Advice Columnist
Newspaper columnist and online blogger Cynthia Ransom was the Dear Abby of the twenty-first century. Papers across the country carried her column, and millions of people read her advice on a daily basis in the newspaper, on the official Dear Cynthia website or via social media. Her name was not only one of the most recognized in the publishing industry, but also her beautiful young face was frequently seen on television and occasionally in cameo roles in motion pictures.
One reason for Cynthia's popularity—aside from her cover girl looks—was the diverse nature of the questions published in her column and in her blog. She gave advice not only on matters of the heart but also on social customs, fashion, politics, careers and childrearing. Another reason the columnist was so admired was her rapier-sharp wit. Readers enjoyed her use of humor and sarcasm, which often bordered on insult. In short, Cynthia was to the writing world what Jay Leno and David Letterman were to late-night television.
The journalist's huge success had not come easily, however. She had to work many long hours and make numerous sacrifices in her personal life to achieve such fame. As the writer of a daily column and blog, Cynthia had little time to enjoy her hard-earned wealth. Her infrequent vacations were invariably a combination of work and play—alas, more the former than the latter.
One particularly hot and humid summer she rented a house on Nantucket in hopes of escaping the heat in Boston and getting some much-needed rest and relaxation. On the first of July, she packed several suitcases and phoned a taxi to transport her to Logan Airport. After landing at the small Nantucket airfield, she hired a cab to take her to the two-story house she would call home for the next two months. Its silver-gray cedar shingles, white picket fence and colorful front-yard garden were typical of New England island's charm.
When Cynthia unlocked the front door and put her bags in the foyer, she was pleased to see that the interior of the rental unit was as charming and welcoming as its exterior.
"If I ever retire, this would be the ideal place to live," she observed, imagining a much older version of herself sitting beside the fireplace on a chilly autumn day, reading a good book with an overweight, lazy cat sleeping on her lap.
Tired after the flight from Boston—short though it was—she immediately went upstairs to soak in the old claw-foot tub. After a long, relaxing, hot bath, she unpacked her belongings and went into town where she had dinner with an old friend who lived on the island year-round. Promising to return later in the week, Cynthia left after coffee and dessert and returned to the rental house to unwind in front of the big-screen television.
"Ah, this is the life," she said, curling up on the couch with a glass of her favorite wine. "I could get used to this."
Before calling it a day, she tweeted about the latest bit of Hollywood gossip to keep her fans on Twitter satisfied. Tomorrow, she promised herself, she would get busy writing.
Little did America's favorite columnist suspect that it would be the last peaceful evening she was ever to enjoy.
* * *
The following morning Cynthia rose with the sun that shone though the bedroom window. After a cup of hot coffee and a bowl of cold cereal, she sat in the living room in front of the bay window, where she had an excellent view of the Atlantic.
"It's time for me to get to work," she firmly told herself.
Then she put her Toshiba notebook on her lap and began reading her email.
Four full-time employees were responsible for screening all Dear Cynthia's paper and electronic incoming correspondence. After weeding out the fan mail, complaint letters and otherwise unsuitable-to-print messages, these women would then forward electronic copies of the remaining letters to Cynthia to consider answering in her column.
There were one hundred and seventy-three such letters in her inbox, the first of which was from a pre-med student at Harvard who wanted to know how to discourage an amorous, married professor without jeopardizing her grade. Cynthia dragged the email to a folder named REPLY. She then read through more than thirty emails, none of which she considered interesting enough to answer. These she relegated to her desktop recycle bin.
After going to the kitchen for a second cup of coffee, Cynthia returned to the living room and continued reading. Nancy Ivers, a thirty-three-year-old stay-at-home mother from Puritan Falls, had forwarded a letter from a man who, in his own words, "is desperately in love with a woman who doesn't know I exist."
The columnist's first instinct was to delete the email since she thought it too adolescent for her column, but then she reconsidered. She might reply in a humorous vein, one her readers always seemed to enjoy.
When she finally cleared out her inbox, Cynthia opened the REPLY folder and selected three letters for her daily column and five more for her blog. She passed on the pre-med student—that one could wait for a subsequent column—but did select the desperate Romeo appeal. After writing replies to six of the seven letters, she stopped for lunch. Not only was she hungry, but she wanted time to think of a clever answer for the lovesick man.
More than an hour later, Cynthia went back to her computer. She opened her Word file, cut and pasted the contents of the timid man's letter into her column and then composed her reply.
