chapter 23
“Hello, WORR.”
“Dana, it’s Larry, you never called me back.”
Dana was taken aback to hear the now too familiar Larry on the line.
“Larry, I didn’t get your message,” she answered honestly.
“I didn’t leave a message...I sent a card to you with our picture in it.”
“Oh,” Dana said. She’d never seen the card. “Larry I didn’t get it.”
“It was in a red envelope, surely you must have seen it.” Larry’s voice raised several pitches.
“Larry to be straight with you, I haven’t had a lot of time lately to go through my mail.” It was true. Dana had a stack of fan mail piled up in the corner of her office.
Larry didn’t know how to respond. “Maybe I’ll re-send it,” he said, dreading the fact that he’d have to go and get another copy of the picture made, buy another card and write the same carefully thought out message. Thankfully, he kept a copy of the poem in his top right desk drawer.
“Okay, that’s fine,” Dana replied hoping to end this call.
“But how will I know that you’ll read it?”
“Well...” Dana thought quickly, “I’ll see your name on the return address won’t I?”
Larry hadn’t thought of that. “That’s true. I don’t think I ever told you my last name. It’s Carter like the president.”
“And the Backstreet Boy,” Dana joked.
Larry didn’t respond. This wasn’t funny, this was serious.
“You know,” she continued, “Nick Carter of the Backstreet Boys?”
“I know what you meant I just didn’t find it funny.” He was angry at her for bringing up a boy band member at a time like this.
“Oh.” This guy was really creepy.
“So you’ll look for my card?”
“I told you I would Larry.”
“Larry Carter.”
“Yes, Larry Carter, got it.” Dana jotted down his name. She didn’t want to forget to have Jonny nearby when she found the letter.
“Great.”
“So I’ll talk to you later Larry, I have to get back to work.”
“I understand.”
“Bye.”
“Bye.”
Larry hung up the phone. Damn! These women were all alike, making promises they couldn’t keep. Now he had to go and repeat everything he’d already done.
What a waste of time.
He pounded his hand on the desk angrily, counted to ten, then got the negative to the picture and began the process all over again.