20 Years

[WP] Twenty years ago, you gave a friend some bad advice, and he was left homeless and penniless. Today, you opened a letter from him with a million-filler check and a note: “Thanks for the advice! You’re a real friend.”

*****

“Ma’am! You can’t go in there!” Melissa brushed past the secretary and shouldered open the faux-wood door. Inside was a conference room, sunlight streaming in from floor-to-ceiling windows. Three men sat mid-joke at the far end of a long and glossy dark conference table. On a whiteboard was a hastily drawn logo of a trash can on fire, with the words “Dumpster Fire BBQ Sauce - fall release?” circled under it.

In the middle of the three men who’d been interrupted, his once brown hair all gone gray now, was Dave Schuster.

“What,” said Melissa, holding up the letter and the check in her fist, “is this?!” Melissa pointed at him, and gestured at the office, her motions made wide by anger. “What is this?!”

Dave sat frozen, mouth slack, but with a glimmer of something in his eyes. “I, uh...didn’t know how to tell you.”

Melissa fought back the urge to scream. She forced the words out one at a time. “I thought you were dead!”

From behind the secretary made some noises about handling this later, ma’am, and would you please wait in the office, until Dave gestured to her that it was ok. The other men in the meeting made some excuses and left, though the one with the necktie was clearly curious about what was happening. Melissa had an out of body moment where she could see what necktie saw: a sweaty wild woman, still in her yoga clothes and a hastily donned pink parka, frizzy hair bursting every which way, holding a letter in her hand like a dagger and looking like she was two seconds from flipping the conference desk through the expensive windows. But the thought just floated over her roiling emotions.

“Twenty years. Twenty years! You disappeared without a trace!” Melissa said.

“I know, I know,” Dave started.

“And at the end of twenty years, when all this time I’ve envisioned your body under a bridge or in an alley somewhere, and then, hello, what’s this?” Melissa thrust the letter at him. “ ‘Thanks for the advice! You’re a real friend.’ Oh, and a check for a million dollars!? What is wrong with you, Dave!?”

She had cornered him, was right up in his face, close enough to see the red veins in his eyes. Dave still had a look of something there. Was it fear? Maybe, but there was definitely a hint of hope, too.

“It’s true. What you told me kept me going, all these years. You remember?” Dave asked.

“Of course I remember! I told you to follow your dreams, quit being a welder and sell your own barbeque sauce instead,” Melissa said, her voice catching on a sob. “And then when it failed, you vanished. I spent the next twenty years wishing I hadn’t said anything!”

“No, don’t. Don’t say that,” said Dave. He turned away, leaned against the window. “I’ll admit…when I’d lost all my savings and Linda kicked me out and left me for that trucker from Nashville, I wondered if I’d screwed up. But I don’t regret it at all.”

“God, Linda. I hadn’t thought of her in years,” said Melissa. She sat down and wiped her eyes. “I always got the feeling she resented me, for supporting you.”

Dave turned back, smiled faintly. “She resented me, because I took your advice over hers.” Dave sat down, looked at his arm resting on the table. “Everyone–Linda, my mom, my friends–they told me I was a fool for quitting a union job. Everyone but you. I never forgot that, no matter how dark times got. That someone else believed in me. That you believed in me.”

“But…what happened? Why’d you leave without a word?”

“Shame, mostly. Failed business, failed marriage. I couldn’t face it. Just like I couldn’t face you.” Dave sighed. “After that, I was homeless for a year. But then I got back on my feet and gave it another go. Took some night classes on marketing, put in some work on an MBA…didn’t finish but I got enough out of it to figure out what I did wrong, and do it better. And now, here I am.”

Melissa let out a long sigh. She looked at Dave, he looked back at her. Then her watch beeped. “Oh, crap, I gotta go. My daughter’s getting out of school now.” For a moment that hopeful look snuffed out of Dave’s eye. Or maybe it was just too bright in the room. Melissa set the crumpled letter and check down on the table and stood up.

“This conversation isn’t done, Dave Schuster. I’m still furious with you. You are gonna need to apologize to me for all the worry you caused, and properly too. You can’t just, just show up dropping checks and hope that smoothes everything over,” said Melissa.

“Noted,” said Dave, with a weak smile.

They exchanged numbers and Melissa left. At the doorway outside the room sat that secretary, who was trying to pretend she hadn’t been listening right outside the door. Melissa turned to look back at Dave. there he was, the man she’d thought dead for twenty years, now CEO of his dream job and on the cusp of launching a new line of “Dumpster Fire” sauces. With that weak smile on his face, that aura of sadness. Melissa couldn’t tell why he’d look sad though, when he finally had everything he wanted, and enough money to go throwing around million-dollar checks to boot.

The watch beeped again. Melissa ran to get to her car to get back across town and pick up Sophie.

*****

THE END.