Hello Love

by McQuestion, Karen

  Most everyone was busy reading over what they’d written. Some of them were putting away their pens, clearly finished. Andrea took the plunge and quickly wrote everything that came to mind. When she was done, she read it to herself: I’m ordering a man who is kind, considerate, and caring. A real man, not a boy. He has to be taller than me, not interested in playing video games or going to the bar to play pool or darts. He has to want to spend time with me, find me desirable, and really listen when I talk. Please let him be smart, but not in an intellectually superior way. She scrunched her forehead and gave it some thought, then jotted down one more sentence. I would like it if he’d get it when I’m joking.

  “It looks like everyone is nearly finished,” Martina said. “Am I right?” She smoothed the front of her flowing purple frock and raised both arms. The gesture, accompanied by the light of the fire illuminating her from behind, gave her an otherworldly appearance.

  “Yes.”

  “Finished.”

  “All done.”

  “All right then,” Martina said. “One by one, I’d like you to step toward the fire, read your card to yourself, and drop it into the flames. Envision your order going straight to the order taker, whoever that may be. Depending on your belief system, it may be God, or the angels, or the universe, or the great beyond. It doesn’t matter. Just choose what works best for you, and imagine the order arriving and being put in the queue. I can’t guarantee a two-day turnaround with a package on your porch, but I know that all of you will be heard.”

  When it was Andrea’s turn, she decided to get into the spirit of the thing. She shook off her doubts and stepped forward resolutely, read her card to herself, and threw it into the crackling flames. It floated down into the fire, which flared slightly before consuming her words and turning them to ashes. She watched the smoke rise and tried to imagine her order being delivered into capable, caring hands. Maybe next year at this time she would be like Jade, happily connected to a man she loved. She tried to picture her wished-for man, but the image in her head was fuzzy, only an outline, and a second later even that was gone.

  FIVE

  Lindsay hung out the passenger-side window of the truck screaming Anni’s name. She didn’t have her seat belt on, something that would have given Christine fits. Dan too, under regular circumstances. But they were driving slowly enough, fifteen miles per hour, which felt like a crawl. Dan’s reasoning was this: if the guys that took Anni wanted to flee the area, they could be fifty miles away by now. More likely, they took the dog as a lark and let her out somewhere nearby. If that were the case, she might be injured, lost, or afraid, but she’d come forward if she heard Lindsay’s voice.

  There were plenty of spots for a wounded or frightened dog to hide. Drainage ditches, thickets of trees, clusters of shrubbery. They lived on a country road, in what Christine affectionately called “the sticks.” The long commute to Christine’s job in the city was the only downside, but ultimately she had decided it was worth it. Dan worked as a plant manager at a microbrewery only fifteen minutes from the new house, so the move to the country had actually shortened his drive time.

  He and Christine had loved being so close to nature—cross-country skiing in the winter, long walks in the woods the rest of the year. Christine had been a gardener and he liked to putter around with projects, building a deck one year, a gazebo the next. Their own little patch of paradise. The two of them, plus Lindsay, had been enough. It had all been so perfect.

  And Anni had been part of that perfection. Dan had grown up with dogs, but Christine was a cat person who thought a dog would be too much work. She worried about muddy paws and shedding hair, having to give heartworm pills and taking the dog for walks. No, a cat was the best pet, in her mind. Low maintenance, able to stay alone in the house for long stretches of time. So Dan didn’t get his dog. The first part of the marriage they’d had a tabby named Whiskers, a big bruiser of a cat who came bounding out of her spot by the window whenever she heard Christine opening the kitty treat packet. “See?” Christine had said teasingly. “She comes when you call her, just like a dog.” When the death of Whiskers (old age, but still so sad) coincided with buying this house, he’d started campaigning for a dog. Christine had an argument to counter every one of his reasons, so he thought he didn’t have a chance, but on their twelfth wedding anniversary, she’d told him his present was out in the garage.

