Non-Returnable Read online

  “Fuck it,” she whispered as she eased the ‘fridge door shut and turned around. Her voice sounded oddly strained in the eerie quiet of the building. For the first time in a long time, she wished Rob was here with her. Usually, she didn’t always appreciate him hanging around, but tonight, for some reason, she really wished he were home.

  Fighting back the undefined fear that trembled in her gut, she walked into the living room and picked up the cordless phone. After dialing Marty and Sheena’s number from memory, she waited as the phone rang on the other end once...

  Twice...

  “Damn,” she muttered when it rang a third time, and she cleared her throat, preparing to leave a message. Just before the fourth ring, Sheena’s sleepy-sounding voice answered, “Yeah?”

  Manda’s first thought was that she had interrupted her and Marty making love.

  “Yeah, uh, hi. It’s me,” she said simply.

  “Manda. Hey. How’s it going? Long time no hear.”

  “Okay, I guess,” Manda said, a bit mystified. “I was just wondering if Rob was still at your place or if you know where he was.”

  After a tense moment of silence at the other end of the line, Sheena cleared her throat and said, “Rob?”

  “Yeah. Last night you called and said he was gonna crash at your place. I was just wondering if he’d left and where he might’ve gone, ‘cause he’s not here.”

  There was another, longer silence at the other end of the line. Manda could feel her face flushing. Her pulse started beating fast and feathery in her neck.

  “There’s nothing here to eat, so I was heading down to Free Street before Billy’s gig to get something, and I was hoping to catch him to tell him to meet me there.”

  “Ahh... Manda... Have you been drinking or something?” Sheena asked.

  It was impossible to miss the concern in her friend’s voice.

  “What are you talking about? No, I—of course I haven’t been drinking.”

  Manda let hers shoulders drop and exhaled sharply, hoping to relieve the tension that was building up inside her.

  “Look,” she said, fighting to remain calm. “Just tell me if you know where Rob is, okay? I want to hook up with him so he won’t have to come all the way back here before going down to Free Street.”

  “Manda. The only other person I know named Rob is my cousin who lives in Pennsylvania,” Sheena finally said. “If you mean that guy you were dating, he died two years ago in a car accident. You don’t remember?”

  “What are you talking about?” Manda said, almost choking as the air rushed out of her lungs. “My boyfriend—Rob... Rob Stone. You and Marty went out drinking with him last night. You called to tell me he was staying at your place. I just need to—”

  “Whoa, girl. Get a grip, why don’t ‘cha,” Sheena said. “I don’t know what you’re on, but you’d better watch it. You don’t sound so good.”

  “No. No, I’m not good!” Manda shrilled as tiny ice-cold fingertips clawed at the inside of her throat. “I most definitely am not good. Not if you’re gonna fuck with me, too!”

  “I’m not fucking with you, Manda. Honest.”

  Sheena’s voice remained low and calm, but it did nothing to stop the rush of fear inside Manda. A hot pressure blossomed behind her eyes as she glanced around the apartment. Outside, the evening sky had darkened, taking on a curious depth of black. Her legs felt as stiff as sticks as she walked over to the window and stared up at the night sky above the city. Darkness shifted against deeper darkness, like a living thing. High above the city, a curious cloud formation swirled as though driven by a harsh wind. At first, it was almost impossible to see, but the longer Manda stared at it, the clearer she could make out a cloud that had taken on an odd, three-dimensional effect. A huge spiral turned and shifted in upon itself, swallowing itself and the surrounding blackness into an ever-deepening blackness. Within the spiral arms of the cloud, elongated flecks of dark red twisted and merged like thick clots of blood. They melted together, separated, and merged again as they were sucked into the spinning vortex.

  Manda was transfixed. The telephone dropped from her nerveless hand to the floor. She didn’t hear it hit, and she was only distantly aware of Sheena’s high-pitched voice, twisted with worry and fear, calling out to her so loudly it rattled the tiny speaker in the handset.

