Outside, his father honked, summoning him to the golf range. He shoved the book under his pillow, where it would be waiting when he returned from his triumphal golf debut.
He hopped into the backseat. Joy turned to look at him. “Oh, Tim,” she said, wrinkling her nose. He’d noticed she wrinkled her nose a lot. Apparently it was the barometer of her emotions. Right now she was registering dismay.
“You’re not going like that, are you?” Joy said softly.
“I’m clean,” he said, looking down at himself.
“Like what?” his father said.
“We’re not going anyplace fancy, are we?” Tim asked. “I thought we were just going to hit some balls at the driving range.” He smiled out the window, wishing he’d never come. “I mean, we’re not going to a club or anything, are we?”
People worry too much about what they put on their backs, he thought. One suit of clothes for funerals and weddings and one pair of what he’d called “party shoes” when he was little ought to take care of everything. He liked clothes that were effortless. Soft, old clothes. One of his favorite sayings was “Dress comfortably.” He thought Joy was a trifle overdressed, to tell the truth. But he wouldn’t have thought to comment on her clothes. She had no right to comment on his.
This promises to be a fun-filled morning, he thought.
“Keep your head down and your elbows in, Tim. And keep your eye on the ball.” Old Joy, it turned out, was a golf instructor, as well as a computer programmer. She sounded like the guys on TV who give thirty-second-spot golf lessons between rounds of a tournament.
“You have a nice swing, Tim, but you simply have to keep your eye on the ball.” This after he’d taken several swings at the ball and missed it completely. Whiffs, they were called. Talk about humiliation. Try swinging at an inanimate object and missing it. He had heard that golf could be a humiliating game.
Next to them a kid of about ten was getting golf lessons from his father. The father had a short fuse, and every time the kid swung at the ball the father brought out a little booklet and read the dos and don’ts of the game to the kid in a loud voice. The kid was nearly in tears. Fun thing to do on a Saturday morning. Beats playing Softball.
Tim and his father drove golf balls under Joy’s watchful, narrowed eyes. Instructions flowed from between her thin, tight lips. Maybe his father’s next girlfriend, or neighbor, whatever, would turn out to be something simple, like a snorkeler. He certainly hoped so. His watch, a Swatch watch, was guaranteed to be good as far as a hundred feet underwater. He’d always wanted to test it out.
“How about if we play a couple of holes instead of just hitting the balls?” There was a nine-hole course adjacent to the driving range. “I figure that way I might get the idea quicker.”
With a swift, graceful motion, Joy set up a tee, put a ball on it, stood up, swung, and sent the ball soaring.
“Beautiful,” his father said. “Beautiful.” And his father looked at him, encouraging him to encourage Joy. He said it was beautiful, too.
“You don’t want to bother with that pitch-and-putt course, Tim,” Joy told him, her voice leaving no room for argument. “After you get the hang of it, I’ll take you to my club for a game.”
Not me, he vowed silently. You’re not getting me on your club course. Obediently, he and his father drove balls until the bucket was empty.
A heavyset man with a ruddy face came out of the office.
“Morning, folks,” he greeted them. “Enjoying yourselves?”
“Fine, thanks,” his father said. Joy turned her back on the man and put on her golf sweater, yellow to match the rest of her outfit. A chill wind had come up. Dark clouds swarmed.
“Len Feeley,” the large-nosed man said, extending a hand. His father and Len Feeley shook hands. Feeley was Sophie’s last name.
Mr. Feeley (he began an imaginary dialogue). I’m seriously thinking of having a crush on your daughter. In fact, I may have one already. I may ask her to a basketball game. OK with you?
“You don’t find what you want, let me know. We aim to please.” And Len Feeley lifted his lips in what was surely a smile.
It began to rain.
“Come inside, if you want, till it stops,” Len said. The kid next to them took off. “It’s only a shower, Eddie! Come back!” the father yelled. The kid kept on going.
When his father dropped him off at the house, Joy said, “We’ll do it again real soon, Tim.”
“Sure you won’t have a sandwich with us, Tim?” his father asked.
