Strange Days: Fabulous Journeys With Gardner Dozois (35 page)

The ambulance left.

In the hush that followed, they could hear sirens begin to wail all over town.

Send No Money

Introduction to Send No Money

Gardner Dozois and I had been collaborating at life for over 15 years by the time this story was written, but we had not yet done any real collaborations at work. I’d seen him working with various other writers like Jack Dann and Michael Swanwick, but I was a newcomer on the scene and didn’t really expect him to work with me. I did, however, expect his advice on my work. Gardner was, as far as I was concerned, the best short fiction editor in the field. He still is for my money, though there are several others who are also very good. (Now I have to admit that I might have a small bias, but this is indeed my honest opinion.) It was my habit, when I was confused with a story, or unclear on its direction, to seek out free editorial services. Hey, why not? Not that I always took it, but that’s another story.

This whole thing started one day just after Gardner had collected the mail from our mailbox and thrown it down on the coffee table. In it was one of those advertising postcards. I had no idea what it was announcing, but I could see a corner of it, dark green, sticking out of the pile. I didn’t think much about it at the time. It was probably a new pizza joint in the neighborhood. Only much later, when I got around to sorting through the mail, did I notice that the only postcard in there was actually bright orange. Huh? I held it up. “Gardner, wasn’t this green when you brought I in?”

“It still is,” he replied. That was when I flipped it over and realized that it was a different color on each side. I felt stupid, of course, but the germ of an idea was planted in my brain. My sister, who was divorced, had been complaining about how hard it was to meet people and I had been thinking of writing a story on the subject. The two concepts just seemed to go together. The opening section just flowed. But where to go from there? I had no idea.

For several days I thought about where to take the story, and even put it aside for a while, but nothing came to me. Thus enter my “get advice free” card. I took the story to my favorite editor and asked his opinion of where I should take it. “Well, for one thing it’s not science fiction,” he told me. Since I had been thinking in terms of strange futures and perhaps genetic engineering, I was crushed. “It’s fantasy,” he told me. Of course. Once the card became “magic” the rest was going to be easy. Still, it was with utter amazement that I found out that he not only was willing to help me, but that he actually wanted to work with me on the story. The entire middle of the story is his, while the beginning and the ending are mine.

Gardner’s real talent in collaboration, though, and it’s not a small one, is that he has a very good eye for style. He can spot and smooth over those annoying glitches in style that let you know a story wasn’t written by just one person, or perhaps just make you a little uncomfortable with the voice, even if you aren’t sure why. That is why it’s always been his job, in all his collaborations, to go through and make a final smoothing draft, cleaning up the lumps and scars where the patient was patched together.

This is a fun little story. It probably won’t change anybody’s life, but if it is a smooth and good read, you can thank Gardner for doing the final draft so well, that even I can’t tell where his prose leaves off and mine starts.

Enjoy!

Susan Casper

Send No Money

by Gardner Dozois and Susan Casper

SEND NO MONEY!
the postcard said, in dark blue letters against a bright orange background. Judy smiled, and pushed it into the stack. She liked her junk mail. Certainly it was less depressing than the load of bills that made up the bulk of her mail. She especially liked the computer-generated “personalized” ones, eternally optimistic, that excitedly announced, “You may have won a million dollars!” (Only Maybe Not), or the ones that promised to send you something “Absolutely Free!” for only $2 plus shipping and handling, or the ones that enclosed sample swatches of material, or paper-thin slices of stale-looking fruitcake, or slightly squashed bits of cheese wrapped up in cellophane. Today’s stack of junk mail was particularly large. Who
knew
what might be in it?

She carried the mail inside, hung her coat neatly in the closet, and then went in search of something to eat. The freezer was packed with frozen food of the “gourmet dinner” variety. She stared at them listlessly, unable to work up any enthusiasm. Too much trouble after the kind of day she’d had at work. She settled for cold leftover spaghetti and a glass of milk. Sighing, she carried the food over to the table. Lately, it seemed like deciding what to have for dinner was the most important decision of her day; certainly it was the day’s most
exciting
moment, with the possible exception of the “Dark Shadows” reruns on TV . . . Well, whose fault was
that?
she asked herself. Ginny and Lois weren’t eating leftovers tonight, were they? They had gone to dinner at Le Boeuf, and then on to Spangles for dancing, and they had wanted her to come too. In fact, Ginny had spent the whole last week trying to talk her into it. Why had she refused?

