Now that Marty was out of the bushes and ready to confront his ex-wife, I didn’t see where the real scare was. He didn’t have the gun in his hand, and they immediately started to bicker. It was really more awkward than scary, and I have to say I was disappointed by the outcome.
Marty even looked a little confused as Teal started to make her points.
She said, “All you do is complain to me about not being able to pay alimony. How you’re so busy you don’t have a free minute in the day. But somehow you have time to drive all the way up here from West Palm Beach with your bimbo? That doesn’t make any sense, Martin.”
Marty just stared at her for a moment, and in all honesty, I felt embarrassed for him. Then he said, “Do you have any idea how you sound? How you are more like a shrieking bird than an actual woman? You’ve never even met Christy. How dare you call her a bimbo.”
“Really, Martin? Really? You’re at my house, where I moved to get away from your crazy jealousy and stalking, and now you’re lecturing me on jumping to conclusions about a woman I’ve never met?”
Then Teal looked at me. She did not have the scared, confused expression I had been expecting. Instead she said, “Are you part of his plan? You seem bright enough. How did he trick you? Did you just get sucked in slowly to his crazy schemes? It’s easy, I know. Everything seems normal until all of a sudden you realize he has no boundaries. His concept of reality is very different than it is for the rest of us. My advice to you would be to run. Just like I did. But apparently I didn’t run far enough.”
Teal turned back to Marty and said, “Congratulations, Martin, way to impress your new girlfriend. Now, I’ve got a lot to do, so if you’ll excuse me, I need to finish bringing in these groceries.”
That felt like a pretty definitive end to our little escapade. I knew Marty wanted the experience to last. He wanted to see fear on her face and maybe expected her to be jealous of me. I’d never really been clear on the goal, but now I could see that coming here had been a mistake. His plan to scare her just hadn’t worked out.
Marty reached behind his back, and when his right hand came in front of him he was holding the pistol. I have no idea how badly it scared Teal, but at that moment, I was in absolute shock. I could feel the acid in my stomach back up into my throat. I had never seen a gun pointed at a person before except on TV. I could feel my knees starting to get shaky.
Marty wasn’t wearing his normal good-natured smile. He shouted, “You know why I came all the way up here?”
Teal was mesmerized by the gun as she took a step away from Marty. The pretty yellow sundress fluttered in the breeze, but I could see Teal’s legs start to shake. Was this the moment Marty had been looking for? Was the terror he was causing his ex-wife enough for him? It was for me.
Teal held both hands out in front of her and said, “I don’t know what you’re doing, Martin, but this has gone far enough. Put the gun away and we’ll forget about this whole stupid encounter.”
That sounded good to me. Maybe we hadn’t ruined everything. I was about to tell Marty that I wanted to leave when I heard two loud pops. They dissipated in the wide-open space and didn’t sound the way I thought gunshots should sound, but the noise, coupled with the bright flashes from the barrel of the gun, told me Marty had snapped.
For a moment, I just held my breath. Time felt like it had stood still. The two of them stood facing each other and hadn’t moved a muscle since he’d pulled the trigger. Then Teal slowly turned to face me and I could see two red stains on her pretty yellow floral print dress. One was just below her sternum and the other was along the top of the dress, closer to her right arm.
Teal’s mouth moved like she was trying to say something, but no words came out. For a moment I just heard an unsettling bubbling sound; then she kept turning until she fluttered to the hard gravel of the driveway in a heap. Her long hair drifted behind her and settled around her face like a soft blanket.
Slowly I looked at Marty, who was still frozen in place with the gun out in front of him. He looked as if he was as surprised as anyone that the gun had gone off. But he still didn’t move. He just stared at the lump of flesh that was his ex-wife, Teal.
Maybe I should’ve been in shock longer, but immediately the practical part of my brain kicked into gear. I’ll admit I had let out a quick scream as soon as Marty fired, but my first real thought was to wonder if anyone had heard the gunshots.
I turned my head, quickly scanned the soccer field behind us, and saw that there was no one outside the church. There were those vacant lots on each side of Teal’s house, and when I looked up the street I saw nothing but one car passing on US 1. I didn’t think the sound of the shots would’ve carried very far. They’d happened so close together that it would be difficult for someone to pinpoint where they had come from.
Taking everything in and making a quick assessment led me to yell at Marty, “We need to go, right now!”
God forgive me, but it wasn’t until we were in my car and Marty was driving south on US 1 that I even thought about whether we should have checked Teal to see if she was still alive.