FINAL DESTINATIONS

Landon was trying to decide whether or not he should pour himself another glass of scotch. After all, he might as well allow himself to enjoy one of the few benefits of Laura’s having left him. Her strict Southern Baptist upbringing had always risen over her head whenever he drank in front of her, glowering down at him from its halo-like position. Even a jolly good buzz, having the time of its life, couldn’t hold up too happily under that kind of scrutiny. He rarely drank much anymore, a fact he hadn’t realized until last month, when Laura had walked out the door, announcing she wasn’t coming back this time. That did it. Just one more glass, and he’d sip it slowly.

The problem was, the buzz wasn’t too strong tonight, and what was there wasn’t jolly at all. It was extraordinarily morose and mope-y, only seemingly gleeful when it could get him to circle around and around all his shortcomings, all the reasons Laura had truly meant it when she said she was never coming back. His mind was stuck in one of its eddies, nearly drowning, while his body was managing to measure out the scotch for the third glass, when the phone rang. Immediately, he shot back up to the surface.

The clock on the microwave glowed 10:42 p.m.; it could only be Laura. He contemplated not answering it. Of course, he couldn’t be absolutely certain it was Laura. He didn’t have caller i.d., having held out on his declaration not to succumb to every technological “must-have” marketed to the masses of American sheep out there who seemed to hang out in fields, just waiting to be herded around by clever advertising. He was so singularly focused, though, so sure it would be her, he never suspected it might be someone else. Six months ago, he would’ve dreaded answering a phone that was ringing at this hour, worried he’d encounter the familiar voice of one of his parents or siblings in a panicked state.

He grabbed the receiver off the wall just before the answering machine would have taken over, his eagerness to talk to her winning out over his desire to let the machine pick it up in the hopes she’d wonder where he could possibly be. He had to pause for a minute at the jolt he received when the voice at the other end of the receiver turned out not to be Laura, turned out not to be anyone he would ever have expected.

"Landon? It's Julie. Sorry to be calling so late, but I need help."

"Julie! Uhh...what's up?" He instinctively began climbing the stairs, in search of the shirt and jeans he'd discarded on his closet floor half an hour earlier, as if she were right outside, peering in through his window, catching him in nothing but his ratty old sweat pants.

"I can't talk about it over the phone. Could you meet me in the Krispy Kreme parking lot in about forty-five minutes?"

"Sure," he heard himself say. (Jesus Christ, what was he thinking?) "But it's a horrible night out." (Was he sober enough to drive?) "Wouldn't you rather meet me inside where it's warm?" He'd pulled on his jeans while cradling the phone between his ear and shoulder. His polo shirt was proving to be a little more difficult. He clutched it in his left hand. "Buy yourself a doughnut." He slid on his sneakers, sans socks, despite the windy wet weather he was advising her to avoid.

"No. I don't have any money on me. I can't buy anything."

"Don't worry. I'll pay for it when I get there. Just stay inside, or you're likely to catch a cold." He knew almost as soon as he'd said it that it was a ridiculous offer. Krispy Kreme wasn't a sit-down diner. Customers bought their doughnuts, and then sat, if they weren't racing off, eating them in transit to their final destinations. He also knew perfectly well that people didn't catch colds from standing out in a cold rain, but this old wive's tale was hard to shake and seemed appropriate for the moment.

"I've gotta go. I'll see you there. Thanks so much." And the dial tone buzzed in his ear.

Landon didn't exactly live next door to Krispy Kreme, but even after pulling on his shirt and sweater, lacing up his sneakers, running a comb through his hair, locating his wallet and car keys, and pulling on his rain jacket, he still had plenty of time to make it from The West End to Stratford Rd. before she said she'd be there. What the hell? He'd get there first, buy the doughnuts, and be waiting for her when she arrived.

