Second Guessing
Second Guessing
by Roxanne Hembd
Sophie’s heart was racing; her palms were sweating. Peering into her reflection and gripping the edge of the nightclub’s bathroom sink she knew she recognized the feeling. She had ignored it the last time, and had no problem pushing it away again. Doubt. Did she make the right choice, taking this gig, bringing him here? Sophie had been here before, and risked being recognized. But it’s not like she had a choice since he was the one that brought her here. Randall Stephens was cheating on his wife. Not only that, but was planning on divorcing her, taking her family’s money, their 3 year old daughter and skipping the country. Lydia Stephens hired Sophie to make sure this didn’t happen. Sophie’s plan was to meet Randall out one night, have him take her back to his place, have a few more cocktails, and stage a little suicide. There was no room for doubt, and besides, she was born this way, raised this way. Sophie shifted the small-unregistered pistol between her thighs so it wouldn’t interfere with how she walked. She hid it well under the black strapless dress she had on. She didn’t want to risk her cover. The last thing she wanted was to end up in jail. She hadn’t exactly lived a life of honest hard work…
The agency she worked for had been in business since 1935, but clearly wasn’t advertised. Sophie’s boss was her mother, and her mother’s boss, her grandmother and grandfather. Since she was about 5 years old she knew what her mother did for work. Sophie was home schooled so as not to tell the others in her perspective kindergarten class the nature of the family business. Her friends growing up were the other adults at the agency, and her books. Her great-grandfather started the un-named, hit man agency back when he was having lunch with a colleague, the Mayor of their hometown of Camden, New Jersey. The Mayor told her grandfather the story about how his wife was having an affair and how she was having an affair with a low life, good for nothing. The dirtbag was only sleeping with his wife to attempt to black mail him, ruin his career, and take his money. This man was using his wife to break up the marriage, exploit her infidelity, and start a scandal. “If only he were gone, out of the picture… You have no idea how much this will ruin me. You have no idea how much I would pay to get rid of him…” An idea was hatched, an offer was made to the Mayor, a deal was struck, a plan was laid out, and that birthed the agency.
The rich, elite, and powerful became the clientele. Her job was to seduce, bribe, and gain trust to eliminate the target, and she had done well since her first hit, a man that was 60 with a fetish for young girls and the knack for making these young girls disappear. A suspecting father hired them to research the disappearance of his 15-year-old daughter, and once evidence was uncovered that this man had taken her, to kill him. Get revenge on his behalf, and keep the blood off his hands. She was the bait, and the plan had worked perfectly, the evidence was found, and the target eliminated, slow death by poison, and the father paid a large sum of money for peace of mind, and a part of Sophie felt like she was doing a good thing.
At a very young age Sophie’s mother had taught her that the fear and doubt that came along with the job was just her mind playing tricks. Sophie started officially working for the agency when she was just 16 years old, and after 10 years of doing the job Sophie wasn’t sure anymore. Her mind told her that this was wrong, yet her mother, the source of all of her trust, told her that it was right. They were doing society a favor, weeding out the weak, cleaning up this god-forsaken town and doing the job they were paid to do. The targets were always the same; drunks, cheaters, liars, adulterers, abusers, blackmailers, scandalous low lives and even mobsters. There was a lot of money to be exchanged, and the hit was researched thoroughly to make sure that the killing was justified and it wasn’t just an angry scorned woman trying to ease the pain of love gone wrong. But who were they to play God? Who was she to say whether or not someone was worth living or dying? Society wasn’t privy to the type of woman that she had become; then again, most didn’t know she existed. That’s how she wanted it. To be anonymous. To be unknown, unseen. A ghost. A shadow. Human smoke, weaving in and out of peoples lives, evaporating at will.
