The Love Letters of J. Timothy Owen (10 page)

“And now will you please offer one another the sign of peace?” Father McDuff asked. This was the part he hated. He came to church to be alone with his thoughts, not to shake hands with total strangers. Once, he'd tried standing with his arms crossed on his chest, looking straight ahead, pretending he was deaf and/or dumb. But an old lady with a tipsy hat crouching on her blue hair had given him a nudge with her sharp elbow and said in a bossy way, “Shake hands, young man. I don't like it any better than you do, but shake hands, if you please. The sign of peace, if you please.” She looked like a troublemaker, so he did as she instructed him. From that time on, he didn't fight it. He shook hands with every Tom, Dick, and Harry anxious to be in on the peace giving, even if the guy might go home after church and kick the dog down the stairs for laying a couple of turds on the new rug.

“Peace be with you,” he said. He shook hands to the left of him, to the right of him, and when he grabbed the little kid's hand and shook it, the kid let out a startled yelp and burst into tears. The mother shot him a baleful glance as she soothed her baby, probably thinking he'd stuck the kid with a pin. Or with a machete he happened to keep in his pocket. To escape her indignant gaze, he turned to shake hands with whoever was behind him.

“Peace be with you,” he said.

Sophie! It was Sophie, hand out, a bemused smile on her face. He grinned and shook her hand so long she pulled it away from him, as if anxious to have it back. It was the first time he'd touched her. Her skin felt hot and dry. He felt the blood rush to his ears, warming them, turning them bright, the same color as a maple leaf when the frost hits it. He turned back to face the altar, flustered, heart pumping violently. He tingled all over. Sophie at St. Raymond's! Wonders will never cease.

Pull yourself together, he told himself sternly. Now's your chance. Church was a nice neutral ground, unlike school. When Mass ended, he skinned out fast and got his bike from the rack in the parking lot to push it around to the front where people mingled, gossiping cheerfully, giving Father McDuff compliments on his too-long sermon. He didn't really think Sophie would still be there but she was, standing in a group of girls.

He walked slowly in her direction, pushing his bike. When he looked at her, she was looking back at him.

“I didn't know you went to St. Raymond's,” he said, starting the conversation off in a brilliant manner.

“I don't. I'm here with a friend.”

“Well,” he said. Pause. “How'd you like the sermon?”

Sophie met that head on, her expression aloof, eyes wary.

Please God, he prayed, I need help. Put some clever words in my mouth and I'll follow you anywhere, God.

But Sophie had turned back to continue the conversation he'd obviously interrupted, as if she hadn't heard him, or, if she had heard him, hadn't understood.

“You know my father,” she said, rolling her eyes. The girls she was talking to laughed and rolled their eyes back. “He went around yelling that he was calling the cops if I got any more letters like that one. I don't know what he thinks the cops can do. Probably stake out the post office or something dumb like that.” Sophie threw the crowd into stitches with that one.

Tim was pretty busy with his dialogue with God and didn't really take in what Sophie had said, until he thought about it later.

Please God, if you make me look good now, I'll owe you one, he was thinking.

“What'd the letter say anyway?” a girl asked. “I mean, what was so bad about it?”

Sophie shrugged. “It was kind of weird. I mean, it was just sort of crazy. Full of words I didn't understand, old-fashioned stuff. Things people don't say these days. If you know what I mean.”

Her friends' faces remained blank. Obviously they didn't know what she meant.

“I couldn't tell if the person who wrote it was serious or just pulling my leg, you know?”

Sophie shook her head. “But, I don't know. Every time I read it, I feel different. Like it's weird one time, then the next it's sort of, I don't know, sort of grabby. It grabs me. Just when I start getting mad, something makes me hang in there, waiting for what's coming next. Then I get mad again.”

Now he was frozen to the spot he stood upon, a dopey smile on his face. Letting her words sink in.

“You'd have to read it to know what I'm talking about,” Sophie continued. “I'll bring it to school tomorrow to show it to you all. That is, if my father hasn't taken it to the police station so they can check it for fingerprints.”

Collective peals of laughter were so uproarious, people turned to stare, wondering what was so funny.

