The Letter - Chapter 18

I heard the front door open and felt the cold of another January night rush into the house.

“Hi Dad!  It’s me, Jennifer.  Sorry I’m late.”

“Hi Jen,” I called back to the voice in the hallway.  “I’m in the kitchen.  Are you hungry or did you have dinner at Liz’s house again?”

Jennifer walked into the kitchen, her cheeks flushed from the cold.  She rubbed her hands together to warm them.  “Wow, it’s cold tonight!  No, I haven’t eaten.  I did stop at Liz’s, and her mom asked if I wanted to stay for dinner.  But I told her I had a dinner date with a charming older man tonight and had to get going so he wouldn’t think I was standing him up.”  She walked over and gave me a hug.

“Yeow!  Your hands are like ice!”  I exclaimed as she put them on the back of my neck. 

“You always did that to me when I was a little girl and you came in from shoveling snow.  Turnabout is fair play.”

“Who says?  I think you need to save that thrill for when you get married and have kids of your own.”

“I might never get married.  Girls just want to have fun, like that song from the eighties says.  Marriage doesn’t hold a lot of attraction for me based on your experience.”

“Well, I hope I’m a decent role model for you in a lot of areas, but I guess having a good marriage isn’t one of them.  My marriage did produce a beautiful, vivacious daughter, so it couldn’t have been all bad.  Anyway, why don’t you set the table?  Dinner is almost ready.”

“I don’t know what you made, but it smells delicious.”  Jennifer inhaled deeply.

“It’s my world famous meat loaf.  With roasted potatoes and green beans.”

“Fresh green beans?”  Jennifer pulled two plates out of the kitchen cabinet and placed them on the table.

“Oh, sure.  I picked them up at the Farmer’s Market this afternoon,” I teased as I removed the meat loaf and potatoes from the oven.

“Yeah, I guess fresh is a lot to ask in the middle of winter.”

“At least they’re frozen.  I know you don’t like canned green beans, though that’s all I got when I was your age.”  I served the food onto our plates as Jennifer got our silverware and poured each of us a glass of water.  We both sat down and began to eat.

“So do you ever think about Mom?” asked Jennifer.  I mean you must have had some good times early on, right?”

“Of course.  I like to think we were very much in love early in our marriage.  Certainly we were when we had you.”

“I suppose she must think of us as well.  I mean, after no contact for what seemed like forever, she shows up at my play.  How do you think she even knew about that?”  Jennifer looked at me expectantly with her blue eyes as she took a bite of meat loaf.

“Richard has his spies, I’m sure.  I’ll bet your mother has him checking on you and telling him how you’re doing all the time – even during all that time when we never heard a word from her.  Maybe something has changed in her life, so she’s decided to become more interested in you and what you’re doing.  You know, it’s funny.  First she shows up at your play.  And then, believe it or not, I get a phone call from her.”

“Really?  When did that happen?”  She brushed aside a few stray blonde hairs revealing a furrowed brow.

I swallowed a bite of food and took a sip of water.  “Yesterday afternoon when you were at school.  It was a bit weird.  She said how much she enjoyed seeing you in the play, and then jumped to how wonderful Sewickley Academy is, including its arts programs.  Richard’s boys went there.”

“Yes, a haven for stuck-up rich kids, I’m sure.  Their parents all think their precious children will become wealthy and successful in whatever field they choose, after a four year stopover at Harvard, Yale or some other Ivy League college.”

“Well, it does offer opportunities of a different sort than does dear old Bethel Park High School.”

“Yeah, our mascot is the common black hawk.  I can assure you whatever the mascot is at Sewickley, it certainly isn’t common.”

I chuckled.  “But anyway, your mother told me she has some sort of surprise for me.  God knows what that might be.”  I stabbed at the green beans on my plate.

“Don’t hold your breath waiting for it.  She was probably just talking.”  Jennifer sighed.

“Maybe.  But she actually wanted to know when I’d be around to receive it.  Well, again, I’m not waiting for it, whatever it might be, with bated breath.”

Jennifer swallowed a mouthful of food.  “What is bated breath anyhow?  I hear that expression, but I really don’t know what it means.” 

“You should look it up.”

“I knew that’s what you were going to say.  You’re a writer.  And you’re the one who used the expression.  So you should tell me what it means, or if you really don’t know, you should look it up and tell me.” Jennifer said, scraping up the last bites of meat loaf with her fork and putting them into her mouth. 

“I would say it means expectantly or with great anticipation.”

Jennifer pulled her phone out of her back pocket.  “If you please, since we’ve finished eating, I will break our no phone at the dinner table rule and see what the internet says about it.”  Jennifer started tapping her phone.  “By the way, dinner was great.  You should make meat loaf more often.”