During the drive and while sitting at the counter waiting for Julie, one eye on the doughnuts, the other searching the parking lot through the plate glass window, he had plenty of time for his imagination (which certainly didn't need any encouragement in this area) to run wild. He'd been working with Julie at the advertising firm for over two years now. It was a family-run business with just over fifty employees, and everyone knew everyone. As far as he knew, no one harbored any animosity toward her. She was extremely likeable, and her take on life seemed to be that it was fun, that nothing should be taken too seriously. This combined with a surly wit and the ability to charm people into her way of thinking without even realizing what she was doing made for a very pleasant -- at times, exciting even -- colleague.

However, she was just that: a colleague. He was beginning to realize that if asked about her in great detail, he wouldn't be able to provide many answers, nor would anyone else he knew. Julie loved to draw out others, but she was pretty tight-lipped when it came to her own life outside the office. Now that he was thinking about it, she could almost be described as the de facto staff therapist. She was a good listener. Others would go to her with their problems, Landon included, especially since Laura's departure. As far as he knew, though, she never seemed to seek this sort of service from anyone herself.

Yes, everyone knew she'd grown up in Winston-Salem. Her father had died of colon cancer when she was only ten. She'd graduated from Davidson College, had lived and worked in Charlotte how many years? At some point, her mother had been killed in a car accident, and she'd inherited the large house in the tony Buena Vista section of town. She'd moved back to town three years ago with her husband Joe to live in the house. Joe was a man no one at the company had ever met. "Illusive Joe" they all called him. He was always "going to come" to all the events: impromptu happy hours, birthday celebrations, holiday parties, company picnics...but he never actually did. Those who were inclined to create a nasty art form out of gossip referred to him as "Julie's Lord and Master."

Julie would often let slip that she'd love to join folks on a weekend trip up to Grandfather Mountain, or to spend a late night at the fair when it was in town, or to go see a movie with everyone, "but my husband probably wouldn't be interested, and he wouldn't want me to go without him." Other times it would be, "Let me just check with Joe and see if it's okay if I get home late this evening." She didn't seem to notice the odd looks she'd get from the other more "liberated" young women in the office. However, her charming nature helped protect her from true disdain. They were still drawn to her, still wanted to pal around with her, still took long Friday lunches with her on hot summer days.

Imagination, galloping away on an open prairie first presented him with a Joe who resembled the husband in Sleeping with the Enemy. Maybe Julie hadn't lined up the bathroom towels correctly before leaving for work this morning. When he pulled on the reins to slow it down, it stopped to graze on Jack Nicholson in The Shining, chopping down doors in their big old house. Or, maybe Joe was a drug dealer, and someone had come to bump him off tonight. Maybe Julie was a drug dealer. Maybe Joe was the one who hadn't lined up the bathroom towels correctly, and Julie had been chopping down doors with an ax, and now she needed an alibi. Maybe she was the rare female serial killer, and Landon was to be her next victim, late night mysterious phone calls being the way she lured unsuspecting men into her trap.

Crazy thoughts. No wonder Laura had left him after less than two years of marriage. No sane woman could ever last long with a man whose brain worked like this.

And the moment Julie appeared through the plate glass, he knew just how crazy the thoughts had been. She looked nothing like an ax-wielding serial killer. She could easily have been a photograph of a runaway teenager on the cover of Time magazine. The picture should have been in black and white, and she should have been sitting under a bridge, gawky, coltish legs pulled up to her chest and hugged tight by skinny arms. The rest was there, though: wet brown hair plastered to her head; fear-filled brown eyes, pupils the size of silver dollars; no rain gear; wet, wrinkled shirt pulling across her heaving chest.

His puppy-dog-on-the-side-of-the-road syndrome kicked into full gear. Luckily, the stools at the counter were bolted to the floor, or he would have knocked his over as he raced out the door to meet her. He didn't bother to put his rain slicker back on. Instead, he draped it around her without even asking her if she wanted it.

"My God, Julie. What are you doing? Did you even drive over here?"

