“Call me.”
The problem with texts is you can’t gauge the tone. You have to make assumptions. Even if the sender uses all caps, exclamation marks, and/or multiple question marks, frowning emojis, there’s no telling what they’re really feeling or how they’re cloaking what they’re really feeling. In Leanne’s case? Angry? “Oh yeah.” Hurt? “Uh-huh.” Sarcastic? Bitter? Blaming? He stopped there, not wanting to make things worse than they really might have been.
Do it now! he commanded.
Still, his finger hovered over the keypad like the godly digit in Michael Angelo’s glorious Creation of Adam fresco… except without an inkling of desire to bridge the gap… synaptic chasm, more like… between intent and action. Disobeying commandments of common decency, not to mention sense, every second he delayed.
Do it! he commanded once more.
But before he could give in to his better urge, three things happened simultaneously: a skateboarder swerved by him on the sea walk, startling Buddy; his mobile phone timed out, switching back to its home screen; and an email arrived, binging and notching up his unread tally from fifty-five to fifty-six.
Might be Leanne, he thought. Best to check. Go in knowing the latest.
He tapped, calling up his inbox…
From: Harry & Bernice Sanderson
RE: Help Wanted
Dear Mr. Hope, Thank you for replying to our help-wanted ad… topped his unread list.
“Christ almighty!” he groaned. “You gotta be kidding.”
He opened the message and continued reading.. “We’d like to meet you and discuss the advertisement for a companion-handyman, which we placed in the Courier. Could you please phone us at the number below so we can make arrangements? Regards, Bernice Sanderson.
“No way!” He stared at the message, confounded, as if it were scribed in some incomprehensible code.
You weren’t supposed to answer, he groaned. His response to their help wanted ad had been strictly pro forma, a ritual enactment that allowed him to say he’d tried. Tried what? Something, anything to give shape and meaning to his amorphous state of mind. The act of seeking was, in itself, all he needed to validate his existence in that tenuous moment. No further action or reaction required—certainly not a reply.
Now what?
They’d made a mess of things, calling his bluff—like the churlish bastards who shout ‘Jump!’ at the guy teetering on the bridge railing. If he refused an interview, refused to even answer, his fraud would be exposed.
Buddy sighed, then punched in Bernice Sanderson’s number. “Hello,” she said after five rings.
“Hello, Mrs. Sanderson. Buddy Hope, here. I’m calling about your return email concerning your help wanted ad.”
“Oh!” she flustered. “Thank you for getting back to me so quickly. I’m wondering if you could come by for a chat.”
“When?”
“Any time. We’re retired.”
Nooo! he winced.
“This afternoon?” he said. “Two o’clock?”
“Yes. That sounds fine.”
Distant and faint though it was, Bernice Sanderson’s voice soothed Buddy, as if a tendril of spirit had actually reached him through the phones’ complex circuitry.
She became real to me during those first few seconds, he would remember. He imagined a dignified, elderly woman, brimming with gratitude, her voice quavering, ready to crack. Strange, though, I also heard the hardiness of a pioneer.
“See you then,” he said. “Where do I go?”
She gave him the address, then added, “Last house on the right, as you approach Kin Beach on Maple Street. We look forward to meeting you, Mr. Hope.”
As soon as they ended the call, he went to Google Maps and thumbed in their address. A blue route marker appeared, connecting his location in Nanaimo to the Sanderson’s house, 32 kilometres south. The drive would take half an hour. Add a five-minute walk to where the Matrix was parked in an underground lot beneath Bastion Square; another five for flex time; that left an hour or so for him to think things through—enough time to figure out a strategy that might get them to ‘No.’
What the hell was I thinking, responding to their ad?
Then he recoiled to the moment just before Bernice Sanderson’s email dinged.
Call Leanne, he sighed. “Now!”