A Letter from the End of the World

I

When Pepper Baiij returned home after her eventful night at work in the Trinity Gardens Retirement Community, she heated a frozen roast beef dinner in the microwave and turned on her computer. Shivering in the cold room, she brought the meal to the bed and covered her legs. She looked at pictures of Gerry Clifford while she ate.

“My adorable eyelet morq,” she said wistfully, followed by a shudder. She placed the empty container at the end of the bed for the cats to enjoy.

“I have no idea what that means,” Pepper sighed. “Maybe I’m losing what’s left of my mind.”

Pepper retrieved a box of letters from a container beside her bed and took out a card with a honey-colored envelope. The date of the cancellation stamp was November 3, 1988.

II

The day she received the letter, Pepper Baiij was twenty-one years old and very pregnant. She was a stocky young woman who had what some people described derisively as a “very Eastern European look.” She had a round face and dishwater-blonde hair with red-gold highlights courtesy of Sun-In and a blow-dryer.

The card addressed to Ms. Pepper Baiij-Velasco stood out among the unpaid bills and junk mail flyers. It was obviously not from any of Pepper’s older relatives, who insisted on referring to her as “Mrs. Pepper Velasco,” despite her admonitions that she hated being called Mrs., and she hadn’t taken Larry’s last name. She supposed that it was either a belated birthday card or an early Christmas card.

Back in the townhouse, Pepper opened the envelope, revealing a pretty card with embossed red roses. The salutary missive in scrolling white letters read “Happy birthday to a dear young lady.”

The greeting inside the card said simply “May your every wish come true. Have a great birthday!”

To Pepper’s delight, the card was signed: “With lots of love from your other brother, Charlie.” The inelegant scrawl belonged to Pepper’s old friend, Charlie McNamara.

Pepper’s hands trembled as she unfolded the letter inside the card. The handwritten note, which was dated November 1, 1988, read:

“Dear Pepper,

We wish you a happy birthday and hope that you and your husband are well. We understand that you will be a mother soon and offer you our fondest congratulations.

You were such a good friend to our Ursula and Charlie when you were all growing up together. We wish that Ursula had listened to your warning about Elizabeth and Emma Kennedy. Her involvement with those awful girls destroyed her.

As you know, Charles was never the same after losing his little sister. We knew that he smoked marijuana, of course, but, as you know, he also started using harder drugs and drinking heavily.

We didn’t want to be hard on Charles because we understood his pain. However, we were relieved when he agreed to go into rehabilitation starting at the beginning of November. Unfortunately, before embarking on his new path, he decided to attend a Halloween party where there were a lot of drugs available.

We are sorry to tell you that Charlie was pronounced dead at 3:45 this morning. His blood alcohol level was 0.46 and he had smoked marijuana, taken pills, and injected heroin as well.

Charlie intended to mail you this card from rehab with a letter informing you of his decision to get clean. One of the last things he said before going to that ill-fated party was “I hope that Pepper will be proud of me. She’s the only sister I’ve got now. I hope she’ll forgive me for not staying in touch better because I’ve been so fucked up.”

We are having Charles’ body cremated and will have a private ceremony to honor him. We honestly don’t want any of his drug-using friends to attend. I am certain that every one of those parasites would have vanished after he went into rehab.

Art and I are going to Florida for the winter and when summer comes, we are moving to Juneau, Alaska. It is too painful for us to remain here in Lawrence after losing Ursula and now Charles.

Dear Pepper, I realize that you thought of us as the “Cool” parents because we were lenient with Charlie and Ursula drinking and smoking cigarettes and marijuana. The truth is, we were so wrapped up in our own drama that we failed to connect with our children. I was aware that you felt alienated from your family, who had a lot of rules for you to follow. I don’t wish to insult your parents, but in many ways, they failed to connect with you just as badly as Arthur and I failed to connect with our kids. They made you feel like a bad child, which you were most certainly not.

As your children grow up, don’t forget to talk to them. Make them feel like they matter. That is the most important thing that you can do as a parent. Arthur and I failed to do that, and now both of our children are gone.

We will always remember what a quiet, polite girl you were. More importantly, we will always remember what a good friend you were to Charles and Ursula. They loved you very much. I hope you will carry that knowledge with you and treasure it always.

With sincere best wishes,

Mary and Art McNamara

III

A keening wail rose from Pepper’s throat. She slammed her fists on the table and screamed.

“No! No! No! No! No! Oh, Charlie, no! Oh, fuck! Why? Why? Why did you do this? Why?”

