Chapter 32
Chapter Thirty-Two
Phoebe
“Let me get the letter opener.” I fetch it from my work bag on the sofa, using it as a cover to pull myself together.
I was eaten alive by jealousy all afternoon, torturing myself as I wondered what Jay and Lyra were doing. No matter how many times I tried to snap myself out of it, I couldn’t. I practically shoved him at her yesterday, and I had no right to be annoyed that he asked her out. It only proved all my judgments about him had been correct. I should have felt vindicated, not devastated. But I was. I was until he said it wasn’t a date.
The ugly feeling gnawing at my guts disappeared as soon as he did. Now, I’m almost floating.
Something strange has happened, and I’m trying to explain it to myself. I don’t think Jay came over for the letter. He wanted to see me . This feels different. Intentional. I’m not simply an attractive woman he’s flirting with to amuse himself, wandering over to the big house when he needs a break from his book.
Why? Is this him escalating his strategy because he’s not used to hearing no? Some guys thrive on that kind of chase, but he seems genuinely frustrated by my opinions of him.
Jay Martin might want to date me for real, and not as a distraction because I’m convenient. At least, I’m sure he believes that’s what he wants right now.
My miserable afternoon showed me that despite all my resolve and self-talk, that’s what I want too. But it’s not what I need. Is it? No. Right?
I can’t figure this out when he’s right here at my table, but I owe him something, not an apology, but …
I return to the table, trying to think of how to bring back our easiness with each other. “I don’t understand my own head right now, but that’s not a good reason to act like a bad friend. I’m sorry.”
“A bad friend?” he repeats softly.
I shrug.
“Okay.” He scratches his neck. Sighs. “Okay. You were about to open the letter?”
I’m thankful he’s going to leave the big things alone for now, and I try to lighten the mood. “Should we do some sort of ritual to make sure it has lots of clues in it?”
“What do you have in mind? If we’re talking black candles or something, I’m out.”
“I meant more like crossing our fingers for clue luck, but that feels anticlimactic after black candles.”
He smiles and reaches out his hand, pinkie extended, and I hook mine around it because you never outgrow schoolyard training.
“I don’t know any good magic words,” he says. “You pick.”
I’m aware of every place his skin touches mine as we keep our pinkies connected. I can’t concentrate, so I do the first thing I think of. “O-O-O-O’Reiiiilly … Autoooo Parts.”
“Really? ”
“It sticks in your head like a spell. You got something better?”
“Yeah.” He clears his throat and sings, “Meow meow meow meow,” from the cat food commercial.
I nod. “Much better.”
He raises our connected hands, and we both lean forward to kiss our thumbs before disconnecting.
“If that didn’t work, nothing will,” he says.
“Maybe we’ll get extra juice from opening it in Smitten Kitten’s apartment. Here we go.” I cut the envelope and slide out the letter. I check the signature and the date. “April 2, 1966. Yours always, Dear Heart.”
“Hang on. Let me check that.” He does a search on his phone. “That’s a Wednesday. His letters are always dated on Wednesdays.”
Any pattern could be another clue. I mull that, evaluating what it might mean. “A midweek check in. Do we think he mailed every week but we’re only getting some of the letters?”
Jay shakes his head, like no clue .
“This one is thicker than the other two.” I clear my throat and begin to read.
Dear Smitten Kitten,
Anyone who has witnessed you in your adorable rage might rightly mistake you for a tiger rather than a kitten. But I’m glad you forgave my surprise visit this weekend. I know you didn’t want me there for the pageant, but I had to come cheer for my girl, didn’t I ?
It was good to see you, to hold you, to close the distance that I hate more with each passing week. I have no idea how our parents ever did this for months on end during the war. My father always says that his generation is made of sterner stuff and complains that we’re all soft, and I’m afraid I’ve found the evidence: me. I need more of you more often to hold me over for the weeks I don’t see you.
You see what I mean, Kitten? I’m as soft as my old man says I am. But I don’t care because I can’t imagine he ever loved anyone, even my mother, like we love each other.
I like seeing your world in Serendipity Springs, especially when we went up to look at it from your roof. Thinking about our future together often makes me feel like I have the world at my feet, but on Sunday night, we really did, didn’t we? I do see why you’ve enjoyed your time there. Looking out at the city lights, it put things in perspective. Maybe it shrunk down the next two years we’d have to wait to marry if you decide to do this master’s program. Maybe they felt more manageable .
I know I haven’t been supportive of the idea. I’m trying. But I have to ask, if you’re going to study art history, could you not find the same fulfillment immersing yourself in all the art and culture Boston offers, learning and discovering on your own? That sounds like a really nice way to do it, honestly. Do you need to have a degree to prove you did it? Think of it as independent study. It would mean we wouldn’t need to wait to get married.
I ask because I have news. I dropped by Professor Mindell’s office this morning at his request. I thought I’d blown my lab report after not studying this weekend while I was with you, but I got a 93 on it, the highest score in the class. He says he’ll be leaving at the end of the semester to work for the Aerospace Corporation and asked me to consider taking a position with them when I graduate.
It’s as good as mine, Kitten. This field is growing fast, and I’ll be able to move up quickly. It wouldn’t take much time at all before I make a salary that will let us hire a nanny. Imagine it, you wandering through Boston’s finest museums at your leisure with the nanny pushing the baby behind you, able to enjoy your art and your children at the same time.
The future is ours to reach out and take. I feel almost a physical pain at the idea of pushing it back two years.
