(Continued from last week, we pick it up with Fred coming through the open front door of my house)
Inside, the two-story foyer looked normal. He called the girl’s name just as a very wet feline streaked past him and up the stairs. Again, Fred called out the girl’s name. No answer.
He moved into the family room and saw what remained of what probably had once been a pretty good party – so good, in fact, that the maid must have joined in the fun and had gotten too inebriated to clean up after. There were many glasses, some empty and some half-full, with remains of a scary looking orangeish drink. The TV had been left on and there was a movie running in the VCR. Fred recognized it as “The Exorcist.” His head began spinning.
He made the decision to keep going and walked into the kitchen, where he found some empty pints of peach schnapps next to a blender and cartons of orange juice. It was the perfect combo – drinking orange Fuzzy Navels while watching Linda Blair spew green pea soup everywhere.
Fred, now hopefully racked with guilt and hating himself, walked up the stairs to the master bedroom. Fritz, the black cat, was lounging there, licking himself dry. He looked up as Fred passed as if to say – “good luck talking your way out of this big boy.” In the master bath, the large whirlpool tub was full. The water, or whatever was in it, was purple. There were women’s clothes and shoes on the floor.
Fred left the house and drove back to work hoping to find the girl. He arrived but she had not shown up yet. He called her parent’s home. They did not know her whereabouts. They did know something, however, because her father said, “I think you better meet me back at your friend’s house.”
Back inside what had become my pagan home, the father told Fred that his daughter had called him last night by mistake. She was obviously intoxicated, and when he began to question her, she quickly got off the phone. He knew where she was staying, however, and immediately drove over. But when he arrived no one was there. He said that both the front and back door were open. He knew his daughter had sounded distraught on the phone, and when he looked out in the back yard and saw the pond, he assumed she had thrown herself in.
He called 911 and a rescue unit showed up and began dragging the pond for a body. In minutes half the neighborhood stood around the water, waiting. The search went on for a while until one of the missing girl’s cousins, who had been at the party, showed up and told her father that the girl was not in the pond but was safe and hiding because she was so scared. The rescue unit was told the news and everyone went home. I guess they were all so relieved that no one remembered to shut the front door.
When the father finished the story, Fred told him that we would be home in two days and they needed to get the place cleaned up. The father took a look around and told Fred, “Yes, you better get going on that.”
When confronted with pieces of evidence from the incident, Fred came clean. This ended his house-sitting career, at least for us anyway. The girl eventually came back to work, in all her shame. But as we forgave Fred, he forgave her. And we have forever, a story most still find hard to believe.