Hey. It’s me. Auggie. #2
“It’s not quite done yet,” he explained. “When it’s done—like a week or so?—you can come see how it works. You and I can be the guinea pigs.”
“Guinea—what am I signing up for here?” I laughed nervously.
“It won’t hurt you.” Auggie rolled his eyes. “Stop being such a coward.”
“I’m not a coward.” I reached out and nudged his shoulder playfully and he stumbled back with a giggle. “I just don’t want to be the idiot who agrees to something that might lead to losing a finger. Or leg.”
“It won’t do that,” he said. “Promise. I just wanted you to see the barn since you were so curious about it and everything. Now you know it’s nothing malevolent.”
“Malevolent?”
“It means—”
“I know what malevolent means, jerk.” I nudged him again. “I just never thought that about it is all. I just thought it was unusual that you lived here. And that there were strange lights coming from it at night. That’s all.”
“Mmmhm.”
“Seriously.”
“Okay.” Auggie shrugged. “Well…now you know.”
“But you’re not going to tell me what all of this is?”
“Nope.” He grinned.
“Ugh.” I leaned my head back to groan at the skylight, though I wasn’t unamused.
“Don’t be a spoil sport.” He nudged me like I’d nudged him. “In a week or so you can come see the finished product and you’ll know what I’ve been doing in here.”
“Okay,” I said. “Okay. I’ve seen it. You’ll show me the finished product soon. Got it. But…”
Auggie watched me.
“What?” he asked.
“Where—where do you live?” I looked around grandly. “I mean, I don’t see beds and stuff. Or…anything?”
Auggie chuckled.
“I don’t live here, live here,” he explained. “The house is a little bit further up the creek, but on the same property as the barn. The barn is just my workspace.”
“That’s nice?” I frowned. “You have a whole barn to do your…art.”
Auggie nodded. “Installation art.”
“Installation art.” I mocked him with another playful nudge.
Auggie stumbled back dramatically and the both of us laughed.
“Wise guy,” I teased.
“Sometimes.”
For a few moments, I looked around the gloomy barn interior, wondering what Auggie could possibly be doing that would be considered art. It didn’t take long before I found myself giving up, realizing that whatever it was, I wouldn’t figure it out before Auggie was ready to show it to me.
“So,” I turned to him, “are we still going to get coffee, or what? I haven’t had breakfast. Maybe Starbuck will have some of those muffins from the other day. It was really good.”
“Blueberry?”
“Blueberry.”
“Yeah,” Auggie made a slurping noise, “he always has those. They’re so good.”
“Well?” I asked.
“Yeah,” Auggie seemed to come out of some daydream. “Let me just turn my music off and we’ll go. Meet you outside?”
“All right.”
I headed towards the barn doors as Auggie ventured further into the barn, crawling over industrial duct work to wherever the music was coming from so he could turn it off.
The barn door was considerably lighter than I had expected—or had just been hung exceptionally well—because I was able to swing it open with ease.
Once the golden sunlight was flooding the barn interior once more, I turned to find Auggie had climbed over all of the duct work to a radio on the other side of the room from the doors.
He switched it off and began his journey back over all of the duct work as I stood waiting for him.
Once he had made his way to the barn doors, Auggie ushered me out and then slid the massive green door shut behind us.
Without another word to each other, we headed to the creek that the barn was settled beside and started to follow it further into town.
Auggie and I, him with a light skip to his step and me slightly dragging my feet like always, didn’t try to make conversation.
We traveled down the creek in comfortable silence.
We passed the row of buildings on Liberty Lane and then the end of the tram tracks without a word.
I could just see the Jolly Roger high on the mast of Starbuck’s, just over the tops of the trees, when we were nearing the back of the post office.
As we started to round the post office and hook a right towards Starbuck’s, the sound of voices at the front of the teal clapboard building grabbed our attention.
Auggie and I glanced over at each other as we walked and listened to the commotion.
Finally, we gave each other a nod and turned to head towards the front of the post office so we could see what was going on.
When we rounded the corner of the building, the source of the voices came into view, though the reason for the loud discussion wasn’t clear.
Levi Lee, Starbuck, Sofia, and Wyatt were all out front, talking animatedly about something.
I glanced at Auggie and he simply shrugged as we approached the small group of people.
Who’s watching the counter at the coffee shop? I thought to myself.
“Well, it doesn’t happen often,” Sofia was announcing to the others as we approached. “It certainly does not.”
“Arrrr, no it doesn’t,” Starbuck agreed.
“When did it arrive?” Levi Lee asked excitedly, prompting Auggie and me to exchange another glance as we came to stand beside the discussion group.
“Just this morning,” Sofia announced.
The three men with her made “oooooh” and “awwwww” sounds.
Then the four of them began speaking excitedly, making it impossible to tell what one person was saying from another.
Auggie watched them all intently and my eyes flitted between him and the group of people in front of the post office.
Finally, when it became apparent that Auggie wasn’t nearly as nosy as I, and the people in outside of the post office weren’t going to settle down long enough for me to figure out what was going on, I stepped up to address them.
“Hey!” I exclaimed, and all four of them suddenly stopped talking to look over at me. “Uh, what’s going on?”
Sofia and Levi smiled at me. Luckily, Wyatt’s gun was in its holster, so he didn’t address me in his own special way.
“Well, hon,” Sofia said, “we got another letter to Shirlene today.”
“A Shirlene letter?” I asked.
“Yes.” Levi Lee nodded. “Sofia said it was slipped into the mail slot sometime during the night. We’re still trying to figure out who Shirlene is and who’s in love with her. That’s all.”
Starbuck nodded along solemnly.
“Where is it?” I asked.
“Hung up on the wall with the others, of course.” Sofia hooked a thumb over her shoulder.
I glanced over my shoulder at Auggie and he simply shrugged. The other four people began talking excitedly once more. So, I sidestepped their discussion group and pushed through the front door of the post office. Auggie was right on my heels.
It wasn’t hard to find the letter in question, as Sofia had tacked it dead center in the middle of all of the others. Though, unlike the other letters, it wasn’t nearly as long. My eyes scanned the script, reading it over and over.
Shirlene.
My hope is renewed and my love lives again.
That was all.
Jeez. I thought to myself. These people will get excited about anything.