Authentically izzy, p.16
Authentically, Izzy, page 16
And my next email could change everything from this point on.
Izzy
PS: Perhaps I should try to write women’s fiction. I suddenly feel inspired toward melodrama.
PPS: I want to meet him, guys. I want it more than I have words to say. And that’s a lot.
PPPS: And I’m going to be brave.
From: Penelope Edgewood
To: Izzy Edgewood, Luke Edgewood
Date: April 9
Subject: Re: Um . . . remember that vying talk?
Izzy,
I think you were made for dreaming and if you ever really stopped, you wouldn’t be the Izzy we know and love. Besides, it’s never a waste of time to meet a foreign man with a lovely accent, as long as you’re in a safe, well-lit place and your money is secure. Or at least that seems to be the best scenario for it in real life. In fiction the handsome, foreign men are either the heroes or gangsters. Or maybe vampires. You really can’t tell for sure yet about Brodie, but since he wears sweater-vests, I’d bet he leans much more toward hero than gangster or vampire. Isn’t that encouraging?
Penelope
PS: I think you are very brave. You’ve worked with Mama for five whole years AND have never let headbands go out of style.
From: Luke Edgewood
To: Penelope Edgewood, Izzy Edgewood
Date: April 9
Subject: Re: Um . . . remember that vying talk?
Izzy,
Why did you send that email to Penelope when you wanted a sensical answer?
The only sensical thing she said was the first sentence . . . and maybe the part about working with Mom, otherwise it’s all nonsense.
Brodie is not a gangster or a vampire. He’s also authentic. How do I know this?
He has a pair of Yoda ears.
Luke
PS: I’m rarely friends with gangsters.
From: Josephine Martin
To: Izzy Edgewood
Date: April 10
Subject: Re: Do you need help?
Izzy,
I thought you’d meet a man from town online. Not someone from far away.
Besides, you and Eli made the cutest couple ever when Patrick and I saw you at Mi Casa last night. And you were smiling. I’m so glad you wore red. Red looks fabulous on you.
I think it’s going to be particularly awkward when your online friend shows up and learns about the man you’ve been dating for three weeks. It certainly puts you in a precarious position. They both may drop you, and then you’d be back to where you were over two months ago.
Think about this, Izzy! Maybe you should let the relationship with this online person go. What could he really offer you that Eli can’t? If you and Eli work at it, I’m sure you can grow into the romance you’ve always wanted. He’s teachable. He just needs some coaching, and since you’ve worked with children for years, I’m certain you can direct your skills to helping Eli become the man of your dreams.
Is the whole bookshop dream wrapped around this mysterious man? I called Penelope last night and she gave me much more information about your “Brodie” than I cared to know. He’s from some mysterious island country near Scotland!! Do you think he’d drop everything to move to North Carolina? Because that’s what he’d have to do since you don’t travel!
And I imagine he’s using all of those pretty quotes as a cover for some great deficiency in character. Or appearance.
Don’t risk a real-life boyfriend for one who is more make-believe than real! It’s so much like this library position. You could have something solid, dependable, and easy instead of something uncertain, unpredictable, and impractical. You’ve always been so good at taking my advice and so now you have it.
I tell you these things because I love you and I don’t want you to lose more time.
With love,
Josephine
PS: You are excellent at what you do, Izzy. You always have been. You should be proud of your gifts and the way you can bring people together for the love of stories. You’ve even gotten Patrick reading.
From: Izzy Edgewood
To: Josephine Martin
Date: April 10
Subject: Re: Do you need help?
Josie,
YOU signed me up for Heart-to-Heart. I would hope you’d considered all of the possible consequences before entrusting me to the cyber dating world. (And I might add, Brodie has been the best “blind date” of your career.)
I am not exclusively seeing anyone. Eli and I are getting to know each other and mostly I’m giving him feedback on his writing. Only within the past week have I felt like we’re actually becoming friends because we started talking about more than his books. I’ve never met Brodie in person, but if he’s willing to come so far to see me, I’m not going to stop him. People have fallen in love through correspondence for centuries. And the very fact that you mention Eli needs “coaching” makes me wonder if you’ve not been doing a little coaching of your own.
I’ve learned a few things about what I want in a relationship from meeting both Eli and Brodie. They represent two parts of my life. One is familiar, similar, and safe. The other is new, comfortable, exciting, and very unsafe (in the “predictability” department, not in the “kidnap me” way). But that’s caused me to also realize . . .
