Danny did his best to keep track of the bride. He was infuriated and in a hurry. Looking for her everywhere he kept running into enemies. (Cesar had invited the DA, Potato Chip, and his minister. Yes, his minister. When George asked why he invited the DA, Cesar smiled.) As he headed for the basement Danny heard so many negative comments that he almost exploded. Fortunately Kitty rescued him and led him down the basement steps.
Anna stood in front of a mirror, making last minute adjustments, but her face seemed colorless. She had felt sincere when she accepted George’s proposal; among so called immoral people, immorality had always been relative, and that was Anna, more amoral than immoral, while events had sped up the wedding date, which caused her less trouble and fewer tears than her recent breakup with her Mr. O’Toole. “I’m used to being called a whore,” she thought as she adjusted her bodice for the last time.
Then Danny took her hand and led her upstairs.
If Anna traced back the origin of her insecurity and the reason that she gave in so easily to her carnal desires she would’ve admitted that she started before she first noticed boys. She always preferred older men. “Why was that?” she wondered as she picked up her train so that she wouldn’t trip on it. When she surfaced she was greeted with awe. Gee! She was beautiful. But beauty is as beauty does!
She never knew how to pick men, for everything boiled down to lust, or so she believed. Danny knew. He had had his chance. Now he held her arm. He knew that she was one in million! George was lucky! A princess for a prince.
All of these people had taken time out of their day to be there and…. While she felt trapped by them.
At the top of the stairs Anna suddenly broke away from Danny and ran into the crowd gathered in the foyer. Everyone around her was stunned. The crowd parted in front of her and suddenly in the doorway stood Mr. O’Toole.
George had seen him come into the doorway with the crowd. He also saw how Anna ran to him. Yes! Yes, Mr. O’Toole had come a long way. And didn’t say anything. He didn’t have to. Not surprisingly many of the people applauded him.
Later Danny would blame himself. “A few minutes more and it would’ve been different story, a different ending,” he exclaimed. He almost chased after them, and then he thought, “Anyway it’s too late. You can’t shackle her.”
George had believed Anna. He’d trusted her. Then as it turned out, all of the assurances she’d given him had been false. What was odd was that he reacted calmly. Anyway you could say anyhow she got what she deserved.
That night George went to bed with a revolver.
“The sad thing George was that you didn’t get out before the end. Yes, in the end you’d pay. The whore left you at the altar. ‘Suck up! Be a man! Crybaby!’” George thought, as he went through Anna’s things.
“Awful. On the hunt. Then? Shaken forever, I await my chance. Faust told me that the bitches got what they deserved. At this rate I’ll make the papers. I loathed myself. Honey, the whole world knows. Why do I still pack a gun? Imagine being married to a man such as me. The girls knew when to ditch me.”
“Guilty!”
“Agreed!”
“No one agreed to go on the bus with me to Cave Creek to keep me from hurting myself. I knew I was hurting, knew how much it hurt. It cut deep because of my misplaced affection for both women. For that reason I tried to talk myself out of taking a gun. Hither and thither I went until I found the right place.”
George rang the doorbell at the Martinez address. At first no one answered. At last the door opened and a haggard Maria Martinez appeared.
“What do you want?” she demanded.
“Angela, is she here?”
“No, she’s not home.”
Mrs. Martinez intently studied George.
“When will she be back? Or…is she staying here at all?
Mrs. Martinez continued to stare at him.
“Mrs. Martinez, you know me. I don’t mean any harm.”
“Angela is not home.”
Mrs. Martinez dropped her eyes.
“Have you heard from Anna and Mr. O’Toole?”
“They don’t concern us.”
“Why?”
“Because….”
“Wait!”
The door closed.
George decided to come back in a couple of hours.
“Oh yes, it cut deep. I could picture the whole scene. The tempting smile. She kicking her shoes off. The flighty girl unbuttoning her blouse. Her soft body. From the farthest boundaries of memory I remembered taking her clothes off. I remembered the moist kisses and her treating me with kid gloves in bed. I knew I didn’t deserve her.”
Luckily he ran into Molly.
“Molly, is Angela home?
“Yes, she is.”
“Why is your mother running interference?”
“She’s doing what?”
“She just told me Angela wasn’t home.”
“Maybe she’s right,” Molly responded. “Angela doesn’t check in with me.”
“Are you sure she’s not in?”
“No, but if she isn’t in, I’m not sure where she went.”
“And has anyone heard from Anna and Mr. O’Toole?”
“No. We don’t expect to hear from them. George, you shouldn’t be here. Do yourself a favor and forget Anna. We can talk when we all get back to Tucson.”
“There were wounds that have to heal. I’d forgive everything if I could make her fall in love with me again.”
George stood outside the condominium for a very long time. The window shades were all pulled. It was a windy day, and George finally crossed the street and looked once more at the windows. He waited a little longer and…oddly…it seemed to him that the side of one of the shades was pulled open and he saw Angela’s face.
“I looked for the downcast eyes, the sadness, or the pouting lips that told me that ours had been simply a lover’s quarrel. Any sign. Something. Something to fill the dull, aching void. I told myself, ‘George, you’re not worth her.’”
He waited a little longer, hoping to catch another glance of her.
“George, she played you for a fool. She knew from the first that the chemistry wasn’t right,” thought George.
George then needed to run to Camelback, to an address he found while looking through Anna’s belongings. He found a letter from Mr. O’Toole and pursued the lead.
“Will the real Anna Martinez come forward?” said George to himself.
George took a bus into Phoenix.
“George, leave it to you to choose sisters. Very messy. Fools go back for more. God help you. You’re pitiful.”
He knew that he shouldn’t have been in Phoenix and on this mission. He knew, but….
“Caught in the act. Here I’m sitting on a city bus not knowing how to get where I want to go. George, on the prowl! George, with a gun on the prowl!” Sweating. Directly to Camelback. Anticipating.
On the way there he kept thinking that he should’ve gone to the Camelback address first. Disheartened and exhausted George at last arrived at the address he wanted.
“Of course I wanted to know what I did wrong.”
To his disappointment no one came to the door. Then impatiently he waited and waited until children surrounded him and gawked. It seemed as if they were throwing stones at him. Then he met their mother who was wearing a modest housedress. The children’s mother insisted that he come inside their apartment. Why should she have been so trusting? “She would’ve been frightened if she had known about my gun,” said George.
He suspected that they somehow knew who he was. He verified that they knew O’Toole and had seen Anna. Questions led to more questions. He pumped them for as much information as possible. They told him that Mr. O’Toole wasn’t home but directed him to a friend of his in Carefree where, perhaps, Anna was staying. “Accept the information as a gift. Pretend that you no longer care.”
Randy Ford