"No. I walked. I didn't have my car keys or purse with me. The only thing I had was my cell phone. I was carrying it tonight in case my shrink calls me. (Her shrink? Julie had a shrink?) He only has my cell phone number."

He was leading her to his car, the doughnuts completely forgotten. He pressed the "unlock" button on his key remote and opened the passenger side of the door for her, clearing the seat of CDs and travel mugs, so she could sit. When he had driven over here, he hadn't realized he'd be taking her home with him. Reason would suggest this wasn't the wisest move. He didn't even know what was going on with her. However, protective instincts and empathy had the upper hand. Reason put up a very weak fight for the police station, but protective instincts and empathy very quickly squashed that notion. They wanted to get her out of the rain and harm's way. His house seemed the best place to do that.

"Where are we going?" she asked.

"To my house." "We can't got there. We have to get out of town where he can't find me."

"He? He who? Your shrink?"

"No. Joe."

"Ohh, Joe. You're running away from Joe?"

"Yes. He's really, really mad at me this time, and I'm sure he'll kill me if he can. He wants to bring me down with him anyway. Landon, we can't go to your house. He'll find me there." The desperation in her voice was disconcerting.

"How? He's never been to my house. I've never even seen the guy. He doesn't know who I am or where I live."

"He does. He knows everyone who works with me. He made me give him a list once. He'll look you up. He'll find you. I locked him in the garage, but he'll get out and find me. He always does."

"Was he chasing you?"

"Yes."

"With a weapon?"

"No, but he doesn't need a weapon to kill me."

"Well, Julie, I can't just take you out of town. We've got nowhere to go, and you need some warm, dry clothes. We should call the police, if you're that scared of him. They can put a restraining order on him."

"The police wouldn't believe me. Please don't call them," was a little, but not much, more composed. He'd heard this about victims of domestic abuse. They never wanted to get the cops involved, something to do with thinking it would make their husbands that much more angry. Thinking the police wouldn't believe her was a bit odd, but then, looking at her, she bore no black eyes, broken bones, or any other signs of physical abuse. Well, he'd drop it for now, but if the guy really did show up at his house, he'd definitely be dialing 911.

"All right. We won't call the police. But let me at least take you to my house, so we can put some warm clothes on you. I've got some Scotch, too. A couple of shots of that will do you some good."
A couple more shots for himself wasn't such a bad idea either.

"He'll find me. I know he'll find me."

This panic-stricken young woman bore no resemblance to his mind's image of Julie. This scared little rabbit seemed somehow to have eaten the sly cat who was fond of delivering biting quips that took others a minute to decipher. He'd been in so many meetings with her when she was the sole dissenter, and nine times out of ten, she'd bring everyone else around to her point of view. He was tempted to believe that woman was playing some sort of a joke on him, was practicing some part in a play, had sent a twin sister to him, something. The woman with whom he'd shared so many fun lunches, the one he'd often unfairly compared to Laura during the darks days when Laura was a pit of negativity, that woman was suddenly going to appear any minute now, laughing about how she'd really fooled him, right?

So many times he'd been on the phone in the office, arguing with Laura about yet some other problem she believed they had, and he'd hang up to hear Julie's infectious laugh. He'd find himself bitterly resenting the fact that his wife couldn't see the light his colleague so obviously saw shining all over the world, despite the fact she had a bear of a husband who seemed to be much worse than Landon. Her husband kept her at home, when all Landon ever did was to ask Laura please to let him know when she wasn't going to get home from work until after eight, so he wouldn't worry about her.

