Mister Tender's Girl

by Carter Wilson

  But then Thomas would be utterly alone.

  A knock at the door.

  Please be him, I think. Him or me. Right now.

  My pulse is pounding.

  Back to the living room. Grab the fireplace poker. To the door. I don’t even bother to look out the window. I just raise the weapon in my hand and yank the door open.

  Richard.

  “Alice, take it easy,” he says. He takes a half step away from me.

  The ache in my head turns into a fire. Richard has about five seconds to live unless something can convince me he’s not part of everything.

  “I just wanted to see what happened in New York,” he says.

  I raise the poker higher.

  “Alice, it’s okay. It’s okay.” Richard stands on my porch, hands held up in a gesture of peace, his dark eyes wide with more than just fear. There’s concern. “All I want to do is help you.”

  Smash his brains in. Do it, Alice.

  But against that logic rises a belief, one that is powerful as much as it’s baseless.

  It’s not him, Alice. He’s not a part of this.

  The two warring factions inside me are ripping me apart mentally and, it feels, physically. God, I just want to be left alone.

  I lower the poker.

  “Go away,” I say.

  I don’t wait for him to answer. I shut the door in his face, then go to my security system and arm it in Stay mode. I remain holding the poker as I head back to the kitchen, grab my bottle of wine, then walk through the house and close all the blinds.

  I’m guessing I have thirty minutes until I’m in a fetal position on the floor.

  I go over to the couch and lean toward my brother’s face. His eyes are open, but just barely.

  “Are you going to be okay, Thomas?”

  He murmurs. “I think so.”

  “I'm starting to have an attack,” I say. “It’s going to be a horrible night, but we’ll both be better in the morning.”

  A slight nod.

  “Can you just stay here on the couch?”

  “Yes.”

  I stand.

  Thomas whispers, “I love you, Alice.”

  All my defenses fall, leaving me completely exposed. “I love you, too, Thomas.”

  I swig from the bottle, gulping wine like water, then head up to my bedroom. I make space for myself on the floor, where I surround myself with the wine, the fire poker, and my laptop—this is where I will spend the night. I want to feel the hardness of the wooden floor against my bones. Another drink, then I open up the laptop and head back to MisterTender.com.

  I scour the website, looking for anything new, but there hasn’t been a post for two weeks. Not since the day I first found Mister Tender on the dating site. So I look through old posts, hoping to find something, anything that will help me hunt down Mr. Interested.

  I go back to when the first post appeared two years ago. I look at pictures I hadn’t seen before, read all the things about me. A time capsule of horror.

  How I look. What clothes I like. How often I cut my hair.

  More pictures of my house.

  Me, driving in my car. Springtime. I’m actually smiling in that photo, and I wonder why.

  Links to articles about the twins.

  An old interview with the detectives who worked the case. One of them describes the twins as “soulless.”

  I read and read, descending deeper into the reality show of my life. I get lost in this world until I can no longer keep my hands from shaking. I manage one more gulp of wine, and then the bottle falls from my grip, spilling its final drops of blood on the hardwood floor. A stain to match the one left by Freddy Starks in the room beneath me.

  I collapse on the floor and pull my knees into my chest. The floor chills my cheek. I touch the front pocket of my jeans.

  Thomas’s pills are right in there.

  So easy.

  The chill spreads to my body. I think of being in deep, icy waters. The fierce pain of the cold before the heavy numbness sets in.

  I shift my gaze back to the computer, to the last post I’d opened on the site. A photo of me, posted by Mr. Interested. Dated a couple of years ago. I’m in the Stone Rose, wearing my apron, standing behind the counter, my eyes looking directly at whomever is snapping a photo of me. I look surprised but not scared. Curious, perhaps.

  My mind clears for a second, long enough for me to understand the importance of what I’m seeing.

  I remember that moment. We were hosting a fund-raiser for a local school. I remember a few specific people taking pictures. I remember faces. In fact, I remember one specific face.

  Can it be?

  The fear is back, ravaging me. I’m desperate to ease the terror, even if that means death.

  I call out to my dad.

  “Help me. Please help me.”

  He doesn’t answer.

  Dad never answers.

  I’m suddenly overwhelmed with a series of images, a mental slide show firing at a rapid pace, and one over which I have no control. Sometimes this happens in these moments, as if it’s some weird kind of defense mechanism my brain launches to protect itself. I see an image in my head, clear as a movie screen, but that image lasts less than a second before another one replaces it.

  I close my eyes, as if that might help. It doesn’t.

  Tonight’s feature is a collection of blood and bone, each one more horrifying than the last. Bombing victims. Battlefield gore. Medieval heads on spikes. A body in a bathtub, half dissolved by acid. Twin babies, throats equally cut, distant gazes of death.

  This won’t stop until I pass out.

  I no longer even have the strength to pull myself to the bathroom, to the pills. I lack even the tiny amount of power needed for suicide.

  So I lie here, shaking and cold, and make a promise to myself. I repeat this promise in my head, over and over, and it soon becomes the soundtrack to the gore-filled slide show.

