Well, the time has come to tell the truth. I'm not going to tell you everything at once, because I think the truth should be told slowly... and okay, I'm chicken. I'll admit right off the bat that I'm scared to death. So this might be a stupid idea, but it's the only one I can think of right now, so this is the way it is.
Ross Alexander was baffled.
A small red envelope. A sheet of cream-coloured stationary with typing in a flowery font. No return address, no name, nothing. Fourteen days before Valentine's.
All I'm going to say about myself right now is that you've got a secret admirer somewhere out there. I could be anyone. I may give you a clue as I'm struck with a dose of crazy courage, but just in case I decide this whole thing is insane, I'm not saying anything yet.
He'd opened the door to get his mail, and found the envelope, labelled simply, "Ross".
A secret admirer? What in the world...?
His first thought was that it was from a crazy fan. He and Julie had gotten strange pieces of fan mail before... but nothing like this. Besides, a fan who lived in Brook Falls, who knew where he lived and when he'd be out so she could drop it in his mailbox? He shook his head to himself.
"This is too weird," he muttered out loud.
I'm not going to write anything more today because I feel like enough of a freak already. But I can't keep this to myself any longer. I'm going to go nuts.
And it was signed - what else? - "Your Secret Admirer".
Ross turned the sheet of paper over, trying to look for any signs as to who might of sent it. He picked up the envelope and turned it in his hands, but there was nothing. His admirer was obviously no dummy. She'd covered her tracks immaculately... no postal marks, no handwriting, nothing special about the stationary that would give her away or even give him a vague idea of who she could be.
His mind told him to ignore it and get to the rink, but his curiousity kept turning him back, reading and re-reading the note until finally, he put it back in its envelope and dropped it in his skate bag.
8:26 a.m. He was going to be late for practice. He grabbed his bag and made his way out to his car.
Julianne Torrance nervously fiddled with her shoulder-length blonde hair in front of the dressing room mirror. She pulled it into a ponytail, then pulled it out, combed through it with her hands, fluffed it out, tied it back again, and finally gave up in frustration and let it drop back around her shoulders.
Her mind was whirling with a billion thoughts at once. "Don't react." "Don't let your guard up." "Don't give anything away." Don't do this, don't do that, just don't...
"Why am I worrying about my hair?" she asked herself out loud.
A knock on the door interrupted her thoughts.
"Julie?"
Flustered at the sound of her partner's voice, she dropped both her hairbrush and her scrunchie at once.
"Damn," she cursed under her breath. "Get a grip, girl..."
"Julie, are you in there?" Ross called.
"Yeah, I'm coming," she called back in a perfectly normal voice. "I'm just fixing my hair."
"Okay, just wanted to make sure you were here," he called back. "Marina's waiting for us... we're late."
"I know," she replied, managing a natural-sounding laugh. "Go on, I'll be out in a sec."
Ross left, and Julie sat down on the dressing room bench to compose herself.
"I can do this," she thought to herself. "I have to."
And with that, she quickly pulled her hair into a ponytail again, slid on her skate guards, and left the dressing room.
Ross' concentration was focused somewhere in his mess of skating bag rather than on the ice. Many times that practice, Julie had to pull him out of his daze and redirect him towards their programs. All he could think of was that little red envelope.
Who could it be? A fan? Someone at the rink? Maybe even someone he knew. The cashier at the Grand Union who said hi to him every time he went in... the woman at the post office...
"I could be anyone," the note had read. Anyone, indeed. It was beginning to drive him crazy.
"Ross Alexander, what is with you?" his partner asked, exasperated.
"Nothing," he replied absentmindedly.
Strangely enough, he received no argument. Julie just quietly skated off by herself. He was so absorbed in thinking of who his secret admirer could be that he barely noticed her out-of-character behavior.
Meanwhile, Julie was starting to having some focus problems of her own. She'd started the practice totally focused, wanting to forget everything else on her mind, but the fact that her partner was obviously not all there today just made her think about it even more...
"Don't think, don't think," she commanded herself. "Just do."
"Ross? Hello, Earth to my partner?" Julie's usual dominating tone was back. "Hey! Snap out of it! We've got less than four weeks 'til Four Continents! We've got work to do, you can't spend all your time daydreaming."
"Huh?" Ross looked up and realized his partner was standing right in front of him, hands on her hips. "Oh, right... work." He decided it wouldn't be such a bad idea to think of something else for awhile. "Okay, c'mon, let's do it."
That night, Ross sat at his kitchen table, the envelope still in front of him. In his inky black scrawl on a piece of paper was a list of possibilities. None of them seemed to make much sense at all. Even more importantly, none of them held any appeal to him.
"Who, who, who?" he said in frustration. "This person obviously doesn't know that I hate guessing games."
A thought popped into his head. Maybe she did know. Maybe that's why she was doing it.
He sighed, crumpled the list of names into a ball, and flung it at the wastebasket in the corner. He watched as it hit the rim and fell onto the ground.
"Drat," he groaned, then turned back to the envelope again. "I do not understand females."
Understand females... the thought gave him an idea. Maybe he couldn't figure this out of his own. Maybe he needed someone who did understand females... someone who was female.
He ran through the options in his head. His sister? Nah, she'd tease the life out of him, and plus, Rachel didn't know anyone here in Brook Falls. His mother? He snorted at the ludicrousness of the mere idea. His ex-girlfriend? Yeah, right. Sure, they were still quite friendly, but this was not something to go to a former flame with.
"Great idea," he said sarcastically to himself. "I can see it now... 'Hey, check this out. You might not think so anymore, but some other girl out there obviously thinks I'm worth it'. Uh huh. Right."
Okay, so nix that idea. Who else could he go to?
"Julie!" he suddenly exclaimed.
He debated the pros and cons. Yes, his partner would probably tease him just as much, if not more than, his sister would. But he'd never minded Julie's teasing, and she would be able to help. She was decidedly female, knew everyone he knew in Brook Falls, and might be able to help him figure this out.
There was only one other nagging thought left to persuade him otherwise, and it was something he didn't want to think about. Even by himself, he couldn't think about it without squirming uncomfortably. Why was it that every time he thought he was over it, it all came rushing back?
Over It. Over her.
It's all just Valentine's mush, he thought fitfully. I am over her. I am.
Then why, whenever he looked down at the envelope and thought about showing it to her, did he feel so strange? Why, when he thought about feelings and secrets, did her face keep popping into his mind?
"I've gotta figure this out," he decided at last.
Tomorrow, he would enlist his partner's help in solving the mystery.
And, he thought fiercely to himself. I won't think of her while I'm at it.
Somewhere in an apartment not too far from his, a girl sat at her computer, staring at the blank screen. She took a deep breath, set the font at Amazone, and started to type.
Fifteen minutes later, she picked up a sheet of cream-coloured stationary, loaded it into her printer, and hit "print".
Soon, the printed note was in her hands. She reread it quickly, folded it with shaking hands, and put it in a red envelope. A minute later, it was sealed.
In block letters, she wrote something on the front of the envelope.
One word. A name.
Ross.
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