Abby_Donovan: Didn’t wipe off frappucino cup before handing it to me? ZAP!!!
MarkBaynard: Take 20 minutes to sing the National Anthem before a ball game? ZAP!!!
Abby_Donovan: Charge me $8.50 for a small popcorn at the movies? ZAP!!!
MarkBaynard: Too busy worrying about finishing up your shift to give me my next dose of pain meds. ZAP!!!
Abby_Donovan: If you’ll tell me where you are, I’ll come do my Shirley MacLaine impression from TERMS OF ENDEARMENT. I’ll get you those meds.
MarkBaynard: If you were Shirley MacLaine, your psychic friends could tell you where I was.
Abby_Donovan: I think you’re getting Shirley mixed up with Dionne Warwick. Shirley’s the one who was Charlemagne’s lover in her past life.
MarkBaynard: I must have been Genghis Freaking Khan in my past life. That’s the only thing that would explain the day I’ve had.
Abby_Donovan: What can I do?
MarkBaynard: Could you just talk to me for a minute? I’m having trouble concentrating on anything but the sound of your voice.
Abby_Donovan: You think YOU’VE had a bad day? If you want to really look death in the face, you should try trimming Buffy the Mouse Slayer’s claws.
Abby_Donovan: I only managed to get two of them done before being forced to call an exorcist.
Abby_Donovan: Even as a kitten, Buffy had the look of a burgeoning serial killer. http://tweetpic.com/2825190620
Abby_Donovan: Today a stray cat tried to flag me down in the park as if to say “Take me home.” Are Buffy & Willow signaling the mothership while I sleep?
Abby_Donovan: My day only got better when I found a scathing one-star review of my book on Amazon.
Abby_Donovan: I’d take these amateur reviewers more seriously if they’d say, “This book doesn’t work for me” …
Abby_Donovan: … as opposed to “No more innocent trees should die in the service of this demon author.”
Abby_Donovan: Tonight I watched some chick on the Food Channel make lobster tacos with chocolate-covered bacon in them.
Abby_Donovan: I know it sounds icky but it was DARK chocolate and APPLEWOOD bacon. That makes it okay, doesn’t it? Wonder if she’s married?
Abby_Donovan: Mark?
Abby_Donovan: Mark? Are you asleep?
Abby_Donovan: Sweet dreams, Tweetheart …
Tuesday, July 5—8:35 A.M.
MarkBaynard: What are you wearing?
Abby_Donovan: Coffee-stained sweats and Bill Murray’s Proton Pack from GHOSTBUSTERS. You?
MarkBaynard: Coffee-stained sweats & a mortified blush …
MarkBaynard: Sorry I fell asleep on you the other night. My wife used to hate when I did that. Especially if she was on the bottom.
Abby_Donovan: It’s probably not the first time someone has lapsed into a coma while reading my work. But they usually have to buy my book first.
MarkBaynard: I dreamed about a cat with Ted Bundy eyes spewing green pea soup and woke up with a terrible craving for dark chocolate and bacon.
Abby_Donovan: How is the pain today?
MarkBaynard: Somewhere between an ingrown toenail & hitting oneself repeatedly in the groin with a hammer.
Abby_Donovan: Have you had your meds?
MarkBaynard: Not yet. I wanted to stay coherent enough to let you know that you might not hear from me for a little while.
Abby_Donovan: Planning another tour of the cardiac care unit?
MarkBaynard: Dr. Horrible just came in to tell me I’ll be in strict isolation for most of the next week. They’ve finally scheduled my procedure.
MarkBaynard: Abby?
Abby_Donovan: Tell me where you are. I’ll come. Anywhere.
MarkBaynard: I’m afraid I can’t let you do that. I’ve retreated to my volcano lair. No girls allowed.
Abby_Donovan: Mark, I was being serious.
MarkBaynard: So was I.
Abby_Donovan: Now you’re really scaring me.
MarkBaynard: I kind of hate you, you know. Just a little bit.
Abby_Donovan: Why?