A befuddled Larry made his way out of the bedroom, his hair mussed and rubbing the sleep out of his dark eyes.

“Pepper, what in the world?” Larry asked.

“Charlie’s dead,” Pepper quavered, thrusting the letter at Larry. “He died on November 1.”

“I’m really sorry, Pepper,” Larry said. He tried to put his hand on Pepper’s shoulder, but she shrugged it away. She curled up in a fetal position on the couch. Larry sat beside her, leaving distance between them.

“I know he was a good friend for you,” Larry said.

“I wish he’d been a better friend to himself,” Pepper sighed. “But I guess he couldn’t. Really, he died the same day that Ursula did. Their parents are moving to Alaska.”

“Yeah, I guess they wouldn’t want to live in that house with the memory of their kids.”

“We need to make sure that our kids always know we love them.”

“Pepper, you can talk to me about Charlie and Ursula if you want. I don’t mind.”

“You’re a good friend, Larry,” Pepper said quietly, squeezing his hand. “I wish I could be a better wife for you.”

“I knew what I was getting into,” Larry said, but Pepper didn’t feel any less guilty for marrying a man that she didn’t love because she could never be with the man she loved.

“So, do you want to order some Chinese, and we can talk?” Larry teased.

Pepper swatted Larry with a pillow, and he laughed. He knew quite well that since becoming pregnant, his wife couldn’t stand the smell or taste of Chinese food.

“Well, at least I made you laugh,” Larry said. “So, it was worth getting my ass kicked. Seriously, do you want something to eat? After all, you’re eating for three now.”

“One of the fried chicken TV dinners would be fine. Thanks, Lar.”

As the couple ate their meals at the ramshackle kitchen table, Pepper regaled Larry with anecdotes about her childhood friends.

“I met Ursula just before seventh grade,” Pepper said. “We had just moved to the new house on Pine Avenue. Charlie and Ursula lived at the bottom of the hill where Pine intersects with Willow.”

“Yeah, in the big white house with the picket fence,” Larry said.

“I was so mad at my dad for making us move. I wanted to go to Jefferson Junior High with my friends Augie and Alison, but now I was going to MacArthur, and the only kid I’d met was Rude Rudy Murphy. As you can probably guess, I didn’t like him very much.”

IV

I had walked down to MacArthur Park, and I was hoping that I wouldn’t see Rude Rudy or his friends on the way home. I heard a girl’s voice calling to me and when I looked over, I saw Ursula standing in front of the big white house. She smiled and waved at me and she looked friendly, so I went over to talk to her. She was a little thing with red hair in pigtails and freckles on her nose, and she made me think of Pippi Longstocking. I hoped that she was as nice as she looked.

“You’re new around here, huh?” Ursula asked. “Is it so that you’re Don Baiij’s granddaughter?”

I kind of cringed because even though I was proud of my grandpa being a famous weatherman, I didn’t want that to be what people knew me for. But I said that I was.

“That’s cool,” Ursula said. “My family was sad when he died. We don’t like the new guy near as much. I can’t remember what his name is.”

“It’s Francesco Donaldson,” I said.

“My mom calls him Rudolph Valentino because of his slick black hair. My dad says that he’s full of himself. Anyways, I’m Ursula McNamara.”

“Pepper Baiij.”

“Pepper—that’s a cool name! I love that so much! Wanna come in for a glass of lemonade?’

“Yeah, if it would be all right for me to call my parents and let them know where I am.”

“Yeah, of course! C’mon in. Oh, we still have some of the chocolate chip cookies that my grandma brought over. We’ve gotta save some for my brother Charlie, though, or he’ll kill me.”

I know it sounds silly, but I think that Ursula and I became best friends the moment we met. She was like the sister I never had. She goofed on me sometimes, but she was never mean to me. Ursula was popular at school, but she risked everything to be friends with me. I was the opposite of popular. Most of the other kids were horrible to me. Ursula was very tough despite being so tiny. I didn’t know how much she was struggling until it was too late because she put on such a brilliant façade.

V

When I met Charlie, he was sixteen years old and I thought that he was the coolest guy ever. He had messy red hair and was as white as a ghost. My parents didn’t like him. My dad didn’t approve of the fact that Charlie had dropped out of school and was working at the Record Barn.

My mom has a dirty mind and she thought that I was in love with Charlie and that he was going to take advantage of me and get me pregnant, but it wasn’t like that at all. Charlie was like a real big brother. He made tapes for me from the expensive import albums that he’d get from work.

