Something Missing: A Novel

by Matthew Dicks

  His old bedroom served as an office for his eBay business, and this is why the room remained locked at all times. He had no desire to make anyone aware of his hidden identity or his prosperous business. The room was filled with shipping and receiving supplies: packing tape, box cutters, cushioned envelopes in a variety of sizes, a Pitney Bowes postage machine, scissors, and a desktop computer that he used for all of his eBay transactions.

  That afternoon, Martin listed a DKNY sweater, a Louis Vuitton Damier canvas leather wallet (which required some research), an Ernest Borel watch, and a Burberry scarf, which he listed thusly:

  Hello friends! I’m back from shopping at a wonderful new corner of our world called the Shops at Evergreen Walk in South Windsor, Connecticut. A delightful little place where you can pick up a latte and a Juicy Couture bag and catch a movie all in one stop! It’s the best! My favorite shop is Anthropologie. Don’t you just love this place, ladies? My hubby says they’ve just thrown a bunch of mismatched, expensive items together in one store (knobs and sweaters, furniture and books), and he’s right! And that’s why we love it!

  Speaking of Gerry, my wonderful husband gave me this CASHMERE BURBERRY scarf for my birthday last October. I have tried to wear it, but it’s really not my style. As you know, I am more of a Coach girl. And with the leaves on the trees changing color in Connecticut, it’s time to make room for my annual fall shopping fling! This scarf was purchased from SAKS, but I do not have the tags because I never really intended to sell it.

  It’s very lovely and brand new… I have used it maybe five times. Though I would never ask him, I’m sure that Gerry paid over $300 for it at the time, so I’ll start the bidding at $100. Enjoy ladies!

  In a month, Martin would remove Sophie Pearl’s earrings and Donna Gardner’s pendant from hiding, photograph them, and include them among the many other auctions that he listed that week. By the end of the second month, his profit would be safely in his hands, the acquisitions gone for good.

  Finished with his work, Martin poured himself a glass of water and sat down on the couch, reviewing his plan for Cindy and Alan Clayton, searching for potential flaws as he watched the hairnet, gloves, rubber moccasins, and pants disappear in flame and smoke. He had escaped that day thanks to his training, quick thinking, levelheadedness, and a bit of luck, but he vowed never to veer off his prescribed course again. His plan for Alan Clayton would have to be carefully designed and perfectly executed, leaving no room for error, and, once finished, he promised himself to never take such perilous chances again.

  That promise lasted less than a week.

  As promised on Alan Clayton’s television screen, the next day was also filled with scattered rain showers, but Martin’s mood was still so good that he didn’t mind a bit. It was Housekeeping Day, a day on which Martin didn’t visit a single client, devoting his time to tasks that were critical to his business. He normally dreaded these days, but he left his home that morning with a surprising spring in his step.

  A to-do list (also written in French) was stuffed into his coat pocket, listing the tasks that he had scheduled for the day. In addition to his customary early morning visit with Jillian, he had listed lunch, a trip to the dry cleaners, and a client referral follow-up. But it was the last item on the list that had buoyed Martin’s spirits, an item that had been handwritten (the others were typed) and was oddly nondescript. The word “Alan” sat at the bottom of the page, appearing almost as an afterthought, a late addition to an already carefully constructed agenda. Yet it was this errand, which Martin would save until the end of the day, that had him so excited.

  The Quaker Diner, Martin’s usual breakfast stop, was an old-fashioned diner in every sense of the word. Set on the corner of Quaker Avenue and Park Street, the diner was built like a boxcar and cast the smell of fried eggs and bacon into the neighborhood streets for more than a block around. Music from the 1940s filled the greasy air, and an ancient pay phone stood beside the rear door, occasionally ringing as if to remind the customers of a time now past. Martin entered through the front door and made his way down the counter toward his favorite stool, directly across from the grill, where he could watch his meal being prepared without obstruction. Though eating at the counter meant he often had to sit nearly shoulder to shoulder with a stranger, Martin had found that he was able to spend more time with Jillian if he took up a position on one of the stools. It was a sacrifice he made for his girl, and it made him feel good to know that he was going out of his way for her.

