“She is the best wife in the world.” Every time I said this to my bachelor neighbor Joseph, he patted my shoulder with a crooked smile on his long, cunning face. I could see lust spilling out of his tiny green-bean-liked eyes and drowning his hypocritical rimless glasses. “It’s the green-eyed monster which doth mock the meat it feeds on”, a Shakespearian verse jumped into my mind. Yeah, an evil man with his evil jealousy and evil desire for my wife, that’s exactly who he was.
At my first sight of Joseph on the day I moved to this neighborhood soon after my marriage, he simply reminded me of a cane. Astoundingly tall and thin, he looked almost as luscious as a Christmas candy cane, which was apparently what everyone including my wife had mistaken him as. Truly his neck and hands had a suggestion of strength and firmness, yet in reality he was but a long, hollow woody stem, worthless and nauseating like a pile of chewed sugarcane.
But I couldn’t blame him because there was no way anyone in this world would not adore my wife. She was such a treasure trove, a human being of perfection. With her bombshell body and angelic face, as well as the multi-millions dollars inherited from her parents, how could I ever let her go? How would I let that villainous Joseph encroach on my poor wife Cassidy, who had no living relatives to accompany her but me?
Walking back to the house, I took my daily medicine and found Cassidy in the bathroom. She raised her adorable head and gazed into my eyes in suspense. I’m going to take a shower, her voice was festive and tantalizing; I wondered if she spoke to Joseph with this voice too, you can come and stay next to me. As if it were my honor. Maybe it was. If she died this would be what I would miss, not exactly her but this mesmerizing intimacy of sitting on top of a closed toilet seat next to my girl when she showered.
Yeah sure, I replied with a lively voice, full of expectation. How long could expectation last? I wondered. But first I have to tell Joseph to come over and return the vacuum cleaner. He has borrowed it for like two weeks and the maid is using this as an excuse for not doing housework properly. She rummaged in a pile of nightgowns to find her favorite one with pink strawberries on it. Sure, of course, I will talk to him. She answered absentmindedly. Her doll-like eyelashes quivered imperceptibly, like the gentle flutter of butterfly wings. Her slightly messy curls danced on her delicate clavicle, her neck as exquisite as a swan’s, where I could see the torrent of life surging through.
The maid came in and prepared everything for shower. In her boredom, Cassidy traced the patterns on the ceramic tile wall with her short, tender fingers. Her half-peeled-off gel nails look somehow ridiculous. There was no such thing as perfection in this world, I pondered, what was seemingly perfect was in fact in a state balance, resulting from a series of compare and contrast. Beauty, intellect and opulence were mosaic pieces that collaborated to put together her perfection, yet it took but one defect to make the whole impression collapse like Dominoes. For any mission it was the same. A spark could start a prairie fire. It took but one flaw to ruin everything.
The Philippine maid had done her job. She adjusted her apron and nodded slightly to us as she started to walk out. Anne, I called her with a languorous voice. She paused and gazed at me with her honest hazel eyes, attentive as ever to every nuance. Tell Mr. Joseph to come over, Cassidy wants to speak with him over some serious business. I emphasized on the last three words deliberately, and looked up towards Cassidy with a crooked smile, exactly the replica of Joseph’s standard smile. My wife did not replicate my look, but started to undress herself in a slow, seductive and almost sinister motion. Clearly ma chérie is not in the mood of joking today, so just leave. I dismissed the maid, who was already used to the erratic moods of both mine and Cassidy’s.
The bathroom was full of fragrant steam. Water scrambled out of the shower nozzle and aggregated in the bathtub, where her face opened in thousands of petals out of pure enjoyment. The boisterous sound of running water splashing on the bathtub was as melodious as mountain water in silver pitcher. It covered everything else so later no one would knew exactly what had happened, not even myself.
I put her cellphone in the bathroom, playing her favorite song If I Die Young. Then my cellphone rang, its piercing sound transferred through the walls like a sharp knife, insistent like an annoying baby. Walking out into the dry, cold living room, I pressed answer and heard my colleague’s voice. Listen, Letum, could you come to the City Library now so that we can discuss about the Acquisition Project? I promised to arrive fifteen minutes later, and left the house after notifying the maid. When I got in the car I caught a glimpse Joseph walking towards the front gate, furtively with his absurd height and thinness. Like a cane. Wait till he was chopped in pieces. I drove away, grinning.
When I returned from the library I received some shocking news, yet they were totally explicable. The Philippine maid was never a good messenger. That depraved Joseph probably thought my lovely wife was inviting him to come for a secret date when I was away. It was obvious that when Joseph sneaked into the bathroom he made a declaration of love and attempted to molest her. When Cassidy fought back and claimed her loyalty to me, Joseph was so overtaken by his burning jealousy and resentment that he lost control of himself. Therefore, he would hold responsibility when Cassidy was discovered floating in the bathtub with bluish purple lips and hollow eyes.
That night I drove to the lawyer’s office to ask for information about the multi-million dollars of inheritance I was about to obtain. When I drove past the library I slowed down a bit. I always like the library. Words are more trustworthy than people because they don’t change half way through a sentence, so it is easier to spot a lie. When you are writing it is also harder to tell a lie. Like me, I almost revealed the truth.