Enclosed is a check for your month's
allowance. I have arranged with Mr. Weiss, our attorney, to have these checks forwarded directly from his office from now on. The reason is, I have decided to drop out of college. I know you will be shocked about it, but I'm not giving up sports. I'm turning professional sooner than I expected, and I've decided I can always return to college to finish my degree when I want or need to do that.
I especially would like to avoid seeing Celia these days. She has found someone new, and it se
ems I can't avoid running into them all the time. It not like me to run from anyone or anything, and I'm not. I've just decided I'm happier on a court floor than a classroom floor .for now.
And you were right about this house. To come home to it and be alone in it is very depressing. At times, I find myself envying you. Maybe you did make the right decision. Who knows?
Sometimes, I just sit and think about all that has happened to us so quickly. It seems like a dream. The other day, I saw a father and his young children playing basketball in their driveway, and I thought about Daddy and those days when he and I were at it with such fury. We exhausted each other, but somehow, afterward, I felt closer to him than ever. It was lust a look in his eyes that to me was better than a kiss.
Anyway, watch for me on the sports pages. The next win is for you.
Brenda
.
It was nearly a full minute before I realized I
was crying. The tears were streaming dawn my cheeks and dripping off my chin. I put the letter back into the envelope and then put it under my pillow. I would read it often, because when I did. I could hear her voice clearly in my head, and it was as if we were still living together, still sisters. A part of me longed for that life, regardless of how unhappy I had been and how far I had fled.
In spite of what I had always fantasized about Uncle Palaver's life, it became patently clear to me that he, just like people who were settled in one place, followed a daily and often monotonous routine. He often did most of the driving during the night but always seemed to pull aver before morning so he could sit and drink or go back to the bedroom and replay the conversations tapes he had made with Destiny. Of course. I knew these were fictitious conversations. Her voice was his voice projected through the doll. Whether they were from memories of actual conversations or not. I did not know. Regardless of what I had anticipated and hoped, he did not volunteer information about Destiny and him.
I tried through subtle questions to find out more. "When did you meet her?" I asked, and he
simply replied. "Sometime ago."
"Where?" I followed, and he said. "At one of
my performances."
"What brought you two together?"
"It was magic," he replied. "Simply magic." He would then take on a dark, cold look, as if
he had somehow sunk deeper into his own body. He
didn't reply to any additional questions, and the look
on his face frightened me enough to drop the subject.
After a while, he would snap out of his reverie and
talk about the next town, the next audience. He spent his days practicing his illusions and
thinking up new ones.
"The good thing about being on the road," he
told me. "is that for each audience, your show is
brand-new. I either don't return for some time--
years, in fact-- or it's for the first time. That way,
everything is a real surprise."
I asked him about his cruise trips and