She bit her bottom lip, up to no good. “I know where we could look.”
“Where?” I was a little curious. I’d always wanted to peek in Jake’s room but never had the courage to. Now with Izzie behind me, I felt empowered. She was such a bad influence.
She hopped off my bed. “At the bottom of his closet.”
Yes… the bottom of the closet. I had one too, where I kept my secret treasures. All the trailers had the built-in closets in the smaller rooms. Once you took out the bottom drawer, there was plenty of room to hide secrets underneath. We both quickly rushed to Jake’s room. Of course we were the only ones there. My dad had taken the boys to the hardware store — the porch needed fixing.
We quickly removed the bottom drawer, eager to see. I couldn’t believe I was actually doing this. It was so unlike me.
Izzie wore the giddy expression of a child on Christmas morning. “Jackpot. There’s tons of stuff down here.” She pulled out everything and splattered it on the vinyl flooring.
I was kneeling down on the floor as well, curious to see. I had my back against the closed door, just in case the boys were to suddenly come back and rush in. “Any good stuff?” I asked, excited
At first glance, one could see a handmade booklet, pictures, a rolled up pair of socks, a tiny box, drawings, an envelope full of letters, and of course, some porn mags. Further inspection was to take place.
Izzie was going through Jake’s stuff frantically, without any apparent guilt or apology. She was completely in her element. “They’re love letters,” she said, her tone a sing-song. She closed her eyes, swayed her head and made kissing noises.
“Gimme those.” I grabbed the letters and shot her a sharp look. I didn’t think we should be reading them.
“I wonder what’s in the box.” She was quick to open it. There were coins, a weed leaf pin, a mysterious key and a crumbled piece of paper.
She unfolded the paper, and I moved in to take a closer look. “What is it?”
“It’s just a brownie recipe,” she said, disappointed. She studied it further. “I think it’s aspecialrecipe. Let’s copy it in your little notebook, Abby.”
“I don’t need to copy it. I already have a brownie recipe I like.”
Izzie giggled. “You don’t have one like this one, I can tell you that.”
“Well, if that’s the case, you’re forgetting one thing, Izzie. We probably need one key ingredient we don’t have.”
She shrugged and dug into the envelope of letters. There were about four or five.
Feelings of guilt suddenly hit me. “Izzie...we shouldn’t be reading those. It’s not fair to my brother.”
Izzie ignored me, unfolded one letter and proceeded to quickly unfold all of them. They were on plain notebook paper, written roughly. I quickly glanced down to the bottom of the letters. They were all from the same person. They were all from Tamara. I knew her, or at least, knew of her. She seemed nice enough, but a little promiscuous. Her skirts were always a little too short, her jeans a little too tight and her nails were kind of scary.
Izzie grabbed the handful of letters and picked the one with the oldest date and read aloud.
Dear Jake,
It is so nice to have someone who finally understands me....
She read quietly. Not a single sound could be heard, save for the words spoken by Izzie.
You are awesome. You are the best. About yesterday, I know I should have told you before but I didn’t have the courage. I feel like you and I don’t fit in around here but we sure fit together. I can’t wait to get out of the park, and I think you should get out with me too. You don’t belong here either. You’re too smart for this place. I wanted to thank you for listening to me. You’re the only one I could turn to. I’m writing you a song. It might take a while but it’ll be ready for your birthday I hope. You are an amazing person and I hope Alison appreciates you as much as she should.
Love,
Tamara
“Ooooh,” Izzie cooed. “Your brother has two girlfriends. What a dog.”
I laughed— the whole thing was kind of silly.
“We have to read the others,” she chirped. “I think he’s cheating on Alison.”
“No.” I put my foot down, and scrambled to stuff all the letters back in the envelope. “Let’s just put everything back the way it was.”
