Part IV: Spin – Special Delivery #1 (Chapter 77)

When I was growing up, our family had an unspoken rule regarding long-distance communication.

Newsy and family-matter letters, Christmas cards, and on-time birthday cards arrived by regular mail; late birthday greetings and death announcements of cousins once removed and beyond arrived by telegram; and long-distance phone calls were usually reserved for a death of an important family member.

Most of us couldn’t afford to indulge in expensive chit-chat, even to discuss complicated family matters. That was all done by letter, never long-distance.

Even my late Aunt Gertie Stern, who, according to Mallory standards, was filthy rich, very rarely called long distance. Sometimes, if Auntie were feeling extremely generous, she might call from California to Sioux City on Christmas Day, but, even then, there was something heart-stopping about picking up the phone and hearing long-distance fuzz in the background. On ordinary days, such calls were unthinkable, so receiving them then always meant bad news.

But at least you understood the rules and what to expect.

Special Delivery was another matter, not a part of the normal Mallory communication hierarchy.

So, when a Special Delivery letter from Johnny Lawrence arrived, I hardly knew what to think.