You’ve Taken Too Much. You Always Do. You Always Have.

“We are going to be late.”  He yells up the stairs to his wife.

She is up in the oversized master bedroom sipping on her second martini.  Her dress is over the top expensive and her jewels bedazzle the dimly lit room.  Big hair and vivid make-up complete the outfit. 

She hates these fancy dinner parties for her husband’s high-profile job.  It reminds her all to well she came from the other side of the tracks.

The party is full with pompous adults all trying their best to out talk, out brag and not be undone by the others that surround them.

Only her husband knows her dirty little secret. Not sure where his wife had went,  he went looking for her; she was looking for a trophy.

“What in the hell do you think you are doing?”  He whispered as he grabbed her by the arm.

“Nothing, she won’t even know it’s missing.”  She said as her eyes glaze at the precious green stones curled around her fingers like a small garden snake.

“Do you really think they are going to move you up to that big office on the top floor?  The one that overlooks the entire world below?” She said.

“What are you talking about?”

“You know as well as I do, the only people who get that view are the ball suckers and ass kissers.”  She lets her trash mouth open up, forgetting who she is supposed to be.

“This is our assurance that someday, whatever happens, you and me are sitting pretty.  I may not know as much as you about the big man business world but I do know this about life in general.  People come and people are pushed out.”

Over the next five years and countless parties she took more and more each time. 

A few times the authorities were called in.  It is one thing to lose a ring or a pair of earrings.  It was another to find an entire ensemble missing.

“You shouldn’t have taken the entire set.  Do you really think they wouldn’t have noticed an entire box of jewelry missing?”

“I know, baby.  But think how much money we will get having matching necklace, bracelet and earrings?”

Tonight was different.  In her intoxicated state, she thought no one would notice her wearing a full-length fur coat on that hot summer night.  She found the coat in the same room where she found a small velvet box full of gold coins.

As she starts down the stairs, she sees her husband talking with the hosts of the party.

“That’s my coat.”  Says the hostess.

A drunken six-inch heel snags the carpet and the rest of the drunken mess comes tumbling down twelve stairs and lands with a deafening thump.

Five days later and after a quick firing from his job, he looks down at his wife and says, “You’ve taken too much.  You always do.  You always have.”

He kisses her forehead and shuts the coffin lid.  Turning to a nearly empty church he walks out to his car.  He looks around cautiously and opens the trunk; looking over all the trophies his wife has collected over the years. 

Sitting now behind the wheel he turns his car onto the busy street and chases the sun as it starts to set.