Anyway. I’m currently back living with Mum and Dad, but am searching for a place of my own. One looked promising the other day, but when we went round to look at it, it was falling to bits. Oh well. Soon, maybe.
So, as for idiosyncrasies? Well it may be difficult to beat Sellotape - ??? You’re going to have to explain that one.
Likes? - Music - particularly Dido and Stevie Nicks (blame my Mum), singing in the shower, Humphrey (my wonderful little Westie), Marmite, of course, fresh linen and summer days.
Dislikes? – Drunk people (they scare me) and bagpipes – surely that has to count as bizarre?
Over here the days are getting warmer and the gardens and parks are looking lovely.
Are you still there, or have you run away? If I don’t hear back again I’ll know the verdict.
All the best,
Sam.
PS Do you have a middle name that can be spoken of?
Sam folded up the big blue page stuffed with writing and hurried off to the post box at the end of the road to send it.
On Sam’s birthday the girls met up at Kate’s house to go ice-skating. They packed into Chloe’s red Polo and drove off to the edge of town. Inside it was chilly. They strapped themselves into the uncomfortable boots and tottered over to the gate. At first they were all a bit unsteady. It had been a while since they had stepped out onto the ice. Sam and Kate held onto the edge on their first time round, but a few circuits in, they were finding their balance, some more than others, and they began to glide around with not too many bumps and scrapes.
After forty minutes they came sailing off for a drink at the side. They clomped across the rubber mats to the café at the end of the rink and sat down. Sam was enjoying herself immensely and had a big smile on her face.
“You seem unnaturally happy tonight,” Chloe said. “Have you won the lottery, or something?”
Sam shook her head. “No. I’m just having fun. It is my birthday.”
Kate looked at Sam. “No. She’s right. There’s something else. You’re not normally this chirpy.”
“Are you saying I’m normally a miserable cow? Thanks very much, guys.”
Kate licked her lips and looked at Sam. “It’s a guy, isn’t it?”
Sam didn’t say a word.
“You haven’t finally heard from Dean, have you?”
Sam shook her head. “No.”
The girls waited to see if Sam would spill. They watched her face in silence.
Sam felt the weight of expectation on her. She was desperate to tell them all about Andy, but what would they think? Surely she was being a complete bitch? Or was she doing the right thing? She hesitated on the brink of speaking for many moments and then she cracked. She pulled a pained face. “There is somebody.”
“Go girl! I never thought you had it in you.” Kate said, loudly.
“What about Dean?” Chloe asked.
“Oh bugger Dean,” Kate shot in, “he’s been crap anyway. Tell me everything.” Her eyes shone with excitement.
Sam took a deep breath and told them about the letter. Both girls agreed it was odd, but after a quick recap through Dean’s lack of boyfriend-like communication even before he left, they quickly lost interest in the moral dilemma and wanted to know about Sam’s new man.
When Sam told them the name of the other guy Kate sat back in her chair. She nodded in understanding. “Yep,” she said.
“What do you mean, ‘yep’?” Sam asked.
“Oh you have to have seen that coming? Not the disappearance of Dean, I mean, but Andy.”
Sam and Chloe looked puzzled.
Kate sighed and leaned forward on the table.
“Why did I say I walked out of the date we had a few months back?”
Sam wracked her brains. “It was something to do with your mum, wasn’t it? No, wait, you thought he liked me more than you, didn’t you? But-”
Kate was shaking her head impatiently. “He couldn’t take his eyes off you. I told you. Andy, that is. I might as well have turned up butt-naked with ‘shag me witless’ tattooed across my arse. He wouldn’t have noticed.”
Sam was stunned. Her mouth fell open. “Do you think I should stop writing to him?”
“Hell no! He’s a hot guy who’s actually paying some attention to you, instead of leading you a merry dance. Don’t you dare stop writing to him.”
“But what about Dean? He is still my boyfriend, technically. And what if he is stuck out somewhere where he can’t write to me?”
“He may not be able to get online, but I seriously doubt he can’t do anything.”
“What’s he like then, this new chap?” Chloe asked.
Sam’s heart fluttered and her eyes lit up. “I don’t know. But I get this feeling about him that I can’t explain. He’s nice.” She smiled despite herself.
“Nice is good. It makes a change for you.”
Sam gave Chloe an offended look. “Yeah, all right. I know. I’m rubbish when it comes to men.”
The girls nodded. “But this one is nice?” Chloe asked, “and hot?”
Kate nodded. “Oh yeah.”
“So? What else?”
Sam told them most of what she knew about Andy from the two letters she had received and the girls did their best to allay the guilt she was harbouring about the way she was feeling about him.
“My mum said that in other wars, girls wrote to soldiers on the front line as a sort of morale thing” Sam said.
Kate grinned. “You don’t want to ask your fella to get me a hunky soldier to write to, do you, Sam?”
“And me,” said Chloe. “Ooh, you could be the forces matchmaker.”
“Tell you what Chlo’, let’s go back to my place and take some fab pictures of us and then Sam can send them out to her fella and get us a couple of gorgeous guys to write to.” She turned to Sam. “We don’t have to actually physically write to them, do we?”
“No. I think you can do it online. I looked into it when Dean first went out there.”
“What do you think, Chlo? Are you up for it?”
“Absolutely! Right, I think that’s enough exercise for me for one week.”
The girls clambered their way down to the boot kiosk and released their aching feet. With their faces rosy from exercise and their eyes bright with excitement, the girls laughed and joked as they walked back to the car and, picking up a burger on the way, they hurried home to get the ball rolling.
Sam sat on Kate’s bed while the other two got ready. She wondered how their plan was going to work. “You know he may not know any single guys for you to write to,” she warned them.
“Course he will,” Kate said. “Who wouldn’t want a bit of this?” She pulled a sexy pose. Sam rolled her eyes. “Just tell him to get me one with big muscles, all right? And preferably, this time, someone who’s not madly in love with you.”
“He is not!” Sam protested.
“Yeah?