Chapter 16
Chapter Sixteen
Phoebe
Calling Jay over was not the best intervention for my patheticness. It’s even worse border enforcement, but when a bicycle tries to eat your hair, you call the number you’ve got.
I definitely need to get more numbers.
I leave right on time the next morning, dressing extra professionally, like it will somehow make Jay forget that he has twice now seen the director of the museum in cutoffs and sneakers. I caught him looking at my legs last night. Maybe he’ll be punished for that by the curse of knowledge, just like I’m being punished by knowing how his manly thighs feel as a headrest.
But I’m covered up with navy cropped pants today and a pink and white seersucker blouse with a Peter Pan collar. I am cute when I check my closet mirror but in an off-duty candy striper way, and that is fine. Great, even. If I can’t keep Jay at a distance by willpower, I’ll let this outfit do the work.
I swing by my mailbox before heading to the parking structure. I see something inside that wasn’t there last night, and the mail hasn’t come yet. Which means …
A few people pass near me on their way out of the main door or heading to the parking garage. I don’t want to sweet-talk my mailbox in front of an audience, so I work the combo without sucking up. It doesn’t work, nor does it after two more tries. Great. I hear someone coming down the main staircase and two more people coming up the hallway. Definitely not going to talk to it.
But as I peer through the glass window, it looks too much like the first Smitten Kitten letter for me to be patient. I lean forward and pat the metal door. “Art Deco is the best deco.”
“Excuse me?” a man coming down the staircase asks.
“Oh, just talking to mys—” I turn to say but break off when I am faced with a macaw on the shoulder of an otherwise normal-looking middle-aged man.
“Mailbox?” he prompts me. “You were talking to your mailbox?”
“Myself,” I say and struggle to maintain eye contact.
He shrugs. “Suit yourself, but they open faster if you have words with them.” He walks to a mailbox and gives it a sound thump with his fist before the bird squawks, “Open, sweetie. Sweetie, open.”
Two seconds later, it does.
I work my combo without a problem this time. Sure enough, a letter in the same type of envelope as the Smitten Kitten one sits inside the mailbox. I pluck it out, and my heart rate kicks up a gear when I spot the familiar handwriting addressed to Smitten Kitten from the same return address, with no stamp or postmark.
With a smile at parrot man, I slip it into my workbag and hurry out to my car, excited to get to work. By the time I pull behind the Martin house and park, I’ve invented fifty different possibilities for the contents of this letter, and when I get to the library, I don’t even set up my laptop before I lay the envelope on the desk .
Once again, I carefully cut along the shortest edge of the envelope, but instead of sliding the letter out, I pause.
It doesn’t feel right to open it without Jay here, which doesn’t make sense. These letters don’t have anything to do with him. If I’m honest with myself, it would be more fun to open it with him. I am the world’s worst border collie, but after his rescue last night, giving him a heads-up is the least I can do.
Phoebe
I got a new Smitten Kitten letter.
I expect to hear from him right away, but even though he sees it, he doesn’t answer. Not even a thumbs-up.
“Do not be disappointed, Phoebe. Go to work and treat yourself to a peek at the letter on your break.”
Peek. Ha. I will scour every loop of cursive for clues. But only after I do my real job first. Good thing I love it too.
I’ve barely logged in and read my first email when the sound of someone running down the hall is followed by Jay almost skidding into the library.
“Did you read it?” he demands. He sounds slightly short of breath.
“Did you run over here?” He’s in plaid pajama bottoms and a white tank undershirt, no shoes. Wet grass clings to his feet, and he’s rocking some serious bedhead.
“Didn’t want to miss it. Did you read it?”
“I decided to deal with it when I’m not on the museum’s dime,” I said. “By which I mean I was saving it to read as a treat on my break.”
“Can trustees grant extra breaks to the museum director? Break granted. Can we read it?” His eyes are still sleep-puffed, but they’re bright with curiosity.
“You are not in charge of my breaks.”
“Okay, but?— ”
“Sorry, can you hold that thought until we read this message?” I’m anxious to read it too, but more than that, I need Jay out of here. He looks more adorable than any male should have the right to. At least, his sleep-mussed hair does. Adorable is the wrong word for the way that undershirt shows off his shoulders. He’s lean but solid, like a guy who spent a whole lot of time building his upper body in the batting cages during college.
I need him gone ASAP if I’m going to focus on my presentation.
On any dang thing, honestly.
He gives a soft “Yessss” and vaults himself into his usual chair. It’s a good move. I might practice it when he’s not around.
I pick up the envelope and turn it toward him. “Same handwriting and addresses, but no stamp or postmark.”
He rubs his hands together.
I tilt it so the letter slides out, catching it before it hits the desk. “Same stationery, same ink.” I check the last page. “Yours, Dear Heart.”
His eyebrows go up. “Ooh, ‘yours’ is an upgrade from ‘ardently.’ Let’s gooooo.”
“You have never sounded more like a frat boy.”
“Kappa Sigma and proud of it. Will you read? Want me to read? I’ll read it.”
I pull the letter toward my chest, away from his reaching hand. “Settle down, Dr. Martin. That is behavior unbecoming a historian.”
“I’m dying here, Phoebe.”
I smirk at him before I clear my throat and begin to read. “November 3, 1965.”
“A couple of months after the last one.”
“Here we go. ”
Dear Smitten Kitten,
I won’t stop calling you that until I have conclusive proof that you are not smitten. And your last letter didn’t do the job, I’m sorry to report. Nor did the several before that. In fact, there are at least a few moments in each of them when I think to myself, “I believe Kitten actually cares.”
No one is so polite that she’ll write back to a fellow she doesn’t like every week, much less share her small-town adventures and ask about his schooling. But I’ll drop it before I tease you so much that you quit writing just to make a point.
