Return to Sender

by Ashlyn Kane

  “Just think about it,” she told him as she stuffed everything into her bag and turned toward the door. Emerson watched her make her way from the room, his feet unwilling to follow.

  “Oh, and Emerson? If you need any help or a reference when it comes time to convince the registrar’s office into letting you change programs? Let me know.” Then she was out the door, calling over her shoulder, “See you next week!”

  And Emerson was left alone, mind racing and heart thumping at the very thought of the new direction his life could take.

  Chapter 6

  NOW

  JONAH looked up from second edits at a knock on his door and decided he might as well call it a night. It wasn’t like he was in any shape to be concentrating anyway. “It’s open.”

  It was Natalie, of course, balancing two big glasses of sweet tea and a plate of veggie sticks. “Brought you a snack,” she said hopefully.

  Jonah didn’t doubt for a second that she had an ulterior motive—whether it was trying to cheer him up or cajoling him into doing her share of the household chores—but he’d been sulking alone long enough for one day.

  Besides, he was hungry. “Come on in.”

  She did, setting the glasses and plate down on the desk and then flopping onto his unmade bed. Then she reached for a carrot stick and bit down, munching loudly.

  Jonah gave up pretending to himself that he wasn’t just going to give her whatever she wanted and selected a slice of bell pepper. “Am I on suicide watch?”

  “Just nutritional-eating watch, for now,” she told him seriously. “You’ll know by the straightjacket if I reconsider.”

  Well, he had been drinking too much and not eating a lot of anything. Though he was fairly sure he’d demolished a significant portion of one of the girls’ ice-cream stashes from their freezer. He felt kind of guilty about that. “Okay.” He bit into the pepper; it was sweet and juicy, with a good crunch. He’d forgotten how satisfying vegetables were. “What do you want, then?”

  Natalie rolled her eyes. “Chew and swallow, then talk,” she instructed. “Heathen.”

  Jonah made a point of chewing with his mouth open, but all the reaction it earned him was a disgusted face and Natalie silently threatening to get broccoli crumbs in his bed, so he relented. Swallowing carefully, he said, “Well?”

  “Keep eating, I want you feeling as benevolent as possible.”

  Rolling his eyes, Jonah did as he was told, washing it down with a few long gulps of sweet tea. “Okay, I’m full up on benevolence. Hit me with it.”

  Now that Jonah was right where she wanted him, Natalie wasted no time. “So there’s this boy.”

  Obviously. Jonah really should have seen that coming. “Uh huh,” he said. “Go on.”

  “He’s super cute, Jonah. Like, he should be on TV or something.”

  “And how do you know this boy?”

  “He makes my coffee.”

  “You don’t drink coffee.”

  “I didn’t drink coffee,” Natalie corrected him. “I do now.”

  “Because of a boy?”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Natalie waved him off. “The things we do for love, I know. Anyway, he’s an art student at the college.”

  “Why do I already not like where this is going?” Jonah wondered aloud.

  Natalie ignored him. “As you may know,” she continued, “some art students from the college are doing an end-of-summer exhibit. I guess they have time to do it now, but they’re too busy to do it during the semester or something.”

  It sounded familiar—Emerson had probably mentioned it at some point, though Jonah was sure he wasn’t participating. Most of his efforts this summer had been concentrated on the children’s book Jonah was still trying to perfect. “Okay.”

  “I was thinking that you need to get out of the house more,” she told him with a syrupy smile. “And as it just so happens, I need a date—”

  Whoa, whoa. That was far enough. “What do you need a date for if you’re going to be trying to pick up this guy, anyway?”

  Natalie made an exasperated noise. “Because only a loser would go alone, Jonah.”

  “You could take one of your girlfriends,” he pointed out.

  “Please, and risk one of them stealing Matt from right under my nose? They wish.”

  “Aren’t you going to look like more of a loser if he finds out you came with your brother?”

