BELATED EDITOR'S NOTE: This is me basically brainstorming about my novel. Whenever I run into a snag or a little writer's block, I like to write my characters a letter. Carol is the main character in my 2nd novel. She is pretend, but if she were not, she'd be 61 years old. I imagine that Philip Horvath, at 86, would be dead by now. I might write him a letter anyway.
You are a Catholic girl in 1964 Western Massachusetts. You have a lot in common with my mother-in-law: religion, class, Polishness. You don't have the same ambitions I do. There is no big payoff, no expectations other than marriage and motherhood. You will not go to college even though I put you in the Polish part of where I went to school. You don't care. It's never been part of the plan for you. There is no plan. It's 1964. Your father is a bus driver. Your mother stays home.
You worry about not fitting in. Your friends have been ragging on you ever since you failed to bawl your eyes out when Kennedy was shot. And then you did it again when Anna died. It's not that you don't feel terrible about these things--you saw Anna's blood in the snow after all. You just think there is a better explanation for things like this. You believe God has the answers. You do not question the religious education you have received, though you do question Sister Aquilina's personal happiness and her opinion of you.
You worry that you aren't pretty enough to attract a boy, yet you sabotage yourself in that arena whenever you have a chance. At those Senior Mixers you're required to attend, you get jealous when boys lavish your friends with attention, but you won't put on makeup or even comb your hair. Your school uniforms are too big because they belonged to your sister and your mom did a piss-poor job taking them in for you. You look like a bum. You know this. You feel powerless to change it.
With Mr. Horvath, the limo was just part of it. Who can afford a limo in Chicopee? It's a milltown, the Horvath's do not own the mill. What's up with that?
You like the ballerina on Ed Sullivan, but you didn't see what was so great about the Beatles. You don't think any of them are cute enough to warrant such shrieking.
Maybe Paul. A little. Are they even Catholic?
You know that God wants to you to marry Mr Horvath. You are both thrilled and repulsed by this. You look him up in the phone book. You ride your bike past his house, a large, dilapidated, austere house. Mr. Horvath has a telephone cord so long that he can lounge in his front yard and drag the telephone out the front door. In addition to a limo, he also has an Indian motorcycle and a Cadillac.
There is also a blonde lady caller once in a while. More on that later.
But Carol, darling: he takes seriously your accidental proposal. He says he will seriously consider it. And then he shows up in front of your house in the limo with a ring and roses and everything.
Oh, what you will learn about Philip Horvath, baby.
Nazi art. War brides. A bunch of fucked-up friends from his days at Williams. And he's a big fucking baby, to boot. No wonder Anna's mother went to prison.
But by the end, when he kisses your forehead and tells you to find a better man than he, one who knows better than to complicate his life with silly things like art and trying to figure out the answers to life's enormous questions, you thank him.
You thank him with all your heart.