The Most Unusual Correspondence

“Do you think people deserve to be loved?” Janice asked Charlie.

“Yeah, I do. Don’t you?” Charlie retorted.

“I don’t know. I mean, look at me. Do I deserve to be loved? I certainly went through a lot of shit to be happy. To become me. I’m nice to people. I work hard. I have a lot of money. But do I deserve love? I don’t think it’s something you can earn, Charlie. I think it’s something you just find. And once you find it, you have to work at it and earn it. Then maybe you can say you deserve it.

“But I think you have to be looking for it. And I’m not sure Ruby Jean was,” Janice finished hesitantly.

“What makes you think that?” Charlie quizzed.

“I think the kind of love Ruby Jean was looking for was the love of becoming somebody, a singer, an artist. I think Mr. Haywood was just the standby. You know, someone to fall back on.

“‘If the career doesn’t work out, I can always go live with my Sugar Daddy’ scenario.

“And I think Mr. Haywood knew this as well.”

Janice put her hand up to her chin and let the words sink in.

“She wasn’t like that,” Charlie snapped, and his face reddened with anger.

“Well, Charlie, it seems to me that she fought harder for the love of becoming a singer than she did for a man. Otherwise, why didn’t she just come back to Galveston and fight for him? But the bigger question is, why you are getting so defensive and angry with me because of someone you don’t even know. Someone who isn’t even alive anymore? Someone who, to you, only exists on paper.” Janice trailed off.

“She was a real person. The letters are real. It’s not like she’s some character in a fiction novel.” Charlie trailed off.

Janice didn’t answer, just took a long sip of her wine.

“She’s real to me,” Charlie said matter-of-factly.

“The question is, why?” Janice gazed out over the top of her wine glass.

A pair of birds fluttered across the lawn, locked together in quarrel or mating ritual. They tumbled and fluttered and squawked across the grass.

“Are you trying to psychoanalyze me?” Charlie asked, incredulously.

“No, I’m just trying to tell you. You seem a lot like me when I was younger. When I was trying to find answers to questions I didn’t even know. And, Charlie, it was a horrible feeling. It was dark and lonely and very scary. Because I didn’t know what was wrong, I just knew that something was.

“I think that is what is so fascinating about these letters to you. Ruby Jean has become the woman in the ivory tower that you want to rescue. You want to solve her problems. You want to fix her love affair with Mr. Haywood and make it right. But Charlie, the question is, why?

“Why, Charlie? It’s all history and done with, and there’s nothing you can do about it."