“Thanks, Dad, but I have work to do, letters to write.” His father’s face expressed astonishment. “Since when have you become a letter writer?” his father asked.
“I’m trying it on for size,” he said. “Expanding my horizons. Thanks for the golf, Dad.”
“Don’t be discouraged, Tim!” Joy cried. He waved, and watched until the car rounded the corner before he went inside.
Chapter 9
If Sophie had ever made goo-goo eyes at him, made any kind of flirtatious move, he might’ve lost interest. As it was, her aloofness, her don’t-touch-me air fanned the fires of love burning in his insides. Sophie was her own person. No one was getting within easy distance of Sophie until she gave the go-ahead signal. Theirs would be an old-fashioned romance, he decided. He would woo her with sweet words, bunches of daisies plucked from the fields, and an occasional Milky Way bar to let her know how sweet he thought she was. They would have long, heartfelt discussions about everything in the world worth discussing. He would tell her his innermost thoughts, as she would tell him hers. He would tell her how he felt about her, would put his deepest feelings into words, so she would know exactly how deep his love was. Sophie, he knew, was the kind of girl who would give back his love letters without even being asked. If and when they broke up, which they might or might not do.
Maybe he could hang the blame for copying the love letter on Patrick. Hadn’t the conversation about the bozo who’d copied an O. Henry short story and entered it in a contest sparked the whole thing? He couldn’t be sure. Maybe it was his inability to conjure up enough flowery words on his own that made him decide to copy one of the One Hundred of the World’s Best Love Letters and mail it to his beloved Sophie. Anonymously. It would have to be anonymously. If he signed his name, he would be a plagiarist, no matter what Patrick said, and romance would probably fly out the window, and they’d wind up hating each other. Well, she’d hate him. He could never hate her.
He wanted to send her a proper love letter, not one written by a randy, sixteen-year-old undercover intellectual. Sophie deserved only the best. Sophie deserved a love letter straight from the pen of one of the world’s masters.
Time and again, in his search for the ultimate in love letters, he returned to Franz Liszt—composer, pianist, foot fetishist.
“If you knew how languorously and furiously I have need of you!” old Franz wrote to the Countess D’Agoult, year unknown. “I can do nothing but dream of you! I cannot talk to anyone and to you even less than the others!” See, even old Franz had difficulty talking to the girl of his heart, which undoubtedly was why he resorted to writing torrid love letters, and why he couldn’t seem to breathe without his exclamation point.
“If you knew only half the happiness it would be to me to see you here tomorrow, the day after tomorrow, I would not hesitate to say to you, ‘Come Marie, Marie.…’”
Come, Sophie, Sophie. Substitute Sophie and it read much better.
“Let your beautiful head bend voluptuously again to mine, let your adorable tears …”
Could a head bend voluptuously? He stood in front of the mirror bending his head this way and that, shooting tender glances at himself. The mirror’s reflection sent him back a twit looking in need of some milk of magnesia. Maybe females were able to bend their heads voluptuously. It was beyond him.
Scratch “adorable tears.” Mind bending. No such thing existed. He didn’t want to alienate Sophie, freak her out. He only w
anted to make an indelible impression to pave the way for something big.
Maybe it would be wise to combine the best parts of the Liszt letters, working in the bit about the tiny feet. It also occurred to him that Sophie might not want him, or anyone else, for that matter, to kiss her feet. He sure wouldn’t want her kissing his.
“Oh, how I long to see you again, dear masterpiece of God.” Old Franz was really warming up now. Also getting heavy. “Dear masterpiece of God” sounded slightly ridiculous, also slightly sacrilegious to him. Not to mention going too far. Scratch it.
“How could I help adoring the Good God who created you, so good, so beautiful, so perfect, so made to be cherished, adored and loved to death and madness.”
There were no two ways about it; death and madness caught the eye, made one pause and think. His handwriting sprawled ungracefully across the paper, lending a certain je ne sais quoi to the words. On the other hand, if Sophie was one for taking sentences apart, dissecting each and every word, she might conceivably take exception to being loved to death and madness. It was hard, deciding what to leave in, what to take out. He was in the position of censoring Franz Liszt. Not too many people he knew could make that statement. Writing a love letter was not an easy job, he decided. Even if it wasn’t an original love letter.