Dear Desperate, the writer began and then proceeded to tell the infatuated man, with as much wit as she could muster, to get off his lazy ass and tell the woman in question how he felt. Make your feelings known, she concluded, in a more serious tone. How can you expect the woman to ever return your affections if she doesn't know you're alive? If you're too afraid to tell her in person, then call her up. That's what telephones are for. If phoning doesn't work, I suggest you go out on a limb. Go to her house, knock on the door and tell her how you feel. The worst that can happen is that the woman will reject you. And if she does, don't take it too badly. You'll get over it eventually.
Finished with her answer to the desperate Romeo, Cynthia read through her entire column several times, rewriting a few sentences and adding or deleting a phrase here and there. When she was satisfied with her work, she saved the file, exited Word and emailed the final copy to her editor.
"One down," she said, closing the lid of her laptop. "About a hundred more to go."
Tempted by the sight, smells and sounds of the beach, she walked outside to enjoy the Nantucket sunshine for a few hours before beginning another day's column.
* * *
After returning from her walk to Brant Point Lighthouse, Cynthia entered the house, took her sandy flip-flops off and headed toward the kitchen for a glass of ice cold lemonade. She made it as far as the kitchen doorway when she heard her BlackBerry's ring tone signal an incoming call.
"What part of 'I'm on vacation' don't they understand?" she groaned, assuming it was someone contacting her about work since her family and close friends always called the personal number on her iPhone.
"This had better be important," she barked into the cell phone, without wasting her precious time on a polite greeting.
"Miss Cynthia Ransom? Is that you?"
It was a man's voice, one the columnist was not familiar with.
"Who is this?" she demanded to know.
"It is you, isn't it? My name is Paul Redford. I know the name means nothing to you, but you told me to call you."
"Why would I do that if I don't know you?"
"I sent a letter to Dear Cynthia. You replied that I should tell you how I feel, so I'm phoning you now to tell you I love you."
Cynthia immediately ended the call. Moments later the ring tone sounded again. The caller ID read UNIDENTIFIED.
"Hello," she said.
"Please don't hang up on me," the same voice pleaded.
"Who are you and what do you want?"
"I told you. I'm Paul Redford, or as you probably know me, Dear Desperate. I realize we've never been formally introduced, but ever since I saw you on Bill Maher's show, I've been in love with you. I just never had the nerve to speak to you until now."
"How did you get my number?"
"That's not important. What matters is how I feel, and how you feel."
"I feel like hanging up," Cynthia said and pushed the power button on her phone.
No sooner did she turn off the BlackBerry, however, than her iPhone began to ring, which was uncommon since there were fewer than a dozen people who knew that number.
"Hello?" she answered.
"My darling, why did you hang up on me? You, yourself, told me I should call you. I'm simply following your advice."
"Leave me alone!" she screamed and turned off the second phone.
It did little good because the land line in the rental home then started to ring. Cynthia disconnected the phone without bothering to answer since she already knew who the caller was. Somehow Dear Desperate had learned that number as well, of that she was certain.
Enough of this! I've got work to do.
She went into the living room and turned on her laptop. When she opened her mail program, her inbox contained more than a hundred emails from Paul Redford. Cynthia deleted them all and then turned off her computer.
Hoping to discover the identity of the man who was harassing her, she turned on her BlackBerry and quickly ran through her contact list for Nancy Ivers' number.
"I need you to do me a favor," Cynthia said when Nancy answered. "I want you to locate the original letter you forwarded to me in this morning's emails, the one from the man who referred to himself as Desperate."
"Desperate? That doesn't sound familiar," Nancy replied. "Are you sure I sent the letter to you, not one of the others?"
"I'm positive it was you. Please look in your files and see if it's there. I need his return address from the envelope."
Nancy retrieved the accordion folder from her drawer and rifled through all the letters twice, going back several days.
"Sorry, Cynthia. I've got no letter from anyone named Desperate."
"Can you check the SENT folder of you email? You might have thrown the actual letter away or misplaced it."
Nancy had sent her employer forty-five emails that morning. She opened and read each one, but none of them was from the man who had called himself Desperate.
Cynthia thanked Nancy and then ended the call. The phone rang a moment later.
"Cynthia? It's me, darling."
"Who the hell are you?" she snapped.
"I told you. My name is Paul Redford. I wrote to you and ...."
"My employee can't find your letter."
"I wrote directly to you."
"No, you didn't. Your letter was attached to an email ...."
"What difference does it make how my letter got to you?"
Without answering, Cynthia turned off her phone again. Dear Desperate was right about one thing: what difference did it make how she had received his letter? The key to the mystery was the fact that he had read her reply. That meant he must have seen the email she'd sent to her editor.
* * *
The following morning Cynthia boarded the earliest flight from Nantucket to Logan Airport, where she took a taxi to Burgess Communications' Boston office. Harrison Wynn was her editor at Burgess, and he and his assistant took care of all matters relating to her column.