Fingerprints! Boy, lucky thing he'd worn his mother's gloves. It just showed it paid to be careful. There was no way they could trace that letter to him. Unless they grilled the friendly postman he'd given it to. Would the postman remember him? Upon cross-examination, would he knit his brow and say, “Well, there was this kind of weird-looking kid who told me he didn't want her to know who sent the letter. Kind of a criminal type he was, now that I think about it.”

Would that happen? No. Impossible. He had a forgettable face, didn't he? Besides, what crime had he committed? None.

A big white car pulled up and Sophie and her pals got in. She didn't even say good-bye.

Chapter 15

Traveling on foot, he took the long way around to Patrick's. He didn't want to get where he was going any sooner than he could help. He was a bundle of nerves, as a direct result of this morning's meeting with Sophie, as well as the prospect of escorting Melissa to the tea dance at St. Raymond's.

“What on earth happened to you?” his mother had inquired when he'd arrived home from church. “You look as if you'd been through the mill.”

He told her of Father McDuff's sermon about the cloistered nun, said he'd run into some girls he knew, neither of which explained his appearance, which was that of someone who'd just had an unforgettable experience. An epiphany.

His mother had insisted he wear his church clothes to the dance—shirt, tie, even matching socks. He left his glasses in his bureau, deciding they'd only gild the lily. He walked at a snail's pace, giving the neighbors a treat. So, Sophie had received his letter, and thought it was grabby! Once he really got into it, this writing of love letters would turn out to be a cinch. He felt it in his bones. With a little practice, he would hit his stride, like a highly trained athlete who knows how to pace himself, or herself, who knows how to breathe properly so there would always be breath for the task ahead. Knows all the tricks that add up to winning. Coming in first.

For that was what he had in mind—coming in first with Sophie. The first hurdle had been passed. Three cheers for the mailman. That mailman was a veritable Cupid. Just for the price of a postage stamp, he, Timothy J. Owen, was starting a whole new phase of his heretofore dull and dreary life.
The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
, by T. S. Eliot, first read by him at age thirteen, had made an indelible impression. From then on, he thought of himself as J. Timothy Owen, a name to conjure with. That little old stamp tucked up there in the corner of the envelope had started a chain of events that could lead almost anywhere. It was awesome, what one stamp could do, could lead to. Romance, adventure, intrigue. It was enough to make the mind boggle, thinking about the power of a stamp, of a mailman to bring about a radical change in someone's existence. He vowed that if he got out of this tea dance alive, he'd give the mailman a tip at Christmas to thank him for the superior job he'd done.

But, even taking the long way, he got where he was going eventually. As he turned the corner that led to Patrick's street, he saw a figure on the sidewalk, eyes shaded, scanning the horizon. It was Melissa, on the lookout. He waved and the figure scooted out of sight. All was serene as he pulled into the front yard. He thought he saw the curtains move. Melissa was watching. He knocked on the door very softly. Maybe she wouldn't hear his knock and he could go home and claim he'd been there but they'd all gone somewhere else.

The door flew open.

“Hello, Tim,” Melissa said, blushing. She was resplendent in a shocking-pink sweater and black leather jacket with three earrings in each ear. Wild. Her eyelids were decidedly lavender. Patrick's mother would lower the boom on that eyeshadow, he figured.

“Come on in.” He followed Melissa inside and thought she seemed unsteady on her feet. She wore stockings and heels. That was it. She had to get her sea legs before she could walk on those heels.

Solemnly they sat down, he on the couch, Melissa on a chair across the room. “My mother will be right down,” Melissa said. “She's taking us.”

“I know,” he said. He glanced around surreptitiously, expecting Patrick to pounce out at him.

“Where's Patrick?” he asked at last. “We could shoot a little pool while we're waiting.”

“Patrick's gone to my aunt and uncle's for Sunday dinner,” Melissa announced, lips tucked into a shadow of her former mouth.

“Oh.” So Patrick had been shanghaied, sent to the bush leagues, and was even at this moment scarfing down prime ribs
au jus
and Yorkshire pudding. Poor Patrick.

A heavy silence fell. Into it he spoke.

“So, Melissa, what're you up to this summer?”

Melissa cleared her throat and inched to the edge of her chair.

