Mister Tender's Girl

by Carter Wilson

  He offers a thin smile and shrug. “Just got home from my shift. I like to take a hot shower before I get some sleep.”

  “I’ll relight it,” I say. “But it’ll probably take an hour or so to get the water hot again.”

  “It’s no problem. Just thought I’d let you know. Thanks, Alice.”

  He turns to head back to the Perch.

  “Richard,” I say.

  “Yes?”

  He’s already here. And I don’t think he’s part of this, so I may as well ask. “Do you remember… Well, this would have been in the summer, I think. Do you remember someone taking a picture of the house? It’s a weird question, I know. But I saw this picture of my house online, and you were up in the Perch, in the window, looking down. I–I was just wondering if you remember that. If you saw someone.”

  He pushes his hands deeper into his coat pockets, bundling against the cold. He’s wearing thin sweatpants, maybe even pajamas, tucked into untied snow boots.

  “Huh,” he says. “No, I can’t say I remember that exactly. In the summer, you say?”

  “Well, the trees were full, but I don’t know exactly when.”

  “No, sorry, I don’t remember seeing anyone around the house. Certainly not taking pictures.”

  “Oh, okay. No problem, then. Just thought I’d ask.”

  Richard seems about ready to turn away but decides against it. He looks at the ground as he speaks.

  “Alice…I mean, really, it’s none of my business, but you tell me you’re okay, and I’m thinking you’re not.”

  “Richard, I—”

  “I hear you, you know?” Now he looks up, and when his gaze locks onto mine, it’s powerful. Perhaps because he so rarely looks me directly in the eyes. “Sometimes, at night. Not often. I hear you upset. Crying. Once in a while I think…” He searches for words.

  “What do you think, Richard?”

  “I think maybe you’re hurting yourself or something. I mean, again, none of my business, but you seem…just…”

  “Just what?”

  “Just so alone.”

  And here is where I lose it. The word alone stabs me in the heart, and I’m stunned by how much it actually hurts. I nearly lose my balance, then walk back a few steps into my house, sit on the bottom step of the stairs, and start crying. Weeping. I don’t care that Richard is staring at me through the open doorway as cold air floods my house. I don’t care I’m a disheveled mess in a robe that barely conceals me. I don’t care if Richard is actually one of the stalkers. All I feel is the pain of that word, because it is so desperately true. Of all the words anyone could ever use to describe me, there is none more honest than that simple, solitary adjective.

  Alone.

  “Oh, oh God, Alice. I’m so sorry.” He walks inside and puts the lightest of hands on my terry-cloth shoulder. “I didn’t mean to… You know. I’m such an idiot. You’re not alone. I’m sure you have lots of friends. I mean, God, look at me. I don’t ever go out or anything. I’m the loner, not you. I mean, you’re not a loner, I’m just—”

  “Shut up, Richard,” I say into my hands.

  “Right, of course.” He removes his hand, but I can see his feet through the gaps in my fingers. He doesn’t know whether to stay or go.

  I allow myself some more tears, and it feels cleansing. For some reason, I’m comfortable with being vulnerable in this moment. But I don’t let it last too long. I wipe my face, stand, cinch my robe tight, and square my shoulders.

  “Do you know anything about computers?” I ask.

  He seems startled by my change of direction. “Um, a little, I suppose.”

  “How can I find out who owns a website?”

  He shrugs. “You can check WHOIS.”

  “Who what?”

  “W-H-O-I-S. You do a WHOIS lookup on any website, and that tells you. You know, like ‘who is the owner of whatever.com.’”

  “Okay,” I say. “Hang on.” I walk over, grab my laptop, and sit back on the bottom step again. “Close the door, Richard. It’s freezing in here.”

  As he reaches back to close the door, I spy the corner of the planter box outside. Snow is piled on top of it, a big loaf of white bread. Is there really a gun there?

