Reflection in a Mirror

A month after the young couple moved into the apartment next door, Vince brought over half a chocolate cake for Bernice. He said, “My girlfriend baked this. We’ve eaten a few pieces, but now Carolyn says this dessert is going right to her thighs. Would you like the rest?”

Bernice had eagerly reached for the plate of homemade cake. “Thank you so much, Vince.” With heart palpations she thought, he brings me gifts.

That night Bernice wrote in her journal, Vince loves me.

Often when Carolyn baked desserts, they would share half of it with her.

Bernice could clearly see he had the hots for her with all his gifts of food. It’s a sign when both of my loves start with the same letter V, first my last husband, Victor and now Vince, the handsome man next door. We’re meant to be together. She had to let him know how she felt about him, so she carefully constructed a message, which took her days to get perfect.

Dearest Vince,

Please come over anytime.

Your lady in 202

She had sprayed it with her, ‘Evening in Paris.’ While she was sure he and Carolyn would be eating their dinner, so Carolyn wouldn’t see her, Bernice quietly tip toed down the back stairs and placed her love note under his windshield wiper.

* * *

In the middle of the night as seventy-year-old Bernice lay in bed smiling, thinking about her true love, the wind picked up. She never knew a gust blew her note away.

The next evening, as Vince returned home from work, Bernice waited on the landing for him. As he got closer to her, he winked saying, “Good evening, my Lady.” Bernice tingled with pleasure. Then he opened his apartment door and stepped inside his apartment. She knew he wanted to come over but couldn’t get away because of his little girlfriend.

Bernice went out the next day to buy a jazzercise DVD to start exercising. But by the end of the day, she decided Vince liked full-bodied women just like her. He’s never said I should lose weight; in fact, he brings me baked goods. He likes voluptuous women. Soon the plastic wrap on her new exercise DVD was collecting dust.

As Bernice lay in bed at night listening to the young couple next door’s squeaking mattress, she wished Vince was making love to her. He probably really prefers full bodied women over that skinny little thing he’s living with. I know he really loves me because of the sexy things he says to me.

She dreamt of Vince lying beside her. His arms wrapped lovingly around her, but in reality, it was simply her cats who snuggled with her.

No one in her whole life had ever flattered Bernice like Vince. Not even Victor. He might have a little, at the beginning, but not in fifty years. Now she felt alive with excitement and sexuality. Victor won’t mind; I’m sure he wants me to be happy.

Over time, Bernice convinced herself Vince loved her the most, but couldn’t tell his girlfriend. When Carolyn had seen Bernice outside one day and showed her the new engagement ring, Bernice knew this beady-eyed brunette must be insisting on marriage. Bernice tried not to show her disappointment in their upcoming wedding. She laid in bed the entire honeymoon week, absolutely ill.  After they returned from Cancun, the tanned Vince continued his praise and flattering remarks, so Bernice knew everything was the same between them. His marriage still bothered her a little, but she put it out of her mind. When she heard them fighting a few months later, she smiled to herself.

One of Bernice’s hobbies was to read obituaries. Then go to many of the visitations and funerals at the local Norris Wallen Funeral Home. She loved the variety of free food. She even baked something herself for the occasions. She would make friends by talking with anybody who would listen. Once she told a bereaved widow, “I have a special man who loves me dearly. Oh, he worships the ground I walk on. He just can’t leave his wife yet. She yells at him all the time. She’s so mean to him.”

The widow’s smile disappeared. Her eyes opened in astonishment. “You’re having an affair with a married man?”

Bernice saw the surprised look, so knew she had to explain, “Why yes, and proud of it. I’m a cougar because he’s a younger man, kind of high-falutin, but he loves me.” Maybe that came out a little too bragging. So, Bernice tried to explain, “You might find someone who says great things to you too. It can happen. It happened to me.”

The widow squinting an eye in disbelief, then interrupting Bernice, she turned to the next person in line saying, “Why cousin Roger, so good to see you.”

The Saturday Vince and Carolyn were screaming at each other, Bernice heard Vince storm out of his apartment. As he slammed the back door, she thought, this is it. This is what I’ve been waiting for. Bernice felt elated when the man she loved, left his wife. She knew he was coming for her. Then when he stomped down the back stairs, she turned to her long-haired cat saying, “Charlie, don’t ya worry. Vince is just going that way, so Carolyn won’t suspect it’s me he’s leaving her for.”

Hours, then days, went by. Bernice told her Siamese, “Vince doesn’t want it to look obvious to his dumb wife that he’s in love with me. You just wait Sammy; he’ll be back for us.”

