It was a sunny morning in May, a day that promised renewal and offered the possibility of love or adventure or both. Lizbeth stretched and yawned and rose out of bed with an unusual exuberance. It was a Wednesday, an ordinary work day. At the window she lifted her face to the sun. It’s warmth, coupled with the soft breeze and the wafting lilac fragrance, gave her the lift she often needed to start her day.
Three years earlier Lizbeth had moved from her small town in upstate New York to a suburb of New York City. It had been a question of economics, safety and comfort – a dark studio apartment in a questionable part of Manhattan, but with reasonable access to job and city life or a larger one-bedroom, bright flat with a back garden in an attractive suburb 45 minutes from the flat to her office on 48th and Madison Avenue. Her co-workers, friends and acquaintances, all city dwellers, might have envied her living quarters, but they pitied her isolation from what they deemed as life. Being stuck in the burbs wasn’t for them, these single, up-and-coming, creative, lively people, transplanted from California, Kansas, Texas, Maine and all points north and south and the five boroughs of New York City. Transplanted and flourishing in the highly enriched soil of the Big Apple. Lizbeth had yet to flourish.
Fortified as if with a tonic, Lizbeth showered and dressed in less than her normal time. Often, the lightness she experienced in the morning didn’t last. The routine office tasks, her lack of forward movement in the company, her distance away from the gay life she had imagined, wore her down.
In the vestibule of the building she retrieved an envelope, lying face down on the muddy floor. Between the dirty smudges, she read: Hannah Minnikin, 41 Maple Street, apartment 2B, Hartsdale, NY. Correct building and Lizbeth’s apartment, but wrong name. She must have dropped it when collecting her mail the night before. Lizbeth knew the other five tenants. No Minnikin there, but perhaps someone had a guest. Or maybe Hannah Minnikin had been a former tenant. With the return address completely illegible because of the mud and water, there was no question of returning it to the sender. Lizbeth left the envelope on the vestibule table. She would call the landlord later.
At the station Lizbeth looked for Monica, another commuter with whom she sometimes sat. Monica was a woman of impeccable taste in clothes, a successful (or so she said) attorney with a law firm on Park Avenue. Married with two children, a husband who had some important and moneyed job on Wall Street (weren’t they all?), a live-in nanny and housekeeper and a weekly gardener. Monica was self-assured and always willing to elaborate on the daily details of her full life.
“You’re doing yourself a disservice to live here before you marry and have children. I had 15 years in Manhattan. Wonderful years,” she said, “even early on when money was tight. But one has to settle down eventually.” Lizbeth often thought of that conversation. “You owe it to yourself,” Monica had said.
Lizbeth wasn’t sure what she owed or to whom, herself or her mother who had spooned out advice with Lizbeth’s pablum. “You’ve got to be smart and get out of this small town. Not like me. I didn’t. I couldn’t. I’ll make sure you can do it.”
Not seeing Monica, Lizbeth felt relieved. Her nudging would have disturbed the tranquility of her mood that morning. Remembering the letter, she retrieved her cell phone and called her landlord. Other commuters were on their phones. Business was conducted on the commuter trains, office business, getting a jump-start on the day, or family business, concluding conversations begun the night before, instructing the nanny, confirming doctors’ appointments. Lizbeth had neither type of business. Her cell phone was not the extra appendage it was to others, but just a weight in her purse. She dialed the landlord’s number.
“I never had a tenant with that name,” he said, “not in thirty years.”
Lizbeth was concerned for the sender. Yet, how careless to have written the wrong address.
“Take it to the post office,” Mr. Billings said. “It’ll probably go into the dead-letter office and sit there until the world comes to an end or someone does a good housecleaning, whichever comes first.” He snickered at his joke, then quickly changed his tone. “Just throw it away, for heaven’s sake. What do I care what you do with it?”
