Passing Notes (4 page)

My mom came back in from the kitchen. “Oh,
she’s asleep.”

“I guess I have the magic touch.” I put
Grandma’s hands down gently over her blankets. My mom cocked her
head and frowned as she took in the marking on my hand.

“I thought your new girlfriend’s name was
Bethany.”

“You say ‘new’ like I’ve had girlfriends
before.”

“You haven’t?” she teased. “What about Cindy
Wiggins?”

“That was in second grade, Mom.”

“Still counts,” she said. Then she took my
hand. “No really, though, what’s with this?”

“It’s stupid,” I said, pulling my hand back
and shoving it deep in my pocket. “Something I saw today and
copied.”

“Did your Grandma see it?”

“Yeah, actually. She acted kind of funny
about it.”

“Well, you know her name is Eileen. She
probably thought you did it for her.”

“I think she did,” I agreed, wondering if I
should tell Mom how Grandma kind of wigged out over it. I decided
not to. Mom worried so much about Grandma’s state of mind with the
Alzheimer’s as it was, no point in adding to it.

“I’m going to try to wash this off.”

But it was permanent ink. It stayed. I stared
at the stubborn heart on the back of my hand, smothered with soapy
water. Funny, I’d forgotten that Grandma’s name was Eileen. No one
ever called her by her first name. Even the nurse that came during
the day called her Mrs. Carlson. I rinsed my hand and tried not to
think any more about all the weirdness of my day, like my grandma
freaking out about her name being on my hand, because the more I
thought about it, the more it freaked me out too.

Of course, not thinking about it at all
proved to be impossible. When I got in my room, I flipped on my
computer and went to Bethany’s favorite social network site. I
stared at her updated picture and read her recent posts. Nothing at
all about me—good, bad, or indifferent. I wasn’t her awesome new
boyfriend or a hated ex. It was like I simply didn’t exist. Like
the night at the drive-through never happened at all.

I typed on her wall:
Miss you.

You too,
came a quick reply.

All right! She was online.

Call me?

Can’t. Too much homework.

1st day back?

I didn’t have any homework, so I kind of had
trouble believing that. Maybe the Advance Placement classes dug in
faster.

Sure.

Oh no. Sure is not the same as yes. Not the
same by a longshot. Sure is very, very unsure. It’s a waffle. It’s
the weak, wimpy kid brother to “I guess so”. It is the kind of
affirmation that makes you feel like your request is an obligation.
What could I do?

I typed quickly, my heart pounding in my
chest and my fries from earlier scorching the back of my
throat.

I really did think you looked beautiful
today. You always do. I’m sorry if I texted something that upset
you. From my heart, believe me, you are gorgeous in every way from
your looks to your brain and your heart. In fact, it’s the
brilliance and sweetness that are what make you so stunning. I’ve
never met anyone like you, and I hope you’ll give me a chance to
show you how much I adore you.

The words poured out of me. I’d never written
or said anything like that before.

For an hour I sat and stared at my computer
screen, waiting for some kind of reply. Midnight came and went, and
nothing happened except that the wall filled up with questions and
comments from her friends about my post. All of them tore it to
shreds like I was some weird stalker trying to inflict mental
anguish on my girlfriend. A handful asked who I even was.

I hoped the reason she wasn’t responding was
because she actually was doing homework or had gone to bed. Only,
I’d posted this right on her wall where all 382 of her friends were
clearly reading it too. Surely one of them had called her to ask,
“Did you see what that Mark guy wrote?”

Why didn’t she respond?

I finally shut down my computer and slipped
into bed, wondering as I began to doze off if I’d get another note
from the ghost writer in the morning telling me what I’d done wrong
this time.

Ghost writer. Yeah. That made perfect sense.
Instead of throwing books around, slamming classroom doors, and
screeching through hallways, this ghost chose to haunt the high
school by teaching random kids how to write better love
letters.

