You’ve Got Mail

Audrey couldn’t believe it. Not even as she held the smooth silk of it as evidence in her hands. There was no possible way that this could be real. But it had to be. Her dreams were never this vivid or happy.

She let out a disbelieving huff of air, staring at the shiny material laid across her lap. The edges of the cape were frayed from use, and Audrey ran her fingers over the loose pieces of thread, smiling as they tickled her fingers. She rubbed the small tag at the neck with her initials on it, the sharpie marks long since faded. The smooth green silk shone like a beacon of happiness. She wanted to rub her face against it, wrap it around her shoulders, just to see if it felt the same as it did when she was a child. So she did. And only when she felt the familiar comfort and excitement of draping her cape across her shoulders, did she believe that this was real.

Audrey laughed giddily as she stood and felt the cape flutter behind her. The green material now fell to the middle of her back instead of her calves, but it was just as impressive as it had been all those years ago. She rushed to look at herself in the full length mirror propped up in the corner of her living room, and smiled widely as the sun bounced off the material perfectly.

The sudden ringing of her work phone startled her out of her cape-induced reverie. She reluctantly left her mirror image to answer the shrill call of reality.

“Hello, this is Audrey from Get Good publications. How may I help you?”

“Audrey, honey, no need to be so formal,” her mom’s teasing voice came through the other end.

“Mom,” she exclaimed, her excitement skyrocketing, forgetting to reprimand her mother for calling the wrong phone again, “I can’t believe you found my cape! I thought it was lost forever.”

15 Years Ago...

Audrey’s high-pitched laughter rang through the trees, scaring a few birds from their perches. She ran fast through the leaves, throwing her hands back to feel her cape flying behind her, flapping in the wind like her own personal freedom flag.

She stopped suddenly in front of a particularly large tree, arms akimbo. “Give me back the princess, Mr. Bad,” Audrey shouted.

The tree swayed in the wind, but did not reply. Audrey stomped her foot in indignation. “Give her-” a strong gust of wind stopped Audrey’s demand. The trees creaked with the force of the gale, leaves flew up and around Audrey, surrounding her in color and dust. She felt the wind whip through her short hair, felt her cape tangle in the leaves and dance in the breeze until the wind stopped and Audrey couldn’t feel anything. There was no reassuring weight draped across her shoulders, no smooth silk caressing her bare forearms as she stood.

Her cape was gone.

Audrey started panting as she turned around and around, searching for any sign of the emerald shine she was so fond of, but there was nothing.

“No,” she whispered as tears pricked her eyes, making her nose sting. She refused to accept that her cape was gone.

She ran deeper into the forest, in the direction the wind had blown. She needed that cape. She wouldn’t go home without it.

As Audrey stomped through the forest, she came upon a clearing with a small shack of a house in the middle. The sun had begun to set, casting the surrounding trees in a golden light, but that didn’t do much to make the house look any more welcoming. Audrey was smart for a seven year old. She remembered what her dad told her about going into the woods alone and about strangers. This was a stranger’s house and she was alone. Audrey didn’t want to go into the house, but what if her cape was over there?

Audrey sighed and pouted. She didn’t know what to do. She knew her dad would be mad that she left the trees at the edge of their backyard, but he would forgive her. If she went into the little house, she would never be allowed to go outside again. But what was the point of going outside if she didn’t have her cape? Audrey’s pout deepened in thought.

She would just circle the house, see if her cape got caught on the window or something, then she’d go back home. Maybe her mom would help her look for her cape if she begged hard enough.

Present-Day...

Audrey remembered the disappointment she felt when she hadn’t found the cape by the little shack, and she remembered crying all night when her mom and dad refused to help look for the cape as punishment for wandering too far. But the next day, her parents had taken her to the animal shelter to pick out a puppy, and her previous companion had been almost forgotten, until today.

Her mom laughed, bringing Audrey back to reality. “What’re you talking about, honey?”

“My cape,” she replied with an eye roll. “I just got it in the mail today.” Audrey moved around and smiled as she felt it swish behind her. “Thanks for this, Mom, really.”

“Well, as much as I’d like to take credit for making you so happy, I didn’t send you the cape,” her mom replied, “I thought it was lost forever too.”

Audrey’s eyebrows furrowed before she remembered she had two parents. “Did Dad send it then?”

“Let me ask.” There were muffled shouts on the other side of the line. “Nope, he didn’t send it either.”

Audrey’s furrowed brow returned. “Weird,” she replied.

“Do you know anyone else who would send it to you?”

“No,” Audrey said after a few seconds. She didn’t have a lot of friends back home, and not many people knew her, so there really wasn’t anyone besides her parents who could have found and returned her cape.

“Maybe it flew into someone’s yard from the woods and they knew it was yours,” her mom suggested.

“But how would they know where I live?” Audrey replied skeptically.