Throughout the morning Lizbeth’s thoughts kept returning to the letter. It worried her to think it would molder away in a dead-letter office. Officially an Office Assistant in a small publishing company that published short story anthologies, memoirs, self-help, how-to and travel books, she was the receptionist, file clerk, errand girl, manuscript tracker and coffee maker. In another era her position would have been called Gal Friday.
“Lizbeth, just a quick read on these. We’re swamped again.” Janet, one of the fiction editors, dropped three envelopes on her desk. “Get rid of these.”
On rare occasions Lizbeth was asked to read manuscripts if the slush pile became too high. Hers would be the first read, the first to reject or to pass further down the chain of decision makers. The first manuscript was a possible. She set it aside. The second was not, and, after confirming that Janet was not lurking, she composed a note on the bottom of the form letter. “The story doesn’t really begin until the second page. I suggest you begin there and weave in the early background. Good luck.” Maybe it would help the writer and keep him writing. The third manuscript required more help. She saw a few glimpses of good writing, but mostly it was rote. This happened, then that happened.
“Just what are you doing, Liz?” Janet, silent and looming like a black cloud, stood behind her chair. Reaching over Lizbeth’s shoulder, she snatched the form letter on which Lizbeth had been writing a note and crumpled it. “You know what to do. A quick read and NO comments. That’s our policy. There’s not the time to coddle these beginners. Can’t you remember that?” She tossed the crumpled paper on Lizbeth’s desk. “You won’t advance in this business if you’re so tender-hearted.”
If she were an editor, Lizbeth would give some comments with the rejections, a few words of encouragement, words so often needed to maintain one’s hopes, to not give up. A form reject letter reduced the writer to a nameless commodity, but A Bite of the Apple Publishers thought it was expedient and necessary to save time and, ultimately, money. She could use a few words of encouragement herself. Janet’s parting words, “…won’t advance…,” was an echo from eight months earlier.
At Brite Lights magazine, where Lizbeth previously worked, she had begun writing short pieces about the history of some of the old theaters and movie houses. The pieces had been well received. Too well. Soon, an older, more experienced writer with seniority was incorporating her idea into his column. “You won’t advance if you can’t accept editorial decisions regarding your work,” she was told when she protested the change. When put back on strictly receptionist duties, she should have stood her ground instead of quitting. She should raise the issue now with the senior editor. But to what avail? If she got fired then what? Go back home?
“You’ll make me proud,” her mother had said often, the same good-bye speech every time Lizbeth returned to college after a vacation. “All my sacrifices– phifft. They mean nothing as long as I can help you leave this place. You won’t be stupid like I was.”
No, she couldn’t go home.
***
Three days later the letter remained on the vestibule table. Thousands of letters must end up in dead-letter offices every day, yet Lizbeth couldn’t consign this one to that fate. She felt responsible; it had been in her box, and she had dropped it, obliterating the return address. On Sunday afternoon she brought the letter up to her apartment. Tampering with the mail was a Federal offense. Lizbeth paused, but only for a few seconds before inserting a letter opener under the flap and giving a quick slice upward. She removed three sheets of folded paper, each written on one side.
“Dearest Hannah,” the letter began and ended with “I impatiently await your reply. Nick.” Whatever question asked in between would not be answered. Lizbeth fingered the sheets. Good quality paper. Ivory, like old piano keys. She glanced quickly through the pages. Perfect penmanship, each letter clear and distinct, neither an old person’s writing, nor a very young one. There was an absence of flourishes, a firmness to the strokes, perhaps a little too deliberate as if the writer were trying his best.
She was peeking into a stranger’s life, a voyeur to his emotions, a random confidant to his thoughts. She began to read.
“Dearest Hannah,
I miss you. I was unprepared for this feeling of loneliness without you. What a fool I was to walk away. No, not walk. Ran. Much to my regret and sorrow I failed to value your love, your sincerity, your capability to complete me. It has taken 3,000 miles and six months to come to my senses. I feared losing myself, of becoming a creature of staid habit and conformity. Yet, this continuation of my free and unfettered life has no longer been fulfilling. How did I ever think it was? I am neither happy in the moment nor content overall. All I have acquired with this life are more money, fleeting moments of gaiety, and an assortment of acquaintances–not friends. You, dearest Hannah, are, or were, my only true friend.