  “I’ll just tell him you’re there to stalk your estranged boyfriend. I’m there solely for moral support.”

  Ouch. Jonah winced. Estranged boyfriend, huh? Unfortunately, that was a little too apt.

  Natalie seemed to realize she’d gone too far, because she sat forward on the bed and patted his leg comfortingly before going on. “Sorry. I know you’re going to work it out.”

  If he didn’t, Jonah was pretty sure Natalie would resort to castration. He sighed and nodded for her to continue.

  “Anyway, none of them would work anyway. I need you, big brother.”

  He sighed. “Alright, I’ll bite: why me?”

  “Because he’s an art student,” Natalie said obviously. “He works in a coffee shop. And he’s very, you know, pretty.”

  Oh, God, she couldn’t be serious. “You want to use me for my gaydar,” Jonah said flatly. “I’m ignoring all the stereotypes you just bought into, by the way, and you’re welcome for that.”

  “For God’s sake, Jonah, it’s not like I don’t know the manliest-looking guy around could just as easily be a friend of Dorothy as he could be a Playboy subscriber.” She waved her hand at him. “Case in point.”

  Jonah valiantly fought off the headache that was trying to start between his eyes by pinching the bridge of his nose. “Thanks, I think.”

  “But he’s tripping my gaydar,” Nat said. “Which used to be pretty good. I don’t want to make him uncomfortable or make an ass out of myself, okay? Besides, it might be fun to do something as siblings. Please?”

  He sighed. “You knew I was always going to say yes, didn’t you?”

  Natalie grinned knowingly. “Yeah, but it would’ve been impolite of me not to at least pretend I was asking.”

  Resigned to his fate, Jonah figured they might as well iron out the details. She’d never let him live it down if he forgot and picked up a shift at the gym. “When is this shindig? Does it have a dress code?”

  “Friday night in the art building,” Natalie said promptly. “I think it’s part fundraiser, so no blue jeans.”

  “No blue jeans” meant Nat was going to spend an hour and a half before the thing making Jonah change clothes until she found a combination that suited her, but he figured he owed her one. “Okay, but you’re buying the tickets.”

  “Of course!” She smiled winningly, then got up and started to collect their dishes. “I’ll just leave you to your work before you can change your mind, shall I?”

  When the door had closed behind her, Jonah stared down at his attempted revisions again, discouraged. He hadn’t been at this sort of a loss for words since he’d left Boston.

  §

  THEN

  WHEN the plane touched down on the tarmac, Jonah knew right away that he’d made the right decision.

  In the airport in Boston he’d determinedly bought a ticket on the first domestic flight out with an available seat, but Salt Lake City was just not a place he could see himself settling. He’d had enough of city life to last him several months, and though his fingers had been itching for a pen as they flew over the Great Lakes and Colorado, the urge felt stifled the second he got off the plane in Utah. He was just lucky that, after so many months of working and saving as much as he could, he was able to get on the next available flight to the middle of nowhere.

  From the runway, Jackson Hole, Wyoming, was the most beautiful place Jonah had ever seen. He pressed his face to the tiny plastic window and tried to breathe it in. The majestic, glacier-capped Grand Tetons towered in the near distance, stretching high into the sky. A blanket of snow s
till covered the plains and the sloping roofs of every building he could see. The sky was clear and the sun was high, and he could smell the mountain air the second the cabin door opened to let them out onto the tarmac.

  Emerson would have loved it. Hell, Jonah was in love with it, and he stayed that way even after he discovered that Jackson Hole was even colder than Boston.

  There were a few advantages to small towns, one of them being that Jonah only had to ask three people before someone knew someone with a room to let. Mrs. George was a spritely, no-nonsense widow with a vacant basement apartment, and after Jonah promised he wasn’t averse to cleaning eaves troughs or shoveling driveways as the weather necessitated, it was all his.

  From there he should have gone straight to finding a job, but there was something he had to do first. In the very bottom of his hiking backpack was a crumpled notebook; Jonah grabbed it and the leaky ballpoint pen from the front pocket and walked down Main Street to the park.

