The Universe Will Provide

Eyes closed, she puts on her lipstick without looking into the mirror. Then she looks. Perfect application, as always. She surveys her peplum green dress. Kelly green. She remembers this color from high-school art class. Back then it was called, what? Permanent Green Light, that’s it. At least in acrylics. She’s not sure if there’s an equivalent color in oil paints. She shakes her head, clearing it of childhood memories.

Art class is far away.

Her shoulders straighten, her chin tilts up. “This is a great opportunity,” she tells herself. “The Universe Will Provide.” It always has.

She grabs her purse and car keys from their assigned hooks. She puts her lipstick in her purse. She steps out the front door. She locks it and expertly pivots on her stiletto heels. Her car is parked across the street.

As she strides the sidewalk, tiptoes over the city grass and navigates the curb, she whispers under her breath, “This promotion is manifesting for me. I got this.”

A bright blue Ford F-150 turns the corner. It’s a controlled turn, nice and slow, no problems. Plenty of time for the pedestrian to cross the street. Then the driver drops a freezing cold, open can of soda into his lap. He shrieks, his right foot stomping hard on the gas.

The truck hits her, just clips her. She spins and falls, the back of her head connecting with a fire hydrant. Her last clear thought is, “Cobalt blue. The color of the truck. Cobalt.”

It takes more than a month to die, hooked up to tubes and monitors. Finally, her husband gives the okay to “pull the plug.” Her organs are harvested and she is taken off life support. It comforts her husband and the driver of the truck, a neighbor and family friend, to know her death is saving others’ lives.

Her kids – Leena, Kate, Margot and John – get back to work on the business of growing up.

#

When Margot is 18, she dresses in a form-fitting gray, pinstriped blazer over her best thrift-store find so far, a vintage 1970s pink silk top with a bow. She pairs it with wide-legged, black denim pants. She wears four-inch, suede heels with black heels and toes and hot pink vamps. Another thrift-store score. She walks well in them, like a model. She practices a lot.

“Mommy, why are the lady we saw at the bank’s ankles all wobbly when she walks in high heels? Your ankles stay straight,” says 6-year-old Margot.

“Let me show you, sweetheart. You walk like this: heel-toe, heel toe. Heel goes down first, toes follow. Heel-toe, heel-toe.”

Eighteen-year-old Margot walks the room, softly reciting, “Heel goes down first, toes follow. Heel goes down first, toes follow. Heel-toe, heel-toe.”

Margot is preparing for an interview for a big college scholarship to art school so she can go into package design. Not a full ride, but close. If she gets it, it will help her dad, who struggles to provide for four kids, let alone save for their education. From time to time, he manages to put a little money aside for each of them, but it’s meager and piecemeal.

Standing in front of a mirror with her eyes closed, Margot applies lipstick with such a delicate touch she doesn’t need to blot it. When she opens her eyes, she sees she did it perfectly. Again. She smiles.

Her dad’s car is parked across the street. It’s a carmine-red, 1998 Subaru Legacy Station Wagon, and he keeps it in great shape. The car is so ancient, Margot’s friends consider it appealingly retro, “sort of sick, actually.”

Dad took the bus to work this morning, even though taking it more than doubles his commute, so his daughter could make the two-hour drive to her interview. He is proud of her independence and her “take charge” attitude. He calls her “my grown-up dynamo” and “mature beyond your years.”

As she sashays out the front door, cellphone in back pocket, shoulder bag at the ready, keys in one hand, art portfolio in the other, Margot says to herself, “The Universe Will Provide.”

#

Three weeks later, the car is found wedged into a culvert. Margot’s unmolested portfolio lays flat in the back of the car. None of her other belongings are located. Her cellphone can’t be traced. The perpetrator or perpetrators may have destroyed the phone.

When the forensics team dusts for them, no fingerprints are revealed except for Margot’s and those of her family and friends. In the driver’s seat are a few drops of Margot’s blood, the only sign of a struggle.

No one who loves her ever sees Margot again.

THE END

BIO: It started when E.D. Taylor was 3 years old and allowed to look through a coffee table book of Michelangelo’s sculpture and paintings. From then on, making art became a serious thing for her, up to and including clandestine crayon scribblings on her parents’ freshly painted walls. Her work has been exhibited in diverse venues including Eastern State Penitentiary, SPACES Cleveland and the Flat Files at PIEROGI. Currently, E.D. is creating visual art while writing a book of poetry, short stories and a novel. Marking her first publication, her hard-crime short story “Tansie” is slated to feature on Creepy Podcast.