  “Surprise!” Christine had said, indicating a small brown dog lying on a carpet remnant next to the lawn mower. The dog, a medium-size short hair with floppy ears, got up from the carpet square and regarded him with deep-pooled eyes.

  He squatted down to pet the dog’s head, then looked up at Christine. “This is my dog? To keep?”

  Christine grinned. “Yep. She’s all yours, if you want her.” She clasped her hands together, delighted that she’d pulled off the surprise.

  From the second he saw her, he wanted her. He named her Anni because she’d been an anniversary present. The name seemed to fit her sweet disposition. Every dog owner thought their dog was the smartest and cutest, but with Anni it was true.

  Initially they’d pretended Anni was his dog, but after a few weeks it became clear that the dog’s heart belonged to Christine. Dan understood this completely because he felt the same way. When Christine died, Dan and Lindsay and Anni had mourned together. And now Anni was gone and Dan couldn’t bear to lose her too.

  So he drove slowly, scanning each side of the road, while Lindsay cupped her hands around her mouth and yelled out the window. They had to find her. They just had to.

  SIX

  Andrea was quiet as they drove away from the Create Your Own Future Workshop. She’d only gone to the workshop to humor Jade. It was supposed to be for kicks, but the whole thing had turned out to be completely unsettling. People had so many problems. Houses burning down. Drug-addicted daughters. Mental illness. Financial issues. Cancer. And every day these women got up and did what they had to do because they were caregivers, wives, friends, mothers. There was no curling up in a ball when other people depended on you. These ladies were everyday heroes just doing what they had to do. Andrea couldn’t even imagine having to cope with what they did on a daily basis. Life could be overwhelming if you thought about it for too long.

  As if hearing her thoughts, Jade said, “When I went last year, it wasn’t quite so depressing.” Her tone was apologetic. “That group was a lot more fun. We got into a big talk about men and relationships and our jobs. One woman was hilarious. She could have been a comedian. Seriously, it was a laugh fest.” She turned onto a country highway. “I’m sorry if this brought you down.”

  “No, it was okay,” Andrea said, giving Jade a small smile. “Not a laugh fest, but interesting. It really puts life into perspective.” That was an understatement. Here she was asking for a man who got her sense of humor while another woman was hoping her MRI would show the tumor hadn’t grown. “I guess I don’t have it so bad after all.”

  Jade said, “Don’t discount what you’re going through. Marco was a jerk and you’re better off without him, but that doesn’t lessen the pain.”

  “He wasn’t always a jerk,” Andrea protested mildly. “There were some good times.”

  “Oh, Andrea.” Jade sighed and fiddled with the radio, flipping from station to station. When she found a song by Adele, she stopped searching. Jade was fond of women singers with strong voices and would sometimes belt out a tune along with the radio. Her voice was appallingly bad. If Andrea didn’t know better, she’d think Jade was trying to sing out of tune, but that wasn’t the case. It made it easy to join in and sing along, because no matter how Andrea sounded, it couldn’t be any worse. Today, though, Jade just tapped on the steering wheel in time to the music and Andrea watched the landscape go by.

  “What have we here?” Jade asked, stepping on the brake until they were nearly stopped.

  Andrea shifted her attention
to the road ahead and saw a red pickup truck in their lane. The brake lights weren’t on, but the truck was crawling along at a very slow pace. A teenage girl hung out the passenger-side window, yelling something over and over again. It sounded like she was saying, “Annie.”

  “Someone’s kid didn’t come home on time,” Jade mused. “Little Annie is going to be in a big load of trouble when they finally track her down.”

  They crept behind the truck another minute before the driver noticed them and waved his arm for them to go by. Jade swung out onto the oncoming lane and swerved around him. As they drove alongside the truck, Andrea caught a glimpse of the driver—a good-looking man no older than forty, high forehead, wavy dark-brown hair. Something about his expression tugged at her. He must have felt her stare because he turned his head; but just before their eyes could meet, they’d already driven past. Andrea swiveled around, but there was too much distance between them to get a good look.

