Love,
Louie
June 14, 1990
Dear Mother,
I’m sorry I didn’t get to spend any time with you at my graduation. But you know how it is with all those awesome parties to go to. My dad gave me $10,000 and a first class ticket to Atlanta. But I just LOVED the beige dress you gave me. I will wear it to college this fall. I was accepted to Tennessee Tech, but Grandmother talked me into attending Falls Junior College, which is only two blocks from her house. I want to major in fashion merchandising and then move to Italy and maybe work at Gucci or Versace. Falls Junior College doesn’t offer this degree, so I will eventually have to transfer to a bigger school. I checked out the dorms and they are dinky, so I’ll just live at home and drive back and forth. Chick bought me a bitchin’ white BMW convertible so I can start college in style.
Love,
Jen
October 14, 1990
Dear Mother,
Thanks BUNCHES for showing up at Parents’ Weekend. Dad’s gone back to Betty Ford, and my grandparents are so upset they’ve gone to Hilton Head. Even Dorothy couldn’t come. She was at some stupid DOG show. The one time I really and truly need you, and you let me down. I was the only person there without a family.
Jen
November 22, 1990
Dear Mother,
It would be so awesome if you’d send size 10 Doc Martens for my new boyfriend ASAP. His name is Luke Vantrese, and he’s a business major at F.C. Those are strange initials for a college—haha. Send size 6 Wellingtons for me, as damp weather is in the forecast. I would prefer an earthy color as it will hide the dirt.
Jen
January 2, 1991
Dear Mother,
Thank you for the perfume and the pocketbook. Luke didn’t give me a ring like I thought he would. In fact, he broke up with me. He said I was too spoiled and crazy to make a good wife. I told him HE’D never make a good husband because his dick is too small.
Love,
Jen
March 22, 1991
Dear Bitsy,
Thank you for the lovely birthday present. I can’t believe that I’m 37. Inside, I still feel 16. But George and I decided that we’d better try and have a baby before it was too late. After all of my conflicts with Mama, I just didn’t think I’d make a good parent. But I think I’m ready now. I want you to be the godmother.
Love,
Violet
May 21, 1991
Dearest Beauty,
Come back to me. Give me one more chance. Or at least send your phone number. I have so much to tell you.
Love,
Louie
June 14, 1991
Dear Bitsy,
I have called and called, but you’re never home. So I had no choice but to send this Air Mail. Before you read any further, take a deep breath. Two days ago, Jennifer was driving down South Maple with her girl friends. They rounded the curve and slammed into Mr. Raymond Fowler, who was pushing his lawn mower across the street. Jennifer lost control of the BMW and drove into a tree. Her girl friends were bumped and bruised, but Jennifer was thrown from the car. The angels must have been with her because she didn’t die. All she got was a fractured skull and a broken wrist. Poor Mr. Fowler was pronounced dead at the scene.
The Wentworths smoothed everything over. Somehow they kept it out of the newspapers. They paid for Mr. Fowler’s funeral, too. I heard that they gave the Fowler family hush money. Mack said this was vehicular homicide, and that in order to do what she did to that poor man, she must’ve been flying. I told him that she has been speeding down this path ever since she flunked herself out of college and Chick made her a vice president at his bank.
Tell me what you want me to do.
Love,
Dorothy
June 21, 1991
Bitsy:
Claude told me that you’ve been calling. And there’s no need. Jennifer is perfectly fine. I don’t know where you are getting your information, but she doesn’t drive recklessly. Chick and I taught that child how to drive years ago. And if you continue to spread these lies, you will be hearing from my attorneys.
Elizabeth Wentworth
TELEGRAM TO BITSY
July 8, 1991
For the last time stop calling and writing. STOP Jen won’t get letters.
STOP
Do not come. STOP Jen not in Crystal Falls. STOP
Elizabeth Wentworth
July 14, 1991
Dear Bitsy,
Mack and I will meet you at the Nashville airport. But don’t expect to see Jennifer. The Wentworths weren’t lying—they really did whisk her out of town. I will try to find out where. See you soon.
Love,
Dorothy
August 2, 1991
Dear Bitsy,
Despite the stressful circumstances, I so enjoyed visiting with you and Dorothy. It was like old times. All we needed was Earlene and Violet and the Scrabble board. I wish you could’ve found Jennifer. Could the Wentworths have taken her to California? You know how crazy they are about Betty Ford. They probably have a wing named after them. I will keep firing letters to the Wentworths, so Jennifer won’t doubt that we love her. Dorothy says she’s been writing up to ten letters a day.
