Letters to Jenny

by Piers Anthony

  Are you bored yet? Well, I thought that since you weren’t too keen on hearing about my day—oh, all right, I’ll continue. (I’m just getting you back for saying you weren’t interested.)

  I turned on the light, and the beep was coming from the phone answering machine. A light was flashing, and the beeping was continuous. But that’s not the way it usually works. I peered at it, but couldn’t make out which button was glowing without my glasses. So I went back upstairs to the bedroom, fetched my glasses, came back down, peered again, and it said RECORDING. Recording? I lifted the phone: dial tone. What was it recording—a message from Mars? I didn’t dare fool with the machine, because it tends to erase automatically. On Tuesday when we were away, all hell broke loose—uh, rephrase that: your mother called, and then, well, let’s leave that until a later paragraph. So I went up and woke my wife. I didn’t like to do it, because her natural hours are midnight until noon for sleeping, or would be if I didn’t drag her up at 8:30 to face the day, but if there was something important on that machine, such as news of the San Francisco earthquake headed this way, we’d better find out. She came down and checked it out: no message. The thing was malfunctioning. But it did finally produce a message: the one your mother had left, which had disappeared after one playing. Time travel, maybe? The message jumped from Tuesday to Friday without passing GO or collecting $200—oops, wrong game.

  But how about that light turned on in the study? All the outer doors were locked; no one was prowling. How could something turn on the light and leave an un-message on the machine? We concluded that there must have been a power surge. That light switch is a touch-type: you just tap it to turn it on or off, rather than switching it. A surge might have had the same effect as tapping. And might have bollixed the answering machine. All our computers and things are protected by surge suppressors, but not that answering machine. Yes, sad to say, a prosaic answer; no Martians. Sorry about that.

  But of course I was sound awake by this time. My wife went back to sleep, but I fixed breakfast and went back to the study—with its lights conveniently on—and made notes in my P file (that’s P for Piers, where I record my passing thoughts on things) and edited 500 more words of Tatham Mound, about how de Soto met the lovely Indian Lady of Cofitachequi who lived not all that far from where you live now, who gave him a string of pearls that wound three times around her lovely body. Yes, that’s historical; it really happened. Then de Soto took the Lady captive and forced her to come with his army. Yeah, some hero! The factual parts of this novel will open some eyes, I trust. Then on with horsefeeding, newspaper—our temperature had plunged to 43.5° Fahrenheit, having had lows of about 70° before—yes, I know it gets colder than that without even trying, in Virginia, but this is Florida. One newspaper was on the ground instead of in its paper-box, and scattered across the landscape; the new deliverer is a mess. I gathered six parts and thought I had it all, but a major section was missing.

  Then on to that other letter: after two months I was writing to that libertarian-style fanzine that decided to practice censorship when I introduced the fan who is a murderer to it. I had pondered in the interim, and, like your mother, decided to do the right thing: that is, to let them have it in the face with both barrels. I can be eloquently cutting when annoyed. Then I went through to comment on what others had said about other things, including one sap who accused me of using my vegetarianism as “a highly specious platform from which to air [my] sense of superiority.” No, I hadn’t mentioned vegetarianism; it’s just one of those things I don’t make a secret about, but to each his own life-style. He just wanted to pick a fight with me, because he had said he considered it humane to squish innocent spiders, and I said we evidently differed on what was humane. So as you can see, this character needed special treatment, and I think he will not forget what I said to him, which relates to sociopathic behavior. But it took a bit of time to say it just right.

  Now it’s quarter to six, tomorrow, OctOgre twenty-oneth. I couldn’t finish this letter on the same day, after that late start, and then I woke up early, so I thought, well, Jenny’s waiting, so here I am. Do you see how dark it is outside?

  Where were we? Sociopathic behavior—you haven’t encountered that term? Of course you haven’t, Jenny; you’re a nice girl. It’s a fancy term for folk without conscience, really mean people, like the drunk who hit you with his car. People the world would be better off without.