  The door shuts, and I refocus on the laptop screen. I Google whois and immediately find the site I need.

  “So I just enter in the website I want to look up?”

  Richard peers over my shoulder and looks at the screen.

  “That’s right.”

  My instinct is to pull the screen from his view, but I don’t. Living with secrets hasn’t worked out for me anyway. I type in www.mistertender.com and click Enter.

  “What’s that site?” he asks.

  “Long story.”

  The page loads with technical terms, but it doesn’t take me long to find what I’m looking for. Halfway down the page, I see Registrant Name.

  Next to that, it says Registration Private.

  Damn it.

  Richard leans in closer. “Yeah, no surprise,” he says. “You can pay an extra ten bucks a year or so to shield all your info. Most websites are private, I would expect.”

  “So now what?”

  “I have no idea,” he says.

  “Well, thanks, Richard.”

  He stands upright. “You know, I like listening to long stories.”

  I sigh. “But that doesn’t mean I like telling them.”

  “Okay, I won’t pry anymore,” he says.

  When he looks at me, why do I simply trust him? There’s really no reason I should, except that he pays his rent on time and otherwise leaves me alone. Just earlier, I had a moment of panic that Richard was spying on me through my ceiling, but now, as he stands here, I sense his energy, and it’s good energy. I have no logical reason to think he’s not Mr. Interested. But he’s not. I just know it. He is just Richard.

  “Are you working tonight?” I ask.

  “No, I’m off.”

  “Then come over for a glass of wine,” I say. “Maybe I’ll tell you a long story.”

  His face brightens, and for a man I’ve never considered particularly attractive, it’s lovely.

  “I’d like that,” he says. “What time?”

  “Let’s say five.”

  He nods. “Sounds good.” When he looks to the ground, he blushes. I don’t want him blushing, because that means he might be thinking tonight is a date. Tonight is not a date. Tonight is me being able to connect with another human being, something I do far too seldom.

  “And look,” I add, “you’re probably going to go check out the website when you get back upstairs. If you do, you’ll need a password. Gladstone, all lowercase.”

  “Alice, I’m not trying to—”

  “It’s okay, Richard. I’m realizing it’s healthy for me to share some secrets. Look at the site. It’ll be a good starting point for our conversation later.”

  He only nods at this, then turns and walks away. I partially close the door and listen until he’s back in the Perch. Then I open the door, check the street to confirm it’s empty, then dig through the planter box with my bare hands. The snow daggers my fingertips, but it takes only a moment before I feel the slick plastic of a Ziploc bag. The hard metal inside. I don’t pull the gun out of the planter. I don’t want it inside my house. I don’t even want it this close to me, but I’m not touching it more. I pile the dirt and snow back on top, then retreat back into the house.

  Door locked.

  Alarm panel armed to Stay. Ice crystals melt and drip from my numb fingertips. I walk to the basement, where the water heater lives. As my bare feet press down the cool, wooden steps into the darkness of the unfinished space, a sudden thought comes to me. A certainty, even.

  The water heater is working just fine.

  What if I’m wron
g about Richard and my trust is misplaced? Maybe he made up that story about the water heater just to have an excuse to knock on my door at the moment it would unnerve me most.

  I make my way in the tight space, reach up, and pull the chain on the solitary light down here. The bulb has little effect.

  Aroma of damp brick and musty wood beams.

  The cold of the concrete floor bites into the bottoms of my bare feet as I walk to the water heater. Again, another certainty washes over me. The moment I check the water heater and confirm it’s working just fine, I’ll hear the basement door close, followed by the sound of someone descending the old steps.

  I force myself to keep moving forward. Finally, I reach the water heater in the back corner of the room. I bend down and slide the cover to the pilot light over to the left. As I do, I touch the metal exterior of the heater itself.

  It’s cool.

  I peer at the pilot light.

  It’s out.

  The muscles in my back relax, and as I reach inside to ignite the pilot, I think that I’m looking forward to that glass of wine with Richard.

