Too Far Gone

47

Grace Smythe unlocked her door and entered carrying packages containing clothes and things she’d be needing. She was surprised to see a paper bag and a bottle of wine and a glass on her kitchen table. Inside the sack were several stacks of new currency.

Grace smiled. She had expected the money, but the wine was unexpected lagniappe – a little something extra.

She picked up the stacks of new one-hundred-dollar bills. It would be fifty thousand dollars-traveling money.

She went into the bedroom and dropped the bags she’d brought in, as well as the sack of cash. She rushed into the bathroom and started hot water running into the tub.

Back in the kitchen, she opened the wine. Grace took the bottle and the glass with her to the bathroom, where she tested the water. The way to appreciate a good vintage was to open your pores with hot water, and sip the wine slowly, savoring the fragrance, the richness, the variety of flavors.

She poured herself a glass and took a test sip. She rested the glass on the side of the tub, and scooted the bottle to the floor so she wouldn’t knock it over accidentally. You didn’t waste wine this good. Not this special a Burgundy.

Lowering her pants and sitting on the toilet, she sighed as relief swept through her like a warm wave. After she finished, Grace stepped out of her slacks and underpants and removed her blouse and bra. Standing naked before the door mirror, she admired her body for several long seconds, turning first one way and then the other, trying to see her buttocks. She could stand to lose a few ounces, perhaps pounds, and inches here and there.

She put in her blue contacts, removed her wig, took out the hairpins, and shook out her bleached blond hair, which reached almost to her shoulders. Using her fingernails, she scraped the gold studs from her ear. Using cotton and polish remover, she rubbed the glue residue that held them on, and slipped on a pair of dark-framed eyeglasses. You are not Grace Smythe anymore. After tonight, Grace Smythe is no longer.

She turned again to look at herself in the mirror, and smiled. She looked, if not just like Casey, like her actual sister. They had always been sisters. Thinking about Casey made her feel giddy, and she blushed. She hugged herself, closed her eyes, and imagined she was in Casey’s embrace, feeling Casey’s beautiful body against hers, their tongues entwined.

Soon it would all be over, and Casey would be hers alone. Grace understood, far better than Casey, that Gary had never belonged in their world. He said he loved Casey, but he could never love her like Grace did. He said he loved Deana, but, despite what he said, Deana was more Grace’s daughter than his. The fact that he had given his sperm didn’t mean anything. There were laboratories that did that without the complications a man brought to a situation. And the lily-hearted asshole had been going to give twenty-five million of Casey’s money to a bunch of Africans for drugs and food, and who gives a shit if they die like they’re supposed to anyway.

Grace had taken care of Gary-taken the bull by the horns. Now, after tonight, Gary would be no more. Casey would understand once and for all that it was Grace alone who loved her-only Grace who cared about the real Casey LePointe. Darling Casey, the girl whom Grace had been with until she was a woman-a woman who had given her heart to Grace as children, who had shared all of her pain, insecurities, and her sadness with Grace alone.

Gary West didn’t know the real Casey, the child who had cried on Grace’s shoulder a thousand times, and who had professed her undying forever love for Grace when they were both mere children. Casey hadn’t said it since, but Grace knew it was still true. No matter what Casey told Gary, she had never loved him. She had only ever loved Grace.

She wet her index finger and massaged herself slowly, imagining it was Casey’s wet tongue. Soon it would be more than an imaginary Casey who was making love to her. Soon they would be lying together in Casey’s large bed, exploring each other’s bodies while listening for Deana’s waking cries. It would be Grace who made Casey forget she’d ever slept with any man, and Deana that she had ever had a father.

She had enough money, both to get to Spain to wait for the firestorm to go away and for her to become another person. She would have reconstructive surgery to give her a new and sculpted face worthy of Casey LePointe, have those additional ounces removed, her buttocks lifted, and wait patiently in Madrid for Casey’s grieving period to end. Then she would be-in a far more acceptable and worthy form-the woman Casey deserved.

After the bath was drawn, Grace closed the door and eased slowly, inch by inch, into the hot water. She reached out and lifted the wine bottle to pour more into the glass, leaning back so she could see the picture of Casey and herself as teenagers that hung on the wall over the toilet.

The past weeks had been difficult. Watching Gary, knowing he was thinking he was about to be a very wealthy man. Whether he admitted it or not, the money would have changed him. And it wasn’t his money, it was Casey’s and hers. Yes, it had been hard, but, as her father always said, nothing worthwhile was easy.

Grace held her glass up to Casey’s beautiful face, toasted the future, and the death of Gary West.