  7

  “God damn, it figures,” Jason Aceto muttered as he glanced around at the morning crew, gathered in the break room for the opening store meeting.

  “What figures?” asked Craig, the assistant manager.

  “Manda’s late...as usual,” Jason said, shielding his mouth with his clipboard as he spoke. “Fifth time this month. She probably won’t call, either.” He made brief eye contact with Craig and smirked. “So I guess that’s it for her. Company policy is company policy. Nothing I can do about it. I’m gonna have to fire her ass...if I ever see her again.”

  Craig glanced at him, stone-faced, not revealing his own thoughts. Jason either didn’t notice or didn’t care. He cleared his throat to get everyone’s attention and began the meeting. After he ran through the morning announcements and the news from the home office, Billy hurried off to the front desk and popped a Beatles CD into the music system, and everyone else got to work.

  Jason went into his office, closed the door, and plunked down in his chair. Staring past his computer at the wall in front of him, he sat there drumming his fingers on the chair arms and seething with rage that Manda hadn’t bothered to call in before she didn’t show up. After all the times cut her slack and gone to bat for her when he knew he should have fired her.

  But this was it.

  He had to follow store policy.

  As much as he wanted to be rid of her, though, he also didn’t want to be rid of her. He still harbored what he knew, deep down, was a futile hope that—given time—Manda would realize how much better for her he would be than that poseur writer she was living with. Jason had a mountain of e-mails and paperwork to go through today, but he pushed back from his desk, stood up, and went out to the café to grab a cup of coffee.

  The workday passed slowly for him because he couldn’t stop thinking about Manda. By noon, he was toying with the idea of calling her apartment to see if she was all right, if nothing else. She could be sick or hurt. Maybe if she was in some kind of trouble, helping her out would be a way to get into her good graces.

  But the day’s responsibilities kept piling up, and his workday ended without him finishing even half of what he’d hoped to finish. With a bitter feeling of remorse and resentment, he left the store a little after five o’clock, got into his car, and headed to Manda’s apartment on Congress Street.

  By the time he pulled up to the curb in front of the apartment building, daylight was bleeding from the sky. Narrow rafts of clouds spread across the western horizon like purple-stained fingers that were trying to tear through the thin fabric of the sky. Pinpricks of starlight appeared overhead, barely visible through the glare of city lights.

  For more than five minutes, Jason just sat hunched over his steering wheel, peering up at the darkened windows of Manda’s apartment. Several times, he thought he glimpsed a hint of motion—something dark and indefinable—moving behind the glassy reflection; but when he strained to see if it was Manda, he realized it was only the reflection of the clouds, shifting across the window.

  “Go home,” he whispered to himself. “Just go the hell home and forget about her.” Several times, he gripped the key in the ignition, preparing to start the car and drive away, but he couldn’t bring himself to leave.

  He knew—he could sense—that Manda was up there in the gathering darkness.

  Maybe she really was sick or hurt …

  Maybe she wasn’t able to get to the phone to call work or a doctor.

  As much as he tried to deny it, Jason knew he was going to go up and knock on the door just to make sure Manda wasn’t in any real danger.

  “Damn,” he muttered as he drew t
he key from the ignition and swung the driver’s door open. As he stepped out into the street, a brief gust of cold wind raked chills across his back. Hunching up and tucking his neck into the collar of his jacket, he walked up to the front door, pressed his face against the glass, and peered into the foyer.

  There was no one in sight.

  The dim, bare light bulb cast a nut-brown glow over the dust and grime-caked floor and stairway. His teeth were chattering, and his hand trembled as he pressed the doorbell for apartment 7-B. From deep inside the building he heard a faint buzzing sound. He took a breath and held it as he waited for Manda to buzz him in, but the only sounds were the sounds of the city traffic behind him.

  “Jesus... Jesus... Jesus!” he whispered, watching his breath fog the front door glass and then dissolve. The reflections of the city lights distorted in the door glass, and for just an instant, he thought he saw a black smudge reflected over his left shoulder. Grunting with surprise, he turned and looked, but there was nothing there.