Landon still had a trunk full of Laura's old clothes in the spare room. He dragged it out and watched Julie choose a white turtleneck, some brown leggings, and an oversized blue sweater. He showed her to the bathroom, and just as she closed the door, the phone rang. For the second time that night, he contemplated not answering it. He knew who it was. Julie had been right. Joe had already tracked her down. Yet again, his curiosity got the best of him, and he found himself pushing the talk button, getting ready to lie through his teeth." This night seemed to be specializing in producing voices on the other end of phone lines that surprised him. He'd expected a raging lunatic, someone threatening to kill him if he didn't hand over Julie. What he heard instead was a completely calm, gentle -- sane, even -- voice. There was nothing the least bit demanding in the question,

"Is this Landon Small?"

"Yes." Maybe it was the police and not Joe.

"I'm so sorry to bother you at this hour of the night, but this is Joe McKnight. I'm looking for my sister Julie. She disappeared about three hours ago. She hasn't been taking her medication, and I'm worried sick. You're one of her co-workers whose name often pops up in our conversations, so I thought I'd try you on the off-chance she'd gotten in touch with you.

Brother? Wasn't Joe her husband? Did her brother and husband have the same name?

"Her medication?"

"Yes. Julie's psychotic. She's absolutely fine as long as she's taking her medication, but she occasionally goes through these spells when she refuses to take it. I wasn't paying close enough attention, and she locked me in the garage tonight and just wandered off. I'm sure she told you I was planning on killing her. That's one of her paranoid delusions, that I'm trying to kill her. The fact of the matter is, she's more likely to kill me. I've had a few close calls over the past few years, but I have to take care of her. I promised our mother I would."

Landon refused to succumb to the urge to pinch himself. He always hated it when characters in books did that to test whether or not they were dreaming. As if pinching isn't possible in dreams. But that ridiculous old cliché was all that was coming to mind at this point. Better that, though, than all the questions he had. Julie? Psychotic? She was one of the most sane of his co-workers. Happy Julie trying to kill her own brother? Who was this "brother?" Was he the insane one?

"But what about her husband?" So, he'd managed to ask at least one of the questions, one he hoped didn't make him seem too insane.

"Her husband?"

The tone in the other man's voice didn't sound as though Landon had succeeded. He also didn't sound as though he were acting. If he were, he was doing a damn good job of it.

"Yes. She talks about her husband at work."

"Oh God. I know you have no reason to believe me, but I promise you Julie's never been married. I'm not surprised, though, if she has everyone convinced she is. She's been making up boyfriends and lovers since she was thirteen."

At that moment, Julie appeared from the bathroom. In the dark blue sweater, and with her hair combed, she was beginning to resemble the Julie from the office. But the minute she realized he was on the phone, all the color drained from her face once again.

"It's him, isn't it? Don't let him come to take me home. Please, Landon. Let's get out of here."

"Tell her it's not me," came the calm voice on the other end, as Landon struggled to find his own voice.

"Julie, it's not him. He doesn't know where you are."

"Yes it is. No one else would call at this hour."

"Hold on," he said into the phone, unconsciously wiping the sweat from his forehead. He covered the receiver as if he didn't want the person on the other end to hear what he had to say. "My sister lives in California. She's having a bit of a boyfriend crisis. Could you wait down here, please, while I take this up to my bedroom? We'll turn out the light, and you can lie down on the couch, so if your brother does happen to come, he won't see you through the window." Somehow, his lie worked, and she was cooperative. He gave her a pillow and a blanket, told her he'd check on her as soon as he was done with his sister, suggested she try to sleep, and carried the phone up to the spare bedroom, across the hall from the other bedroom that he'd shared with Laura. Since her departure, he'd been sleeping in this one.

"She needs her medicine, and she's got to come home," he heard Joe say, as soon as he could turn his attention back to the phone. "She won't sleep at all, and don't leave her alone for more than fifteen minutes. It'll probably be best if I don't come get her. Do you think if I come by your house and leave some sedatives in your mailbox, you would be able to get her to take them? She likes hot chocolate. You could slip them into some hot chocolate. It will knock her out cold, and then you could bring her home."

"I suppose so," Landon said, doubtfully.

"Good. I'll do that then."

