All My Friends Are Dead

All My Friends Are Dead

Holden squatted down beside the dollhouse, grimacing slightly at the sound of his kneecaps popping.  He reached inside, pressing one end of his measuring tape on the roof and the other on the floor.  

“11 and 1/4 inches,” He said as he sprung back to his feet. “An inch taller; just like you told me last week.”  

He tucked the tape measure in his back pocket, waiting for a response in the dead silence of the hotel room.  Evelyn stood quietly in the corner of the master suite, pushing her thumbs into each of her palms, seemingly ignoring what Holden had just told her.  She looked elegant in her turquoise gown, covered with gilded jewelry peppered in diamonds and a mink coat draped around her brittle shoulders..  She was confident in her mannerisms and appearance, yet withdrawn from frequenting the outside world.

“But, they’re going to bump their heads,” Evelyn finally replied.

“What?”

“Their heads,” she repeated. “If the ceiling’s too low, then how can they live comfortably?”

Holden looked back at the magnificent dollhouse that he had re-done seven times now.  Evelyn was determined to make this his eighth attempt.

“Mrs. Witherspoon, if I keep on building this thing larger each time, eventually I won’t be able to get it through the door,” Holden said, trying to pry a smile or a slight laugh from Evelyn’s stoic expression.

“No,” she said bluntly.  “No rationalizing.  You will do it right this time.”

Evelyn glided past Holden to the mini bar adjacent to the chest of drawers and began to pour herself a drink.

“It’s not like it’s that hard,” she said, barely able to lift the fifth of vodka off the table.

Holden thought about smashing the dollhouse with a sledge hammer right then and there.  He imagined all the pretty hand-built custom pieces, which he had spent hundreds of hours on by now, splinter off into thousands of wooden shards and strewn about Evelyn’s dank, over lived-in suite.  He was willing to sacrifice his “masterpiece” mansion of a dollhouse just to see Evelyn call one of the hotel’s security guards to have him flung out the door.

“I am sorry that you’re not satisfied with the specs,” Holden said, snapping himself out of his fantasy. “But, I’ve other jobs that need attention; work for other clients.”

Evelyn placed her drink back down on the bar and gravitated towards her purse that was hanging on the back of the desk chair.  Holden hoped that this time she would pay him for his work, thank him for his service and allow him to take the two trains and a bus back home to the Bronx.  But this was Holden day-dreaming again as Evelyn turned to look up at him with that familiar exasperated face.

“Whatever I paid you last time, double it.” Evelyn said as she pulled out her checkbook.

“Look, I don’t care about the money,” Holden lied.  “I can’t just abandon my other priorities.”

In truth, Holden didn’t mind being paid thousands of dollars to essentially cater to Evelyn’s psychopathic tendencies.  He didn’t even mind the long journey to midtown Manhattan to get there.  He was more worried about what the effect of a 90 year old recluse with OCD would have on his psyche after a while.  Plus, he was quickly becoming a wealthy man at the rate Evelyn was throwing her seemingly unwanted cash at him.

Evelyn opened her mouth but didn’t say anything.  Instead, she flipped open her checkbook and began to write, pausing slightly to remember the current date.  When she finished, she ripped the check from the stub and held it in front of Holden’s face, revealing the payout to Mr. Holden Grant for $10,000.  Holden sighed and put his hands in his pockets.  Hiding behind his straight brown hair, he extended his right hand and grabbed the check from Evelyn, who now had a smirk on her face.

“Okay, Mrs. Witherspoon,” he said. “Have somebody bring it by the shop and I’ll fix it.”

Holden silently crept towards the door and headed for the elevator down the hall.  

Mrs. Witherspoon lives in room 4210 on the 42nd floor of The London NYC Hotel just below Central Park in midtown Manhattan.  Although she owns three high-rise apartments downtown on Fifth Avenue, she’s made arrangements with the owner of the hotel to stay as a permanent guest for the last six years.  The hotel’s manager reluctantly acquiesced to a sum of $400,00 a year she charged Evelyn for rent; petty cash for Mrs. Witherspoon who has accumulated over $300 million in her lifetime.  She also has places in San Diego, Miami, Paris, Milan, and is currently in the process of finalizing the lease agreement for her new three story home in upstate New York.  Holden’s friend Lewis had once mentioned to him that Mrs. Witherspoon owned all these properties to support her various families that she had started in different towns.  This was just one of the many rumors floating around about Evelyn, and more begin to circulate the longer she remains in that hotel.

