Page 29 of Forbidden Letters
Should I let Tyton read my story?
I was torn. My vanity as a writer feared that he might hate it, but at the same time, who better to critique a story about an Nman than an actual Nman?
Taking a deep breath, I decided to be brave and let Wilma and Tyton read it.
“We’d better fetch it before I lose my courage,” I told Nellie and hurried home. The electronic typewriter had memory like a small computer and was also able to print the fifteen pages I had written so far. Rolling them tight, I tied a band around the papers but they still didn’t fit inside the bottle. My solution was to roll the papers around the bottle and put it all inside a biodegradable see-through bag in case it started raining before they picked it up.
This will have to do.
When fifteen minutes later I watched the first chapters of my story fly across the wall, my initial relief that it had worked was followed by complete dread that Tyton was going to read my story about an Nman who looked a lot like him.
CHAPTER 12
Best Idea Ever
Tyton
I swallowed the fifteen pages of the story that Devina had allowed me to read. Wilma and I had fought about who got to read them first until I came up with the idea to make a copy so we each had our own version. “That way we can both make notes if we give her feedback.”
Wilma had found a place to read inside, while I had retreated to the hammock in the back part of our property.
Twice, I read the chapters that she had sent us before I began making notes. It didn’t escape me that the Nman, Mark, was described as a copy of me, but then I couldn’t blame her since I was the only Nman she’d ever seen.
What fascinated me was Deidra’s reaction to the picture he sent her of himself. For a third time I read that part of her story.
She studied the picture and was disturbed by the size of his neck and shoulders. Never had she seen a man with that much muscle except in historical pictures. Studying his stubble, she wondered why he hadn’t cut his facial hair into a cute pattern like men here did. It gave the impression that it was there for convenience rather than fashion. The same could be said about his brown hair, which fell to his chin and looked tousled, as if he often ran his hands through it.
The men she knew cared about their appearance and spent a lot of time grooming themselves. Mark didn’t even appear to color or pluck his eyebrows. Although she couldn’t see his nails, she suspected he didn’t paint them either.
Still, there was something about his eyes that drew her in.
Placing her hand on the picture, she covered the bearded part of his face and zoomed in on the green color. Maybe it was the confidence radiating from him or maybe there was a hint of humor there. Angling her head, Deidra couldn’t decide what it was about Mark’s eyes that she liked so much, but something about him had the same effect on her as the border wall did. He had an intensity and unpredictability about him that spoke to her. Like a sense of danger that made her feel wildly alive.
I thought about my first reaction to Devina and how I had mistaken her for a boy at first. I groaned when I remembered that I’d kept her pinned down with a hand to her chest. I had fucking felt her breast before I realized she was a woman.
Looking back, it was strange that I hadn’t caught onto that sooner, but in my defense the idea of a woman lurking around by herself was so ludicrous that it never entered my mind.
As I scribbled my notes, I felt inspired to add to Devina’s story. If it was to be authentic, she would have to inject some more curse words into Mark’s vocabulary. No real Nman spoke in such a polished way.
After making notes all over her script, I rolled it up around the bottle and put it back in the bag. I didn’t want Wilma to see my notes as I was a hundred percent sure that she would object to some of them. It would have been so much easier if I could sit down with Devina and talk to her about my ideas, but this would have to do.
Wilma took her time going over the script and unlike me she didn’t have any notes, except for a heart below and the words “I love it.”
“You love it?”
Tilting her head, she looked up at me. “Don’t you?”
“Ehh… don’t get me wrong. Devina is a great writer but are you okay with the way she portrays us Nmen?”
“What do you mean?”
“She called us primitive brutes.”
“Maybe you are.” Wilma turned her upper body from side to side, a sure sign that sitting still to read the fifteen pages had left her with restless energy. “I mean compared to the men she knows.”
“Fair enough, but anyone reading this book is going to think we’re illiterate monkeys.”
“Now you’re just exaggerating.”
