Crystal Lies - Melody Carlson [40]
I stopped pacing long enough to look at the flower arrangement on my coffee table. I just stood there staring at it and trying to remember why I had thought it so lovely the night before. Then I plucked out the grocery store flowers and shoved them into a juice pitcher. And I picked up the large crystal vase, dumped out the water, walked over to the open window, and pushed the screen aside. I took a moment to peer down, making sure no one was below before I released the vase and watched it plummet to the concrete sidewalk. I stared for a couple of horrified seconds, shocked at what I’d done, but then I looked down in fascination, studying the thousands of shining pieces of sparkling crystal splayed across the sidewalk. Then I got the broom and the dustpan and a brown paper bag and hurried downstairs to clean up my mess.
“What’s going on?” demanded the young mother of the two waif children I had been scolded for trying to protect just two days ago.
“I dropped something,” I told her, eying her carefully. Did she intend to report me to the manager now? Or maybe the police for endangerment? What if her children had been around? I suddenly felt very ashamed and childish—sheepish even.
She coolly lit a cigarette and watched as I quickly swept up my glittering mess. “It looks like diamonds,” she said as she sat down on the steps and continued to watch me.
I paused and looked at the shards of crystal glistening in the sun, then nodded. “It does, doesn’t it?”
“What was it?” she asked.
I turned and studied her. She appeared to be in her early twenties but still dressed like she was in high school. She had on a short denim skirt and a little pale pink top that exposed not only a bare midriff but a belly-button ring as well. I suspected she was a single mom since I hadn’t seen a guy around. “It was a very expensive Waterford crystal vase,” I told her, waiting to see if she would react.
“How did you drop it?” She peered up to the open window of my apartment now.
“Like this.” I held out my hand with my fingers together, then opened them wide.
“On purpose?”
I nodded. “Going to report me?”
She got a sly look on her face. “Maybe.”
I shrugged. “It was a stupid thing to do.”
“Yeah.” She took a long drag on her cigarette. “Then why’d you do it?” I swept the last of the shards into my dustpan, then dumped them into the paper sack. “You really want to know?”
“Yeah, why not?”
I swept the pavement a few more times, pushing the fine remaining glass dust over the curb and into the gutter. “I think I got it all, but you better not let your kids go barefoot down here for a while,” I said as I turned back to her.
“So why’d you do it?” she asked me again.
I sat down on the step next to her. “Well, my husband got me that vase for our twenty-fifth anniversary.”
She nodded as she blew out a long puff of smoke. “And?”
“And I just found out he’s been cheating on me.”
“Man, that really sucks, huh?” I nodded. “Yeah, it really sucks.”
“So you left him?”
“Yes. But I confronted him today, and, naturally, he denied everything. And I came home but still felt really, really angry.”
“Duh.”
“And when I saw that vase in my apartment, well, I just couldn’t help myself.”
She patted me on the back now. “Well, good for you.”
“I guess.”
“Do you feel better now?”
I nodded. “A little. I just wish I had smashed the stupid vase in his driveway instead. Then he would’ve had to clean it up.”
“You could always go bash in his car or something,” she suggested. “Slash his tires or break his windows—something like that.”
I turned and looked at her, curious as to whether she was serious or not. Apparently she was. “I suppose,” I said. “But he’s an attorney, and his car is a pretty expensive Porsche. It might just make things worse.”
“Yeah, maybe.” She sighed. “And it wouldn’t be fair to make the Porsche suffer, right?”
“Right.” I couldn’t help thinking of the satisfaction from scarring Judith’s car.
Then she smiled and stuck out her hand. “I’m Cammie, and my old man cheated on me too.”
I shook her hand. “I’m sorry about that. I