Mister Tender's Girl

by Carter Wilson

  The attack barely even bothers flirting with me. I’m in my kitchen when I get a stronger sense of it creeping up on me, like a ghost that just passed through the nearby wall and into the room. I cannot hurt this thing coming for me; it can only hurt me. All I can do is suffer its blows and assure myself I’ll come out the other side. Sometimes, I don’t want to come out the other side. There are times when I want to be swallowed by it and suffocate into sweet nothingness inside its belly.

  My breathing tightens. A thousand pounds of memories crushing me, forcing the air from my lungs and keeping me from taking in any more. I’m dying. It’s always my first thought, though I’ve been having these attacks since I was fifteen. I always get a chance to breathe again, but I never know how long this monster will sit on top of me before finally letting up.

  My skin starts to burn. Eyes squeeze closed. I fall to the hardwood floor of my living room and stretch my arms above my head. Sometimes this helps.

  Breathe, Alice.

  But I can’t. I’m helpless against the thoughts in my head. I desperately try to relax, but desperation never begets any kind of peace. I tell myself I’m safe, that this can’t hurt me, but it does no good.

  This is happening; I’m beyond the point of stopping it. I will go through this as I always do, immersed and yet detached from it. Acute, prolonged horror peppered with chunks of missing time, moments where my mind shuts down entirely.

  My scars pulse with heat. I struggle to still my mind and count them, because even counting can help. One, two, three on the back, four on the left shoulder, five on the forearm, six on the clavicle—

  And then I see them, as I always do. Sylvia and Melinda Glassin, the twins who wanted to walk me home through the park that night. It’s all here, playing in my mind like a movie I’ve watched a thousand times. Gladstone Park. The little bridge over the creek. All the twins talk about is Mister Tender. How handsome he is. How he can fulfill wishes.

  I tell them he’s just a character. Make-believe.

  It’s so dark that I can’t see Sylvia’s hands, but I know what she is holding. She attacks me first, from behind, and she cries out as the knife blade slips so easily into my buttery, fourteen-year-old skin.

  On the floor of my house, I open my eyes and manage to suck in the smallest pocket of air. It’s not enough, but it’s a start. It’s a sign I will at least survive tonight, but not before Sylvia and Melinda have their way with me. I have never been able to stop them, not even with the medication. But I have learned how to dull my mind against their faces, harden my skin against their blade. I look at the faux antique clock on my wall, its bronzed second hand ticking at a glacial pace. I count the seconds, knowing they will turn into minutes, and praying the minutes won’t turn into hours.

  There’s nothing in this world more trapping than one’s own mind.

  Forty-two minutes later, the initial rush of ease sweeps through me. It’s delicious morphine signaling the worst is over. I’m on the floor, stripped to my bra and underwear, slicked in sweat and tears, my paper-white skin splotched in heat rashes, my heart beating as fast as a hummingbird’s wings. The shortest attack I’ve had lasted seven minutes, the longest nearly three hours, and I’m grateful this one leaned toward the merciful.

  I peel myself from the hardwood floor, noticing the sheen from my body’s imprint as I stagger to my feet. I feel like I’ve gone eight rounds in a cage match, and now all I want to do is sleep.

  The book is on the kitchen counter where I left it. I reach to it with weak limbs, lift it with shaking hands. Turn it over, look at the cover, open and turn to the inscription.

  Alice, what did the penguin always tell you?

  “Don’t trust anyone,” I say. I turn the page over, and I imagine my father’s cologne as I turn to the first bursts of color.

  I thumb past my father’s artwork and get to the second story, the one responsible for tonight’s attack. The imposter’s artwork. Again, the first pane, the one of me clutching a ticket to a movie I saw just two weeks ago.

  I inhale deeply, count to four, hold my breath, count to four again, and exhale, count to four. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Sometimes this helps.

