On Tenterhooks

by Greever Williams

  We encourage you to visit us online at www.saygoodbyetome.org and see for yourself. Take the time. You’ll be glad you did!

  No signature line. No date. Nothing but what sounded like yet another Internet start-up, this one targeted at the grieving. He laughed to himself. The last place he’d consider going for counseling or closure was the Internet. In his line of work, he knew far too much about the dangers of online anonymity. He knew how it could damage someone’s self-esteem, credibility and even his or her relationships. Whoever had sent it was either naïve or overconfident in the all-powerful Internet.

  It still didn’t make sense. No doubt, this came from someone in the office, trying to do him some good. But why handwrite a note? Why not email him the link or send him a voicemail? To Steve, handwritten notes had their place. He often left them for Julie, especially on days when he went to work early, before she was up—a little something to let her know he was thinking of her. But this was nothing like that. He couldn’t imagine who here at work would have taken the time to send him any handwritten note, particularly one that read like an ad.

  He re-read the note and turned the card over, looking for something more about its origins. Nothing. It was a plain simple piece of stationery that someone either forgot or chose not to sign.

  His curiosity was piqued, but he was too tired to be troubled with it any more tonight. He’d ask around tomorrow to find out who sent it. He put the letter back in its envelope and dropped it inside his desk drawer, on top of the sympathy card.

  It was six o’clock. He was tired. And for the first time in a long time, he was hungry. He shut down his computer, grabbed his jacket off the back of his office door and headed down the hall toward the front of the building. As he got to the parking lot, he worked up a mental list of places he could go to keep his mind from moving back to home. He decided to head down to the cineplex at the mall. No doubt a mindless comedy or sci-fi flick and a bellyful of nachos and cheap chocolate would stave off those inner demons he knew were waiting at home, if only for a few more hours.

  Chapter 10

  Abby sat at her desk, muddling her way through calculus homework. Yawning, she stretched her arms out above her head and her eyes drifted to the alarm clock on her nightstand.

  “Jesus,” she said aloud. “10:50 and I haven’t even cracked my history book yet.”

  She looked back at the calculus text. As the numbers swam, she closed the book. If she skimmed the history chapters on the way to school in the morning, she could finish the calculus during lunch.

  She jammed her books into her backpack and zipped it up, determined to get some sleep. Deciding to check her social network one more time before she called it a night, she smacked the spacebar on her keyboard with a dramatic flair. When the screen popped into view, she logged in and checked her profile. Nineteen friends online, but she wasn’t in the mood for any conversation. She had several new notifications. She scanned the teasers: information from the prom committee chair on discount limo rides, a reminder from the library about her overdue books, and two pleading help requests from classmates about the calculus homework that she hadn’t finished. As she scanned the list, a new one popped up: “Thought This Might Help You Sleep,” it said.

  She clicked on it and the screen filled with a disappointing form-letter advertisement. She was about to delete it when the headline caught her eye:

  Say Goodbye One Last Time

  Do you miss a loved one? Did someone you care about die without any warning? We know that pain—we’ve experienced it ourselves. That’s why we built Say Goodbye To Me (www.saygoodbyetome.org). Say Goodbye To Me is simply a way for you to send that last message to your loved one. It’s not a gimmick; there is no catch. There is no cost to use this service, and you can remain completely anonymous. Through experience, we’ve learned that an abrupt end can leave deep and painful scars, scars that will last a lifetime. Say Goodbye To Me is simply an online forum that will allow you to address some final words to your loved one, and let them know how you feel. No one else will ever see the message. It is your private opportunity to add closure to this sad chapter of your life.

  We encourage you to visit us online at www.saygoodbyetome.org and see for yourself. Take the time—you’ll be glad you did!

  Abby stared at the screen. She read it again. Who was it from?

  Her parents would not have sent her a message. They both considered technology a necessary last resort. Besides, they wouldn’t trivialize their shared grief with an automated message. What about her friends? Abby didn’t believe any of her close friends would send her this without an explanation. She didn’t broadcast her sadness to her wide swath of Internet friends or use her online presence as a virtual heart on her sleeve. Then who sent it? Only her closest friends and her parents knew that she was having trouble sleeping.

  It looked like a simple ad, like all the other pitches crawling through the web. No obvious sender, and nothing that proved it was personalized.

  Coincidence? Abby was tempted to log onto the site itself to test it, but she hesitated.

  “What am I scared of?” she asked aloud.

  I’ll tell you what you’re scared of. You tell yourself that you’ve been looking for a way to say goodbye to him. What if this works? What if it is legit and you have that chance to do it, to drop that pain off your chest. Will you take it? Will you do it? Will you put it to rest? Are you willing to take that chance or are you gonna be a chickenshit about it?

  Her hands trembled, and she gnawed on her bottom lip as a simple decision suddenly became huge. Tasting the warm coppery flow of her own blood in her mouth, she absently wiped her bleeding lower lip with the back of her hand as she read and re-read the computer screen in front of her. She moved the mouse across the screen and hovered over the Web address.

