November 22, 2003
Dear Marley,
I've never written you a love note, have I? Did you know Ambrose wrote love letters back and forth senior year with Rita Marsden only to find out Rita wasn't writing them? It was Fern Taylor, the little redhead who hangs out with Coach's son, Bailey. In the beginning, Paulie gave Ambrose the idea to use poetry, but I actually think Ambrose was really enjoying himself until Rita dumped him and told him it had been Fern all along. Ambrose doesn't show a lot of emotion, but he was pretty pissed. We teased him about Fern Taylor for the rest of the year. The thought of Ambrose with Fern is pretty funny. He didn't think so. He still gets real quiet if we even mention her name. It got me thinking that I've never been very good at communicating, and it reminded how far some people will go to get a message across.
We've been on a rotation guarding some prisoners before they are transferred out of Baghdad. Sometimes it takes a few weeks before we have a place to send them. It's amazing the lengths the Iraqi prisoners go to to communicate with each other. They make clay by mixing their chai (tea) with dirt and sand. Then they write little messages on pieces of napkin or cloth and put them inside the clay ball (we call them chai rocks) and let it dry out. Then they toss the chai rocks they’ve made into different cells when the guards aren't looking. I couldn't think of anything to write today, and that got me wondering if I only had a little slip of paper to tell you how I feel, what would I say? I love you seems kind of unoriginal. But I do. I love you, and I love little Jesse even though I haven't met him. I can't wait to come home and be a better man, because I think I can be, and I promise I'm gonna try. So here's your first official love note. Hope you like it. Grant made sure I used good grammar and spelled everything right. It pays to have smart friends.
Love,
Jesse
Ambrose stood outside Fern's house and wondered how he was going to get inside. He could throw rocks at her window–hers was the one on the ground floor on the back left side. He could serenade her and wake up the neighborhood . . . and her parents, which wouldn't help him get inside either. And he really wanted to get inside. It was one a.m., and unfortunately, his baker’s hours had screwed up his sleep schedule, making rest impossible on the nights he didn't work. He didn’t sleep well anyway – ever. Hadn’t since Iraq. His shrink told him bad dreams were normal. She told him he had Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. No shit, Sherlock.
But it was the need to see Fern that was messing with his ability to sleep tonight. It had been hours since she'd dropped him off and taken Bailey home. Only hours. But he missed her.
He pulled out his phone, a much more logical option than communicating by throwing rocks or playing musical Romeo.
Are you awake? he texted, hoping, praying her phone was by her bed.
He waited only twenty seconds before his phone vibrated in response.
Yes.
Can I see you?
Yes. Where are you?
Outside.
Outside my house?
Yep. Are you freaked out? I've been told I'm scary looking. I even thought about climbing through your window, but monsters supposedly live under the bed or in closets.
Joking about his face was so much easier now. Fern had made it easier. She didn't respond to his last text, but her light suddenly went on. A couple of minutes passed and Ambrose wondered if she was making herself presentable. Maybe she slept with nothing on. Damn. He should have sneaked through the window.
Seconds later, her head shot out the window and she beckoned him to her, giggling as she held the blind out of the way so he could climb through the narrow opening, standing to the side as he found his feet and straightened, filling her room with his shoulders and his height. The covers on her bed were flung back and a dent in the outline of her head still flattened the center of her pillow. Fern bounced on her toes like she was overjoyed to see him and her hair bounced with her, crimson corkscrews that fell down her back and around her shoulders, dancing against the bright orange tank top she'd paired with boxer shorts in mismatched colors that made her look like a carnival clown in a state of undress.
Carnival clowns had never made him breathless before, so why was he short on air, desperate to hold her? He filled his lungs and extended his hand in greeting, looping his fingers in hers and pulling her toward him.
“I always dreamed a hot guy would come through my window,” Fern whispered theatrically, snuggling into his side and wrapping her arms around his waist like she couldn't believe he was real.
“Bailey told me,” Ambrose whispered back.