The fact was, she was tired of the whole dating scene—the bars, the banal small talk, the clichéd pick-up lines, the loud insipid music, the leering faces. Anyway, all you ever seemed to meet were nerds, or narcissistic romeos in mirror sunglasses, or prowling husbands in clever plastic disguises . . .

So
this
is better? she thought.
Oh
yeah. Right. Sighing again, she sat down to go through the mail while she ate. Simple Pleasures . . . but at least there was no cover charge.

It seemed like a fairly typical assortment. The first three envelopes were bills from the electric company, the phone company, and the credit-card company. One was
awful,
the others not as bad as she had feared. There was an unordered catalogue from one of those “naughty underwear” places; a solicitation from a local animal-rescue shelter; a “Vote for So-and-So” political flyer; an offer of twenty-percent off on a diamond engagement ring with a genuine imitation diamond—guaranteed absolutely undetectable from the real thing at fifty feet or more—addressed to Mr. J. B. Pender; an offer of “personalized” ballpoint pens that promised an enormous money-saving discount on orders of 100 or more; and, finally, a little green postcard.

Green? She could have
sworn
that it had been orange. Or had there been
two
postcards, and she’d somehow dropped the orange one somewhere on the way in? She ate a forkful of spaghetti, and prodded the postcard idly with her finger. Strange . . . No company name, no return address. It was one of those “personalized” come-ons, and the front of the card shouted
MS. JUDY PENDER!! in enormous glittery letters. She turned it over.

The card said:
MS. JUDY PENDER, WHY ARE YOU SITTING THERE EATING COLD SPAGHETTI WHEN YOU
COULD
BE OUT HAVING THE TIME OF YOUR LIFE?

Whoo. She was startled enough to drop the card and sit back suddenly in her chair. Pretty strange. What were the odds against her reading that
particular
come-on pitch just at the exact moment that she actually
did
happen to be eating some cold spaghetti? Pretty astronomical. She tittered nervously, then began to laugh, perhaps a shade too loudly. Mindboggling coincidences
did
happen, she knew that. But this one was weird. Ripley’s
Believe It or Not
would love it. They’d publish it right next to “Man Who Grew A Potato in the Shape of Anita Ekberg” and “Replica of the
Titanic
Made Entirely Out of Old Fingernail Parings.”

Still chuckling, she quickly finished her spaghetti. Almost time for her nightly fix of “Dark Shadows” reruns. She reached out and picked up the postcard again.

This time it said:
IS A NIGHT SPENT WATCHING “DARK SHADOWS” RERUNS REALLY
ALL
YOU WANT OUT OF LIFE?

She dropped the card again.

She found that, without realizing it, she had pushed herself away from the table and was standing bolt upright, quivering, like a garden rake that’s been stepped on.

Her mind was blank for several heartbeats, and then she began casting frantically about for explanations. She’d just
missed
that part of the text the first time she’d read the card, skipped right over it. Sure, that was it. And as for the card mentioning “Dark Shadows” . . . Well, coincidences
did
happen. Remember that. A man drops his watch in the ocean and twenty years later finds it inside the belly of a fish he’s just caught; another one jumps off the Empire State Building, and survives because he happens to land on top of the long-lost twin brother he hasn’t seen since they both were five . . . It Happens All The Time. Or—and she grabbed for this one eagerly, although the ultimate implications of it were somewhat unflattering—she was just statistically
predictable,
normal, average, humdrum, easy meat for the trend-spotters and social analysts. Doubtless her habits were far from unique. Probably there were
millions
of bored young women just like her who spent their evenings eating cold spaghetti and watching “Dark Shadows.” Hence the card, addressed to her statistical
type,
a profile she just happened to fit embarrassingly well.

