Murder — His and Hers

Reunion Queen

Her mood darker than the night — and the night was very dark — the striking blonde tooled the candy-apple Jaguar into the Marriot lot. She climbed out, pausing by the car, standing there like a modern-day gunfighter, red-nailed fingers slowly opening and closing.

With a smile bordering on a smirk, she walked toward the hotel, ground fog swirling up around her legs, red stiletto heels clicking on the asphalt, punctuating the thunder growling in the distance.

At the entrance of the modern, sterile building, she stopped and looked up.

Above the double glass doors hung a homemade banner — WELCOME CLASS OF 1978 — their fifteenth reunion; it flapped crazily in the breeze, as if trying to escape the imminent storm.

Her smile vanished, blue eyes clouded, as she gazed at the sign; the wind whipped long blonde strands of hair around her face.

Lightning split the sky, and the world went white, then black. Big drops of rain began to pelt her, and the banner, its painted letters starting to bleed and run.

Her smile returned, and grew broader until she threw back her head, laughing, her throaty voice mingling with the thunder that followed.

She reached up and ripped the banner down, letting the wind take it.

Then she straightened her red lace dress, and adjusted each copious breast in the push-up bra, opened the glass doors and walked inside.

Heather sat at a table with Linda just outside the hotel ballroom on the second floor. They were collecting money for the banquet tickets and handing out I.D. badges, which displayed each classmate’s name above their old high school yearbook photo.

Heather leaned toward Linda, touching the other woman’s arm intimately as if the two of them were best of friends, and giggled as if she were having a great time... but inside Heather was seething.

How did I get stuck on the goddamn door? she fumed. I’m the fucking class President!

Heather smiled sweetly at Linda, who was reciting recent bowling scores, like it was somehow important. She studied her classmate’s face and concluded that no amount of plastic surgery could help. If she were Linda, she’d kill herself.

“Would you like to go bowling sometime?” Linda asked, under the deranged impression that spending the past hour with Heather made her a close friend — or a friend at all, for that matter.

“That sounds very entertaining,” Heather answered. As in slicing and dicing a finger in the Cuisinart.

At the end of the carpeted corridor, three men burst out of the men’s bathroom, laughing loudly, punching each other’s arms. What was it about class reunions that regressed even a thirty-something hunk like her husband into a nerdy teenager?

“Rick!” Heather called out disgustedly.

He ignored her.

So she hollered louder. “Rick! Come here!”

Her husband, tall, handsome, so perfect in his Armani suit, shrugged at his other two friends — a fat farmer and balding banker — and sauntered toward her.

Heather felt her face flush; how dare he be having a good time when she was so miserable!

“Where’s Jennifer?” she snapped at him. “She was supposed to take my place fifteen minutes ago!”

He looked at her stupidly. “Haven’t seen her, hon.”

“Well, find her, damnit! I’m sick of sitting here!”

Out of the corner of her eye, Heather could see Linda shifting uncomfortably in her chair; Heather didn’t want to alienate the woman — not just yet — she might need her vote.

Heather gave Linda a patronizing, little smile. “It’s just that, as president, I have other things to attend to,” she explained.

Linda nodded and looked away.

Heather turned back to Rick. “Go... find... Jennifer, dear.”

“Okay, okay,” he said, gesturing in a calm-down manner with both hands, “I’ll go find her.”

He winked at Linda.

Linda beamed.

“So go,” Heather said through clenched teeth. “And back off on the booze!”

“Yes, hon,” he said and turned away.

Heather watched him move slowly down the hall, in no great hurry to accommodate her, which infuriated her further. Finally, Rick opened the ballroom doors, letting escape the loud, pounding disco music from their high school days, where it bounced off the walls in perfect timing with the beating of Heather’s palpitating heart.

...staying’ alive...

The ballroom doors slammed shut; the corridor fell into a strained silence.

