Alice Munros Best

have got up to the Present. Thank you for your good opinion and for taking me along to the Fair. I am not one for the rides or for eating the stuff but it was still certainly a pleasure to be included.
    Your friend, Johanna Parry.
    Edith read Johanna’s words aloud, in an imploring voice and with a woebegone expression.
    “I was born in Glasgow, but my mother had to give me up when she took one look at me –”
    “Stop,” said Sabitha. “I’m laughing so hard I’ll be sick.”
    “How did she get her letter in with yours without you knowing?”
    “She just takes it from me and puts it in an envelope and writes on the outside because she doesn’t think my writing is good enough.”
    Edith had to put Scotch tape on the flap of the envelope to make it stick, since there wasn’t enough sticky stuff left. “She’s in love with him,” she said.
    “Oh, puke-puke,” said Sabitha, holding her stomach. “She can’t be. Old Johanna.”
    “What did he say about her, anyway?”
    “Just about how I was supposed to respect her and it would be too bad if she left because we were lucky to have her and he didn’t have a home for me and Grandpa couldn’t raise a girl by himself and blah-blah. He said she was a lady. He said he could tell.”
    “So then she falls in lo-ove.”
    The letter remained with Edith overnight, lest Johanna discover that it hadn’t been posted and was sealed with Scotch tape. They took it to the Post Office the next morning.
    “Now we’ll see what he writes back. Watch out,” said Edith.
    NO LETTER CAME for a long time. And when it did, it was a disappointment. They steamed it open at Edith’s house, but found nothing inside for Johanna.
    Dear Sabitha,
    Christmas finds me a bit short this year, sorry I don’t have more than a two-dollar bill to send you. But I hope you are in good health and have a Merry Christmas and keep up your schoolwork. I have not been feeling so well myself, having got Bronchitis, which I seem to do every winter, but this is the first time it landed me in bed before Christmas. As you seeby the address I am in a new place. The apartment was in a very noisy location and too many people dropping in hoping for a party. This is a boardinghouse, which suits me fine as I was never good at the shopping and the cooking.
    Merry Christmas and love, Dad.
    “Poor Johanna,” said Edith. “Her heart will be broken.”
    Sabitha said, “Who cares?”
    “Unless we do it,” Edith said.
    “What?”
    “Answer
her.”
    They would have to type their letter, because Johanna would notice that it was not in Sabitha’s father’s handwriting. But the typing was not difficult. There was a typewriter in Edith’s house, on a card table in the front room. Her mother had worked in an office before she was married and she sometimes earned a little money still by writing the sort of letters that people wanted to look official. She had taught Edith the basics of typing, in the hope that Edith too might get an office job someday.
    “Dear Johanna,” said Sabitha, “I am sorry I cannot be in love with you because you have got those ugly spots all over your face.”
    “I’m going to be serious,” said Edith. “So shut up.”
    She typed, “I was so glad to get the letter –” speaking the words of her composition aloud, pausing while she thought up more, her voice becoming increasingly solemn and tender. Sabitha sprawled on the couch, giggling. At one point she turned on the television, but Edith said, “Pul-eeze. How can I concentrate on my e-motions with all that shit going on?”
    Edith and Sabitha used the words “shit” and “bitch” and “Jesus Christ” when they were alone together.
    Dear Johanna,
    I was so glad to get the letter you put in with Sabitha’s and to find out about your life. It must often have been a sad and lonely one though Mrs. Willets sounds like a lucky person for you to find. You have remainedindustrious and uncomplaining and I must say that I admire you very much. My own life has been a checkered one and I have never exactly settled down. I do not know why I have this inner restlessness and loneliness, it just seems to be my fate. I am always meeting people and talking to people but sometimes I ask myself, Who is my friend? Then comes your letter and you write at the end of it, Your friend. So I think, Does she really mean that? And what a very nice Christmas present it would be for me if Johanna would tell me that she is my friend. Maybe you