Dear Concerned:
How else could he start the return email? He wasn’t even sure about the gender of the person writing, but he would place a hefty bet on the writer being a female. Women seemed to get ridiculously sentimental over certain holidays.
He promptly shot out a reply, closed the window for the free email site, and forgot all about the issue as he returned his attention to the Sinclair Fund mailbox to see if his donor actually had cause for complaint. Evan didn’t even think about the annoying email again . . . until he got an answer several days later.
Randi gaped at the rudest email she’d ever received, her mouth actually opening and closing like a fish out of water that was struggling to take a breath.
Dear Concerned:
I’m curious as to whether you really expected to receive an answer to your email sent before Christmas. Did you really think one of the Sinclairs was going to read your email, then actually provide funds for a town that isn’t even on the map, and for such a ludicrous reason? We are trying to help solve pressing concerns in both our nation and the world with the Sinclair Fund, not masquerade as Santa Claus. I think it would have been much more appropriate for you to address your email to the North Pole.
However, it is my understanding that you and the citizens of Amesport did get your Christmas wish. Wasn’t this issue completely resolved by Grady Sinclair?
Sincerely,
Unsympathetic in Boston
“Unsympathetic in Boston? Oh, my God! What a jerk!” Randi scowled at the computer screen at the Center, completely taken aback by the response to the email she’d sent two months earlier. After so long, she’d completely given up on getting an answer.
The only reason she’d signed in to that email address at all was to contact a parent of one of the children she was tutoring, and she’d been stunned to find that she finally had a reply to the email she’d sent to the Sinclair Fund.
She checked the date and realized her plea had only been answered a few days ago. Why now? She’d pathetically checked every single day for over a week after writing her email to the Sinclairs, desperately hoping somebody would respond. And so they did . . . after Christmas had passed, and with the snottiest comments imaginable!
Randi’s temper started to slowly simmer as she continued to gape at the snooty response, unable to believe that an employee of a charity would respond so bluntly. Maybe the problem did seem small to them, but it was important to her town.
“Condescending asshole,” she whispered to herself even as she wondered at the question in the email, about the situation being resolved. Truth was, the crisis had been more than adequately fixed. Emily was now married to Grady Sinclair, and the Center was not only thriving, but undergoing some major renovations.
She closed her email, shut down the computer, and stood up, deciding she’d do progress reports tomorrow. She was too pissed off to do them now.
“Not on the map? Amesport?” she mumbled under her breath as she picked up her jacket from the back of the chair. Luckily, she was alone in the computer room, so it didn’t matter that she was talking to herself. Nobody was around to listen. While Amesport was no Boston, it was a thriving seacoast town, a place where tourists flocked in the summer to enjoy the beauty of the ocean and a multitude of water sports. “Write to Santa Claus my ass!” She yanked her coat on and picked up her purse from the desk before exiting the room, her brain still trying to process the fact that a Sinclair employee had been that rude. It hadn’t been necessary. The person could have politely declined. Or better yet . . . ignored the email like they already had for months now. After all, Grady had rescued Christmas, and her request was two months old. What would possess someone to answer an old email with that much arrogance and condescension?
She paused as she opened the door, remembering the last line of the reply:
Wasn’t this issue completely resolved by Grady Sinclair?
“How do they know about that? Why do they care?” she pondered quietly as she pulled the door completely open. “If this person thinks my email was stupid, what does it matter whether Grady helped the town or not?”
Pushing aside the fact that someone had tried to make her feel ridiculous and small, she wanted to make sense of the last comment in the email. Did this person really expect her to verify the question?
Taking a deep breath, she did her best to ignore her negative thoughts and to reason without anger. She really shouldn’t answer the email. Emily was her friend, so she should tell her about the rude employee. Randi had actually come to like and respect Emily’s new husband. But something in her gut wouldn’t and couldn’t leave the situation as it stood. She wasn’t about to go running to Grady just because she could now call him a friend. The email address had been weird, a free service that was unlikely to be traceable. If she was the victim of a bad joke, or an unhappy person, she’d fire back. Some idiot in an office somewhere wasn’t going to insult her and her beloved town without some kind of answer.
The Center was quiet as she exited the front doors. Very little was happening tonight, except for the few men still left in the building working on improvements. Randi shivered as the bitter-cold wind did a full-frontal assault, reminding her that she hadn’t bothered to zip her jacket. Tugging the ends of the material together, she sprinted for her vehicle, smirking evilly as she decided on just how to reply to her churlish prankster. She was a teacher, a woman with an education. If there was one thing she was good at, it was finding mistakes and stating facts.
So, that’s exactly what she did the very next day.