Distance

It was only seven days later when an envelope marked for Alaina arrived in the Berry mailbox.

Robbie’s loud voice announced his re-entrance into the kitchen with the stack of mail he would go retrieve every morning. It was a bit of a coming-of-age thing in their household that one of the younger kids in the family would go get the mail for everyone when it was deemed suitable for them to be able to do so safely and responsibly.

Eight was the age that had been decided Robbie could go get it on his own, and the day of his birthday, Alaina’s younger brother had insisted on his new duties. It had only been a few months, but he still didn’t seem like he was losing steam. Every morning was the same excited announcement of it’s arrival and subsequent sorting.

Personally, Alaina had enjoyed getting the mail for less than a month, before she realized it was just another chore that was being pawned onto her in the disguise of a “privilege”. Not that her epiphany gave her a relief of duties, of course. Unfortunately for her, too, it was five years before she was relieved of her duty and it was passed on to her younger sister, Jess.

This morning, unusually, Alaina was seated at their oversized, wooden dining table with everyone else. However, she was still trying to blink the sleepiness out of her eyes, since she was not used to having to be up this early.

Her typical schedule was a mirror of most the rest of her family, get up early and go. There were some deviations between them, though, as her parents always managed to wake at the asscrack of dawn, then she and her siblings would follow about an hour and a half later.

Weekends were hers, however, she was allowed to sleep in on those two days, and her portion of the morning chores were split between the rest of them. It was an agreement in the family that teen-aged and above members of the family were given two days of the week they could sleep in if they really wanted them.

And Alaina wanted them.

“Mail’s here!” Her younger brother called, much too loud for eight-thirty in the morning in the eighteen year-old’s opinion. She watched sleepily as his little brunet head bobbed around the room, whacking his sister, Amy, in the back with the pile as he passed by her with a snicker. Her father took the envelopes from his hands with a gentle scold as he took his usual seat at the head of the table.

Alaina’s father was a bit of the stereotypical farmer. He most definitely had a bad t-shirt tan, seemed to perpetually have a five o’clock shadow no matter how often he shaved, and a penchant for wearing flannels and listening to country music while he worked.

But, despite any assumptions people might make when hearing those things about him, he was a very gentle man. He didn’t believe in raising his voice or hand to his kids, and level-headedness was a big value to him.

The middle-aged man paused as he shuffled through the mail, reading the heading on the offending envelope with a raised eyebrow.

“This one’s for you, Alaina.” He said simply, sliding the object to her down the table.

All at once, her siblings jumped on her. With squawks of outrage as to why she got something and they didn’t, nosey faces surrounded her and tried to peek at whatever thing they were imagining she had received.

Elbowing away the hovering annoyances, and carefully ripping open the envelope’s flap, most of them lost interest when they saw it was a very plain looking letter with nothing incriminating on it.

“Aw, I was hoping for kiss marks and hearts!” Robbie cooed at her in disappointment.

“Shut up!” Alaina snapped back at him, swatting at him with the now empty envelope as he scuttled away, laughing at her expense. Giving him one last glare, she let her eyes sweep over the letter.

It read as follows:

“Dear Alaina,

We appreciate your interest in our service and application form has been accepted. Congrats! You’ve been randomly chosen as the “starter”, which means you will be the first to send a letter to your new friend, who will get a similar letter to you(though without your address) and get the ball rolling. We hope you’re able to remain in contact with your new pen pal for years to come and find many a fruitful conversation!
Have fun and be safe!
Jennie Howland
Founder of findyourpenpal.com”

What followed was a little snippet of info towards the bottom of the page.

“The address that follows is the key to your penpal and it is important to transcribe it on letters exactly as it appears and write your return address as neatly and legibly as possible, so you can receive letters back.

3 Bay Court, Oakland, California, 94610”

“What’s it say?” Her sister, Jess, asked, sliding closer to her on the bench so she could read over her shoulder, peering through her mop of curly hair. “Oooh, they’re from California!”

“I know! That’s cool, I can say I know someone in there now!” Alaina grinned. Like a stereotypical teenage girl, she also wanted to visit the golden state. It just seemed so glamorous and picturesque, she wanted to experience the big city of LA, walk on the beaches, just get to leisure her way through and see whatever she felt like at her own pace.

“You better get in good with them, then we can stay with them and visit.” Jess said sneakily beside her, eyes gleaming deviously.

“We? Don’t think I’d be taking you with me, anyway. You’re only thirteen, there’s no way you could go anyway.” Alaina finished by sticking her tongue out at her pouting sister.

“What’s their name?” Her father cut in, taking a sip of coffee from his usual mug.

