Breathing in and exhaling a calming breath.
“Thanks again, Jacquie. Goodnight.”
“Goodnight, Tanya,” she says. “I hope our little conversation was a satisfactory one.”
“Very,” I say.
For a brief beat, I wait for yet another Jacquie response. When it doesn’t come, I get the feeling she is finally dormant for the rest of the night. One can only hope. I drink some more beer and set it back down. For a moment, I just stare at the floor-to-ceiling bookshelf directly across from me. It’s stuffed with all the books I loved as a kid. All the Harry Potters, the Lee Childs, the Michael Connelly’s, the Ernest Hemingway’s, and even a sexy book called 50 Shades of Grey that I loved, but that Tony thought of as total junk.
Tony might have been a gifted jock, but he loved to read as much as I did. While a bunch of our friends would be partying in the cemetery with six packs of beer and pint bottles of Jack Daniels, more often than not, Tony and I would hang out at either my house or his house, just reading together. Many of our date nights were filled with silence, because we loved to snuggle up against one another and just read. On occasion, we’d write together, he clacking away at his laptop and me, mine. It was a magical time.
“Where are you tonight, Tony?” I ask aloud.
Then, knowing that Jacquie is liable to chime in, I regret having said it. But when she doesn’t answer me, I realize she is indeed, dormant until morning. Or should I say sleeping? To Kill a Mockingbird is sitting beside me on the bed with all the weight and presence of Tony himself.
“Oh what the hell,” I say, taking hold of the old book.
Here’s the thing. My mom didn’t put the novel there so I could reread it for what would be my thirtieth time or so. She put it there so I could reread some of the old Tony Smart poems that are stuffed inside the pages. Why does my heart start to pound just by picking up the book? Why does my breath grow shallower, my stomach tightening?
A slip of paper falls out. A little page torn out of a notebook. I pick it up with my free hand.
Rose
The rose is plucked from the bush beside the bike rack
It is the most red thing under the sun
I give it to you and you place it in your hair
You smile and mount your bike and ride off into the sunset
I follow the sun
I follow my rose
My heart beats faster. I pull another couple of poems out, then set the novel back down onto the bed.
Tanya
She makes me laugh when I want to cry
She makes me cry when I don’t feel anything at all
She makes me love when I want to run
She is my opposite and my equal
She is me and I am her.
She is my Tanya
“Oh my God,” I whisper to myself. “We were sooo freaking in love.”
Stealing a sip of beer, my eyes fill. I read one more.
Night
Lying in my bed alone
It’s night
Darkness blankets me
Lonely
The pen and paper keep me company
Make Tanya come alive for me
She comes to me in the night
My love
Okay, full disclosure. Now, I’m pretty much balling my eyes out.
“Whatever happened to us, Tony?” I say.
Then, a gentle knuckle rap on the door.
“Tanya,” comes the soft voice of my mother. “You up, honey?”
Oh crap. Dry my eyes, wipe my nose, breathe in deeply. I stuff the poems back into the novel and clear the lonely frog from my throat
“Yeah, Mom,” I say, slapping the novel down beside me and stealing another sip of beer. “Just getting in bed.”
The door opens, and in walks my mom in her nightgown. Without her face on, she looks older. My mom has always been the forever young, hip, spry one. But now, she too, like my dad, is starting to look older to me, and it’s a bit disconcerting. That’s life, I guess. From the cradle to the grave.
She smiles and sits down on the edge of the bed. Staring at the beer bottle, she picks it up and takes a small sip, sets it back down.
“That’s funny,” she says. “When you were a little girl, I would sometimes take one of your Dad’s beers up to bed with me. It helped me get to sleep faster.” She giggles. “Of course, it made me belch too.”
Now she outright laughs.
“Jeeze, Mom,” I say, laughing along with her. “You should have just stuck to wine. Poor Dad.”
She rolls her eyes.
“Maybe,” she says. Then, her eyes shifting to To Kill a Mockingbird. “I see you found my little surprise.”
“Don’t worry,” I say. “Jacquie blew your cover.”
Wait for it.
“That’s not entirely accurate, Tanya,” Jacquie says. “I was not given explicit instructions not to reveal the source of the placement of the novel on your bed. I hope this explanation addresses your concerns satisfactorily.”
Shaking my head.
“We’re good, Jacquie,” I say.
But what I really want to do is edit her use of the double negative. That just might piss her the hell off, however.
My mother takes hold of my hand, holds it tight.
“You should call him, honey,” she says. “Or at least email him. Let him know you’re back in town. That you’ll be here a while.”
I release Mom’s hand, cross my arms over my chest.
“Whoever on earth are you talking about, Mom?”
She smirks, the way she always smirks when she knows that I know that she knows exactly what she’s talking about. It’s what Dad calls a Cut the bullshit expression.
She pokes me in the ribs.
“You know who, silly,” she says. “Tony Smart, who was really dumb to breakup with you all those years ago.”
“Good one,” I say. “Glad to see his name is still the brunt of so many jokes.”
She hesitates for a moment, her eyes looking into my face, like she’s admiring her creative handiwork.
