Dear Scotty,
When they say it’s a small world, they aren’t kidding. Tiny. Miniscule. Overcrowded.
I’m only telling you this because I know you can’t actually read these letters, but I saw Ledger’s truck tonight and I thought I was going to cry.
Actually, I was already crying because he said his name and I realized who he was and I was kissing him and I felt so guilty, so I embarrassingly ran outside and almost had a panic attack.
But yeah. That damn truck. I can’t believe he still has it. I still remember the night you pulled up in it to take me on our first date. I laughed because it was such a bright orange that I couldn’t understand what kind of person would willingly choose that color.
Over three hundred letters I’ve written to you and I only realized tonight while skimming the letters that not one of them details the first moment we met. I wrote about our actual first date, but never mentioned the first time we laid eyes on each other.
I was working as a cashier at Dollar Days. It was the first job I applied for when I moved away from Denver. I knew no one, but I didn’t mind it. I was in a new state and a new town and no one held any preconceived notions of me. No one knew my mother.
When you came through my line, I didn’t notice you right away. I rarely looked at the customers, especially if they were guys my age. Guys my age had only disappointed me up to that point. I thought maybe I was supposed to be attracted to older men, or maybe even women, because no guy I had ever met who was my age made me feel good about myself. Between the catcalls and the sexual expectations, I had lost complete faith in the male population of my generation.
We were a small store, and everything in the store was just a dollar, so people usually came through with carts full of stuff. You came through my line with one dinner plate. I wondered what kind of person only bought one dinner plate. Surely most people expect to have friends occasionally, or at least the hope for friends. But buying one plate felt like you expected to always eat alone.
I rang up the plate and wrapped it before placing it in a sack and handing it to you.
It wasn’t until the second time you came through my line a few minutes later that I finally looked at your face. You were buying a second dinner plate. It made me feel better for you. I rang up the second plate, you handed me your dollar and some change, I handed you the sack, and that’s when you smiled.
You had me in that moment, although you probably didn’t realize it. Your smile was like warmth sliding over me. It was dangerous and it was comfortable, and I didn’t know what to do about those warring feelings, so I looked away from you.
Two minutes later, you were standing in line again with a third plate.
I rang you up. You paid. I wrapped your plate and handed you your sack, but this time I spoke. “Come back soon,” I said.
You grinned and said, “If you insist.”
You circled the register and went back to the aisle that contained the plates. I didn’t have any other customers, so I watched the aisle until you reappeared with a fourth plate and brought it to the register.
I rang up the plate and said, “You know, you can buy more than one thing at a time.”
“I know,” you said. “But I only need one plate.”
“Then why is this the fourth one you’ve bought?”
“Because I’m trying to work up the nerve to ask you out.”
I had hoped that was why. I handed you your sack, wanting your fingers to touch mine. They did. It felt exactly as I imagined, like our hands were magnetic. It took a lot of effort just to pull my hand back.
I tried to act nonchalant about your flirtation, because that’s just what I’d always done with men, so I said, “It’s against store policy for employees to date customers.”
There wasn’t any firmness or truth to my voice at all, but I think you liked the game we were playing, so you said, “Okay. Give me a minute to rectify that.” You walked to the only other cashier in the store. You were only a few feet away, so I heard you say, “I need to return these plates, please.”
The other cashier had been on the phone with a customer during your four trips to the register, so I’m not sure she knew you were being facetious. She glanced at me from her register and made a face. I shrugged like I didn’t know what was up with the guy who had four different receipts for four plates, and then I turned away from her to wait on another customer.
You came through my line a few minutes later and slapped a return receipt on the counter. “I’m no longer a customer. What now?”
I picked up the receipt, pretending to read it carefully. I handed it back to you and said, “I get off work at seven.”
You folded the receipt and didn’t look at me when you said, “See you in three hours.”
I should have told you six, because I ended up getting off work early. I spent the extra hour in the store next door buying a new outfit. You still hadn’t shown up at twenty minutes past seven, so I had given up and was walking to my car when you sped into the parking lot and pulled up next to me. You rolled down your window and said, “Sorry I’m late.”
I was perpetually late, so I was in no place to judge you on your tardiness, but I sure did judge you based on your truck. I thought maybe you were insane or overconfident. It was an older Ford F-250. Big double cab, the ugliest color of orange I’d ever seen. “I like your truck.” I wasn’t sure if I was telling the truth or if I was lying. It was such an ugly truck it made me hate it. But because it was so ugly, it made me love that you were picking me up in it.