“What? That sneak! He broke the best friend's code not to reveal secret fantasies! Now I'm embarrassed.” Fern sighed gustily, not really sounding embarrassed at all.
“You could have used the front door,” Fern murmured after a long silence. She stood on her tiptoes and kissed his neck and then his chin, which was as far as she could reach.
“I've been wanting to climb through your window. I just never had a good enough reason. Plus, I thought it was a little too late to knock on your door. And I wanted to see you.”
“You already saw me today, at the lake. I have a sunburn to show for it.”
“I wanted to see you again,” Ambrose whispered. “I can't seem to stay away.”
Fern blushed, the pleasure of his words washing over her like warm rain. She wanted to be with him every minute, and to think he might feel the same was mind-blowing.
“You should be exhausted,” she said, always the nurturer and she pulled him toward her bed and urged him to sit.
“Working nights at the bakery makes it so I can't sleep, even on my nights off,” Ambrose admitted. He didn’t elucidate on the bad dreams that made it even harder. After a brief silence he added, “Care to share any more fantasies while you've got me here? Maybe tie me to your bed?”
Fern giggled, “Ambrose Young. In my bed. I don't think my fantasies can top that.”
Ambrose's eyes were warm on her face as he studied her in the shadows cast by her small bedside lamp. “Why do you always say my full name? You always call me Ambrose Young.”
Fern thought for a moment, letting her eyes drift closed as he drew circles on her back with gentle fingers. “Because you were always Ambrose Young to me . . . not Ambrose, not Brose, not Brosey. Ambrose Young. Super-star, stud-muffin. Like an actor. I don't call Tom Cruise by his first name either. I call him Tom Cruise. Will Smith, Bruce Willis. For me, you have always been in that league.”
It was the Hercules thing again. Fern looked at him like he could slay dragons and wrestle lions, and somehow, even with his pride tattered and his old image torn down like the toppled statues of Saddam Hussein, she hadn't changed her tune.
“Why did your parents name you Ambrose?” she asked softly, lulled by his stroking fingers.
“Ambrose is the name of my biological father. It was my mom's way of trying to make him acknowledge me.”
“The underwear model?” Fern asked breathlessly.
Ambrose groaned. “I'm never going to live that down. Yeah. He modeled. And my mother never got over him, even though she had a man like Elliott who thought she walked on water and would have done anything to make her happy, even marry her when she was pregnant with me. Even let her name me after Underwear Man.”
Fern giggled. “It doesn't seem to bother you.”
“No. It doesn't. My mother gave me Elliott. He's been the best father a kid could have.”
“Is that why you stayed when she left?”
“I love my mom, but she's lost. I didn't want to be lost with her. People like Elliott aren't ever lost. Even when the world tumbles around his ears he knows exactly who he is. He's always made me feel safe.” Fern was like Elliott in that way, Ambrose realized suddenly. She was grounded, solid, a refuge.
“I was named after the little girl in the book Charlotte's Web,” Fern said. “You know the story, right? The little girl, Fern, saves the little pig from being killed because he's a runt. Bailey thought my parents should have called me Wilbur because I was a bit of a runt myself. He even called me Wilbur when he really wanted to bug me. I told my mom they should have named me Charlotte after the spider. I thought Charlotte was a beautiful name. And Charlotte was so wise and kind. Plus, Charlotte was the name of a Southern Belle in one of my all-time favorite romances.”
“Grant had a cow named Charlotte. I like the name Fern.”
Fern smiled. “Bailey was named after George Bailey, from It's A Wonderful Life. Angie loves that movie. You should hear Bailey's Jimmy Stewart impression. It's hilarious.”
“Speaking of names and all-time favorite romances, Bailey told me you write under a pen name. I've been really curious about that.”
Fern groaned loudly. She shook her fist toward Bailey's house. “Curse your big mouth, Bailey Sheen.” She looked at Ambrose with trepidation. “You are going to think I'm some stalker chick. That I'm totally obsessed. But you have to remember that I came up with this alter ego when I was sixteen and I was a bit obsessed. Okay, I'm still a bit obsessed.”
