I Want Your Life!

Sharlene Glaze and Deborah Pinnock were always competitive from Elementary school straight up to high school.

Deborah was assisting her mother, a Caregiver to 89-year-old Millicent Rivers, who lives next door when suddenly the back door burst open, and Sharlene flew in. She was waving an opened letter in the air while screaming, “I got in! I got in! The University of Pennsylvania accepted me.”

“Young lady, didn’t your mother taught you to knock before entering people’s homes?” Deborah’s mother complains after dropping the pot cover on the floor in fright.

“I told you that girl was a wild one,” Millicent Rivers, her charge, said, eyeing her from across the kitchen table.

“Sorry, Aunt Rose, but look?” she apologizes, pushing the letter in her direction.

Deborah reached down, taking the pot cover off the floor, while her mother took Sharlene’s letter, and begin to read it.

Then hugging her in delight, complimenting, “Congrats, honey, your mother will be happy. Deborah and I are thrilled for you...” Mrs.Pinnock said, alerted by her daughter’s silence.

Both of their heads swayed in her direction as Mrs. Rivers said, “Of course she’s elated for you.”

Deborah gave them a plastic smile, thanking God it wasn’t hot, then said, “I am happy for you,” hugging her best friend, jealousy skipping in her heart.

While Deborah waits impatiently for her scholarship letter, they spend the time planning their future.

Fate or destiny stole Deborah’s letter, so she had to settle for Community College staying close to home and family. Battling jealousy and sadness, but thanks to technology, they could talk every day.

As Sharlene would often call, the first year was good, boasting about how pleased she was and how excellent she was doing. She didn’t return home to visit her Mom for Spring Break or any other holidays, including the long Summer break. Her excuse, “She was doing extra volunteer work.”

“Can I come and serve too?” Deborah asks, missing her best friend badly.

After a brief hesitation, she claimed, “They have more than enough volunteers. I got to go, girl,” then hangs up.

The second year, the calls became fewer, and when Deborah call, she got voice mail. Her emails and texts were often unanswered, even though Sharlene was on social media often. She would neglect her birthday and other days they use to celebrate. Deborah didn’t.

Amid her second year, Deborah's Mom was diagnosed with breast cancer. Changing her major to Nursing, then securing a scholarship to pay for her final two years in College.

Sharlene finished College, came home, lingered for a week, then left to live her dream in the ‘real world.’

Their hometown of Beacon, New York, the 60th largest city in New York and the 237th in the United States, population 2020, with 14, 370 people, wasn’t big enough to sustain her dreams, expectations, and capabilities. She demanded better.

After earning her nursing degree, Deborah acquired another scholarship to attend Pace University.

She wanted to be Nurse Practitioner while focusing on Women’s health. Sharlene’s mother, who was Diabetic and Hypertensive, became her first patient. Deborah often visits her at home since she lived alone. She would regularly boast about how wonderful Sharlene was doing and how she was dating a millionaire.

“Tell her I said hi,” Deborah said.

Leaving the hospital late one night, as she was entering her car, someone came up behind her in the parking lot, pushed a knife into her back, and grabbed her purse. Sgt. Peter Craig, a former marine turn police officer, was in the vicinity when she screamed and came to her help. The robber got away with her purse and the seventeen dollars that were in it.

One year later, they were married in a small but lovely ceremony, Sharlene’s Mom in attendance. As the years went by, her health deteriorated, and she stopped talking about her only child. Rumors running around got to Deborah, and she asked her husband to check them out. Her Mom warned her, ‘see and blind and hear and deaf.’

Deborah obeyed.

Over twenty-five years later, and two weeks before Christmas, Sharlene’s mother died of a brain aneurysm. At the funeral, Sharlene was overdone, with heavy makeup, excessive but expensive attire; she was hiding something and proving her drug addiction’s rumors to be true.

She was trying to rekindle their friendship without an apology. They fought because Deborah believes that her lack of compassion towards the woman who gave her life and everything else, contributes to her death. The night after the funeral, Deborah was having dinner with her family. Petra, her twelve-year-old daughter, named for her father, and Devonté, her ten-year-old son, named for her.

The front door burst open; instinctively, Peter jumped into action.

“Well, well, well,” Sharlene said on entering, clutching her expensive grey leather Gucci bag, strutting in, in her baby pink Jimmy Choo stiletto heels, as if she was on the runway in London. Her heavy makeup hid the pain and fear in her eyes, but not from Deborah. She could see through them. She was always skinny, but not thread-thin as she is now.

Her pink and grey pants suit adds nothing to her skeletal frame.

“Oh, it’s you,” her husband said in relief; taking back his seat beside his wife, he warned, ‘Don’t make a habit of that in an Ex-marine/police officer’s home. You could get killed.”

Four pairs of eyes focus on her as she eases slowly around the living room, capturing and observing how beautiful the works of art that decorate the room, complement the expensive antique furniture. “Girl, you outdid me,” she congratulates without intent. “I love your house. How many bedrooms do you have upstairs?”

“What do you want?” Deborah demands, resting her fork on her plate.

She slowly opened her bag and took a.357 shiny Derringer from her purse, pointing it at Deborah.

The children scream. Her husband’s hands grabbed hers under the table. It was a sign to let her know he used to be a marine, and he knows how to handle this.

Deborah took a deep breath, fighting to control the rage that was lifting her body temperature higher and higher, then exhales, “You are scaring my children. This is between us. Leave my family out of it.

“I want your life,” she said, her body slowly rocking side to side.

“I had to fight hard for everything I got in my life. You helped me many times when we were in school. Your Mom denied you nothing. She had more money than everyone on both sides of my family, ” Deborah reminds her.

“With all the money my mom had, you and your family were always happier than us.”

“You should know, wealth doesn’t always mean happiness,” Deborah said, wrestling to free her hands from her husband’s vice-grip, her eyes focus on Sharlene.

“I want this house,” she went on.

“You are your mother’s heir. You can buy a better house than this,” Deborah assures.

“Not one as happy as yours. Walking in here, I can feel the happiness. It embraces me but doesn’t stick around. However, it seems to always stay with you.”

Deborah nods as her husband’s hand squeezed hers tighter, then releases, “happiness must be earned. You can’t use or borrow mine. You must work for your own.”

Glancing at her children, she recognizes the terror in their eyes as they trembled in fear.

“You were never as beautiful as I am, yet you found the love of a lifetime. I want that too,” she continues.

“So, you want my house, my husband, and my children too?” Deborah asks.

“I want it all, your life too.”

“Well,” Deborah said, trying to ease up as her husband held on stronger, forcing her to stay seated. Still focus on Sharlene, she continues, “You can’t have a life that’s already lived. To get my life, you must go back in time and change something. Changing one thing changes everything. And only I can live my life.”

Suddenly Sharlene falls to the ground as a single shot hits the ceiling, and the chandelier crashed on the table while screams rock the house. Mrs. Pinnock stood over Sharlene, a fruitcake in her hand, then she said, “I told you your Aunt Ivy’s fruitcake is a weapon!”

Deborah made a deal with Sharlene, “Clean up your act, go to Rehab, and fight to save the real Sharlene, and I won’t press charges against you.”

Trembling in tears before the judge, she agreed.

“I will know because I can read your eyes,” Deborah said, hugging her before the bailiff took her away.

Friendship, like all things in life, will be tested before it can get stronger.

Thank you for reading this piece. I hope you enjoyed it and is inspired.

For a smile.