything to was Jordan and that was just the bare facts. Dag was there, so he knew what happened. It felt good to share what had happened. I mentioned getting hit and having my wig knocked off but I glanced at Teri and omitted the part about it leaving me bald. There were things my friends didn’t need to know.
Everyone was amazed when I told them about Dag locking Oksamma on the patio and attacking Bradley. Angel said Davy thought Dag was a berserker when he clubbed him. He’s not used to being laid out cold in a fight. I couldn’t help but say it served him right after he decked Dag the first night he met Angel. Angel agreed.
“He didn’t get any that night, I’ll tell you,” she said. “I was furious.” She paused and picked up her story again. “I can’t believe Dag tracked me in Minneapolis and I never saw him. He must have been a master of disguise. I’m sure I would have recognized him if I saw him.”
That got us off on talking about disguises and I told them I could disguise myself so none of them could recognize me. They really couldn’t believe that.
Angel and Cinnamon left about four but Teri is still here and is determined to spend the night, so I guess I’ll let her.
I finally got to bed. Teri and I stayed up watching Gone with the Wind on AMC. She’s out on the sofa now with a blanket and pillow. I told her to go home and she said she couldn’t. She’d get a DUI. I don’t know how many bottles of wine we drank or where they came from. I’m going to regret that in the morning.
Jordan called to see how I was doing and later, so did Lars. I haven’t laughed and cried so much all in one day—sometimes all at one time—ever. I really can’t have any tears left but they seem to keep leaking out of my eyes. I should drink some more water. I’ll be dehydrated.
I don’t know what I’m going to do. I was totally irresponsible today, just wallowing in my own grief. Tomorrow, I have to go to the office and clear things out. I suppose there are people who should be contacted. I don’t even know where to start. I know so little about him. I never intended to get involved with him—not that I was in that way—but I ended up loving him so much. He was an anchor and a guide and I’m going to miss him.
I do miss him.
Tomorrow, I’ll have to sort through papers. Jordan said he’d pick me up to go to the funeral home if I wanted. God, please don’t let it be Johnson & Sons. There must be something I can do. I’ll solve his last riddle for him. I’ve got three sets of numbers.
F8ED2D1E. 36DB00BS. 1SB41D1E. Is it a code? What am I supposed to do with these, Dag? I don’t know what to do.
Oh, I feel sick.
In the words of Scarlett, “I’ll think of it tomorrow, at Tara. I can stand it then. Tomorrow, I’ll think of some way to get him back. After all, tomorrow is another day.”
Hung over
I never should have done that. What on earth inspired me to drink God-knows-how-much wine with Teri, Angel and Cinnamon yesterday? I woke up in the bathroom with Teri pounding on the door. She had to get ready to go to work. Oh! How could she do it?
There was already coffee made in the kitchen and I started rummaging through the shelves for painkillers. I don’t keep many but I have aspirin in my purse. Don’t ask me why. I always carry aspirin and Band-Aids. I got back to the kitchen and Teri shoved a glass of milk at me. I popped the aspirin and took a big glug of milk, then headed back to the bathroom.
“WTF was that?” I asked when I re-emerged five minutes later.
“Milk and cayenne,” she responded nonchalantly. “It’s the best cure for a hangover known to man.”
“It was a waste of two perfectly good aspirins,” I said. The truth was, I did seem a little clearer.
“Look, you can go back to bed or sleep on the bathroom floor all day if you want, but some of us have to go to work.” Work. I guess that officially I don’t have a job anymore. My employer—my best friend—is dead. Stupid leaky eyes. I suppose I need to go to the office and clean up, anyway. I’ll do it later today.
“And don’t forget your bet,” Teri said as she was grabbing her coat and heading out the door.
“What bet?” I asked. Oh, no. This is one of the many reasons I don’t drink.
“You bet Angel, Cinnamon, and me that within the next month you could have an interaction with each of us in which we had no idea who you were. You were bragging about how good you are at disguise. So, by Christmas you have to show us evidence that you had direct contact with each of us and we didn’t know who you were. Should be pretty easy for a master of disguise,” she smiled. “Toodles!”
Me and my big mouth.
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