  Nineteen

  MIDMORNING, and my morgue-silent house fills with a brilliant light that only occurs this time of day and year, when the low winter sun hits my southern windows and bright, dusty beams flood my downstairs. This sudden burst of sunshine makes me realize there are some curtains I haven’t closed, so I do.

  Then, I think, What the hell am I going to do?

  Should I call the police to tell them about the gun in my planter and the man stalking me? Tell them about another man named Freddy Starks who is looking to exact a pound of my flesh?

  In the lowest points of my life, police were involved. I remember the sirens of their cars in the distance as I was bleeding to death exactly fourteen years ago today. A vague notion of one of them looking over my body and saying “bloody hell” over and over. I don’t want to call the police. What can they really do, anyway? Arrest me in connection with a drug dealer’s murder, and probably little else.

  So I just sit here, rattled with indecision, impotent to effect change. This lasts literally hours.

  Change instead comes to me, and it does so with the ring of my doorbell. In my years here, I don’t think I’ve ever had more than one visitor in a day.

  Freddy Starks. It has to be.

  I grab the bat. There’s no way I’m opening the door, but he’ll find a way in. He knows I’m here.

  Another ring. Impatient, only seconds after the first.

  Shouting erupts on the other side of the door.

  “Alice! Open up!”

  That’s not Freddy Starks. I know who it is, and it’s the last person I would expect on my doorstep.

  I drop the bat and race to the door, then open it.

  Thomas is standing on the porch. A red welt paints an imperfect circle around his left eye.

  He very nearly smiles as he says:

  “Happy anniversary.”

  Twenty

  “Thomas, how did you get here?”

  He jerks a thumb back at my mother’s Toyota Highlander parked across the street.

  “Is she in the car?”

  “Nope. She’s at home.”

  “You’re not supposed to be driving. And…” I reach out and touch the side of his face, which, despite the blaze of the welt, is chilled. “What happened to you?” And then I put it together before he even has a chance to answer.

  “She hit you,” I say.

  “Jesus, Alice, it’s cold as a bitch out here. Can I come in?”

  “Yes…sorry.” I stand aside as he shuffles in.

  “It’s two in the goddamned afternoon,” he says. “You’re still in a bathrobe? Must be fuckin’ nice.”

  I shut the door and wonder for the thousandth time what happened to the Thomas I grew up with. We were never alike, and it was a rare occasion when someone would tell us we resembled each other. Our personalities were just as disparate: I was the shy one, borderline withdrawn. Thomas was always outgoing, friendly to a fault, the golden retriever of the family. Even when he was thirteen, a full year before he got sick but at a time most boys turn into real shits, Thomas was always the sweet one.

  This was after my assault, so I was detached from the world, disappearing into my room at every chance, but Thomas would come to my room and talk to me through my door, trying to get me to come out. He’d sit on the floor in our apartment and read me the most stupid knock-knock jokes he could find, playing both the asker and the answerer. The jokes were like smoke grenades: deployed effectively, they always succeeded in flushing me out. He was annoying but sweet. Always cheerful. And he never swore.

  I force myself to remember he can’t control who he is, and I need to dig deep into my patience.

  “I’m not working today,” I say. “I can’t believe you drove so far in this weather. I can’t believe you drove at all. You don’t even have a license.”

  “I had to get out of there, since she sure doesn’t want me the fuck around. I had nowhere to go. Thought about wrapping the Toyota around a few utility poles along the way, but I ended up making it here unscathed.”

  “Did she really hit you?”

  “What does it look like?”

  “Why?”

  “Who the hell knows? We were arguing, and I might have called her a filthy whore.”

  “Thomas!”

  He shrugs. “I meant it ironically. I mean, who would even touch that? I guess she doesn’t have a sense of irony. She sucker punched me.”