  This is the last time.

  This is the last time.

  This is the last time.

  Forty-Four

  Saturday

  Halloween

  The morning wears heavy on me, like an oppressively thick-layered coat that keeps the chill out and allows only the slowest, smallest movements. Showering and getting dressed saps the only ounces of energy I had to spare, and afterward, I sit in my kitchen and sip coffee, staring at nothing, trying to build back up a reserve.

  The mantra comes back, just for a moment, and I feel the same commitment in the words as I did last night.

  This is the last time.

  I’m done being controlled. I’m done being a victim. The only way I can stop the panic attacks is to stop running. To stop the person after me. To shut down the MisterTender.com website. To end the peep show that is my life.

  Which means, starting right now, I’m in charge.

  The phone rings, and my mother’s number flashes on the screen. So it seems neither of us killed ourselves last night. Knowing she’s alive doesn’t make me upset or fill me with relief. It’s simply a piece of information, about which I feel very little. And for now, I want nothing to do with her.

  A swipe of my thumb rejects her.

  Thomas is awake, rummaging in the kitchen.

  “Good morning,” I say. “Happy Halloween.”

  “Oh yeah. Is that today?”

  He is reanimated after his drug-induced stupor from last night.

  “It is.”

  “You have any bacon?”

  “I think so. Bottom drawer of the fridge. You know how to cook that up?”

  He speaks into the refrigerator. “I’m not a kid, Alice. I know how to cook.”

  “Okay.” I look at him, a skinny puzzle of bones still draped in yesterday’s clothes. He loo
ks like some kind of refugee, which I suppose is sort of what he is.

  “Thomas, I want to restart our lives. Together.”

  “Mmm-hmm.”

  “Seriously. I don’t want you here just for the night. I want you away from Mom. We’ll go to a new doctor, get proper treatment, get off the pills.”

  “Sure,” he mumbles. He finds the bacon, peels off three spongy strips, and places them in a small frying pan. “When you fry bacon, you don’t need oil,” he says. “The bacon fat takes care of that.”

  He’s not connecting with me. Maybe he doesn’t believe my intentions, or perhaps he’s only capable of living in the immediate moment. Which makes me wonder.

  “Thomas, do you remember when I came over to get you last night? At Mom’s?”

  “Not much. I remember you spilling my Coke.”

  “The argument with Mom, do you remember that? What we said?”

  “Screaming, fighting, same old shit. I block out the details.”

  He doesn’t remember—the drugs probably clouded everything. Which means he doesn’t know the truth about my real dad, and that Mister Tender is based on an actual person. He’s just simple, blissfully ignorant Thomas, and I have no desire to change that now. I don’t have the energy to tell him everything at the moment.

  “Let’s talk later,” I say. “I have to go to work. Stay here, okay? There’s plenty of food, and I want you to lock the door after me. If Mom comes, don’t let her in, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “Seriously, Thomas. I don’t think you remember a lot from last night, which is okay. But it’s clear you need to be with me now. No more Mom.” I watch for his reaction to this, but if there is one, I can’t perceive it. “Where’s your cell phone?”

  “Back at Mom’s. I don’t have anything of mine here but the clothes I’m wearing.”

  Though he’s a grown man, in the moment, all I see in Thomas is the little boy he insists he isn’t. It’s hard to reconcile this person with the man who shot Freddy Starks in the next room. With the man who helped me bury a body deep in the woods.

  “Do you… I brought some of the yellow pills home. I don’t even know what they are. Do you need any to keep steady today?”

  Now he looks at me for the first time with interest.

  “Yes. Where are they?”

  “On my counter, in the bathroom.” I don’t like the hunger I see in his eyes. “How often are you supposed to take them?”

  “One every twelve hours. So I need one now.”

  I turn, walk out of the kitchen, head upstairs. I take one pill from my bathroom counter and hide the rest in a pillowcase in my closet. Downstairs, back in the kitchen.

  “Here,” I say, handing him the pill.

  He knows I’ve hidden the rest; I can see it in the way he looks at me. “Thanks.”

  “You okay?” I ask.

  He doesn’t need time to think about it. “No. Are you?”

  I shake my head. “No. But we both will be.”

  Thomas shrugs, which is probably the best I could hope for.

  “See you this afternoon, okay? Make yourself at home, be comfortable. Relax.”

  “Okay.”

  I turn and leave him. I feel some trepidation, like leaving a puppy home alone for the first time. I’m excited and scared for our future together.

  I slip into my wool coat and grab my car keys. Though I won’t be driving, I don’t want Thomas getting any ideas. Outside, the morning clouds are low, just a few stories higher than a thick fog, and I picture reaching up and stirring the sky as if it were a thick witch’s brew.

  A Halloween sky.

  As I walk from my house, I shoot a brief glance back and look up at the Perch. Richard’s car is still in the driveway, which means he’s still up there. I wonder if he’s watching me. If he heard me call out last night. I don’t even remember if I screamed out or not. The last sound I remember is calling out for my dad. The first thing I recall after that is waking in a pool of sweat and sticky wine drops.

