Snap Out of It: A Novel by Maddie Dawson

Author:Maddie Dawson [Dawson, Maddie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Lake Union Publishing
Published: 2023-01-02T18:30:00+00:00

I’m in my bed later when my phone dings.

i want to see you so can i see you can i see you

I don’t answer such a stupid message.

you haunt me do you know that you are present in my room right now and i am remembering your smell your touch your halfway crooked smile the way you close your eyes the delicate curve of your ear like that shell we found on the beach that time

Well, that is just enough. He is out of his mind.

I grab the phone and type back to him, all in caps with plenty of punctuation:

WE NEVER FOUND A SHELL ON THE BEACH AND YOU ARE OBVIOUSLY IN A LOT OF PAIN IF YOU’RE SO MISGUIDED AS TO THINK YOU ARE WRITING TO YOUR DECEASED LOVER, WHEN YOU ARE REALLY WRITING TO BILLIE, THE WIFE YOU ABANDONED 35 YEARS AGO!!!! THIRTY-FIVE YEARS, VICTOR. ALSO, DO NOT WRITE TO ME ANYMORE! JUST STOP!!

Then, for emphasis:

I DON’T WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU AGAIN!

Once more:

EVER! EVER!

With that taken care of, once and for all, I talk to Mason on the phone. I actually call him up, which my mother would have said was a crime against nature, a woman calling a man on the telephone. I still hear her voice in my head whenever I do this. But I am not in love with Mason so it’s okay, and also, I need to hear his rich, chocolaty voice, and I need to fill him in on Calvin and Bernice. He and Calvin are practically best buds now; I half expect that any day now they’ll start wearing matching porkpie hats and hanging out at the golf range together on weekends. So it only seems right to report the series of tonight’s upsetting events.

“And now he’s gone?” he says when I finish describing everything. “Will he come back, do you think?”

“Of course he’ll come back,” I say. “He didn’t take any of his things.”

We have a moment of silence while we both realize that doesn’t mean he’s ever really coming back. He may have defected, for love. It would be just like Calvin to do something like that.

Mason says, “So, a new ten-year plan suggested itself to him, a woman from the senior center, and now that she fell over in her dinner plate, he needs to move along and take care of her.”

“He’s a little like Mary Poppins, I think, going where the wind blows him,” I say. “But I’m already missing him.”

“You know,” says Mason. “I’m so glad you called because I was wondering if you might want to come on the show again. Picture it: the Heartbreak Bunny advises us how to make it through springtime. You know, when a young man’s fancy turns to thoughts of love and all that.”

“That sounds nice,” I say.

“I would imagine springtime is a particularly dangerous time in your business,” he says. “Second only to Valentine’s Day.”

“The station won’t mind if I’m on again so soon?”

“Mind? No! They loved having you.

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