Full Release by Marshall Thornton (free novel 24 TXT) 📗

from top to bottom. I was about to begin mopping when my landline rang. I could barely hear it over the stereo.

Hurrying back into the living room, I paused the CD and grabbed the phone. It was Mrs. Enders. “How are you, sweetie? Are you all right?” Her voice was like gravel after forty years of smoking.

“Yes, Mrs. Enders, I’m fine.”

“Are you sure? Can I do anything for you?” I had a feeling she really just wanted to come over and get a good look inside my garage. “I’d make a casserole, but who cooks anymore, right? Hey, how about a cocktail? I got some nice bourbon at Costco.”

“That’s sweet, but I think I’m in for the night,” I said, the kind of “nice bourbon” she bought in bulk would burn a hole in your stomach. “Thank you for calling, Mrs. Enders.”

“Oh now, don’t run off…” I could hear the ice clink in her glass. She lowered her voice, as though she didn’t want the other neighbors to hear. “Tell me what happened.”

“I don’t think--”

“Too soon? I understand. I had a friend who killed herself. She took pills. That’s how I’d do it if I wanted to off myself. Anyway, I didn’t understand why she did that. Didn’t understand for years, then I got real depressed. I think it was after I broke up with my second husband. Have you ever been real depressed?” I was about to answer, but then she did for me. “Well, of course you have. You lost Jeremy. That must have knocked the wind out of your sails. The thing is, what I realized when I got depressed myself was that they’re not trying to kill themselves. They’re trying to stop the pain. And the only way they can think to make it stop is to kill themselves.”

“Mrs. Enders, I can’t talk now. I really need to go.”

“But it’s good to talk about these things.”

“I really didn’t know Eddie well. We’d only been on two dates. I think I’ll be just fine.”

“Now don’t be that way, all bottled up.” I heard her say as I hung up the phone.

I flopped down on the sofa, suddenly exhausted and wishing I was as bottled up as Mrs. Enders thought I was. Too much had happened in the last twenty-four hours; I could barely take it all in. I thought about going back into the bedroom and continuing my cleaning project, but I didn’t. It was too easy to think while I cleaned, and what I really needed was not to think. I needed to turn my head off completely. I needed distraction. I clicked on the TV and channel surfed until I found an all-day marathon of Heidi Knickerson’s Supermodels, Season Five in progress.

As I watched twelve young women who couldn’t get a modeling job without a camera crew and host to egg them on, the phone rang three or four more times and my cell phone once. I ignored them both. When Heidi was down to four contestants, I took a Norco. My doctor had given me a prescription when I hurt my back working out over-zealously just after Jeremy and I broke up. There were two more hour-long shows to go, and I fell dead asleep. I never found out who won.

Around four in the morning, I woke up, still on the sofa, with a crick in my neck that seemed like it might require the kind of painkiller that had given it to me. My mouth was dry as chalk, so I got a glass of water. Then I peed. When I came out of the bathroom, I found the phone and, still half asleep, picked up my voicemails. Two were from neighbors, one was from Jeremy saying he felt weird about what happened, hoped I was okay and please don’t mention anything about it to Skye. When did I ever talk to Skye?

The last was from Yummee Tum-Tum, a Chinese restaurant in Hollywood. I order takeout from them on Tuesdays when they have a two for one special. The message was garbled, the caller a young woman who spoke English as a second language. The gist was that I’d ordered for delivery and then not answered the door. Even though she was sorry, my credit card was going to be charged.

My stomach felt wobbly. The menus. Eddie hadn’t just read the menus; he’d ordered Chinese food. They always asked for a phone number, and he’d given them mine. It would have been easier for him, so why wouldn’t he? For a moment, I wondered if he’d been planning to try and charge the food to my credit card? But then I stopped worrying about that and instead wondered, why would anyone order Chinese food and then decide to kill themselves instead?

I had picture in my head of the delivery guy standing at my front door, knocking and knocking, while Eddie hung himself in the garage. It was a creepy picture, a disturbing picture, but a very clear one. Was his suicide really that spontaneous? I wondered. Did he really think, “Oh, I’m hungry, I think I’ll order some food”? And then killed himself before it arrived? That didn’t make sense. Why not wait and enjoy a last meal?

I wondered if there had been some kind of trigger event -- between ordering Chinese food and killing himself. Had someone in his family found out about how he made his living? Had they called him? Could someone be that ashamed of being gay in this day and age? Yes, they could. It was hard for me to connect with. I’d been out for a long time, more than a decade. Forgetting what it was like to be closeted was easy, I suppose. But there were always stories in the gay press about people so shamed, so closeted, that they’d hurt themselves.

And somewhere in there, between ordering food and killing himself, Eddie had peed on my bed. None of this made sense. I was exhausted, though,