“Doesn’t say.” She muttered, rereading the section of the letter that gave the address.

“Huh…” He mumbled, looking thoughtful. “Oakland’s near San Francisco I think, right on the coast.”

“Yeah, that sounds right.” Her mother agreed, sweeping in from the kitchen where she was trying to make waffles fast enough for her five hungering children sitting at the table.

Alaina smiled softly to herself, pleased with the thought of California now swirling around in her brain.

Dear friend,

Scribbling that out roughly, Alaina growled, crumpling up the paper and adding it to the other paper balls that were now starting to fill her trashcan.

She had no idea what to say.

The concept in her mind was that it would be like two long lost friends sending long letters to each other, telling their stories, and maybe sharing secrets and things they’d never told anyone carelessly, because there wasn’t any real consequences with someone so far away and isolated from each other.

But, how did one start that? Alaina couldn’t even figure out what to say in the first few sentences, nevermind how to nicely word, “Who are you, this is me, let’s be best friends and tell each other everything.”

Groaning loudly, she got up from the desk shoved in the corner of her room, and flopped down onto her unmade bed with a huff. Stuffing her face into the pillow, she tried her best to brainstorm something that would be interesting for her to even say, so she didn’t seem like some dumb, boring girl to this stranger. Even though it was someone she didn’t know, she felt like she had to impress.

She felt like she was in an English class, and she hated having to write essays, and structured pieces with a thesis, and then a snappy beginning to catch people’s attention, and fancy transition words on top of that, and all that garbage.

Creative writing was so much better…

Hello,

My name is Alaina, and I’m an eighteen year-old girl from North Carolina. I’ve got six siblings, two older and four younger, and I’m sorry this is so boring. I don’t know what to say, so I’m just going to tell you about myself I guess because that’s easy.

I live on a farm in the middle of North Carolina, like I said before, and we raise cattle, and have horses, and chickens and that kinda stuff. And yes, I have a “southern” accent. I’m currently not employed anywhere, since I help out a lot with the animals and everything during the summer, and during the school year I’m stuck doing homework and also helping out. Not that I’m a very good student. I got three B’s this last year at the end of the semester, and my mom was so happy, I think she might have thought I was doomed, and was worried that her daughter was going to end up homeless with no talents or motivation, and gather a posse of cats I would spend all my time with. Maybe create some kind of traveling cat-circus.

Also, I don’t think I have any real hobbies, so sorry to disappoint. I guess I’m bad at writing about myself.

Ya’ll You’ll have to tell me about yourself in great and interesting detail to make up for my bad writing. Just kidding, you don’t have to write a novel.

In addition, I see from your address that you live in California. I’ve heard that Oakland is near San Francisco, is that true? Because I would love to visit Cali one day and San Francisco is on the list of places I would like to go. But I guess that list is ridiculously long. I just really like to travel, I think. But then again, I’ve never done any real extensive traveling, I mean I’ve only left North Carolina once, for crying out loud. And I only remember that trip as being terrible, because we were going to a funeral for my father’s uncle in Virginia, and I was stuck in the car between my two older brothers for three hours.

And no one likes to be stuck in a hot car for that long, especially when you’re only six.

Anyway, maybe I’ve bored you enough, I don’t know, but I also don’t know what else to say right now, so I guess I’ll leave it at that until next time.

I hope you write back soon!
See ya!
Alaina

Closing and sealing the flap of the envelope with an air of finality, the brunette teenager sighed with a sort of relief. She was quite pleased with herself for actually finishing the damn letter and ending up with something she was not embarrassed totally by or that made her cringe when she reread it.

Glancing at her alarm clock on the nightstand next to her still unmade bed, she was a little surprised to see that it was already past nine-thirty.

Well, she could always wait to put the letter in the mail tomorrow morning when she woke up…But then again, she didn’t wake up very early, and by the time she could manage to pull herself from her covers, the mail would have probably already came and checked their mailbox, so she would have to wait another day.

Fuck it, she would go now.

Padding out to the front door as quietly as possible, so as not to arouse her possibly sleeping family, she slipped out the front door, grabbing a flashlight on the way out, followed by their dog. He was a mutt in all respects, but a good and loyal member of the family, with a cute dappled coat and white spots on his feet that made him look like he was wearing boots.

Trailing after the excited dog, Alaina was mildly glad he came with her since she was a little afraid of walking their long driveway in the dark. But only a little.

The night air was still slightly humid and warm, a gentle caress of wind on her shoulders and the crickets and frogs crooning a lovely tune in her ears. There was something incredibly peaceful about it.