Nevertheless, she didn’t touch the card again.

Leaving it where it lay, she bustled nervously around, putting the spaghetti bowl into the sink to soak, picking up last Sunday’s paper (which was still strewn over the end of the couch), emptying the ashtrays, annoyedly pushing the term “displacement activity” out of her head every time it forced its way into it.

After a while, she began to get tired. She glanced at the television, but whoever the Machiavellian social researcher responsible for the postcard was, she’d be damned if she’d prove him
right.
Besides, “Dark Shadows” was almost over anyway. The only things on now were “M*A*S*H” reruns, and she’d always thought that Hawkeye was a wimp, like one of those oh-so-sincere- and-sensitive types from the singles bars who suddenly turned into married men when the full moon came out. She could survive a night without television just fine, thank you. Decisively, Judy went into the bedroom to get the book she’d been reading and to pick up her double-acrostic magazine, and then headed back toward her favorite armchair.

On her way past the table, she glanced suspiciously at the card again—and it was
red.
Bright fire-engine red! It had been
green
before, hadn’t it? She stood swaying in shock, trying to remember. Had it? Yes, dammit, it
had
been green, bright apple green. There was no doubt about that.

Unfortunately, there was also no doubt that the card was now
red.

Shakily, Judy sat down. One part of her mind was keeping up a stream of desperate speculation about dyes that faded from one color to another, perhaps depending on the length of time they’d been exposed to light, but that was so obviously a last-ditch—and rather ineffectual—defensive effort on behalf of Rationality that she didn’t pay much attention to it. Slowly, with immense trepidation, as if it were a venomous insect, she picked up the card again, this time with only two fingers, holding it as far away from herself as she could and still make out the words.

This time, in spangly gold letters, it said:
SURE
THE GULAG ARCHIPELAGO
IS A GOOD BOOK, BUT WOULDN’T YOU RATHER PUT ON YOUR BLUE CHANEL DRESS—THE SLINKY ONE WITH THE GOLD GLITTER SASH—AND THE GOLD HOOP EARRINGS YOU BOUGHT AT THE CRAFTS FAIR, AND GO
OUT
ON THE TOWN FOR A ROMANTIC EVENING AT DELANEY’S OR KARISMA? INSTEAD OF STARTING ANOTHER ONE OF THOSE STUPID CROSSWORD PUZZLE MAGAZINES, WOULDN’T YOU RATHER BE OUT STARTING UP A “MEANINGFUL RELATIONSHIP”?

Her hand began to tremble, vibrating the card into unreadability. By the time she steadied it down again, it read:
WE CAN FIND THE PERFECT MATE FOR
YOU!

Moving with exaggerated caution, as if it might explode, she lowered the card to the tabletop. She wiped her hands on her thighs. Her mouth was dry.

The card changed to a soft chocolate brown, this time before her eyes. In urgent red letters, it now said:
WE CAN HELP YOU FIND THE MAN OF YOUR DREAMS! SATISFACTION GUARANTEED! MANY,
MANY
YEARS OF EXPERIENCE! STAFF OF EXPERTS!

That faded, and was replaced by:
SEND NO MONEY!

Followed, after a pause, in a somewhat more subdued script, by:
Magic Mates... a division of Elf Hill Corp.

To her own surprise, much of Judy’s fear was draining rapidly away, to be replaced by a drifting, dreamlike bemusement. Could this
really
be happening? Had someone sifted LSD into the grated parmesan cheese she’d used on the spaghetti? Her rational mind kept throwing up feverish high-tech speculations about wireless telegraphy and time-release invisible inks, but she no more believed them than she really believed that she was dreaming, or hallucinating, or crazy. Instead, she was beginning to feel a curious tranced calm, a bemused nonchalance. Oh, magic. Of course.

Can you guys read my mind?
she thought, trying to project her thoughts
at
the card, the way they do in sci-fi movies, keeping her lips firmly shut.

Do you know what I’m thinking? Hello? Hello in there . . . ?

The card didn’t answer.

