calendar: his desk key.
Talk about good craftsmanship: The key opened the lock without even the tiniest click, and the drawer slid out as if I’d whistled and it couldn’t wait to come to me. I felt around. Just one thick manila envelope.
I got up and locked his door. If you know you’re doing something you should be ashamed of, you should either stop or do it thoroughly; there’s no such thing as a semi-sin.
Then I came back and switched on John’s desk lamp. The envelope was one of Blair, VanderGraff and Wadley’s. It had nothing written on it. I eased open the metal clasp, spilled everything out onto the desk, memorized the mess, then arranged it all into a perfect pile. I may have been a sneak, but no one could say I wasn’t a great secretary.
Then I looked through it. It was all hers. John had collected enough mementos to open a Nan Leland Berringer museum.
Except it would have been a pretty pathetic museum: love tokens of a wife in love with someone else.
70 / SUSAN ISAACS
I started with the two letters. The first must have been written right when they began:
Dear John ,
On Sunday, I told you I am congenitally incapable of being coy. Therefore, I will not try to subvert you with feminine wiles, nor will I have some mutual acquaintance drop my name before you at frequent intervals. I will merely say I want very much to see you when I get back to New York, right after my exams .
Yes, I realize this is awkward for you, that you did not intend an afternoon’s conversation, a mild flirtation, to be taken so seriously. Your womanly ideal is not an eighteen-year-old college freshman.
And yet…And yet, I know you were drawn to me as I was to you .
You see, John, I told you I could not be coy .
You said I must be getting the rush from the Amherst boys. I don’t know if it is a rush. I do know I have no interest in boys. I want a man, a man of brilliance and sensitivity. A man like you .
I cannot begin to tell you how much our conversation in the gazebo meant to me, to have someone who not only cares deeply for the things I care about, but who can express himself with such insight and profundity. I want very much to talk again. I feel we have a great deal to say to each other .
I told you I was not coy. What I did not tell you was that I am relentless. If you don’t call me, I will call you .
My best ,
She signed it “N.” I thought: That’s how they get rich, saving money on ink. And then I thought: I can’t believe an eighteen-year-old girl would have the guts to write that kind of letter. And even more, I can’t believe she had John Berringer alone in a gazebo and walked out in a tizzy over SHINING THROUGH / 71
his profundity. Profundity? But there it was, in black and white.
The second letter was signed “N” too: Darling ,
I can’t tell you how sorry I am. It was my fault. I should never have gone to the hotel with you and let things get that far. I know you’re not some adolescent, that you are used to having anything you want from a woman and that your needs are a man’s needs .
I put the letter down on the desk. This was the worst thing I’d ever done. It was like being the lowest—a Peeping Tom.
But, John, when it happens, it has to be right.
It has to be done (please, oh, please, don’t think I’m being pretentious) in a state of grace. I love you. I adore you. And if you insist, I will do anything you want to prove I am indeed yours. But I beg you, don’t insist until, well, until it is truly the time .
Forever ,
I held the envelope up to the light. The postmark was February 19, eleven days before they got married.
I put it down and thought of what I’d done with George Armbruster. If I hadn’t come so cheap, if I’d played my cards right and said, Uh-uh, nothing doing without a state of grace, Georgie—who knows? He could have introduced me to his bachelor brother the next day, saying, This here is a fine, upright girl. I could have had a house, two kids, a
Talk about good craftsmanship: The key opened the lock without even the tiniest click, and the drawer slid out as if I’d whistled and it couldn’t wait to come to me. I felt around. Just one thick manila envelope.
I got up and locked his door. If you know you’re doing something you should be ashamed of, you should either stop or do it thoroughly; there’s no such thing as a semi-sin.
Then I came back and switched on John’s desk lamp. The envelope was one of Blair, VanderGraff and Wadley’s. It had nothing written on it. I eased open the metal clasp, spilled everything out onto the desk, memorized the mess, then arranged it all into a perfect pile. I may have been a sneak, but no one could say I wasn’t a great secretary.
Then I looked through it. It was all hers. John had collected enough mementos to open a Nan Leland Berringer museum.
Except it would have been a pretty pathetic museum: love tokens of a wife in love with someone else.
70 / SUSAN ISAACS
I started with the two letters. The first must have been written right when they began:
Dear John ,
On Sunday, I told you I am congenitally incapable of being coy. Therefore, I will not try to subvert you with feminine wiles, nor will I have some mutual acquaintance drop my name before you at frequent intervals. I will merely say I want very much to see you when I get back to New York, right after my exams .
Yes, I realize this is awkward for you, that you did not intend an afternoon’s conversation, a mild flirtation, to be taken so seriously. Your womanly ideal is not an eighteen-year-old college freshman.
And yet…And yet, I know you were drawn to me as I was to you .
You see, John, I told you I could not be coy .
You said I must be getting the rush from the Amherst boys. I don’t know if it is a rush. I do know I have no interest in boys. I want a man, a man of brilliance and sensitivity. A man like you .
I cannot begin to tell you how much our conversation in the gazebo meant to me, to have someone who not only cares deeply for the things I care about, but who can express himself with such insight and profundity. I want very much to talk again. I feel we have a great deal to say to each other .
I told you I was not coy. What I did not tell you was that I am relentless. If you don’t call me, I will call you .
My best ,
She signed it “N.” I thought: That’s how they get rich, saving money on ink. And then I thought: I can’t believe an eighteen-year-old girl would have the guts to write that kind of letter. And even more, I can’t believe she had John Berringer alone in a gazebo and walked out in a tizzy over SHINING THROUGH / 71
his profundity. Profundity? But there it was, in black and white.
The second letter was signed “N” too: Darling ,
I can’t tell you how sorry I am. It was my fault. I should never have gone to the hotel with you and let things get that far. I know you’re not some adolescent, that you are used to having anything you want from a woman and that your needs are a man’s needs .
I put the letter down on the desk. This was the worst thing I’d ever done. It was like being the lowest—a Peeping Tom.
But, John, when it happens, it has to be right.
It has to be done (please, oh, please, don’t think I’m being pretentious) in a state of grace. I love you. I adore you. And if you insist, I will do anything you want to prove I am indeed yours. But I beg you, don’t insist until, well, until it is truly the time .
Forever ,
I held the envelope up to the light. The postmark was February 19, eleven days before they got married.
I put it down and thought of what I’d done with George Armbruster. If I hadn’t come so cheap, if I’d played my cards right and said, Uh-uh, nothing doing without a state of grace, Georgie—who knows? He could have introduced me to his bachelor brother the next day, saying, This here is a fine, upright girl. I could have had a house, two kids, a
Similar Books
