Nothing Else But You

by Elle Wright

  Gio stared at the coffered ceiling – he knew what it was because his mother had explained to his younger self why the ceiling had big squares all over it – and examined why he even had feelings about M’s date with farm boy. For fuck’s sake, he didn’t even know her name, where she lived, or what she looked like. And before this last letter, he hadn’t known, and didn’t even think to ask, whether she was married, had kids, a boyfriend, or a girlfriend.

  Well, now he knew she was single and liked guys, maybe girls too. That hadn’t come up either. Since she’d never mentioned babysitters, carpools, play dates, or anything like that, he was going with single and childless. And based on the classes she was taking, he thought she must be around his age. Although she could be fifty and going back to college after her kids had flown the coop.

  But, nah. Unless she was a perv, why would a woman older than his mother be interested in writing letters to a twenty-year-old guy?

  Now that he was thinking about it, the way M talked – he loved that she cursed as much he did – and that she was into Halsey, and the way she told him about Mrs. B like she was a grandmother figure or something, and how M loved having decent food in her fridge because she didn’t have time to take care of herself, suggested he was right. She was around his age. Which meant farm boy had gone for the grind last Saturday night, and Gio didn’t like that shit at all.

  Sofia came into his room and sat on the end of his bed. “Why are you frowning at the ceiling?”

  Because, goddammit, his girl was dancing with another guy.

  I gotta tell ya, Ace, more shit happens in that small town than on one of those shows my sisters watch and yak about.

  I’m stuck at the ’rents doing the obligatory Easter Sunday deal, and since it’s my b-day (20, FFS) tomorrow, I gotta be here or else my father would come looking for my ass. This year, my mother’s hosting her family, which is a fuckload of people, most of whom I can’t stand. So much pretense and posturing that I’d get whiplash if I gave enough fucks to follow them trying to one-up each other. Two of my cousins are all right, though. We hang in my room and watch old Dirty Harry movies, yelling out the lines along with Clint.

  These family things are an endurance test. You have to train for this shit. All the cheek squeezing by the aunts, the backslapping by the uncles, and the same questions about college and what I’m going to do with my life each and every time they see me. I duck the questions like a pro. The one thing I avoid like a case of the crabs is giving my father an opportunity to rope me into a conversation about what I see myself doing in five years. Sometimes, I’m ten seconds away from giving him a mental hernia and telling him I’m moving across the country to grow reefer in Northern California. Not that it’s such a bad idea. There’s some product that will never go out of style, and demand will always be high. Today I saw an article that said people were blowing weed and listening to music 4,500 years ago. I know. So cool to picture that. Bet they had awesome pipes since no rolling papers, right? Wonder what their concerts looked like? The Rolling Stones takes on a whole new meaning if they were a group 4,500 years ago.

  Speaking of rock, was it Led Zeppelin or Blink-182? Were they any good?

  FYI, my sister likes her shrink and she’s glad she’s going. Can’t tell you how much weight was lifted off my shoulders when she told me that.

  Tomorrow, I’m heading out even though school doesn’t start back for another couple of weeks. I’m going to I’s family’s beach house. Yeah, it’s not quite beach weather yet, but we surf, and the breaks are supposed to be good this week. His older sister and her BF will be there, and that’s it. The ’rents are ghosting the shore. I’m looking forward to some down time, especially since I have to be back at school earlier than everyone else. Coach wants us to practice more. I don’t mind, though. Only me and E will be in the quad, so it’ll be chill.

  Your turn.

  G

  Nine days later

  Mirabelle

  I’m not feeling The Letter Club delay, G. Yeah, I know all the mail has to go through them, but the turnaround is off by 5 or 6 days and it sucks. By the time I get your letters, shit has happened weeks ago. Like Easter Sunday and your b-day. Happy-happy, old man. Don’t forget to drink your Ensure.

