A Letter From Home
Tapping his foot, Chad stared dead panned at Maria’s dorm room’s door and nervously gulped.
Despite the fact they had been spending quite a bit of time together during the last couple of months, this was the first time they would be doing something someone might consider a “real” date.
Thanks Mike, he mentally said to his overeager roommate, recalling the vivid discussion he had with him days earlier. If you hadn’t threatened to take Maria to the Halloween party yourself if I didn’t, I never would have been in this predicament. After all, Maria and I are just friends. And up to now, things at this level have been going great. However, that could soon easily change. After this so-called “date,” I’ll make a bet, she’ll want to take things to a higher level.
Chad grimaced at the prevailing thought, before starting to check for the second time, each of what seemed to be hundreds of buttons on the front of his flamboyant Mexican Bullfighting costume - to confirm they were securely fastened.
Oh, well. At least, unlike my roommate dork, when I decide to go out with someone, it’s because I like them – not because I'm trying to get inside their ... Well, you know.
Chad sighed, and decided he better go ahead and get on with what he was about to do. Thus, curling his palm, he gave Maria’s metallic door a couple of taps.
I do hope she’s ready – and has also changed her mind about wearing the black flamenco dress she talked about earlier.
“Hello, whoever it is standing outside my door,” Maria’s voice echoed in a joking tone as it passed through the fixture between them. “Is that you knocking Chad, or has a handsome Spanish Romeo come to sweep me off my feet?”
Chad glanced toward the ceiling and momentarily hesitated. “It’s only me,” he answered.
Maria promptly opened the door and burst into a cheek-to-cheek smile.
“Hmm. You certainly don’t look like the Chad I know,” Maria said teasingly as she gave her friend a head-to-toe visual sweep. “Are you sure you’re not the tall, dark Romeo I’ve been waiting for all my life?”
Chad’s cheeks involuntarily turned a dozen shades of red, and he glanced at his black leather boots while pointing his forefinger toward his chest.
“Romeo? What Romeo?” he said, turning to see if someone had walked up behind him. You wouldn’t be talking about me, are you Maria? … Did you accept an invitation to go to the party with someone else and forget to tell me?”
Maria laughed. “Of course I didn’t, silly,” she said, clasping his hand and leading him inside. “I was talking about you.”
Just like the other couple of hundred dorm rooms within the University Park Towers, each wall within Maria’s residence had been painted a sickly shade of fuchsia, and each individual room was sparsely decorated in a pseudo contemporary style.
“But it would be nice if you would be my dark, handsome Romeo,” she continued. “... at least for tonight.”
Chad frowned and vehemently shook his head.
“I’m sorry, Maria. We’ve already discussed this at least a half a dozen times, and you know I can’t do that. It’s just not possible. Despite the fact I really like you and definitely consider you to be a close friend. But there’s no way I can allow our relationship to go any further. At least, right now. In order to maintain a straight “A” average my career choice requires, I have to stay dedicated to my studies. … Getting involved in intimate relationship would only distract me.”
Maria blinked as she lowered her head, and a single tear escaped from the corner of her eye. “Don’t you love me, Chad?”
Chad’s thin body shuddered. How can she ask that?
“It’s not really a matter of loving you or not, Maria. Your question isn’t a fair one.”
“It isn’t?” Maria quickly released his warm palm and took a step backwards. “And why’s that?”
“Because you’re involved with someone else - a guy in Chile named José. If you recall, you told me all about him the first week we met.”
Maria sighed, and knew that Chad was right. During the past four years she lived in Chile, she and José was a couple, and she loved him dearly. But recently, those times seemed only like faded memories of events, which occurred a lifetime ago.
I’d make a bet he doesn’t even think about me anymore, she thought in defense of her feelings. And a brief moment passed as she tried to figure out what to say.
“You still want to go to the Halloween party with me, don’t you?” Maria asked, using the tone of a flirty adolescent.
Chad smiled and gave her a nod. “Sure. If you’re willing to accept me as just a good friend.”
A large grin spread across Maria’s ruby lips, indicating she would. “You know; you are truly an angel, Chad.”
Deep inside Chad’s spirit frowned, and a small voice inside him swiftly replied. I know I seem that way. But I doubt you would say that, Maria, if you knew my unspoken secret.
When the two of them stepped out of the elevator onto the ground floor, “Would you mind if I stopped by my mailbox on our way out,” Maria asked, reaching for her purse. “After today’s last class, I was in such a hurry to get back to the dorm and start getting ready for the party – I forgot to check it.”
“Sure,” Chad said as they came to a halt in front of the wall full of post office-type mailboxes. “Are you expecting a letter from someone special?”
Maria placed her key into a third-row box in front of her. “Only my Dad. Mom called yesterday and said I should be getting a letter from him any day now.”
“Oh?” Chad raised a single eyebrow. “Any particular reason why?”
“Besides the fact he misses his little girl,” Maria said, grinning childishly. “I can’t think of any.”
She then noticed the name on an overseas letter resting inside her box, and promptly stuck her hand in and pulled it out.
“Oh, my!” she said, reading the return address for a second time. “Since I had not heard from him before now, I had believed he had forgotten about me.”
“Who forgot about you?” Chad noticed how pale Maria had become.
“José”
Chad scowled. I’m sure nothing good is going to come out of this.
Maria gazed at her friend as she grabbed the letter by its side and tore it open. It seemed like José had decided to write either very long short story or perhaps a small book.
“This can’t be,” Maria said, upon finishing the second page. “Of all the unbelievable …”
Chad lifted his brow and wondered about what she was referring to.
“Why that lonely, no-good …”
“What in the world are you getting so upset about, Maria? Did José dump you?”
With her cheeks plastered an angry red, Maria looked up at him, and she seemed to be ready to explode.
“Michelle!”