  It was fucking cold, but he didn’t care. Wrapping his scarf as tight as he dared around his neck, Jonah hunched his shoulders and began to write.

  §

  JONAH unlocked the side door that led to his basement apartment behind the garage and bent to pick up the pile of envelopes that littered the floor. Gloria, his landlord, usually left them in the kitchen, but she was visiting her son in Denver, and her cleaning lady usually just unlocked Jonah’s door long enough to scatter his mail all over the floor. Jonah was still looking for the hidden cameras.

  Nothing from Emerson, but that wasn’t a surprise; Jonah had just written him two days ago, hardly enough time for his letter even to have reached Emerson, never mind for Emerson to reply. A cell phone bill he’d already paid—he went to the bank at the end of the month to take care of all of his bills simultaneously, otherwise he’d forget. An envelope addressed in his mother’s precise handwriting. He’d save that for a day he was feeling maudlin. A couple letters from minor magazines—by now Jonah recognized the typical form letter more or less stating that they weren’t considering unsolicited work at the moment, but they would keep his work on file. That was pretty easy, since all of those submissions required a self-addressed, stamped envelope. A few random coupons and assorted junk mail.

  At the bottom of the pile was a somewhat larger and thicker envelope not marked with Jonah’s own handwriting. A quick glance at the return address made Jonah’s pulse speed up, and he hurriedly closed the door behind him, taking the stack of envelopes with him into the small sitting room.

  First, he forced himself to open and read the rejection letters, just in case. Setting them aside in a pile on the table, he debated between his mother’s letter and the other one, the one from the travel publication put out by AAA.

  Well, if the one from AAA was a rejection letter too, he reasoned, he’d always have his mother’s letter to cheer him up afterward. With no small amount of trepidation, he slid his thumb under the paper flap and tore the envelope open.

  Dear Mr. Cherneski,

  Across AmericA is interested in publishing your article in a Midwestern-themed issue to be published at the end of next month. Because of the time element of the publication, please review the attached contract and return it at your earliest possible convenience. Electronic copy should be forwarded to Samantha Burns in our editing department….

  Jonah stopped there and went back to the top of the page. Mr. Cherneski. Yep, that was his name.

  Published at the end of the month. Holy crap. Seriously?

  He skimmed through the rest of the letter twice before he managed to force himself to take in the salient details. It was a tiny, insignificant article in a fairly cheap magazine with a very specific target audience, so the compensation wasn’t very good, but Jonah wasn’t nearly as interested in the money as he was in the fact that he was going to see his name in a byline in a real publication. And if he could sell one article, he could sell another. Hell, maybe even a short story. Maybe someday, he’d be lucky enough to publish the half-finished novel he’d written on scrap pieces of paper and collated into a makeshift notebook. Suddenly his dreams didn’t seem so impossible.

  Jonah allowed himself a wry smile. Well, some of his dreams didn’t seem so impossible, anyway. He still couldn’t wait to tell Emerson.

  §

  STAPLED to the cover of a travel magazine, with page 37 sticky-note bookmarked:

  Emerson,

  As promised, the long-awaited first published work. Sorry that it’s nonfiction, but it turns out I am actually pretty good at that.

  Don’t worry, your drunken letter was much less embarrassing this time, though you did make a point to mention that you didn’t let anyone defile you in the men’s room. Thanks for the present—I’ll have to think of something good to put in it. Can’t go putting just anything in a Moleskine notebook.

  Roberta would absolutely love you—and you’d love her back. It’s impossible not to. I don’t know what it is about little old ladies telling dirty jokes, but it’s hysterical.

  I threw out my porn before I left. Weird, I know.

  Jonah

  §

  Jonah,

  That is fucking awesome! I can’t believe you got something published! I showed Kierstyn and Mom. They both say congratulations.