  I was mostly through that letter by noon, but then had to quit to exercise, because my wife and daughter—Cam and Cheryl—had to drive back to New College and I didn’t want to make them late. You see, I never ran my three miles when my wife was away (well, there was a time, when her mother was dying, and she was away for most of a month, but apart from that, no) just in case I took a fall and needed help, and now that I’m using the cycle or treadmill—the cycle seems better—it’s the same. So I cranked up on the cycle, moving at 18 miles an hour according to its reckoning, and was nine and a half minutes through my half hour, when the phone rang. It was my agent in New York. So I stopped and talked to him, and that took about 45 minutes, and then the girls had to leave, so I never did finish my exercise and take my shower. Sigh. Now my beard is all itchy; I’ll take that shower today.

  What’s that? What did the agent say? Jenny, that’s none of your business! Now back to this letter.

  …………………

  …………………

  You mean you didn’t listen to my last two lines? Why not?

  …………………

  Will you stop giving me the silent treatment! What use is it to type this letter if you just tune it out?

  ********************

  Oh. Sigh. Okay, I apologize for saying it was none of your business. He talked mostly about how Man From Mundania was on the bestseller lists, so the publisher is pleased, and how we will market Tatham Mound when I finish it later this month, because that one has the potential to be a major mainstream bestseller. We hope. And about setting up a contract with Richard Pini for turning Isle of View into comic form. Yes, you’ll get to see the first copy! Are you satisfied? Then why aren’t you smiling? Ah, there’s that smile!

  So then I had lunch and read my incoming mail and went back to the letter, because it was time to begin your letter. And the men came to work on our front gate: they have to install a radio transmitter that can signal the gate to open, because it’s about half a mile away as the crow flies, and longer as the car drives. Naturally this happens when my wife is away, because she’s the one who knows about these things. So I showed the man our attic where he thought some wiring might be, and what he needed wasn’t there, and things were all complicated, because that’s what happens when my wife is away, much the same as what happens to you when your mother is away. Complications wouldn’t dare happen to your mother, but when she’s off having her face mangled then the complications come right after you; isn’t that the way it is?

  Speak of the—let me rephrase that. At this point, your mother called, with several pages on her mind. She was furious. No, she hadn’t been reading this letter! At least, I don’t think so. No, she wasn’t mad at me. Someone at Cumbersome Hospital did something phenomenally stupid, and—ah, now you understand. She was fit to be tied—no, what I mean is, she had a mind to tie someone else up in concrete and throw him in the deep deep sea and run a submarine over him. Twice. No, I didn’t succeed in calming her; she succeeded in riling me up. Next time you talk to her, you can ask her about what happened, and then hunker down for the storm. I mean, if you want to know what it was like in Charleston when Hurricane Hugo hit … However, it wasn’t all bad. She told me that the Navy has learned about your case: how you were sort of nothing until I sent you a letter—what do you mean, what letter? The first letter! The interesting one.—and then you turned around and faced back toward this world instead of the abyss. I think they want to mention that in their publicity somewhere. Okay, Jenny, if you don’t mind, I don’t. Do you think they’ll give
us a ride on a ship? Oh, you get seasick? So do I. Cancel that.

  So finally I finished that letter, and started on yours, and that was my day. Wasn’t that fascinating?

  …………………

  Sigh. Well, let me tell you about Tuesday. No, wipe that look of disgust off your face; I don’t mean the whole day. Just the afternoon. My wife wanted to go see the movie When Harry Met Sally so I reluctantly dragged myself away from the computer and went with her. No, of course I don’t like relaxing; I’m a workaholic. So we went—and naturally that’s when all the phone calls came in: your mother, Franklin Mint, and Morrow the publisher. Somehow they knew when I would be out. What’s that? What did Franklin Mint want? Well, they hadn’t heard of Man From Mundania and were confused when I mentioned it. I got a bit disgusted, but by the time they called back again they had read the novel and appreciated the “Frankinmint” pun in it. That’s a plant which gives access to the Magic Mountain the Franklin Mint folk made for their Xanth figures, to be put on the market soon. “You must have thought me a perfect idiot,” the woman said, and I did not demur too strenuously. Oh, you weren’t asking about that, but about Morrow? They wanted to know whether I would autograph books at a Waldenbooks store near a convention I’m going to. Yeah, I guess I will, grumble. But the movie was fun. No, I’m not sure it’s suitable for you; you’ll have to ask your mother about that. She said you listened to With A Tangled Skein on the talking books tape; did you survive that? You did? Okay, then maybe the movie is okay for you; it has less violence. It’s about a young man and young woman who drive together from Chicago to New York, sharing costs and taking turns driving, and they really don’t get along all that well. He eats grapes and spits the seeds out the window, only the window isn’t open. Splat! But ten or more years later they become friends, and finally fall in love; it just took time to develop.