The phone rang.
“Hello, fool,” Patrick said.
“Can’t talk now. I’m working on something really big.” If he quit now, before he finished, he might chicken out and not finish at all. He had to get his letter in the mail before he lost his nerve.
“You want to play some pool?” Patrick’s father had given the family a pool table for Christmas. Patrick’s mother had been outraged at first, said she didn’t want her children picking up bad habits. Now Patrick’s mother was the star pool player in the family. Melissa was second.
“Later. I’ll come over after I’m done.”
The words plunged across paper, faster than he could get them down. Slow down, he warned himself. Slow down. Or she won’t be able to read a word. His handwriting, he realized, had taken on the look of ancient hieroglyphics as urgency and artistry drove him forward, ever forward. He had never felt as close to anyone as he felt right now to Sophie. This was for her. He hardly knew her, yet writing these words of love, Franz Liszt’s words of love, overblown, highfalutin, made his and Sophie’s romance seem real. What a terrific thing he was doing! Copying from the masters. Sophie would be overwhelmed; maybe she’d be his forever.
But how would she know who had sent her the letter? He couldn’t sign his name. And, if he didn’t sign his name, he wouldn’t get credit for it. It was a dilemma. He would have to be Anon. Sophie would have to fall in love with Anonymous, old silver-tongued Anon.
There was more. “The day will come when we shall see and comprehend clearly what at present we can only dimly glimpse and hope for in our terrestrial darkness … then you will recall the burning words that neither you nor I could have held back, for they would have shattered our bones.”
Way to go, Franz. What a wrap-up. Lay it all out. Shattered bones and all. He thought of adding a row of kisses, XXXXX, as a final expression of the high esteem in which he held Sophie, and decided that, in view of what had gone before, the XXXXX would be an anticlimax.
Sighing, he jotted down, on a separate piece of paper, various possible ways he might sign his letter. “God bless thee!” was one. “In haste, I am forever yours,” another. “Your patient and humble servant” didn’t grab him.
“Yours, Anon.” That would do it, have to do it. Selecting one of his mother’s envelopes, he donned a pair of her gloves before slipping the letter inside. Thereby eliminating all fingerprints. A theatrical move that pleased him greatly. All that remained was to find a stamp.
“Hey, Ma, got a stamp?”
“Look at this, Tim.” She was poring over an arrangement of old coins she had spread out on the tabletop. She held up a coin blackened with years and they both studied it with attention.
“Isn’t this handsome?” His mother turned the coin in her hand.
“Cool, Ma, but can I borrow a stamp from you?”
“What on earth for?”
“To mail a letter, what else?” said he, pretending that he mailed letters frequently. Don’t give me heat now, Ma, he begged her silently. I might cave in and tear it up. Please, Ma, no heat.
She looked at him in a puzzled way, which he ignored.
“In the righthand desk drawer, Tim,” she said. “Help yourself.”
“Thanks, Ma!” he shouted in sudden elation. “You’re some sweet masterpiece of God, all right!”
He slammed out of the house, whistling, leaving her with her mouth open, astonished.
When he reached the mailbox, he had second thoughts. To mail, or not to mail. Faint heart never won nothing. A favorite pithy saying he’d dreamed up. On the other hand, it seemed a dubious thing to do, now that he was here, letter in hand, Sophie’s name and address culled from the phone book, writ in large letters, zip code and all.
Sometimes, he reflected later, life’s biggest decisions are based on small, inconsequential events. As he stood there, it seemed to him the letter moved in his hand. His soul was inside that letter. The mail truck pulled up, the driver got out, unlocked the box, and loaded its contents into a Postal Service bag. The mailman looked at him. “You want me to take that?” he said. “I’m running late as it is.”
Tim looked down at the letter. “I’m not sure I have the right address on it,” he said.
“Always put your return address on the back. That way you get it back, if it’s not right,” the mailman said.
