By Paul Cwick

Nick and Norma stood among huge slabs of beef hanging from meat hooks, while cold air blasted them from nearby refrigeration ducts. Nick repeatedly beat his arms around himself, and hopped from one foot to the other in an effort to keep warm.

"Boy, this is some great meeting place you got us!" Nick said. "Any particular reason we have to freeze our butts off?"

"Come on, Nick, think." Norma answered, her voice muffled slightly by the hood of the heavy parka she wore, which nearly obscured her face. She blew into her mittened hands to try to keep them warm. "Greg said that when Cat gets invisible, she has to strip completely naked. Okay. Since we don’t want her eavesdropping on us like she did before, that means we need a meeting-place that’s as uncomfortable as possible for her. A place so uncomfortable that, even if she does spot one of us and follows us in, she’s not likely to hang around for very long. What better place than a meat-locker?"

"Oh, I can think of a few," Nick replied. "How about a car-wash? How about the local garbage-dump? Jeez Louise, anything would be better than this!" He sneezed.

"Will you stop complaining? We’re not going to be here very long. As soon as Greg gets here, we can get started."

"Well, I hope he gets his butt here soon," he paused as he stifled another sneeze. "If he doesn’t, I’m getting out of here before hypothermia sets in."

"Will you come on? It’s not that cold."

"Well, I don’t know what you call cold!" He stifled another sneeze, then turned to face Norma soberly. "I just hope we come up with a sensible plan." he said.

"We will, we will," Norma reassured him.

"And nothing crazy, either, like breaking Cathy’s legs with a sledgehammer."

Norma sighed impatiently, producing a tiny cloud of condensed moisture in front of her face. "Look, will you forget about that? That was just a suggestion, all right?"

The two stood in silence for several more minutes, before Nick started grumbling again. "Come on, come on, come on, where the hell is he already?"

"He’ll be here soon," Norma said. "He—wait, here he comes now!"

Nick looked behind him and, sure enough, there was Greg approaching them, barely recognizable, wearing a heavy overcoat, with what appeared to be several layers of clothing underneath, a knit cap pulled down tight over his ears, and a long scarf wrapped around his neck and the lower part of his face. He waddled slightly as he walked.

"Sorry it took so long," he said. "But I haven’t had a chance to pick up my car yet. It’s still sitting in Armando’s parking lot. So I had to take the bus."

In spite of his ill mood, Nick laughed when he saw Greg. "Hey man, I like your disguise!" he said.

"Disguise, hell!" Greg replied. "When Norma told me we were meeting in the freezer of Gino’s market—and I realized she wasn’t joking—I just put on as many clothes as I could. Brrrr! And I’m still cold!"

"Yeah, tell me about it." Nick said. "All right, so we’re all here, so—"

"Hey Norma, is that you in there?" Greg said to the small, heavily-hooded figure standing beside Nick.

"Yes, it’s me," the figure replied, pulling the hood back slightly to reveal her face. "See? Here I am."

Greg saw the swollen welt on her cheek and immediately recoiled. "Jeez, did she do that?" he cried.

Norma nodded. "Now you know why I think we should do something about that maniac now, rather than wait." She pulled the hood back down over her face.

"All right, so let’s get on with it already, before we freeze to death!" Nick interjected.

"Okay, okay," Norma said, turning to face Greg. "Now Greg, let’s start with you. You were telling me about your original plan, and how you had bought infrared goggles or something…" She trailed off, indicating to Greg to pick up where she left off.

"Yeah, well…" he began, then sniffled. "My plan was to somehow get inside of Cat’s apartment. I thought if I could do that, then maybe I could find those herbs she uses to turn invisible, and take them away from her. But in order to do that, I’d have to first make sure she’s out of her apartment, obviously, and not looking over my shoulder while she’s invisible. So I bought the goggles so that I could see her…sort of." He sneezed. "They worked fine, but…well, like I told you, the rest of the plan didn’t quite work out."

Norma remained silent, as she took it all in. "But if it did work," she said. "And you did somehow get inside her apartment, and you did get ahold of the herbs, then what? Were you planning to use them yourself?"

"Well, actually no," Greg said. "I’m not sure I’d want to be invisible, not after seeing what it’s done to her. No, no, I just want to get the herbs away from her: destroy them, flush them down the toilet, throw them into the trash, whatever. The main point is to just get them away from her, to stop her from using them. However," Greg paused, as though dreading what he was about to say next. "If all else fails, I could try and use them myself. I’m saving that as a last resort."

"So you’d basically be using them like a bargaining chip, is that it?" Norma said. "You’d be saying like, ‘Look, if you keep turning invisible and harassing me, then I’ll turn invisible and harass you.’ Is that the idea?"