  If I say goodbye like this, I might lose him forever. I want to hold on to him, to his memory. It might hurt worse than losing him, this finality of things. . .

  “To click, or not to click,” she mused, “that is the question. Whether ‘tis better to suffer the slings and arrows of losing Zack so abruptly or to take action that might seal him away forever.”

  Her finger hovered over the button that might take her down a path she didn’t want to be on. She groaned, slammed her laptop shut and stood up, knocking over her chair.

  “Fine! I am a chickenshit!”

  When Abby picked up the desk chair and shoved it roughly back under the desk, she smashed her thumb between the chair and the desk. She yelped in pain, then crawled into her bed, her mind boiling hot with rage and pain. She turned off her lamp and focused hard at the ceiling, angry and confused. Slowly the anger melted, as it always did, into private tears. She used a tissue to wipe the tears from her eyes and the blood from her bleeding lip as she sobbed. Her thumb throbbed, and her brain was on fire with the questions that haunted her every night.

  She pulled the comforter up over her head and tried to slow racing thoughts. With several deep breaths, she tried to clear her head for sleep, but she knew it was pointless.

  Hours later, Abby stared at the red LED display on her alarm clock: 3:06 AM. She had slept a little, but couldn’t seem to stay asleep. She was too tired for homework and had never enjoyed late night television. Normally, she’d have half a dozen good books on her nightstand, but she hadn’t been to the library in over a month.

  She finally kicked off the covers and sighed, then sat up and stretched, yawning. Across the joint of her thumb, a wicked purple bruise and lump heralded her run-in with the desk. She ran her tongue over the inside of her swollen lip and gingerly touched the self-inflicted bite wounds. She peered warily into the tiny makeup mirror on her dresser.

  Lovely. Dark circles, fat lip, purple hand. I am gonna have Extreme Teen Makeover showing up at my doorstep if I keep this up.

  She sighed and shook her head at the face staring back at her from the mirror. She gave up, got her laptop off the desk, and brought it back to the bed. When s
he logged in, she saw that her social network was still open. No new messages.

  “I guess they gave up on the calculus too.”

  The latest message, from Say Goodbye To Me, was still at the top of the queue. Even if it were a fake, maybe it would do her some good to get her thoughts out of her head and onto the page.

  “Seriously, what can it hurt?” she asked herself. “I’ll keep it short, simple and safe. Maybe once I spit it out, I’ll get some decent sleep.”

  She clicked on the link. A simple black and white page loaded in the browser. “Say Goodbye to Me” in tall, plain letters covered the top of the page, and underneath was an italicized tagline: A chance to tell them how you feel, even though they’re gone.”

  Beneath the header was a simple form that looked very much like an email message. The date automatically showed at the top of the message. Below it, in the To field, she typed Zack. In the From field she typed: Abby. She shook her head and deleted it, replacing it with: A. in the Subject field, she wrote: Goodbye. She pressed the Enter button, and her cursor landed in the open field below. As she pondered her next words, she unconsciously bit her lip again.

  “Ow!” she said aloud, “Jesus, I gotta stop that!” She took a tissue from the desk, wadded it up, and shoved it in her mouth, behind her bottom lip. Several times she began typing, only to quickly delete her words. The empty field and blinking cursor taunted her for several minutes.

  This is stupid. Why am I stressing over this? This is so bogus, it isn’t even funny!

  Finally, she settled on her message:

  Z,

  I miss you. Be well. I love you.

  A

  Before she could change her mind again, she pressed the Submit button on the screen and instantly her message was sent: Congratulations! Your message has been sent. We will see to it that your loved one gets it as soon as possible!

  She snickered.

  “What a bunnth of bullthit!” she mumbled through the wad of soggy tissue.

  She wanted to believe that Zack somehow would get the message. The thought of being able to get this message to him, no matter how crazy it sounded, warmed a piece of her heart. The feeling was like a soft gentle blanket that she dared to snuggle under, even if she wouldn’t admit it to anyone outside her own soul.

  She yawned and checked the laptop clock: 3:22. She closed her laptop and put it on her nightstand. If she fell asleep within the next eight minutes, she would catch three hours of sleep before the alarm rang for her to get up in time for school. She yawned again and scooted down in the bed, pulling her comforter up to her chin. She scooped the soggy tissue out her mouth, wadded it up and threw it on her nightstand. Then she rolled over and took a deep, slow breath.

  By 3:24, Abby was asleep.

  Chapter 11

  Martin rolled up the steel gates that surrounded the pharmacy counter. The drugstore itself was 24/7, but the pharmacy only held business from eight in the morning until six in the evening during the week. Each morning, he went through the clanging ritual of unlocking and rolling up the gates. Each evening, the symphony went in reverse, as he secured the area for the night. He gave the last gate a final push up into its hiding spot in the ceiling and walked around the counter to boot up the cash register and computer. On the counter, he noticed a plain white letter-sized envelope with his first name on it, written in blue ink with a wide scrawling handwriting that he didn’t recognize.

