Er… yes. I did read these books when I was younger, and I just found them again lying in my basement. I couldn't help reading them over, and a few days ago, bored at work, I wrote this. If any details are wrong, it's basically because I'm too lazy to check my facts. But I doubt many people will be familiar with "P.S. Longer Letter Later," so I figure it's okay.
-Accusation
--That Long Ago--
As soon as Tara steps onto the sidewalk, the taxi pulling away from the curb and leaving her standing amidst the gasoline fumes, she feels a little overwhelmed. She feels like she has never been in this town before, and yet it seems familiar, like she's seen it while watching the news one night. She has been here before, though. She lived here for three years, and even after the move to Ohio, she visited a couple times.
Visited Elizabeth. They haven't seen each other in five years. Haven't spoken or written in four. Tara is here to make amends, or maybe just to say hi. She's not quite sure yet. It's the summer after her freshman year at Syracuse, and she's feeling both a little bit stupid and a little bit brave. When she told her parents where she was headed for the weekend, they didn't try to stop her. They knew that if she was lying, she'd have picked somewhere else to fly off to. Besides, she bought the plane ticket herself.
Tara sits down on a nearby bench, sighing. She doesn't know what to do here, really. She could head right over to DEER Run, but that seems like rushing things. It's still early in the day. Instead, she sits and thinks about the girl she was when she lived here. Tara-Starr, wild, a little too opinionated, always with a joke or pun at the ready. And Elizabeth's best friend, of course. Back then, they'd said 4ever, though. BFF. Then she'd moved to Ohio and the two girls clung to that promise like a drowning man clutches a life preserver. Even as Tara became "Ohio best friends" with Hannah, of the palindrome, they'd said it, printed it, believed it.
--
She last talked to Elizabeth in the winter of their ninth grade yea. The friendship ended unassumingly. There was no fight, no drama. It just blinked off, like something with dead batteries—ones that had been dying for a while. The calls stopped. The emails slowed to a weekly, then monthly update. Then they, too, stopped. Life went on, of course, and Tara never spent too much time angsting over Elizabeth. She was too busy, and she loved it, always moving, never stopping to think.
So, then, Elizabeth never heard about Little Bo running away one night and never finding his way back home. Tara never told her about the spring night when she and Jason Wysocki had sex on Tara's couch, as her two year old sister slept in the next room. Or when, three weeks later, Jason broke up with her for Barb Adams, who was rumored to give free blow jobs behind the bleachers at school.
By the time she and Hannah were set to begin their first semester at Syracuse, she had stopped going by Tara-Starr. It became a little joke between Hannah and her. Something to get buzzed and giggle over. Once, Tara got drunk at a party and stood up on the table, yelling, "I'm Tara-Starr! I'm a star!" for thirty seconds, like a CD player on drunken repeat, before stepping (stumbling) down to find the bathroom and throw up.
After that blurry night, Tara started to wonder. If she was no longer Tara-Starr, what if Elizabeth was no longer Elizabeth? She began to imagine all the pasts Elizabeth could have lived. Maybe she was happy, maybe she was sad. She might be in a relationship—a good one, a bad one—or she might be lonely. Tara imagined running into Elizabeth one day. Sometimes the dream Elizabeth recognized her, and sometimes dream Tara kept her distance, just observing. Either way, she realized, she knew what happened to Elizabeth in these daydreams. And realized that the thoughts would just keep nagging at her until she really did know.
She could have written a letter, a "sorry it's been so long, please write back" letter, but frankly, that isn't her style anymore.
All or nothing, Tara, she thought as school ended and the summer was hers. All or nothing.
--
A tall boy walks past the bench where Tara sits. He's hefting a large cardboard box, carrying it toward an old pick-up truck parked across the street. Tara watches him, wondering, and then it hits her—the boy is Howie, Elizabeth's old boyfriend—or brother. Theirs had been a Greg-and-Marcia situation if there ever was one, and Tara never knew how things had turned out between them.
Howie is tall, and not buff, but not quite the skinny, awkward boy he once was. His face still has that boyish charm, though, making him become someone you could still call "Howie" at age nineteen and not feel weird about it. Tara thinks briefly about calling out to him, but changes her mind at the last second. Instead, she sits and watches as Howie climbs into his truck and pulls into traffic. As he passes her, he lifts one hand in a casual wave. She's sure he hasn't recognized her—it's just in his nature to be a neighbor, she guesses.
Tara stands and wipes her hands on her jeans. DEER Run is only three blocks from here. While she walks, Tara stares hard at the buildings, hoping for a flicker of a memory. No, though—this hasn't been her home in years. When she passes the empty Chuck E. Cheese, a smile does cross her face. She remembers this place, not from living nearby, but from a letter Elizabeth sent her in seventh grade. Emma and Chuck E. Cheese, pros and cons. DEER Run. Emma is ten now, although in Tara's mind she still has all the pouty lips and cluelessness of a four year old. She realizes that everyone has grown up, not just her and Elizabeth.
Tara enters DEER Run at a slow walk. The sun is high in the sky and she can hear shouting and splashing from the direction of the pool. There are about twelve kids there, swimming. Five or six of them look about ten, and Tara pauses by the chain-link fence to watch them play. A little girl in a pink bathing suit looks a bit like Emma, but Tara can't tell. When the girl turns to look at her, no recognition flashes across her face. Emma and Tara are not five and fourteen. They are ten and nineteen. They are strangers now.
Tara continues on to the smaller apartments. She knows Elizabeth's, even though she's only been there twice. But then again, what's to say that Elizabeth still lives here? Maybe they've upgraded; maybe her mom got remarried. Maybe.
Tara peeks in the front window. The living room is dark, but there is a computer in the corner. Someone is sitting in front of it, typing fast. Tara almost walks away and leaves things up to God, or whoever, then steels herself. She's come all this way, after all. She raises her hand and knocks on the door, three hollow taps. The girl on the computer stands to answer it.
Tara isn't thirteen, a little too opinionated, and she hasn't made up a pun in three years. She's nineteen, fully blonde, with three piercings in both ears, a nose stud, and a tattoo on her ankle. She's not quite sure she can be Tara-Starr again.
But she's willing to try.