Happy Birthday

1

Happy Birthday, April Fool (rewrite)2

April came home late afternoon, after the rottenest workday of her life. For the first time in her career she’d actually fired someone. April still remembered the queasiness in her stomach, the gas bubbles burning her throat, the perspiration invading undignified areas of her body as she looked into that angry man’s face. She tried to maintain proper decorum, and knew she’d failed badly when she buzzed security. 3

When she left the building at a bit past four and walked across to the parking garage, she found herself nervously glancing about. All the way home the ridiculous tension stayed with her and her eyes constantly strayed to the review mirror. A fairly attractive thirty-five, April lived alone by choice. Yet right then she wished that tonight there was another body occupying her house.4

She pulled into the driveway and before she’d turned off the engine, she saw it sticking up out of the mailbox. That big white self-addressed envelope. It couldn’t be, she shook her frosted brown hair in disbelief—less then a week? Her day rapidly became better.5

She carried it inside with the other mail. She set the envelope on her desk and kept looking at it. Almost afraid to open it, April busied herself with a mass of wretched bills. Finally unable to restrain her curiosity any longer she tore it open and read.6

Dear April,7

Thanks for your final assignment and letter. Let me explain about the goof up on the last assignment. Those red marked pages you mentioned. Here is how I do response letters: I read a stack of student material and then write the responses in turn. I must have been looking at someone else’s material when I was typing up your letter. I saw lots of red marks and wrote, “I marked the sheets up per usual,” when I did no such thing. A simple mistake, and I make a lot of them when I try to get through a stack of stuff on my desk. Sorry you read something sinister into it. I have no bad news for you.8

You did an excellent job as always, in these pages. You have a sense of invention, a feel for adventure, and a talent for dialogue. The Prologue you’ve added does the job of setting up the story. Good work.9

Well all the elements of the novel seem to have come together into a winning synopsis and sample chapters. I’m sure you’ll have at least an outside shot at selling this project, though of course I couldn’t guarantee it. These first fifty-two pages are filled with wonders. What a unique narrative. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything quite like it in the literature. No I didn’t make any corrections, I spotted a few punctuation errors, that sort of thing; but that’s trivia. Any copy editor can pick that up in one pass. It’s not really as important to have an absolutely immaculate MS, as it is to tell a good story. And that you do extremely well.10

What more can I say, I haven’t said before during this course except repeat my observations. Vivid writing—graphic, cinematic, powerful, and concise. You stand a good chance of getting this thing published. Will you? You have real talent. Not that you couldn’t use a little more improvement. Here and there you strike a clinker—but that’s rare. Just to parrot my previous suggestions you might look into our advanced course…And I do understand your concerns, and no it’s not unusual to request the same instructor…11

April didn’t hesitate. The check was in the mail that night.12

Then followed the worse day of her life:13

Only five days till April’s birthday but she left work with no high expectations. A few cards—some cash from Papa. Then she saw the large white self-addressed envelope and her spirits lifted. She ripped it open. And then she read,14

Dear April,15

Thanks for your fifty-page section for this first of five Advanced Novel Workshop sessions. I read the pages, and they were very lively. Crisp dialogue and interesting characters in interesting situations made it a fascinating read. After some initial confusion, that is.16

Initial confusion. Let me tell you what I mean. I sat down to read and I guess I didn’t remember the novel very well. It came back to me that you had a novel in the first person and you changed it at my suggestion.17

Here’s what I’m saying. You have to re-write these fifty pages and the reason is this; it’s very hard to figure out what’s going on. You have a way of obscuring what’s going on in a scene by the use of indirect reference. Your sentences are sometimes hard to interpret… 18

April didn’t exactly stop reading intentionally but the moisture dripping from her eyes to the paper was obscuring her view. 19

She was an intelligent woman, she thought, she had made great strides in her chosen medical profession. When she decided to indulge in her one fantasy she’d taken great care in choosing a proper Creative Writing course that would allow her the privilege of working at her own speed. After all she couldn’t give up her career, which paid for her extravagances. Even when they appointed the personal instructor she took care to check him out. It had been rather difficult to locate something he’d written. But eventually, after a proper search, she was able to order one novel by this author that wasn’t out of print. While it wasn’t a particularly captivating read, it had been published, so she wrote and told him how terrific she thought it was. And so her long distance love affair began.20

Three years! They had communicated like old friends. April felt the disgust at her own nonsense churning in gassy balls in her stomach. Hundreds and hundreds of dollars, thousands of hours, not to count all that postage, paper, and those special self-addressed big white envelops. 21

Three days passed while April fumed, she couldn’t bring herself to work, to sleep, even food tasted like sawdust. She was not a stupid woman, she kept assuring herself, never had she been accused of being stupid, never had she been laughed at before.22

On the forth day, April began to scheme. She knew there were no legal steps she could take. They took care in never promising to do more than they did—they only hinted at it.23

Several ideas took root in April’s fertile brain. Every time she looked at that white self-addressed envelope a fresh plan grew. 24

The letter bomb wasn’t a bad idea. Doing research, she had spent several hours one night with a munitions expert and knew it was a simple devise to construct. April wasn’t concerned that some innocent person might open it. It would be opened in that office—she no longer believed in a personal instructor. In her mind she heard a dozen voices laughing at her pathetic attempts at writing. But the bomb might only injure one or two… Poison? A simple method really, she decided. The chemical could be sprayed on the inner envelope—the self-addressed envelope but then it would be traced to her. 25

A disease, on this she was an expert having cared for a multitude of diseased people in her line of work. Several of the popular ones came quickly to mind. Aids was useless she knew, too fragile to live outside a host body for any length of time. But the hepatitis group—weeks they could survive. April finally went to her office but not to work.26

The following morning, April sat in her familiar chair before her computer, and clicked on to Word. 27

Dear John,28

Through out our first workshop, I followed your suggestions religiously even when I did not always agree. I was not foolish enough to expect that you were dealing exclusively with my work so when you made odd comments that did not fit the situation I understood your explanations. But when I received your letter concerning my submission dated June 23, 1999 and compared it with your final letter from the original work shop dated May 23, 1999 I was amazed. I found myself wondering if the same person composed them. (I have enclosed copies of both letters and included them in the word count since I would not want to overwrite). 29

April pulled on plastic gloves. She carefully opened a sealed package and lightly sprinkled the powder inside the business size self-addressed envelope provided for ordering all manner of self-help books, and sealed it. She slid in her letters and self-addressed envelop.30

At five minutes to ten that morning, April posted the letter. Then she put her BMW in gear as she said out loud, “Happy Birthday April fool.”31