Goodnight Tweetheart

by Teresa Medeiros

  Abby_Donovan: She cheated AFTER you got sick? Was she in the bathroom during the “in sickness and in health” segment of your wedding ceremony?

  MarkBaynard: That’s what I get for letting her talk me into writing our own vows.

  Abby_Donovan: Let me guess. She called you her soul mate and promised to cleave to you until death did you part … or at least until she got a better offer.

  MarkBaynard: There was something about rainbows & candles & maybe even ponies. But nothing about chemo or holding the trash can for me while I puked.

  Abby_Donovan: And we thought WE had intimacy issues!

  MarkBaynard: I’ve missed you. A guy can only talk to his life-size cardboard cutout of Hillary Clinton for so long before she starts to talk back.

  Abby_Donovan: Please tell me they didn’t let you bring that thing to the hospital?

  MarkBaynard: What can I say? She squeaks less than my inflatable doll.

  Abby_Donovan: I was hoping you were stuck watching a WIFE SWAP marathon on Lifetime.

  MarkBaynard: Actually I’ve been watching PLANET EARTH—the best video Valium invented since the Teletubbies. So soothing!

  Abby_Donovan: Yeah, at least until the baby elephant wanders off into the desert to die and the chimps start ripping off each other’s faces.

  MarkBaynard: Oh gee, thanks a lot! Spoil the ending for me, why don’t you?

  Abby_Donovan: Wait until I tell you what happens to Old Yeller.

  MarkBaynard: Isn’t it bad enough that I had to learn what happened to Beth in LITTLE WOMEN from an episode of FRIENDS?

  Abby_Donovan: I figured you’d be watching SEX, LIES & VIDEOTAPE or maybe Jim Carrey in LIAR, LIAR.

  MarkBaynard: Just so you know … I lied about my career too. I’m really an underwear model for Calvin Klein.

  Abby_Donovan: That’s odd, because just yesterday I found a pic of some guy named Mark Baynard on the faculty page of the Ole Miss website.

  MarkBaynard: You naughty little vixen! We had a bargain! No peeking!

  Abby_Donovan: At least you weren’t lying about the houndstooth jacket with the leather patches on the elbows.

  MarkBaynard: It was a gift from Calvin Klein.

  Abby_Donovan: And just for the record, you look more like Seth Rogen than Hugh Jackman.

  MarkBaynard: There’s-Just-More-Of-Me-To-Love Seth Rogen? Or Slimmed-Down-For-The-Role-Of-Green-Hornet Seth Rogen?

  Abby_Donovan: In-Between-You’re-So-Cuddly-I-Kinda-Wanna-Have-Your-Baby Seth Rogen. You have beautiful hair (she added sulkily).

  MarkBaynard: I did.

  Abby_Donovan: Well, I always did like the new Andre Agassi look.

  MarkBaynard: Thanks to the chemo and these damn steroids, I’m rocking more of a Homer Simpson/Dr. Evil look these days.

  Abby_Donovan: Dr. Evil is WAY sexier than Austin Powers.

  MarkBaynard: Very few women can resist a man with a volcano lair. Or a hairless cat named Mr. Bigglesworth.

  Abby_Donovan: I’m not going to let you shave Willow Tum-Tum just so you can impress girls. Maybe Buffy, though.

  MarkBaynard: Before you decide if you want to be one of those girls, there’s one more thing you should know.

  Abby_Donovan: You’re really a Lancome-wearing, Cher-impersonating drag queen, aren’t you? (Not that there’s anything wrong with that.)

  MarkBaynard: I wish it was that simple. While we were … on our break … I kind of … sort of … um … read your first novel. (I duck … I run.)

  Abby_Donovan: Who’s the naughty little vixen now?

  MarkBaynard: What can I say? I thought it was time to replace Hillary with the photo of you on the back of the book.

  Abby_Donovan: Please tell me you didn’t glue my face over hers.

  MarkBaynard: Let’s put it this way. You look really hot in a severe charcoal gray pant suit.

  Abby_Donovan: Well …what did you think?

  MarkBaynard: About the novel or the photo?

  Abby_Donovan: How shallow do you think I am? The photo, of course.

  MarkBaynard: If Angelina and Jen had a love child, it would be you.

  Abby_Donovan: That’s so much better than Marge Simpson and Marilyn Manson. What about the novel? Did you like it as well as the photo?

  MarkBaynard: I think the critics who called it the Next Great American Novel were wrong.

  MarkBaynard: Abby? Are you still there? Did you hang up on me again?

