Dear Step Eve,
Don’t be confused—and don’t be alarmed. I have not placed this letter in the wrong envelope—and I haven’t replaced one friend with another. I am trying a new thing where I call you by a name that’s not yours. Rather than just whip up a grand proposal, I’ve decided to just do it. But the basic idea being that I will continue to do it to the point that neither of us will remember a time when I hadn’t. And that will become our new Thing.
I didn’t get a response from you for my earlier letter, but I’m writing a new one anyway. It’s a bit boring at the lake.//oh & I’m at the lake now// It’s no special lake, I don’t know if it has a name or anything. My cousin’s family just has a house, they go there sometimes. It’s near the lake and I guess that makes it a “lakefront property.” The house sits on one side of a long main road & the lake is on the other side.
But I’m being unfair to the lake. It’s nice, we’re just here off-season. It’s better in the summer & the fall, when the trees surrounding the lake have leaves on them. Now the trees look like customade spikes meant either to keep mutant giants outsiders like me out, or anything that’s already in IN. Maybe both. I walk out in the morning, there’s always fog hanging over the lake & among the trees. Is that how fog is supposed to work?
I’m here with my cousin. I guess we’re spending Xmas, etc. here so we went ahead to get everything ready. I don’t think I’ve ever mentioned my cousin. We don’t live near each other and we don’t have much in common. Until the rest of the family get here we’ve commandeered different halves of the house. I’ve taken the top half and he’s taken the bottom half, where he studies for the LSATs. Every time I see him, like at a wedding or the reunions, it seems he is always studying for the LSATs or just got done studying for the LSATs //orplanstostudyfortheLSATsagainaftertakingtheLSATslikeitsthisfunthingtodo// I think h//H//e unfollowed my on Instagram but I don’t know when or for what reason.
I actually had a specific reason to write you but I have forgotten it.
The lake—or the town where the lake is nearest—is about three hours from the city by train. My cousin flew in first from Kansas City, MO (I think) and we went up together. Nothing is really memorable of the ride up, except when we were stopped at a station I could see a sandwich shop or a bar a few feet from it. Two older men in coats of similar length //but one was dark grey & the other dark green// stood outside smoking & talking. They seemed to be pointing at a younger man in a shorter coat. They seemed to be making comments about him. It was weird because the younger man was staring at his phone and didn’t look very engaged with the other two.
I thought how cool it would be to live to that age and to be able to do that. I thought about seeing if my cousin (who’s name is Mark, sorry) agreed, but I didn’t think he’d understand//what a dick//Would you?
Now I remember! Last time we talked in person you were going on & on about domesticating a fox to have for a pet. I thought it was a stretch because (a) you live in an urban area where even ferret ownership is unlawful & (b) come on that’s just crazy regardless. Well, I will now have that crow (to eat, I mean).
Like I said, the lake house (if it is a lake house and not just a house by a lake) is on a long outskirted road with lots of trees & few homes. A little ways up from our place is this woman who lives all by herself so far as I can tell. She’s about middle-aged. I see her walking along the road every afternoon. Even in a more heavily populated area she’d stand out because of her ratty fur coat and … her pet fox, which she carries on a leash skips happily in front of her on a leash. I don’t know how she did it. It doesn’t look like she has the ability to just nab a fox out of nowhere and train it to be her pet. IDK, maybe she does. Or maybe there’s a very exclusive service and you haven’t looked hard enough.
I asked Mark if he knew anything about her. “Not really,” he said. “I heard she inherited a lot of money. She married many times.” “How many times?” I asked. “IDK, a lot?” Then I asked if she hired someone to train her fox. “That’s not a fox. That’s a chihuahua she painted orange.” “Like, with spraypaint?” I naively asked. “Yeah,” he said. Then I said that that didn’t seem right. Mark just shrugged and said, “Free country.” fuck Mark honestly
Sometimes I walk up the road to where I think she lives, there’s a cabin-like house with chipped paint, a CB antenna, and lots of moss all over the place. It never looks like anyone is home. //IDK—seems off to me—in a general way// I’d at least like to ask what its name is. But I’ll say that it kind of reminds me of you. You have a similar essen spirit. Like, if you had the power to morph into an animal and with the added power to choose what kind of animal, I’m sure you’d choose a fox, and it would be that fox in particular. But just not domesticated, you’d be roaming free.
If you like this Thing I explained at the beginning, you can reply with a Thing of your own. I hope that //think it would be better if// your Thing will be //was// different from mine. I will call you by your regular name whenever we meet in person or //talk// in texts. And Merry Xmas & New Year’s.