Five Minute Girl, Chapter 4 (Patreon)

John and Erica were driving north to a small town in the mountains. Erica was very nervous and asked John to leave her frozen because she didn’t want to get on his nerves. At first, he resisted but eventually found the wisdom in her request and they drove in silence. Being a mannequin also helped calm her mind. A couple hours later they arrived at a town at the base of a mountain. It was a winter ski town but as it was summer, it was just a quiet little village.

John pressed her button. “We’re here.”

“So soon?”

“You were well aware we arrived.”

“It’s still too soon. What will I say to her? What can I say to her?”

“It won’t be a problem, I’m sure.”

They entered the building and walked to the reception area. “Hello, can I help you?” the receptionist said.

“We’re here to see Nancy Delgado.”

“Oh? She doesn’t get a lot of visitors. Are you related?”

“I’m her…. granddaughter,” Erica said.

“How nice. Room 37 down that corridor.”

As they reached the door outside the room, Erica froze up.

“You did that on purpose.” He pressed the button. “Maybe I should just leave you in the hallway where anyone can see you.”

“That’s mean. Wait, how could you tell I froze myself?”

“Your hands. You always make sure your hand look good when you freeze yourself.”

“I do?”

“You’re stalling.” He knocked on the door. There was no answer. He opened the door and peered in.

It looked like a typical combination bedroom/living room except for the medical monitoring equipment. “Is someone there?” a thin voice said.

Erica entered and immediately put her hands to her face in joy. It had been over forty years since she had seen her mother.

“Rikki? Is that really you?”

Erica’s eyes welled up. “Mom?”

“Come over here and give me a kiss.”

Erica stepped to the side of the bed. “Hi, Mom.” She kissed her mother on the forehead.

“I always knew you would come back to me. You look just like I remember you, my beautiful baby girl.”

“You look good, too, Mom.”

“Don’t fib to me, young lady. I look like a bleached raisin. I would tell you to avoid getting old but you’ve already figured that out.”

Erica froze. John jumped in and hit her button.

“Are you her beau?”

“I’m John. I suppose you could call me that.”

“In the second drawer over there, there’s an envelope. Could you get it for me?” She told him. “Rikki, what happened to you?”

“You wouldn’t believe it.”

“You would lie to me?”

“No.”

“Then why wouldn’t I believe it?”

In five minute intervals, Erica told her mother about her life, such as it was. There was one new part for John.

“You have an archeology degree?”

“I told you I was too short to be a model.”

“You never wanted to be a normal model,” Mom said. “You were always fascinated by mannequins. It’s fitting you’ve become one.

“Well, before this happened, I attended digs in Mexico, Angola, and unfortunately Kenya,” Erica said. “I was the lead on a small expedition to Kenya when I became who I am today.”

* * *

“Come, you must see,” Chiumbo called out.

Erica followed the tall, Kenyan man up the hillside. “Chiumbo, this is not part of my dig site.”

“I know, Good Lady. But, you must see. Come. Come.”

They crested the hill and look down upon a virgin valley, seemingly untouched by humans for at least several hundred years.

“What am I looking at? It’s a beautiful valley.”

He handed her binoculars and pointed. “There, there.”

She looked where he was pointing and saw nothing unusual. She tried the binoculars and after describing what she was seeing so he could tell her to go left, right, up, or down. Eventually, she saw it. “Is that…?”

“It is. It must be. It must.”

She continued to look at the area of pure darkness in the sun dappled valley. When she looked back at Chiumbo, he was rushing down the hill toward the area of darkness. With a sigh, she followed after him. “Chiumbo, slow down!”

“I won’t let it disappear on me again.”

When she first met Chiumbo, he told her the story of The Walking Shadow. It was said to be a gateway to a realm of riches for the taking. Erica had spent a lot of time in Nairobi libraries and museums trying to corroborate his story and found nothing about a realm of riches. But, stories about a shadow that shouldn’t exist she did find. There were no first hand accounts though.

As she got closer to the shadow she could see it was moving away from Chiumbo.

“It not let me in.”

“Are you sure you want to go in?”

“Riches, Girl. Riches.”

“I told you I could not find anything about riches in shadow, Chiumbo.”

“I know what my Bibi tol’ me. She not lie to me.”

He lunged for the shadow and it jumped out of his way, straight into Erica.

Erica was plunged into darkness. The sounds of insects and wind vanished leaving her in an unnatural silence. She tried to walk out of the shadow but no matter which way she turned there was only darkness. And silence, her footfalls make no sound either. “Chiumbo? Chiumbo?”

She had no idea if he heard her or was calling for her. She stood still for a few moments hoping the shadow would move away from her. It didn’t. She stomped her foot. It made no sound. She reached down and touched the ground and it felt like polished stone, not the grass and dirt she had been standing on moments before. She reached into the pocket in her belt for her flashlight but turning it on did nothing to illuminate the area around her. She could see the light on her hands but not on the floor below her or anything else that might be around her.

She walked. She figured it didn’t matter what direction she walked. Standing still couldn’t be the better idea. She thought maybe twenty minutes had passed when her flashlight reflected something back to her. It was just a few feet in front of her, just to her right. Training the flashlight on it, it was a mannequin. She touched it and it felt real. It’s face was her face, with a neutral expression that contained a hint of amusement in the slight smile on its lips. It was wearing a white T-shirt and red shorts. There was nothing else special about it. She walked on. About forty feet or so from the mannequin was another mannequin, also with her face. It was dressed in a dark sweater and flared jeans.

