Letter #2
Subject: I
want to come home! Now!
Date: January 2nd, 1976
-
6:45
am
Simba, please!
I made a mistake! Can you
book me a flight home as soon as possible?
♥
11:10
am
Sunni,
I’m sorry
baby, I only now got the computer turned on and found your note. Are you already on that flight home? If I don’t get
an answer by this afternoon I’ll assume you’re fighting the weather and coming home. I miss you to pieces. I do!
But I suspect this is a cry for help. Do you want Troy and I to fly out to be with you this weekend for moral support? I already
spent your advance check on my string of girl friends, and a pony named ‘I can’t run but I sure do look pretty’.
Otherwise, you know I’d be there for you, Baby!
Simba
♥
2:06 pm
Lionel you old flirt!
No, you were right, I just
got overwhelmed by Uncle James last night. Jet lag or something, you know how he is, and so do I. It wasn’t as big a
surprise as it felt. I’ve just lived away from that kind of intolerance and bigotry for so long that I’d forgotten
how bad it can hurt coming from a face that you want to love! Daddy loved his oldest brother so much, you
know?
She
was with him! The City Girl. Smiling through her make-up like a real smile would break off the mask, and come to
think of it, that isn’t something I want to see either! Gosh I miss my boys! Give Troy an extra big
hug for Mommy, would you?
You know Honey, I really hate to say this. No, I mean, I really hate to say this! But you were right! As hard as it
was to move away after Daddy died, I see now that Troy would be a very different little boy if we had tried to raise him here.
She is using her late husband’s money to try and get Doctor Sharon’s Free Clinic closed down and
that part of Shanty Town bulldozed so she can get a zoning variance from the Planning Commission yes-men so she can build
two up-scale condominiums by the River. It feels strange to see one woman with so much power. If Aunt Diane were still alive,
she’d be fighting Miss Cynthia Cromwell my you-know-what-don’t-stink tooth and nail. I miss her almost as much
as I do Daddy, Simba!
Aunt
Cathy Baker and Uncle Sandy are flying in from Hollywood on Tuesday, if the storms clear. I could use some
moral support, but I don’t want you or Troy to get sick or worry myself to death that you’ll be in an airplane
crash in this horrible weather.
I don’t know Honey, it’s the same wind, the same cold as New York, but it feels different. I’m going
out to the old house in the Meadow for the rest of my stay here. I think I’ll have more privacy there. Do you remember
me telling you about the Judge? They say his ghost keeps the other two company, but it’s butane heated and lighted and
I can see if anyone is coming. You know how I hate to be bothered when I’m trying to work, and it has a phone. I’ll
get the number. Call me.
PS.
Be careful
what you admit too on the emails, I’m printing them as you write them, and I lay them on my pillow so I won’t
feel so alone. You’re giving me great ammunition if I ever need them in divorce court.
Love ya’,
Numba
-
Lionel Hampton stuck his legs out into the narrow space left in his cubical by the cardboard boxes he asked Ron to
locate from the basement archives. He didn’t want to chide her for mentioning divorce court when he was still stinging
from the abrupt end of his parents thirty-five year marriage. She was usually so sensitive to what bothered him it made her
occasional lapses seem out of proportion. But not nearly as large as the ache he felt even at her brief absence to do the
memorial to her father’s gift.
His smile hid his private thoughts. Too many people just getting up and walking around the crowded office could look
over the shoulder high cubicles and see his face; an intrusion he resented all the more, remembering when he had his own office.
The price of growth from a two man office to a ‘property’ already tempting two large Midwestern conglomerates
to sniff around the company shredder.
“ You go a minute Ben? “.
The six foot two man stood to his feet with lanky ease, knowing that his height intimidated his partner still after
four years. It was the penalty the balding man earned by calling him by his middle name when he’d asked him often enough
not to do it /in public’. Hart must really be worried for him to make a slip like that. The shorter man’s frown
deepened.
“
Let’s go to the Board Room! I don’t this to be ‘accidentally’ overheard and leaked before we
can fire the person responsible for it! “
“ That doesn’t sound good! “
Lionel’s stomach tightened as much as he saw on his partner’s face, His letter of mutual condolence to
his wife would have to wait!