As his sister had been a little over an hour ago, he was gone, with no "goodbye" before Landon could say a word. What the hell? Who should he believe? Julie had never seemed the least bit psychotic to him, and she certainly didn't seem dangerous. On the other hand, neither did Joe, whoever he was. If Joe really were her brother, and not her husband, then the argument could certainly be made that she had some sort of screw loose. Sane people certainly didn't tend to go around making up husbands when talking to colleagues, especially colleagues they'd worked with for three years. And, come to think of it, she'd never actually said, "my husband Joe," as far as he could recall. She'd say "my husband," or she'd say "Joe." Then again, Landon had never gone around saying "my wife Laura" after initial introductions, and there'd been no introductions with Joe. The bottom line, though, was that if she were living with her brother and not her husband, then something most likely was wrong with her. However, if Joe were her husband, pretending to be her brother, or worse, believing he was her brother, that was even more insane (and probably more dangerous).

When he got back downstairs, Julie was curled up in a fetal position on the couch, crying. Once again, his protective instincts kicked in. He wondered how he was going to protect her from Joe. No matter how sane the man may have sounded, he was proposing to drug her, which no one could argue was a sane act. After all, men drugged women so they could rape and kill them. It made sense he’d pretend to be her brother rather than her husband, because people are less likely to accuse brothers of beating up sisters than to accuse husbands of beating up wives.

Suddenly, though, Julie sat up and stared hard at him, all resemblance to a pathetic, lost, and needy teenager gone. The rage in her wild-eyed look scared him, despite the fact she was a tiny woman and he a large man.

“You called him my brother! You called him my brother. That wasn’t your sister on the phone; it was Joe. He told you he was my brother! You believe him now and not me. You’re a liar. I thought you were my fucking friend! You’re not going to help me, are you? You’re going to let him come get me.”

She leapt up and began pounding him on the chest with a strength and fury he never would have believed she could have. Her flailing fists were coming at him so fast it took him a while to grab hold of them and, not as gently as he should have, to force her back down on the couch.

“Stop it, Julie. Stop it! I’m not on Joe’s side (not a lie, he didn’t think). I was just coming down to tell you that if you want to get away, let’s go. Come on. You can trust me (definitely a lie, but Julie was beginning to seem like she definitely did have a few loose screws. Sybil had joined his imagination on that ride across the prairie, bringing along with her a fun-loving colleague, a drug-addicted teenager, and a murderous sister). We’ll go up to the mountains together.”

She struggled and kicked out and screamed, but he held firm, and she eventually (was it really only five minutes?) began to relax. Landon knew absolutely nothing about psychosis. He wondered if one could reason with a psychotic. He loosened his grip a little. She struggled some more, and he tightened it again.

“Listen. Are you going to listen to me? Pull a few more things out of Laura’s trunk that you can take with you while I go upstairs and pack a bag for myself.”

He reluctantly let go of her wrists, and she followed him back upstairs to the spare bedroom. While she grabbed a few more things from Laura’s trunk, he threw together this own bag, having no idea what he was going to do with her for half an hour, nor how he was going to keep her in the house. All he knew was that he was now desperate for that sedative, all thoughts of Joe being a raping, murderous menace having headed off to some destination other than his prairie now that he’d witnessed what the un-medicated Julie was like.

Then it hit him. He didn’t have to hang around here for half an hour. They didn’t have to drink hot chocolate at his house.

They were on I-4o, headed west. He’d told her they were going to the mountains, and that’s where Julie believed they were headed. She’d finally calmed down, and he’d managed to convince her he had some friends in Hendersonville they’d call in the morning, see if they could stay there for a few days. Tonight, they’d find a hotel room somewhere nearby. What others would have interpreted as quiet exhaustion on her part he was beginning to interpret as a catatonic state. She hadn’t said a word since they’d left his house, but he found this much preferable to scenes and accusations.