“I don’t want her to know who sent it,” he blurted out.
The mailman’s eyebrows went out of control. “Oh, one of those, huh? You got to watch what you send through the U.S. mails, buddy. They got all kinds of laws. You can get sent away two, maybe even three years, if you don’t watch your step. You look like a nice kid. I wouldn’t want to see you in trouble. But you want to be careful what you send through the mail. We got very strict rules.”
Maybe the mailman thought it was a bomb, albeit a skinny, tiny one. And that he was an anarchist.
“Also, too,” the mailman continued, “you want to watch what you put down on paper. Once or twice, I myself let the heart rule the old noggin. Resulting in nothing but sad news, I’m sorry to say. But you live, you learn. It’s your life, buddy. I’m running late, like I said. Make up your mind.” The mailman tossed the bulging bag into his truck.
“Take it,” he said, thrusting the letter into the man’s hand. “It’s now or never.”
“Way to go,” the mailman said, hopping back into the truck. “Hope you stay out of jail!” he hollered before he drove away.
“You and me both, buddy,” Tim said.
Chapter 10
When Melissa answered his knock and saw him standing there, her hand flew to cover a cluster of zits that had settled on her chin. In a slightly muffled voice she said, “I didn’t know you were coming over.”
He smiled at her.
“Come on in. Patrick’s downstairs, practicing,” Melissa said. “I beat him five games last night, playing pool. He’s sore. Patrick’s a sore loser, know that? My mother and I can take him on and my father any day, and wipe up the floor with them.”
Melissa’s hair was done up in fat pink curlers. Without her glasses, her eyes were pale, luminous, myopic. He noticed the zipper on her jeans didn’t quite close, leaving a small portion of Melissa hanging out. He averted his eyes, thinking of what Patrick had said about a thirteen-year-old sister being the ugliest thing in the world. Melissa would improve, he figured. She had nowhere to go but up. Her nose was a little lopsided and the zits didn’t help. And she could definitely stand to drop ten, maybe fifteen, pounds. Outside of that, Melissa was all right.
“What grade you in these days, Melissa?” he asked, being friendly.
“Eighth,” she answered, hand still over her
chin. She wore a gray sweatshirt that declared “I Wanna Rock.”
“Tim,” she said hesitantly, “don’t tell Patrick I asked you, but I want to ask you something. Privately.”
Melissa cast a cold eye over her shoulder, ready to nail Patrick if he showed himself.
“Ask away,” he said, feeling very mature, flattered that she wanted to consult with him, ask his advice.
“Well, we’re having this dance. That is, at my school. It’s sort of a fund-raising dance combined with a graduation party. Graduation from eighth grade?”
Melissa was asking him, not telling him, and he began to feel uneasy. Was she going to hit him up for money, he wondered, slapping noisily at his empty pockets. “Yeah? Go on, Melissa.”
Melissa took down her hand and the zits seemed to leap out at him.
“I’m broke, Melissa,” he said. “Sorry, I can’t help.”
“It’s not that.” Her face was very earnest and her cheeks were stained a deep red.
He waited, listening, hoping for sounds of Patrick approaching.
“We’re supposed to ask a boy, see,” Melissa said in a rush. “I was hoping you’d be my date.”
He was stunned. Absolutely knocked on his ear. Go to a dance with Patrick’s thirteen-year-old sister, who was in the eighth grade? Melissa went to St. Raymond’s parochial school, the very same school in which he and Patrick had received their religious instructions before they made their first communion.
As if she read his mind, Melissa said, “I’m almost fourteen. That is—I’ll be fourteen in six weeks, or so.”
“Uh,” he said, as if someone had hit him in the stomach. They stood there, looking at each other. “I don’t know how to dance, Melissa.” Which was the plain truth. “I never went to dancing school.”
“That’s all right.” She seemed to feel better now that she’d spoken her piece. She waved her arms around and her feet moved as if to silent music, though she wore no headset, no earphones. “I can’t really, either. Nobody dances at these dances, anyway. They just sort of stand around and pig out.”
The Love Letters of J. Timothy Owen Page 5