GREEN WITH ENVY

Miss Verdant found herself alone. Her feelings of guilt in violating the private chamber of Mr. Merriweather were momentarily suppressed as she surveyed the room, seeking ... “what?”, she asked herself. She advanced towards the large oak desk that held a place of honor in the center of the room. A bust of Aphrodite was displayed prominently on the desktop, it’s surface a witness to the written work its owner had devoted much of his life to. What had this silent Greek goddess witnessed? What secrets did she hold? Ah, Aphrodite, you goddess of beauty who rose from the green sea-foam and was thus ‘fatherless’. “Like myself,” Miss Verdant said to herself, “but, at least I have a lover.”

Scolding herself for allowing any feelings of self-pity to surface, feelings she had so studiously struggled to smother, she now turned to matters-at-hand.

Her glanced rested on the desk drawer, its entry locked to unwelcome invasion. She withdrew the key from her handbag and silently apoligized to Mr. Merriweather for her thievish behavior as she guided the key into its counterpart.

Mr. Merriweather had told her that he loved her and would marry her as soon as the divorce was final. His wife was young and beautiful and had given him three beautiful children, but he told her that he no longer loved his wife and that he was deeply in love with her and could not live without her. She believed him, didn’t she? She trusted him; yes, she did! Then why was her mind twisted with envy whenever she saw her lover and his wife glowing in the spotlights of fame, swirling on the dance floors of society, locking their eyes together in a death-grip of passion? Hera new that ‘envy’ was one of the seven deadly sins and because she had been raised as a good Catholic girl, being envious of someone was something she was not capable of. Right?

What if the papers were not here? He had told her last night, one of their ‘stolen’ nights at his weekend hideaway, that the divorce papers had already been drawn up by his lawyer and that he would be presenting them to his wife as soon as the right moment came.

She turned the key and jumped as she heard the lock click open, the sound reverberating

off of every surface in the room. She methodically removed the papers in the drawer, quickly scanning each one and repeated this exercise several times. No divorce papers! Only tickets, wrapped in a red ribbon, with a note attached to it. The note was to his wife, in his handwriting, telling her that these tickets were to celebrate their second honeymoon; that his love for her had never changed since the moment he had met her.

Bile came up in her throat and she involuntarily swallowed, wincing at the pain it caused as it retreated back to the place where it had originated from.

She could not hate him, for that would be a sin and she was no sinner. She could not envy that beautiful woman who was his wife, for that, too, would be a sin. But, she now thought, her mind crazed with feelings she could no longer control, ‘to kill’ was not one of the seven deadly sins.

She silently closed the drawer, deposited the key into her over-large handbag, and putting on her snow-white gloves she withdrew from her handbag the little pistol she had placed into it early this morning. She silently climbed the deep-carpeted stairs and stopping at the landing, viewed herself in the floor length mirror. Her skin had a green cast to it, and noticing a drop of bile that had escaped its slide back down her throat, she withdrew her green hanky from the bottomless pocket of her dress and wiped away the tell-tale sign of her distress.

She opened the door and viewed her lover for the last time. Two shots were fired and the only witness to the noise of the gun was Aphrodite. Then she noticed a bust of Phthonus, but no matter how many shots she fired at it, it wouldn’t shatter.