Hearts & Minds | WATTY Winner

Chapter 26 | Postcard XXL

     The Cottage phone rang, and Nora picked it up as she scanned the reservation book. Rarely did they have any reservations on a Tuesday. "Cottage Tea Salon, this is Nora."

"Hi, Nora!" A man's voice boomed enthusiastically. "This is Eric Navarro from Cuddle Pup Tea. I'm so sorry you haven't heard from us lately. We were having some difficulty finding you a new rep. Not to make excuses, but we've been a little short staffed."

"Oh." Nora looked up from the book, processing.

"Have no fear, though, because I'm here for you now!" Wow, was he ever chipper. "Are you in need of replenishing any of your current teas? Or would you like to set up an appointment to taste some of our summer blends?"

"I'm sorry. I'm catching up here. What happened to Alexis Rogers?"

"Oh, she hasn't been with us for a while." Eric Navarro lowered his voice as if speaking all of a sudden about a truly grave matter. "It just didn't work out."

"It—when did she leave?"

"Lemme see here...End of March? Early April? You were her only big client, and she just...well, she just stopped showing up to work. So that was that." He cleared his throat and switched gears again, back to chipper. "But don't worry, Nora. I've been with Cuddle Pup since the beginning, and I've got a lot of stock options socked into my 401K, if you know what I mean. I'm not going anywhere!"

Nora got through the rest of the phone call and the lunch rush that followed it on autopilot. Alexis had acted like she was working for Cuddle Pup all these months! Nora had no reason to doubt her—she was so convincing. Plus, Alexis had paid for all those expensive things—hang gliding, the spa getaway. She drove a nice car. Where was she getting her money?

And what else had she lied about?

Little did Nora know that some of her questions would soon be answered.

Nora, who, yes, was a control freak when it came to the mail, spied a small padded envelope in the afternoon's delivery addressed to her. She would have put it aside but the handwriting was familiar. Instead of saving it for later, she hurried to the kitchen and sliced it open with a paring knife.

Inside were several postcards. They each had a hole punched in a corner and had been attached together with a piece of twine. The first one was a a black-and-white photograph of the steps to Montmartre in Paris, their iconic streetlights marking the way up and down. Nora flipped it over.

Dear Nora, The way it works is this:

She scanned to the end, but saw that the text continued onto the next card. Where a stamp would normally go in the upper right corner, the cards were numbered in sequential order. She sat down in a chair by the aprons and read.

Dear Nora,
The way it worked is this: I go to a new place and buy a bunch of postcards to send, picking out the best ones, the most beautiful. But sometimes I keep a few for myself—the ones I just can't part with for whatever reason. When I started sending you cards though, I had no problem giving you my favorites. I started keeping the ones that were "lesser," although that's not even true, because every one I've picked is stellar. It's true!

I want to share them with you now. That's why I'm sending them this way, in a big batch. Because there's nothing sadder than an unsent postcard. OK, there are millions of things that are sadder. I don't know why I wrote that. I was trying to be funny, I guess. How'd I do?

See, with hand-writing a thing, you can't take it back except by scratching it out or using Wite-Out. I don't have any Wite-Out and I don't intend to take anything back here.