I am Victoria's Keeper

For years I have followed Victoria Donahue. She doesn't know who I am. Doesn't know that for almost half a decade I have incorporated parts of her life into my own. It all started the summer I met her ex my now husband. It was innocent curiosity. I wanted to know who his first love was, the one who got away, his first choice. he told me about her on our fourth date. While eating sushi on his couch. Victoria Donahue. Maybe it was her name, or the way he described her that piqued my interest. I can't remember the exact moment or reason anymore. Too many years have elapsed since then, and I no longer recognize the person I was before I knew about Victoria. When he talked about her I could sense the way he had loved her. The way his eyes couldn't reach mine when he said her name. The way he racked his hands through his hair. she had been very special to him. Victoria Donahue. I sympathized when he told me about her cruelty. The reasons why they broke up. Her cold moods that would materialize out of nowhere. Nothing he did was ever good enough, he was never good enough.. "I'm so happy I found you Molly. You're nothing like her."

Afterwards I went home to my apartment and learned everything I could about Victoria Donahue. Her life presented to me through the soft electric glow of my computer screen. She is nothing like me. Her life is nothing like mine. Elegant, self possessed, and beautiful. Her beauty is understated. Hidden like the blade of a knife in a skilled assassin's hand. Unseen until the victim finds themselves vulnerable and powerless.

Once I discovered where she worked it was easy to observe her every move. She is a curator for an art exhibit downtown. This studio is the axis on which her life turns. The boutiques where she shops, the hair salon that lightens and darkens her hair based on the season, the book store where she picks up used and battered paperbacks, all of the businesses and places she haunts constellations that encompass her place of work.

The day I bought the same lipstick that she wears was my birthday. He was taking me out to an expensive restaurant. I only wanted to try Victoria on. To see how she would fit over the skin of my own life. I applied the vampiric red color onto my lips, and slipped into the exact black dress Victoria had purchased the month prior. I felt confident. I felt alluring. I drank champaign the way I imagined Victoria would, and when he brought me home I kissed him the way Victoria would have kissed him. That was six years ago. We are married now, and yet I am still following her. Reading the books she reads, buying the things she buys.

Right now I am sitting in the coffee shop across from the art studio. The paintings and photographs she has curated this month are of dancers in midd arabesque, singers and musicians in the throes of a song; juxtaposed with businessmen on lunch breaks. These grey haired middle aged men dejectedly scroll through their phones. While sleep deprived mothers push strollers down the sidewalk.

I sip at my coffee and wait for the elderly couple to arrive. The couple who came in on Wednesday. They purchased a painting of a ballerina putting on her pointe shoes. Her feet blistered and bloodied.

Victoria seems tense. She stands behind the front desk. Twisting and untwisting the gold locket around her neck. She walks to the back room several times. Checks her phone more than usual. I touch the same gold necklace around my own neck and wonder what is troubling her. An austere couple in their late sixties opens the door to the studio. Victoria greets them warmly, her smile beaming. They are the couple she has been waiting for. She ushers them to the back of the exhibit and I know that I have exactly one hour to do what I need to do.

I finish my cappuccino and leave the cafe. It's a short walk to Victoria's apartment. I smile at the doorman as he buzzes me in. I told him a lie years ago that I am a sister to a tenant on the fifth floor. A man who's sister has been dead since last spring. I take the stairs to apartment 4B. I finger the rough edges of the key in my pocket. The key that opens the door to Victoria's world.

I get in easily and slip my shoes off. I am careful about what I touch, and what I take. I make sure I leave no evidence of myself behind. I go into Victoria's bedroom first. Her walls are a warm golden. Her bedding the color of French Caramels. Overstuffed pillows and wool throw blankets. It smells of warm vanilla and honey. I gently readjust a pillow and wipe a thin layer of dust off her nightstand. Nothing has changed since I've been here last. Her dresser is neat and organized. I open her top drawer where she keeps her lingerie. Everything is a swath of black lace. I find a pair of silk panties with the tags still on. I slip them into my purse. A piece of torn paper lies on the bedroom floor. I bend over to pick it up. It's a phone number written in pencil. I place the number next to the panties.

I go into her living room, where the bookshelves are still color coded. I step gingerly into the kitchen area where the dishes from this morning await to be washed and put away. I turn my gaze to the breakfast nook. A bouquet of white butterfly roses in a turquoise vase sits on her banquette. A card is tucked between two blooms. Thank you for last night. Love, Geoffrey. I take a picture of the flowers and the name of the business where they were bought. I walk back to the entryway. I wedge my feet back into my shoes and lock the door behind me. I need to get to the bus stop before it gets too late and I will have no choice but to walk home.

The bus arrives fifteen minutes early. A heaving beast of metal and gears lurches to a stop. I make my way to the very back. Too lost in thought to notice that Victoria has also gotten on the bus. It isn't until I smell that signature scent of vanilla and honey that I know Victoria is seated next to me. I can feel her eyes on the back of my neck. I clutch my purse a little tighter and ring to be let off. Victoria does the same. I can feel my face starting to flush, and my palms have gone sweaty.

As the bus approaches the stop I stand up awkwardly and nearly trip over my feet. I hurry as fast as I can off the bus and down the street, but I know she is behind me. "Hey!" she yells. I turn around, fear gripping my insides. "You dropped this." She holds out the red scarf I purchased at the same boutique she bought her's at.

"Thank you, I didn't know I dropped this." She smiles and her eyes crinkle at the corners. Her eyes look more amber than I thought. and there are more blonde highlights around her face. " I have the exact same scarf at home. Red isn't my color. Looks good on you though."

She waves at a man standing behind me. He is wearing a grey jacket. A book of poems by Tennyson under his right arm. She leaves me with the red scarf in my hands. The red scarf I look better in than her.

I walk the rest of the way home. I open my front door and go straight to my bedroom. The room I share with my husband. The room that also has the same plush pillows as Victoria.

I peel off my jeans, and take the panties out of my purse. The crumpled piece of paper with the phone number on it sits under a discarded gum wrapper. I search around my dresser until I find the nail scissors I used the day before. I cut the tags off and carefully pull the thin material over my hips. I look at myself in the mirror. I'm curvier than her, but my husband will like these. He will like them and never know that they belonged to Victoria.