  Speaking of movies: someone sent me a copy of the Dr. Who episode that was never broadcast or finished, because of a strike in England when they were making it. My daughter Cheryl is a Dr. Who freak, so I saved it until she was home so we could watch it together—and it turned out to be a copy of a copy, visually and sonically garbled so we really couldn’t follow it. Ah, well. Next night we watched one my wife bought, because the price had come way down cheap: Who Framed Roger Rabbit? Now there’s a movie I can recommend to you (so you can let your mother read this part of this letter). It’s a mixture of live actors and cartoons, which sounds pretty hokey, but it does come together, and I know you’ll like it. The bouncer at a bar really is a monstrous gorilla, and there are other jokes, and Roger’s cartoon wife is impossibly sexy, but you do get to care about Roger Rabbit and what the mean folk are trying to do to him. Yes, the meanest is a sociopath.

  So I’d better wrap this up. Sorry if I bored you.

  …………………

  Jenny, you’re supposed to protest sincerely that oh, no, you weren’t bored at all! You’re not supposed to make a silent agreement. That’s called social awareness. It’s one of the forms of lying which society approves. Everyone knows that. Ask Kathy. See? Shall we try it again?

  Sorry if I bored you … Oh, thank you so much for saying that!

  OctOgre 27, 1989

  Dear Jenny,

  Sigh. Remember when I was way late starting my letter to you last Friday? This time it’s later. The time is 7:24:06 P.M.—that’s right from my time button on the computer—and supper is at 8:00. Well, I’ll continue tomorrow morning. So what happened? Well, I have stopped with the secretary—what do you mean, stopped what? Stopped using her. Will you stop tittering?! For my mail. What did you think? The letters were running as high as ten errors per page, and it excruciated me to send them out with all those corrections. So now I’m doing it myself again, on the computer; that’s why I set up with these letter macros. So I started in on three days' accumulated mail, and then more came in today, so I’ve done twenty letters today, and that’s why I’m so late. But I’m almost caught up, except for one to your mother and the other Jenny’s mother. I’ll keep plowing through and try to get everything in tomorrow’s mail.

  What’s that? No, I wasn’t frittering away my time! That pile of 20 letters contained things like a contract on the reprint of a story, and one to my collaborator Robert E. Margroff about the fourth novel in our fantasy series, Orc’s Opal, which I’m about to start revising, and one to Philip José Farmer about my collaboration with him. You see, I was editing the first chapter, which is my 26 year old story about Tappy, the girl who—ah, I see you remember. But I couldn’t leave well enough alone, and now it’s about a thousand words longer than it was. No, I improved it. Oh, you don’t believe it? You don’t think I can write better now than I could twenty six years ago? Well, maybe I can’t, but I can still revise something. Anyway, I do like that story and I mean to read it to you, Jenny. Sometime, somewhere, someway. You just have to promise to remain 13 years old until I do. Then you can judge whether it’s improved. Anyway, so some of those letters were complicated and took time. The only other thing I did was exercise on the cycle. How far did I go this time? What does that have to do with it? I mean, I cycle for half an hour regardless. So let’s get back to business—you still want to know? Jenny, have I told you how aggravating you can be when—oh, last week? And the week before? Sigh. Okay, 9.6 miles. That would translate into about 3.2 miles on the treadmill, but the treadmill now just grinds and staggers even when I’m not on it; it’s definitely a bum machine. I like the cycle better anyway. So will you take my word, I wasn’t wasting time? What’s that? Why did I leave your letter until last? Well, I can answer that, Jenny: because I wanted to do your letter, and I didn’t want to do the others, so I did the chores first so that they would be out of the way. Now aren’t you sorry about your suspicion? You’re pretty quiet, all of a sudden!

