Undeliverable

by Rebecca Demarest

  Sylvia put paper into the printer from the stack on the left and the printer started to spit out the forms. “Oops. Ben, I think I grabbed from the wrong pile.”

  He turned around and saw that the forms she was brandishing all had his son’s missing flyer on the back. He sat there blinking for a couple moments, then held out his hand for Sylvia to pass him the flyers.

  “Maybe not.” He flipped the papers over and back, and he started to smile. “This could work.” He handed the forms back to Sylvia and started drumming his fingers on the desk. “We could print the flyer on the back of each form we send out, see if we can’t get the readers in on it, put it on all of the mail they return, on the damaged mail forms, everything. How many forms do you think we send out in a day?”

  “I don’t know, maybe two or three hundred?”

  “That’s two or three hundred people who would then know about Benny.” He slapped his palms down on the desktop. “This could really work. What do you think?”

  “I think you’re the one that’s crazy. And I know crazy. You know you still haven’t even told me what this is all about.” Sylvia snatched the forms back from him. “Besides, we’d totally get in trouble.”

  “Says who? We’re the only ones who see those forms. Get one or two select readers in on it; who’s to say it would cause any sort of problem?”

  “Fine, we can try and see if they’ll go for it, but only, only, if you’ll tell me what is actually going on with you.” She picked up the forms and carried them off.

  That evening as Ben was getting ready to go, he stopped by the copier to make up for the flyers that Sylvia had printed on. He paused as he heard someone walking down the hallway. Celine, a reader, came into view and started to brush past him. Instead she paused and backed up.

  “Illicit copying, eh?” She grinned, arms crossed belligerently in front of her.

  He could feel the heat rising in his face as he struggled to lie. He had always been an awful liar. “I, uh, no. Of course not, just some claims forms from today.”

  “Mmhm. Sure. At 5:15. No one else is still here; I’m only here because I forgot my lunch box. And you look guilty as hell. What, don’t have a poker face?”

  Ben stared down at his shoes, hoping against hope that she wasn’t going to get him in trouble. “I—”

  “You shouldn’t use your copy code for that; they’ll see that you’re copying too much. Here, use this one.” She tapped 7845 into the machine and stepped back.

  Confused, Ben finally looked up at her. “What’s that one?”

  “That’s the administrative code. No one looks twice at the amount of paperwork those bimbos have to copy every day.

  “I, thanks. I guess. Everyone does this?”

  “Mmhm. Copy my taxes every year on that thing and an occasional school project for my daughter. It’s just easier than going out to find copiers. Matthew copies his manuscripts, Bethany her headshot portfolio for the local theaters, pretty sure everyone’s copied at least one thing on here before, if not more.” Celine leaned on one end of the copier, arms crossed. “So, what are you copying?”

  “I think I’d rather not say.”

  “Oh please. If it’s your ass, I’d love to see it.” She snatched the flyer from the top feeder of the copier before Ben could stop her. The grin on her face quickly faded to a frown and she looked up at him. “Ben, is this…?”

  And here was yet another person he really didn’t want to know. He sighed and held out his hand for the flyer. “My son.”

  “Oh god. I’m—shit—I’m sorry. Here.” She smoothed out the small wrinkles her grab had caused and gently passed the paper back to him. “Teaches me to put my nose in where it’s not welcome.”

  “No, it’s fine. Any other trick to the copy settings?” He typed in the new code and set the copier to thirty copies. He was feeling more comfortable with the whole illicit copying thing, considering they couldn’t be bothered to keep watch over their own budget. And if everyone used it, who was he to look the gift horse in the mouth? Now he just wished Celine would drop it and leave him be.

  “Nope, that’s it. Sorry again.” Celine was leaning against the wall now, hugging herself, the frivolity gone.

  He felt a sudden urge to explain himself to this woman, a reader he’d never even had a conversation with before today, but there was nothing else to do while the copies ran and she showed no signs of leaving, and he felt he needed to justify himself as she watched his copies spool out. “I left Savannah because that’s all people saw me as, the dad with the missing kid. Some even thought—” He shook his head, once more hearing the angry accusations, and then continued. “It was nice for a few days, being up here where no one really knew who I was. Maybe some remembered the news footage from last year. Most don’t.”

  “Not exactly something I’d want to be spreading around if I didn’t have to.”

  He sighed and leaned against the copier. “No, that’s not quite it, not entirely. I was just tired of the pity. God, you don’t want to hear all this.” The copier spat out the last sheet and Ben picked them up, straightening them carefully.

  “No, it’s okay, really. It’s interesting, at least. Wait, that’s the wrong word, makes me sound creepy.” She waved her hand dismissively through the air at her own gaffe and then straightened up from her slouch against the wall. “What I mean is, I don’t mind listening if you need to talk.”

  “No, I’m done. I really don’t like burdening people with this. But thanks. And thanks for the code.”

  “Sure thing, Ben.” She turned and started to head for the front door. “Oh, and Ben? I hope you find him.”

  A wry smile tilted one corner of his mouth up. “Thanks. So do I.”