  I went to Mrs. B’s home for Easter dinner, and that greenhouse is something out of a science fiction movie. She has ten-foot-tall fruit trees, and about fifty varieties of flowers. Never mind the vegetables. Catch this. All her root vegetables are planted in old claw-foot bathtubs that she has lined up in two rows that run the length of the greenhouse. Mr. B took me on the tour since Mrs. B was knee-deep in her cooking. He’s a sweet old guy. Patient as hell, which, given Mrs. B’s sisters and their spawn, he’d have to be. That, or pop Valium like Tic Tacs. He told me Mrs. B’s greenhouse is a few months older than their first son. They have two. Both are cops in the biggest city in the state. One is a detective in major crimes – I don’t think there’s a minor crimes division ’cause really, who cares about misdemeanors – and the other is in some special anti-terrorist unit that works with the FBI. Pretty intense. Mr. B told me they both wear their guns in ankle holsters when they’re with family, so all day I kept watching them cross their legs trying to spy the guns. Those dudes are smooth. I didn’t see a damn thing.

  Back to the greenhouse, which is my new obsession. Apparently, Mrs. B couldn’t work while she was preggers with cop #1 since she threw up like a dozen times a day. So Mr. B – such a good guy – built her the greenhouse so she’d have something to keep her busy since, according to him, she’s never been able to sit still for longer than three minutes. I can attest to that. She’s like a pollinating bee at work. Anyway, Mr. B said the greenhouse was tiny back then, and once she got started she couldn’t stop. He kept building on additions until she said it was big enough. I don’t know its dimensions, but you could park two 16-wheelers in there easily. Well, if you took out all the plants you could.

  As you must have guessed, there was more food than at Shanghai Buffet. And man, those cops could eat. They shoveled in enough food to feed an army. Both of them kept umming with each new dish Mrs. B put on the sideboard. Cop #1’s wife ate exactly two bites of everything she tasted. I counted. The woman’s as skinny as a toothpick. I know I shouldn’t have been thinking this, but since cop #1 is a BIG guy, I kept wondering if she was on top all the time because he sure as hell would crush her if he dommed. But I guess they worked that out since they have two kids.

  Cop #2 isn’t married, which sends Mrs. B into a case of the shivers every time she thinks about it. It’s a constant topic at the hardware store. She thinks he’s too focused on terrorists. I’ve tried to point out that’s his job, but when I do, Mrs. B goes on a twenty-minute rant about the root causes of terrorism. Bottom line, “All those boys didn’t have good mothers.” No shit. That’s her theory. And hey, who’s to say she’s wrong.

  I wound up coming home with three bags of leftovers. My freezer is full for the first time ever. I danced around my eenie-weenie kitchen the whole time I unpacked those bags.

  Speaking of dancing, I don’t know if it was Led Zeppelin or Blink-182. Q couldn’t make it. Some big piece of farm equipment crapped out and he and his dad were up to their elbows in grease and machine parts. I wound up binge-watching the new David Letterman epis on Netflix. Can I just say, Kanye ain’t right, and leave it at that. And who knew Formula One drivers lost ten pounds during each race? Crazy.

  So, B came home with Bao, which means treasure. So cool, right? She is the most adorable human being ever. She’s long and thin. The pediatrician thinks she’s going to be tall, like over 5’9’’, when she grows up. She smiles at everyone and makes this cooing noise like she’s a dove. Every time EJ talks about her, he starts to cry. He’s so in love, and he’s so grateful, and his heart is so full, it’s humbling to witness. And now, EJ’s dad has a new job. Grandpa and Grandma are Bao’s childcare when EJ’s at work. B works FT for the county in the accounting department, so h
e’s entirely 9-5. Since EJ can come and go as he pleases, right now he’s home with Bao in the mornings and comes in around lunchtime and stays until closing, which is 8 p.m. B picks up Bao from the grandparents right after work and then he has his alone time with her. Believe me, this kid won the parent lottery. B’s walking around with a perma-smile plastered to his face with Bao strapped to his front. Talk about all the feels. I can’t even imagine what it’s going to be like when R gives birth.

  BTW, the town was disappointed no one won the pool, but everyone agrees, to be named treasure is pretty righteous.

  I’ve been off from school too, but I haven’t gotten much of a break because I’ve been doing OT. S went out of town for a week, and EJ wanted someone to pick up the ordering slack – yeah, F isn’t doing that anymore for obvi. I wish I could say I’m going to do something reckless with the extra cash, but my car needs some attention, so Abel’s Auto Repair will be the happy recipient of my windfall, such as it is.