  Abby_Donovan: I should have expected as much from a tight-assed English lit professor who thinks HE’s going to write the Great American Novel.

  MarkBaynard: Your book wasn’t the Next Great American Novel. It was the 2nd Greatest American Novel. Your new book will be the greatest.

  Abby_Donovan: Forget I mentioned that whole “tightassed” part, okay?

  MarkBaynard: Does this mean I’m forgiven?

  Abby_Donovan: Nope. It just means I’m going to stick around and keep kicking your ass until you get out of that hospital and I can kick it in person.

  MarkBaynard: I love it when you talk dirty.

  Abby_Donovan: Goodnight Niles

  MarkBaynard: Goodnight Daphne

  Abby_Donovan: Goodnight Frasier

  MarkBaynard: Goodnight Roz

  Abby_Donovan: Goodnight Bulldog

  MarkBaynard: Goodnight Maris

  Abby_Donovan: Goodnight Marty

  MarkBaynard: Goodnight Tweetheart …

  Thursday, June 22—4:15 P.M.

  MarkBaynard: What are you wearing?

  Abby_Donovan: My naughty nurse costume. http://tweetpic.com/2825190617

  MarkBaynard: I’d tell you what I’m wearing, but I think my heart just stopped. I can hear Nurse Ratched coming down the hall with the crash cart.

  Abby_Donovan: All I can hear is my new neighbor’s 3-year-old riding up and down the hallway outside my apartment on his tricycle.

  MarkBaynard: Have you tried telling him you have a big oven where you bake unruly children?

  Abby_Donovan: I’m preheating it even as we speak.

  MarkBaynard: So how is the writing going?

  Abby_Donovan: VIEW FROM MY LAPTOP: http://tweetpic.com/2825190618.

  MarkBaynard: Whoa! Chapter Fourteen already? I guess I know what you were using all your words for when you weren’t wasting them on wishing me dead.

  Abby_Donovan: I think I might actually finish the book before the end of July. Loathing you was extremely conducive to my creativity.

  MarkBaynard: Then I shall consider myself an inspiration to women everywhere.

  Abby_Donovan: Are you alone right now?

  MarkBaynard: Not anymore.

  Abby_Donovan: You know what I mean. Is anybody there with you?

  MarkBaynard: I thought I heard my mom’s flying monkeys circling earlier, but it was just the Medivac helicopter delivering a piping fresh kidney.

  Abby_Donovan: You’ve never mentioned your dad.

  MarkBaynard: He has a used Chevy business to run so he can keep my mom in booze & cigarettes. Virginia Slims Lights don’t come cheap these days.

  Abby_Donovan: What about your little sister? You said she adored you.

  MarkBaynard: And I adore her back. Which is exactly why I’m not asking her to put her life on hold so she can watch me foolishly cling to mine.

  Abby_Donovan: And your little boy?

  Abby_Donovan: Mark, did I stick my big ole size 8 1/2 foot in my mouth?

  MarkBaynard: I never lied to you about my son. I haven’t seen him in over 6 months.

  Abby_Donovan: Because of your treatment?

  MarkBaynard: Because his mom could afford a better lawyer than me. She believes he’s still young enough to forget me if things don’t … work out …

  Abby_Donovan: That’s the most awful thing I’ve ever heard.

  MarkBaynard: No, the most awful thing was when I called to try to talk to him and heard him in the background calling her new boyfriend “Daddy.”

  Abby_Donovan: Oh God. How can you let her get away with
that?

  MarkBaynard: Don’t have the strength right now to fight her & this damn disease. I have to choose my battles so I can live to fight for him another day.

  Abby_Donovan: She’s wrong, you know. He won’t forget you.

  MarkBaynard: Of course he won’t. His daddy makes the best grilled cheese and bacon sandwiches on the planet …

  MarkBaynard: Plus his mom hates for him to have any kind of sugar so I used to sneak him Little Debbie Oatmeal Creme Pies when she wasn’t looking.

  Abby_Donovan: THINGS YOU WISH YOU’D SAID TO YOUR EX: “Everybody told me I was too good for you. They were right.”

  MarkBaynard: THINGS YOU WISH YOU’D SAID TO YOUR EX: “Yes, dear, those pants DO make your ass look fat.”

  Abby_Donovan: THINGS YOU WISH YOU’D SAID TO YOUR EX: “Oops, I was wrong. Size really DOES matter.”

  MarkBaynard: THINGS YOU WISH YOU’D SAID TO YOUR EX: “It’s not me. It really IS you.”

  Abby_Donovan: So where in the world is Mark Baynard today?