Even though there was nothing remotely scary
or believable about that concept, I wound up not sleeping a whole
lot that night.

4

I got to British Lit early the next day and
poked all around the boxes on the desk for more yellow scraps of
paper. Nothing turned up. I finally gave up the search when Mrs.
Hollstein and some of the students arrived. I’m not sure if I felt
disappointed or dejected that I hadn’t heard from the stalker/ghost
person. Relieved would have made the most sense. Glad that it
really was just a coincidence and not something personal, would
have been another way to look at it. Instead, I felt this strange
sense of desperation. I think I was really hoping this “person”
would help me understand why Bethany continued to ignore me.

I rubbed my eyes and shook some sleep out of
my head, then tried to focus on Mrs. Hollstein’s lecture about
vocabulary lists being done in good penmanship and not on the
computer.

“I don’t want you to cut and paste from some
website. Write the definitions legibly and you will learn better.
And it wouldn’t hurt to do it in cursive, to make it look like you
care.”

I copied the word list off the board. Then,
just for laughs, I wrote them all again in cursive like she told us
to. Well, as much cursive as I could remember. Flipping the paper
over to write on the other side, I discovered it had already been
written on. But not by me. By my ghostly companion.

Yes. I was sure now. It had to be some kind
of ghost or spirit. That paper hadn’t left my hand since I tore it
out of my notebook, and it had been blank on both sides at that
point. I was pretty sure of that. I would have noticed several
sentences written in cursive, in black ink, wouldn’t I?

It’s stupid, but I actually felt my eyes
widen as I took in a long breath through my nose in alarm. I looked
around warily, wondering where the ghost might be. Was he nearby,
watching me?

Then I read the note.

A true love letter is shared only with your
lover. Only she needs to hear what your heart has to say. Hold
hands in public, but keep romance discreet. A woman needs to
believe that you are hers alone, and that you will share with her
what you won’t give to anyone else.

I understood it this time. The penmanship was
easier to read, and his fancy vocabulary didn’t test me. He was
basically telling me I’d screwed up by writing my apology in a
public forum. That only made it worse because now all 382 of her
“friends” knew I’d done something stupid toward her.

382 people had probably jammed her phone
messages with “I told you so” and “Who is the jerk?” texts. I saw a
handful of them last night on the computer. A couple old
boyfriends, including Lance, probably made themselves known, too.
“Dump the loser and remember what
we
had.” I really was an
idiot. She
should
dump me.

I put my pen to the paper under that note,
curious to see what would happen if I wrote:

What should I do now?

Letter by letter an answer appeared.

Try again.

I pulled out my phone, intending to sneak
online for a second and email her. That would be more private.

But bold, black letters scrawled across the
page so dark and thick that I could almost hear the scraping of the
invisible marker:
NO!

“Okay,” I whispered. “Calm down.” I pocketed
the phone.

What then?
I wrote.

On paper. A fresh, clean sheet of
stationery. A piece of parchment that shows that she is worth
something more substantial than scrap paper.

I didn’t have anything like that. All I had
was college rule, 3-hole notebook paper. Where was I going to
get... I noticed Jill over at her desk, her backpack open and
dangling from the back of her seat. Her sketchbook for Advanced Art
class stuck out of it.

“Jill?” I whispered loud enough to get her
attention. “Can I have a piece of your drawing paper?”

“No,” she whispered back over her shoulder.
“It’s expensive.”

“I’ll give you a buck a page.”

“How much do you want?”

I traded my lunch money for five sheets.

I wanted to write something to Bethany right
away, but I figured that was not what the ghost wanted me to do. I
hardly had enough room to write neatly on this edge of desk I had
to work with. To make space for an answer from the ghost, I wrote
as small as I could at the bottom of my note:

What should I write?

What you feel! But practice first. Get it
right.

Why are you helping me?

The ghost didn’t answer right away, but when
he did his response was in neat printing, not the cursive he
usually used.

