Romance | Series | Contemporary
Love Letters — Straight from the Heart [4]
Danni tries to do the right thing by Saffron and Matt
Previously Danni saw a live band with her friends, but argued with Maisy, who frowned on her reading the love letters. This one is for Merr Gumm whose fiction is phenomenal
Danni needed to mull over Maisy’s words, but was ready to admit that hiking to the lighthouse was not in her best interests, so she settled the bill, and walked to the beach. The sky was a pearly grey and the sea the colour of slate, but walking on the shingles, watching the waves race inland and be dragged back, soothed her, as it always had.
Last year, when Danni and Maisy became good friends, Danni had confided about how she got obsessed with things. It was never intentional: from a healthy interest or a fad, the obsession could creep slowly, or it might spiral. It presented as a happy enthusiasm at the outset, which was definitely how reading the letters from Matt to Saffron made her feel.
The poetry Matt shared had brought beauty to her life, and she hoped she wouldn’t have to put that aside, but she should not be trying to visit the places they frequented. Danni had been piecing together the timeline of their love affair, when she ought to read a romantic novel, or better still meet someone of her own age.
The salty breeze whipped strands of hair across her face, so she dug into her bag for a beanie hat to keep it under control. Then she bent and picked up a flat stone, the shape that was best for skimming. Danni’s Uncle Mick had taught her to skim stones long ago, as a means of venting her anger, and she still found it very therapeutic. She counted how many jumps she could get the stones to make before they sank into the briny waves. Her record was six bounces, but plenty of times she achieved less.
An hour or so later, Danni returned to her flat. Her cheeks were rosy, and her fingers were cold, but she’d come to a decision about the letters. She ought to return them to Saffron, so she hunted through her paperwork for her landlord’s phone number.
“Hello, Mr. Sharma? It’s Dannielle Martin, your tenant at 53a Crown Street.
“Yes I’m fine thank you. The flat is great, although I’d appreciate it if the coat hooks could be repaired. — Yes, one day this week would be great. I could let you in on Thursday morning.
“Does that suit? — Nine o’clock sounds ideal, thank you.
“One other thing you could help me with, I need the address for Saffron Price, the previous tenant. She left some paperwork, and would like to forward it.
“Sure — when you locate it, please text it to me. Thank you — Bye.”
When she ended the call, Danni resolutely re-tied the bundle of letters and pushed them into a large brown envelope. She’d add the address as soon as she had it.
“Morning, have a great day!” Danni texted her mum, while walking to uni.
The previous night, Danni had busied herself planning her history assignment, and had listened to a podcast until she fell asleep. Now she was in need of coffee to kick start the little grey cells. As the Prickly Pear came into view, her stomach gurgled in anticipation.
It was warm and busy inside the cafe. Some of the tables were occupied, but Danni joined the line forming at the counter.
She checked her phone, and saw Mum’s reply: a smiley face and a cup of coffee. She was a java fiend, just like Danni.
“Good morning,” a male voice broke into her thoughts.
She turned; smiley guy was behind her in the line.
“Good morning,” Danni offered a shy grin, before reaching the counter, where she ordered a latte and a muffin to go.
The service was brisk and efficient. She and smiley guy didn’t have a chance to say any more, which was probably best. Danni wasn’t much of a morning person.
With her lecture out of the way, Danni was happy to return to the Prickly Pear in the afternoon to study. She chose the same seat as before, plugging in her laptop and phone to charge and hanging her coat on the back of the chair.
“Would you like a latte?” the barista asked her.
It was the smiley guy, and Danni was flattered that he recalled her preferred drink.
“Yes please, and a bacon sandwich.” She would grab a late lunch.
She watched him return to the counter, he had broad shoulders and light brown hair. He moved around the food preparation area with a calm efficiency that she admired, and was soon back with her order.
“History?” He asked, nodding to her books as he set down the plate and mug, on the opposite side of the table from her laptop.
“Yes, are you a student too?” she replied.
