days covering stories in South Jersey. I sit in the gray room with no windows and center my laptop on the steel desk and arrange my letters in neat piles. Then I tuck my chair in and put both feet flat on the linoleum floor. I arrange and rearrange the correspondence. I type a few starting lines on the screen. But that is as far as I get. The lighting is too harsh in the office. The waistband of my pants cuts into my swollen stomach. My pumps are too tight. There are too many distractions. That gossiping goat Charlene pops her head in at least once a week and asks me, with the most malicious smile, how my bubbala is doing. During one visit, she hands me a white envelope.
“What’s this?” I ask.
“Another letter from your adoring public. It must have gotten separated from the normal mail. Strange, isn’t it?” Charlene smiles, but the curve of her lips is cold and mean. She flips her hair and then leaves without closing my office door.
I look the envelope over. It couldn’t have come in with the mail. There’s no stamp, and it is addressed simply to the Dear Abby Department, Bergen Record. I slit the envelope open with my favorite silver letter opener and pull the thin piece of paper out. The cursive writing on the page is so full of loops and flourishes that it takes a minute before I can concentrate on the words.
Dear Abby,
My boyfriend and I are deeply in love. What we have is the real thing. We are very blessed because we know that God made us for each other. We couldn’t be any closer or any more committed. Unfortunately, we went through a rough patch last year, and the town tramp took advantage of the situation by seducing my true love.
When she realized he would never be able to care for her, she tried to trick him into marriage by getting pregnant. She is the worst kind of woman, a weak slut who can’t keep her legs shut or hold on to a man. Dear Abby, please tell me how I can get it through this girl’s dim brain that my man is off limits. She won’t get a thing from him. Not his love, and not a dime.
Sincerely,
Righteous in Ramsey
I breathe out slowly and fold the letter shut. I know I shouldn’t be surprised by Margaret’s ferocity. I should be relieved to have this letter. I’ve spent the last few months on the lookout for an approaching redhead, anticipating her attack. Still, I’ve never received a Dear Abby letter from someone I know, or from someone who knows me. My letters have always been my best escape, and my peace. Until now they have been written only by strangers who trust me, look up to me, and turn to me when they need to be saved. A line has been crossed, and I feel oddly revealed by Margaret’s choice to come at me in this manner. I flip the letter over so I am looking at the blank side of the page, then tear it into tiny bits and drop it in the garbage.
GRAYSON INSISTS that I attend the weekly staff meetings, which I have always skipped in the past. I sit through only one, which is sufficiently humiliating to keep me away in the future. The meeting falls first thing on a Thursday morning, which is the day my column comes out. I get my first look at the paper as Grayson’s assistant hands them out at the door of the conference room. I can tell that everyone else in the room ran to the end of their driveway at the crack of dawn and read their copies. When they walk in the room they toss the newspaper the assistant hands them onto the table and take a seat. There are about twelve people at the meeting, including the major front-page writers and the main editors: Business, Local, National, Sports, Arts, and Lifestyles. My boss is the Lifestyles editor, a cranky man with prostate problems that make it difficult for him to sit. I’ve never had much to do with him. When I have column problems I have always gone to Grayson. The editor frowns every time he sees me, so I figure he’s happy enough with our arrangement. Today as he paces the length of the room, he says, “What are you doing here?”