Page 2 of When People Leave

Carla

C arla loved being alive until she wasn’t.

Carla tossed and turned in bed, rolling from her stomach to her left side, then to her right side, then back to her stomach.

Her legs became wrapped in satin sheets and her duvet lay crumpled on the carpet.

She dreamed that she was lying on her bedroom floor while flying horses danced above her in a Cirque du Soleil ballet sequence.

She could smell the hay on their breath as they whinnied and snorted.

Carla bicycled her legs toward the ceiling as she tried to grab hold of one of them.

It pained her not to be able to ride; she wasn’t fast enough to catch the horses.

They rotated around her head like part of a merry-go-round, one that squeaked so loudly it needed oil.

Oh no, it’s the big one! She jumped out of bed, pushing her feet into the ground to steady herself.

She raised her hands as if she were about to fight off an attacker instead of Mother Nature.

She waited in the dark anticipating what would come next, but the only sound in the room was the whoosh of heat fleeing through the vent.

Albert, part bulldog, part dachshund, part wrinkled loaf of bread, stared at her solemnly. After a moment, he put his paws up on the mattress and pushed on it, causing it to shake again.

“That was you? You scared me, young man,” Carla said to Albert.

She wiped the sleep out of her eyes and glanced at the clock on the dresser. It was only 5:30 a.m.

“It’s Sunday. You have to let me sleep for at least one more hour.” She sighed, kissed him on his furry head, and laid back down. She stretched her legs out, feeling the cool, silken sheets surrounding her body.

As she felt herself drifting off, Albert let out a loud bark. Carla jerked upright, staring at him with raised eyebrows. Albert never barked.

He barked again, even louder and more insistent this time.

“What are you trying to tell me?” She wrinkled her forehead and whispered, “Is someone breaking in?” He put his tail between his legs and ran out of the room. Something inside Carla told her she needed to follow him as he ran ahead to the front door, whining.

She dropped to the floor in the living room and crawled over to the window, where she painstakingly and as surreptitiously as she could, pulled a slat away from the blinds.

Her eyes opened wide and she had a hard time believing that what she saw was real.

Martha, her eighty-year-old neighbor’s garage was engulfed in flames.

Carla flung open her front door, the stench of burning wood hitting her nose. She waved her hands in front of her face to protect her eyes from the smoke and ash that blew toward her. At any minute the gentle breeze could turn into gusts, carrying the fire through the entire neighborhood.

Carla took off running despite wearing pajamas with holes in the armpits.

Being a realtor, she knew the layout of every house in her Studio City neighborhood.

She raced across the street, yelling toward the second-floor window where Martha’s bedroom was.

Carla prayed she’d see Martha running out the front door any second, but Martha was likely still asleep.

Several neighbors must have heard Carla’s screams because they ran toward Martha’s house.

“Call 911!” Carla hollered.

She opened Martha’s gate and sprinted into the backyard. The fire hadn’t reached the back of the house yet, so she tried the back door. Even with Carla’s admonitions, Martha sometimes forgot to lock it. Of course, today she’d remembered.

Carla was not a tall woman, but she was strong. She picked up a garden gnome and smashed through the window in the back door, turning her head away to avoid flying glass. She reached inside, unlocked the door, and ran up to the second floor, finding Martha asleep, curled around her cat.

Strands of Martha’s alabaster hair crept out of her sleep bonnet, almost covering her eyes. Next to the bed sat eyeglasses the color of red peppers with cat-eye lenses that looked as if they should be on a pop singer, not an elderly woman with a thimble collection.

Carla shook her gently. “Martha, wake up.”

Martha slowly opened her eyes. At first, she stared at Carla as if she didn’t know who she was, then sat up so quickly that she knocked her cat, Fluffy, off the bed. Fluffy ran past Carla and out of the room.

“Why are you in my bedroom?” Martha asked, her voice slightly scratchy.

“Your garage is on fire.”

“My garage is on fire ?”

“We need to get you out of here!” Carla said, handing Martha her glasses.

Carla knew Martha would be embarrassed to be seen in her granny nightgown even though she was a granny. Carla grabbed Martha’s robe from the chair, and the two of them hurried down the stairs and out the back door.

When the smoke hit their lungs, they began coughing. They made it to the side gate when Martha stopped so suddenly that Carla almost fell over her.

“We need to get Fluffy!” Martha yelled over the approaching sirens that pierced the silence of daybreak.

“Go to the front yard,” Carla said. “I’ll find her.”

Carla turned and ran back inside the house. The flames had spread from the garage to the living room, and the smoke was thicker now, so she had to cover her mouth.

“Fluffy! Fluffy!” Carla called out as loudly as she could through her fingers. She tried not to breathe deeply as she looked under the couch and the dining room table, but no cat. She finally found Fluffy in the kitchen, licking the sides of her food bowl.

Carla snatched the cat, who never let anyone other than Martha pick her up. As Fluffy squirmed in her arms, Carla tightened her grip.

“You idiot, the house is on fire,” Carla said, quickly moving toward the back door.

By the time Carla reached the front yard, she was struggling to breathe, covered in soot and dripping in sweat. A crowd had formed on the street, and they cheered when she appeared with the cat. She carried Fluffy over to Martha, where two paramedics were examining her.

One of the paramedics stopped Carla as she turned to leave. “Ma’am, wait. I want to examine you; you must have inhaled a lot of smoke in there.”