 “Thank you for the compliment.  Didn’t I say my meat loaf is world famous?  Okay, I’ll allow your breach of our longstanding no phone rule just this once.”

“Let’s see, she said looking at her phone. Dictionary.com says, ‘with breath drawn in or held because of anticipation or suspense.’  It’s an idiom, so it should be avoided by good writers.  That’s my personal comment,” Jennifer said with a sly smile.  “So as punishment for that literary infraction, you, my dear father, must do the dishes.”

“Hey, I’m the one in this house that hands out punishments.  I cooked dinner, so you do the dishes.  I will agree to put away the leftovers,” I smiled at my daughter as I got up from the table.  “By the way, you’ve been spending a lot of time at Liz’s house.  What are you two up to?”

“Dad, we’re best friends.  Best friends enjoy each other’s company.  We are working on a project together.  I have high hopes for it, but can’t tell you any more than that.”

“A secret project, eh?  Do I need to be concerned?”

“No, you need to trust your daughter, and all will be revealed at the appropriate time.”

“That sounds a little ominous.  I suppose I’ll keep my head down and my powder dry.”

“Dad!  That sounds like another idiom.  You need a good editor to help you avoid these mistakes.”

“Why do you think I keep you around?”  I put the last of the leftovers in the refrigerator.  “I’m going to turn on CNN and see what’s happening in the world.  Feel free to join me after you’ve loaded the dishes into the dishwasher.”

“Thanks, but I’ve got a load of homework.  I’ll stop in to watch a little when I need a break.”

I walked into our family room and turned on the television.

The Letter - Chapter 17

I heard an insistent rapping on my front door.  Now who can that be?  I was immersed in Marilynne Robinson’s Gilead and was a bit annoyed by the interruption.  Why did I pay to have that doorbell repaired if people are going to insist on knocking anyhow?  I yanked open the door, determined to send the intruder on his or her way so I could get back to my novel.  Instead, my face cracked into a broad grin as I saw a woman with a close-cropped head of silver standing on my porch.

“Beverly!  Please come in.  Why didn’t you ring the doorbell?”

“Isn’t it broken?  I thought you told me it doesn’t work.”

“That was months ago.  I recall that you used it the last time you visited.”

“Oh, that’s right.  Sorry, I guess I’m not quite with it today.  I’m having the downstairs painted and I haven’t finished taking down my pictures.  Fortunately, they’re late today, so I thought I’d run over here quickly with my latest draft of your Dear George letter.  Sorry it’s taken me so long.  I often wonder where the time goes.  I wake up, attend to a few things and before I know it, it’s time for lunch.  Anyway, I think I stuck to the basic ideas we discussed.”  Beverly handed me an envelope containing her draft of the letter.

“Thank you so much Beverly.  It hasn’t been that long.”

“A week, by my reckoning.  Well, Van Gogh didn’t paint Starry, Starry Night in a day, did he?”

“I’ll bet it took him at least a week to get it right,” I replied smiling.  “Can you stay for a few minutes?  I’ll put on a fresh pot of coffee or make tea if you’d like.”

“No, I’ve got to get back before the painters arrive, but thank you just the same.  Feel free to make whatever changes are necessary to make it your own, Ellie.  When George reads it, he’ll not be able to wait for you to get to Pittsburgh.  He’ll be calling you from SeaTac airport to get your address here in Issaquah so he can give it to the cab driver.”

“You are such a dear.  By the way, I love your hair, but where’s the crown of flames you promised?”

Beverly chuckled.  “Fortunately, my hairdresser has more sense than I do.  Do you really think it looks good?”

“No, I think it looks great!” I said.  You should give me the name of your hairdresser.  I need to do something with this rat’s nest,” I said running my fingers through my hair.

“Like our kids would say, I’ll text you the name and address,” Beverly said over her shoulder as she hurried down the front walk. 

“Well I guess this means I should call my sister to schedule a visit to Pittsburgh, before I chicken out,” I said to myself as I closed the front door.  I walked to the kitchen, set the draft on the table and put the kettle on to make myself a cup of tea.  While I was waiting for the water to boil, I read the draft that Beverly had brought me.  I was impressed.  She had hit the right notes – very friendly without being too forward.  I wouldn’t have to change much when I copied it to my stationery.  I filled my tea strainer with Earl Gray and poured the boiling water into my cup.  Now all I had to do was schedule my visit with Marnie so I could add a sentence or two inviting George to another basketball game.  I removed my cell phone from my pocket and dialed my sister’s number.

The Letter - Chapter 16

“Okay, Jennifer, show me what you’ve got,” Liz said, looking at me expectantly.

“I don’t know how much of this stuff will be useful to our case,” I said.  I reached into my backpack and pulled out papers and a book.