“With what?” Ambrose was confused.
“With you,” Fern's response was muffled as she buried her forehead in his chest, but Ambrose still heard her. He laughed and forced her chin up so he could see her face. “I still don't understand what that has to do with your pen name.”
Fern sighed. “It's Amber Rose.”
“Ambrose?”
“Amber Rose,” Fern corrected.
“Amber Rose?” Ambrose sputtered.
“Yes,” Fern said in a very, very small voice. And Ambrose laughed for a very, very long time. And when his laughter rumbled to a stop, he pressed Fern back against her pillows and kissed her mouth gently, waiting for her to respond, not wanting to take what she didn't want to give, not wanting to move faster than she was ready. But Fern pressed back ardently, opening her mouth to his, small hands sliding beneath his shirt to trace the contours of his abdomen, making him groan and wish for a bigger bed. His groan fired her own response, and she tugged his shirt over his head without missing a beat, eager as she always was to be as close to him as possible. Her ardor had Ambrose losing himself in her scent, her soft lips and softer sighs, until he smacked his head against her headboard, knocking a bit of sense back into his love-drunk brain. He scrambled to his feet, grabbing his shirt from the floor.
“I have to go, Fern. I don't want your dad to catch me in his daughter's room, in his daughter's bed, with my shirt on the floor. He will kill me. And your uncle and my former coach would help him. I am still afraid of Coach Sheen, even though I'm twice his size.”
Fern mewled in protest and reached for him, snagging him by the belt loops to pull him back. He laughed and stumbled, reaching out to steady himself on her bedroom wall, and his hand brushed a thumbtack, the kind that has a peg, knocking it loose. The pushpin fell somewhere behind Fern's bed and Ambrose grabbed at the paper so it wouldn’t fall too. He glanced at the sheet and his mind gobbled up the words before he had a chance to wonder if it was something he shouldn't see.
If God makes all our faces, did he laugh when he made me?
Does he make the legs that cannot walk and eyes that cannot see?
Does he curl the hair upon my head 'til it rebels in wild defiance?
Does he close the ears of the deaf man to make him more reliant?
Is the way I look coincidence or just a twist of fate?
If he made me this way, is it okay, to blame him for the things I hate?
For the flaws that seem to worsen every time I see a mirror,
For the ugliness I see in me, for the loathing and the fear.
Does he sculpt us for his pleasure, for a reason I can't see?
If God makes all our faces, did he laugh when he made me?
Ambrose read the words again silently, and he felt a wave rise in him. It was a wave of understanding and of being understood. These words were his feelings. He’d never known they were hers too. And his heart ached for her.
“Ambrose?”
“What is this, Fern?” he whispered, holding the poem out to her.
She eyed it nervously, uncomfortably, her expression troubled.
“I wrote it. A long time ago.”
“When?”
“After the Prom. Do you remember that night? I was there with Bailey. He asked all of you to dance with me. One of the more embarrassing moments of my life, but his heart was in the right place.” A wan smile lifted the corners of Fern's mouth.
Ambrose remembered. Fern had looked pretty–on the verge of beautiful–and it had confused him. He hadn't asked her to dance. He'd refused to ask her to dance. He’d even walked away from Bailey when Bailey had made the request.
“I hurt you, didn't I Fern?”
Fern shrugged her slim shoulders and smiled, but the smile was wobbly and her eyes had grown bright. Still, after more than three years, it was easy to see the memory pained her.
“I hurt you,” he repeated, remorse and realization coloring his voice with regret.
Fern reached out and touched his scarred cheek. “You just didn't see me, that's all,”
“I was so blind then.” He fingered a curl that coiled against her brow.
“Actually . . . you're kind of blind now,” Fern teased quietly, seeking to ease his guilt with jest. “Maybe that's why you like me.”
She was right. He was partially blind, but in spite of that, maybe because of that, he was seeing things more clearly than he ever had before.