Greg, Eric and Fran were in our living room, all of them were startled at my state -- which was not good! God, for some reason, I had started to cry and then sob and then -- I don't know what else --
I told them what happened...
I had been taking one of those showers... the ones where you just can't get out. You crank the water to hot hot hot -- it becomes a steambath in there. You soap your body with the good soap, the one you got for Christmas and save for these occasions, you're relaxed, you're almost meditating, it's sooooo good! And from far away....
I heard the front door bell.
Or thought I did.
I ignored it.
And kept lathering, kept the water hot. Yeah, yeah -- what doorbell, I dismissed it and finished my steam. Then, wrapped in the white bathrobe I'd stolen from the spa in San Diego, I sort of droop around the house for a while. I went to the kitchen and got some sparkling water, sat on the sofa, clicked on the TV and caught the end of Oprah...
I remembered the doorbell. "Musta been FED-EX or somethin'", I thought and meandered to the front door, opened it --
Flowers.
One of those cheesy gold foil boxes from "Leave It To Beaver", the kind Ward brought home to June... on the ground, on our welcome mat.
Flowers.
Who'd have sent flowers? I picked 'em up, went into the house and remember thinkin', "gosh these were light for flowers". Sitting on the sofa, I muted Oprah and slipped off the red bow. I lifted the box lid and my heart stopped.
A dozen red, long-stemmed roses...
Dead.
Withered, dead roses. A note on the dried twigs. My hand was shaking. My fingers took so long to open the note, which read:
I dropped the card.
I knew who had done this. Rudy. Rudy Marinaro had struck again.
Fran, Greg and Eric were stunned. Then outraged. They exploded, got up and ranted and raved about lawsuits, threats, legal action. Eric asked me where the flowers were, I'd thrown them out immediately. He got them from the trash and again the three of them blew up.
I just sat there. I must have been numb. I felt drugged. But also, relieved that my friends and my boyfriend had such concern and outrage for this situation I'd been in.
Eric demanded, "We're calling Mark Fitzgerald." I said no, that I didn't want to get back into the lawsuit business -- I just wanted to forget the whole thing. But Eric was adamant and relentless...
"I won't have you tortured like this! I won't have some lunatic stalking you or me or coming to our house, Andrew. I won't! We're calling Mark."
We both agree that the first thing I should do is call the police.
I did.
