Goodnight Tweetheart (13 page)

MarkBaynard: Or a 3-Cosmo lunch since she got hooked on those SEX AND THE CITY DVDs my brother bought her last Christmas.

MarkBaynard: I can’t begin to tell you how disturbing it was to hear her use “absof*ckinglutely” in a sentence for the first time.

MarkBaynard: When I was in treatment as a teenager I was always afraid she’d show up at the hospital & accidentally drink 1 of my radioactive cocktails.

MarkBaynard: Did I ever tell you she tells everybody she’s five years older than she is just so they’ll say, “Wow! You look great for your age!”?

MarkBaynard: I’m going to start telling everyone I’m 75 so they’ll think I look fabulous.

MarkBaynard: I’m guessing you’re gleefully poking pins in your Mark Baynard voodoo doll right now bcuz here comes another vampire from the lab.

MarkBaynard: Those sparkly vamps from TWILIGHT can’t compete with these guys. They’ve drained enough of my blood to feed the entire Cullen clan.

MarkBaynard: I tried hanging a string of garlic on my IV pole but it turns out one of them is a big fan of Italian food. He took the garlic AND my blood.

MarkBaynard: If you’ll excuse me, I have to go surrender my veins (and what’s left of my soul) to Count Crapula.

MarkBaynard: Hopefully my suffering will give you cheer.

MarkBaynard: Goodnight Tweetheart …

Friday, June 17—1:15
A.M.

MarkBaynard: So how many days (and nights) do I have to talk to you without getting a reply before it qualifies as stalking?

MarkBaynard: At this point in my life even a visit from the police would qualify as a welcome diversion. (Or Chris Hansen from TO CATCH A PREDATOR.)

MarkBaynard: The one thing they don’t tell you about dying (or trying not to die) is how freaking boring it can be.

MarkBaynard: If I had a hospital, I’d fix it up like Michael Jackson’s Neverland with giraffes and carousels and roller coasters.

MarkBaynard: At least then I’d have a good reason to spend most of the day puking.

MarkBaynard: Or maybe it would be better to do it up like the Playboy Mansion with a lot of interchangeable blondes with interchangeable boobs.

MarkBaynard: At least then I’d have a good reason to spend most of the day in bed.

MarkBaynard: Don’t you think I’d look better in a silk smoking jacket with a vacuous blonde on each arm than in this hospital gown?

MarkBaynard: Speaking of Michael Jackson, I entertained myself this morning by reading his autopsy report online.

MarkBaynard: Odd Thing to Read After an Autopsy: “He was in much better health than we expected.” Well, yeah … except for the DEAD part.

MarkBaynard: Since I’m doing nothing, I have nothing to do but imagine what you’re doing.

MarkBaynard: Besides sitting there waiting for Congress to come pry your incandescent lightbulbs out of your cold, dead hand, of course.

MarkBaynard: You’re probably busy tweeting with some other English lit prof on sabbatical who doesn’t have lymphoma and has actually been to Paris.

MarkBaynard: I hope it was only a one-frappucino day for you. I hope the words flowed from your fingertips like rivers of dark chocolate.

MarkBaynard: I hope Buffy the Mouse Slayer didn’t eat Willow Tum-Tum. Or you.

MarkBaynard: I hope you’re going to forgive me someday.

MarkBaynard: Goodnight Tweetheart …

Sunday, June 18—3:31
A.M.

MarkBaynard: Hey, babe. (Do I sound too much like Tommy Lee talking to Pam Anderson in one of those sex tapes?)

MarkBaynard: It’s 3:30 a.m. and it feels like even the angels are sleeping.

MarkBaynard: The veil between their world and ours gets really thin at this time of the morning.

MarkBaynard: The hospital feels just like that one in HALLOWEEN 2 with the badly lit corridors & deserted nursing stations.

MarkBaynard: I keep expecting Michael Myers to pop by and offer to carve a jack-o’-lantern out of my brain.

MarkBaynard: I’ve had a couple of really sucky days. The doctor prescribed some new mondo pain meds so now I’m in pain AND high as the proverbial kite.

MarkBaynard: I’ve always tried not to tweet you when I was drugged up because I was afraid you’d think I was a junkie.

MarkBaynard: But now that you KNOW I’m a junkie, what does it matter?

