Dear Maggie

by Brenda Novak

  “I brought dinner. Zach loves my spaghetti and meatballs.” Before Maggie could respond, she added, “And don’t tell me not to bring food. It was leftovers. What did you want me to do, let it go to waste?”

  She took out a plastic container with enough spaghetti and meatballs to feed an army, and Maggie knew darn well that it wasn’t leftovers. She’d made it for them, probably today.

  “You’re spoiling us,” Maggie said, shaking her head.

  Mrs. Gruber harumphed. “It’s just leftovers,” she said again.

  “What are you doing here so early?” Maggie asked, changing the subject. “I don’t have to be at work until ten.”

  “You were gone most of the day. I thought you might want to take a nap. You don’t get enough sleep. You don’t eat good. It’s going to catch up with you one day.”

  Maggie smiled. Mrs. Gruber foretold her physical collapse on a daily basis. She was too thin. She worked too hard. She should be getting out more, making more friends, eating more vegetables. Today Maggie would’ve liked to take her up on the nap, but she wasn’t about to postpone her meeting with John. She’d been looking forward to it all afternoon. “I can’t sleep,” she said. “I have a…date.”

  Mrs. Gruber’s face brightened beneath the tight, perfect rows of short, bluish curls. “Is it that nice garbageman who takes my trash out to the curb each week? I’ve told you to introduce yourself to him. He’ll probably start getting your trash now, too.”

  Maggie didn’t tell her that there was no nice garbageman. She lugged the trash cans out for both of them when she got home from work on Tuesday mornings. “No, it’s someone I met online.”

  “On what?”

  Maggie laughed. “Online. On the Internet. We met at a chat, and now he’s e-mailing me.”

  Mrs. Gruber propped one age-spotted hand on a bony hip. “He’s sending you messages? That’s it?”

  “Well, no, not exactly. He’s taking me on a cyber-date tonight.”

  “But you’ve never seen him? Never heard his voice?”

  “Nope.”

  “You’re going to stay in your house and he’s going to stay in his?”

  “Yep.”

  “That’s too bad,” she said. “You can’t neck with a man online.”

  MAGGIE LEFT ZACH EATING spaghetti and playing Candyland with Mrs. Gruber and hurried to her bedroom so she wouldn’t be late for her date. She couldn’t believe she was actually nervous about “seeing” John again. What did she have to be nervous about? It was a cyber-date. It was nothing.

  Her modem screeched through the familiar pattern of tones as Maggie hooked up to the Internet. She’d added John to her buddy list and expected to find his screen name listed there, but a quick glance told her he wasn’t online yet. She found a message from him instead.

  Maggie—

  When you’re ready for tonight, just click on the link below.

  See you there.

  John

  The link John had sent consisted of a bunch of letters and numbers highlighted in blue. Maggie had expected another instant messaging session as their date, but apparently John had something else in mind. Pointing her mouse on the link, she clicked, and a moment later the picture of a beautiful island village filled her screen. Then a voice came through the speakers of her computer.

  “Hi, Maggie. You said you like sand. Welcome to paradise.”

  Was that John’s voice? she wondered. If so, she wished she’d been able to hear it more clearly. Her speakers weren’t the best. Whoever it was sounded tinny and unnatural.

  Mntnbiker: Are you always so punctual, or dare I hope you’re excited to see me?

  The words appeared in an instant message box in the upper left of Maggie’s screen, making her smile. John had arrived.

  Zachman: Where are we? This looks great.

  Mntnbiker: We’re vacationing in the Caribbean. Have you ever been here before?

  Briefly Maggie remembered Tim and his many promises. “After I graduate, we’ll…” She’d worked her heart out to put him through school, but it was his new wife, Lucy, who was cashing in on the trips to Europe, Hawaii and Asia they’d planned to take. Or, rather, Lucy was cashing in if Tim actually took the time off. Knowing him, he never would. In his mind, the good life was always just beyond the next professional hurdle.

