I decided to write her a letter. In this age letter writing was a trifle more advanced than smoke signals – what with phones, faxes and e-mails – you never thought of taking pen in hand. As for me, I’d thought of every which way to reach her, even preparing to climb up the outside walls to her room, and until now it hadn’t dawned on me to WRITE HER A LETTER.
My first letter was very long and very poetic and very romantic, and so touching; a regular Robert Browning. Our circumstances, come to think of it, weren’t that much different. I even vowed to heal her with the abundance of my love. I even said it didn’t matter how disfigured she was…
Fortunately I didn’t mail it, nor the second, nor the third, fourth, fifth, sixth or seventh attempts. To tell a woman how you really felt…it just wasn’t the American way. I certainly wasn’t trained in that direction. I was never any good at whispering sweet nothings, especially when I didn’t mean it, and now, from lack of exercise, even when I did. Everything came out so mushy you wanted to puke.
Maybe I inherited that from my father, that aloofness.
So I kept whittling away at this letter like that story about Fish Sold Here, where a man walks into the shop and says to the owner, “Why the word fish? Everybody knows they’re fish.” Agreed. “And why sold? Of course you’re selling.” Agreed. “And why Here? Where else?” Seeing the logic, the owner took the sign down.
I didn’t reduce it that far, to obliteration, although I did think, I did assume that she knew my feelings for her. I shouldn’t have to tell her. Except that I remembered her telling me that you can’t assume, you must tell a woman. They’re funny that way, even the beautiful ones – imagine, then, the ones damaged beyond recognition. But she ought to know that nothing so superficial could make a difference to me. I did not care how she looked.
The letter I finally sent said this:
Dear Stephanie:
Cut the crap.
Marry me.