"More or less."

Norma was silent. "Well, all right, but…" she said at last. "But I still think you ought to do something to get even with her." She paused, unconsciously rubbing the welt on her cheek. "I know I’d like to." she said, quietly. "A little payback never hurt, you know."

Greg shook his head. "I don’t want to escalate things any more," he said. "I just want to make an end of it, once and for all."

Norma muttered something under her breath, but Greg couldn’t make out what it was. Nick thought he detected a certain tension in the frigid air, so he hastened to speak up.

"How did you plan to get into her place?" he asked. "Just break in?"

"Um…I guess so…" Greg lowered his head, embarrassed. "I don’t know, I—I guess I just never thought it through before."

"Any chance of getting the key away from her? To make a duplicate, I mean."

"Not a chance."

"Well, the next time you go over there for a visit, do you think you could maybe look around and find the key somehow?"

"I don’t go over there anymore. I haven’t been over there for several months now. Even before we—" he hesitated. "Even before we—broke up, she wouldn’t let me into her place. She said she couldn’t trust me."

"When was the last time you were there?" asked Norma.

"Oh, geez, lemme think," Greg said closing his eyes and rubbing his forehead with a heavily-gloved hand. "I think it was—well, it was well before Jeremiah’s, at any rate."

"How easy or difficult do you think it would be to find the herbs?" asked Norma. "Assuming you could get into her apartment, I mean."

"Well, it shouldn’t be too hard." Greg said. "It seems like I remember she had her entire herbarium covering one entire set of shelves along one wall of her living room. I think most of them were labeled, as I recall, so anything that isn’t labeled could be the ones I’m looking for… And they have a very distinctive odor, too. So, no, I don’t think they’d be too hard to find." He paused briefly, to stifle a sneeze. "Assuming she hasn’t redecorated or remodeled or anything, that is. But she also has a stash. You know, a supply of the prepared potion stored someplace. Finding that might be a problem."

"Why" asked Norma.

"Well, because it could literally be anywhere. I remember she always had it in these little, bitty glass vials." He held up a heavily-gloved thumb and forefinger, indicating their size. "There must be a thousand places in that apartment where she could hide them. They could be anywhere." He sneezed again. "Basically, it would come down to just plain looking for them, turning the place upside down until I found them, and that could take a while."

A silence followed, as Norma absorbed Greg’s words. "Okay," she said at last. "So here’s what we’re looking at. You somehow get into her apartment. You somehow find her herbs and potion and take them away from her. You somehow do all this without her knowledge. You take the herbs & potion home. She no longer has the means to get invisible, and theoretically, she leaves you alone. Is that it?"

"Um, yeah, basically."

Norma was silent for several seconds, thinking over all that she’d heard. "Okay…" she said softly, stroking her chin with a mitten. "I think I can see how we might make a plan out of this… There are some problem areas that still need to be worked out, obviously, but…still…" She shook her head. "No, first thing’s first. And the first problem is, how do we get you into her apartment?"

Out of the blue, Nick suddenly spoke up. "Well, that’s not a problem." he said, casually. "We can just pick the lock, that’s all."

Norma turned to face her husband, regarding him quizzically.

"Pick the lock!" Greg said, scarcely concealing the scorn in his voice. "That’s all! Just like that! What do I look like, a locksmith? I don’t know anything about picking locks!"

"No, but I do." Nick answered, quietly. He caught stunned looks on Greg’s face…and on Norma’s.

"You’re kidding me, right?" Greg said, smiling weakly.

"No, I’m not kidding." Nick said, as though deeply hurt. "I happen to be very good at it."

Greg’s jaw dropped open. Well, this is news to me! he thought.

"Where did you ever learn to pick locks?" Norma asked, eyeing her husband narrowly.

"Oh, well, I—uh," he said, smiling nervously as he caught the look on his wife’s face. "I used to work at a finance company, and…" his voice trailed off.

"And?" Norma said, her gaze narrowing.

"And I—I handled collections and repossessions. I collected repayment of loans,"

"You collected loans," Greg repeated, as though having trouble comprehending.

"Yeah," Nick said. "You know, sometimes people get really tight-fisted when it comes to making payments. So the company usually sent me over to…persuade the client to…you know, ‘cough up,’ as they say."

A chill ran down Greg’s spine, unrelated to the temperature inside the meat-locker. Looking up at his huge friend, he shuddered to imagine what sorts of things Nick might have had to do in the way of "persuasion."

Norma regarded her husband in stunned silence.