No mind-reading, then. Still, there was no
way
that the postcard could know all that stuff about her unless they had her under some sort of magical observation. Maybe they really
could
do what they said they could do

“Well,” she said, aloud. “I don’t know. I don’t really
need—“

COME NOW, MS. PENDER, the card said, brown letters on gold this time. WE
KNOW
YOU DREAM ABOUT YOUR PERFECT MAN ALL THE TIME. YOU CERTAINLY TALK TO YOUR GIRLFRIENDS ABOUT HIM OFTEN ENOUGH. DON’T WORRY, WE
KNOW
WHAT YOU WANT. TALL AND SLENDER, WITH GREY EYES. WAVY BROWN HAIR, RIGHT? GLASSES. NO MUSTACHE. WITTY. ARTICULATE. SENSITIVE YET MASCULINE. DECISIVE YET UNDERSTANDING. NOT MARRIED. RIGHT? WELL, WE CAN
FIND
HIM FOR YOU! SATISFACTION GUARANTEED! THIRTY-DAY TRIAL PERIOD! SEND NO MONEY! DEAL’S OFF IF YOU DON’T LIKE HIM! GIVE IT A TRY!

“Well . . . ” Judy said, feeling only a distant twinge of wonder that she was sitting here talking to a postcard.

OH, GO AHEAD
, the postcard said.
YOU KNOW YOU’RE AS HORNY AS A GOAT . . .

“Well,” Judy said weakly. “I really
shouldn’t . . .”

The postcard went blank. Then, in large block letters, formal and somewhat severe, as though it were growing impatient with her, there appeared:

DO YOU WANT THIS SERVICE?

yes no

□ □

CHECK ONE.

Hesitantly, feeling an odd little chill run up her spine, she checked the square for “yes.”

The doorbell rang.

Early one Saturday morning, a month later, Judy awoke to the soft liquid trilling of birdsong. The sun had not reached the bedroom window yet, and the room was still in shadow, but hot bright sunlight was already touching the roof of the house across the street, turning tile and mortar and brick to gold. The wedge of sky she could see was a clear bright blue. It was going to be another beautiful day, more like May than March.

Mark snored softly beside her, and she raised herself up on one elbow to look down at him for a moment, smiling fondly. Even his
snores
were melodic! Moving carefully, so as not to wake him, she got up and threw on a bathrobe, and quietly let herself out of the bedroom. She would make breakfast, a big weekend breakfast, and serve it to him in bed, along with maybe one or two other items.

The thought made her smile as she padded into the kitchen to start the coffee perking, but when she popped into the front room to pick up a sheet of newspaper to drain the bacon on, her smile died at once.

There was a little green postcard lying on the throw rug next to the front door, as though someone had ignored the box outside and pushed it through the mail slot instead.

She knew at once what it was, of course.

Judy and Mark had been dating for a month now, ever since his car had broken down outside, and he’d rung her doorbell to ask if he could use the phone. They’d been fascinated with each other at once. Mark was
perfect.
It was almost
scary
how perfect he was. Never had she jibed better with a man. They liked the same books, the same movies, the same music, the same foods, enjoyed the same kind of quirky humor, shared the same kinds of dreams and aspirations, disagreeing just enough to add a touch of spice to the relationship, but never enough to make them seriously squabble or fight. Physically, they couldn’t possibly have been more compatible.

The month had gone by for Judy in a blur of excitement and happiness. She had done her best to forget about the magic postcard, thrust it out of her mind, and deny its reality. That had been made easier by the fact that the postcard itself had disappeared right after that first evening, although at one point she tore the house apart looking for it. She sighed. Out of sight, out of mind. People were
always
willing to be lulled into forgetting about unpleasant or inconvenient facts, and she was no exception. For long stretches of time, she had almost managed to convince herself that it had never happened at all—or that, at most, it had been some strange sort of waking dream . . . But always, sooner or later, she would seem to hear a dry little voice in her head whispering
THIRTY-DAY TRIAL PERIOD!
, and then she would
know
better, and she would feel a chill of apprehension.