P. S. I Love You

by Barbara Conklin

  “That’s true,” he said. “Actually though they go back as far as early Egypt.”

  “There are so many designs to choose from,” I added, glad that I had done my homework in the Abbotts’ study. I wouldn’t mind if he thought

  I wasn’t pretty, because I couldn’t do anything at all about that, but at least I could be well informed.

  “True,” he said again, rising up on one elbow to look at me directly. “Old Jim and I went through loads of books before we came across this one. Mr. Abbott agreed this was the best. Then we had to send away for the plans and order the materials. It took us an entire week just to clear the area of plants.”

  He took another long drink. “It always amazes me to see what you can do with a pile of wood and some nails and a little paint.”

  “Then you want to be a carpenter?”

  “No, an architect,” he answered, finishing his Coke. His shirt stuck to his back from the heat. “That’s my dream,” he went on. “And it’s coming closer with each day. September I start at Berkeley. Later on I hope to finish up at MIT.”

  “Wow,” I said, sounding like my little sister. I finished my Coke, too. “You really mean it? I mean that place is expensive.” What a dumb thing to say, I thought after the words left my mouth.

  “I know,” he said, pretending my question wasn’t dumb. “But it’s a career, a profession, a lifetime. In the field of architecture you have to get every bit of education you can. That’s if you want to be a good one.”

  He stared into the pool, his wrist dangling the empty Coke can in a swirling motion. I got the feeling that this Paul Strobe was as serious about his career as I was about my writing. We sat there, on the edge of the water, not talking,

  just sitting there in the sun together. I felt strangely at ease, relaxed, as though I was sitting with someone I’d known all of my life. Was it the same for him?

  He looked down at his watch after a few minutes. “I’ve got to get home,” he said. “My mom is the type who says you’re late if you’re only thirty seconds later than you said you’d be. She’s a worrier.”

  “All mothers worry,” I told him, laughing. And then as an afterthought, “What are the Abbotts like? I mean they’re so terribly rich — are they nice people? I mean, do you like them yourself?”

  “They’re fantastic,” Paul answered, turning to me, his blue eyes looking straight into mine. I felt my throat grow dry, even after the coldness of the Coke. “I’ve known them all of my life and when they found out I was interested in carpentry, Mr. Abbott introduced me to Jim. That was years ago when I could barely hold a hammer. Jim actually started me with an old play hammer and some wood scraps he had in the back shed.”

  “He taught me everything he knew. Then, when Mr. Abbott found out that I wanted to be an architect, he encouraged me, even more than my own dad. Mrs. Abbott is great, too. It’s amazing I'm not fat, with all the cooking and baking she does. Here she has all these servants, and she still loves her kitchen. Yeah — they’re fantastic!”

  A tiny breeze came up, pushing a strand of hair into my face and I brushed it away. “I’m surprised. I mean — rich people — they’re not usually too nice,” I told him. “My mother teaches in a very ritzy day school and there are some really rich kids there. My mom says they’re spoiled brats, and when their folks come in for interviews, it’s disgusting how uppity they are. And me, I know some rich kids from school. I wouldn’t give a dime for them. I mean they’re just so… I guess the word is ‘shallow.’ ”

  Paul stared back into the pool as he put his feet over the side and dunked them. He was silent for a moment. “Maybe if you got to know them better,” he said finally. “Maybe it’s kind of your fault, too. I mean, you look at them already knowing you’re not going to like them. Do you suppose it could be that?”

  I laughed nervously. “Oh, Paul, you’re wrong. You just happen to know a few rich people who arenice, but if you knew the ones I’ve met!” I shook my head knowingly.

  The water looked cool and tempting, and I removed my sandals and dipped my toes in, too. “Okay, besides the Abbotts, just who else do you know? I mean someone who is really, really rich and is just as nice as they are?” I challenged him.

  Paul bent back and looked up at the blue sky. A fluffy white cloud drifted directly above his head. He seemed to be thinking very hard.

  After a second I said, “Ha! You see, you can’t even think of one!”

  “No, you’re wrong,” he said, removing his feet from the water. “Did you notice the other house on this street?”