"Anyway, I—" Nick resumed, withering slightly under his wife’s gaze. "I also repossessed stuff. Cars, TVs, furniture, appliances…oh, all kinds of stuff."

Finally, Norma spoke. "Wait a minute!" she said. "Are you telling me you used to break into people’s houses to repossess stuff? Is that what you’re telling me?" she asked in disbelief.

"Well, I uh—" despite the sub-freezing temperature, Nick began to break into a light sweat. "Well, I wouldn’t say that, exactly… I mean, ‘breaking into’ is such a strong term…"

"When was all this going on?" Norma now regarded Nick as though he were a total stranger.

"Well, this was—this was a long, long time ago, before you and I even met, and—" His voice faltered slightly. "Well, it’s a long story…"

Norma continued to stare at her husband; it seemed to Nick as though the temperature in the locker had dropped another ten or twenty degrees.

Greg finally broke the frozen silence. "So—So what you’re saying is that you could pick the lock?"

"Um, yeah," Nick said, stirring his attention away from Norma’s laser-like gaze.

"Why didn’t you say so before?"

Nick hesitated. "Well, because I was hoping we could come up with a plan that didn’t involve breaking the law, that’s why. This is illegal entry we’re talking about, you know."

A long silence followed, as the other two absorbed the full meaning of Nick’s statement.

"Okay," Norma said at length. "I think I’ve got a rough idea for a plan—"

"This doesn’t involve sledgehammers, does it?" Nick asked, interrupting her.

Norma sighed loudly, with the exasperation of the perpetually-heckled. "No!" she said impatiently, for what seemed like the fifty-billionth time. "And remember, this is just a rough plan. We can work out the details later. What I have in mind is this: We do a stakeout. Nick and I take turns, parked across the street from Cat’s apartment, keeping our eyes open for her."

"For how long?" Nick asked, grim-faced.

"As long as it takes," Norma answered, then caught the look on Nick’s face. "Look, sooner or later, she’s got to show her face eventually. Anyway, while we’re doing that, Greg stays in his apartment, out of sight and out of danger, until we’re ready to move. Now…here’s the tricky part. As soon as you or I see Cat leaving her apartment, we follow her. Then…"

* * *

The phone on the counter of the small store rang. A young woman, with very long, straight dark hair reached over and picked up the receiver.

"Spiritual Wellness Herb Shop and Aromatherapy Salon, this is Crystal, how may I help you?" she said, all in one breath. "Oh, Cat! Hi! Um—yeah, as a matter of fact, I was just about to call you." She paused a moment. "Yeah. Well, that’s just it. See, Rain and I were wondering when you might be coming in." She paused. "Well, do you think you might be coming in later today?" Another pause. "Well, when then? Yes, I understand that, but the thing is, there’s a lot of paperwork backed up here and—" she hesitated. "Yeah, I know, but these are bills and invoices and things like that, things that you really need to look at; some of them need your signature."

Crystal paused as she listened. "Well, because you’re the manager, that’s why. Yes, Cat… Yes, but—" Another pause, followed by a deep breath. "I know, but some of these things are your responsibility too. I know, but Rain & I can’t do it all. Some of this stuff you have to take responsibility for." Crystal closed her eyes, and slowly exhaled. "I know. I know all about that Cat, but—" Almost imperceptibly, her jaw clenched and her grip tightened on the phone. "Yes, I understand." She took another deep breath. "Okay. All right. Good-bye." She slowly hung up the phone.

"So, is she coming in or what?" said Rain, a short, chubby young woman with short, ash-blonde hair, as she walked in from the back room of the store, carrying a box of brightly-colored, peculiarly-shaped candles.

"I don’t know." Crystal replied. "She said she has some personal issues going on."

"Well how much longer is she going to be out?"

"I asked her that. She says she doesn’t know; she just said she’s got personal issues," she emphasized the word. "that she needs to work through."

Rain sighed in disgust and dropped the box onto the counter. "Well, she’s going to have to start coming in again and start taking care of some of this stuff!" she said, indicating with a broad sweep of her arm the immense pile of bills and other assorted paperwork that had accumulated over the weeks.

"I know, I told her that."

Both women then fell silent, leaning against the counter. After several minutes, Crystal broke the silence, speaking very quietly.

"I don’t know what the hell is with her these days; I really don’t. I mean, I can’t even talk to her anymore. And she’s just letting this place fall to wrack & ruin, like she doesn’t even care anymore. I mean, we can’t pay the bills, the suppliers won’t send us any more stuff until we pay for the last order, and we can’t pay anything until Cat drags her butt in here and cuts some checks for these people!"

"I know, I know," Rain muttered softly in agreement.