Love isn’t safe. Dreams aren’t safe. I’ve played it safe for a long time by allowing others to make choices for me or by following the easy path. Maybe it’s time for me to risk my future on something as unpredictable, uncertain, and impractical as a dream and my own heart. Adventures happen in unexpected ways, and maybe it’s time to take the adventures from the page to real life.
Josie, I can’t be the little orphan girl who came to live in your house all those years ago. The one you’d read to at night to keep my nightmares of the plane crash at bay. The lonely child who was so afraid to make a decision in this uncertain world of loss she’d entered, you’d make them for her. (EVERYONE made them for me.) The quiet loner who found refuge in her family and books. It’s taken me too long to realize that the only way to become brave is to face what we’re afraid of . . . and step forward. I could never have learned to be brave without our family’s love, but now it’s time to love me enough to support the strength I’ve gained from your love.
And trust that I’ve become someone who can make the right choices for my own future.
I love you, Josephine.
Izzy
PS: Warning: I’m going to quote a poet. From E. E. Cummings, “It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.” Thank you for helping me grow into my wings. Now trust me to fly . . . and maybe even literally.
From: Izzy Edgewood
To: Penelope Edgewood, Luke Edgewood, Josephine Martin
Date: April 10
Subject: The Heart of the matter
Luke and Penelope (and Josephine),
Eli and I had a heart-to-heart today and it was shockingly enlightening. First of all he shared that he’d been fired from his first teaching job because of a relationship with the chair of his department that went sour. (I didn’t ask for specifics. I didn’t want to know.) His second job had been highly stressful, so he came to Mt. Airy because of two reasons: One, in search of something smaller with less professional pressure in hopes of making writing his eventual full-time job. And second, to flee heartbreak. His fiancée of three years had broken up with him three months ago (did everyone see that—only THREE MONTHS AGO) and he was completely devastated and stunned. To him the breakup had come out of nowhere, without a clue as to why. Evidently my editing notes about the characteristics of a hero and what a heroine truly needs from her guy shook him into introspection. He began to see all the “ways he’d failed” in his relationship with her. How he’d been self-focused and driven, instead of really listening and showing he cared in a way she understood. I never imagined something like my edits could cause anyone to have an epiphany of life-changing proportions, but there you have it.
I told him that what he needed most right now was a friend and a story brainstormer, not a girlfriend. (He didn’t fully agree with me, but I made my point clear.) His heart really is still so full of her and he has a great deal to think about—the last thing he or I need is a rebound relationship. After a long and beautifully thoughtful conversation, he seemed to understand, but I’m not sure with the whole “acceptance” thing, because he asked me to dinner this Friday. I politely declined and suggested we meet at the library for future book talks so that nothing will seem date-ish at all. (Though I am CERTAIN libraries can be romantic places in both fictional and nonfictional ways.)
It’s strange how relationships work. I had a very Austen’s Emma moment. Talking with Eli through his misunderstandings helped clarify my own. Life is too precious to hesitate when God offers the opportunity for something even better than what we imagine. I don’t know how things might ultimately work out with Brodie, and I’m prepared to have my heart shattered. My future is here. His is probably there. But if I don’t muster up some courage and risk the hurt, I’ll regret it for the rest of my life, because I’ll never experience the possible joy.
Some people are worth the risk.
Contemplatively,
Izzy
From: Izzy Edgewood
To: Brodie Sutherland
Date: April 10
Subject: Re: Clarification
Brodie,
Thank you for clarifying your intentions. I appreciate your honesty, so I will return in kind.
I’ve never connected with anyone so quickly as I have with you. I don’t know if it’s because of the mode in which we’re communicating and the protection of hiding behind a computer, but I don’t think so. I believe there has to be more to it.
I consider you my friend and make a timid admission that I’m curious if there can be more and how on earth that “more” could work.
As you learned from the email where I thought you were Josie (and I lay my heart bare), my romantic history hasn’t been a sweet one. I am cautious, but that doesn’t mean I’m not hopeful. In fact, that hopefulness has a lot to do with you.
So can we plan to meet as the friends we’ve become with the openness of becoming something . . . more? I look forward to the possibilities.