"Cynthia, what are you doing here?" Harrison asked with surprise when the writer entered his office at nine in the morning.
"I'm sorry I didn't phone first, but I need to talk to you. It's urgent."
"No problem. You know I always have time to meet with you. Sit down, please. Would you like some coffee?"
The distressed journalist shook her head, wanting to get right to the point of her visit.
"Someone in this office is invading my privacy," she cried.
"What do you mean?"
Cynthia quickly relayed the events of the previous day.
"He had to have read the email I sent you," she concluded. "How else could he have known what was in my reply to his letter?"
"When did you send me that email?" Harrison asked.
"Yesterday afternoon."
"I wasn't in the office yesterday, and I haven't had the chance to turn on my computer yet. I got here only a few moments before you did."
The editor leaned over and pressed the power button on his iMac. When the system was up and running, he opened his mail program. Cynthia's email arrived unopened.
"No one here could have seen it," Harrison insisted.
"I don't understand any of this. How could he have known what I wrote? Could a hacker ...?"
The columnist's question was interrupted when her editor's administrative assistant knocked on the door.
"Excuse me, Miss Ransom. There's a phone call for you."
"For me? But no one knows I'm here."
"He says his name is Paul Redford and that you know who he is."
"It's him," she announced, her face turning pale. "It's the man who's stalking me."
Harrison Wynn picked up his phone and called the police.
* * *
Rather than fly back to Nantucket, Cynthia returned to her Beacon Hill brownstone where she felt relatively safe. The police promised to look into the matter and get back to her as soon as they learned anything the mysterious caller. She doubted the case would be given a high priority, however, since, to her knowledge, no actual crime had been committed. Did a few phone calls constitute a true stalking?
When her front door bolted behind her, the columnist breathed a sigh of relief. Bless her home with its state-of-the-art security features. No one was going to get inside unless she let him in, least of all Dear Desperate.
Exhausted, she kicked off her Ferragamo sandals and stretched out on her Italian leather sofa. Cynthia promptly closed her eyes and slept.
It was dark outside when she woke and heard the phone in her kitchen ring. Her heart raced as it rang once, twice, three times.
After the fourth ring, the answering machine clicked on: "This is Cynthia. I can't come to the phone right now, but if you leave your name and number, I'll try to get back to you."
The columnist felt every muscle in her body tense as she waited for the sound of the beep.
"It's me, Paul. Please pick up. I know you're there."
"Leave me alone!" she cried, yanking the phone cord out of the wall.
What has happened to me? she suddenly thought as she stood in her kitchen with the silent phone receiver in her hand.
In just twenty-four hours, she had been reduced from a confident, competent career woman to a sobbing, helpless female, forced to hide behind locked doors, afraid to return to Nantucket and enjoy her much-needed vacation.
"No!" she shouted angrily, her voice echoing through the quiet townhouse. "I won't be bullied like this. I won't allow some crackpot with a phone to destroy my life. This is going to end NOW!"
Cynthia plugged the cord from the kitchen phone back into the wall jack. Then she reached into her purse, took out both her cell phones and turned them on.
It was nearly five, nerve-racking minutes before her kitchen phone rang.
"Listen, you," she shouted into the receiver. "I've had just about all ...."
"Miss Ransom," a woman's voice interrupted her rant. "This is Officer Jacoby with the Boston Police Department. I'm calling you about the man who's been harassing you."
"Thank God! Have you found him?"
"The phone company was able to trace the calls to a phone number belonging to a man named Paul Redford."
"That's him! That's the name he gave me when he phoned."
"Miss Ransom." The officer hesitated a moment before continuing, "Mr. Redford has been dead for more than six months."
"Then who is ...?"
Suddenly, the power in the brownstone went out, and Cynthia was thrust into darkness. Even the kitchen phone, which should have continued working during a power outage, went dead.
"Hello ... hello, Officer Jacoby? Are you still there?"
The loud sound of the knock on her door terrified Cynthia.
"Wh-who's there?" she stammered.
"It's me, darling, Paul. I've decided to take your advice and go out on a limb. Since you won't answer my calls, I had no choice but to come see you in person."
The state-of-the-art security system might work very well on burglars and vandals, but it did nothing to deter the dead man from entering the columnist's Beacon Hill home. As the front door flew open, Dear Desperate, a.k.a. the late Paul Redford, stepped inside. Cynthia Ransom was fortunate that the lights had gone out since she would not have to see the decomposed face of the corpse who, following her advice, had come to declare his love for her.
Goody Hale, an old friend from the 1600s, once gave me some good advice: "Get rid of that damned cat!"