Another long silence. Then Crystal spoke:

"I think she’s been crying again," she said. "You should have heard her; she sounded like she was like totally on the verge of a nervous breakdown or something."

Rain grunted non-committally, but said nothing.

Yet another long silence followed, this time broken by Rain.

"You know what it is: She’s having trouble with that boyfriend of hers." There was no mistaking the contempt in her voice as she emphasized the word.

"Oh, I know. She’s been having trouble with that Greg jerk for months now. I don’t know why she puts up with that guy, I really don’t. I mean, why doesn’t she just dump him once and for all and be done with it? Just get rid of him. She’s too good for him and she knows it!"

"Well, she’s too soft-hearted, is the problem; too easygoing. I mean, she really does love the jerk, so she’s willing to put up with anything, no matter how badly he treats her. She lets him just walk all over her." She paused for a moment, then went on. "Did you hear what he did to her in Seattle?"

"Yeah, she told me all about it. She gave me all the details."

"Well, I’ll tell you one thing: If any guy ever treated me the way he treated her, he’d find himself looking down the business end of a shotgun!"

"He’s not worth it, that’s all. He’s just not worth it, and she’s totally ruining herself over him."

Rain paused before responding. "I know it," she said softly. "And you know it, and probably she knows it, deep down inside. But she’ll never admit it."

Another long silence followed.

"So," Crystal said at length. "Did you finish the inventory?"

"Yeah," Rain said, taking a sheet of paper from the top of the box she’d been carrying. "We’ve got just this one case of the mood candles left," she said, reading her notes.
"We’re all out of the scented candles and the incense, we’re nearly out of the herb teas and the herbal medicinal products. We’re pretty well stocked as far as the aromatherapy stuff is concerned. I think we can get by for another week on that. Oh! And we’re actually overstocked on the patchouli oil." She handed the sheet to Crystal, who looked it over grimly.

"How about the spiritual wellness books? Are we okay on those?"

"Well, we’ve got plenty in stock, but some of the titles just aren’t moving. They’ve been sitting there for months now. We ought to mark them down just to get rid of them."

"Well, don’t start marking anything down without Cat’s approval."

"Yes, I know that…" Rain said, with a slight trace of irritation in her voice.

Crystal let out another long sigh as she looked over the sheet. "I don’t know how the hell we can stay in business the way we’re going, I really don’t… She’s going to have to come in and start making some decisions around here, she just has to!"

"Yeah." Rain answered flatly.

The two women leaned against the counter, staring into space.

* * *

Cat hung up the phone with a pleased smile on her face. Everything’s going to be all right now, she told herself. I have friends who like me, who love me and care about me… Everybody likes me… And I have my job. I have everything I want in life. I don’t need Greg…I don’t need anyone! I’m my own person…I can take care of myself… All I need to do is take a few more days off from work to heal myself, to regroup and re-center my energies. Then I’ll be fine…Then I can go back into work and straighten things out at the shop… Everything will be fine… She hugged herself, and felt very much comforted.

She looked around her cluttered apartment. She had badly neglected it over the past few weeks, just as she had neglected her job. I really ought to give this place a good cleaning, she thought. One of these days…I haven’t had a chance before…been too busy trying to look after him…! But…that’s all over now… Now I can start taking care of myself again, just as I should… I’ll clean up this place maybe later…one of these days… She lightly brushed the carpet with her toe, raising a tiny whirlwind of dust.

She yawned and stretched, then got up and went into the kitchen to get something to eat.

* * *

Norma wrapped up the final details of her plan. Even though Nick’s face felt as though it was frozen solid, it nevertheless betrayed the dismay he felt at his wife’s idea.

"Okay, okay," Norma said, looking at her husband. "I can tell by the look on your face that you’re not too crazy about my idea. But what do you think?" she turned to Greg.

"Ummm," he said, thoughtfully rubbing his chin. "I—I don’t know. I suppose it could work. I’m certainly willing to give it a try."

"How ‘bout you?" Norma said, turning to face Nick.

"Well…" he began hesitantly, looking from Norma to Greg…then back to Norma again. "To tell you the truth, it sounds like a crazy plan to me. There are too many holes in it, for one thing, and—"

"I know, I know, but," Norma said. "What about the idea in principle? Are you for it or against it?"

Nick remained silent. He had grave doubts about the plan, and in fact, the entire time he’d been listening to Norma explain it, he’d been silently forming a plan of his own.

"Would you consider an alternative?" he said at last.

"What alternative?" Norma asked, eyeing him narrowly.

"Well," Nick began hesitantly, turning to Greg. "Have you ever considered just leaving town? Just take off without a word?"