  Zachman: I’ve never been anywhere, except Boston, to visit Tim’s family when we were married, and Iowa to visit mine.

  Mntnbiker: Then you’re going to like this. Click the start button.

  Maggie did as he said and heard a new voice through her speakers, a woman with a heavy Caribbean accent. Reggae music played in the background.

  “Welcome to the beautiful island of Barbados in the East Caribbean, a land of warm seas and fertile earth, a tropical paradise unlike any other….”

  A video tour showed shimmering aquamarine seas, white sandy beaches, dark-skinned locals, some wearing dreadlocks, and lush wet countryside. Through instant messaging, John pointed out sights along the way and summarized the history of the island, which was something the guide didn’t cover. Maggie was thoroughly impressed.

  Zachman: This is really cool! I love it. How do you know so much about the sugar plantations of Barbados?

  Mntnbiker: I worked there for a while.

  As a security guard?

  Zachman: Then you moved back to Utah?

  Mntnbiker: Yeah.

  Maggie felt a twinge of excitement at the thought that they could meet if they wanted to. Twelve hours by car wasn’t exactly close, but it wasn’t across the country, either.

  Zachman: I live in California.

  Mntnbiker: Is that where you were born?

  Zachman: No, I was born in Iowa.

  Mntnbiker: Did you grow up there?

  Zachman: Until I graduated from high school. Then I left for UCLA.

  Mntnbiker: Is that where you met Tim?

  Zachman: Yeah. We were married right before I got my Bachelor’s in journalism.

  Mntnbiker: Tell me about your family.

  Maggie told him about Ronnie and her mother, the only family she had left. When prompted by a few more questions, she shared what it was like growing up with a brother who was ten years older, what it was like having parents who were already forty-five when she was born and hadn’t been planning on any more children. She told him she’d been the apple of her father’s eye—until he died of a heart attack a year before she married Tim. She even admitted the terrible guilt she felt for going to UCLA and leaving him behind, how painful it was that she didn’t get to see him before he died. She’d received the bad news by telephone, returned for the funeral, and that was it. In her first great bid to make something of herself, she’d lost the one person who’d given her a firm foundation on which to build.

  Mntnbiker: I’m sure he knew you loved him, Maggie, and that’s all that matters. I bet he was very proud of his little girl.

  Maggie couldn’t help the tears that slipped from the corners of her eyes at that statement. Her father had never seen her as the ugly duckling she was—the acne, the skinniness, the knobby knees. He’d looked at her and seen a swan from the moment she was born.

  Zachman: At least he wasn’t around to see my marriage fail.

  Mntnbiker: That wouldn’t have lowered his opinion of you.

  Zachman: I hope not. I just wish he’d lived long enough to know Zach.

  Mntnbiker: I’m sure that would’ve been the highlight of his life. Where is Zach today? What do you do with him while you work?

  Ah, a happier subject. Maggie told John about Mrs. Gruber and her spaghetti, the balls of aluminum foil, the sweater she wore over her dresses even in the heat of the summer, and the old Cadillac she drove without much concern for inconsequential things like “right of way.” By the time she was done, John indicated he was laughing by the LOL—laughing out loud—symbol, and she felt surprisingly close to him.

  Zachman: You seem like a good man. I’m glad we met.

&nbs
p; There was a longer pause than usual.

  Mntnbiker: I’m not always sure I’m a good man, but I’m glad we met, too.

  Zachman: Do you have a scanner?

  Mntnbiker: No.

  Zachman: Then would you go to Kinko’s or some place and scan me a picture of yourself?

  Mntnbiker: Why? I thought looks didn’t matter.

  Zachman: They don’t, really. I just want something to imagine when I close my eyes and think of you. I know you’re tall and definitely not overweight. And you have dark hair and eyes. But that’s it. Aren’t you curious what I look like?

  There was another pause, this one even longer than the first.

  Zachman: John? Are you still there?

  Mntnbiker: Sorry. Listen, I have to run, but I’ll write you later. Okay?