After weeks of missing him terribly, she told her black cat, Ebony, “He’s looking for a place, the perfect love nest for the two of us and all you darling cats. We’ll be so happy together. After some time, and he still hadn’t come to get her, she imagined, my Love is trying to get a divorce before he whisks me away.

* * *

Bernice had been faithfully watching the neighbor’s front door through her lace curtains. She turned off “One Life to Live” and listened to the usual noises of her apartment, the ticking of the living room clock and the hum of the refrigerator. Now she rose from her rocking chair. Her backless fluffy slippers stepped around the coffee table. There were so many Harlequin romance paperbacks piled on top, one could barely see the embroidered doily on the low table. She walked into her bathroom and looked at her image in the mirror. She raised her left hand to run her fingers through her dyed orange/red hair which Bernice called a delicious shade of strawberry blonde. She took off her glasses as she spoke out loud, “I look just like my niece who’s the fashion model. People can tell we’re definitely family. I was that pretty when I was younger. Well, maybe not so tall like her.” She smiled adoringly at her reflection. “Let’s see what’s going on. We’ll just take a look for old times’ sake, even though no one’s home,” she said to the nearest tabby, as the whiskered feline meowed in response.

“Shush now Tommy, ya know the rules. No speaking.”

She put her glasses back on, reached to the side of her mirror and pulled out the small paper plug that covered a tiny peep hole she had made between their two bathrooms. Bernice had visited the past tenants that lived in the apartment, so she knew the two apartments were identically laid out, but flipped back-to-back with their wall-papered bathrooms, one on each side of this center wall. She moved closer putting her eye to the hole where she could clearly see into her neighbor’s bathroom. She smiled remembering Vince’s naked muscular body. No one there. Bernice stepped back from her homemade peep hole and remembered the times she had looked in only to be disappointed when it was Carolyn.

Where did Vince go when he moved out? I need to find him, to get Vince back into my life again. Bernice went back to her living room to look back at her lover’s front door. No one. She glanced down at the nearest cat, a tabby. “I’ve got to look for her, but I shouldn’t leave. What if he comes back? Well, maybe I can, if someone else stands guard for me.”

The sky was starting to cloud up. The weatherman had predicted rain, but it wasn’t going to stop her from helping her man. Bernice decided to use her cell phone to call another neighbor because her land line cord wouldn’t reach to her front door, and she couldn’t miss a chance to see if Vince came home. As soon as Bernice heard someone pick up at the other end, she yelled, “Yoo-hoo, Teresa, ya busy, dear?” Bernice’s glasses were slipping down her nose, but she couldn’t deal with that now.

“Hi Bernice, oh, just trying to decide what to make for dinner tonight,” the short dark-haired neighbor answered. “Maybe waffles.”

“I have to run out. Can you come right over?” Bernice’s voice was rising with excitement.

Teresa, used to her friend’s quirky behavior asked, “To stay with your cats?”

“No Dear. I need you to watch to see if Vince or Carolyn comes home while I’m out.” Then to make sure Teresa would agree, she added, “You can make waffles here, at my place.”

Teresa knew that was strange, but an invitation for a free dinner won. The single mother reluctantly gave in. “I could, but Tim is at soccer practice right now. He loves waffles. Can he come, too?”

 Bernice thought of Teresa’s bean pole teenager who played loud, awful music. He probably ate twenty-four hours a day, but this was urgent. “Sure, Tim’s welcome, but come right away.”

“I’ll send Tim a text and be there in a couple minutes.”

Bernice quickly applied a thick layer of fire engine red lipstick. Then she pulled out a box of Bisquick and a bottle of maple syrup from her pantry. She was just setting them on the counter as her doorbell rang. Soon Bernice had her 5’4” petite neighbor inside.

Within minutes, Bernice was saying to her, “I appoint you, Teresa Triston, as our official neighborhood watch. You can see Vince and Carolyn’s front door from my apartment. If either come back, call me right away on my cell phone. You have my number?”

Teresa nodded in agreement.

Excited, Bernice went on, “And keep my cats company, too. Feel free to talk to them as much as ya want.”

As Bernice went down the back stairs to the parking lot behind the building, she had a creepy thought: What if someone was watching her right now? Could there be “eyes” on our apartment building, just like in the TV crime shows?

She opened the front door to her car. Her crocheted granny square afghan was carefully laid to hide the worn front edge of the seat. As quickly as she could get her large body situated on her brightly colored handiwork, she started her car. She pulled out of the parking lot to drive around town.

(This is an excerpt from my novel Secret Lives by Susan Wells.)