  The second panel depicts me sitting at my kitchen table. Nighttime. I stare off into nothing, my face a blend of fear and gut-stabbing loneliness. A glass of red wine sits in front of me. The rest of the bottle is close by.

  It’s the third and last panel that gets me the most. It shows me sleeping in my bed, and the clock on the nightstand reads just after two in the morning. The details of my room are exactly as they truly exist: same bedside table, same lamp, same artwork on the walls. Even my comforter is correct in its pattern detail. This is my cold-weather comforter, which I just brought from the closet to my bed earlier this month. And perhaps most unnerving of all, the point of view of this scene is not from my bedroom window, but rather on the opposite side of the room, near the door, as if the artist came into my house, up the stairs, and into my bedroom. Drew me as I slept. I realize a person wouldn’t actually have had to be standing in my doorway to capture these details; they could have just looked in my bedroom window and imagined the perspective. Still, the choice to draw the point of view from inside my house is especially unnerving.

  Whoever did this was able to find these lost panels of my father’s work, the only depictions of Chancellor’s Kingdom that exist, and append them with their own copycat art. Moreover, whoever sent me this book is clearly watching me. Following me. I arm my security system every night, so I’m certain no one is standing in my bedroom as I sleep. Yet someone still knows the intimate details of the room itself.

  The name Jimmy pops in my head, but again I can’t make sense of any connection. I would never credit him with the creativity and skill needed to accomplish sending me a hand-drawn graphic novel postmarked from England. Jimmy is a criminal and a heroin addict, or at least he was when I left him. He’s back in my mind, but it’s a stretch to title him Mister Tender.

  And then there’s the creep from the gym.

  I set the book down, labor upstairs, and crawl into bed, reaching over and turning off the lamp before collapsing my head onto the pillow. I grab my cell phone and launch the security system app. In it, I can see all the events for the last thirty days. Anytime I armed or disarmed the house, any time movement was picked up by a motion sensor. I look at each event and try to correspond with what I remember but quickly get lost. I can be up at all hours, so I can’t be certain if a motion sensor event was me or not. But nothing sticks out as unusual. And the arming and disarming events correlate with what I recall of my daily routine.

  From the app, I arm the system for the night, then pull up my sheets and close my eyes.

  I keep the light on.

  It will be some time until sleep comes tonight, if at all.

  Twelve

  Saturday, October 17

  Morrissey bleats about horrible loneliness as I drag myself through the back entrance of the Rose. The Rose features music primarily from Manchester (UK) bands. A typical lineup playing over the sound system includes the Smiths, James, Oasis, Joy Division, and of course the shop’s namesake: the Stone Roses. Once in a while, you might even hear the Bee Gees in my coffeehouse. Yes, even the Bee Gees hailed from Manchester.

  I remove my coat, which is freckled with the corpses of a thousand melted snowflakes. An early snow, the first of the year, and it’s just beginning. At least four inches have already fallen, and there’s plenty more to come. The chill stays with me.

  I pass my office and glance at the desk, relieved no new envelopes are waiting for me. Behind the bar, Brenda writes the daily specials in different shades of chalk on a blackboard canvas. Next to the words, she’s rendered a simple but beautiful image of a cappuccino: strong, bold strokes shaping the porcelain cup, a topping of creamy froth, wisps of steam. Brenda even designed the logo for my place, which depic
ts a red rose growing from within a coffee mug. She should be in art school, not working in a coffee shop.

  She doesn’t look up. “It happened again.”

  “Simon?”

  “Yup.”

  “What was it this time?” I ask.

  “Knocking on the ceiling.”

  “He likes you.”

  Simon is the ghost that supposedly haunts our building on Elm Street. I’ve never heard anything, but then again I’m rarely the one opening the shop at five thirty in the morning. That’s left to Brenda, and she swears she hears footsteps, dragging sounds, knocking, and occasional indecipherable whispers. On one hand, I think, Hell, the building is over a hundred years old. What do you expect? On the other hand, Brenda is the only employee who’s ever heard anything, and everything she describes is out of a clichéd ghost handbook, so maybe she’s just a little bored. Looking for attention.