MarkBaynard: Before I met you I didn’t have a whole hell of a lot to live for. My wife had left me. My son was gone …
MarkBaynard: I could laugh in the face of Death without worrying that he was going to kick my teeth in with his steel-toed boots.
Abby_Donovan: Tell me where you are. I’ll bring my Proton Pack so we can fight him together. He can’t be any tougher than the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man.
MarkBaynard: I’m afraid we’d cross our streams and he’d annihilate us both.
Abby_Donovan: It’s a chance I’m willing to take.
MarkBaynard: But not one I’m willing to give you.
Abby_Donovan: I forgave you for lying to me. But I’ll never forgive you if you die. I’ll find your grave & let Buffy use it for a litter box.
MarkBaynard: Thank you for making me laugh. Thank you for making me forget …
MarkBaynard: And most of all, thank you for making me remember that there are still things in this world worth laughing about.
Abby_Donovan: Don’t you tell me good-bye, Mark Baynard. Don’t you dare tell me good-bye!
MarkBaynard: I’m not going to say good-bye. Or even “Until we tweet again.” I’m just going to say …
MarkBaynard: Goodnight Tweetheart …
And just like that, he was gone.
Abby leaned back in her desk chair, her fingers frozen over the keyboard. She lifted her gaze to the window, but the world outside seemed no more substantial than a picture on a TV screen.
She knew deep in her heart that there would be no point in pleading with Mark. No point in sending repeated tweets trying to coax him into relenting. His mind was made up. He was determined to march into this last battle all alone with nothing but his fragile hope for a shield.
Leaving her with nothing to do … but wait.
Chapter Fifteen
Abby blew through the doorway of the AT&T store, propelled by a violent gust of wind and rain. Even though there was no bear chasing her, she’d run nearly the entire half a mile between her apartment and the store. She doubled over and sucked in a few tortured gasps of air before straightening to take stock of her surroundings.
Several people in the crowded store were eyeing her with open suspicion. She wasn’t sure she could blame them. She probably looked like something even the cat would decline to drag in.
She’d rushed out of the apartment without bothering to snag the elegant Burberry raincoat hanging in the back of her closet. She’d been too distracted to realize it was pouring down rain until she was halfway across Grand Army Plaza. By then she was already soaked to the skin so there hadn’t seemed to be much point in going back for the raincoat.
She shook the soaking strands of her hair out of her eyes, accidentally spattering the shoppers closest to her. Ignoring their annoyed looks, she worked her way clumsily through their ranks until she reached the sales counter on the far side of the room, her faded Chuck Taylors squelching with each step.
A skinny white kid with acne scars, Harry Potter glasses, and a lopsided blond Afro was demonstrating the delights of the latest iPhone to a rapt couple who had not forgotten their Burberry raincoats when they left their swank Upper West Side apartment.
“Excuse me,” Abby blurted out, wondering if she looked as wild-eyed as she felt. “I need a CrackBerry … I mean a Black-Berry, or an iPhone!”
The clerk didn’t even bother to glance at her. “If you’ll take a number, ma’am, the next available associate will be with you as soon as possible.”
Abby looked frantically around until she spotted the number dispenser at the end of the counter. The saucy little tongue of paper protruding from the mouth of the bright orange box was currently showing “467.” The digital number on the screen over the counter read “433.”
She inched sideways, struggling to place herself in the clerk’s line of sight and earning a justifiably irritated look from the couple.
“You don’t understand,” she said. “I haven’t been able to leave my apartment in over four days because I’m expecting a message. A very important message.”
“From your home planet?” the clerk ventured, slanting her hair a disparaging look. The wetter it got, the weirder it got. Abby could feel it coiling around her head like broken bedsprings as it soaked up every last drop of humidity in the air.
She sighed. The rational thing to do would be to take a number, take a seat, and patiently wait for the next available associate to help her.
She couldn’t stay in her apartment forever. She’d already missed her regular Monday visit to her mother’s nursing home and she and her agent were supposed to have lunch tomorrow to discuss a potential offer for her book from a small but very prestigious literary publisher. She could carry her laptop with her when she went out, but what if there was no WiFi connection available at her destination? And what about the time it took to travel from her apartment to wherever she was going? Mark could be tweeting her at that very moment while she stood there in a rapidly spreading puddle of rainwater, fighting the urge to grab the smug clerk by his skinny tie and yank him across the counter.