Linda cleared her throat and asked, “I wonder who’s going to be crowned Reunion Queen?”

Heather, pretending not to care, began to straighten the remaining badges on the table. “Whoever gets the most votes,” she said, but thought, It damn well better be me.

After all, wasn’t she, even after fifteen years, still the bestlooking woman in her class? And Heather had gone to great lengths and expense to make sure that she was: trips to the tanning salon, weight reduction classes, professional makeup and hair care (her shoulder-length brunette tresses completely untouched by gray — now) — not to mention a six-month-long search for the perfect little designer dress...

And for what? Heather thought sullenly, so she could rot out here, while everyone else was in the ballroom having fun?

Heather looked resentfully at Linda, whose mouth now hung open like a big bass being reeled in. What was the matter with her, anyway?

Heather followed Linda’s stare to a woman who was ascending the stairs in front of them.

And Heather gasped — not because of the woman’s hair, which was butter-blonde brushing bare shoulders, or her porcelain face, its features almost too perfect, or her voluptuous figure, which bordered on Amazonian — but because the bitch was wearing Heather’s designer dress!

Perfectly balanced on her high heels, the blonde undulated toward them.

“Hi!” She said.

Linda continued to stare at the woman, but Heather said pleasantly, “The Bimbo Convention must be at some other hotel.” After all, this was no one Heather knew from school.

“Pardon me?” The blonde looked confused, which Heather considered redundant.

“This is a class reunion,” Heather said, her voice dripping with insolence. “But then, I guess you couldn’t read the sign outside.”

The blonde flashed a dazzling white smile. “I’m afraid there is no sign... but I’m at the right place.”

And she extended one hand, moving it over the remaining I.D. badges spread out on the table, like a fortune teller picking a tarot card, and with a perfectly manicured fingernail, tapped one. “That’s me!” she said.

Linda leaned forward in her chair. “Hilda?” she asked, stunned. “Hilda Payne?”

“Hello, Linda,” the blonde said warmly.

With a squeal, Linda jumped up, ran around the table and gave the blonde a hug.

“I can’t believe it’s you!” Linda said.

The blonde smiled. “It’s been a long time. I’m sorry I couldn’t make it back for the tenth.”

“You... you look wonderful,” Linda gushed.

“So do you,” the blonde replied.

Gag me with a spoon, Heather thought. She studied the blonde, trying to mentally transform the homely girl on the badge into the gorgeous woman (all right, she admitted it) in front of her. But then, Heather really didn’t remember Hilda much at all — or any of the other plain non-entities that had roamed the school hallways like cows, getting in her way.

“Are any of the other girls here?” the blonde asked Linda. “Mary? Diane?”

Linda nodded, her head jerking back and forth on her shoulders like a jack-in-the-box on a spring. “I can’t wait until they see you!” she said excitedly.

And Linda began pulling the blonde by the arm down the hall toward the ballroom.

Heather stood up. “Hey, wait just a minute, Linda!” she said angrily. “Who’s gonna look after the table?”

“How about you?” Linda shot back.

And the two women disappeared through the ballroom doors.

...heart of glass...

Heather slammed her fists on the table, rattling the cash box and scattering the badges.

Then, dejectedly, she slumped in her chair.

“But she’s wearing my dress,” Heather whimpered to no one. “She wearing my dress...”

Rick leaned on the bar, a scotch and soda in hand, and surveyed the ballroom.

A few people had already taken seats at tables decorated in the school’s colors — purple and gold — while others continued to mill around, trying to talk over the deafening disco music.

He hated those faggy songs. And he was embarrassed that his class had picked one of them as their song: “Disco Duck,” for Christ’s sake! Why couldn’t he have been born earlier? Like his older brother, Ray, who was a senior in high school when the Beatles and Stones hit.

...she works hard for the money...