  “There are four other references online to this building number and paranormal activity,” she says, her gaze still glued to the phone screen.

  “I know,” I say, because she tells me this every time.

  “You should add hazardous duty pay to my check,” she says.

  “Well, if Simon ever actually does something to you, I’ll consider it.”

  “Someday you’ll hear him.”

  “I hope so,” I say, meaning it. I’m intrigued by the idea of ghosts. It’s the living I do my best to avoid.

  I notice the Band-Aid on her forearm.

  “What happened?” I ask.

  She shrugs. “Nail sticking out of the wall in my place. Little gash, not too bad.”

  Little gash, not too bad. I can’t imagine.

  The front door opens and two cats walk in. Teenage girls with heavy gray makeup, whiskers, cat ears and tails, and matching yellow cat backpacks. It’s eight on a Saturday morning, and I’m guessing these two are just winding down from a Friday night costume party. Halloween is still nearly two weeks away, but I suppose some like to celebrate all month long. Cat One orders a latte, Cat Two a large coffee, no room for cream. They brush heavy, wet snowflakes from their leotard-clad arms.

  Brenda sets about making their drinks as Dan walks in. Dan has worked here less than three months, and I’m doubting he’ll make it to his fourth. He’s only ten minutes late today, and he whisks past me, grabs his apron off the hook, and hurriedly ties it on as he steps behind the counter.

  “Sorry,” he says. “My phone died, so the alarm didn’t go off.”

  “That’s why you plug it in,” I say.

  “And the snow made things more difficult.”

  “Don’t you walk here?”

  He smiles and shrugs, and I decide at that moment he will have to go. I’m maybe five years older than him, and his sense of entitlement grates on me. He starts oh my god the night I had-ing to Brenda as I walk into the sitting area and wipe down the tabletops with a damp terry cloth. The two cats wait by the bar for their drinks, each still looking a bit drunk.

  The door opens again, as it will many more times before the morning rush is over. Frigid air sweeps in and ices briefly around my neck. I turn my head and see him, the man from the gym, walking inside the coffee shop. My coffee shop. He ignores my gaze and heads directly to the counter. Brenda looks up at him as she does everyone—with complete focus, attention, and interest—and it angers me, because this asshole doesn’t deserve any of it.

  He looks different, but perhaps it’s because he’s not in gym clothes. He looks bigger, fuller, more sure of himself. A leather jacket wraps snugly around his sturdy frame, and his hands are adorned with large gold rings, each of which gleams with shiny little stones. He looks taller than I remembered, over six feet for certain, but moreover he seems more of a threat. Maybe it’s because he’s so relaxed, so certain that walking in here is his right, that he can just saunter in and I’ll say nothing.

  He’s wrong.

  I approach him from behind, and he turns just as I near, sensing me. His sudden smile suggests he didn’t know I would be here, that this chance meeting is a pleasant surprise. I don’t buy it.

  “Well, look who it is,” he says. “Little Miss Kick-Ass.” He holds up his hands in mock surrender. “No need to attack, darling. Just getting my morning caffeine.”

  “You need to leave.”

  He tilts his head just a fraction toward mine. “That so?”

  “This is my place, and I don’t want you here.”

  “Take it easy, pretty thing. I already paid for my drink. Should be up in just a moment.”

  Brenda looks at me, her wide eyes full not of fear, but of excitement. I’ve never kicked anyone out before.

  “Give him his drink, and then he’s leaving,” I say.

  Dan, pulled toward drama like a pig to truffles, walks over to the front of the counter. He says nothing but wants to watch everything.

  “Sure thing,” Brenda says, then tells Dan to fill a large decaf coffee.

  “Thought you needed caffeine,” I say.

