by Peggy Bird
Wait. No, he’d never talked to Allison. She hadn’t shown up at the bar to celebrate, either. He should call her again.
The doorbell ringing interrupted his fumbling for his cell. He looked out the peephole and saw a guy in jeans and a sweatshirt with the words “Break Up or Make Up” and two hearts, one whole, one broken in two, splashed across the front. He was holding a large manila envelope.
When he opened the door the man said, “Are you ...” He consulted the envelope, then said, “Teej?”
Allison was the only person who called him Teej. This had to be from her. Maybe this was her way of congratulating him on his success. “Yes,” he said, his eyes having a bit of trouble focusing on the man in front of him. “My girlfriend calls me Teej.”
“Okay, then, I have a delivery for you.” He handed over the envelope he was holding.
“What is it?” Taylor asked.
“Don’t know. Only know it’s for you. Sign here.” The delivery man held out a clipboard, and Taylor scrawled an indecipherable signature at the bottom of the form. “Thanks. Have a good one.” The young man disappeared down the hall toward the elevator.
What the hell is this all about? Taylor stood in his doorway looking at the envelope for longer than he should have. In his half-buzzed state, it seemed important he figure it out before he opened it. But he wasn’t having any success, so he closed the front door and went back to his living room.
Returning to his favorite chair, he squeezed the envelope. Hmm. Nothing lumpy or bumpy. So probably not a pipe bomb. Not that he’d know what a pipe bomb felt like. Besides, if it was for Teej, it had to be from Allison and it wasn’t likely she would send a pipe bomb anyway. An exploding device wouldn’t be a good way to congratulate him, would it?
He turned the envelope around so he could see the return address. Portland? Why would she be sending something from Portland? It must not be about my CloudCo success. She wouldn’t have had enough time to get something here from Portland in the last couple hours, would she? Moving the envelope back and forth like a trombone slide, he tried to read the name of the company, which was slightly smeared—probably from the light rain he had noticed when he left the bar. It looked like it said “Break Up or Make Up.” Hmm. That’s the name the delivery guy had on his sweatshirt. Weird name for a company. Wonder what they do?
Finally giving up on figuring it out, he grabbed the gadget he used to slice envelopes and opened it. Inside was a single page letter.
Dear Teej:
I know you’re going to be hurt and angry about the contents of this letter and even angrier at how I’m choosing to get the message to you, but I’m desperate. I haven’t been able to have a decent conversation with you in months about anything, much less something important. And it’s past time for me—for us—to stop pretending everything’s going well with our relationship.
Relationship? Who am I kidding? E-mails and texts between people who live two miles away from each other don’t make a relationship. A relationship happens when people care about each other enough to make time for each other. For the past six months—for half of the time we’ve been seeing each other—your job has trumped everything personal. I know how much you want to make partner and why the CloudCo project is important. I have big projects and goals, too, yet I still have room in my life for someone I care for. You don’t.
It’s been obvious to me for months, we need to break this off. You probably would see it, too, if you were less focused on your work.
I’ve learned through counseling how important it is for me to get out of this stressful situation—yes, that’s what it has become, a stressful situation, not a relationship. Craig recommended this company in Portland. They’ve helped me work through my issues and craft this letter. They could help you, too, if you’d let them. I’ve enclosed their business card. Call them.
Please don’t contact me. I’ve gone away for the weekend. I know you and know you’ll come banging on the door of my apartment trying to talk me out of this decision. I don’t want to be there when you do.
I’m sorry it has to end this way. You’re a nice guy, Teej. Someday, maybe, you’ll look up from your computer and see what’s out there. When you do, maybe you’ll find someone you care for and want to let her in. But it won’t be me.
Allison
Taylor had never sobered up so fast in his life.
How could she do this? She knew he thought she was the perfect person for him, didn’t she? Okay, maybe he’d been a little busy lately, but it didn’t mean he didn’t care for her. He’d been working for them, for their future.
He didn’t know what the hell he was supposed to do with his plans to ask her to marry him, to be his partner, to live in a perfect house like the ones he’d picked out. What would he tell people who asked him where she was? How would he explain how some dumbass company in Portland had helped her dump him? A dumbass company she went to because the same guy who’d introduced them found a way to break them up. What kind of bullshit was that? What kind of crazy place tells people when to dump their boyfriends? What kind of man does that to another guy?
He had wasted time researching houses and honeymoons for this? For her?
He’d never thought she was this kind of person. Of course he hadn’t. Because she wasn’t that kind of person. At least, she hadn’t been until she went to this place, this ... whatever it was ... in Portland. They were to blame. If they hadn’t existed, Allison wouldn’t have gone there. And she wouldn’t have sent him the letter. She’d have spent the upcoming weekend with him, and he’d have smoothed all this out.
“Fake Out/Make Out/Take Out”—whatever the hell they called themselves—had talked her into this. His problem was with them. So, since they created the problem, the solution was for them to fix it. If Allison had believed them about breaking up, maybe they could convince her to come back to him. If he had to, he’d hire them to tell her she made a mistake.
