Sweet Forty-Two

by Andrea Randall

  Regan,

  I hope this letter finds you well. As you know, I’ve been managing the Cavanaugh estate in Bo’s absence. A box of Rae’s belongings was sent from UNH at some point over the last few months, and it was set in the garage. Inside the box, among other things, was this envelope, addressed to you but never mailed.

  Bo gave me your new address. I hope you don’t mind. It’s yours—you should have it.

  I hope things are going well for you in San Diego.

  Take care.

  ~David

  My fingertips and lips went numb as I stared at the large manila envelope. Inside was something from Rae to me.

  A piece of her.

  “What’s with you?” Georgia tilted her head to the side and looked between the envelope and me. “You look like you saw a ghost.”

  “Something like that,” I mumbled.

  Setting the envelope on the bar, I ordered another beer. I didn’t know if I wanted to look. Pandora had gotten with the times and had stuffed herself into a USPS envelope.

  “What is it?” Georgia crossed her arms over the bared skin of her stomach.

  “Don’t know.”

  “Who’s it from?” She seemed hesitant in her questioning, but I was grateful for her voice. It kept the panic attack a few feet back.

  “Someone back home.” I kept it simple. Describing David would have meant discussing Rae, and the things I purposefully hadn’t packed for my trip to San Diego.

  “Georgia! Food!” The cook’s voice carried over the sound of a ringing bell.

  She jumped as we both shot back to the noise of the room. It was as if she’d been sucked along with me into the foggy silence of my impending slip into madness. She took two steps backward, keeping her eyes between me and the envelope, then turned and walked to the kitchen.

  With another Guinness warming my veins and numbing my fear, I picked up the envelope again. David’s words fell off the bar and wedged themselves between my foot and the bar when I stopped the paper from hitting the ground.

  It’s been six months, Regan. Just see what it is. It won’t kill you.

  It might.

  Before I could talk myself out of it further, I reached my hand into the envelope, wrapped my fingers around the flat, square item inside, and pulled it back out and set it on the bar.

  Yes ... it might kill me.

  It was a card. A square, sealed white envelope, with my old address in Barnstable written front and center, and Rae’s Concord address written in the top left corner.

  Her handwriting.

  I’d always found handwriting incredibly intimate. Whether words or notes on a page, they were the visible expression of the emotional and internal life spilled out through ink for the eyes to witness. View. Study.

  “Regan.” Lissa stood behind the bar, knocking her knuckles in front of me.

  My head snapped up. “Yeah?”

  “Wings.” She set the plate down and looked at my glass. “Another Guinness?”

  “No.” I shook my head. “Liquor. Something brown.”

  While I waited for her, I grabbed the edge of the envelope, standing it up and tapping the corner on the bar a few times. I watched Georgia carry food and drinks across the bar twice before Lissa finally showed back up. Looking around, I realized the bar was growing thick with customers seeking their own elixir. Some to enhance. Some to numb. Some to just ... something.

  I stared at the way Rae’s R’s curled up a bit at the tail. In my name and hers. Only, on mine, she hadn’t taken her pen from the paper before sketching a tiny heart at the end of the letter. I dropped the envelope onto the bar and closed my eyes, pinching the bridge of my nose until I was sure it would pop off.

  Then I looked at the liquor.

  And that’s the last thing I remember.

  Georgia

  The longer the night wore on, the worse Regan looked. A piece of paper, the first one he’d removed from the envelope, was held against the bottom of the bar by the tip of one of his worn Converses. The more offending piece, it seemed, sat in the form of a square card. One that he’d look at, pick up, and set back down again between shots of whiskey.

  Lissa robotically poured another shot and placed it in front of Regan. I’d have done the same on any other night, with any other customer. Watching this exchange, however, made my skin crawl. I didn’t know what was in that envelope, but I knew that I hadn’t seen Regan drink more than a pint or two whenever he’d been in here. It’s quite a gap between that and shots of whiskey without much of a breather in between.

