After wandering through the rest of the empty rooms in shock, I inched my bedroom door open while offering up a silent prayer that everything was still there.
Fat chance! The mattress and box spring sat flat on the floor, the frame missing. One lamp stood next to the mattress. Everything else was gone—the huge dresser, nightstands, the other lamp—nowhere in sight. The overflowing multicolored heap under the bay window contained all of my clothes and other contents from the dresser drawers. Ryan’s closet door stood open making it easy to see everything was gone. Where was he, anyway?
For a few minutes fright and fury battled for control. I needed a cup of tea to calm my nerves. Under other circumstances, what greeted me when I entered the kitchen would have been funny. A Mickey Mouse magnet pinned to the refrigerator door held a note written in Ryan’s big childish scrawl.
It’s been fun, but decided to get my own place while you were gone. I took some of your stuff plus a little spending money. You did say you wanted to refurnish the condo—now you have an excuse.
Love ya always, Ryan.
He put the note up with a friggin’ Mickey Mouse? Rips me off, then has the nerve to say “love you always?” What next?
My car! I charged down the garage stairs two at a time. Well, he hadn’t managed to take my car. But then, I did have the keys with me and the Mercedes had a state-of-the-art security system including Lojack. I guess he couldn’t figure out how to snatch it. This had to be the worst day of my life.
I staggered up the stairs to my bedroom, fell onto the mattress and pulled the covers over my face. Gigantic sobs wracked my body.
How had my wonderful life turned to shit in just a few hours? Only yesterday I’d been named Woman of the Year, God damn it. Today I was an unemployed, broken mess.
Maybe every silver lining did have a cloud after all, because mine had burst and released buckets of bad luck.
The tears and shaking finally stopped. I reached for the phone and called my best friend Tree—her name is Therese but I’ve called her Tree for as long as I can remember. She let me pour out my sad tale uninterrupted. Silence filled the space for a heartbeat. Then she said, “You know you need to call the police and report the theft, even if it was Ryan.”
I shouted, “No, Tree. I can’t do that. Not the police.”
“Settle down, Girlfriend. The fool ripped you off and I think you do have to.”
To this day, I don’t know why I was so determined not to report the theft. Maybe I couldn’t handle admitting his betrayal.
“Look, maybe if you have something to eat, you’ll come to your senses. I’ll bet with everything that’s happened today, you haven’t eaten much. I’d suggest going out, but with all that crying your face must be blown up as big as a balloon. Dr. Tree prescribes a good mushroom pepperoni pizza and something chocolate. I’ll pick up dinner and we’ll figure this out together.”
Before I could protest, she hung up. I ran cold water in the bathroom sink and splashed my face again and again. It didn’t help. Red, swollen eyes looked back at me from the vanity mirror. Like Tree said, I really needed that junk food. I wanted my life back.
She arrived with bags of food in both hands. I spread a tablecloth on the floor and we sat there pigging out on pizza until we couldn’t stuff another bite into our mouths. She made me promise not to talk about what happened until we’d done some serious eating. She really is a wonderful friend.
“How could he do this to me?”
“I don’t know, Girlfriend.” She gave me a hug. “He always seemed okay, though I thought he was a little into himself.” She reached for her third piece of pizza. “But to do this…”
“Yeah. It sucks, doesn’t it?”
Tree lifted a cake box from her other shopping bag. The tantalizing aroma of chocolate made my mouth water. She cut two generous slices of something that looked like it was so rich it should be outlawed and handed me a paper plate. “Here, eat up. Rumor has it this stuff is better than booze for lifting the spirits. Of course, on the downside it has an outrageous number of calories, but tonight who cares, right?”
The label on the box read Devil’s Decadent Delight. After devouring the first slice, I forgot about trying to justify second helpings and just dug in.
Rain tapped at the windows like a bad omen. What else was in store for me?
I swooped some of the frosting stuck to the side of the cardboard box onto my index finger, then licked it off. It tasted a little salty mixed with the tears sliding down my face. At last it was time to have a serious talk.
