by Megan Blodgett
We need to talk.
Talia stared at her phone, the blue blurb on the screen swimming in and out of her vision as her eyes went out of focus, dry from staring too long. She had texted Jack three hours before he was supposed to get off from work after she received a call on their home phone from a florist wanting to know exactly what color of peonies he would be sending to Eliza. Talia had blinked at the receiver, then slammed it into the charging port. She had paced around the kitchen, drank two large glasses of boxed moscato, and changed into her pajamas. Jack should have been back four hours before. It was dark by then, and Talia stood at the kitchen window of their townhouse, looking for Jack’s shiny blue pickup truck turning onto their street. She had intended to go on a trip with Margo to look for Margo’s wedding dress, but she’d called her and told her she would meet up with the bridal party the next morning. This had to happen tonight.
Headlights glared onto the street, and Talia shielded her eyes as Jack pulled into the driveway. She downed the dregs of her third glass of wine. He walked to the front door. The sound of his keys jingling could be heard through the thin walls.
“Who the fuck is Eliza?” Talia whispered as Jack walked through the front door.
+++
Talia was trying to hide her wince as she wrapped her arms around her torso. Her fractured rib hadn’t had enough time to heal. She closed her eyes and tried to forget the feeling of rolling down the stairs, tried to forget the feeling of his socked foot as it pushed into the small of her back. It didn’t help that Margo’s bejeweled hand was resting there as the two of them walked into Detective Gomez’s office.
“Have a seat,” Detective Gomez instructed, gesturing with an open palm to the two scratched leather chairs in front of her desk.
Talia sat down and tried not to make it obvious that she was in pain. Her tailbone was bruised, and her hips felt tight as she settled into the chair. She could feel her breath quickening in her chest.
Her therapist had told her a long time ago about some counting technique for when she began to feel panicked. Five things she could see. Detective Gomez’s shiny golden badge on her belt, the cream certificates and awards behind the desk, Margo’s favorite red sweater that had a “P” stitched onto the sleeve for her fiancé, Parker, an ambiguous dark stain in the navy and brown carpet, a sky blue coffee mug with a dahlia hand-painted on it. Four things she could feel. The pain in her ribs and tailbone and hips, a scratch from the tag of her jeans, Margo’s hand as it wrapped around hers, the cool leather against her spine where her shirt and cardigan had ridden up. Three things she could hear. The chatter of the office outside of Detective Gomez’s door, Margo’s even breathing, a rustling of paper as Detective Gomez pulled out a file from a humongous beige filing cabinet. Two things she could smell. The burnt coffee in Detective Gomez’s mug, Margo’s musky perfume. One thing she could taste. Blood from where she had gnawed a hole in the side of her mouth.
“Detective, if you don’t mind, why did you call us?” Margo asked. She tilted her crossed knees toward where Talia sat. Talia continued chewing on the inside of her cheek.
“I am sorry to bring you both in, but since you were the ones who reported Jack Plumber missing, we had to report the information to you,” Detective Gomez said.
“Okay,” Talia said. She gulped down the blood and saliva in her mouth.
“We received a tip a few days ago from an anonymous source that said they had seen a body, matching your description of Jack, floating in the Arkansas while they were fishing,” Detective Gomez began. Talia could feel her body stiffen, and Margo squeezed her hand. “By the time we got to that spot just a couple hours later, we couldn’t find anything. So we had the river dragged for fifty square miles east of where the body was spotted.”
+++
“Margo,” Talia hissed. Her hands felt sticky as she searched for her best friend.
“Talia, shut up,” Margo snarled.
Margo’s hair was tied in a loose knot at the back of her skull, but strands of it had fallen out over the course of the evening. Talia had an urge to comb Margo’s hair behind her ear like she used to when they were kids. Margo had always had messy hair. Talia’s fingers shook as she reached up.
“Talia, either help me or get out of my way,” Margo said.
“Margo, I’m scared,” Talia whispered.
Margo dropped the bag and stood straight up. She turned around to where Talia was standing behind her and wrapped her arms around Talia’s body. She squeezed Talia to the point it was painful, pushing on the dark purple bruises already forming on Talia’s olive skin. Talia watched as the Arkansas River roared past them in the headlights of Margo’s red Volkswagen Beetle.
“I need you to listen to me,” Margo said in Talia’s ear. “Talia, I need you to listen to me and be brave.”
“Okay,” Talia whispered. She wasn’t sure if any sound actually came out, but Margo leaned back and wrapped her hands around Talia’s arms.
“I love you more than life,” Margo said, “but if you want to get away with this, you have to be smart. You cannot be scared. They will think you have a motive after they find everything, and you have to play this smart. They can’t think you had anything to do with this. Understand?”
+++
“What did you find?” Talia asked. Her mouth felt dry and full of cotton. She hated that feeling. When she had run track in high school, she used to swallow a dollop of honey to get rid of that feeling. There was no honey, no water here.
“Well, to be quite frank with you… nothing,” Detective Gomez said. She rubbed her right thumb across the creases between the fingers of her left hand as she watched Talia and Margo. “When we searched the river, there wasn’t anything there. We’ve received tips from across the state. Some are sightings of bodies, which turn out not to be Jack’s. Others are sightings of him in rest stops or gas stations or fast food restaurants, but there’s no camera footage at those places. We don’t really know what to make of it. Do you?”
“What are you asking here?” Margo asked. “Are you accusing her of something?”
“Ms. Welsh, I’ll remind you that you’re only here out of courtesy,” Detective Gomez reprimanded.