“It’s not mine. It’s my best friend’s truck. My car is in the shop.”
I was relieved it wasn’t yours, but also a little disappointed because I found the color so amusing. You motioned for me to get in the truck. You looked proud and smelled like a candy cane.
“Is that why you’re late? Your car broke down?”
You shook your head and said, “No. I had to break up with my girlfriend.”
My head swung in your direction. “You have a girlfriend?”
“Not anymore.” You shot me a coy look.
“But you had one when you asked me out earlier?”
“Yes, but by the time I purchased my third dinner plate, I knew I was going to break up with her. It was overdue,” you said. “We’ve both been wanting out of it for a while. We were just too comfortable to call it off.” You flipped on your blinker and pulled into a gas station and up to a gas pump. “My mother will be sad. My mother really likes her.”
“Mothers don’t usually like me,” I admitted. Or maybe it was more of a warning.
You smiled. “I can see that. Mothers prefer to imagine their sons with wholesome-looking girls. You’re too sexy to make a mother feel comfortable.”
I wasn’t one to get offended by a guy calling me sexy. I worked hard that day to look sexy. I spent a lot of money on the bra and low-cut shirt I had purchased thirty minutes earlier with the goal of making my breasts look store bought.
I appreciated the compliment, even if you were being a little tacky.
As you got out to fill your friend’s truck up with gas, I thought about the wholesome-looking girl whose heart you just broke simply because I agreed to go on a date with you, and I felt a bit like a snake in that moment.
But even though I felt like a snake, I didn’t plan on slithering away. I liked your energy so much, I planned to coil myself around you and never let go.
When Ledger said his name against my lips earlier tonight, I almost said, “Scotty’s Ledger?” But the question would have been pointless, because I knew in that instant that he was your Ledger. How many Ledgers can there be? I’ve never met one before.
I was overwhelmed with questions, but Ledger kissed me and it ripped me in half, because I wanted to kiss him back, but even more than that I wanted to ask him questions about you. I wanted to say, “What was Scotty like as a child? What did you love about him? Did he ever talk about me? Do you still talk to his parents? Have you met my daughter? Can you help me put all the pieces of my broken life back together?”
But I couldn’t speak because your best friend had his searing hot tongue in my mouth and it felt like he was branding me with the word CHEATER.
I don’t know why it felt like I was cheating on you. You’ve been dead five years, and I kissed the prison guard, so it’s not like you were even my last kiss. But my kiss with the prison guard didn’t make me feel like I was cheating on you. That could be because the prison guard wasn’t your best friend.
Or maybe I felt like a cheater because I actually felt Ledger’s kiss. It trickled all over me the way your kisses used to do, but then there was that added element of feeling like a cheater, or a liar, or trash, because Ledger didn’t know me at all. To Ledger, he was being kissed by the transient girl he couldn’t stop staring at all night.
To me, I was being kissed by the hot bartender whose best friend died because of me.
Everything exploded. I felt like I was shattering. I was allowing Ledger to touch me, knowing full well he’d probably rather stab me if he knew who I was. Pulling away from his kiss felt a little like trying to put out a forest fire with a nuclear bomb.
I wanted to apologize, I wanted to escape.
I felt like collapsing, thinking about how Ledger probably knew you better than I did. I hated that the one guy I ran into in this town is the one guy I should be avoiding.
Ledger didn’t turn away when I cried, though. He did what you would have done. He put his arms around me and let me be however I needed to be, and it felt nice because I hadn’t been held like that since you.
I closed my eyes and pretended your best friend was my ally. That he was on my side. I pretended he was holding me despite what I’d done to you, and he wanted to help me heal.
I also let it happen because if Ledger is back in this town, and he’s still driving the truck I met you in all those years ago, then that means he’s a fan of routine. And there’s a huge possibility that our daughter is part of Ledger’s routine.
Is it possible I’m only one person away from Diem?
If you could see the pages I’m writing this letter on, you’d see the tearstains. Crying seems to be the only thing left in life that I’m good at. Crying and making bad decisions.
And, of course, I’m good at writing you bad poetry. I’ll leave you with one I wrote on the bus ride back to this town.
I have a daughter I have never held.
She has a scent I have never smelled.
She has a name I have never yelled.
She has a mother who has already failed.
Love,
Kenna
