If I Were You (2 page)

“I’m sorry,” I tell her and I mean it. “I know this is good
for you. I’m happy it’s working out.”

Her lips curve slightly and she nods her acceptance before
she pushes to her feet. I stand with her and give her a hug.  She smiles, her
mood transforming into the instant sunshine I so often find she brings into my
life. I love Ella. I really do.

“David and I are looking forward to a bit of that
spellbinding action ourselves tonight,” she announces mischievously. “I have to
run.” She laughs and waves a few fingers at me. “Enjoy your night. I know I
will.”

I sink back into my chair and watch the door close. 

***

The sound of pounding on my door once again takes me from
bliss to panic. I sit up in the bed, disoriented and groggy, and eye the clock.
Seven in the morning on my first day off from classes.

“Who the heck is pounding on my door?” I grumble, throwing
the blankets off me and sliding my feet into the pink fuzzy slippers one of my
students gave me last Christmas. I grab my long pink robe that is not fuzzy,
but does say ‘Pink’ across the back. More knocking has begun.

“Sara, it’s me, Ella!” I hear as I shuffle my way toward the
living room. “Hurry! Hurry!”

My heart flutters because not only is Ella clearly in some
sort of panic, but unlike me, who doesn’t like to waste a second of any day,
Ella doesn’t get up before noon on days she doesn’t have to. The instant I yank
open the door, Ella flings her arms around me and announces, “I’m eloping!”

“Eloping?!” I gasp, pulling back and tugging Ella inside,
out of the chill of the early morning. She’s still wearing her clothes from the
night before. “What are you talking about? What’s happening?”

“David proposed last night,” she exclaims excitedly. “I can
hardly believe it. We’re flying to Paris this morning.” She eyes her watch and
squeals. “In two hours.”

She shoves something into my hand. “That has the key to my
apartment. On the kitchen table, you’ll find the journal and the key to the
storage unit. If it’s not cleared out in two weeks, it has to be rented, or
it’s auctioned off yet again. So take it and sell the stuff. The money is
yours. Or let it go. Either way, it doesn’t matter.” She grins. “Because I’m
eloping to Paris, then honeymooning in Italy!”

Protectiveness fills me for Ella. I don’t want her to get
hurt and I’ve never even heard her say she loves David. “You’ve only known this
man for three months, sweetie. I’ve only met him once.” He always,
conveniently, got called away when we’d been planning to get together.

“I love him, Sara,” she says, as if reading my mind. “And
he’s good to me. You know that.”

No
, I don’t know that, but while I try to find the
right way to say it, she is already reaching for the door. “Ella-”

“I’ll call you when I arrive in Paris, so keep your cell
handy.”

“Wait!” I say, shackling her arm. “How long will you be
gone?”

Her eyes light up with excitement. “A month. Can you believe
it? A whole month in Italy. I’m living a dream.” She hugs me and gives me a
kiss on the cheek. “I’ll call and when we get back we’ll have a reception.” Her
eyes soften. “You know I wanted you with me for this, don’t you? But David knew
I had no family. He wanted to whisk me away so that it wouldn’t be painful.”
She pokes at the tuckered spot that always appears between my brows when I
frown. “Stop making that face. It’ll be wrinkled when you get older. And I’m
fine. I’m perfect, in fact.”

“You better be,” I say, attempting my best teacher voice,
but my throat is too tight to do much more than croak out the warning. “Call me
as soon as you arrive so I know you’re safe, and I want pictures. Lots of
pictures.”

Ella smiles brightly, “Yes, Ms. McMillan.” She turns and
rushes away, giving me a last-second wave over her shoulder before she rounds the
corner. She is gone, and I am fighting unexpected tears I don’t even
understand. I am happy for Ella but worried for her, too. I feel...I’m not sure
what I feel. Lost, maybe. My fingers curl around her keys, and I am suddenly
aware that I have just inherited a storage unit and the journals I swore I
wouldn’t read again.

Chapter Two

And then, the moment I know I will die remembering. The
moment when the steel of a blade touched my lips. The moment that he promised
there was pleasure in pain...

Those words written in the journal replay in my head early
the next evening, the same day of Ella’s rapid departure. They haunt me to the
point I feel downright icy every time I think of them. They are why I’m here,
standing inside a temperature-controlled storage unit the size of a small
garage, that at some point I assume the journal writer leased. Thankfully there
is a dim light and the neighborhood is good. I stand here, unsure of what to
look at first, uneasy about digging through a stranger’s things.

…the moment he promised there was pleasure in pain.

Unbidden, the words replay in my head again. I shiver, and
not just because the journal is explicitly arousing. I shouldn’t be aroused.
Not by painful pleasure and bondage. I
refuse
to be aroused. I am worried
about this mysterious woman. Besides, I am my father’s daughter, just as my
mother had been my father’s wife, which translated to his puppets who didn’t
dare walk in the same shadows he did. My mother had escaped him in death, and
I’d chosen to leave him out of my life since. Despite five years without him, I
remain all too aware that the lingering effects of his heavy hand are far too
present in my life.