Authentically,
Isabelle
PS: C. S. Lewis captures my thoughts rather perfectly in this quote: “Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art . . . It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things which give value to survival.”
Part 2
Of Shakespeare, Kisses & Shark Hats
Chapter 13
From: Anders Sutherland
To: Brodie Sutherland
Date: May 1
Subject: What on earth are you thinking?!
I just returned from dinner with Mother and I see now why you left two weeks early for the convention in New York!
A woman! And one you met online?
I know that parliament encouraged islanders to bring people into the country by various means to restore some of our population losses, but a girlfriend!! Hire a foreign assistant! That should suffice! You have neither the disposition to engage strangers easily nor the lack of sense such an endeavor would inspire. And though the financial stipend from bringing a foreigner to our island would certainly benefit our bookshop and allow Fiona’s surgery at an earlier date, you have no notion that this woman would quit her life to move to Skymar! This is madness, brother.
I would have stopped you at the airport if I’d known in time. I’m a single man, not a year older than you, and I have no plans to dabble in some online dating site for a wife. Oh no! I’ll look closer at hand, like in England or Scotland, even Denmark would be a better option than America. Despite the extreme differences in cultures, the woman would be nearly five thousand miles away from her family. What do you expect her to do upon meeting you? Pack up her life and come across the ocean to be with you? Think, brother! Clearly you have been reading too many romances. It is time to turn your mind to the nonfiction section. Our father found it suitable to bring an English bride to the islands and she acclimated beautifully. But an American?
I still can’t believe it, and wouldn’t have, if Mother hadn’t been the one telling me. Brodie, this is not like you at all.
I do hope you get whatever ridiculousness out of your head and return to Skern a wiser man. If you want to settle down, I’ll help you on the hunt from somewhere within a more predictable realm than America.
Anders
PS: I know Sutherland’s could use the extra money, but there’s no reason for you to go on this wild-goose chase around the world. Really, Brodie. It’s unfathomable.
From: Ellen Sutherland
To: Brodie Sutherland
Date: May 1
Subject: Anders
Dearest Brodie,
I must apologize, my boy. While Anders was having dinner with me and Fiona this evening, I informed him of the reason you left early for America. Needless to say, he was at first shocked and then terribly put out. I thought you’d already talked to him about your detour to North Carolina before the convention or I would have kept him happily (or as happily as he ever is) ignorant of your more personal adventures. The poor boy really doesn’t appreciate the romance of it all, but you know Fiona and I will be waiting to hear every word. I’m always appreciative of a good romance, but having lived one of my own, the nonfiction sort are my favorite kinds.
In fact I expect finely tuned details, son. And, as you are so excellent at doing, paint pictures with your words for your little sister. She can barely make out images at this point, but she has a tremendous memory of the world around her when she still had her sight . . . and you know her love for words. And you. She’ll be hanging on every one of your descriptions.
Just so you know, I’ve finished the illustrations for Erin Linderholt’s book. Oh, what a delight to draw dragons again. It has been much too long. I’m sending you digital copies so that you can review them and see how they fit for the publication and if you have any suggestions.
Always,
Mother
PS: Fiona sends her love and asks for you to describe Isabelle’s perfume, or shampoo, as the case may be.
From: Brodie Sutherland
To: Anders Sutherland
Date: May 2
Subject: Re: What on earth are you thinking?!
Anders,
I’ve only now received your email, as I wait to disembark the plane in North Carolina. Isabelle is to meet me at the airport and take me to her brother’s house. My true visit starts tomorrow.
I didn’t tell you of my plans for the very reason of your response. I know this is difficult to understand and I have no way of knowing how it will all turn out. All I know is that if I don't take this opportunity, I’ll regret it for the rest of my life. (Be assured that not every American is like your former assistant. Isabelle doesn’t collect bug corpses, nor does she overindulge in makeup. She also speaks in full, delightful sentences with much more varied, and less vulgar, wording, so hopefully that will put you at ease.)
My decisions have nothing to do with the government’s “Foreign Spouse Initiative.” It may have been the catalyst of my joining the online dating community, out of curiosity at best, but it’s not the force propelling my meeting with or interest in Isabelle.
Anders, she is the most authentic and charming woman I’ve ever met. If she proves to be half of who I’ve come to know over the past three months online, then I’m tempted to do whatever possible to spend the rest of my life with her. I know you’ll find this all exaggerated, but there’s no other way to put it.
