Igor knew that as well as I did and he laughed again, I hated the sound of it. It was strange that the sound of a laugh can make you so angry. He let the silence hang between us for several seconds.
“There is a diner on fifty-Seventh Street called, “Mauve’s”. I see you there at two o’clock. I bring what you want, you bring what I need.” Then he hung up. I looked at the time, it was ten o’clock now. I had four hours to wait. I realized after one hour passed that it was going to be a really long day. There was one more anxiety attack on the horizon and it hit hard. I fought through it and managed to be ready and get to the restaurant ten minutes early. Igor was already there, seated in a booth at the far end of the diner next to a window. I swallowed hard and had to force my legs to move and walk towards him. The bag on my shoulder was really big and really heavy and as I walked towards him I let myself imagine that suddenly undercover officers would jump out of their seats with their guns drawn and order me down on the floor. They would find me red-handed with all of the money and Igor would slip out the back door. Aaron would be so angry that he would never visit me in jail and by the time I got out of jail he would have that beautiful wife who wasn’t me and two point five kids. My imagination was beginning to get out of hand.
“Hello beautiful,” Igor said when I got next to the table. I dropped down onto the seat across from him and hoped that the look on my face was relaying my distaste for him and his terms of endearment. Before either of us could speak further, the waitress was there with the coffee po
t. Igor had a half empty breakfast plate in front of him. The rude thug ate without me. It wasn’t like I was going to join him for a meal, but it was bad manners for him to not ask. It was one more point against him.
“Can I get you anything, hon?” the waitress asked me.
“No, coffee is fine,” I told her. Once she was gone I said, “This isn’t a social meet. I want to finish our business and get out of here. I don’t ever want to see you again. Did you bring it?”
He grinned a nasty grin and laid a manila folder on the table. I reached for it.
Igor’s gaze pierced me as he asked, “What about you? Did you bring what you were supposed to, or did you only come here to insult me?”
With a sigh, I flipped open the top of the bag so he could see the cash inside. I closed it quickly and said, “I want to see the document first.” He opened the folder and inside of it was a State of New York official marriage license with our names on it. I reached over and felt the seal with my fingertips. It felt real, all I could do was say a silent prayer that he wasn’t scamming me. While I was doing that, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a gold ring. It was the ring that he’d used as a wedding ring when we got married. He laid it on top of the folder. I picked up the bag and handed it over by passing it under the table to him. Then, I put the cellphone down in front of him and picked up the folder and the ring and without saying another word to him I left the restaurant. Once I was outside, not arrested and with the original marriage certificate in hand I felt a wave of relief wash over my body. I let out the breath I’d been holding for two weeks. It was over…
I went home right after that and opened all of the windows in the apartment. I happily breathed in the fresh, almost spring air while I cleaned and dusted, mopped and vacuumed. I hadn’t been able to concentrate on anything other than Igor and the money for the past two weeks, not even housework and laundry. I was on my last clean pair of underwear. I turned up the music and danced as I cleaned. I felt like my soul was finally at peace.
My phone rang around four, it was Aaron. I still had some residual anxiety so for a few seconds, I held my breath to see what he was calling to say. My imagination was working overtime again and I was imagining now that Igor had called him as soon as I’d walked out of that restaurant. My life was becoming consumed by guilt and paranoia. I was going to start hearing the pounding of my guilty heart in my ears soon.
“Hi baby,” he said when I picked up the phone. God that sounded like heaven compared to the creepy sound of when Igor calls me that.
“Hi there, handsome, how are you?”
“I am great. I just finished my last meeting of the day and I wondered if you would be free for a date on the town tonight.”
“I’m always free for you,” I told him. I couldn’t wait for a night out with him now, completely stress free at last. I wondered if he wanted to go dancing again.
“Okay then,” he said. “I have tickets for Wicked at seven-thirty. Dinner before or after?”
“Wicked! Really?” I was so excited I was beside myself. I was glad I was alone in the apartment because I was actually dancing a little jig. I’d always wanted to see that play on Broadway. I think I’d mentioned it once to Aaron in passing. He remembered. He was amazing.
