Chapter 7
Morrow yelps, the noise jarring Sylvie, who still hasn’t registered that this is really happening. She is not panicked like
perhaps she should be, definitely not to the point of yelping. No, Sylvie persists in her thinking, things like this don’t happen in Sunset Beach.
The yelp gets Tommy’s attention as well, and he turns toward the sound, keeping the gun raised, but now he points it at the
four women in line. Sylvie reaches back to Morrow and lays her hand on her forearm, hoping to calm her. “I think,” Sylvie
says to the room, “that we all just need to take a breath here.”
She makes eye contact with Nadine, who has gone deathly pale. “Perhaps you two could set up a time to talk . . . later?” She
hears the words as they leave her mouth, how inane they are. She fumbles for the right thing to say, scrambling to recall
things she’s heard before. “It sounds like you’ve got some things to sort through,” she adds.
Tommy grins as he shakes his head. “There ain’t nothing to sort through.” He faces Nadine and uses the gun this time to jab
at the envelope on the counter. “But there is something to tear through.” He raises the gun and points it directly at his
wife.
“Tear it up,” he tells her. “Now.”
They all watch as Nadine raises her arms from where they hang at her sides.
Her hands hover in the airspace just above the envelope as she seems to consider her options, her gaze flitting from Tommy to the four other women.
Aside from their collective unsteady breathing, the room is silent.
She lowers her hands toward the envelope as they all inhale in expectation.
With any luck, she will just tear up the papers and, satisfied, Tommy will slink away. After he’s gone, Sylvie decides, she
will help Nadine gather the bits of paper. She will throw them away for her, get her some water, and assure her that tearing
up the papers doesn’t mean she’s torn up her chance to get away from this crazy man. It is not about the papers but the intent
behind them. Even if the step she has taken has failed, it is just a temporary setback.
Nadine picks up the envelope and stares down at it. A feeling of unity hangs in the room as everyone wills her to tear it
in two. The ripping sound will be the best thing they’ve heard all day. “I—” Nadine says.
Just then the door to the post office opens and they all turn to see a woman walking in, her arms full of a large basket wrapped
in cellophane and tied with a huge bow. The woman is so focused on managing the basket that she doesn’t notice what is going
on at the front of the room. She doesn’t notice anything until Tommy turns the gun on her. He runs toward her, yelling, “Get
the hell out of here!”
Seeing Tommy coming at her, gun drawn, the woman drops the basket and runs out, shrieking. The basket crashes to the floor
and the cellophane pops open on impact. The contents spill out over the floor, and Tommy has to do some fancy footwork to
miss tripping over the items, which is pretty remarkable considering his level of intoxication. But he continues chasing the
woman, who gets away before he can reach the door.
Muttering a string of expletives, Tommy shuts the door that leads out to the vestibule.
He pushes a large display of greeting cards in front of the door, then reaches for another display case, this one smaller and full of travel brochures.
He attempts to pull a heavier cabinet full of mailing supplies over, but it is too heavy and he only pulls it halfway before giving up.
As he does, the women register a shift in the situation: He is barricading them in.
With Tommy’s attention focused elsewhere, the woman who’d been on the phone turns and bolts toward the back, darting behind
the partition that Sylvie had been trying to see past earlier. The other four women follow her lead. But she has a head start,
and she is fast. She wasn’t lying about all those workouts. All that protein consumption has clearly served her well.
As she runs, Sylvie hears the blood pound in her ears. She is amazed at the strength of her beating heart, at the ability
of her legs to carry her. She would not have thought herself capable of such a feat at her age. But here she is, running alongside
women much younger than her. We can, she thinks as the doors that lead outside open wide, the daylight streaming through, do a lot of things we don’t think we can do. She hears Tommy calling for them to stop, but they just keep running through the warehouse area, her eyes intent on the letters
E-X-I-T over the double doors at the back of the building.
Blythe hears the gunshot at the same moment a bullet whizzes past her head and the doors close behind the woman on the phone,
who has gotten away. The bullet hits the exit sign, cracking it as pieces of glass rain to the floor. The four remaining women
stop in their tracks, staring at the mosaic of shards on the floor between them and the now-closed doors.
Tommy reaches them and walks across the glass, which crunches under his boots until he comes to a stop in front of them. The
exit is behind him, only a few feet away. But they will not be getting out through it now.
“Now, where do you think you’re going?” he asks Nadine.
He uses the gun to point at the remaining three.
“I’m sorry, ladies, but it doesn’t look like any of y’all are going anywhere.
” He shakes his head. “You should’ve torn up the papers when you had a chance,” he tells Nadine. “Now look what you’ve done.”
“I was going to,” Nadine says. “I had it in my hands. You saw me.” She gestures at Blythe and Sylvie and Morrow. “They saw
me.” All three women nod in agreement as Nadine continues. “I just didn’t get the chance because of the lady with the basket.”
Was she really going to tear them up? No one knows. And it doesn’t matter now.
Blythe watches with something akin to pity as Nadine softens her voice and says sweetly, “Let’s go back up front and I’ll
tear up the papers and these ladies can all go home and you and I can go somewhere and talk.” There is a plea in her voice
that borders on begging. None of the other women like hearing it. And yet they understand and even admire her for trying to
intervene.
Tommy shakes his head, a grim look on his face. “It’s too late,” he says. “They’re already calling the cops.”
He doesn’t say who “they” are, but the women know who he means—the woman with the gift basket and the one who just made it
out the door to freedom. They also know he’s right; the police have probably been notified. And they are relieved at the thought.
The cops will come and put an end to this soon. For their part, they just need to cooperate, to do whatever needs doing to
get them out of here. Though they never say it aloud, it is understood and agreed upon with the looks they exchange between
them.
Tommy backs toward the exit door, the gun aimed at them as he locks it. That done, he spies a chain on the floor, giving a
sadistic little laugh as he grabs it and quickly loops it around the door handles, making it even harder for anyone to get
in from outside. That done, he turns and waves the gun at them.
“Now, let’s all get back to where we were and figure out what to do next.
” His gaze falls on Sylvie, and he raises his eyebrows as if in question, even though he hasn’t asked one.
In that moment, with that look, she sees uncertainty, anxiety, the need for reassurance.
She sees a little boy playing at a man’s game.
Now that she has seen it, she can’t unsee it.
She isn’t sure if this glimpse into Tommy’s humanity is good or bad.
She hopes that soon he will let them go and it won’t matter either way.