Chapter 22
Lane (April 2023)
...
Lane waited in the apartment while they looked through the box of letters that dated back to the late 1950s. Ophelia received a text from Lane while she was at work. "Hey! Come over when you can. I found something crazy!" She came over right after her shift ended and Lane buzzed her into the building. Lane had the door to apartment C7 already unlocked for Ophelia. She pushed through the door to see Lane sitting on the floor in front of the coffee table. The old shoebox was open and envelopes were spread out over the table.
"What is going on?" Ophelia asked with a smile.
"I found all of this in the closet," Lane said while holding up the first letter they had found.
"Letters?" Ophelia asked.
"Yeah, from the fifties!"
"Really?" Ophelia was intrigued and shut the apartment door. She walked over to the coffee table and sat down on the floor with Lane.
Lane was carefully opening the envelopes. They were never sealed.
"There's no addresses," Lane said. "Only names. Nancy and then Carolyn, written on the envelopes. It looks like they were writing these letters to each other."
"Did they live here before?" Ophelia asked.
"That's the thing," Lane said, "this was a hotel in the fifties. Not apartments."
"They lived here when it was a hotel?"
"I don't know. Maybe? I texted Phoebe. Her dad was the one who converted the building. I was thinking she should know something."
"This is so weird," Ophelia said as she looked through the letters and picked one to read. "Nancy and Carolyn seemed to have something more going on from the look of it."
"Like they were together?" Lane asked.
Ophelia nodded. "Where did you say you found these?"
"In the ceiling in the bedroom closet."
"Well, they were hidden for a good reason," Ophelia said. "It looks like these girls were in love. Something that would've been a really bad thing back then."
Lane read through another letter. "They keep mentioning a school? Something called Bradley Diamond's?"
Ophelia shrugged. "I have no idea what that is."
There was a knock at the door. Lane got up from the floor and walked over to open the front door of their apartment. It was Phoebe the landlord.
"Hi," Lane said.
"Hi, Lane," Phoebe said. "I saw your text and I was in the building so I thought I should stop by."
"Yeah, come on in!" Lane let Phoebe step inside the apartment and shut the door behind them. "I found an old shoebox of letters. All dating back to the fifties." Phoebe walked over to the coffee table and saw the old shoebox and letters decorating the table. First, she said hello to Ophelia and then she picked up a letter to examine it.
"This is incredible," Phoebe said while reading the letter in her hands.
"They talk about Bradley Diamond's?" Lane said. "I was wondering if you knew what that was."
Phoebe sat down on the couch. "Uh, yes. Bradley Diamond's was a finishing school that was in the hotel back then."
"A finishing school?" Ophelia asked.
Phoebe nodded. "Yeah, my dad used to tell me that when the Sequoia Bay was a hotel, the third floor served as a finishing school. Girls would get sent here to learn how to be proper and stuff like that. When the hotel went bankrupt, I'm sure the school went with it."
Lane held up another letter to Phoebe. "Do you think these girls were students?" Phoebe took the letter to read it.
"It looks like they could've been students here, yes."
"This is pretty amazing," Ophelia said. "Lane mentioned your dad converted the building to apartments?"
Phoebe nodded. "Yeah, my dad bought the building after it went bankrupt in the late seventies and he worked really hard to reopen it as apartments. That finally happened in the nineties. He died shortly after in 2002. His name was Lonnie." Phoebe continued as she looked through more of the letters, "He cleared out other stuff from when it was a hotel but I guess he never found these. I'm sure there's more in his old storage unit. I never really thought about looking through it and my mom never wanted me to get rid of anything that belonged to dad. The stuff's been in there for ages."
"Maybe there's more stuff that belonged to Carolyn and Nancy?" Lane asked.
"There could be," Phoebe replied. "It's about time I cleaned out the unit though. It might take me a while. I'm sixty-two years old and not as quick as I used to be! But plenty of time has passed and I should take a look."
"I can't believe you found these letters," Ophelia said to Lane.
"I can't believe it either."
Lane and Ophelia continued to read through the letters after Phoebe had left. All of the letters were written with perfect penmanship and were void of any mistakes.
"Imagine being gay in the fifties," Ophelia chuckled.
"I really don't want to," Lane laughed. "It must've been awful. I hope they ended up together and were okay."
"I hope so too."
Lane sat down the letter they were reading through and yawned. Ophelia yawned in response.
"Do you wanna grab dinner?" Lane asked.
Ophelia nodded. "Yes, I do."
The friends began cleaning up the letters and returned them to their designated envelopes. They stacked them and organized them back into the old shoebox, careful not to tear or bend any edges. Lane placed the lid back onto the box and moved it so it was in the center of the coffee table.
"Lane sighed. "I wonder if they're still alive."
"It's possible," Ophelia replied. "I hope they ended up happy."
"Me too." Lane shut off the lights in apartment C7 and imagined what it would have been like back in the late 1950s. They couldn't shake Carolyn and Nancy from their mind.
"You coming?" Ophelia shouted from the hallway.
"Yeah, be right there!" Lane shut and locked the door and went with their best friend to enjoy dinner. They knew they would probably go to their favorite burger restaurant again.