  I stumble the few blocks to the Rose, my head pounding from a lack of water and sleep combined with an excess of wine and adrenaline. But now I need to focus, because this won’t be a normal day at work. Not after the photo I saw last night.

  I pass the usual shops and antique stores, window displays heavily cobwebbed, windows painted with pumpkins and ghosts, a safe kind of fright.

  I walk into the Rose, and instead of feeling the immediate comfort I usually do, an unease builds in me. I know these people, but how many do I actually trust? How many gazes on me have wicked thoughts inside the minds controlling them? Just one, I think. Just one.

  The Ramones are singing “Pet Sematary,” and I know the playlist for today will be all eighties Halloween songs. Scanning the room, I see my usual customers, and instead of giving them my usual nod and smile, I go up to each of them and chat for a few moments. These short, simple moments make me aware of how incredibly alone I am. Aware of the barriers I’ve built around me for fourteen years. No more. I’m going to make connections, real connections. I’m going to have friends. A normal life, or none at all.

  The whole time I'm greeting my regulars, my stomach muscles are so tight, they could stop a bullet. Be calm, Alice. Be normal.

  When I see Brenda, she tells me, “Simon was active this morning when I opened. Maybe it being Halloween and all.”

  “This must be like Christmas to him,” I say, not telling her I’ve had my own recent encounter. “Does it scare you to hear things like that?”

  “No,” she says. “Because he’s never done anything scary. He just makes sounds. So I figure he’s not trying to hurt me.”

  “That’s a good outlook,” I say, not adding, Though when harm suddenly comes, it’s usually too late for second-guessing.

  She sweeps her gaze over me. “You look like you’ve had a rough night.”

  “Yeah, not a lot of sleep. But a lot hungover.”

  “Can I assume you were with someone?”

  I smile. “I wish.”

  “Are you still having…you know, issues? With the creep who sent you that book?”

  I dig my nails into my palms, but I don’t think she notices. “Yeah, still having issues. I just…I just need one normal night. A pleasant dinner, good conversation. I’m just so tired of this cycle.”

  And then Brenda does what I hoped for.

  She wipes her palms on her apron and looks straight at me with a determined expression. “Okay, that’s settled, then. You’re coming over for dinner tonight. Unless you already have plans?”

  I need to make sure Thomas is okay, but I’m sure he can take care of himself for another few hours if I go out tonight. I need this. “I… No. No, I don’t have plans. But—”

  “I don’t have plans, either,” she says. “I’m not much of a cook, but we can order takeout. We’ll have that good conversation and hand candy out to trick-or-treaters. Maybe watch a scary movie.”

  “No scary movie,” I say. “But I can certainly tell you some scary stories.”

  “Of course, of course. So it’s settled, then?”

  I pause a moment, then nod. “It sounds great. Thank you, Brenda.”

  “Cool. Come over at seven?”

  “See you then.”

  Brenda flashes that smile and holds her gaze on me a moment longer. It’s quite magnetic, though suddenly different from all her smiles of the past. Everything is different now. Then she twirls around and walks up to a customer approaching the counter. She moves her magical gaze to the man, and I expect that, for a few seconds, he feels like he is the only person in Brenda’s world. The man smiles.

  • • •

  I’m home by three. I’m relieved to see Thomas asleep on the couch, the blanket pulled all the way up to his chin. A white plate stained with bacon grease and hold
ing a half-eaten English muffin sits on the floor next to the couch, though there’s a coffee table that would have easily accommodated it. Water glass, half full. Dirty socks, crumpled in wads. As I look down at him, all I want to do is sleep. My body craves it, and when I head upstairs and collapse on my bed, it comes fast. Deep and dreamless. My alarm buzzes at 6:00 p.m. I’m dizzy and confused, and for a few moments, I can’t remember where I am or what day it even is. When it all suddenly rushes back at me, I feel an instant yearning for those fleeting seconds when I couldn’t remember. Amnesia must be the ultimate high.

  I stumble to the window, stretch, and look out onto the now-dark streetscape. I see a few groups of people on the street, parents with young kids, making their way from house to house. The early rounds of trick-or-treaters are always the ones with the chaperones. By eight, it’ll be the middle schoolers out on their own, and by nine, high school kids will be the only ones left on the prowl.

  I haven’t a single piece of candy to give out.

  A hot shower injects life back into me, and when I’m dressed, I go downstairs to Thomas.

  He’s still on the couch, which worries me.

  I walk over and give him a gentle nudge.

  “Thomas.”

  He says nothing.

  I push harder.

  “Thomas, wake up.”

  This time, he moves, just a little. Lets out a low moan.

  I give his face a light slap.

  “Thomas.”

  Eyes closed, he grumbles, “Wha…”

  “Thomas, what’s wrong? Can you get up?”

  “Let me sleep.”

  Then it hits me. “Did you take anything? Anything besides the yellow pill?” Maybe he found the other ones, but how? Or…