The Collection

The older lady smiled, nodded, and put back the book she'd been examining.

'Alicia and Barbara,' Ida said, nodding to the two nondescript women on the love seat. 'Elaine and Natalie.' The women seated on the couch stared at him, unsmiling.

'I guess that's everyone.'

They remained staring at him, apparently waiting for him to speak, and he quickly sorted through a variety of responses in his mind: Thank you for coming, but I think it's time you go. I enjoyed meeting you, but I'm really bus today. I have a dental appointment and I have to get going. Who are you? Get the hell out of my house.

But, of course, it was Ida who began talking first. She laid a dry powdery hand on his. 'Now, Bob, we don't want to intrude. I know you're probably a very busy man and have a lot of preparations to make, so we'll only take up few seconds of your time.'

He looked from Ida to the other women. They reminded him, for some reason, of his mother and her friends, though; he was not quite sure why. There were no outward similarities, and his mother certainly wasn't as pushy as Ida, but something about the dynamic rang a bell.

Ida was smiling. 'As I said, we're Libby's friends, so, naturally, we're concerned about her.'

'-don't know Libby,' she finished for him. 'I know how these things work.' 'How what things work?' 'Libby's told us everything.' She mimed locking her lips and throwing away the key. 'Don't worry. We won't tell a soul.'

He was getting not only frustrated but angry. The intru­sion was bad enough, but these constant references to a re­lationship he was supposed to have with this Libby were really starting to irritate him.

Ida leaned toward him confidingly. 'It wasn't always this way, you know. When she and Edward first got married, they were the happiest couple in the world. Libby adored Edward. He really was her dream husband. She probably told you they honeymooned in Paris. After that, after they returned, they were still blissfully happy, and it was only as time wore on that they began to ... you know.'

'What?'

'Drift apart, get on each others' nerves, whatever you want to call it. That was when he started mistreating her.'

Shirley shook her head. 'I've told her a million times she should leave him, get a divorce. It's not as if they have kids.' She looked around the room. 'I think we've all told her that.' Corroborating nods. 'But she just couldn't see it. She was always making excuses for him, pretending like it was her fault, saying that if she hadn't screwed up and made chicken for Sunday dinner instead of turkey, or forgotten to fold his underwear properly, nothing would have hap­pened.'

Brandon couldn't help himself. 'What did he do to her? Did he beat her?'

'You mean she hasn't told you?' Ida clucked disapprov­ingly. 'She should have at least mentioned why she wanted you.'

Shirley leaned forward. 'I guess you don't like to know too many of the details about it, huh?'

Elaine seemed outraged. 'You mean you don't even ask questions? You just do it for the money? It doesn't matter to you why someone would-' She grimaced distastefully. '- need your services?'

Ida shushed them. 'We're not here to judge you,' she told him. 'We're here to support Libby.'

'I told you-'

'Yes, we know. This is all becoming very tiresome.'

'Then maybe you'd better leave.'

'Don't get me wrong,' Ida said quickly. 'I have nothing but the utmost respect for you. We all do. And I don't think any of us intended to suggest otherwise.'

Elaine remained silent.

'She needs you. Libby. She really does.'

The other women were nodding.

'And we're on her side completely. We totally under­stand. We're just concerned, that's all.'

'Edward's a monster,' Barbara said.

Next to her, Alicia nodded. 'You can't believe what he does to that poor woman, how much she's had to put up with, and for so long.'

Ida agreed. 'Oh, he's horrible to her. He makes her do ... nasty things ... rude things.' She waved her hankied hand at him. 'You know what I mean.'

He wasn't sure he did, but there were images in his mind of which he was sure these ladies would not approve.

'He'd be better off dead,' Ida said matter-of-factly.

He suddenly realized what they'd been getting at, what they thought he did, and his mouth went dry. He looked around the room, at each of them in turn. All eyes were fo­cused on him, the gazes of the women flat, unreadable.

He stood up, shaking his head. 'No,' he said. And, not knowing what else to say, he repeated it. 'No.'

' 'No' what?' Shirley asked.

He glanced over at the older lady, saw only open curios­ity on her face.

'It's my fault,' Ida said quickly. 'I'm the one who wanted to come over and ... check you out. Not that I don't trust Libby's judgment, mind you, but... well, that's just the kind of person I am.'

'He's a monster,' Barbara repeated. 'I saw the burn marks on her arms one time, when she was wearing a blouse with real floppy sleeves. She thought I didn't see, but I saw.'

'I saw them on her legs,' Natalie confided in a whisper. 'In the changing room at Mervyns.'

Elaine took a deep breath. 'We took my kids to the pool last summer and I saw a bloodstain on the back of her bathing suit bottom. She was bleeding back there. She was wearing purple, and I guess she thought it was dark enough, but I could see the stain. It was leaking through.'

'He is a monster,' Ida said.

'Maybe she should just divorce him,' Brandon offered.

Shirley shook her head. 'No, she won't do that.'

'And it's gone far beyond that stage,' Elaine said.

Ida nodded. 'She knows what she has to do. She's known it for a while, but she just hasn't wanted to admit it to herself.'

'Remember the blood in her kitchen, when we went over there that time?' Barbara looked around at her friends. 'How it was still dripping down her legs and we pretended like we couldn't see it, and she kept wiping up the bloody footprints but every time she'd walk to the sink to rinse out her washcloth she'd make even more?'

'We remember,' Elaine said softly.

Ida closed her eyes, nodded, then opened them again. 'Like I said, she's known what she has to do for a while now. She just hasn't known how to go about it. She realized, of course, that she couldn't do it herself. She wouldn't know how, for one thing. And of course she would immediately be put under a microscope. So it had to be someone else, some­one new, someone entirely unconnected to her, who couldn't be traced back and who could be counted on to keep quiet.' She smiled. 'I don't know how Libby came up with you, Bob, but I must say I think she made the right choice.'

Brandon sat down, not sure of what to say.

'I heard her say that next time he's going to cut it out of her.' Shirley's voice was hushed.

'Next time he's going to kill her,' Barbara said.

'Torture her, then kill her,' Elaine corrected.

They were all nodding.

'There was a lot of blood in that kitchen.' Natalie closed her eyes. 'Way too much blood.'

'Well, the real reason we came today,' Ida said, once again taking control, 'is because we couldn't let Libby pay for this herself. She needs all the money she can get, espe­cially afterward, and since we're her friends .. . well, we just didn't think it was right. So we're going to pay for your services, Bob.' She glanced at the other women. 'Could you leave Bob and me alone for a minute? I'll meet you back out at the van.'

The other women stood, said goodbye, and waved, and he nodded as they passed by him and walked out of the liv­ing room and through the entryway.