6
THE LETTER HADfinally found me, and the sight of it sent my heart pounding, the rush of once-foggy memories suddenly clear in my head.
“Did what?” Lydia asked, puzzled. “Did you guys all secretly bury a body somewhere decades ago but the person survived and is now writing you all letters?”
“The wine is in the cabinet next to the fridge,” I said, smacking at her with the envelope. “And no, I’m not a murderer, yet, unless you wanna try me.”
“I’ve seen you attempt to kill a cockroach,” she said with a snort. “I’m not too worried.”
I turned the envelope over in my hands, studying its slightly worn shape with awe. “We wrote these letters to our future selves on our last night of camp. Sam said she’d mail them to us twenty years later, because that seemed so ancient and grown up to us then. I had no idea she actually kept them.”
Glasses clinked behind me as Lydia made her way around my kitchen. “How teen movie of you guys,” she cooed. “I love it. By the way, I’m adding bananas to your grocery list. Because I’m eating this one sad banana you have in here.”
“What should I do?” I asked, flipping the unassuming envelope over in my shaky hands. It felt like a brick in my palms, even though it probably weighed as much as a feather.
“What do you mean, ‘what should you do’?” Lydia said through a mouthful of banana, placing a tumbler of red wine down in front of me. “Open it!”
“Fine.” Squeezing my eyes closed for a quick second, I caught a glimmer of the carefree girl I’d been at the start of that summer. Fifteen and fearless, until the grim realities of adulthood arrived in the form of that letter from my mom.
“Wait! Wait. I need to use the bathroom,” Lydia said. I waved her toward the door next to my bedroom.
“I’ll be quick!” she said as she scurried across the room.
I’d then thrown myself into everything I did during those last few weeks of camp; as if I could somehow change what awaited me at home by being the strongest swimmer, the best Color Week captain, the most perfect, put-together version of myself. By kissing Mack, the boy I’d adored for years.
And god, how it had hurt—an acute pain so sharp I could still feel it in my heart—to realize how naive I’d been. My dad had already moved out of our house by the time I got home that summer. My mom started dating my stepdad months later. They finalized the divorce just before my high school graduation, where they sat rows apart, not speaking.
By then my dad had transferred to Hartford for work, which meant I only saw him on the weekends, and Mom had sold the house and moved us into an apartment in Providence. I spent my last summers of high school scooping ice cream at White Mountain Creamery and saving for college.
My entire world—and everyone in it—had completely turned upside down in just under one calendar year. I’d made a promise to myself back then to never let anything catch me off guard like that again. And now here I was, blindsided by a micro-sabbatical and this unexpected piece of mail sitting in front of me, waiting to be torn open.
Inside was a piece of lined notebook paper, folded precisely in thirds. I held it gingerly in my hands, a priceless heirloom, before pressing it flat against the table, carefully smoothing out the twenty-year-old creases with my fingertips. A portrait of my teenage life unfolded in front of me, painted in thick, blue ballpoint-pen ink. I fluttered a huge sigh through my lips, my shoulders tense with suspense.
“I am dying to know what this thing says,” Lydia said, plopping back down across from me. “If you feel like sharing, of course.”
I gave a quick nod and then shifted my eyes downward, facing my past.
“‘Dear thirty-five-year-old Clara, Hello from your younger self,’” I read, a shiver of nerves tiptoeing up my back. “Wait, hold on. I need a drink before I do this.”
I paused and took a giant, needy gulp of wine.
“Okay, here goes.” A tremor pulsed through me, my hands shaking ever so slightly. “‘It’s finally here: the last night of your last summer at Pine Lake, your absolute favorite place in the world. It’s 10:38 p.m. and we’ve snuck out to write these letters to ourselves here at the Water Front. Tomorrow you head back to Providence, which is the last place I—we?—feel like being. The thought of going home makes me want to barf.’”
I paused and looked up at Lydia. “This was the summer my folks split up.”
“Oh god, Clara.” She winced, her eyes sympathetic. “That must have been so hard.”
I let out a shaky breath, the memory rushing through me like a heat wave, clammy and hot. I’d cried so hard the day they picked me up from camp that my eyes were practically swollen after.
“‘But tonight,’” I continued, “‘for one last night, I’m here, at camp, writing these letters with the people who mean the most to me in the world. Eloise has gone off to write alone in our bunk, but Nick is here next to me on the dock, crying of course, and Sam is scribbling something in her notebook that is surely profound because you know how Sam is. Our little poet.’”
I looked up at Lydia, who was still watching me with kind eyes. “This was my group of best friends,” I explained. “Eloise was, like, ultra-serious and intense about everything, and Nick was the funniest person alive and the best actor at camp. And Sam was, well. The same. She hasn’t changed much. The smartest one. Wiser than the rest of us. An old soul.”
“When was the last time you saw them all?” she asked.
“It’s been a while,” I said, my eyes circling back to the printed names. “Five years-ish.”