I hold your picture close to my heart and continually relive the memories of our love. For I do love you. You, for all your youth, are the wise one, and I am just an aging fool. You discovered early what you value and are correct in not forcing an attitude inconsistent with your heart. Please tell me you forgive me and that we can try again. I impatiently wait for your reply.
Nick.
Lizbeth returned the letter to the envelope and propped it on her dresser. A sad letter, but, such carelessness. This Nick was a fool, getting the address wrong.
Since there was no Hannah Minnikin in any telephone directory, Lizbeth put notices in the personal columns in several newspapers, locally and in the City. It cost her the price of several lunches, but she was at fault for ruining the return address.
In the days that followed, Lizbeth reread the letter several times. She memorized it. She created a picture of Nick and Hannah. Young girl, older man, not one to use e-mail for a love letter, nor call and risk Hannah hanging up. A handsome couple, attracted to each other, in love, but of opposing temperaments. Nick–a city person, no longer up-and-coming, but arrived. Carefree and wanting to remain so. Hannah would be a girl with traditional values, a quiet person, content with a simpler life than Nick wanted. The more Lizbeth filled in Hannah’s character and desires, the more she realized that she was Hannah, a small-town girl who preferred that to the pace of city life. She liked the garden behind her apartment, the avenue of trees and the park she passed on her way to the train. She enjoyed being on friendly terms with the other tenants, sharing coffee and talk on many occasions. This was home, not like the open country where she had grown up, but warm and welcoming. For three years she had been trying to have both, to fit in both places. Her wish of creating a vibrant, gay life, a life she had been convinced would be preferable to what she and her parents and grandparents had, was really a fantasy born of childish expectations shaped by her mother. She was not suited for an unfettered life as Nick had written. Nick had lost a love before he discovered this; Lizbeth, at least, was spared that pain.
There were no responses to her ad, and Lizbeth let it run for another week. It was possible Hannah never read the personal columns. Why would she? Nick knew where to find her. She would have waited to hear from him, but after six months she would have closed that chapter. Maybe Hannah went home. Or maybe she remained and tried to fit in, not by emulating others, but by being herself.
Lizbeth kept the letter, putting it in a box, along with her Girl Scout badges, birthday cards, a dried corsage, wedding invitations from friends, the usual assortment of keepsakes people save so as to relive the past, a past that often appeared ordinary and dull to Lizbeth, but which now seemed comfortable and happy. Even with the letter stored, Nick’s words unfettered life has been no longer fulfilling and forcing an attitude inconsistent with your heart returned again and again to the forefront of her thoughts.
***
“You’re not serious about going home, are you?” Monica asked on the commuter train. “You have to grow some teeth to get ahead. You’re pulling yours out before they get a change to grow. “
“And, how were your teeth, Monica? Like fangs?” Lizbeth didn’t care if Monica were offended.
“Yes. They still are,” she replied with a wide Dracula like grin, not appearing to mind. “Only now I can afford to retract them a little.”
“My teeth will never sharpen that way. It’s not in me. It’s taken three years and a
misdirected letter to discover that. I may not stay at home, but I can’t go against what I am.”
She knew that if she were to return to New York, she would not spend her days envying the life of her friends, but would live her life her own way, a bit slower, with less push and no fangs. Of Hannah and Nick? That she had caused the smudges on the return address continued to pluck at her guilt, but maybe Nick, when he received no response from his letter, would return and look for his love. Maybe they would marry and be happy. Then again, maybe not, and memories would fade and be forgotten.
Regardless of what happened, Lizbeth would go home and try to make a life there,
and … she would keep the letter.
Photo by Towfiqu barbhuiya on Unsplash