  Your turn.

  Ace

  Eight days later

  Gio

  Holy shit. M dropped major clues in this letter and Gio didn’t waste any time searching the web for her whereabouts. He’d been wondering where she was for a while now, and she’d been so circumspect about where she lived, he hadn’t even gotten a handle on the region of the country. And to say he was overjoyed farm boy had had technical difficulties was an understatement. Gio actually fist pumped when he read M didn’t go dancing. The relief he felt when he knew there had been NO grind was inexplicable, but oh so real.

  After spending hours hunched over his laptop, he was shocked at how many Shanghai Buffets there were in the US. He didn’t like the idea of eating food a ton of strangers had breathed on, but it seemed he was in the minority. Now, Abel’s Auto Repair was not so common a business name, and when you paired the few he’d found with Shanghai Buffet, BAM! he located the little town of Fiddler’s Rest in Oregon. And on Main Street – natch – within that tiny dot on the map, was Gusk’s Hardware Store.

  Talk about east bumfuck. The place was so nowhere Gio couldn’t imagine anyone wanting to live there. Well, until they knew all the crazy shit that went on. Then, everyone would flock to relocate.

  Gio’s first thought after he’d found M was whether he should drive out to Oregon or fly. Absolutely, the day after the semester ended, which was six weeks away and counting, he would be heading out west. He wouldn’t tell her though. He wanted to surprise her.

  Man, Ace. By the time I got through with your letter I was starving. Again. Although being hungry is a perpetual state. Between the crappy food in the cafeteria, the long practices, and the reality that I’m a growing boy – I hear you laughing, but it’s a medical fact that guys don’t stop growing until they’re between 22 and 24 – I’m always famished. For real, H always has the best bud, but I don’t indulge that much because when the munchies hit, I want to eat a whole egg parm all by myself, and my nonna lives too far away to bring it to the dorm.

  Bao sounds amazing, and yeah, she won the family lottery. Lucky kid.

  The academic homestretch is here. No more sports games, season’s over. I don’t have to be back for practice until the end of August. Now it’s all about the grades. I do all right. Mostly Bs with an A or two showing up in what turns out to be my strength: science. Go figure. If you would’ve asked me when college started what I’d lean to, I would’ve said business. But those classes bore the shit out of me. While I’m competitive – just ask coach – apparently, I’m not cutthroat, which doesn’t bother me, for real. Not going emo here, but I never got why guys thought being major assholes translated into being men. Take E, for example. The guy kicks ass on the field. He’s monster strong, and makes smart choices, and never backs down. And he’s a total bro when he hangs with the dudes. But when it comes to his girl, he’s all in. He doesn’t pretend. He always answers her calls and texts, and she watches movies with us in the quad all the time. My guess, she’s the one. I figure I’ll get an invite to their wedding, which will be not too long after we graduate, but before he starts med school.

  For the next couple of weeks me and the library are going to become besties. I gotta get a lot of shit stuffed into my head before exams begin. If I can get an A in chem, I’ll do organic chem next year. But if I’m serious about the science stuff, I gotta bring up my Bs to As if I even think I want to go on to medical school. I don’t know if that’s my jam, but I’ve been talking to E, and while this is what he’s always wanted to do so he knows this is his path, and he studies like a fiend, it turns out we feel the same way about helping people, which is core to the whole being-a-doctor thing.

  Listen to me. Maybe this is what happens to you when you turn 20.

  Your turn.

  G

  Nine days later

  Five weeks and five days until the end of the semester

  Mirabelle

  From the moment she’d hatched her plan, Mirabelle had known she couldn’t ever tell a living soul about what she had done to survive. It had been illegal – in a white-collar, only-the-bad-guy-got-hurt kind of way – it had been dangerous as hell, and a dicey balancing act. The one thing she’d known all along if she’d pulled it off and lived to see another day: if anyone clued in on what she’d done, she’d have to evaporate. Vanish. Disappear. And probably have to disappear again. And again. And again after that. Which meant no love. Attachments. Roots. BFs. Maybe the occasional one-nighter here and there, but no more than the recreational tumble. No GFs. She couldn’t confide in anyone. No dogs, cats, hamsters, parakeets, or goldfish. She had to live lean and be able to cut and run at the drop of a hat.

