Page 29 of Authentically, Izzy
Subject: Josie strikes again
I sat through dinner with Josephine and Patrick tonight and thought,Thisis not my life.
And it made me realize I want different, and I wantbetter.
No matter how pregnant or good-intentioned my cousin may be, this matchmaking business must stop! She’s bordering on neurotic! Austen’s Emmahas nothing on Josephine Martin!
Dr. Murphy Lewis had to have been fifty-five years old if he was a day. Fifty-five! And he has a three-year-old granddaughter whom he loves tremendously because he spent most of dessert showing photos to us. She is very cute and has double-dimpled cheeks, but that’s beside the point. Am I in such desperate shapeto become someone’s step-grandmother at thirty years old? For some reason I feel like that may break some biblical law or something.
Now in Dr.Murphy’s defense, he was a very nice man. A very nice GRANDPA of a man. He does enjoy reading fiction. Louis L’Amour, the quintessential Western fiction author. I’ve read two of his books and they’re well written, but... those are theonlybooks he reads. It wasalmostas bad as the forty-five-year-old man Josie tried to set me up with last year. Do you remember? He had a penchant for reading gothic horror novels, only dressed in black, stayed out of the sun to keep his complexion pale, and occasionally used words likeforsoothandaghast. I had nightmares about him for a week.
Where does she find these people? Though I think that’s when she was going through her low-sugar diet phase. She did a lot of strange things then.
At any rate, I told her that I wasn’t interested in any more blind dates. If I am to die an old maid, then I’ll learn to be content with my books, my dog, and my favorite slippers.
Thank you for listening,
Izzy
PS: Distance and fabulous conversations trump in-person stiltedness any day.
PPS: And Murphy was a very nice man.
Text from Luke to Josephine:Josephine, stop with the matchmaking. You don’t know how to do it. Buy a dog.
***
Heart-to-Heart
Date: March15
Isabelle,
I read my first Agatha Christie mystery last year and have devoured as many of her books as I could find since. She was an ingenious author. Her character of Poirot reminds me of my grandfather. He is a twitchy sort with the best heart in the world, but you wouldn’t know it upon first meeting. He also carried a miniature comb in his shirt pocket (for he always wore button-downs) so he could keep his mustache in excellent order. Once, I saw him with it mussed and hardly recognized him.
Children keep us truthful, don’t they? What exactly is a reading group with children? How does it work? By themes or a schedule? Can any child attend?
If you like snow, our higher elevations receive a solid amount each winter and usually into the spring.
Has your cousin Josie relinquished her matchmaking obsession since you’ve maintained this account or is she continuing her intervention? From your passionate response to her, I can only assume she’s made quite the endeavor to “assist” you in finding happiness. My grandmother assisted with a fervor. At one point I invented a girlfriend to deter her good intentions from driving me mad. Those were three of the happiest months of my life.
Of course, I write those words with love. My grandmother is an excellent woman and I’m sure if I lived closer to her again, she’d enlist her friends at the care home en masse to rectify my singleness problem.
Skymar is a group of five islands—the largest is Ansling, followed by Fiacla, then Inslay, Kernvik, and several smaller ones connected to the larger ones by bridges, or, what we callbrus. (Can you hear the odd mix of Scandinavian and Celtic among the names?It’s a proper indicator of our unique culture here.) I live on Ansling, which is a central location from which to run the family business. Last year I began renovating a country house outside of the village of Elri. It’s an old family home handed down to me by an uncle and places me at a nice distance from most of the larger cities here (but nothing is very far since the island is small). My brother, who manages many of the physical aspects of the business, lives about 140 kilometers south in New Inswythe, one of the largest cities on Ansling. My mother and youngest sister remain in Skern, which is about a half hour away by car. Their central location is a perfect “headquarters” for the business. My eldest sister, her husband, and my nephew live on the island of Waithe.
My family is actually in the book business, started by my grandfather and carried on by each generation. You see, books are a part of my heritage, which I think is why we get on so well. We speak in books. It’s a unique and intimate language.
I hate to admit this, but I just finished readingFrankensteinfor the first time. It was an excellent adventure. I’ve never been drawn to the science fiction genre, nor have I had much experience reading epistolary, but my sister informed me that gothic horror is not like the termhorrorused in popular culture, and recent events have caused me to become much fonder of letters.
(Being in the business of books does not mean one is familiar witheverythingabout books, clearly.) I shall attemptDraculanext and then I feel I’ll need to take on something lighter. What would you recommend?
As with Samwise and Frodo, I believe a good companion on anunexpectedadventure makes for the best sort of adventure. I’m happy to be your Samwise, as long as your dog doesn’t mind sharing the name.
Affectionately,
Brodie
PS: Samwise looks like a hearty, happy dog. At present he’s nearly twice the size of Argos, but I feel Argos may catch up.
