Familiar Voices
"My wife is not stupid," Desmond Keating was often heard to say with an affectionate laugh. "She's just technologically impaired."
Mary Sue Keating took no offense at her husband's good-natured jest. After all, the words were true enough. She could not master the operation of her microwave oven much less hope to understand the complex operations of a personal computer. When it came to following owner's manuals and operating instructions, she was hopelessly lost. Thankfully, she never had to worry about programming the channels into her remote control, setting the clock on her car dashboard or putting contact numbers into her cell phone; she had Desmond to do those things for her.
In the Keating household, there was a distinct separation between men's duties and women's, and the woman of the house was more than happy to let her husband oversee all the electronic gadgets. She accepted her role and was proud of being a consummate homemaker. Her house was immaculate, and her home-cooked meals were worthy of a five-star restaurant.
Mary Sue's only diversion from cleaning and cooking was watching her favorite soap opera, Hearts and Heroes. She hardly ever missed an episode except on those rare days when she had a doctor's appointment or was delayed at the grocery store. Whenever this happened, it was sure to cast a dark cloud over the rest of her day, and she would complain to her husband and to her sister, Tyra.
"Why did I have to miss it today of all days?" she would moan. "Jennifer was about to find out that Brad has an inoperable tumor and only three months to live."
Desmond would sigh and patiently listen without interest as his wife recounted the trials and tribulations of Jennifer, Brad and the rest of the characters of Hearts and Heroes. Tyra, however, was a career woman and had little time for soap operas or for her sister's tiresome complaints.
It's strange, Mary Sue thought, how different she was from her sister. How often their mother had remarked, "Mary Sue got the beauty, and Tyra got the brains." Until recently, Mary Sue always believed she had gotten the better end of the deal, but lately, she was not so sure. She was getting older, and her beauty was fading. Tyra on the other hand, was as smart as ever—smarter probably.
* * *
One Christmas Tyra surprised Mary Sue with what she considered to be the perfect gift: a VCR.
"Now you won't ever have to miss an episode of your soap opera again."
Desmond nearly choked on his cup of eggnog when he watched his wife unwrap the present.
How is she ever going to operate a VCR when she can't work the remote control to the television? he wondered.
Before she left the Keating house, however, Tyra connected the video recorder to the television, put in a blank tape and programmed the VCR to record channel seven at 2:00 p.m.
"Whenever you have to go out and you think you might not be home by 2:00, just press the TIMER RECORD button right here. You don't even have to turn on the TV."
"This button?" Mary Sue asked, looking at the row of buttons on the remote control as though it were the cockpit controls of a 767.
"Yes," Tyra replied, glancing at her brother-in-law who was offering a silent prayer that his wife would not phone him at the office every time she wanted to record or play a program.
It was not until the end of February that Mary Sue found herself in danger of missing an episode of Hearts and Heroes. She was suffering from a bad sinus headache and had taken an antihistamine to break up the congestion. At 1:30, she felt herself beginning to doze off. Fifteen minutes later, she awakened with a jolt, fearing that she had slept through her favorite show.
"Oh, thank goodness," she said when she saw the clock on the mantel. "It isn't two o'clock yet."
Since she still felt sleepy, she picked up the VCR remote and pressed a button. Unfortunately, it was the wrong button.
"That's not supposed to happen," she said as the recorder's menu flashed on the screen.
Flustered, she began pushing buttons at random. The power went off and came back on, and eventually the letters REC flashed in the upper right-hand corner of the TV screen. Relieved, Mary Sue lay back down on the couch and promptly fell asleep. When she woke up, she discovered that the VCR had reached the end of the tape and had automatically rewound and turned itself off.
"I don't have time to watch the show right now," she said after a quick look at the clock. "I've got to make dinner. I can watch it after I do the dishes this evening."
Desmond got home late again. Since receiving his latest promotion, his absence had become the rule rather than the exception.
"Your dinner is cold," Mary Sue announced when her husband came through the front door. "I'll heat it up for you in the microwave. It will only take a few minutes."