  MarkBaynard: I’d have to relinquish my honorary International Man of Mystery status if I told you my GPS coordinates.

  Abby_Donovan: Not if you kill me after you tell me. So what time is it there?

  MarkBaynard: Time for you to stop trying to trick me into revealing my whereabouts by telling you what time zone I’m in.

  Abby_Donovan: Curses! Foiled again! I had at least hoped to narrow it down to the North American Continent. Or Zimbabwe.

  MarkBaynard: Too bad I’m on to you and your nefarious ways. I’m trained to resist all forms of torture meted out by you and your little henchkitties.

  Abby_Donovan: You haven’t seen what Buffy the Mouse Slayer can do with some catnip and a cattle prod. Why won’t you tell me where you are?

  MarkBaynard: So you can send me some flowers? Or maybe one of those musical Hallmark cards that plays “I Will Survive”?

  Abby_Donovan: I was thinking more along the lines of something by Death Cab for Cutie.

  MarkBaynard: No thank you. You can keep your flowers and your cards. I’d much rather have you loathe me than pity me.

  Abby_Donovan: Congratulations. It’s working.

  MarkBaynard: I think that’s one of the real reasons my wife left. After I relapsed she decided she pitied me more than she had ever loved me.

  Abby_Donovan: Do you still love her?

  MarkBaynard: At the moment I can’t even work up the energy to hate her. Although I hate what she’s doing to me and to our son.

  Abby_Donovan: What was it you told me on our last “date”? “Loathing is still passion. It’s apathy that kills a relationship.”

  MarkBaynard: Exactly. They say that living well is the best revenge. At this point in our relationship, I’d settle for just living.

  Abby_Donovan: How long do you have before your big treatment?

  MarkBaynard: A week. Maybe two. It depends on how many viable stem cells they were able to harvest.

  Abby_Donovan: You said this procedure was experimental. Just how dangerous is it?

  MarkBaynard: Somewhere between pissing off Sharon Stone in BASIC INSTINCT and shouting “Jesus loves you” in a crowded mosque.

  Abby_Donovan: Will it be painful?

  MarkBaynard: Only if I survive.

  Abby_Donovan: I’d probably be curled into a fetal position if I were you. I don’t see how you can be so flip about the whole thing.

  MarkBaynard: You know what they say. It’s better to laugh than to cry. Or to gibber in terror.

  Abby_Donovan: Did you learn that from Yoda?

  MarkBaynard: No … from Guitar Hero, my true Zen master. The only way to get through this life is to hit as many notes as you can and try not to die.

  Abby_Donovan: Would you mind trying really, REALLY hard?

  MarkBaynard: Only for you. I have to go now. I think I hear those flying monkeys headed back this way.

  Abby_Donovan: Don’t tell them where to find me.

  MarkBaynard: “I’ll get you, my pretty! And your little cats too!”

  Abby_Donovan: Goodnight Principal Belding

  MarkBaynard: Goodnight Jessie

  Abby_Donovan: Goodnight Zach

  MarkBaynard: Goodnight Lisa

  Abby_Donovan: Goodnight Slater

  MarkBaynard: Goodnight Kelly

  Abby_Donovan: Goodnight Screech

  MarkBaynard: Goodnight Tweetheart …

  Sunday, June 26—10:45 P.M.

  Abby_Donovan: What are you wearing?

  Abby_Donovan: Mark? I haven’t heard from you in a couple of days and it’s starting to worry me. And Willow Tum-Tum.

  Abby_Donovan: If you’re just playing hard to get, it’s working. Another day of this and you’ll have me on my knees shamelessly begging for your tweets.

  Abby_Donovan: I hope you’re okay. I hope the flying monkeys and lab vamps didn’t join forces to defeat you.

  Abby_Donovan: I hope you slept like a baby last night and didn’t dream of a single Kardashian.

  Abby_Donovan: I hope you’ll tweet me as soon as you’re able. I’m scared.

  Monday, June 27—2:37 A.M.

  MarkBaynard: What are you wearing?

  Abby_Donovan: Coffee-stained sweats and Doris Day’s pillbox hat from … well … just about any of her movies. You?

  MarkBaynard: I twisted my bedsheet into Bluto’s toga from ANIMAL HOUSE. I didn’t really think you’d be up. It’s 2:30 in the morning in New York.

  Abby_Donovan: I couldn’t sleep.

  MarkBaynard: Isn’t that my line?

  Abby_Donovan: Maybe insomnia is contagious. Where have you been?

  MarkBaynard: I had to take a brief tour of the cardiac care unit. I’m thinking of investing in a time share.

  Abby_Donovan: Are you okay? What happened?