Greg shook his head. "I already tried that; it didn’t work."

"Tried what?" Nick asked. "Leaving town? You’re still here, aren’t you?"

"Yeah, but I did leave town. I ended up having to come back."

"Your Seattle trip, right?" Norma interjected.

"Right," Greg answered. "I went up there. On short notice, left no word with anyone that I was going. But Cat found me. I don’t know how, but she did. She tracked me down and beat the crap out of me until I agreed to come back here. So now here I am and so is Cat, still making my life miserable."

Nick shook his head. "I don’t know," he said. "It doesn’t sound quite right. You must have left something out, overlooked some small detail. Maybe you made a mistake somewhere along the way. Maybe—"

"You’re forgetting one thing," Norma said, interrupting. "Even if Greg does leave town and Cat doesn’t find him, she’ll still be here and so will we! And she’ll still have the power of invisibility! Maybe you can sleep at night knowing that fact, but I can’t!"

"Okay, okay," Nick said, waving a hand as if to withdraw his idea. "It was just a suggestion. We’ll put it aside for now. Maybe we can save it for a contingency."

"A what?" Greg asked, bewildered.

"A contingency. You know, an escape-hatch, a back-up in case the main plan doesn’t work."

Greg stared blankly at his friend. Nick went on to explain further.

"Let’s put it this way: when you did your out-of-town trip and your IR goggle plan and all that, what were you planning to fall back on in case either of those didn’t work out?"

"Well, umm…I—I don’t know… I guess I didn’t think—"

"Well then, see?" Nick said, triumphantly. "No wonder your plan didn’t work; you didn’t have any backup! You should always have a backup plan, so that—"

"Look, what do you want from me?!?" Greg said, disgusted. "I don’t even know what the hell you’re talking about! What’s this with contingencies and escape-hatches and backups?"

"Look, I’m just asking, don’t get on my—"

"Guys, guys, calm down," Norma said, raising her voice. "Let’s not start fighting with each other, all right? Cat is the enemy, remember?" She paused, looking from Greg to Nick and back to Greg again. "Right?" she said. "Okay, let’s remember that."

She eyed the two men, one after the other, until she felt they had cooled off sufficiently, then went on. "Okay. What we’ve got at this point are two options: One involves taking Cathy’s invisibility power away from her and the other doesn’t. Now, in my opinion, taking Cathy’s power away has to take priority. Otherwise, we’re not really solving the problem, we’re just avoiding it."

She paused for a moment, then went on. "Okay. Now, I know there are some weak spots in my plan. I know it has some rough areas that need to be worked out. But I still think, in the final analysis, that it’s our best bet. So how about this: Why don’t we at least try it? We can still hold Nick’s idea in reserve, as a last-resort option, a—what was it you called it? A ‘contingency,’ that’s it. And if my plan doesn’t work out for any reason, then we can try Nick’s idea."

She caught the expression on Nick’s face. "I know what you’re thinking," she said. "And yes, there are risks involved with this plan. If we go through with it, we’re all taking risks, some big risks. Let’s not kid ourselves." She paused, letting her words sink in. "You guys know the risks as well as I do, and nobody is forcing anyone to go along with it. But I think we all have a stake in this. And if this plan is going to work, it will have to have the combined, coordinated efforts of all of us. We all have to get behind it if it’s going to work." She paused, looking from Greg to Nick. "Now…last chance to back out. Are we all in…or not?"

"I’m in," Greg said, without hesitation. He and Norma then faced Nick.

"Are you sure I can’t talk you out of this insanity?" Nick said, trying one last time. The look on his companions’ faces gave him the answer. He could see that they had made up their minds and were ready to go through with this crazy scheme regardless of anything he said. He realized that all he could hope for, at this point, was to just go along with it and try to keep his wife and his friend from getting hurt. "All right," he said, resignedly. "Count me in. Although," he muttered, under his breath. "I still think this is madness!"

"Okay." Norma said, beaming broadly, trying to put a positive spin on it. "We’ve made a good start today, but there’s still a lot more to be done. As I said, we can work out the details and rough areas of the plan later. We can meet here again tomorrow—"

"Oh, no!"

"—same time, same place, and the next day too, if necessary." She went on, ignoring Nick’s objection. "And then we’ll just pound out the details, hammer every little weak spot, until we get the plan perfect. Then we’ll be ready to put it into action." She paused, stifling another sneeze. "Okay? Great! ‘Til tomorrow, then!" She turned and headed toward the door of the meat-locker, with Nick and Greg following.

"’Til tomorrow," Nick muttered. "But in the meantime, I’m getting some hot coffee!"

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