“Please,” she whispered, feeling the humiliating sting of tears at the backs of her eyes. “I really need a new phone. It’s a matter of life and death.”
There must have been some hint of her anguish in her voice because for a fraction of a second, the young clerk looked at her and saw her. Really saw her in a way that New Yorkers rarely did.
Heaving a defeated sigh, he fished a brochure out from under the counter and handed it to the couple. “Why don’t you guys check out the specs on our upcoming 5GS plan while you’re waiting?”
They spared Abby a resentful pout, but dutifully huddled over the brochure together while the clerk entered Abby’s current cell phone number into his computer terminal and consulted his monitor. “Your current contract won’t be fulfilled until November, which means we can’t offer you any discount whatsoever on a new phone. You’ll have to pay the full retail price, which is five hundred and fifty—”
“I’ll take it.”
The clerk blinked owlishly at the platinum American Express card that had magically appeared in her hand. “O-oo-okey-dokey,” he sang out, plucking the card from her hand.
“One more thing?” Now that she was on the verge of having a brand-new phone in her hot little hands, Abby even managed to dredge up a grateful smile.
He paused before swiping the card, eyeing her warily. “Yes?”
“Could you show me how to download Tweetdeck?”
Abby gazed down at the sleek iPhone cradled in her palm, silently willing the haughty thing to do something—anything at all—that might acknowledge her existence. For all the good it had done her in the past three days, she might as well go ahead and hurl it into the Lake. With her luck, it would probably hit one of the boaters taking a leisurely row around the shoreline of Central Park’s most famous body of water.
Still gripping the phone as if it were some ancient talisman designed to ward off evil, she leaned back on the park bench and tilted her face to the sky. It was one of those perfect summer days when humidity fell and hope soared. Cotton puff clouds drifted across a crisp blue sky. The park was an oasis of green in the middle of the soaring gray canyons of the city, irresistibly drawing anyone starved for a breath of fresh air and the illusion of freedom.
Based on outward appearances, Abby’s luck seemed to be changing. Her book was only a handful of chapters away from being done and she thought it was good, maybe even better than her first book. At that very minute her agent was hammering out the details of a nice six-figure deal with a starry-eyed editor eager to work with her on her next three projects. Abby might have to give up her Plaza sublet, but she would be able to keep Buffy and Willow Tum-Tum in kibble.
She was tired of living in a renovated hotel room anyway. The fragility of Mark’s life had made her realize just how impermanent she had allowed her own life to become.
She had fooled herself into believing she was living the life she’d always dreamed of living when all she had been doing was hiding from it. But Mark had refused to let her hide. He had dragged her kicking and screaming through the streets of Paris, into the Tuscan sunshine, and past the fountains of Florence until she had finally found herself standing at the very peak of Blarney Castle with the rest of her life spread out below her. He had shown her what it really meant to live until you die, even if the countries you visited only existed in your imagination.
She didn’t want to waste another minute sleeping on a futon and living in someone else’s apartment. She wanted a place to call her own—maybe a modest cottage in the Hamptons or some old Victorian house along the Jersey Shore that would require both elbow grease and love to become a home. A place where she could get three times the square footage for a mortgage that was half what she’d been paying in rent. She’d even considered returning to North Carolina, settling in Asheville or one of the other communities that welcomed artists with open arms.
Or she could simply spend the rest of her life sitting on this park bench, waiting for a tweet that might never come.
The clouds blurred before her eyes as she was forced to face the truth she’d been denying for the past week. She might never find out what had happened to Mark. Might never hear his voice again—a voice that had come to echo in her head as clearly as her own.
She blinked, bringing the clouds back into sharp focus.
She couldn’t bring herself to assume the worst. Not yet. Mark might still be in strict isolation or struggling with the regimen of drugs they were giving him to prepare him for his treatment. Maybe he hadn’t been able to use his leftover lime Jell-O to bribe Nurse Ratched into giving him his laptop.
