The Envelope

THE ENVELOPE

BY David Neill

John Barclay ambled down his street, his suit jacket open, his tie
loosened, reading the back page of
a newspaper and swigging from a bottle of orange juice.

He'd woken that morning in the bed of a woman he'd picked up the night
before, not an unusual
experience for him. He'd slipped out of bed, picked up his clothes and
sneaked out before his
conquest had wakened, again not unusual. He'd tried to remember her
name while he waited on the
street for a taxi, but it eluded him. The best he could narrow it down
to was Susan or Sharon.
Perhaps Karen. He paid it no more mind and took a taxi to his local
supermarket to pick up the
paper and walked the rest of the way home.

John had picked the woman up at one of the several nightclubs he
frequented. He often went out to
the clubs alone as all of his friends were married, but once he was in
the club he was never alone
for long. He'd been picking women up for years and he had an instinct
for targeting the right
women, namely the ones he could get into bed with little effort. He
wasn't always right of course
but if he picked up someone who wasn't up for it he would quickly move
on and find someone who
was.

It was a fine Saturday morning, the crisp air cool against his skin.
The sun was still low in the sky
but it was bright and John soon wished he had bought painkillers while
at the supermarket as there
was a dull ache behind his eyes, which was intensified by the glare of
the sun.

He reached his house just before ten o clock and he stepped inside,
glad to be out of the sun and
praying he had some painkillers in the bathroom cabinet. He lived in a
large three bedroom
detached villa, which always impressed the women as they assumed he had
money, but the truth
was it was his parent's house, left to him after they'd died in a car
accident.

An envelope lay inside the door which he picked as he walked to the
bathroom. It was a plain white
envelope, the address hand written in a script he did not
recognise.

He rummaged through the bathroom cabinet and was dismayed to find there
were no painkillers.
His headache suddenly got worse, as if the pain knew it couldn't be
stopped and had decided to
make an effort to occupy his entire head.

John walked through to the living room, tilted the blinds just enough
to change the room from dark
to gloomy, and dropped onto the couch. He ripped open the white
envelope and pulled out a
handwritten note.

He was surprised to see the name above the address at the top of the
letter: Andrea Richardson. He
hadn't seen or heard from her in over eight years. He paused a moment,
remembering her face, then
he read her letter.

Dear John,
I hope this letter finds you well. I know it's been a long time
and I'm sorry I haven't stayed in touch. You know how it is, I was
often too busy
or unable to send correspondence and I guess as time went on it just
got harder to
write to you. I was told by our mutual friend Eric that you were still
at the same
address so I decided to write to you as I wasn't sure I could speak to
you on the
phone, or if you would even want to speak to me. The reason I am
getting in
touch with you now is that I am getting married soon and I have
enclosed an
invitation. I do not know if you will want to attend but I hope you do.
If not I
would still like it if we could meet and catch up. My number is at the
top of the
page. Please give me a call as I would like to resume our friendship. I
look
forward to hearing from you.
Andrea.

John was more than a little shell shocked by the letter. He pulled out
the invitation, a piece of thick
white card with silver embossed writing inviting him to the marriage of
Steven Scott and Andrea
Richardson.

So she was getting married. He hadn't seen her in years but he thought
of Andrea often. He'd been
working in the estate agents his father co-owned when Andrea had been
hired. John was
immediately smitten with her, but at the time he was anything but a
ladies man so had kept his
feelings to himself. He also knew his father would not approve of him
going out with one of his
staff.

Over the years John and Andrea had gotten to know each other well,
often seeing each other
outside of work. It had remained a purely platonic relationship but
John had slowly fallen in love
with her. He loved being with her, loved her smile, loved the way she
laughed at the awful jokes he
tried too hard to crack. When they were apart he couldn't wait to see
her again and when they were
together the time flew by far too quickly.

Then one day, while they eating lunch in work, she told him she was
leaving. She was going to
America to travel. She'd talked about America in the past, about how
she'd dreamed of going there,
but John had never believed she would actually go through with
it.

His heart broke at the thought of losing her and he decided there was
only one thing he could do.

The night before she was due to leave he knocked on her door. She
answered the door in jeans and
a baggy grey T-shirt, her long black hair tied back in a ponytail, and
she looked so beautiful to him.

John sucked in a deep breath and said, "I don't want you to go. I want
you to stay here with me. I'm
in love with you. I know I've never said anything about this before but
I really am. I always thought
we'd end up together eventually and I can't stand to let you go."

Andrea stared at him in stunned silence.

"I know, it's pathetic," said John.

"No. No it's not," said Andrea, "It's really sweet."

"Yeah, sweet in a pathetic way."

"Why didn't you tell me sooner?" she asked.

John shrugged, "I don't know. I always wanted to. But you were my
friend. I'd make the odd joke
about it to try and kind of feel you out but you always just took it as
a joke, like it would never
happen, so..."

"I'm really sorry John." she frowned.

She hadn't actually rejected him yet but John knew it was coming. He
was resigned to the fact. If he
was honest with himself he'd known before he'd even knocked on her
door.

Andrea stood on the step wringing her hands, obviously
uncomfortable.

"Look..." She laid her hand on his shoulder then pulled it away, "I
wish just once I'd taken you
seriously. But it's too late now. I'm leaving tomorrow. You know how
much I've wanted to do this,
I can't just change my mind and stay here with you."

John sighed, nodding dejectedly and said, "I just had to tell you. If I
didn't I'd have spent the rest of
my life wondering." John's face burned red and he was sweating beneath
his jacket. He couldn't
believe he'd humiliated himself like this and he wished he could turn
back time and just not say a
word to her. They both stood across her doorstep, neither one of them
able to look the other in the
eye.

John suspected it was too late but he hoped she would ask him to go
with her. He would say yes in
a heartbeat if only she'd ask.

"I should go," she said, "I'm still packing."

"Okay." John took a step away then looked her right in the eye, "I'm
sorry."

She nodded in reply, "I'll write to you," she said, "And I'll phone
you."

John nodded, "It's better this way I suppose. I'd probably have messed
it up anyway. At least this
way I can imagine it being perfect." And with a final, half hearted
smile he sloped away.

And now she was getting married.

John had always wondered what would have happened had she told him she
loved him and stayed.
He'd imagined them living together, married, happy. Sometimes he even
imagined children.

John would gloat to his friends about the women he slept with, boasting
of his sexual adventures
while they listened enviously, but he would see them with their wives
and their children and he was
the one who was envious. They had relationships while he had
dalliances. They had families who
loved them and cherished them while he had meaningless flings with
strangers.

He'd let several relationships go bad down the years, knowing they
would never work, because
Andrea wasn't just the one who'd got away, she was the one.

He'd told her on her doorstep that it was better that he could imagine
them being perfect together
but he now knew that wasn't true. It is better to experience perfection
than imagine it. Imagining
what he'd let pass him by was too painful.

John took the invitation and the letter, crumpled them into a ball and
tossed it at the bin. They
dropped inside without touching the sides.

John sighed heavily, lay back on the couch and tossed his arm across
his eyes as the pain in his
head gradually overran his skull.