“You said I should I call the police to report Ryan and the theft. Well, I almost dialed the number while I was waiting for you. Then I realized I gave him the code on the ATM card and foolishly put him on all of my accounts except the CD.”
Another tear escaped. I pulled a tissue from my pocket to wipe my eyes. “Women in lust can be real fools, you know. I haven’t dared look at how much he drained from my accounts yet, but he probably took a healthy chunk. In my present frame of mind, I’m afraid after one look I’ll stick my head in the oven.”
Tree said, “Good luck. Your oven is electric. Look, you really do need to see how bad it is, even if you are afraid.”
I paced around the empty room in ever-widening circles and couldn’t seem to stop myself. Tree grabbed at my sleeve and shouted, “Stop. This isn’t accomplishing anything.” She pointed at the floor. “Sit.”
I sat. After a few deep breaths I said, “The thing is, no matter how much he took, I don’t have a case against him for taking it. The cops and his attorney, if it ever comes to that, would just say he had every right to withdraw the money because he was listed on the accounts. Let’s face it. I’m really screwed.” I sniffled. “I thought he loved me.”
Tree patted my arm sympathetically. “What about him taking all of your furniture? Why don’t you call the cops about that? You can’t let him get away with it. ”
“My furniture?” I sat there in a semi-daze. Okay, I had to admit part of my problem was embarrassment. I simply couldn’t do it. Couldn’t admit a young stud had duped me, a savvy businesswoman. “I can’t, Tree. How can I go public with what a fool I’ve been?”
Even though my pride stood in the way of doing what I knew I should, I added, “But I swear, I will find him someday and definitely figure out how to get even big time. He will be very sorry he tangled with me.”
She nodded. “Hey, you gotta do what you gotta do.”
We hadn’t solved anything, but at least my panic settled down. I’ve always been a survivor, even if I was a totally depressed one at the moment. I cradled my face in my hands, felt very sorry for myself and cursed my stupid ego.
“Hey, want me to stay the night?”
I about to say yes, but where would she sleep? The living room and guest room were empty and my mattress on the bedroom floor was no great shakes. The confidence reflected in my voice had nothing to do with the way I really felt. “No thanks. I’ll be okay. Go home and sleep in your own bed. After all, I’m out of a job and practically broke. I’ve got some planning to do, so I think I’d rather be alone tonight.”
She left around eleven. Both of us swore Ryan wouldn’t get the last laugh. No way.
We hugged and bumped fists at the door. Once she was gone I wanted to hide for at least a week, if not forever, but went into my office instead and plopped onto my desk chair.
Trying to feel optimistic, I forced myself to log onto the bank’s website. How lame is that? How could I possibly have thought he would only take a little? Every account Ryan hit had the same big fat zero. My checks and withdrawal slips were missing. Every credit card I hadn’t taken with me was gone.
At least he wasn’t able to drain my CD, but all that meant was if I cashed it in I’d be able to hang on for maybe another month. When Ryan pulled the rug out from under someone he did a thorough job. I’d fallen flat on my butt with a resounding thump.
I stopped searching long enough to make a few calls. All those credit card companies have people on duty 24/7. With any luck he hadn’t charged my cards to the limit, and I had to get his name off every account. Fool! Fool!
The next thing on my mental to-do list was to find employment. I logged on to GetAJob.com and told myself I should be able to land another job way before I was forced to hold up a sign on a street corner saying, “CPA will calculate for food.”
One ad jumped out from the rest and I immediately applied online. God bless modern technology. Imagine applying for a job at 1:30 in the morning.
“THE WORLD’S BEST KEPT SECRET. Make Big Bucks Selling To The Government. Are you a sales executive willing to travel? Forming new national sales team. Positions available for home-based sales executives in 20 national regions. Also interviewing for Seattle-based controller, office manager, and project managers.
Details at www.FACR.gov/getjob.”
If they were offering “big bucks” to the sales executives, maybe that would be the case for the controller as well. Their opening statement intrigued me: “The World’s Best Kept Secret.” What was that about?