Somewhere Only We Know

Jenna’s heart was pounding in her chest as she flipped through the mail and finally saw the letter she had been waiting for.

Ever since she had impulsively sent the first letter, she had been wondering what kind of response she would get. She knew it probably wouldn’t be good – how was she supposed to know how Jane wrote or showed affection? For all she knew, her letter had confused him and his response was simply the sentence, “Who are you and why are you pretending to be my girlfriend?”

She almost tore into the letter right there in by the mailbox, but she refrained. Instead, she tucked the letter in the pocket of her dress and went about her day, resisting the urge to read it. She was terrified that he was calling her out, although she wasn’t really sure why. It wasn’t like he was going to sue her or call the police or something. He’d probably just ask her not to write to him anymore. But another part of her enjoyed having someone to write to, even if it was someone she’d never met.

For two days, Jenna carried the letter around with her but didn’t open it. Finally, to make herself feel better, she went into town to run some errands and decided she’d ask around. It was a small town – surely people knew a little bit about Matt and Jane.

It was the hottest day of July so far, nearly blistering Jenna’s shoulders as she rode her bike into town. Her first stop was the farmer’s market, which was run by an older man named Charles. As Jenna wandered between crates of in-season vegetables, enjoying the shade provided by the tent covering the market, Charles asked, “You’re Jenna Gillies, right? You bought Jane’s house up on the hill.”

“Yes, I’m Jenna,” she said, smiling pleasantly.

“I’m glad another lady bought Jane’s house. We’ve been aching for a pretty face since Jane left.”

Jenna would have blushed, but her cheeks were already red from the warmth of the afternoon. “Well, thank you.”

“I must say, you’re probably a bit prettier than ole Janie. She had that sophisticated city look, even after living out here for a year.”

“So she only lived around here for a year?” asked Jenna. This was what she had been hoping for.

She pretended to examine a particular head of cabbage as Charles said, “Give or take. She moved out here with Matthew the fall before last.” He looked around cautiously, then said, “She never seemed all that pleased to be away from the big city. She was from California originally, I believe.”

“Does anyone know where she moved to?”

“I don’t think so. She made no indication she was moving. I just heard about it from the realtor that drew up the paperwork.”

So the realtor might have an idea, Jenna thought, putting the cabbage back and moving on to the broccoli. Charles asked her about how she was liking the new house and she chattered about the garden and how quiet the area was while she selected some more greens. When her basket was so full of broccoli, carrots, celery, corn, cucumbers, eggplant, green beans, lettuce, mushrooms, onions, okra, peppers, potatoes, spinach, summer squash and tomatoes that she could barely lift it, she big Charles farewell and continued on her errand run/recon mission.

Her next stop was the realtor’s office, which was just around the corner. Off of Creek Trail Road, the road which curved up the hill to reach her house, were two parallel streets: Hummingbird Way and Main Street, which were both crossed in the middle by Water Street. If you followed Water Street to the end, after passing the outdoor store, you’d reach the lake.

The real-estate office was on the inside corner of Creek Trail and Hummingbird Way. The building was made of old brick and was two stories high, probably one of the taller buildings in town. The knick-knack/antique shop next door was only one story, but long enough that it also had an entrance from Main Street. Next to that, on the corner of Hummingbird and Water Street, was an ancient corner store that time hadn’t touched in the slightest. The ancient wood and decrepit sign had to be decades older than anything in town. They still sold things like glass bottles of soda and candy that most of the world had forgotten ever existed.

Jenna fought the urge to go to the corner store and stepped into the real estate office. The receptionist, Patty, looked up and smiled, revealing a smudge of lipstick on one of her front teeth. “Jenna, dear! How are you? How’s the cottage?”

“It’s great,” she said. “I was just stopping by to pick up the, um, payment schedule.”

“Right. I’ll go grab it.”

Patty got up and went to the file cabinet. She struggled with the top drawer for a few seconds before she realized a lower drawer was open, keeping her from opening any others. She shot Jenna a sheepish grin, closed the opened drawer, then looked in the top one.

“Here it is, hon,” she said, returning to her seat. She twisted a strand of bleached hair around her finger as she looked over the numbers. “Did Angie go over this with you?”

“Not completely.”

“Okay. These are your monthly payments. They go up a little each month because of taxes, but they cap out in this month here, see? It goes for the next twelve months, then you should have it paid off.”

“I still can’t believe she let it go for so little,” said Jenna casually. “I mean, a crackerbox in Kansas isn’t worth this little.”

“She was in a hurry for some reason,” said Patty shaking her head. “I guess she didn’t want to miss a window to escape.”

“Escape?”

“Oh, yes. Anyone could tell she hated it here. Hated all of us, as a matter of fact, too.”

“That’s awful. Was she a mean person?”

“Gracious, no!” said Patty, her make-up plastered eyes wide. “She was sweet as a button, but you could just tell she was unhappy. Word around here is that she took advantage of old Matty being shipped off overseas and got out.”

“Out of what?”

“Here,” she shrugged.

“Was there something wrong with her...husband?”

“Matt wasn’t her husband.” Patty giggled. “Thank goodness. It’d be a shame to see such a fine specimen off the market.”

“So it was just the town that she was unhappy with?”

“I’m not sure. They fought, of course, oftentimes when they were out in public. A few months ago, we stopped seeing Jane around town. They’d had this big ole’ spectacle at the mart and she’d screamed at him about abandoning her and not considering her feelings. He’d had plenty to say, too, accused her of spending money behind his back and going into the city at night to cat around with other men.”

“Wow, and they fought about this in public?” Jenna asked, amazed. She could never have started an argument in public. She could barely start an argument in private.

“Well, Tony from the corner store saw the whole thing and he says that Janie started the argument when Matt asked what Jane was making for the last night before he shipped out. Apparently Jane got upset and said that she thought they were going out to eat that night and he had said they couldn’t afford it. Then he said they could talk about it later, but she wouldn’t let it go. She kept complaining about having to cook for him and he finally just snapped at her and said something like ‘we could afford it if you wouldn’t spend so much on going out and drinking.’”

“That’s awful. Did he have a temper?”

“Not usually. He could get into a heated discussion with Charles about classic cars, but never anything quite like that fight in the mart.”

Jenna reached out and took her payment schedule, then hesitated. “You might not be able to,” she said hesitantly, “but I actually found something of Jane’s left in the house and wanted to send it to her. Do you possibly have a forwarding address?”

“I’m not supposed to...but it probably wouldn’t hurt anything.” Patty went back to the cabinet, dug around a bit, then pulled out a handful of papers. She jotted down the address and handed it to Jenna. “Just don’t tell anyone.

“Thank you,” replied Jenna, hurrying from the office then. With the address in hand, she walked across the street to the post office. She pulled Matt’s original letter from her pocket, put it in a new envelope, and printed Jane’s new address on the front. She hesitated by the post box, then dropped the letter in. After all, she had no way to know that Jane didn’t want to talk to Matt. Maybe she had simply forgotten to give Matt her new address.

It could all just be a big misunderstanding, right?