“You’ve been reading some of the old poems he sent you back in high school, haven’t you?”
“First of all, Mom,” I say, “how would you know about any poems? You been snooping?”
“That’s what parents do. Or used to do anyway. Back when you were still a young woman. It’s called parenting.”
I pat her hand.
“I know,” I say. “And thanks for watching out for me like you did. You and Dad. I was your only child and you were overprotective, but fair.”
Mom’s eyes go wide.
“You’re welcome,” she says. Then, “You’ve been crying.”
“Have not,” I say, just to be difficult for difficulty’s sake.
“You can’t fool mother nature or Momma Teal,” she says. “I can always tell when you’ve been crying.”
“Snagged,” I say. “And yes, I started reading some of the old poems.”
Re-crossing my arms over my chest, I sit there and sulk. I hate showing too much emotion. It’s a trait I inherited from Bradley Teal The Hardware Man. Mom nods in the direction of To Kill a Mockingbird.
“May I?” she says.
“Oh no, Mom,” I say, “I’m forty-two years old. I’m a little beyond being read to at night. And please don’t tell me you wanna read Tony’s poems, because that’s where I draw—”
She places two fingers against my lips.
“Shush already,” she says. Then, holding out her hand. “Now, the novel please.”
I place it in her hand. Much to my surprise, she doesn’t flip through the pages, or pull out any of Tony’s old poems. Instead she goes all the way to the back of the book and pulls out a card. A business card to be precise. She hands it to me.
“Well, look at that,” she says, “Tony Smart’s card. I wonder how on earth it got there?”
She smirks again. She is absolutely loving every minute of this. Mom the matchmaker. Placing t
he book back down on my lap, she kisses me on the cheek and stands. She looks me in the eyes.
“His email address is on there and his cell phone number. Not telling you what to do, but what could it hurt by giving him a call or at least an email? I’m sure he’ll respond right away.”
Me, holding up the card.
“And how did you get this?”
Another smirk. “Let’s just say I ran into him in the Everest Garden-Fresh Market the other day.”
“And, of course, you told him your broke, in debt, now middle-aged loser daughter is back in town, living with the ‘rents in her old bedroom after being fired from her job.”
“Well, I didn’t exactly put it that way, but I did tell him you were back in town for a while. And you know what, honey? His face lit right up. He dug in his pocket for his card and he asked me to give this to you.”
I furrow my brow and squint my eyes.
“You’re telling me the truth, Mom? Hope to die?”
She makes the sign of the cross. Something you rarely see these days, even inside some old church that’s either soon to be abandoned, converted into a restaurant or music club, or turned into a mosque.
“Hope to die,” she says. “Well, not really. But you know what I mean, honey.”
I stare at the card. It’s a simple presentation. It says, Tony Smart, Everest New York Times and Everest Cradle Overall No. 1 Bestselling Thriller Author. Under that, it’s got his email address and his cell number.
“I’ll think about emailing him,” I say.
Mom’s smirk turns into a smile.
“I truly hope so,” she says. “Maybe you two can hook up and write together again, like you used to do in the old days. Wouldn’t that be special?”
“Whaddaya mean by hook up, Mom?” I say snidely.
She winks at me. But then she does something I’ve always hated. She gives me a real good dose of her up-one-side-and-down-the-other inspection eyes.
“You know, Tanya,” she says, “not to be overly doting and motherly at your advanced age, but you really could use some new underwear. I mean, there’s a tear in your underpants, and that bra is not only old and faded, it’s too big for you. You need something that will make you look more . . . oh what’s the word?”
“Perky, Mom,” I say.
Her face lights up.
“Exactly.” Then, “Jacquie, excuse me for a moment. But please order Tanya two new sets of Victoria Secret black lacy thongs, size medium, and two black laced push-up bras, cup size C.”
“Already done,” Jacquie says. “The package is scheduled to arrive in one hour via drone. It will be placed outside the front door where I will make sure to monitor it since you will be asleep. Thank you for your order and your loyalty to Everest dot com. I hope you have found our services satisfactory.”
“Yes, thanks, Jacquie,” my mom says. “You always get me my stuff when I want it. Goodnight.”
“Thanks for the new undies, Mom,” I say. “Or perhaps I should say, Tony thanks you in advance.”
She winks at me again.
“Night, dear,” she says heading out of the bedroom.
I watch her close the door, knowing full well my own mother is trying her hardest to find me a husband.
Grabbing hold of the beer, I chug the rest. I stare at Tony’s business card. I wonder if my mom is telling me the truth. That he gave it to her with the express purpose of my calling him.
Heart beating in my throat, I reach down along-side the bed for my jeans. My phone is still stuffed inside one of the pockets. Using my thumbprint, I unlock the device and go to the dialer icon and press it. My mouth goes more and more dry with each digit I dial. My stomach also grows tighter. What is this? Am I still in high school?
After plugging in the final number, I automatically punch the fire-engine red stop icon. I feel a quick wave of relief swim over me, followed immediately by a wave of shame.
“What the hell is the matter with you, Tanya?” I say aloud. “You’re forty-two years old.”