He’d call them. Give them a chance to redeem themselves. No, his still half-fuzzy brain rejected calling as ineffective. Better to go there in person. They should see firsthand what they’d done to him so they could feel remorse for causing him this humiliation. Then they’d have to help. He’d drive to Portland. He’d take his marriage report and show them what a good boyfriend he was. He’d make them see who he really was, and they’d get Allison back for him.
But not tonight. No business, even a whack job one like this, would be open by the time he’d get to Portland. And even if it was, he shouldn’t be driving. He’d taken extra days off for the weekend at the beach he was supposed to have with Allison, but since his romantic trip wasn’t going to happen now, he’d use the time to drive to Portland and get this straightened out.
Chapter Three
For the first time in years, Taylor slept through his 6:00 a.m. wake-up alarm. When he startled out of sleep at eight, his head was achy, his eyes burned, and he was confused. Why was he sleeping in his suit? Why was he so tired? Why wasn’t he at work? Then he remembered. CloudCo. The Manhattans. Allison. The awful letter. His canceled weekend away.
Without showering, shaving, or changing, without doing anything but gulping down a glass of tomato juice and a handful of Tylenol, he ran out of the house and raced to her apartment building, hoping she had lied about being out of town. When pounding on the door got no response, he knocked on her neighbor’s door. Through a space only as wide as the door chain would allow, the neighbor confirmed what the letter had said—Allison was gone. She had left her cat Maxine with the neighbor to feed. The neighbor said she didn’t know where Allison was. Taylor suspected she was lying. But the door was slammed in his face before he could say anything more.
He had only one move left—he had to get to Portland. He raced from the building, checked to make sure he had enough gas in the tank, pointed his car south, and, at an appropriate and well-within-the-limit speed, headed toward Portland and the people who had wrecked his plans.
• • •
/> Four hours later, Taylor pulled up at the address on the business card enclosed in Allison’s letter, a colorfully painted Victorian in Northwest Portland. It looked innocuous, if a little garish, not how he’d expected a den of vipers would look. There was no sulfurous odor emanating from the place. No ogres guarding the entrance.
Also no parking space nearby. After he’d cruised the neighborhood for a few minutes looking, one opened up a block away from his target. He slipped his Prius into the space and let his righteous indignation propel him up the street to the office of Break Up or Make Up.
Where he was even more disappointed. The house wasn’t inhabited by demons after all. Instead, a perfectly normal, even attractive, pregnant woman was seated at a glass-topped desk at the back of the entry hall of the old house. The nameplate in front of her proclaimed her to be Darcy Ross. She looked up with a pleasant smile on her face as he walked in. “Hi. Welcome to Break Up or Make Up. How can I help you?”
Taking a few moments to settle himself so he didn’t rip into the woman with his complaints, Taylor looked around. Glancing to the left, he saw what must have originally been the living room of the old house, now converted to a waiting area. The door to what was probably the dining room behind it was closed, as was the door at the end of the entry hall. Steps before the closed door led to who knows what fresh hell upstairs.
All the rooms he could see were painted a pleasant sky blue, the wood floors had been refinished to a high gloss, and the furniture in the waiting room was a series of soft, comfortable looking couches covered in some sort of pale yellow fabric, which looked all sunshiny and cheery. The art on the walls was mostly restful landscapes.
These people even manipulated you with color and visuals to make you calm. Was this operation a front for some sort of cult? Maybe Allison was being led into the jungle to drink Kool-Aid. No, Allison was too smart to fall for something dangerous. Although she’d fallen for their other line of B.S.
“Sir?” the receptionist said. “Can I help you?”
“I’m here to see the owner,” he said, returning his attention to the front desk and trying to sound businesslike but firm. Consulting the card Allison had included in her letter, he added, “Summer Olsen. I’m told she owns the business. I want to see her.”
“Do you have an appointment?”
“No. But it’s important. I drove down from Seattle this morning especially to see her about this.” He waved Allison’s letter at the receptionist. “To find out what she’s going to do about it.”
The receptionist lost some of the warmth of her smile. “She was in conference a while ago, and I’m not sure she’s finished. But I can slip her a note. Can I tell her who’s asking to see her?”
“I don’t care what she’s doing. I have to talk to her. I told you, it’s important. Really important.” He could feel the little bit of control he had on his emotions slipping as his voice got louder. Loss of control was an almost unknown and definitely uncomfortable feeling for him.
“I have to talk to her. I have something to show her.” He took the red bound marriage report from under his arm and put it on the receptionist’s desk. “Something to show her what a mistake she’s made. She has to help me.”
The receptionist glanced at the report but didn’t pick it up. “I’ll make sure she knows you said it’s important. But I still don’t know who to say is here.”
“Tell her Teej is here. She’ll know who I am.” He could feel the last vestiges of control over his temper disappearing as he brandished the letter from Allison at the receptionist again. His voice, which up to this point had been rusty from lack of restful sleep, probably some loud snoring, and a slight hangover, now broke into an almost preadolescent pitch as he said, “Surely she knows the names of the people whose lives she wrecks. Tell her I’m here to straighten out the things she messed up with this letter. I can’t leave until she sees me.”
The receptionist looked uncertain at best, frightened at worst. “Okay, I’ll tell her. But can’t you give me more than just Teej?”