  “Did you…”

  “Hit her back?” he asks. “Of course not. But not because I didn’t want to.” He shakes snow off his long, unkempt hair. “I’m just afraid if I start, I won’t be able to stop. That I’d just fucking kill the bitch, right there. Boom.”

  “Thomas, quit talking like that.”

  “It’s true,” he tells me.

  “Thomas…she’s trying, you know? She had no right to hit you. Of course not. But she has a lot to deal with.”

  “You mean she has to deal with me.”

  “Well—”

  “You’re right, she has to. I know. I’m a goddamn mess. I get it. But she’s never done this before. She usually just yells.”

  I turn from him and grab my phone, dial.

  “Are you—”

  “Shhh,” I tell him.

  My mother doesn’t answer. I leave a message.

  “I wanted to tell you Thomas is with me, and what you did to him is inexcusable. I can’t believe you hit him. He’s staying with me at least until we can figure this mess out.”

  I disconnect the call, wondering if she’ll even bother to call back. I have a sudden urge to smash my phone against the wall, then run into the kitchen and smash plates, glasses, breaking everything that can possibly be broken. The desire to see the shards of shattered objects makes my mouth water.

  “Can I really stay here?” he asks me. His face softens, and for a moment, I see my brother, my real brother, the one buried deep beneath the disdain.

  “For now,” I say. “But…” I decide to tell him, not to protect him, but in a hope he will protect me. “There are some things going on with me right now. I’m not sure this house is the safest place to be.”

  “Are you having your panic attacks? I mean, it being the anniversary and all.”

  “God, Thomas, stop reminding me. No, it’s not that.”

  “Dad’s book,” he says.

  “That’s part of it.”

  “What else?”

  The antique clock on my wall chimes. I hate that clock, but I don’t get rid of it because it was my grandmother’s. Every time it chimes, it make me think of a heart’s last beat. I glance over at it. God, is it really already two?

  “Let me get dressed,” I say. “I need to get out of here.
”

  Minutes later, I’m back downstairs, and we head out the front door. I pause to look at the planter box with the snow scraped off one side of it. I must stare too long, because Thomas asks, “What is it?”

  “Nothing,” I say.

  We trudge through the snow, which has finally stopped falling. Thomas only has sneakers but doesn’t complain. It’s a short but messy trudge to the Rose, and this time, I walk in through the front entrance, not the back. James is playing on the sound system. The song’s title is not lost on me. “Out to Get You.”

  Brenda stands behind the counter. She looks at me, and it takes me a moment to remember I’d told her about the website. I bite off the regret I feel, forcing it down. Screw it, I think. It’s okay for her to know.

  I walk up. “How’s it going today?” I ask.

  “Quiet. Postapocalyptic quiet. Lucky for me, since Dan called in sick and it’s just been me here.”

  Goddamn it. I’m glad I didn’t smash my phone, because now I get to use it to make a very satisfying call. Dan doesn’t answer. It seems he and my mother are hiding from me. So I leave a message for him as well.

  “Dan, it’s Alice. In case you don’t remember, you’ve already used up your sick days. So don’t bother coming back in. And I know this little job wasn’t your career aspiration, but I hope getting fired motivates you to think about what you want to do with your life. And if it doesn’t do that, I hope it just pisses you off.”

  I disconnect.

  “Wow,” Brenda says.

  “Brenda, I’m sorry. I can’t help you today. I know it sucks, but I just can’t. I need to spend some time with my brother. There are things going on.”

  She nods, and in her expression, I can tell she’s up to speed with the history of my life.

  “It’s okay, Alice. Really.”

  “And I’m adding a five-hundred-dollar bonus to your pay this week.” Much better to give the little money I have to her instead of an extorting drug dealer.

  Her eyes widen, she smiles, and I realize how beautiful she truly is. “Oh my God. Thank you, Alice.”

  “You’ve earned it. And put the word out we need another barista. Let’s find someone reliable.”