I know it feels out of character for me, but the proper emotions encourage a proper perspective. I’ve never known any emotion like this, so therefore have no way of knowing what my “character” would be. I suppose then, if it is madness or courage or an unquenchable curiosity, then I’m determined to find out. No book has sufficiently prepared me for this. Books can only take one so far. The rest is up to flesh and blood and courage.
Call me mad, if you will, and I will happily accept the madness if it means this could be true.
Brodie
PS: You would like it here. There is no sea in sight.
From: Anders Sutherland
To: Brodie Sutherland
Date: May 2
Subject: Re: What on earth are you thinking?!
Brodie,
It’s perfectly clear you’ve been reading too much fiction. A few good biographies should set you to rights in no time. Go ahead and have your little experiment, but I wager you a roast beef dinner it will end up as a great disappointment. Endeavors such as these are rarely worth the effort, I assure you.
I will give you your little adventure and see your sense return in a few weeks, if not a few days.
Anders
PS: Be careful around there. I just looked up the Blue Ridge Mountains and found a startling number of photos with somber-bearded men and bears. I’m not sure how those two are connected to the mountains where you are, but there you have it. Though, I must admit to admiring the idea of no sea. The mere mention of those waves brings on a bout of nausea.
* * *
From: Izzy Edgewood
To: Penelope Edgewood
Date: May 2
Subject: Brodie is here and Josie is insane
I can’t believe he’s here, but he is. I only just now got back to my apartment after leaving him with Luke. Oh, Penelope! He’s . . . well, he’s just as I imagined and even more. Once we worked through some of our initial awkwardness, everything clicked into place as it has done in our online conversations and video chats. Brodie Sutherland. My wonderful friend! And I’m trying very hard not to worry about all the what-ifs. You know? Like once he really gets to know me, he won’t want a future with me. Or what if he DOES want me but a future is IMPOSSIBLE? I am opening myself up to heartbreak of the acutest kind, and yet, when we met, every worry and possible disaster feels worth it. He is exactly the friend he’s been for three months, only now within touching and smelling distance. (I know you understand what I mean. Luke would be gagging right now.)
Izzy
PS: Perhaps I should try to write women’s fiction. I suddenly feel inspired toward melodrama.
PPS: I want to meet him, guys. I want it more than I have words to say. And that’s a lot.
PPPS: And I’m going to be brave.
From: Penelope Edgewood
To: Izzy Edgewood, Luke Edgewood
Date: April 9
Subject: Re: Um . . . remember that vying talk?
Izzy,
I think you were made for dreaming and if you ever really stopped, you wouldn’t be the Izzy we know and love. Besides, it’s never a waste of time to meet a foreign man with a lovely accent, as long as you’re in a safe, well-lit place and your money is secure. Or at least that seems to be the best scenario for it in real life. In fiction the handsome, foreign men are either the heroes or gangsters. Or maybe vampires. You really can’t tell for sure yet about Brodie, but since he wears sweater-vests, I’d bet he leans much more toward hero than gangster or vampire. Isn’t that encouraging?
Penelope
PS: I think you are very brave. You’ve worked with Mama for five whole years AND have never let headbands go out of style.
From: Luke Edgewood
To: Penelope Edgewood, Izzy Edgewood
Date: April 9
Subject: Re: Um . . . remember that vying talk?
Izzy,
Why did you send that email to Penelope when you wanted a sensical answer?
The only sensical thing she said was the first sentence . . . and maybe the part about working with Mom, otherwise it’s all nonsense.
Brodie is not a gangster or a vampire. He’s also authentic. How do I know this?
He has a pair of Yoda ears.
Luke
PS: I’m rarely friends with gangsters.
From: Josephine Martin
To: Izzy Edgewood
Date: April 10
Subject: Re: Do you need help?
Izzy,
I thought you’d meet a man from town online. Not someone from far away.
Besides, you and Eli made the cutest couple ever when Patrick and I saw you at Mi Casa last night. And you were smiling. I’m so glad you wore red. Red looks fabulous on you.
I think it’s going to be particularly awkward when your online friend shows up and learns about the man you’ve been dating for three weeks. It certainly puts you in a precarious position. They both may drop you, and then you’d be back to where you were over two months ago.
