The Notebooks
by Adam Graupe
Dear Kit:
Got your note
and in answer to your question, I can’t
remember my first girlfriend’s last name.
Her first name was Penny, and I will tell you
that at the time she was everything to me. I
thought she was my soul mate, but it was her
notebooks that made me stop loving her. The
notebooks, you ask. Well, let me tell you…
Penny had just
left for her shift at the factory, and I searched
for paper to write something down. I dug through
her kitchen drawers and came across a stack of
notebooks. I grabbed the top notebook intending
to tear out a blank page, but instead I found the
notebook crammed with her neat childlike
handwriting. It contained all the things Penny
wanted in life. I still remember the first lines:
1. To have perfect teeth
2. To
have a perfect smile
3. To
have no cavities
4.
To have perfect hair
5.
To have a nice car
6.
To have a nice stereo in car
7.
To have a Bose speakers in car
8.
To have a swimming pool
9.
To have a diving board for swimming pool
This went on
for the entire notebook. I paged through it: she
would haphazardly change from one want to another
and would elaborate that desire for a few lines
then switch to an entirely different series of
wants. Thousands of lines filled the two hundred-page
notebook. I felt dizzy and sick. When I met Penny,
she told me she wasn’t materialistic.
“She’s just a little immature,” I
thought after looking at the notebook. Then I
noticed the second notebook. It was titled:
“What I expect for my first child.” The
first lines ran:
1. To have a child with perfect
teeth
2.
To have a child with a perfect smile
3.
To have a child with no cavities
I set that
notebook aside and noticed the third and forth.
The third was, “What I expect for my second
child.” The forth, “What I expect from
my husband.” My left eye started to twitch.
Her forth notebook read:
1. To have husband with perfect
teeth
2.
To have a husband with a perfect smile
3.
To have a husband with no cavities
I read enough.
I dry heaved and began a list of my own for Penny
to “discover”:
1. To have a girlfriend who
isn’t materialistic
2.
To have a girlfriend who won’t have written
expectations for me
3.
To have a girlfriend who isn’t promiscuous
My list went
on for a page but I thought the better of it and
tore it up. Anyway, the relationship soon ended
when she met a more ambitious and promising
career man. I think he was a janitor, and she
left me for him.
Its twenty
years later but I don’t think a month has
passed without recalling those notebooks. My
first short story was about a man who kept
writing in notebooks in a similar fashion, and
whatever he wrote down came true, but, of course,
there was a “catch.” Isn’t there
always a catch?
Goodbye for
now, Kit, and tell me about your first boyfriend
in your next letter.
Later,
Ernie
|