  Her education was for herself. Before she’d had to leave her hometown, and her home for the last ten years, which wasn’t saying much, she’d been ready to start her sophomore year at Brown University. Which was how she knew which of the five sport Gs in Sagawick Valley High School looked like Ivy League material. Because she was one of them. Well, she used to be. Funny thing, she had good profs at the little local community college. Education was what you made it. She was a learner. A sponge. And becoming a writer was a great cover for her real talent. Mirabelle could hack the CIA and never get caught. Which was why she, of all people, knew not to leave any electronic footprint anywhere. Ever.

  Yet, with all that knowledge deeply ingrained in every gray cell in her brain, and every corpuscle in her body, like an idiot, she had fallen in love. With Mrs. Berenikoff. Mr. Berenikoff. Eddie, and his husband Blake. Their daughter Bao. Their surrogate, Rita. Even monosyllabic Stan. She couldn’t muster much affection for Frank, Mrs. Berenikoff’s grandnephew, but the town of Fiddler’s Rest had somehow become more than a temporary stop along the way.

  She refused to discuss with herself what was doing in her heart about G. Addressing her feelings for him led to an utter impossibility. And she wasn’t a masochist. Far from it. She had the survival instincts of Jason Bourne. But geez Louise. That last letter. The whole maybe-going-to-medical-school thing was too much. She’d known how responsible he was when he’d done all that shit for his sister. And she’d had hints of his deep soul in almost every letter he wrote. But shit. He was kind. And that did her in.

  Part of her thought she should pull the plug on this whole Letter Club thing. She’d done it on a whim, figuring it would be a good way to make a friend or two in an anonymous bubble. She hadn’t answered any letters but G’s because he was enough. More than enough. He could become everything, and she couldn’t allow that to happen.

  Not pulling the plug made her selfish in the worst way. She needed to know how he was doing. To hear his “voice.” Yeah, she had no idea what he sounded like aurally, but she heard him in her head and heart as clear as a bell. And he was a clarion. He pierced her soul. And in her world, kindness was her kryptonite. Which was how Mrs. B and company had crept under Mirabelle’s defenses. But G. He was the deep vein. The mother lode. Salvation and death at the same fucking time.

  We seem to
be on pretty much the same timetable, G. I’m becoming more involved with my library too. I know I don’t have your class load, but my world lit prof has to be a descendant of Professor Kingsfield. I’m waiting for Peer Gynt to appear on my final exam. I have a two-week break before the summer sesh starts. I’m going to take two more classes. Biology, which is right up your alley, you science major, you, and Spanish. I figure I better get with the program and learn the second most spoken language in the US, and the world. My school doesn’t offer Chinese as part of their curriculum. I’d like to give it a crack, though. Did you know that nearly 3 million people in the US speak Chinese, and that it’s commonly spoken in millions of homes?

  Is this me having subliminal Bao on the brain? I can’t help it. She’s too cute.

  I’ve never been a baby person. I’m not into changing poo-poo undies, or any other activities involved in cleaning bottoms. I like to have conversations, and goo-goo gaa-gaa with drool attached isn’t my idea of a sentient exchange. Mind you, F is a grown-ass person, and he doesn’t do much better than most babies I’ve met.

  But, with all that said, Bao makes me melt. She’s so sweet. She does this thing when people hold her – and shit, everyone who can get their hands on her holds her, she’s become the human equivalent of the pass around pack – she curls her little fist into your neck and tucks her head into your shoulder. Like she’s burrowing into you, which is apropos since she’s wormed her way into everyone’s hearts. B says the socialization guarantees she’ll be comfortable in all of life’s situations. I don’t know about all that, but she wins the cute and cuddly award. That’s for damn sure.

  Cop #2 made the mistake of visiting his folks on his way to a conference, and the other day he stopped by the store to take his mom, Mrs. B, to lunch. EJ was there with Bao, and no sooner than cop #2 had walked in, Mrs. B appropriated Bao and shoved her into cop #2’s arms. “See,” Mrs. B cried with real tears welling. “See what a precious gift children are.” I swear I saw this expression cross cop #2’s face, and it said, “If I shoot my mother right now, can I get away with it?”