  “How could I avoid seeing it?” I said. “It’s huge, and I bet as fancy as this one. Why?”

  “I know the people who live there, too,” Paul said. “Especially the guy my age. He’s pretty nice, I’d say. Yes, I can say I really like him. Maybe you’d like to meet him.”

  I shook my head. “No, thank you. I wouldn’t want to. Besides I wouldn’t know exactly how to talk to him. Rich people seem to always put on airs. You know, they make me feel terribly small, inferior.”

  He stood up then, and I got to my feet too. “Well, like I said, I’ve got to get home for dinner.”

  He walked a few feet over to a clump of oleander and pulled out a red and white moped. “I’ll be here tomorrow again, Mariah. If you have any free time, maybe you could help me and Old Jim.…I mean if you’d care too.” He smiled, again, that heavenly wonderful smile.

  I could feel myself smile, and I wondered if I looked like a nerd. I quickly made my face straight again. “Yes, I really would like that,” I told him, trying to hide the emotion I felt in my heart.

  He waved at me and left the garden area by a gate in the stone wall that I hadn’t seen before. I could hear the moped begin its putting noise and then heard it fade away in the distance. I looked up to see the sun easing itself over to the west. It would be a long time until it finally set, and I had met a boy already. Someone I could talk to, be really comfortable with. I hoped, oh, how I hoped I hadn’t looked stupid

  or said anything to turn him off. I headed for the house and vowed I’d try to set my hair with a little more care that night. I thought of Amy. Amy would just die if I told her about Paul!

  Chapter 7

  “Oh, darn!” I said.

  “What’s wrong now?” my mother asked as she entered my bedroom the next morning.

  “I don’t have Amy’s address!” I moaned.

  “She’s visiting her father in New York, isn’t she? Why don’t you just pick up the phone and call her mother?” my mother asked.

  “Can’t” I said, flinging my letter paper onto the bedspread. “She’s gone, too. She took Amy’s brothers back to Iowa for the whole summer. Boy, I wanted so badly to write to Amy, too…especially now.”

  “Why especially now?” my mother asked, her very, very sharp mind absorbing my last statement.

  I floundered for words. “I want to tell her about this great house and all.”

  My mother smiled smugly. “Yes,” she said, going over to the window seat. “Yes, this great house and all.”She picked up a pillow and fluffed it up. “Mariah, why don’t we invite the and allto a barbeque tonight?”

  “Who’s having a barbeque?” Kim yelled up from downstairs. The kid should get an award for her fantastic hearing, I thought. In seconds

  she was at my bedroom door. “What barbeque?”

  My mother laughed and fluffed up the pillows on the window seat. “Ask Mariah,” she said, her smile turning into a mischievous grin.

  Sliding my stationery back into the drawer in the walnut desk, I turned to my little sister. “She means Old Jim,” I told her, evading my mother’s surprised look. “We could have dinner tonight after the sun goes down — right out back on that neat brick patio.”

  “Great!” Kim said. “And we could invite Paul Strobe, too!”

  My mother and I took one look at each other and without another word we were laughing, laughing so hard, I could feel tears popping out of the c
orners of my eyes. She came over to the desk and put a hand on my shoulder.

  “Why not, Mariah? Why don’t you ask Paul?” She was serious.

  “I’ll ask him,” Kim volunteered, and I heaved a sigh of relief.

  My mother smiled. “You’re off the hook,” she said in a whisper so Kim couldn’t hear. And then she turned to my little sister. “You do that, Kim, right this morning so he can let his folks know.”

  Kim was out of the bedroom in a streak, and my mother returned to the window seat. I watched her arrange herself among the rose-colored pillows. She was enjoying my bird’s-eye view as I had done the day before. She looked so beautiful in the morning sunlight, and so

  terribly young, almost like me, I thought. Had she been shy with boys herself when she was my age? I doubted it. She had been pretty, very pretty then, not like me with my plain face and brown-green eyes that kept on changing colors.

