BREAKDOWN

—Chapter X—

Specially dedicated to Maria

I had spent the happiest rest of the evening. I had a very upset Mauritzio scolding me for being absent from the Deli for such a long time, a crashed van sent to the garage and plenty of deliveries and condiments to secure a long night of hard work but, in spite of all that, living felt as beautiful as summertime.

The door bell rang and Beth entered the Deli.

I was getting so used to her being around at all times that I didn't motioned to greet her. I kept working on my special pate sauce.

She placed an envelope on top of the counter.

"And this?" I asked.

"That's an engagement party invitation for tonight."

"Wow! This is a surprise, Miss Leigh" I said, trying to browse in my memory when she ever said she was seeing someone, "and who's the unfortunate fiancé?"

"Matt."

I wasn't really expecting that answer but it was nowhere near the shock I was going to get by the words that quickly followed, "Matt and Betty are getting publicly engaged tonight."

It was at that exact moment that my fresh summer day turned into a moonless cold winter night.

She kept speaking but I barely noticed anything but the movement of her poisonous lips. I still had the warmth of Betty's hand against my skin, the memory of her smile fresh inside my mind.

That couldn't be happening to me, not that evening.

"I'm sorry."

"What do you mean?" my face hardened.

She lowered her gaze.

"You're too obvious when you are around her and the way you behave around Matt."

Matt! Always matt! He seemed to be everywhere, sucking everyone's life's away, taking everything that didn't belong to him—

"I guessed you needed to know" she said quietly. "I saw you both today and I knew she hadn't told you. If it makes you feel better, I'm not going."

How dare she? Who was she to patronize me? I had also seen her act around her cousin in a way that even had made me feel uncomfortable —just like I was feeling right then when she pronounced his name: Matt Hartley. What did he have to make people admire him, devote to him, sacrifice for him—

"They've been together for quite sometime" she trailed off, mostly speaking to herself. "My uncle was recently opposed to it. Now that he's gone, so recently, unmourned —Oh, God! He's just buried and already we're celebrating. She couldn't even wait. She just had to chain Matt before my aunt could change her mind—"

"Fuck Matt Hartley!" I raised my voice and blurted the words out of my mouth. "I'm tired of his name! Matt! Matt! Matt! He's nothing but an arrogant, ego-maniac asshole!"

Her pupils dilated as she saw me breakdown for the first time in front of her.

"Oh yeah you heard me! He is a manipulator!" I continued. "He's a liar! He tells lies and everyone believes him. Oh! I know about him! I know him more than he thinks. You want to know what I think? You really want to know? I think he's the one behind all this. He's the only one that has been profiting ever since all this started."

Just as a china doll breaks and falls in a loud bang against the floor, she flew into a rage and yelled.

"Matt is not a killer! He didn't do it!"

Her roaring voice blasted the room and my ears in an echo. She looked taller and stronger panting in anger just a few steps away front of me, her hair falling over her face in a blazing array of bloody painted strands.

Then, just as abruptly as she cracked, she recomposed herself.

"I'm sorry. I'm too tired."

In front of me, on the top of the counter, rested that little white envelope that enclosed a brutal reality in its bosom: that Betty and I were never meant to be together.

"Would you take me home?" she finally asked.

"No, I can't tonight."

"Of course" she said and motioned to the door.

I cooled my head off. I'd been so childish. I didn't want her to think it was because of the stupid discussion so I tried to soften my tone with an explanation. "The van is the garage and I'm going to sleep here, so—"

A cloud passed through her face. Maybe it hadn't been such a good idea. I should have said nothing.

"I'll get a taxi" she excused herself and left on her own without saying another word.

—0—

It was a cloudy night. I locked the door but didn't put the bars down, I never did when I slept inside the deli. I washed my face and my hair with warm water. Then I carefully closed all the buttons of my long sleeve shirt, put on my jeans and kept my socks. The heater was barely working and it was a cold night. I wished I would have brought more clothes to spend the night.

I was alone at my deli, alone with my thoughts.

'I wish I could turn back time'

'I'd like that very much'

'It's never dull around you'

Those words, what had Betty meant by them? Have I've been imagining things? Creating fantasies and mistaking her all over again?

I arranged the little sleeping bag in the warmest corner of the room. I gave one glance at the bottle of pills she had given to me. I took a couple of them still thinking about her. I programmed the alarm on my cellphone and put it beside me, on the floor. I threw my jacket over me and, after a little while, managed to doze off.

I woke up with a cry. Another nightmare had haunted me. It had been so vivid. I felt my heart stampede against the touch of my fingertips.