MarkBaynard: I wish this was one of those Nicholas Sparks movies where everybody dies w/great hair & a romantic theme song.

MarkBaynard: He always leaves out the puking. And the whining.

MarkBaynard: If I had a theme song it would probably be “B-Boys Makin’ with the Freak Freak” by the Beastie Boys.

MarkBaynard: I’d say I wish I was dead right now, but it would be kind of redundant.

MarkBaynard: I’d say I wish you were here, but I don’t wish anybody was stuck in this hellhole with me, not even my worst enemy.

MarkBaynard: Not even the neckless jock who stole my lunch money (and my briefcase) and stuffed me in my own locker in the 7th grade.

MarkBaynard: Okay … maybe him.

MarkBaynard: I dreamed about my son last night.

MarkBaynard: It was so wonderful to see him, but he was standing at the end of a long tunnel and no matter how fast or hard I ran, I couldn’t reach him.

MarkBaynard: I guess we don’t need Freud to interpret that one, do we?

MarkBaynard: I wish I had dreamed about you too.

MarkBaynard: zo, odd upi dp, ivj zoy hryd dp ;pmr;u yjod yo,r pg mohjy/

MarkBaynard: Oops … sorry. Had my fingers on the wrong keys. Can’t remember what I was going to say anyway. Something deeply profound, I’m sure.

MarkBaynard: I never knew I could miss your voice so much when I’ve never even heard it.

MarkBaynard: Goodnight Twe

It was just as well that Mark’s tweets ended there because the screen of the laptop was swimming before Abby’s eyes. She groped blindly for the hem of her T-shirt, using it to scrub at her tear-stained face until her desk calendar came into focus.

Mark’s last unfinished tweet had been posted over forty-eight hours ago. She sat there in the dark for a long time, bathed in the glow from the laptop screen. Reading Mark’s tweets had been like tearing the scab off a wound just as it was beginning to heal.

She minimized Twitter and opened her Tweetdeck. Her hand hovered over the mouse. With one click of her fingertip she could Unfollow or even Block him. She could go back to living her safe little life in her safe little sublet apartment with no drama or needless complications other than the ones she created herself between the pages of her novels. She could look back on the bond they’d forged as nothing but a silly diversion. Something to distract her from the mundane, and often achingly lonely, reality of life as a single woman in New York City.

Like a disembodied appendage from some old sixties horror movie, her hand slowly drifted away from the mouse and toward the keyboard of the laptop. After a brief hesitation, her fingers attacked the keys, pounding out four words:
What are you wearing?

She hit the Return key with a decisive click of her pinkie, then sat back in her chair and waited.

And waited some more.

As the digital clock in the corner of her screen ticked away the minutes, she struggled to convince herself that Mark was just fine. He was probably watching
Home Improvement
reruns on TV Land or sleeping off the effects of too much pain medication. As time dragged on, her pulse began to hammer in her ears, making her feel a little sick herself.

She closed her eyes, no longer able to bear the sight of the brightly lit Tweetdeck. What if something was wrong?
Really
wrong? What if she’d wasted too much time being pissed off at him? What if the profound thing Mark had been trying to say when he’d ended up with his fingers on the wrong letters of the keyboard was good-bye? What if—

Her eyes flew open as the computer chirped, announcing the arrival of a new tweet.

Chapter Fourteen

Tuesday, June 21—7:45
P.M.

Abby_Donovan: What are you wearing?

MarkBaynard: Hospital gown flapping open in the back. Clear IV tubing. Look of bitter resignation. You?

Abby_Donovan: Coffee-stained sweats, Carrie White’s prom queen crown from CARRIE, and a bucket of blood.

MarkBaynard: Oh hell … you’re gonna kick my ass, aren’t you?

Abby_Donovan: Let’s put it this way. If you didn’t wish you were dead before, you will by the time I’m through with you.

MarkBaynard: I’m guessing you’re about to break out that whip-wielding dominatrix costume because I have been a Very Bad Boy.

Abby_Donovan: I’m polishing my handcuffs even as we speak.

MarkBaynard: Have I ever told you how cute you are when you’re mad?

Abby_Donovan: Have I ever told you I have your mother on my speed dial?

MarkBaynard: And they say death and public speaking are man’s two greatest fears!

Abby_Donovan: Before we even have this conversation, I’d like to know what other fibs you’ve told.