Think about this, Izzy! Maybe you should let the relationship with this online person go. What could he really offer you that Eli can’t? If you and Eli work at it, I’m sure you can grow into the romance you’ve always wanted. He’s teachable. He just needs some coaching, and since you’ve worked with children for years, I’m certain you can direct your skills to helping Eli become the man of your dreams.
Is the whole bookshop dream wrapped around this mysterious man? I called Penelope last night and she gave me much more information about your “Brodie” than I cared to know. He’s from some mysterious island country near Scotland!! Do you think he’d drop everything to move to North Carolina? Because that’s what he’d have to do since you don’t travel!
And I imagine he’s using all of those pretty quotes as a cover for some great deficiency in character. Or appearance.
Don’t risk a real-life boyfriend for one who is more make-believe than real! It’s so much like this library position. You could have something solid, dependable, and easy instead of something uncertain, unpredictable, and impractical. You’ve always been so good at taking my advice and so now you have it.
I tell you these things because I love you and I don’t want you to lose more time.
With love,
Josephine
PS: You are excellent at what you do, Izzy. You always have been. You should be proud of your gifts and the way you can bring people together for the love of stories. You’ve even gotten Patrick reading.
From: Izzy Edgewood
To: Josephine Martin
Date: April 10
Subject: Re: Do you need help?
Josie,
YOU signed me up for Heart-to-Heart. I would hope you’d considered all of the possible consequences before entrusting me to the cyber dating world. (And I might add, Brodie has been the best “blind date” of your career.)
I am not exclusively seeing anyone. Eli and I are getting to know each other and mostly I’m giving him feedback on his writing. Only within the past week have I felt like we’re actually becoming friends because we started talking about more than his books. I’ve never met Brodie in person, but if he’s willing to come so far to see me, I’m not going to stop him. People have fallen in love through correspondence for centuries. And the very fact that you mention Eli needs “coaching” makes me wonder if you’ve not been doing a little coaching of your own.
I’ve learned a few things about what I want in a relationship from meeting both Eli and Brodie. They represent two parts of my life. One is familiar, similar, and safe. The other is new, comfortable, exciting, and very unsafe (in the “predictability” department, not in the “kidnap me” way). But that’s caused me to also realize . . .
Love isn’t safe. Dreams aren’t safe. I’ve played it safe for a long time by allowing others to make choices for me or by following the easy path. Maybe it’s time for me to risk my future on something as unpredictable, uncertain, and impractical as a dream and my own heart. Adventures happen in unexpected ways, and maybe it’s time to take the adventures from the page to real life.
Josie, I can’t be the little orphan girl who came to live in your house all those years ago. The one you’d read to at night to keep my nightmares of the plane crash at bay. The lonely child who was so afraid to make a decision in this uncertain world of loss she’d entered, you’d make them for her. (EVERYONE made them for me.) The quiet loner who found refuge in her family and books. It’s taken me too long to realize that the only way to become brave is to face what we’re afraid of . . . and step forward. I could never have learned to be brave without our family’s love, but now it’s time to love me enough to support the strength I’ve gained from your love.
And trust that I’ve become someone who can make the right choices for my own future.
I love you, Josephine.
Izzy
PS: Warning: I’m going to quote a poet. From E. E. Cummings, “It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.” Thank you for helping me grow into my wings. Now trust me to fly . . . and maybe even literally.
From: Izzy Edgewood
To: Penelope Edgewood, Luke Edgewood, Josephine Martin
Date: April 10
Subject: The Heart of the matter
Luke and Penelope (and Josephine),
Eli and I had a heart-to-heart today and it was shockingly enlightening. First of all he shared that he’d been fired from his first teaching job because of a relationship with the chair of his department that went sour. (I didn’t ask for specifics. I didn’t want to know.) His second job had been highly stressful, so he came to Mt. Airy because of two reasons: One, in search of something smaller with less professional pressure in hopes of making writing his eventual full-time job. And second, to flee heartbreak. His fiancée of three years had broken up with him three months ago (did everyone see that—only THREE MONTHS AGO) and he was completely devastated and stunned. To him the breakup had come out of nowhere, without a clue as to why. Evidently my editing notes about the characteristics of a hero and what a heroine truly needs from her guy shook him into introspection. He began to see all the “ways he’d failed” in his relationship with her. How he’d been self-focused and driven, instead of really listening and showing he cared in a way she understood. I never imagined something like my edits could cause anyone to have an epiphany of life-changing proportions, but there you have it.