  Jillian spotted him immediately and shouted out a friendly “Good morning, Martin!” She tossed a lock of her curly blond hair from her eyes as she waved.

  “Good morning, Jillian!” he replied as cheerfully as possible. It was an excellent response, he thought, for a couple of reasons. First, it indicated that he was listening intently. A person not paying attention to Jillian’s greeting might have just mumbled an arbitrary and disingenuous “Hey!” or “How’s it going?” By repeating the “Good morning!” that he had just received, Martin was demonstrating that he listened to and cared about what Jillian said.

  Just as important, his response also indicated to Jillian that he approved of her choice of words. Out of all the possible greeting options available to him, he had chosen to use the same one that she had used. If this didn’t send her a clear message, Martin didn’t know what would.

  Martin’s favorite stool was occupied by Bob, a middle-aged man who came to the diner quite often. Though Martin had refrained from ever conversing with the man, he knew that Bob enjoyed pancakes a great deal and had once worked for NASA, though in what capacity Martin couldn’t be sure. It seemed as if Bob enjoyed dropping the name of the nation’s space agency whenever he could, but didn’t like to get into great detail on the subject. For this reason, Martin didn’t trust the man.

  Martin took up position on a stool two away from his favorite (still providing a decent view of the grilling surface if Freddy didn’t cook his eggs on the far left side) and waited for Jillian to properly greet him. Less than a minute later she obliged, dropping a cup of coffee in front of him and kissing Martin on the cheek, followed by a “How’s it going today, honey?”

  “Dandy,” Martin replied, once again pleased with his response. A girl can make a guy feel good, great, and even fabulous, but how often does a lady hear that her man is feeling dandy?

  Not often, he guessed.

  Jillian moved past Martin and on to a booth where a couple of blue-collar workers were in need of a refill. She deftly poured coffee into each cup without so much as a glance, offering a smile and whispering something that made the men laugh. Martin had always enjoyed watching Jillian work. She was good at her job, and he admired her for this. Competence and efficiency were two of the most admirable qualities a person could possess, and it seemed that Jillian possessed both in great measure.

  She was not a bad-looking woman either. Working on her feet all day, navigating the narrow lanes of the diner, had kept her in excellent shape, with long thin legs and curves in all the right places. Her smile was accompanied by a dimple on each side, and her cheeks were gloriously freckled no matter what the season. In Martin’s mind, she couldn’t be more perfect.

  As Jillian made her rounds, Martin took a cursory glance at the menu, though his order rarely changed. Scrambled eggs, corned beef hash, and wheat toast were his standard fare, though occasionally he would try a waffle or some blueberry pancakes if he needed a change of pace. A moment later Jillian had made it back to Martin with order pad in hand.

  “The usual?” she asked, extracting the pen from behind her ear.

  “Not today” he replied, suddenly changing his mind. “I’ve got some new business on my plate, and it’s put me in the mood for pancakes, I think. Blueberry.”

  “What’s it now, honey? A Flowbee? A blender?”

  “Nope,” he replied. “A martini set, if you can believe it. Directions on how to hang the glasses from the rack. Pretty hard to mess up, huh?”
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br />   When Martin had decided to turn his business into a full-time occupation, he was faced with the dilemma of explaining his source of income to people like Jim and Jillian. His mother had passed away and left him the home and some cash, but certainly not enough to retire upon. His decision to go full-time meant that he would be reducing his hours at Starbucks, just enough to retain his health insurance, so people would naturally be curious about how he was supporting himself without much of a job.