Love,
XX OO
August 6, 1991
Dear Bitsy,
I have thought about the situation with Jennifer and the Wentworths, and I’ve decided that they’re all crazy. Actually, they could be suffering from folie à deux, or in their case, trois. This is a shared delusion, a kind of contagious psychosis, shared by two or more persons living in close, intimate contact. A dominant personality imposes his (or in this case her) delusions onto the more passive members of the group. The cure is separation, but that doesn’t seem likely. If you need me, I’m here.
Love,
Violet
A TAPED MESSAGE FROM DOROTHY
September 6, 1991
My darling daughter,
I can’t bear to tell you this on the phone and there is nothing you can do anyway. Jennifer is back. I found out that she was put into Cumberland Heights, that new psychiatric hospital next to the bowling alley. I ran into her at the Winn-Dixie and hardly recognized her. She was wild-eyed and skinny, and she had a cigarette in her hand. She said, “Oh, hi, Dorothy,” like she saw me every day and nothing out of the ordinary had happened. She told me she was just fine except she was in a real, real bad mood. I tried to tell her that you’ve been sick with worry, but her eyes went dead. I could tell that she wasn’t listening. I thought to myself, This is the saddest thing in the world. You have lost each other twice.
If I can do anything, let me know, and I will try my best. Meanwhile, I will continue to spy.
Love,
Dorothy (a.k.a. 007)
September 16, 1991
To My Biological Mother:
I almost died. You didn’t care. After my accident you never wrote. You never called. So now you are like dead to me. These are all the old cards and letters you ever wrote me, the ones when I was a baby. I don’t know why I saved them. Throw them away. Use them to start fires.
Grandmother took me to a therapist who says that YOU are the reason I’m fucked up. Your bad decisions set the tone for my life. So thanks bunches. My life is in total shambles. And don’t try and say that Grandmother and Dad prevented you and me from developing a relationship. If you’d really loved me, you would’ve found a way.
I am 19 years old. I don’t need a mother anymore. If I do, I’ve got quite a few stepmothers to choose from.
Jennifer
Bitsy
I called Violet to ask if she could explain why Jennifer was acting so hostile. My cousin said she couldn’t imagine a legitimate therapist saying those awful things. She went on to explain about how our relationships with our mothers are critical to who we become, and affect all other relationships. Then she told me to stop blaming myself. That in this case Miss Betty seized that role, so if anyone is to bl
ame, it’s her.
Violet laughed and said that even at her age she hesitates to call her mother because all she talks about is her coffee shop and her hot flashes and irregular periods. Violet said that Aunt Clancy is going through Menopaws.
I hung up and walked into the conservatory, leaning my cheek against a glass pane. Violet’s voice was still in my head. I missed the days when we’d all been together. Despite all of my troubles, that era had been a sort of golden age. And it would never come again.
July 11, 1992
Dear Mother,
I am working the 12-Step program, and I can’t seem to get past #8 and #9 where I’m supposed to make a list of all the people I’ve harmed. Then I have to make amends to them. So, I forgive you, okay? Meanwhile, I am waiting for God, or my Higher Power, or whoever, to remove my shortcomings. I wish I’d meet the right guy.
One Day at a Time,
Jennifer
November 3, 1992
Dear Bitsy,
My Pomeranian had 2 puppies. I plan to sell them for a small fortune, not that I need it. I have enclosed a copy of a note that I sent to Barbara Bush since you enjoy reading my letters so much.
November 3, 1992
Dear Barbara,
Today I voted for your hubby, and I almost had second thoughts. I wondered if I should have voted for Clinton. Well, he is cute. Al Gore’s not too shabby, either, and he’s from my home state, even if he doesn’t talk real Southern. I suppose that’s Tipper’s influence. Despite that, I might have voted the Democratic ticket just to see what they’d do with health care, but what finally tipped the scales was Hillary’s cookies. Maybe it’s just me, but they looked store-bought. I would appreciate having your recipe. I’ll be staying up all night, watching the election results.
Your friend,
Dorothy
January 21, 1993
Dear Bitsy,
Here is a tape that I sent to Clinton. I hope you won’t get mad that I bragged on you.
Love,
Dorothy
A TAPED MESSAGE TO BILL CLINTON
January 21, 1993
Dear Bill,
As I watched you on TV tonight, I admired your tie and wondered if Hillary had picked it out.
Even though I am too scared to fly over the ocean, I know you’re not. Didn’t I read somewhere that you went to school in Oxford? Or maybe that’s the kind of shoes you wear. I am bad to mix up men’s fashions and their education. But if you ever go to England on a diplomatic mission, feel free to look up my daughter. She is an interior decorator—a pretty darn good one, too. She is the favorite of the ritzy-fitzy set, with country houses, horses, and hounds. Her clients are evermore inviting her to parties, and they send a limousine to pick her up. If the parties are far away, they’ll send a private plane. You would like her lifestyle. In fact, y’all might run with the same crowd. Bitsy has decorated for a friend of a friend of Diana, Princess of Wales.