  As he walked back to his desk to grab his satchel, he pondered the fact that telling Celine what was going on had actually felt good. He didn’t know if it was the telling, the relief of not trying to keep it from her, or the fact that she took it so well. As he stopped in his cubicle, he heard a whispering from farther in the warehouse. He stepped quietly to the edge of the bays and made his way down toward the sound.

  “They just don’t get it, you know? It’s hard, it’s really hard sometimes, to figure out what’s real and what’s not. I’m not the only one. I read the letters. I know we’re not supposed to, but do they really expect us to scan them without actually reading what’s there? I mean, come on. We all just pretend that we don’t understand what’s in the letters, that we’re just looking for clues to the owners. But it’s all in there. People who don’t know their lovers are dead, people who don’t want to know. Kids who think Santa is real, kids who think he’s fake but are writing because their moms don’t think they’ve grown up. So what if I don’t always ‘grasp reality,’” Ben could almost feel the air quotes the speaker put up. He peeked around the corner to the long-term storage bay and saw the reader Jillian leaning against the shelves, talking to the urn of Uncle Shem’s ashes.

  “Seriously though, you think my family would be a little more understanding, a little less judgmental. So what if they don’t believe what I believe? They don’t have to call me a conspiracy nut-job. Sometimes I just wish I was alone. No, you know I don’t mean that. At least I have you to talk to, that helps. Anyway, I should probably be getting home now, the llamas need feeding.”

  Ben scurried back to his desk as noiselessly as he could and started tidying the papers on it. Jillian came into the pool of light cast by his desk lamp, clutching her purse to her chest. She froze when she saw Ben standing there.

  “Oh! Jillian, right? Sorry, didn’t know anyone was still in here. Find what you were looking for?” He smiled gently, picking up his bag and slinging it over his shoulder. He knew she would be mortified if she knew he’d been listening.

  “I—yes and no. Silly claim from earlier. Was sure there was nothing, and I was rig
ht.” She took two steps towards the door. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  Ben shook his head as she bolted, leaving the warehouse door open. She was an odd duck, but no more so than anyone else he’d met here already, or himself, for that matter. He finished shutting off the lights and headed toward the front door. As he stepped out of the warehouse, he almost ran into Sylvia.

  “Oh, for God’s sake.” He steadied her with his free hand. “Doesn’t anyone ever leave this place?”

  “I might say the same to you. Making more copies were you?”

  “Yes, but if I’m here this late doing illicit copying, and Jillian’s here to talk to Uncle Shem over in the corner about her conspiracy theories, what in the world are you doing here?”

  “Talking to old ashes, huh? Well, she’s always enjoyed their chats.”

  He hitched his bag farther up his shoulder and planted himself in her way. “I’m waiting.”

  She pouted. “You are no fun. I want to know what’s going on.” She leaned forward and poked him in the chest, hard. “For real this time. Enough pussy-footing around.”

  Ben sighed and rubbed a hand over his face. He still felt like he shouldn’t be sharing his story around at work where he had to see the pity in people’s eyes everyday, but talking that little bit with Celine hadn’t been as off putting as he thought it would have been. “Fine. But not here, can we go someplace else?”

  “Sure. There’s a great bar just down the road.”

  “Perfect. I could really use a drink right about now.”

  They were ensconced at a back table at JR’s Lounge shortly thereafter, Ben with a Peachtree and Sylvia with a Guinness.

  “Interesting place.” Ben was trying to look around without being obvious. And stall. He didn’t know how to start since most people he talked to about this already mostly knew what was going on. “You wouldn’t even know this place was back here if you didn’t know about it.”

  “That’s the best part; the party boys don’t know about it. You can come drink here without anyone bothering you. Now. So far I know that your boy is missing and that you and your wife have split. Not surprising really. A lot of marriages have trouble after their children have died. Not that he’s dead,” she hastened to add. “Missing. There isn’t any reason to think he’s dead, is there?”

  “No, no, but let me tell this at my own pace. I haven’t had to…most people in Savannah just knew. Now I have to explain it all again. And, unlike most people, you aren’t content with ‘My son’s missing, what else can I say?’”

  “No, no I’m not. Besides, I know it helps take the sting out of things to get them into the open air, no matter how much it hurts to do it.”

  He wasn’t sure about that bit of colloquial wisdom, but he had decided to tell her and he would follow through on that. It was also a sure bet she wouldn’t let him leave without a fuss if he didn’t tell her. Ben drained half of his beer before he figured out where to start. “I guess I should start at the beginning. Well, when he disappeared at any rate.” Ben flagged the bartender and gestured for another beer before draining the rest of the bottle.

  Blank Letters

  You don’t see many of these now, but they used to be fairly common. Lazy office clerks don’t notice that an envelope hasn’t got anything on it and just chuck it into the mail. There is no way for them to be sent to the right person or even returned to the sender. Sometimes they’re damned important, too.

  ~ Gertrude Biun, Property Office Manual

  On That Day, as he had come to think of it, the wooden box in Ben’s hands was smooth, the inlays dating it to at least the 1800s, but someone had replaced the hinges recently and poorly. He probed at the loose nails, deciding he would need to pry out the hinges completely, use filler, and then attach something more period appropriate than stainless steel craft hinges. He hated when people couldn’t be bothered to take the time to do something right.

