The Devil Next Door

Cal’s was just up the block now.

Angie grinned.

Other than archery, tormenting Brandi was her only true joy in life.

Maybe I should use that bitch for target practice.

Danny’s birthday tomorrow. Maybe Jimmy was already in town. Sometimes he did that. He’s show up in Greenlawn, look up some of his old cronies and throw together a card game, indulge in a little whoring with cheap sluts like Little Miss Saucy Tits Brandi Welch. Asshole. He’d probably screwed the little witch last night. Maybe this morning. You could never tell, oh God in high Heaven, you could just never tell.

Angie pushed her buggy through the door of Cal’s.

There were maybe six or seven people in there, buying bread, examining the beer in the cooler, chit-chatting as people in Greenlawn will do.

Angie swept the store with acidic eyes.

Ha, there she was. Right behind the counter: Little Miss Saucy Tits. Look at them everyone, admire them, see how plump they are. Women, wouldn’t you just love to have a set like these and, men, wouldn’t you just love to squeeze them or bury your face in the sweet valley between, yummy-yummy.

At the sight of her, a slight headache bloomed in the back of Angie’s skull: it was sharp, insistent. It made her squeeze her eyes shut. And for the briefest of moments, it cast a dark shadow over her thoughts. A shadow that she instantly recognized with some fundamental half-submerged awareness that was ancient and misty. It crawled up from within her, breaking the sleep of reason.

Then it was gone.

Brandi looked up from her Soduku magazine, pencil pausing, saw Angie and tensed, God how she tensed.

Angie smiled at her, a lethal meat-eating smile.

Poor Little Miss Saucy Tits. Look how nervous she is. See how her breasts, so jutting and firm, have deflated somewhat. See how her liquid black eyes shift about nervously like those of a rat wary of the cat. She trembles. Her lips so full and pink and juicy are now pulled into a pale gray line of despair.

Poor little thing, Angie thought. It’s nothing truly personal, you know, but you shouldn’t have been fucking my ex. He comes to town maybe once a year and you fuck him and I know it and you know it and I’ll never let you forget it.

Angie lifted Danny from the buggy. “Go find yourself a candy bar,” she said, then turned her full hating attention on Brandi Welch who was already withering away like a flower before October’s first frost.

“ I’d like a lottery ticket,” Angie said.

Brandi swallowed. “Um…which kind?”

“ What kinds do you have?”

Hee, hee. Make her go through the whole list from Megamillions to the state drawings to instant scratch-offs like Pot-o’-Gold and Million-Gazillion and E-Z Street. It took her about five minutes to go through them all and tell Angie how much they cost and how much you could win, all the unnecessary details. And when she was finished, a fine dew of sweat on her brow, Angie said, “No, I’ve changed my mind.”

What Angie badly wanted to do was to read the little whoring witch right out in front of everyone. What a scene it would be with little Danny at her side! Just tell Little Miss Saucy Tits what she thought of her in plain terms. Refer to her openly as that part of the female anatomy that you generally reserved for the worst, evil little shrews, the old Cee-U-Next-Tuesday. Which was a word that Angie would not allow herself to say out loud or in mixed company because, dammit, she was from a good family and she was better than that…wasn’t she?

“ I want some cigarettes.”

“ Cigarettes?”

Angie flashed her the dead smile of a window dummy. “Yes, cigarettes.”

“ I guess…I mean, I didn’t know you smoked.”

“ Lots of things you don’t know, isn’t there?” Angie told her. “But trust me, Brandi, in time you’ll get to know all about me.”

Brandi swallowed. She recognized the implied threat and the tension was so thick on her you could have sliced it like cake. “What kind? What kind of cigarettes?”

“ What kind do you have?”

Brandi sighed. “Listen, do we have to go through this every time?”

“ Through what?”

“ You know damn well what I’m talking about.”

“ I only know that you’re being very rude to a customer.”

Danny, damn him, came running up and tossed two Almond Joys on the counter, breaking up the fun which had all the earmarks of being exceptional.

“Is there anything else?” Brandi asked her, a thin smile on her lips.

Angie, pissed-off, cheated, and trembling with barely-concealed rage, dug through her purse, clawed through it really, found her wallet…and it was at that precise moment that the little headache blooming in her skull like a corpse-orchid suddenly flowered and its petals filled her head and its fragrance consumed all that she was.

With moonstruck eyes, she looked from the purse to Brandi, recognizing neither or their place in the scheme of things. She made a guttural grunting sort of sound deep in her throat. Her fingers continued to dig in the purse, finding a wallet, a cosmetic bag, a cellphone, a box of crayons for Danny…things she no longer recognized or understood.