EARLIER THAT AFTERNOON
<Cider Girl: It’s so hot here. It muyst be cooler where you are. Do we have until 4:45? Please say that we do.>
<Prof: I wish we did, but a sutdent is coming by at 3:30, my time. I tried to reschedule her later.>
<Cider Girl: I’m disappointed. We have so little time.>
<Prof: I know, It makes me sick.>
<Cider Girl: It’s not your fault. So we’ve got 45 minutes, no 43 minutes now.>
<Prof: Let’s try to forget aoubt the time. Tell me what you did after we talked yesterday.>
In the warm dark of the room, with day turned to night by the thick damask drapes, Melissa Chalmers was only a dim form in the small light of her screen. Her face faintly glowed. Almost invisible were the chairs and divan, the little French country writing desk and its antique tin-box lamp, her husband’s bureau. A thin wire ran from a telephone jack to the bed, where she reclined in her silk robe, her fingers fluttering on the keyboard.
Although she’d never met her correspondent, although her correspondent had not seen her once in their two years together, she always fixed herself up for their afternoon communions, and today was no exception. After coming home from her shop thirty-five minutes away, she had showered quickly, drunk a glass of lemonade while watching the clock on the bathroom counter, then allowed herself a few minutes at her chintz-covered vanity, carefully reapplying skin creams, lipstick, mascara. She smiled at herself nervously in the mirror. Even at age forty, her slightly upturned nose and mouth remained delicate and precious, like the features of a doll, and her waist was still twenty-four inches. She much regretted the shadows under her eyes, caused by insomnia as much as by age, and she worked at them intently until they vanished. With two minutes to spare, she succeeded in restoring herself to the youthful appearance she felt she deserved, after which she turned off the lights, let down the Scalamandre damask drapes, and curled up on the dark canopied bed with her laptop. Ocean waves flowed from the sound synthesizer by her bed. At 3:44 she logged on. Soon she was adrift, at great distance from the mumble of the television downstairs, the muffled shouts of children across the street, the clicking of keys.
<Prof: I was thinking about you.>
<Cider Girl: What about me.>
<Prof: I was thinking that I juest wanted to hold you.>
<Cider Girl: Uhmm, that’s nice. What are you wearing?>
<Prof: Khaki pants, a button down white shirt, a red and white tie with silly trinagles. The proper college professor. Let me guess what you’re wearing. It’s hot, so you’ve taken off your work clothes. You’re in your robe. Am I right?>
<Cider Girl: You know me well.>
<Prof: I wish I was there with yuou right now.>
<Cider Girl: You are. It’s so good to talk to you Tom. What happed with Martin Barbeau? Professor Creep.>
<Prof: You gave me good advice about Professor Martin Barbeau. I bit my lip and went to the Dean.>
<Cider Girl: What did he say?>
<Prof: The Dean said that no way was Martin Barbeau going to teach my honors calculus class next semester.>
<Cider Girl: HURRAY! Good for you, darling. When was that? You were going on yesterday afternoon weren’t you? Or was it this morning?>
<Prof: Yuesday. Yesterday.>
<Cider Girl: Yesterday I was thinking of my mother. I don’t know why.>
<Prof: You havent’ mentioned your mother in a long time.>
<Cider Girl: I miss her.>
<Prof: Did you get your VCR fixed? You really should chuck your Panasonic and get a Toshiba. It has six heads/ That’s my excellent advice for the day. ANd no need to go to the dean. Now we’re even. How was the shop today?>
<Cider Girl: Busy. A woman in a Donna Karan outfit strode in, from CT, and bought my old stoneware jug lamps. Tom wait a sec. Gerty wants to come in. She’s scratching the door.>
Melissa cracked her bedroom door, letting a sliver of light into the dark room, and in leaped a huge Labrador retriever, dirty and dripping unashamedly. Gerty had returned from her afternoon romp through the neighborhood, careening through lawn sprinklers, chasing squirrels past the sugar maples on both sides of the street. Immediately, the dog began barking happily, then wriggled on the floral hooked rug, jumped over the blanket chest at the foot of the bed, and flopped on the cushioned divan near the vanity. The unruly appearance of Gerty contrasted strongly with the rest of the room, which looked like an antique dealer’s display. In a fashion it was, for Melissa Chalmers was constantly buying new furniture for her house and sending what she had tired of to her retail shop in Littleton.
