The People magazine resting on the armrest of the sofa looked extremely enticing, at least to Bridget anyway. Brad Pit's pretty boy face along with his fringy haircut radiated from the cover of the magazine like a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow. The popular actor had women swooning across the nation. Maybe even across the world.
It was 4pm Sunday afternoon and Bridget sat on the sofa in Vinny's barn bored out of her mind. The Gadget Man was hunched over the work bench fixing a stereo about the size of a microwave and whistling a merry tune. He assured his fiance that he was just fixing a stereo for an old friend and it would only take an hour. Later he would take her out to dinner.
After twiddling her thumbs for a few minutes, Bridget couldn't resist and picked up the People magazine. She looked good in her faded blue jeans and silky green button-down shirt. Sometimes she wished Vinny would pay attention to how much time she spent preening her hair into cinnamon swirl like buns perched behind her head like Mickey Mouse ears just the way he liked it.
Bridget leafed through the pages while Vinny tried to engage in a conversation.
"I think I finally figured it out." He said melting solder into a circuit board with his favorite soldering gun.
Bridget looked up from the magazine. "What's that Hun?" She asked not really paying attention.
Vinny was all dressed in black like he usually wore. Black jeans, boots, and a long sleeved black cotton shirt.
"Well, the beginning and everything. With Adam and Eve I mean."
Bridget pretended to listen but began reading an article about spanking children.
The Gadget Man droned on. "Yeah, I got to thinking. Evidently the human race had to multiply by Adam and Eve's children marrying their brothers and sisters and making more children."
Bridget poked her head out of the magazine for a quick second. "Huh?" She seemed dumbfounded.
"Well, I lived with a lot of Amish people growing up and heard stories about some of their babies having 6 toes as a result of them marrying their cousins. Maybe that's what happened in the Biblical days. As a result of Adam and Eve's children being coerced to sleep with each in order for the human race to multiply, strange blemishes derived such as change in the pigment of their skin and hair texture thus creating Chinese, Spanish, African Americans, etc." He said twisting two wires together.
Bridget felt the bile rise in her throat. This grossed her out immensely. "So now you're talking about incest! I don't think God would want brothers and sisters sleeping with each other!" She said flipping past 10 pages in frustration.
Vinny tried his best to defend his creator. "Well, maybe it was okay since nobody else was around."
Vinny's reply went through one ear and out the other in a nanosecond. It was obvious that Vinny was making stupid talk so Bridget indulged herself in an article about cheating lovers.
"Look babe, let's not argue about something that neither of us or our grandparents were around to witness. My insight is not going to change about Christianity." She replied and quickly started reading the article.
Vinny dropped the subject and guzzled down the few swigs of Budweiser. He had already assured her that his drinking was okay because Jesus turned the water into wine at the end of the wedding when all the other wine was consumed so therefore getting drunk had to be okay.
Bridget, the voracious reader, read the magazine article intently until something weird caught her eye. One of the key words in the third sentence had a bunch of holes poked into it making the word unreadable. It was very irksome and had Bridget curious. She then looked up at the top right corner of the page and noticed that the corner had been folded. Already enthralled by the article, Bridget chose to read on.
As she continued to read she noticed that the article had been very subtly stippled. She held the magazine closer to her face and observed tiny pinholes intentionally punched above certain letters in the article. Bridget quickly focused her gaze on the word that had been mutilated and then read very slowly.
Meanwhile.... Vinny was still hunched over the workbench playing with the stereo and whistling the "American Pie" song. Bridget read very slowly until she noticed the first pinhole punched in over top of the letter "H". She read even slower until she noticed another pinhole above the letter "E". Pretty soon the same thing happened with the letter "L" and then soon "P".
After she fell upon this new discovery Bridget became concerned and reached for her golden glitter pen that she always kept in her shirt pocket. As she carefully deciphered this secret hidden code, before long she had already written out "Help me I am kidnapped."
At first Bridget didn't know what to think as she wrote the discovered letters on the side of the article. But when she wrote out "Tina Anderson" she felt her heart sink like the Titanic. Who could possibly forget the horrible Anderson case that annotated CNN headlines for months?
Bridget's heart raced as she went over the article one more time to make sure she deciphered the hidden code correctly. Unfortunately she got the same exact results. Why was it every time she fell in love something bad always happened?
Bridget's palms became sweaty and she felt her muscles cramp up as a million and one thoughts entered her mind and she reminisced about the past.
Vinny was still oblivious as to her new discovery and cranked the stereo up feeling elated that he had finally fixed it. As Bridget scratched out what she had spelled out in the magazine she began to remember things about Vinny. Their first date at the Sushi restaurant and how it seemed so strange that he had so many hundred dollar bills. It explained his palsied hands when a police officer followed them home. Then she remembered the firework show from his back porch and how he could detonate fireworks via pushing buttons on his cellphone.
Little tears welled up in Bridget's eyes as she felt paralyzed resting on the sofa. The pieces of the mysterious puzzle finally fit together. Since they had announced their engagement Vinny's parole officer had left him alone and given him plenty of room to breathe. It suddenly dawned on her that Vinny probably didn't even love her at all and was just using her as a tool to keep the authorities from prying.
Bridget took a few deep breaths, she furtively wiped the tears from her eyes, and assimilated the cold hard facts. Vinny was a ruthless serial killer who wasn't capable of loving another human being, because Vincent Young, the man standing just 20ft away with his back towards her, is in fact, the Gadget Man.