So Long, Chester Wheeler(7)

“You were sleeping?” a deep, scratchy male voice said.

“Who is this?”

“It’s almost nine in the morning.”

“Again . . . ,” I said. I was trying to sound patient. I was also trying to wake up fully. “. . . who is this?”

“It’s Chester Wheeler. Your next-door neighbor.”

The news that his voice, his words, had found a way inside the walls of my home was an electric shock to my gut. On the plus side, it brought me fully awake.

“How did you get this number?” I asked, probably after a bit of pesky stammering.

“It’s listed, nimrod.”

“How do you even know my last name?”

“Because it’s . . . on your mailbox? Jeez.”

“Let me try this another way,” I said. “What the hell do you want, Chester?”

“I heard my daughter offered you the job.”

“Yeah. She did.”

“Don’t take the job.”

“I have no intention of taking the job.”

“Well, just don’t,” Chester said.

“I just said I had no intention of it.”

“I’m telling you not to.”

“Holy crap, Chester,” I said, amazed at how quickly he had dragged me down to his elementary school level of discourse. “You are the most irritating man in the world.”

“Good,” he said. “Then don’t take the job.”

I held the phone away from my ear for a moment. I tried to count to ten but only made it to four.

“I’m hanging up now,” I said. “I’m going back to sleep. Don’t ever call here again.”

He said something in reply—or anyway, he tried. I could hear him talking extra fast to get the last word in, but I hung up before the last word could be delivered.

It took me almost an hour to get back to sleep because I was so irritated. But I eventually did, which felt like a small victory.

A very small victory.



Probably no more than fifteen minutes after that pathetically tiny victory, a knock blasted me out of sleep. I know. It’s all very redundant. Now imagine how it felt living inside all that repetition.

I got up and stumbled to the door, shrugging into my robe as I went along. I was thinking, If it’s Wheeler, I’ll kill him. How could any jury convict me?

I opened the door so suddenly that the woman on the other side of it flinched—shrank away from me as if I had raised a baseball bat over her head in anger.

I blinked pitifully into the light.

It was Wheeler’s daughter.

“Sorry,” I said. “It’s been a bad morning. Well. A bad week. Or more. Well. I don’t honestly know how long it’s been. It’s just been bad.”

“It’s after ten,” she said. “I didn’t think I’d wake you.”

“Long story.” Actually it was a short one, but also one that would involve her own flesh and blood and a lot of curse words. “What can I do for you?”

“I just wondered if you’ve thought about that offer.”

I opened my mouth to say something harsh, and in a harsh tone on top of that, but her vulnerability caught me and set me back on my heels. Her hair, bobbed just below her ears, made her look like an elf or a pixie, but I might have mentioned that before. She was wearing an expression that reminded me of a puppy looking up at a rolled newspaper.

“There’s really nothing to think about,” I said, purposely not harshly. “It’s a hard pass.”

“Before you completely dismiss it, though . . .”

“I’ve already completely dismissed it.”

She went on talking as though she hadn’t heard me. “. . . I wrote up a figure. It’s somewhat open to negotiation, but only to a point. My daughter is about to give birth in a few days and I really need to get back home to her. So I’ve already gone up a little from what I was originally thinking.”

She pulled a piece of folded paper out of her pocket and extended it in my direction. I purposely ignored it and held her eyes, which she seemed to find unsettling.

“He has no other grown children to come take over for you?”

“I have two brothers. But . . .”

“They won’t come,” I said.

It was not a question. I knew.

“No,” she said.

We stood in silence for a moment. She was looking down at her feet and so was I. She was wearing these huge, wild bedroom slippers that looked like they were made of imitation poodle fur.

“Look,” she said, when it was clear I wasn’t about to say more. “I know my father is not the easiest man in the world . . .”

She braved a glance up into my face.

“We both know what your father is,” I said.

She quickly looked down at the crazy slippers again.

“At least take a look.”

She held the paper out in my direction, and this time I took it from her. And unfolded it. And read the number. And I was immediately disappointed. I’d wanted it to be a low figure, to further justify my decision. It was not a low figure. Not at all. It was surprisingly generous. Not what I thought I’d be making as a developer after my raise, but close to what I’d been making before it.