“Our case!” Liz’s eyes widened. “ I like the sound of that – like we’re real detectives, right?”

“Well here’s what I’ve got.”  I spread the materials I had gathered on top of Liz’s bed.  She got up from her desk and came over to look.  “Here’s the letter itself and the envelope that it came in.  There’s my dad’s old high school yearbook.”  “Here’s the program dad picked up at the basketball game with the Jaguar’s schedule and information about the players.  And here’s my English composition paper with the A+ grade and the note from Mrs. Cook, saying ‘Excellent work, Jennifer!’  Now how did that get mixed in there,” I said, picking it up with a flourish.  Oh, I don’t know.  I don’t have a clue!”

“Cute, Jen.  You’re such a show-off!  I worked my butt off and only got a B+,” Liz pouted.

“Well, I suppose I come by it naturally, since my dad’s a published writer,” I said, giving Liz a wink as I put the paper back into my backpack.

 

Liz walked back to her chair and I sat down on her bed with the clues.  Liz gave me a sly smile.

“By the way, I’ve got something that will make you jealous, Miss A-Plus Excellent Work Jennifer.”

“What’s that?” I said.

“Guess who’s been invited to the Sweetheart Semi-Formal?”

“You, Liz?!”  That’s so exciting!  Who?  Is it Mikey?”

“Yep, Mikey Lanza.  You are a promising detective, Jen.  How did you figure that out?”

“Oh everyone knows he has the hots for you, Liz.  Don’t try to play coy with me.”

“Are you going yet?  The rumor is Pete McCaskey has a crush on you.”

“No one has asked, but it’s still a few weeks away.  Pete’s nice, but he’s so shy.  Maybe I’ll just go stag.   Anyway, we’re here to work on my dad’s love life, not mine.  What I’ve laid out on your bed are all the clues I’ve been able to discover so far that might lead us to finding this mystery woman.”

“Let me see your dad’s yearbook,” said Liz. 

I picked up the thin black book with the embossed head of a jaguar on the front cover and handed it to her.  Liz started to thumb through it.  “Hey, your dad was kind of cute.  A little nerdy maybe with the Buddy Holly glasses.”

“He doesn’t look nerdy!” I exclaimed pretending to be offended.  “My dad was just a hipster before his time.  Anyway, I’m not sure what clues we can get from the yearbook.  It’s from his senior year, so there’s no way to figure out who was in his sophomore English class.”

“Yeah, I guess we just don’t know enough to hone in on the mystery woman based on this. I was thinking about that game we used to play called ‘Guess Who?’ where you asked your opponent questions to eliminate suspects.”

“I loved that game.  One player would say, ‘Does the suspect have blond hair?’” I intoned in my best mock detective voice. “ No!” I answered gruffly for the opposing player.  “Then you’d flip down all the suspects that have blond hair.  No, our case is more complicated than that game, unfortunately,” I said, taking the yearbook back from Liz and putting it into my backpack.  “Let’s take a look at the envelope that the letter came in,” I said picking up the envelope and walking over to look at it with Liz.  We studied it under the light of her desk lamp. 

“The cancellation is very light – like the machine was running out of ink.  And what’s there is smudged like it went through the machine too fast.  It looks like the state abbreviation ends in ‘A’.”  Liz squinted at the lavender envelope.

“Do a search for state abbreviations on your computer, Liz.  Let’s see how many states we can flip down on our Guess Who board.”

Liz typed in “state abbreviations” and found a site called 50states.com.  “Wow, it looks like we can knock a lot of them off our list,” she said as she scrolled down the page with her mouse.

  

“Yes.  It looks like we can narrow it down to eight states – California, Georgia, Iowa, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Washington.  That’s great detective work, Liz!  I’m keeping you as my trusted assistant.  Can you make out any of the numbers of the zip code?”

Liz picked up the envelope and brought it within an inch of her eyes.  “I’m  having trouble making anything out.  Wait a second.”  She opened her top desk drawer, pulled out a pair of glasses and put them on.

“Lizzie Henderson!  Since when do you wear glasses?”

“I got them a month ago.  I haven’t had the nerve to wear them at school yet.  Don’t tell my mom.”

“So who’s the hipster now?  You look adorable!  Do they help you see better?”

“Actually, yes.  Much better,” Liz said with a sheepish smile.  “Do you think Mikey will have second thoughts about inviting me to the dance when he sees me wearing them?”

“God, no way!  You look fantastic both with and without them.”

“You sound like my mom.”

“Your mother knows what she’s talking about.”

“Okay, you’ve convinced me.  I’ll start wearing them tomorrow.  Now let me take a better look at this envelope.”  Liz held it under the light and stared at the postmark. “No, I still can’t make it out.  I wish I had a magnifying glass.”