“What a mess you are, Gerty girl,” said Melissa, futilely picking up hairs from the part of the rug she could see. “I don’t know why I keep you. Do you love Mama? Yes, you do. Yes. Yes.” She stroked the creature under the neck. “Now, be a good Gerty girl and you can stay.” She closed her door gently and the room became dark once again.
<Prof: Melissa are you there?>
<Prof: Melissa? Where are you?>
<Cider Girl: I’m back, in my bed.>
<Prof: Your and Bill’s bed you mean.>
<Cider Girl: Please, Tom, This is my private place when we talk, this is where I like to talk to you.>
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>>> MAIL 50.02.04 <<< From: Fred at Noplace.Com ==> Received: from RING.AOL.COM by AOL.COM with GOTP Orlando Vacation Give Aways, Fred@Noplace.Com
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<Prof: We’ve got 36 minhtes left. I just looked at my watch.>
<Cider Girl: I was looking at mine too. It goes by so fast. Everythig does. I haven’t had time to get in my garden for two months. I don’t even remember the forsythias blooming. This time we have together is precious to me Tom. It’s pure.>
<Prof: It’s pure all right.>
<Cider Girl: This may sound silly, but sometims, when we’re not together, I imagine talking to you and I see the keyboard in my mind. I can feel my fingers moving on the keys, typing the things I want to say to you. I can feel my fingers moving, honetsly.>
<Prof: Let’s go to Paris together.>
<Cider Girl: I would rather go with you to Florece.>
<Prof: OK Florence. To the Ponte Vecchio.>
<Cider Girl: With the peeling ochre arches and the shadows in the water. And the l itlel jewelers’ shops along the sides of the bridge>
<Prof: We’ll buty some fresh pasta and a bottle of dry Orvieto and walk slowly acaross the bridge. No one will hassle us, no one will know we’re there. We can walk as s lowly as we want. All I wnat is 24 hours. Wow, my typos are awful today.>
<Cider Girl: You’ll have your arm around me.>
<Prof: Then we’ll sit on the bank of the river and watch the little skiffs go by and eat our psta and drink our wine.>
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>>> MAIL 50.02.04 <<< From: MT at TX.ORG ==> Received: from RING.AOL.COM by AOL.COM with GOTP id AQ06498; Wed, 25 Jun 15:56:52 EDT for MCHALM@AOL.COM; Wed, 25 Jun 15:57:03 –0400
Press * for message
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<Cider Girl: A message has come in for me.>
<Prof: Three have come for me. Don’t look at it.>
<Cider Girl: You don’t need to say that. You know that I never lok at my messages wile I’m talking to you.>
<Prof: Except for Alexander’s.>
<Cider Girl: I answer him as quickly as I can.>
<Prof: He just tries to bug you. Is Alexander home at this minute?>
<Cider Girl: Probably. I haven’t heard the phone ring for awhile, so he’s probably on the other line using thw internet. He’s started fencing lessons. At 5:30 I have to take him to get new shoes. He knows not to open my door when it’s closed.>
<Prof: So he broods in his room and sends you e-mail instead.>
<Cider Girl: Please don’t talk about my son like that Tom.>
<Prof: I’m so rry. I guess I’m not in a very good mood today. Where were we?>
<Cider Girl: Florence. I want you to buy me a tiny gold wtering can I saw at one of the shops on the Ponte Vecchio. The size of a dime. I’ve been thinking about tht little watering can for ten years. You can put it on a necklace around my ncek. Then I want to walk with you in the Boboli Garden. We can go there after lunch and lie in the grass, and I’ll oput my head in your lap.>
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>>> MAIL 50.02.04 <<< From: Unknown at Unknown.Com ==> Received: from RING.AOL.COM by AOL.COM with GOTP Make Big ### Online, Cowboys on Computers Unknown@Unknown.Com
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<Prof: Everybody in TravelChat has been to Florence.>
<Cider Girl: I don’t keep up with those people anyjore. They’re so BORING.>