“I'm writing a novel,” she said in a little breathless voice. “I'm entering it in a contest for hitherto unpublished authors under the age of twenty-one. The first prize is a thousand dollars advance against publication, and after they publish your novel, you get royalties, which means they pay you a certain amount for each copy that's sold.” She had obviously memorized every word. “Plus, my novel has to be between thirty-five and fifty thousand words.”

“That's a lot of words,” he said after a bit.

“I've had a couple of poems published in our class paper,” Melissa confessed, “but I don't think they count. Anyway …” She eyed him defiantly. “I'm not going to mention them.”

“Good plan,” he said. “What's it about?”

“My novel?” She eyed him, and he was tempted to say, “Wasn't that what we were talking about?” and did not.

“Well, it's about this sixteen-year-old girl who has a terrible fight with her mother, so she runs away from home and hitches a ride with this guy. He is a real hunk with blond hair and a really good build, and he looks like a preppy, but it turns out he's into hard drugs and he plays in a rock band and everything.”

Melissa stopped. He knew he should say something so he said, “Sounds good. What happens?”

“I have to work out that part, the rest of it,” Melissa said. “I've got several ideas but I have to work it out.”

Patrick's mother came in and he leaped to his feet with such alacrity he almost knocked her over.

“You both look so nice,” she said. “Could you give me a hand, Tim? I have a lot of cupcakes and sandwiches to put in the car. I'm the refreshments chairwoman and, without me, they don't eat. Why don't you stay put, Missy? Tim and I can manage.” Melissa ducked behind the comics and he and Mrs. Scanlon went to the kitchen to get the supplies. He followed her into the garage, loaded with boxes.

“Tim, you're a darling.” Mrs. Scanlon surveyed the packing job. “She would've been so crushed if you'd turned her down. I thank you for your kindness.” Mrs. Scanlon leaned over and kissed his cheek.

He took it in stride. “That's OK,” he said. Sir Lancelot on the prowl, that was him.

All three of them sat in the front seat. He was willing to sit in back, but Mrs. Scanlon said there was plenty of room. He and Melissa sat rigid, arms at sides, careful not to touch each other, as Mrs. Scanlon drove them to the tea dance.

The parking lot at St. Raymond's was filled with eighth graders, all dressed up and running in circles like crazies. As he helped Mrs. Scanlon unload the goodies and carry them inside, he felt very old. In eighth grade, he remembered, it had been possible to be turned on by the thought of plenty of cupcakes, egg-salad sandwiches, and punch. Extraordinary, but true. It was only with the pressure of added years and experience that one realized food wasn't everything in life.

“Hey, Tim O.!” He knew immediately that mocking voice. No one else called him Tim O.

Tony Montaldo approached with both arms held high like a politician seeking votes. “Never thought I'd see an old geezer like you at St. Raymond's eighth-grade bash.” Tony's teeth gleamed in a malicious smile.

Tim scarcely raised his head from the task of stacking the tall piles of boxes before taking them inside. Now he knew for sure this was going to be a bummer. Tony Montaldo was the icing on the cake.

“These are the times that try men's souls. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered.” Thomas Paine, a supremely eloquent man, spoke to him again. His soul was being sorely tried, and Tony Montaldo was the tyrant.

Melissa, meanwhile, talked animatedly to a group of girls who stole looks in his direction every so often and when he caught them looking at him they turned back into their circle, their voices rising shrilly as they undoubtedly discussed world affairs, waiting for the festivities to commence.

“I only came for the grub,” Tony bragged. “My sister's at St. Raymond's, and she said the grub was going to be good so I decided to come and eat.”

“I guess that about does it,” Patrick's mother said, looking at her watch. “It's almost four, Tim.” She smiled at him encouragingly and he thought she knew how he was feeling. He followed her into St. Raymond's, with Melissa and her coterie of buddies bringing up the rear.

The gym smelled the way he remembered it smelling. You couldn't do much to change that smell, one of good old-fashioned sweat. No matter how old you got to be, how much water had gone over the dam or under the bridge, gyms smelled like gyms. In a way, it was reassuring. If, in yet another reincarnation, he or Patrick came back to St. Raymond's gym, say in the twenty-first century, they'd know immediately where they were.