Short Stories 366:105 — “The Email Always Pings Twice,” by Greg Herren

[image error]This story plays on your expectations, I think, and that’s the cleverness of it. From Survivor’s Guilt and Other Stories, “The Email Always Pings Twice,” beyond having that smile-inducing title, begins with a woman on the phone to her mother, and her mother talking down to her and being passive aggressive and emotionally manipulative and immediately, there’s such character to the daughter, Emily, in that she wants to stand up for herself, but doesn’t, want’s to diffuse the conflict, but can’t, and eventually manages only to weakly deflect and then hang up. Her mother’s tirade is about Emily moving in too quickly with a man, and Emily is trying to convince her mother that this man is different. But she doesn’t, and she hangs up, and tries to clear her head.

And then her phone and computer ping. It’s an e-mail, and Emily (who we’re starting to see fights the compulsion to handle everything and keep things tidy and caught up) can’t help but check it. Her new boyfriend, Joey, has warned her that he has a bad ex who might reach out, so when she sees an email with the subject line that she doesn’t know who her boyfriend really is, she assumes it’s from her. And then another email arrives, and this time the subject line accuses her boyfriend of murder.

What follows is Emily sleuthing a bit, discovering more than she wanted to know, and then, before she has time to truly think or plan, coming face to face with the boyfriend in question. This isn’t an unusual plot for a thriller—woman discovers her boyfriend isn’t what he seems—but the tension rises bit by bit in Herren’s hands, and while Emily isn’t painted as a strong or secure person, the reader catches glimpses of a woman trying so hard to get her life under her own control, evoking empathy and worry for her survival. And when it all comes to a head? Well. Let’s just say “The Email Always Pings Twice” ends in a very satisfying place.