“She’ll know, believe me.” By this time, he was pacing in front of the desk, running his fingers through his already wildly messy hair. “I need to talk to her. There’s not much time. I have to get this settled.”
The woman rose from her desk. “Why don’t you take a seat in the waiting room, and I’ll see if Summer is available to see you.”
He could tell from the way she spoke she was trying to calm him down. He wanted to say, “Tell her to get her ass out here, lady,” but instead he repeated, “It’s important I talk with her right now.”
The look on her face didn’t give him much hope it was going to happen.
• • •
Bella heard the commotion in the outer office but didn’t think too much about it. Probably another street person had wandered in, asked for a handout, and didn’t like the answer he got. She continued her report to her boss. “So, next week I have ...”
The door to Summer’s office in what was once the back parlor of the old house opened, and the receptionist slipped in. “Sorry to barge into your meeting, but there’s someone here who’s asking to see the owner.”
“Is that who’s making all the noise out there?” Summer asked as Darcy carefully closed the door behind her.
“Yeah, he’s kinda agitated. He looks like he spent the night under a bridge—his suit’s rumpled and his shirt’s a mess, although both look pretty expensive. He hasn’t shaved. His eyes look like he hasn’t slept much. And he’s pale as milk.”
“Did he say why he wants to see me?” Summer asked.
“He keeps saying something about a letter.”
“A letter? Uh-oh. Maybe he got a break-up letter. Did he give you a name?”
“Sort of. He said to tell you he’s Teej. He wouldn’t give me a last name,” Darcy said.
“Teej? The name sounds familiar, doesn’t it, Bella?”
“Absolutely it does,” she said. “Don’t you remember? I wrote a letter for a woman in Seattle to someone she called Teej. She wouldn’t give me his full name, only his address. She said she didn’t want to expose him to any more embarrassment than she already would be by sending him the letter.”
“Yes, that’s him,” Darcy said. “He said he drove down from Seattle. What do you want me to tell him?”
“I think I remember the name.” Summer shook her head. “Tell him it’s company policy to protect our clients by not seeing people we’ve delivered letters to. If he has an issue, he should take it up with the person who sent him the letter. If they want help reconciling, I’d be happy to recommend someone for couples counseling in Seattle.”
Bella chimed in. “From the tone of the letter she wanted, there’s no hope of getting back together. The guy’s a workaholic who ignored her for six months while he worked on some project. It didn’t make it into the letter, but in one of our conversations, she told me she didn’t think he really loved her as a person anyway. More like he loved the idea of her. And she said in the letter she’d be going away so she wouldn’t be around when the letter was delivered.”
“Remind me who the client was?” Summer asked.
“Allison Lindberg. Nice woman. At least, from our phone conversations about her break-up letter, she seemed like she was.”
“Of course. She originally asked only for a letter, but after we talked, she asked for a referral to a counselor so she could figure out why she kept falling for guys who never put her first. She’s the woman who insisted on doing her counseling here, instead of Seattle so she didn’t run the risk of damaging her about-to-be-ex’s reputation. I only met her in person once, when she came down for her initial appointment with me.”
Summer rose from her desk. “Would you rather I handle this, Darcy?”
“No, I’m fine. I don’t think he’s dangerous, just upset. I don’t think you’ll solve anything by getting into a conversation with him now anyway. He’s too wound up. You stay here. But lock the door in case I’m w
rong and he decides to hunt you down.”
“Okay, but we’ll be listening. If it sounds too confrontational, one of us will come out. I don’t want you to put yourself in any danger.” She nodded toward Darcy’s belly. “You can’t run too fast carrying the little one around.”
Bella followed the receptionist to the door, closing and locking it after her. “While you listen, Summer, I’ll pull up the contact information on Allison Lindberg. I think she needs to know “Dear John” has turned into a ranter of the first order. He may be after her next.”
• • •
“I’m sorry, Mister Teej. Summer can’t see you. She’s in a meeting but asked me to say ...”
“I knew it. She won’t deal with the consequences of her actions. Damn it,” he shouted. “I don’t care what she’s doing. I drove here from Seattle to see her and get this mess,” Taylor waved the paper around again, hoping the words would fly off the page and convince the receptionist to do as he asked. “... this mess settled.” He pointed to the report on the desk. “This will show her how wrong she was to poison my girlfriend against me, to wreck my plan. I need to get it sorted out.” He’d been fuming the whole time he’d been alone, pacing the waiting room, his anger growing with each minute the receptionist was gone. The owner’s refusal to see him was gasoline on the coals of his fury.
“Please let me finish. She asked me to tell you it’s company policy to protect our clients by not dealing with the recipients of the letters they send. You should talk to the person who asked us to write the letter.”
“I’d love to, but you convinced her to leave town and I can’t find her.” He was sure by now his voice was loud enough to be heard a block away. He couldn’t remember ever being this out of control, his voice not only getting louder but also rising to a tone that would hurt the ears of all living creatures that heard it. “You people are irresponsible. You don’t care who you hurt, what you do to the lives of others.” He started in the direction from which the receptionist had returned.