Every forty or so feet, regardless of what direction she went, she found a new mannequin wearing different clothes. If she tried to go back to a prior mannequin, she found a mannequin that looked like her but wearing a completely different outfit than it had been wearing less than minute ago, assuming it was the same mannequin. She passed well over one hundred mannequins. Some wore shorts or skirts or pants or casual dresses or designer dresses. Some wore workout clothes or swimwear or lingerie. There were even a handful of red carpet style gowns.

The current one was wearing no clothes. Why mannequins? She thought. She did love the idea of being a storefront mannequin, standing there day after day. But, that was a distant fantasy of her childhood. Why was the darkness showing her mannequins?

“Finally, a worthy question,” boomed a voice all around her. It had been so quiet, her ears rang at the loudness of the voice.

“Who’s there?”

“You have been deemed worthy. What is your wish?”

“Worthy of what?”

Silence.

“I need to know who you are first.”

“Actually, you don’t,” the voice boomed again. “You desire to be a mannequin. Say so and it will be so.”

“I don’t want to just be a mannequin. I use to pose as a mannequin in a clothing store. And I wished I could turn myself into a mannequin and be turned back to normal when I wasn’t needed. But, that’s just crazy.”

“Crazier than a dark space full of mannequins?”

“I suppose not.”

“What else do you wish?”

“Since you asked, my being a mannequin in a clothing store would magically attract additional clientele, statistically verifiable, to the store. Making it beneficial for the store to pay me to be a mannequin there.”

“I am always pleased when wealth is wished for with cause and effect and not just dropped from the heavens. Third?”

“I suppose being able to find store owners who would want to have a living mannequin would be useful. Especially if my current boss wasn’t using me correctly. I could just find a new place to work in and be gone.”

“Excellent. Think about finding such a store now.”

* * *

“And suddenly I was in a boutique in Milan. The owner there, Giorgio loved me. Figured out my button and treated me well.”

“What happened?”

“He died. About a month after I arrived. He was so patient, listening to me whine about being tricked by the voice. The next owner didn’t care about my troubles.”

“It’s a good thing Donna never heard that story. She would have hounded you forever to tell the truth.”

“Why didn’t you just wish to be…?”

“Tall enough to be runway model? Beautiful? A highly sought out and well-paid supermodel? Wealthy? A world famous archeologist? I asked myself that for like three decades before giving up.”

“I was only going to ask about being taller,” John said.

“How is Donna?” Erica asked her mother.

“Oh, she died about five years ago. It’s in the envelope.” She took the envelope from John and opened it. “This is the last photo of you, me, Donna, and dickhead. He’s dead, too.”

“That’s my father, Mom.”

“You didn’t like him either.”

“No, I didn’t.”

“This is your birth certificate,” Nancy said, continuing to flip through the contents of the envelope. “Though, given your apparent age, it might not be of much use to you.”

“You kept my birth certificate?”

“I knew you weren’t dead. I don’t know why I knew it. A few months before her death, Donna visited me and she asked why I had this envelope. She said it was both beautiful and a bit disturbing that I never gave up on you.”

“How did she die?”

“Cancer. Lymph nodes. I don’t remember the doctor name for it. It was discovered early but totally resisted treatment. It was terrible to see her deteriorate in like five or six months.” Nancy tears up a little.

“Sorry I asked.”

“No, no, you needed to know. It was several years ago. And I’m grateful for this as I really haven’t spent time talking about Donna in a while.”

They hugged and after an awkward silence, she continued. “This is my will. I’m leaving everything to Donna’s children. She had four: Peg, Patrick, Gregory, and Melanie. Peg has a son, Jacob, he’s graduating from college next year. The boys have two kids each: Layne and Howard are Patrick’s children and Rebecca and Glenda are Gregory’s girls. Melanie looks a lot like you. She’s finally getting married in the fall. I doubt I’ll be able to attend. This is a picture of all them from Gregory’s wedding. And I have all their phone numbers here.”

“I probably won’t contact them.”

“Why not? They’re family.”

“And I’ve never met them.”

“Well, you’ll never meet them with that attitude.”

“I’m trying to convince her that socializing is a good thing,” John said.

“You listen to him.”

“I will, Momma.”

“I’m tired,” Nancy said. “I hope I’ll see you again. Have them add your name and number to my notification list.” She pushed a buzzer attached to her bed.

“I don’t have a phone.”

“Who doesn’t have a phone today?”

“Someone who’s been a mannequin for the last forty-five years.”

“I suppose that makes sense.”

A nurse entered. “Did you need something Mrs. Delgado?”

“Yes, I need my granddaughter, Erica, added to my emergency contact list.”

“Okay, please stop by the front desk before you leave.”

“They’ll be leaving now. I need a nap. Give me a kiss good-bye.”

* * *

A few days later, John’s phone rang. The caller id said, “HOLBROOKEM”. He didn’t recognize it. “Hello?”

“Is Erica there?”

“She sometimes is,” John said, looking out his office door at Erica posed in the window of the store. “She isn’t available now. Can I take a message?”

“Tell her Melanie Holbrooke called. I think Erica is my aunt.”

“Oh, you’re Donna’s daughter.”

“Yes, did you recently visit your grandmother?”

“Yes, she told me a fanciful tale that my long lost aunt is a mannequin. When I spoke to the doctor afterward he assured me Gramma had not been showing signs of senility. And then I found her name on the contact list at the front desk. What kind of scam are you trying to pull on my grandmother?”

“I assure you, there is no scam. We should meet so you can meet Erica.” He suggested they meet at his home but she wanted nothing to do with meeting a strange man at his home. Instead, he suggested the boutique.

She arrived the next day.