  “Da-ad. Can I see the box? Can I?” Benny knelt on the stool behind the counter of his parents’ antique shop. More properly, his mother’s shop, but Ben was the one who did most of the buying and selling as well as all of the repair work. The five year old teetered as he made a grab for the box in his father’s hand, steadying himself against the counter.

  Ben lifted the box out of his son’s reach, still focused on the repair job at hand. “It’s a box. There are plenty of others in the store to go look at. I need to fix this one.”

  “But I’ve seen all the other boxes. They’re boring. That one has cool patterns on it. Kinda like the Republic symbol from Star Wars.” He made lightsaber noises as he caused the stool to sway onto only two legs before it resettled with a thunk.

  His son’s words didn’t quite make it through to his attention and Ben asked, “The what?” He pulled pliers from his back pocket and started to gently work the nails loose from their seating.

  “You know, the circle with the thingy in the middle that the Republic has on all their uniforms and ships and everything.” His fidgeting started to tip the stool to the side again, and Ben placed one large hand on top of his son’s head to steady him. He was amazed that his son had only had two trips to the emergency room for stitches by this age, considering how often Ben had to catch him from falling while he was doing something stupid like rocking the stool off its feet. It wasn’t like Benny got that reckless behavior from either of his parents, but the boy just didn’t care about pain or danger.

  “Enough. Sit down properly. Come on, feet out from under you.”

  Benny sighed, squirming until his feet drummed on the legs of the stool and his butt was firmly placed on the seat. “Now can I see it?”

  “When it’s fixed. Can you watch the counter? I need to go in the back and get started on this. It’s almost closing time; there shouldn’t be anyone coming in. But if they do—”

  “I know. Call for you as soon as they come in.” Benny crossed his arms and kicked harder at the stool as Ben went into the back workroom.

  He was careful to avoid nicking the beautiful wood of the box as he pried out the bad hinges. The wood filler was out on his workbench from a project the day before, and he took his time filling the holes, ensuring that every last air pocket was accounted for before using a soft cloth to wipe up the excess and then place the two halves of the box on his drying rack. This was the kind of work that he loved doing, setting everything to rights, bringing out the beauty in an old craftsman’s work. It was a kind of meditation to him, finding all the cracks and filling them, refinishing wood so the stains wouldn’t show, making each piece beautiful and tidy.

  Since his son had not called out to him, Ben went to his odds-and-ends shelf and started poking around for a set of hinges that would work with the mahogany and pine tones of the box. It took him another five minutes to find the ones he wanted, a set of brass hinges that had been too small on the tea caddy they had originally closed. Tossing them on his desk to attach to the box in the morning when the filler had dried, Ben returned to the front of the store.

  His son was not sitting on the stool behind the counter. This in itself was not unusual; Benny was like any five year old and had a hard time staying in one spot for long.

  “Benny, where’d you go, champ?” There was no answer. Worrisome, but not more so than usual.

  “Benjamin Grant, you come out here right now. No games. It’s time for me to start locking up. Do you want to lock the front door?” Still no answer. Benny loved being allowed to lock the front door.

  At this point, Ben started searching around the store in earnest, opening chests and wardrobes, a soft fear catching in his chest and making his breath a little shorter and sharper. “This isn’t funny, young man. Stop hiding. Where are you? Don’t force me to call your mother.” When this threat failed to get the usual panicked response, Ben really started to worry. He went to the front door, but there wasn’t
any sign of a boy, just a few shopkeepers on his small side street starting their own closing routines.

  “Bernard! Did Benny come out here?”

  The grocer across the way shrugged and shook his head. “Haven’t seen the little terror. Lose him?”

  “He’s probably hiding someplace in here I just haven’t found yet, thanks.” There was no reason to panic anyone else yet, in fact there was probably no reason for him to panic. He was sure Benny must have just wandered upstairs or something. Please let it be something. Ben retreated into the store and went straight to the phone. He dialed the extension that rang the apartment upstairs while he continued to walk around looking in and behind things.

  “What’s up?” Ben could hear the TV on in the background blasting one of her fitness workout tapes.

  “Jeannie, did Benny come upstairs?” Jeannie either paused or muted the tape as the sound stopped abruptly.

  She paused and Ben could almost see her scanning the apartment above. He prayed she would tell him yes, Benny was up there making fun of her again while she worked out. “No, I don’t think so. He wanted to help you close up tonight.”

  Ben hesitated before admitting, “I can’t find him.”

  “I’m sure he’s just hiding in the furniture again. Remember when he fell asleep in that wardrobe?” Of course he remembered. Benny had been three and Jeannie had panicked. They were about to call the police when Ben had opened the 1894 teak wardrobe and found his son curled up on a fur coat he had pulled off of a hanger.

  “I’ve looked in everything. He’s not here.”

  Jeannie hung up without answering and in a moment he could hear her clattering down the back stairs. She came out of the workroom and briskly started the same search, flipping open lids and doors around the perimeter of the store. Ben headed into the center of the storefront to see if Ben was just hiding under the desks and tables grouped there.