Two Letters

In spring of 2007, we eagerly checked our mailbox every day after work, waiting for written acceptance from the University of Kentucky. We had been told to expect an official offer as soon as January. By February the contents of my stomach would flip whenever I tentatively approached the mailbox. Sifting through bills, newsletters, and mass mailings, I would reach the bottom of the stack and bite my lip in disappointment.

The missing letter became a tired conversation topic, the kind of thing that friends and family don’t know whether to bring up. If one doesn’t mention it, one might appear uncaring, but to mention it brings a tired sigh and the hundredth repetition of a hopeful pleasantry. No, it hasn’t come yet, but we’re looking for it every day. Which is why Craig’s dad, on his way to birthday steak and strawberry pie at Marie Callendar’s, casually dropped: “So, the letter still hasn’t come yet, huh?”

“Actually, it has,” we replied. On the afternoon of March 22nd, we opened the mailbox to find a substantial, linen-weave envelope addressed to Craig, postmarked Lexington, Kentucky. My fingers itched to rip it open, shredding the perfect crosshatches and revealing the news. Craig, perhaps sensing my intent, preferred to ascertain its contents the responsible way. Ever meticulous, he patiently snipped the very edge off the side of the envelope and drew out its contents: two thick pages of university cardstock. It had obviously been ripped off the laser printer and set into the envelope before it dried. Ghost images of the type appeared on the blank sides where the pages had been folded in on themselves. I tried to read them backwards, beating Craig to the news as he read aloud:

We are pleased to inform you that…

You can always tell the content of an important letter by the first line. Letters don’t start out positive and then tell you what you don’t want to hear. That would be macabre:

We are pleased to inform you that the university has assembled a research fellowship team for the 2007-2008 school year! Unfortunately, you aren’t in it. Too bad, really…

No, acceptance letters are short and straightforward. And so, with a sentence, our future was decided. By summer, we would be moving to Lexington. In the fall, Craig would start classes and research at the university. I would resign my job immediately and try to find work in Lexington as well.

And I did, breathlessly soon. On my twenty-eighth birthday, May 25, 2007, our plane touched down in Lexington ten minutes after midnight. Feeling slightly dazed, I sat in the back of a cab redolent with cigarette smoke and watched the signature white picket fences shuttle by the window as we drove to our hotel. Most horse farms paint their fences black for economy now, but I hope that Calumet Farms always maintains its distinctive white.

Our plane was late, hence the cab ride that took us to our hotel and picked us up six hours later to return to the airport for our rental car. As the taxi pulled into the parking lot of our hotel, we stared at the electric sign of the Spearmint Rhino Gentleman’s Club, conveniently located just across the street. Since our hotel lobby was closed, we had to slip our credit card through a hole in the (bullet proof?) glass at the night window. Is all of Lexington this seedy? I wondered.

I lay awake for most of the night, trying to form a perception of Lexington. It’s a strange feeling to move to a place you’ve never seen, and stranger still to see a place for the first time and know you’ll live there.

Thankfully, my lasting impression of Lexington was formed at first light of the next morning (still my birthday). Thick beams of yellow light spilled through the edges of the blackout curtains, a thousand times more intense than the gas-leak brown glare of a California spring day. Though a drought was reported, plants from lawns to roadside weeds were unremittingly green. The peaceful, pleasant morning seemed a benediction.

I dressed quickly and put on my Birkenstocks, which the high humidity had left damp from the previous night’s sweat. Then we went down the hall to partake of one of my favorite comforts of the weary traveler: the Free Continental Breakfast. As I ate, too many Krispy Kreme donuts with orange juice and coffee, I let the previous days irritations relax from my body. I had new fish to fry.

As I sat in the cab, I tried not to think of the time change (seven a.m. in Lexington is four a.m. in California). Instead, I wondered what the panel at my ten o’clock interview would think of me. The cab still smelled like cigarette smoke, and to this day I wonder if it absorbed into my suit and made people think I’d had a pre-conference smoke to calm my nerves. My eyes were red from the two hours sleep I’d managed. Even worse, the climate difference caused my full, billowing skirt to adhere to my nylons like a second skin, revealing the shape of my legs. I hoped the interview committee would look past my slight dishevelment, instead of suggesting that I return to the Spearmint Rhino and get a job there.

I survived my morning interview, and another one that afternoon. Each led to a job offer, and two days later I could count on a position in the fall. Thankfully, people that do my job are perennially in short supply, which makes me marketable, if not prestigious. We were a married couple moving for two jobs. There would be no unemployment, nerves, and months of uncertainty. And, from all indications, we were moving to a place I would like. I was glad.