Holden had known Evelyn for about eight months now.  She has been generous enough to grossly overpay him for his carpentry skills yet vitriolic enough to repeatedly keep him around so that she can insult his work.  He was by no means the best builder in New York, but he did considered himself an expert when it came to dollhouses.  His three daughters, Abigal, Morgan, and Alex have all grown up with them.  His wife, Samantha, would stitch together homemade doll clothes for their birthdays while Holden would eventually take the girls to his shop on 86th Street to pick out any dollhouse that they wanted.  That was then, however.  Now that his daughters have gotten older, Evelyn seems to be his only customer lately, hardly allowing Holden to tend to his shop.

Holden arrived home especially late to his home in the northern borough of New York City known as the Bronx.  The house is moderately sized for Holden’s family of five, slightly dilapidated and falling apart in some places.  The shingles haven’t been replaced since the 1950s, slowly peeling off the roof like dead skin, and the shutters barely manage to maintain their sewage green tint.  The real estate agent told his wife, Samantha, that the house was built in the 1920s (although, Holden suspects it to be much older).  Holden was happy to settle down in a quiet Jewish neighborhood where his daughters could receive a better education than if they decided on the nicer victorian house on the other side of town which was zoned for a less desirable school district.

Holden opened the front door and began to take his coat off and place it on the coat rack.  He noticed his wife in the kitchen through a sliver in the open hallway door and waited to close the front door behind him.  She looked beautiful in that moment.  She clinched her fists to look at her nails as her curly black hair trickled in front of her face, dancing off her sculpted Greek nose and high cheekbones.  She has blue eyes, just like Holden and a petite figure just like her mother when she was her age.  She grew up in upstate New York, which Holden’s mother had told him once was a much easier place to pick up women than in the city.  Holden closed the door behind him, slamming it slightly to get Samantha’s attention.

“Jesus Christ!” She screamed as she looked down the hallway at Holden. “You’re trying to kill me aren’t you?”

Samantha exhaled slightly, the color returning to her face as she smiled and began to chuckle.  Holden walked into the small galley of a kitchen, dimly lit from the single ceiling light, and still checkered in the gaudy bright yellows and blues of the 1950s.

“How was your session today, sweetie?” Samantha asked in a nurturing voice.

“Great,” Holden said as he paused to look down at his scuffed up leather boots.  “You know how it is though; same thing every week.”

“Well, do you feel like you’re making progress?” she said.

“I think so,” said Holden. “I mean, there was this guy in there today - first time I’ve seen him - and he was actually complaining about smoking too much weed.”

Samantha turned to the sink and began to wash her hands with the thick, lemon-scented soap bar on the counter.  She continued to listen over the pouring water.

“I mean, we’re talking about marijuana here,” he continued.  “A dried up plant.  I thought that by now people have proven it to be a non-addictive drug, right?  Plus, there’s people here with real problems anyways.”

“Well they do call it a gateway drug,” Samantha interjected. “Didn’t you used to smoke pot?”

“Yeah, but way back in college though.” Holden said, lowering his voice, hoping that one of his daughters didn’t hear their mother just now.  “I doubt that whole gateway drug theory is true.”

“Who knows maybe there’s some truth in it,” she said. “Have you ever thought about where you’d be today if you’d never tried it?”

“Now you’re starting to sound like the counselor,” Holden said cautiously.

Samantha swirled around and slowly began to pace towards Holden; her eyes fixated on his.  She hardly wore any jewelry except for a small chain necklace with a diamond cross that her mother had given her.  She was lovely in her simplicity but stern in her tone of voice.

“I know you have been taking your rehabilitation very seriously,” Samantha said, pressing herself into Holden’s torso.  “And I couldn’t be more proud of you. What’s it been, like 18 months?”