When some boys from school broke the Janis Joplin glasses that Ursula got me for my birthday, Charlie went and scared the hell out of them. He was tall and skinny and looked like a scarecrow, but when he put on his black trenchcoat and Doc Martins, he was a badass. He had that wild Irish temper and he scared the hell out of those assholes. I didn’t mind them thinking that Charlie was my boyfriend, because they thought twice before messing with me after that.

Ursula and Charlie knew that I was head over heels for Mainline’s lead singer, Odinn Lacey, and sometimes they’d tease me about it, but never in a mean way. When Charlie was home, we’d sit in his room and play records and smoke weed. We’d talk about going to England. Charlie wanted to meet Mainline’s old bassist, Chuck Bennett, and start a new band with him. Ursula said she’d be the manager for the new band. Then she’d always say in a sing-song voice, “and Pepper’s gonna marry Odinn!” I’d blush, and the three of us would fall all over ourselves laughing.

I would have died happy if a fucking nuclear bomb dropped or an F-5 tornado hit Lawrence during one of those moments and took us all out. Me and Charlie and Ursula had so much fun when we were together, just daydreaming and scheming and listening to records and getting high. But we knew we had to get serious sometime, so when me and Ursula started our freshman year of high school, Charlie went to broadcasting school to be a radio DJ.

Me and Ursula were determined that we weren’t going to get stoned as much in high school. We wanted to get good grades so we could go to college to be band managers together. At first, we stuck to our guns, and Charlie being so excited about broadcasting school inspired us too.

Ursula’s dad let her drive his old car, but it was a piece of shit that was always breaking down. One day when we were stopped by the side of the road while the radiator boiled over, Liz and Emma Kennedy pulled up on their motorcycle to help us. It was the fifth of October, a week before my sixteenth birthday, and I’ll always think of that day as the beginning of the end.”

VI

“We sort of knew Liz and Emma from Record Barn. Charlie would buy weed from them sometimes. They were twins around Charlie’s age, and we couldn’t help thinking they were total badasses. They had teased jet-black hair and they wore leather jackets, skin-tight jeans, and biker boots. They looked like rockers, but rumor had it that they made most of their money selling drugs. Some people said that they had sold their souls to Satan, but we didn’t put much stock in that kind of nonsense.

“You’re Charlie Mac’s little sister, right?” Liz asked Ursula, who just nodded because she was in complete awe that this foxy older headbanger chick was giving her the time of day.

“How’s he doing?”

“He’s good,” Ursula stammered. “He’s going to broadcasting school.”

“Cool,” said Emma. “Babycakes, this radiator has a leak. You chicks can follow us to my place, and we’ll get you taken care of.”

We followed Liz and Emma down by the railyard to this run-down house with cars and motorcycles in the yard. They showed us what was wrong with the radiator, and they showed us how to fix it. When Ursula tried to pay them, they told her to keep her money.

“If you want to pay us back, let us teach you how to fix your car,” Liz said. “Women need to learn how to fix their own cars. That was the one good thing that our asshole father taught us.”

“You girls want to come inside for a drink and maybe a toke?” Emma asked.

Liz and Emma had our number. They could see that we idolized them and wanted nothing more than to hang out with two cool older girls. It was another one of those situations that was too good to last and it started going bad almost from the start, but it was addictive.

I never got addicted to the drugs, but I had a hard time breaking up with the money I got from selling them. I never fell in love with Liz or Emma, but I loved the feeling of being treated like one of their peers, even though I was quite sure that they were just using me as a mule. Besides, Ursula was my best friend and I wanted to be there for her. She ended up addicted to drugs and to Liz and Emma. It killed her, and then it killed Charlie.

VII

Tears fell from Pepper’s eyes onto the letter written by Mary McNamara twenty-six years ago. Mary died of an overdose a week after she wrote the letter, and Art followed four years later, drinking himself to death. The family that Pepper loved and envied and whom she thought would be a part of her life forever were gone in the blink of an eye.

Pepper and Larry divorced in 1996 when their children were seven years old. Their friendship healed following the divorce, and Pepper hoped that they had managed to give their children the love they needed despite their own personal struggles.

Pepper sent texts to each of her kids before turning in.

“Ix no need to answer now I just wanted to wish you a good 1^st day. Love Mom.”

“Quetz no need to answer now. See you this weekend. Love Mom.”

Pepper nestled under the covers and was quickly surrounded by her cats.

“Charlie and Ursula, if you can hear me, I want you to know that you were the two best friends anyone could ever have, and I will love you forever.”

As Pepper drifted off to sleep, a spirit drifted through her yard on the cold winter wind and floated through the closed back door into the dim hallway.