He took a drink, and shook his head. She should try working for a car dealership, he thought bitterly. Not that the work itself was hard. The hard part was having his wife’s father own the business, and always being under the old man’s thumb. Rick resented the hell out of him and Heather, who talked him into turning down that pro ball draft offer to go into the family business.

Maybe that was why Rick was always looking for love in all the wrong places...

His eyes locked with Jennifer’s. The pretty, slender redhead was standing alone by the dance floor. He looked quickly away.

But then she was next to him, touching his arm lightly, wearing that hurt expression he detested.

“Look, Jen,” he said carefully, not wanting his voice to carry too far, “sorry about last week...”

“Can I see you tonight?” Her big brown eyes looked wet.

He avoided them, staring out across the room. “Maybe tomorrow,” he said, and slowly moved away from her.

He could have seen Jennifer, if he’d wanted, but he didn’t, because across the room, he’d seen somebody else...

She was standing by the ballroom doors, an incredible creature. But surrounding her were some of the skankiest broads in the entire class; they were fawning over her, attending to her, like she was the queen bee and they were the drones.

Suddenly the gorgeous babe flashed him a smile.

Yeah! He chugged his drink, and set it on a table as he moved toward her like a magnet to metal.

...da ya think I’m sexy...

“Well, hello,” Rick said. “Come here often?”

She looked at him with sultry eyes. “Would you believe me if I said it was my very first time?”

He smirked. “No.” He couldn’t keep his eyes off her boobs; they looked like the real thing, not hard, fake implants like his wife’s.

“I hope you’re just trying to read my name tag,” the blonde teased.

“Uh... yeah,” he smiled, focusing on the badge’s high school yearbook photo. God, what a dog she’d been!

“You don’t remember me, do you?”

He shook his head. Not if she’d looked like that.

“Well,” she smiled, “we didn’t exactly have the same friends.”

Flanking her, the drones glared at him. She could say that again.

“Come on, Hilda,” one of them said. “Let’s go find a table — by ourselves.”

“Perhaps I’ll see you later,” Rick said, reaching out, running his fingers sensuously down her arm.

“I’m almost sure of it,” she smiled sexily. “Until then...”

She held out one hand for him to shake. As he took it, he felt something hard in his palm.

He watched her as she wandered off with her friends.

Then he looked down at the hotel key-card in his hand. The number 310 was written on it.

...macho macho man...

He grinned.

In the ladies’ lounge Jennifer reached for a tissue on the marble vanity and blew her nose. The bathroom was empty; everyone else was enjoying the prime rib dinner. She wasn’t hungry.

She looked at herself in the mirror and hated what she saw: a desperate middle-aged woman helplessly in love with a married man.

With a sob, she turned away from herself. She felt like a drug addict — only the drug she was addicted to wasn’t crack or cocaine, it was Rick. And even though her mind warned, “Just say no,” her heart refused to listen...

She had been in love with him since high school, but he’d been a jock and she a bookworm, and he never noticed her. But at the ten year reunion, that all changed; he swept her off her feet — and onto her back — after she’d dumped her date, and he’d ditched his wife. And Jennifer had been hooked ever since.

Now five years later, her life was a mess. She didn’t date. She had no friends — they had long ago tired of hearing her woes — and energy that should have gone into advancing her career went instead into the stagnant affair.

If she only had the strength to give him up! Yet, the thought of not seeing Rick — however sporadic and brief — threw her into a panic...

The lounge door opened and that blonde, Hilda, entered — the one she had seen Rick flirting with earlier. Jennifer couldn’t believe Hilda would even speak to Rick after what he’d done to her so many years ago...

Hilda saw Jennifer and a small friendly smile formed.

“Well, hi, Jen,” she said.

“Hilda,” Jennifer replied coolly, pretending to fix her hair in the mirror. How she envied this woman, who seemed so happy and in control of her life.

Hilda walked over to the vanity and with a sigh of relief, kicked off her high heels. Then she dumped the contents of her gold purse on to the counter, picked out the lipstick, and applied the blood-red color to her lips.