  I looked around at the cast of regulars surrounding the bar, wondering how many of them walked in here for the first time after a letter of their own. Sure, some were well-seasoned alcoholics, and the rest on their way. But, the first sip after a letter like that differs from the first sip ever.

  My father had received a letter like that once. A goodbye letter from my mom, taped to the bathroom mirror one barren morning in January. As his feet screamed against the frigid tile floor, his world fell apart.

  Followed 15 years later by his liver.

  Sure, he’d been a heavy drinker before that. But ... it was different after the letter.

  A half an hour later, the last of my dinner tables left, and I watched Regan’s forehead settle onto his fist as he leaned over the bar. I thought about calling CJ, wishing he were right around the corner as he’d always been on the weekends early in high school. Intuition whispered that this wasn’t a common scene for Regan, though, so who knows what advice CJ could have offered. Three thousand miles away, no less.

  I shimmied behind the bar and bumped hips with Lissa. Well, my well-fed hip to her hipbone. She looked down at me and I eyed the clock, which read 2:30 AM, glanced at Regan, back to her and ran my index finger lengthwise across my neck, telling her no more for him tonight.

  “What’s the big deal? He’s really only had a few shots.” She wasn’t fighting with me, just fishing to what I knew that she didn’t. Which wasn’t much.

  I nodded in his direction, whispering as if he could hear us, despite the fact he hadn’t lifted his head in over two minutes. “Look at him. I’m going to have to take him home. I’d like him to have a few minutes to at least be able to walk out of here on his own two feet.”

  “Takin’ him home, huh? It’s about time. He’s so damn hot I was waiting to see how long it would take for you to cave ... especially with his front door like six feet from yours.” Lissa’s seductive smile annoyed me as she filled a white bucket with cleaning solution.

  “It’s not like I have time for this shit, Liss. I’ve got to get over to—”

  Lissa cut me off with a slam of the bucket on the counter. “Would you live for once, for God’s sake?”

  Now was not the time to argue with her about my life choices.

  They weren’t my choices to begin with.

  I took a quick look around and saw the crowd was thinning. There were some who wanted to leave before the lights were turned on. Those who were still holding on to some sense of pride.

  “I’m out. I’m taking him home. Don’t let Donnie tow his car, K?” I untied my apron, made change for my tips, and changed in the back room, allowing Regan a few more minutes to sober up before I disrupted his self-loathing. Or pity. Or whatever that was.

  I walked back into the bar and found Regan sitting up, looking around as if he’d just hit the snooze on his alarm clock. Or wished he could.

  I set my hand on his shoulder. “Hey, killer, let’s get you home.”

  “I can’t drive,” he slurred.

  At least he still had some sense.

  “I know. Thank you for recognizing that, though. You’ll come with me.”

  Dead eyes lifted to my face. “She’s gone, you know. Just ... gone.”

  I let my eyes fall to the letter he’d left unopened, but thoroughly touched, on the bar. Rae Cavanaugh sat on the return address line. The name rang a bell, but too faint to figure out at that moment.


  “Well,” I sighed, “I’m here. And I’ll get you home.” Predisposed in the role of caregiver, I knew this particular assignment would be short-term.

  Despite CJ and Regan looking nothing alike, the cousins seemed to posses a gene for mobility while intoxicated because he gracefully left his stool and began a wobbly but unassisted walk to the door. Empty handed.

  He was making a slow go of it, so I took a second to sweep the letter off the floor and slide it back into the envelope, along with the unopened card.

  “Just leave it,” Regan mumbled as if he had eyes in the back of his head.

  “Okay,” I lied.

  He’d have regretted it had I listened.

  I didn’t know who sent the envelope, or why. But anything worth drinking that much over deserves to be read. I quickly unzipped my backpack and placed the envelope inside, just where I’d put it when the postman dropped it off. Maybe I should have left it there, or told him there was no one by Regan’s name at that address.

  No. It deserved to be read.

  If someone writes you words, you read them.

  “Need some help, G?” Dominic, the larger of the two aging bouncers, lifted his thick black eyebrows.

  I shook my head, adjusting the straps on my backpack. “Nah, Dom, I got it.”

