A Chilling Friendship - Part IV
Now that she’s dead, I can write about her without fear of lawsuits or reprisals. We were best friends, almost sisters, until we weren’t. Jealousy overtook her, and as a result she intentionally and maliciously tried to sabotage my career. Revenge is a dish best served cold, they say. But my revenge was hot hot hot.
THIS IS PART 4 of a TEN-PART FICTION STORY
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The job Ray offered was so far out of my realm of experience that I nearly laughed in his face. For a puny two-hundred-and-fifty dollars a week, he wanted me to travel around Massachusetts, teaching writing and poetry to inmates of all stripes in high security prisons.
I’d been out of the country for eight years, totally out of touch (if I ever had been) with the sort of population – murderers, felons, conmen – locked behind bars. But I wanted to please Ray, and so I instantly agreed to take the job. And with that began a period of dislocation and malaise that colored every action I undertook. I was miserable. I was drinking too much. I was racing around like a frenetic chicken and my body was slowly going downhill.
Meanwhile, Caroline wasn’t entirely thrilled with my new occupation. I knew to wear shapeless clothes and to look as drab as possible every time I crept through those prison gates. Hair pulled back in a tight ponytail, face swept clean of makeup. Inside my mind, I was scared as hell. Just put one foot in front of the other, I thought, not knowing what else to do. I considered myself a fraud, winging it with every class I taught. Not that the prisoners cared. They were just happy for an opportunity to get out of their cells, even if it meant writing a lot of drivel that I would take home and mark up as if the pages were examples of serious literature. “You aren’t earning nearly enough money in that job,” Caroline would say. “You ought to at least be with a company that offers health insurance.”
In the beginning, I didn’t understand that this was a ploy to get me away from Ray, with whom, out of necessity, I was spending a good deal of time. Looking back, I don’t blame Caroline for being concerned about the nature of my relationship with him.
She wanted Ray for herself, and there I was, hogging all his attention, minding his dog, driving around in his jeep. And the deal was, she was right: despite our sexual preferences, there was something romantic between me and Ray.
Meanwhile I had found a place to live in a rambling three-story house that I shared with two other single moms and their kids. Since I was the last person to sign on, I was given the least desirable room, a dark little space with a desk, bunkbed and ratty carpet. On the day before I moved in, Ray announced that he wanted to come over and inspect the premises to make sure everything was up to speed.