“Yeah, something like that,” Holden said, reaching back to scratch his neck.

“Well, that’s incredible,” Samantha said optimistically. “18 months and counting and you’ve never looked back.”

Holden began to feel a knot form in the bottom of his stomach.  His fingers began to tingle and his cheeks blushed red as Samantha leaned in for a kiss on his lips.  He looked down at her stripped blue dress and couldn’t help but think of Evelyn.

High winds began to whip through the city streets, constantly lurking and pouncing on unsuspecting pedestrians like a feral animal.  The wind chill stings Holden’s face as he trudges through the thick combination of slush and dirt that now litters the city.  Winter certainly made it more difficult to travel to Evelyn’s hotel.  She could at least pay for a cab to pick him up.  It had been about a month since Holden had last seen Evelyn or the dollhouse.  He was curious as to why she never had the dollhouse brought back to the shop.  Holden had even asked Lewis to give priority to Evelyn’s project when she brought it in.  Either way, Holden was missing his usual over-payment and decided to pay his best paying customer a visit.

He had become all too familiar with The London hotel at this point.  The marble floors in the lobby were reflective like a mirror, garnished with other rare polished stones.  The lobby was also home to one of Gordon Ramsey’s famous restaurants, constantly teeming with curiously wealthy tourists.  Holden proceeded to take the elevator to Evelyn’s room.  The elevator halted at   the 42nd floor as Holden stepped out and began his walk to the end of the hall.  As he approached Evelyn’s suite, he saw the door open from the inside.  An older man in a suit and tie walked out of the room and closed the door behind him, holding the room key in one hand.  Holden approached the stranger in the hallway, curious of his affiliation with Evelyn.

“Excuse me, can I help you?” Holden said in his best authoritarian voice.

“Nope, not really,” the man replied, neglecting to make eye contact.

The man continued ignoring Holden as he walked past him towards the elevators.  He reached out with his index finger and hit the down button on the elevator panel.  Holden continued to stare at the man.

“Look, I know you were just in Evelyn Witherspoon’s room,” Holden said sternly.  “Nobody has occupied that suite but her in the last six years and I know for a fact that she’d never be willing to give up her room, no matter what the price.”

The man turned and made eye contact with Holden for the first time.  He straightened up and pushed his short bangs off to one side.

“Mr. Grant, right?” The man said waiting for a reply. “Holden Grant? You have a wife named Samantha and three kids?

Holden stood still in the hallway, slightly in awe but mostly afraid of how this stranger knew who he was.

“Who wants to know?” Holden said, attempting to reinstate his authority.

The man managed to let out a slight smirk out of the corner of his lips.  He reached inside his jacket pocket and pulled out a business card and showed it to Holden.

“My name is Anthony Strickland,” he explained. “I’m Mrs. Witherspoon’s long time attorney and friend.”

“Where is she?” Holden interrupted.

“That’s why I’m here,” he continued. “Mrs. Witherspoon has been taken to Beth Israel Medical Center where she is being treated for her dementia by the finest private nurses and doctors that money can buy.”

“Is she going to die?” Holden asked, trying to sound concerned.

“Well, she is pushing 100 years old,” Anthony replied. “It’s not inaccurate to say that she will die eventually.”

Holden got quiet.  He began to think about the time he’d spent with Evelyn and how he probably could have been nicer to her.  After all, she was his best customer and he’ll miss the ease of making money for old rope.

“I’m here to look after her assets as well as maintain the integrity of her will when she passes,” Anthony said.

He reached inside his jacket pocket again and pulled out a manilla envelope brimming with a large stack of white papers.

“This is Mrs. Witherspoon’s final will and testament,” he said while thumbing through the pages. “I think you’ll find everything in order.”

The attorney took out the papers and flipped through them, eventually ending up somewhere in the middle which had been previously bookmarked.  He turned the pages towards Holden and pointed at the first paragraph at the top of the page.

“To my only living heir, Mr. Holden C. Grant.  You shall receive exactly fifty percent of my liquidated assets and remaining fortune.  May this money give you and your family not just material possessions, opportunities of a lifetime.

Signed in ink, “Evelyn Witherspoon-Norris.”