Lydia popped her head in to ask Kate if she wanted to watch the late-night show with her and have a glass of wine.
Kate declined, indicating the two boxes she had repacked, one with the items destined for charity and the other with things she couldn’t bring herself to part with just yet. “I figure I won’t have much time to get to this after—” She let the sentence go unfinished, not wanting to reference any further the impending dread of what the combined nasty forces of Luke and Brad might do to them in the coming days and weeks.
Lydia asked her if she needed any help with whatever was left.
“Just some personal correspondence.” Kate shook her head. “I’m still wrestling with whether I feel comfortable going through any of it.”
Her mother nodded thoughtfully. “If there are some addresses with them, though,” she said, “maybe they don’t know yet what happened. Your sister moved around so much.”
Kate opined that Cassy’s friends seemed to embrace the same wanderlust and that any contact info she came across might long since have become useless. “A couple of postcards from a girl named Rhonda were from three different states in five months,” she said.
“Maybe she just traveled a lot,” Lydia suggested.
“Not sure. She mostly talked about ‘Renn fairs’ so I’m guessing she probably went wherever the action was.”
She noticed while they’d been talking that her mother’s gaze had wandered to the small stack of greeting cards that had been separated from the rest.
“She kept every card you ever sent her,” Kate quietly divulged, stopping short of adding that she knew some of them had contained checks and gift certificates.
To her surprise, it was her mother who now acknowledged the content. “I never stopped hoping she’d use the money to come home someday. Do you think she knew that?”
“I know she knew you still loved her, Mom. At the end of the day, though, she was always going to be Cassy and do whatever made her happy. Even if that definition included Luke or trying to raise a baby on her own.”
“She could’ve come home as soon as she found out she was pregnant,” Lydia interrupted. “A stable home may have helped him more.”
“Jimmy had a loving mom. That was enough,” Kate said, quietly amazed that in the relatively short space of time since they’d first come back to Avalon Bay Jimmy had gone from being called “the boy” to being a grandson that her mother would now do anything to ensure he wouldn’t be taken away.
Lydia’s eyes were moist as she asked again why Cassy had stayed away. “Avalon Bay was where she grew up. Everyone she knew was right here, right where she’d left it.”
Kate’s reply, spoken from the heart and her own experience, said it all. “Sometimes that’s harder than being a stranger in a place where no one knows your name.” In the glamorous world of Las Vegas that she’d left behind, she couldn’t have named half a dozen tenants who shared her high-rise address if her life had depended on it. Though she had a small circle of friends, mostly associates from the magazine, she had largely moved with anonymity throughout her day. “When I came back here, well, you know what it’s like. You can’t sneeze without someone saying ‘bless you’ or buy a diet soda without someone asking if you’re trying to lose weight. It’s the best and worst of both worlds to have so many people scrutinizing everything you do, can you really blame her for wanting to live anywhere but here?”
Lydia wasn’t entirely convinced but was willing to concede for the time being. She purposely changed the subject. “I’m going to close my account at Brad’s bank tomorrow,” she announced.
“Oh?”
“I’m also thinking of telling my friends Millie and Nora and a couple of other people about what a skunk he’s been and before long he’s going to be sitting there in an empty bank with nothing to show for it.”
Kate laughed. “My mother, the activist.”
“Well, don’t you think it’s a good idea?”
“I don’t know that it’ll set the banking on its end,” Kate candidly replied, “but if enough of you get on board, I imagine it’ll irritate him.”
“And don’t even get me started on what could happen with all the community boards he serves on. Word travels fast in this town.”
“Yeah, tell me about it.”
“Are you sure you don’t want to watch TV with me and have some wine?”
“No on the TV, but you’ve twisted my arm on the vino.”
The oldest letter in the batch was from a teacher Kate and Cassy had both had in high school. The ancient Miss Burris had praised the latter’s good grades, congeniality, and enthusiasm and offered to write her a letter of recommendation to Monmouth University if it was on her list of college choices. Like an old wound that ached on a damp day, Kate was reminded of her sister’s bright potential and how it had dimmed much too soon.
There was a letter from Rhonda that asked lots of questions about the baby and whether she’d be interested in some hand-me-downs from a girl she used to work the dunking booths with and then a full page about a cute new red-headed guy she’d met named Giant Gerry who swallowed fire and walked on nails. Kate made a mental note to do an Internet search and see if Giant Gerry was still doing the circuit. Rhonda, if she was still involved with him, might have advanced to email by now and would welcome a message, albeit an unhappy one.
There were thank you notes from friends lauding the cleverness of crafts projects Cassy had given them for their birthdays. One of them even went on at length about the karaoke tape she’d made and how much they thought she sounded just like Mariah Carey. You never told me you sang. Or that you knew how to make scented candles. Or that you were learning to cook organic because it would be better for the baby. Or that your favorite ride was the carousel on the boardwalk.