  His anger rose as he gritted his teeth and pressed the buzzer button again, harder this time, as if that would communicate his urgency. He held it down while slowly counting to five and then released it.

  Still no answer.

  She probably isn’t even home, he told himself.

  Most likely, she had skipped work without calling in because she was just as sick of her job as he was sick of her bullshit. She had probably taken off for the day, gone somewhere with her loser boyfriend the pseudo-writer, and was having a grand old time. She probably just hadn’t gotten home yet.

  “’Scuse me.”

  The voice speaking so suddenly behind him made Jason jump. He turned to see a young man, standing close behind him on the steps.

  “Sorry... Sorry,” Jason muttered, stepping aside so the man had room enough to insert his key into the front door lock. The man barely acknowledged him, but as he opened the door and stepped into the foyer, Jason braced the door open with his hand. The man regarded him with undisguised suspicion.

  “Forgot my keys,” Jason said with an innocent shrug. He knew how lame he must sound but didn’t care. “My girlfriend’s in the shower and probably can’t hear me buzzing.”

  “What apartment you in?” the man asked.

  “Seven-B,” Jason replied with a flick of his head to indicate the upstairs.

  The man glared at him in silence for a second or two, then nodded and proceeded inside without another word. Jason watched as he walked down the corridor to a darkened doorway on the left at the far end of the corridor. After the man let himself into his apartment and shut the door, Jason exhaled. He was going to go upstairs to Manda’s door, but something off to his right caught his attention.

  The apartment mailboxes.

  He wasn’t sure why, but he experienced a jolt of recognition when he saw a padded manila book mailer on the floor in front of the row of glass-fronted boxes.

  “I’ll be a son of a bitch,” he muttered as he walked over to the row of boxes and, bending down, picked up the book envelope.

  The package had been sent out from the bookstore. The store’s return address was clearly stamped in the upper left-hand corner on the front along with a carefully hand-lettered address:

  Manda Simoneau

  325 Congress St.

  Apt 7 B

  Portland, ME 04401

  “Goddamnit! I knew it!”

  Jason hefted the package. He could tell, just by the feel, that it was a book, and it didn’t take Sherlock Holmes to figure out which book it was. It had to be the one Manda had special ordered and then not bought because she couldn’t afford it. Instead of returning it like she had been told, she had mailed it to herself.

  Jason’s hands were trembling out of control as he slid his forefinger under the stapled end of the package and ripped it open. As soon as he did, he let out a yelp of pain when a staple sliced into his forefinger just above the knuckle. A bright streak of blood ran down the side of his finger, smearing the book cover as Jason withdrew the book from its package.

  “You sneaky little...” he whispered when he saw the black, faux-leather cover and read the title out loud: “Psychic Black Holes.”

  Sniffing with laughter, he slipped the book back into the padded bag and tucked it under his arm. Without thinking, he brought his hand up to his mouth and sucked the blood from the wound. The metallic taste made him wince.

  The cut’s not so bad, he thought. Probably won’t even need a Band-Aid.

  As he left the building and walked down the stairs to his car, he couldn’t help but smile to himself. He’d bring the book to the store tomorrow and send it back to the publisher himself, and that would be the end of it. But not before he confronted Manda with it and fired her under the threat of prosecution for theft. That’d make her think twice about trying to rip off him or the company.

  Before getting into his car, Jason glanced up one last time at Manda’s apartment windows. The flat glass mirrored the black, velvet night sky with a cold marble gloss. The clouds swirled in reflection, spiraling inward on themselves with vague hints of deep red.

  “So, I guess that’s it for you, Manda,” Jason whispered. His breath came out a gray puff of mist in the chilly night air, and then the gentle breeze silently swept it away as the gathering shadows of the night closed in around him.

