The Last Little Blue Envelope Read Online Free PDF Page A

question, the most English -looking guy Ginny had ever seen. She wasn’t even sure what that meant, really. She only knew that from now on, when calling up an image of an English guy in her mind, this would be the picture.
    Oliver surveyed the room from his natural vantage point and quickly focused on her. He strode over to the table in about four steps and pulled out the chair opposite Ginny. As he sat, he adjusted his coat, revealing a flash of rose-colored silk lining and a fancy embroidered label just on the inside. And yet, for all the weird formality of his clothes, there were three tiny pins on the lapel of his coat—one said Bowie, one was a small lightning bolt, and the other had a picture of a skull and writing that was too small to read. He pulled his bag onto his lap.
    “Virginia?”
    His accent was much crisper than Keith’s, and he was more polite, hesitant. He was fancier .
    “Ginny,” she said. “Hi, I’m . . .”
    She always did that, introduce herself twice.
    They sat staring at each other for a moment. He put his hands on the table and knotted his fingers together. When he reached forward, Ginny could see that though the coat was custom-made for someone , it clearly wasn’t Oliver. The arms were too short by several inches, exposing his arm with every move.
    “Did you want a coffee?” he asked.
    “No, I’m fine.”
    He nodded, looking oddly relieved.
    “So,” she said. “How did you get the letters?”
    “I was backpacking in Greece. My bag broke on the way to Corfu. I met some guys in town who were selling things out of the boot of their car. The things were used—it was perfectly clear that they had to be stolen, but they were cheap, you know? And I was kind of desperate. Anyway, I bought your backpack. If you want it back . . .”
    “It’s okay,” Ginny said. It was fine with her if she never saw that thing again. It was green and pink and hideous and oversized—the physical embodiment of embarrassment.
    “The bag has a lot of very strange hidden pockets,” he went on. “I didn’t even find them all until I got home and was emptying everything out. The letters were in one of them, along with some receipts, and a few coins. . . .”
    He opened his bag. First, he presented her with a small stack of crumpled receipts and a small handful of Euro coins. Ginny took one of the receipts and stared at it. It was an artifact, a long-forgotten fragment of the summer. She’d spent eight Euros fifty somewhere in Germany. She hadn’t stayed in Germany at all, just moved from one train to the next in order to go south to Greece. But somewhere along the way, she bought a Coke and a small pizza in a train station.
    “I brought it all,” he explained. “But these are probably the only things you’re interested in.”
    Oliver reached into his bag again and produced a clear plastic bag full of very familiar-looking blue paper and airmail envelopes. Ginny’s heart beat faster as she reached for it and removed the contents, all the hand-painted envelopes Aunt Peg had created with such care. These were her paintings. The girl walking toward the castle on a hill from letter #4. The tiny pictures of cakes from letter #6. Here was her picture on letter #9, a girl with two long braids, her shadow cast all the way across the envelope. The strange picture from envelope #12 that had puzzled her at first, because it looked like a purple dragon coming out of the water. It wasn’t until she reached Greece that she realized it was a picture of an island. And now . . .
    She shuffled right back to letter #1. There was no #13.
    “The last one,” she said, holding up the letters apologetically. “Um . . . the last one isn’t here.”
    Oliver gave himself a thoughtful chin-pinch before answering.
    “When I found the letters,” he said, “I did a bit of research, just out of curiosity. I read about the auction of your aunt’s paintings. I take it you found them even without the last letter. You got a