I told him that what he needed most right now was a friend and a story brainstormer, not a girlfriend. (He didn’t fully agree with me, but I made my point clear.) His heart really is still so full of her and he has a great deal to think about—the last thing he or I need is a rebound relationship. After a long and beautifully thoughtful conversation, he seemed to understand, but I’m not sure with the whole “acceptance” thing, because he asked me to dinner this Friday. I politely declined and suggested we meet at the library for future book talks so that nothing will seem date-ish at all. (Though I am CERTAIN libraries can be romantic places in both fictional and nonfictional ways.)
It’s strange how relationships work. I had a very Austen’s Emma moment. Talking with Eli through his misunderstandings helped clarify my own. Life is too precious to hesitate when God offers the opportunity for something even better than what we imagine. I don’t know how things might ultimately work out with Brodie, and I’m prepared to have my heart shattered. My future is here. His is probably there. But if I don’t muster up some courage and risk the hurt, I’ll regret it for the rest of my life, because I’ll never experience the possible joy.
Some people are worth the risk.
Contemplatively,
Izzy
From: Izzy Edgewood
To: Brodie Sutherland
Date: April 10
Subject: Re: Clarification
Brodie,
Thank you for clarifying your intentions. I appreciate your honesty, so I will return in kind.
I’ve never connected with anyone so quickly as I have with you. I don’t know if it’s because of the mode in which we’re communicating and the protection of hiding behind a computer, but I don’t think so. I believe there has to be more to it.
I consider you my friend and make a timid admission that I’m curious if there can be more and how on earth that “more” could work.
As you learned from the email where I thought you were Josie (and I lay my heart bare), my romantic history hasn’t been a sweet one. I am cautious, but that doesn’t mean I’m not hopeful. In fact, that hopefulness has a lot to do with you.
So can we plan to meet as the friends we’ve become with the openness of becoming something . . . more? I look forward to the possibilities.
Authentically,
Isabelle
PS: C. S. Lewis captures my thoughts rather perfectly in this quote: “Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art . . . It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things which give value to survival.”
Part 2
Of Shakespeare, Kisses & Shark Hats
Chapter 13
From: Anders Sutherland
To: Brodie Sutherland
Date: May 1
Subject: What on earth are you thinking?!
I just returned from dinner with Mother and I see now why you left two weeks early for the convention in New York!
A woman! And one you met online?
I know that parliament encouraged islanders to bring people into the country by various means to restore some of our population losses, but a girlfriend!! Hire a foreign assistant! That should suffice! You have neither the disposition to engage strangers easily nor the lack of sense such an endeavor would inspire. And though the financial stipend from bringing a foreigner to our island would certainly benefit our bookshop and allow Fiona’s surgery at an earlier date, you have no notion that this woman would quit her life to move to Skymar! This is madness, brother.
I would have stopped you at the airport if I’d known in time. I’m a single man, not a year older than you, and I have no plans to dabble in some online dating site for a wife. Oh no! I’ll look closer at hand, like in England or Scotland, even Denmark would be a better option than America. Despite the extreme differences in cultures, the woman would be nearly five thousand miles away from her family. What do you expect her to do upon meeting you? Pack up her life and come across the ocean to be with you? Think, brother! Clearly you have been reading too many romances. It is time to turn your mind to the nonfiction section. Our father found it suitable to bring an English bride to the islands and she acclimated beautifully. But an American?
I still can’t believe it, and wouldn’t have, if Mother hadn’t been the one telling me. Brodie, this is not like you at all.
I do hope you get whatever ridiculousness out of your head and return to Skern a wiser man. If you want to settle down, I’ll help you on the hunt from somewhere within a more predictable realm than America.
Anders
PS: I know Sutherland’s could use the extra money, but there’s no reason for you to go on this wild-goose chase around the world. Really, Brodie. It’s unfathomable.
