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When Max was fifteen, she had found an ad in one of her teen mags.
Do you want a real friend? it asked, and then it had said 15-year-old girl seeks new girlfriend and Maxine had known she would write back to the ad-poster before she even got to the end of that second sentence. She’d skimmed giddily through the rest of the ad, and savored the taste of that name at the end.
Valerie Beaudry, she’d whispered to herself that day, over and over. Val, Valerie, Valerie Beaudry, at P.O. Box #23, Woodworth, North Dakota. Max had pulled out pencil and paper and written her first letter to Val still sitting down on her bed, using the magazine - still open to Val’s ad - as her surface, and ran out of the house all the way to the post office that very day.
Val had replied so fast she had to have been waiting for it, hoping for it. Her letter was amazing, poetic, and Max had read and reread and reread it again, feeling like she could smile forever.
Dear Valerie, she had started when she’d written back, your letter is so beautiful, just as I am now sure your soul is too.
Max had never spoken so openly with anyone else, but she could feel an instant connection with Val. They had shared all their feelings; all their hopes, and dreams, and worries, and everything that happened in their lives.
On her sixteenth birthday, Max had sent Val the best picture of herself she had. Val, I believe we must be soulmates—sisters—both, maybe! You with your ad and me with my wishes for a pen pal; we were fated to meet, I think, she had written. It is midnight on my birthday as I write this, and I have found the courage to show you the face (see the enclosed picture) behind my heart, all in these letters, and ask if you would terribly mind showing me yours?
The rest of the letter had been like normal, which was to say Max poured her whole heart out onto pages and pages whenever she wrote to Val, and she knew her friend did the same. And Max did want to put a face to the name she knew, to the person she already loved the most in the entire world.
Val, though, had written back with a stunning poem, and added when it was over, oh Max! I’m sorry - these letters are my truest face, and I beg you don’t ask me anything more. Your picture is beautiful, my new most treasured possession.
Max had always been stubborn, though. The next two years on her birthday, she sent Val more pictures of herself - not asking for anything, just hoping. Each time, Val had written back with a new poem. After she graduated from school, Max wasn’t able to stand it anymore. It had been but three years since they’d begun writing, but Val was too important for Max to give up her not-so-secret quest. There was nothing that could break their love, she believed, not when they both agreed that it was the purest and most spiritual kind.
So Max had sent Val a letter speaking of her intentions and then come here, flown to North Dakota despite her parents’ protests. Now, it is the fifth day she’s been here. Everyone here knows barely anything about Valerie Beaudry - Max hadn’t thought she was this solitary. She wishes she could talk to Val, and soon.
Maybe, she thinks, her letter got delayed; or maybe Val is avoiding her, despite all that Max has told her. Until Val comes out of her home, Max will haunt the bench next to the letter boxes, waiting until she can finally put a face to Val’s beautiful soul.