  Maggie frowned at her screen. They’d been together online for ninety minutes, but there was still a good hour before she had to leave for work. She wasn’t ready to let him go and couldn’t figure out why he’d suddenly turned cold.

  Jeez, I’m lonelier than I realized, she thought. Now I’m clinging to a man I’ve never actually met. She groaned and smacked her forehead. Snap out of it, Mag!

  Zachman: Sure. I have to get to work, anyway.

  WHEN MAGGIE ARRIVED at the office, she found Nick Sorenson slouched in her chair, his legs stretched out in front of him, his eyes on her pictures of Zach.

  Surprised, she drew to a halt and gaped at him over the partition that divided her small space from everyone else’s. “What are you doing at my desk?”

  He smiled and stood. “Waiting for you.”

  “For me?”

  He handed her a slip of paper. Maggie glanced at it and immediately recognized the scrawl—Jorge, the cop reporter who had the shift before hers—but she didn’t take time to read his note. Nick was talking, explaining.

  “Jorge’s son is having his fourteenth birthday tonight. Whole family’s going to be there. He wanted to take the call but couldn’t miss the party. So it’s your story now.”

  “If I want it.” She forced her gaze away from Nick’s rugged face and looked more closely at Jorge’s note.

  Police on their way to the burger stand at Broadway and 14th Avenue. Drive-by shooting. Don’t know details. Call just came in.

  She raised her brows in speculation. Broadway and 14th. Oak Park. It was the roughest area in Sacramento.

  “Let me guess,” he said. “You want it.”

  She eyed him narrowly. “Let me guess,” she said. “You’re the only photographer available for this.”

  His grin showed white teeth contrasted against a day’s beard. “Yep. Don’t you trust me to get the pics right?”

  Maggie didn’t trust him, period. She drew a deep breath, trying to put a finger on what was bothering her tonight. Nick had invaded her personal space, which was presumptuous, even rude, especially since he was still so new. But it was more than that. He acted as though he was in complete control, even in a place where he should’ve been out of his element. He was obviously someone who enjoyed the upper hand, she decided, someone who was used to having it, like Rock Tillman. But after Tim, Maggie had promised herself that she’d never let a man take control of her life again. And she meant that. Any man who stepped on her toes was going to hear about it.

  “Just one thing,” she said.

  “What’s that?” He watched her from beneath thick dark lashes, the perfect frame for the unusual color of his eyes. Not quite brown, not quite gold, they were somewhere in between, like tortoiseshell.

  “The next time you feel the need to wait for me, do it at your own desk.”

  Maggie had expected him to bristle at the firmness in her voice and was prepared to stand her ground. But he only chuckled softly. “Anything you say, Maggie.”

  Her name sounded strangely intimate on his lips. She almost demanded he call her Mrs. Russell but immediately realized how silly that would be. Everyone in the office called her Maggie. Her gray-haired ex-mother-in-law was Mrs. Russell.

  He brushed past her and headed down the aisle, and for a moment, Maggie swam in his scent. Whether it was his aftershave, soap, cologne or shampoo, she didn’t know, but whatever the combination, it was more evocative than she would have expected and caused a butterfly-like sensation in her stomach.

  “Oh, God. Not Nick Sorenson,” she muttered to herself, trailing him at a distance. “Think John. Nice, tender, sensitive John, who tells you your father would be proud of you, who takes you on creative and thoughtful cyber-dates.” Just because he wouldn’t send her a picture didn’t mean he looked like a monster. He was just more enlightened than most. He understood how little looks truly mattered in the overall scheme of things. She understood that, too.

  So why, then, was she having such a difficult time keeping her eyes averted from the physical perfection of Nick Sorenson’s butt?

  CHAPTER FIVE

  THE VICTIM WAS a young black male, probably no more than fifteen.

  Maggie stared down at the limp form sprawled on the sidewalk, watching as the paramedics worked to resuscitate him, and couldn’t help imagining his mother’s grief. No doubt the poor woman would want to know how her child’s life could end this way. What had happened? Why?

