“It makes no sense, boy,” I murmur, as I kneel down and take the ball from his mouth. “I saw her… and there was nothing. But her goddamned letters are still turning me into a madman. Explain that.”
Boxcar tilts his head up at me, mouth slathering, his reddish fur seeming even brighter in the sunlight.
“I know.” I grin down at him as I stand. “You’re not interested in hearing me go on and on, are you, boy? Huh? Huh?”
I play with the ball, pretending to throw it and then turning around, tucking it into my pocket.
He yaps and begins running around the garden, nose pressed to the ground, crazily sniffing as he searches for it. I watch him, a feeling of warmth rising in my chest as it always does when we play this game.
I can empathize with him more than usual today, as he searches for something that’s impossible to find. It’s the same way I’m searching for the Maddison from the letter when the Maddison of real life did nothing for me, ignited nothing.
Finally, I pull the ball out and throw it, causing Boxcar to yap again, his happy high-pitched bark filling me with contentment.
My phone buzzes in my pocket as he pads over to the ball.
Taking out my phone, I see that I’ve got an email.
From Maddison.
My chest goes tight, my whole body tightens, as that familiar need courses through me like an unstoppable gale. Every part of my flares to life under the force of her name alone.
I warn myself to calm down because I saw her. I saw her and felt nothing.
Goddamn, am I going completely insane?
Her email informs me she’d like to take me up on my offer of a meeting to discuss her writing.
The thought occurs to me to tell her, no, but it’s not her fault I became obsessed with a mirage, with a woman who turned to mist the moment I saw her.
She’s still a writer, like me. She still lost her parents, like me.
Plus there’s nothing worse than a man who goes back on his word.
So I email her back, telling her it would be my pleasure to meet her, giving her a few dates and times so we can work around her schedule.
Leaning down to once again collect the ball from Boxcar’s mouth, I let out a shaky sigh.
“Boy, what the fuck is happening to me?”
He pads over to me, nuzzling his face against my hand, as though trying to offer me comfort.
We arrange to meet at a café the following Saturday morning, a place with heaps of character, guitars mounted on the walls, an old-style jukebox in the corner, and paperback novels lining the spare space. I sit in the corner where I told her I’d be, letting my black coffee settle in my stomach.
My head is pulsing as hard as my heart, even as I tell myself to relax, that the woman from Maddison’s letter doesn’t exist.
She only ever existed in my mind, a fantasy born from a dream.
As my thoughts run along the same old track, a woman approaches me. She reminds me of one of those Real Housewives, her hair bright blonde, face caked in makeup, her body showing several marks of cosmetic enhancements.
She stops at the edge of the table with a strange look in her eyes.
“You’re Madden Mitchell, right?” she says, moving closer to the table, her perfume swarming over me, a whole attacking cloud of it.
“That’s right,” I tell her, in a friendly tone of voice.
I always try to be friendly with anyone who approaches me in public, even when I’m not in the mood for it, reminding myself that there are millions of people who would kill to be in my position.
“I’ve read all your books,” the woman says, leaning even closer…
Too close now, as though she thinks I’m going to pull out my chair and let her sit on my lap or some shit.
“That’s great,” I tell her. “I’m always happy to hear that.”
“I really liked the last one…”
She moves even closer now, causing me to lean back.
My hope is she’ll take the hint and back up a little, but she stays there, grinning down at me with a suggestive look in her eyes.
“I especially liked the photo in the back, if you know what I mean.”
I think I know what she means, but there’s no part of me that wants to engage her in that sort of conversation.
She doesn’t interest me, not even in the slightest.
Because she’s not Maddison, the hungry animal inside me roars. Because she’s not the woman who changed your entire life with a letter.
“Would you like me to sign a book for you?” I ask, trying my best to keep my tone civil as I change the subject.
She tilts her head at me, pursing her lips, her eyes glinting in that way I don’t like at all.