From:
[email protected]
Subject:
Tracer
Matt,
I was just sitting here thinking about how fast email is and wondering if people ever get an email within seconds of someone writing it. Is there a way to know when you got it? I’m kind of fascinated with this speed of light communication. Just curious. No rush-bye!
Lane
~*~*~*~
Thursday night was two-for-one night at the buffet on 49th Street. Matt’s parents went every week, and Matt ate leftovers or frozen pizza. Usually he spent the night watching a sitcom or playing
Camelot’s Revenge
, his favorite video game.
This week, the moment his parents closed the door behind them, he popped left over lasagna and meatloaf in the microwave, poured a huge glass of milk, and turned on the computer. While it booted, he grabbed his steaming plate, a paper towel, and a fork. Oh, how he missed the fresh salads from the Argosy Ranch.
Tad’s email came through first. Amazed at how much he missed a place he’d barely seen, Matt closed his eyes, chewed his lasagna, and tried to remember the smell of the damp earth in the morning, hear the bleating lambs as they nuzzled their mothers for milk, and the feel of the silky coat of Cardiff beneath his fingers as he fed her carrots. He realized, not for the first time, that he’d left part of him in Montana at the Argosy Ranch.
The memory of dark chocolate eyes brought him out of his reverie. He read Tad’s email carefully.
From:
[email protected]
Subject:
pesky sisters— isn’t that redundant?
hey matt,
you’re missing the hunt buddy! man, we’ve lost three lambs to a mountain lion. nate and i are patrolling at night to scare away any more attacks, but we’ll see. we’ve got a contest going to see who nabs this bad cat first. if you were here, we’d make the odds more interesting and get some more sleep. i’m going to try to get dad to let me add jude to the pool. that’d make the patrol more like 3 hours each.
i took lane over to meet the wheatley’s. they’re a very nice family. we have plans for them to come up this weekend. patience and their little girl took to each other immediately so that’ll be good. she’ll be out of our hair a bit anyway. she sure misses you. i’ve never seen anything like it. she’s always hated strangers—especially men.
i’d planned to tell you more about the wheatleys, but miss IMA here is driving me crazy. time for me to hand over the keyboard and then get her outside. vet is coming for a consultation about breeding cardiff.
shoved out of the chair,
tad
Matt laughed. It sounded just like the Argosy banter. He clicked “next” and read Patience’s missive. His mother had some of her old childhood books in a box somewhere. Maybe in the storeroom in the basement of the building. He’d see if there was anything in there a little girl would like to share with a friend.
Lane’s email struck a hilarious cord with him. Her “sonnet,” a parody of the poem by Joyce Kilmer, was just close enough to the original to make it familiar and off enough to show her dislike of poetry in general. He’d have to tease her about not studying her literature courses more closely.
He typed www.letterbox.com into his Internet browser and signed out of his account. Within minutes, he had an account created for Lane that would give her some privacy in hopes that it would encourage her to continue writing. He signed back out again and sent another email.
From:
[email protected]
Subject:
The Ins and Outs of Email
Dear Lane,
You are never going to let me live down my sheep attack, are you? Of course, it sounds more dramatic as a poem, and by the way, it is a poem, not a sonnet. Look up the structure of a sonnet; I think you’ll find it interesting. I’ve never written one, but maybe I’ll try.
I created a letterbox.com account for you. The address is [email protected] and the password is 123sonnets4me, but you should change it to whatever you’ll remember. If you check the little box at the bottom the email that you compose, under the ‘send’ button, it’ll ask for a “return receipt.” That’ll send you an email when the recipient opens it, and you’ll know exactly when it was opened.
I sent you and Patience a regular letter today. Mom and Dad are out to the buffet for dinner, but they’ll be home soon, and Mom will probably want to surf a bit before bedtime so I should go.
Tell Tad to get that mountain lion for me and please give Cardiff an apple; Mama horses need their treats. Remember that owl that used to swoop down in the twilight? Tell him I said hello.