MarkBaynard: Well, I’m not really crazy about Insane Clown Posse. I’ve always preferred Anthrax or Slayer.

Abby_Donovan: Are you even divorced or was that a lie too?

MarkBaynard: I’m so divorced my ex-wife is engaged to another man.

Abby_Donovan: She didn’t waste much time, did she?

MarkBaynard: He was already warming up in the bullpen before she left me.

AbbyDonovan: She cheated?

MarkBaynard: I can’t really blame her. She was looking for something different in a guy. Like a potential survival rate higher than 20%.

Abby_Donovan: She cheated AFTER you got sick? Was she in the bathroom during the “in sickness and in health” segment of your wedding ceremony?

MarkBaynard: That’s what I get for letting her talk me into writing our own vows.

Abby_Donovan: Let me guess. She called you her soul mate and promised to cleave to you until death did you part … or at least until she got a better offer.

MarkBaynard: There was something about rainbows & candles & maybe even ponies. But nothing about chemo or holding the trash can for me while I puked.

Abby_Donovan: And we thought WE had intimacy issues!

MarkBaynard: I’ve missed you. A guy can only talk to his life-size cardboard cutout of Hillary Clinton for so long before she starts to talk back.

Abby_Donovan: Please tell me they didn’t let you bring that thing to the hospital?

MarkBaynard: What can I say? She squeaks less than my inflatable doll.

Abby_Donovan: I was hoping you were stuck watching a WIFE SWAP marathon on Lifetime.

MarkBaynard: Actually I’ve been watching PLANET EARTH—the best video Valium invented since the Teletubbies. So soothing!

Abby_Donovan: Yeah, at least until the baby elephant wanders off into the desert to die and the chimps start ripping off each other’s faces.

MarkBaynard: Oh gee, thanks a lot! Spoil the ending for me, why don’t you?

Abby_Donovan: Wait until I tell you what happens to Old Yeller.

MarkBaynard: Isn’t it bad enough that I had to learn what happened to Beth in LITTLE WOMEN from an episode of FRIENDS?

Abby_Donovan: I figured you’d be watching SEX, LIES & VIDEOTAPE or maybe Jim Carrey in LIAR, LIAR.

MarkBaynard: Just so you know … I lied about my career too. I’m really an underwear model for Calvin Klein.

Abby_Donovan: That’s odd, because just yesterday I found a pic of some guy named Mark Baynard on the faculty page of the Ole Miss website.

MarkBaynard: You naughty little vixen! We had a bargain! No peeking!

Abby_Donovan: At least you weren’t lying about the houndstooth jacket with the leather patches on the elbows.

MarkBaynard: It was a gift from Calvin Klein.

Abby_Donovan: And just for the record, you look more like Seth Rogen than Hugh Jackman.

MarkBaynard: There’s-Just-More-Of-Me-To-Love Seth Rogen? Or Slimmed-Down-For-The-Role-Of-Green-Hornet Seth Rogen?

Abby_Donovan: In-Between-You’re-So-Cuddly-I-Kinda-Wanna-Have-Your-Baby Seth Rogen. You have beautiful hair (she added sulkily).

MarkBaynard: I did.

Abby_Donovan: Well, I always did like the new Andre Agassi look.

MarkBaynard: Thanks to the chemo and these damn steroids, I’m rocking more of a Homer Simpson/Dr. Evil look these days.

Abby_Donovan: Dr. Evil is WAY sexier than Austin Powers.

MarkBaynard: Very few women can resist a man with a volcano lair. Or a hairless cat named Mr. Bigglesworth.

Abby_Donovan: I’m not going to let you shave Willow Tum-Tum just so you can impress girls. Maybe Buffy, though.

MarkBaynard: Before you decide if you want to be one of those girls, there’s one more thing you should know.

Abby_Donovan: You’re really a Lancome-wearing, Cher-impersonating drag queen, aren’t you? (Not that there’s anything wrong with that.)

MarkBaynard: I wish it was that simple. While we were … on our break … I kind of … sort of … um … read your first novel. (I duck … I run.)

Abby_Donovan: Who’s the naughty little vixen now?

MarkBaynard: What can I say? I thought it was time to replace Hillary with the photo of you on the back of the book.

Abby_Donovan: Please tell me you didn’t glue my face over hers.

