Tanya E. E. E. Schmid
I opened the heavy oak front door and she returned my gaze with eyes as surprised as mine: the girl who’d made a fool of me in high school, who I’d managed to avoid for ten years even though we both lived in the same small town.
“I’m sorry,” I forced a smile, nearly twisting an ankle in my platform heels as I stepped back. “I was expecting someone else.”
Elisabeth Connors stood politely on the front porch of the house I had been contracted to sell. Instead of her favorite Guess jeans, she wore a smart navy suit that accentuated her thin waist. She’d lost her big hair—it was straight now, shoulder-length—but I would have recognized those serious green eyes anywhere.
“I’m the one who should apologize,” she said.
I held my breath, recalling the painful moment in the high school cafeteria when Beth had confessed.
But she added, “I’m afraid I’m running late. My secretary double-booked me.”
“Please, come in.” I made the usual sweeping gesture with my arm to indicate how spacious the home was—the same move I used no matter if I were selling a two-bedroom condo or this elegant Victorian three-story. My arm brushed a vase on the entry table and nearly knocked it over.
“I thought it was for sale by the owner.” Beth slid her hand up and down her purse strap, a familiar sign of her nervousness.
“Mrs. Jacobsen broke her hip, so her daughter hired me to handle the showings.”
Beth swallowed and looked out the huge living room windows. “I’ve waited a long time for a view like this.” Then she looked at me. “Just as beautiful as I remember.”
The thought of Beth buying my dream house made my nose itch. In my eight years as a realtor, this was the first place I’d seen that I would have loved to call home. But I was still saving, living with my folks in their redbrick townhome, hating its white aluminium siding.
“You’ve been here before?”
“Everyone knows the Jacobsens.” She looked down at the hardwood floor. Then I remembered: Penny Jacobsen’s birthday party freshman year. We all got tipsy because someone had spiked the Koolaid, and the two of us left when one of the boys suggested playing Kiss in the Closet. We lay head to head after that party, talking the night away, sharing our dreams and fears and secrets.
“Well, it is an authentic five-bedroom Victorian,” I said, the pain of her lies still piercing my breastbone. We’d been best friends for over five years when I’d found the first note from a secret admirer in my locker. “Built in 1901 from designs by the popular architect George Barber, it features scalloped shingles. You noticed the turrets, gables and decorative balustrades?”
“Yes. I’ve admired them for a long time.”
Her stride was still long, her steps sure. Beth had chosen a career instead of a family. After college she’d gotten her law degree, and last year, at age twenty-eight, she’d become the youngest judge in the city court. She wouldn’t run for a position at the state level because she felt local jurisdiction was more important “considering the current culture wars.” Anytime I read a newspaper article that mentioned how fair she was, I threw it in my parents’ fireplace.
“The wiring in the walls has been upgraded and the roof is new,” I said as we moved to the kitchen. She ran her hand over the countertop, considering it carefully. “And the water pressure is good.” I turned the faucet to demonstrate, hoping my real estate habits would get me through this, but the strong spray splattered my blouse.
I shook out my hands, but I couldn’t stop thinking about all the boys I’d guessed were sending me those notes. I’d never dated in high school. The messages slipped through my locker door senior year explained why: the perfect boy for me was too shy to ask me out. Or so I assumed.
We climbed the staircase and walked through several rooms, our shoulders brushing like on our way home from school. My urge to slap her vanished as I imagined us bursting into giggles about who sent me those romantic scribblings. Could Ray Gibson be that poetic? Was John Campbell staring at me in band class? Would the mystery boy have the courage to invite me to the prom?
When we entered the main bedroom with the vaulted ceiling, I heard myself ask, “How could anyone live here alone?”
I turned to her to excuse my bluntness, then I saw it. The same earnest look she had given me across her fish sticks and tater tots when she told me that she had written the letters. Two days before the prom.
I’d frozen with a bite of apple tart on my fork, and she’d said, “At first, I thought you knew. Then I didn’t know what to say.”
I’d thought the joke had worn itself out and I was the last to know. Humiliated, betrayed, I’d run to my locker in case the entire cafeteria burst out laughing. For two days I’d stayed home sick thinking nobody wanted me.
Now I saw Beth for the first time.
“It’s just what I’ve been looking for,” she said.
My face grew tingly as the blood rushed to it. “I’m waiting on…” but the lie of “several offers” evaporated.
I remembered how at school I couldn’t face her. Then she’d left for college. I hadn’t dated seriously these past years. I thought I just hadn’t found the right guy. Was she the reason all my interactions with men never got past lunch?
We went downstairs. When she walked out the front door, I caught it before it closed. Beth turned, but I couldn’t speak. I just stood there, as frozen as I’d been in the cafeteria that day.
She touched my arm. “I’ve waited a long time. Just let me know.”
Tanya E. E. E. Schmid
Tanya Elizabeth Egeness Epp Schmid was a Doctor of Oriental Medicine until 2014 when she started a permaculture farm. Her work has appeared in Valparaiso Fiction Review, Ponder Review, ENO, Sky Island Journal, Canary Literary Magazine, Whistling Shade, Flash Fiction Magazine, and others. Tanya was a finalist in Ruminate’s The Waking Flash Contest and long-listed in Pulp Literature’s 2021 Flash Fiction Contest. Her work has appeared in the Poet’s Choice Global Warming Anthology and Quillkeeper’s 2021 Summer Solstice Anthology. She is a teacher of Kyudo (Zen archery) and the author of Tanya’s Collection of Zen Stories. tanyaswriting.com