“Detective Gomez,” Margo said, a saccharine smile on her face, “I’ll remind you that I’m Talia’s assistance of counsel.”
“Very well,” Detective Gomez sighed. “Ms. de Angelo, do you have any idea of what to make of this situation?”
“No,” Talia said. She straightened a little in her chair and looked Detective Gomez in the eye. “I haven’t seen Jack since I passed out after he kicked me down our stairs. I reported him missing after I woke up and found he had taken his truck and left without leaving a note or responding to any of my calls or texts.”
It wasn’t entirely a lie.
“I see,” Detective Gomez said. She had winced when Talia had mentioned the abuse, and Talia knew she hadn’t meant to show that small bit of emotion.
+++
Talia gasped as she woke up. Taking in a breath hurt, stung her lungs. She wheezed as she crawled forward on her hands and knees until she reached the coffee table in the living room. She pushed herself up and sat on the arm of the couch.
When she licked her lips, blood flaked into her mouth. She rubbed her chin and mouth against the shoulder of her navy silk robe, smearing the dried, rust-colored stain onto it. They were Jack’s favorite set of pajamas. He bought her so many of them, with the matching robes and eye masks. He loved the navy ones best, because he said they matched the color of her eyes.
After a long time—she didn’t know how long—she stumbled to the kitchen where her phone was sitting on the countertop. The screen protector was cracked from when Jack had thrown it at her, and she wasn’t sure how it had gotten to the countertop. She turned on the sink’s overhead light as she pulled up Margo’s contact.
“Talia?” Margo mumbled through the line. Talia heard rustling in the background, as if Margo was shifting after having been woken up.
“Margo,” Talia whispered. Her voice was hoarse and her throat dry. “Margo, I think something bad has happened.”
She stared at the seeping red splotches on the wall by the staircase. Blood dribbled from the bottom stair onto the cement floor. Talia didn’t think it was all hers. She felt her nose bleeding, her lip was tender, and her left eyebrow stung when she moved it. Her head pounded, thumping along to her heartbeat. It couldn’t all be from her.
“I’m on my way,” Margo said, and hung up the phone.
Talia sat in the bathtub in her apartment, waiting for Margo, until the water was cold and tinged pink. She sat in it so long her palms pruned with the moisture and her scabs peeled off into the foamy water. Margo found her in the bathtub. She sobbed as she pulled Talia out of the tub and wrapped her in one of the fluffy white towels hanging on the rack.
+++
Detective Gomez was called out by another detective. She asked Talia and Margo to wait for her in her office until she was done. Margo whispered to stay put and not act any differently than they had. She said there were cameras throughout the precinct.
They sat in Detective Gomez’s office for half an hour before she came back in. Talia had stared at the beige walls, sipping the too-strong coffee Margo had gotten for her at some point. Margo had finished her own styrofoam cup and was pouring herself another—she never cared about the flavor of the coffee—when Detective Gomez came back in. She ran a hand over the top of her thick, dark braid as she sat back down in her chair. She stared with pursed lips for several minutes.
“Talia, why did you never report the abuse?” Detective Gomez asked. Her voice was softer than it had been when she had left. Talia turned to Margo, who gave one minute nod. Talia cleared her throat and tightened her grip on her coffee cup.
“Who was going to believe me? Jack’s family owns half this town,” she said. It sounded too loud in the otherwise silent room. “And besides, it wasn’t that bad. He wasn’t ever that violent.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“Well, I mean, he would just kind of grip my arm hard or hit my ribs with the back of his hand when he didn’t like what I was doing,” Talia whispered. Her nails were puncturing the styrofoam, leaving little crescent moons in the whirls of the design printed on the cup.
“What changed that night?”
“I had confronted him. He had been having an affair with a girlfriend of his from high school for months. When I caught him and confronted him about it, he was furious,” she said. She released the styrofoam cup and set it on the glass top of Detective Gomez’s desk. Twisting it around, she said, more to herself than to Detective Gomez, “I’ve never seen him so upset. He began hitting me after that. Hitting me hard. He kicked me down the stairs. They’re wood, you know, so when I hit my head, I blacked out. I had begun bleeding from the back of my head and it was throbbing, but I didn’t notice it at first.”
Detective Gomez nodded as Talia talked. She asked, “and who was the girlfriend he was having the affair with?”
“I don’t know her,” Talia said. She shrugged and blinked a few times, looking up at the ceiling.
“It felt like it was my fault that he had cheated on me. Maybe I just wasn’t enough for him anymore. I mean, I had quit my job writing for the newspaper so that I could be there when he needed me. There was so much he had to do at work, and we didn’t really need my income anyway. I was trying so hard to be everything for him.”
“Talia, do you know the name of the person he was having an affair with?”
“Elizabeth Platte,” Talia said. “She went by Eliza when she knew him, I think. Or at least, that’s what Jack called her.”
Detective Gomez frowned a little.
“Why?” Talia asked.
“Because police just found his body in a car registered under Elizabeth Platte from Colorado Springs.”
Talia dropped Margo’s hand.
Megan Blodgett is currently studying English at Oklahoma State University. She is the Poetry Editor for Frontier Mosaic, though both of her pieces published in this edition of Frontier Mosaic fall into other genres. As a writer, she is interested in exploring themes of womanhood and mental health in various genres. Outside of writing and school, she enjoys crocheting, trying (and often failing) to become an amateur gardener, and being with her elderly tabby cat, Jake.