  AN INTRODUCTION TO UNTCIGAHUNK

  LITTLE BROTHERS

  A Micmac Indian tale told around the campfire

  How the earth and water came to be, no one but Old One knows. How trees and rocks and animals came to be, no one but Old One knows. The earth and sky were made by Old One. He sang a sacred song as he molded them in his hands. He carved the earth with swift, gleaming rivers and filled its depths with surging oceans. He sang another sacred song as he stamped his foot on the ground to make deep valleys and push up mountains that reached to the sky. Singing another sacred song, he smoked his pipe and blew out smoke to make the clouds. He placed the sun and the stars and the moon in the sky and set them on their courses. Taking soil into his hand, he spit on it and sang many sacred songs as he fashioned all the creatures that live on the earth, fly in the air, and swim in the waters.

  But after all this work was done, Old One was lonely.

  When the sun fled from the sky and the moon shined her cold light over the land, Old One would sit huddled by the campfire in front of his wigwam, and he was filled with sadness.

  “What’s the matter, Old One?” Brother Wolf asked one night, seeing how sad Old One was.

  Old One puffed on his pipe and didn’t answer as he looked up at the stars, his creations, and thought long. He saw the stars’ beauty, but he felt their loneliness, too. Looking across the land, he saw the valleys and mountains he had made, and the gleaming rivers and oceans he had filled; but they, too, filled him with a deep longing. He knew in his heart that none of his creation mattered unless there was someone to look at it, someone who could appreciate its beauty.

  “I’m lonely, Brother Wolf,” Old One said after a long while. “I look around me and see what I have made, and it saddens me.”

  “The world you have made is very beautiful, Old One,” Brother Wolf said. “The woods and plains are filled with animals and birds. The waters are alive with fish. The hunting is good, and all that is strong grows and prospers.”

  “Yes, but that is not enough,” Old One said sadly. “I feel the loneliness of the world, and I need someone...someone I can talk to. Someone who can share with me and enjoy the beauty of all that I have made.”

  “Every day after the hunt I come to your camp and we talk long into the evening. Am I not company enough for you, Old One?” Brother Wolf asked. He lowered his head and pointed his sleek black tail to the ground as he waited for Old One’s reply.

  Again, Old One smoked and thought long before speaking.

  “No, Brother Wolf,” he said finally. “Your company is not enough. The world needs Human Beings, creatures created in my image who can trul
y enjoy what I have made.”

  “But Old One,” Brother Wolf said, scowling deeply, “would not creatures made in your own image also share your powers? I mean no disrespect, but would it be wise to give Human Beings such dominion over your work? Perhaps they will make things and do things to your creation that are not part of your plan.”

  Old One laughed loud and long, and smoke as thick as storm clouds billowed from his nostrils.

  “Brother Wolf,” he said sagely, “I have no plan other than to do what I have said. In the morning, I will take more soil and spit, and I will sing a sacred song as I fashion Human Beings for my world.”

  Brother Wolf bowed so low his snout nearly touched the ground as he shook his head from side to side.

  “Meaning no disrespect, Old One, but I think that would not be wise.”

  Saying that, he bid Old One good night and skulked away; but in his cold, animal heart, he held resentment for Old One for not telling him that his company was enough to give him pleasure. That very night, he resolved to wait for the dawn and, before the sun could light the land in the morning, he would steal it and hide it in his den.

  2

  Old One slept, and the night was long, seemingly without end. He was not aware that while he slept Brother Wolf had stolen the sun. When Old One awoke, refreshed, he sat and smoked, waiting for the sun to rise. After a long time when it didn’t come, he grew impatient and called Brother Bear to him.

  “Brother Bear,” he said, “I feel in my heart that many hours, perhaps many years have passed in darkness, yet the sun has not brought his light and warmth to the land. Do you know anything about this?”

  Brother Bear shook his head sadly. “I do not, Old One,” he said. “Like you, I have slept long and have awakened to find the world still dark. You created the day and the night, the sun and the moon, so you must know if this night will last forever.”