"Don't trouble yourself. I'm not hungry, just tired. I think I'll take a hot shower and go to bed."
Mary Sue put his steak, potato and vegetables in a Tupperware container, stored it in the refrigerator and then cleaned up the kitchen. After showering and putting on her pajamas, she went into the family room to watch the taped episode of Hearts and Heroes. She picked up the VCR's remote control and tried to make sense of the rows of buttons.
"Let me see. First, I have to press POWER."
The power indicator light came on as the VCR came to life.
"That was easy enough. I suppose all I have to do now is press PLAY."
The numbers on the counter started to move, indicating that the tape was advancing, but the screen remained blank.
"Oh, how stupid of me!" Mary Sue laughed. "I have to turn the TV on, too."
When she pressed the television's ON/OFF switch, a prime-time sitcom appeared on the screen instead of the soap opera she had recorded earlier in the day.
"What am I forgetting?"
She again scanned the rows of buttons and vaguely recalled her sister telling her to put the TV on channel three. Mary Sue did this, and the sitcom vanished, but it was replaced but a screen full of static.
"I give up!" she exclaimed with frustration. "I don't know how to work this contraption. I'll call Tyra and ask her what to do."
She picked up the phone on the end table—a standard model with a cord since Mary Sue could never figure out how to work a cordless phone—and dialed her sister's number. The phone rang twice, and then she heard her sister's voice. But instead of coming from the phone receiver, it came from the television set. Mary Sue hung up the phone, walked to the TV and turned up the volume. White and black speckled "noise" still filled the screen, but the audio was crystal clear.
"Honestly, I don't know how you put up with her," Tyra's voice said with a laugh. "I only see her occasionally, but you, poor darling, have to deal with her every day."
"Why do you think I put off going home until late every night?"
Mary Sue gasped. It was Desmond's voice answering her sister's. How could they possibly have been captured on videotape?
"And I thought you lied to your wife about having to work late so that you could be with me," Tyra teased Desmond.
"I sometimes think I married the wrong sister," Desmond chuckled.
"No you didn't," Tyra replied. "You wanted a hausfrau, a compliant little woman to cook your meals, clean your house, do your laundry and turn a blind eye and deaf ear to your affairs."
Mary Sue fell back into the wing chair, feeling as though she had just received a physical blow. Had Desmond been unfaithful to her? That was impossible! Surely she would have suspected something.
"This is crazy," she vehemently declared as she turned off the power to both the VCR and the TV. "I must have recorded a soap opera that was being shown on another channel. It's just a coincidence that the actors' voices resemble Tyra's and Desmond's."
Mary Sue went up to her room. After tossing and turning for nearly two hours, however, she got up and took another antihistamine to help her sleep.
The following morning she slept late, and for the first time in their marriage, she had not greeted her husband good morning with a hot breakfast. At 9:30, sluggish from the cold medication she had taken the night before, Mary Sue went into the kitchen and poured herself a strong cup of coffee. She tried not to think about the conversation she had heard on the television the previous evening and the uncannily familiar sound of the actors' voices.
Throughout the morning she performed her household chores without her usual thoroughness. She was unable to concentrate on vacuuming and dusting because she could not take her mind off the tape that was still in her VCR. At two o'clock she tuned into Hearts and Heroes, but she had no interest in Jennifer's and Brad's problems. Her eyes kept drifting from the TV screen to the video recorder.
Finally, she could stand it no longer. She picked up the remote and, surprisingly, had no difficulty finding the right buttons. When she pressed PLAY, the familiar black and white noise filled the screen, and after a few moments, the audio returned.
"I don't understand it," the voice that sounded like Desmond's whined. "She's always up before me. This morning she was still fast asleep when I left the house."
"You said she complained about having sinus problems yesterday. She probably took one of her antihistamines in the middle of the night. I know only too well how those things can knock you out. Whenever I take one, I can count on sleeping for about six to eight hours."