I grind my teeth at the memories. I have no idea how my mind
has gone to places I try never to go. Forcefully, I refocus on the neatly
stacked furniture and boxes lining the walls, as well as what looks like
well-packaged artwork. A life left behind, forgotten. Who did that? Who left
things that they’d clearly cared about enough to neatly pack and organize them,
behind? I’m not buying the idea that some rich boyfriend had whisked this woman
away to some exotic life. No one who hadn’t seen bad luck, or maybe even
tragedy, did this. I’m not about to be a part of adding to this woman’s
troubles by selling off her things. Not
this woman
, I corrected myself.
Rebecca
Mason
is her name. That’s what the paperwork said, and as per the
management they couldn’t give me her phone number and ‘it’s disconnected
anyway’.

“I’m going to find a way to contact you, and return your
things,” I whisper to the room, as if I’m speaking to Rebecca, and a chill
races down my spine. I feel like she is here, like I’m talking to her and it’s
downright creepy. Somehow, it makes me more determined to find her.

I sigh with grim realization at what my vow means. I have to
invade her privacy and dig through her things to find a way to contact her, a
way to return what was left of her life. If she’s alive, I think grimly,
hugging myself.

“Stop it,” I murmur, chiding myself. The Grim Reaper
mentality isn’t me. I don’t even like horror movies. The world has enough real
monsters without creating fictional monsters. 

There really could be a happy reason Rebecca left her life
behind. Winning the lotto. There. Yes. There was a good reason to leave all
your things behind. Unlikely, but still possible. Ten million to one or so, I
imagine, but possible. So why does the idea do absolutely nothing to dismiss
the eerie, hollow feeling of the room?

Eager to get this over with, I drop my purse to the ground
and run my hands down my soft, faded jeans, scanning the items around me until
my gaze catches on a box neatly labeled "personal papers". Seems a
good place to find contact information, if I ever saw one.

***

Two hours later I am sitting against a wall, thumbing
through information I have no business seeing. School records, bills, legal
paperwork that amounted to pennies of inheritance from the death of Rebecca’s
mother and last living relative, three years before. I think of my own mother,
of the woman who’d tried so hard to shelter me from my father, but would never
do anything to shelter herself. I squeeze my eyes shut, wondering if the pain
of losing her will ever go away.
If it
will ever go away. She’d been my
best friend, my closest confidante. I wonder if Rebecca was close to her
mother, as I was mine? If she’d hurt as I did with my loss, as
I still do
.

With effort, I refocus on the paperwork, and realize I’m not
going to find any family connections to reach Rebecca. But thankfully, the mail and
a bunch of bank statements have, at least, given me her address though I’m not
overly certain it will be accurate.

Feeling not much closer to finding Rebecca, I shove
everything back in the box and stand up, feeling stiff and cramped in a way
that defies my morning jogs.  

“Try the dresser,” comes a male voice from behind me.

I yelp and whirl around to find a man wearing a staff shirt
standing in the doorway. The hair on the back of my neck prickles, my nerve
endings humming with warning. He is a handsome man in his mid-thirties-—blond,
clean shaven, with short, spiky hair, but it’s the dark interest in his
deep-set eyes that sets me on edge. The already small room seems to shrink and
close in on me, that eerie feeling I’ve been unable to shake no longer hollow
but focused on me, like an invisible weight on my shoulders and chest. 

“Dresser?” I manage to croak despite the dryness in my
throat.

“Everyone has a secret bedroom drawer,” he says. His voice
lowers, takes on a husky quality. “A place almost as personal as their soul.”

I stiffen, a new rush of discomfort slicing through me. He's
been in here. I knew it with every piece of my being. He'd gone through
Rebecca's things. He knew what was in that drawer. I don’t like this man, and
I’m suddenly immensely aware of the fact that I am alone with him, miles from
the highway, not another customer anywhere near—at least not that I've seen or
heard thus far.  

“I don’t want to know her secrets,” I say firmly, keeping my
voice remarkably steady considering my knees are wobbly. “I want to find her
and return her things to her.”

He studies me a long moment, his gaze as sharp as the slice
of discomfort digging deeper inside me. Then finally, when I am about to choke
on the silence, he says, “Like I said. Check the drawer.” His lips hint at a
sardonic smile, and he pushes off the doorjamb. “I’ll be back to lock the
exterior building at nine. You won’t want to be inside when I do.” Without
another word, he is gone.

I don’t move. I can’t move. I want to slam the door shut but
don’t dare, not when it locks from the outside, a thought that terrifies me.
Seconds tick by and I wait as the man’s footsteps fade away into the distance.
Away
.
Yes. Away. I have to get away from this place. I rush to the glossy mahogany dresser
against the wall and yank open the top right drawer. Empty. I try the left.
God, my heart is in my throat, threatening to choke me. I have to stop and
force myself to inhale, and slowly exhale. I am shaking and irrationally
frightened. I count to thirty and I can breathe again. I’m okay. Everything is
okay. I open the left drawer and the breath I’d finally found again hitches at
the contents. A black, twelve-by-eight, velvet box with a lock. A red silk
scarf. Three red leather-bound journals.