  I’m glad you liked the notebook. I picked it out in red especially for you.

  Only you would think that an old lady telling dirty jokes is hysterical. Sometimes I worry about you.

  I just wrote a midterm exam for one of my summer courses. I think it went okay. I mean, no promises, but I think I might have aced it.

  You threw it out? Bastard! Now what am I suppose to lord over you in threat!?

  Emerson

  §

  Em,

  Thanks. See—dreams do come true. (Ok, a tiny part of a dream. Whatever. I’ll take it.)

  If Roberta told you a joke, you would pee your pants. I’m not kidding, Emerson, the old lady should have gone into stand-up. Yesterday she had us all in stitches talking about her oldest granddaughter’s dog. Apparently he keeps eating the crotch out of her underwear (the granddaughter’s, not Roberta’s. Even I think that would be too far).

  Congrats on the midterm victory, like there was ever any doubt.

  One of the guys who does the guided tours of Grand Teton broke his leg rock climbing last week, and since I’m out there all the time hiking, they asked if I could fill in until they find a permanent replacement. Looks like I’ll be pretty busy the next little while!

  Jonah

  §

  WRITTEN on the back of a Travis Lake, Texas post card:

  Jonah,

  You’re going to do guided tours to replace a guy who broke his leg?! Please tell me that the broken leg is completely unrelated to the tour giving!

  One of the kids that Dad hired to work at the store suddenly quit yesterday. Kierstyn and I are working overtime to cover for him until I can find someone new. Fortunately there’s a supply of neighborhood kids who will take the work. Until I hire someone, though, I’ll be pretty busy.

  I’ll have to take your word on Roberta.

  Emerson

  §

  ON THE back of a piece of junk mail advertising life insurance:

  Emerson,

  I called Natalie, and she said the last time she saw you, you looked like you hadn’t slept in a week. Enjoy your new employee and feel free to make her work nights and weekends. She doesn’t need a boyfriend at her age anyway.

  You’re welcome.

  Dude, Gavin broke his leg rock climbing while trying to impress a chick. From what I’ve heard, it was pretty epic. Amazingly, he actually did score a date with her after the fact. My mind is blown. The actual job involves walking around with bear spray and a walkie-talkie and making sure nobody does anything stupid. I am so ridiculously overqualified.

  I did see a grizzly the other day though.

  Jonah

  §

  ON A birthday card with a picture of a
grizzly bear holding up one paw on the front with the caption “Give me a high five”:

  Jonah,

  “… And a great big BEAR HUG!

  Have a BEARY HAPPY BIRTHDAY!”

  No, I didn’t forget. And no it’s not very funny, but it seemed like a good way to segue into: What?! A grizzly bear? A fucking bear? Jesus Jonah, quit this job, please!!

  Natalie is awesome. Thank you.

  Have a very happy birthday, dude.

  Emerson

  Attached was a parcel wrapped in gaudy, cheap birthday paper: the 2009 Writer’s Market Deluxe with access to writersmarket.com.

  §

  ON A postcard of a rearing grizzly:

  Emerson,

  Thanks for the book, man. It is definitely going to come in handy!

  Yeah, a grizzly bear. It was really cool, Em! Not that I didn’t pee my pants a little, but come on—how often do you see a real live grizzly bear in the wild?

  No need to quit, though. They finally hired someone last week. Thank God, because working sixty-hour weeks was killing me. I missed two writer’s workshops in a row because I was sleeping! How pathetic is that? I guess I must officially be old or something.

  How are those summer classes coming along, Mr. Workaholic?

  Jonah

  §

  SENT mid- to late August:

  Jonah,

  I know it’s been a while, but I’ve finally finished my courses. I now have two weeks off before fall classes start. Time enough to write you.

  I think I did okay in my classes, but I won’t find out for a while.

  Dad is finally starting to do much better. They’ve got him on a drug that seems to agree with him. He’s getting some of his energy back, so I’ll probably be taking three or four courses this fall.