  “Well, now, maybe you caught me in a little lie,” he says. He folds his arms across his chest, and his rings point at me. It’s not hard to imagine them as little brass knuckles. “I actually lie all the time. I find it helps in life. Don’t you find it’s easier to get what you want when you lie, cheat, and steal, Alice?”

  I backpedal a few paces, and he follows me, bringing the conversation away from my staff, who watch me with curious expressions. “You can tell Jimmy I don’t want anything to do with him,” I say.

  He smiles. “You think Jimmy sent me?” he asks. “No, darling. No one sends me anywhere. I sent myself.”

  “What do you want?”

  “You have no idea who I am, do you?”

  “I don’t care who you are.”

  For a moment, I picture his fists coming toward me, his golden knuckles smashing my jaw, splitting my head open. I take a step back, and he takes a step forward, but nothing in his stance suggests violence. Yet.

  “I’m the guy you stole from,” he says. “Three years ago. You remember that, don’t you, sweetheart?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I say.

  But it’s not true. I know exactly what he’s talking about.

  In early 2012, Jimmy taught me how heroin can transform pain to beauty, can create a new world of the mind, a place of infinite escape. All it took was that first bump, and I knew I’d never be at peace again unless I was high—and I’d do anything to keep it going. That included stealing from people who didn’t care to be stolen from.

  I hit bottom the night we stole nearly eight thousand dollars from Nick, our regular dealer. It was Jimmy’s idea, and he’d been tipped by a mutual friend that Nick was carrying “excess funds” with him that night. I accompanied Jimmy to the deal, and any judgment I had was clouded by my overwhelming need to stick a needle in my arm as soon as possible. In the motel parking lot, Jimmy pulled a gun and held it to Nick’s head, demanding the cash. Nick insisted he only had the drugs, nothing more. Then Jimmy lowered the gun and shot him in the stomach. I’m not even sure he meant to do it. But that’s what happened.

  It was the moment I woke up. That window was probably only going to be open for a few seconds, but for those seconds, I had a clarity birthed by fear, a fierce vision of my short and dismal future: if I stayed with Jimmy, I was headed for a certain, bleak death, if not at that moment, then soon. So I ran that night, fast and hard, away from Jimmy, away from the heroin. I sprinted out of that motel parking lot and never turned back, never saw Jimmy again, and never touched anything harder than alcohol since. I went to my mother’s house in Arlington, back into her caring, suffocating arms. After three days of withdrawals, I knew rehab was the answer, despite my mother’s insistence that only she could make me better. I checked myself into Column Health in Arlington and did my twenty-eight day t
our, after which I refused my mother’s offer to move back in with her and Thomas and opted for Manchester, a comfortable distance away from Arlington and that much farther from Boston.

  “Alice, if you’re going to lie, you need to do it a lot better than that. Otherwise, what’s the point?”

  I wonder if there’s a gun beneath his jacket. Probably.

  “I left that night. I didn’t take anything. I don’t know anything about what Jimmy may or may not have taken from you. I haven’t seen him in three years. You need to talk to him, not me.”

  Right then, Brenda calls out his drink.

  Freddy, large decaf.

  He turns, walks a few steps back to the counter, and picks up his coffee. In that moment, both Brenda and Dan look over to me. I think, What if this guy decides to pull a gun from his waist and start shooting everyone?

  Do I attack, call the police, or continue the conversation?

  He turns and walks back to me, drink in hand. Unnervingly casual.

  “So that’s the thing,” he says as he reaches me. “I have talked to Jimmy, and that conversation didn’t go so well. My fault, really. It took me three years to find out who stole eight g’s from me and shot my boy, so I was unrealistic to think there would be any of the cash left. And of course there wasn’t, but that’s not really the point.” He air pokes me. “The point is I can’t let people steal from me. Hurts business. So even if it takes me three years to track the thieves down, it behooves me to do it. Do you know that word? Behoove?” He takes a sip of his coffee, squinting against the heat of it. “Great fucking word.”