He had been willing to hold on to hope even when it looked like all hope was lost. She owed him no less.
Tucking the phone in the pocket of her cargo shorts, she rose and headed for her apartment, where she could spend the rest of the afternoon eating Ben & Jerry’s directly out of the container and gazing morosely at her laptop.
Her pocket chirped.
For a minute she thought her own heart was going to stop.
Fumbling to fish the phone out of the deep pocket of the baggy shorts, she raced toward a shady spot under the sheltering boughs of an oak where she would be able to read the display more clearly.
She swiped her finger frantically over the phone’s touch screen until the Direct Message column of her mobile Tweetdeck appeared. The incoming tweet was accompanied by Mark’s profile pic: a pensive John Cusack holding a boom-box over his head as if his arms would never grow tired as long as there was still a chance of being heard by the girl he loved.
Abby felt a grin start to curve her lips, but it was replaced by a frown of confusion as she read the incoming tweet.
Thursday, July 14th—1:22 P.M.
MarkBaynard: Are you Abby?
Abby_Donovan: I am.
MarkBaynard: Mark’s Abby?
Abby_Donovan: I think so.
MarkBaynard: I’m Kate. Mark’s little sister.
Abby_Donovan: Hi, Kate. I’m so glad to hear from you. How is he?
MarkBaynard: I’m on Facebook, but I have no clue what I’m doing when it comes to this Tweeter stuff.
Abby_Donovan: It’s okay. I’m listening.
MarkBaynard: My brother will be going in for his treatment tomorrow and he left some instructions and a note for you.
Abby_Donovan: ???
MarkBaynard: Tell her Roger Daltrey can still kick David Cassidy’s ass. Tell her she’s prettier than Jen or Angelina. Tell her she was the love of my li
Abby_Donovan: Kate?
Abby_Donovan: Kate? Are you still there?
“Kate?” Abby whispered as the phone went dark and silent once again. “Mark?” she added in more of a breath than a whisper.
She slumped against the trunk of the tree, clutching the phone in fingers that had gone a
s numb as her heart. The sun was still filtering through the tender green leaves of the oak. The clouds were still drifting across the robin’s egg blue of the sky. Mothers were still chasing their laughing children and frolicking dogs around Bethesda Terrace. Lovers were still strolling hand in hand around the lake. Yet everything inside of Abby had gone quiet and still, as if she’d drawn in a breath she never expected to exhale.
“Damn you, Mark Baynard,” she finally said in a voice she barely recognized as her own. “I won’t let you do this.” Shoving the phone back into the pocket of her shorts, she pushed herself away from the tree and took off for her apartment at a determined jog.
Chapter Sixteen
I’m sorry, ma’am. We’re not at liberty to divulge that information.”
As the hospital operator’s tinny voice filled her ear, Abby winced. Since returning from the park several hours ago, she’d heard dozens of variations on the same theme and learned far more than she ever wanted to about the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, or as it was known by the medically hip—HIPAA. Designed to protect a patient’s medical information, the act’s stringent privacy rule also made it nearly impossible to determine whether or not the individual in question actually existed or was simply a figment of your imagination.
In the eyes of the United States Department of Health and Human Services, asking a simple question like, “Can you tell me if Mark Baynard is—or was—a patient at your hospital?” was akin to requesting the nuclear codes for a Russian submarine.
“Still no luck?” Margo turned to ask Abby, shrugging her well-muscled shoulders to work the kinks out of them.
Responding to Abby’s frantic distress signal, Margo had appeared on Abby’s doorstep several hours ago, bearing a sack of warm donuts and a cardboard tray of emergency lattes. She’d spent the past several hours hunched over the desk, using Abby’s laptop to Google the name and number of every hospital in the country that specialized in treating non-Hodgkins lymphoma, then narrowing down her finds to those with a reputation for conducting clinical trials. She would fill up a page with her notes, then pass them to where Abby sat curled up in a corner of the leather couch, the cordless phone pressed against her ear like an extra appendage.
Goodnight Tweetheart Page 14