From: Ellen Sutherland
To: Brodie Sutherland
Date: May 1
Subject: Anders
Dearest Brodie,
I must apologize, my boy. While Anders was having dinner with me and Fiona this evening, I informed him of the reason you left early for America. Needless to say, he was at first shocked and then terribly put out. I thought you’d already talked to him about your detour to North Carolina before the convention or I would have kept him happily (or as happily as he ever is) ignorant of your more personal adventures. The poor boy really doesn’t appreciate the romance of it all, but you know Fiona and I will be waiting to hear every word. I’m always appreciative of a good romance, but having lived one of my own, the nonfiction sort are my favorite kinds.
In fact I expect finely tuned details, son. And, as you are so excellent at doing, paint pictures with your words for your little sister. She can barely make out images at this point, but she has a tremendous memory of the world around her when she still had her sight . . . and you know her love for words. And you. She’ll be hanging on every one of your descriptions.
Just so you know, I’ve finished the illustrations for Erin Linderholt’s book. Oh, what a delight to draw dragons again. It has been much too long. I’m sending you digital copies so that you can review them and see how they fit for the publication and if you have any suggestions.
Always,
Mother
PS: Fiona sends her love and asks for you to describe Isabelle’s perfume, or shampoo, as the case may be.
From: Brodie Sutherland
To: Anders Sutherland
Date: May 2
Subject: Re: What on earth are you thinking?!
Anders,
I’ve only now received your email, as I wait to disembark the plane in North Carolina. Isabelle is to meet me at the airport and take me to her brother’s house. My true visit starts tomorrow.
I didn’t tell you of my plans for the very reason of your response. I know this is difficult to understand and I have no way of knowing how it will all turn out. All I know is that if I don't take this opportunity, I’ll regret it for the rest of my life. (Be assured that not every American is like your former assistant. Isabelle doesn’t collect bug corpses, nor does she overindulge in makeup. She also speaks in full, delightful sentences with much more varied, and less vulgar, wording, so hopefully that will put you at ease.)
My decisions have nothing to do with the government’s “Foreign Spouse Initiative.” It may have been the catalyst of my joining the online dating community, out of curiosity at best, but it’s not the force propelling my meeting with or interest in Isabelle.
Anders, she is the most authentic and charming woman I’ve ever met. If she proves to be half of who I’ve come to know over the past three months online, then I’m tempted to do whatever possible to spend the rest of my life with her. I know you’ll find this all exaggerated, but there’s no other way to put it.
I know it feels out of character for me, but the proper emotions encourage a proper perspective. I’ve never known any emotion like this, so therefore have no way of knowing what my “character” would be. I suppose then, if it is madness or courage or an unquenchable curiosity, then I’m determined to find out. No book has sufficiently prepared me for this. Books can only take one so far. The rest is up to flesh and blood and courage.
Call me mad, if you will, and I will happily accept the madness if it means this could be true.
Brodie
PS: You would like it here. There is no sea in sight.
From: Anders Sutherland
To: Brodie Sutherland
Date: May 2
Subject: Re: What on earth are you thinking?!
Brodie,
It’s perfectly clear you’ve been reading too much fiction. A few good biographies should set you to rights in no time. Go ahead and have your little experiment, but I wager you a roast beef dinner it will end up as a great disappointment. Endeavors such as these are rarely worth the effort, I assure you.
I will give you your little adventure and see your sense return in a few weeks, if not a few days.
Anders
PS: Be careful around there. I just looked up the Blue Ridge Mountains and found a startling number of photos with somber-bearded men and bears. I’m not sure how those two are connected to the mountains where you are, but there you have it. Though, I must admit to admiring the idea of no sea. The mere mention of those waves brings on a bout of nausea.
* * *
From: Izzy Edgewood
To: Penelope Edgewood
Date: May 2
Subject: Brodie is here and Josie is insane
I can’t believe he’s here, but he is. I only just now got back to my apartment after leaving him with Luke. Oh, Penelope! He’s . . . well, he’s just as I imagined and even more. Once we worked through some of our initial awkwardness, everything clicked into place as it has done in our online conversations and video chats. Brodie Sutherland. My wonderful friend! And I’m trying very hard not to worry about all the what-ifs. You know? Like once he really gets to know me, he won’t want a future with me. Or what if he DOES want me but a future is IMPOSSIBLE? I am opening myself up to heartbreak of the acutest kind, and yet, when we met, every worry and possible disaster feels worth it. He is exactly the friend he’s been for three months, only now within touching and smelling distance. (I know you understand what I mean. Luke would be gagging right now.)