I looked back down at the paper and groaned. Of course.
“What?” She leaned closer, her eyes lighting up with curiosity.
“It’s time for the Mack portion of the letter,” I said, dreading whatever was to come.
“Yes,” Lydia hissed, enthralled. “Boathouse boy.”
“I’m already cringing. ‘Mack is here too, farther down at the end of the dock, but I’ve been ignoring him all week. Did I want to end my last night avoiding the person I’ve had a crush on since I was ten? No. But I also didn’t expect us to kiss and then for him to not talk to me for days, so screw him. And the worst part, after all this stupidity—of us being Color Week captains, and the kiss, and then him completely blowing me off—is that I still can’t bring myself to hate him. Also, can I just say—I can’t believe Steve and Marla expect us to share the Color Week Captain medal?! He can stick it up his ass, as far as I’m concerned.’”
“Oh my god, Mack, what a piece of shit player!” Lydia screeched.
“The worst,” I said, surprising myself with how hurt I still felt over something that happened so long ago. Our kiss had been an eruption, burning everything in its wake. And then his silent treatment had followed, a harsh blast of ice.
“And because our teams tied during Color Week competition and we were both captains, they made us share this stupid winner medal with each other. We’ve literally never once talked about how we kissed, but we still send that medal back and forth to each other.”
“Wait, still?” Lydia’s mouth dropped open. “It’s been twenty years! You and hot boat boy have been long-distance flirting over a medal for two decades?”
“Oh, stop.” I could feel my cheeks heating and took another sip of wine for cover. “It’s just a way to annoy each other.”
“Mmm-hmmm.” She was looking at me through narrowed eyes. “And where is it now?”
“I sent it to him up at Pine Lake when I moved out of my place with Charles,” I explained. “And I didn’t give him my new address, so I assume he still has it.”
The medal was like a yearly reminder of our make-out session, and it got under my skin more than it should have.
“He probably sleeps with it under his pillow,” Lydia joked.
“When Sam got married, to her ex?” I continued. “He wore it to their fucking wedding. Then he left it at the front desk of the hotel we were all staying it. He paid them to give it to me when I checked out.”
My mind immediately pulled me back to memories of that night in Brooklyn all those years ago. Charles and I had just started dating, but work had kept him from joining me at Sam’s wedding, and Mack’s gaze had lingered on me the entire night, like he was constantly waiting to see what my reaction would be to that dumb medal dangling from his neck. So I’d done what I always did when I really wanted to piss him off: I ignored him.
“Okay, I’m going to need you to keep reading.” Lydia tapped her finger impatiently on the table.
I nodded. “‘But Sam made the very important point that we are feminists, and so I’m not going to let one immature guy get me down. Especially not MACK.’”
I paused to turn the paper over as Lydia squealed with delight.
“Oh my god, little feminist Clara!” She stuck out her bottom lip in a pout, hand at her heart. “I love her.”
“‘Sam told us to write to our older selves and remind them of who we are now, who we want to be, and how we want our lives to go. So if she does remember to send this to you in twenty years, I want to make sure I do exactly that. I’ve decided—and this is very me, I know—to make a list of the things I want to do by the time I’m thirty-five.’
“Oh god, I can’t read this.” I pushed the paper across to Lydia, grimacing. “This is mortifying.”
“It’s adorable,” she said firmly, grabbing the letter out of my hands. “I love that you were making checklists for yourself all the way back then.”
She straightened out her shoulders with an exaggerated “ahem” and kept reading.
“‘Please check off each one that you’ve completed, and if you haven’t done them yet: what the hell are you waiting for?’ Are you ready for this, Clara? Your teenage self is bossing you around from the past.”
I pressed my palms against my temples and nodded, overheating with embarrassment. This all felt too revealing, like snooping through a diary. Except that was almost always a betrayal of trust. This was something that the teenage me had wanted me to see.
“Okay, so, number one,” Lydia said. “‘Do something meaningful with your life. Don’t waste it.’ So sweet, teen Clara!”
“Ugh. It’s so clichéd.” I groaned. “Please just keep going so we can get this over with.”
“Oh my god!” She squealed, her face lighting up. “Listen to this. ‘Two. Get a dog.’ It’s a sign.”
“Well, clearly I need to get on that,” I muttered with a wave toward the flier on the fridge.
“‘Three, surround yourself with people you love, who love you.’ Done.” Lydia pointed at herself.
“‘Four, do something that scares you. Daily. Take risks, goddamnit! (Jump off the high dive, you chicken.) Five. Take a lot of LOVERS (lol). Or at least have one passionate love affair.’”
I audibly snorted as the memories rushed back in an instant. “Eloise brought a bunch of historical romance books to camp that summer. I was on a kick.”
