All the Ugly and Wonderful Things

Just as I was starting to get used to the peckitty-peck of Wavy typing, this enormous crash brought me bolt upright in bed.

“Wavy?” I shouted, but she didn’t answer.

I heard a man’s voice in the living room, so I jumped out of bed and ran out there. Darrin stood at our open front door in his bare feet. He pointed out into the hall.

“Wavy just—uh—she came through here carrying a typewriter. I asked if she was—”

Another crash came from the stairwell.

We ran out in the hallway, and I yelled Wavy’s name, but she didn’t answer. Unless the sound of metal meeting wood that echoed up the stairs was her response. I hurried down the stairs with Darrin right behind me.

Wavy’s typewriter was lying at the foot of the stairs, broken into pieces. She stood over it, and right as I got to her, she kicked it and sent the biggest chunk of it skidding across the floor.

“Holy shit,” I said. “Are you okay?”

“No.” Without saying anything else, she ran down the next flight of stairs, and then I heard the front door to the house slam open and closed.

One of the second floor tenants opened her door and looked out at me.

“Sorry about that. I’ll just clean this up,” I said.

“What the hell was that?” Darrin said.

“I don’t know.”

He and I picked up most of the typewriter parts and carried them upstairs. I didn’t know what else to do with them, so we took them into Wavy’s bedroom, where I could see what had made the crash that woke me up. Wavy had apparently thrown her typewriter across the room and put a big dent in the wall.

“I don’t think you’re going to get your deposit back.” Darrin dumped a pile of typewriter debris onto Wavy’s desk and picked up the torn halves of a sheet of paper.

It must have been the letter Wavy was working on. The one that made her murder her typewriter. It was addressed to the lawyer who oversaw her trust.

Dear Mr. Osher:

I’m writing to request that you draft a letter on my behalf to be sent from your office to Jesse Joe Barfoot, Jr. As the conditions of his parole prohibit any contact with me, I’d like you to communicate with him regarding a 1956 Harley-Davidson motorcycle, which has been in my possession since 1983. It is currently located in the garage of my guardian, Mrs. Brenda Newling. I would like Mr. Barfoot to take possession of the vehicle at his earliest convenience. It is my wish to sign the motorcycle over to him as a gift, as it belongs to me personally, and is not included in my trust. As it is unlikely that Mr. Barfoot will be able to receive the motorcycle directly from Mrs. Brenda Newling, I will of course pay for any expense related to the delivery of the item into his possession.

Enclosed, please find the name of a motorcycle shop in Garringer which can arrange transportation, as well as the signed title, and Mr. Barfoot’s current address.

Sincere regards,

Miss Wavonna Quinn

I didn’t even think about what time it was. To be honest, I didn’t care. I took Wavy’s address book out of her desk and called her cousin Amy. She picked up, sounding groggy and belligerent, but once I identified myself, she got quiet.

“Is everything—is Wavy okay?” she whispered.

“No. I would not say that Wavy is okay.”

“What happened?”

“What happened is she just found out that Kellen’s been paroled, and under the conditions of his parole, he can’t have any contact with her,” I said.

“I know. He can’t be within a hundred feet of her. Also, no phone contact or letters. She knows that.”

“She did not know that! Do you think she would have gone to see him if she’d known it could get him thrown back in jail?” Wavy kept a lot of secrets from me, but there was no way she’d have gone to see Kellen knowing that. It certainly explained why their happy reunion had crashed and burned.

“She went to see him? Why?” Amy said.

“Why? Because she loves him! And how did you know he’d been paroled when Wavy didn’t even know?”

“My mom told me. Like a year ago, when he was paroled.”

“Your mom? How does she know? He got paroled last year? Wavy didn’t even know he’d been paroled until yesterday.” I knew I was screeching, but I wanted to reach through the phone and slap Amy until she said something that made sense. Darrin sat down on the couch next to me with a concerned look on his face. I was so glad he was getting to see me at my screamiest.

“How could she not know? They sent a letter to say he was up for parole. Oh, crap.” Amy went totally silent, so I knew she was figuring out what I’d just realized. “The letters went to my mom’s house and she never told Wavy.”

“But you knew! And you never thought to mention that in any of your letters?” I said. My opinion of Kellen changed about every five minutes, but Wavy loved him, and her aunt had no right to keep that kind of secret from her. Neither did Amy.

“We don’t write those kinds of letters. She—she writes to me about NASA launches and medieval urban planning. Besides, we don’t talk about Kellen in my family. We just don’t, okay? You don’t know what it was like when all of that happened.”

“I thought you were on her side.”

“I am. But Mom thinks she’s doing the right thing,” Amy said. “What would you do if you thought somebody molested your thirteen-year-old niece?”

“She’s not thirteen anymore, and you don’t know what this is doing to her. She thought they were going to be together! She still loves him!” Normally, I would have been crying by that point, but I was full of righteous anger, so when Amy started sniveling into the phone, I did not feel sympathetic.