  “What?” Jade asked.

  “Do you think we should have stopped and offered to help?” Andrea asked, still looking back. Maybe the women’s stories from the workshop were still on her mind, but something about the man in the truck and the yelling girl struck her as tragic.

  “They looked like they had it under control.”

  Andrea turned around and sighed. “I guess. She just sounded so frantic. And the man looked . . .”

  “Looked what?”

  She’d only seen his face in profile and it was just for a moment, but there was anguish there. “He looked sad. Like his whole world was falling apart.”

  “You got all that in the split second going by?” Jade asked.

  Putting it that way, it did sound ridiculous. It was really more of an impression than anything else. Surely she was projecting. “Yeah, it was just something about his expression.”

  “We could stop and help,” Jade said, talking through the problem, “but they’d probably say no, thanks, anyway. I mean, it’s not like a lost child would come running to a couple of strangers, am I right?”

  Andrea knew the answer Jade wanted to hear. “You are right as usual, my friend.”

  “Good. Glad to hear it.” Jade’s lips curved in approval. “You want to get something to eat? I’m kind of hungry.”

  SEVEN

  Dan had trouble falling asleep that night. After driving around for hours, they’d stopped at the Humane Society in the city and reported Anni missing, then picked up Chinese carryout to take home. He and Lindsay had silently eaten dinner at their kitchen table, picking at their egg rolls and sweet-and-sour chicken, both of them hoping to hear the scratch at the door that never came. Finally Lindsay said, “I’m so mad at myself. I can’t believe they just took her. I was here and I couldn’t stop them.” She dabbed her eyes with one of the cheap paper napkins that came with the order. “Those guys were evil. Who would hurt Anni? She’s just the sweetest girl ever.”

  Anger surged up in Dan’s throat at the sight of his daughter in pain. He didn’t even want to think about what those men had done with Anni. A raw fury, the kind that caused men to kill other men, rose up in him, and he had to force himself to stay steady. “It’s not your fault, Lindsay. You did everything right. I’m very proud of how you handled it, calling the police, getting a description of the car.”

  “No license plate, though,” she said, still frustrated. “And I don’t know cars at all. I didn’t even know what kind it was or how old or anything. The cop kept asking me questions and I had to keep saying, ‘I don’t know. I don’t know.’ I felt like such an idiot.”

  “You did fine,” Dan said. “Tomorrow we’ll print up posters and look again.”

  Lindsay smirked. “Really, Dad?”

  “What?”

  “You want to put up posters? What is this, 1956? Don’t you think it would be more effective to put something on Craigslist and Facebook, and call the local media?”

  “That was what I was going to say next.”

  “Right.”

  But at least he got a smile out of her. Lindsay had told her boyfriend she didn’t want to go out that night because she was too upset, so Brandon had come over instead. They’d posted information about Anni online and then turned on the TV, some reality show with competing tattoo artists. The tattoos were secondary to the snarky comments and contestant drama. Periodically Lindsay checked her phone to see if anyone had spotted Anni, but there was nothing but sympathetic comments and promises from friends to watch out for her.

  Brandon sat with one unmovable arm around Lindsay’s shoulder, and they probably would have stayed on the couch like that all night, but at eleven Dan told Brandon to go home. They’d had a hell of a day and Lindsay needed to get some rest.

  Now Dan lay in bed, staring up at the ceiling. He’d left a water bowl on the back porch, just in case Anni came back and he didn’t hear her. He’d considered leaving food too, but decided against it, thinking it might attract rodents or raccoons. Dan always slept with his hands folded over his stomach. Christine said if she stuck a lily in his hands, he’d be ready for a funeral home viewing. That was back when they joked about death, when it seemed like something that happened to other people. He couldn’t believe he ever thought it was funny.

  It took so long to fall asleep that when he had a dream and it took place in his bedroom, it felt more real than usual. He was in bed, hands folded, his eyes fixed on the ceiling, when he became aware of Christine standing in the doorway. His first thought was that she’d gotten up to go to the bathroom or get a drink of water, but then he remembered that she’d died. “Christine?” he said, sitting up.

