My father was in his office in the next room; I could hear him asking questions to a law student whom he was interviewing for a clerking position. Apparently my father had decided he needed to hire a law clerk and he had posted an announcement at the law school about the clerking position. Only two people had applied – the fellow being interviewed and myself. Finally my father and the law student walked into the room where I was; when the fellow sat down, I recognized him as someone whom I knew in Portsmouth. My father talked to him a while longer and finally said, "Well thank you very much."

The fellow looked a bit disconcerted that my father was saying good-bye so quickly without saying anything else. The fellow stood and walked out the side door. He seemed to have a bit of difficulty leaving at first, but he finally made it out.

My father returned to his office and I followed him. I knew he was definitely going to hire me and not the other fellow. I could see the other fellow boarding his car outside. Although I knew the fellow had no hope of landing this job, I thought that he at least had the courage to come in there and interview and that the interview would have been good practice for him.

I turned to my father and asked him if he really needed a law clerk. He said he wasn't sure, but he thought he did, and then he asked me if I were going to be busy on the coming weekend. I told him I didn't have any classes that week, but that I would be taking exams.

My father walked out of the room – and Louise walked in. She sat down and began talking about what had just happened. She said she had come in just as the other fellow had been leaving and she had let him out the door. She said he had looked a bit upset. Suddenly she handed me a little note which had some scrawling on it, apparently some sort of little cartoon. She said Sherwood (one of her fellow law students) had given it to her. I asked, "What's Sherwood doing giving you little notes?"

She acted evasive, then told me she had received a letter from someone. She had told me before that she had been receiving letters from a California girl who had somehow obtained Louise's address and had begun writing her. I looked at the letter, which was a hand-made card with a picture in the middle. At first I thought the picture was hand-drawn, but then I realized it was an actual picture pasted on the card. The picture appeared to be of green shrubs.

Louise showed me another card which had previously been sent to her. The card had pictures of doors and a garden on it. Each picture had a little mouth-like opening on it and out of the openings were words such as "Doors can talk" and "Gardens can talk" and "Porches can talk."

I was quite disturbed that Louise had been receiving the letters because I thought there was something strange about it. I was worried that something might be wrong with the girl in California and that she might somehow try to hurt Louise. I was afraid the girl might be insane.

I tried to think of what to say to Louise so she would be careful, but something (perhaps something Louise said) made me realize the cards hadn't actually been coming from the girl in California, but had been coming from Sherwood. Louise then admitted to me that the cards had been coming from Sherwood and that she had just made up the story about the girl in California. I asked, "Why did you lie to me?"

She tried to evade the question and she said, "I said it was from a friend."

I said, "You said it was from a girl in California."

She said, "Well Sherwood is kind of like a girl friend. Just a friend."

It was difficult for me to accept she had been lying to me. My first impulse was to reach out, grab her by the neck and throttle her, but I was afraid if I did grab her, I would choke her too hard. I could just imagine her having to wear some kind of neck cast. I didn't want that to happen.

She continued to make light of the matter; I felt quite angry.

Copyright 2004 by luciddreamer2k@gmail.com