Mary Sue's hand was shaking as she pressed the STOP button on the remote. Tears fell from her eyes. She had to face the truth. This was not a soap opera; it was real life. And those were not actors' voices but those of her husband and her sister. A few minutes later, her curiosity once again got the better of her, and she pressed the PLAY button.
"So what's the big deal?" her sister asked. "If she's not up to make your breakfast, just go through the drive-thru window at Burger King and get a cup of coffee. Or if you really feel ambitious, park your Mercedes and walk into Starbucks and order a cup."
"But Mary Sue always has my coffee waiting for me when I wake up."
"Sometimes I think you're as pathetic as she is," Tyra declared with mild disgust. "She can't understand the simplest technology, and you don't have the sense to boil a cup of water and add a teaspoon of instant coffee."
"One thing I can say for your sister," Desmond countered, "she doesn't have your sharp tongue."
"Then go home to your wife tonight after work instead of coming over here," Tyra taunted him.
"Sharp tongue or not," he laughed, "you have your charms. I'll see you at quarter to six."
There was the sound of a telephone connection being ended, and then silence followed. Mary Sue turned off the TV and VCR and wept.
* * *
When Desmond returned home from work that night, his wife was not in the kitchen waiting to have dinner with him and carry on her usual one-sided conversation about what happened during the day. Worse, no dinner was being kept warm on the stove or in the oven.
"Mary Sue," he called out, but there was no answer.
He walked upstairs to her room and tried to open the door. It was locked.
"Mary Sue? Are you all right?"
He knocked. There was still no reply. Should he phone the police? She might be ill or even ....
Desmond walked back downstairs where he noticed that the laundry had been done and the mail had been brought in.
Well, at least she's still alive, he thought with relief.
Then he saw the bottle of antihistamines on the kitchen counter. That explained it.
"I can't wait until she gets over this cold," he said, looking through the refrigerator for something to eat. "Then things can get back to normal, and I can get a decent meal again."
Upstairs in her room, Mary Sue was still awake. She had heard her husband come in, heard him call her name and knock on her bedroom door, but she did not want to talk to him or even see him. He had betrayed her—and with her own sister! How many others had there been, she wondered. Did it really matter? One affair or a hundred—the trust had been shattered; she would never forgive him.
Mary Sue did not understand by what twist of fate or miracle of modern technology her VCR had been able to broadcast her husband's conversation with her sister, but she accepted it as truth. She had often seen video cameras set up in department stores and watched herself and other shoppers entering and leaving. If technology could capture live video, why not live audio? Perhaps there was a microphone in her sister's apartment that was feeding the sound to Mary Sue's VCR. After all, Tyra did purchase the VCR. She could have opened the box, taken out the recorder to examine it, inadvertently dropped the microphone and then resealed the box before wrapping it. Even if such a scenario were possible, was it very likely? The alternative was that her sister had deliberately set up the microphone so that Mary Sue would overhear her conversation with Desmond. But why?
The answer stunned her. It was so obvious. She had been a fool not to have realized it from the start. Tyra wanted her sister to know about the affair. That was probably the only reason she bought her the VCR in the first place.
"What does she hope to gain by exposing this little fling of theirs? Is she hoping that I'll divorce Desmond?"
Or were her motives more sinister? Had Tyra hoped to drive her sister crazy? Given Mary Sue's love of soap operas, she tended to favor the more dramatic explanation. She did not stop to examine Tyra's possible reasons for wanting to drive her mad since, for once, her monotonous life was colored by drama and excitement.
* * *
For the next two days, Mary Sue remained in her bedroom, pretending to be asleep whenever her husband was home. Desmond was beginning to lose patience with his wife. Why couldn't she wait to take the damned antihistamines until after she had made his dinner? He worked hard all day to support her in comfort. The least he could get out of it was a decent meal when he got home at night.
During her days of self-imposed isolation, Mary Sue managed to convince herself that Tyra and Desmond were not only bent on driving her crazy but were also hoping for her death. She was certain that if she did not oblige them by committing suicide, they would eventually murder her.
