7.

~ Norma was left to wonder what she'd done wrong. Maybe Alex had gone suddenly impotent, but that hardly seemed likely. He wasn't ever the type that struggled with that particular problem. Not from what she'd seen so far.

Plus, she'd known he was certainly aroused enough for them to enjoy each other last night. Why had he suddenly acted so strangely? The whole situation had left her perplexed and frustrated. She wasn't used to being aroused and then abandoned like this. Men, while never as good sexually as Alex, had always wanted her. Had never just walked away from her when she was willing to give them everything they desired.

Worst of all, she had a hard time falling asleep after her husband had so cruelly left. When morning came, she woke early. Her body aching as if she'd had a vigorous work out and she went downstairs to start her morning routine.

It was best not to think about why Alex had such a change of heart. Hard won lessons had taught her that men always lost interest no matter how infatuated they were in the beginning of a relationship. She'd hoped Alex would hold on a little longer. She'd believed they were special after all.

She was making French toast when she heard the tell-tell stomping around upstairs that meant he was up and getting dressed. When Alex would casually waltz around upstairs, he would actually make her kitchen light tremble. The house protesting his abundant energy and refusal to tip-toe and observe any kind of silence. He'd lived as a solitary bachelor for too long to care if he made a ruckus moving about.

Norman was a much better roommate in this way, she decided. Her youngest son was naturally spry and mindful of his steps. He was positively graceful in his movements and rarely made a sound when he moved about this old house. He knew where every sordid creak of the floorboards were and there were many times he'd casually snuck up behind her without making a sound at all.

In fact, she hated to even think about it, she was sure Norman would sometimes sneak into her room at night while she was asleep. She wasn't sure for what purpose, but she could always tell little things were out of place. Clothes in her wardrobe were moved about. Her shoes were rearranged. Her jewelry box was riffled through. Nothing was missing, but still. It gave her cause enough to lock her doors when Norman became violent.

She'd been so lost in thought about Norman, so lost in the task of fixing breakfast, that she hardly gave any attention to Alex coming downstairs. The sounds of him pulling out the kitchen chair seeming to bring her back to reality.

"Morning." she said neatly arranging his breakfast with fresh fruit and powered sugar.

"Morning." Alex said carefully and she caught him looking at her with a sad hopeful expression. It was the same look he'd given her when he'd come to check on her after she'd proposed marriage to him. That sad, puppy face that looked like he wanted to hide under porch if only she would love him.

Unsure of what to do, she put on her best smile and set down his breakfast.

"Got ahead and eat. Don't let it get cold." she said eagerly.

"Norma." Alex said in a soft voice.

'Here it comes.' she thought internally. 'He's going to tell me how he made a terrible mistake in marrying me and how he wants to divorce me. He's sorry, he's so sorry. I'll just have to work this out on my own. I should have know better than to trust him. All those nice 'I love you's' were just words after all. They don't mean anything.'

Her thoughts were racing and she could feel her heart getting ready to break while her hands clutched the jam jar. The lid too tightly twisted on for her to open.

"Yeah?" she said slowly.

"You- you married an idiot, Mrs. Romero." Alex said easily. "You picked… the biggest idiot in town and married him."

Norma felt relief hit her life a cold, refreshing wave in high summer, and she could suddenly breathe again.

"I'm sorry about last night." he said taking the jam jar she was struggling with and easily popping open the top.

"Oh." she said meekly. That nice cool wave was almost enough to knock her off her feet. Happiness erupting fit to make her believe it was summer outside and not the dead of winter.

"What happened last night, Alex?" she asked. Her curiosity getting the better of her.

Alex looked embarrassed and shook his head.

"I… you were manipulating me. Seducing me." he said pathetically.

Norma let out a laugh before she could help it. She wasn't exactly good at seducing anyone, she hadn't had a lot of practice at it, and it always blew up astonishingly in her face whenever she tried.

She hadn't thought she was enticing him in any way by coming to bed in her most matronly night gown and no make up.
Her face went red when she saw that Alex genuinely believed that she had beguiled him in some way.

"Alex." she said feeling sorry for him. "You remember, when I came to your office after Shelby was killed? I was all dressed up in that low cut black dress, asking for political favors and you shot me down?"

He looked a little annoyed. His face becoming somber and cold just as it had that day.

"Yeah."

"That was me trying to seduce you." she smiled widely. "Trying… and failing. You practically threw me out of your office."