<Prof: Except that I met you.>
<Cider Girl: Yes. I didn’t tell you that I got a haircut.>
<Prof: When?>
<Cider Girl: On Saturday.>
<Prof: Why didn’t you tell me?>
<Cider Girl: I forgot. I ’m sorry.>
<Cider Girl: Gerty is barking like crazy. Someboyd must be ringing the front doorbell downstairs. I can’t hear it over the television and my sound machine.>
<Prof: Don’t leave.>
<Cider Girl: Let me klisten. I hear noise downstairs. Merde, I forgot, soeone was supposed to pick up a rug for cleaning this afternooon. I can’t stand the chaos in this house. It might be the architect. I to ld him not to come until 5, but he ame an hour early last time. That man is stuffed with himself.>
<Prof: Architect?>
<Cider Girl: W’re putting in bay windows in the study downstiars. I want curves in the house.>
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>>> MAIL 50.02.04 <<< From: ACHALM at AOL.COM
==> Received: from RING.AOL.COM by AOL.COM with GOTP id AQ06498; Wed, 25 Jun 16:04:33 EDT
for MCHALM@AOL.COM; Wed, 25 Jun 16:04:52 –0400
MESSAGE LOCK OVERRIDE
>>> MAIL 50.02.04 <<< From: Alexander at AOL.COM There is a rude man dowwnstairs who has invaded my domain. He carries secret papers and shouts vile demands. Also, He woldn’t fence with me. I dn’t think he could handle a sword anywya. Should we send him to the dungeon?
What’s for dinner? And when’s Dad coming home? He promised to fence with me tnight.
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To: Alexander Chalmers <ACHALM@AOL.COM>
From: Melissa Chalmers <MCHALM@AOL.COM>
Subject: Re: Your message
Hi sweetie. I put a pizza in the microwave for you. That’s Mr. Turgis, the architect downstairs. Please don’t put him in the dungeon. I’ll be down in a few minutes.
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<Cider Girl: Alexander is home.>
<Prof: What does you new haircut look like?>
<Cider Girl: It just touches my shoulders.>
<Prof: Sounds lovely. What did Bill say? Scratch that, I fogot. But I’ll bet he didnt’ even notice.>
<Cider Girl: What men noatice their wives’ haircuts Tom.>
<Prof: What does he notice?>
<Cider Girl: You’re not going to bait me into talking about Bill.>
<Prof: I’m not trying to bait you. But I know that you don’t tlak about him because it makes you less guilty about you and me. You can pat yourself on the back for not talkingabout him.>
<Cider Girl: You shouldn’t say that Tom.>
<Prof: I didn’t mean it.>
<Cider Girl: You typed it.>
<Prof: I didn’t mean it. I didn;t mean to send that remark. I was going to delete it.>
<Prof: I’m sorry. I respect your guilt. But I don’t feel a particle of guilt. We have nothing to feel guilty about. Havae we ever touched each other? We have one shitty hour a day on these machines. One hour. And now we’ve got only 16 minutes.>
<Cider Girl: I don’t tlk to you aout Rosalind.>
<Prof: Let’s change the subject shall we. You win. You win.>
<Cider Girl: I don’t want to win. I need you Tom.I love you.>
<Prof: I love you too. You know that.>
<Prof: P leas send me a photo so I can see your new haircut. Will you do that?>
<Cider Girl: Yes.>
<Prof: Do you promise me?>
<Cider Girl: Yes, I promise.>
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>>> MAIL 50.02.04 <<< From: Dolores at PLYM.COM
==> Received: from RING.AOL.COM by AOL.COM with GOTP id AQ06498; Wed, 25 Jun 16:16:26 EDT
for MCHALM@AOL.COM; Wed, 25 Jun 16:16:50 –0400
Press * for message
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<Cider Girl: Another message has come in for me.>
<Prof: So?>
<Cider Girl: It’s from Bill’s office. Plymouth never e-mails me. There might be a proble. I’m going to look at it. Wait a sec Tom.>
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>>> MAIL 50.02.04 <<< From: Dolores at PLYM.COM
Dear Ms. Chalmers,
Do you know where your husband is? He didn’t come to the office today. At 3:45 pm, we received a call that his briefcase had been found in a trash can at Sixth and Thorndike in Cambridge. That’s all we know. We’ve called the police.