“Don’t tell me you’re still carrying the torch for that creep,” Hilda said.

Jennifer turned away from the mirror; she didn’t feel like discussing her situation with anyone, let alone some classmate she barely knew from high school.

She started to leave, but Hilda stepped back into her way.

“I know it’s none of my business,” Hilda said, her voice soft and reasoning, “but he’s never going to leave Heather and marry you. Why should he? He’s having his cake and eating it, too. You’ve got to face it.”

Jennifer felt her face grow hot. “You’re right, you know,” she said. “You’re absolutely right.”

Hilda nodded smugly.

“It is none of your business!”

And she pushed past her.

“I’m glad my cousin Lenny isn’t here to see you now,” Hilda said behind her, almost contemptuously. “He thought you were the only smart, decent person in high school. I guess he was wrong.”

Jennifer, her back to Hilda, hand on the door, hesitated. “I guess he was...” she said softly.

But instead of leaving, Jennifer looked over her shoulder. “I didn’t know Lenny was your cousin.”

“Not many people did, even though we were in the same grade together. We didn’t have the same last name.”

Jennifer walked back toward Hilda. She thought there was a faint resemblance. “Tell me, how is Lenny?”

“Dead.”

The way Hilda said it, so casually, so flippantly, made Jennifer feel like she’d been slapped; if she hadn’t been immediately filled with sadness and memories of Lenny, she would have verbally lashed out at the woman.

But instead, Jennifer said, “I’m sorry... and I’m sorry he didn’t have a better life; he was even more lost and miserable than I was in high school. But he was a good friend.” Then she asked, “How... how did he die?”

“He killed himself.”

Jennifer looked down at the floor, then back at Hilda. “I guess I’m not surprised,” she said slowly. “But now I’ll always wonder... if he and I had stayed in touch... friends listen to friends, you know...”

“They should.”

Jennifer waited while Hilda gathered up the contents of her purse on the counter, and put on her shoes.

They left the lounge and walked back down the corridor toward the ballroom.

As they passed the vacant table in the hallway, Jennifer said archly, “I heard Heather went home to change her dress.”

Hilda smiled. “It wasn’t too hard to find out what she’d be wearing tonight,” she replied, opening the ballroom door. “After all, she’d told everybody in town.”

...bad girls...

Bathed in the moonlight, Hilda stood nude by the open window in a room on the third floor of the hotel. One floor below, she could see her classmates, through the domed glass ceiling of the ballroom, still eating.

Muted music floated up to her.

...more than a woman...

There was a knock at the door.

She moved to the bed and slipped under the soft white sheets.

“Come in!” she called.

The door opened, then closed, and Rick stood at the foot of the bed.

“We don’t have much time,” he whispered conspiratorially, unbuttoning his shirt. “My wife will be looking for me.”

Hilda stuck out her lower lip, pretending to pout. “Too bad,” she said. “I guess I’ll just have to settle for what I can get.”

Quickly, Rick removed the rest of his clothing; they lay in a heap on the floor.

“Come and get it, big boy...” Hilda purred, patting a place next to herself on the bed.

...you’re the one that I want...

Grinning like a kid Christmas morning, Rick climbed under the sheets, and pulled her roughly to him.

“What a bitchin’ babe!” he said, his breath an unpleasant cocktail of cigarettes and booze.

He kissed her.

What a lousy lover, she thought.

He pulled back and peered in her face. “Look,” he said, “I do remember you, now. And I hope you’re not mad about that little joke... back in high school.”

“Little joke?”

“You know... me pretending to invite you to the senior prom, and all.”

“And all?”

She sat up in the bed, letting the sheet slide down to expose her firm, round breasts. She leaned toward him.

“Now why should I be mad?” she said, running one long red fingernail down his cheek. “It was just a harmless prank... and I think a person should be able to handle a harmless prank, don’t you?”