“Part time,” he nodded, “business and commerce.”
His eyes flicked to another table, where a customer was signaling for the bill.
“Excuse me,” he flashed her a grin and moved away.
Danni began using notes to draft her essay, and didn’t come up for air until she’d written two thousand words and drunk two refills of coffee. The cafe was very quiet and the streets outside were wrapped in twilight gloom. She stretched and tried to loosen her shoulders and neck.
When she picked up her phone, she saw that Mr. Sharma had replied, he had no forwarding address for Saffron. Danni furrowed her brow in confusion. That was odd, she’d had to provide her Mum’s address, along with a deposit, to prove she was a bona fide tenant.
She buttoned up her coat and put on her beanie hat. She called out goodbye to smiley guy, who stood behind the counter, watching her leave. Maybe next time she’d screw up the courage to find out his name. She wondered what he called her in his head, if anything. Latte girl? Surely that was too common, working in a coffee shop.
Danni moved around the flat, tidying up after her simple supper of mushroom risotto. She was filling up a large bag with two loads of laundry, lights and darks. She’d go to the launderette first thing tomorrow. As she passed her desk, she knocked the manilla envelope on the floor, and Matt’s letters spilled out.
Danni toyed with the blue envelopes, contemplating her next step. If she couldn’t return them to Saffi, she could send them back to Matt. He’d always put his address in the top right corner, how she’d been taught to write letters at school.
Feeling only slightly guilty, she leafed through to the next unread letter and smoothed it flat. She copied the address onto the brown envelope, and wrote Matt as the recipient — she didn’t know his surname but that shouldn’t matter to the postman.
Danni’s eyes kept tugging to the content of the letter, to his familiar spiky, neat writing. Finally she gave in and sank down on her bed to read.
Dear Saffron,
I hope you can forgive me. I’ve hated myself for arguing with you. So many times I’ve wished I could call you to apologise, but that’s been part of the problem.
I respect your aversion to mobile phones, I truly do. Maybe you’re right, the world has embraced the ease of using mobiles and internet technology without knowing enough about the signal waves and what they can do to us.
All I know is that, if you owned a mobile phone, I would have apologized straight away, and over and over until you forgave me. We could text each other silly things that we thought or saw during the day. You’d be the last person I spoke to each night, and my first, happy message of the day. But I respect your concerns regarding them.
And maybe there is something romantic about writing longhand and posting the letters. It makes things slow, but anticipation always enhances my joy when the communication does arrive.
I have some news to tell you. I hope it will excite you as much as it does me, but it’s not for this letter. I want to watch your face when I announce it. I’ll meet you at the clock tower on Sunday, if it’s dry we can walk on the beach. If it rains, perhaps we’ll go to that cafe you told me about.
Shakespeare has something to say about apology and forgiveness, which I hope you’ll hold in your heart, so we can let go of our discord.
No more be grieved at that which thou hast done,
For roses have thorns and silver fountains mud.
Clouds and eclipses stain both moon and sun,
And loathsome canker lives in sweetest bud.
Love Matt
Danni folded his letter in half, and slotted it back into its envelope. That explained why, in the twenty-first century, they had been using snail mail. Letters led to a heartfelt discourse but, as she’d suspected all along, it also made bumps in the road for their romance. She felt vindicated that she’d detected dissent and sadness in Matt’s last missive, and her heart went out to the young lovers.
Suddenly she felt a compulsion to add a note of her own to the envelope before she posted the love letters back to Matt. Danni apologized for prying but explained that she had to read the first letter to get Matt’s address. Then she confessed that she was pulled in by his poetry quotes, but she promised she didn’t read them all.
Then Danni wrote that she’d love to meet Matt and Saffron in person. In her scribbled letter, she said that she was always in the Prickly Pear Cafe after 3 pm on a Thursday, and hoped they would come and introduce themselves.
After pushing her note inside the envelope she sealed it down. She had time to post it tomorrow, on the way to the launderette.
[To be Continued …]
Chapters 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 |
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