I'd mentioned to a good friend with impeccable taste, manners, and who is always punctual with a real sublime flare (of which I'm jealous.) that I'd been having a little stress lately. She crushed her cigar with her heel, in that elegantly feminine way she has, even when being coyly masculine. She asked if it was stress I wanted to talk about, or if she should just ask me how Thanksgiving was. I smiled wanly and told her,
"My Dranksgiving was fine, thank you." She laughed heartily and walked away, clapping. I called after her, to ask what was so funny. Her reply was nearly lost in the shreiks of her laughter, which I thought lacked the restraints of normal taste- she'd have said joy shouldn't have constraints, but that's easy to say when you were born in a coloring book. Finally, after gaining a modicum of composure, she managed,
"No wonder you're stressed!" and sort of danced away, singing to herself as she chuckled about my plight.
A few weeks later, I received a post card, which pictured a monastery perched atop a mountain. Written across the front in a grayish blue script, read:
Greetings from 2nd Shance Abbey!
On the back, in her curious print that some almost perfectly matched the courier font, she'd written:
Oh, the Abbey is quite marvelous, I do believe you'd love it! But you see darling I know you never quite got the joke, and Oh! How you hate that so not to be dreary but I'll point it out: With that one response, SV, you'd thrown in a pun, alcoholism, and a hint of darkness hidden. It was terribly evasive and noncommittal, but you were wonderfully well mannered about it. And it was short! My, dear: It Was Everything You Are!
Having also tacked on an LOL I couldn't tell if she was joking or being mean, but resolved myself to find her at this damn abbey.
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