MarkBaynard: Let’s put it this way. You look really hot in a severe charcoal gray pant suit.

Abby_Donovan: Well …what did you think?

MarkBaynard: About the novel or the photo?

Abby_Donovan: How shallow do you think I am? The photo, of course.

MarkBaynard: If Angelina and Jen had a love child, it would be you.

Abby_Donovan: That’s so much better than Marge Simpson and Marilyn Manson. What about the novel? Did you like it as well as the photo?

MarkBaynard: I think the critics who called it the Next Great American Novel were wrong.

MarkBaynard: Abby? Are you still there? Did you hang up on me again?

Abby_Donovan: I should have expected as much from a tight-assed English lit professor who thinks HE’s going to write the Great American Novel.

MarkBaynard: Your book wasn’t the Next Great American Novel. It was the 2nd Greatest American Novel. Your new book will be the greatest.

Abby_Donovan: Forget I mentioned that whole “tightassed” part, okay?

MarkBaynard: Does this mean I’m forgiven?

Abby_Donovan: Nope. It just means I’m going to stick around and keep kicking your ass until you get out of that hospital and I can kick it in person.

MarkBaynard: I love it when you talk dirty.

Abby_Donovan: Goodnight Niles

MarkBaynard: Goodnight Daphne

Abby_Donovan: Goodnight Frasier

MarkBaynard: Goodnight Roz

Abby_Donovan: Goodnight Bulldog

MarkBaynard: Goodnight Maris

Abby_Donovan: Goodnight Marty

MarkBaynard: Goodnight Tweetheart …

Thursday, June 22—4:15
P.M.

MarkBaynard: What are you wearing?

Abby_Donovan: My naughty nurse costume.
http://tweetpic.com/2825190617

MarkBaynard: I’d tell you what I’m wearing, but I think my heart just stopped. I can hear Nurse Ratched coming down the hall with the crash cart.

Abby_Donovan: All I can hear is my new neighbor’s 3-year-old riding up and down the hallway outside my apartment on his tricycle.

MarkBaynard: Have you tried telling him you have a big oven where you bake unruly children?

Abby_Donovan: I’m preheating it even as we speak.

MarkBaynard: So how is the writing going?

Abby_Donovan: VIEW FROM MY LAPTOP:
http://tweetpic.com/2825190618
.

MarkBaynard: Whoa! Chapter Fourteen already? I guess I know what you were using all your words for when you weren’t wasting them on wishing me dead.

Abby_Donovan: I think I might actually finish the book before the end of July. Loathing you was extremely conducive to my creativity.

MarkBaynard: Then I shall consider myself an inspiration to women everywhere.

Abby_Donovan: Are you alone right now?

MarkBaynard: Not anymore.

Abby_Donovan: You know what I mean. Is anybody there with you?

MarkBaynard: I thought I heard my mom’s flying monkeys circling earlier, but it was just the Medivac helicopter delivering a piping fresh kidney.

Abby_Donovan: You’ve never mentioned your dad.

MarkBaynard: He has a used Chevy business to run so he can keep my mom in booze & cigarettes. Virginia Slims Lights don’t come cheap these days.

Abby_Donovan: What about your little sister? You said she adored you.

MarkBaynard: And I adore her back. Which is exactly why I’m not asking her to put her life on hold so she can watch me foolishly cling to mine.

Abby_Donovan: And your little boy?

Abby_Donovan: Mark, did I stick my big ole size 8 1/2 foot in my mouth?

MarkBaynard: I never lied to you about my son. I haven’t seen him in over 6 months.

Abby_Donovan: Because of your treatment?

MarkBaynard: Because his mom could afford a better lawyer than me. She believes he’s still young enough to forget me if things don’t … work out …

Abby_Donovan: That’s the most awful thing I’ve ever heard.

MarkBaynard: No, the most awful thing was when I called to try to talk to him and heard him in the background calling her new boyfriend “Daddy.”

Abby_Donovan: Oh God. How can you let her get away with that?

MarkBaynard: Don’t have the strength right now to fight her & this damn disease. I have to choose my battles so I can live to fight for him another day.

Abby_Donovan: She’s wrong, you know. He won’t forget you.

