She stepped out of the porch and walked down the driveway. First she opened the door to her green Honda Oddessy. She grabbed the day old black coffee cup out of the car.The woman walked to her mailbox and retrieved her mail. She was startled by the black roses. Some of her mail was heavy. She walked back towards the porch. On the way she admired her coneflowers. Those were her favorites. Even though her hands were full, she managed to stop and clip a few pink roses from her nearby rose bush. She had planted many roses over the last few years. She had bought many of them with her Chase credit card. She had several different cards that were almost maxed out. She carried the cut roses inside. Later she was going to put them in a vase. She sat down in one of her green wicker rocking chairs. She had bought two of them for her porch. She had discovered them in a catalog. They were one hundred fifty dollars a piece. She loved them. There was also a little glass table to match. She desperately needed that too. The table was also one hundred fifty dollars. She also liked to shop at Marshalls. On an earlier visit to the store, she had purchased a set of four poppy patterned tea cups. She also bought some yellow floral pillows for the wicker chairs.
Currently, one of the tea cups was resting on the table. Hot chocolate was in the cup, but now it was lukewarm. The woman picked up the cup and went into her well stocked kitchen to heat it in her pink microwave. She threw out the black roses. She didn't want to be reminded of threats.
After a minute and twenty seconds, she retrieved the cup and went back to the porch. She sat down. She grabbed the roses and saw her wedge wood blue vase on the table. It still had some water in it from yesterday. Some daisies were bent and touching the table. Bent daisies. Was that the beginning of a beautiful poem? The woman liked to write poetry. Next to the vase was a blue leather-bound journal and a Papermate ballpoint pen was resting in a pen holder. The holder was decoupage with old fashioned stamps of ballerinas. The stamps had been glued on. They were dated back to the nineteen seventies.
The woman was thirty years. She was absolutely beautiful. She was very slender. She put one rose in the vase. As she went to put the other one in she pricked her finger on the green thorn. A drop of blood appeared and it dripped. The woman gasped at the sight of blood. She remembered back to her childhood when her best friend, Lila dared her to cut her finger open. She hadn't wanted to do it. She didn't like the sight of blood. It made her think of dead people. That long ago day, her friend had grabbed a nearby knife and sliced her finger for her. She had screamed and fainted. Her friend had given her a Scooby doo band aid. That day they rubbed their bloodied fingers together and made a pact to be best friends forever.
The woman smiled at her remembrance. Her friend lived in Kingston. It was the next town over. They were still best friends. There was a secret that the woman kept from Lila. She chose not to tell her everything. She didn't want Lila knowing all about her. Some secrets were best kept hidden. Lila would be horrified if she knew about Sarah's secret life. She also wondered if she should hide the fact that she was receiving the black roses. They weren't the first ones. She felt afraid of what they meant.
The woman looked at her finger dripping. She stood and went into the kitchen. She kept a box of band aids mixed in with her boxes of elbow noodles and other foods in her cupboard. She opened the box and pulled out a small band aid. She covered her finger. She went back to the porch and sat down again. She stuck the other rose in the vase. It tilted to the side like a melancholy rose. She thought of a famous black and white photograph by Andrez Kertaz. She remembered that she had a postcard of the picture.
The woman looked at the mail. She skimmed through the catalogs. One was an L.L. Bean catalog. Sometimes she ordered some of the outfits. She had ordered a woven white hammock from it last year. She had tied it to two of her birch trees. The hammock had come to two hundred dollars. She had used her Chase credit card. The other catalog was the Lakeside collection. There was a lot of cheap stuff in that one. She had purchased a New Moon throw with Edward and Bella on it. It kept her warm sometimes.Today she planned to throw out both catalogs. There was her Chase credit card bill, her gas bill and bills for two more credit cards. Her Chase credit card was at ten thousand dollars. The other two credit cards were at fifteen thousand dollars a piece. She had also done a lot of travelling on her credit cards. Ten years ago she started travelling. She loved it. She thought it was great to see new places. She probably would never get the chance to go again. She set her bills aside. She planned to pay them next week. She wished she could just throw her bills away and start fresh. She needed to stay away from the malls. Fate brought her there. She loved to shop. It was a bad habit. She wondered if she could change her life around. It wasn't that easy. There was conflict in her life. There were things that she thought she couldn't escape from. Secrets were buried in her brain. And now someone was out to get her.
Then she spied the manila envelope. It was staring her in the face. Did she dare open it? She really didn't want to. Fate told her to open it. She was curious. It wasn't the first one. It had happened three other times. There was no return address. The mailman probably didn't put it in her mailbox. It was addressed in black lettering to Sarah Fisher. The person definitely didn't know her middle name was Marissa. She had an awful feeling she wasn't going to lke what was inside the envelope. It was another reminder of what might come her way. She would be mortified.
Sarah took another sip of her hot chocolate. She cursed when she spilled some on her shirt. She was clumsy today. She grabbed a nearby towel and dabbed at her shirt. She hoped it wouldn't leave a stain. Sometimes she spilled raspberry jelly on her shirts and it left a stain. She liked jam on her English muffins.
She hesitated and picked up the envelope. It was a little bulky. Something other than paper was in it. There was also a small box of chocolates and a black rose was resting on the tabletop. Sarah didn't like seeing the black rose. It sent frigid chills up her spine. She read the note. It was a poem.
Black Roses linger on my mind.
For you my sweet are a black rose
awaiting my sharp knife. Soon my dear.
My black rose.
Excerpt by Jennifer Jo. Fay Black Roses. online at Barnes and Noble, Amazon, etc...
Copyrighted by Jennifer Jo. Fay and Authorhouse. March 2011
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