He started to say something, but there was a loud pounding at the door.

“Hilda!” a male voice hollered. “Are you in there? Open the door!”

“Oh, my God!” she whispered frantically. “It’s my husband!”

Rick jumped out of the bed. “You didn’t tell me you were married!” he whispered back, seeming more annoyed than frightened.

She shrugged. “You didn’t ask... besides, you’re married.”

Quickly she got out of the bed, snatched a red silk robe off a nearby chair, and put it on. “You’ve got to hide!” she said. “The last man Butch caught me with landed up in the hospital for six months!”

“Butch?” he said. “Oh, great! Wonderful! And just where am I supposed to hide in this dinky room?”

She came around the bed and grabbed him by the arm. “Quick!” she said. “Under the bed.”

Rick dropped to the floor and tried to squeeze beneath the boxspring but he was too big.

She shook her head. “Nope. Too narrow.”

He stood up again.

“Here,” she said, pulling him over to a wardrobe which stood against the wall, “get inside.”

She opened the cabinet and pushed him in among the clothes and hangers, but the door wouldn’t close.

“Nope,” she said, pulling him back out. “Too small.”

“Why don’t I just stand in the corner with a lampshade on my head?” he suggested sarcastically.

“Too obvious.”

She looked toward the window.

“I know... climb out the window. You can stand on the ledge.”

“Are you nuts? I’m not going out there!”

“Hilda!” the man bellowed from behind the door. “If there’s somebody in there with you I’ll kill the son-of-a-bitch!”

Rick climbed out the window. Cursing, he inched his way along the ledge.

Hilda scooped up his clothes and threw them out after him; they sailed down, landing on the dome of the ballroom, attracting the attention of a few people who looked up, which was just what she wanted.

“What the hell did you do that for?” Rick asked, exasperated, clinging to the wall.

“I can’t have my husband finding your clothes! Now, don’t worry, I’ll get rid of him. Just stay put!”

“Like, where else would I go?”

...gonna fly now...

Hilda went to the door and opened it.

“Darling!” she said loudly. “I didn’t mean to keep you waiting... I was in the bathtub.”

A burly man in a Marriot maintenance uniform smiled and held out his hand.

She reached into the pocket of her silk robe and handed him a hundred-dollar bill.

Outside the window came a terrific crash, following shouts and screams.

Hilda ran to the window and looked down.

Below, on the ballroom floor sprawled Rick; he looked like a baby bird in a nest of glass.

“Sweet Jesus!” said the maintenance man, now standing next to her. “You didn’t say anything about anybody gettin’ killed...”

“How was I supposed to know he was going to fall?” she said, stunned. “I just wanted him exposed.”

“He’s exposed, all right,” the maintenance man said, looking down. He pointed a thick thumb at himself. “I’m outta here, lady,” he said. “I don’t know you, and you don’t know me.”

And he left.

She stepped back from the window, into the shadows of the room. “It was just a harmless prank...”

Heather returned to the ballroom just in time to join the group of her classmates who were gazing up through the glass dome, giggling at something. She joined in the laughter, at the sight of the naked man doing an ungainly tightrope act on the ledge of the floor above. Her laughter caught in her throat, however, as she recognized Rick, and then the group’s glee turned to gasps as Rick fell, and they jumped back, as he crashed through in a shower of glass fragments.

She rushed to him.

Even before she knew if he was dead or alive, she bent near him where he lay, sprawled in a pile on his clothes and shards of glass. Those around saw only concern on her face, but her whispered words to her husband were: “This is the last time you humiliate me... I want a divorce!”

He could only manage a moan.

Later, she turned her back on him, as ambulance attendants arrived to tend to her husband’s cuts, and walked regally away.

She was a queen about to be crowned, after all, with a court to attend...