“You actually wrote ‘LOL’ there. But still, good advice.” She chuckled. “‘Six,Chop your hair off. Come on, do it once! Or at least cut it short! (I almost did it this summer but I bailed, so now I’m holding us to it.) Seven. Experience real joy. Eight. Be kind to yourself!’ With an exclamation point,” Lydia added, giving me her brightest smile. “‘Nine. Have a shitload of fun. Ten. Be a great friend.’”
I looked up and watched as her eyes scanned the paper. “Is that it?” I asked. Please, god, let that be it.
She nodded. “Yeah, then you just say, ‘That’s all from me. I can’t wait to find out who I am as an adult. Remember—I love you. Xo, Me/You/Clara.’ See? It’s not that bad!”
Lydia pushed the letter back toward me.
“I sound so naively optimistic,” I murmured, staring down at my words. “Like I was in total denial about all the shit going on at home.”
“I’m sure it was a lot for you to process,” Lydia said.
“Also, why are there no actual, concrete goals here?” I traced my finger over my instructions. “You know, like, save for a down payment, or run a marathon.”
“Ew, that’s boring adult shit you’d write now. This”—she leaned forward and tapped a finger down on the letter—“is a sign. A DM from the Universe. A checklist for your soul. Teen Clara wants you to go to New Hampshire. Take a risk, goddamnit.”
Disagreement perched on my lips, ready to remind her again that we had a huge, life-changing pitch staring us down. But instead, I kept my mouth shut and ran my fingers along the blue lines of the notebook paper, trying to remember how I’d felt when writing these words. So much had changed since then, but a piece of me still lived on this page, and she’d wanted so much from her life. From me.
Could I even check a single box off Teen Clara’s list? Work could be considered meaningful. Right? And I did love working with Lydia, so maybe I could give myself a check there as well. I loved my parents in theory, I guess, even if they did both drive me a little nuts. But I didn’t have a group of friends around me who cared for me unconditionally as I’d had back then. I tried to think back to the last time I felt truly joyful and drew a blank.
I’d had the same dull, shoulder-length, layerless haircut since I was thirteen years old.
Jesus. Maybe this letter was a sign.
“So, what, you think I should just say fuck it, and actually go up to camp for the week?” I asked, and for the first time, I felt a genuine pull to do just that.
“Yes!” She threw up her hands again, completely exasperated with me. “I’ve been telling you this all night. Go take a week. You owe it to your fifteen-year-old self. And your current self.”
“I guess I do feel a little fried.” I took another sip of wine, weighing the idea. “I could even live up to teenage me and check off the rest of this list. Except for the hair chop part, obviously.”
“I’m not sure this is a do-it-all-in-five-days sort of list, Clara,” she mused. “This is, like, big life stuff.”
“Excuse me, if there’s one thing I’m good at it’s killing a to-do list,” I said adamantly, and she held up her hands in defeat.
“Okay, okay, that is true.”
“I mean, look.” I shrugged. “I can at least try. I’ll go on my playcation—”
“See!” Lydia clapped her hands together. “That really works!”
“I’ll follow this list, check everything off, come back to Boston, and kill the pitch,” I reasoned. “Show Amaya that I’m still just as good at this as I’ve always been. Better, even. And maybe if Alewife goes well, I’ll finally think about getting a dog.”
And joy, I thought to myself as I folded the letter back up and tucked it inside its envelope. Pure, unadulterated, ecstatic joy. Laughing so loud that you don’t care who hears you, running so fast it feels like your legs will never stop. The sensation of your heart cracking open with so much happiness you almost break into tears. That one word was so simple, and yet it contained an entire world of emotions in just three letters.
“And a lover,” she said, lips curling. “Who has a boathouse.”
“Don’t get ahead of yourself,” I said, though my body warmed at her words. I still thought back to that kiss with Mack at the strangest of times. Late at night, sure, but also in the middle of grabbing a burrito for dinner after work. One minute I’d be asking for extra guac, and then suddenly I was pressed up against the rough bark of that tree, Mack’s mouth hot on mine.
“Whatever you say, boss,” she said with a shake of her head. “Now, let’s go get you packed.”
“I haven’t done laundry all week.” I chewed at the edge of my index finger, suddenly unnerved at the thought of traveling at the drop of a hat. “Normally I’d have planned all my outfits and packed already.”
“Aw, look at you living on the edge already!” Lydia cooed, hand pressed against her chest.
“I like a packing list,” I grumbled, anxious at the thought of doing all of this so last-minute. “Is that so bad?”
“Of course not! But isn’t it exciting that you’re already doing something that scares you?” she said, grabbing the letter off the table and waving it in my face. “I’m so proud.”
“Very funny.” I brushed her off and moved to my closet to dig around for my duffel bag.
I hated being unprepared, and I could feel the tension building in my body as I prepared to face the unknown. But I felt something else, too, something that felt faintly like optimism. It hummed along the surface of my skin, a familiar buzz that reminded me of who I’d been that summer: sparkling and hopeful, invigorated by possibility.
Maybe it was time to get her back.