  I was still having trouble in the makeup department. I couldn’t keep lipstick on very long — I was always biting it off. And my hair — my hair was the worst of all. Maybe I’d be able to do something with it someday, but right now it seemed no matter what I did, it still wanted to hang straight. Maybe I could talk Mom into giving me a perm. It couldn’t hurt.

  My mother interrupted my thoughts. “Let's get the housework done quickly so we can enjoy the rest of the day,” she said. “I want you and Kim to go to the supermarket with me. Maybe we’ll have time to visit some of those cute shops, too.”

  As soon as she left the room I dashed over to the window seat and caught Kim just as she was approaching Paul. I couldn’t hear their voices, of course, but I pretty well could tell what they were saying. Kim spoke first, and then I could see a smile cross Paul’s face as he nodded his head. He was coming! Old Jim was being asked next and he smiled in turn. He looked perfectly delighted.

  I felt the blood rushing to my face and I put my hands over the warmness even though no one was around. No matter what happened that day, it would never be as wonderful as the evening to come promised to be. Quickly I took one more look at the skinny, gangly girl in the

  mirror — and then I was off to tour the big downtown of little Palm Springs.

  “I wanted to do the food shopping first,” my mother said, as she drove to the downtown area, “but the food’ll spoil in the heat, so, let’s give the stores a quick going-over first.”

  The shops along the main street were immaculate. I learned later that all of the shopkeepers hose down the sidewalks in front of their stores every morning. Each little shop sparkles with spotless windows, and their displays are breathtaking. Some of them were closed for the season, but most of them welcomed their customers with open doors and soft music playing inside. We passed the library again and I made a mental note to visit there as soon as I could break away.

  It was almost three-thirty when we finally got back to the Abbotts’. After I helped my mother put away the groceries, I ran upstairs, freshened my face, brushed my hair, and then dashed out to the backyard. If I had just taken the time to look out from the window seat, I would have seen the beginnings of a gazebo — with no one in sight.

  Too late, I thought, as I entered the empty clearing. “Howdy,” Jim saluted me, coming from behind the oleanders. “If you’ve come to help out, that’s fine, Mariah.”

  “But there’s no one here,” I blurted out.

  “Well, there’s me.” He chuckled. “No, I get what you mean. Paul just left for a few seconds. He had to run back to his house to pick up some boxes of nails.”

  “Oh,” I said, sitting down on a pile of wood. “Just where does he — how far away is his house? When we left the main road and started up Skipalot Drive, I didn’t see a sign of any other houses, except these two big ones.”

  Jim gave me a funny look. “Thought you knowed,” he said, slipping on his work gloves. He bent over and picked up a piece of wood that would go into the gazebo's decking. “Paul lives in that other big house. Yeh, I thought you knowed.”

  My mouth hung open and my mind twirled in confusion. No, I hadn’t “knowed.” Paul must really hate me — or at least think I’m a real jerk. Why didn’t he tell me? Before I could say a word to Jim, Paul entered the clearing with several boxes of nails in his hands.

  “Hi,” he called out to me. “Good, you can help pound some nails. Jim, where’s the other hammer?”

  “I can’t stay,” I said, and my voice sounded like it belonged to someone else. “I have to help my mother.” And with that, I turned and ran out of the clearing, past the jungle of flowers, past the pool, and then finally through the kitchen door. I was going so fast I slammed headlong into my mother, who caught me by the arm and swung me around.

  “Hey, honey, what’s the hurry? You look so white. Are you sick?”

  “Yes,” I told her. “I’m sick and humiliated and angry and embarrassed and disappointed.”

  “Whew,” she said, settling the broom against

  the kitchen cupboards. “Would you like to tell me what’s wrong?”

  I threw myself down on a kitchen chair and watched as my mother turned up the flame under the coffeepot. She and I always sat down in the kitchen at home and drank coffee together whenever we had something bothering us. Somehow our little talks together always seemed to help, and the good strong coffee she made warmed my insides and melted away the problem.

  “He led me to believe he was a — worker — you know, like one of us.”

  “What on earth are you talking about?” she asked, sliding into a chair. “You’re not making any sense.”

