The Devil You Know Read Online Free Page A

her breath without meaning to in a
desire to remain unobtrusive, frozen by indecision. Finally, she laid her hand
on the back of the pew and cleared her throat. The man’s head shot up in an
instant, a look of shame and fear on his face. Marie knew immediately she had
made a mistake, that she should have let him be, and blurted out, “I’m so
sorry. I didn’t mean to disturb you.”
    Without
saying a word, the man wiped at his eyes and began to stand. As he fumbled for
a jacket he had laid on the pew beside him, Marie saw that his left forearm was
heavily bandaged. Jacket in hand, he turned and began to exit the pew, toward
the stained glass windows and away from the center aisle.
    Seeing
that she had effectively chased him off, Marie pleaded with him. “Please don’t.
I was just leaving. I can get Father Harris for you.” But the man was already
halfway up the aisle, walking rapidly toward the back of the church without a
backward glance. “Or I could just leave you be,” she said, her voice just above
a whisper now, as she knew it would do no good.
    Seconds
later, the closing of the doors echoed through the chapel, and Marie looked
down with shame and regret. “Damn it,” she said, thinking neither about how the
words bounced off the windows nor the large wooden crucifix above the altar.
With a sigh, she moved on to the back of the church. Outside in the small
parking lot, she could hear the fading sound of a car engine, and promised
herself to mind her own business from now on as she walked slowly to her car.
    * * * * * * * *
    Fifteen
minutes later, Marie parked her car in front of a modest house off of Melrose
Avenue just a few blocks east of her own. She had lit a cigarette halfway to
Elise’s and put it out now before she gathered her garment bag from the back seat,
and walked quickly to Elise’s front door. Her friend answered the door in her
slip and ushered Marie inside. “Thank you so much for doing this,” she said,
and gave Marie a quick hug. “Just put your things over there.” She waved
vaguely in the direction of her tiny living room and darted back to her
bedroom, leaving Marie to wonder just where she was supposed to set anything.
The living room was a shambles with dresses in a myriad of colors and styles
draped over every bit of furniture, and shoes scattered across the floor.
    “You’re
just in time to zip me,” Elise said, as she came back out in a long, blue dress
that gathered tightly at the waist and dipped low in the neckline.
    “You
look beautiful,” Marie told her as she pulled the zipper up the back, careful
not to catch Elise’s long red hair in the teeth.
    “Thanks,
sweetie,” Elise said, turning and smoothing the material across her stomach.
“Now let’s get you started. What’d you bring?”
    After
only a glance at the green dress Marie pulled out of her bag, Elise shook her
head. “Too country club,” she said. “That the best you had?”
    Marie
raised an eyebrow, but before she could speak, Elise continued.
    “Don’t
worry yourself. We’re about the same size. One of mine should work.”
    Twenty
minutes later, Marie stood before the full-length mirror in Elise’s bedroom,
admiring the way she looked in a bright red dress that shimmered when she
moved. She had been dressing the part of a church secretary for close to two
years now, rarely wearing things that accentuated her figure, and now felt both
embarrassed and excited by the way the dress made her look; it hugged her hips
and bust and made her feel truly glamorous for the first time since her wedding
day. Her auburn hair hung to just below her shoulders, and the curl at the end
of it tickled the skin left exposed by the low-backed dress. The image in the
mirror took her back to a time when she had dressed more provocatively, before
the war, before her widowhood, and before she had gotten out of the habit of
trying to raise men’s eyebrows. Seeing herself this way again made her feel
good, feminine and