Alex didn't look convinced.

"You came to bed with no panties on." he reminded her.

"I hardly ever ware panties to bed." she reminded him. "Besides, I knew you'd want to fool around like always and it took me forever to put that stupid diaphragm in. It's not exactly like riding a bicycle you know. You have to put in just right to-"

"You didn't tell me you were using a diaphragm." Alex interrupted. He looked slightly hurt.
"Well, I figured it would be more romantic if… this way." she explained. "So I got fitted for a new one last week."

"That's why you were taking so long in the bathroom." he reasoned. "So you just decided to change up our birth control without saying anything to me?"

"No." she huffed. "I decided to change up MY birth control without saying anything to you."

Alex still looked horrified and hurt that she'd done something as simple as be fitted for a new diaphragm without consulting him.

"I mean, it's easier for you. Feels better. Right?" she reasoned. "More spontaneous. It's not like we want to have kids."

A silence hung between them that was tangible. Electric like it had been last night and Norma wasn't sure what to make of it. Alex refused to look at her but seemed uninterested in his breakfast.

Slowly, very slowly, it occurred to Norma that Alex might have been thinking about children.

"Alex?" she questioned. "Were you? Did you think I was trying to get pregnant on purpose?"

She wasn't sure what made her blurt out the question. She'd never been afraid of being direct with him.

"No." he lied.

His eyes casting away from her and he looked toward the left. He lied exactly the way Dylan did.

"Yes you did!" she accused and grinned. "That's why you left last night! You thought I was trying to get pregnant and you don't want that."

"I never said I didn't want that." he said quickly and refused to met her eyes.

"What?" she demanded just as the security alarms gave off a high pitched screeching noise. Someone was trying to break into the house.

~ "Norma, what the hell?" Dylan panted when Alex finally found his phone and stopped the alarms from going off.

Norma's ears were still ringing from the high pitched volume that had come out of nowhere.

"You got a security system." Emma said calmly. Her hand pressed to her chest and her large eyes wide from the sudden shock of the alarms.

"Yes." Norma said and heard the chirp of the system resetting. "I'm sorry I should have warned you but I didn't think you would be coming by."

"We just stopped by to get some of Norman's clothes. He called and asked us-" Dylan explained.

"What?" Norma demanded feeling an instant sense of betrayal. "Why didn't he call me and tell me he needed clothes? I could have gotten him clothes."

"I don't know." Dylan said not wanting to take sides. "When did you get this alarm system installed? It's really loud."

Dylan and Alex exchanged appreciative nods.

"They put cameras all down to the motel to." he told Dylan. "Makes it safer."

"We saw the trees." Emma noted.
"We're going to tackle to house next." Alex added. "New electric and plumbing."

"We are?" Norma questioned.

That wave had now knocked her off her feet and she suddenly felt like she couldn't swim to the surface.

"That's wonderful." Emma said brightly. "This house is so beautiful. It just needs a little love."

~ Norma couldn't shake the grumpy feeling that Norman had purposefully asked Dylan to collect his clean clothes and not her. He knew full well that Dylan would have to come by the house and that she would find out about it. It was like someone had made plans to throw a party right in front of her and had maliciously failed to invite her. Norman was just acting like a child right now. Trying to hurt him.

Nevertheless, she neatly packed him clean underwear, socks, pants, and warm shirts and sweaters to wear. Her son might be acting like a brat, but he was still her son.
"So, how's things with you and Romero?" Dylan asked sitting at Norman's desk while she carefully packed her son's clothes.

"Good." Norma admitted.

She wanted to make sure Norman had warm socks and an extra warm sweater. It irked her something awful he still hadn't called her. Why would he call Dylan and not her?

"Romero have all those trees planted in the yard?" Dylan asked.

"He did." Norma said quickly and debated on whether or not to include any pictures of her and Norman in the suitcase. Something for Norman to see and remind of home. She had a Christmas present for him under the tree as well, but it was doubtful that they would let her son have it.

"They look nice." Dylan said.

"What looks nice?"

"The trees." Dylan said. "They look nice. Romero did good with the trees, Norma."

"Oh." Norma sighed and felt as if a million years had passed between then and now.

"Is he really going to help you fix this place up?" Dylan questioned doubtfully.

"Well, he's already gotten us a new heater. Security system and some trees." she admitted checking and rechecking her other son's clothing. "Some more landscaping won't hurt."

