by Darren Hynes
“I’ve never actually given one to anybody before.”
“What is it, a letter?”
He nods. “Read it later.”
“I want to now.”
“Later.”
“Now.”
“That’s not how I planned it.”
“What odds if I read it now or alone, they’re still going to be your words, right?”
He shrugs. “I suppose.”
She rips an end and blows into it and tips it over and the letter falls out and the wind almost takes it but she snatches it up just in time.
He looks away.
She unfolds it. Scans the page for ages, then hands it to Wayne and says, “You read it.”
“What?”
“I’d like you to.”
“No, I couldn’t.”
“Why not, Wayne Pumphrey?”
“I don’t know. I’d be embarrassed, I think.”
“Read, Wayne Pumphrey. I won’t look at you.”
“Promise.”
“Yes.”
“Say it.”
“I promise.”
He pauses. “Okay then.”
Marjorie turns away.
Wayne looks down at the letter, at the handwriting that suddenly seems unfamiliar, wishing the sentences could somehow lift themselves from the page and get tossed in the wind, but then Wanda’s in his ears and she’s right: No point if no one reads it. Sometimes letters need to be sent, he supposes.
He breathes in and exhales and goes to start but can’t, so he tries again and his voice is there and the letter goes something like this:
“Dear Marjorie,
“I’m sitting here at the kitchen table waiting to go to Pete’s funeral while Wanda puts the finishing touches on Mom’s hair, although I don’t know why all the fuss over hair when we’re off to see a coffin which has a boy inside it.
“Dad’s sitting in the living room in his good suit reading that book and, although he walks around the house like his dog has died, it seems to be working because he hasn’t touched a drop in ages.
“I’m not sure if you’ll be there today (I’d certainly understand if you weren’t) but I just wanted to say that maybe you spend too much time with Thom Yorke after all. He’s an amazing songwriter, I know, but if you keep saying you’re creepy and weird and asking yourself why you’re here because you shouldn’t be, you’ll never be okay anywhere and what kind of life will that be?
“We spend so much time wishing we were somewhere else but shouldn’t there be room for weirdos and creeps and anyone else, too? I mean, how many trains can we hop on and how many water towers can we climb?
“It’s hard to imagine that you lived up the road from me all this time and it’s only now that I’m getting to know you and I read somewhere, or maybe someone told me, that everything happens when it’s supposed to—”
Wayne looks up. “You said you wouldn’t watch.”
Marjorie turns away. “Sorry.”
“Are you mad I said that about Thom Yorke?” She shakes her head. “Is there more?”
Wayne nods. “But I don’t think I can read the rest.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
“Don’t stop, Wayne Pumphrey.”
He pauses. “Okay, but just to warn you, the rest came out without me thinking about it.”
“Read, Wayne Pumphrey.”
He clears his throat. “I’ll take it back a bit since the last line is tied in with what comes next.”
Marjorie nods.
“No looking.”
She turns away.
Wayne reads:
“It’s hard to imagine that you lived up the road from me all this time and it’s only now that I’m getting to know you and I read somewhere, or maybe someone told me, that everything happens when it’s supposed to so maybe we can’t help being in each other’s lives and if that’s the case then it’s all right by me ’cause without you I’m roast beef without gravy and tea without sugar and an ocean without a beach and I guess what I’m trying to say is: you make everything better, because before you I was alone and now I hardly ever feel that way and I wonder if it’s the same with you?
“You saved me that day with Pete, Marjorie Pope, but you also saved me in another way and I hope I might have saved you, too. And Mr. Rollie was right, high school won’t last forever, and soon enough we’ll be grown and gone from here and doing God knows what
but I’ll always remember you and I hope you will me …”
Wayne looks up and Marjorie’s staring right at him and there are tears in her eyes and she’s smiling but he doesn’t tell her to look away.
He swallows and takes a deep breath and reads:
“I hadn’t expected YOU, so it’s funny how things turn out, and I just want you to know that I’m proud to be me and I hope you’re proud to be you too, ’cause for a couple of creeps we’re doing all right.
“Your friend who thinks that, for a couple of creeps, we’re doing all right,
“Wayne Pumphrey”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
My agent, Hilary McMahon, thank you for believing in and fighting for this book. Deepest appreciation to my sensitive and meticulous editor, Lynne Missen. Thank you for improving my sentences, Karen Alliston. Liza Morrison, I appreciate you making me laugh. Thank you, David Ross and everyone at Penguin, for making me feel welcome and supported.
Jonathan Watton, appreciate your reading and your honesty. My brother, Richard, thanks for the loans and the steady stream of support, and I’ll pay you back, I promise. Thanks for sharing your story, Derek. And Liam Hynes, hang in buddy, okay.
And finally Michelle Latimer … my real life Marjorie Pope.