All That Was Happy Read Free Page B

to take a drive, and then I’ll
get a hotel room someplace.”
    “ I don’t think you should be alone
tonight,” Leah said.
    “ I can’t face anybody right now,”
Beckie said. “Not even you. I really need to be alone.”
    “ You’ll wind up in a bar someplace,”
Leah said. “A hotel will be too lonely--you’ll wind up drinking
yourself into a coma. Or worse, dressed like that, you’ll get
picked up by some creep--I can see it clear as day. Don’t forget,
that guy who cuts off women’s arms is out again.”
    “ I’m forty-nine years old,” Beckie
said. “I don’t think I’ll be cruising the bars the day I get served
my divorce. But if you’re right, if I do go to a bar, I’ll call you
and you can join me.” She hit the gas and the powerful car skewed
sideways before straightening out and exiting the driveway, heading
back to Wilshire, turning east towards the 405 freeway and the
Valley. The traffic was thick and barbaric in the thin, cooling,
early evening light. It took her the better part of an hour to make
her way north over the pass and back down into the San Fernando
Valley. The light had faded into an urban glare by the time she
turned off Sepulveda onto Saticoy and arrived at the single story
Argon Tools warehouse, the business she and Bernie had built almost
from scratch, slowly and painfully over the past twenty-nine years,
the building she had spent most of her life working in, answering
the phones and keeping the books until six months ago, when Bernie
told her she could retire, that he would hire an office manager to
replace her, one who was better trained on computers.
    She cruised slowly into the parking lot.
Bernie’s car, his new silver Jag sedan, was parked in front. It was
approaching 7 p.m. He normally knocked off at 7, she knew, and
would be coming out soon. She parked beside the jag and opened her
glove box and removed the Charter Arms revolver, keeping it gripped
in her right hand. She put the seat back, closed her eyes and
waited.
    Something awoke her--a scratching sound
outside the car. She opened her eyes. It was dark, but the parking
lot was well lit--and empty. She’d fallen dead asleep. Her mouth
was thick and dry and her eyes felt scratchy and heavy, as though
they wanted to close again. Somewhere in the middle of her dark,
dreamless snooze, Bernie had come out, seen her sleeping inside her
vehicle with a gun in her hand, and coolly driven off. She
remembered the last time she’d seen him at the warehouse--had it
been over a week? He’d been his usual self, constantly on the phone
in his huge corner office, the one with the couch, barking orders
to his secretary Nolene.
    Nolene. It was her. The sweet young thing had
taken Bernie for herself. Nolene, a nice enough young girl, a
college girl according to the agency, a girl who should have been
working someplace else at something more important but who’d chosen
instead to fill the Office Manager position for Bernie. Nolene, a
girl with an Irish name but Hispanic good looks, a girl who
admitted to singing in her church choir but who’d one day shocked
Beckie by showing her a tattoo of two snakes intertwined in the
middle of her back--who’d been working for Bernie for only the past
six months, who’d come highly recommended from the temp agency. Why
hadn’t she seen it? Nolene wasn’t a temp anymore--she’d just been
promoted to permanent. Nolene was pregnant with Bernie’s child. The
thought of this, of a baby coming into the world with Bernie’s chin
and nose, and perhaps Nolene’s hair and eyes, was too much. Beckie
took the gun and inserted it into her mouth, feeling the acrid
taste of the metal on her tongue, the ugly hardness of the short
barrel on her teeth. She thumbed back the hammer, impressed with
the smooth turning of the cylinder which brought into play the live
round which would, momentarily, go rocketing through the roof of
her mouth and into her brain. The hammer clicked into place and set
the