  “Odd,” he said, picking up the envelope. It was sealed. It was too light to be anything more than a sheet or two of paper. Casting aside momentary anthrax-inspired fears, he ripped it open. Inside he found a handwritten note in the same hand that had labeled the envelope:

  Say Goodbye One Last Time

  Do you miss a loved one? Did someone you care about die without any warning? We know that pain—we’ve experienced it ourselves. That’s why we built Say Goodbye To Me (www.saygoodbyetome.org). Say Goodbye To Me is simply a way for you to send that last message to your loved one. It’s not a gimmick; there is no catch. There is no cost to use this service, and you can remain completely anonymous. Through experience, we’ve learned that an abrupt end can leave deep and painful scars, scars that will last a lifetime. Say Goodbye To Me is simply an online forum that will allow you to address some final words to your loved one, and let them know how you feel. No one else will ever see the message. It is your private opportunity to add closure to this sad chapter of your life.

  We encourage you to visit us online at www.saygoodbyetome.org and see for yourself. Take the time— you’ll be glad you did!

  “What the heck is this?” he asked aloud. He looked around. At 7:50 a.m. on a Thursday morning, the pharmacy was nearly deserted. Ambient piped music floated down from overhead speakers. He knew that the night clerk, Jimmy, was up at the front of the store, but from where he stood, Martin couldn’t see the other man. The aisles in the area nearest the pharmacy were empty.

  It read like an advertisement—plain and simple. Was it junk mail? It looked like real pen and ink. He pressed his thumb to his tongue and then rubbed the letter. The ink smeared. Someone had taken the time to write down some ad copy and send it his way. But why. . .and who?

  Letter in hand, he left the pharmacy counter, cut across the back of the store and headed up the aisle full of toys and school supplies toward the front. Halfway up the aisle, he saw Jimmy ringing up a tall, muscular man with a long reddish-blonde ponytail. The man wore dark sunglasses and a well-worn black leather jacket, faded dirty jeans and square-toed biker boots. Aside from customer and clerk, Martin saw no one else in the store. As he approached the counter, Jimmy was finishing the transaction.

  “Anything besides the gum, sir?” he asked tentatively.

  “Hmmm,” said the stranger. His voice was cavernous. He turned and watched Martin approach the counter and nodded slightly. Martin acknowledged the gesture with a slight return nod and an automatic smile, honed through decades of customer service.

  “Let’s see here,” the biker said in the melodic deep tones of a Southern drawl. He turned the wheel of a small countertop display of cheap sunglasses and asked, “How much for these here sunglasses?”

  “Nine ninety-nine,” said Jimmy, “plus tax.”

  Biker smiled and picked out a pair of simple shades. Taking off the sunglasses he was wearing, he tried on the cheap pair and turned to face Martin.

  “How do they look?” he asked.

  “Good, sir,” Martin replied.

  “Hot damn,” said Biker.

  “Do you need a bag for the glasses, sir?” Jimmy asked.

  “No, thanks, Bud,” Biker replied, “The road I travel on is a might bit bright. I’ll wear ‘em now.” Slipping his old sunglasses into the pocket of his jacket, he tore the tag off the new pair and tossed it on the counter. Jimmy picked it up and scanned it.

  “That’ll be eleven seventy six altogether.”

  Biker pulled a worn black leather wallet from the back pocket of his jeans, wallet chain jingling as he leafed through the cash inside. He flipped a hundred dollar bill onto the counter.

  “Keep the change, Bud,” he said to Jimmy. On went the new glasses.

  “What?” asked Jimmy, mouth agape. “Thank you, sir!”

  Biker turned to Martin.

  “And you sir, stay safe. It’s getting a might rough out there.”

  Martin wasn’t sure how to respond, so he settled on a simple nod to Biker once again.

  Biker dipped his chin to both of them and smiled.

  “Gentlemen, it’s time for me to ride. Good day to both ya’ll.”

  He exited the store.

  “That. . .” said Jimmy, “was awesome!”

  Clearly delighted, he completed the transaction in the register, deposited the hundred-dollar bill, counted back the change and stuffed the exorbitant tip into his jeans.

  Martin liked Jimmy. Not the brightest bulb in the bunch perhaps, but over his several years on the staff, he had proven reliable, honest and
trustworthy—hard traits to find in someone willing to hold the minimum wage job Jimmy had. Martin used to think the man’s dependability would help his career opportunities, but the night clerk had seemed content to stay where he had been for years.

  “How long was that guy here?” Martin asked.

  “The biker? Not very long. As soon as he got here, he took a big whiff and then he looked down all of the aisles. I thought he was gonna ask for the cold medicine or something. He went down aisle three. But after a second, he came back up here near the counter. He looked at the DVDs and picked over the candy display before he got the gum. That was pretty much it.”