Thinking Joyce Kilmer can eat his heart out,
Matt
~*~*~*~
“So he told Josiah that he wouldn’t do it. He said there was nothing in his contract forbidding anyone in particular from visiting his cabin and called Josiah’s bluff.”
Rose Wheatley counted kitchen towels almost like punctuation to their conversation. Patience and Megan jumped rope outside the entrance and giggled as they shared the deep secrets of girls the world over. Lane watched everything around her with awe.
“Why do you think he did that?” Rose’s voice sounded absent-minded as she rearranged colored glass salt and pepper cellars in several colors.
The question threw Lane off guard. She pondered the idea as she swiped dust off teapots in a door less china cupboard. “I don’t know. I never questioned it. It’s exactly what you’d expect of Matt.”
“It was the talk of the town. I couldn’t go anywhere for days without hearing of the ‘scandal.’” Rose made quotation marks in the air as she whispered the word scandal conspiratorially. “It got to the point where I told people I was tired of the gossip.”
“Do you think it was gossip? What is the difference between talking about it with them and talking about it with me?”
Rose took the duster from Lane’s hands and wiped the tops of the jars before passing it back to her. “Well, I’d say because you were there, a part of it, have firsthand information, and are who they’re talking about in the first place. This wasn’t Josiah talking about himself and those involved. This was half the town speculating and glorying in the discomfort of others, all baptized in a nice Christian sounding disapproval of something to make it okay to discuss wantonly.”
Patience and Megan burst through the door. Interrupting any chance of further conversation, Patience raced to Lane’s side. “Can we—”
“May you what?”
She rolled her eyes at Lane before she continued. “
May
we walk to the post office and get the mail? I know how. I can get the key from your key ring.
Please
!”
Rose nodded at Lane’s questioning look and slipped into the front room to retrieve her own post office box key. “Here, Megan. Here’s the key, and here,” Rose grabbed an empty tote bag from her large tote, “…is the mail tote. Make sure you don’t drop anything, and don’t forget to take the key out of the door.”
Before Lane could offer a similar admonition, the two little girls raced out of the gift store, almost running into customers. Rose started to call after them to come apologize, but sweet cries of, “Sorry” and “Excuse me!” drifted from where the girls had once been, bringing smiles to the newcomers’ faces.
“I apologize for that.” Greeting her customers, Rose pointed at the girls. “Getting the mail is such a terribly exciting adventure…” Rose allowed her voice to trail off in mock despair.
Lane watched as Rose helped her customers choose the perfect souvenirs and a few gifts. Each item left the store carefully stored in a brown craft bag with sheer aqua ribbon to keep the bag closed. A little tag hung from the handle shaped like a heart and read, “
Cottage Junction
.” She loved the simple, but chic effect.
“Did Matt’s afghan leave like that?”
Rose nodded, smiling to herself. “Yes. He said he’d check his suitcase so he could have the bag as a carry-on. He seemed very pleased with the packaging—kind of like you.”
Lane couldn’t avoid a slight blush, but she covered well. “His mom has probably never had anything so nice. From what I can tell, they don’t have much money. The home he described sounded a lot like the rough neighborhoods you read about in Los Angeles, Rockland, and Chicago. He lives in Rockland so it’s probably his neighborhood on the news.”
Rose nodded thoughtfully. “It probably explains his reluctance to leave here. Argosy Junction is certainly unlike anything he’s ever experienced.”
Somehow, Lane knew Rose was not talking about Montana, but Rose’s subtlety made it impossible to say anything without inviting more teasing. She wanted to be irate and offended that a girl can’t have a friend who happens to be a man without constant speculation, but she wasn’t. Having a friend to tease her again was nice.
Before she could respond, Patience and Megan burst through the doors again. Rose took the tote bag from Megan and sorted junk mail from bills and orders, while Patience danced around a chocolate display. “Look! Matt sent us more letters! Want yours? Of course you do, here. I’m going to read mine to Megan. Can we write him right back?”