“I’m fine.” She made a show of taking a big breath in and out. “See, not even a cough.” Carla ignored him when he called after her.

A vibrant, golden sun had risen just enough to illuminate the sky behind the house as if to compete with the fiery yellow flames reaching toward the heavens. Carla guessed at least ten firefighters sprayed the facade as the inferno fought to stay alive.

As Carla made her way across the lawn, she saw that her neighbors, Marvin Monson and his ten-year-old son, Jason, were watching the firefighters battle the flames.

It was still too dark to tell whether Marvin was sober, but at least she could be sure Jason was.

Next to the Monsons were Harriet Gadler and her husband, Louis, who were both seventy years old but a study in contrasts.

While Louis was perpetually hunched over as if he were looking at his shoes, his wife still went to the gym four days a week and had biceps bigger than women half her age.

“Carla!” Harriet yelled.

Carla pretended she didn’t hear, but Harriet began gesturing wildly, so Carla had no choice but to go over to her.

“Oh, my goodness, you’re so brave,” Harriet said, then turned to her husband. “Lou, tell Carla what a hero she is.”

“It’s true. You are a hero,” Louis said, raising his head just enough so Carla could glimpse a smile.

“Any of you would’ve done the same thing,” Carla said to her neighbors.

“Not me, I have a bad back,” Marvin Monson said, shaking his head, causing his blonde cowlick to sway like a feather sticking out of a cap.

Someone who didn’t know Marvin might think his messy appearance was because he’d just woken from a sound sleep, but he looked disheveled even when he went to a formal event.

“I’m going back to bed,” Louis said, then hunched toward home.

“He wouldn’t have done anything,” Harriet Gadler said. “He barely takes out the trash.”

“I would’ve helped if I’d gotten here before the firemen,” Jason said with all the ego of a pre-teen boy.

“I know you would have,” Carla said. Using that moment to escape the attention, she dragged herself home.

Once inside, Carla rewarded Albert with a handful of dog treats, pulled a blanket off the couch, curled up, and fell asleep. She didn’t open her eyes until late afternoon when the sound of her stomach growling woke her.

On Monday morning, as soon as Carla finished her latte and pulled the latest comps of house sales for her new client, she headed to work. She liked to get in early before the sounds of printers pushing out papers and phones ringing took over.

At 9:00, the assistants chattering about their weekends echoed off the walls.

At 9:15, the partners would come in. Carla had to be at a meeting in the conference room at 9:30.

At 9:33, she grabbed her notes with all her new listings, opened the glass door, and headed for a seat at the large, oval table.

She wanted to be a few minutes late to avoid the small talk.

As she sat down, the partners and their assistants looked up. All of them had goofy smiles on their faces. Do I have something hanging from my nose ? she thought.

When they all stood up in unison, Carla was more confused. It’s not my birthday .

The group broke into a rousing rendition of ‘She’s A Jolly Good Firewoman.’

Carla squinted at them. “What’s going on?” she asked with a half-hearted laugh.

“You’re a hero!” Rosa, one of the assistants said, running around the table to give Carla a bear hug.

“I’ve watched this at least five times,” Rosa said, holding her phone up to Carla and showing the footage of Carla pulling Martha to safety with the fire raging behind her.

A second video showed Carla coming out carrying Fluffy in her arms as the neighbors cheered.

“How did the news get that?” Carla stammered.

“Someone must’ve sent it to them,” one of the partners said.

Carla put her hands on the conference table to steady herself.

“Reporters have been calling here all morning, they want to interview you,” Rosa said, rubbing her hands together. “Isn’t that exciting?”

Carla picked up her things before a panic attack could rear its head. “I’m sorry, but I can’t stay.” She rushed out the door and straight to her car.

By the time Carla got home, her cell phone was littered with voicemails from area codes she didn’t recognize. How have all these strangers gotten my phone number? she wondered.

Some people would have relished being celebrated, but Carla felt violated. After Carla’s daughters, Morgan, Charlotte, and Abby, were born, she kept a very low profile. She ensured her phone numbers were unlisted and avoided social media.

Without listening to them, Carla deleted all the messages, then dropped her phone onto the couch as if she’d picked up a pot of boiling water with her bare hands.

She began pacing around her living room.

After walking the perimeter eight times, she realized it was only ten a.m., so she couldn’t have a glass of wine.

Instead, she settled for a cup of green tea.

She took her phone and her mug into her bedroom.

All she wanted was to get under the covers and hide from the world.

She pulled her sheets back and slid under them, fully dressed including her shoes.

She eyed her phone on the night-stand as if it were a middle-school bully about to hurl insults at her.

Then she turned away. Do not look at your phone , do not look at your phone .

Unfortunately, her curiosity got the best of her after only a few minutes.

Her pulse sped up when she saw alert after alert pop up.

The videos were now on Next Door. The local news. And all over YouTube.

“Why can’t people just leave me alone?” she asked as Albert looked up at her as if she were talking to him.

Carla put her head in her hands, her panic hitting a pitch higher than the soprano’s aria in La Bohème .

She willed herself to get up and get a Xanax out of her medicine cabinet, then popped it into her mouth like an M there was no caller ID.

“Is this the Carla that used to live in Brooklyn, New York?” The voice on the line was deep and gruff.

“W-w-who is this?” Carla stammered, her vocal cords feeling paralyzed.

“Answer my question, and I’ll answer yours,” the voice said.

Carla hung up quickly. She shook so vigorously that her phone fell out of her hand and onto the floor.