  They were the same questions Maggie would have to ask but for different reasons. She would ask because it was her job.

  “This kind of tragedy makes me sick,” she told Nick, who was standing next to her.

  “Gangs,” he replied, a frown tugging down the corners of his mouth.

  Maggie clenched her fists at her side and prayed silently that the boy would live. Come on, come back, she chanted, you should have another sixty years.

  But it was only a few minutes later that the two paramedics rocked back on their haunches and stared at each other in silent communication. It was over. He was gone. There was nothing else they could do. Their faces grim, they loaded the boy on a stretcher and transferred him to the ambulance. The motor rumbled, the siren wailed, the lights flashed and soon only a dark puddle remained beneath the streetlights, along with four firemen, their bright red truck, and a gathering crowd of spectators.

  Distance yourself, Maggie commanded. She couldn’t think about the violence, the senseless suffering, the mother’s bewilderment—or she’d be too angry to be objective.

  Nick put his hand on the small of her back and looked down at her. “You okay?”

  For a moment, Maggie forgot that she didn’t want anything to do with the Trib’s new photographer. She forgot about his arrogance, his fantastic body, his “love ’em and leave ’em” aura. She even forgot about Rock Tillman. After what they’d witnessed, nothing other than the basic issues of life and death seemed to matter. She turned her face into his chest and let him stroke her back. Then she took a deep breath and gathered the willpower to do her job and to let him do his.

  “HAVING A HARD TIME staying awake?”

  At the sound of Nick’s voice, Maggie lifted her head off her arms and glanced up at him, wanting to curse him for looking so alert at four o’clock in the morning. They’d gotten back to the office around midnight. She’d found a message on her desk from Ben, her editor, demanding her follow-up to the Ritter murder and had spent the next two hours trying to get hold of someone at police headquarters to confirm what Mary Ann had told her. But no one would go on record, least of all the two detectives working the case. So she’d been forced to write the story using an unidentified informant as her source.

  Despite that, she was pleased with the way it had turned out. And she was glad to have it behind her. For the past hour she’d been incapable of accomplishing anything more industrious than monitoring her scanners. “I’ve been up too long,” she said.

  “Why don’t you go home and get some sleep?”

  Maggie rubbed her cheek, hoping she didn’t have waffle face. “Because it’s my job to stay here until the morning shift comes on. And because that guy who killed Sarah Ritter might strike again. I don’t
want anyone else to get hurt, but if it’s going to happen, I can’t miss the story. I have to justify my paycheck somehow.” She shoved a copy of her latest article at him, and his eyes cut to the headline: RITTER LATEST OF SEVEN.

  “Ritter’s murderer has killed before?” he asked, his expression pensive.

  She nodded.

  “How do you know? The police tell you that?”

  “Not in so many words. Other sources—and a little research—confirmed it.”

  “What other sources?”

  Maggie gave him a sly smile. “A good reporter never reveals her secrets.”

  “Seems I’ve heard that line in the movies. But we’re on the same team here, right?”

  A call came crackling through one of her scanners, and Maggie adjusted the volume so she could hear it better. Sounded like a domestic violence case. She certainly wasn’t about to rush out of the office for that. If she reported on every man who struck his wife, there’d be no room in the paper for anything else.

  Evidently, what she’d seen because of her job was making her a little cynical. “Don’t worry, I’ll let you know when to take the pictures,” she said, returning to their conversation.

  He leaned an elbow on the partition surrounding her desk. “Want me to help you stay awake?”

  Yawning, she supported her head with her hand. “I don’t think anyone could do that.”

  This statement elicited a wolfish grin. “Maybe I’m better at keeping a woman’s attention than you think.”

  Maggie didn’t doubt his capabilities; in fact, it was his potential for late-night entertainment that scared her. “What did you have in mind?” she asked hesitantly.

  “I don’t know. We could play a game.”

  “Like checkers? I’m afraid I don’t keep board games in my desk, and frankly I’d be a little surprised to find them in yours.”