A man in the army needs to be able to write
to the woman he leaves at home. It may be all she has left of him
if things go wrong.

I wanted to ask more, but I was out of space.
I ripped out a new sheet of paper and wrote a couple more
questions. He didn’t answer any of them. He was gone.

I practiced writing letters every moment I
got a chance that day. Not having heard from Bethany at all, I
avoided the cafeteria at lunchtime and sat outside on the football
stadium bleachers to write—and scratch out—and write again. Nothing
seemed sincere enough.

Just before lunch ended, my phone buzzed. A
message from Bethany:

Hi.

Not much to go on, but I answered.

Hi.

Are you okay?

I gs. U?

Yeah. Fine.

I didn’t know how to respond, so I
didn’t.

See you later
, she sent.

K

I didn’t ask when. I didn’t push. I wanted to
send her this letter before I did anything else she’d dislike. I
slipped my phone back into my pocket, and it crunched against some
paper. Another note from my ghost.

Absence makes the heart grow fonder. Keep
some distance, and your letter will make more impact.

Not feeling patient enough to write, I
whispered to the note as if the ghost were inside the words written
there, “But I really want to see her.”

Letter first.

“How should I give it to her?”

Mail is best. It is a thrill to receive
mail.

“Mail is slow. We call it snail mail these
days for a reason. That’ll take days. Can’t I just slip it into her
locker?”

No. Mail it. Heed my words and learn.

“Who are you?”

The lunch bell rang, and my time was up. My
ghost friend seemed to understand this and went silent.

Mail? He had to be kidding. Bethany had
contacted
me
, checked on
me
. This meant she still
cared about me. I had to strike while that iron was hot, as my
Grandma used to say. My ghost friend was wrong.

5

My work schedule started an hour later that
day, so I hung out in the locker room after 5
^th
period
to work on the letter some more. I finally got out some words that
I thought seemed earnest, and then I pulled out a sheet of Jill’s
art paper and copied it, trying hard to be neat. Nothing about that
letter was attractive by the time I was done. I had written with a
ballpoint pen, in print, with no lines to guide me, using the bench
of the locker room as a writing surface. The whole thing slanted to
the right. It looked terrible. I wadded it up and threw it out. I
tried again, but it wasn’t any better. Neither were the next three
tries.

Now I’d wasted all of my good paper, and any
moment the bell chime would signal the release the poor saps that
had a 6
^th
period. Bethany would go to her locker for the
last time of the day, and my note wouldn’t be there. Gritting my
teeth, I considered sending the last note anyway. Who said it had
to be perfect? Instead of tearing that one up, I folded it neatly
in thirds. I put my pen to the back and drew a heart. But when I
began to write Bethany’s name inside it, the letters refused to
cooperate. My R showed up as an S. My e became a t. This continued
until the word Stop appeared inside the heart.

“Leave me alone!” I said out loud, glad the
locker room was empty.

No.

“What do you want from me?”

Nothing. I want you to be happy.

“This is not making me happy. You are
completely stressing me out.”

Your girl is wonderful. She makes you
happy.

My shoulders fell and the anger fled. “I’ve
been in love with her since 7
^th
grade. I never thought
she’d give me a chance.”

And now she has.

“Yes.”

She’s going to college. You’re going to
war.

“That’s true,” I said. I guess I knew that
was in our future, but I hadn’t really allowed myself to think
about it yet.

She knows. She will pull away. You have to
win her with a deep, true love if you want her to be yours when the
years have passed and you can be together again.

“I don’t think she cares for me that way,” I
said. “We’ve only had one real date.”

She will care for you if you do this
right.

“Okay,” I sighed. “A good letter with the
right words, on stationery, in the real mail...”

Written in cursive.

“Ugh. Really?”

Really. But not now. Go to work. Care for
your grandmother. Write it when you are ready to do it with all the
love your heart can bear to share with her.

As the words reached the end of that sentence
they began to fade, as though the invisible marker was running out
of ink.