Mirror, Mirror?

Kathy walks into the tools section of Walmart to find her husband standing in the center of the aisle with one hand rubbing his bald head and the other holding something, “Jeff, come here, I have to show you this,” she motions her husband towards her. 

“Can it wait?” Jeff asks as he reads the labels on the sanding pads in his large rough hands, “I want to see which of these I need for the sander at the house.”

“Just grab them both and we’ll come back in a couple of minutes,” Kathy replies as she tugs his flannel shirt and motions for him to follow her. “It's right over here, I love it and want it.”

Jeff follows, still looking at the pads in his hands, using his peripheral vision to follow her, but almost misses her stop.

“Look, she says,” pointing at the cute long dark-haired beauty in the mirror. She does a couple of model poses to show off her figure. Once she sees she has his attention she leans forward to show her fairly large cleavage.

A smile crosses his face, “I like it!” he replies with the sanding pads dangling from his sides, no longer of interest.

“You like the mirror! I can get it?” Kathy asks in a statement tone.

“Oh, the mirror is okay,”  Jeff says now looking at himself in it too. He reaches out and runs his hand along the dark wood of the oblong mirror. “Where are you thinking of putting it? There isn’t any room in the bathroom for it.”

“Well, it can have the fancy feet,” Kathy replies pointing at lion-like claws on a white one, “or I like the covered wheels,” she says pointing to the evenly spaced small wheels strategically placed on the side legs to an arch under the mirror. “The wheels are for support and movement; with those, it can go in the walk-in closet,” she says as she slightly spins the model on the floor.

“Okay, you get one of the sales reps to get one with the wheels on it off the shelf and bring it to check out and I’ll put the sanding pad I don’t want back and meet you at the register.”

“I don’t want one on the shelf, I want this one,” Kathy replies, stroking a couple of the engraved flowers, leaves, and butterflies in the dark wood. “It’s the only one that has this engraving, the others are plain.”

Jeff looks at the ones in the boxes and sees that she is right, “At least have someone wrap it and stabilize the mirror so we can put it in the back of the truck and get it home without breaking it.

Kathy grabs him and gives him a big kiss, “Will do!”   

*****

Kathy turns on the overhead light in the walk-in closet. She pushes through the hangers of assorted clothes on her side looking for her red dress that she wears for fancy dinners at Jeff’s work. I hate going to these things, she thinks as she finds the red dress, bends down and grabs the matching shoes, and walks to the full mirror. 

She places the high heels on the floor and steps into them, then holds the dress up to her body with one hand and lifts her dark hair into a sloppy bun with the other. She turns from side to side, somewhat happy with what she sees.

Knowing it’s not perfect, “This will have to work,” she says to her suddenly blurry reflection and feels a little fatigued. She drops the dress to the floor, and takes a seat on the closet step stool, waiting for the dizziness to pass. 

She shakes the thought of a nap and spots her jewelry box on her make-up table, “Maybe I just need some jewelry,” she rises from the stool and picks out a long silver necklace with rubies in a half-circle like a smile just above her cleavage with matching earrings.  

Perfect and heads for the shower.

*****

“There’s my knock-out beautiful wife,” Jeff says as he comes up behind Kathy at her make-up table. He is ready to go and looks at his watch. “Do you need anything?” he asks, dressed in his suit and tie with his hair slicked back. 

Kathy doesn’t look at him as she continues to put on the last coat of her mascara, “Not yet, I will need your help getting my dress. I don’t want it to touch my hair and we need to try to not get any make-up on it.”

“Why don’t you put it on before you do your hair and make-up?”

“Because then my dress would end up with hairspray and make-up all over it as I put it on.”

Jeff shakes his head as he holds the dress as instructed while Kathy steps under. He holds it steady and slips it down slowly without making any kind of contact with the hair or face. “Even more beautiful,” Jeff says once he finishes zipping the dress and Kathy turns around.

Kathy kisses him, grabs her jewelry, and heads for the stand-up mirror. She looks at the dress and smooths it, then places the necklace around her neck. She grabs her earrings and turns her head to the side to look for the hole in her ear in the mirror. 

As she stares at her ear in the mirror, her face image goes blurry. She darts her eyes to her face, but her face looks fine. Shakes her head a little and turns her head again to see her ear; her face looks fine, and she gets the first earring in. She gets the second earring ready, but sees the blurry face again, but straight on. She doesn’t turn her head this time, she stares at the blond. “Jeff, come here.”

“What do you need help with?” he asks as he gets closer.

“Do you see the blond in the mirror?”

Jeff looks at only Kathy in the mirror. He rubs his bald head, not sure how to answer. “We need to leave in about 15 minutes, will you be ready by then?”

“I will, but do you see…” Kathy stops, the blond is gone.

*****

“Did you think you would get more than one award, Jeff?” Kathy asks as she removes her coat and hangs it in the closet, happy to know it’s over for another year.

“Yes, I was expecting at least three. I can’t believe Bob’s Woodwork got one of them. I mean his work is third class!”

Kathy gratefully removed her dress and sighed heavily, “You think it is third class. Apparently, they didn’t think so, “Kathy replies as she removes the necklace, “I liked the scene Bob carved into the tree trunk without using any power tools. He did it all by hand and there was so much detail like the dinnerware on the table, even a salt and pepper shaker.”

Jeff nods, “Yeah, that tree trunk was pretty articulate,” he reluctantly says as he removes his tie and takes a seat on the bed.

Kathy heads for the closet, removing her bun, ready to put the dress into the dirty clothes basket. She opens the closet door and uses the wall to catch herself from falling “Jeff!” she screams.

Jeff runs into the closet “What’s the matter baby!”

Kathy points with a shaking hand at the mirror, she is staring at the same blond she saw earlier in the mirror in the same red dress except now she’s looking directly at Kathy, with a black eye and blood on her face.

Jeff steps forward to look at the reflection, but he doesn’t see anything. Nothing at all, not the blond with blood, not Kathy, not himself. He waves his hand in front of the mirror, looking for motion only to see a stream of blood slowly seep out the bottom of the oval mirror and drip to the carpet.

*****

“Do we report this to the police?” Kathy asks.

Jeff continues to scrub the blood on the carpet, “What are we going to tell them? That you see a bleeding blond and I don’t see anything, but here’s the blood?”

Kathy nods in agreement as she continues to remove the rest of her clothes and get into her pajamas. “Maybe we should try to talk to her and see if she is okay.”

Perplexed by what he just heard, Jeff stops scrubbing and looks at Kathy, “I think we need to get rid of the mirror.”

“I will check tomorrow to see if Walmart has another with flowers, leaves, and butterflies,” Kathy replies as she approaches Jeff and looks at the engravings.

Jeff gets up from the floor. “Kathy, what are you talking about! We are getting rid of this mirror, and we are not getting another one!”

Kathy walks past him to the mirror like he’s a stranger. She looks at her reflection and then leans to the left and tips her head forward, the direction the blond went. She reaches up to touch the mirror but jumps at Jeff coming up behind her.  

She looks behind herself in the mirror, Jeff’s reflection isn’t there. She reaches up as she looks in the mirror; she reaches for his face just as a blood-covered kitchen knife comes into her peripheral vision in the mirror.

Kathy hears Jeff screaming as she moves to her left, stepping away from the knife. She turns her head but quickly turns away when she sees the knife going into the side of Jeff’s head and the blond wig falling off her in the mirror.