“Yeah, that wouldn’t make sense would it?” her mom mumbled, and Audrey could almost hear her thinking. “Is there a return address, or a note that came with the package, honey?”

Audrey hadn’t thought to check, but she quickly moved to the end of the couch to examine the destroyed remains of the cape-containing package. As she rifled through the brown ripped up wrapping, she saw a flash of white.

“Ah ha!” she shouted in victory. “There’s a note.”

“What does it say?”

“Hold on, I’m getting there,” Audrey replied testily as she righted herself on the couch.

“All right, grumpy pants.”

Audrey shook her head at the jibe. “It says,” she flipped it over to read and frowned, “‘Enjoy.’”

“No name?”

“No name.”

“Weird.”

Before her mom could offer any more comforting words, the line beeped with an incoming call.

Audrey pulled the phone away from her ear. “Hey, mom, I’m getting another call. I’ll talk to you later, okay?”

“Sure, honey, just...be careful.”

“Don’t worry, mom. I’ll be fine,” she reassured her, despite the unsettling feeling in the pit of her stomach.

“All right, I know how busy you are, so I’ll let you go, but we’ll talk about this later.”

“Okay, love you, bye,” Audrey said quickly.

“All right, all right, love you, honey.”

“Love you too,” Audrey said more genuinely this time and hung up to answer the incoming call. “Hello, this is Audrey from -”

“You got the package,” the voice on the other side interrupted.

Audrey’s heart started beating faster at the chilling thrill in the stranger’s voice. “Who is this?”

“That’s not important right now,” the voice replied; it sounded like a man. “What’s important is that you have the cape.” There was a brief pause. “You have the cape, right?”

Audrey was debating on whether she should hang up or ask more questions. She decided on questions. “How do you know about my cape? Who are you?”

“As I said, not important,” the man said, voice quiet, “Are you happy?”

Audrey was taken aback. “Excuse me?”

“Are you happy?” the man repeated, more demanding this time.

“I guess,” she replied slowly.

The man sighed in what sounded like relief. “Good. That’s good. All I want is for you to be happy, Audrey. You have to know that.”

“Who are you,” Audrey demanded, looking anxiously around her living room.

The man chuckled lightly. “I guess you can call me a secret admirer, an old friend…”

A chill ran down her spine. “So I know you?”

“No,” he replied, “but I know you.”

Audrey didn’t know why, but she needed to know more. “What’s your name?”

“I’ve been waiting such a long time to contact you, to hear your voice speaking directly into my ear,” he took a deep breath, ignoring her question. “It’s intoxicating. Everything about you is intoxicating. But what drew me to you was that cape you have on your shoulders now.” Audrey stopped breathing. “That’s why I waited so long. I wanted the first time we met to be special. I wanted you to be happy. But most of all I wanted you to be wearing that cape.”

Audrey was frozen in fear. “Who are you?” she whispered.

“Do you remember the day you lost your cape? Do you remember where you went to look for it?”

Audrey’s mind flashed an image of the little shack in the middle of the woods. “Was that your home?”

He chuckled darkly. “Good girl. Although home isn’t exactly the word I’d use to describe it, yes, that was my home, and that was where I first saw you,” the man sighed. “And I mean the first time I really saw you. I had noticed you before, at school, sitting by yourself all the time, always with that cape, but I didn’t think much of you. It wasn’t until that day, when you were running around my house, looking so desperate and lonely, so...so helpless that I-,” he paused and laughed fondly, “that I fell in love. From then on, I vowed to always be by your side, or as close to your side as I could be, so you would never be alone or helpless again.”

“You-you’re,” she stuttered, “You’re crazy. I-I’ve never even seen you! I don’t know you,” tears gathered in her eyes, “I don’t-”

“But you do know me, Audrey,” he said her name reverently, “and you have seen me. You’ve seen me everyday since you moved away from home. I’m right there in front of you, holding the door open for you as you come home from work or from the grocery store or,” he inhaled, “from a date.”

Audrey couldn’t speak. This man, this terrifying stalker, was her doorman? No, it couldn’t be; her doorman was nice, normal. He had to be lying.

“I would never lie to you, Audrey,” the man said darkly. Apparently Audrey had spoken her mind.

The longer she thought about it, the more it made sense. Her doorman always asked so many questions about her, about where she was going, who she was seeing, what she was doing. She had thought he was being friendly, but he had just wanted to track her.

Audrey’s heart was pounding wildly in her chest and her head was spinning with all of this new information being thrown at her. Through it all, she didn’t know why she couldn’t hang up. Was she insane? Why did she keep listening to him instead of calling the police?

“Listen, I know it’s a lot to take in, but now we can finally, officially meet,” he chirped, “face to face.”

Audrey dreaded asking the question, but she had to know. “Where are you?”

“Oh,” he said sounding surprised, “I’m right here.”

There was a knock at her door and the line went dead.

To be continued...