"If they think I'll meekly go along with their plan like a lamb to the slaughter, they've got another thing coming! Why, I'll ...."
She faltered, deciding on a course of action.
"I'll kill them first!"
The thought of murdering her husband did not bother her nearly as much as the idea of killing her sister. Different though they were, she and Tyra were blood relatives. Her husband was just a mistake in judgment. She would have to have more proof that her sister was plotting against her than two brief conversations overheard on a VCR.
The following day Mary Sue woke early, got dressed and, after Desmond left for his office, got in her car and drove to her sister's apartment. Tyra opened the door, surprised to see her sister.
"Mary Sue? I thought you were sick."
"What makes you think that?"
"Desmond phoned me last night and said you've been sleeping so much that it worried him. I told him it was those antihistamines you take. Neither one of us could ever handle them."
"What a dear I have for a husband," Mary Sue said, insincerity dripping from her lips.
"Did you want something? I mean, you never come over here in the middle of the morning."
"To be honest, I was feeling a little lonely. I wanted some company. Desmond has been working such long hours lately."
"He does have a very demanding job," Tyra declared.
She always jumps to my husband's defense, Mary Sue thought bitterly. That shows where her allegiance lies.
"Can I have a cup of coffee?"
"Sorry. Come on into the kitchen."
They chatted for several minutes, and then Tyra asked, "How is that VCR working? Have you had a chance to use it yet?"
Mary Sue's eyes narrowed.
"It works fine. Thank you. That was a very thoughtful gift."
"I'm glad you like it. I wasn't sure if you would want one or not."
"How have you been doing lately?" Mary Sue asked, steering the conversation in the direction she wanted it to go. "Are you still seeing that lawyer you met in Bermuda last year?"
Tyra blushed and lowered her eyes.
"No."
"Why not? He seemed a perfect match for you."
"It didn't work out."
"Is there anyone else then?"
Tyra's face, already pink, turned a few shades redder.
"No, no one. Why do you ask?"
"Just curious. You're an attractive, single woman. You must meet lots of eligible men."
"No one special."
Mary Sue drained her cup. Tyra was acting guilty, and this behavior was the proof she needed.
"I don't want to go home and be by myself all day. Would you mind if I stayed here with you?"
Tyra looked hesitant.
"I do have some work that has to be done."
"Go and do it. I'll stay out of your hair. I promise. I'll straighten up the kitchen and then do a little reading in the living room."
Her sister was not one to pass up free maid service, so she accepted. Twenty minutes later, Mary Sue walked into the room her sister used as a home office.
"I thought you might like a little more coffee," she announced, handing Tyra a steaming cup.
"I'd love some. Thanks. You shouldn't spoil me like this."
"Nonsense! It's my pleasure. After all, you're my only sibling. I'll go back to my reading now and let you get back to work."
A half-hour later, Tyra came out of her office and sat on the couch across from her sister.
"Are you feeling all right?" Mary Sue asked with feigned concern. "You don't look well."
"It's just—all of a sudden—I'm exhausted. I've been putting in a lot of late nights, and I guess they're beginning to take their toll."
"Lie down and take a nap then."
"Maybe for a few minutes."
She stretched out on the couch, lay her head on the soft cushions and promptly fell into a deep sleep.
Late nights, indeed! Mary Sue thought with barely suppressed rage.
She went into the kitchen and washed and dried the coffee cups and spoons. Then, before leaving the apartment, she turned on the gas burners of both the oven and stove and blew out the pilot lights.
* * *
Two days later, Detectives Thurman Bristow and Kendra Rogan of the Westminster police went to Mary Sue's house to notify her of her sister's death. When she heard the news, Mary Sue gave a good imitation of surprise and grief. Her greatest difficulty was in not showing her revulsion at Desmond's expression of husbandly concern when he placed his arms around his wife and tried to comfort her.
What a strange pair of liars we are, she thought. I'm pretending to be overwhelmed with grief while my husband is pretending that Tyra was nothing more to him than a sister-in-law.
"How did it happen?" Mary Sue sobbed loudly.