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<Prof: What is it Melissa?>
<Prof: Melissa, are you there?>
<Cider Girl: Tom, I’ve got to go. Something terible has happened to Bill.>
<Prof: What’s happened?>
<Prof: What happened? Please Melissa tell me.>
<Cider Girl: I don’tknow. I’ve got to go Tom.>
<Prof: Will you be online tomorrow? P lease. Please don’t do this to me. I love you.>
MCHALM@AOL.COM logged off Wed, 25 Jun 16:19:05 –0400
Melissa moved in slow motion. At first, she remained sprawled on her bed, gazing at the computer. It flickered and hummed.
“Oh my God,” she moaned softly. Gertrude began whimpering and licking her feet. “Never never again, I won’t ever again. Just let Bill be all right. Oh God. Bill, I love you. I love you. Please be all right.”
The telephones began ringing, all of them, the telephone on the writing desk with its muted chisel, the telephone in the family room like a shrill hyena laugh full of teeth, the hammering telephone in the kitchen. It was George Mitrakis, the president of Plymouth, calling from his car. He’d been calling every two minutes, he said, getting a busy or the tape. He was fifteen minutes away and wanted her to wait for him.
She stared at the laptop. From across the room it looked so small, like a grin. Using all her strength, she tried to twist off its screen. Failing this, she shoved the machine over the side of the bed. It landed with a soft thud on the rug and continued to hum from the floor.
The air was suffocating. Melissa pulled open the damask drapes, flooding the room with the full summer light, and its heat. Reeling back from the window, she went to the walk-in closet and hurriedly began dressing. “Bill, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” she whispered as she threw on a pale yellow sundress. She sat down on a stool and began crying.
The telephones were ringing again. Numbly, she let them ring. Then, she ran for the phone on her desk, but the caller had hung up even before the tape machine kicked in. When the telephones stopped, in the silence after the ringing, she listened to the computer humming from the floor. She stood up and looked at herself in the mirror. Her eyes were swollen and puffy. She was perspiring and she dabbed a handkerchief under her arms. Uncontrollably, her fingers began twitching and tapping on the desk. <Cider Girl: What should I do? Shouldn’t I call the police? He could be lying bleeding in an alley somewhere. And the hospitals, maybe he’s in a hospital. I’ll call the hospitals, and the police. I’ve ruined everything. What will happen to me? I’ve got nothing. D
on’t you understand? Nothing. No, I can’t think of myself. Bill could be dying somewhere. I’ve ruined it for all of us. I’ll be damp and pathetic when George Mitrakis gets here.>
The humming grew louder and louder, overwhelming the waves from the ocean, the thoughts in her mind.
ESCAPE
After his clandestine departure from Boston City Hospital, Chalmers began walking northwest along Massachusetts Avenue. The air felt hot and thick against his skin, especially after the cool of the hospital ward, and he began sweating almost immediately. Something hummed overhead. Looking up, he saw dozens of wires hung between poles like dark nooses waiting to be drawn taut, wires for telephones and electricity and cable TV. In the distance a police siren warbled and wailed. He hurried away from the hospital, staying far from the streetlamps and their yellow cocoons of light. The siren continued screaming. Surely, his escape could not have been reported so soon. Was he now a common criminal, to be hunted down by the police? To the contrary, he was a professional of some kind, an accomplished professional, he was certain of that. A wave of anger surged through him and settled like sewage in his stomach. He had been violated and soiled. But to whom should he direct his anger?