Without waiting for an answer, Patience dragged Megan from the store to sit on the little bench outside and read her letter. “Listen, Megan. This is what Matt wrote.”
“‘
Dear IMA a.k.a. Patience
,’ that means me. He calls me Impatience Martha Argosy. See? IMA.”
Megan nodded excitedly and waited to hear the rest. Lane snickered at how exciting it seemed to be to read a letter from a grown man to her friend! Patience sat up straighter looking very important as she continued. “
‘I
am very pleased to get your letter. The gum was very good, and I chewed it while I read it. I am writing you from work. It is my lunch hour, and I am eating a soggy sandwich instead of nice hot pizza, so that I can stay here and write to you. That is very self-sacrificing of me; don’t you think?
‘My work is a big place. You would probably think it is very dirty and gray outside, but inside I think you’d like it very much. We use very hot torches that have blue and purple flames shoot from them. When they hit metal, they can cause brilliantly colored sparks to fly everywhere. I wear a mask to protect my face and eyes, special gloves to protect my hands, and a special jumpsuit so the sparks don’t burn my clothes. It’s very hot, but sometimes it looks like a bunch of fireworks all going off at once.
‘After work, I’ll ride the RUT home. RUT stands for Rockland Underground Transit. It’s a subway system with electric trains running under the entire city to take all of us where we need to go. It’s much faster than trying to drive on the streets, and where I live, not a lot of people have cars. My dad has a car though, so when we want to go somewhere, we can.
‘I am going to a movie on Friday night. I’m going to see a movie about a guy who pretends to work for terrorists so he can find out how they’ll hurt America and then tell the President so the President can stop them. But, the terrorists find out that he’s telling the President, and they try to kill him. The movie is about how he gets away and stops them for good. I don’t think you’d like it, but it kind of made me think of Nathan Hale. Remember I told you about him? I’ll eat some popcorn for you.
‘I have to go now if I’m going to have any time left to write Lane. I’ll send an email soon too.
‘Still missing all of you,
Matt’”
Inside, Rose stole covert glances as Lane read her letter. Aware that her new friend was judging the depth of her relationship with Matt based upon how much she shared of the letter, Lane passed it to Rose when she was finished. While Rose read, Lane rearranged embroidered pillowcases in the bedroom portion of the shop and wondered how many people purchased something so unfashionable.
Dear Lane,
A letter from you and Patience so soon was the last thing I expected and the nicest thing I could have received. Thank you! I got home Monday, tired, and there were your letters waiting for me. How did I not notice you were left handed? I know you ate right handed; I’d have noticed if I kept bumping your hand during dinner. You must be ambidextrous which is, of course, quite impressive.
Has Tad read any L’Amour yet? How about you? Have you ever read anything by “America’s Storyteller?” What do you like to read? Curious men in big cities thousands of miles away want to know.
Have you met the woman at the gift shop yet? I really think she could be a friend. I know you all feel like you’ve been betrayed, and it isn’t worth it, but I could have been like the Brethren, and yet, you gave me a chance.
I confess, I’d planned to write more, but I took so much time describing my work and a movie to Patience, that my lunch hour is almost over. I really need to say good-bye, but I’ll write again soon. May I say—well, whether you want me to or not, I will say—I’m enjoying our correspondence. I—Well, there’s the first whistle
Just call me Sparky, (ask Patience what that means)
Matt
~*~*~*~
Matt stared at his bank statement. Staying with the Argosys had saved him a lot of money. He’d been tempted to offer to pay for his room, but suspected it would insult them, so he hadn’t. Now he saw that he’d come home with several hundred more dollars than he’d anticipated. His first thought was that this was enough to buy another ticket to Montana anytime he wished.
He glanced up from the couch and saw his mom on the computer; she’d been there playing mahjong since he got home from work. He’d be able to get on tomorrow, since his mother spent Saturdays at the flea market and then grocery shopping with her friends. His dad would shuffle around the house, turn on golf, and then saunter down to the Jacoby’s and play poker for the afternoon.