The Boy Next Door - Weebly

From: Jason Trent
Subject: How'd It Go?
She's a redhead? That's IT? You're just going to leave me hanging here?
WHAT HAPPENED???????????
Jason
PS Stacy wants to know, too.
To: Jason Trent
From: John Trent
Subject: How It Went
Sorry. I got hung up on a story, and then I had to go back to Friedlander's aunt's place to
walk the dog. Max failed to mention that the misleadingly-named Paco is a GREAT DANE.
The dog weighs more than Mim. So what do you want to know?
Did she believe I was Max Friedlander? I am sorry to say that she did.
Did I play the part of Max Friedlander to perfection? I guess I must have, or she
wouldn't have believed I was he. Do I feel like a grade-A heel for doing it? Yes.
Self-flagellation and a big scarlet letter A for me.
The worst part is...well, I already told you the worst part. She thinks I'm Max
Friedlander. Max Friedlander, the ingrate who doesn't even seem to care that someone
cold-cocked his eighty-year-old aunt. Melissa cares, though.
That's her name. The redhead. Melissa. People call her Mel. That's what she told me.
People call me Mel. She moved to the city right after college, which makes her about
twenty-seven years old, since she's lived here for five years. Originally, she's from
Lansing, Illinois. Have you ever heard of Lansing, Illinois? I've heard of Lansing,
Michigan, but not Lansing, Illinois. She says it's a small town where you can walk down
Main Street and everyone goes, Oh, hi, Mel.
Just like that. Oh, hi, Mel.
On her bookshelves are, among a great many other books, copies of every single thing
ever written by Stephen King. Melissa has a theory that for every century, there's a
writer who sums up the popular culture of the time, and for the nineteenth century, it
was Dickens, and for the twentieth, it was Stephen King.
She says it has yet to be determined who is going to be the voice of the twenty-first
century. You know what my ex Heather (you remember Heather, don't you, Jason? She's the one
you and Stacy referred to as the Mouth Breather?) had on her bookshelves, Jason?
The complete works of Kierkegaarde. She'd never read Kierkegaarde, of course, but the
book covers matched the color of her sofa cushions. That's what she saw me as. Heather, I
mean. A six foot two checkbook that could pay off her decorating bill. Remind me again why Mim
was so upset when Heather and I broke it off?
Oh, and when I got there, she offered me beer. Melissa, not Heather.