She’s a blue-eyed blonde, a dead ringer for Gennifer, except younger—and more discreet. I wish you were my son-in-law. Not that I’m hoping anything will happen to Hillary—but my daughter has no business living over in England, and she would make you a fantastic First Lady.
Fondly,
Dorothy McDougal
A NOTE FROM LOUIE DECHAVANNES
May 21, 1993
Dear Beauty,
This is my last letter, kid. I love you—always will. If I don’t hear from you soon, I’m giving up.
Happy anniversary,
Louie
For days I kept his letter propped on my burled walnut desk, wondering if I should answer or just let it go. I didn’t regret England for a moment but he had written faithfully for nearly a decade—this was impressive, considering his attention span. Not that I’d become dependent on those letters. I wasn’t exactly leading a solitary existence. My friends were always introducing me to darling men, and I enjoyed their company immensely, but I never allowed myself to care. Every important relationship in my life had been damaged in some way—my mother, my daughter, my lovers. So I could not—would not—risk loving someone that deeply.
Each time I passed my desk, I picked up Louie’s letter. It wasn’t his threat of giving up on me, but his shaky handwriting that had gotten my attention. I had an image of him—all withered and stooped as he bent over the stationary, his fingers stiff and gnarled as they gripped the pen. Finally, I sat down at the desk, took out a sheet of paper, and began to write. But I couldn’t find the right tone. I preferred to read a letter than to write one, especially one this important. In minutes, my trash bin filled with crumpled paper.
Dear Louie,
Don’t be a quitter. Here’ my number. Give me a call sometime.
I tore that letter up, threw it into the bin, and started over.
Dear Louie
Why don’t we talk?
I ripped up that letter, too. Then I grabbed another sheet and hastily scribbled my phone number. Before I could change my mind, I folded the paper in half and slipped it into the pocket of my cardigan, a lumpy, old thing I’d brought from 214 Dixie Avenue. I started to make tea, then I happened to glance at my watch. I had promised to meet my friend Rosamund at Waterstone’s, where she was promoting her latest children’s book. Rosamund was a tall, angular blonde who bit her nails to the quick and chain-smoked. I’d decorated her Kensington flat last year, and while we were very different, we’d become friends, despite her irritating habit of dragging me to book signings and parties, introducing me to eligible writer-friends—not my sort of chaps whatsoever. In fact, just last month, she’d insisted I attend a publishing party in Bedford Square, where I’d met her editor, a young, blond fellow named Ian. I tried to be cordial, but privately dismissed him as too young.
Hoping the outing to Waterstone’s might clear my head, I dashed out of my flat and caught a taxi on Picadilly. When I reached the bookstore, Rosamund was nowhere to be found. Instead of my friend, I found her editor sitting on the floor, reading The Secret Garden to several dozen children. I sat down with the kids, mesmerized by his voice, the elegant flat As and blurred Rs. After he finished, he stood up and the children swarmed past him. I started to leave, too, but he called, “You’re Rosamund’s friend aren’t you?”
“Right.” I extended my hand, surprised that he’d remembered.
“Nice to see you again.” He gripped my hand and gave it a firm shake. “Once again, Rosamund’s gone missing. I was left carrying the can, wasn’t I?”
“You were splendid.” I loved how the Brits added a rhetorical “wasn’t I” to every sentence.
He muttered thanks—which came out sounding like tah. “I noticed it stopped raining,” he said, glancing out the window. Wobbly sunlight shone down on the damp street. “Do you care to take a stroll?”
We stepped out of the bookstore and headed toward a pub Ian knew just off Charing Cross. The clouds washed low, and it began to rain again. “It’s throwing it down,” Ian said, handing me his umbrella. Then he stepped away to hail a cab. I slid one hand into my cardigan pocket, trying to warm up. A cab pulled up to the curb. When Ian turned to open the door, I started to close the umbrella, but I couldn’t get the lever to work. I pulled my hand out of the pocket and my letter to Louie flew up and caught wind. I started to run after it, but then I saw that Ian was waiting. I gave the letter one last glance. It drifted over a phone booth, then caught an updraft and landed on an awning. I hurried over to Ian, and he helped me inside the cab. It smelled faintly of tobacco, but it wasn’t unpleasant. Ian gave the pub’s address to the driver—“four one treble six.” Beads of water clung to his hair and his raincoat. The driver sped off, jolting me against Ian’s shoulder. It felt rather nice—solid, familiar. I smelled his cologne—bay and spice and something else. Ian smiled down at me and said, “Sorry about that.”
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