  You know, it was a job completing Mound! It’s 815 pages in manuscript, about 204,000 words. But the emotional aspect is wearing, too. I care about the characters in it, and now I’m through with them. There’s Tale Teller, of course, but also Tzec, whose mother was Mayan but sold into slavery in barbarian Florida. Tzec was nine winters old when Tale Teller met her; then he met her again fifteen winters later and she married him. She had had it in mind all the time. She was forty-four winters old when the small pox evil spirits killed her and she was buried in Tatham Mound. If the white man hadn’t come, bringing his deadly diseases, which may have killed nineteen of every twenty Indians in the western hemisphere, and then had the gall to claim the land was unpopulated—well, I have mixed emotions.

  So how are things with you, Jenny? Well, yes, I know the routine gets dull. But apart from that? Well, if I told you I know how to break that routine, would you believe me? No? Ah, well.

  Meanwhile, back here, things continue. I received a call from the man who was going to clear another dozen or so acres for us, to put in more pine trees. But in the intervening year since we made that plan, I have slowly changed my mind. I have seen how the bunnies live in the palmetto and small brush, not the pines. That’s the natural wilderness, while the pines are planted, and the local wildlife isn’t adapted to them. I don’t want to cut the habitat of that wildlife. So I told him I was sorry, but no: I no longer wanted to clear those acres. And do you know what? No, he didn’t throw a fit because of lost business. He said he likes wildlife too, and prefers to keep land natural when he can. He clears land when he is hired to handle that, but he doesn’t like it. So he was glad I had changed my mind. That brightened my day.

  What else? Well, it is getting closer to the time when we’ll see about making that video movie of A Spell for Chameleon. I learned that they will start with live actors, then remake them into animation. I guess they go over the film, and the live actors become models for drawing over— Jenny, you must understand this sort of thing better than I do! I’ve been out of art a long time. But it should result in extremely realistic animation, and that’s what I want: animation so real that you can’t be sure it is ani
mation. What’s that? What about the Elfquest folk and their project? Well, that seems pretty firm, now; they’ll do Xanth #13, Isle of View in comic format. Oh—that’s right, I said you could be there to help negotiate the contract. You would remember that! As I recall, you pulled one of your fits, and—no, don’t pull another! It’s bad enough when your mother does it, without you proving whose daughter you are. We’ll see, we’ll see; with Xanth magic, you can never tell what may happen.

  Speaking of Xanth, I may have to write two Xanths next year. One a year is comfortable; two may be a bit much. No, they won’t be as good as the one Jenny Elf is in. Unless she’s in one. I don’t know yet. You see, at the end of View her future is in doubt; for all we knew she might go back to Elfquest. But with the Elfquest folk handling her in Xanth, maybe she’ll like Xanth well enough to stay. Sammy’s with her, remember. Xanth #14, Question Quest, is pretty well locked in; Jenny Elf might appear in a bit part, but no more than that. But if I have to do The Color of Her Panties the same year—what? You want to know why I may do two in one year? Because this is a paperback series, but we might want it to go hardcover, and the way to do that would be to do two so that they could publish the hardcover edition of #15 the same time as the paperback of #14 and the paperback readers would still have one a year, same schedule, instead of having to wait an extra year for the hardcover edition to clear. We’re thinking of the readers, see. What do you think? Should I write Panties next year too?

  OctOgre 28, 1989—Yes, it’s next morning now; I zoomed as far as I could, but I couldn’t finish this letter last night. So have you thought about whether I should write two Xanths next year? I mean, you’ve had a whole night to ponder the matter. Don’t tell me you haven’t; there’s one date at the top of this letter, and another just now, so I know a day has passed!

  Well, on to the enclosures. Do they show you “Garfield” each day? I can’t be sure they are taking proper care of you, so I cut out this week’s adventure. I mean, Garfield is a brown cat, so he’s in your department. He was snoozing, and he dreamed, and this is his dream: of the far future when everyone else is gone. It concludes with a message about imagination. So here are the strips for your collection, and your homework is to think about that business of imagination.