  The answer came to Martin on the day that he unpacked his pick guns from their mailing container. As with all tools and appliances, the pick guns had come with a small instruction booklet explaining how to assemble and use the devices. After reading and rereading the instructions three times, it became clear to Martin that whoever had written the booklet lacked a fundamental understanding of English syntax. The instructions were virtually unintelligible, and Martin eventually turned to a website on pick guns for an explanation on how to operate the devices. After retrieving a clear and detailed explanation online and assembling the guns, Martin had decided to write to the author of the instruction booklet, in order to complain about the poor job that he or she had done. Throughout high school, Martin had been an excellent writer and the assistant editor of his school’s newspaper. He still considered himself a very good writer and had aspirations of one day making it a career, so whenever he encountered poor writing, it irritated him tremendously. I should have your job, he would think. I could do a better job than this.

  But as Martin thumbed through the booklet in search of an author’s name, no name was to be found. It was difficult for Martin to imagine anyone writing something and not wanting attribution for the work, but considering the poor quality of the instruction booklet, he couldn’t blame the writer. It was nothing of which to be proud. Still, he wondered why the author’s name didn’t appear anywhere in the booklet.

  In a file cabinet in his office, Martin had a folder containing the instruction booklets for all the appliances and tools that he owned, filed alphabetically by name. Partly out of curiosity (and perhaps because the idea was already taking shape in his mind), Martin went to the cabinet and began examining other instruction books in search of an author’s name. Again no names were to be found.

  Martin was amazed. While he understood that an instruction booklet could hardly be considered an important piece of writing, it seemed to him that someone should be credited for the work, however poor the end product might be. He had read Ethan Frome in high school and had hated almost every page of the novel, but Edith Wharton had still been brave enough to stick her name on the damn thing. Yet with instruction manuals this was not the case, and thanks to this knowledge, the problem explaining his source of income had been solved.

  More than two months before reducing his hours at Starbucks, Martin informed Jim that he had received his first freelance writing assignment, writing instructions for the assembly of a twelve-speed bicycle that was manufactured in Japan. He downplayed the news, indicating that he had seen the opportunity in Writer’s Digest, had submitted a proposal on a whim, and had been shocked upon receiving the acceptance letter. He explained that, in the past, Japanese manufacturers would typically hire Japanese writers who studied English in Japan to write the English section of their instruction manual. This explained why instruction manuals were often impossible to read. Studying English in Japan and growing up speaking the language were two entirely different things. And because instructions were now commonly written in two to four languages (Martin had thrown in phrases like “global economy” and “melting borders” to sound more knowledgeable), he explained that companies were now hiring writers who were native speakers of the language in which the directions were to be written. This was why he had been hired.

  Martin spent an afternoon forging the acceptance letter, creating what he thought looked like an authentic piece of stationery. Only when Jim pressed him for the financial details did Martin show him the letter and admit that he was being paid $300 for the assignment, a sum that surprised his frugal friend (“Three hundred dollars for writing a recipe?”) until Martin grudgingly admitted that it had taken more than fifteen hours to write and edit the pamphlet.

  “Just twenty an hour then, huh?” Jim had said, always quick with mental arithmetic.

  A week later Martin informed his friend that the bicycle company had offered him two other assignments.

  His writing career was off and running.

  “A martini set? I can’t believe that people pay you to write that stuff!” Jillian protested, handing Martin’s order to Freddy. “You are one lucky man.”

  Martin watched as Jillian moved to the other end of the counter to take the order of a man named Jeff, another Quaker Diner regular who Martin avoided at all costs. Jeff was a perpetually happy guy who said all the right things and made people laugh almost effortlessly. Sitting next to the man was like sitting next to the sun. It was impossible to be noticed with him blazing away beside you.

  Martin looked forward to the day when he and Jillian could enjoy some time away from the diner. Up until now, they had seen each other only within the walls of the restaurant, and Martin had been fine with this arrangement, considering the secrecy surrounding his life.