School gets tougher every week. I’m still not sure how I fooled the university into accepting me. I’m waiting for them to tell me they’ve made a mistake and rescind it despite somehow clawing my way to my senior year. I’m more surprised than anyone that I manage to keep up. I am not a falsely modest man. I know my strengths and my limits, and as much as every exam and project has me in a terror until I see a passing grade, I will also confess that despite the classes only growing harder, they also grow more interesting .
I can hardly believe Thanksgiving is almost here. In some ways, I know school will speed by too quickly, and I will feel as if I never caught up, never studied enough. But in other ways, time will crawl so slowly until Thanksgiving week, when I’ll get to see you.
I will, won’t I, Kitten? You’ll come home to see your parents and eat at least four different dishes made with Massachusetts cranberries? That’s how it is at my house. My grandfather will joke about how Ben Franklin was an idiot for choosing the turkey as our national bird, but he admits it tastes better than eagle. We’ll all laugh, but once again I will secretly wonder how he knows what eagle tastes like until it’s too disturbing to ponder any longer, and I drown the thought in mashed potatoes and gravy.
How long will you be able to stay? If you’re around on Saturday, I’d love to bring you to our fraternity social. All the locals bring in a leftover pie from Thanksgiving, and we eat ourselves sick again.
Don’t work too hard, Kitten. I had no idea you were thinking about teaching, and your stories of the fifth-grade shenanigans you deal with by turns make me laugh and want to throttle the little hooligans who give you such a hard time. I’m glad you have your cousin to sympathize with you, although her second graders sound easier to manage.
You didn’t ask, Kitten, but I’ll tell you so that I can ask the same of you: I’m not dating anyone in Boston. Your mother can check with the biggest gossip at the club or anywhere else, and they’ll tell you the same. I haven’t had eyes—much less the heart—for anyone since you ran away. How about you, Kitten? Do you and your cousin live the carefree life of single girls in your apartment, entertaining gentleman callers and going out on the town? Or are you too distracted, perhaps, by the memory of a certain handsome young man pining for you back in Boston?
Yours,
Dear Heart
I set the letter down, feeling unsettled and trying to understand why.
“Someone’s got it bad,” Jay says. “And his very stupid name is Dear Heart. But at least he gave us some clues. Smitten Kitten is teaching fifth grade. He’s probably at Harvard if he’s finding it difficult. I looked up his return address. It’s in the Back Bay, so probably rooming with rich kids in the brownstones so he’s close to campus without living in Cambridge. And now we know Smitten Kitten was roommates with her cousin …” He breaks off. “You’re frowning. What’s up?”
I look up from the letter. “Everything he says is too perfect. Too smooth.”
Jay shrugs. “Speaking as a guy who writes a lot of drafts, maybe that’s the form talking. Who knows how many letters he started and threw away before he said it exactly how he wanted to in that one?”
“I guess that’s true.” But I have a strong allergy to smooth-talking men, and this letter is triggering it. I’m borderline twitchy, and I have to force myself to stay seated instead of getting up to rummage in the kitchen for nothing in particular.
“Back to the clues, then?” he asks.
I look down at the paper. “He mentions several letters from her, which means at least some of his got to her at this address. And now I have a problem.”
“What problem?”
“With the first letter, there wasn’t enough information to do anything with. This one has enough info that I need to do something about it.”
“You mean find Smitten Kitten?”
I sigh. “Or Dear Heart.”
He sucks his teeth and eyes the letter. “What if it’s an unhappy ending? And Kitten and Dear are most likely not around anymore. These were written sixty years ago.”
I give him a steady look, and he smiles.
“Yeah, you have to find them. I understand how much a single letter can shape a person, much less their future. I see it all the time in my research. I was trying to let you off the hook.”
I tilt my head, curious about the phrasing. “Would you try to find them if I took the out?”
His smile turns sheepish. “Yes. But I’m not trying to get a brand-new museum open.”
“And I’m not trying to meet a book deadline. Neither of us has time for this.”
“So we’ll team up and divide the work? I thought you’d never ask.”
I smile. This man … “You don’t need to do this. It’s not your headache.”
“Are you trying to ice me out of this, Phoebe? Because no, ma’am, I will not go quietly. I demand to be in on this juicy historical mystery.”
“All right,” I say—because I understand. “I take Smitten Kitten clues, and you take Dear Heart clues?”
“Deal.”
“I can’t tackle this until after the board meeting on Tuesday. I need to put all my energy into prepping for that. Does that work for you?”
“Yeah, but don’t worry about the board meeting. I’m an eyewitness to what you’re doing around here, and I’m giving you five stars.”
“Thanks.” Even though he’s being lighthearted, I still feel my cheeks warm. It matters to have another history professional’s good opinion of my work, but it matters even more that it’s his family legacy.
“Let’s set a lunch date—meeting,” he amends when I flinch, “for Wednesday to go through the letter stuff. Meet you at the kitchen table?”
“I’ll be there with a premade salad.”
“Same but a frozen burrito.”
“Great. It’s settled.” I wave him toward the door with both hands. Herding. Very border collie of me. So proud. “Go sleep some more or something.” Take your adorable bedhead with you. “I’m working on this presentation titled ‘Why the Board Should Say Yes to Everything in This Deck.’”
“Yes.”
I purse my lips to hide a smile and shake my head, shooing him again. When he saunters out, I hold my breath until I hear the back door close behind him, and then I heave a sigh of relief. The problem is that Jay will say yes to anything I propose, including between us, and I have once again barely escaped making an indecent proposal.
Well, not indecent.
But definitely unprofessional. Nothing could be dumber leading up to my first meeting with the board on which Jameson Martin sits … with Catherine Crawford watching.