“Your wish is my command, madame” I said with a deep bow.  I reached into my backpack and pulled out a magnifying glass.  Liz and I looked at the envelope through the glass.

“The first number looks like a 9,” I said.

“You’re right, Jen, definitely a 9.”  Liz continued looking through the magnifier.  “And the next two are 8 and 0.  Yep, I’m sure of it.  See?”

I looked at the images where Liz was pointing.  “I think you’re right, Liz.  Eight and zero.  See, those glasses are just the thing.  What about the last two?”

Liz looked closely, squinted and wrinkled her nose.  “I’m sorry, Jennifer.  I can’t make them out.”

“Me neither,” I sighed.  “Well, see if you can figure anything out with those first three digits.”

Liz typed “zip code 980.”  Then she clicked on one of the sites that popped up on her search engine.  “Look, it’s an area in Washington.  It’s just outside of Seattle.”

“Washington is on our list.  Lizzie Henderson, you’re a genius!  Wow, we’ve really made some progress. But it’s getting late,” I said looking at the clock on Liz’s nightstand.  “And neither of us has even started our homework. I’d better get home.  My dad is probably getting ready to send out the police after me.”  I pulled out my phone and quickly texted him that I was leaving Liz’s house and would be home in fifteen minutes.  Then I gathered up the clues I had brought and gave Liz a hug.  “You’ve been so helpful.  I know we’re going to find this lady.  Let me know if you think of anything else we should look into.”  I bounded down the stairs.  “Goodbye, Mr. and Mrs. Henderson!” I yelled toward the light in the kitchen.  “Thank you for dinner.”

“You’re always welcome, Jennifer,” I heard in reply as I walked out the door.

The Letter - Chapter 15

I was struggling to finish a letter to the editor on the health care debate.  It was getting way too long.  I would have to either be more succinct or add more details and submit it to the Post-Gazette as an Op-Ed piece.  I stared at my laptop’s screen, considering the best way to make my points when my cell phone rang.  I picked it up and looked to see who was calling.  It was a restricted number – probably a sales person.  But, on the other hand, could it possibly be the letter writer? I wondered. I pushed the green button.

“Hello?” I said hesitantly.  “Who is this?”

“George?  Is that you?”

I felt my heart sink.  “Missy,” I said to my ex-wife.  “It’s been a while.”

 

“You know I hate that name,” she sounded annoyed.

“Sorry, Melissa.  To what do I owe the pleasure?”  I tried to recall the last time we’d talked. Nearly two years, excepting those few times we were forced to communicate to get the divorce finalized.  Thankfully, she had wanted nothing except out of our marriage.

“I saw you at Jennifer’s play,” she said.  “I thought you might come over to say ‘hi.’”

“I thought it best that I not encroach on your time with Jennifer.  I didn’t want to spoil her triumphant evening. It was quite a surprise to her that you came.”  I picked up a pencil and nervously tapped it on my desk.  More a shock than a surprise.  You’ve shown no interest in our daughter since you left us.  And Richard was there with you.  What was I supposed to do with him?  Shake his hand?  Where was this going?  I spun around in my swivel chair and stared out the window.

“I’m glad I was able to be there.” Melissa said.  “Our daughter is quite an actress.  Is she considering pursuing theater as a career?”

“Not as far as I know.  She says she wants to be a teacher.”  You might know this if you ever would have called to talk to her since her sophomore year.

“Really?  That would be a waste.  You know, Richard and I were talking after the show.  Sewickley Academy has a great drama department.  His boys went to school there.  Auditions for their spring musical are coming up.”

I swiveled my chair back and started doodling on a piece of scrap paper.  “What are you suggesting, Mis, I’m sorry, Melissa?”  Why should I care what Richard thinks about anything?

“Uh, never mind.  So are you around the house most days, now that you’re no longer working?”

I frowned at her dig at my decision to retire from my law practice to pursue writing. “Yes, I’m usually in my office writing from mid-morning till early afternoon.”

“Still working on The Great American Novel?  How much of an advance did they offer you?”

Another dig.  I’d not yet made a penny from my writing.  “I’m working on a few things.  I’m enjoying my work.  Jennifer and I have enough to get by.”  Thank you at least for running off with a guy who is filthy rich and not squeezing me for alimony. I stuck the pencil back in my desk drawer and turned again to look out the window.  It was beginning to snow.

“Anyway, I have something to give you.  I thought I might stop by sometime next week.”

“What is it, Melissa?”

“It will be a surprise, George.  I’m not quite sure when it will be ready, but I can assure you it will be a complete surprise,” Melissa said.  “Goodbye, George.  Give my best to Jennifer.”  Melissa terminated the call.

I stared at the snow coming down outside.  Just a few flurries or the approach of another storm?  Time would tell.