How could we have been sisters, Kate sadly reflected, and there’s so much I never knew about you?
It was the last envelope, though, with a New York City postmark that now had her full attention. She glanced only briefly at the second page of the neatly handwritten letter and was startled to discover that it was from Jeremy.
Kate shifted uneasily, uncertain of how to proceed. It was one thing, she thought, to read correspondence to her sister from friends who were presumably still alive. The knowledge of Jeremy Neal’s tragic fate weighed heavily on her and she felt a mix of apprehension and a faint though distant nervous anxiety that she was about to trespass where she shouldn’t. She started to refold it. I’ll give it to John, she decided. It’s something his family might want to have.
As she started to slide it back into the envelope, she realized she was now shaking. It was the handwriting that brought it home the most, the fact that he’d sat down with pen and paper instead of at a keyboard. Notwithstanding that he might have typed exactly the same content, or even hit a SEND button, there was something so personal, so poignant about the very act that it brought a lump to her throat.
She drew a deep breath. If it was important enough for Cassy to save it among her treasures, she had to have known that one day it might be found and its contents read by a different set of eyes. If it was important enough for her to keep, Kate could do nothing less than read what her sister’s best pal from high school had written.
Hey, C,
If my life were a movie, and how many times have I said that? I would have run after your bus this morning and yelled and waved my arms and the passengers on the bus would have said to the driver, “Hey, dude, slow down. There’s a guy trying to catch the bus.” And he would have stopped the bus and opened the door so I could get on but I would have told him to just wait a minute ‘cuz there was something I had to do. And then I would have gotten down on one knee in the aisle and told you it’s the craziest thing I’ve ever done but that I just had the greatest 3 days of my life and I wanted to have 3 million more just like it. What an early Christmas present!
Okay, I know you’re rolling your eyes and thinking it’s lame to read it in a letter but believe me it would have sounded way better in person. And the people on the bus would have been staring and waiting for you to say something and then you’d jump into my arms just like Forrest Gump and Jenny in the reflecting pool at the Lincoln Memorial and everyone would have cheered. Of course, they probably would have been more impressed, and maybe so would you, if I’d been in an Army uniform instead of an apron that said Bernstein’s Bakery but you get the picture.
The Bernsteins really liked you, by the way. I wish I hadn’t had to work Saturday morning ‘cuz we could’ve seen more stuff but they said, actually it was just Mrs. Bernstein ‘cuz her husband doesn’t know yet, that if you wanted a part-time job, you’d be great behind the counter. I think so, too. Remember I said they’ve been married 43 years and they met in high school just like us? Mrs. Bernstein says she married her best friend.
Ackckckck! I should just tear this up ‘cuz it’s probably sounding stupid. Remember how Miss Burris used to say I rambled? Okay, let me get to the point. It was so much fun being with you and I thought it was cool that even my roommates who can be real cement heads figured out we needed some privacy and I’ve already heard that one of them is getting married and moving out so you’d even have a place to stay til we can get a place of our own somewhere. It won’t be much at first but, okay, I’m rambling again because even as I write this, you’re on a bus and everything I should have said while you were here in person you’re now having to read in a letter.
You said you came back here to do some thinking about what’s his name and now you say you’re going back to L.A. to do some thinking about me. That sounds funny to me ‘cuz we’ve known each other since forever and what’s left to know? We use the same toothpaste, we both drink two percent milk, we both think clowns are creepy (their smiles are way scary) and we both think there’s life beyond Avalon Bay (but try to tell that to my brother). I want us to be like the Bernsteins and finish each other’s sentences and wake up together like we did on Sunday and go “Wow! The world’s our oyster! Let’s go crack it open and see what we find!”
I know you say you like this musician guy in San Francisco. And that he has good qualities but why does he make you cry so much? I also know you think maybe he’s going to change and be somebody else but I don’t agree. I don’t agree because I know you deserve someone who makes you laugh and who puts you on a pedestal and who would go rent a big white horse (even though I’m terrified about falling off) and ride around and tell everybody in Central Park, “I love Cassy Toscano and I don’t care who knows it!”
Okay, I’ve said everything I can think of. Maybe by the time I come back from putting this in a mailbox, there’ll be a message on the machine and you’ll say, “Hey, J, I’m in L.A. and I’ve changed my mind and I’m getting on another bus and can you come and meet me at the station?” And I will. I’d do anything you asked. I’ll even pretend to be happy if you say that you and what’s his name have worked everything out but deep down I’ll always know you could have done better.
You’ve always been the one. I just wish I hadn’t waited so long to let you know. I hope it’s not too late. Let me know.
Love, Jeremy
Tears welled within Kate’s eyes as she turned back to the first page.
The letter was dated December 23, the day before Jeremy was killed.