“Oh, damn, damn, damn!” he hoped the banging of his hands on the steering wheel were convincing. “I forgot to leave the spare key in the mailbox for the neighbor, so she can feed my cat. We’re gonna have to go back. It won’t take me a second,” and he pulled off at the Clemmons exit, turned around, and headed back east.

The cat was as much of a lie as the friends in Hendersonville and his sister’s residence in California, but so far, that last one was the only one she’d managed to uncover. He hoped she hadn’t noticed there was no sign whatsoever in his house that a cat could possibly live there with him. The prescription bottle he found with her name on it in his mailbox wasn’t a lie, but the key he pretended to deposit in its place was. The coffee he was now telling her he needed in order to stay awake until they reached the final destination they never would was another lie. Were these lies that dissimilar from the lies a woman told to convince her co-workers she was married? Were they that dissimilar from the lies a man might tell his co-workers to convince them he was happily settled in a love-filled marriage?

Landon buried these unpleasant thoughts in the recesses of his brain. Otherwise, they might invite others to the party, like those ones with the bright-red warning lights asking him what on earth he was doing. He had no idea what these drugs were, only that they had Julie’s name on them. She could be allergic to them. Joe could have given him something that would kill her. He would then be an accomplice to murder if he slipped them into her hot chocolate. No, those thoughts were too scary. He’d witnessed Julie’s instability. He had to trust that the drugs would help her, that Joe really did have her best interests at heart.

He told her to stay in the car at Circle K and asked if she wanted anything to drink herself. She might say she didn’t, but he was counting on the fact that most people embarking on a long drive wouldn’t.

“Hot chocolate,” she said, just as her brother had predicted.

Joe hadn’t told him how many sedatives she needed, but the directions on the bottle indicated one. He shook one out of the burnt amber bottle and slipped it into her paper cup, hoping it wouldn’t turn the steaming chocolate bitter.

They headed back on I-40, but this time, before they’d even made it to Clemmons, she was knocked out cold. He turned around again and headed back to what he hoped would be his final destination tonight, the huge old brick house on Runny Meade Road where he’d once given her a ride when her car had died. He’d always wondered who lived in those houses, having never had any friends from that neighborhood, even in high school.

He worried he was going to wake her as he struggled to get her out of the car, but she didn’t move a muscle. New worry now, he instinctively reached for her wrist to feel the pulse that was most definitely there. The outside light came on before he’d reached the front door with his dead weight. The door that opened exposed a tall, thin silhouette: the infamous Joe, who hurried down the steps to take her from Landon, thanking him profusely all the while. He seemed genuinely relieved to have his sister back, so Landon deposited her into his outstretched arms without any hesitation.

As he got back into the car and drove to his house for the fourth time since leaving work the previous evening, he was feeling particularly noble and pleased with himself. If only Laura could see him now: the hero saving the schizophrenic from herself. He wasn’t the selfish, self-absorbed lout she thought he was. It was nearly 1:30 a.m., and he was contemplating taking a sick day, sleeping in. Again, Laura would be shocked. She’d always accused him of being a “un-spontaneous” workaholic who would never dream of taking a “mental health day,” staying home from work when he wasn’t actually physically ill.


******


The news in Friday’s paper shouldn’t have been a shock to him. He already knew Julie had hanged herself sometime in the early daylight hours Wednesday morning, not too many hours after he’d handed her over to Joe. He already knew everyone at work was buzzing with the news she’d never had a husband. She’d been alone in the house, where the police reports noted she’d been living alone all along. Still, to see it in black and white, the indelible newsprint, that she was survived only by a sister and two nephews residing in Chicago made his stomach lurch.

His imagination had finally left the prairie and reached its final destination, where it seemed completely intent on staying forever. It reminded him that he’d encountered something, that this had been no suicide. It made him watch himself over and over again, delivering Julie into the arms of the murderer. The newspaper mentioned him, too: the brother Joe who’d been killed along with his mother in a car accident.