And yet …
And yet you made a compelling case. I see how excited you are by the idea of becoming a scholar once more.
I’m not demanding any of this be set in stone, only that you consider it. Can we keep it as an open conversation that we’ll have when you’re here next week? And for as long afterward as we need to until we’re both pleased with the shape of our future? So long as you’re in it, I know I will be happy.
But I confess, Kitten, if your perfect future means you earn a master’s degree, there is nothing I would deny you. You may have placed fifth in the pageant, but you’re first in my heart.
Yours always,
Dear Heart
I set the letter down and look up at Jay, stunned. We got far more than I even hoped .
He holds up his hand and crooks his pinkie a couple of times. “It worked.”
“Pretty sure it was the O’Reilly jingle.”
“Let’s call it a tie. But we just got a whole bunch of helpful info.”
“Before we get into that, we have one more big element to talk about.”
“Why these letters keep magically showing up for you?” he jokes, but his smile fades when I flinch at the word magically . “I’m teasing. I’m sure someone is feeding these into your mail slot for some reason. When we figure out who these were meant for, maybe we’ll figure out who has been delivering them to you and why.”
I rub a hand over my face, not sure how to even broach this. “I met an elderly couple who has a theory. The Hathaways. They’re in their nineties, and they’ve lived in the building since it first opened as apartments.”
“Wow. That’s old. Did they know who Smitten Kitten might be?”
I shake my head. “They said that first year was all brand-new faces, and it took a while to get to know everyone. They couldn’t remember who specifically was in this unit.”
“But they have a theory about who’s delivering the letters?”
I force myself not to grimace. “They think it’s the building.”
He looks at me like he’s waiting for more. When he realizes that’s it, he blinks. “Sorry, what does that mean?”
I sigh. “They say the building is, uh, doing this? Sending the letters. Because it’s …”
“Magic?” he finishes. It still sounds absurd.
“Basically. They say that it’s because the building is fed by Serendipity Spring. And that when it was a women’s dorm, lots of gentlemen callers came, and the parlors overflowed with romance and proposals. And when it became an apartment building, it started matchmaking the residents because it missed all the falling in love.”
Jay looks amused, but he’s not looking at me like I’m crazy. “Lots of places around here have legends like that. You’re not legit if you can’t claim something serendipitous that happened to your house or to an ancestor.”
“They had some pretty specific examples,” I say. “Apparently, the building trapped them in an elevator to make them meet and fall in love, and it’s pulled that trick a few times.”
“Sounds more like a sixty-year-old elevator being sixty years old.”
“Except that happened sixty years ago.”
“That’s fair.”
“But …”
“But what?”
“But Dear Heart writes these letters like they’re having a back-and-forth conversation. Does it sound like Smitten Kitten has had any letters go missing?”
His forehead furrows. “No mention of lost letters.”
“Which means she got all the ones we’ve read. But they always come to me sealed.”
He taps the table, staring at the letter. “You said the first couple of times the original one showed up in your mailbox, it was stamped and postmarked?”
“Yes. I wrote ‘return to sender,’ then added ‘no such resident’ when I got it again. But when it came back after that, the stamp and postmark had disappeared.”
“So whoever is doing this put it in a fresh envelope.”
“No, the pencil smudge at the flap, remember? It was there every time. And all of them have signs of age, with the yellowing and the spreading ink.”
He picks up the envelope, turning it over and over, smelling it, pulling it wide enough to study inside, holding it up to the light. He sets it down and frowns.
“You think we’re getting the original letter in the original envelope, no sign of being opened and reglued. But you also think Smitten Kitten read each of these letters?”
“Yes.” It doesn’t make any sense, but there are no other explanations that don’t sound like equally wild conspiracy theories.
He slumps against his chair, his eyes fixed on the empty envelope. “This makes no sense, but I don’t have any better ideas.”
I get out my phone and find my picture of the Miss Serendipity article. “Let’s go through the new clues, like that she placed fifth in the pageant. You know what that means?”
“We can eliminate all the names on your list, and that leaves us with three.”
“Katherine Dailey, Cathy McCormick, and Judy Everett. Fifth place would mean fourth runner up, but it doesn’t list how they placed.”
“You could have your friend check only those three names in the wedding announcements from the next three years.”
I nod. “Francie will be happy to have a job to do.”
“We have more info on Dear Heart. He may have gone to work for the Aerospace Corporation.”
“That gives Francie another keyword.” I read the three names over and over. “Kitten is right here. We almost have her. I’ll figure out how to contact the elementary schools that were open then and see if I can find any of these women teaching at one of them in 1965.”
“We’re so close,” he says. “It feels like things are converging. Like everything is about to resolve at once. Smitten Kitten. My new lead on Samuel Davis Brown.”
“My new hires. The next phase of the museum.”
“Want to retrace their steps? Go up on the roof and take in the same view, put the world at our feet? That seems to be how Dear Heart cleared his thinking.”
I glance out of my window. It’s dusk. Going to the roof sounds … right. To stand where Smitten Kitten and Dear Heart had stood, thinking about their future. “I haven’t been up there, but I have a key. Let me get it.”
It’s in the desk drawer in my office, right next to where I keep Foster’s letter, and I pause, wondering if these stories in the building are what Foster was leaving me to discover, knowing what I love most about any artifact is the story it tells.
He couldn’t have known the building would draw me into one of its legends, but here I am, smack in the middle of one with his own grandson. Exploring one of the legends, I mean.
We’re obviously not in the middle of our own.