  “Yeah, Dom ... she’s got it.” Regan sounded almost mocking as he leaned against the door.

  This kind of dialogue was commonplace for near closing-time, and Dom just shook his head and held open the door.

  Once in the fresh air, Regan seemed to stumble a little bit more. Having used all of his ability to keep his shit straight, he sat on the seat of a bike that was locked on a bike rack.

  “It’ll take you a long time to get back to La Jolla on that thing. Let’s go.” I hooked my arm through his and tugged.

  “I can’t drive, though.” He pinched the bridge of his nose, shaking his head as if he was just aware of this fact.

  I fished my keys out of my bag and gave them a jingle. “I can. Come on. I know where you live.”

  He chuckled. “Barely. You’re never home. Always out with your guy friends and shit...”

  “What?” I crinkled my forehead as I unlocked the passenger door, depositing him inside after sliding the seat as far back as it would go. His knees still came close to the glove compartment.

  “All the guys,” he slurred, “that you’re all over all the time...” He clumsily locked his seatbelt into place. And leaned his head against the window.

  I tried to keep defensiveness out of my voice. I was the sober one. “What about them?”

  “You go home with them. You’re never home.”

  “I don’t ... what does that have to do with anything?” I pulled out of the parking lot, wondering where this conversation was going.

  “CJ told me to look after you.” Regan leaned forward, resting elbow on knee, head in hand. “It’s hard to look after you when you’re at other guys’ houses all the time.”

  I suppose I could have told him everything right there, but he wasn’t in the brain space to put it all together. I was more interested in the truths he thought he held about me.

  “Is that the branch up your tree hugging friend’s ass? She thinks I’m a slut?” I knew Ember had thought I’d fooled around with CJ, and she had some attitude a couple of weeks ago, but Regan’s statements illustrated the crossover.

  Slut.

  “You’re not a slut, Georgia.”

  I glanced over at him as I merged onto the highway because his voice sounded suddenly sober. Then he slurred. Again.

  “You don’t do anything different than CJ does all the time ... that’s what he says...”

  “That’s what CJ said? That I sleep around?”

  Regan looked down as his eyebrows pulled in. “No ... he didn’t say that. He said you weren’t like that.”

  Way to go, Ceej. Defending me without giving the truth away. Half-truths, full protection. Realizing I had no use for a drunken conversation of this subject — me — I turned the tables.

  “Who’s Rae Cavanaugh?” I swallowed hard at the courage afforded me in the tiny confines of my car.

  “How do you know her?” His head was still in his hands, but he rotated to face me.

  “Obviously I don’t since I asked you who she is.”

  “She’s ... Bo’s sister.”

  “Oh ... that’s why it sounded familiar. Last name. Okay, so, why did she send you that note that had you all drinky-drinky?”

  “She didn’t.”

  “Well, the envelope—”

  “She didn’t fucking send me shit, Georgia, okay?” A deep tenor filled the car as Regan yelled.

  I jumped, thankful to be exiting the highway and a few minutes from home.

  I guess we were done talking about Rae Cavanaugh.

  Keeping quiet for the remainder of the ride, I half expected Regan to break somewhere in the five minutes after his last word, but he didn’t. I saw his lips moving once in a while out of the corner of my eye, but he wasn’t making any noises. He hadn’t shown signs of mental illness before, so I was chalking the self-talk up to the alcohol.

  Once we were in front of our building, I guided my car into the garage, deciding to take the interior stairs, given the railings were sturdier than the wobbly split-rail ones along the outer stairs.

  “And, by the way,” Regan started mid-imaginary conversation as he got out and shut the door behind him, “why’d you get all weird when we played that Guster song the other night?”

  I tried to silently clear my throat. Go ahead, try it. That’s what I sounded like. “What do you mean?”

  “CJ started singing, which he like never does, and you looked like he cracked open your chest and crawled inside.” Regan wandered over to the door and knocked on it.

  I took out my keys, shaking my head. “He kind of did.” It was okay to be a little honest with a drunk person. They might not remember.