  “Yesterday we talked about people with money, rich people. Paul could have told me then that he was one of them, but did he? No. He just led me on and I said” — my face grew hot when I remembered exactly what I had said — “I told him that I had never met a really rich person that I could like. Then I went on about the rich kids and parents you have to put up with.”

  “And what did he say?”

  “He just said that maybe I was wrong. Maybe I didn’t take the time or effort to know them. But he could have said right then and there that he was rich himself.”

  “Well, just how rich is he? I mean, how did you find out?”

  “Jim told me. Paul Strobe lives in the mansion next door.”

  My mother’s eyes opened wider and she said, “Whew,” breathing out a little whistle. “Yes, that’s rich, no doubt about it,” she added.

  “The thing is, Mom, he let me go on and on, making a fool of myself — so that he could laugh at me later when I did find out!” I shook my head in anger.

  “Well, then, you’ve learned a lesson,” she said, getting up to pour our coffee. I could see I’d get no sympathy from her. I stared in disbelief. “Maybe we shouldn’t be so quick to label people by the money they have or don’t have.”

  My mind was confused. I sipped around the edges of the coffee cup and my face felt cooler. “You don’t think he was making fun of me, deceiving me?” I said.

  My mother laughed. “No, dear. I like him too much to think that of him. Tonight you ought to apologize to him for the things you said.”

  “I’m not going,” I whined.

  “Mariah, you’re always saying you want to write. There are a lot of words you must learn for your vocabulary and one is — apologize. Don’t just learn how to spell it. Use it. Feel it, try it on for size and I guarantee you’ll be a better writer.”

  “Okay, I’ll go,” I said glumly.

  She had convinced me, but it was still going to be uncomfortable: I just hoped she wasn’t wrong. I looked at the clock. In just a matter of four hours I’d face Paul again — if he came again, I thought. Maybe he just wouldn't show up. Well, anyway, in four more hours I’d know.

  Chapter 8

  I started the fire and told Kim to set the picnic table out on the patio.

  “Make sure there are dishes of pickle relish, mustard, catsup, and anything else you can think of,” I told her. “I don’t want us to have to ru
n in and out for anything.” Kim nodded and set to work.

  But my mind was far from the pickle relish or hot dogs at that moment. Maybe he wouldn’t show up.It was ten after eight already and neither Jim nor Paul had arrived. I stared into the fire as it flared in sharp wild points of white, leaping for the dark sky, and then slowly quieted down and burned slow and steady. Soon the coals would turn gray and it would be time for the hot dogs. Still Paul did not show.

  My mother came out with the hot dogs and rolls and at the same time, Jim was coming down the brick path. He had a paper bag in his hand, and he thrust it at my mother. “They’re still hot,” he said. “Right from the oven.”

  My mother opened the bag and smiled. “Chocolate chip cookies,” she exclaimed. “We love them! Where did you… did you make these yourself?”

  “Sure did,” Old Jim said, smiling and show-

  ing where some teeth should be. “Right after I gave up the gazebo today.”

  “I didn’t know you could bake, too,” my mother told him.

  “My wife and me used to bake all the time,” he told us. His voice sounded so wistful, trailing off in not more than a whisper. I knew my mother wouldn’t probe further because the timing wasn’t right. When he wanted to, he would tell us. My mother was very smart that way. She knew just when to question people and when to leave them alone. Not like me, I realized.

  At eight-thirty I sneaked a glance at my mother. She didn’t say anything, but I knew she was thinking the same thing I was — he wasn’t going to show.

  “I think we should start the hot dogs,” my mother said at eight forty-five. “You must be starved,” she said to Jim.

  “That I am,” the old man said, drinking his second cup of coffee. He’d brought a bottle of something with him and every once in a while he would slip it out of his back pocket and add it to his coffee. My mother pretended she didn’t notice, but I knew she did.

  As the sound of the hot dogs sizzling on the grill filled the air, I looked up and gazed glumly at the stars. Palm Springs weather is really strange. No matter how hot it is in the day, it gets beautiful and cool at night. I would call all the nights heavenly, because you can see every star you’ll ever want to see. And there are a lot of strange noises, including coyotes, Jim had told us. And then the birds. Did they never