the young girl, again, writing
With her diffident shrugs, yawns and nonchalant comments, she seemed, at first encounter, indestructible.
And liked the image.
Made for a good PR.
Legend.
Volumes of correspondence, if you knew her, the habit from high school partings. Her friends kept her letters in plastic drawstring bags, hidden from their parents in the back of small closets, lodged somewhere behind the shoes. Returned the bags to her for permanent archiving.
But all that was later.
For you, now, first meeting. And you knew.
Notagirlyou’dforgettoosoon.
After that discovery, you were well on your way.
“Nikki,” she’d say. Then spell it. Short for Nicodemus - but she only told you if you’d been so impertinent as to ask. If you continued to press, she’d admit it.
Not her real name.
Lost that somewhere - Dallas, maybe - but she couldn’t really be sure.
That long drawl. Teen ennui. Re-aaaa-llly.
Her friends might tell you - later, of course - the name sounded strange - but Nikki was strange, and by that point in your awareness the whole train of thought was fading with its whistle in the long distance finally gone and she’d be there again beside you and that voice that was The Voice capturing you.
Mais oui. Strange.
(Adapted from unfinished 1975 manuscript)