  “He did?”

  “Look. The PG-13 version of my pain? I had a complete shit childhood, and CJ, for all intents and purposes, rescued me from that during the time I still lived in Massachusetts. That song is just ... ours.”

  I opened the door and Regan put his hands in his pockets and started up the stairs.

  “Could you take your hands out of your pockets?” I held onto his shirt. “If you fall, we’ll be able to better prevent both of us from tumbling down the stairs if you can at least catch yourself.”

  Regan snorted. “Sounds like you’ve done this before.”

  “I guess you could say that. Just ... go. You’re staying in my apartment tonight.”

  “I live five feet from you, I think I can find my way.” He stopped halfway up the stairs to take a breath, then slowly jogged the rest of the way until he was in the hall between our two doors.

  “Yeah, and I want to make sure you can find your way to the bathroom if you need to throw up. I’d rather you didn’t choke on your own vomit tonight. Anyway, I have your keys.” I dangled his keys in the air then dropped them in my bag.

  “How did you...”

  “You handed them to Lissa when you ordered your third shot. You’re smart. I like you.” I unlocked my door and led him inside.

  Without further protest, Regan fell to my couch and was half asleep before I flicked on the light and re-latched my door. I sighed, took off his shoes, set a garbage can next to him, and posted up in the chair across from the coffee table.

  Once I was certain he was out, I reached for my laptop and, like any good American, I opened my browser and typed: Rae Cavanaugh.

  My assumptions about Regan and his insides were dismantled wrecking-ball style as the first item in the search results produced an obituary from last summer. Shit.

  Rachel Vivian Cavanaugh

  Rachel (Rae) passed away suddenly on Saturday afternoon.

  A native of Concord, and the daughter of the late Spencer and Vivian Cavanaugh, Rae was full of life and loved by everyone she encounter
ed. Her kind nature and silent resolve carried her through many difficult trials in her short life.

  Rachel spent her last year as a student at the University of New Hampshire, and working Director of Public Relations for the family organization, Drug Resistance Opportunity Program (DROP).

  An avid equestrian and a lover of nature, Rae spent her last day doing what she loved, riding through the trails of Southern New Hampshire with her boyfriend, Regan Kane.

  She is survived by her older brother, Bo Cavanaugh.

  In lieu of flowers, the family asks that donations be made to DROP in Rae’s name.

  I was speechless. I had no one to talk to at that moment, anyway, but my mouth hung open.

  “Everyone’s got an R-rated version of their pain, Georgia.”

  If that obituary was the preview, my guess was whatever was inside that envelope was the main attraction.

  Regan

  Blueberries...

  What?

  I peeled my eyes open, disoriented by my surroundings, and the smell. I checked my phone, noting it couldn’t have been very late, given it looked like sunrise outside. And, I was right. It was seven in the morning, and I was in Georgia’s apartment.

  That’s all the information I had. There wasn’t even a sliver of memory in my head as to what I’d done, or drank, last night in order to end up in this position. Shoes off, clothes on, and in Georgia’s apartment.

  With a killer headache.

  I groaned as I sat up, the back of my neck meeting the base of my skull with a sledgehammer. I still smelled blueberries, though, and Georgia’s kitchen was empty. It made my stomach growl.

  I stood even slower than I’d sat up, and shuffled over to Georgia’s bedroom door. Knocking once, the door swung open slightly, but no noise came from the other side.

  “Georgia?” My voice sounded like sandpaper felt. Hell, it felt like sandpaper felt.

  I peered through the crack and found her bed made and empty. Feeling for my keys, I panicked at their absence from my pockets. I’d assumed when I woke up that I hadn’t driven home, but I wasn’t looking forward to a key search either.

  Walking back to the couch, I noticed the smell of blueberries got stronger as I got closer to the door. I opened the apartment door and was swaddled with the smell of brown sugar, vanilla and the suspect blueberries. I pressed my nose forward like a bloodhound and followed the trail of baked comfort down the stairs. Though I hadn’t walked those stairs in all the time I’d lived there, they seemed familiar.