Hilda stood with her friends in the ballroom and watched as ambulance attendants carefully transferred Rick on to a gurney. Now that it was apparent Rick’s injures weren’t life-threatening falling on top of his clothes had kept him from being shredded — many of the spectators were snickering and laughing.

Jennifer walked up to Hilda. “You did that on purpose,” she said acidly. “You set him up!”

“He set himself up,” Hilda responded flatly.

There was a pause, then Jennifer blurted, “You’re just full of surprises, aren’t you?”

“Stick around...”

A screech filled the room — feedback from the P.A. system — as one of the reunion committee members, a tall, lanky sandy-haired man, spoke into the mike at the edge of the dance floor. “Everyone... please go back to your tables. In spite of this... unfortunate accident... the hotel will allow us to continue with our evening.”

People began to return to their chairs. Several of the waiters were clearing away the last of the glass.

“I have the results of the ballots filled out during dinner,” the committee member continued, holding up an envelope, “and the woman named Reunion Queen this evening will preside over tomorrow’s pig roast.”

A hush fell over the room.

He opened the envelope. “And the Reunion Queen is... Hilda Payne!”

Instantaneous squeals came from several tables, followed by loud applause.

Near the front, in a prominent position she’d taken, Heather stood amid her classmates, shocked; then she joined in, clapping, too loudly, her face frozen in a smile not even she believed.

Hilda walked slowly up to the microphone. She smiled and nodded at Heather, whose glazed smile seemed about to crack. Another classmate handed her a bouquet of red roses, and placed a small rhinestone tiara on her head.

She looked out over the audience: a sea of smiling faces.

“Thank you,” she said, as the applause waned. “I think it’s fitting that the girl who won The Ugliest Pig Contest at the prom fifteen years ago, be asked to preside over the pig roast tomorrow...”

A few people laughed, but mostly, the smiles vanished.

“That’s the problem with pranks,” Hilda continued, “you can never be certain of the outcome...”

The room was deadly quiet.

“I’ll deliver this tiara, and these roses, personally... you see, I’m not Hilda. I’m Linnea. And before my elective surgery two years ago, my name was Lenny.”

Hilda sat in a wheel chair by the window in her room at Fairview Nursing Home. Beyond the window was a breathtaking view of colorful flower gardens, rolling green hills and a sky as blue as a robin’s egg. But she did not see the scenery, her eyes remaining placid and dead — nor did she appreciate its beauty, for her mind was less than a child’s.

“How is she doing today?” Linnea asked the nurse, a matronly woman with a kind face. They stood just outside the doorway.

Linnea had long ago stopped inquiring if her cousin’s condition had improved since the attempted suicide; there was no reversing brain damage caused by carbon monoxide poisoning.

“She’s been a little restless,” the nurse answered. “I can’t help but think it’s because you’ve been away.”

The nurse looked at the bouquet of roses and the tiara Linnea held in her hands. “She can keep the flowers,” the nurse instructed, “but after you’ve gone, we’ll have to take away the crown. I’m afraid one of our more agile guests might ‘borrow’ it. You understand.”

Linnea nodded.

“We’ll hold it in the office.”

The nurse turned and left.

Linnea entered the room. “Hello, Hilda,” she said softly, gently touching her cousin’s arm.

The woman’s body jerked a little, and the pupils of her eyes moved back and forth, like an infant’s trying to make sense of its world.

Linnea sat in a nearby chair.

The afternoon sun streaming in the window moved in a slow arc across the room, as Linnea spoke in a soothing voice, telling her cousin all about the reunion.

Finally, Linnea stood and placed the roses in her cousin’s lap, and the tiara on the woman’s head. She bent and kissed her.

In the parking lot, Linnea leaned against the steering wheel of her car and wept.

Then she wiped the tears from her face with the back of her hand, and started the car.

“Rock ’n roll radio! Here’s a disco blast from the past that will take you back, baby, to nineteen seventy-eight...”

She wheeled the Porsche into the street.

...I will survive...