  Lately, however, Martin had grown tired of seeing Jillian only in the diner, with the demands of her other customers (especially the annoying ones like Bob and Jeff) getting in the way. He had been considering asking Jillian to meet him outside the diner, on a more traditional date, but thus far he hadn’t found the nerve to do so. He was worried about what the two of them might talk about or do. In the diner, their conversations were public domain, so personal subjects were rarely broached, and Martin liked it this way. In fact, he had been shocked when Jillian publicly declared her affection for him the first time. As he was exiting the diner one day last May, she had shouted out an unaccustomed “Good-bye, Martin!,” stopping her constantly moving feet a moment in order to do so.

  Taken aback, Martin had managed an uninspired “See you tomorrow.”

  “It’s a date then?” Jillian had asked.

  “Yeah,” Martin had replied, less enthusiastically than he would have liked in retrospect. “A date.”

  The next morning Martin had arrived at the diner wearing a tie and sports jacket, the first time he had worn anything other than jeans and a T-shirt to breakfast. Jillian had commented on how handsome he looked as soon as he was seated on his favorite stool, and she had followed up the compliment with a kiss on the cheek, Martin’s first from her. He had seen Jillian greet other customers in this manner, usually regulars like Jeff (but never Bob), but Martin knew that his kiss was different. The softness of her lips and the way she had leaned into him ever so slightly had spoken volumes of her affection for him.

  The date had gone splendidly. Although Jillian was busy with a restaurant full of customers, she had managed to spend a few extra moments with Martin whenever she could, and Martin had assisted her by consuming five cups of coffee in less than an hour, necessitating her frequent return for refills. Conversation had been light despite her frequent visits to his section of the counter, but he did manage to ask her how she was feeling and if she had any plans for the evening.

  “A hot bath and then me and Betty are scheduled for some television on the couch,” she had replied with a warm smile.

  Martin had assumed that Betty was Jillian’s cat or dog but was happy to discover just recently that Betty was actually her longtime roommate. Martin couldn’t stand dogs or cats (too unpredictable for his liking) and had dreaded the day that the two would need to broach the subject of pets. But about a month ago Betty had made an appearance in the diner, and Martin had overheard Jillian introducing her roommate to Mr. and Mrs. Sheppard, Quaker regulars. He waited for a similar introduction and had been surprised when he didn’t receive one. It had been a busy day, however, and he and Betty had been sitting about eight stools apart.

  Martin watched as Freddy, the thankfully bald fry
cook (Martin wretched at just the thought of hair in his food), added blueberries to the pancakes that he knew were his. Freddy was the fry cook at the Quaker Diner every day but Monday, and Martin liked him a lot. The two had never spoken, but Martin loved the routine and cadence that Freddy had developed and thoroughly enjoyed watching the man work. Every move that Freddy made was with purpose. No steps were ever wasted in the preparation of an order, and repetition was the hallmark of everything the fry cook did. Eggs always cracked on the same side of the grill. Shells always tossed into the same bucket. Hash browns stirred between every order. Counter spaces wiped almost incessantly. Thanks to Freddy Martin knew exactly what he was getting when he placed his order with Jillian, because every order was prepared in exactly the same way every time.

  Eight minutes later Jillian delivered a stack of blueberry pancakes to Martin, and fifteen minutes and two cups of coffee after that, Martin was ready to leave his tip and pay for his meal. Tipping Jillian had always been awkward for Martin. He wanted to tip her well every day, above the customary 17 percent that he tipped most serving persons. But at the same time, tipping her above and beyond what she deserved felt wrong to Martin, like he was trying to purchase her affection. In the end, he decided to round Jillian’s tip up to the nearest dollar, something he never did under ordinary circumstances. This decision had also made things easier for Martin, since the Quaker Diner was one of the few restaurants he frequented that did not accept credit cards. Paying with his Visa allowed Martin to calculate his tips to the penny, which he usually did. Prior to his relationship with Jillian, Martin had been forced to fill his pockets with change prior to coming to the diner, in order to tip properly.