Unrequited

Renewed - 1999

John was frantic. He was tearing apart his office at B5 Records, the studio he co-owned with Hein Hoven, desperately looking for something. He'd had the item for four years, and suddenly it was gone. Had Patty been in the office cleaning and accidentally thrown it out? Oh, he hoped not! He bellowed her name, and a few moments later, she appeared in the doorway. Her eyes were wide as she watched him continue to rip apart his office.

"Did you clean in here?" he asked, trying to contain his panic and not succeeding. She tentatively stepped into the room, watching him rifling through all the papers on his desk.

"All I did was empty your trash can, John. I learned a long time ago not to touch anything on your desk," she clarified, and he stopped, throwing her a glare.

"Well, it's gone!" he yelled, his frustration bubbling over.

"What's gone, John?" Patty asked calmly, hoping to bring him down from the panic setting in on him.

"There has been a pink envelope on this desk for four years, and now it's gone!" he shouted, tossing a stack of papers in the air.

Patty watched the papers float down around him as he seethed in anger and frustration. She had never seen him so upset. Her best course was to help him find this mystical pink envelope and then soothe his frazzled nerves. She began to cautiously look around, coming a little further into the room but not too close to John. He seemed unhinged at the moment.

"Umm... John?" she said as she bent, leaning over the end of his desk, which now looked like a cyclone had hit it. Cyclone John had to be exact.

"What?" he snapped, completely exasperated.

"How about right there, honey," she said, pointing to a sliver of pink sticking out from behind his wife's picture.

As soon as John's eyes settled on it, all of the tension drained from his body, and he sighed contentedly. He grabbed the slip of pink and pulled it from its hiding place.

"Thanks, Patty. Sorry for being a bit off the rails," he said quietly as he settled into his desk chair. She giggled at his quick change of disposition as he stared at the pink envelope, smiling contentedly.

"What is that anyway?" she asked.

"This," he started, pulling a pink piece of paper from the envelope. "Is the letter that brought Arianna and I back together," he told her, looking at it fondly. Patty quickly realized that the paper was well worn, taped in many places, and still, it was almost falling apart.

"Umm, John," she said, smiling at him.

"Yeah," he answered distantly.

"If it's so important to you, why don't you laminate it? It looks pretty ragged," she offered. He looked up at her, his face lighting up.

"Now that's an idea!" he said excitedly, getting to his feet and following Patty to their laminating machine in the main room. She carefully took the letter from him, and as she prepared to laminate it, she quickly read it.

Hi John,

Thanks for the letter and the songs. They're really great and mean a lot to me. See, that sweet guy is still in there somewhere. It was great to see you in Venice that day, and yes, we really should go and have lunch together sometime. I am really proud of you, and I do miss our talks. It's funny how we both ended up in California, huh? Anyway, call me, and we'll do lunch.

With Love, Arianna

So, what was the big deal about the letter? Just a short note to say she'd do lunch. But John obviously cherished the thing. Patty soon returned the letter to him, now safely encased in hard plastic. John's eyes roamed over the finished product, smiling, and then he thanked her before returning to his office. Patty followed him, still curious about the magic letter.

"Hey, what do you mean the letter brought you and Arianna back together? I thought you guys were just getting together in '96?" she questioned, and John stopped, turning to her and smiling.

"No, we have a very long history that goes all the way back to 1971," he said, looking wistful but happy.

"You are kidding. So, she's known you for that long, and she still married you? She's braver than I thought," Patty teased, making John scoff.

"Ha, ha. Very funny. Get back to work," he playfully scolded, pointing to her desk. She laughed and went as instructed, watching him disappear down the hall to his office.

As John sat in his desk chair, he looked over the note again, reading the brief few lines. That letter was like a shield for him. It was his physical reminder of what he had when Arianna wasn't with him. Whenever he felt down, like he needed a drink or just needed to be reminded of his happy life with her, the letter always did the trick. He needed it that afternoon because he was stressing over a new project. He propped it up against the picture frame that held their wedding picture, smiling at its new protective shell.

The letter. A few weeks after he had received it in the mail, he and Arianna did have lunch, which started a string of several lunch meetings together. They had talked and talked, beginning to work their way through their past. And both of them found out things about each other that they had never managed to know after fifteen years of being in and out of each other's lives. Those talks had slowly brought back their love for one another. And he was grateful. Without those times, would he and Arianna be where they presently were?