Page 37 of Her Goal
•I’ll bet the next banana you eat is as mushy as the one I had the displeasure of eating today.
•At work, someone had the braying laugh of a donkey and it gave me a tension headache.
Kind of reminded me of you. How do you tell someone they have a bad laugh or that you despise them?
Let’s see:
•Your laughter makes me want to stuff marshmallows in my ears.
•When I eat rotten bananas, I think of you.
•When feral cats cross my path, I order them to bring you bad luck.
Now that I’ve got that out of my system, as usual, I’m wishing you misery and failure in life.
Sincerely,
Your Secret Adversary
The musclesin my face draw back and I grin because these emails have been coming more frequently and with greater and sillier hostility, which means I must be hovering over the target. This calls for an immediate reply. My instincts suggest I write a nasty note in response, but maybe this person needs a little less hate in their life. What borders on a morbid fascination to findout who my secret adversary is prompts me to answer—it’s not like there’s much else going on in Cobbiton on a weekend night.
from: Hudson Roboveitchek [email protected]
to:
date: Sept. 18, 8:50?PM
subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Revenge bedtime procrastination
To my oldestand dearest and only pen pal,
You may know this since it seems as if you keep tabs on my life, but I haven’t kept in very good touch with people from high school or even former teammates who became friends. To be real, you’re the single person I’ve had consistent contact with for the last decade.
Pretty wild!
I have to commend you on your commitment and support in seeing me fail. It’s admirable. Seriously. You have fortitude, grit, and have remained loyal to me. I appreciate it because that’s a rare thing these days.
You’re one of the most honest people I’ve ever known, well, except for the keeping your identity secret part. But I’ve been reviewing messages (I save them all!) and am putting together clues.
You still live in Cobbiton.
You like animals.
You enjoy hockey.
You don’t actually hate me.
All things considered, that’s a decent list, but I imagine you’d argue with me about the last one, but that’s kind of our thing, huh?
I’m going to try something a little crazy.
Here goes: I wish you well in your life, health, success, relationships, all of it! When you wake up in the morning, I hope you have a smile on your face. When you laugh, it spreads joy and when you read this, you despise me a little less.
I mean, I can handle it. I’ve had worse. You probably know this too, but my family kind of bailed, so call it Stockholm syndrome or whatever, but I rather enjoy receiving your notes. It’s like a grab bag of fun and animosity.
Until next time,
Your Secret Admirer
