Your Friendly Neighbor #6
Dear Jim and Tara,
Happy Holidays!
Hope this letter finds you both as happy and healthy as ever. It was so nice to read your letter and to hear that your ‘little’ Jimmy has done so well in the market. I can’t seem to reach him these days. Please tell him I’ll never forget that wild post-college trip we took to Las Vegas and that I can still send him the pictures whenever he wants.
Speaking of pictures, the photos on your card of the two of you in Hawaii for your thirtieth anniversary really had an effect on Cindy and me. We put those up in a special place. We’re planning a trip to Bermuda this Spring thanks to one of Cindy’s co-workers at the city planning office. There was a raffle at her office and the young woman who won found out she had another obligation at the same time. Cindy’s manager arranged to re-draw and wouldn’t you know it, Cindy won. This is the same manager and young lady Cindy wrote about last year thinking the two might be having an affair. Happily that no longer seems to be the case.
Not much has changed for me. I’m still writing my book although the final publishing date had to be moved back. After many years at his post, my editor, Victor, retired to Sao Paulo, Brazil where he hopes to escape writers like myself. He was a demanding man and dedicated to the advancement of literature at any cost, as I can well attest. I haven’t heard from him since he left but if I know him he’s probably holed-up in some dark cantina, sipping whiskey, with his back to the wall. Someday I hope to find him and finally give him the send-off he so well deserves. My new editor isn’t as experienced as Victor but the two of us have already become fast friends. Just last week he visited Minnesota and we had lunch at that little diner Cindy and I took you to, the one with the waitress with the hoop through her eyebrow. My editor, Buddy, seemed a little overwhelmed by his new tasks but I made sure he relaxed. I took him on a tour of the cities, showed him the night life and introduced him to the local writers who threw a party in his honor. Things may have gotten a little out of hand but at least Buddy will always remember his time here.
One tragic bit of news is that a neighbor of ours, Paul Swanson, was found dead in his house. He was the researcher who lived just a few houses south of us, the one who Tara found so fascinating. His daughter, Laurel, inherited the house and she and a friend live there now. It’s a little odd because she doesn’t look like she’s older than sixteen or seventeen at the most. Her friend, Violet Capagio, is the daughter of a local banker and they seem to get along well although Violet looks to be injury-prone. More than once they’ve come home and Violet has been bandaged up, although Laurel never seems to be hurt. I hope they’re not up to anythign illegal although I guess time will tell.
That’s all we have to report this year. Hope you two have a happy new year and we’ll see you at the reunion in June.
Ricky Ray and Cindy Vaughn.