He laughed, “Really. Orchestra A seats too.” With Aaron, I had come to expect nothing less.
I looked at the clock and down at myself. I looked like Cinderella way before the ball. “How about we wait and do dinner after. I’d like time before to get really pretty for you.”
“I’d be willing to bet you look gorgeous right now,” he said. “But okay, we’ll have dinner afterwards.”
“You’re sweet, but you’d lose that bet. What time shall I expect you?”
“Jeffrey and I will be there by six.”
“Okay, I’ll hurry,” I said. “Thank you for this, I’m so excited.”
“Good, I want your life to be filled with that feeling. I love you, Robyn.”
“I love you so much!”
I hung up and squealed out loud. I was so excited I felt like a little girl on her way to Disney World. I went in and looked in my closet first to see what I would wear. I had an Anne Klein dress I’d bought on clearance a while back and I had yet to wear; I thought it would be perfect for tonight. I took it out and held it up to me.
It was a sleek sheath design, red with black piping and a round, notched neckline. The sleeves were elbow-length and it zipped up the back. There was a little vent in the center of the back and I had a pair of black pumps that would go great with it. I ran myself a bubble bath to soak in and when I got out, I carefully applied my make-up and put my hair up in a loose bun with curls hanging down along the side of my face. I put on the necklace Aaron bought me for Valentine’s Day. I touched it, remembering what Igor had said about me selling it. I shuddered at the memory. Fortunately, the doorbell rang, pulling my mind out of that particular gutter, Aaron to the rescue once again. I put all thoughts of Igor behind me and resolved to go out and have the best night of my life with my love tonight.
The play was amazing, I sat enraptured by it while Aaron held my hand and occasionally whispered in my ear. During the intermission, I was still exploding from so many different emotions. I wasn’t sure which ones were from the knowledge that I was free of Igor and which were from the literally incredible show. I mean who doesn’t love a dancing monkey? Who wouldn’t be spellbound by the love between a green girl who everyone is frightened of and a handsome young man that all the girls want? I certainly was and it felt like I finally had all of those questions I had as a kid when I watched the Wizard of Oz at least a hundred times finally answered. While we had a glass of wine and Aaron and I posed for pictures for the press, all I really wanted was for the intermission to be over so that we could go back in and watch some more. As we sipped our wine and I tried not to act too anxious, he introduced me to one of his business associates that we ran into, a man named Boris and his wife Felicia. I felt the sick knot of anxiety twist its ugly fist in pit of my stomach once again when Boris opened his mouth. He was Russian and he spoke with a very deep accent. Fighting the nausea I was feeling just at the sound of the man’s voice I put out my hand and shook his and said, “So nice to meet you.”
Then, I began imagining that he was someone Igor sent here to watch me. I realized that paranoia was becoming a part of my every day and it was becoming ridiculous. Hopefully after a few days without that monkey on my back my thoughts would return to normal. At last the intermission was over and we got to go back to our seats. I asked Aaron on the way in how he was enjoying it.
A deep smile crept across his face. “The score is fantastic.”
“You’ve never seen the Wizard of Oz, have you?”
“No, I never have.” He at least had the decency to look embarrassed about it. I just shook my head at him and told him that we would have to put it on the top of our list the next time we had a movie night at home. He smiled, but I wasn’t sure he was as enthusiastic about it as I was.
After the show was over we went to a really nice little French bistro in Manhattan for dinner.
The neighborhood around the restaurant was loud with eclectic music drifting out from the apartment building down the street and heavy traffic passing by on the main Avenue out front. It was a little stone store front with tiny little wrought iron fences along the front and potted sego palms on either side of the door. When we walked inside it felt like we’d been transported to Paris, or at least the way I imagined Paris to be. The restaurant was quiet with soft lighting that gave it a warm glow and charming atmosphere. It smelled of rich pastry and fresh bread and soft, French music piped through the speakers. We were greeted warmly by the hostess who knew Aaron on sight. Aaron introduced me to her and she said, “I’m so pleased to meet you, Mr. Winters told me all about