*****
Sophie wiped a paper towel across the foggy, graffiti filled bathroom mirror, stepping on crumpled papers, plastic cups, and discarded notes and wrappers from the bottoms of other ladies purses, while avoiding the other woman in the bathroom, who was passed out on the floor in the far corner. The woman, or girl, with the matted red hair, smeared mascara and ripped tights didn’t have the slightest idea what was to come in this world, and what was already surrounding her: heartbreak, lies, betrayal, drug and alcohol abuse, mayhem and the stinging slap in the face from everyday life. The small girl couldn’t have been more than 17. She was unconscious on the floor next to the trashcan in the club’s bathroom; the smell of vomit on her breath and a slight grumble of words barely escaped her mouth. You could tell she was still in high school, based on her over use of makeup, and poor nail polish color: cobalt blue. She clutched her bright red purse despite the fact that she was barely able to sit up straight. The girl’s next worry was how she was going to get home, how she would explain to her parents where she was all night, how she stayed out past curfew and got into a club with a fake ID. This adolescent didn’t have the same problems that Sophie had, the worry, and the fear that each day she went to work could possibly be her last. She could be discovered, and lose all she had worked for her whole life. She looked up and to her right at the small cracked bathroom window, with it’s broken silver latch, and the steamy stench of the alley leaking through. She could escape, slip out, pack a bag and leave the country for good, and not look back. She knows she has the money, the passports, and the skill to escape as she’d done all these years. She could lay low in France; she has been able to speak French since she was 12, and it would be no problem for her to blend right in. There it was again… the doubt. Eating her confidence until she didn’t know who she was anymore. Sophie stared at her reflection with her steel gray eyes, looking at her glossy red lips, painted pink cheeks and pale skin and took in a deep breath, exhaling slowly, pursing her lips while worry showed in the small frown on her chin and the sad look in her eyes.
But what if she wouldn’t have been born into the family business? What if she was born into a somewhat, quasi-normal lifestyle? She may have been an accountant, crunching numbers and sitting behind a desk all day or a mechanic, fixing vintage cars and coming home with stains and black fingernails. She could have been a mother, with a loving husband at home, a nine to five job, raising two little children, giving them baths and telling them bed time stories while tucking them in at night, with a kiss on the forehead. Instead she’s planning how to seduce and coax the man she was assigned to kill into trusting her enough to invite her home, then put a bullet in his brain, and collect the reward from the client and a pat on the back for a job well done.
The girl on the bathroom floor groaned, smacking her lips, pulling the hair from her damp face and asked where she was. Sophie looked down at her and felt something else she that she didn’t usually feel. She felt pity for the girl. She felt bad that the girl had to grow up so ignorant, naïve and uninformed. Sophie didn’t want a life like hers, all slumped onto a bathroom floor, loss of motor functions, and a loss of control. And just like that she shook off the last remaining shred of doubt, since it was gone. That’s not the life she knew. The life of dances, boyfriends, frat boys, college bars, sad pick up lines, mall sales and nail polish. She had the life of a hit-woman. She was cunning, trained, skilled, and could pry her way out of any situation, if she felt so inclined. She got to be anyone she wanted to be, on any given day. She traveled, ate great food at other’s expenses, and drove expensive cars. This was the life she was born into, and this was the life she was meant to lead. She may not be anyone’s mother or accountant or mechanic, and she was okay with that. Sophie washed her hands under the partially rusted cold water and cranked out a paper towel from the 1980’s wall-mounted dispenser. She dried off her hands, crumpled the paper towel and tossed it into the trash by the partially unconscious girl. Sophie looked at herself in the mirror one last time, an air of confidence beaming in her brow, she turned to exit the bathroom, pushed her way through door. Today wouldn’t be the day she escaped to France or ran away from her life, her family, her calling. She had a job to do.
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So I really REALLY enjoyed the narrative. Sophie is honest and straighforward so it makes sense that the story is as well.
I think there are a few things that could possibly be workshopped.
A) As a reader I had to go back over the hims and hers when Sophie is describing how the family business began.
B) I felt the story actually halted a bit when you mention the girl’s concerns about curfew. I felt that was conveyed just with the physical observations by Sophie.
C) I would reread and just keep track of the verb tenses. I just felt that a few times present tense was used when the rest of the paragraph used past.
Overall I thought it was a great story