A Love Note

A Love Note

By ***Silver Stars***





It was just a note. A love note, yes, but just a note nonetheless. It could have been addressed to anyone. If it wasn't for the beautiful, loopy script reading "My Darling Mary Anne" at the top, Mary Anne would have assumed it was a mistake. Accidentally dropped off in it's pretty, crème-colored envelope on her desk. Perhaps meant for Melanie Grain, who was new, blonde, skinny, sweet and hopelessly naive. Even Mary Anne couldn't stay mad at her for long.

Melanie thought it was hopelessly romantic that Mary Anne had a secret admirer. "Ohhh," she would sigh. "You are so lucky. I bet he's handsome. Only handsome men write like that... it's like a poem!" She'd grab the note and inhale deeply, breathing in it's spicy scent. "I bet he sprayed cologne on it! Oh, that's so sweet."

"I bet it's some weird, old guy who thinks I'm an easy catch," Mary Anne would grumble in response.

"Nuh-uh. No way, you're too pretty to be an easy catch," Melanie giggle-assured her.

"Hmph." The fact was, Mary Anne could not imagine a man, even an old, weird one, admiring her. Let alone loving her, like the letter claimed. Mary Anne was a college drop-out working at a local small business as a secretary. She was at that slightly obese weight some kindly called, 'plump.' She had two kids, both in high school, both born out-of-the-wedlock by the same, commitment-fearing, sonofabitch man she'd dated in high school and whose status was currently missing. She was graying, with bags under her eyes from working so hard, her fingers always cramped from typing. Who would love a grumpy, irritable woman like that?

"I bet he has a lot of money." Melanie said. She was clutching the note to her chest again, closing her eyes and sighing in that fluttery way that she always got whenever The Note got brought up.

"Huh?" Mary Anne asked.

"Romantic guys usually have money, right?" Melanie said. She was lost in her fantasy world again. The one where this rich, handsome, educated cologne-drenched billionare appeared and swept Mary Anne off her sensible-shoed feet.

"Not necessarily." Mary Anne finished typing a reply to an enraged customer and turned to Melanie. "You've read too many romance novels. Stuff like that doesn't happen anymore. Romantic usually equals a player; sweet usually equals ugly and rich usually equals old."

"You are such a downer." Melanie said. "That's so not true."

"In fact," Mary Anne continued, "I bet you wrote the note."

"Uh, I have a boyfriend." Melanie rolled her eyes. "And, no offense or anything, but I don't roll that way either."

"Not like that." Mary Anne resisted the urge to roll her eyes back. Twenty-something Melanie could get away with something that childish. Forty-something Mary Anne obviously couldn't. "I mean you did it to make me feel better. This 'Secret Admirer' is a joke. Ha ha on me." Mary Anne felt like she was about to cry.

"Why would I do that?" Melanie asked. "That's stupid." She pressed down another key on her ancient computer and it beeped.

"I don't know." Mary Anne paused. "I wish I never got this note."

"Why?"

"Because now everyone thinks some amazing, handsome guy is going to come and drag me away...yeah right." Mary Anne sighed and glanced up at the clock ticking above the door. "Thank God, my shift is over."

"Lucky! I get out in an hour. Trying out overtime." Melanie pressed a few more keys and beamed at Mary Anne and waved as she got out her black coat with the hole in the pocket and her keys.

The door slammed shut behind Mary Anne.

Mary Anne walked to her old, beat up, blue 1997 van. It was littered with crumbs, wrappers and had a lingering smell that some cars get when you travel long distance with it. She flicked a rubbery fry off her seat and slid in, turning on the car.

She was just about to turn out of the parking lot when she noticed an envelope on the passenger's seat. She leaned over and picked it up, turning it around in her hands. It was not adressed to anyone. She used her DIY manicured finger to slit it open. A letter fell out:

My Darling Mary Anne,

Remember how you and your brother used to joke around, playing pranks on each other? It was so charming the way you tormented each other . But, when you left to begin your difficult life (that has made you the wonderful woman you are today, however) you played such a joke on your poor, defenseless brother he could never live it down. Thirty years later, he's managed to outdo even your amazing work.
Your dreamy, steamy, Secret Admirer gets the last laugh.

Your brother,
Steve.