The Plant Killer

[Author's Note: This story features a murder of a human and at least one plant and serial cheating by a huge dickhead.]

This week had served as a turd in the punch bowl that was my life. Two weeks ago, my boss had gone on vacation. She left me in charge of the plants in the office. God knows why. I'm a ruthless plant killer. Everyone knows I cannot be trusted with any organism that performs photosynthesis; however, this idiot of a woman left me to tend a virtual garden in her office. For the record, horticulturist was not in my job description.

So, the bimbo went on her trip. She was supposed to be back the following Monday. But did she return? Oh, heck, no. Around 9:30 a.m., the phone rang, and it was my boss.

"Elaine. Hi. Where are you? You have a 10 a.m. meeting with the construction team for the new clinic," I said without waiting for her to announce herself. Caller ID. One of the greatest inventions.

"Well, here's the thing, Rosie. I ran into this old friend of mine from high school, and we got to talking, and I'm staying for another week. We're going on our honeymoon," she said kind of, maybe, coquettishly. She giggled. I was not amused.

"No!" I responded in a shocked whisper. "You got married on vacation? To someone you ran into?"

She answered in this stupidly high-pitched little-girl voice, giggling, "Yeah."

She called the following morning to let me know she'd be coming back earlier than she'd thought. They'd had the marriage annulled. Around 3 hours later, she called again to say she was at the airport and wanted to know if I could pick her up.

After the phone call, I heard my phone buzzing in my purse. A quick glance at my cell phone told me Brad had left a message. Bradford Barkley, my boyfriend of a year and a half, was The One. Until I read his text he was The One. Afterward, he was That Fucker. He dumped me via text message.

After picking up my boss at the airport (and, yes, I was smarting deeply from the text breakup), we went directly to the office. The suite was small—two offices, 1 restroom, 1 work room, and 1 conference room—but the space got the job done for everything we needed to accomplish in our office. As soon as my boss entered the suite, she dropped everything on the threshold, made a bee-line for the conference room, and seemed like she was on a mission.

"Rosie," she said in a fake-ish voice. "Could you please come in here? Please."

I entered the conference room, and she was standing next to the peace lily. It was always covered with white, powdery pollen, I hated the peace lily because the lousy pollen always wound up all over me, and then I would have an allergic reaction until I went home, showered, shampooed and conditioned my hair, and basically sterilized my person. "Rosie, look at these roots, please."

Oh, god no. This was the plant that I may have killed. The soil was a rich black, almost a twin for coffee grounds, and it was moist. There was so much moisture in the soil that it looked like some kind of gritty coffee soup. The plant itself was beginning to look like someone tried to sit on it. The fronds no longer looked supple and had begun to turn black and wither. I knew the plant was on its last leg or beyond. There was no saving this thing, and I hated that stupid plant anyway. It was the powdered sugar donut of the plant world. It made a mess all the fucking time. At the moment, the thing looked pathetic, but come on, people. I gave plenty of warning that any plant I was placed in charge of was in mortal jeopardy.

My stupid boss wrote me up for killing that stupid plant. There was a space for comments on the form, and I simply wrote:

I am a known menace to plants and made this abundantly clear to my boss. Horticulturist is not in my job description. The death of any plant I am responsible for should not be a surprise. I would like feedback from or a meeting with human resources. I do not feel this write up is reasonable.

***

An envelope was taped to my apartment door when I got home from work. My name was written in calligraphy across the front, and the envelope's paper felt thick and substantial in my hand. Inside was a professionally printed note, neatly folded in half. The message didn't exactly jive with the formality and high-end nature of the note and envelope, and I figured whoever was the originator of this thing must have money to burn, and she must also be a spurned ex-girlfriend of Bradford Barkley, That Fucker.

The note was an invitation to the Bradford Barkley Survivors. The group was meeting the next night in the back room of a quiet little pub I knew. This was so weird. I called the RSVP number and confirmed I would be there. Since I was pissed at my boss, I decided to take a mental health day the next day, and I figured she could revive the rest of the plants that I was in the middle of murdering. I thought about writing a letter to HR to tell them they had to make her keep all of her plants at home. We were an office, not a plant nursery. I wrote five drafts, and with each subsequent draft, the whole situation became so comical that I'm not ashamed to say I may have wet myself a little from laughing so hard.

The front dining area of the pub was mostly empty, and I worried I might have committed myself to meeting up with my executioner. I hadn't put a whole lot of thought into the down side of this assignation. I found the back room, and there were 30-35 women standing around a handful of high top tables. There were a few long rectangular tables with chairs around them. A tall redhead who could have been a runway model clocked me when I entered the room, signaling me to close the door behind me. She clapped her hands three times, and all the murmuring stopped.

She addressed the room. "Everyone is here. Great. Thank you all for coming. We have a newcomer among us tonight. Rosie." In answer, the ladies in the room all turned to look at me.

I waved. "Hi, everyone. Yes, I'm Rosie." I paused a moment, taking in everyone in the room. "There are so many of us. Have we all been dumped by Brad? I now affectionately, or not so affectionately, call him That Fucker." Light and low tittering followed my introduction.

The redhead continued. "Brad has already moved on. In fact, Rosie, you weren't the only woman in his stable over the past 18 months of your relationship. I didn't know if you were aware of that. Everyone here is one of Brad's exes. We formed the group after three of us were dumped within a month of each other. I did a little sleuthing and started locating everyone Brad dated and dumped. I imagine Brad calls it stalking."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa," I said. "I was with Brad all the time. How in the hell was he seeing more than one woman? And he's already moved on? Seriously? That guy…"

The redhead said, "Originally, we got together to compare notes and commiserate. Everyone here is in agreement that Brad is a piece of shit." The ladies were all snapping their fingers in agreement. "I'm Laura. Betty, Sheila, and I were the first three to meet up. And over the past three years, the group has grown to what you're seeing now."

Looking around the room again, I realized Brad really was a piece of shit. There had to be 30-ish people here. That meant he was dumping around 10 women a year. That Fucker. "So, as a group, then are we committed to stopping Brad's atrocities of toying with the hearts of women everywhere and callously stomping them into pieces?" I inquired.

"We have talked about it some over the past 3 years, but we haven't come up with a plan. You're his longest relationship to date, but while you were together he dumped 16 women." The 16 women all raised their hands, and to say I was flummoxed would be an understatement of monumental proportions. It was flattering to think he dumped these beauties and kept me, but it was gross to think he was fucking all of us, and I sincerely hoped he gloved up. I made a mental note to get STD testing the following day.

It dawned on me. Brad was a threat to public health and safety! I raised a fist and said, "Brad is a threat to public health and safety! He could be the King of Chlamydia! He must be stopped. He told me he had never gone bareback with anyone but me. Did he tell anyone else that little beauty?"

All hands went up. I whispered, "That Fucker." In answer, I saw heads nodding, and I heard the rumblings in response, "That Fucker."

We killed Brad. He had a gas stove. It was easy enough to do, since over 75% of the women in the room had keys to his house. We staked out his house. Apparently he gave himself one night off from sex each week and slept alone. What a dick.

We entered his house and turned on the gas. It was that easy.

The group immediately disbanded. I quit my job and went to work at the event planning firm that Laura owned. She's dating a very lovely man who has been fully vetted and is wild about her. No need to kill him, and no need to become a diabolical, vindictive angel of death and vengeance. It's a good feeling to know there are men out there who aren't Bradford Barkley. Laura has never asked me to take care of any plants in the office.