MarkBaynard: Of course he won’t. His daddy makes the best grilled cheese and bacon sandwiches on the planet …

MarkBaynard: Plus his mom hates for him to have any kind of sugar so I used to sneak him Little Debbie Oatmeal Creme Pies when she wasn’t looking.

Abby_Donovan: THINGS YOU WISH YOU’D SAID TO YOUR EX: “Everybody told me I was too good for you. They were right.”

MarkBaynard: THINGS YOU WISH YOU’D SAID TO YOUR EX: “Yes, dear, those pants DO make your ass look fat.”

Abby_Donovan: THINGS YOU WISH YOU’D SAID TO YOUR EX: “Oops, I was wrong. Size really DOES matter.”

MarkBaynard: THINGS YOU WISH YOU’D SAID TO YOUR EX: “It’s not me. It really IS you.”

Abby_Donovan: So where in the world is Mark Baynard today?

MarkBaynard: I’d have to relinquish my honorary International Man of Mystery status if I told you my GPS coordinates.

Abby_Donovan: Not if you kill me after you tell me. So what time is it there?

MarkBaynard: Time for you to stop trying to trick me into revealing my whereabouts by telling you what time zone I’m in.

Abby_Donovan: Curses! Foiled again! I had at least hoped to narrow it down to the North American Continent. Or Zimbabwe.

MarkBaynard: Too bad I’m on to you and your nefarious ways. I’m trained to resist all forms of torture meted out by you and your little henchkitties.

Abby_Donovan: You haven’t seen what Buffy the Mouse Slayer can do with some catnip and a cattle prod. Why won’t you tell me where you are?

MarkBaynard: So you can send me some flowers? Or maybe one of those musical Hallmark cards that plays “I Will Survive”?

Abby_Donovan: I was thinking more along the lines of something by Death Cab for Cutie.

MarkBaynard: No thank you. You can keep your flowers and your cards. I’d much rather have you loathe me than pity me.

Abby_Donovan: Congratulations. It’s working.

MarkBaynard: I think that’s one of the real reasons my wife left. After I relapsed she decided she pitied me more than she had ever loved me.

Abby_Donovan: Do you still love her?

MarkBaynard: At the moment I can’t even work up the energy to hate her. Although I hate what she’s doing to me and to our son.

Abby_Donovan: What was it you told me on our last “date”? “Loathing is still passion. It’s apathy that kills a relationship.”

MarkBaynard: Exactly. They say that living well is the best revenge. At this point in our relationship, I’d settle for just living.

Abby_Donovan: How long do you have before your big treatment?

MarkBaynard: A week. Maybe two. It depends on how many viable stem cells they were able to harvest.

Abby_Donovan: You said this procedure was experimental. Just how dangerous is it?

MarkBaynard: Somewhere between pissing off Sharon Stone in BASIC INSTINCT and shouting “Jesus loves you” in a crowded mosque.

Abby_Donovan: Will it be painful?

MarkBaynard: Only if I survive.

Abby_Donovan: I’d probably be curled into a fetal position if I were you. I don’t see how you can be so flip about the whole thing.

MarkBaynard: You know what they say. It’s better to laugh than to cry. Or to gibber in terror.

Abby_Donovan: Did you learn that from Yoda?

MarkBaynard: No … from Guitar Hero, my true Zen master. The only way to get through this life is to hit as many notes as you can and try not to die.

Abby_Donovan: Would you mind trying really, REALLY hard?

MarkBaynard: Only for you. I have to go now. I think I hear those flying monkeys headed back this way.

Abby_Donovan: Don’t tell them where to find me.

MarkBaynard: “I’ll get you, my pretty! And your little cats too!”

Abby_Donovan: Goodnight Principal Belding

MarkBaynard: Goodnight Jessie

Abby_Donovan: Goodnight Zach

MarkBaynard: Goodnight Lisa

Abby_Donovan: Goodnight Slater

MarkBaynard: Goodnight Kelly

Abby_Donovan: Goodnight Screech

MarkBaynard: Goodnight Tweetheart …

Sunday, June 26—10:45
P.M.

Abby_Donovan: What are you wearing?

Abby_Donovan: Mark? I haven’t heard from you in a couple of days and it’s starting to worry me. And Willow Tum-Tum.

Abby_Donovan: If you’re just playing hard to get, it’s working. Another day of this and you’ll have me on my knees shamelessly begging for your tweets.