I don’t care if Jacquie can hear me or if she comments. I’m that angry with myself. That disappointed. Of course, there is always another option. I could send him a friendly email. But email takes too long. It’s after ten at night. He might already be in bed reading, and not interested in reading his emails until tomorrow morning. In fact, the stable of thriller authors I used to edit would almost always go to bed early to read and often times, not get to their emails until after they’d written a significant number of new words come the next morning. It wasn’t unusual for me to email them on any given afternoon and not hear back from them until the following afternoon, twenty-four hours later. Might as well send an old-fashioned letter using an old-fashioned stamp. That is, the U.S. Postal Service still existed.
But a third option might just be the perfect solution. Why don’t I text him? The authors I was just speaking of, they might not answer an email right away, and they almost never answer the phone, but they always seemed to respond to texts right away. I’m not sure why they did that, but texts always seemed like the perfect way to communicate with them. It was also the less personal, which right now, works fine by me considering I’m talking about the man who stole my heart back in the early two thousands.
I thumb the text option set below Tony’s phone number. As I position my thumb to type a quick text, I feel myself growing almost as nervous as I was when dialing his number. For a woman who prides herself on her ability to create words, sentences, paragraphs and even full stories, I am, at present experiencing the worst bout of writer’s block possible.
“Just fucking say hi, Tanya,” I insist. Then, as though I’m my own twin standing on the opposite side of the room. “Don’t put so much pressure on me.”
Breathing in deeply, I slowly empty my lungs.
I type, Hi there Tony. You’ll never guess who this is.
I find myself smiling. I guess I could be less cryptic, but if I’m about to go through with this, which I obviously am, I might as well make it fun. I press the green send icon. Message sent. I set the phone down on top of To Kill a Mockingbird, as if there’s some special significance in placing it there. While my heart pounds against my sternum, I wait for a reply.
I could shut out the light and pray for sleep, but I know damn well, sleep isn’t going to come very easily tonight. My eyes gravitate toward my old dresser of drawers. My laptop is set on top of it. It beckons me to take hold of it and take care of some business. Slipping out of bed, I reach for the laptop, carry it back into bed with me. Opening the lid, the scanner recognizes my face and automatically boots up the Drake Search Engine home page.
First things first. See how much money I have left in my account at a bank that’s set to shut its vault for good in just a few months, now that Everest has bought it out. I log into my account and I’m immediately faced with a whole bunch of red numbers.
“Oh good God,” I say aloud.
My account balance is negative $231.23. I check my credit card statement, which is attached to the same bought out bank (and now officially an Everest.com card). It’s also a doozy. I owe $15,000 and change. Sure, I was a powerhouse editor at a big, high-paying publishing house that paid more per month than my dad would make in three months at the hardware store. But living in New York City in 2028 is a horribly expensive venture. My Park Avenue apartment might have been located at a primo address, but the one bedroom, galley kitchen, one bath space cost me upwards of nine thousand per month, not including doorman and other associated fees. In other words, I couldn’t afford it, no matter how much I tried to skimp. But skimping was never much of an option with friends like Kate who live for their cocktails and nightlife.
“At least I still have a couple hundred cash stuffed in my bag,” I whisper, as if this is supposed to somehow reassure me.
My heart is all aflutter and it isn’t because of my text to Tony. Instead it has an awful lot to do with my debt and what’s looking more and more like a bleak future. W
hat the hell am I going to do? What choice do I have? Do I want to live with my parents forever? What if Tony texts me back and he wants to meet me? What do I tell him then? I’m broke, without a prayer of getting another editing job, and in fact, owe fifteen-thousand-bucks on my credit card. He finds out the truth, he’ll run for the hills.
I click on my email. I delete a whole bunch of useless spam and sure enough, there it is, just like Jacquie promised. The subject heading, Everest Primary Membership Program. Attached is an application that I must sign digitally. But before that, there’s an explanatory video that goes along with the program. I click on the video.
It shows a good-looking man and an equally good-looking woman walking in a park, hand in hand. He’s African American and she’s white. They have lovely smiles on their faces, and they are dressed handsomely. You can’t tell what it is they’re talking about, but you get the distinct feeling that it’s nothing important. Just two very happy and in love people whiling the day away with not a care in the world.
“Imagine going through life without having to worry about money?” poses the voice over. “Imagine being debt free for the rest of your life? Imagine being free from all financial worry and concern? Imagine living life on your terms? Being free to do whatever you want to do whenever you want to do it. Free from having to drag yourself to a job you hate, day in and day out. Free from having to waste away your precious free time running errands here, there, and everywhere. Free even to just do nothing at all if that’s what you choose.
“Imagine living a much happier, healthier, fulfilling life where your time is yours and yours alone? Well, that dream can now be accomplished by applying for the Everest Corporation Primary Membership Program. When you become a member, you will be paid the equivalent of two-thousand dollars per week in Everest Credits. Are you presently losing sleep over mounting debt? For a limited time, Everest dot com is offering a promotional package that includes total debt forgiveness. Once you become a Primary member, all that’s required of you is to purchase all your products and services through Everest dot com. Since most of you are doing that now anyway, it should make for an easy and seamless transition.
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