It was then that I noticed my bare chest was vulnerably exposed by my unbuttoned shirt. I couldn't remember when I had opened it. I couldn't even realize for how long I've slept. I could've sworn I've just closed my eyes.

A blast of cold draft crashed against my uncovered skin. I touched my dehydrated lips and they were sore, my head was pulsating in a mad symphony. Where the hell was my jacket?

I walked towards the main deli room to get some water and calm my thirst. What I saw through the dim lights of the neon signs froze my veins: shattered glasses all over the floor and the cold wind of the late night chilled the whole room, one of the deli windows was broken.

'I've been robbed!' was all I could think as the thrill of danger roused myself out of the stupor of my recent lethargy.

My cellphone rang.

I returned to the back room in a couple of leaps, grabbed my cellphone, put it in my ears, while I quickly grabbed a butcher's knife from the nearest table and went back to the front of the deli.

"Yes?"

I heard a sob in the other side of the line.

"Hello?" I said while I looked around. Were they still inside the deli? I tumbled to where the light switch was and lightened up the restaurant.

"Hello?" I inquired exasperated and opened the cash register. The money was all there.

"Gio?" the voice finally spoke. As if it could be possible to receive more surprises that night, I recognized the caller: it was Beth. "I don't know who else to call—"

"What's going on?" I asked, trying to divide myself in two tasks.

Her voice cracked. It was so unlike her. "I'm scared, Gio. I don't know who else to talk to. I— I got one about a month ago. I thought it'd stopped. And I got another again tonight. It's horrible."

"What you mean, Beth? What is it you are talking about?" I lifted all the tablecloths and checked under the tables.

"Another message. Another note. I don't know what to do. I'm scared."

I thought it was some sort of a joke.

"Beth, I really can't talk right now. I have a situa—"

"No! Don't hang up. Please, don't hang up." I could sense the terror in her voice. "I'm home. I'm afraid to leave the house or call the police. Can you come?"

I opened the door of the deli and walked out. It was a quiet night. Nobody walked on the sidewalk, not even taxis strolled down the street. The sky was filled with dark clouds. A haunted cold night and I was still half naked with my open shirt hanging from my shoulders.

Another sob pierced my ears. I turned and looked at the mess inside my deli. I grunted at myself and my eternal righteous disposition.

"I'll be there" I promised and pulled down the metal protective bars to close the place while I hastily instructed a very sleepy Maurizio over the phone.

In a few minutes, I called one of my uncle's service cabs and asked the driver to rush at full speed to Beth's place.

I inquired for her room number at the front door lobby of the little hotel. I rushed through the flight of stairs.

She stood before me, a horrifying look carved in her face, her hair all wet and messy, anxiety radiating from her eyes: she looked like a phantom. Her whole figure cried hopeless despair. She seemed so different of the Beth I've known so far.

"Are you okay? What happened?"

She was carrying two big purses over her slim shoulders. She had been waiting for me.

She stepped out and closed the door. "Please take me somewhere else."

She was looking nervous and unstable. I carried her luggage and helped her descend the stairs. It looked as if she was running from something or someone.

"But where?" I asked and I sat inside the taxi that waited for us outside.

"Anywhere" she said and closed her eyes, resting her head against the back of the seat.

I took her to the only place I could think of: my apartment. It had been several months since any human being, beside me, went through that door. I've isolated the place and built my own prison, more like my personal sanctuary.

After I placed her bags over my bed, I finally found time to breathe. I realized it was almost two o'clock and the headache was still torturing me. It was all so surreal. Elizabeth Leigh, a Hartley was sleeping on my bed, someone had been mysteriously broken into my deli, and all I wanted was to sleep and wake up into another day.

"Don't turn off the lights" she asked me. I was about to close the door when she called me again.

"I want you —I need you to see them" she said. Her white hands were shaking. She could barely hold the pieces of paper between her fingers. "Please."

I sat on the corner of the bed and took what she was offering me. Then I saw it, what had given me a strong impression when she opened the door of her apartment: her hair falling in long strong wet fiery curls. It was as if she were another person. The one that sat in front of me, she didn't seem so cold, so distant —she was as frightened as a cat in the rain.

"I—I've never shown them to anybody until now."

I opened the first piece of crumpled paper. It had large handwritten letters painted in red ink. The words jumped threatening in the paper:

'Elizabeth Leigh, you're nothing but a worthless being.'

My head shot up and my eyes anxiously demanded an explanation to her own.

"I got that one a month ago, at my previous apartment. Then I moved and now" she paused. "This one came by mail. I found it under my door."

My eyes lingered one more time at the message carelessly written on the second note: 'Bitch, you deserve to die'.

It wasn't the words what made my stomach flip and burn inside me...

It was Betty's handwriting.

Will be continued