"Norma, this place needs a lot of work." Dylan laughed. "Needs rewiring, plumbing, That's just on the inside. It's going to cost a lot of money just to bring everything up to code. Romero has that to throw around?"

"Maybe." Norma said cryptically.

"And he wants to spend it on this house?"

"Yeah." Norma told him feeling insulted. "He knows I love this house."

Dylan rolled his eyes. He had never seen the beauty of this old house like she had.

"You know, this house was the only place where we were ever a real family." she reminded him. "No one getting drunk and yelling at us. Hitting us. We were never afraid here."

"We were still afraid here." Dylan told her heartlessly. "Just of Norman."

Norma felt crushed by the comment.

Her oldest looked around the empty bedroom. The creepy taxidermy dog that still kept guard over her master's room while he was gone.

"Romero. He doesn't… get drunk or angry? Doesn't yell at you? Never hits you?" he asked.

Norma smiled. A real smile this time. The very idea was almost laughable.

"He never gets angry at me. Ever." she promised with ease. "He's not like that. You know that."

"Yeah. Romero's pretty easy going." Dylan admitted. "I had to ask."

"I know." Norma admitted.

~ Marsh decided that Rebecca Hamilton was very attractive. She hardly looked her age and she obviously took good care of herself. That was a rarity these days. She wasn't as classically beautiful as Norma Romero of course. Mainly because she didn't have that easy smile that was so warm and authentic. Rebecca wasn't a nurturer the way Norma was.

No. Rebecca smiled and that smile was always hiding something. It was never a true smile and it was always cold.

Marsh had done his research on Rebecca long before he'd made an appointment to see her at the towns' only bank.

He'd always wondered about former teenage beauty queens turned models. Whatever became of them? Their over protective stage mothers who controlled every detail of their lives. Right down to what school they would go to and who they would marry.

He secretly loved to make fun of those child beauty pageant mothers. What a train wreck those hags were. Always dressed like it was their laundry day while their three year old wore a five thousand dollar dress.

Marsh always gleefully assumed these beauty queen girls, always so pretty in their teen years, would immediately get some crappy hostess job at a restaurant and gain fifty pounds. That they would have a couple kids and start the vicious cycle all over again. Another round of beauty queens and dress up.

He pictured a former teen beauty queen to be fat, poor and looking far older than what she was really was. Maybe it was just his spiteful prejudice that brought him to this thinking, but he certainly didn't picture a former model and former Miss Teen Indiana still looking good at Rebecca's age. At least, not without extensive plastic surgery. Of which, Rebecca didn't seem to have had any.

Not that she looked perfect, he decided. Mrs. Romero, with her radiant smile was far more attractive and Marsh could see why Sheriff Romero chose her. Rebecca had a slightly sour, almost spiteful expression that was evident even as a teenager. Her spread in 'Seventeen' magazine's prom special wasn't exactly a Cinderella type beauty the way Norma would have been as a teenager. Rebecca was meant to be the saucy redhead who was cast to the side and it was always the pretty blond girl, dressed in pink, who got center stage.

Norma was the Cinderella. Rebecca was the wicked stepsister. She was attractive, but no princess and she knew it. Most likely she knew it from a young age. Marsh had looked up Rebecca's modeling career and saw she wasn't a smiler. She had the raw good looks that could have easily launched a modeling career and he wondered what had held her back.

What had made her go to work at a bank in a town no one had ever heard of? She'd won a full scholarship through pageants and paid for her way through with modeling. Her parents were dirt poor but she had made it out. She could model still in fact. Her looks were still there, body was trim, she was unmarried and there didn't seem to be anything or anyone holding her here.

In a few more years, she wouldn't be able to get by on her looks. Yet, she'd graduated with honors and with a double major in economics and accounting. She was plenty smart. What was she hiding?

When Marsh was shown into Rebecca's office and he saw her face to face, saw those bright, intelligent eyes cut into him. He saw she wasn't a dumb model at all. Rebecca didn't have a stupid bone in her body and he felt slightly afraid she might find out things about him he didn't want her to know.

"So." she asked demurely and gave him as smile that failed to show any teeth. "You want to know about Sheriff Alex Romero."

I decided to make Rebecca a little different. Flush out her character a little more and give her a little more of a back story. In this version, Alex never gave her the key so she's still in WPB and bitter AF about him marrying Norma.