"I'm sorry, Mrs. Keating," Kendra replied, "but all evidence points to your sister having taken her own life."
"Suicide? My sister wouldn't have committed suicide. She always seemed so ...."
It was foolish of her to protest, she suddenly realized. After all, she had rather the death be ruled suicide than a possible homicide.
"If I'd only known she was so depressed, I'd have tried to help her."
"Did you know your sister was having an affair?" Thurman asked.
Mary Sue's eyes quickly darted to her husband.
"No, I didn't," she lied.
"I suspected as much," Desmond informed the detective. "Several months ago, I was taking a client out to dinner, and I ran into my sister-in-law and her companion at the restaurant. She made up some story about them being old college friends, but I've always had my doubts."
"Wait a minute!" Mary Sue said. "There was a lawyer she was seeing, but the relationship soured. Perhaps my sister didn't want it to end. He was a handsome and charming man, and quite well-to-do."
Detective Bristow looked uncomfortable.
"Your sister wasn't having an affair with a man," Kendra said. "She ...."
Desmond was the one to break the news.
"Tyra was seeing another woman, dear."
Now Mary Sue's shock was genuine.
"That's absurd! My sister wasn't a lesbian!"
"I'm sorry, ma'am, but we have statements to the contrary," Detective Bristow said.
"No! It's not possible!"
Mary Sue began shaking uncontrollably.
"It can't be true! I would have known."
Desmond tried to calm her.
"Her sexual orientation doesn't matter, does it? Tyra was your sister. You loved her, and she loved you."
Mary Sue shook her head, fervently denying the allegations.
"No. It's just not true!"
Detective Rogan reached into her pocket and took out a snapshot of Tyra walking arm-in-arm with an attractive, slightly older woman.
"Your sister's neighbors and friends have all told me that your sister and this woman were very close."
Desmond examined the photograph.
"That's the same woman my sister-in-law was with that night I saw her at the restaurant."
"But if she was gay, then that would mean—no, NO!" Mary Sue cried, on the point of hysteria.
"Calm down, dear," her husband urged. "Your sister was in love with a woman. So what? There's nothing wrong with that. Don't you think you're overreacting to the situation?"
"Overreacting! My sister is dead, and I ...."
She covered her face with her hands and sobbed.
"I'm sorry," Desmond apologized to the two detectives. "My wife needs some time to take this all in."
"Of course," Thurman agreed, eager to extricate himself from the awkward situation. "My sympathies to you both."
After Bristow and Rogan left, Mary Sue managed to calm down somewhat.
"Why didn't you tell me?" she tearfully asked her husband.
"I had no proof, just a hunch."
"Couldn't you at least have told me what you suspected?"
"I didn't feel it was my place. If Tyra wanted you to know, she'd tell you herself."
"Had I known she was gay, I would never have suspected that you and she were involved."
"Tyra and I? Where did you ever get such a ridiculous idea?"
"I just thought it. I mean you always come home late at night."
"I've been working, not carrying on with anyone—least of all my wife's sister."
Mary Sue walked into the living room and stood before the quiet, lifeless television. Its black screen seemed to mock her. She eyed the VCR with fear, hatred and a morbid sense of curiosity. It was a rather outdated device, one under the threat of obsolescence thanks to DVDs and the growing popularity of DVRs and digital downloads.
Suddenly, she was reminded of the Native American dream catchers. According to legend, their nets let good dreams slip through while entangling bad dreams in their threads. Was this innocuous-looking machine a high-tech dreamcatcher, capturing her worst nightmares and innermost fears on magnetic tape, or had she only imagined the voices she heard when she pressed its PLAY button?
"I think that's your problem," Desmond said, nodding toward the television. "You've seen too many soap operas. This is real life, darling. It's not an episode of Hearts and Heroes."
"I know only too well that life is not a soap opera," she said in a choked, barely audible whisper. "In fact, sometimes it's more like a horror movie."
Salem never misses his favorite soap operas, All My Kittens and Nine Lives to Live.