My teeth worry my bottom lip. I dart a look toward the
hallway and then back to the drawer. I am intrigued despite my nerves, but
afraid the creepy man will return.

I quickly refocus on the drawer, and search for a key to the
box, telling myself there might be contact information inside. That I am not
caving to carnal curiosity. I flip open each of the journals, shake them for
loose papers, for a key. A brochure falls from inside one of them, and I start
to shove it aside, exposing several more brochures in the process.

I pick one of them up and read "Allure Art
Gallery," San Francisco. They are all Allure brochures. Allure is the
largest, most prestigious gallery among San Francisco’s many. I remember Ella
mentioning art she’d found in the unit. It appears that despite our vastly
different love lives, Rebecca and I share a common thread in our interest in
art. I love everything about art, from the history to the creative process.
There was a time when I might have cut off my right arm to work in the art
world. It’s what I went to school for, what I’d dreamt of. A dream I’d given up
years ago when life, bills, and responsibilities took precedence.

A loud crash sounds somewhere outside, and I nearly jump out
of my own skin. My hand balls on my chest, willing my heart not to jump right
through it. Thunder. The sound had been thunder. It is about to storm. Another
loud rumble radiates through the walls, echoing as if I am in a cave–-almost
like an omen of warning telling me to hurry the heck up. Oh good grief, my imagination
is running wild, but I won’t ignore this feeling of unease.

I grab my purse, stack the journals in my arms, which I
justify taking because they are my only hope of finding a clue to Rebecca’s
recent whereabouts. I am about to exit the room, but I hesitate for a moment
before turning back and rushing to the dresser to retrieve the box. My hands
are still shaking as I manage to juggle the items I’m holding and attach the
lock to the storage unit.

Quickly, I head down a narrow, dimly lit hallway, past rows
of locked units like the one I’ve just left. I feel like I am Alice in
Wonderland about to be sucked down the rabbit hole. I exit the garage-style
main doorway to find a now dark parking lot made darker by the brewing storm.
How has time gotten away from me so quickly?

I fall into a half run, half walk, in stealthy silence
thanks to my light blue, Nike cross trainers, closing the distance between
myself and my silver Ford Focus. My keys are still in my purse, and I don’t
know why I haven’t pulled them out before now. I set the items I’m holding on
top of the hood with the intent of digging in my purse and manage to drop one
of the journals. I reach for it and drop another.

“Dang it,” I mumble and squat, scooping them up, but the
hair stands up on my neck again, and despite the cold droplets of water
smacking my forehead, I don’t stand. My gaze shifts to a shadow near the open
garage door, and I search to find no one there. I jerk myself upright, stomach
lurching.
Get in the car. Get in the car. Why are you outside the car? 

Hands shaking now, I dig out my keys, and curse the
out-of-character paranoia I can’t escape. I yank open the car door and throw my
purse inside, get in, the journals and the box awkwardly on my lap. I can’t
lock the door fast enough. A heavy breath escapes me at the sound of the clicks
that seal me inside and I haphazardly stack the journals and box in the
passenger seat.

I’m about to start the engine when a trickle of awareness
draws my gaze to the side of the building I’d just exited, and I gasp. Standing
in the shadows, beneath a slim awning, one leg propped against the wall, is the
man who’d visited me a few minutes before. Watching me.

I turn on the engine and say a silent prayer of thank you
when it starts. I can’t get out of here fast enough.

***

I’m halfway home when the storm explodes on the city in a
fury of pounding rain and vivid lightning, no doubt the reason why, despite it
being Friday night, there isn’t a nearby parking spot at my apartment complex.
Thankful that a boatload of schoolwork to grade had motivated me to buy a purse
the size of a small suitcase, I cram the box and the journals inside to protect
them from the downpour. A wet run later, with water dripping from my hair and
clothes, I flip the lights on in my apartment. I can’t shut the door and lock
it any faster than I could get away from that storage facility.

Maybe my imagination is running away with me over the
mystery of Rebecca Mason, but I feel like I am being stalked. That man back at
the storage unit gave me the creeps. I shiver just thinking about him. Well,
that and I’m dripping wet and despite the fact that it’s August, it’s a chilly
fifty-one degrees outside according to the radio announcer.

Water is puddling at my feet, and I quickly pull the box and
the journals from my drenched purse, setting them on the dry carpet before
stripping right there in the entryway. My tan carpet is a dirt magnet but
renting means you take what you can get. I start for the bathroom and hesitate,
backtracking to grab my cell phone because it just makes me feel better to have
it in hand, but I tell myself it’s to call Ella. I start a hot bath and dial
her number, hoping she might know where to find Rebecca, and to hear she is
safe and happy. Her phone rings with a fast busy signal that tells me that she
was out of service range, but I still feel worried. I am one big ball of nerves
and it’s making me insane.

Forty-five minutes later, freshly showered and dressed in
pink boxers and a matching tee, my hair soft and dry and smelling like my
favorite rose-scented shampoo, I am chiding myself for being so paranoid. I
head to the fridge for my answer to all troubles—-a pint of Ben and Jerry’s
Boston Cream Pie ice cream.