Ann Beattie - Love Always

Best wishes,

Edward

Dear Lucy,

I’ve been trying all summer to get up the nerve to ask you out, but I’ve never been able to do it. I thought that maybe you thought I wasn’t your type, because I work at the nursery. I do know that you were flirting with me the day you and your friend were there, though. I hope I don’t insult you by saying this. What’s wrong with flirting, after all. I was very interested and I guess it’s a sign of how much ego I have that I thought you’d come by again, or maybe even call. I did meet your friend who wanted to buy trees for his front lawn because he wanted to make his house, which was up for sale, look nice. I told him to say hello. Maybe he did.

I suppose I should write Cindi Coeur instead of Lucy Spenser, but that might be a little too cute. I thought you could answer my question just as well.

I guess I’m writing you because I think you’ll give me an honest answer. Did you also feel good energy between us, and if so, is the reason you stayed away because you’re involved with someone else or because I was an employee at a nursery? I’m going to confide in you: I need to know, because my luck has been lousy lately. My father is quite rich, and I always felt that if I didn’t do something real with my summers (I realize that working in a nursery isn’t meaningful, but other summers I’ve done things like work at a camp for handicapped kids), I’d become just another one of those kids who lounge around their parents’ summer house, doing some perfunctory little things the gardener or whoever doesn’t do, and sipping gin and tonics with the folks at night. I don’t mean to present myself as some prince in frog’s clothing, but it would help me to know whether you think I never will meet someone who’s right for me outside of the world I was brought up in.

I realize that this sounds like I’m accusing you — like I expected you to be a bloodhound or something. I don’t mean that at all. I just want to know if I’m right that the attraction, at least, was mutual, and whether you might have stayed away because you were interested in someone else, or for some other personal reason. It would help me to know. I guess, rereading this, that I wouldn’t have written you if you didn’t do the Cindi Coeur column, after all. I never write letters and don’t know how I got the idea. Or the nerve. At any rate, enjoy the rest of the summer. There’s a present you’ll have found by the time you get this.

Sincerely

Don Severs

Dear Nicole,

Everyone on the show is terribly sorry about what happened. It is shocking news about your mother’s untimely death. I think that I am particularly moved by what has happened because I have always been a kind of stand-in mother. I want you to know that you can still count on me.

As we all know so well, the show must go on. You will have to hide your own sorrows to effectively portray the sorrows of Stephanie Sykes. Really, though it seems small consolation at a time like this, it does make one pause to remember how many gifts and resources we have been given to draw on. Hard work will help to heal the wound. I am sure that you can triumph over this, as Stephanie has gradually managed to master her alcoholism, etc. Remember that you are not just a teenage girl who has lost her mother, but a character in your own life, and that your life is under your direction. Hard work and dedication will put you over the hump.

I have read someplace that when someone has trouble, vague offers of support are often not very helpful, however sincere. I thought that we might meet and talk about anything you like the first Monday of every month at the Polo Lounge. My treat.

With good wishes,

Pauline

Dear Miss Spenser,

I have in my possession a check issude from the Starlight, Star Bright Corp, in the ammount of $90. Down at the bottom of the check, where there is a memo line, it says Dead Sheep. I do not know, if this is the way you are accustomed to doing things, but anybody with desent manners would know that this is no suitible apology. My wife and I have been country people all are lives and we know that an acident like this is a thing that happens. But you did not right or call to say that you were sorry that your new dog had done this. As it happens that particulur sheep was old ect. but with a dog like that it is dangerus, also on are property there are valuble sheep and if he got at the two pigs there would really be trouble as we have been fatenning them well for a long time and no money could repay us. We also have such pets as a cat and a parot out on the front porch and having seen how that dog lungd at the sheep I don’t even no that I cunsider my bird safe. I would think that you would have handled this matter difruntly than just to have someone send us money like that. I also have something else to say to you. You taught my daughter drawing last year and when they drew the animals in the teraryum you put stars on her work for bringing home things I am embarased my wife saw because they fetured a part of the annatome that I would not even right in this letter to a lady, the part of the annatome was pronownced and exageratid. It should have been X’d out by you when that part was their at all let alone a part almost as big as a lizurd itself. Letting children draw this is not art. If your dog comes on are property again I would feel within my rites to shoot him.

Your negbor,

Mr. D. Wiegand

1Lucy — he likes you the best of all of them and wants you to visit. You always were nice to me, and I’m glad we got closer lately.

2Leaving aside Maureen. Just heard the news. Good riddance!

THE morning after the funeral in Los Angeles, Lucy went downstairs to Piggy Proctor’s living room. She was the first one awake. She had forced herself to get up even though it was very early, because being awake and tired was better than being asleep and enduring the nightmares. Ever since she got the news about Jane, she had been dreaming her own death: death by drowning, boats sunk, planes exploding, cars crashing — your basic suburban five-year-old’s typical fantasy day.

There had been so many people in the room the night before that it seemed, now that it was empty, that it was an entirely different room. Glass shelves that separated one part of the room from the other held Piggy’s wife’s shell collection. The furniture was lavender and blue. Enormous, hazy paintings of the sky hung on opposite walls. The richer people became the more they felt comfortable with abstraction. Nowhere in Piggy’s house was there a picture of the sky with the sun, or of a vase with flowers, or a scene out of real life; it was all art that relied on blotters instead of brushes. Some paintings that seemed pointillist grew clearer as you came closer. Lucy wandered around Piggy’s big house like a person with glaucoma wandering through a gallery.

Letters and telegrams had overflowed the big white wicker basket on the table. A couple had fallen on the rug. Lucy picked those up and carefully put them back in the basket as if they were alive — like birds that had fallen out of a nest, that must be frightened to be alone. She hadn’t been able to bring herself to look at any of them, and this morning she was still unable to do it. She stood there awhile, and finally reached into the basket like someone in a contest, drawing a card. Mixed in with all the messages of condolence was a telegram to Piggy’s wife saying that Your lucky day may come soon, Mrs. Proctor. You are now one of ten finalists in Sacramento Bread’s fly away to France deluxe vacation . There were instructions about what Mrs. Proctor should do next. Well, Lucy thought, what would important days be without irony: the blizzard on election eve, enemy troops storming the village as a woman was giving birth, the child hiccuping during its confirmation, the new car stalling as it was driven from the showroom.