  MarkBaynard: They forced me to watch a really boring video starring a lot of happy old people playing golf just to get the free gift.

  Abby_Donovan: Have I ever told you I don’t have much of a sense of humor at 2:30 in the morning?

  MarkBaynard: It was nothing major. Just a little blip on the heart monitor. Some of the drugs can damage your muscles. Including the muscle of love.

  Abby_Donovan: Um … Mark … I think “muscle of love” refers to an entirely different part of the anatomy.

  MarkBaynard: Oh … well, in that case, the drugs I’m on can QUADRUPLE the size of your muscles.

  Abby_Donovan: No wonder you’re so popular with the naughty nurses. Will this setback interfere with your procedure?

  MarkBaynard: No. Now that my heart is beating again, everything is a go.

  Abby_Donovan: Your heart stopped???!!!

  MarkBaynard: Just for a few seconds. Some guy in a bathrobe tried to drag me kicking & screaming into the white light, but I told him to go to hell.

  Abby_Donovan: Did they have to shock you?

  MarkBaynard: Just a little. All it took was showing me Lady Gaga’s new video.

  Abby_Donovan: I was getting really worried about you.

  MarkBaynard: I tried to bribe the CCU nurse into giving me my laptop, but all I had to offer her was the leftover lime Jell-O from my lunch tray.

  Abby_Donovan: You should have offered her your tapioca pudding. I’ve heard it works every time.

  MarkBaynard: Enough about my adventures. What have you been up to?

  Abby_Donovan: Well, I went over to the Bronx to visit my mom in the nursing home this afternoon.

  MarkBaynard: How was she?

  Abby_Donovan: Not bad. Elvis was dropping by later and that always puts her in a good mood.

  MarkBaynard: Was he bringing Napoleon and Teddy Roosevelt with him?

  Abby_Donovan: No … just Janis Joplin and Jim Morrison.

  MarkBaynard: If I’d have gone into the light with that guy in the bathrobe, I could have dropped by too.

  Abby_Donovan: Sometimes when your mom is demented she says hilariously inappropriate things that make you want to gouge out your eyes with a fork.

&nbs
p; MarkBaynard: My mom does that too. But I’d have to use a spork, since that’s all they give you here.

  Abby_Donovan: I think my mom would like you.

  MarkBaynard: Because we’re both demented? Your mom is lucky to have you. You’re a good girl, Abby Donovan.

  Abby_Donovan: A good little Catholic school girl? I thought I was a naughty little vixen?

  MarkBaynard: Only on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Why don’t you go get some sleep? I’m still a little wrung out myself.

  Abby_Donovan: Thank you for letting me know you’re okay.

  MarkBaynard: I’m always okay when you’re around.

  Abby_Donovan: Goodnight Potsie

  MarkBaynard: Goodnight Mrs. C.

  Abby_Donovan: Goodnight Richie

  MarkBaynard: Goodnight Joanie

  Abby_Donovan: Goodnight Arnold

  MarkBaynard: Goodnight Pinkie

  Abby_Donovan: Goodnight Arthur

  MarkBaynard: Goodnight Tweetheart …

  Wednesday, June 29—9:58 P.M.

  MarkBaynard: What are you wearing?

  Abby_Donovan: A purple Sue Sylvester track suit with approximately 2 lbs of Buffy hair on it. You?

  MarkBaynard: A really pissed-off expression and what feels like 35 yards of IV tubing I’m about to use to hang myself. Or someone else.

  Abby_Donovan: Bad day?

  MarkBaynard: I’m this close to throwing a hydrotherapy unit through the window and making my escape.

  Abby_Donovan: Where would you go?

  MarkBaynard: Florence? The Loire Valley? Tuscany? Maybe Rome? …

  MarkBaynard: We could drink too much wine, dance naked in the fountains & make mad, passionate love until dawn.

  Abby_Donovan: Or until the polizia come to lock us up.

  MarkBaynard: Trust me. An Italian jail cell would be preferable to this place.

  Abby_Donovan: Only if some big, hairy Sicilian doesn’t make you his bitch.

  MarkBaynard: I think you just described my night nurse. And I’m already her bitch.

  Abby_Donovan: You’re not losing your sense of humor, are you? I’ve always heard it was the last thing to go.

  MarkBaynard: You know what they say—dying is easy; comedy is hard.

  Abby_Donovan: Are you still hitting as many notes as you can?

  MarkBaynard: God knows I’m trying. If I were God, I’d be zapping people w/lightning bolts on an hourly basis. Forgot to use a turn signal? ZAP!!!