When Craig’s California job was at its worst, I prayed that I could take some of his frustration and exhaustion myself. I wished I was the one with the bad job, and I am sure that part of me pridefully thought I could handle it better than he did. A mere four hours into the Lexington job, my English-major’s critical eye pondered the crisp edge of irony that had invaded my situation. I hated the job immediately. First-day jitters had nothing to do with it. Though I would improve, make friends, and gain insight, I knew I would hate this job until the moment I left.

It wasn’t the salary, although I snorted derisively when I found out I’d make sixteen thousand dollars less than my previous work year (about what I earned my first year in California). Nor was it my coworkers, though over the course of the year I was insulted racially and sexually, berated in front of a group in a meeting, expected to do the impossible, and denied the tools that would allow me to do what I could. It wasn’t even the hours, although my workdays were increased by an hour each and many days went by allowing me only eight minutes to eat lunch and no coffee breaks. It was all of those things, plus the spastic, desperate quality that life takes on when most of your days are spent in a place you hate doing a job you don’t want to do.

I fantasized about quitting immediately, as a coworker that started at the same time did. The job was terrible, but unemployment could be worse. New to the area, I needed the benefits even more than the salary. So I kept getting up in the morning and going back there, day after day. I fantasized about the past, when I got up in the morning to make a difference, to do something I believed in, or even just to get there and have coffee and talk to people I liked.

I suppose I reacted in all of the usual ways, the ones I could remember well after enduring them from my husband for the four long years he stayed with an unbearable job. Morning conversations with Craig became maudlin.

Bye Hon. Have a good day!

Yeah. That would be a first.

I didn’t sleep much the first month, lost eight pounds the second month, and got migraine headaches that left me in bed every weekend of the third month. And on the morning of the third day, I woke up with the unshakeable conviction that I needed to go to graduate school.

In late January, just as I was dreading my workload resuming after the Christmas break, I also walked a thick file to UK, ascending to the eleventh story of the Patterson offices and handing it to a flustered secretary who pretended she hadn’t just been reclining at her desk and stuffing her face with potato chips. Thus, my own waiting game began.

And ended. Unceremoniously.

On the first Monday in May, I opened the mailbox to remove my own letter from UK. It was light, insubstantial. The secretary that stuffed the letter (in between more potato chips, I assume) hadn’t even bothered to seal the flap. Acceptance letters are short; rejections are shorter. I knew what the single sentence would say even before I unfolded it.

We regret to inform you that…

The letter invited me to direct any inquiries to a member of the department I hadn’t heard of. Probably the new hire, seeing that the contact who’d have to spend the next few weeks mouthing platitudes to sniveling rejects couldn’t possibly be high on the seniority list. I won’t contact him. Why would I?

We would’ve loved to have you, and there wasn’t a single thing wrong with your application. Unfortunately, there were just too many great applications this year. If you’d just try back next year, I’m sure that we would…

I don’t think that having the poor man read me a canned consolation speech would soothe my wounded pride. And it’s good to have one’s pride wounded, once in a while. My generation is way too self-confident. We grew up hearing that we could be whatever we wanted to be. Maybe some of us could. When I was five, I wanted to be a ballerina. I had flat feet, no sense of balance, and a chubby little girl tummy that never really went away.

So, I overcame those obstacles, right? I shushed the scoffers, did my best, and reached the goal? Dreamed the impossible dream? Fade in lights, cue music?

No, I didn’t. I gave up after two lousy Saturday classes.

So, I always regret that one shining moment that could’ve been mine?

Wrong again. I grew up to be 5’10’’, and I weigh 150 pounds on a good day. My sense of balance got worse, not better. I am mildly athletic and in good physical shape, but I could never have been a ballerina. I count myself a better person for not having wasted another minute on a dream that needed to die.

My graduate school dream, the one that kept me ignoring the metallic taste of dread every morning this spring and going up the brick stairwell to my office, died too. Quickly, really. A week afterwards I started making calls about new positions. Four days later I was offered a better job. Two weeks after that I walked down the brick stairwell for the last time. I still get a frisson of pleasure when I remember that I never have to go back there. My new position starts soon, and I look forward to it. From all indications, I'll really enjoy it.

After finishing our first year here, we now consider ourselves residents. We just returned from vacation, and we told people that we are from Kentucky. We've been to new places, made new friends, and had many experiences. It's all too much to be defined by just the two letters.