  The dream had woken him. Or was he still sleeping? He rubbed his eyes, and now he was truly awake. Christine wasn’t in the doorway. He sat up for another minute or so, confused. He’d been so certain she was there, but of course she wasn’t. Wishful thinking had intruded into his dreams.

  When he woke up the next morning, his eyes flicked to the doorway, half expecting to see Christine there, and then he remembered that it had been a figment of his imagination. The funeral director had given him a booklet about grief, and one of the things mentioned was how common it was to dream about a deceased loved one. Some believed it was a message from the beyond, while others thought it was one’s own psyche doing some self-soothing. Dan had waited for over a year for a dream of Christine and this was the first time he’d even come close.

  He was the first one up that morning, which wasn’t a surprise. He drank coffee and toasted a bagel for himself. When he heard Lindsay hit the shower, he remembered the Saturday morning tradition they’d had when she was a little girl, and he got out the waffle iron. By the time she came down to breakfast in her bathrobe and slippers, he had a plateful of waffles and a pile of crispy bacon ready and waiting. With Anni gone, she’d been a wreck. Maybe this would help.

  “Unbelievable,” she said, her eyes wide, taking in the breakfast scene.

  “I know,” he said, pleased. “I haven’t done this in years.”

  “This is really freaky. Whoa.” Her hand raked through her damp hair. “I can’t believe it.” She pulled a kitchen chair away from the table and sat down with a thud. “I mean, I smelled the bacon, but the waffles too . . .”

  Something in her voice worried him. “Are you okay?”

  “Dad, you’re going to think I’m losing it, but I had this dream last night.” Lindsay looked up at him, her palms flat against the table like she was trying to hold on. “And Mom was in it. And she said you would make waffles and bacon for breakfast.”

  “Really.” Dan felt his heartbeat pick up, but he tried to keep his voice steady. He sat next to his daughter and looked her in the eye. “Tell me about it. What else did she say?”

  Lindsay gave him a small smile. “In the dream I was in my math class and my teacher, Mr. Freiberg, said I should collect my things and go to the office, that my mom was there. I
went down the hall and she was standing by the front entrance of the school, and I was so confused because I thought she was dead. When I asked her why she was there, she said she missed me and just wanted to see me. She looked just like she always did. Before, you know?”

  Dan nodded. He knew.

  Lindsay continued, “And then I remembered to tell her about Anni and how I messed up, and she said not to worry about it, that we’d get Anni back and that it wasn’t my fault.”

  “What else did she say?”

  “Not too much.” Lindsay shrugged. “I asked her if this was real, and she said yes. Then she hugged me and said that Dad would be making waffles and bacon for breakfast. There might have been more, but that’s all I remember.” She blinked back tears. “Do you think it was really Mom talking to me in my dream?”

  He nodded. “I’d like to think so.” Even if it were only a dream, he envied Lindsay the experience of speaking to Christine, but he didn’t begrudge her that. In fact, he wouldn’t have had it any other way. “What do you think?”

  “I think it was Mom,” Lindsay said firmly. “She said you’d make waffles and bacon, and look—here they are.” She reached for the syrup. “I think it was her. I think she watches over us and knows what we’re doing. And she said we’re going to get Anni back too, so that’s good.” She let out a long breath. “I hope it happens soon.”

  EIGHT

  Weeks had passed since the Create Your Own Future Workshop and Andrea hadn’t met any new men at all, unless you counted Cliff Johnson, an old guy who’d moved into the condo across the street a few weeks earlier. The Sunday after Thanksgiving he’d stopped her on the front walkway to introduce himself and chat her up. He explained that trading in his house for a condo made sense after his wife died. “The yard was too hard to keep up and it was kind of lonely all by myself. What do people do for fun around here?” He gave her a toothy grin, his blue eyes peering through thick wire-rimmed glasses.