Love Letter

Ian:

I pull up to Lynne's house at noon, just like I said. When I step into the living room, I see her sitting on the couch dressed in dark blue jeans and a black puff sweater. "Good morning," I say, bringing her a straight black coffee from The Book Store in town. She smiles, taking the coffee in hand. "I am going to need this today," she says while acting like standing up is the hardest thing she has ever done.

"Has anyone told you how dorky you are?" I say in good spirits.

"Too many times," she says, pushing past me to grab her boots by the door.

"So what is on the agenda today? Poetry reading, history of the town square, is it flying kites? It's the last one, isn't it?"

"You really need to work on the annoying part," she says with a ghost of a smile on her lips.

"Aw, there she is... I was worried the sarcastic mean Lynne was gone. I thought I was going to be left with the sweet one from the last two days," I say.

"Come on, Romeo," she says, calling me precisely what my sister had called me the other day. I must make an excellent Romeo. She is taking me down a hallway off from the kitchen. She opens the door to the four-stall garage that has three SUVs and a car sitting there. Taking keys off of the peg hooks on the wall, she starts walking over to the Land Rover in the second stall.

I whistle, closing the door. It was probably four years old, but it was one of the most excellent SUVs I had sat in. "Wow," I say, "Is this yours or your mom's?"

"She is all mine," she says, hitting the garage door and backing out. I am silent, so she fills it with, "my dad may have died un-expectantly, but his will was updated with each of us kids. I am sure he looked at it every quarter with how organized he was with that type of stuff. He had a list of what type of vehicle each of us kids would get. The money was already set aside for the vehicles, college, and living out of college. I guess you could say we had a good life when it came to that side of things," she says.

"So you didn't have to work throughout college?" I ask.

"Nope, but I have about six months to find a job or career. The will stipulates that once we graduate from college, we have six months to find one."

"Really? That seems overbearing," I say.

"Not really. He set it up like that so we wouldn't just become trust fund brats spending his money all over. He wanted us to make something of ourselves. I think that is why Lisa is so content on saying yes to Ricardo's proposal." She says.

"Why is that?" I ask.

"She has been out of college for four or five years and still has not found a job. At first, everyone thought she was working in the fashion industry, and then Meri... Mom found out that she still did not have a job after a year. She cut her off. She stayed with me for a month, and then I do not know what she did after that for a while. I didn't keep in touch with her as much as I should have."

"I see," I say.

"Then there is Keith, who is every father's dream. Stuck to his plan even after marrying Carolyn and passing law school. I am sure he doesn't even need the trust fund to be living as nice as they are."

"And what do you want to do?" I ask.

She thinks before answering, "Do not get big-headed by this, but I want to be a publisher. I knew since high school I wanted to be one of those people that help get a novel out to the masses. To know I had a part in it. You must know what that is like..." she breaks off, waiting for my input.

"Yeah, it is really great," I say. "So we where are we going?" I ask, changing the subject.

"Almost there," she says. We are pulling up to a lot with a few buildings and fenced-in land. "Hold on," she says, jumping out of the car and getting something out of the back. "Okay," she says, opening my door. "Hands, please," she says in a serious tone. She slips gloves on my hands and follows with a scarf and hat. Then she puts on the gloves, scarf, and hat I gave her.